And I'm back, I really should be working on finishing up my last uni projects, but I got hit with inspiration and managed to finish off 47, so, here I am, posting 42, hope you all enjoy! (Once I'm done with Uni I'll probably start working more on getting Birds chapters out more frequently.)


Estrada Villa, Barcelona

Frenzy slowly rose up to his full height, saluted Megatron and spoke as Barricade watched on. "My Guardian, Barricade, defected from Starscream as the Seeker proved inept at obtaining the Allspark, even with information provided from an external and highly dangerous source. Barricade was approached by the Harpy that just tried to offline you, and another that, it has since been confirmed, single servoed, offlined Blackout and grievously wounded Starscream during a fruitless attack on what the information source claimed to the location the Autobots were hiding within."

Barricade's jaw had dropped at some point, then snapped right back up.

Of course the adopted creation of the missing Decepticon TIC, also sometimes referred to as the 'SpyMaster' would rat him out to Megatron.

Megatron however, did not look to him like he was plotting his agonising death, instead, his expression was pensive, calculating, but not hostile…

He hadn't seen that expression since before the war kicked off…

Something was beyond up, and all of them knew it, Kia knew it, that was why she was calling the other Harpies for counsel.

"Barricade, I need you to confirm to me, was that femme… Kia De La Estrada? The Kia De La Estrada."

"Y-yes? … How do you know her full designation?"

Megatron invented. "It is a rather long story… one I never thought I would have to tell… and yet here I am… alive again…" He mumbled, flexing his digits. "I will wait for Miss Estrada to return, from what I remember of her character, she detested people who started conversations without her."

Barricade slowly nodded. "Of course sir…"

Megatron returned to Frenzy. "The one who offlined Blackout, what was their designation?"

"Ira Halloran, she is currently hosting some of the few Autobot forces on Earth elsewhere in Europe, exact locations I cannot confirm, the Harpies are keeping myself and Barricade separate from them and there has been no physical clash as of yet."

Megatron nodded, rubbing his lower jaw. "They are playing peace makers… I do not recognise this… 'Ira Halloran.' Describe what you know of her."

"Foul mouthed-" Megatron actually let out a bark of laughter at that, startling Frenzy somewhat before waving for him to continue. "-Incredibly fast, all Harpies are armed with a total of ten scythe like blades within their wings, equally their talons are kept razor sharp and can puncture concrete when enough force is applied, Ira used her wing mounted weaponry to slice Blackouts tail rotor clean from the rest of him, leaving him to plummet to the ground and offline from a magnitude of other equally life threatening wounds, the tail rotor strike was merely the one that sent him into an immediate crash. I, nor Barricade have interacted directly with her since that night when they were able to track us down on an open and empty stretch of highway and offer Barricade the ultimatum of 'work for them, or perish'. By either their direct servos or starvation was implied."

Megatron continued to slowly nod. "And is it only Kia and Ira?"

"No Sir, there are also the three Orichiono's."

Barricade wasn't blind, Megatron knew that name, and hearing it seemed to take all the weight off his shoulders.

"Bless the Allspark." The mech muttered under his vents.

Barricade kicked the bit of him that wanted to tell Megatron to go outside and say that to Kia's faceplates.

Megatron was unaware of his internal musings and stepped closer to Frenzy. "Their designations, I need them now."

Frenzy was taken aback by the sudden interest, but did as told. "Aria. Wren. Derrick."

Megatron looked like he'd just been handed Cybertron, and he smiled. Smiled. A big toothy smile that neither he or Frenzy had been mentally prepared enough to see.

"Have you interacted with them? Are they well?"

Frenzy's jaw was actually hanging down a bit now.

Barricade stepped forwards. "You know them… intimately… what… what has transpired?"

Megatron would have answered, but the door rolled back open and Kia stalked back in, looking irritated if her downturned lips were any expression.

"Ira's on her way, but the twins aren't picking up, probably already out for the night."

Frenzy noticed Megatron's shoulders drop a bit. "Sir…" Frenzy looked to Kia. "He knows the Orichiono's."

Her protrusions shot up in shock, and what could be seen of her features morphed to fit it too. "W-what?! Them too?!"

Megatron stepped forwards. "It is complicated… please… at least tell me they are well?"

Kia balked back further, her back hitting the now re-closed door. "How… How do you know the twins?"

Megatron sighed, he might as well say it. "Because I was the one who raised them."


Monaco the next morning

The groan that left the twins was one not remiss from someone waking with a hangover, and to them it certainly felt like one.

They felt clogged up… and it took a while for them to wake up enough to realise the clogging feeling was likely a result of the sheer number of unanswered messages on their shared com-line with Ira and Kia.

"692… missed calls? ...What? … Fuck did someone die?" Aria mumbled, slowly pushing their weary forms upright while equally trying not to wake Derrick, who was out cold on his own nest-like pile of soft bedding.

Rising to their full height took a few minutes, it always did as they had to rediscover their centre of gravity and get the numb feeling out of their limbs.

A process somewhat hampered by how stuffed full their helm felt, and now that they had the time to recognise it, the… uncomfortable feeling in their chest area, though they couldn't really get their headspace in order enough to focus on what might be causing that.

Wren made the executive decision to delete all of the calls so they'd be able to think straight again.

Another call attempt popped up almost instantly after.

Both groaned, that explained why there were so many.

Aria was the one that greenlit the call, and both of them instantly regretted it.

"TWINS! YOU HAVE SOME FUCKING EXPLAINING TO DO!"

That was Kia… a very pissed off Kia…

Both whimpered at the noise, stumbling out of the room to take the rest of the call where it wasn't likely to wake their little brother.

"Kia… please… shhh… we just…"

"DON'T YOU TELL ME TO SHHH, GET YOUR MONOCHROME ASSES TO BARCELONA NOW! MEGATRON'S ONLINE AND HE SAYS HE FUCKING RAISED YOU!"

There was a very long pause, Kia seemed to be seething mad on the other side of the line waiting for a response.

The twins just stood there… not really processing what they'd just been told.

"Kia… ah… ugh... did… did you hit your urr head?"

"NO I REANIMATED A HEAD! MEGATRON'S HEAD!"

"And you didn't just… kill him after the spark re-ignited? … Oooh fuck...Kia."

"And can you please stop shouting? Ugh... We're not feeling well…" Aria mumbled out.

They really didn't, their guts felt all knotted and their chest just felt absurdly heavier than normal.

"Wait… you're sick?" Kia's voice softened to one of worry.

They shook their helm, optics flickering as the world blurred a bit.

"Y-yeah… everything's fuzzy... "

"Do you need me to call Ratchet?"

"Y-yeah… just… we'll fly to you…"

"No, stay in Monaco, I'll bring Megatron to you."

"And risk Optimus seeing Megatron? No, we're going to you…"

"Alright, compromise, transmit your holoforms to the Villa and go lay yourselves down, Ratchet can run a rough diagnostic on what your holoforms are showing, okay?"

"Mmmhm…" They mumbled, trying to turn back around to go back and lay down, only to stumble and crash Aria's shoulder hard into the wall, causing them to hiss in pain from the jolt along with the screech of metal against concrete.

Kia of course heard it. "Twins? What happened? Are you alright?"

"Good… good… just… banged my shoulder…" Aria mumbled, they shook their helm again, trying to focus on… well anything really.

The door slid back open for them and they slowly eased themselves back down onto their own nest, wincing as the Matrix, more specifically, it's barbs, shifted around inside them, causing them to hiss more in pain to that then Aria's shoulder as they carefully curled back up on the ground, wings covering their sides, helm slowly tucking back under Aria's wing.

From there, it was just a matter of activating their holoform in Barcelona.

As their frame fell still, thin rivulets of lilac began to ooze from the gaps in their chassis.


Estrada Villa, Barcelona

Kia watched as the twins' holoforms flickered into existence in the living room, and almost instantly slump down onto the sofa that was closest.

They hadn't even split their holoform.

She was standing in the doorway, Barricade's holoform behind her, blocking Megatron, who'd taken the lift up, from seeing the living room.

Kia could see even from here they weren't doing well.

Of all the times for the twins to catch something…

Something nagged in her to turn and look to Megatron, who was actively trying to quietly push past Barricade. "If you hurt them, I won't hesitate to kill you this time."

Bright red optics narrowed at her for a moment, before he smiled. "I would expect nothing less from you Estrada."

She nodded to Barricade and the mechs holoform stepped aside as she did too, clearing the way for the Warlord.

Megatron stopped next to the doorframe, and looked to Kia. "Thirteen years… It's been thirteen years for them…"

Kia slowly nodded, still really trying to take in everything he had told them earlier.

Ira, who was standing behind the group at large, having arrived at about four that morning, watched on with an expression of distrust.

Megatron had told them he'd never told the twins his actual name, wishing to protect them…

But at the same time… things were slotting into place for Ira, the puzzle that was the twins, with this revelation, seemed to be becoming more clear.

Of course the leader of the Decepticons would train those he was bound to to fight and kill… And from what she remembered of scattered rumours she'd picked up back during her days in the Triage, he'd likely defended them too… as an unseen force…

Her final judgement of how to react to this was hanging on how the twins reacted to it all.

Kia had reached up and pattered one of the spans of metal on Megatron's shoulder, and he stepped into the living room.

The twins were out of it, head lolled to the side, eyes fluttering just a bit away from being fully closed.

The sound of his approach seemed to rouse them a bit, sea greens opening as their head slowly lulled towards the sound of his arrival.

By the time he was kneeling in front of the sofa, they'd become more alert, sitting up, eyes visibly wide, but still somewhat hazy as they reached out.

He took their holoforms hands, and brought them to the sides of his helm. "You look like slag fleshbags."

There was a whimper, one they barely just let past their lips, their voices as one as they spoke. "V-... Voice?"

He slowly nodded. "Yes... it's me… how's your eye Wren? Still giving you grief?"

It was all they needed to pull their hands free and throw their arms around his shoulders and fall off the sofa into his arms.

They were crying, he could tell from the jerking in their shoulders as they tried to fight down the tired sobs that were trying to make their way out.

He let himself fall back onto his aft, the soft carpet quieting the drop as he clung tight to his girls, turning his helm to bury it into their neck as he pulled them down with him, his own arms wrapping tight around their back, claws digging in.

They didn't smell… there was a crackle of electricity as his claws dug into the holoforms fake flesh...

He tried to smell anything on the holoform, he knew it was fruitless, but he missed it, Aria always loved smelling of strawberries, and Wren of mangos…

It mattered none, they were in his arms.

It had been mere hours to him, even those few short hours felt like an eternity as Kia's attempts to call them failed over and over again, and illogical fear that something was wrong had built up within his spark.

But they had been without him for thirteen years, he'd been dead to them for thirteen years, they needed to know he was back, and he would fight to the very end to make sure he was never taken from them again.

He'd sworn to them that first day and every anniversary of that day that he would be there to protect them…

"I have you. I have you. I have you. I have you. I have you. I have you. I'm here. I'm real. I'm so proud of you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I have you. I am never letting you go."

They wailed then, a horrid shrill noise that bounced in pitch, nails digging into him almost as tight as his own, but his metal frame did not have the same give as their holoforms, so they just dug between the seams instead for a stronger grip.

Something wet pooled against his front.

He heard a gasp from the corridor.

He looked, Ira was close by, he didn't know Ira, she had come at some point since he'd been taken from them, he wasn't sure if he could trust her yet.

Her expression was that of haunted terror, and she was pointing, directly at where he could feel something wet pooling against his metal.

"Twins…"

Kia was looking too. "Twins… how hard did you fall when I called you?"

Fall? They'd fallen?!

"H...huh?" Aria mumbled, they pushed back on Megatron's shoulder to look at her shoulder. "Just banged my shoulder… nothing bad… why?"

"Aria… we're talking about your chest."

"What? Chest?" They muttered in tandem, looking to where Megatron was already looking.

The white overshirt they were wearing was soaked lilac, and the unnaturally coloured blood was pooling in Megatron's lap.

Wren reached down and carefully lifted the bottom of the shirt up to chest height, revealing a soaked bra underneath, and a myriad of oozing holes on their front and around their ribs. "Oh… Oh dear… that's not good…" Wren mumbled.

Megatron cupped their face, causing them to look at him. "Where are you?"

"Monaco… the old summer house… the castle is ruined here… it was…" They trailed off and looked away, despite his hold on them.

He pressed his forehelm to theirs. "Try and shut down the lines that are bleeding, we'll be there soon."

He pulled away as they nodded and flickered back out of existence, he turned to Kia and Ira. "Which of you is faster?"

Ira raised her hand.

Megatron nodded and looked to Kia. "You'll heal them?"

Kia nodded. "Of course. This isn't the first time this has happened."

Megatron frowned at that. "It would seem explanations are needed by all. Let's go."

"Wait!" Ira exclaimed, stopping everyone again.

She pointed out the window, at where the dawn sky could be seen through. "We can' fly in tha day, we'll blow our cover."

Megatron snarled. "Femme, I have little care about a cover."

Ira snarled right back, surprising him a bit, he wasn't used to humans acting… well... feral animals, and something about how she pulled her lips back to bare the teeth behind, caused him to pause.

"No' happenin', we ain't blowin' our cover, Kia, ge' yah holoform tah Monaco and ge' ah full read on their situation, ah'll organise some truck trailers and a cargo plane to get you and Megatron there."

Kia nodded, turning to Barricade. "You'll have to help Ira load me up, understood?" The mech nodded, so she turned back to Megatron. "It will be cramped but it's quicker than waiting for dusk."

Megatron obviously didn't like the idea of being delayed, but it wasn't his call, and he seemed to recognise this and nodded in understanding. He was just going to have to live with this.

If there was one thing above all others he'd re-learned from his time with his treasures, it was that collaboration, compromise and respect, were key when you weren't the one calling the shots, especially when you were the smallest in the group.


Monaco

"Siss? Siss? Hey come on, wake up." Derrick mumbled, pushing his wing against his big sister's back.

A re-check of the clock on his HUD and he frowned, this was probably the longest lay in they'd ever had… nothing crazy had happened the night before, so he wasn't sure why they'd still be sleeping, they always rose an hour before the crack of dawn.

His sisters just groaned.

His optics narrowed, that didn't sound right…

They were starting to move, pushing themselves up via their wings when he spotted what had formed under them.

A whole mass of lilac crystals.

He'd been informed enough to know that was their blood…

"... A-Arien?" He mumbled out in shock, slowly trying his best to push himself up, he was still shaky on his legs, but he could walk now. "Hey… Hey! Woah! Stop moving!" He exclaimed, when he realised the lilac was still spilling out from the seams in their chest armour.

They just grunted, already more upright than he was, a vicious pained grimace on their features as they stumbled back a step so their wings were braced on the ground, trying to push themselves upright.

They weren't paying him any heed, in a rush of motion he stumbled upright and put himself between them and the door. "Stop! You're hurt!"

"Kia's already on her way, we'll be fine." Wren replied curtly, they seemed to glance at their crystalised and oozing front for a few moments in disdain. "It will all seal up soon, it crystalises on contact with oxygen." She continued.

"Can Oxygen get in once they're sealed? It looks like you're bleeding internally." He shot back, pleading to whatever higher power was left they were alert enough to listen to reason.

They're head jerked back a bit, evidently they hadn't thought of that. "O… oh…" That was Aria.

They hit the wall behind them, hissed, and with a god awful screech of metal scraping against concrete, they slumped back down.

A wing came up to tentatively push against the grey metal that spanned their flat chest. "Ratchet did say a hard enough bump could cause internal bleeding… Must have happened when I banged my shoulder…"

He wanted to kick them. "And hitting your back against the wall is any better?!"

He was starting to panic, he recognised that as a fact, but the present situation was a bit too out of his control as it was, panicking was not going to help his sisters not have internal bleeding.

Their helm lolled to the side. "World's… fuzzy… not feeling good…" They mumbled out together, before letting off a light airy chuckle, Derrick was such a funny looking blurr of blues, browns and greens.

Shock, Derrick felt his optics widen, they'd lost enough that they were going into shock!

His brain went into full panic mode.

A wing came out and hit his side, jerking him out of his sudden bout of panic.

Their breathing was becoming laboured, mouth open and panting. "Re… recovery…"

Recovery? What did they-?

It clicked, they meant the recovery position!

How the fuck was he supposed to get them into a recovery position when they both didn't have hands!

An idea struck him that he probably should have had earlier in this whole mess.

"Stay right there! I'm getting help!" He exclaimed, nearly running face first into the door because the motion sensor and engines powering the door weren't that fast.

He heard them let out a laboured chuckle, and knew their head had rolled to the side if the thunk of metal against metal was any indication.

He didn't waste anymore time, and ran as best as he could into the main area. "HELP! OPTIMUS! IRONHIDE! PROWL! WE NEED HELP!"

Optimus, who was the only one present in the area, jerked out of whatever he'd been doing like he'd been struck with lighting. "Derrick? What's the situation?"

Derrick was already trying to turn around, his bulky tail feathers catching on the wall of the corridor. "It's my sisters! They're bleeding internally and going into shock!"

Optimus took a moment to go through the array of emotions such an exclamation would cause, before stealing his focus and breaking into a short sprint to reach the young Harpy. "Where."

Derrick had gotten his tail feathers out of the way at this point and pointed past him. "Our room! They're up against the wall and I don't know how to get them into the recovery position without arms!" He was close to breaking out into tears, he couldn't loose them again… he couldn't, not the only family he'd ever truly had.

Optimus tried to be careful as he pushed passed Derrick and quickly made his way to the Harpies room, the door opening to reveal the faint lilac glow of the crystals that bloomed along the seams of their chassis as they lay slumped over.

Primus this wasn't good.

He was quickly kneeling in front of them, pressing two digits against the side of the main fuel line that led up to their helm, there was pressure, but less than there should be.

He kicked himself for not knowing more about how to treat bots.

He sent an alert to Ratchet and Ironhide, very briefly explaining the situation.

"Kia… on… the way…" One of the twins mumbled out.

He frowned, reached up and slowly pushed against the edge of their visor, at the touch it actually retracted, in the dark of the room he could see their optics were able to stay open, but they weren't focused, dimmer than he remembered them being.

He looked down to their chassis, the energon crystalised on contact with air, he tapped the plating off their chassis. "You need to open these, can you do that?"

They nodded slowly and the hiss of transformation could be heard as the plates of metal slid away, allowing a worrying torrent of energon to flow out of the already packed spark chamber.

He heard Derrick warble in alarm but he put his focus on the complicated mess that was their spark chamber.

The relic, he'd heard Aria refer to it as an 'inverted sea urchin' had done what looked to be a significant amount of damage to the lines connected directly to the heart like pumps that were still held within the corona of each twin's spark.

He felt a wave of relief hit him when he realised none of the lines were completely torn, some were pierced and others were ruptured on their sides. Now that they were exposed to the air, they were already sealing around the spikes of the relic, a part of him hoped this would mean the lines wouldn't be at risk of moving as much after this incident.

Getting fresh energon in them was paramount though, already his knees were starting to get stuck to the ground by the crystals forming in the pool between him and the twins.

He looked to Derrick. "Get more energon, and there should be something organic for them to ingest in the freezer."

The Peacock nodded and bolted out of the room again to retrieve the requested fuel sources.

The twins needed more energon and organic blood for their systems, and using the fresh blood of other animals helped top up what their frames was able to produce naturally, that's what Wren had explained a while ago at least when they were having to convince Derrick to eat his first cow.

Derrick returned shortly after, surprisingly with Kia's holoform running alongside.

"Suns up, couldn't fly." She replied, her tone sharpish as she began looking over the condition the twins were in. "Dios mio… how hard did you fall?"

The twins attempted to shrug, but didn't seem to have the strength or the coordination.

Derrick, who had a whole recently dead cow thrown over one shoulder, and a cube of energon held in his snapped wide jaws, leant down to offer the cube to Optimus, who quickly accepted it and brought it in front of where the twins helm was. "Open up, you need this."

The dull 'thud' of the cow hitting the ground, swiftly followed by an indignant shriek caught his attention and his helm snapped around to where Derrick was looking a bit sheepish at where Kia was glaring at him, covered in the cow's insides, which had ruptured out of the bloated animal on contact with the ground.

"Sorry."

Kia pulled a long pink thing off her shoulder. "You are so lucky these aren't real clothes."

Derrick shuffled back as much as he could in the already rather cramped room. "Sorry…" He mumbled.

Seeing the issue wasn't anything dire, he put his focus back on the twins, who'd somehow without his notice, leaned forwards enough to start sipping the top of the energon cube.

Their optics were still dull and out of it, but at least new energon was getting into their system.

Kia pulled the last of the cow organs off her a few moments later. "When I called them earlier, they described feeling ill and dizzy, whatever this is, it's fast acting, they were fully cognizant not an hour ago."

Ratchet finally replied to his original message, apparently only now just waking up to discover that the twins were down with both an unknown ailment, and ruptured energon lines in their shared spark chamber.

The string of profanity that came across his com-line was rather creative, so Optimus began transmitting his optical feed so that Ratchet could better see the situation, and advise him on what to do.

"Sweet Solus… Prime… this should be impossible…" The CMO's shocked explanation did nothing to re-assure him.

"Ratchet, what are you seeing."

"Remember when I told you there was an empty spot in their spark chamber? Suggesting a third entity had at some point in their formation likely resided there?"

"Now that you mention it, yes… why?"

"Well that spot now has a bond forming out of it, and it's dragging their sparks to the back of the chamber with the force of it, pulling their sparks outside of their normal safe flux zone, and it seems to have thrown off their entire internal system. This is all hypothetical because I have never seen this before, of course before these two I'd never seen a living case of split spark same frame twins either, or a relic that decides to reshape itself into a torture device for it's bearer and reformat their memory banks. Yet here we are and I'm having to explore such hypotheticals as a bond potent enough to destabilise the entire frame during its formation!"

He tried not to take Ratchet's irate response to spark, the CMO had only just woken up to this slag show.

Thinking fast he spoke. "Is there anything I can do to help them?"

"Yes, get Derrick to open his spark chamber and tell him to get ready for a brutal tug of war."

He looked to Derrick who was trying to shove as much of his frame into the corner as possible to evade further irking Kia, who had at some point clambered up into the Harpies lap, resulting in her getting a good deal of energon on herself as well, and was busy reaching around inside carefully coaxing lines away from the relic spikes so they could re-seal themselves quicker.

Derrick noticed Optimus' attention on him. "Y-yes?"

"You have a bond with them, correct?"

"Um… the weird shared emotions and talking in our heads thing?"

"Yes, how hard can you pull that bond towards you?"

Derrick's expression became un-readable as he seemed to process what he'd just asked the peacock to do.

"I have no idea… will it hurt them? ...For how long?"

He didn't know. "I am uncertain, but at present it seems a separate bond is trying to establish itself, and it is using such force that it is physically displacing their sparks, and that in turn is causing their pump system to get pulled out of place-"

"Causing the current damage and internal bleeding." Kia interjected, looking haggard.

Derrick slowly nodded. "Sure… I can try… not long how I can last though…"

Neither noticed Kia grimace as she seemed to make a decision. "Two hours. He needs to pull on their sparks for two hours…"

Both of the mechs helms swung to them.

The twins, for all their dazed state, seemed to try and focus on her, but didn't have the cognisance to succeed.

Optimus frowned, and simplified what Ratchet was saying over the com-line. "How do you know that is the time measurement needed?"

"Because if everything goes according to plan, and it should, in about two hours the head I reanimated last night will be arriving with me via cargo plane, considering the circumstances and timing of this, it couldn't be anyone but him, and what has already been confirmed, his spark is the one being so insistent right now." She looked him dead in the optics and suddenly he realised how exhausted she looked. "I have had a very, long night. When he gets here, he's your and the twins problem."

A whimper from the corner of the room drew their attention to Derrick, who's optics were screwed up behind his dark visor, dentas visible as he grimaced, wings wrapped as best as he could around his front, evidently he'd dived right into pulling on his twin sisters' sparks.

Their attention snapped to the sparks still exposed within the twins shared chassis, sure enough, they were now being pulled in the opposite direction too, not enough to negate the other bonds pull entirely, but enough.

What happened next was astounding really.

The relic itself began to react, a shrill sound bursting from the spikes as they seemed to fluctuate.

The cause became apparent soon after, the other new bond seemed to have at least finally connected now, establishing a tenuous link.

What followed was a crashing wave of an EM field distinctly not the twins as their frame lurched and flung their helm back and gasped out a vent.

It hit with a similar force as when Kia and Ira had both released their own EM fields, causing Optimus to lurch back at the sheer aggression and fury in it.

Optimus swore he'd heard an every familiar voice, roaring 'MINE' in his own helm.

A few moments later and Optimus had recovered from the shock of it all enough to properly process Kia's earlier statement.

She'd re-animated a head… his memory banks pulled up the Hoover dam, the twins striking down his former friend, removing his frozen helm from his shoulders, before the rest of him was molten to slag where he stood.

Ratchet had fallen deathly silent on the other end of the line.

Slowly he turned his helm back to look at Kia, likely showing an expression of shock, horror, and terror. "You… You used the Allspark… To resurrect… Megatron?"

Kia slowly nodded. "He was the only body I had on hand to test it on. Figured it would be a useful skill for when conflict eventually found us… the plan was to slice him until he stopped twitching… bastard was fast enough to avoid me long enough to turn everything on its head…"

She looked physically shaken then as she finally met his blue optics with her holoforms golden eyes. "He knew my name… He recognised me from his time with the twins… He raised the twins back in our own dimension… Nothing he said past that made sense… and now we've got this mess…" She gestured to the twins and then to Derrick, who wasn't really paying attention anymore, too busy fighting over his sisters sparks with a Tyrannical Warlord so much his senior it wasn't really even a contest.

Optimus let all of that sit in his helm for a moment before looking to the twins. "Did they…"

"No… He never told them who he was… they apparently decided he was a dead bodyguard who'd stuck around to protect them... You know, a Poltergeist."

He had no clue what one of those was, and his expression seemed to tell her as such.

She sighed and rubbed at her face. "You can ask him when he gets here… he mentioned something about wanting to 'end the war' that he's 'tired of it all' and that he just wants his treasures close'." She paused and looked at the twins. "Three guesses who he was referring to in that last one…"


Welp, until next time! See yah!

Moon