I wrote chapter 51 so fast, it was honestly a bit scary. So, here we are back already with me posting 46, hope you all enjoy!

Chapter 46

Optimus glanced around the amassed bots on the patio and around the pool.

Jazz and Maggie had sent a com-link informing him they were only about forty minutes away.

It was the first contact he'd had with his first Lieutenant after he'd sent off that update on the situation to him and Bumblebee, filling them in on the rather substantial developments that had developed in Monaco over the past 48 hours.

Bumblebee had sent a written confirmation that he'd seen the report, but Mikaela still needed to get to her job at the dealership, so they'd be making their way to Monaco once his charge and 'girlfriend' got off for the day.

Due to how the manor was built onto the hill, the back garden and pool had been built into a man made outcropping, which was in turn flanked on all sides by a tall hedge row.

It's purpose of keeping people from the city below from getting a good look at the sprawling manor's garden was proving it's value now, as he watched Megatronus loom over where Aria was at the fire pit, the smells of countless different meats and vegetables being slowly cooked on the large stone over the roaring fire.

Looming wasn't quite the right word, the chair he'd tried to sit on had broken under his weight, so now he was kneeling on the ground next to Aria's seat, his height over her meaning he was practically resting the under side of his jaw on her head to watch her work.

Wren was on the other side of the fire pit, strewn out on a sun bead with her tablet holding her total focus.

A raucous laugh from just to his right had him nearly jumping out of his holoform.

He turned sharply to see the cause, only to let his guard lower again at the sight of Prowl showing off to Ironhide by way of carrying Annie on his shoulders.

Rafeal, the boy he and Annie had apparently had the custody of given to, was sitting next to Ira's holoform watching his new parents have their fun.

He glanced to Ira, the fiery woman seemed to be calmer, she had offered the spot next to her to the boy, and had pulled out her phone to show the boy something.

He spied her short name already written on the boys cast.

He was surprised, but also not.

The smile on Ira's face was genuine, and the awe in Raf's gaze seemed to only make the smile grow wider.

Perhaps Ira was more comfortable with the young of the human species…

"Prowl! Put me down!" Annie shouted, laughing as Prowl bounced around in a circle, laughing his head off as well.

He glanced to Ironhide, who was just mirthfully shaking his helm at the nonsense.

Apparently Aria had also been caught up in the noise, and suddenly shouted. "HEY EVERYONE!"

All heads spun as the white Orichiono stood next to the fire pit, she tossed the tongs she'd been using to turn the 'sausages' to Wren, who caught them without even looking up from her tablet, but Optimus caught a wry smile forming on the black twins lips.

There was a flash of pixels as suddenly Aria's attire was replaced by a much less covering attire, quick image search provided the answer as 'tankini' and 'swimming trunks'.

He glanced to the pool at the same time as she glanced to Megatronus, who seemed to pick up on what she was planning, and had a rather devious smirk forming on his features.

This… was not going to bed good…

His concerns were further elevated when Megatronus rose, grabbed up Aria by the hips, and bodily tossed her up into the air, where she flipped twice before 'swan diving' into the water.

Ira cheered from her spot next to Raf, and practically tore the shortcut denim jacket she was wearing off, then the tank top underneath, revealing a more string than fabric 'bikini'.

The short shorts she was wearing stayed on as she took a running jump into the water, curling into a ball and crashing down not a meter from where Aria had only just surfaced, causing a large cascade of water.

The sounds of tiles cracking drew his attention just in time to see Megatronus take a running jump, and tackle both of the Harpy's holoforms, dragging them back under with a massive splash.

"Alright! We need one more!" Aria called out once she was back above water, Megatronus came up from under her, and wound up with the white themed twin on his shoulders, servos around her shins.

Oh… oh they were definitely doing something.

"Me!" Prowl called, setting Annie down, and practically tearing his shirt and shorts off in his haste to jump in as well.

Once he'd surface and shook some of the water out of his hair, he looked to Ira and offered his hand. "A boost ma'am?"

Ira smirked, took his hand, brought her foot all the way up to brace on his arm, and lunged up out of the water and threw herself in such a way that she landed on his shoulders the same way Aria was on Megatronus'.

All at once, all but Megatronus in the pool shouted. "CHICKEN FIGHT!" And the two mechs lunged, and the two Harpies came together, hands interlocking and foreheads slamming together with an audible 'CRACK'.

He glanced to where Wren had sat up and was now turning the 'sausages', more on autopilot than active decision, he moved to take a seat next to her. "Wren… I need some enlightenment… What are they… doing?"

Wren glanced over, a look of perplexed indifference as she regarded the conflict currently occuring in the water as Ira and Aria all but tried to beat the living shit out of each other while balanced precariously on Megatronus' and Prowl's shoulders alike, though due to Megatronus' bulk, Aria had the advantage of having a larger seating area.

In theory at least.

"Pool game, first one to fall off the shoulders of their partner loses."

"Ah… I see… somewhat…"

Wren hummed in agreement, already busy flipping the 'burgers' over.

He leaned over a bit to watch a bit closer.

A cheer from Annie and Raf drew his attention back to the pool just in time to see that both Harpies had gotten up, and were now standing on the shoulders of Megatronus and Prowl.

They took a moment to balance, and then Aria struck first, jumping up into a spin and delivering a brutal kick towards Ira's side. He felt his holoforms eyebrows jump up, that kick would have absolutely caused some internal damage if it had struck a human and not a holoform.

The red head responded by bending herself in half backwards to the point she dropped her hands onto Prowl's white hair between her legs, before pushing herself back up, and flipped, both of her legs coming down towards Aria, who managed to deflect both away with her arms.

Wren huffed beside him. "Show off's, the both of them."

He couldn't help but humm in agreement and continue to watch.

Rafeal came over to join them after a time, and Wren picked up one of the sausages, plated it along side a cut open piece of bread, and passed it to the boy, who quickly ambled back to his new mother for the help he would need to put the ketchup on it, which Annie was more than happy to oblige him.

In that brief time where Optimus quietly watched the interaction between Annie and Rafeal that a finishing blow was landed, and he looked back to the pool just in time to see Ira surface, spluttering as Aria and Megatronus cheered, both mimicking the other as they flexed.

Something in his memory banks flung to the forefront of his processor.

The world fell away for only a second, and instead of Aria, he saw Nebularburst on Megatronus' shoulders, coated in energon and cheering as they celebrated felling a sparring partner who'd underestimated them both…

He snapped himself back to the present with a jerky shake of the head.

He noticed Wren staring at him in concern, the hand not holding the tongs reaching over, but now hovering in the air between them.

The world bled away again, the tongs replaced with a soldering tool, and Wren's face of concern flickered and warped into the covered face of Sol, but the look in the optics and eyes… too similar… that same worried expression for him...

The hand touched his arm and he jerked back like it burned him.

Wren recoiled in surprise too, a look of hurt shock on her features, like he'd struck her.

Attention was drifting to them, Aria's head was knocked to the side… just like Neb… Megatronus was half way through setting her back into the water off his shoulders, but the look of guilt ridden understanding just pained the Prime's spark more.

This wasn't good…

Not good…

He glanced to Ironhide, the mech who'd been rather indifferent to everything suddenly looked haunted as something seemed to dawn on the mech too.

He looked back to Wren, and guilt filled him too… this wasn't their fault… but this had to be addressed…

The similarities… now that they were brought to his attention, could no longer just… pass him by without him noticing, processor busy with other things.

Now… now it was determined to spot them… to see just how much they were like the ones he lost so long ago.

So, he looked Wren right in her sunglasses-covered eyes and spoke. "I wish to speak with you and Aria later… in private… is that alright?"

Wren gave him a mute nod, and he rose, and strode back into the large manor.

He needed to drive… get some asphalt under his tires and let it all just get out of his system…


Somewhere in the Alps, Sunset

A small pebble bounced and cracked as it tumbled down the steep hill it had once been perched content on, tumbling downwards with the rest of the pebbles and stones disrupted by the shifting further up.

Optimus looked passed where his servos were pulling at the metal of his face, watching the pebbles and rocks vanish into the already shadow filled valley below, the sun now starting to dip behind the mountain peak on the other side of the valley he'd found himself in.

He'd driven for hours, taking whatever turn pulled his spark a bit more, he let it lead him instead of his processor, and now, here he was, sitting on a small outcropping that was probably a full road long ago, but was crumbling now from abandonment.

He hadn't seen a single human building for over an hour, so he'd taken the risk to sit in his bipedal mode.

His servos shifted and he ended up resting the rise of his helm against the base of his thumbs, and just staring at the ground between his spread but arched legs.

The journey had kept the thoughts away, those nagging plaguing thoughts that had been stealing himself from the present more frequently than he cared to admit to anyone, even Ratchet and Ironhide.

Primus would these things plague him if the war persisted like it had on Cybertron, constantly giving him something to do to keep his processor in the present?

No… because that meant the Harpies would likely not be present in the way they are, Megatronus would not be revived in such a way that they were both able to lower their weapons, and Megatronus would never have told him the truth of those cycles when it wasn't his brother he fought… but something… something malicious and indifferent to the plight of their kind…

The similarities would never have been brought to his attention.

His subconscious would not have latched onto them, and prevented him from burying them like he had always done when thoughts of them rose up to distract him, to prevent him from doing his duty as Prime…

What kind of Prime was he if he couldn't just leave the ghosts in the past?!

"-That's the funny thing... with bots you care about, Paxie… often it's their demise that makes you…. love them even more… and it makes them being gone forever so much worse… because you know you'll never get to share that love with them... it's what makes you want to avenge them."

Neb's words rung about in his helm, from a time he'd managed to coax out of her what had happened to their old ship, The Navigator… which was torn apart for scrap not long after the Senate had them wiped from public existence… she'd been talking about the ship… it had been their home, it had been their sparkling... but now… the words haunted him in such a way that had him nearly clawing at the sides of his helm.

He wanted to leave them in the past… he wanted to move on...

He wanted to just… accept they'd never come back…

But he was seeing them in the faces of his hosts, the two who'd taken him, Ironhide, Prowl and now even Megatronus into their home, and asked for honestly nothing but laying low, the odd bit of medical treatment, and company.

How was he supposed to interact with them… when all he was starting to see were the long offline faces of that unrequited love from eons ago?!

As if to torment him more, his memory banks reminded him of his other love.

Elita 1.

His optics widened with horror behind his digits.

Had… had he even thought of her once since he'd arrived on Earth?

Yes… once… on the Gilded Falcon…

But that was months ago now…

He tried to feel around his spark, tried to find the love he had for her.

It took too long to find it…

It was waning…

He would have preferred Megatronus punching him with everything he had directly into the spark chamber at that moment.

It would hurt far less.

He'd all but fallen out of love with Elita… and… and it wasn't her fault…

Those old words of absence making the spark ever fonder damn well taunted him from the past as well.

He'd not seen her since the exodus… he'd loved her… not as much as he had the Mutes… but he'd still loved her… she was there when he was grieving, and she helped him back onto his pedes, was there to catch him whenever he stumbled…

He'd loved her… but now… with her absent from his side… his spark had slowly let go of the ties that bound his to hers…

What kind of mech just… stopped loving someone who'd done so much for them?

He buried his face in his servos, curled up and just… he didn't cry… he was not sad… he was angry… not at Elita… not at the war… not at the Orichiono's…

He was furious with himself… his treacherous spark… of course with Elita gone it had returned every bit of attention it could to them… to Sol and Neb… whom he'd never so much as taken on a date, let alone told them of his feelings…

He'd come close… so close so many times… but something, without fail, had always either pulled him or them away before he could just… get those damned words uttered…

Maybe he should have just bit the metaphorical bullet and told them… but… he hadn't… he'd told himself 'next time' so many slagging times it had become an mantra…

Then they were gone… and there was no more 'next time's'.

They were gone… 'atomised' was the word Wheeljack had muttered when he'd finished running the calculations… the chance of survival had ended up in the negative percentages somehow…

His chief inventor was having just a bad time as the rest of them… maybe he'd broken the math like that just to nail home in his own processor that he'd lost them too…

Wheeljack to his knowledge hadn't let anyone into his labs to help him after Sol perished… he'd heard him mutter something about 'wrong kinda chatter' when he'd been overcharged on high grade once, but hadn't pressed it further.

His spark… that torturous thing that was his very core, kept pushing to open up his memory banks… to fall back into those times when they were so much closer…

He didn't even really process it when his emergency protocols fired up and knocked him out so his taxed systems had time to cool down…


The Rust Sea

This was a dream…

The Hydrax Plateau was never this empty…

He turned where he stood, taking in the towering, yet unfocused ships that either rose to the sky so far they blurred into non-existence, and ones that were set on their horizontal landing gear, waiting to be taken to one of the launch platforms and brought to the horizontal for take off.

He wandered for a time, before his optics landed on a familiar hull.

White, soft pink and purple…

The Polaris.

It sat there, it's size dwarfing him in every possible way, just one hydraulic on one of it's rear landing gear made him feel microscopic.

The loading bay doors, those massive things he'd seen them enter and exist so many times… their presence filling the void around them as they walked…

He was moving up the platform before he even registered it.

"Not even going to ask permission to come aboard Hunter?"

He spun, optics wide as they met the mirthful ones of Sol, one optic ridge raised higher than the other, scarred lips quirked in a knowing, happy smirk, and servos resting on her hips like she was scolding a youngling.

"...Sol…"

"Eh, close enough, c'mon Hunter, you can help me move some boxes Neb forgot about."

She walked passed him, he reached out, but she was already at the boxes before he could touch her.

Those boxes hadn't been there before.

A blink and he was carrying three of them, balanced one on top of the other in his arms as he glanced around them, making sure not to accidentally step on her as she carried another three.

"I can-"

"I'm fine Hunter, small I may be, but I'm not a fragile piece of crystal, I can carry three boxes, just fine."

He just nodded, following her through a door.

Blink.

They were in the small rec-room the Polaris had, a crew of only two didn't need a large one.

A cube of energon was in his servos, he was seated in one of the few chairs large enough for his bulk, one of the 'we're hosting guests' chairs that Nebular had impulse bought to furnish the room a bit more than the simple stools Sol had gotten originally for the two of them.

Solar was sipping a cube, then she was speaking, but his attention was on how the liquid in the cube didn't quite bubble right…

"-Hunter? Hunter? Ah, there you are… something's bothering you, isn't it?"

He looked her over, she looked just as she did right before she and Nebular left with that spec-ops unit for Tarn… aged in a way that he could never quite put a digit on, worried for him, always more worried for everyone else over herself, a martyr...

"You're offline... this is... a dream…"

That same look of worry, the concern, the sad pity… Primus even in his dream Sol shared that expression with Wren.

"It is a dream… One you haven't had in a while… I was starting to worry… but this isn't about me, or Neb, wherever she is, this is about the fact you've convinced yourself there's no one alive who could ever possibly understand you… so you've come here… to talk to me… a figment of your subconscious. You went so far as to make us self aware..."

"You were my second… my closest friend… my advisor…"

"And I was a damned good one when I was alive, if I do say so myself… but I'm not alive anymore… I haven't been for a long time… you need to find someone new who can… who you can get advice from… someone who won't judge you for this… for what you believe is a weakness… I know you wrote off Ironhide and Ratchet, and basically everyone else long ago… for reasons unknown to me past your stubborn refusal to accept that I wasn't going to come back..."

A blink and she was standing in front of him, he was on the ground, sitting with his legs drawn to his chassis, her delicate but oh so lethal servos cupping his jaw oh so gently as she drew him to look her in the optics, even in his current position, he was still taller than her.

"You're seeing my face in… Wren… because she's close enough to me… that you can't find a reason, good enough, not to turn to her… and... Aria… to move on from me and Nebular… you have to let yourself find someone alive to help you… You can keep visiting us… but you can't keep coming to us expecting to find answers to all the worries of a world we were never alive to see." She leaned in. "Promise me? Promise me Hunter, that you'll find help outside of your own helm… please… it hurts so much to see you like this… Please Hunter…"

He didn't answer, he wanted to… he wanted to pull her to him and just… just hold her… have her in his arms again, hanging off his back and laughing in his audio at a random thing she'd seen over the bond that Nebular and Megatronus were doing… but the world… the rec room… The Polaris… the Hydrax Plateau… all turned to ash, carried away into the void… she was the last to go, and in a few slow moments, he saw her vanish the same way she'd been taken from him, a small smile, that same small timid smile on her lips…

Then… she was gone… atomised… blasted into oblivion so violently the spark was completely destroyed, never to return to the well… a spark lost to… to the atoms.

Leaving him to float there, in that empty place in his own helm, staring at his own servos as he wished them to crumble away, to atomise… to cease to exist in this place...


He came back online.

A black visor was hovering a little way above him, it didn't take him more than a few moments to recognise the monochrome Harpies, their unique helm design and protrusions standing out just enough against the dark clouds and starry night above.

"Oh my-! You're awake!" Wren exclaimed, kneeling down next to where he'd ended up strewn out on the hill.

He groaned and pushed himself up. "Why… how did you find me?"

They shrugged and Aria answered. "You're a rather noticeable heat source on thermal imaging… erm… are you okay? You were… just, passed out?"

They were sitting a few meters away, but with how their upper torso was naturally hunched over somewhat, their helm was hovering not too far from his, protrusions waving and bouncing in a rather more eratic than normal fashion.

"You… said you said you wanted to talk later… but after you didn't come back… and night fell, we came out to look for you, luckily for us, you passed a few of the cameras that Ira's got rigged up in these mountains, and she was able to get a rough idea of where you might be… and that's how we found you… about an hour ago now."

"We've been waiting for you to wake up, now that you're awake we can cancel that countdown we had on when we were going to call Ratchet to this location, Kia offered to carry him here." Aria added, a nervous chuckle in her voice.

They'd just… waited by him, for over an hour.

He looked away from them for a moment and let out a long vent. "I… I needed time to clear my helm… I underestimated the time it would take, and how taxing it would be on my systems."

The sounds of rustling feathers and mechanisms in motion drew his attention to the wing stretching out behind and around him, not touching, just hovering around him, it's massive span could easily cover the whole of him were it flexible enough to do so.

"Do… do you need a hug?" Aria asked tentatively, her wing still hovering around his back, it seemed to tremble a little from the effort of keeping the mass of it so stretched out and still.

So, he nodded, and let her drop the wing against the span of his back, they shuffled up to sit parallel with him, and more on impulse than active thought, he let his helm drop against the slopped span of their shoulder guard.

Everything was quiet for a few minutes, then Aria spoke. "So… we um… we had… a... bit of a um... fight with Megatronus… when he told us what he did… like… we get it… but… he did groom us… into what he wanted… and we never questioned it… he didn't think it would be an issue until he realised we had been interacting with you… Ironhide actually punched him, didn't really do anything but he's in the dog house now, so to speak."

"Ah… I see… I'm sorry I just… left with no explanation… it sounds like I left quite a mess."

They sighed. "It's not your fault… it's not really even Megatronus' fault… he had never even thought that any of this-" Wren gestured out at the valley with her own wing. "Could possibly be what awaited us all in the future."

He nodded against their shoulder.

"Do… do we really… are we… we're sorry… if we remind you of them, if we ever do, tell us and… and we'll try and remove that from our habits and personality."

He jerked up when what Wren's words meant dawned on him, and acting on impulse, he reached over to grab the first joint of Wren's wings, causing their helm to spin to face him too in surprise, the sheer length of their neck allowing the motion that would have risked snapping a normal bots neck.

A beat of silence followed, and he only spoke after bowing his helm to them. "You are not them… this is not your fault… It lies with me to try and… see you as your own beings, for you more than deserve to be individuals with your own views, beliefs and emotions… and not those of the long deceased."

Another moment of silence followed, interspersed only by the wind whistling past them through the valley and the rustle of the trees around them.

"Can… can you tell us about them? We're... curious…" Aria mumbled, despite the visor, he had the hunch they'd glanced at him quickly before looking back to the valley.

He took in a long vent, held it, then let it back out. "I can… I warn you… I can become… emotional when it comes to remembering them…"

The wing around his back tried to give him a comforting rub, it was cumbersome, but the gesture was appreciated. "Pretty sure that's normal Optimus, just, take your time, we'll listen."

And they did, they listened to him ramble, they listened when he would just jump to something else the last retelling had reminded him of, and they listened and chuckled whenever he apologised for not being a very good story teller, just remarking something along the lines of them not being good at this sort of thing either.

He was taking Sol's advice… and… it was helping, they were listening, and understanding, only interrupting when they needed further clarification, or to bark out a laugh when he brought up something funny one or both of the Mutes had done, or anyone else who the tales involved.

He was nowhere near done, but it was hard to miss the passage of time when the sky started to lighten.

They helped each other back up to stand, and there was a quick moment of pause before both wings were around him in as best of a hug as the twins could produce, after a moment, he brought his own arms up to wrap around their ridged back, and just basked in the physical contact.

They all pulled back at the same time, the twins starting to stretch their wings out to their full span to get the mechanisms loose enough for flight.

They turned to face the headwind coming through the valley, their feathers catching it like large sails.

They glanced back at him, he caught the smile on their face. "See you back at the Bunker Optimus, and remember, listening to each other's problems, that's what friends are for, if we ever do something that brings up something upsetting, or you just wanna talk, we'll talk, okay?"

He nodded, and watched as they launched themselves off the steep hill, wings beating down to get them started on their journey back to Monaco.

He watched them go until the mountain range obscured their sunrise bathed silhouette from view.

Letting off a sigh, he chuckled and glanced up to the stars, he always liked to think they were up there somewhere, just keeping an optic on him. "I think you might be right Sol… that did help."

He knew he was just talking to himself, but he let himself believe she heard him.

If there was anything else he'd learned from this tumultuous night, it was that things weren't all bad.

The twins weren't copies of Neb and Sol, similar in some ways, but different in others.

He could live with that.

Nodding to himself, Optimus turned himself, and started to pick his way back through the untamed valley, back to the road he'd driven off to get there, he'd probably be back in Monaco in about six hours.

Barring he didn't get lost that is.


Welp, that's all for this one, see you all next time!

Moon