After a while, Orion was able to lead them out. He walked into the main room with the two others at his heels. He gestured to the door with a nod.

"Here we are." Orion said as he came to a stop. Shard and Skywing looked at each other then looked to Orion. "This is where your life long mission begins." He said to them with slight distaste but quickly covered it up with a small smile. He then looked to Shard and added with a nod. "Stay safe." Shard nodded back to him and Skywing looked to Shard. Together they walked out of the building. Once they were gone, Orion went back to his office. Shard looked up at Skywing. He had a straight face as he looked out at Cybertron.

"Well, here we go." He said and started to walk off. Shard followed along side him.

"Yep, parter." Shard said with a smile as she nudged him. He glanced over and smiled.

"Alright then, partner. Where to?" He asked. She shrugged as she walked and looked around.

"I guess we head where ever the road takes up, or in you case, the wind." She said and they both chuckled.

"In that case, let's spend the first day traveling around, let to know that place." He said and jumped up to transform.

"In think that may take a bit more than a day, but sure!" Shard transformed as well and they took off.

They went by several other bots. All of which were of all shapes and sized which simply fascinated Shard. After getting a few dissapearing stares and some not so nice comments, she took to what seemed like a more desolate area. Skywing followed without question, he saw it all, no questions needed. They For awhile both were silent. Shard sighed at the quiet, but soon, Skywing spoke up.

"Hey Shard!" Skywing called down. "In think I see something that looks pretty interesting!"

"What!?" Shard called back. She couldn't quiet hear him over all the wind. "I can't hear you!" She said and Skywing landed unexpectedly in front of her. She braked quickly and transfored, almost running into him. "Skywing! By Primus, are you crazy!?" She shouted at him. Skywing chuckled a bit then shrugged.

"Who knows. Seriously though, sorry about that." Skywing said and Shard shook her helm. "Anyways, I was trying to say I saw something. Probably 20 clicks north. I saw some bots greeting eachother."

"Yeah, so? Bots have been greeting us all day." Shard said, but regardless, became courious.

"I know, but these guys.. I don't know. They seemd to be doing it in secret. Like, they were hiding something." He said then looked over in that direction. "Should we check it out?"

"Well," shard said with a shrug as she too looked over in the direction. She then looked to Skywing and gave a nod. "It is our job, isn't it?" She said and Skywing nodded at her. They transformed and headed over.

Once they were close, they hid behind a wall. The two that Skywing saw were gone, but two others had shown up. They did an odd handshake then glanced around. They gave eachother a nod then drove off together.

"This must be a rendezvous point." Shard said as she watched. "They're gone. Let's follow them." They stayed hidden and followed the two.

"They seem like.. workers. Factory workers." Skywing said in a hushed voice. He looked and saw that they split up. "I'll follow one, you take the other." Shard nodded and they too split up.

Shard stuck to the dim shadows, her optics glowing in the dark. The day was ending and the shadows became longer and darker. She followed the smaller mech into an alleyway. It seemed to be a dead end, but then something scanned him and a door opened. He walked in and Shard quickly followed, but before she could make it, a piece of metal was thrown at her. She started to look back to see where it had come from, but was instead tackled to the ground.

"Ah!" She shouted as she kicked him in the face. She struggled free and tried to run, but was cornered. She then remember her emergency energon pack and reached for it to call Orion as the mech rushed at her.

"Oh no you don't!" He said and grabbed both her arms.

"Let go of me! What do you want!?" Shard shouted and struggled to fight back, only to get thrown into a wall. She kicked her legs and tried to free her arms, but the mech was bigger than her and stronger. He had a tight grip on her.

"You're one of them cultural whatevers, aren't ya?" He said. "What are you doing here!? Come to get us locked up?" He said and threw her to the ground.

"No! No, I promise!" She quickly got up and watched him. "I was just curious about what was going on.." She said, then the mech pinned her roughly on the wall. He then grabbed a pickax that her had strapped onto him and hit the wall dangerously close to her head.

"Oh dear Primus, you're armed!" Shard whimpered and he hit his pickax to the wall again.

"You bet your aft I am! I'm stuck in mines everyday, you don't think I'm dumb enough to leave unarmed do ya!?" He said and held her be the throat.

"No.. no of course not.." Shard tried to say, her voice box was being crushed. The mech threw her down again, then kicked her across the alleyway.

"Your'e a pet of Iacon, aren't ya!?" He shouted as he marched towards her. "It's because of them I'm where I am!" Shard tried to get up, but her leg was hurt. She rolled over and remembered the stunner she carried she took aim, but the mech grabbed her arm and lifted her up. "Oh, I'm not glitchhead! I know those pieces of fragging scrap put this fancy little gadget in ya!" He said tossed her again.

At this point, she was too hurt to even yell for Skywing. She was bleeding and beaten She was too weak to even get back up. "That damn Guild set up this caste system long ago. And it's a pain in the aft! Do you know what I have to go through for just a few scraps of energon!?" Shard weakly shook her head. "Of course you don't... This, behind that door, that's all I got! And I, nor do any of those bots back there, need a little Iacon pet to go and report us! They'll have our sparks! and worse, the Replevin would be destroyed.." So, I gotta make sure none of that happens..." Shard looked up at him as he walked towards her with his pickax raised. "I just gotta get you offline..."


A/N: Not gonna lie, the past few chapters have been kinda filler. But thanks for bearing with me! Hopefully this chapter picked it up a little. Also, just wanted to give a lil shoutout to A TFP fangirl! You are a great guest and I love reading your comments! Thanks for the love!