Ouf, this is a long one, and just a warning, there is an incident that occurs in this chapter in which a character is forced into a sexual act by a more powerful individual against their will. If that isn't something you want to read, just do not read what is in the block of italics in this chapter.
There is also a scene where characters have a psychotic breakdown, this may be distressing to others, if you want to avoid it, stop reading the chapter at the scene marker 'eight days later'.
With those disclaimers out of the way, on with the chapter!
Monaco
Ironhide was pacing.
Ratchet was doing the same in Barcelona.
Optimus had sent a less than reassuring message that Ms Oxton had reacted just as poorly to the news of the situation as they had.
This wasn't something normal, and something had gone wrong with the Twins.
It was the only explanation.
And it was one that Ironhide didn't not, not one bit, like to think about.
But he had to.
Because as much as he hated to admit it, he'd come to respect the Harpies.
They knew their slag, and got their jobs done, efficiently.
He'd spent the most time with the Twins at this point, visiting their manor to use their firing range.
He'd been joined by one or both of them on more than one occasion.
And if he'd learned anything from those sessions where they'd test each other's marksmanship, it was that he could trust them.
Or more accurately, trust them to look after themselves.
They were vicious with that rifle of theirs and he pitied any fool they levelled their scope on.
And it was that previous assessment of them that had him so worried.
The Twins could handle themselves; Optimus had let him know about the throwing knife incident in the Gilded Falcons kitchen a few days after the event had happened.
So for them to be in potential danger, something really bad must have happened.
And they wouldn't know what until a Harpy showed back up, and they managed to pry what happened out of them.
Freedom warbled in distress as he turned a bit tighter than before.
He paused his pacing, looking to his shoulder where the bird was perched. "Sorry kid, just… wound up."
Freedom blinked at him, before bobbing his little white helm and warbling.
He still wasn't used to how smart the bird was.
The roar of an ever-familiar engine caught his audio, and he watched as Optimus rolled back into the warehouse, waiting for the doors to close behind him once more before transforming up to his full towering height.
Optimus sighed, looking to his weapons specialist. "Ms Oxton was unable to provide any further information regarding the location of any of the Harpies, to quote 'I'm just a bodyguard in training'."
Ironhide huffed. "Ratchet got similar when he quizzed Winston, the man didn't know anything either, and we already know what Jazz saw with Ira."
The Prime nodded, turning to look back out. "I… I am going to go for a drive Ironhide, down to the docks perhaps" He mumbled the last part.
Ironhide raised an optic ridge at him for that. "You could of just said that when you commed."
The look that the Prime sent to him over his shoulder was telling.
It had been many a vorn since the Prime had trusted what a bot had said over a com-link, especially in regards to their own safety.
Silent explanation given, Ironhide just waved the larger mech off. "Go, me and the bird aren't going anywhere."
He watched the Prime depart, shaking his helm for a moment.
Now wasn't the time to be getting lost in the past.
Not when the Allspark had up and left.
Monaco Dockside
He'd been driving around now for over an hour, his processor jumbled and rolling, trying to make sense of what could of happened.
In that time, there was only two conclusions he could think of.
One, the twins had encountered a hostile force, be it Decepticons or humans, and they'd had to get far from their assailants before they'd been able to call for aid.
Or two, the twins had located their relic.
Jumping between the two was taxing his processor, and he'd rather not have Ratchet pick melted wires out of his helm again.
He needed a break…
Lena had offered him a drink to calm down… maybe there was something to that…
He had already had his holoform activated, so he glanced around where he'd parked himself on the side of a somewhat busy road.
He must have stood out quite a bit, this was quite obviously a tourist destination in the City, and his alt mode was an American freighter truck.
Considering how many people seemed to be taking the time to take a picture of him, he should have looked more into taking a European based truck as his alt mode at the least.
Yet at the same time, he couldn't care less if he was conspicuous or not.
He just wanted to relax for a bit.
So, he opened his own driver side door, and let his holoform jump out and make something of a show of scanning the surrounding building fronts.
He finally spotted one that caught his interest, a quick translation of the neon sign and he knew it was a 'bar', Flint had joked at one point that before he'd been hired by the Orichiono's, he'd been a bar keeper.
Apparently, it wasn't a job that paid well.
But that mattered little.
To take a human term, he needed a drink.
It wouldn't do anything for him, not like a cube of highgrade would, but he could pretend it made everything a little bit better.
He stepped into the dimly lit building, it was already early in the morning, but it was quite obvious that the bar was still fairly full, a band was playing on a small stage in the corner, and the bar was at the other corner in the back, a number of the more drunk patrons singing along to the singer of the band.
Optimus found himself a table not far from the window, just to keep an optic on his altmode, and pulled out one of the menus.
He may or may not of started watching the odd bit of human media in the past few weeks.
For research, of course.
Research that was clearly incomplete given he found himself taken aback by just the sheer variety of drinks on offer.
Flint had given him a glass of wine… Lena had offered a bunch of drinks that sat in the 'soft drinks' section… but that was a small section compared to the rest.
Wine section got half of one of the large fold out pages.
Surely it wouldn't hurt to see what all the fuss was about regarding human highgrade, if the youth put it on such a pedestal, and the older generations relied on it so much to banish their sorrows, it had to be something.
He spent twenty minutes unsuccessfully trying to figure out what to order when a body slid into the chair on the other side of the table.
"Need a translator?" The voice belonging to the body spoke, female, the three words with a knowing wit, a little lilt, and the telling hint of a smile halfway to a smirk.
There was also an accent, a different one from Ira's thick one, Kia's less noticeable one, and the twins hybridised mix of two.
He looked up, and almost did a double take.
It was an older female, a scar on the left side of her mouth and arching up to her cheek where it was obscured by the greying platinum blonde hair, the odd strands showing the signs of a previous blue colouring, humans, it would seem, dyed their hair into their older years in vibrant colours. Interesting.
But it wasn't any of those features that caused him to do a double take, it was the eyes.
Soft, tired, knowing, world weary, yet just looking into them gave him the strangest feeling… that he'd gone home…
"I-I'm sorry. Repeat that?"
The woman's smile seemed to soften. "Of course, do you need a translator? The menu here's quite… large."
He glanced back to it, nodded, and placed it down on the table so she could read it. "I'm not sure where to even start to be honest."
The older woman chuckled, then spoke. "Narisa."
"Huh?" Was his oh so eloquent reply.
That got a little giggle out of her.
A little, melodic giggle, half drowned out by the noise in the bar.
"Narisa, my name, Narisa Solvermor, and you are?"
He stalled, Optimus Prime wasn't a human name… Prime as a last name was passable, the twins had used it to vocalise their acknowledgement of him at the house warming party… But of course, as was his luck, that wasn't what came out. "Orion… Orion Pax…"
Narisa tilted her head to the side in intrigue. "Oh? Are you Greek?"
He blinked. "Um…"
She waved the question away. "Sorry, that was rude of me, it's a very unique name… do you know what it means?"
He paused, and then shook his helm, it had always just been his designation, Orion Pax.
"Well, Orion was the legendary hunter of Artemis, the 'Hunter', and Pax, means Peace… so, you're name is basically 'Hunter of Peace', quite high expectations your folks must have had, huh? I'm sorry, I studied in forgeign linguistics when I was still a young lass." Narissa apologised as an afterthought, having noticed his look of surprise, which was now firmly plastered over his face.
The older woman frowned when he didn't reply, expression becoming one of worry. "Orion? … Mr Pax?..."
He didn't even hear her world weary, worry laden voice.
Iacon
::Hunter… Hunter… Hunter… Hunter… Hunter open you're damn door before I find someone big enough to kick it down. You know I will.::
He was already rushing to open it, he'd been so buried in his work it had taken a moment for him to properly register who was messaging him.
The door slid open, and he looked down.
And there she was, servos on her hips, optics in that knowing look of disappointment as she shook her helm from side to side.
If she could have, she probably would have tutted at him.
"Sol… I am… so sorry… I got…"
::Caught up in work again? That's exactly why I'm here, c'mon::
She reached up, her helm was level with his upper wheels, meaning she had to stretch a bit to grab his servo, which was comparatively gigantic to her own, and pulled him towards his berth.
And suddenly he felt exhausted.
Not enough to not wrap a servo around each side of her narrow waist and give her a boost up onto his berth though.
She shuffled up against the wall, giving him all the space to slide his larger frame on.
His arms wrapped back around her small two toned blue and dark teal frame, pulling her up against his chassis as he dropped his helm down on top of hers, pulling in a vent.
She'd washed, he could smell those cleaning products her and Neb loved to use.
This was a tradition of theirs, he'd overwork himself, as was expected of him given his position as the next in line to be Prime, Sol or Neb would demand he let them in, and they'd help lull him into recharge with the pulse of their sparks.
It was a soothing pulse, slow but strong, a strange mix for their small stature. "You're a miracle." He mumbled into her helm.
::That's one way of putting it Hunter.::
Hunter, that was her nickname for him, just as Sol and Neb was his for her and her twin.
Solarstorm and Nebularburst were somewhat of a strain on even the slipperiest of glossas when one wasn't paying enough attention.
Speaking of the other twin. "Where's Neb?"
He could feel her tense in his hold, never a good sign, before looking back to the rolling text on his HUD, still displaying the last message she sent.
Finally a new one began to appear, but she wasn't looking at him now, helm ducked down against his chassis, and he could feel her frame give off the slightest tremors. ::Senator Arogia wanted her 'company'… he hasn't done anything… yet…::
"Sol…"
It always hurt him to see them like this.
It happened more frequently than any of them liked.
One of the twins would be called on for their 'company', and at some point in the night, they'd limp into his room. His single room apartment he had been given within the highest tower of Iacon, paltry compared to the expansive whole floor suits the Senators and his predecessor Sentinel Prime had for themselves. From there, they would curl up with the other twin and him, and they'd just hold the other tight, bathing each other in their combined EM fields.
Sometimes they were lucky, and the senators just used them as dummies to bounce their latest 'jokes' off, other times…
Other times Dust had to be called.
Sol was here, Neb was with Senator Arogia, he was one of the tamer ones…
Though considering what some of his fellow Senators had done to one or the other twin when they wanted a 'challenge' instead of the easy frag of a pleasurebot… that wasn't saying much for Arogia's character.
They enjoyed trying to make them scream… in pain or pleasure, it mattered little to them.
None of the Senators knew of their own rendezvous, when one twin would seek him out, pull him from his work, and just be held by a comforting presence.
They didn't know the twin with him would project the feeling of his hold to the other.
He took a small amount pride for it, knowing that both of the twins, for all they were used, found safety and security within his arms.
Arms that could snap their small frames in two if he wasn't careful.
The Senators also didn't know that, despite everything, the twins still spoke.
Not with audible words, no, the Senate had long since muzzled them with the horrid masks that were clamped over both of their faces up until just below their optics, their oh so beautiful, oh so expressive optics, but with the rolling text on his, and their only other two friends HUDs… well, that in and of itself wasn't true.
Senator Shockwave, the one bot on the whole Senate who actually had a spark at this point, he was on amicable terms with Shrike, one of the aforementioned other two, and Sol, so he was allowed to know, he'd sworn never to tell, he needed to be on Shrike's good side, and he liked Sol's calm presence too much to destroy such a trust.
Especially considering any possible slight against either of the 'Mutes' as they were known, sent the head theoretical scientist into something best described as a murderous rampage...
Sol suddenly tensing in his arms had him back in the present. "Sol?"
::He's… he's dragging her… there's going to be dents…::
He pulled her closer to him, letting his engine rumble just that bit louder.
::She's scared… Hunter… she's so scared… He's… Hunter! He's!::
The sound that echoed from somewhere in Sol's chassis felt like a dagger twisting in his spark.
He knew that, if she could, she'd be screaming, crying out for someone to save her twin…
But that option had long been stolen from them both…
He already had Dust's com-number ready to go, this sounded bad…
"I've got her… I've got her, make sure she knows that." He mumbled into her helm, Sol nodded, her servos, so delicate yet deceptively sharp, the Senators liked it when they tried to fight, gave them a reason to be rough, now though they clutched to the seams of his chassis, to the glass that covered the front in two panes, despite everything, they didn't even scratch his paintjob.
The pained keens that left his berth partner haunted him, echoed around in his helm as she felt everything her twin felt, her hips those narrow hips connected to their chassis by even narrower barely armoured protoform, jerked and bounced, following the same motions of her twins, a mirror of what Arogia was doing at that very moment.
Sol's grip grew tighter, lubricant pooled, glinting in her blown wide pale blue optics, the teal highlights nestled within her optics inner workings making the lubricant look like it was shimmering…
And then, it stopped.
The lubricant didn't stop flowing, but her hips stilled once more, her grip loosened, only slightly, still desperate to hold onto something safe when it couldn't be her twin.
::He's done… he's done Hunter…::
"And Neb?"
There was a pause for a few breems.
::She can walk… she's gonna need her shoulder re-aligned… he dislocated it when she tried to stop him…::
He nodded, already sending off the information to Dust.
Only to get an odd message back, it was cryptic. "Sol… is Dust… not in Iacon?"
He felt her nod. ::She's in Kaon.::
"Kaon? The Kaon?"
::Yes. Neb told you a few cycles ago, Dust's opened a clinic down there, her knew protégé is covering for her here… Neb's on her way.::
He opted to accept the change of topic back to the original, and slowly unwound his arms from Sol so he could go up and go to the door, ready to pull the over twin in the moment she was in reach.
Soon enough, there was a ping, a request for his door to open.
It swung open instantly, and he had to take a moment to take in the sight before him, and more importantly, temper the urge to go and put a sword through Arogia's helm.
Lubricant pooled optics, shimmering that same two tone like her twin, her left arm hanging lower than her right, and dents, so many dents, the arm that wasn't out of it's socket was desperately trying to hold all the pieces torn from her frame, to her chassis, the broad shoulder piece that covered her left arm just hanging low enough to hide what Arogia had torn away at to claim his 'prize'.
His spark wanted vengeance, penance, he wanted all the Senators who toyed with his twins to pay, to suffer like they made his twins suffer.
Yes his twins… his spark yearned for their bond to go beyond where it was now… but he had to hold it back, the twins, for all their bravado, he knew them, being in a relationship whilst the Senators used them like a challenging puzzle to steal pleasure from? It… his spark wept for them, he just wanted to hold them close, to never let anything or anyone steal them away again, hold them till they recovered, hold them until the masks gave way, and he could see them smile.
See them smile… see the scared faceplates beneath… for those masks were nothing less than torture devices… ones his twins had been forced to wear for so… so long…
Far longer than he had known them, neither Dust or Shrike could give a set time for how long his twins had been the Senators playthings.
"Mr Pax?"
He jolted, optics widening at the voice that came from Neb's mask covered face, it didn't match the rolling text of her begging him not to pity her… as if he ever would...
"Mr Pax? Mr Pax?"
"Mr Pax!"
He jolted again, the world around him snapping back to the present a hand on his shoulder, the old lady, that had been her voice, what was her name? Narisa? Narisa Solvermor… that was right…
He'd been knocked into a flashback by her saying something… but he'd gone blank as to what.
The older woman, with her platinum blonde hair, signs of a blue hair dye sometime in the past, her wrinkled face that showed a life of smiles, and soft baby blue eyes, they were what he was staring at now, yet not, his focus a hundred thousand lightyears away, in a life that had long since slipped from his desperate grasp.
"I-I'm sorry… I just had a flashback…"
The sympathy in her gaze then floored him for a moment, and a spark of wonder came to light in his spark, humans truly were emotionally advanced creatures…
Narisa spoke then. "A bad one?"
He shook his holoforms head. "No… Not bad… I lost the ones in it… a long time ago… remembering them is painful… I miss them… deeply…"
Somehow the older woman's expression was able to mirror his grief, her eyes, those soft baby blues suddenly seemed to take a weight of experience far beyond her mortal years, as she reached down to rub the top of his clenched fist. "Losing the ones you love is painful… memories can be, both blessings and curses… right now… they seem to be a curse for you, no matter how pretty they are wrapped… so…" She tapped the menu still between them with one of the fingers on her other hand. "Try the scotch, a few glasses always helps take the memories of old 'what if's' away for awhile… For the most part… sometimes something a lot stronger is needed..."
She made a brief gesture as she said that, tracing the scar on her face that went from her upper lip, up past her cheek bone.
And with that, the older woman got up, gave him one more pat on the shoulder, and bid him goodnight.
He took a few minutes for him to fully recoup himself, then called a waiter over, and ordered the scotch.
Out of the corner of his alt modes viewing range he spotted Narisa, accompanied by two other similarly older women, all three had to be at least six human decades old…
They all slid into a car not far from where he was parked, he was surprised to discover it was an American model, a 1970's Corvette Stingray, it's white paintjob accented by a metallic silver.
He quietly wished them a safe journey, before putting his attention fully back on his Holoform, his scotch had just arrived.
It didn't do anything.
There was no haze, no softening to the sting of old wounds, no reprieve from old memories.
In a way he was glad.
As painful as the memories were… it was nice to remember how good it had felt to just… hold them…
Back before he was a Prime… before the war… before the revolution… before Megatronus… fell.
When it was just him and his small band of friends, trying to get by in a universe so much larger than they were, and seemingly so against them.
He ordered another scotch, he still had the Orichiono's card, they'd told him to keep it.
The liquid still didn't do anything, but sometimes it was nice to pretend.
The Mountains of Petra
"Dios mio…"
"Yeah…"
"Imagine what it feels like." Wren huffed, looking down over their open spark chamber at where Kia was looking in.
The Matrix had not been kind to them, not like the Allspark had been to Kia.
The life-giving relic had wrapped itself nicely around the inside of the Bateleurs spark chamber, not interfering with anything.
The Matrix, had been far, far less gentle, sadistic if anything.
As shown by the endless criss-crossing needle sharp protrusions, pressed up, and in places even piercing the many hundreds of cables that led to their hybridised heart.
Hence the copious amount of energon they'd lost before Kia had been able to seal the hundreds of leaks, moments after managing to get the twins spark chamber to open, waking them in the process… somehow.
It was a miracle she'd been able to even do that.
Ira, to her credit, was sat next to the slumped twins, leaning against Aria's side to help prevent the larger Harpy Eagles from slumping away from the corner she and Kia had been able to prop them up against.
Now that the twins were no longer close to bleeding out in the temple, the other two had been able to take better stock of what was before them.
Ira was reminded of their mutterings about there 'not being room', and felt her own internal systems twist at the physical proof of that very statement.
Kia huffed to herself, rolling back onto her haunches and resting her first wing joints as best as she could on her hips. "Well… my diagnosis? We need to get you to Ratchet, and get some food in you…" She gestured around at the numerous already crystalised formations of energon. "Because it's quite obvious you've lost more than the safe amount…"
The twins both huffed at that, and Aria responded. "We can probably… walk?"
"Wal'? No' bloody li'ely, yah can barely sit yahselves up!" Ira remarked, putting some extra weight into her own efforts to keep the larger Harpies upright.
Wren spoke this time, what little humour she did have gone completely. "The nearest mine is in Southern Cairo, luckily enough, one of you can fly out there, pick up some, and bring it back."
Kia and Ira glanced at one another.
"Ah'll go, ah've had time tah rest." Ira stated, giving the twins another hard shove to push them further into the corner so she could get up. "Ma'e sure they donna do anythin' stupid." Ira huffed out again.
The twins protrusions flared in their incredibility, and Kia had her own make a gesture of 'These two? In their current state?'.
Ira felt her own optics roll behind her visor. "They're the twins." She stated.
Evidently that was answer enough to convince the other three she was right.
The twins were the twins, even they didn't know what they would do next sometimes.
And so, she left the temple, spread her wings, and took a running jump up into the air.
Leaving the twins and Kia to talk.
"The Bots are probably worried sick that you took off without any warning." Wren said, shifting to try and get more comfortable in the corner.
Kia regarded them like they'd actually split their head in two. "And risk you two bleeding out any more than you already were? It took me sixteen hours of dead flapping to get here, they're big mechs, they can handle themselves a few days while I try and get feeling in my arms back."
The twins pouted. "Now that Ira's gone… How close were we… to… you know…"
"Close? I'm shocked you woke up while I was patching up all those holes in you… oh and on that note, no fighting, one hit and those needles are gonna tear you to ribbons." She muttered in warning.
They huffed. "Like we weren't made of spun glass before." Aria muttered.
Kia reached over and patted the white twins shoulder with her wing. "We all are, you just need to keep even more out of the fight now… good thing you're the snipers."
"If that was supposed to be a joke it wasn't very funny."
"One out of five at best, and that's being generous." Aria added.
Kia felt her lips quirk. "At least your personalities are intact."
At that the twins seemed to look away from her.
Never a good sign. "Twins… What happened in there?"
They were biting their lower lip for a moment before they spoke. "Voices… lots of them… angry… thrashing about… more at each other than us… but the thrashing… it hit everything… and it left marks…the needles… they started tearing through stuff… we saw a lot of stuff we never wanted to remember… they've jumbled up everything… dates are messed up…" Aria was the one to speak, but the dejected tone in her voice was a painful kick.
Kia patted their shoulder again. "You'll... you'll figure this out… me and Ira have faith you will."
"Faith doesn't get you far when you don't have the means to follow it…" Wren muttered. "Is it safe for us to rest? …We're tired…"
Kia wasn't an expert, she knew the procedure was probably to keep them up, but they were already drooping to the side, so she nodded. "Yeah, you two get some rest, I'll wake you when Ira gets back, rest chica's… I'll be right here."
They were already out cold before she had even finished saying that.
Jasper Nevada
"Alright kid, in the back."
The red head grumbled but did as told, sending a loving look to his custom paint job muscle car one more time before Officer Prowl Davron pushed his head down and in after his body.
The back-seat door was shut and Prowl looked to Annie, already on the phone to call the Sheriff over to come tow the offending vehicle.
In a small town like Jasper, there weren't enough people to do all the jobs, and with only three officers, they were always just a bit short on staff.
Even when one of them was also one of the stations two police cars.
"Yeah, hiya Sheriff, we're gonna need the tow truck out here, got a muscle car for impound and a teen who thought he was a hot shot racer… yeah… yeah it's Vinnie… huh? Oh! Sorry didn't catch that last part… they… they found what?"
The shock and surprise in his loves voice had Prowl's attention snap back away from how much he loved her to the present. "Annie? Is something the matter?"
The look she sent him was telling and cryptic all in one go.
A thousand different hopes, and just as many fears, all mingled together into quite the menagerie.
"Ok… Ok… we'll boot the car here, and we'll be right back." She hung up, and almost instantly speed walked over, pulled down his projections shoulder and whispered in his ear.
"Narisa spotted that red symbol of yours on an American Freighter Truck, in Monaco."
Something inside Prowl skipped, and he leaned in to whisper back, noting the teen trying to listen in out of curiosity. "They… they did?"
Annie nodded, breaking apart from the proximity with his projection to instead hop into the passenger seat.
Taking the message, he hopped into the driver seat of his own body and made a small show of getting ready to drive, couldn't have Vinnie thinking the car was sentient could they?
They were right on the outskirts of their jurisdiction out here, out in the desert along the route where the only markers were the odd tumbleweed and cactus.
It would take a while to get back to the Police Station in Jasper.
When they finally pulled up, Prowl had become more than a bundle of nerves, he was a batch of live wires, his excitement palatable in the air and her looked to Annie, begging her to get Vinnie registered with the receptionist so that he could go ahead and get the full news from their Sheriff.
Annie waved him along. "Go, go, I'll be with you in a few minutes."
He'd already thrown open his own door and jumped out before she'd even finished.
Annie huffed in good nature, glancing at the ring on her finger. "God I love that man…"
"Isn't he like… twenty years younger than you or something? God it's so wei-urk!" Vinnie huffed in the back seat before being cut off by his seat belt locking and pulling.
Annie frowned at the rear view mirror, and the seatbelt squeezing Vinnie laid off.
If they'd been in private he probably would have grumbled.
Deciding she needed to speak her peace, she did just that. "He's older actually, the amount of moisturiser he puts on could probably float a whole boat."
Vinnie looked morbidly concerned at that.
But at least he wasn't taking about age gaps anymore.
Which was good, because Annie did not like people calling her the older of the two, when Prowl, for all his amnesia, was quite obviously a few hundred, if not thousand years old at least.
This wasn't the first time they'd brought Vinnie in for a driving violation, so the process of getting him set up in one of the cells whilst his parents were called was fairly quick, and the call handled by the receptionist.
Giving Annie the freedom to finally go join the Sheriff and Prowl in the former's office.
There on the table, printed out for them to see, was a flash picture, illuminating a large, ed and blue American built truck, sitting on the side of the road next to a chain of bars.
And sure enough, right there in place of the hood ornament, was the symbol that on Prowl, was on both of his shoulders.
"It's a one time occurrence… if the sisters and Molly spot any others whilst there, they'll let us know." Sheriff Rodriguez warned, trying to tame the excitement and worries of her deputies.
Both of them nodded, that was sensible.
The Sheriff breathed in, then let out a long breath. "I'm gonna let you look the picture over some more, I've got a car to go tow."
And with that, the Sheriff got up, and strode out of her office, leaving them to go over the paperwork whilst she went to the behemoth that was her own Police car, which was innocently parked out the front, just as non-sentient as all the others.
Where Prowl had the sleek form of an interceptor, Maria Rodriguez had the bulky muscle of their small force, an out fitted range rover that she could take off-road if the situation called for it.
Considering Jasper, it wasn't an entirely surprising amount.
Rome Italy, eight days later
Jazz wasn't a mech that normally worried much about things.
He worried about his charge and her sparkling, he worried about his unit, and a couple other general things, but this?
The Allspark, it's vessel, and their companions had been missing for over a fortnight.
That was something to worry about.
Maggie, bless her human spark, was trying to help keep his focus elsewhere, food shops for her and Glen, more exploration of the city, her warm embrace when they met under her sheets at night…
But it wasn't enough to get him to stop worrying.
This was the Allspark, yes he was worried for the Harpies, all four up and vanishing wasn't a good sign, but the Allspark meant a lot more to him, it was the life force of their home planet, likely the thing that would revive their world from it's war torn, dead state.
What could possibly get him worrying more?
Kia breaking her silence, just to tell Ratchet to get on a plane, sitting at Barcelona's primary airport, to Rome, and not to waste a second, before falling into silence again outside telling him to have an open processor and a decent amount of patience.
Kia, asked, no begged Ratchet to hurry, and in more words than needed, aid them.
It needed no guesswork who needed the aid.
Optimus, Ironhide and Bumblebee were also privy to that call, their holoforms had joined him Maggie and Glen in Rome, using the long distance generators for the first time for the very reason of seeing what it was that had happened, what had left them so worried and fitful all this time.
So when Ratchet managed to get his actual form down into the still unfinished bunker, alongside Jazz and the other three's Holoforms, only to find nothing but in progress construction by what seemed to be a small army of familiar drone like humans, and no Harpies, the five only started worrying more.
Twenty minutes later, Bumblebee, ever the scout, heard something coming from the pitch black tunnel.
Muttering, slow metallic footsteps, and more than one muttered curse.
Then a faint glow, familiar in it's lilac hue, came within visual range.
In a strange reverse of the first time they had seen the Harpies, it was the Avian femmes who stepped out of the darkness, whilst they waited in the light.
Arien stumbled, helm bowed over their chassis, pedes barely supporting their own weight.
Holding up the larger twins, were Kia and Ira, who were hunched beneath the larger Harpy eagle, their backs supporting the underside of each dragging broad wing, as their own wings were seemingly wrapped around the larger Harpies back, while using the tips of their other wings to press on the ground to hold them up, the tips dented in from the miss-use.
It meant they could immediately see the clusters of crystallised energon that covered the twins frame.
Ratchet rushed forwards to help carrying the weight off the twins, easily taking the burden off the smaller two Harpies as Jazz also joined him.
Said smaller Harpies slumped to the concrete just outside the tunnel with groans, each crashing down onto their respective sides as their visors, even in their obvious exhaustion, tracked the largest of their group of four with an intensity telling of their heightened concern.
With both mechs now supporting the larger twins, it was impossible not to hear the mutters, the twins lipplates not even really moving as words came out in short pained breaths, speaking something neither could properly translate.
And then, Ratchet shifted, moving better into the twins vision, and went to examine their chassis, once Jazz had also re-aligned to better hold the bulk of the twins weight.
It seemed to trigger something.
Something abjectly the furthest from pleasant.
With a sound like a strangled scream, the twins lurched, their helm and chassis rising from their hunched state for all of a moment, before their helm and upper torso came swinging back down in an arch from the right.
Ironhide called out, but there was no time for his mate to react.
The impact was brutal, a direct blow right to the shorter medics own helm, sending him to the ground as his processor was thrown off.
Jazz tried to hold on, but the moment their attention shifted to him, it was over, an inhuman howl of rage, one that broke almost instantly into a stuttering scream, one loud enough to short out the audios of those not prepared to hear it.
Jazz was flying before he even knew what happened, though the sudden pain in his chassis and Wren's wing flaring out to the side was tell enough in the moment before he crashed down to the ground, not far from the holoforms of the rest of his unit.
"No… No… get… get away! Please… no more… please… let us… let us be…" The words were rasped, directed at the other wall.
"T-twins…" Rasped Ira from where she was slumped over, the strength to move having left her. "Aria… Wren… no…"
The twins didn't hear, and all Ratchet and Jazz could do was lunge away as the scythes on both wings sprung free, seemingly at their own accord, as the twins spun to something none of them could see. "No! Get back! GET BACK!"
The scythes sung as they struck at nothing, cleaving gashes into the set concrete with every strike at nothingness.
The vents on their sides flared open, releasing clouds of steam as they rasped down air between desperate words, helm snapping around as they spun, lashing out at anything.
"HELP! PLEASE! HELP! MAKE THEM GO AWAY! BIG BROTHER! BIG BROTHER! BIG BROT-"The rest of the final cry became a screech as they reared again, and rushed at a wall, slamming the front of their helm directly into the solid concrete, causing a crater of spiderweb cracks. "WHERE? WHERE ARE YOU! MAKE THEM GO! KILL! KILL THEM! PLEASE! MAKE THEM GO! SHUT THEM UP! SHUT THEM ALL UP! BROTHER! BROTHER!"
Jazz watched all of this, watched the smaller Harpies desperately try to rise, their wings collapsing when they tried, he watched as the twin's visor shattered on the second impact, sending the fragments of glass clattering to the ground far below, shattering further.
Jazz watched as optics, brighter than spotlights, whiter than a neutron star, were revealed, so bright the direction of their stare was impossible to see.
Too bright for even the twins to see through.
Jazz also watched as movement happened beside him, a flash of red and white, and suddenly Ratchet was on the twins ridged back, out of reach of the wings as his far heavier weight sent them to the ground, their helm slamming into the wall once more.
The twins fell still after that impact, their strained too far optics flickering out, the optic casings rolling shut as colour began to return to the face plates still hanging open in a scream.
Silence ruled for a few long silent moments.
And then, a sob.
Attention shifted, holoform eyes and Cybertronian optics going straight to Ira, her own visor pressed into the concrete as her frame broke down into a sobbing mess.
Kia was just starring, her visor as impassive as ever, but her parted lips were telling of her own distress.
Ira finally managed to temper her sobs for a moment. "Six… tha's tha sixth time… Oh God… oh God… wha' did tha' thin' do tah them…?" She barely finished the last word before crying out again.
Kia's helm slowly turned to the red kite. "Ira…"
"It broke'em… it broke mah twins… Kia… how the bloody blue hell ah'm I supposed to do this…? Ah can'… Ah can'… Kia… Ah can'…"
The red kite broke back into hysterical sobs.
Kia didn't move, she didn't have the strength to.
So he did, he strode past Ratchet and the stasis locked twins, the former already scanning the other and trying to roll them onto their front to look over their frame.
He could see more energon pooling on the floor from their chassis, not good, but Ratchet could tend to the twin's medical needs.
He knelt in front of Ira, close enough to catch her attention.
Her helm lifted off the ground, visor snapping away to reveal those ever changing optics, now heavy with overflowing lubricant. "Ja-Jazz?"
He reached down, took the femme by the under sides of her wings, and hefted her into a tight hug.
He heard her exhausted wings scrape across the floor slowly, until one, then another returned the hug, her helm thunking against his chassis. "Ah'm no' stron' enough tah do this withou' them… please… help them… I don' know how… I don' know how…"
Her voice was quieter than a mouse's whisper, but he heard her, heard the desperation.
He ducked his own helm down over her. "We'll help you li'l lady, we'll help them too, that's ah promise."
The sobs were quieter too now, like she had no energy left to even cry. "Ah wan' ah fuckin' time machine… ah wanna go back… stop them… stop everythin'… keep us home… I wanna go home… home made sense…"
He clung onto her tighter, keeping her focused on him, but he knew the sight of the twins strewn out across the ground was probably cycling through her helm.
Then came the sound of a chassis being opened behind him, and a horrified invent from the CMO.
"By Primus' Spark…"
Some heavier stuff in this one, not gonna lie, and this is a bit of a tone setter for whats to come, so just a heads up on that.
Thank you all for reading! See you all again soon!
