Bit of a shorter chapter this time around, but that doesn't mean it don't give me a gut punch every time I went through it to edit.
Welp, hope you all enjoy!
Somewhere in the Atlantic, Triage Earth
"C'mon James! C'mon!" Serene called over her shoulder, jumping through another bulkhead.
Derrick panted, she'd had him chasing her around this damn ship on and off for three days…
Where the heck was she even leading him?!
This was becoming a running trend, every day she'd be there, waking him up, rushing him to get ready, and then have him entertain her in whatever way she desired that day.
And for the last three, he had to entertain her by chasing her around in the front half of the ships seemingly endless labyrinth of tunnels.
Finally there seemed to be a break in the pattern.
She'd led him back to the main crew areas early, or at least it felt like earlier than usual.
He was starting to lose track of how long they'd been at sea…
Surely it would only be a few more days until they reached Iceland…
But something in the back of his mind told him that wasn't right, they should of arrived in Iceland by now, it was a few days at most to Reykjavik and that was in bad weather with the currents against them.
It felt like they'd already been at sea for over a week.
He'd also not been able to see Ivan… he knew his bodyguard was still down there in the hold, on the other side of the ship from where Serene had been leading him around…
He hoped his bodyguard was alright.
Something about this kept on setting off alarm bells.
But he couldn't say no, something more prominent kept telling him to behave, to be the perfect guest.
The North Sea was hardly a pleasant way to die…
And he'd rather not get kicked off the ship, with or without Ivan being kicked off with him.
He'd been running after Serene so long his body felt like it was on autopilot, just following behind as his thoughts rolled around his head.
Until she suddenly wasn't in front of him anymore, and a hand was beckoning him through a door.
He had to follow.
It was a room, Serene's room he realised a moment or so later, decorated with pastel pinks and baby blues, the walls decorated with a thousand and one different sea shells.
She was already sitting on her king sized bed, the duvet puffed up around her from overstuffing.
A mountain of pillows were at her back, that sagged and shifted as she shifted back.
"C'mon James, you've earned your prize."
The alarm bells were suddenly as blaring and loud as an air raid siren. "I'm sorry… My what? Serene… did you have an ulterior motive to me following you around like some dog? …Besides having an excessive amount of exercise to ward off atrophy?"
Serene starred at him blankly for a moment before laughing and waving her hand. "No! No! Silly James! Look!" She leaned over the side of her bed, and pulled up a laptop. "You have a phone right?"
"…Yes? I do…?"
"Apple or Samsung?"
"Samsung… why?"
"Bril', c'mon, sit down, I got a cable for that."
He hesitated, still standing in the doorway like a lemon.
She huffed, and plugged the aforementioned cable in. "I wanna give you a backup of my music, duh."
Oh…
Oh!
He felt himself sag a bit in relief and finally stepped fully past the threshold. "Thanks… I guess?"
Serene nodded, booting up the laptop. "Daddy set up a satellite connection so I could still browse at sea, I've got so many songs, but no safe place to store them if something happens to this one." She lamented, gesturing to it before beckoning him closer.
Finally, he relented, despite the earlier air raid siren alarm, he eased himself onto the edge, and passed his phone to her.
He'd disabled its ability to be located by actively removing the pieces that projected such data only a few hours after the beginning of his self-imposed exile, so he had little to fear of it being used to download some songs.
So long as Serene didn't turn on the data roaming, he'd be fine.
He watched with the attention of a hawk for all of two minutes as she set to work making copies of everything.
And then a familiar call came from the still open door.
His head swung around, spotting Epsilon already stepping across the threshold in haste, within a moment he was taking a quick jump up to land firmly on his legs and upper torso, knocking the wind out of him in the process.
Derrick grumbled to himself, petting the needy bird's head and neck. "Hey buddy, been having run without me?"
Epsilon just warbled, trying to push himself further up against Derrick's chest.
Only to recoil and hiss when Serene tried to reach over and pet him herself.
Serene snapped her hand back and pouted.
Derrick chuckled, an awkward little noise as he petted Epsilon some more to try and calm the large bird down. "Easy bud, easy."
Epsilon took a few moments to settle but seemed to keep his attention firmly on Serene now.
"I'm sorry, it takes him a long time to warm up to people." Derrick tried to lament.
Serene waved him off. "No, no, it's fine… he'll come to love me too, eventually."
Another alarm bell began to ring in his head.
But it was almost instantly interrupted by a sharp prang in his chest.
Gasping out a breath at the sudden pain, he jerked forwards to clutch at where the pain came from.
Epsilon cawed in distress, jumping up and falling back onto the floor as he doubled over.
The pain was already almost unbearable, his heart… it was his heart!
He managed to look to Serene… "H-help… me…"
Serene stared at him in shock, not sure what to do, or what was even happening…
That is, until his eyes rolled back, and he slumped forwards, causing him to crash to the floor beside the now screeching Epsilon.
Monaco
Something was wrong.
Optimus could feel it in his spark, and he suspected that Ironhide felt the same.
It had been a week since the twins had taken off for some 'business'.
A solid week with no word from either of the monochrome femmes.
Yes this wasn't really a surprise, the twins had warned them that they would be going off the grid for a while, and that they'd eventually return.
But Jazz had reported that Ira had been erratic since the night before.
Erratic might have been putting it gently, considering the Red Kite's observed temperament.
As of this morning, Jazz had reported that Ira hadn't even been there when he and his charge had woken up that morning.
He tried not to read into that part too much, both knew the risks of their engagement, so he would keep his concerns to himself.
Back on point, Kia was now the only one of the Harpies they had a somewhat good idea of the location of.
Considering she was the one carrying the Allspark, it was no small relief she hadn't vanished as well.
Ratchet had reported she had called him back to the Villa a few hours prior, another freshly 'acquired' body ready to go.
As… concerning the sourcing of the bodies were, these sessions seemed to be aiding the medic.
Again, he found it best not to voice his concerns.
The Harpies knew what they were doing.
They seemed to take no true joy from it, they were just doing what had to be done.
He could respect that drive.
But that did not mean he did not worry.
"Prime?"
Ironhide's call brought him out of his stupor, the red and black detailed mech had walked up to him.
Perched on his shoulder, was Freedom, the mechanical avian had certainly taken to his weapons specialist, and in turn, said weapons specialist had begrudgingly taken to the mechanical avian.
Hence why the two were now rarely seen apart.
Freedom's legs were fully healed now, but a certain degree of psychological damage had been done, and the avian was hesitant at best to move around on the appendages alone.
"Prime?"
Again, jolted from his stupor, he tried not to get distracted again. "Apologies old friend… what seems to be the matter?"
Ironhide's expression wasn't one he liked seeing, it was the one that always promised bad news.
"Kia just took off, Ratchet says she got a call… paled, and dropped her holoform… somethings' gone wrong Prime… Bumblebee tried to follow her out of the city, but he got caught in late night traffic."
Optimus felt something inside him twist.
"And… we have no idea where any of them are?"
Ironhide just shook his helm for a negative. "Winston was no help."
Optimus reached up to rub the sides of his helm. "I will seek out Miss Oxton, hopefully she will be able to provide some information."
Ironhide nodded, stepping back to let the large mech transform into his alt mode.
He wasted no time checking the address Lena had given him, a small quaint house only a mile or so from the manor.
Gunning his engines, he wasted no time with his departure.
Within twenty minutes, his holoform was standing at the small house's door, and was ringing the doorbell, more times than was necessary.
He could hear someone shout that they would be out in a moment, before the door was promptly pulled open and a revolver was jammed in his face.
For all of three seconds there was a tense standoff, his finger still on the doorbell.
Hers on the trigger.
"Optimus?"
"Ms Oxton? … Where you… suspecting someone else?"
He watched the tension in her shoulders drop, the revolver being placed in the holster on her hip, before she gestured for him to come inside.
He did as such, taking stock of the corridor he had stepped into, a doorway on the left seemed to lead to a kitchen, and one on the right lead to what seemed to be the living room, the corridor continued further, interrupted by a flight of steps up to a second floor on the right, a second doorway on the left he couldn't see into, and what looked to be a back door out to a garden.
Lena walked into the kitchen. "Sorry about that… want something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Milk? Just plain water? Good old H2O never hurt none… If you don't count waterboarding and drowning that is…"
He followed her into the kitchen but shook his head. "No, there's no need, though I appreciate the offer."
The last time he'd been offered something to drink, he'd left it somewhere in Orichiono manor.
Word of Ira going catatonic would do that though.
Lena shrugged. "Ok… you just look a bit shaken… something wrong?"
She said this as she put the kettle on, and dropped a mesh bag filled with something into a mug with a spoon.
Optimus felt his holoforms chest shift with the sigh it let out. "The Orichiono's left for 'business' a week ago."
Lena nodded, and spoke. "Yeah, I heard about this, they do that sometimes, vanish for a week or two."
It was unspoken that they always came back.
But he had a hunch that wasn't the case this time, so he pressed on. "Jazz reported that Ira became erratic yesterday, and when he roused this morning, she was gone, she'd warned a few days ago that she might be going on 'business' herself, but her behaviour before her disappearance was… concerning…"
Lena frowned at that, raising a finger for pause before moving to the fridge and looking at the calendar that was hung up on the metal shell.
She ran her finger over the dates of the current month, then the next, and then next, before finally landing on one date that was ringed, and had a set of initials on it 'S,D'. "Nope… it's not any time soon, so it's not that… continue."
He nodded and did just that. "Then, less than an hour ago, Kia received a call, and then took off without giving any reasoning, this is alarming beyond the fact she carries the Allspark, and we have no way of tracking them…"
Lena looked at him for a moment, and he felt his own worry spike when he realised she was paler.
"Oh… Oh somethings gone wrong… very wrong…"
Today was the day of him receiving the worst news possible apparently.
The Mountains of Petra
"-TWINS! TWINS! WAKE UP! WAKE UP GOD FUCKING DAMN'IT!"
Ira had known that something was wrong when she hadn't spotted them flying back on the flight path they'd sent ahead of time.
She'd known even more so when she didn't see them just resting, maybe catching their breath before the return flight.
She'd finally spotted them when she stepped into the temple.
They were strewn across the floor, mouth locked open in a silent scream.
Hera was still attached, but showed just as much life.
Meaning none at all.
She'd rushed forward, hitting her helm on the top of the hole they'd made in her haste.
She'd grabbed hold of them as best as her wings could, and had gone to shake them.
Only to remember that was probably the worst thing she could do.
So… she'd stepped back, tried to collect herself… and called Kia to get her ass there now.
She'd hung up before the Latina had even had time to give a coherent reply.
She'd been screaming at them to wake up for the last three hours.
It was anything but therapeutic.
Because no matter how loud she screamed, no matter how much she cried, no matter how much she reached for them before pulling back, they didn't wake.
Didn't so much as twitch.
Her strength finally failed her, and she slumped backwards, crashing to the ground and onto her aft.
Keeley finally detached from her back, and with a few quick hops, had relocated to her lap.
She clutched the bird to her, as close as her stupid fucking wings could hold the smaller Kite.
"Ah can' loose 'em Keels… Ah can'… Ah can' loose um too…"
Keeley just warbled.
Ira dropped her helm down, pressing the metal of her face into the bird's metal down. "Ah'm no' strong enough tah loose them too… not mah twins… not mah twins…"
Time stretched too long then… the sun set had long passed when she called Kia, the first hints of it rising were now on the horizon, but she didn't care…
Kia would take another day at least of flying to arrive.
She was getting hungry… she'd eaten before she took off yes… but her nerves had cost that when she'd had to stop and rest for a few hours.
She never did well with stress.
But she couldn't leave…
She couldn't just leave her twins there… laying half in a tomb made of metal bodies…
Not with their only company being a possibly equally dead bird… and whatever that mess of blood and guts that was being picked at by scavengers outside.
Why the hell hadn't she paid attention when the twins offered to show her how to better use her protrusions?
Yes she knew how to get a basic map of her environment with them, it had saved her ass during the attack on the Cosmopolitan…
But deep scanning?
The twins called it that, they'd figured it out, they really got bored after Wren got her foot fucked up.
Boredom was the twins second most powerful motivator.
Right after spite of course.
Ira had learned long ago to never spite the twins…
But that didn't matter right now.
What mattered was that she turned down their offers to show her how to do it.
It was deceptively simple, flair out those weird things on their head, the ones none of them really had a proper name for, and then slam them back down onto the metal of their helms.
The thing was, that hurt like the unholiest fucking bitch in the universe.
The hit generated a sound pulse unique to their helm structure, the trick was to use it then like an X-ray/sonar pulse, the sound travelled pretty well through anything that wasn't explicitly soundproof.
Whatever it eventually bounced back off, would come back, and be picked up by the things on their head.
And that was where it got stupidly complicated to a degree she'd previously decided wasn't worth both the physical and mental headache.
Every little thing had to be processed, yes they had computers for brains, yes the twins, namely Wren, had figured out a handy dandy math equation to run it all through, and created a chart to compare the results to, a chart that was ever expanding as apparently the twins were masochists and kept fucking doing it for the whole almost two years Wren's foot was fucked to all hell and they couldn't walk five steps without almost or fully collapsing.
God those first few months had her nerves frayed to hell and back.
And now she didn't even know how to use that fucking chart to know if their heart/sparks were still going…
Not knowing was killing her…
She hated not knowing…
Hated wondering if they'd come back…
Hated…
Her thoughts broke, her spark, and the heart it surrounded, cried out right along with her.
It was a desperate, heartbroken keening sound, one she hated hearing herself make.
She was pathetic.
She couldn't keep the ones she loved safe…
She'd failed each and every person she'd ever cared for… except Kia… she hadn't gotten the chance yet to fail at saving Kia…
So lost in her own downwards spiral of self-loathing and distress, she didn't even hear the pained groan from the body of her two closest friends, her sisters in everything but blood.
It wasn't until a few minutes later, when she was pulled into a tight hug, did she realise she hadn't been mourning a corpse…
Words failed her, the lubricant that pooled in her optics fell like twin rivers, and her wings, shaking, reached out to wrap around the larger body holding her to them.
Her helm thunked against their broad chassis, and she revealed in that dual beat, left, right, left, right, left, right…
"Yo-yo-you're alive…" She managed to rasp out as one of their wings ran down her back in as close to a soothing gesture as those broad, wonderful, cumbersome wings could pull off.
She felt the twins lean back, and without any prompting, she looked up to see their visor move away, revealing their emerald green optics, scrunched up almost to the points of them being slits from how bright the cresting sun was, she took a moment to raise her wing up to give them the shade needed to actually look at her properly, and she had to laugh at the brief moment.
But as she fully looked up into their eyes, she couldn't help but think about what she'd once heard, that the twins hearts were as cold as ice, and their mind as sharp as a vipers fang.
The mind part was undoubtedly true, but she knew her twins, and they had the stupidest bleeding hearts she'd ever known.
A heart can't bleed if it's frozen.
The twins seemed to take in a breath, their shoulders rising before sagging again, and the softest smile she'd seen on their face in years was for her alone to see. "Oh Ira… you think we'd just… die? Darling… it takes more than… that, to kill us." Aria spoke, her voice soft as Hera reached up to caress each side of her face.
She had to laugh, it was the only way to get air into her.
Keeley chirped between them, bumping her head against Hera's larger arms.
She banged the front of her head back against the hard metal of their chest. "Yah bitches… Yah fuckin' bitches… Don' yah dare… don' yah fuckin' dare… do tha'… ever again… ah though' ah'd lost yah…"
And there were the tears again, thick and fast.
"Oh… Ira… come here…"
She felt their wings incircle her even tighter, they were on their upper knees, the rest of their legs behind them, their upper torso shifting so their head could rest against her back.
They surrounded her… they were there, alive, not as warm as they used to be…
They felt even colder now…
But they were still somehow warmer than her… and that was what mattered.
"Please… ah'm beggin' yah… please… don' ever do tha' again…" She was coherent, but that didn't mean she didn't stop crying, didn't stop trying to hold onto the twins as much as her own stupidly cumbersome wings could manage.
The twins, ever alert, ever aware, ever able to read her like a fucking book, spoke again. "Holoforms darling... holoforms."
Aria barely ever called her darling anymore, she'd said it twice in less than five minutes… that meant something, they all knew it.
She didn't even hesitate to activate hers just to the left of her body, which went limp just as quickly, though lubricant still flowed just as much as projected tears flooded out of her holoforms eyes.
The twins, in their separate holoforms, came online right in front of them.
She couldn't remember a time they'd hugged each other tighter
"We promise Ira, we won't ever do that again, we promise…"
She had her face buried in Wren's shoulder, Aria had already circled around to her back, arms wrapped around her chest whilst Wren put hers around her waist, whist she had hers wrapped around Wren, and as much of Aria as the angle would allow. "I've been sittin' here fah hours… wha' tha fuck were yah doin' off in la la land that long?"
Wren dropped her face into her left shoulder, Aria in her right.
Not good, that wasn't a good sign. "Twins?"
"There's not enough room." They said in unison, practically whispering it like a secret into her ears.
"They… they shoved everything around… our memories… they're scattered… in the wrong order… all to barely make room… it hurts… Ira… please… tell us you called Kia… it hurts so much…"
That was when she looked down from Wren's shoulder.
That was when she spotted the blood.
She didn't want to, but she had to, she looked back to the twins real body.
Energon… there was so much energon, leaking through the seams around their chest.
"No… god please no…"
The twins gripped her tighter.
"We promise…"
"…Little sister…"
"…We're not…"
"…Going anywhere."
But their frame was already shifting, crashing down, taking her, Keeley and Hera with her.
Only once had her heart broken like this before…
But this time, her agony wasn't silent.
Her scream shook the temple, the sky, the heavens above…
But just as all those before, it did nothing…
Told yah there was a gut punch.
Welp, until next time! Bye!
