You know how I said I wrote two chapters before I even updated? Well this time it was doing on a massive writing binge and writing an entire chapter in under 24 hours, that was back on Thursday, it's Monday now and I'm finally done editing this one... I'm not sure where this sudden energy to write has come from these last few months, but it's starting to scare me.

Oh well, don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all that, on with the chapter!


Sharks…

They were eating Sharks.

One of which was a Great White…

The twins were eating that one.

Kia had flown in with it, dropped the already dead animal onto the deck, and then flown back out to keep hunting in the early afternoon sun.

Maggie felt her gut roil at the sound of those giant metal shears as they sliced through the giant predatory fish, blood already stained the deck from the three carcasses that had been dropped onto it.

Jazz and the Autobots looked no better off than Mikaela and her dad, their expressions a mix of horror and disgust.

She heard Mikaela gag when an overzealous Ira bit into the stomach of her caught shark, causing the stomach contents to burst out, splattering both deck and her own plating in a liberal amount of stuff that no one wanted to identify.

Kia and Ira were perched precariously on the sides of the ships deck, bent more than double with their wings out to balance them, one set of talons holding the sharks to the deck so they could easily tear chunks free, toss them up into the air, and swallow them in their waiting maw.

It gave the twins, who couldn't stand, the room to kneel and pin their great white with their wing struts.

Their faces were already coated in blood and stray pieces of fish meat and there was only going to be more as they kept going.

They'd actually already moved the metal pieces that framed their faces back, allowing them to just… do what they were doing… she was fairly certain jaws weren't supposed to go that far back without snapping clean off.

She glanced to Jazz. "Can… can you do that?"

Jazz shook his head, gaze locked in morbid horror as Kia pulled her lower jaw all the way back, leaving plenty of room for those razor sharp blades to slice her own catch. "Pit no…"

Not long after a happy trill burst from Ira as she lurched backwards.

Held in her mouth, dripping blood and stomach fluids, a license plate.

Mouth full all the Harpy could do was shake from side to side, bounce up and down and trill even louder to get the other Harpies attention.

The visors weren't telling, but even the twins seemed to regard them with their face half buried in the great white's chest cavity, letting off a low thrumming sound to state Ira had their attention.

Ira seemed to puff up her armour… somehow it felt like this was almost a game they were playing…

Ira threw her head back, again tossing her latest mouthful up into the air so that it could be ingested.

The license plate made a hollow clunking sound somewhere inside her not long after it disappeared into her waiting maw.

The whole thing was a nauseating display.

One that, no matter what, she couldn't find the ability to look away.

She lent closer to Jazz. "At least they don't have a taste for human…"

Apparently Ira heard her, the Harpies helm turning to regard her, there was something in the way they looked at her that send dread coiling in her stomach before she even spoke. "Nah, humans ah too greasy."

And that was all the motivation she needed to drag Jazz's holoform back inside. Missing the un-impressed looks from the other Harpies that they sent their companion.

Ratchet stood amoung those who remained, the concern he felt seemed to almost bleed out his holoform, his gaze dancing between the Harpies and the ever growing red stain on the main deck.

Everything was wrong with what he saw before him… before he'd been able to pass off Ira eating a whole skinned cow from the stress of the situation they'd been in making it seem trivial, as were the twins requests for meat and that whole cow they had in Monterey.

All of which had happened out of the view of his optics.

But now, with the afternoon sun upon the scene before them all, it was impossible not to accept what was before them.

The Harpies did not just sustain themselves on energon alone.

Mechanical in being, at least partially organic in diet.

So much was wrong with that he couldn't even begin to imagine how it was their internal systems weren't failing and offlining them.

Once they were done, he'd have to run that diagnostic scan.

He glanced to Ironhide then, his holoform stood beside him, if he was to be honest, the work Ira had done on these holoforms was certainly impressive, especially for a former human learning as she went.

The same could be said for Wren with her initial de-coding of their language.

He'd tell Optimus later, the mech would hopefully pull himself out of that small rut he'd found himself if the option of speaking with a linguist was put before him.

Once an archivist always an archivist.

His attention drifted back to the Harpies.

Something told him they wouldn't be running out of new discoveries regarding these enigma's any time soon.


Abandoned Decepticon Outpost - Omega 49 quadrant

The main doors of the Outpost staggered, their rollers long since rusted by the passage of time.

Undeterred by this, the servos pushing them apart pushed harder, eventually the rust gave way and the outpost was exposed to the atmosphere of its planet once more.

Soundwave stepped inside, his optics cycling as he looked around him…

It all felt surreal, the outpost had been abandoned when demand for soldiers increased on the front lines on Cybertron, this Quadrant wasn't predicted to last much longer, existing within a dying Galaxy, hardly worth the soldiers.

But now… now it was the perfect place for him to stop.

His entire frame was aching, both from his transition, and his flight off the planet his creations had been left on to offline.

He'd hunt down the slaggers responsible eventually, but right now, his creations deserved answers.

It wasn't hard to find the refueling hall, a communal area with an impressive amount of damage consistent with full scale brawling.

Mechs this far out in isolation, especially warframes, tended to go a bit… well the term 'stir crazy' fit very well.

Luckily the damage wasn't enough that there wasn't a place for him to sit.

In the dim lighting he settled himself down on one of the long abandoned benches, resting his arms on the table in front of him as he allowed his creations to detach and reform before him.

He was not surprised when they regarded him with trepidation, Ravage standing at the front of the group and corralling Buzzsaw, Laserbeak and Rumble back behind him, but Primus it hurt to see the fear hidden behind their optics.

He pulled in a long vent of the stagnant air around him, before letting it back out. "It was not… my intention to leave you."

"Why... are you talking?"

He stopped short of continuing, looking to Rumble.

His youngling was shaking, servos clenched at his side and visor down, the black and red themed mechling wasn't looking at him, facing down at his own pedes.

He went to try and formulate an answer but Rumble beat him to it again. "You broke your vow… You broke the promise you made to carrier… in her memory..."

The metaphorical shards of metal he'd been carrying in his spark for eons twisted, his spark writhing in pain for a few short moments.

His little ones winced, experiencing it through his bonds.

"I know… Circumstance forced my h… servo…"

His creations didn't seem convinced.

So, he resigned himself to telling them what happened, carefully he began to pass along the bond his memories of the battle for Helex.

He'd sent them all to engage the Autobots, whilst he ran the primary communications back to Megatron in Kaon directly.

He replayed the memory with all the vivid details he could.

Mortar fire was already raining down on the battlefield ahead of them.

Preliminary scans had shown that the Autobots long range mortar fire couldn't reach them.

They hadn't expected the Autobots to of upgraded their ranged weapons.

The whistle of an incoming projectile had been the only warning.

A warning he hadn't the time to properly react to.

The memory file cut off suddenly then with a burst of static.

Steadying himself he prepared himself for what he was going to show them next.

He could only imagine how they would react.

This part of the memory he would have to share fully over the bonds.

Taking one last vent to steady himself, he let his conscious slip out of the present and into the memory, taking his creations with him.


Sendai Japan

The noise of blaring horns and other such ruckus was an annoying clamour in his audios, worsening the already physical pain that seemed to be rolling across his entire frame like concussive emp blasts.

What slag makers were even using their horns so much?

His first action, before he'd even onlined his optics was to open up his connection to whatever cameras where in the area to find out.

Nothing.

Not nothing on the cameras, nothing, no link to the Decepticons mainframe, no communication hub, the only thing he was getting was… excessive random low frequency wavelengths that caused his processor to ache.

His HUD wasn't even the same, the sharp edges he'd become so used to were… fading… the lines the lists… the tabs to open certain areas… they were fading… leaving him with… nothing… even the random low frequency wavelengths were going silent.

Somewhere inside his frame a grunt left him, he'd tried to move, only to feel more of that stabbing pain.

Where was he? The… the last thing he remembered was heading out to the front lines at Helex… the Autobots had been launching a full offensive on one of their weaker points.

What had happened?

Had he been injured? It felt like he'd been injured… maybe that was why the HUD was gone… the medics were putting him into partial stassis…

Primus it had to be bad, that was only reserved for mechs they thought wouldn't come back if they went fully under…

There was a noise, closer than the horns, it sounded… off… no noise he'd heard before.

Something was touching him, there was a give in the spot, his protoform? Had he been stripped out his outer armour?

Servos weren't supposed to be warm…

The noise came again, louder, the touch on his shoulder strut becoming more of a shake.

What where those medics doing?!

"-y!"

Wait… he caught the end of that….

"H-y! -i-! Y- -k?"

Yes, he was understanding the noise more now…

And it certainly wasn't any Cybertronian dialect he'd heard before… He had to investigate… this could be an assassin!

He tried to online his optics, but they didn't flash on… there wasn't a flicker so much as a blurry haze, that took a few moments of wincing to start to clear.

When his optics fully came into focus, it wasn't a medic that was looking at him…

Something in the back of his processor answered his sudden need to know what the thing shaking him was.

Human.

Whatever the frag that was.

"Oh thank god… You're actually alive…"

He let a gust of air out of his vents, wincing at the pain in his systems.

He looked at the 'human' again, it's faceplates were somewhat disfigured, lines of jagged wounds long healed… topped with… fibres, grey and white fibres…

"Can you get up?"

Get up? He could barely move! What was this fragging organic on?!

The human took his silence as a negative and looked further down his frame.

He grabbed something and…. Cold! Cold! What had the fragging human just pulled away from him?!

"No stitches… well, at least someone didn't take your organs, your lucky, I've found enough like you already dead in places like this."

He grunted again, right arm strut lifting to bat away the humans hold on whatever had been lifted up… what he noticed seemed to be some sort of blue… fabric?

And then he saw his own arm… not arm strut… arm…

Pale cream, five… fingers… tipped with shiny nails…

By the pits… what had happened to him?

Barely having the courage to do so, he looked further down.

That wasn't his frame… that wasn't his frame!

By the infernal Pits what had happened to him?!

The human looked on with an air of concern. "Alright, time to get you out of the trash, that can't be comfortable."

Before he could stop them, they'd grabbed his extended arm and pulled, jerking him up and into a stumble, his legs giving out from under him.

He let out a startled noise of panic.

The human caught him easily. "Fuck kid… you're skin and bones… you're coming with me, and tomorrow I'm taking you the hospital, nice prosthetic by the way, surprised no one's torn that off you yet."

Prosthetic, a replacement limb for one lost.

He looked where the human was looking.

His left arm wasn't pale cream, it was his colours, deep blue and silver,

The plating was smooth if a bit scratched and dented.

In a moment of sheer perplexed awe he flexed each finger, the articulation was good, the motions a bit slow, but… almost like his old arm…

Was… was that all of himself he had left?

The one holding him threw his new cream coloured arm over their shoulder, both letting off a grunt as the old human took on his weight, and his own caused by the sudden shifting.

The world spun around him, but by some miracle he managed to take a step, then another, and another… somehow he even managed to take in what was around him.

An alleyway… leading out onto what seemed to be an empty street… someone was parked over there… just sitting at the edge of the road.

If he could coax them out of their vehicle mode… he might be able to get some answers…

When the human used his other hand, which he'd been using to brace his back, to place a key into the bots door… opening it… he had the sudden realisation that wasn't a bots alt mode… it was… it was just… a vehicle…

He was eased into what seemed to be the front passenger seat, and then strapped in, the man moving to sit in the driver's seat and using the same key to activate the engine, which rumbled in a pitiful comparison to any self respecting Cybertronians engine.

The man was quiet until they seemed to move onto a larger street, with other vehicles driven by these humans, with humans sparingly walking on the streets… going about their lives…

"So kid… you got a name?"

He glanced over at the man.

The man huffed out a breath of air. "Name's Jack… Jack Morrison… I run the local hostel…"

He had no idea what this Jack meant by a 'hostel' but he found himself curious.

Jack glanced at him for a moment. "Your mute aren't you? Don't worry, I won't judge, already got two at the Hostel who don't talk, it's not exactly rare these days for kids your age to be born without."

He just nodded along.

"But do you have a name?"

After a moment, he shook his head… he doubted Soundwave was a normal des… name here…

"Can't remember?"

He nodded, it didn't feel quite right to lie to this man, he seemed to be well intentioned… but good intentions were used to cause people to drop their guards, and he was no fool and certainly not foolish enough to take such a risk.

"You're taking the lack of memory well… don't worry, we should be able to figure out who you are, arms that good are rare, if we can find a serial number, we can track the maker, they keep records of all their customers… I should know with how much I have to deal with them here…" Jack rambled, as if to emphasise his point his left leg jolted, revealing a flash of metal under the clothes he wore.

He remained silent, turning to look out at this strange… non metal world… it… something didn't feel right… there was more colour than he'd ever seen outside of Iacon… the architecture of the buildings was alien, but had an interesting appeal… but all at the same time… there was, despite the many changing hues in the sky as this worlds star set, a strange darkness… he couldn't see it… he could feel it… and it unnerved him in a way that few things rarely managed too.

One thing was for certain… he had a lot to learn about this world… Something told him he was going to be stuck here… for a long time...


He cut the memory there, his spark was erratic in it's chamber, jumping and twisting and rolling over and over… he grimaced, he almost missed only having a heart, that was surprisingly less treacherous and erratic.

His creations were silent, lost in their own thoughts, he did not pry over the bond, he wanted them to come to their own decisions.

Soon enough, Ravage stepped forwards and pressed his helm against his left arm. "You came back… you found a way back…"

He slowly nodded. "Yes… though I will admit… a part of me hates myself for leaving… but I… I could not take the risks staying would bring… and I missed you… all of you…"

He kept it from the bond his reasonings for wanting to stay, he did not want to upset them too much.

Laserbeak tilted her helm to the side, she had no true vocalisor, like Buzzsaw, but she spoke clearly across the bond. "Will you tell us about… breaking your vow?"

He nodded. "Yes… but not now… sharing memories… is taxing… I need to rest, and then, we stock up with whatever we can find here, and move on… we have to get to Earth…"

After a moment they all nodded, thought Rumble frowned. "How do you know it's called Earth?"

He smiled behind his mask for a moment before it fell. "Because Rumble, that's where I woke up. And that's where Frenzy is, and if I know Earth, he's in grave danger."


The Gilded Falcon

Once again, tension had returned to the deck.

There was no doubt in Optimus' processor now, those protrusions on the Harpies helms were a method of communication.

It was difficult not to tell from the fact that for the last fifteen minutes, the Harpies had become locked in what he could only imagine was a fierce debate.

Ratchet, who's holoform stood beside his own, was growing impatient.

Thankfully his medic needed to wait no longer, as finally the debate ended, with what seemed to be a concession from the twins to Kia and Ira, who'd been pressing something.

Kia's helm turned to them, and after some shifting, she lowered herself down and pulled her helm back, baring her dark brown near black chassis to the medic. "Do as you must Ratchet."

Optimus was not blind to the looks of what he could guess as concern coming from Ira and the twins, their protrusions now lying flat and still against their helms, and the rest of the plating was being held taught to their frame, making them look smaller than they normally were.

Ratchet didn't waste anymore time, he'd discovered Ira had already incorporated a scanning function into the holoforms, allowing the medic to perform his check without having to clamber over the rest of his unit and have his frame be lifted onto the deck.

The visible light that ran over Kia's frame at large then was more just to show where the scan was going, the actual scan wasn't on the visible light spectrum.

After a few moments, Kia started to shift, lipplates shifting back into a grimace as the scan passed over the spark chamber.

Ratchet abruptly ended the scan there, his expression an unmistakable scowl. "You need to open our spark chamber, now."

Optimus felt his concern spike at his CMO's tone, it was that one he used where he was holding back by only a few fibres from wrenching someone over the helm.

Kia seemed to take the order as non-negotiable, but seemed to hesitate, turning her attention down to her own chassis for a moment before looking back at the medic. "We… don't know how?"

There was a beat of silence on the deck where Ratchet considered this before letting out a sigh. "I assumed as much… You've trapped your EM field inside, sparklings normally have their spark chambers opened briefly to check the condition of their spark after being brought online, it also releases the EM field… You however, have clearly never had your chamber opened, we need to fix that, it's throwing off my scanner by being so dense in there."

Optimus merely listened along to his medics reasoning, and Kia seemed to find it sound as well. "Alright… how does one open a spark chamber?"

Ratchet seemed to think over his response for a moment before replying. "Does your HUD have a 'medical diagnostic?'"

"Sixth one down on the right." Wren suddenly spoke up from behind Kia.

Optimus felt an eyebrow raise at that.

Kia nodded, and seemed to just that.

There was a sound of transformation, a few at first, but as the front of the Harpy's chassis began to split open, a strangled gasp of pain seemed to escape her, and the seams slammed back shut, her frame almost instantly coiling in on itself to shy away.

Everyone jolted at the sudden turn of events, the twins loosed a noise half way between a sound of alarm and the designation of their stricken comrade, Ira did much the same, though shuffled closer, wing extending so the final strut came to rest on Kia's flaring back plates. "Kia? Kia wha' happen'?"

Kia barely replied, the low pained croon was testiment enough though.

Ratchet had already moved forwards, ducking under the Harpy's shaking helm to reach her chassis. "Kia. Tell me, what happened?"

He got his answer when he spotted the tainted energon dripping to the deck, oozing out from the ran a new scan, causing another more violent shudder to wrack her frame.

It was over a lot quicker though. "I can't see what's wrong. Kia I know it hurts, but I need you to open your chamber."

Optimus could barely see his old friends holoform now, cast in the shadow made by Kia's frame, lit only by the slowly growing pool of energon which was already mixing with the dried shark blood and stray pieces that were still scattered across the main deck from the Harpies small feast earlier.

He turned his attention to the other Harpies, they were becoming stressed, protrusions flaring and bouncing and they were… making a sound, it sounded like wind being forced through an echo tunnel, a low whistle that was quickly becoming more and more insistent and high pitched.

And then, something changed, Kia shifted, and with a strangled noise of pain, the seams of her chassis split apart, the main armour of the chassis breaking at seams previously invisible and with them came a horrid cracking sound that was almost immediately drowned out as Kia threw her helm back and screamed.

Before any could react, the EM field that had been so coiled within the Harpy's spark chamber exploded outwards, the force was akin to a physical blow, destabilizing the internal workings of both his holoform, and that of his real form below deck.

The blast was a singular wave, and when it passed, Kia slumped, venting laboured and haggard as the other Three Harpies, quicker than he was to recover, shuffled closer to their injured counterpart.

Once his holoforms optics were working again, he found himself looking upon a sight he would likely never loose from his memory banks.

What rested within the Spark chamber of the Bateleur Harpy was not just a spark.

Hovering in the centre, nestled within the corona of the golden spark, was a pump, one he could now hear as it's rubber sides contracted and expanded, the hundreds of cables linked to it holding it in place as they in turn connected to the inside of the spark chamber.

He'd looked up what the human heart looked like, but that had not truly prepared him for what was before him.

Ratchet was already examining the open chamber as Kia's frame continued to be wracked by waves of pain, causing her armour to rattle. The energon pooling from where her chassis had broken apart still trickled out, though it was already becoming sluggish, the puddles forming on the deck crystallizing into their solid state once again.

"Hmm… it seems that, being placed into an adult frame with biological traits… you had a network of smaller cable lines wrapped around your spark chamber, don't fret, it's not fatal… now I'm going to have to reconnect these… two and… redirect them through… what in the infernal pits?"

It was then that Optimus felt it too, a light, almost not there tug, far weaker but unmistakable.

Stepping forwards almost on Autopilot, he watched in awe as the severed lines began to move, reconnecting and redirecting themselves so that they shifted away from there the spark chamber had opened… the motions created by tiny wisps of amber energy that seemed to of leaked out of the spark that was in turn wrapped around the fuel pump.

It was unmistakable, the Allspark had partially returned from it's dormant state to heal it's vessel.

Soon, Kia's shaking stopped, the pained expression on her visible faceplates falling away.

Not long after, the plating began to shift back, soon enough sealing the spark and fuel pump away once more, the energon staining her chassis already hardening into crystals.

After a few moments and a shake of her helm Kia spoke. "That… was… fucking agony…" She growled out, lifting a wing strut off the deck to rub tentatively at her stained chassis, her expression now a scowl as she glanced to the other two Harpies.

The twins, suddenly having attention back on them, shuffled towards the bow of the ship, helm dropped low to shield their own chassis.

Ira remained where she was, though the tension in her frame was palpable. "Ah'll go nex'... if we have tah… lose whateva tha' was… then ah little pain is somethin' we have tah live with."

He glanced for a moment to the twins, even with their visor he could tell they were less than enthused at the idea of going through what Kia had.

Ira apparently caught onto this, her helm turning to regard the largest of the Harpies. "Arien."

The monochrome femmes protrusions flared out.

Ira flared hers in return before speaking again, letting her protrusions flutter. "They need tah understan' yah condition. Ah'll go firs', bu' yah have tah promise me, promise me righ' now, you won' lash ou'. I doub' Ratchet wan's tah lose an arm."

Something else was said with the protrusions, he wasn't sure what, but it earned a low soft crooning sound as the twins accepted whatever had been said, shuffling back across the deck on their wingstrut and knees to knock their helm against their Red Kite comrade. "O-okay." The twins seemed to speak as one on that one word, and their frame slumped slightly at the agreement being set.

Ira returned the knock, tucking her helm as much as she could under the twins jaw, pressing up with a low chuffing sound.

Kia let off a low long noise of her own, pushing up off her wing struts to turn in her crouch to regard them. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't I the one who just had the inverted chest burster experience?"

The twins and Ira pulled away long enough to exchange a look between impassive visors and moving protrusions, both smirked and Ira moved over to Kia.

It was a strange thing to experience, to witness and be no true part of, words were spoken before him he had no understanding off, a literal double meaning to everything the Harpies did.

Ira moved into a similar crouch to Kia and raised her wings up to frame her, much like the underside of the twins wings, they were white with black spots. "C'mon then."

Kia huffed and spread her own wings out, white against the struts before being replaced with the dark near black brown that kept on until the main flight feathers.

Ira pushed her wings under Kia's and wrapped them down around the larger femmes short tail feathers, Kia wrapped hers around Ira's back.

The hug lasted a few moments as they knocked their helms together before pulling back apart.

Ratchet, who was waiting as patiently as he could until then, cleared his throat. "Now that the EM field has been released, I'd like to finish running my internal scan."

Kia huffed but complied, waiting for Ira to back up back to where the twins were before dropping back down onto her knees and wing struts. "Alright, alright… Say… that thing… that was the Allspark? I felt it…"

Ratchet nodded, going back to running his scan. "Yes, though it's already fallen back into dormancy. It was too weak for even my scanners to pick up upon."

Kia didn't verbally respond, but her helm turned, following her gaze Optimus felt his own optics fall upon the twins.

For once he had an idea of what might be turning within the Bateleur Harpy's processor.

The twins tilted their helm ever so slightly to the side, protrusions fluttering.

Even now it wasn't difficult to spy the mangled limb in the shadow their frame cast in the afternoon sun.

"Humour me Ratchet… it only started fixing the damage, after you said what you were going to have to do, correct?"

There was a pause in the air then, he turned to regard Kia again, her lipplates were pursed to the side, apparently musing over her thoughts as her protrusions bounced and shifted.

The twins and Ira were watching their comrade with what he could assume was rapt attention, and glancing to each other intermittently.

"That is… correct."

"So, let's say, in theory, if you were to point and say what you had to do to fix Wren's foot, it would be brought out of dormancy again and do it?"

The question brought a new silence to the deck.

He couldn't see Ratchet's expression, he was occupied watching the twins lift themselves higher on their wing struts and good pede, lipplates falling slightly open as their vents pulled in a sharp gust of air.

"In theory… yes… that could work…"

Kia looked to Ira then.

Another silent conversation and Ira's previously taut frame sagged somewhat as she nodded her helm.

Once Ratchet announced he was finished with Kia, Ira took a step back over, lowering herself down much like Kia had, bracing her wing struts on the blood and energon soaked decking to be within the reach of the CMO's holoform.

As the smallest of the Harpies, Ira also had the least amount of armour surrounding her chassis.

That being said, the pained grimace and the slew of profanities he would never dare repeat in any kind of company were more than enough of a testament that the process of opening the spark chamber for the first time was a painful experience, if Kia's own reaction to the process had not already been seared into his processor that is.

As did the sound of the decking cracking under the force of Ira's talons.

But after a few moments, the spark and fuel pump of the Red Kite Harpy was bared, once again there was the initial burst from an overstressed EM field, but they were somewhat prepared for it this time.

Though that didn't stop his own spark twisting at the sudden wave of negative emotions he was hit with.

Being able to discern one from another in the short time was practically impossible, and he thought against prying further as the EM field now with it's stresses abated, settled tightly within the Red Kite's spark chamber again, though much weaker now.

Ratchet took this as his sign to continue his checks.

He was soon finished, and glanced to Kia, who'd had her attention focused on the energon dripping from the sides of Ira's open chassis, it wasn't as much as Kia, but with Ira's smaller frame, that was to be expected.

Kia was the one who spoke, getting Ira's attention. "If this works, the pain should all go away, and the hypothesis will be confirmed."

Ira just nodded, having gritted her razor sharp denta at some point, after a moment she lifted her helm from where she'd pressed it against the decking.

After a few vents to steady herself she rolled back onto her haunches with a hissing grimace, the plating around her spark chamber, for a moment, began sliding shut again before she seemed to override the process and force them back open.

The pale orange corona of the spark seemed almost erratic, twisting and flaring around the heart shaped fuel pump nestled within it.

Before the war, the baring of a spark was an intimate and cherished experienced shared between mates.

The war removed such things, many a life had been saved by medics forcing open chambers and placing the sparks of the injured into containment fields to be placed within a new frame if the old could not be recovered.

It had all but removed the notion of seeing a spark as an intimate experience.

Now he watched with a certain level of concern at just how erratic the spark seemed to be, the wisps bleeding off the corona flickered, jolting into jagged edges that warped and twisted in a way much unlike any spark he'd seen before.

Ratchet had already likely taken note of it and was planning to speak to Ira privately at some point later about it.

Is attention returned to the present when Kia bent almost double, Nibbler, who had, in his lack of focus, been relocated to his frontal position, easily grabbed Ratchet's holoform by the waist, hoisting the medic up to around the right height as Kia rose herself to stand in front of her comrade.

From his position, he realised he had no good view of what was occuring.

He turned his attention instead to the twins, watching with an attention rapt on their comrades.

He had the urge to walk over to them and try to speak with them, but it felt like his every attempt so far had ended either badly, or started with a negative inflection.

But considering the rest of his unit, sans Ratchet, had left during the shark feeding, there was no one to speak with besides the twins.

So, resigning himself to the risk of making their opinion of him worse, he walked over.

They caught onto his approach almost instantly, helm swiveling around and down to face his holoform.

He waited until he was standing next to where their left wing strut met the deck before he spoke. "How are you feeling?"

The twins snorted, but Wren had the courtesy to answer. "Tense… Kia's experience with… anatomy, is rather spotty, if it can even be considered experience… she's good with a knife, but not a scalpel."

He hummed under his breath. "A fair concern, but if this does work… you will likely no longer need that brace… I imagine that will be quite liberating for you."

He barely caught it, but there was a few moments, brief moments when a smile flickered across their lower face plates. "Oh we're looking forwards to that… I'm sick of causing us to fall…" Wren answered, though the ending was tainted with a bitterness that seemed to put the twins into an internal debate for a moment before Aria spoke. "Before the injury… it was… fun… taking off, landing, discovering how much we could carry with our talons… We might even be able to pick you up… Maybe."

Wren followed up. "When we all first meet up, we found a cave, secluded, a river had carved it, as a result it was absolutely full of debris, took weeks to clean out… we'd barely finished carrying the last logs out when… when we found the trap." They shifted then, protrusions flattening as they tucked their right pede up a bit more, they were holding it off the decking now, supported by their tripod stance. It was then that he noticed something, the brace that Ratchet had fashioned… it wasn't there anymore, well, one band of metal of it remained, but the rest was gone.

He felt his own expression become one of a frown. "I see…"

Whatever he'd planned to say was interrupted with the sounds of Ira's chassis sliding back into position and the smallest Harpy letting off a noise of relief. "Tha' was tah weirdes' thin' ah have eva ha' tah do."

Kia said something, but he didn't catch it, she was kneeling down to allow Nibbler to set Ratchet safely back onto the deck.

It was then that all of their attentions shifted to Aria and Wren once more.

Ira banged the connecting joint of her wing strut against her now resealed chassis. "Din' hur' a' all. Tickles though."

He could tell Aria and Wren were less than fully convinced.

Kia looked to Ratchet. "Which would be better for them? Open their chassis first to release the EM field, or work on their pede first…"

Ratchet look to the twins then. "It is their decision to make there, though I have a feeling the moment their pede is repaired they'll be abandoning ship."

The expression Aria and Wren sent his CMO's holoform was one best described as scandalised.

Kia snorted out a laugh. "Spark chamber first it is then, come on twins, we let you go last, it's your turn now."

There was a hesitation there, with the spotlight on them, they ducked their helm again, and after a moment spoke. "What… what if there's… only one?"

Even with how weak the two EM fields were that were leaking out from Ira and Kia, he could feel a stab of pain and empathetic sorrow, it was only a small burst, there and then gone again, but it had been there.

Ira stepped forwards, and with a care that seemed to be practiced, brought their wing strut into a position where Aria and Wren could rest their facial guard on. "Ah small chance, all thin's considere', bu', even if tha's tha case, i' won' change how we see yah both, now stop worrin' an open up." Ira pulled back away after the quick pep talk, nodding once to the twins, and then again to Kia.

There was a moment of pause as the monochrome femmes nodded and pushed themselves into a more upright stance, and then the process of opening their spark chamber began.

Already he could feel their EM field leaking out of the newly formed breaks in their armour.

Unlike with Kia and Ira, the two seemed to be taking their time, energon bubbled and spilled out from the opening edges, but strangely, there was no direct reaction, no shake running through their shared frame, no hisses of pain.

Instead, they glanced between Ira and Kia and huffed before Wren spoke with a smirk. "Wusses."

Ira huffed, before in a tone he assumed was one of good humour. "If yah were anyone else, ah'd strangle yah for tha'."

That got a laugh out of all the Harpies, an inside joke perhaps?

It took a few minutes for the twins spark chamber to open, at one point Aria muttered something about their controls getting crossed, whatever that meant.

From this angle he couldn't easily see inside, but after a few steps to the left, he got a very good look at what was nestled within.

Sure enough, two sparks, each with a fuel pump nestled within, so entangled within the mess of fuel lines it was honestly difficult to make out the sparks nestled within.

The one nestled on the left side of their chamber pulsed an almost blinding white.

The one on the right, an eerie black, it's wisp like cornona leaking out from between the lines to mingle with it's sibling.

Where the corona's met, there was the odd thin swirl of green, red and blue.

The sparks were irrevocably merged, he heard Ira comment something about a 'Ven diagram'.

The other concerning thing that he noticed was that, despite them being markedly larger than both Kia and Ira in frame size, their sparks were, on their own, smaller.

Ratchet was muttering a whole slew of medical jargon he had no hope of understanding, but 'Statistically impossible' and 'I was right'. Confirmed that Ratchet's theory of their condition was in fact sound.

Split spark, same frame twins.

What that meant for the future was to be handled later, the EM field belonging to Aria and Wren had already finished uncoiling.

Unlike the mess of emotions loosed by both Ira and Kia, which had been built up over the last two earth years, the twins EM field had been practically barren, an empty spanse of energy that once able, had merely bled out.

He suspected Ratchet would want to invest some time in looking into that as well.

This time he watched as Kia was lead through the process of re-sealing and re-directing the torn energon lines, his attention rapt on the thin tendrils of the soft flickers of orange light that seemed to squeeze out of the gaps within Kia's chassis and into the twins chassis.

The first contact caused the larger femmes shared frame to jolt, before they seemed to ease into the contact and let it do as it was needed.

Soon enough the process was complete and attention turned down to their mangled limb.

The tension from before was gone, Ira had already stepped up, wing resting across the overlapping black plates that ran down the back of the twins frame.

After a few moments of shifting and one pained hiss from the twins, they were eased onto their back.

It was evidently not a position the twins were comfortable with, he had no doubt they would need assistance to right themselves.

Their venting came out strained, the plating around their abdomen opening just enough for him to spot the vent exhausts hidden underneath.

Ratchet asked where the brace had gone, Ira replied for the twins, saying it had been struck by lightning on their storm flight and, being the only part of their frames apparently not built to withstand the full force of the planets electrical might, had all but been melted clean off.

Another thing for Ratchet to explore.

Ratchet apparently took that as a good enough explanation, though also made sure to warn the twins against flying through lightning whilst wearing a brace, again.

It actually got a low set amused chuckle from the monochrome frames.

It was at that moment he realised something.

From their angle, with them lain strewn out on their back, he could peer under their visor, yes it had cracked during the fight with Fernando, but unlike Ira's, no part, not even a small sliver of it had fallen away.

For a moment his spark jumped at the opportunity to discover just what colour was hidden beneath.

Only to realise their optics were closed.

He shook the head of his holoform, chastising himself for the sudden urge to spot the illusive optics.

He could not blame his curiosity, so far, he had only ever looked into either a visor, or a pair of sunglasses with such a powerful tint that seeing within was all but impossible.

It was frustrating, Jazz's visor was similar in a way, but the mech only used in during combat.

But that was something to ponder at a later time.

Now, his focus shifted, falling upon the mangled limb that, if all went well, would soon no longer be in the sordid state it is in now.

He could almost imagine what kind of relief Wren would experience, but he'd never been in the situation they had been in for the past two earth years.

He didn't really pay attention to what exactly Ratchet was coaxing Kia through, too focused on watching those little flickering wisps of the Allspark dance across the mangled pede, slipping beneath the broken armour as it carefully, painfully slowly, began to undo the damage done to the old wound.

The gaping holes on the pede, torn by the rebar spikes began to be filled in once more, the struts within he could hear shifting back into place… Primus how had they walked on it?

He'd thought that very same thing a number of times since meeting Aria and Wren, perhaps they just had the benefit of a potent pain tolerance?

They'd have to have one, given the sickening snap of the primary strut being put back into place did not in fact cause them to show any sign of pain.

None at all…

Ironhide had wept when he'd had to have something similar done to him during the battle for Polyhex.

It was honestly becoming somewhat unnerving how little the twins were reacting to the whole procedure… Ratchet hadn't implemented any type of pain suppressors, he'd mentioned earlier he had no idea what a safe dosage was, so refused to risk such a thing.

His thoughts occupying him, the procedure seemed to fly by, his attention only snapping back to the present when Kia pulled away, the wisps recoiling back into her frame and both Ira and Kia offered a wing for the twins to hook their own on.

With an impressive shared grunt, the monochrome femmes were righted.

There was a moment of hesitation, where their right pede hovered just off the ground, it was strange really, to see it now, the identical opposite to Aria's own pede.

The talons clenched and unclenched just above the deck a few times, testing their motion, before with a muttered curse he didn't catch, the talons met the decking, along with the rest of the pede.

One second, two, three, there was no groan of metal straining against metal, no pained grimace, nothing.

Just the monochrome femmes standing on their pedes.

It took all of three seconds for Ira to break whatever composure she had, let off a shrill sound that would likely of sounded drastically different from a human, and tackled the largest Harpies, who let off a startled sound of their own at the sudden impact as they were thrown back by the force.

Sending all three careening off the side of the ship.

There was an almighty crash and burst of seawater that burst across the decking, splashing those still onboard in the process.

"God damnit Ira! Not again!" Kia shouted, taking the one step needed to look over the side of the ship before turning up to the bridge. "KILL THE ENGINES!"

Almost instantly the sound of the ships powerful engines cutting out reached him.

He looked to Ratchet, the holoform was already trying to spot the three Harpies in the waves.

The sound of others aboard the ship running back out to the main deck, a number of them shouting questions, be it about attacks or where the Harpies were.

Primus this day was turning into quite the eventful mess wasn't it?


Phew, this was a long one.

World building continues!

And now you all know a little bit of what happened to Soundwave, he's got quite the tale to tell.

Not got much else to say really, so, until next time, Moon out!