Wooo boy this is a long one, finished 40 and went straight to giving this one a final run down... took... three hours?

Oh well, hope you all enjoy!


Triage Earth, somewhere in the Atlantic

Three hours, for three hours the ship had seen nothing but bloodshed and carnage.

The evidence was painted on every wall a body had fallen against.

There had been no gunshots from him, he didn't have a gun, the Captain took it the first time he slept.

But the Captain had been a fool, down in the hull were tools, tools that, with enough time being left alone in the dark, he'd fashioned into weapons.

He was no master of the dagger, that had been Aria's thing.

Wren would of kicked his balls in if he'd tried to take sniping from her.

But these fools, every single one of them, couldn't hold a candle to him, especially not when he was angry and wielding a pipe, steel chain, large ball joint and welded on nails, which he'd fashioned into a spiked mace.

Angry had long since left the equation by now though.

He'd long surpassed seeing red, his rage had lit itself alight like that of a planet sized inferno.

No amount of blood shed would quench it, at least, not until he finally killed the bastard currently clawing at his arms.

He'd tossed his makeshift weapons away, and taken two seperate gun shots to the abdomen, but he didn't care.

All he cared about was watching the man beneath him turn slowly more purple, his gurgling rasps not pulling in any air against his crushing hold on his throat.

The windpipe was more than crushed, but he kept going, kept squeezing, squeezing, his knuckles were white from the force, they would be if they weren't caked in blood that is.

Finally he heard and felt it, that satisfying half pop, half snap.

A final death gurgle, and the nails digging in his flesh went limp.

The body still twitched.

He panted as he rose, with a hard kick he flipped the body over.

As one final measure, he raised his steel capped boat, and brought it right back down.

Gore splattered, teeth shattered against the unforgiving metal of the cargo deck.

Dead, he'd killed enough to know the bastard was dead, if not from the suffocation, or the spinal break cutting off the rest of his vital organs, smashing the brain in was always a rather instant kill.

No point having the bodies go rotten though… it would take a while, but it wouldn't be too much effort to push them all overboard, then wash all the blood away with acid, he'd seen gallons of the stuff being transported below decks. Even with the acid, he had a lot of corpses to get rid of...

What he wouldn't give for one of the twins clean up crews right then.

That's when a sound cracked the silence open.

A clap, then another, a slow, mocking, clap.

He turned his head, then his upper torso to look behind them.

There, standing ramrod straight, hands slowly clapping at about waist height… was a woman he thought he'd never have the misfortune of meeting himself.

Windswept fiery red hair, mismatched eyes, towering figure that put him a head under them, pristine white lab coat, black business trousers, violet undershirt and equally black overshirt, all finished off with a look of only partial interest.

"Ivan, so glad I can finally put a face to such a... simple name... my you look haggard darling, a spot of gin will fix you right up." The woman remarked, humour in her tone as she mockingly drawled at him. "Maybe then we can figure out how to steer this colossal behemoth, now you've thoroughly slaughtered everyone here that knew how. I can hardly complain though can I? Such a wonderful specimen of human primal and brutish nature... I'll admit it was certainly an impressive display of caveman brutality you just put on. I can certainly see why the mob hired you."

The urge to curl his fist and punch the woman clean through the face was staggering, but he held back.

Normally he wouldn't hesitate to throw a well deserved punch…

But not this time, he was well aware of who stood before him, and he promptly moved to put his back away from her. "Moira O'Dorian Halloran." He addressed, she didn't bother with his full name? Fine, he'd show her just how pissed he was even having to say that woman, no, that witches full name.

Moira raised a hand to her chest and gave a quick, mocking laugh, before waving him of. "Oh hush you brute, we both know I'm not the one scared for my life right now."

He scowled, damn that witch. "Was pretty certain he was the last alive on the ship." He kicked backwards to send the dead mans body further from him, closer to the edge for later dumping, unsurprisingly his lower jaw didn't go with the rest of the body, shorn off where bone had fractured, tendons had been torn thread bare and now hung loose on either side, blood slowly oozing from the graphic injury.

Moira smiled, never a good thing. "I was in my lab when I heard the commotion, you don't seem to know to look behind yourself, a dangerous weakness, I could easily of put a needle in your back and knocked you out large some rampaging ape. But blind rages are hardly a state where the mind is sharp… And I couldn't miss the opportunity to take notes." She added almost as an afterthought, gesturing to the little notebook hidden away in her breast pocket, looking oh so innocent.

He glared at the offending little pile of papers.

Realising his slip, his gaze shot right back to the scientist.

A little hint of mirth flickered in her gaze. "Now…" She put a finger to her cheek, as if pondering something. "What might cause the Beast of the Wastes to snap and murder upwards of forty people?" Her features twisted into a smirk as she snapped her fingers. "Ah! Perhaps, it has something to do with the Captain's daughter currently lying as a, decomposing, bullet riddled, corpse, on her bed? And the body of the last Orichiono being scavenged on by the creatures that lurk below this ship?" She leaned her upper torso a bit closer, and he spotted a flash of mania dart across her blue and red eyes.

He bared his clenched teeth.

Her smirk grew larger. "Hmm, I can't blame you for murdering my case study then. If someone murdered something I'd become that emotionally invested in, I'd murder them all in cold blood too. Luckily for the world, I've never been one for such foolish sentiments."

A flash of light against metal and she was twirling a hypodermic needle between her fingers, the cap gone, the needle glinting in the sunburst that broke through the clouds over them both.

He didn't speak, he just let her keep talking, eventually she'd get to the fucking point.

The smirk became a scowl. "Be glad this was only a side experiment, and that now I've made contact, I intend to hire your services."

He snorted, breaking his silence. "You'd have better luck teaching a Croc to Tango."

An eyebrow raised. "Oh, but I think you'll find our goals line up, quite well, you and the last Orichiono, you were looking for the missing Harpies… my what a mess their disappearance made of the global scene… Hardly on the scale of what happened fifty odd years ago, but… it's certainly a mess all it's own…"

He blinked, apparently she'd gotten off track.

"... Well that's irrelevant to the conversation now. You, see, like you, I'm looking for the Harpies, no, more accurately, I'm looking for one of them, my daughter? Red hair? Eye mutation? Taller than you? Nasty penchant for violence and should probably be wanted in half the countries in the world for something between petty theft, and blowing up an embassy? Though you probably just know her as 'Ira'."

Oh like hell was he helping this psycho get her claws back on Ira. "Doesn't ring a bell, last I checked, I worked with the Estrada's, you've probably heard of them?"

That smirk grew. "Well of course I have, the Bunkers are echo chambers, despite the isolation, we hear quite a lot."

He jumped on the subject. "Speaking of the bunkers, shouldn't you buried somewhere in Siberia?"

Moira chuckled. "I'm hardly un-contaminated, when I learned of Ira's… disappearance… as… strange as it was, I decided to investigate, and try to locate her."

His scowl grew more hostile. "So, you've lost this daughter, didn't know a monster like you even found someone stupid enough to fuck you."

Moira's smirk was a toxic, vile thing, her features telling as she took a step closer, just one, but it was enough to make him feel trapped, the captains dead body behind him taunting him in it's purple oxygen starved state.

"Fifteen. I've had Fifteen children… Ira was just the only one I bothered to name. The only one contaminated, considering I first conceived her before I and my… partner, were cleared for the Bunker… the other fourteen, spotless, blank slates, perfect for exposure trials."

Cold fear bit into his head, and he stared at her in growing horror. "You… you monster…"

She shrugged. "We were able to confirm with them the sickness couldn't be passed on, it's not hereditary, it's exposure based, it doesn't contaminate unborns in quarantined environments, even if the host is infected, a fascinating discovery no? Unheard of in medical science."

Something about how she said that… It took a few moments, before it dawned on him. "No… You didn't…"

"You only need one blank as a control Ivan, the thirteen contaminants were all fated for the rot, they didn't develop a physical mutation in the womb, it was… the humane thing to do. The snow killed them quickly if it helps you sleep at night."

He dreaded to ask. "And the one you kept?"

Moira shrugged. "Killed themselves, broke into one of my cabinets, and wanted to drink the colourful drinks… a whole bottle of arsenic."

Bullshit, he wanted to call bullshit, no one left a bottle of arsenic in reach of a child by accident, but something kept him quiet.

She turned and started to walk back towards the back of the ship, where all the crews quarters were. "Clean up your mess, then join me on the bridge, considering you slaughtered anyone who knew how to steer this goliath, we're going to have to learn quickly."

He grumbled something even he didn't really know the meaning to, before hefting the body of the captain up and tossing the limp body over the side of the ship, letting a small smirk cross his features at the satisfying sound he heard when the body hit the churning atlantic waves.

Unbeknownst to him, Moira had pulled out a notebook.

-Subject shows advanced tolerance to pain and normally fatal wounds, doesn't seem to be aware of the multiple gunshot wounds he's suffered.

- Subjects behaviour is erratic, not consistent with most rot cases.

- Subjects assumed ties to the Harpies confirmed.

- Subjects high probability of knowing Test Subject 1R4-001 confirmed.

- Possibility standing the surviving generation may have developed a tollerance to the sickness… tests must be run to confirm or deny this hypothesis.

She capped the pen and stuck it in her lab coat pocket, humming an old tune to herself.

It was a nice little tune she thought, she would've taught it to Ira if the girl hadn't run from her whenever she started it.


Monaco, France

He was here… he was here.

And Annie wasn't.

Something twisted in his chest like it had been since that night, causing him to let off a little pained whimper.

A hand that wasn't Annie's patted his dashboard, he glanced over to Molly, who'd met him to 'claim him' at the Airport. "We'll get through this doll, don' you worry." Her southern-belle accent was a nice grounding… but he still worried.

Molly, Selena and Narrisa were all over sixty, sixty, that's older than his Annie by a decade!

They were even more fragile… and all three were going to be in the same city as him as he tried to find his own kind…

Given his first encounter, he couldn't not worry. "How can I not worry Mol's? Annie's going to be in hospital for months! Thank God the insurance company came through but… now you, Narisa and Selena are in the firing lines…"

"Prowl."

He gave her his undivided attention.

"One, we all could have backed out that day Maria told us her new deputy found ah giant robot in the dessert, you know, after Sophia stumbled in on you two and passed out from the shock, but did we all back out then?"

"No…?"

"No, an' we cetainly ain' bailin' now… And second... You missed the turn off for the hotel."

"Ahhh shit." Prowl muttered, looking now for a place he can turn himself around.

Molly laughed at that, and patted his dashboard again. "June says Annie's already on the way to recovery, and the skin grafts are taking well. So don't worry, she'll be back in your arms before you know it."

Prowl nodded, but sighed. "I know… it's just… that… that thing… shook me up pretty bad…"

Molly nodded, and glanced around, he looked better, they figured him scanning a Mercedes Benz SLR probably helped his systems bang out some of the damage, though apparently everything still felt very tender to the bot.

Which is fair considering a fighter jet stomped his spine in.

They all thanked their lucky stars Maria had been on the way to visit, and was still as terrifyingly good with her pistol as she always had been.

Molly had to bite her tongue not to laugh at how the seasoned sheriff had simply remarked she'd 'Hit a Bullseye'.

Like she hadn't shot an alien jet fighter robot in the eye.

Or more specifically, shot Starscream in the optic.

Prowl took the right turning this time, and within a few minutes, his human projection was stepping into the spacious apartment that his friends had booked for their stay in Europe.

Molly had barely shut the door when they were set upon.

"Prowlie!"

"Prowl! Darling… Good lord look at the state of you!"

Narisa and Selena were already fusing over him, their seemingly never ending energy contagious as he found himself chuckling. "I'm fine, really… I'm feeling a lot better now."

Selna scowled, grabbed his chin and jerked his head down.

If he was human, he was half tempted to think she'd of broken his neck with that little pull.

The short, 5'2' woman 63 year old stared him dead in the eyes. "Prowl. You look like shit."

The take no shit response cut his attempt at placating them down, and he felt himself deflate.

"I… I couldn't protect her…"

He wasn't sure when the sisters picked him up over their shoulders like they weren't over sixty, but within five minutes he'd been wrapped up in about five different duvettes and handed a mug of hot chocolate to drink.

He glanced at the three older women, and couldn't help but give a weak smile. "Thank you…"

Molly huffed. "Just don't forget about us when you find your people… you got that darlin'?"

He nodded and smiled. "Of course! Who knows! They might even help me get my memories back!"

All three smiled, and moved to settle themselves down, Selena turning on the news so they could have something to debate about.

Narisa ended up sitting on the sofa with him, so he took the chance to shuffle over as best he could while wrapped in duvettes, and rested his head on their shoulder. "It's good to see you two again."

He couldn't see her smile, but how she scratched the top of his head in the way that made his engine purr, well, that was more than enough.


Orichiono Manor

"Nuit down."

The massive doberman whimpered, pointed ears flopping back as she tried to give her mama the biggest puppy dog eyes she could, the smells of her mama's cooking driving her nose wild.

Aria huffed. "I swear we trained them better than this."

Wren was leaning on the counter, barely keeping a grip on Noir's colar, the larger hound was salivating, as Wren kept his front legs off the ground, they both knew if he got traction he'd lunge the moment the food was in reach, at least they'd had the forethought to keep Hera attached to their back so she wouldn't be in trying to steal the food too. "They're hungry."

"Hmm… you're telling me." Aria mumbled back, opening the oven door and pulling out the steaming hot roast that was finally done, using her hip to keep Nuit from jumping up and snagging the meat.

It smelt… alright… but it was taste that was the important part. "Alright Wren, take the gravy off the heat and turn off the hob, then, pour it into that jug over there." Aria gestured with her nose.

Wren nodded, getting up and latching Noirs collar to a short leash that was in turn bolted to the kitchens island, said dog whimpered, but she wagged a finger. "No, you have to wait, let Aria carve it, then you'll get your share."

Noir whimpered and whined right along with his more well behaved sister, who was now sitting on her haunches dejectedly.

"Hey Aria! Tha feas' done ye'?!" Ira shouted over from the dining area.

Aria rolled her eyes as she spun on her heel, raising the roast to show of that it had, in fact, just come out of the oven, it was a delicious cut of gammon, glazed in apple cider, golden treacle and honey. "Ha! Let me carve it first! So sit still and wait, you rabid animal! You're almost as bad at patience as the dogs!"

Both dobermans barked then, it almost sounded like they were laughing.

Ira threw her head back in a laugh of her own at that, grabbing her knife and fork to bang them against the mahogany table. "FOOD! FOOD! FOOD!"

A whack over the back of the head from Kia stopped her, for half a second. "Hey! Who do you think you're… oh sorry, forgo' yah were doin' somethin'."

Kia rolled her eyes, bringing the tablet she was going over with a frown. "I haven't been able to keep up with Barricade's reports, that gang war in Zimbabwe stole a lot of my focus."

"And the twins gettin ' fucked in tha head."

"Yes, that too."

"We're right here~, making you food~, you know?~" Aria called over, carving knife and fork in hand as she continued to slice the roast, the twins dogs whimpering getting even louder.

Bateleur and Red Kite rolled their eyes alike. "Ah come now, yah know we're jus' pullin' yah leg."

A few minutes of banter and updates being passed around later, steaming hot plates of roast were placed before all of them, and the scraps were already being wolfed down by Nuit and Noir like they hadn't just eaten a few hours prior, and had instead been starved their whole lives.

Ira licked her lips. "Alright… let's hope ah got tha taste down this time."

"Can't be as bad as the first time we tried eating with these."

Ira shot Kia a withering look over the clump of roast potato she'd skewered on her fork, now hovering before her open mouth.

Aria and Wren glanced to each other from across the table, their shared amusement telling over their bond. "Ira, let's just eat." Aria cooed, breaking the tension with those few quick words in a soft tone.

Ira's tension slumped, and she shoved the whole potato into her mouth, and began to chew, face screwing up in concentration.

Kia and the twins all leaned in just a little bit, eager for the verdict.

The anticipation hit its crescendo when Ira swallows, holds a moment for emphasis, then smiles like she just won the lottery. "Fuckin' nailed it."

The joy and relief was palpable, and the Harpies dug in.

"Mppphhhmhmhmmmmmmm~" Aria practically melted on her seat, eyes rolling back in her head in bliss and euphoria.

Kia smiled at her friends. "Congratulations are in order, to Ira, for finally getting Aria's roast dinner down, to Aria for knocking it out of the park again, and Wren, for not setting the kitchen on fire."

Wren sent her a withering glare. "Last I checked, it was you who was banned from the kitchen. Mis le feu à la cuisine... et puis quoi encore. C'est Aria qui a laissé le four allumé à Mayfair." She grumbled, then grabbing another bite of the gammon off her own plate.

The banter continued through the rest of the meal, interrupted only when Nuit and Noir had finished wolfing down the scraps, and then began a full frontal offense of cuteness to try and score more from their mamas, whimpering and putting on their best puppy pouts.

Aria almost crumbled, but Wren kept her from doing so, no exception to the rules, otherwise they'd see it as them being clear to be even more disruptive.

Eventually, everyone had their 'fill' and the twins set to collecting the plates and taking them back to the kitchen for them to be washed later by one of their staff.

Only, the plates weren't fated to get a good wash.

Just as both twins were stepping across the divide in floor types between kitchen and dining room, something happened.

Ira had gone to ask Kia something, Kia had turned to receive the question.

There was a strangled half formed scream, two toned, and the shatter of plates, Nuit and Noir started barking as they jerked to alertness.

They turned just in time to watch as the twins holoforms, confused, eyes blow wide and teeth gritted in a near rabid snarl as their physical forms twisted and warped, crashing together and separating in showers of sparking pixels, the only sound leaving them now like some dying eldritch speaker.

Ira shouted after them, sending her chair crashing to the ground as she slammed her hands down on the table to propel her upwards and towards them faster.

The tablet Kia had been holding for the entire meal dropped as her grip when lax in shock, watching on with wide gold eyes as the holoforms finally gave out, dispersing in a blast of pixelated textures.

"T-twins…?" Ira mumbled out.

Kia's horror stricken face turned slowly to Ira. "The Matrix?"

Ira's holoform let out a shuddering breath. "Tha bunker… ge' tah tha bunker!" Her holoform snapped out of existence not a moment after saying it, following the smaller Harpies lead, Kia's own snapped out of existence not a moment later.

Their holoforms reformed in the bunker in time to witness Optimus being body checked and slammed to the side by the twins, their form vanishing down the flight tunnel at breakneck speed.

"TWINS!" Ira screamed after them, but no hesitation came, their form quickly vanishing into the darkness, the lights hadn't been finished in that area yet…

Optimus groaned from where he'd crashed against the wall, half slumped down as he rubbed at his helm. "What… happened?"

Kia spoke. "We don't know… Their holoforms fritzed out upstairs, and then, this."

Ironhide stepped over to help Optimus back up to his pedes. "Well they were in a slaggin' hurry to get somewhere."

It was then that Kia got a ping, a message from Barricade, the first in a week.

She had to read it three times, and stare at the picture that was sent with it for a few long moments before it clicked, and dread pooled deep in her spark.

She heard a little whimper, but it wasn't from her or Ira, she ignored it. "I know where they're going."

Ira, who'd been furiously trying to open up every possible CCTV cameras in the city to see which way the twins were going, cursing out the poor video quality under her breath, turned to regard the Bateluer. "How?"

Kia sent the message to her.

Optimus and Ironhide watched as realisation dawned on Ira's own features, quickly replaced by a strange mix of joy and terror.

The red kite turned to regard the Bateleur. "You need to move… now…"

Kia nodded, and their holoforms vanished.

Ironhide turned to Optimus. "I hate it when they do that."


Somewhere on the Portuguese Coast

Barricade grunted, cursing his luck as his energon level warnings gave him another ping.

Serves him right for doing what he just did.

Next to him, the mech he'd dragged across the bottom of half the Atlantic was busy purging all the seawater and organic life from his tanks, spluttering and hacking everything and anything out of his mouth.

He'd been trying to get some signs of life out of the mech for over an hour when desperation had him hook up his engine to what he could only guess was the general area of the mechs own engine, and discharging half of his remaining reserves straight into the other mechs systems.

It had worked, somehow, and after a mass of convulsions, the mech had opened his mouth to let out a bubbly groan, had his optics, green behind the navy visor, blow themselves wide, before he thrashed onto his side, and started purging.

He eased down onto his own aft, and finally let Frenzy clamber out to take a look at the navy blue, light blue, tan brown and dark teal green mech.

He was certainly different from Kia and Ira, the two Harpies he had a visual to compare with.

Unlike them, he seemed to only have one set of Protrusions, that ran down the centre line of his helm from front to sweeping back.

His neck was long, really long, with two light blue bands of metal accentuating the length.

Then there were those tail feathers, longer than the rest of the mech was tall by a significant margin.

The mech groaned, slumping back down, evidently not caring he was getting at least half his helm covered in the stuff he'd just purged.

Evidently the mech needed some time to come fully back to the land of the living.

They had time, he thought, as he prepared a message to send to Kia alerting her to the fact that he was somewhere on a beach of a country called Portugal, and that he'd found a mech at the bottom of the ocean, picture included.

He sent it, and turned his attention back on the mech. "You good mech?"

The mech groaned. "Shit… feel like shit Ivan…" The mech groaned.

Looked like the mech thought he was someone else, Ivan was a human name, he wanted to be insulted, but he didn't have the energy.

The mech was probably gonna be really out of it for a while, considering the state he found them in.

So, he waited, letting Frenzy skitter down to stand on all fours on one of his pedes, watching the mech as he continued to groan and shift around with all the coordination of a sparkling.

Finally the mech seemed to gain enough bearings to lift his helm, optics squinting out at the darkness of the beach that surrounded him. "W-where... " He mumbled, before groaning into a full frame shudder.

He didn't hide his grimace at the sound, thankful that he's climbed out on an abandoned beach that seemed to not be infested with human living spaces.

He let the mech be, his attention turning to a new ping he'd received from Kia.

Apparently she was back to replying rather swiftly.

He opened it.

'Stay where you are, wait for me, and for all things holy, do not, under any circumstances, touch him.'

The optic ridges over his four optics raised. That was oddly… ominous.

He glanced back to the mech, who still hadn't really noticed he was there.

And then, the mech started to laugh.

Strained, confused, distressed… it was an odd laugh.

He was staring at his right wing, which his motions had brought into view, allowing him to slowly follow it back to the rest of his body.

"W… wh-at…"

He kept quiet, Frenzy did the same, just watching as the mech tried, and inevitably failed to push himself off his front, only for his wings to slip on the loose sand and put his face back into said sand.

A leg kicked out uselessly from under the tail feathers and dropped back to the ground.

The mech laughed again, just as strained, he seemed to be getting even more distressed, if not hysterical.

And he was mumbling, the sand was muffling it into noises he couldn't make out.

Just great, for all his luck this one was going to be as nuts as Fernando.

Deciding it would probably be a good idea not to let this mech have a mental breakdown on the sand, he spoke again. "Mech, you're only going to clog your vents doing that."

The mechs helm finally swung around to face him, considering it was dark out and he couldn't really make out much, save those green optics widening at the sight of him, before scrunching back up in confusion. "What the…" He seemed to ponder something before he was hit by some sort of realisation. "OH! I'm hallucinating! Wow! Four eyes, am I in surgery or something? … No, I'm probably dead... I was shot right? Right? Or is this all one fucked up nightmare, and I'm gonna wake up at home with breakfast in the air again?"

Barricade couldn't help but stare, was… was this mech serious? "This is real life mech."

The mech made an attempt to roll over sideways, but the struts in his right wing prevented it, he grumbled. "Stupid dream…"

Were it not for the specific order not to touch, he would have slapped the mech, knock some sense into him.

But he couldn't, so he just sat back and watched as the mech continued to try and get himself somewhat upright.

It took about a human hour, but the mech finally managed to sit up, and was staring in intrigue at his own dual joint pedes, flexing the four talons at the end of each and chuckling about it 'feeling weird'.

Frenzy got bored at some point during that time, and for the first time since the Air Force One incident, scampered off to find something, anything to keep him entertained while they waited for this mech to realise that no, this wasn't a drug induced hallucination, and no, he was not going to wake up from this and have everything be normal, this was the new normal, and like Barricade and Frenzy, he was going to have to deal with it.

Barricade noticed that the mech would periodically rub at his chassis, expression one of confusion, before getting distracted again with something new on his frame he'd spotted.

Now though, he'd run out of things to distract him, and was rubbing more insistently at his chassis.

The mech looked back to him. "I feel… weird… happy… scared… desperate… kinda tired… but I don't know why? Is that normal? Am I dissociating in my own dream?" The mech exclaimed, and proceeded to bang the side of his helm with a wing, causing him to wince. "Oww, ow, ow."

Barricade shrugged. "No idea kid, I just found you at the bottom of the ocean."

The mech's helm tilted to the side, and something dawned on him as he rubbed his front. "Oh! Right! Heh… yeah I guess getting shot through the chest probably leaves some left over stuff… wait… bottom? I wasn't floating?!"

Barricade rubbed his optics. "Mech, stop thinking your human, you ain't any more."

When he pulled his servo away, he noticed the mech wasn't even paying attention, that row of protrusions that ran along the centre of his helm had flared up.

"Do… do you hear that?"

Barricade upped his audio settings, and then yes, he did hear it, the familiar sound of wingbeats.

Only this time, they sounded a lot more… hurried?

He looked up, night had already fallen, and clouds blotted out the lone moon and stars above, leaving the beach they sat upon shrouded in darkness.

All of which added to the fact that he couldn't see anything, until something burst out of the clouds some distance off, and he realised it was heading straight for him.

It took a minute, but he recognised the silhouette. "Kia?"

"Kia?!" The mech perked up, helm swinging all the way around and up to look behind him at where Barricade was looking.

Then the mech looked back to him with a look of suspicion on his features. "How do you know Kia?"

Barricade scowled. "How do you?"

The mech huffed, whacking his front with his wing. "Because she's my big sister's friend, duh, Kia De La Estrada, heiress of the Estrada family… wait… Kia can't… fly…?"

His reply was cut off by a shout from the inbound Harpy. "MOVE!"

"What?" Barricade exclaimed, jumping up to his pedes, Frenzy perked up from where he was foraging through the high tide line.

The mech just perked up more, trying and failing to stumble to his taloned pedes. "That is Kia! KIA! KIA! You're alive! Oh I can't wait to tell Ivan you're alive!"

Kia didn't seem to hear, her frame bending to drop into an arch that led her to fly right over the other mech, and throw her pedes down into a landing that's momentum sent her hoping right into Barricade's personal space.

Which was apparently the intention when her wings caught him under the arms, and in a display of strength that floored him, she spun and lobbed him further down the beach away from the mech.

"MOVE YOU IDIOT!" She screamed as she proceeded to run after his tumbling form, managing to grab him again by hooking a wing strut around his waist, spinning on her axis, and hurling him even further.

The other mech seemed to react to this with a great deal of alarm. "KIA! KIA! Where are you going! Kia! Please! Don't go! KIA!" He was really trying to get up to his pedes now, wanting desperately to chase after the Harpy that was quickly vanishing into the darkness of the night.

Barricade finally came to a stop in a gouge his frame had carved out of the sand on impact, his helm swimming as Kia was on him again, only this time when she grabbed him, it was to wrap her wings around both of them, and poke her helm out to scream. "STAY THERE! STAY. RIGHT. FUCKING. THERE!"

The mech let off a keen of distress. "But Kia! You're alive! Me and Ivan were looking for you!"

Barricade saw Kia grit her denta. "Derrick, please, please, please stay right there… They're coming, I promise you, the twins are coming."

The mech, Derrick, seemed to almost come fully alive at that. "The… my… my sisters! They're…. They're alive?!"

Kia nodded, though with how dark it was, the mech probably couldn't see much more than a silhouette. "Yeah, and… well… you know how they get with you… so we're gonna stay over here, okay?!"

The shouting was decreased, but as Barricade managed to find a gap to look out through the wings, namely by parting some of the feathers, he found him unable to see much of anything, save Derrick's face, which was illuminated by the glow coming from his optics.

Derrick seemed to catch something that he didn't, as his optics seemed to widen, and his protrusions flared again.

A few minutes later he started to vibrate on the spot. "I hear them! I hear them Kia!"

Kia didn't reply, just tucked down over the top of him further, completely obscuring him from view.

There was a screech, a crash, a few grunts as metal clashed with metal and rolled over loose sand.

Evidently, the Harpies he'd yet to meet, had arrived, and not even bothered with a proper landing, simply tackling the, comparatively much smaller mech in a desperate hug.

He watched on as the larger Harpies ended up bundling the mech, around two thirds their size, against their chassis with the fumbling motions of their wings, sounds leaving them that seemed to range from happy screeches to worried chitters as they managed to mech handle the smaller mech around, checking every single part of him before apparently coming to some of their senses when they realised he wasn't mortally wounded in some form or another.

Which was the clearance they apparently needed to shake the mech hard enough for his helm to flail around in ways Barricade swore should of snapped it in at least three different places. "YOU IDIOT!" The much larger silhouetted femmes yelled, continuing to the shake the mech.

Being shaken in such a way made it a little hard for the mech to get coherent words out, but given the larger femmes reaction it had been a question. "What did you do?! What did you do?! YOU IDIOT! YOU GOT YOURSELF SHOT!" They were becoming more than a little hysterical, screeching the accusation with a degree of anguish in their voice, that it caused Kia to flinch above him.

The larger femme stopped shaking him now, and gave him the chance to properly reply. "How did you know about that?!"

"How did we? How did we?! IT'S BEEN OUR NIGHTMARE FOR TWO SOLID WEEKS! DO YOU KNOW HOW LITTLE SLEEP WE'VE HAD?! WE'VE WATCHED YOU DIE THIRTEEN TIMES OVER!"

Barricade nudged Kia. "Should… should we give them some privacy?" He whispered

Kia hissed in a vent and then replied at a much quieter whisper. "No, if we move, the twins will notice us."

Barricade looked back out. "And that's a bad thing… because…?"

Kia seemed to gulp down some air. "Because last time someone moved, they lost their head, very, very quickly, too quickly for me to get airborne with you weighing me down. And we are still very much within striking range."

Barricade grimaced, that meant they were stuck, him Kia and…

"Frenzy." He muttered, fear rising in his systems.

Kia's helm snapped down to look at him. "What?!" She hissed out.

Barricade looked to the high tide line. "He went scavenging on the high tide line."

"Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Frenzy! You li'l pera, stay right there!" The Bateluer hissed at the minicon.

Said minicon was apparently not even paying attention to Kia, his full attention locked on the other Harpies on the beach.

Probably because the hysterics had returned, and were joined by what Barricade could only describe as ugly crying as the larger Harpies smothered their younger brother.

This went on for upwards of another hour, by which point Barricade swore humans should of come to investigate the noise, and he found himself becoming very stiff in the crater he'd made in the sand as Kia's crowding forced him to hunch over.

At some point the hysterics had ended, and now the reunited siblings where practically pressing the sides of their helms to the other to whisper into each other's hidden audios, which at this distance was completely inaudible.

He found his reserves were steadily dropping lower, and a state of drowsiness was starting to cloud his focus, so, he tapped on Kia's wing to get her attention. "Runnin' low…"

Kia nodded, and took the break in silence to ask a question. "We'll get you some energon in a bit… where did you even find him? We've been looking for him pretty much ever since the twins started seeing their little bro get offed in their sleep."

He'd ask about that last bit later. "Bottom of the ocean, happened to pick up a weak energy signature, carried him here."

Kia tilted her helm at him, apparently re-analysing him. "And then you jump started him, sending a shockwave through the newly reformed sibling bond and give both the twins a nasty jolt."

Barricade just shrugged, his helm lolling to the side.

Kia picked up on this, and the arms attached to her chassis shifted out to catch his helm. "Easy there, the twins will be safe soon, then I'll see if I can carry you back to Barcelona."

He just nodded, he was cold, being so deep under the ocean for so long had left the softer parts of his internal systems saturated, and the cold air was only making him even colder.

It was just as he watched the larger Harpies rise, wings hooked on the smaller mech, helping them up, that he finally slipped into recharge, too tired to keep his four optics online any longer.

Kia remained alert, watching on as the twins finally seemed to notice the other presences on the beach. "Kia?" Wren called, lowering her wing so that Derrick could lean his new chassis against it for support as they walked closer, their little brother needed it, his new legs were going to take a while for him to get used to, it had certainly taken a while for them.

Kia regarded the twins, slowly unfurling to reveal Barricade, now in recharge and slumped against her. "He found Derrick at the bottom of the Atlantic."

The twins let out a vent of air that was half way between a noise of surprise, and intrigue. "Do tell us when he wakes, we'd like to thank him for that."

Derrick leaned over his sisters wing to try and make out the other Harpy, he found it funny how their Triage titles had become so much more literal. "Hey Kia!"

Kia smiled, stepping up and over her operative to offer her own wing. "Hey Derder."

Derrick groaned at the old nickname. "Still not letting me live that one down are you?"

Kia snorted, and gave the side of his helm a light knock. "Nope, and never will." She looked to the twins. "You good?"

Arien practically beamed, looking to their little brother. "Yeah, we're good."

Kia looked back to Barricade. "Okay, so… how are getting these three back?" She enquired, glancing to Frenzy and Derrick in turn, the former had scuttled back to Barricade, and was hiding under the mechs arm.

The twins frowned, and glanced to their brother, none of them had been able to get flight right on the first try, and the distance to Monaco had too high of a risk of him crashing.

They also wouldn't subject their little brother to being stuck in a trailer, no matter how short the journey was compared to their own stint in Optimus' trailer.

That meant only one thing.

Something that made the sensors in their frame ping in warning.

They ignored them. "Looks like we're going to be carrying them."

Kia sighed but nodded, she'd already accepted her fate.

That got a chuckle from the Orichino siblings.

Frenzy watched all of this with weary optics, hoping against hope that he would survive whatever these entities had in store for him and his guardian.

On impulse, he sent a ping down the line of his strained creator bond, wanting nothing more than for his sire to appear out of nowhere, scoop him up, and get him as far away from all of this as possible.

But that was not to be, they were still so, so far away.

Too far away.

Before he could stop himself, he let out and involuntary keen.

The Harpies noticed, and Derrick regarded him with a look of sympathy, pushing past his sisters wing to somewhat stumble into a kneel, and offered his two wings to the minicon. "Hey there little guy, you okay there?"

"Derick." Aria mumbled out a quick warning.

Frenzy didn't hiss, anyone of these Harpies could snuff his spark, and he was not ready for that.

But that didn't mean he came any closer.

The newest Harpy seemed to deflate a bit, and pushed back off the sand a little too hard, letting out a noise just as his sisters wing caught his back.

"Alright, it's time we head home." Kia announced.

The twins nodded, and the process of setting off began.


Woo! So many new faces in this chapter! Until next time!

Moon