Transformers Prime: Through Hell & Back Again

by xXBlack'BladeXx

She is his daughter; he loves her with his entire spark. He would do anything to protect her and keep her safe. Now both her fate and that of the universe lies in his hands. He will be tested, and he will not fail. He can't. He will do whatever it takes to bring her back home again safe and sound... even if it means going through Hell and back again.

34. There and Back, and to the End

So, I was hoping to get this up on my birthday, but obviously that didn't happen. The chapter was originally supposed to keep going through Luna and Hunter's full battle, but it kept getting so long, I decided to cut it off somewhere. I'm still writing through the battle, never mind I haven't even edited that part yet! So IDK for sure when the next chapter will be up. I hope fairly soon, but I am still doing my rewrite of 'Kindred Sparks' and I'm up to rewriting a fairly big chapter with that now, and I've started working on my Wolverine and the X-Men fanfic. on the side as well. I hope to have the first "episode" of that up sometime in the near future as well. On top of that, I am working on getting the second book in my children's series published (we are getting close!) and—as I've said in the past—I live on a farm and right now I have bottle babies. LOTS of bottle babies—22 to be exact and no guarantee that I won't get some more in the future. They aren't all quite on the same feeding schedule yet, so that means every few hours I'm making bottles for different groups of them. I will praise the day they can all be fed in one fell swoop throughout the day!

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

---

Alex Abraham, Steve Goldshein, & Jeff Williams; PvP

33

Ibi et Retro, et ad Finem

(There and Back, And to the End)

"Ratchet!" Ally streaked through the ground-bridge and skidded. Unfortunately, being so unpracticed with hyperspeed especially with another hundred or so pounds on her shoulders to help throw her off balance, the teen went tumbling after she skidded instead of coming to a stop, and both she and her passenger ended up in heaps on the floor.

The medic was rushing from the ground-bridge controls towards them, his aqua-blue optics trained on the darker of the two redheads. "Hunter!" he exclaimed.

Straining to push herself up in order to face the oncoming medic, Hunter attempted a smile at him. "Hey, Ratch," she croaked. "How's it goin'? Place looks nice—didja repaint while I was gone?"

Ignoring her attempt at glibness, Ratchet knelt down beside the girl and reached down towards her. With the gentlest touch possible—just using his fingers—he helped her to sit up a bit. His eyes looked her over carefully, coming to a rest on the deep cut encircling her lower left calf. It didn't appear as though it was healing yet, and—the scary thing was—the cut on her right leg didn't seem to be either, and it was far more superficial than the other. When it came to that, the scratch marks on her face weren't healing all that well either at the moment; they were closing up but just at an exceedingly sluggish pace. Breaking out his scanner, the medic ran a quick scan over the teen. "You're energon levels are extremely low," Ratchet remarked, turning his gaze from the scan back to the girl, "but is it possible for you to transform anyway?"

"I-I think so," Hunter panted. "I'll make it happen either way. Gimme some room." She waved the mech away.

Both Ratchet and Ally backed up a good distance away from Hunter, their eyes trained on her.

Hunter lowered herself to lay back down on the floor again; she knew she would end up back in this position anyway, so she may as well have comfortably lain down instead of fall flat on her face after the strain of her transformation. Once she was on her back, the teen closed her eyes and focused. It had been a while since she'd actually had to focus on her transformation and think about assuming her robotic form, but with as low as her energy levels were and as bleary as her mind still was she had no other option.

It seemed to take forever for anything to start happening within her body, but when they finally did Hunter was wracked with extreme pain. The teen cried out in agony as her biology shifted in matter and size. This was almost as bad as her first transformation had been! However, despite the pain, Hunter pushed forward with her transformation, refusing to stop. After what felt like hours but must have only been seconds Hunter was in her Cybertronian form and the pain ceased, leaving her lying there quivering and panting with tears leaking down her cheekplates.

Ratchet's arms were soon under her and lifting her up and the teen wrapped her own around his neck and let her head fall heavily against his bulky shoulder-plating. "I… don't ever… wanna do that… again," she gasped, sounding only half-concious.

"I hope you won't ever have to," Ratchet mumbled as he rushed her towards the med-bay.

Ally followed after them, also transforming to her Cyber-mode. She watched with silent concern as Ratchet laid Hunter on the medical berth and began to bustle around the room. The seventeen-year-old moved to her cousin's side. For a moment she stared down into Hunter's weary face. If it was possible for a silvery metal complexion to look pale, Hunter definitely looked pale. In fact, Hunter's whole body seemed to be—if not pale—a little gray tinged, almost like color was fading out of her chassis.

Ally looked back up at Ratchet who was now busy in the corner of the room. "What's wrong with her?" she asked, her voice shaky. "She looks like she's…" she trailed off, unsure how to describe her cousin's state.

"Half-dead?" Ratchet supplied, not looking away from whatever he was doing. "Her energon levels are nearly depleted."

"Wh-what does that mean?"

"My only frame of reference for it to make sense to you would be when a human loses too much blood."

"But… but Hunter wasn't bleeding that much! I mean, she bled some but not enough to lose that much energon."

"That doesn't necessarily matter for a Cybertronian. Our energon can be depleted in that way, yes, but it can also be depleted through physical strain or extended periods of not refueling—or consuming more energon as it were."

"I still don't get it," Ally admitted meekly.

Ratchet sighed heavily. What possible human related terms could he refer to, to help the girl understand? If only the children were here, they'd be able to help him. "Think of it as… dehydration and starvation," he finally settled. "A very rapid, very severe, very lethal form of dehydration and starvation."

Ally grew very quiet as her stomach plummeted to the floor. She looked away from Ratchet and down to Hunter. 'Lethal'? "Sh-she could die?" she whispered to herself. Then another thought came to her. "But Hunter's the Fuser. She would come back if she died right? It's happened before."

"Yes, she would," Ratchet admitted, "but she would only be in the same situation she is in now: low on energon, exhausted, wounded. She could very easily perish again in that state. And, above all else, I am never allowing Hunter to pass again so long as I have the power. Fuser or not the experience would be horrible, for her and us. Optimus has vowed to never allow Hunter to perish again on his watch and I have made the same vow; I will not see both Optimus and Hunter suffer like that again." At this point Ratchet turned back around and came towards the femmlings. His hands were full; one holding a glass canister that was about half a quarter full of some sort of pale aqua-green liquid that appeared to glowing; the other some sort of contraption that looked to Ally like some sort of giant monkey wrench with extra wide jaws and a needle-like protrusion on the end. As he moved in their direction, the medic stuck the canister into the jaws on the contraption.

"What's that?" Ally asked warily.

"High-grade," Ratchet answered. Then, realizing that this term wouldn't mean anything to Ally, he added, "Energon at its purest. This little bit will be enough to jumpstart Hunter's energy levels enough to give me time to get some energon prepared for her."

"And the thing you're holding it in?"

Ratchet paused and looked at Ally for a moment in bewilderment before looking at the apparatus he was holding. He supposed it would look strange and even somewhat alarming to someone like Ally who was still so new to all of this. "A syringe," he answered after a moment.

"… Really weird looking syringe," Ally remarked.

"Yes, well, I could say the same thing about your earthling syringes," Ratchet countered. Then he got back to work. Taking hold of the unconscious Hybrid's arm, the medic held the appendage out straight so that he had access to the crook of her elbow and slipped the needle of his syringe through the gap in her armor. "You might want to let go of her hand now," he warned Ally. "There's a good chance she could accidentally crush it when she comes 'round." With that, Ratchet inserted it into Hunter's fuel-line and injected the high-grade.

For a few seconds nothing happened, but then Hunter's optics flew open with fully dilated sapphire lenses and her body jolted up off the berth as the femmling harshly gasped. She stayed arched rigidly like that for a moment, gasping and panting and sometimes sounding like she was choking and Ally was glad that she had taken Ratchet's advice, for Hunter's fists were clenched so tightly her joints were squeaking and groaning from the strain. Then finally and rather suddenly Hunter slumped back to the medical berth where she lay venting heavily. "Wow!" the sixteen-year-old huffed breathlessly. "What a rush!" A bit more color began to fade back into her chassis.

Ally couldn't help the gigantic grin that parted her lipplates as relief flooded her body. "You're okay!" she cheered, moving back to hold her cousin's hand. "Thank God!"

"Well, 'okay' is a relative term right now," Ratchet said. "She's safe from slipping away, but we're not out of the woods yet, as the earthlings say."

"You're as comforting as ever, Ratch," Hunter rasped drily.

"And you're as sassy as ever," the medic returned, trying not to smile because, not only was hearing Hunter snip and snark a massive comfort at a time like this, but because he'd missed it as well. He managed to fix the teen with an unamused scowl. "As annoying as that is, I'll take it as a good sign that you're not too far gone. Alchemy, would you stay with her while I prepare the energon?"

"Sure, yeah," Ally answered, watching as Ratchet left the med-bay. She turned back to her cousin again to find the younger girl smiling up at her. The seventeen-year-old couldn't help but blush a bit. "Wh-what?"

"So… this is your Cyber-form, huh?" Hunter remarked. "I'm not usually one for pink, but it sure does look good on you, Cos. You definitely look like how you should."

"Um… thanks," Ally replied uncertainly. Why was Hunter talking to her like they knew each other? How had Hunter known her name before back in Egypt? And why did Hunter keep looking at her like that—in a way that was deep and loving and bonded—in a way that you only looked at close family? "You… uh… you do… too?"

Hunter softly snorted as she smirked. "You don't remember, do you?" she questioned, though she already knew the answer. "You don't remember anything. Not yet."

Ally looked at her in utter confusion. "Remember what?"

"About two years of growing up together—when you, Steel, and I were all under Luna's wing in the cult. Before the coup happened and everything went to slag."

Ally stared in wide-opticed shock. She felt like her spark had stopped beating and her insides had tied themselves up into one giant, tight tangle. "H-How do you know about the coup?" she squeaked hoarsely. Her mouth and throat seemed to have gone bone dry. "What do you mean you, me, and Steel all being there?"

Hunter sighed heavily and let her head fall back as she closed her eyes. "You'll get it when you get your memories back," she rasped, swallowing hard. "Prob'ly be better if we waited for that instead of me trying to explain it." The sixteen-year-old opened her sapphire optics again and looked back at her cousin. Slowly she reached across her body with her free hand and placed it over Ally's hand that was holding hers. "But believe me when I say that I am so happy to see you again, Ally." Hunter's voice was quivering slightly now and there were tears in her optics as she gazed up into her cousin's two-toned eyes. "I've missed you so much."

Tender-sparked as she naturally was, seeing tears in her cousin eyes naturally brought tears to Ally's as well. Her chest and throat tightened and she tried to swallow the lump. "I-I know this is gonna sound, like, really weird because I don't remember anything you're talking about," she stated, wiping at her eyes, "but—if what you say is true—I think I feel like I've missed you too, Hunter." She squeezed Hunter's hand. "And I'm really happy you're okay."

At this point Ratchet came back into the room, carrying a block of energon. He moved across the room, hardly paying the girls any attention, and put the cube into the med-bay's liquefying unit. Only then did he turn back to the girls who were already gazing at him. "It will take several minutes to liquefy this cube," he stated moving towards them, "even so, I wish I could get some energon into you before then." His gaze was now fixed solely on Hunter. "It would help to stabilize your energy levels more."

"You can take some of mine," Ally immediately offered without hesitation.

Ratchet looked to her now. He noted the determination in the teen's eyes. "You're certain, Ally?" he questioned. The medic wanted to be sure that Ally was sure—he'd dealt with more than his fair share of 'bots that got queasy at the sight of life-blood, needles, and specifically needles taking their life-blood. If Ally happened to be squeamish in that way, he didn't exactly want to deal with a fainting Hybrid while he was already dealing with another one low on energon.

Evidently Ally picked up on what Ratchet was worried about because she smiled, looking all the more determined. "I'm fine with needles and blood," she assured the white and amber mech. "I've even helped out at some blood drives the past few years at home."

"But I assume you've never personally had some of your own taken," Ratchet pointed out.

"Well… no," Ally admitted. "It'd be kinda hard to explain energon at a blood drive. But if I can, like, watch a needle be put into someone else's arm and watch a bag fill up with their blood without getting sick, I don't see why I wouldn't be okay with it being mine."

"She'll be good," Hunter offered. "She's a lot tougher than she looks, Ratchet. Trust me."

Ratchet couldn't help but smirk at that. "All right," he conceded. "If you're absolutely sure."

Again Ally nodded in affirmation.

"All right," Ratchet sighed. "Come over here and sit." He motioned to a large crate pushed up against one of the walls then moved back towards the bench where the medical tools were kept. The medic picked up another syringe and cylinder. "I'm going to fill this a little less than half way," he informed the pink armored Hybrid as he came towards her. "You'll want to remain sitting until after you've had some energon to replenish what I'll be taking. I'll start on your energon once Hunter's is finished."

---

Optimus didn't know what he was doing. He had battled several Hybrids before—including sparring with Hunter—but he had never battled a Hybrid Sorceress before. Physically speaking, it was no different than before. However, magically it was something very different because magic was something the Prime didn't know how to anticipate. How in pit could you anticipate something like it—something that could easily pop up out of nowhere with absolutely no warning whatsoever and take shape as any sort of threat? It was like cannon-fire, only far more dangerous and completely unpredictable. And to make matters worse, Optimus had nothing at his disposal that could even the playing field. Luna could do all of her fighting from a safe distance if she so wished, and she had protective barriers that rendered the Prime's cannon-fire (his only source of long-distance fighting) absolutely useless. His blades and fists and feet weren't any better off against the barriers either if and when he ever got the chance to get close enough to try using them, which wasn't often. Mostly all Optimus could do was try and defend himself against whatever Luna sent his way—a task far easier said than done. He'd already suffered several significant blows and was leaking energon—not copiously, and he would stop bleeding fairly soon—but the fact remained he was wounded. And he was likely to become more wounded as time wore on.

The truth of the matter was Optimus wouldn't mind his wounds so much if he could manage to repay Luna for them, but the odds of that happening were stacked very much against him. He'd managed to tag her once: Near the very beginning of their battle after Hunter and Ally had disappeared through the ground-bridge he'd managed to get close enough to the femme to leave a slice in her side and tear through the soft, flowy metal of her cape. But that was it. After that Luna had started to keep him at a distance. Optimus surmised that in that one instance he'd gotten his blade on her, the witch had realized that he could both touch and wound her if given the opportunity and that had frightened her. Apparently it had also made Luna angry as well, because the fireballs and flames that had come flying his way since then had been far hotter and more raging and whiter in color than they had ever been before—Hunter's fire did the same thing when she was angered.

Speaking of flames, there was another torrent of them coming at him right now!

Optimus dove behind a sphinx statue a mere fraction of a second before the stream of magenta fire engulfed him. They hit the statue with a savage whoosh! and parted around the stone and the Prime behind it. With flames crackling above and on both sides of him the heat was almost unbearable, causing condensation to break out on the mech's chassis and face. Optimus was certain that, had he been hit, his armor and frame would have been smelted. As it was, he was sure being in the center of the heatwaves would result in some significant warping.

The stone pressed against Optimus' backplate was rapidly growing warm. The sound of cracking rock hit the Prime's audio-receptors. Optimus snapped his head around to see both a hot red glow creeping around the sides of the statue and cracks and fissures quickly spreading through the stone. "Scrap!" the mech hissed. Shoving away from the statue he only managed to sprint a few strides away from it before the thing exploded and he hit the ground to avoid as much of the shrapnel as he could as well as the flames still roaring overhead. More than a few bits and pieces of stone pinged off his armor.

Suddenly the deafening whoosh and the hellish heat of the flames abated.

Panting, Optimus carefully rose up to kneel, the plant-life of the estate aflame and crackling around him, the light of the fire—orange now that it had cooled a bit being separated from its source—shining off his red and blue armor and metal frame. In the background a war was going on—a war between the Lunation and the Hybrid forces and the Decepticons and his few but mighty warriors. The Prime could hear it. He could hear the cannon-fire, and the bellows of war cries, and the rumbles of impacts, and explosions, and the various noises of Hybrid powers going off, and the voices of people calling to their comrades, and the cries of pain. He could smell it too: the burning and the energon and upturned earth. But even so, it was all miles away to the Prime; hundreds of miles. It all may as well have been on another planet or even in another galaxy. Because there were only two things Optimus was focused on right now—only two things that mattered: the positively murderous Hybrid sorceress standing across the way; and the battle to be waged against her—the battle he had to survive. Yes, survive—not win. Optimus held no illusions about winning this fight because he knew it wasn't possible. Not against an opponent like Luna. Surviving, however? Well, Optimus didn't have much a choice in achieving that goal or not, because the fact was he had to. He had to survive this and get back home to Hunter. He had to survive. For Hunter.

The thought of his spark-daughter filled the Prime with a new sense of determination and strength. Hunter was home! She was home with Ratchet right now and—while Optimus could sense she was weak—she was safe. And she was going to stay safe. Optimus had instructed Ratchet before they'd left on the rescue mission to keep Hunter at the base once she made it through: "When she returns home—no matter who is or isn't with her or what is happening in Egypt—she stays home, Ratchet. Whatever else happens, you are to make sure that Hunter remains at the base. She is not to come back through—not for anything. We cannot risk her capture again. I will not risk her being taken from me again."

So that meant if he wanted to see his spark-daughter again—if he wanted to make sure that she stayed safe and sound—Optimus had to make it home alive. And he would make it home alive. Nothing was going to stop him from being with his Shooting Star now—nothing!

With that thought in mind, Prime turned to face down Luna yet again.

She was standing there about twenty yards away, looking like she was ready to bring down brimstone as well as fire upon him. There was still energon oozing out of the cut Optimus had left in her side (evidently she did not share Hunter's healing factor and had not taken the time to heal it), and she was panting far more heavily than Optimus was, and she'd basically remained in one place since the Prime's first and only blow to her. Granted, chucking out intense fireballs and magic attack after magic attack had to be a bit taxing, but still. No—she was angry, mad, enraged. That's what it was about. The Autobot Commander had proven his aptitude by wounding and marring her, and before that he'd successfully robbed her of her greatest power source—her most sought after "possession'—her golden ticket—Hunter. He'd taken Hunter and gotten her out of the witch's reach. And Luna was positively livid for it.

"It didn't have to be this way," Luna snarled. "None of this had to happen."

"You are wrong," Optimus countered. "There was nothing that could have prevented this from happening, Luna—you saw to that the day you came to take Hunter away from her home and her family. You are the one that put us all on this path with your decisions. Argh!" The Prime cried out in both surprise and pain as a sudden, stinging pain bit into his shoulder. He grabbed at his shoulder plating. Grimacing behind his battle mask as he glanced at his shoulder, Optimus saw a series of deep, ragged cuts torn into his arm. He glared back at the witch.

Luna's raspberry optics blazed with fury. "I am her family!" she shrieked. The Sorceress threw her arm across her body, raking her sharp, talon-like digits through the air.

"Ahh!" Optimus stumbled back, his hand moving from the leaking abrasions in his shoulder to a fresh set that now marked his chestplate. He growled. More than ever now he wanted to get his hands on this glitch and return the painful favor! Prime didn't have much time to think about this, however, as Luna once again magically sliced into his left thigh. With the cry, Optimus fell to a knee, one hand clutching at his wounded leg.

Luna was storming towards him now. "Huntress is my granddaughter!" she bellowed, throwing a hand again and opening another set of claw-marks on the Prime's chassis. "I am her blood grandmother—she is meant to be at my side!" Again she scratched and again Optimus' energon spilled from yet more wounds. "Huntress' place in the universe is one of the utmost importance: As such she must be with those who can help her reach her fullest potential!" She ripped one more set of lacerations into the bleeding Autobot.

Venting through the stinging pain and clutching at the worst of his new injuries, Optimus glowered up at the witch. His gaze narrowed dangerously. "Helping her to reach her fullest potential?" he repeated incredulously. The memory of unmistakable scars—scars that had not been there before she'd been abducted—marking Hunter's flesh came to the forefront of his processor. Not only had Luna taken his daughter away from him, she'd also wounded her—or at the very least allowed her to be wounded. The beginnings of a blinding rage of his own began to stir in the Prime's spark. "Is that what you were doing when you beat her?"

Luna straightened herself to full height and glared in defiance. Her head was held at a haughty angle, which was truly a feat to behold, considering how much her headset must have weighed. "The girl must be disciplined," the witch insisted. "Huntress has always been headstrong—I admit—but it's obvious that she has been given far too much free rein under your care. I think you would agree that, if she is to ever have a hope of fulfilling her destiny, Huntress must be extremely well-disciplined in all aspects of her life. So yes, I was helping her."

"Those marks," Optimus snarled, rising to his feet, "were not disciplinary marks; they were marks such as these-" Optimus held out one of his bleeding forearms as an example "-marks of brutality—savagery—abuse. You did not strike Hunter to discipline her, you beat her to wound and permanently scar her."

"A girl such as Huntress must have permanent reminders if she is ever to be kept in check," Luna stated.

"And clearly they worked, considering you ended up putting her in stasis and locking her away in the bowels of your fortress to keep her under control." The sarcasm in Optimus' voice would have made his spark-daughter burst with pride.

Luna's eyes were practically aflame with that comment. Again she threw a hand forward, but this time, instead of lacerations being ripped into Optimus' body, a familiar looking magic chain flew out from the witch's hand and enclosed around one of his wrists. "I did not stand for ridicule and insolence from my granddaughter," Luna seethed gripping the chain and looping it securely around her forearm. "Neither will I stand for any from you, Purebred filth! Hrah!"

Optimus just barely had time to register what had happened and firmly grip the chain with both hands before he was suddenly jerked up of the ground and being whipped through the air. He slammed like a wrecking ball through a series of pillars and bashed into the ground. Then he was swinging through the air again and crashing into an Isis statue. The Prime slumped into the rubble, panting, groaning. He'd witnessed his spark-daughter get thrown and thrashed and slammed and beaten around like this more times than he was happy with, but it had been a while since Optimus himself had been on the receiving end of such abuse. He would have to remember to let her soak in a bath for as long as she wanted after a battle from now on.

Turning his attention to the manacle on his wrist, Optimus attempted to get it off. It wasn't technically physical, so he wouldn't be able to break it, but perhaps he could slip out of it. However the Prime didn't have time to test his theory before he was suddenly jerked off of the statue remains and being dragged painfully through the earth. Without warning he was whipped skyward again and brought back down to the ground with such a mighty crash a crater formed around his battered chassis. And Optimus lay there, trying to regain his bearings, letting the pain recede, and hoping Luna didn't start swinging him around again before both could happen so he could make a stand against her again.

"You dare to mock me, Optimus Prime?" Luna inquired as she moved towards the dazed Prime. Her voice was dangerous. "Have you any idea who I am—who you are dealing with? You are Purebred—I am Hybrid—my kind are gods compared to your kind. And I—I am a goddess among gods. You should be prostrate at my feet, worshipping me just as the humans of this planet did eons ago. They've all but forgotten me now—forgotten my power, or that I even exist…. But that will change soon enough. Everything will change soon enough. I will see you and your kind as well as the humans bow before me when it is all said and done; you will beg me to allow your existence to continue. And I will use your precious Huntress to make it all so."

That last proclamation brought the raging fire of anger and determination back to Optimus' spark. No! Luna would not use Hunter for her plans—he would not allow it! He would never allow this glitch to put so much as a digit-tip on his daughter again! He would rend her limb from limb if she so much as attempted to!

Strength surging back into his weary body, the Prime began to stir. He shoved himself up off his back and rolled onto his side, getting his knees up under him. Once there he paused, squeezing his optics shut and shaking his head to clear it. Then he began to push himself to his feet.

Luna chuckled and sneered in derision as she watched the Prime attempt to slowly rise to his feet. She shook her head almost pityingly. "You still try to rise," she remarked. "You know what I can do to you, yet you still try to rise and challenge me when you know you can only fall."

Optimus made no response, just simply kept getting to his feet. For a moment he staggered, but he quickly caught himself and rose to his full height.

Something about that his success in standing must have irked Luna off, for her expression quickly changed from mocking to thunderous and she jerked the magical chain that connected her and the Prime. "Kneel!" she barked.

The sharp jerk of the chain caught the Prime off guard and he stumbled and fell again. He managed to catch himself, however, and only fell as far as his hands and knees. Then he was rising again.

Luna really didn't like that. "I ordered you to kneel!" she spat, yanking the chain again.

That time Optimus was more prepared for it and he allowed himself to be jerked forward while remaining on his feet.

Luna snarled furiously. "Kneel, damn you!" She drew back to jerk the chain again.

Optimus grabbed up the chain with both hands while it was slack and pulled back hard on it at the same time Luna jerked it, planting his feet firmly. His reactions were rewarded as he witnessed the sorceress stumble forward, looking as dazed as she had when he'd first put his sword through her hide. The Prime sneered triumphantly behind his battle-mask. "I bow to no one," he rumbled. He jerked on the chain again.

Luna stumbled once more at the suddenness of it but caught herself. She glared hotly across to the Prime and seized up the chain in both hands. "You will bow before a goddess!" she roared, yanking the chain and whipping it around again.

Once more Optimus was flying through the air and being hurtled towards the earth, but as he came down this time he got his feet under him and drove his weight downwards so that he would touchdown more quickly. He hit the ground in a crouch, the earth cratering around him. Without a second to spare he jerked on the chain again, unbalancing the witch. Before she had time to recover he did it again and again. Then he gathered himself for one last, all mighty pull, savagely seized the chain in his cut hands, and yanked with such force that Luna actually came flying off her feet in his direction. Drawing back a fist, Optimus released it into the witch's face. The sound of the impact reverberated around them and Luna shot back away from the Prime to hit and roll and skid and churn up the dirt before finally coming to a stop in a quivering heap.

Groaning and gasping, Luna slowly pushed herself up to sit. She kept her head down as she reached up and tenderly touched her face with a trembling hand. When she brought it back down, her digit tips were blue with energon. The witch gasped softly and looked back up towards the Prime, her expression more dazed and bewildered than ever as energon ran down it from a nasty gash slanting down between her optics from her forehead.

Optimus stood there, glaring down at her, snarling behind his mask, his fists clenched tightly both bloody and free of the chain and the one he'd hit Luna with bloody at the knuckles from either her energon, his, or both it was uncertain. "I only bow to deities that no longer bleed," he stated.

For a moment Luna remained frozen in her shock, but a raging fire steadily began to burn in the raspberry depths of her eyes. Her lips eventually began to curl into the nasty snarl. The air around both her and the Prime began to vibrate with a furious sensation of power. The earth directly beneath and around Luna began to scorch and sizzle and burn to a crisp without there even being any fire. The fingers of Luna's hand which was braced on the ground dug deep into the soil, raking and leaving scores as she pulled it into a fist. "You filth," Luna hissed in a deathly quiet tone.

Almost immediately Optimus hit the ground with such force it rattled and ached deep in his framework. He didn't know what had happened—why he'd collapsed—just that it was as though all the gravitational pull of the Earth had suddenly focused directly upon him and yanked him down. The Prime tried to move but found he couldn't—not even to lift a digit. The pressure being exerted upon him was painful and quite literally crushing; it felt as though his inner frame would give in under the strain of his outer frame. Optimus had experienced many gravitational anomalies and their effects in his time, but never something quite like this.

All at once it wasn't just gravity the Prime was dealing with, it was more chains, but this time real, physical, tangible chains. They were snaking, slithering, twining around him—wrapping him up and tying him down—anchoring him into the very earth beneath his backplate. They were around his arms, legs, middle, chest, neck, head; chains of all sizes. The weight of them only seemed to make him feel all the more that he was being crushed.

Luna was standing over him now. There was a strange and eerie shadow hanging over her dignified but marred face; a shadow that wasn't the rage that had been there before. Oh, Optimus could still see the rage—mostly in the fire he saw burning in the witch's eyes—but the expression she wore now was not it. Optimus found himself wishing it was. He knew rage and—due to Hunter being Luna's grandcreation—he had come to know that particular look of rage quite well. He wasn't afraid of it and knew how to handle it. But this… it was cold, impassive, ominous, and full of death—slow, painful, unmerciful death. It chilled Optimus right down to the bone in a way not even witnessing Megatron use dark energon to revive an entire battlefield of long dead Cybertronian warriors had done. The only thing the Prime could relate it to was watching Hunter plummet from the deck of the Nemesis the first time she'd perished, or listening to her scream for himhas she'd been abducted, but even those time didn't truly compare to this. This was something truly in its own field. This was like looking into Pit and realizing that everything you'd thought it would be—your worst, most terrible nightmares that you'd imagined it as—were in fact completely wrong and Pit was far more horrible than anything you could have possibly dreamed up.

"If you will not voluntarily bow at my feet," Luna said, the terrifying chill in her voice once again, "I will break you to it." With that she held out a hand, one long digit pointed directly at him.

A pain unlike any other Optimus had ever encountered savagely tore through his body. It ached and stung and burned and whipped and throbbed and pricked and cut and battered and stabbed and pinched and ripped and exploded simultaneously and throughout his entire frame. The fact that his body naturally tried to arch upwards but was unable to do to the gravity holding him down as well as the chains only made the pain worse, as did the ever crushing sensation of the gravity and the bite of the chains. It felt like death; there was no other description that could encompass all of it, just death. And the Prime, unable to make any sort of noise due to the intensity of the sensation, felt sure that it would be the death of him.

Finally Luna ceased her spell, but while the magnitude of the pain lessened, the pain itself lingered, burrowing deep into Optimus' mesh and ringing his nerves. It even seemed to seep into his energon, making it feel painfully hot. But he could voice is torment now, and the Prime did just that, groaning and heaving and crying out involuntarily as his body spasmed with the aftershocks.

"Do you understand now why I am a goddess?" Luna inquired. "I lift a mere finger or speak a single word, and you are wracked with the agony of destruction, completely helpless to fight it. You will bow to me, or receive more of the same."

Heaving painful vents, it took Optimus a moment to find his voice before he could finally answer the Sorceress. "The ability… to cause such torment with such ease…" he croaked, "… means you wield great power." The Prime paused for a moment to hiss and groan in pain as the muscle cables in his left side throbbed. "However…" he continued after a minute, "… the histories of both Earth and Cybertron are littered with people who were and are capable of this." Glaring up through swimming optics, Optimus defiantly locked gazes with the witch standing over him. "If that makes you a goddess, Luna," he spat, "it does so in complex only."

Luna was silent and motionless for a long time. The coldness never left her eyes as she gazed down at the tormented Prime, and her unfathomable expression never changed or even twitched. Finally she pointed at him again, and cast the curse once more.

---

Ratchet watched the monitors as Hunter's energon levels steadily rose. His chest didn't feel quite as constricted now as the weight of dread was lifted off of him. Hunter's remaining lives had been spared and she was beginning to heal now as well; the femmling would be right as rain soon enough.

"Ya know, this stuff is pretty good," Ally remarked from where she was seated across the way. She had a canister of energon in her hands and was sipping at it. "It's kinda sweet but, like, not too sweet—there's kind of a tang to it, too. And just the slightest bit of a kick to it. I could definitely get used to this."

"Glad you approve," Ratchet said, glancing over at her. "You're feeling all right, then?"

"Fine," Ally answered. Then the girl looked at her cousin and smirked slyly. "And considering she's got some of my energon flowing through her now, I'll bet Hunter's gonna be feeling even better than ever." It felt weird, teasing someone she'd just met (as far as her current memory was concerned anyway), and yet, at the same time, it felt normal—even natural, like this was something that did happen or had happened quite a bit. Ally hoped the strangeness of it all would disappear once she got back the memories Hunter claimed had been taken from her, because, if what Hunter said was true, she really wanted to get back to what they might have been before everything went to hell.

Laying quietly on the med-berth, Hunter snorted and smirked as well. "Oh, yeah, definitely," she remarked drily, not opening her optics. "I can feel power like never before surging through me." She jokingly raised a fist towards the ceiling and monotonously cheered, "Hoo-augh."

"Lie still," Ratchet ordered firmly, turning all of his attention to Hunter once again. "This process will go much more quickly if you don't move."

That time Hunter opened her eyes and turned her head to face the medic. "Ratch, I'm fine now," she assured him. "I almost feel completely normal, looks like my vitals are okay from here, and this-" she slightly lifted her leg to indicate her injury (or rather what was left of it)-"is almost completely healed."

"Yes, but the more you move the longer it will take to finish," Ratchet pointed out.

"For me that's still quicker than it would be for most people."

"But it's still time we don't want to take, so hush and lay quietly, please."

Sighing heavily, Hunter closed her optics again and conceded. And then her body was suddenly and violently thrown into a fit of spasms as agonizing pain ran bone-deep through her. The teen released a choked scream as she arched and writhed on the berth.

Ratchet and Ally both were at her side in a spark-beat, watching on in horror.

"What's happening?!" Ally shrieked, her spark in her throat.

"I-I don't know!" Ratchet confessed breathlessly. He stared helplessly at the tortured femmling, unsure of what to do because he'd never witnessed anything like this before, with Hunter or anyone.

"C-could it be my energon?" Ally asked breathlessly. "Only I know with humans it's really bad if you, like, get the wrong blood type or, like, diseased blood in a transfusion."

"Your energon was not diseased," Ratchet answered. "Even if it was, it wouldn't affect Hunter like this. And there are no types of energon, apart from regular and dark energon. So long as it's clean—and not dark energon—energon can pass from one Cybertronian without causing harm."

"But maybe it's different with Hybrids."

"Hunter has received several energon transfusions before—transfusions from both Purebreds and another Hybrid—this has never happened before with any of them."

"So it wouldn't be my magic powers then either," Ally concluded.

Ratchet simply shook his head, unable to take his eyes off Hunter.

Finally, as suddenly as the fit had started, it stopped, and Hunter hit the berth hard as every cable in her body went slack. Opening tear-filled optics, the scarlet femmling's gaze started darting around the room in a frenzied way as though she were looking for something. Her spark raced along with her vents. The severity of pain was gone, but the pain itself hadn't left, because his pain hadn't left. And it wouldn't leave until he either became one with the AllSpark or she got there to help him and stop the thing that was causing his pain. Hunter was not about to let her spark-father become one with the AllSpark. Not yet. "Dad…" she murmured. "Dad. Gotta help. Gotta get to Dad. Dad…." Slowly, shakily, Hunter began to push herself up to try and get off the berth, still muttering.

Ratchet reached out to grab hold of her and tried pulling her back to the berth. "Hunter, no!" he scolded. "You are not permitted to be up and going yet!" He quickly glanced over at the monitor to check Hunter's vitals. Her levels were still stable and climbing, though perhaps not as quickly as before. Thank Primus for that. If only she would stay still and quiet now. And if only another one of those attacks didn't happen again—whatever it had been.

"No," Hunter mumbled, almost in a daze. "Dad. Need to get to Dad. Need to help him. He needs me—gotta help him." All at once another wave of torment coursed through the Hybrid and she fell to the floor with an unnerving crash, curled into the fetal position, screaming bloody murder. "No! No, stop! Please! Stop hurting him, please! Dad! DADDY!" Hot tears streamed down her cheekplates.

That's when it clicked for Ally. It had been a long time since she'd seen it, but she had seen it; and now that it was at the forefront of her mind, the seventeen-year-old could vividly remember the inhumane horror of it all. A vice-like coldness gripped her as she watched Hunter and thought about what must be happening back in Egypt. "It's not the energon," she said, her voice reflecting the sickening terror she felt, "and it's not anything else you did, Ratchet. This is Luna."

"What the frag is that supposed to mean?!" Ratchet snapped as he glared up in irritation at the pink femmling. The medic was knelt on the floor beside Hunter, trying to comfort her in some way as he wracked his brain for any sort of answer as to what this new affliction might be. He was desperate to help the Hybrid, and furious that he was clueless as to how to do that.

Again, Hunter's attack stopped and the sixteen-year-old slumped to the concrete floor of the med-bay, panting heavily. She was too dazed at the moment to try and speak just yet. But her mind continued racing, thinking in short, absolute thoughts: "I have to get to Egypt. I have to get to Dad. I have to save Dad. I have to stop Luna."

"A long time ago," Ally began answering Ratchet's question, "Luna created a curse called 'Angustia': It's a torture curse. Luna likes to use it for punishment." The teen shivered at the thought of the one time she'd seen it used on a pair of bonded Acolytes that had been caught trying to leave the Lunation. She'd had nightmares for weeks after witnessing it. Now that the memory was no longer buried, she'd probably start having them again for a good long while….

"Are you saying Luna can use a curse on Hunter from half-way around the planet?" Ratchet asked incredulously.

"Well, see, that's the thing with this curse," Ally explained further, "it's designed to cause as much pain and punishment as possible when it's used. So, like, if the person it's used on has a spark-link with someone, that person will feel it, too. Like, it might not be as bad as the person directly hit, but still—pretty bad."

"She's hurting Dad," Hunter finally spoke. Her voice was hoarse and grating and painful. Her aching body quivered. Perspiration and tears poured down her face. "She's hurting Dad, Ratchet," she said again. "I need to go back there. I need to go back for hi-ahhhh!" Another torrent of pain slammed in. This one was far shorter than the other two had been—lasting only a few seconds before Hunter finally went limp again, heaving heavily. She was shaking all the more from pain and desperation and—most of all—rage. Rage for Luna and what she was doing to Optimus was boiling up hot and hard and quick inside her spark, and she was bound and determined to let it all out on the glitch's aft the moment she got back to Egypt. Luna wouldn't learn never to mess with her family again because Luna wouldn't live to learn the lesson: Hunter was going to kill her. Blood or not, grandmother and granddaughter or not, Hunter was going to kill The Witch and anyone or anything else that stood in her way. Luna would never get the chance to hurt anyone ever again.

Groaning, Hunter forced her arms and legs to begin working again and pushed herself up. "Gotta go," she grunted. "Gotta go get Dad. Gotta go kill Luna and get Dad."

"You are not going anywhere!" Ratchet insisted firmly. He put hands on Hunter's shoulders and arms but immediately regretted doing so as he saw her painfully flinch and wince. Ratchet felt his spark drop into his tank and his tank drop to the floor. A lump formed in his throat. If this was what it was like for Hunter through the link, what in the name of Primus was Optimus going through on his side of it? The thought of his old, dear friend half-way across the planet being tortured by some monster that seemed almost even worse than Megatron was nearly enough to break the mech. More than anything he wanted to activate that ground-bridge and run through it to Optimus' side himself, consequences of such foolhardiness be damned! But the medic knew he couldn't do that. Optimus and the rest of the team and Hybrids, too, would need him when it was over. Hunter would need him. She needed him now. He couldn't allow his reason to be clouded, whatever his feelings and however much he wanted to protect and help his oldest friend.

"Your energon levels haven't yet returned to normal," Ratchet went on, managing to steady his voice and keep the quaver from it, "and these attacks have already taken a significant toll on you again already. You're not going anywhere until you're back to normal."

"We don't have time for that!" Hunter spat. She continued trying to get up when another pain wave hit her and she was sent back to the floor in a pitiful heap again. Again it was short but far more hellish than before. She was right—they really didn't have that kind of time!

"Hunter, I realize your desire to go into battle and help Optimus," Ratchet said, trying to reason with the femmling, "but the fact is that you aren't in condition yet for such an endeavor and—as your physician—I cannot-"

"SHE'LL KILL HIM, RATCHET!" Hunter screamed. She looked up at the medic desperately. "Luna'll kill Dad—he's dying already! I can feel it every time-" Hunter was cut off with another quick spasm of agony and slumped to the floor once more. "He's gonna die if I don't go, Ratchet," she murmured quietly after a moment. "Luna's using the curse on him to call me out and if I don't go she'll kill him. She won't be nice about it either; he'll go like this—this curse will be what kills him."

At that point, Ally cut back into the conversation. "Luna originally created Angustia to torture Hybrids," she stated, meeting Ratchet's optics. "I don't want to think about what it'll do to a Purebred—even one who is a Prime."

Hunter pushed herself back up sat back on her knees. Hugging herself in an attempt to stop her arms twitching from the residual pain, she looked up at Ratchet again, uncontrollable tears gushing from her optics. "I can't lose him, Ratchet," she said, voice shaking but firm and determined. "I can't and I won't. I'm going back there whether you want me to or not-" a dangerous glint shone in Hunter's sapphire eyes "-and if you try to stop me I'll knock you flat—you know I will."

The weight of defeat settled over Ratchet upon seeing that familiar fire and he sighed heavily. "Yes," he agreed with a nod, "I know you will." Then he got up and walked away. "May I have this?" he asked Ally, motioning to the container of energon the pink femmling was still holding. Ally handed it over to him and the medic proceeded across the room to his bench again. Picking up a syringe, Ratchet pulled out another canister of high-grade and added it to Ally's half-full cylinder of energon before picking up a mixing stick and swirling the concoction around for a bit. Then he came back to Hunter and knelt beside her again. "Drink this," he murmured, handing her the mixture, "and then you can go. Drink all of it."

Hunter took the drink without question, raised it to her lips, threw her head back, and gulped. The concoction was bitter-tasting compared to what Hunter was used to with energon normally, and it almost made her want to spit it out but she forced it all down. The moment it hit her stomach a hot, spicy, rumbling feeling of pure energy burst out through her limbs, making the teen feel keyed up and ready to go. The daze from the torture attacks fled from her consciousness, and the pain wasn't quite so present there either. Now if only Luna would give her some time before cursing Optimus again...

"Holy scrap!" Hunter coughed as she set the empty container down. Her face was screwed up in a very unpleasant, sour expression. "Primus, I feel good, but that was god-awful!" The teen screwed her eyes shut and stuck out her glossa as she shook her head a bit, as though that would get the taste out of her mouth. "Blech!"

Ratchet couldn't help but chuckle as he picked up the barrel and stood. "Ready then?" he asked, moving towards the med-bay doors to head for the groundbridge controls.

Like lightning Hunter was on her feet. She'd always been a fairly quick moving person, but even now with the high-grade concoction flowing through her she felt like she was moving faster than ever. In some ways she even felt like she was floating. "Yeah, let's go," she responded with determination. "Let's make it quick before Luna starts cursing again—she's holding off for now to see if I come or not."

Hunter turned to look at her cousin who was starting to move out of the med-bay as well. "Ally," she called her, going over to the pink femmling and putting a hand on her shoulder, "I think you should stay here for now. I'm planning on bringing Dad back here and-"

"I can help Ratchet treat him from the effects of the curse," Ally finished for her, meeting her cousin's sapphire optics which were a good head above her own. Evidently she was going to be the short one of the family. "I'll take good care of him, Hunter—don't worry."

Hunter smiled gratefully and nodded to her cousin before turning away and hurrying off into the main room of the base. Ratchet was already at the console for the bridge, waiting for her. The teen quickly moved by him to stand directly in front of the bridge and backed up as far as she could to the catwalk. She had every intention of entering the battlefield at hyperspeed: She'd need a bit of a running start to get there. Backed up as far as she could be, Hunter crouched down into a ready position. "Ready, Ratchet," she called, eyes locked on the circular chasm that currently led to nowhere that would soon light up with brilliant colors and carry her half-way across the globe. The ground-bridge was a marvel of technology.

Ratchet nodded and pulled the lever.

The ground-bridge whirred as it began to power up.

Ally was standing by Ratchet and waved to her cousin. "Good luck, Hunter!" she called. And she meant it. Fuser or not, Hunter would need all the luck she could get out there, especially going up against Luna.

Hunter waved back to Ally even as she kept her eyes on the bridge, letting her know she'd heard.

Ratchet had turned his gaze to Hunter, too, after having activated the ground-bridge. "Be safe, Hunter," he murmured, unable to hide the worry in his voice and optics. They'd just pulled Hunter out of that place and brought her back to safety, and now she was willingly running right back into it.

Hunter looked over, her gaze meeting the medic's, and she nodded, acknowledging his blessing. Then she turned back to the ground-bridge and broke into a breath-taking sprint. With each step she gained greater and greater speed, becoming more and more of a blur as she plunged into the glowing depths of the portal. Not long after she'd entered the ground-bridge her speed kicked in and she rocketed off with a sonic boom as accompaniment.

---

In a heap on the ground Optimus lay. For the time being, Luna had ceased her spell once again, but at this point the Prime could tell very little difference between when the curse was upon him and when it wasn't. Every sensation receptor in his body tingled and burned; every muscle cable seized violently and uncontrollably; every bone throbbed and felt as though they would shatter at the slightest touch. Even his energon boiled like lava through his veins, smelting him from the inside out as it went. Involuntary tears that had been forced from the lubrication ducts of his optics streamed freely down his faceplate and over and beneath his battlemask unnoticed: Not that it would have mattered if they had been—Optimus was in no kind of condition to try and control them or feel much of anything about them.

Truth be told, Optimus was unsure if he was even alive anymore. He reasoned that he must be because he was still very much in physical pain, and it wasn't likely physical pain stayed with you when your spark left your body. Except maybe if you went to the Pit. And if that was the case, then maybe he really was dead and had ended up in the Pit rather than becoming one with the AllSpark. If he saw Megatron or Bombardier around here somewhere, then he'd know for sure….

"Do you like my Angustia curse, Optimus Prime?" Luna inquired, her voice light but still cold and dangerous. "It's one of my pride and joys—a true masterpiece of dark sorcery if I may say so myself. It took me millennia to perfect it into what it is now. I'd say the time and effort were well worth it, wouldn't you?"

Optimus' only reply was a strangled groan.

Luna smiled and chuckled. Evidently she liked that. "One interesting little tidbit about this curse," she went on, "is that I created it so that, should it be used upon one who shares a spark-bond with another, the bonded of the cursed will suffer the effects as well. Yes, that's right—Huntress is currently enduring the same agony you are experiencing right now. How long do you think it will take her to fight back the pain and come running to your side—to Daddy's rescue?" Luna's voice was mocking that time. "How long would it have taken you? That was why I couldn't have used this curse on Huntress you know, because it would have easily broken through the spell we used to freeze your spark-link. Not that it would have mattered—you would have ended up dead as you will end up now whether you had come for her sooner than later or not. It is a bit of a shame though—I've no doubt Angustia would have had little trouble in pulling the girl into line. No matter. One way or another I will achieve my goals, with Huntress' cooperation or not. All I need is for her to return to me and she will, if only to save your pathetic Purebred mesh."

At that statement of Luna's, a spark of determination and defiance flared up inside Optimus' spark, making itself known through the agony the Prime felt. It filled him with enough strength to form a retort: "You… will not… take her from me again, Luna. I… will not… allow it."

Again, Luna chuckled jeeringly. She stepped bit closer to the Prime, raised a pointy, heeled pede, and brought it down with a significant crunch on his chestplate.

Optimus cried out in pain, unable to help himself.

"I don't think you're in any kind of position to be making such adamant declarations, Prime," Luna sadistically purred. She sneered, obviously pleased with herself. However, the sneer quickly left Luna's face and a look of confusion and annoyance replaced it. "What is that sound?" she snarled suspiciously, looking over her shoulder.

Optimus had no idea what noise Luna was talking about, because the only thing he could hear was the rapid hammering of his spark and the rush of his energon in his audio-receptors. All he knew is that one second he was blearily staring up at the sorceress as she towered over his recumbent position and then the ground was vibrating and he was suddenly shrouded in a cloud of dirt and dust and sand. There was a horrible crashing sound accompanied by a roar of rage and a scream of shock and pain. The gravitational force beneath the Prime suddenly ceased, and Optimus sighed in some relief, allowing his body to go as limp as it could despite the seizing and spasming of his muscle cables. The chains wrapped around him were the only things that held him to the ground now, apart from the agonizing pain left behind from the curse that rendered him unable to move for fear of greater pain.

The dust cloud hanging around him began to settle, and through the grime and his tears, Optimus saw Hunter standing protectively over him. Her chest and shoulders were heaving, but Optimus knew it wasn't because she was winded; he could feel the heat radiating off the femmling and her optics were blazing. He couldn't see her face behind her battlemask, but the Prime knew it had to be twisted in vengeful rage. Hunter was mad—blowing mad—and she was bound and determined to maim and murder. He tried to say her name, but his voice box spasmed and the muscle cables of this throat and neck seized, and the mech couldn't make any noise beyond a choked groan.

At that noise, Hunter shifted her undivided attention away from (what Optimus supposed was Luna) to him. Immediately her expression changed; instead of a raging fury hell-bent on world annihilation, she now looked like a horrified little girl whose only concern in the entire world was for her father. Fitting, because that was exactly how she felt. How could she not? Her spark-father—the mech who was her idol and hero and whom she loved more than life itself—was chained helplessly to the ground, shaking and seizing and wracked with agony. Those optics she loved so much held a tortured look and tears seeped down his face. That immediately brought tears to her own eyes. "Dad!"

Hunter dropped to her knees beside the Prime and took his face between her hands. "I'm here, Daddy," she croaked, trying to swallow past the tightness in her throat that had nothing to do with the lingering ache from the curse. "I'm here—I've got you—I'm gonna get you home." Wiping at her tears, the Hybrid turned her attention to the chains snaking around her father and began dealing with them.

"Hunter…" Optimus rasped, "… you shouldn't be here. You should be… back at base… where you're safe."

"I'll stay safe back at base when you're safe back at base with me," Hunter declared, slicing through the chains with her razors.

"She can reach you here," Optimus panted. "She can take you back."

"She can try," Hunter growled, breaking the last of the chains and pulling them off her father. She tried to move as gently and as quickly as possible, but it seemed even the lightest of touches caused Optimus to flinch painfully. Hunter tried to send him as much strength and comfort through their bond as she could, but it wasn't easy to do when she was hurting too, as well as distraught over his condition. All at once one of Optimus' shaking hands weakly grasped her wrist and the femmling stopped to meet his gaze to see fear and desperation there along with the pain. "Dad?"

"I cannot lose you again, Hunter," Optimus choked out.

"I can't lose you either," Hunter returned, trying to make her voice firm and final. She wasn't very successful; the quiver in her voice had a mind of its own. "So we'll just have to make sure neither of us loses each other."

Her father now free of chains, Hunter set to the task of helping the mech up and onto his feet. "Come on, Dad," she murmured, slipping a hand beneath his back to slowly help him sit up. "Up. Come on—let's go. You got it." She tried to ignore the torturous agony reflected in the Prime's optics as he carefully began to rise as well as the throb of pain that coursed through their bond from his end. Frag, he was in horrible shape! Hunter had a horrible feeling that the only reason her father was even alive after the Angustia was due to the fact that he was a Prime; she hated to think of what might have happened if he hadn't been. Or even if she'd gotten here any later than she had.

Gradually Hunter got Optimus up on his knees. She slipped his arm over her shoulder and braced her back against his side and chest-plate, then she slowly began rising up onto her feet, lifting him up with her.

Grunting with both effort and pain, the Prime tried to help his daughter has much as he could by trying to support at least some of his own weight, but the moment he tried the muscle cables in his legs spasmed wildly and painfully and his knees would give out from under him. After two attempts, Optimus figured it would be easier on his daughter to just keep his weight settled against her instead of trying to take it off only to have it crash back down on top of her, so he ended up practically draped over her shoulders, his feet dragging the ground.

"It's okay, Dad," Hunter assured him. She was on her feet now, only taking the time to find balance. "We'll get you outta here and back home. Ally will have some idea how to help you. It's gonna be okay."

"Is it now?"

Hunter quickly pivoted around towards that cold, hard, dangerous voice. Her optics locked onto Luna, who was currently marching her way back across the field that Hunter had sent her flying across moments ago. The witch looked dented and scuffed as well as annoyed and furious and intent on tearing into her. Hunter was fine with that scenario, because she was looking to rip into the glitch too. But that would have to wait until her spark-father was home and safe. And the rest of the team with him, because as long as any of her family remained here, Luna was certain to use them to get to Hunter, and the teen couldn't allow that, for their sakes as much as for her ability to fight properly.

"Unless you wanna get hit into the next millennium again, you stay the frag away!" Hunter barked savagely.

Luna ignored her threat. "You can stop trying to leave here," she stated, coming ever closer. "You're not leaving these grounds again except with me. And your precious Prime will not be leaving at all—at least not with his life."

Hunter bristled and snarled, shifting so that Optimus, draped over her as he was, was behind her and as far away from Luna as he could be. A protective fire flared up in the femmling's sapphire optics once again. "You even think about doing anything more to him and I'll have your head!"

"Please don't bloviate, Huntress," Luna countered, completely unfazed. "It is extremely tiresome to listen to."

"How 'bout I shut up and rip your spark outta your chest then?" Hunter spat. "Would ya like that better?"

"No, Hunter," Optimus grunted. "Don't. She is trying to goad you—pull you into a battle you are in no state of mind to partake in. Pay no attention—let's go home."

"Your Prime speaks wisely, Huntress," Luna declared. "Not that it matters if you listen to him or not—as I said you're not leaving this estate except with me."

Hunter growled savagely as she glared down her grandmother, every molecule in her body vibrating with the urge to charge into a fight with Luna and tear her limb from limb, wrong state of mind for battle be damned! She would have to face down Luna eventually—put an end to her once and for all; so what did it matter if she did it right now or later? "It matters because of your family," the reasonable voice at the back of her head piped up, breaking through the torrent of malicious and painful ways the teen imagined killing the sorceress. "It matters because Dad is hurt and he can't stay here and live."

"I ain't done with you yet, Witch," Hunter snarled at her grandmother. She backed away and pulled Optimus more up on her back so that she was carrying him, and then she was running again away from Luna and back in the direction she'd come. "Ratchet," Hunter shouted into her comm-link, "I've got Dad and I'm coming back to base! Open the ground-bridge now!" Optics locked on the edge of the estate grounds, where the bridge had appeared twice before, Hunter watched intently. She wasn't going to stop if she didn't have to, and she shouldn't have to, because Ratchet would open up the bridge and she would just be able to run on through back to the base without so much as a misstep. Except that didn't happen. Hunter drew closer and closer to where the bridge was supposed to be, but the portal never appeared. Her gaze skittered up and down the edge of the grounds, but nowhere did she see the familiar spiraling portal.

Finally Hunter stopped in the location where the ground-bridge was supposed to be. She cursed, angry that the bridge wasn't open and desperately anxious to get her spark-father out of danger. "Ratchet!" she shouted into her comm-link again. "Where's that bridge?!" As she waited the Hybrid turned so that she was between the Prime and the rest of the estate and swept her gaze across it, instinctively looking for the rest of her team. She spotted them quite a ways a way: Arcee was nearly on the other side of the grounds and Bulkhead the closest about a half-mile away. They were all fighting, and while they were holding their own that was about all they were doing and struggling to do even that. Hunter wanted to go out there and help them, but at the moment she wanted something far more than anything else and that was to get Optimus to safety. Her aiding the rest of her family would have to wait.

"If they could get out of here on their own and back home that'd be even better," Hunter thought to herself. "Take Dad home along with the rest of them following right behind me." With that thought, Hunter opened her comm-link so that everyone could hear her and ordered into it, "Guys! I got Dad and he's hurt bad—I'm taking him home! If the rest of you can get out of whatever situations you're in right now, get back to the bridge location pronto—we're all goin' home! I don't wanna leave anyone behind if I don't have to!"

She received various returns of affirmation from the rest of the team, but Hunter barely paid attention as she shifted her attention back to Optimus. "How you doin', Dad?" she murmured in concern. "And don't give me the macho 'I'm fine' shtick." He was looking a little less gray and she could feel through their bond that his pain had dulled slightly, but he still looked like a complete wreck. Hunter imagined she probably looked no better.

Optimus panted as he rested his head heavily against hers. "I believe I am ready to be home," he replied honestly. "I am ready to be home and leave this place behind for good."

"You and me both," Hunter grunted, "but it ain't gonna be that easy—not the leavin' this behind for good part anyway." Her eyes were sweeping the estate grounds once more looking for their team members and she spotted them. They were barreling across the grounds in their alternate forms, and they were coming closer all the time. The ground-bridge still hadn't opened! Growling, Hunter opened her comm-link again and bellowed into it, "Ratchet! What the frag?! Where's that ground-bridge? We need it now!"

/I've already powered up the ground-bridge,/ Ratchet's voice came back over the link. /It hasn't opened for you?/

"No," Hunter answered really starting to worry now. "Are your coordinates right?"

/They are the same that I have been using all night./

"You sure? Maybe you accidently bumped something this last time and changed them."

/I have done no such thing, Hunter, and I resent that you'd suggest I would be capable of making such a blunder./

"Could you just check, Ratchet?!" Hunter exploded, anxious to get her family back home and in no mood to deal with the medic's technologically-inclined ego. The longer they stayed here, the greater the chance of Luna making it impossible for them to leave. "Please?! We need to get outta here now!"

---

Sighing heavily, Ratchet checked the coordinates typed into the ground-bridge. They were correct. Of course they were—as if they could possibly not be! But then why hadn't the ground-bridge opened up in Egypt if it had powered up normally?

A cold feeling settled over the mech as he remembered the same incident with the bridge that had happened just a few weeks ago, when Hunter had been attacked at Olympus High and Optimus had tried to go to her. The ground-bridge had powered up normally, as per usual, but as Optimus had gone through and reached the end where he should have exited onto the ground of the school the ground-bridge had come to a solid dead-end. The Lunation had been involved at that time; now here they were tangled with the cult again, trying to bridge between the home of the cult and the base. "I wonder…."

"Ratchet?" Ally asked, looking up at the medic quizzically as she stood beside him.

Ratchet turned to her. "Run down the ground-bridge," he said, pointing towards said contraption.

"Huh?"

"Run down the ground-bridge and see if the end comes to an opening or not."

"Okay… what do we do if it doesn't come to an opening?"

"Rethink our strategy. Now go—quickly please."

With that Ally turned and sprinted off down the ground-bridge, only hesitating just a bit before entering the swirling vortex of light. This was the first time she'd been through this thing completely on her own and it still kind of freaked out a bit, knowing this thing somehow cut through space and was constructed only of hard-light particles.

Ally ran along the bridge for a few yards, knowing she was getting close to the other side. Or at least she thought she was supposed to be getting close to the other side, but the ground-bridge seemed to just… end. There was no exit—no portal of Egypt in front of her like before—just a wall of light. The teen slowed down to a walk and approached the wall. Feeling a bit stupid she raised a hand and reached out to touch the wall to see if her hand would go through the light: It didn't. Ally pressed harder and even went so far as the slap the wall, but it remained solid and unyielding to her force.

"This does not seem good," Ally murmured nervously to herself. Quickly she spun back around and sped out of the ground-bridge and back into the base. "We have a problem…" she said to Ratchet, looking up at him with wide, anxious, two-toned eyes.

---

/Hunter, I'm afraid we have a complication,/ Ratchet's voice came back through the comm-link.

Team Prime was all gathered together now, and thankfully the Hybrid military was doing a rather fine job of keeping the Lunation busy, so they were being left alone. Bulkhead and Bumblebee both had tried to offer to take Optimus off Hunter but she'd all but vehemently shoved them back with teeth bared. She wasn't about to let go of her dad any sooner than she had to. However, with the way Ratchet sounded, "sooner than she had to" could very well be in a matter of minutes.

"What'd'ya mean, Ratchet?" Hunter asked, exchanging a nervous glance with Bulkhead as he put a supportive hand on her shoulder.

/The ground-bridge can no longer open at your coordinates,/ Ratchet answered. /It powers up normally but it comes to a dead-end, just as it did the day you were attacked at school./

"It's the magic," Hunter replied bitterly. "Luna's put out some barrier spell that's screwing with the bridge. Sometimes magic and tech just don't get along."

/That's what Ally surmises,/ Ratchet agreed. /We are going to try opening the bridge a quarter mile out from your current position, but we need you to move to that location in order to obtain precise coordinates. If that doesn't work we'll keep trying and moving further out from the estate./

"Quarter mile more should be easy enough," Arcee stated fairly confidently. "We've come this far, what's a quarter mile more?"

"A lot when you're up against the witch queen of the universe," Bulkhead remarked sounding even more pessimistic than Arcee sounded confident.

/Doesn't matter,\\ Bumblebee buzzed adamantly. /We have to do it.\\

"Yeah, and we have to do it now," Hunter said. "Dad needs to get back to the base—Ally's the only one that can help him."

"Metal to the pedal then, everyone!" Arcee ordered.

The group all turned and struck out as one, but they hadn't gone three steps when all of a sudden the ground began to shake and roll, knocking them off their feet.

"What in pit was that?" Bulkhead grumbled.

"I told you, you are not leaving this estate except with me, Huntress," Luna's voice boomed around them like thunder.

Hunter looked back over her shoulder and stared wide-eyed as a pillar of earth at the center of the grounds grew and stretched and rose up into the night sky, towering above everything. At the top, silhouetted against the nearly full moon was Luna. Even from this distance and that height, Hunter could see those cursed raspberry eyes blazing. A tremor of fear went through the femmling.

"I will not be disobeyed, Granddaughter!" Luna roared. With that she cast out her hand and a tremendous stream of fire came jetting through the air, bearing down on Team Prime.

Shooting up from the ground, Hunter desperately punched a fist skyward. A pillar of blue fire shot up and blasted through the purple jet, cutting through the middle and parting it in a blinding explosion. Shockwaves trembled the air and earth and sparks cascaded to the ground and caught grass on fire around the team, but Cybertronians could survive that—they couldn't survive being smelted in a giant fireball.

Hunter whipped around to face her family again. "Go!" she panted. "Take Dad and go—you have to get back to base. I'll cover you and make sure you get outta here safe." She quickly turned back to face Luna again, watching for the next attack she suspected would come soon.

"Are you crazy?!" Arcee scoffed.

"We came here to get you and take you back home!" Bulkhead snapped. "We ain't leavin' you here again! What was the point if we do that?!"

/Hunter, you have to come back with us!\\ Bumblebee insisted.

"If I leave with you Luna attacks us again," Hunter stated, "and I can't guarantee I can stop all of them or even keep her from coming through the bridge after us. But if I stay I'm doing what she wants, and she has no reason to attack to try and stop me. Luna wants me—she doesn't care about the rest of you beyond you throwing a monkey wrench into her plans by coming for me."

"Hunter…"

Hunter, who hadn't cast so much as a glance back over her shoulder to the team since she'd told them to leave, now quickly turned her head at the sound of Optimus' voice. She met his gaze. He was still very weak and very much in pain, but there was still a determination in his optics and voice that would not ever break so long as he was alive. The femmling wanted more than anything to go to her spark-father now, but she knew if she did, Luna would strike again. She was already risking so much by turning to look at the mech. "Dad…."

Lying heaving on his side, Bumblebee helping to support him, Optimus adamantly ground out, "I am not leaving you here, Hunter."

"No," Hunter agreed, "you're not leaving me here—you're going home to get healed." She gave the Prime a firm and significant look a she continued, "And once you're better, you're coming back here to help me, 'cuz the Lunation has to be stopped, and I can't do it on my own—not when it's gonna take everything I got just to put down the head witch for good." She pulled her gaze from Optimus' and looked up to the others. "Go, now," she said. "Get him home. Please."

The others all exchanged looks. It was clear that none of them liked the idea of leaving Hunter behind again, especially after it had taken them so long and so much effort to find and get her back. Honestly, Hunter liked the idea even less. There was no iron-clad guarantee that, if she didn't go back home with her family now, she would ever have the chance to again; this chance now could very well be the only chance she would ever get. Hunter wanted more than anything to take it… but she knew she couldn't. If she tried to leave with them Luna would try and come after them, and there was a dangerous possibility that Hunter wouldn't be able to stop her. And if she did manage to escape safely with them, Luna would still go through with whatever she was planning on doing, and Hunter knew that spelled doom for everyone she cared about, not to mention the rest of the world. Yes, she had, in all probability, one chance to make it back home, but at the same time she had, in all probability, one chance to stop Luna and ensure the safety of the world—and most importantly her loved ones—for good.

"Go!" Hunter ordered, giving them all a cold glare.

With that the team quickly moved, Bulkhead and Bumblebee each grabbing one of Optimus' arms and pulling him up over their shoulders so that they were carrying him. They all began moving as quickly as they could off and away from the Lunar Estate. And Hunter.

Hunter watched after them, bitter longing rising up in her chest. She wanted more than anything to go back home with them—she wanted more than anything for them all to be together again. But she couldn't and they couldn't be, because the psychopathic Wannabe-Queen of the Universe had thrust herself back into Hunter's life, and the "Queen" always fragged up anything and everything she touched.

Fury overtaking the painful longing, Hunter turned away from her family and lifted her gaze once again to the sky, her sight falling on the figure in question still standing at the top of her mighty pillar of earth. A deep, rumbling growl thundered throughout Hunter's entire being. "Happy now?" she snarled, willing to bet Luna was probably listening to her thoughts right at that moment. "I hope so, 'cuz it'll be the last time you ever feel that way. I'm gonna burn this whole fraggin' place to the ground starting with you, Luna."

"You couldn't defeat me last time," Luna's voice rang through Hunter's head. "What makes you believe you can do so now?"

"I got stakes this time," Hunter answered," and—more importantly—you hurt my dad, and that means I get your head."

For a long moment there was silence in Hunter's head, and then: "Impress me, and perhaps I'll give it to you."

Jets of flame exploding from both her feet and fists, Hunter rocketed up off the ground and into the air, directing herself straight for Luna.

---

Team Prime burst through the ground-bridge into the base. They'd had to book it a mile away from the Lunar Estate before the bridge was finally able to open, but they'd made it home and that was the main thing. Except that they hadn't made it home with Hunter.

"Ratchet!" Arcee called, running in ahead of the mechs as Bumblebee and Bulkhead helped Optimus along. "Ally!"

Ratchet popped out of the med-bay. "In here," he ordered, "on the berth."

'Bee and Bulk moved into the room and carefully eased Optimus down onto the medical berth by which Ally was standing. Their towering leader groaned and grunted in obvious pain even under the gentleness of their movements. Primus, whatever that witch had done to him was no joke!

"He needs energon," Ratchet said as he ran a quick scan on Optimus.

"I'll run grab it," Arcee volunteered and took off for the energon stockpile.

"I'll get started on his pain relief," Ally said, stepping closer to the berth. She rubbed her hands together until her palms began to glow with a soft, rose-gold light. "Optimus, can you tell me where you want me to start? I'd ask you where it hurts worst, but I have the feeling you hurt, like, pretty much the same all over."

"My head," Optimus groaned through gritted denta. He'd been punched, smacked, hit, pounded, smashed, and very nearly blown up in the head countless times throughout his life, yet nothing had ever left him with the throbbing ache that was slamming through his helm right now with each pulse of his spark. He screwed his optics shut, as the florescent lights of the medical bay were definitely not helping.

Nodding, Ally moved up towards his head and placed her hands on either side of his helm. She applied gentle, steady pressure as she held him, allowing her magic to slowly seep out from her body through her hands and into the Prime's head. "There are lots of spells and potions that would work better and faster than this one," she confessed, her voice low and smooth so as not to aggravate the mech's headache more, "but I can't make potions right now, and this is, like, the only pain soothing spell I know. Don't get me wrong, it'll definitely do the job—I've used it on myself lots of times, so I'm pretty good at it and can, like, change the intensity of it—it'll just take longer."

"Work as fast as you can, Ally," Optimus grunted. "I must go back and help Hunter."

"What?!" Ratchet yelped. "What do you mean "go back and help Hunter"? She's not coming back through the ground-bridge?"

"Not this time," Bulkhead answered glumly. "Red stayed behind in order to make sure Granny Dearest didn't try to come through the bridge after us."

/But we're going back,\\ Bumblebee insisted, punching a fist into a palm. /Hunt's gonna take down the cult, and she needs our help to do it.\\

"Which is why we need to go back as soon as possible," Optimus stated. The throbbing in his helm had already reduced some to the point that he dared to squint open his optics, but it hadn't reduced by even half of how much he wanted or needed. Yes, Ally had said that this would take some time and that it was the only spell she knew, and Optimus didn't want to push her more than she was physically able to be and make her feel like she was failing, but the truth of the matter was that it needed to work faster. They all needed to work and move faster! Hunter was back there in Egypt again and she needed them sooner than later!

Ratchet groaned loudly and pinched at the bridge between his optics as she squeezed them shut. He shook his head, obviously exasperated. "When you all left it was simply to rescue Hunter and bring her back home!" the medic exclaimed. "How did we go from a simple rescue mission to war with a cult?"

"They started it by takin' Hunter," Bulkhead rumbled.

"The Lunation must be stopped, Ratchet," Ally said, not looking away from her work as she slowly moved her hands from Optimus' head down to his neck and throat. "Luna is totally hell-bent on restoring the Hybrid's honor and she plans on, like, ruling over earth and any other planet that has life on it in order to do it. She tried it once and I'm sure that's what she's doing now. I don't know how she plans on doing it, but if she's planning on using Hunter to do it, it's probably totally worse than anything she ever tried before. Taking Hunter back from Luna wouldn't stop her—it'd just slow her down. She'd keep coming for Hunter until she captured her again, and that time the rest of us would, like, probably all be dead because Luna would make sure we couldn't interfere again. Luna has to go down and the Lunation has to go with her, or else no one is safe: not you, not me, not Hunter, not Earth—no one."

Ratchet became quiet and looked thoughtful at that.

"Got the energon," Arcee announced her reentry as she rushed back into the medical bay with an energon cube in her hands.

Quickly Ratchet took it from her and moved across the med-bay to his bench. "Well, if we have to fight another war," he said, "let's try and end is as quickly as possible. The sooner we get you all back out there, the sooner it can be done." As he set to work at preparing the energon for Optimus, the medic muttered under his breath, "At least, this time, we'll have the Decepticons on our side."

---

Hunter's armor made a deafening crash and clang as she hit the ground hard and went tumbling, gouging yet another trench into the earth. She'd definitely have to have more than a few dents pounded and scuffs buffed out later. Finally rolling to a stop, Hunter tried to pick herself back up as quickly as possible, but with the beating she was taking between Luna's barriers and the ground, "quickly as possible" seemed about a snail's pace.

Groaning and hissing in pain, Hunter pushed herself up on all fours (well, technically all threes, as she had an arm wrapped around her middle as she gripped at a dent in her left side. She squinted up at the pillar of earth upon which her grandmother still stood. "The rebound in the barrier is a little overkill, don't'cha think?" she grunted through a grimace. She sucked in a sharp intake and moaned as the slight shifting of a muscle cable caused an intense, throbbing pain to make its presence known. The femmling slowly sank back to lie down. That felt nice. If only she could stay in that position until she completely healed up….

"Hunter!" a high and grating voice cried out somewhere above her.

Hunter's optics snapped wide open in alarm before she squeezed them shut again in sheer pure frustration and silent prayer. "Oh, Primus, no," she mumbled into the dirt. "No, no, no—please, no!" This wasn't the time for him to be coming to her—especially not when she was like this: lying on the ground in pain! What the pit had she done to deserve this luck?

There was the sound of hustling feet and then there was a presence kneeling beside her. Long, thin, spidery digits were on her body, sending artic chills along Hunter's sensation receptors. "Hunter, my darling!" Starscream exclaimed, sounding extremely worried. "Are you all right? Please, tell me that you're all right." He tried to roll the femmling onto her side.

Hunter jerked away from his touch and pushed herself onto her side herself, though the action resulted in a great deal of pain from protesting joints and muscle cables. She didn't like it, but it was better than letting Starscream touch her. Admittedly not much better, but better. "'M find, Starscream," she croaked, gritting through the ache, "just a little sore." Starscream didn't look like he believed that claim, but Hunter didn't care. She was not about to admit just how much pain she was in to this creep.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" the 'con asked, reaching out to place his hand on her thigh.

Hunter quickly jerked away. "You could not touch me," she stated just as quickly. "Like I said, I'm sore so touch doesn't feel good right now." Both true as well as a brilliant way to keep his hands off her: If he loved her as much as he claimed, he would be more than willing to do whatever it took to help her manage pain.

Starscream looked a little put out by this request, but just as Hunter had theorized, he obliged her without question. "Of course, my love," he said, pulling his hand back. "Whatever you ask of me."

Hunter did her best to try not to wretch and turned her attention back up to Luna to help take her mind of the thought of Starscream even trying to touch her. "I need to get Luna outta that barrier," she remarked aloud, though she was speaking more to herself than Starscream. "But I'm probably gonna have to force her—don't think she'll come out on her own."

"And just how do you plan on doing that?" Starscream inquired. "From what I've witnessed, you've been trying to do just that and have been completely unsuccessful."

Ignoring both the fact that Starscream brought up her failure and that he'd been watching her the entire time (so creepy…), Hunter shook her head. "Not sure." She became quiet for a moment, thinking, trying to remember everything she knew about magical protective barriers. Despite not having magic herself, the teen knew more than an average Hybrid would about it after having lived in the cult for about two years. Problem was, an average Hybrid knew next to nothing about magic, so her knowing more wasn't saying much. Now more than ever before, Hunter wished she'd paid more attention to Ally and Steel's lessons; if only her ten-year-old self had recognized the logic behind studying just for the sake of knowledge.

Finally an idea struck her. "Maybe I can cause her to leave a weak spot in the barrier that I can slip through."

"How's that?" Starscream asked, utterly perplexed.

"A magical barrier's strength can change with how much you concentrate on it. Typically someone like Luna can put up a barrier that's strong enough to hold off most attacks without much concentration, but if you come at her with enough force at once she'll have to concentrate harder on it to make it stronger and keep it up. And if you come at her with a lot of force from a certain angle, she's going to concentrate on that area of the barrier specifically which means other sections of it won't be as strong."

"That seems logical. But the question is, what are you going to do to force her concentration away from the barrier as a whole?"

Hunter was silent for a moment, pondering this question. The roar of jet engines overhead caused her to look up, and she smirked as the answer came to her. "Looks like you 'cons might be useful for something after all," she murmured.

"I resent the insinuation that we aren't useful at all," Starscream snapped irritably. "Well… admittedly the Vehicons and Eradicons aren't all that useful except for sheer numbers, but I most certainly am useful!"

"That's debatable, but we don't have time to get into it," Hunter dismissed the Seeker, quickly rising to her feet. "Right now I need you to tell your sky-guys to form up in several brigades and, when I give the signal, come at Luna from all sides with guns blazing—the more the better."

"And just what are you hoping for that to accomplish?"

"I'm hoping Luna has to concentrate so much on shoring up the sides of the barrier she lets the top down-"

"And you drop down upon her from above—excellent! But how are you planning on getting far up enough above her without alerting her? Surely if you jet up there, she will see your fire and suspect something."

The idea that was in Hunter's head that was the answer to this question was one that greatly turned her stomach, but it was one she was going to go through with anyway, because it was her best shot. Turning to the Seeker, Hunter smiled thinly, willing herself to not be sick. "Well, Scream Queen, your worth might be debatable most times, but tonight is not gonna be one of those times…."

"Starscream, I swear to Primus, if you don't loosen up the seatbelts I'm going to rip them out of you in the most painful way possible," Hunter snarled, shifting uncomfortably amid the tangle of safety belts that wrapped around her as she sat in the Seekers pilot seat. She'd decided that, since the idea of flying with Starscream up above Luna was to attract as little attention to herself as possible, it was probably best if she did, in fact, ride inside of Starsceam's cockpit, as opposed to outside of it, holding onto a wing or something. But, boy, as good an idea as it was, it was damn awkward and nausea inducing.

"Simply trying to keep you safe, my love," Starscream chirped back. He sounded way to happy for the girl's liking.

"More like trying to cop a feel," Hunter snarled, jerking at a particularly snug belt across her chest. "And call me "my love" ever again I'm hurling all over your cockpit, aiming specifically for the hard to clean areas."

"Whatever you say," Starscream replied, still sounding way too happy. "Oh, by the way, you might want this with you." All at once, a compartment beneath the 'cons control consul popped open and inside it laid a gleaming, golden and blue studded hilt.

"My flame-saber!" Hunter gasped, snatching it up. She ran her fingers lovingly over the hilt, enjoying how it came to warmth and life in her grip as her energy flowed into it once again. It didn't awake yet, however, as she wasn't ready for it, but the very second they left this cockpit, out would spring the blade, wreathed in her fire, ready to do her bidding. Clutching it protectively to her chest, Hunter squinted suspiciously down at Starscream's consul. "Why do you have it?"

"You left it behind in the mine after our battle and you damaged my ship," Starscream explained. "I was simply holding it for you until we met again."

Hunter's gaze narrowed all the more. There was something evasive in Starscream's words and tone, and she could just about guess what he wasn't telling her. "You were trying to reverse engineer it, weren't you?" she accused.

"What?!" Starscream scoffed, too incredulously. "I would never allow-"

"Starscream…" Hunter warned.

"Well, can you blame me?!" the 'con broke. "It is a magnificent piece of weaponry—as magnificent as you—why would I not try to find a way to replicate it?"

"Seriously, 'Scream, the compliments towards me—I will barf on you."

"It's not as though you have to worry about my success," Starscream assured her, and he sounded rather put out and even annoyed. "The thing locked up on us the moment we tried touching it—shrunk down to pitiful organic size and stayed that way. We tried running scans on it, but the results told us nothing—in fact they were virtually unusable. Whatever secrets your precious sword has, it kept them well."

"It doesn't have secrets—it just responds to the touch and will of anyone closely connected to Primus. Thankfully that's not you or any of the Decepticons, so the only problem I have to worry about concerning my saber now is the fact that you touched it and I'm gonna have to boil it. But I'm gonna have to boil myself now, too, anyways after sitting in your cockpit—so we'll just hit two birds with one stone."

"Well," Starscream muttered, "all I'll say is 'you're welcome'."

Ignoring him, Hunter turned her gaze out the window of the cockpit and looked down to see how high they were. "I think you can stop here," she announced. "Time to bring the heavy artillery—open your com."

"'Open your com' what?"

"Open your com now."

"My darling, you really must work on your manners."

"I'll get right on that soon as I finish ripping my grandmother to shreds. Open com. Now."

Starscream sighed heavily and did as he was told.

Hunter picked up the mouth piece and spoke into it. "Okay, 'cons," she said, "this is it. Get this right and we all got a better chance of gettin' home and kickin' each other's skid-plates some other day. Hit the witch with everything you got! Attack!"

Hunter kept watching as far down below an armada of Eradicons came into view as they ringed around Luna's pillar. As they converged on the witch, there was the red glow of obvious cannon-fire as they unleashed their full force on her. "Time to go," Hunter stated.

"Good luck, my love," Starscream said as he released the safety belts and opened up his hood, releasing Hunter to the elements.

Hunter cringed as she clambered up out of the cockpit and out onto the wing. "You are so lucky I've got bigger problems to deal with right now," she hissed. With that, hilt of her saber clutched tightly in hand, the teen swan dived off the tip of the Seeker's wing. Daring a few quick bursts of fire from her feet, Hunter angled herself to be in perfect position to strike down upon her grandmother, and then she let herself freefall, pinning her arms to her side and her legs together to turn herself into a living missile. The wind roared in her ears, her eyes watered, her hair whipped and tangled behind her. While the situation wasn't much better, it was nicer than the last time she'd gone "sky-diving"; at least this time she'd chosen to fall, and she didn't have a sword in her gut.

Luna and the pillar drew closer and closer. The cannon-fire coming at the witch from all sides was continuous now, but none of it touched Luna. That boded well for Hunter, since it likely pointed to Luna having all of her concentration and power focused on her sides, but not above. Of course, she couldn't know that for sure, but odds were that, with the speed at which Hunter was traveling, and with as much power as it would take to fortify her protection from all sides to withstand that barrage, even if there was a barrier above Luna, it would be incredibly weakened and Hunter would be able to smash through. Weak barriers couldn't hold up against a strong, high-velocity attack—Hunter remembered that much from watching Steel and Ally train with them.

Hunter ignited her saber; the blade sprang forth and was enveloped in blue fire. She grasped it in both hands and flipped around so that she was angled feet first at the pillar and the witch upon it. She raised her sword above her head. This was it; this was where everything—Luna, the cult, the evil they brought to the world—the universe—would stop. There would be other threats, other evils to come in God only knew what and how many forms in the future, but never again would it be like this—because of this. Tonight it would all end. Tonight it had to end, because if it didn't, Hunter could feel in her bones the storm Luna was planning to unleash on the rest of the universe and it was raging closer with incredible speed every second. Tonight it had to end, because if it didn't, Hunter wasn't sure there'd be anything there left to save anymore.

Luna must have sensed something was off, because that this point she looked up, but by then it was far too late, as her granddaughter came crashing down atop her with a savage battle cry, slashing her flaming blade down with every last bit of strength she could muster.

Tonight it would end. Hunter would do everything in her power to make it end.