Resonance

by Guardinthena

When Optimus Prime faces termination on the battlefield, Phage makes a desperate gamble to turn the tables on the Decepticons. Her plans go awry when she's taken hostage by Megatron, who believes she has the Matrix. Despite Decepticon concepts of hospitality, Phage objects to the claim that she has the sacred relic. What she does have and will not say, is Optimus Prime's spark.

8. Altihexed

Author's Note: For those of you loyal readers who enjoy reading about the banter between Phage and Optimus, this chapter is mainly devoid of it and for that I am not all that sorry. I was attempting to write this chapter from Megatron's perspective of events. I wanted to capture more of how strange Phage's behavior was from an outside source. I thought, what better time to do it than with Megatron and at the same time try and justify why he hasn't put two and two together just yet. I hope I have done that some form of justice. I did entertain going back over the whole twenty pages of this chapter to inject their banter into it, but the task seemed daunting. Simply, I am tired of reading, re-reading and editing this dang chapter. (I am going on draft 20, people! 20 drafts!) A friend I wrestled into reading an early draft just told me to forget the banter if it wasn't critical to the plot (and it wasn't) and post the dang thing already.

So here it is.

Another note, Solrora Storm is not a cannon event in any Transformer universe. It was a battle I came up with to help flesh out the background of our favorite Cybertronians. I felt more significant battles were needed for a war that has last for nine million years. That said, I would also like to state that the Autobot language I use is purely fictional of my own creation. Felt these things needed clarification before I confuse someone.

Also, a big thank you to everyone for bearing with me. This chapter turned out to be more massive than I realized. It was all suppose to be part of Chapter 5 and ended up such a larger arch than I realized that it had to be broken up. So again, thank you to everyone for your patience and understanding! Here is the long awaited conclusion to the bar scene!

I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge Nauda. Thank you so much for your wonderful support for Resonance and the review! It brought a smile to my face and made me laugh just reading it.

---

'To live is to suffer, to suffer is to find some meaning in the suffering.'

-Friedrich Nietzsche

---

Megatron's hard, calculating optics swept over Phage and came to the inevitable deduction that the vibrant energon blue hue of her cheeks was not all fluster. The femme was clearly intoxicated. Every hand gesture, fidget, and weary-optic glance all angled in the direction he wanted her to be in, which was, needless to say, off balance. Individuals were just so much easier to manipulate when they were not at their best.

Kaonite goblet between his large black metallic hands, Megatron leaned the brunt of his weight on his elbow joints, the quiet whir of his internal machinery sliding fluidly into place with the motion. Phage stiffened as he moved, her muscle cables tensing in a fight or flight response. Her right hand, resting on the bar top and devoid of his kaonite goblet's twin, tightened into a fist until her joints stressed. Phage's dark stellar blue optics jumped and locked with his.

"Well Phage," Megatron's words rasped on the way out of his vocal processor and rolled off his glossa like oil, "what sort of war story do you have about Optimus?"

"I'm not doing this."

"Yes." Megatron said slow and purposefully. "You will. You can either amuse my whims or I can have Soundwave escort you down below." He let the implication hang long enough for her to grasp the significance of his meaning. It did not take very long at all.

Her optical ridges furrowed together in a small measure of befuddlement. "I don't have any." she said slowly.

"Don't be modest." Megatron let slip a disarming grin. Intoxicated as she was, Phage leaned away from him as he pressed forward incrementally over the bar top. It was clear she was as weary of him as if he were a Kaonite pit dragon. "Sixteen solar megacycles you've been an ally of his. Tell me one. If it is as riveting as mine I might show favoritism to you later."

Her delicate features pinched together, uncertain of his exact meaning. "I might have one." she mumbled at length.

"Go on."

The words slowly tumbled from her white lips in no tactful narrative trickling first like a slow energon leak and rapidly accelerating to critical. "Spike... Buster and I were- hiking, I believe we were hiking or...hunting? Was it hunting season for elk?" Frustratingly, Megatron latently realized that her story would take awhile if the intoxicated femme kept interrupting herself with suppositions. Successfully Megatron managed to hold back a low grumble but the sudden indifference was blatant on his face. "I... forget the details. But, we were... we'd been out since early morning. We-" she noticeably paused before continuing her narrative to gather her words from the intoxicated swamp of her processor, "-didn't... care where we were going. We had determined that we were going to explore and find some adventure." Her optics flickered down. "Just-stupid teenager wishwash."

"I asked for a story about Prime." Megatron interjected with a grumble, his optics sweeping her.

Her drinking hand came up off the neck of the goblet and rubbed at her face. "Patie-sssshhhh-ence." she slurred, blinked hard and had the gall in her engexed state to hold her pointer finger up to her lips and shush him. She added after a long moment to gather her words. "I'm getting there."

Gobsmacked, Megatron blinked at her.

"I...ah, convinced them to go off the main trail." Without further interruption, the femme continued unheeded. "There was a side path that could have been made by other hikers or perhaps it was a game trail." She paused and blinked and said suddenly, interrupting herself, "Maybe it was hunting season." Her head drooped, jerked up suddenly and she blinked rapidly as if that were enough to battle off her fatigue. "Anyways, where was...the game trail. I ah- wanted to see where it led. Buster was with me and he bullied Spike into joining us. Buster, he-uh.." she remarked monotoned, her voice drooping to match her downcast visage at the mention of her dead cousin, "Did that all the time."

Megatron's optics narrowed as she carried on, a genuine curiosity starting to swell up in him on where this was going. She had already left clues to the time stamp of the memory – Buster was alive and they were all teenagers. That narrowed the last sixteen solar megacycles down to six. A lot had still happened in that time frame.

"But what we found at the end of the trail gave all of us pause – we had stumbled upon the Ark." Suddenly, Phage tittered inanely. "Tch ha ahaaa...We must have stood outside pondering what it was for near an hour."

"What?" Megatron felt the note of incredulous enter his voice unplanned. Startled, Phage's optics jumped back to his as she fell silent. "What do you mean you stumbled upon the Ark? The Autobots met the Witwicky unit after Reactivation."

"No." Phage said boldly, still wide opticed from the engex and fatigue. "We met all of you before Reactivation. We were a bunch of dumb ass teenagers and didn't run like we should have. We-"

"Cease with the coarse language. It is unbecoming of you."

"We-uh...we," she blinked at him. "What?"

"Since our last but brief encounter," Megatron began, "the vernacular of your vocabulary has degraded to the level of the crass spoken dredges of society. Why ever would someone of your intelligent degrade yourself to such low standards?"

Her most eloquent response to his rude observation was a lethargic, "Uh...have you ever heard Ratchet on a tangent? Or Sideswipe and Sunstreaker when they get going? Huffer when he misses a swing at his forge? Ironhide when he drinks. I...I could go on."

A low rumble churned over in his vocal processor behind a fine pressed frown. "It is surprising how much things change with the quality of the individuals you surround yourself with." Her mouth parted open as her optical ridges melded together. The femme struggled to find the right words to express her displeasure with him but Megatron cut her off before she could speak. "Given that the crude influence of your Autobot associates are not here," Phage sneered at his choice of words, "I am demanding you to shift your speech patterns to match the quality of your current company."

Silent but fuming, Phage contemplated his request. Megatron gave her mere nanoklicks to decide what he perceived to be the wisest course of action. "Are you in concurrence with my will?"

She glared at him and visibly struggled to utter the word, "Yes."

Megatron flicked his hand at her in a dismissive wave. "As you were."

Phage did not start back up immediately. Sour with herself for bending so easily to the Decepticon Commander, even for the sake of staying in his good graces, it took her awhile to gather herself and remember her placing.

"I wanted to investigate the Ark and- well, you know it wasn't a dormant volcano that suddenly blew its top that woke up Teletraan-1. It was us poking around where we shouldn't have been. I-I think Spike and I were discussing the badges," and she sloppily gestured to his badge on his broad chassis, "when Buster went and was a dumb- err, ah... Buster made a careless mistake."

"Much better."

Her cheeks burned from more than engex as she pressed on. "Buster was tromping around on the captain's master control panels for a better view or some...thing," she stressed, struggling again between swearing and self censoring, "ridiculous like that. Something had enough juice left to trigger Teletraan-1." Her drinking hand flicked carelessly through the air in animated gesticulation, but Megatron noted her right remained resolutely clenched and palm down on the bar top and briefly entertained the notion of why. "Next thing the three of us knew the Ark was booting up and Teletraan-1 was screaming at us in Cybertronian- not that we understood it at the time, but klaxon alarms are klaxon alarms. Buster didn't know what he hit to reverse anything so we hid and- and... Everything. Blew. Up." Wrapped up in her telling, her optics were unnecessarily wide as she struggled to stay alert. "People died when...Teletraan did that. Buster never got over it."

Over her telling, his hard-lined frown had gradually melted away to be replaced with a pouting disposition. His optics slipped through the cool air between her right hand and back to her own optics.

Phage shook her head slowly, her voice tinging with remorse, completely ignorant of Megatron's reaction to her narrative with her optics dropped again and fixed to her goblet of engex. "The three of us stayed hidden, watching from inside the captains control panel as Skywarp was revived...and then you. We were witnesses to your argument with Starscream while the Ark busied with reactivating the rest of the Decepticons. Not that we understood what was said then, but the gist was there. The body language. The anger and confusion in your voices. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Starscream wanted to ensure Optimus and the Autobot's deaths. I...can't understand why you didn't listen then."

"Terminate the Autobots? Tch. And give Starscream a win?"

Phage jerked back, delicate mouth parting and optics widening in simple astonishment that Megatron had answered her question at all.

"In all seriousness, Starscream lacks the capacity to plan ahead. The reason I spared them then was the same as I have done so now, because they each are masters of their own respective fields. Judging by the state of the Ark at that time, it was apparent that much time had passed. Cybertron's fate was unknown. Destroying the Autobots then, as is now, would be destroying knowledge. To elaborate my point, Ratchet remains the only fully trained medical officer functioning -and Starscream was ranting about terminating him along with the rest of them. The idiot. The best course of action was to leave the Autobots entombed until such a time as we understood our position and could bring the Autobots under my control. Is that not logical?"

"Er, yes."

"What happened next? I am genuinely curious."

"Uh, well...when you all left the Ark to explore, we came out of hiding with the intention to revive the Autobots. Getting Optimus Prime to the repair station was no easy feat, let me tell you, but we were Witwicky's. No sacrifice, no victory." she said with a sloppy grin. "Figuring out how to move him was just a challenge of leverage...and elbow grease."

Steadily, Megatron's optics had narrowed as she continued her narrative. "All this time, I blamed Starscream for the Autobot's revival."

In her engexed state, Phage spluttered out a raspberry and grinned stupidly at him. "Pfft-why?"

"He fired on the mountainside to bury the Ark."

Phage threw her head back and laughed, loud and long. Megatron stiffened at the genuine, full-bodied laughter. It had been years since he had heard feminine laughter, and longer still since anybody had had the nerve to laugh at him.

"Yeah-no. No, nope." Phage grinned cheekily, "It was us. Witwicky's. Bane of your existence."

"And how does this pertain to Optimus?" The rasp of his voice was like the flash of a sharp-edged blade.

"Aah-it was the first time I met Optimus Prime. Clumsy me, I fell off the control panel where we leveraged Prime off, and I landed wrong." she rushed to explain in a misguided notion that it would distance herself from her previous needling, "Cracked a rib. But Optimus landed where we wanted him, thank god. While Teletraan-1 was making repairs Op reactivated early and he...looked right at me. I just...sat there." Reflecting on the memories her speech slowed to an easier pace. "Moving hurt too much. I could barely breathe without pain. And Optimus just...talked while Teletraan worked. I couldn't understand him and I was too paralyzed to speak, but I knew we had made the right decision when he spoke. His voice just displaces any worries."

"Yes. I hadn't noticed." Megatron grumbled and drank from his goblet with a moody disposition. "Every time I've had the Autobots on their last wheels my armies have been decimated with an inspired charge brought on by some foolhardy speech by Optimus Prime."

Her optics shifted hue again, brightening marginally. When she spoke, it was with an self assured tone. "The Endless Flood."

There was a moment of pause between them, then Megatron abruptly released one hard laugh. "Hah! I was thinking something not quite so...destructive."

"Horrific might be a better descriptor."

A noise escaped between Megatron's denta, not quite a hiss and not quite a sigh but somewhere in between. "Entire generations- gone." A note of sentimentality entered his speech. "The end of the Simanzi Massacre. Aah-Cybertron was nearly mine. The closest I ever came." Megatron's mouth twitched at the corner in a grimace that did not fully form. "Then Prime had to go and unleash wave after wave of M.T.O.'s in retaliation. It was so important then. Now its just... a waste." Megatron paused a nanoklik, studying her. "You've studied Cybertronian history well."

Her optics flared and settled. "Did that...just come from you?"

The defensive backlash from Megatron was quick. "Nobody had the foresight to see where we would end up. Look at us now- less than one hundred. So yes, I believe I am allowed to reflect on the matter and say the Endless Flood was a waste as we struggle to piece together just one behavioral-free personality weave and imbue it with life. You've seen how well the Stunticon's personality weaves went over. Wildrider's psychotic, Breakdown is break down for a reason, Motormaster is a savage barely better than Grimlock, Drag Strip and Dead End were two of the saner ones and not by much."

Her mouth came ajar during his retort and promptly snapped shut, quickly finding a fast dip into her engex a way to avoid the Decepticon Commander's gaze.

Even as the rim of the goblet left her lips she did not respond but kept her optics fixed on the neon green engex in her goblet as the fingers of her right hand flexed and squeezed shut incessantly.

As she was suddenly shut in on herself, her stellar blue optics occasionally flickered down and to the right and back to her engex, Megatron spoke out of turn. "How did your story end?"

"I...uh, my story...?"

"With Prime. Or was that the end?"

"Oh...err... well, when he was finally mobile he...he gently picked me up and cradled me in the palm of his hand like a baby bird." A large goofy grin spit her face. "Optimus just carried me around like that while he scoured the command for Jazz and Ratchet."

An indecent smile stole over Megatron's lips. "How did that make you feel?"

Languidly, she blinked repeatedly and swayed slightly in her seat. "How did I...?"

"How did that make you feel?" Megatron repeated gently.

"Protected." she supplied willingly, looking dazed. "Safe."

"And your first impression of me?"

"First impression?" Phage blinked owlishly at him but responded, "The fallen knight."

Megatron inclined his head. "Really. How intriguing. How did I garden that impression?"

She rubbed at her optics and pinched the bridge of her olfactory with her left hand. "Iesh...complex. Military bearing. Off white-silver," she corrected quickly, "color scheme to mock noble standards. I think of Macbeth coupled with...what I know about Cybertronian pre-war history... it's, yes. The fallen knight, but- dangerous thinking." she muttered suddenly, glancing to the right and down and more to herself than him.

Megatron was beginning to find her behavior worrisome.

"Eventually Optimus found Ratchet and Jazz and had Ratchet revived first." Phage's unease at their broach of topic was apparent with her sudden conversational change. Heedlessly, she launched full force into their prior conversation just to avoid the awkward one before."The two talked over me while Ratchet scanned me over. There wasn't anything he could do though, then Jazz was reactivated and...lord, he never stopped moving. He was a whirlwind of gesticulating hands as he spoke. Jazz was so lively and friendly it was hard not to like him. He coaxed words from me, enough for him to pick up and formulate our language. After that came the barrage of questions from Prime. Who I was and if I required medical attention. Op's concern was so genuine. It was only then that Spike and Buster slinked out of hiding." she scoffed. "And when Optimus elaborated the depth of the situation to us afterwards, we couldn't walk away after that."

Suddenly, her optics became haunted as she muttered, "Every evil you perpetrate sickened us knowing it was our faults you were reactivated. Buster took it worse than Spike and me- and now he's dead. Spike tries to find peace between your factions and I- Alicean," she corrected, something Megatron zeroed in on and stored for later use, "tried to walk away years later. I- she did...err, for a bit. The death toll just kept climbing..."

"That was quite the candid story."

Shocked perhaps by his sudden remark or with herself, Phage's optics widened in a comical fashion as she completed her narrative, jerking in her seat as if jostled to the present. The next few words fell numbly from her lips. "I can't believe I told you any of that." she made herself focus on him rather than the engex display over his shoulder strut. Phage blinked hard and stuttered over her next few words. "We-we never told...anyone that. Sixteen- Why did I...?" She swayed and glared at him suspiciously. "Did you...drug my drink?"

Megatron scoffed, his mouth twisting in disdain. "You watched me mix it, Phage." She rubbed at her optics again and began muttering something along the lines of 'lacing the goblet.' The accusations only angered him further. "Don't blame me for your loaded conscious or loose glossa."

Caught up somewhere between anger and confusion Phage pulled an indistinguishable face. Megatron pressed through the slight detour casually. "Optimus never asked what you three were doing there?"

"Iesh..." she slurred, blinking and careened in her seat. Swiftly, Megatron grabbed her arm and pulled the femme back upright in her bar stool. Suddenly Phage found the bar top the best of places to rest her head. "Nooo- Iesh nevah asked, Megatron. So much...was...going on."

Megatron's optical ridge inched up his forehead. "That hardly made any sense."

Phage started giggling inanely. If she hadn't already anchored herself to the bar top she would have fallen off.

His optics roved to her goblet and noted the engex was a half drunk.

"Lightweight." Megatron clicked. He fixed his attention back to her. "You haven't had any proper energon before I captured you, have you?"

"No-" came her long drawl. "I was- so focused on the battle."

Megatron's optics narrowed warily. "I suppose I should be thanking you."

"Fuck you." she grumbled halfheartedly.

Megatron felt his right optical ridge quirk skywards and settle again. He couldn't find the anger to get mad at the femme. He left it off that she was engexed, of no threat to him at all, and if the situation had been with one of his fellow core Decepticons it would not have been much different. They all usually got a bit foul mouthed and nostalgic and buddy with each other after engexing. Megatron refused to examine the reasoning beyond that. "Years worth of enduring the Witwicky unit's annoying interference only to discover your alliance is wrought on by guilt."

"It wasn't that." Phage snarled, synthoplasmic cheeks burning from more than just the engex. She began to lift her head off the table, suddenly grabbed the edge of the bar top and settled her head back down. The femme was decidedly much more docile after that. "Can we just- just return me to the Autobots."

"And here I was hoping to wax philosophy. Alas, you want to retire to your cell early."

"Philosophy?" she rolled the word around in her mouth slowly, testing it while she tried to wrap her head around the full meaning. "Why?" Her optics shifted in hue suddenly, brightening momentarily from stellar blue to the more lively standard energon blue. "What are we going to whittle away the cycles postulating now, Megatron?"

"Are you familiar with a survival bottleneck effect?" he said slowly, his optics narrowing at the femme. He tried to shake off how much like Optimus those words had been but something kept pricking at the back of his processor.

Her optical ridges furrowed together. "Yes." she said slowly. "A phenom...phenem...fhhh..."

"Phenomenon." Megatron offered, studying her.

"Yesss." she slurred from the bar top. "That word. When ah- when a cataclysmic event reduces a species population."

"Were you aware," he offered up at length, "there are exactly thirty-six Decepticons and thirty-three Autobots- and then there is you."

She made an unintelligible noise as her face scrunched up to process what he was saying. Megatron could practically hear the electric synapses firing off in her processor. "You only have to look in a mirror to understand the why of half of that answer."

For his credit in the name of patience, Megatron cycled air through his olfactory and let it rush nosily back through his vents. "We Cybertronians are faced with a survival bottleneck effect. Cybertron is gone. All efforts I have made to locate our home world have been futile in their outcome, and by extension so too is most ways we possessed to create viable Cybertronians. Efforts on both factions behalf's to create flawless personality weaves have met with drawbacks, sometimes severe ones in the case of the Dinobots. I fear future generations will be degenerates. The personality weaves are just half of our conundrum. Granting life to a protoform...there are only two paths currently available to us: spark splicing and the Matrix."

He realized that she was starting to doze off.

Damn it all.

Gradually, his arm stretched out across the bar until he could wrap his fingers around her jaw. Abruptly Phage stiffened, optics flying open and enlarging to their fullest. Her right fist squeezed tight on itself, but the punch never flew. Rather, she retained enough of her senses of self preservation to allow him to lift her head off the bar top.

Megatron leaned in closer to Phage, meeting her optic to optic, and said plainly, "Am I boring you?"

"Uh...no-" she drawled and tittered.

"Spark splicing," Megatron began tentatively, "is nasty business. Hopefully your tutelage under Ratchet has revealed that much too you."

"Err..uh, no. I'm his ahss-ha-ss-haha-"

"Assistant."

"Yes-" she hissed and laughed. "You-you think he lets me jump into cutting up sparks? Iesh- I wouldn't even know where to begin. Hehahaaa! Iesh just- I just patch 'bots up."

"Field repair."

"Yes!" Phage managed to squeeze out before dissolving into a fit of laughter. She pushed his hand off her face and her head immediately plummeted back to the bar top where she buried it in the crook of her left arm. Her right fist dragged along the bar top and disappeared under her neck while she wrapped her left hand up and over her head.

The laughing fit carried on for several minutes and Megatron just let it happen. Perhaps, he had to admit to himself, that engex was a bad idea. Skywarp got just as giddy when he drank too much engex...which was usually proceeded by some ill-concocted escapade typically involving Skywarp's teleportation outlier power and the hapless mech of the random pick. There was a reason why the mech had to ask permission before using his ability. Not that Skywarp had the capacity to do so when engexed.

"What did-tchehehahahaa- you put in my drink. Radioactive nevah-hehehehaaaa- never gets me like this!"

Once again he bristled at her accusation. "What would be the point of lacing your engex. Although perhaps the answer to your question lies in our engex percentages. Perhaps we just mix ours stronger than the Autobots."

Phage buried her head in her arm to muffle the laughter, but Megatron still heard her mutter something about 'thirty-to-forty percentage.'

Suddenly her head shot off the table. Her optics were aglow the standard Autobot blue, but it was comical how she tried to abruptly reign in her control and act serious.

"Az you were saying, Megatron." Then, just as suddenly, the control cracked and the silly engexed grin was back. "No, just- please just, is this over? This is been thee most awkward conversation ah have ever had."

"Awkward, has it been?" Megatron said cryptically. Then, after a moment, "Certainly. Let me just comm Soundwave."

A strangled unintelligent noise broke through her processor. She struggled with some thought for a moment then tried again for seriousness and failed to garden it's full affect. "No! Uh...go on, Megatron."

"You are certain?" he said slowly, "You are done."

"Erm...quite. We were-uh, discussing spark-splicing."

Megatron held her gaze for several long nanoklicks, waiting to see if she dissolved again. When she did not, Megatron began to say doubtfully, "Spark splicing, as I was saying, is nasty business. If you prefer the term, offspring tend to share traits of the parent spark. Additionally, there is a bond that functions like a resonance- is something the matter?"

Her face had begun to crack just then, a strangled noise not quite a laugh and not quite a snort escaping her mouth. She was overzealous to confirm the negative, so much so that her synthetic hair wiped back and forth and sprayed loose water everywhere. For his part, Megatron did not bat an optic when stray droplets landed on his exodermal plating.

"Proceed!" her voice cracked sharp on the word.

He waited a few nanoklicks before saying, "-carrying with it emotions such as pain. I have no such desire to straddle myself with a weakness such as that. Additionally, I do not fancy having clones of Starscream running amok. Which just leaves-"

"The Matrix." Her lips twitched up at the corner at his stab at humor and smoothed back into her troubled grimace. "You...want me to give you the Matrix."

"Of course." Megatron proclaimed, "And of your own violation."

Her optical ridges collided together and her fingers performed a quick drum along the neck of her goblet. Her attempt at reserved composition was undone by the twitching at the corner of her mouth-whether to suppress laughter or muttering he wasn't completely certain. At last she managed to say with surprising measured pace, "This is that talk."

For his part, Megatron gave a lopsided grin. "I suppose it has become that without my intention."

"You do not do anything without intent." Phage's tones had not shifted as she continued. "Whatever you have tah say is an exercise in futility, Megatron. Iesh have already expressed at length that Iesh do not possess the Matrix. Your efforts would be...would be better spent engaged in ah hostage exchange."

He stiffened and stared at her critically. He was almost inclined to believe...

"Why so eager to leave. I have been far from an inconsiderate host, and Motormaster's actions will not go unpunished. So I think the least you can do is listen." Megatron drawled slowly, "Optimus Prime-"

---

Only now was Spike beginning to have doubts as Jazz, Bumblebee and himself rode astride the Aerialbots in their vehicle mode following after Sea Spray into dark and dark oceanic depths.

The nagging worries had begun to creep in while he stood on the nameless track of beach waiting with the Autobots for Sea Spray, but he had refused to acknowledge the ball of nerves taking shape in his gut. When he proceeded to dive into the Pacific Ocean following Sea Spray's lead the fears had began to grow. Spike wanted to blame his growing skepticism and paranoia on the black watery abyss all around him. He wanted to say it was his nerves getting to him for every creak and strain on his exo suit's frame as the water pressure abused its structural integrity. He tried not to think of running out of oxygen in the suit- it wasn't possible, not for hours in extreme conditions like this. Optimus Prime had ensured when the exo suits had been constructed that Wheeljack and Ratchet oversaw every possibility to see his brother and himself safe.

Lot good it did Buster in the long haul.

No. No-, Spike reprimanded himself desperately. Buster went and played hero. That's not what you're here to do. Carly would kill you. Dad would kill you. Focus.

Phage needed him level headed for the task ahead. Just- Spike could not see how his own stupid idea would work. Even less that Jazz had agreed with him and jumped right into things. All of this was rushed. A desperate hasty gamble to recover the ball and level the playing field. They had been suited up, equipped and out of the Ark in about an hour, with Jazz briefing on the road. Meet up with Sea Spray, get intel, get in, get Phage and the Matrix, and get the hell out of dodge.

What if she could not phase to them? Starscream had shot her on the battlefield while she was phasing. Spike had not thought that was possible, but he recognized the strange green warp field she produced when she phased even miles off and she was still shot. Spike could not wrap his head around it. He could only conclude that the Decepticons, because of their own phaser programme back on Cybertron, had a means of dealing with 'bots like Phage with her ability. It was just strange that Starscream kept a weapon around for that specific circumstance. Talk about paranoid. Unless Starscream had been sporting whatever it had been since Phage's outlier ability had blossomed. That made more sense to Spike but it did not change his worries. If Starscream could stop her what was to prevent the Decepticons from using the same tech to restrain her to her cell? The nagging doubt poisoned Spike's resolve.

The internal comm-link of Spike's exosuit lit up. His response time to answer it was instantaneous, and only an after realization that the frequency was from Jazz.

{Everyone linked in?}

There came a round of confirmation choruses from everyone.

{Good. Here's how this is going to go down mechs. Anyone has anything to report you send it my way via my personal comm-link as an encoded message only. It will remain open to serve as our form of communication on a cycling encrypted codex every half breem. Passcodes to access and send data were given out en route. Failed to speak up cycles ago that you didn't get them is your own fault. Find a buddy. I will accept no other means of communication. When we hit the 'Cons I won't be able to hear a goddamn thing anyway.}

{Wait, you want us to text you?} For all of his lone operations, Sea Spray was taken aback by Jazz's announcement. {Are you serious, Jazz?}

Bumblebee laughed over the comm-lines. {Don't worry Sea Spray. Jazz does this every battle. You get use to it.}

A frown stitched itself onto Spike's mouth. "Jazz, you're going to go in there and blast your speakers aren't you?"

{Got one even better. You'll see Spike. But you all might want to initiate your audial dampeners when we go in. Shit's gonna get loud. Especially you, Spike. I don't need you getting tinnitus. And Bumblebee, stick with him.}

{That didn't need saying.} chirped the yellow minibot over the comm-lines.

The nagging anxiety became a real compression on Spike's heart. "I thought we were doing this by stealth and precision." he grumbled.

{We are.} Came Jazz's swift response that did little to ease Spike's mind. {We talked about this en-route to the beach, Spike. I'll not risk reiterating it so close to the 'Con sea base now. You know what's up, man.}

Usually Jazz had a way of making him laugh and smile. The mech was so easy going and friendly, and his familial use of Earth language had a way of putting anyone at ease. But Jazz in command unsettled Spike on a level he simply did not like. Perhaps it was the flip flop in the black and white Autobot's persona, from 'everyone's best friend' to curt, commanding, and takes no one's bullshit. Part of Spike reasoned that he himself was being ridiculous. The stakes were high. Prime was terminated. Megatron had the Matrix. And his cousin. The last thing anyone needed was another Decepticon combiner team because that undoubtedly was going to be the first thing Megatron used the Matrix for. Standing record was three-combiner team to zero-anything else. If Jazz was short the mech had reason. Spike concluded it was himself that just needed to take a moment and breathe.

Wrestling with his own inner turmoil, Spike could not help his own selfish impulse to be snippy. "I should have known better. You 'bots don't know the meaning of the word subtle."

{Of course I do. You just haven't seen my best yet. Ah-we've arrived at Kansas!}

Spike had to do a double take and squint hard at his monitors before he noted the faint glow of lights in the distance. The deeper the extraction team descended, the more pronounced the lights became. Then abruptly, Spike had the sudden unsettling notion of the plethora of lights of the Decepticon sea base were the bioluminescence byproduct of an enormous, ancient fish of a bygone age lying in wait for its latest prey to draw closer.

{Alto! Alto!}

Spike's heart rate accelerated at Sea Spray's command to halt in the Autobot language echoed over the comm-lines. Keeping a critical watch over his monitors for Decepticon energy signatures, Spike noted with the keen interest of a hawk as the gruff M.T.O. transformed to his bipedal mode and his arm shot out. The Aerialbots and Jetfire cut their thrusters and transformed, sending Jazz, Bumblebee and himself aside. Spike was all too thankful for the cliff shelf he could put his own two feet on though he was also stunned they were so far below the surface so quickly.

{Why the halt, Sea Spray?} inquired Jazz, arms gesticulating in a rapid flurry around him as he approached the mech in question. He did not miss that Jazz's blaster was in his favored hand.

Through the screens of his confined exosuit, Spike observed as Sea Spray pointed ahead. The familiar gruff, half drowned vocals kicked Spike's stress levels up ever higher. {We have trouble.}

Instantly, Spike's hands became cold and clammy even as his fingers tightened to a white-knuckled grip on his exosuit's controls. Doing a double take on his scanners, Spike's eyebrows joined together in the middle of his brow. "I'm not picking up anything."

{I didn't say it was 'Cons.}

Spike stared hard at his monitor readouts. "I don't see anything. Just black ocean."

Over the comm-lines, Sea Spray intoned gravely, {Look closely at the lights from the Decepticon sea base. Then strife to your right a foot and back. Notice anything?}

Jazz humored Sea Spray, as did everyone else. Spike commanded his suit to shift marginally, and he caught the anomaly that had Sea Spray on edge. Spike felt his anxiety pitch sky high dramatically.

"Shit." Spike spat over the comm-lines. "The lights disappear- something...something's out there."

{A lot of something.} Sea Spray confirmed. {My guess is the 'Cons have deployed some sort of camouflaged objects.} The battle-scarred mech glanced sidelong at Jazz. Their optics and visors were a bright luminescence in the absent of light in the dark watery depths. "Shanix on it that their mines."

By the illumination of Jazz's visor, Spike could pick out the stern frown. {Judging by your reaction,} Jazz said at last in a carefully neutral tone, his free hand waving in the direction of the underwater valley that nestled the Decepticon base, {these are recent.}

{Absolutely.} Sea Spray did not remove his attention from Jazz. {They knew we were coming.}

If at all possible, Jazz's features darkened dramatically. Spike did not like the cold, fierce change in the least. {Could be preemptive.} came the saboteur's drawn out response neatly packaged in cold dark undertones. That decided it for Spike, he preferred the Jazz that could rattle off the top forty music list to him in a heartbeat. Not...whatever and whoever this was.

"Could be we have a retro-rat." Sea Spray shot back.

"Or a gap in security." Unless Spike was hearing things over his instruments, he was almost certain there had been a warning in Jazz's counter.

"Could be." Sea Spray nodded along, though his tone suggested far from sheep behavior. "Though I always wondered why Cliffjumper went off on a tangent about traitors and spies."

"There. Is. No. Traitor." The dark, almost snarling note that entered Jazz's voice took Spike by surprise. That was uncharacteristic. Too many surprises in one day. Too many shocks and twists and turns, some form of normalcy was needed. Of all mechs Jazz should have been a normalcy and he was not. The friendly, easy going nature was slipping and sliding to...something else. Spike just wasn't sure what exactly.

{What do we do now, Jazz?} Inquired little Bumblebee over the comm-lines.

At least Bumblebee is a last refuge for normalcy, Spike thought.

{Now? We press forward.}

A grumble filtered over the comm-lines from Sea Spray. {It'll take time to pick through this mess.}

{Then start, man.} Jazz shot back. {You're our Gandulf, lead the way.}

{What I mean,} Sea Spray began, glancing backwards to the rest of the group. Although Sea Spray had a visor, Spike was certain he was looking at him. {Is if one of these things goes off, we could be looking at a repeat of Solrora Storm."

There was silence across the comm-lines as heavy and oppressing as the dark ocean around his exosuit that was straining and pressing in all around. He was so glad when Silverbolt's calm, collected vocals streamed through the comm-lines, the first that the young Aerialbots had spoken in a long while.

{What was Solrora Storm?}

{Sounds pretty.} piped up Fireflight suddenly as if he found the courage to speak once Silverbolt had broken the first barricade.

{Sounds like hell.} proceeded Slingshot, abrasive as ever.

After a long moment, it was Jazz that turned to address the extraction team, particularly the Aerialbots. {Solrora Storm is also known as the Last Flight of the Seekers. The battle occurred pre-Ark launch from Cybertron.} Where under difference circumstances Jazz would have gladly elaborated in full any inquiry, he gave no additional explanation. Spike realized he didn't need one. The implications were daunting. {If you're curious beyond that, ask Teletraan to pull it up when we get back to base. As for you, Spike. You should head back.}

"What?" was Spike's very confused, very eloquent response.

{Bumblebee, I want you to accompany-}

"Hey! Wait! Hold on! No! Do you hear me, Jazz? I said no!"

{Spike,} Jazz began slowly, gesticulating with his free hand to the mine littered waters between them and the Decepticon sea base, {if things go kaboom we can't...bring you back.}

That familiar Witwicky temper flared with a vengeance through his veins, burning away at the fear and anxiety that had been steadily consuming him prior. Even though he had entertained the small selfish desire to return to the surface it had only ever been just that- small, selfish desires spurned on by very basic animalistic fears. Giving in to fear and running and never been one of Spike's strong suits. Hell, he had personally risked life and limb insulting Megatron inside of his own command post at the Battle of New York just to distract the Decepticon Commander. A merry little jaunt through crushing oceanic pressures and a mine field were nothing to the very real fear he had suffered then.

"Don't you dare pull that crap on me! I run the risk of dying every single time I step out in this god damn exosuit. Shit, Jazz! I was more at risk when I use to run sans-suit with Bumblebee! Where was the concern then you tin-plated bastard!"

A long silence held sway over the comm-lines. When it went on for too long, Spike began to stress that he had crossed some new line somewhere he hadn't been aware existed, a sentiment he felt echoed Jazz's faceted persona. A small wave of relief eased his budding anxiety when he noticed the light of Jazz's visor bobbing up and down. It was Spike's only way of knowing he had given his blessing. Otherwise, the saboteur turned aside back to Sea Spray. {Lead the way, Gandulf.}

{What does that even mean?} Sea Spray's tone betrayed his irritation.

{I'm not going to stand around here rusting away just to explain it to you.}

Annoyed now more than anything, Spike just shook his head.

{Hey!} piped up Bumblebee from beside Spike, who burst with sudden energy, bubbles bursting around his little yellow body as his arm jerked up to point somewhere down in the distance. {How about we just follow those? They look too important for the 'Cons to have put any mines around and they look like they go straight to the main compound!}

The light of every Autobot visor and optics shown in the dark abyss as they turned to discover the source of Bumblebee's enthusiasm. Spike eventually managed to detect the vague Cybertronian-made shape on the ocean floor far beneath their vantage point. The man squinted, staring hard at his monitors. "Are those...power cables?"

{Yes.} Sea Spray answered reflectively, then again with more enthusiasm. {Yes they are! The 'Cons have them running to each of the facilities around their sea base! They wouldn't dare put any of the mines around those!}

{Perfect!} the glee in Jazz's voice was evident, and a much needed balm to Spike's frazzled nerves to hear a return, however brief, to the Jazz he had known for years. {Good optic, 'Bee my bot! Sea Spray, take us in!}

---

Phage's optics drew wide under the shadow of her optical lashes.

"-was the real enemy here."

Mircotension eased gradually from her shoulder struts and she giggled. "For you perhaps."

"For all of us." Megatron growled darkly. "He possessed the sole means of creating new viable Cybertronian life and did nothing with it. If Prime had used the Matrix for its very purpose we would have thousands in a day. A million within a month. We could overwhelm humanities numbers and seize this planet as our own. Instead, we sit on the verge of the event horizon for our species while Optimus was content to sit in the Ark entertaining the primitive will of humanity- because he liked them. Cultural diffusion he called it, subjugating the Autobots to the beck and call of this planet's governments, integrating Earth sports and holding...charity races to play the popularity game. Then that movie business..." Phage's optical ridges shot skyward before her nose scrunched up in blatant distaste as Megatron tried to hide the shudder that threatened to overwhelm him with a swift, deep drink from his goblet. The finality of his shot was pronounced when he slammed it back down on the bar top, the little engex inside sloshing wildly about, and declared fiercely, "Bah! I'll tell you what it was- melancholy. He would have our species end."

"That isn't Optimus." Next to his own heated conviction, Phage's own voice came off meek.

"Isn't it." Megatron retorted hotly, "Optimus tried just that four million years ago. It was Prime who attempted to kamikaze the Ark into the Earth. If ever you have hated my Decepticons and I for anything- the death of your parental unit, Radar, or Buster-"

The bubbly laughter and lopsided grin died suddenly and was replaced by classic resting bitch face. "You leave them out of this conversation."

Her stern interject was ignored as Megatron steamrolled over her and continued to say, "-Optimus Prime should burden half your hate and half the blame."

Phage became tight lipped and Megatron took it all in stride. In his long life, he had dealt with mechs and femmes stronger, faster, and more dangerous than herself. Glaring and acid retorts were nothing to his thick metal skin. However surprisingly, Phage leaned towards him, a flash of cold hard steel in her optics that drew him in, curious about its promising mettle. "This might surprise you," her words were cool and clear, tumbling from her glossa in hushed conspiratorial tones and the smell of engex, "but I do not hate you for their deaths."

"Actually, that does." Megatron's optics glinted and dulled as his head inclined to a slight angle. "Why do you not? You have every right to."

"I use to, when I was young." she replied candidly. "But hate is a poison that sinks to the marrow of your endoskeleton and sears you from the inside out. I did not want any part of that then and I do not want it now. But you-" Phage grimaced, "you just feed off hate."

"I have watched you a long while, Phage. Your hate never went away."

"It is not hate," she snipped, "it's anger. There is a difference as tall as mountains and as deep as canyons." Megatron opened his mouth to continue, but Phage beat him to it. The boldness, from where it came he hardly knew, stunned him enough to hold his peace. "I know what you are trying to do and it will not work. I came to term years ago that death is an inevitably of life. If not for the circumstances of your presence my father would have likely died from the shrapnel in his chest one way or another. And Buster..." she slowed and said carefully, "life is unpredictable. Whether he had lived a full life or died in an accident, death finds us all in the end. So no," she announced with finality, "I do not hate you for their deaths. Everything has its end. From a flower to a nation, from a planet to a sun."

A moments silence held between them, a spark pulse too long. Megatron sat back, readjusted in his stance and said slowly, "How... poetic."

The tone in Megatron's voice rubbed Phage the wrong way. She bristled and hastily added as she looked aside, "Quit trying to use their deaths to make me hate Optimus."

"And what about Optimus."

"What?"

"You do not hate me for your father or your cousin, but what about Optimus's death?" Phage became flustered and looked aside to her right. Her face screwed up as her glossa fought with her processor for silence over words. Megatron left her to tangle with the raw thoughts and emotions he had exposed, before saying, "I had my reasons."

"I've heard enough."

"No." he said dangerously. "You have heard enough when you understand the full complexity of today's matter. I terminated Optimus Prime because he had locked us in a perpetual cycle of unending conflict, using the Matrix only to revive the Autobots when they would fall in battle and then had the gall to tell everyone that the Matrix would not produce more Cybertronians." Megatron became irate as he went on, every word a brisk clip on his glossa; his natural gravel tone and infamous temper lending a seething edge to his words. "I do not like retreating from combat Phage, but what other option do I have when my enemy cannot terminate? Optimus wanted an end to the conflict but could not let anyone go. Knowing him, it was likely over some remorse for his actions four million years ago. What was I to do than force matters by seizing the Matrix and exposing Optimus for his hypocrisy by creating the Constructicons? And when that course of action just perpetuated an entirely different cycle, I was forced to end matters entirely- by cutting down Optimus Prime himself. I was tired of the repetitive cycle Optimus trapped us all in. We need progress to survive and humanity needs to be eradicated if we are to thrive."

Her face contorted into disdain. "Don't try and play me." There was a heated edge to her words that plucked at Megatron's nerves the wrong way. He found himself bristling, mouth twitching at the corner into an unrealized snarl. "What was Optimus suppose to do? Let the conflict consume the Autobots until I-ee-he- was," suddenly, her mouth snapped shut and sucked in a sharp breath through her olfactory and held it, her chassis and cheeks expanding with the action and the latter coloring a unique tinge of blue in utter vexation of her slurring tongue. As she had done before over the course of their conversation, she deflated steadily and stressed steadily, "He alone was left standing?"

"Optimus should have accepted the facts I had presented him time and again. Humanity is not worth defending. Certainly not at the expense of our people."

"Tch!"

Megatron's optics narrowed to seething crimson slits. "Do you realize Phage, that Optimus Prime would have waited till humanity's end days, make some speech to lament the loss, and then dug up this backwater planet right alongside me as he has done countless worlds before. It was our original agreement when we left Cybertron!"

"Millions of years ago." the femme snipped petulantly.

The only response he allowed himself to her quarrelsome behavior was a grimace as he continued as if she had not interjected, "Over the years I have simply tried to express to Prime that we push the time table. With humanity pushing back against us, it has come down to a matter of the fleshlings versus us. Something I am sure that has concerned you as of late. Or were you not aware that every major power on this primitive planet wants you cut up on a lab table for reverse engineering." Without speaking she gave him his answer by jutting her bottom lip in a petulant pout. "Good. Then you can grasp that the protection Optimus Prime afforded you while you were under lock and key at the Ark is gone after the day's shifting dynamics. Continue to cross me and you will find yourself bereft of the protection you have taken for granted." Phage began to bluster with a useless retort that was drowned out as Megatron pressed on, "Just remember, I am for the survival of Cybertronians and of the Cybertronian way while Prime preached cultural diffusion... Look where that led him."

"So you murdered Optimus-" for her credit Phage schooled her expression to a classic deadpan visage, "because he liked to play basketball."

"Don't trivialize the matter." Megatron sneered. "I am harsh but I am not the enemy here. Prime knew he was playing a dangerous gambit with me-one he lost. One that you went and threw yourself right in the middle of where you do not belong. If you would kindly step out of the way we can at last proceed forward. I promise you will be greatly compensated for the matter."

"I don't want your compensation."

Megatron's visage darkened. "I understand your angry about Prime's death, but there is no point in being loyal to a terminated mech. Do not be a martyr for the Autobots, Phage. I am trying to offer an easier means of settling things with you. The only one who will suffer in the end is you and not a one of the Autobots will appreciate your sacrifice. If you take the easier path and kindly give the Matrix to me, Bearer," the jeer came as a hard as any backhanded blow Megatron could have thrown as he rested his elbow on the bar top and his fingers uncurled, palm up and outstretched to her, "I can move all Cybertronians forward."

As a slow, stubborn glint formed in her optics Megatron knew some cheeky, useless quip was coming light years before the words left her pursed lips.

"You know," empowered by liquid courage, Phage gradually leaned forward over the bar until their faces were a hands width apart. "I've experience with abusive relationships. I know the warning signs when some jackass starts spewing shit talk around about people I care about to make himself look good." she slurred in a loud whisper that defeated the point, "So, I think I know what I'm saying when you are the textbook example of a serial, predatory manipulator. In conclusion, fuck off."

Megatron's fingers curled inwards. His optics grew wide before narrowing dangerously. "The hard way then."

Sloshed, she still did not seem to fully grasp the seriousness of her situation and blew a raspberry at him. Megatron balked at her gall. "Pfft- Witwicky. When-" her optics slide shut and opened again as she struggled to find the appropriate words to wrap her tongue around. "-don't we chose the hard road."

Even as Megatron's features contorted into raw anger, the tone of his voice strained for waning patience. "Perhaps we should carry on this conversation at a later point. The engex seems to be clouding your better reasoning."

"I understand the situation perfectly."

"You do, do you?" If words could have an edge, Megatron's was gleaming sharp steel. "You too then would rather sit here and tell me you would rather perpetuate a futile exercise in pointless struggle. You should really take a moment to reconsider what your lord is asking of you."

The femme laughed at him as she swept up her goblet and downed the whole drink. Megatron's optics flared and narrowed.

"I just remembered something else that set you apart from Ariel." A slow grin played across Megatron's lip components as Phage tilted her head back to drain the last of the goblet. "Just like Optimus Prime, you are gullible."

---

{Andromeda's energy signature is just up ahead.}

Although the nickname that Sea Spray had taken up for Phage at the beach threatened to twitch the corner of Jazz's mouth into a grin, the text message set his nerve-circuits on edge. The situation did not sit right with him. He expected her energy signature to be located in a deep fortified area of the sea base that was either a cell block or, Primus forbid- a torture chamber. Not located on an upper level with...was that a window? Sea Spray couldn't be leading them towards... The line of thinking dropped off when Jazz did a double check on his own internal scanners. Lil' Katt's energy signature was indeed located in the same chamber as the wall-length window they were approaching from beneath.

Jazz's central processor went blank. He could not entertain the notion of a thought beyond the objective ahead. Discovering why Lil' Katt was in a chamber with a window meant all the difference in the next half breem to Jazz.

As the extraction team approached the chamber from beneath, Jazz signaled for the majority to stay behind. With swift jabs to Bumblebee, Spike and Sea Spray, only the four of them approached. Rising up to the edge of the window on their thrusters, the portion of the extraction team gripped the edging of the window seal and peered inside.

If Jazz had been Prowl, his logic center would have crashed and had to reboot from the sight playing out before his optics. As he was not the Autobot Tactician, all Jazz could see was red.

{Can someone confirm what I'm seeing here?} Came Sea Spray's voice over their comm-lines. {I must be suffering a glitch in my optics.}

Bumblebee's head snapped around and jabbed a finger over the lower portion of his battle mask covered face where his mouth should be. {Text, Sea Spray! Text!}

Even with his full battle mask in place, the way the grizzled war veteran's head rolled back implied his annoyance with the unorthodox mission guidelines.

{She doesn't look in distress to me.} Came Sea Spray's group text moment's later.

Jazz's fingers strained against the minor ledge provided by the window's metal frame. Lil' Katt having drinks with Megatron... Every circuit of his being burned at the sight his optics were feeding him.

{This bitch!} Jazz growled over the comm-lines. {When I said she needed a date I didn't mean with Megatron!}

Both Bumblebee and Spike's lifeless but very Cybertronian-esque exosuit's heads snapped in Jazz's direction and glowered. For Bumblebee with his battle-mask it was noted by the burst of light from his visor that narrowed to a thin band of light.

{What happened to group messaging only, Jazz.} Came Bumblebee's quick message, something that was easily done by internal mental commands whereas Spike's took a moment longer in reaching Jazz, only because the human had to viciously type away at the keyboard in his exosuit.

{That had better of been a joke.}

It was rare that Jazz did not know how to respond to a situation. Unfortunately, when situations presented themselves as blatantly as what he was clearly seeing...

-How could that glitch be drinking engex and amicably chatting away with Megatron? Megatron! Fumed Jazz internally. Did she just laugh? Was she laughing with the fascist, mass-murdering-

He noted that Sea Spray was staring hard at him. Begrudgingly, Jazz lowered himself from the window as to not draw the attention of the Decepticon Commander and glowered back at the battle scarred M.T.O. The others followed his lead and lowered themselves as well.

{What?}

{You know how this looks.}

Behind his own battle mask, Jazz ground his denta together. His lifeblood was on fire. If there was one thing that pissed him off more than sloppy work it was the implication of what he had just witnessed. There was nothing else Jazz would have liked to do more in that instant than shout and curse the word that Sea Spray was suggesting, yet the very fact that someone else was implying what was already on his processor helped to balance out the blind rage building inside and bring reason and logic to his processor. In this very serious moment, Sea Spray's subtle implication was so much like Prowl that it nipped Jazz in the aft and kept him from doing something he might later regret. That was something he liked about Prowl, the mech was a counterbalance to Jazz's emotions that helped him to focus through critical matters such as this. Slowly the rage drained from him til it was no longer critical, but still dangerous levels. Few Autobots functioning would not have gone off on a blinding fit at the sight he had just seen.

{Don't say it.}

As with any form of messaging, there was so much of the emotion that was loss in the transmission. Emotions that were ultimately left up to the recipient to fill in the emphatic void. None of that was missing from the message Jazz sent zipping along their wireless communique. The underlying threat, the crack of the growl of his adopted commander's tone was realized by all the extraction team that received and read the message.

Grizzled old Sea Spray blatantly ignored the warning.

{If Cliffjumper were here...}

The glow of Jazz's visor narrowed to a dangerous white hot band across his blue visor. {I. Said. Don't.}

{Phage isn't a traitor!}

{Damn it, Spike!} snarled Jazz back over their comm-lines, twisting around and jabbing a finger roughly into the exosuit's chassis right where Spike was safely nestled away. The movement was so forceful bubbles exploded into existence with the swiping motions. {I just said not to throw around that word!}

Jazz had not been aware that the Aerialbots and Jetfire had swam up to their location until Silverbolt asked innocently enough over their standard encrypted comm-lines, {Are we using comm-lines again?}

Jazz whirled around on the unsuspecting Aerialbot leader so quickly more bubbles erupted from the action. His visor flared from blue to white hot as he managed to somehow express his anger through text. {NO.}

Even though every Aerialbot was twice Jazz's size, Silverbolt still shrunk under the force of Jazz's presence and with him the Aerialbots did likewise. Jetfire, larger than everyone present, took everything in stride. Unusually quiet and graceful for one of his size, the scientist carefully peeked into the chamber beyond the glass and quickly ducked back down.

Sea Spray hung on to the thin ledge with a finger, buoying the rest of his weight easily against the wall with one foot pede. Despite his battle mask, there was an aggravating quality to him that rubbed Jazz the wrong way at that very moment. {Didn't say she was.} intoned the old M.T.O.'s grizzled voice over the comm-lines and that just set Jazz on edge all the more.

Did no one listen to orders? Did not a one of them realize that if Soundwave was nearby it would be more difficult for him to crack the messaging than the comm-lines?

Sea Spray began ticking off the offenses on his free hand. {Just saying this looks bad. Drinking and casual chatter with Megatron after a major battle that led to Optimus's termination.}

{Message!} Interjected Jazz furiously.

{Speaking of, how is it that Megatron got the upper hand on ol' Prime anyway? Wait, the lil' Andromeda is also Ratchet's assistant.}

{Message, Sea Spray!}

{I believe that means she aids in repairs, including Prime's own...} he let the implication sink in to everyone's processors as he continued with his final fourth tick. {And she's suppose to have the Matrix? None of this look good.}

{Watch it, Sea Spray!} Growled Spike over the comm-lines. {Phage isn't a traitor!}

{MESSAGE! EVERYONE! THAT'S AN ORDER!}

{Andromeda was never very loyal even when she was human.} Not skipping a single spark pulse, Sea Spray continued to challenge even as he made the switch, glancing from Spike to Jazz. {She left when she was human. What about now? Who do we have in there? Andromeda or Calypso?}

{When you put it like that Sea Spray,} cut in Slingshot unexpectedly, {it really puts in to perspective her abduction months back.}

Sea Spray's head swung in Slingshot's direction. {Come again?}

Silverbolt and the other Aerialbot's attention swung in the direction of their compatriot. {Stay out of this, Slingshot!} Warned the Aerialbot leader.

The generally disagreeable and usually argumentative Aerialbot jabbed his finger over his shoulder strut in a simple gesticulation. {Megatron had the Seekers swipe her from the Ark after her outlier ability blossomed. We Aerialbots are the ones that found her washed down river three hours after the 'Cons took her.}

Sea Spray turned his attention back to Jazz, his displeasure evident. {Slagging Pitt, Jazz. Have we a rescue operation here or an arrest for treason?}

{You have it all wrong, 'bots! Phage would never join the Decepticons!} Even as Bumblebee interjected, optimistic as ever, the little Autobot scout kept one optic on scene in the bar and one on the extraction team. {You're reading into lines that just aren't there!}

{Are we?} Slingshot challenged. {I think Sea Spray has laid out events quite clearly.}

Jazz had half a mind to have Sea Spray and Slingshot locked up in the bridge for insubordination once they got back to the Ark.

{Slingshot- I think you've forgotten that you and the Aerialbots strayed not long after your activation while you were trying to figure out the factions. That said, keep your thoughts to yourself. Sea Spray, that goes double for you. You should know better.}

{I was only saying what you were thinking.}

Behind the battle mask, Jazz fumed. {I don't condemn and execute innocent Autobots on conjecture. Phage is innocent until proven guilty. That's what Optimus would insist upon.}

Even as he sent the message, Jazz sat on an uncomfortable fence line. He liked the femme when she was human and enjoyed her company just as much when Optimus had brought her back to the Ark as a Cybertronian. Pitt, he would go so far as to say he would consider her the sister that he never had. Additionally, little known fact, he had been trying to nudge a very stubborn Optimus Prime and equally opinionated femme together for years. The chemistry between the two had been apparent early on. He had thought when she came back to them as Cybertronian... Well, two Earth years of patiently plotting attested to the difficulty of his personal self-appointed task.

It made the current situation very uncomfortable indeed.

On one side, defending her innocence was something that Optimus would do. The Prime had insisted as much years back when Cliffjumper had tried to accuse Mirage of being a double agent and that road led nowhere. Before that, Prime had held the same sentiment any time something of such sensitive topic emerged on Cybertron. Presently, Jazz really wanted to believe that Lil' Katt was the victim of a series of unfortunate events. As events stood, her outlier ability became known, likely the Decepticons discovered it via way of Soundwave's spy team. Megatron orchestrates her kidnapping months later because the nut-case had a fetish for assassins. According to Phage in her debriefing, she was allowed to leave after a talking and a haphazard attempt by Soundwave later to bring her under their heel. Then, Optimus goes over-protective mode, restricts her activity to base under the guise of mountains of training, and...she still finds the free time like any young hot head to test her phasing abilities. Fast forward to the present, and like a Witwicky, she plays hero and gets herself lodged between a rough spot and a mountain.

On the other hand, Jazz hated traitors with a passion as much as the next Autobot. He hated to admit it but the chronological series of events did not look good in the least. Her phasing outlier ability bloomed her first year in her Cybertronian form. Months later, the Seekers kidnap her right out from under their olfactories. Three hours later the Aerialbots recover the unconscious femme on the arid flats skirting the desert dunes on the opposite side of Mt. St. Hiltary's rain shadow. Ratchet checked Lil' Katt off as fine at base, and though she had given a debriefing to Optimus Prime, Prowl, and himself, there was so much that could have happened in those three hours that she could have left out if she had willingly flipped in that time period. If he were to speculate further on Sea Spray's proposal, the results just left Jazz more and more angry and bitter. The conjecture that Lil' Katt had trained under Ratchet for the sole purpose of sabotaging Optimus Prime and stealing the Matrix out from under them to give to Megatron combined with the recent discovery of her moonlit phasing... The series of events could lead one to speculate that Phage had flipped a year back and had been steadily working up to some ulterior goal, maybe to assassinate them all with her phasing. Or it could have been to just do in Prime. It could have been that the battle earlier that day had been patiently planned out for the last year by Megatron and the Decepticons-

-It could be that Lil' Katt was a traitor. Could be she was innocent and had just misstep with the moonlit phasing like any young hothead. And like any young visionary, thought she could actually save Optimus Prime herself on the battlefield.

Jazz took a moment to collect his thoughts and calm his nerve-circuits. Lil' Katt was his friend. Alicean Witwicky had always been an Autobot ally. Every Autobot was permitted to leave. Even allies. And they were always welcomed back with open arms. Alicean had left. And she had come back. In five million years, Jazz and known plenty of 'bots that had done the same. What Phage needed now was rescuing. Conjecture could be sorted out later. What he had just seen, the bar, Lil' Katt sitting alone with Megatron chatting it up like old friends... that, that would be sorted out later. At the Ark. With logical thinking Prowl at his side and Optimus Prime restored to pass his final judgment...

{Jazz! Jazz! We have to get in there now!}

Jazz's finely frayed patience snapped. {MESSAGE, 'BEE!}

The yellow Minibot whirled on Jazz, every jerky movement signaled his agitation as he pointed frantically into the bar. He was so wrapped up in near panic he ignored Jazz's order. {Phage just sliced Megatron's throat!}

Behind his visor, Jazz's optics threatened to exceed their limitations. {She what?!}

{What are we going to do Jazz? Megatron's going to terminate her!}

{I guess we have Andromeda in there after all.}

Slingshot crossed his arms over his chassis. {Or a disagreement.}

The Aerialbots whirled on their brother threatening violence.

{Everyone calm down and listen to me!} Jazz rushed to send and cease command before everything fell apart around him. {We go with Plan B!}

---

Something heavy smacked against her olfactory. Phage stilled, optics flying open. She pulled the goblet away from her lips and stared into its depths.

A Decepticon badge stared back.

"What-?" her head shot up, synthoplasmic cheeks a vibrant blue, blinking hard as she swayed marginally on the stool. "What is this?"

"Your badge." Megatron said simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

The femme stared at the Decepticon Commander long and hard. In slow, dawning horror, Phage's optics enlarged to their fullest as Megatron's smirk transmorphed into the cyber waste-wolf smile that split his face audio to audio.

Optimus and Phage realized a few things all at once. First, the only thing Megatron had wanted them to do since entering the bar was to drink with him. Period. It was the only thing he had asked repeatedly.

Second, Phage, like Optimus, was a historian by nature. The only reason in history that someone of questionable reputation put anything in the bottom of a glass was boarding masters, crimps, and pirates to shanghai unlucky souls into service.

Thirdly, Optimus confirmed her very real fear by informing her that a very similar practice went on during the War around the Neutral Territories- only they did not call it shanghaiing, they called it Altihexed. Optimus would frequently receive reports of Autobots going missing in and around the city-state of Altihex and the Neutral Territories from bars where gangs of Decepticons were seen in the area. The reports were always the same. There would be causal chatter that disguised the subtle deceit or intimidation tactics employed, drinks, and a Decepticon badge at the bottom of the glass. What followed was worse. Engexed and drugged to comply to any command, the Autobot or Neutral would disappear, sometimes forever. Intel confirmed that the Autobots that disappeared that way often were forced body modified to the point to be unrecognizable and Branded.

The goblet dropped from her numb hand and clattered on the bar top. The Decepticon badge tumbled out and glared back at her.

"No- No!" Phage denounced, her voice going shrill and loud in rising panic. "I didn't agree to anything! I didn't-"

"But you did." Megatron said smoothly, "I asked you to join me and you drank to it. That is a verbal binding contract." His cruel smile twitched on his mouth as hers grew lean in horror. "Your neutrality has not mattered for the last breem."

Phage's lips mouthed his words but no sound came out. Patiently Megatron waited for her sloshed processor to catch up to the word play.

"Why? Why!" the rush of rising rage that bolstered her voice was a familiar sentiment to Megatron. "What's the fragging point of that! So you can order me to give you the Matrix?! Do you really think-"

"The neutrality laws back on Cybertron were sensitive matters Phage, but now that you have forsaken your neutrality and joined the Decepticons-" She made to interject but he spoke right over her. "I'll have no qualms in dealing with your insubordination. Punishment is kinder than what I would do with Autobots and their sympathizers."

The implication hung between them.

Phage exploded on the spot and started screaming at him. "It doesn't work that way! You can't-!"

"I can." Megatron matched fire for fire, anger for anger, flashing denta for his own snarling growl. "With Prime terminated and you down here, my word is the only law that matters! Now why do you not take a long hard moment to reconsider what it is that I, your lord, am asking of you."

The bright vibrant glow of a laser scalpel cut through the air in an arc towards Megatron's exposed neck cables.

The next few seconds occurred in a blur. Phage processed the sweet satisfaction and exhilarating adrenaline burst as the laser scalpel cut into Megatron's exposed neck cables. Colors imprinted on her memory. Vibrant energon blue of lifeblood splattering across the bar. The same color stood stark against Megatron's gray color scheme. Crimson son red, the shade of Decepticon optics, as Megatron's burst in a dangerous, murderous flash. All the colors of the engex display as they ran together like turpentine introduced to a oil painting. Pain blossoming as she violently became acquainted with the cool surface of the bar top as her right arm was twisted and bent mercilessly behind her back.

"Glitch!" Megatron roared. His optics had not lost the scorching glow as he seized her right hand, applying crushing pressure until she dropped the laser scalpel. The medical tool hit the bar top and fizzled off-line.

---

Outside the bar, Rumble and Frenzy shared a glance between them at the commotion and yelling coming from within. For his credit, Soundwave did not flinch a muscle cable.

Frenzy held out his hand, open-palmed to his brother and twiddled his fingers. "I want my shanix back."

Disgruntled, Rumble's optics darted behind his visor between his brother and the door. Even as he fished out the glowing energon chips from his subspace and handed them off to his brother, the red Minicon was saying, "We should go in there."

"Why?" Frenzy barked out a laugh as he snatched his shanix back that he had lost just earlier that day. "What are you afraid she's going to do? Break a glass over his head?"

"It's what Megatron will do to her." Rumble said slowly, his words tapering off towards the end.

"Oh Pitt. You are going soft. Can you believe him Soundwave?" Between his teasing, Frenzy jabbed his thumb in Rumble's direction and glanced up at Soundwave before looking back to his brother with an indecent grin. "One sleek-curved femme bats an optic at you-"

Rumble's denta ground together as he flashed a toothy glare at his brother. "You know how the Boss gets carried away when he scents opposition, brother."

Frenzy's words caught in his throat.

"We already had to help her out with the Stunticons." Rumble pressed.

"If he's that mad about spilt engex," Frenzy quipped and flinched when they heard a crash come from the bar again, "then he can beat her to within an inch of her life for all I care. She fragged up Megatron's final stroke at the battle. Humiliated him in front of the whole damn Autobot force. I'm not stepping in the middle of that." Frenzy concluded, shifting uneasily and averted looking at the door. Boorishly, Frenzy added, "Maybe she likes the gladiatorial treatment anyway, Rumble. You think of that? The Twins of Terror are always with her."

"After we snatched her up the first time." Rumble muttered before he whirled to Soundwave. "Come on, 'Wavy ol' pal. Some piece of mind?"

Soundwave finally shifted. His visor warmed and dimmed. "She had a laser scalpel in her subspace pocket."

Between his jaw that dropped open to the bright glow of his visor, Rumble became the picturesque portrayal of horrified silence. Frenzy stiffened, visor flashing as his optics brightened.

"Well," the purple berserker minicon concluded, "I think she really is trying to via with Starscream for the top of everyone's slag list."

---

"Really?" Megatron's voice wavered over her, battling between the rush of adrenaline shooting through his systems and the wild laugh that wanted to gurgle up from his vocal modulator at the foolhardy gall of the femme. "A laser scalpel! You've learned more than medical practice from the doctor."

Through the elbow he dug between her shoulder blades and the other hand that kept her arm twisted and bent at a painful angle, Phage felt the pressure of Megatron's weight shift above her and was not at all surprised when she heard his rough gravelly voice whisper above her audio receptor. "You will make a wonderful Decepticon."

"Fuck you, you slagging spawn of a Pitt-bred shit glitch!"

That was colorfully creative. He'd certainly never been called that before.

Riding high on his brush with death, Megatron's lip components kept threatening to twitch upwards into a grin. "Spit firing she-devil." He had not meant for the comment to roll off his glossa like an enduring pet name, but it had and he did not realize how much he had meant it until the words were out. As sloshed as Phage was, she seemed to have noticed his tone too as a look of terror settled in her optics that did little to help her situation than get a rise out of the savage gladiator in him.

Phage tried to jerk out from under him but he reminded her non-too gently how futile the effort was by applying more pressure to her arm. Her helplessness played to a certain feral part in him as she grunted and squirmed beneath him. Her breath hitched as he nosed along her exposed neck, scenting her fear and savoring the terror building in her optics. He had to resist the building urge to bite down.

"Let's drop all pretenses shall we?" Megatron rasped between flashing denta against her sythnoplasmic skin and savored the shiver of dread that rippled through her. "You're theatrics to imitate phase rot or any of its symptoms are lackluster. Do not insult my intelligence further by pretending otherwise. I will tell you what you do have though-"

Her body tensed up under him while her optics grew wide and round, a kind of desperate dread lighting them.

"-you have a secondary outlier power." He announced suddenly. "Regeneration."

Megatron took perverse amusement as she tried to collect her engexed thoughts and understand the significance of what he had just said. Keeping her pinned with her arm twisted between them and his weight on top of that, he snatched up the laser scalpel with his free hand. Phage jerked and let rent a curt scream as the medical tool flickered to life at full capacity. The scream quickly became long and piercing as he turned it on herself. Brutally, the blade stabbed down into her shoulder and from there Megatron sliced down her right arm in a horrendous macrabre mess, barely mindful not to damage the null restraints in the process. Phage jerked and spasmed and let rent audio-piercing screams. Energon splattered across the both of them and gushed to quickly pool across the bar top. He let his strength and the beast within him get the best of himself, realizing only after that he had cut too deep. Enough to reveal the endoskeleton beneath. Frantic words got caught up in her shrill screams. Megatron picked out pieces, words like native Cybertronian 'alto!' commanding him to stop, she was begging somewhere between, and it was only after the first deep slice that he picked out more words like 'insane,' 'main fuel line,' and 'die.'

The finality of Megatron's brutality was only signaled when he forced her right hand palm up and drove the laser scalpel clean through it, pinning her arm to the bar. Even as he leaned back satisfied with his handiwork, the femme's panic did not quail.

"Cease your screaming." In the absence of his weight, Phage scrambled to yank the laser scalpel from her palm. Megatron seized her left wrist before she made so much progress. A sudden, impulsive urge flared in his chassis and Megatron acted on it, going further than to just seize her wrist. The Decepticon Commander slammed her undamaged arm back against the bar then grabbed her waterlogged synthetic braid and deftly twisted it around his hand and pulled mercilessly before slamming her head back down. The babbling screams ceased.

"There. Much better." There was an undercurrent of audible pleasure in his low raspy whisper. "Now look." Forcing Phage to do just that, dazed, engexed and in shock as she was was a far too simple a matter to turn her head around with a tug of her braid. "Do you see- already your self repair systems are working to mend the damage." He studied her reaction, a perverse pleasure seizing him as he breathed in her dawning terror. He inclined his head enough so he could shift loose strains of her fine hair off her audio receptor with his olfactory. Phage trembled beneath him and whimpered as he exhaled through his olfactory harsh enough to stir her hair.

"Incredible, isn't it?" his lips brushed the rim of her audio receptor and felt her jerk beneath him. His lips pulled back to expose his canines as he reaffirmed his grip on her arm. "Like watching sentio metallico at work. Do you notice how the blue light between your seams turns green? Your optics do the same." Megatron tugged on her braid to give enough incentive to look at him. "As far as tells for outlier powers go, yours is quite subtle. Your cheek was split open on the battle field and I watched as the injury repaired itself carrying you here. Deducing you could regenerate was a simple matter from there. But the strength of your regenerative power was further cemented when you partial phased and then entered a full jump at the forest and again when you arrived here unharmed." Comprehension lit her optics only now understanding why he had wanted her washed up before their talk. "Any other phaser would have shown early stages of phase rot, but you were untouched. Two outlier abilities is unheard of on Cybertron, but the Lazalt built you with perfection in mind. How they handpicked your outlier abilities I've yet to understand, but believe me when I say I intend to find out."

"You had no idea." Megatron said after a small length of time, immediately followed by a dry laugh. "I'm not surprised. Optimus's attempt to keep you out of harm's way would have kept your secondary passive ability unknown for a long time."

Fear had gradually swallowed her face as it had earlier that day when he caught her crouched over Optimus Prime's mangled corpse. Her voice was thin and frail. "You never had the intention of returning me to the Autobots under any pretense."

"No." came his hard spartan response.

Her bottom lip quivered once then steeled itself. "What are you going to do with me?" she inquired, voice cracking as the last of the injury sealed without a trace of a mess wound. Reading the cold horrifying implications of her passive ability settle across her face was a sweet delight to Megatron. It was always a savory treat when his adversaries soaked in that vital moment when they realized their fault.

The grin that spread across Megatron's synthoplasmic face was feral. "What couldn't I."

---

Then, suddenly, Megatron simply...let her go.

Phage did the only sane thing she could muster the willpower to do. She immediately seized the opportunity to deactivate the laser scalpel and free her hand. Then scrambled out of the bar stool in a desperate bid to put as much distance between herself and Megatron as physically possible when suddenly, her vision swam. The lights of the engex display swirled and tilted crazily. A brief instant realization fluttered through her processor that she had not had any proper energon since the night before.

Phage careened as the engex went straight to her head.

Gently probing the damage to his neck, Megatron leaned forward to casually observe as Phage hit the floor with a resounding clang. The femme groaned before she drunkenly, hastily tried to pick herself back up. She stumbled, crashed into a nearby table and dropped onto the same table and chairs in an engexed heap. The laser scalpel had fallen from her grasp in the chaos and sat discharged on the floor out of her reach. Megatron was also quite sure she had no idea in which direction it would have went. In that time frame his system self repairs reported back that the damage to his neck cables was superficial.

"Lightweight." murmured Megatron darkly.

Abruptly, the Decepticon Commander downed the rest of his goblet before leaping easily over the bar, snatching up the Decepticon badge in a single, fluid motion as he went. Landing lightly on the other side for a mech of his large size and weight, Megatron stalked purposefully up to the teal and white femme, casting her in his shadow. Her face contorted into long, drawn dread at his coming and tried to make a hasty scramble out of her entanglement to put distance back between them. Phage only succeeded in slipping off the chairs and hitting the floor.

Just as her nerves had been shot on the battlefield listening to Megatron's gradual approach behind her, Phage found herself reliving the very same moment as she struggled for her bearings, straining to listen to the hefty approach of Megatron's fateful footfall. Nerve-circuits frayed and fuel pump hammering wildly away against her breastplating, Phage somehow managed the coordination to make it on to her hands and knees and made to make a mad leap out from under the table.

Megatron's massive black hand caught her teal ankle. With one strong armed yank he dragged her back as an undignified screech flew from her mouth. In the confusion, Phage twisted around or Megatron forced her to with the harsh direction he pulled her leg. No matter the event, she ended up sliding underneath the warlord as he knelt in a crouch above her balancing on the balls of his heels. The horrid red of his optics lit his scornful frown with sinister intent and the harsh planes of his sythnoplasmic face in terrible lighting.

"I have tried to be reasonable with you." came the low, menacing chill of his voice.

Her desperate, scrambling hands found purchase around something solid. Fueled by adrenaline and primal drives, Phage let rent a fierce roar as she bashed a chair across Megatron's head.

"Really!" Megatron roared into her face, optics bursting with fierce crimson light. He seized the chair with his free hand, tore it easily from her grasp and threw it across the bar. In the second that it took him to do just that, Phage seized the moment.

She punched him. A hard right hook as best as she could muster prone.

And. It. Hurt.

The femme tried to follow it up with a jab to his midsection and came away with a sharp pained cry of her own.

Optics burning with a continuous fiery glow and mouth set to a permanent snarl, Megatron lost the last of his patience.

Tearing the femme off the ground between his two powerful hands the Decepticon warlord burst upwards onto his feet and then slammed her down on the table. Phage's legs trailed off the edge and Megatron stood at the junction between. Half bent over her, all her vision could encompass was the very same murderous visage she had glanced at the battlefield earlier that day.

Phage quailed beneath the ferocity. Optimus commanded action. Phage tried to join with his older, fortified conscious to push Megatron off with her foot. In retaliation, Megatron lifted her off the table and slammed her back down. The world spun.

"I offered you the path of least resistance!" Megatron was snarling just above her. "Remember that when you are strung up in Starscream's labs getting picked apart!"

"Megatron!" strained Optimus through Phage's vocal processor. "Wait!"

A constrained laugh barked from Megatron's vocal processor. The warlord growled with equally strained wit. "Now you want to talk. You are like everyone else. If violence is the only way to get you to see reason than so be it." Phage could feel the heat of his body against hers and the rapid thrumming of his spark pulsing in its chamber and the wild hammering of his fuel pump in his chassis. "You had the opportunity to do this with minimal pain."

Phage's consciousness floundered in near panic, desperate and ready to lash out at the slightest gambit to protect itself. Optimus's ancient consciousness strained to find a sure road that would, if not save them both, then at least spare Phage trauma and pain.

The small, delicate fingers of Phage's feminine body pried and pushed against Megatron's midsection. It was the only space they could awkwardly push against as Megatron's large black hands held her arms pinned to her side.

Optimus could think of only one clear path. He started talking and fast in Cybertronian. "Alto, Megatron! Eti hos et-"

In an instant, Phage did the only thing she could think to do to stop Optimus from announcing himself. Before Optimus could stop her, Phage bashed her head against the bridge of Megatron's olfactory.

The Decepticon Commander reared back with a roar, vibrant energon lifeblood streaming from his olfactory. Megatron swiped at the dripping liquid with two fingers and held Phage down by her throat with the other.

"Burn in fucking hell!" Phage screamed like a banshee.

::PHAGE!::

"SPITFIRING GLITCH!"

"Don't retaliate!" the femme shouted with such fierce resolve that it left Megatron reeling from the one-hundred-eighty-degree turn. The sheer insanity of her command was not lost on him. If he was not so enraged he might have found the request comedic. As if she could strike at him and declare no tag backs! The sheer nerve of young, impulsive-

{Lord Megatron, this is Skywarp.}

The timely transmission came as a hard reset that left Phage reeling at the machinations of fate and Optimus wanting to give praise to Primus.

Forcefully, Megatron inhaled air nosily through his vents and rushed it out with equal strain. The ancient mech stood teetering between his own personal demon of Mr. Hyde and a struggling Dr. Jekyll.

Time stood straining on tentative hands.

{Megatron?}

The last of Megatron's rabid rage left him in a final vicious snarl before he jabbed at his chassis to activate his comm-line. "What is it, Skywarp?"

The Seeker did not immediately respond. Phage imagined he was probably taken aback by the vehemence directed at him over the comm-lines. {Autobots spotted.}

"Acknowledged." came Megatron's hard spartan response. "Proceed."

And like that the silver, red-and-black-trimmed mech abruptly cut transmission.

"Proceed with what, Megatron?"

The Decepticon Commander ignored her demand. Instead, once again, Megatron seized her forearm with a constrictor's grip. He hauled her to her feet and fairly nearly dragged her stumbling and tripping over her own two feet to the wall-length window. The warlord was saying as he went, words clipped and edged with a growl, "How about I tell you another little war story, maybe you will appreciate this one better than the others."

He slammed her face first against the glass. Before she could rebound off the whole of his hand latched around her head and squashed the side of her synthoplasmic face to the window. Phage gritted her denta and groaned.

What in the gods name is with this day and fucking mechs grabbing my goddamn head!

::You should not have stopped me!::

::Fuck you too, Prime!:: Came Phage's swift, hot and angry open thought to Optimus Prime. ::I did not do everything I have done today just for you to throw it all in my goddamn fragging face!::

::You have no idea what he will do to you! What you did-::

::NO!:: came the deafening roar across the joined halves of their consciousnesses.

"On our final days on Cybertron," seethed Megatron's rough worn vocal processor near her audio receptor once again, effectively and wholly unwittingly stalling the heated argument that was ready to break out between the two of them, "Starscream led the final aerial assault against Iacon where Optimus Prime and the remaining Autobot forces had gathered. Intel we had gathered from a very reliable source informed us that the Ark was nearing completion for launch." Like Motormaster just shy of two hours before him, Megatron applied an uncomfortable pressure on her cranium that left Phage with no illusions that Megatron would have liked little more than to crush her cranium in his grasp. All Phage could do was grit her denta and bare the brunt of the pain.

"Our source betrayed me and ran to the Autobots." His rage was so violate, so close to the surface, that the Decepticon Commander spat the words out. Solvent splattered across the window beside her. "Knowing we were coming, Optimus Prime had the ingenious notion to retool the Sky Spies with their chameleon cloaks and rig them with explosives. He then ordered the skies around Iacon to be littered with them. Of the remaining hundreds of Seekers still active at that time, do you know how many survived, my knowledgeable Spitfire?"

::If he calls me that one more time-:: Phage fumed internally.

::Where is he going with this?::

Phage's avatar glowered up at Prime, a selfish half of her enraged that he was ignoring her.

The moment's breath given to them ended as Megatron intoned gravely; "Six."

Their joined attention riveted back to the volatile mech behind them.

"Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp and three Rain Maker class Seekers you will never meet. Starscream survived only due to his exceptional speed and maneuverability. Thundercracker lived by unleashing a massive sonic blast that redirected the explosive damage away from him. After today's events, I am certain you can figure out how Skywarp survived.

"The Final Battle of Iacon is amply named Solrora Storm, Last Flight of the Seekers. If you dare to breathe a mention of Solrora to any of the Last Trine, and they don't shoot you, you would learn that the skies above Iacon churned an angry and violent yet beautiful storm. Created no less from the radiation bursts of those hundreds of Seekers all extinguishing simultaneously. The resulting mass deaths supercharged the atmosphere to create the massive ion storm that followed. Debris from the Sky Spies and my hundreds of Decepticon Seekers rained down across Iacon. The only grace of fate is that the vast majority were terminated nearly instantly before any one of them realized the Autobot deceit. That storm raged still over Iacon when the Ark launched."

The inside of Phage's mouth had gone dry. She did not have to imagine Solrora Storm, Megatron's reiteration of it dredged up Optimus Prime's own memories of it. As Megatron wove his story, Phage bore witness to the very outcome of the battle itself, not that it could even be called that. It was a massacre. She lived through Prime's committed determination and certainty as he gave the order to retool the Spy Spies. Desperation drove decision. The Autobots could not fail. Energon and resources were at a critical low. Every available resource had been pooled into the Ark. They had to board and it had to launch. Cybertron was fast approaching a young star system with fresh resources to fuel their faction... but the storm ultimately served to distort their radars. Not a single Autobot knew about the long distance aerial bombardment Megatron had launched at the Ark's launch pad in retaliation days later. Elita-One, Firestar, Moonracer, Chromia, Lancer, Greenlight- last of the Autobot femmes- were caught in the open and were destroyed before Prime's very optics. The rest of the Autobots that were meant to board were forced to stay behind.

The Ark had to launch. They had to get off of Cybertron or every Autobot would be terminated.

"Now," Megatron announced and the ease of his tone suggested a measure of his temper had drained in the telling of the story, "you might be wondering what this has to do with you right now. So permit me to explain. I have taken a page from Optimus Prime's playbook and littered the surrounding sea base with camouflaged mines in preparation for the Autobot extraction team that-as Skywarp has just informed me, has only just arrived."

The inner light from her stellar blue optics reflected off of the glass, doubling the illusion as her optics flew open wide and round to impossible sizes. The magnitude of what he had just told her was apparent. Her dry mouth split open and hung, gaping. Wordless.

"I am feeling unusually generous, Phage. Give me the Matrix and I'll spare the lives of your would be rescuers. The glimmer of Laserbeak's intel was but a snippet of the full scope. I know exactly who is coming and I am more than willing to cut with the Autobot loss. Are you?"

The cold, cruel strategist in him reveled in her misery as he observed the fire in her optics douse under the icy waters of reality. Several emotions flittered across her face shifting from drunken anger, to revelation, to cold hard acceptance.

She quietly closed her mouth and tried to swallow. When her pale lips parted again, her voice tumbled out loud enough for only Megatron to hear. "Spare them. Please."

"Give me the Matrix, Phage."

Her lips parted and hung open. The moment drew out. Megatron reaffirmed her face against the glass. "Do you see out there? The Autobots are drawing in. Spike is with them. If you are banking that everything will turn out all right in the end, that somehow you will be rescued and the Matrix will revive everyone, just remember one thing- the Matrix does not revive organics."

"Megatron," for a drunk she was the most literate one he had ever met, pausing to take time to gather her thoughts before she spoke. "mercy, please. I don't-"

"Matrix, Phage. The choice is not difficult. Nine lives in exchange for one bauble, as you so put it. My generosity or patience will not hold."

Her voice cracked. "Please! I can't give you what I never had!"

She felt the warlord's massive weight shift behind her, lifting turning, then the pressure on her cranium pulled back and she went with it. Phage tensed for the inevitable slam against the wall and was shocked when it never came. Instead Megatron's fingers left off her cranium one by one, trailed down the curve of her neck and found purchase on her shoulder strut.

A soothing action Optimus did with everyone Megatron took and perverted with little effort. The weight of his hand was all wrong. The reassuring squeeze instead brought on trepidation.

And then Megatron spun her around and shoved her against the glass. The same black hand coiled around her throat, forcing her chin up. As her slender white fingers latched around his hand and pried futilely for release, their optics locked.

They stood fixed to their stances like glorified statues carved by master hands from Earth's Hellenistic Period.

The tension weighed on Phage and Optimus's consciousnesses as Megatron stared down at her and through her with a perception and calculating clarity that was millions of years old. Fine fissure lines fractured Phage's resolve. Her bottom lip quivered. In response, Megatron tilted her cranium this way and that with the slightest twinge of his grasp.

All Phage could think, when she could think at all, was that Megatron must have known. That he could see through her deceit and perceive Optimus just beneath.

At long last, Megatron's characteristic frown cracked and parted. His optical ridges gently sloped together in the midst of his forehead. "You really do not have the Matrix."

For the first time, Phage could not speak the words she had been reiterating all day.

"You lied to me at the battle. Your tell was palpable." Megatron's optics narrowed, his confusion deepening. "What deceit are you hiding?"

He was speaking more to himself than to her. Between Optimus and herself, they had enough wits about them to know that much.

Megatron's optics jumped between her own, searching for the answer to the puzzle that left him grasping. When the silence stretched on for more than he was comfortable with the Decepticon Commander abruptly announced, "So be it." His upper chassis twisted, pivoting on his spinal axis until he was counter poised away from her and suddenly shouted, summoning with utmost authority, "SOUNDWAVE!"

Megatron felt the femme wilt in his very grasp. Heard her feet as they dragged along the floor. Sensed her as she tried to press herself further against the glass, likely wishing above all else that she could just phase away.

A moment later the door wooshed open to permit the Decepticon in question. Soundwave's large, solid frame filled the entrance, darkening it with his very presence. A flash of color behind the Communication Officer's legs gave away Rumble and Frenzy's location.

"Yes, Lord Megatron." rang the all too distinct flanged vocal processor of Soundwave.

"The Bearer is being difficult." Megatron ripped her off the wall and threw her in Soundwave's direction. As heavily engexed as she was, Phage stumbled, hit the corner of a table and took a dive to the floor. Once the clamorous racket died down, Megatron continued, "Take Phage below and mine her for the Matrix's location. I know she has done something with it. And Soundwave."

The Communication Officer's attention lifted from Phage and back to Megatron.

"Our newest recruit needs conditioning."

Soundwave's visor glowed and dimmed in intensity. "Acknowledged."

Phage did not get back up off the floor.

When Megatron had thrown her, Phage had not gone very far. Closer in proximity to the Decepticon Commander than Soundwave himself, Megatron stalked over to the femme, snarling as he went, and knelt down to drag her back to her feet.

The first kick came unexpectedly and found its mark. A curt mangled shout erupted from Megatron's vocal processor as her foot connected with his cod piece. As he dropped to his knee and Soundwave broke his rigid stance, Phage sprang to life, twisting and rolling up off the floor. Face contorted into a noiseless snarl, optics burning a fierce green that bled to standard energon blue on the rims, Phage viciously jabbed for his throat. Adrenaline burst through Megatron's systems at the first strike. Riding on the cusp of his prior rage, Megatron easily knocked the jab aside but missed the set up power punch that caught him on his sliced, leaking neck cables.

Soundwave's distinct flanged vocals shot off through the air where Megatron's own vocal processor was choked out. "Megatron!"

Burning adrenaline pumping through her systems, Phage twisted around and kicked off the floor and ran at Soundwave. The mech in question was rooted to his position, even with his full battle mask his surprise was evident in his spread stance. Soundwave had not been expecting the duplicity or the ball bearings she had had to strike at Megatron a second time.

If it was not for Soundwave's indecision on whether to help Megatron first or stop the femme, it was then left to his panic that she wasn't thinking at all. She was just acting. Impulsively. There was no solid plan firing off in her processor. Just pure drive. And just behind that, Soundwave Sensed strong towering walls that had never been there before that resisted and repelled any quick attempts on his part to pierce.

His indecision left him a fool.

Phage slide and dived for his legs, taking him at his knees and wrapping both arms around. In one single fluid motion, she pushed upwards behind him and sent Soundwave, twice her size and more than that in her weight, barreling over her shoulder struts and colliding with the floor. The show of strength left Rumble and Frenzy gaping up at the femme who proceeded to charge right at the Minicons. Rumble leapt back and flattened himself against the parallel wall to the bar while Frenzy took the full brunt of her on point imitation of Optimus Prime's signature double-handed power punch. The purple beserker crashed into the wall beside Rumble as Phage barreled through and stormed down the hall.

By the time Soundwave had collected his thoughts and glanced behind, all he could hear of the femme was her receding footsteps down the hall. The light of the large dark blue mech's visor narrowed to a dangerous beam at Rumble and Frenzy. Before he could blame them for failing to stop her, he was cut off.

"Fragging Pitt, Soundwave!" Megatron growled and spat as he stood up, his voice more gravelly than normal as he probed delicately at his neck with two fingers. "Why did you not say anything!"

Soundwave was going to say she was an impulsive thinker and he couldn't very well inform Megatron of any attempts at deceit or trickery if she wasn't thinking of it at the time. Soundwave may have also told Megatron about the strange anomaly in her consciousness that he had Sensed but wasn't sure if it was worthy of mention until further investigation. Soundwave would have eventually told Megatron all of these things, if he had not of noticed something of more import.

The Communication Officer's arm jerked off the ground and pointed behind Megatron, his visor flaring brilliantly in hue and in vibrancy. "Megatron! Autobots!"

The Decepticon Commander whirled around and found himself the victim of flabbergastment.

There, just outside the window, was the Autobot Sea Spray.

Megatron had forgotten all about that particular Autobot's very existence. He had rarely been reported on any missions pertaining to land, where the Decepticons performed the majority of their raids for basic energon and supplies. Furthermore, he had not even been mentioned as part of the extraction team that was suppose to have arrived.

The Autobot had the audacity to salute the Decepticon duo as he finished fixing a bomb to the glass. Then, utilizing his turbine fans, Sea Spray blasted off to a safe distance.

Megatron jerked himself out of his shock and into action. He broke out into a dead run for the door. His long powerful legs covered twice the distance with Soundwave making a mad scramble close on his heels. Megatron and Soundwave only just managed to skid into the hall before the glass exploded and the Pacific Ocean rushed in to fill the void with a vengeance.