Okay. So. Um. Real talk. This chapter is the darkest one I have ever written by a pretty sizable margin. There is a lot of content here you might find upsetting. I can say no more without giving spoilers, so I will leave it at this: read at your own discretion; this crap gets dark.

With that out of the way, hi. It's been another year-and-a-half + a month or two. Not my intention, but what can I do besides my best?

Since it's been so long since the last update, I would recommend going back and speed-reading or skimming the last. There's a lot in there that's important, and since I don't want to clutter up this author's note too much, I can't summarize it here.

Two things, then chapter. First, thanks and welcome to all the new readers who've been favoriting, following, commenting, or messaging me since last update. You are great, and I thank you for your patience as I wrote this slowly. Second, super-special thanks to Iquit2021, who apparently went and read and reviewed every single chapter in one day before, and I quote, "yeet my account into death". I sent them a message as thanks, which they didn't reply to, so I have to assume they did as promised and aren't on there anymore. Seriously, thanks for what was honestly a hilarious read throughout.

Lastly, this chapter is being posted in a rush, so if you notice a lot of errors, I will be fixing them at some point after the chapter is posted.

ToastedCookies - That's a pretty accurate assessment. Hopefully, there's a few more of those in this update. Thanks for reviewing.

Thanks go to Crystal Prime and xDaughterOfKingsx for beta reading.

Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro. I only take credit for this story and my OCs.

Booth woke up. Then he felt the burn.

It was ammonia. Pure. Harsher and more acrid than bleach. Smelling salts. He'd used them enough to know.

He opened his eyes and found himself looking down at his lap. His clothes were torn and bloody. Dirty. His entire body hurt. Sometimes from surface-level wounds—like the shards of glass in his arm—sometimes from something deeper. More potent, like the throbbing ache in his ribs. Broken bones. It took him a second to remember why.

The SUV. The ambush.

Dima was dead.

Slowly, he lifted his head, blinking. Looking around. He was in a room. Small, dark—lit only by a single, exposed bulb directly above him. It had a concrete floor. Unfinished, plaster walls. Likely a warehouse. There was a boarded-up window to his left, a metal door to his right. Nothing else in the room, save an empty chair a few feet in front of him.

He stood, crying out as he put weight on his right leg, agony following. He hadn't realized that leg was broken; his body had numbed it. He dragged his broken leg behind him as he reached the door, testing it. Locked, which he'd expected. Worth the try.

Hobbling, he went to the window and examined the boards. They were sturdy, but secured with nails. Vulnerable to being ripped off from the wall. Booth started that process, bracing himself against the plaster he had leverage to push; his broken leg meant he couldn't pull. It was a struggle more difficult than he expected, but eventually, the board he pushed loosened its grip, and he was able to pry it off the window.

The window was open to the building's exterior. He was higher up than he would have guessed—perhaps ten or twelve stories. The city outside looked familiar. The one he and Dima had been passing through when the Concierge found them.

And the sky above it—darkening too fast to be natural—was red as blood.

He shivered as he looked at that sky, and not from the breeze that began to gas through the room. That color… It was wrong. Wrong in a way that disturbed him more than anything he'd seen before. And the city outside was so quiet. Motionless. Eerie.

"It's a strange thing, to gaze upon the end of a world."

Booth spun, nearly losing his balance. The Concierge was sitting in the chair across from the one Booth woke up in. Legs crossed. Arms casually resting on the chair's arms, head cocked to the side, his fedora slightly angled.

Booth's eyes went to the door. It was still locked.

"There's a surreality to it," The Concierge said. "A detached sense of intrigue. Will the atmosphere ignite in nuclear fire? Will the air turn poisonous? Will something from the depths of space come to tear the world apart all at once? Those thoughts run through your head. Shifting and changing and present all the time. Yet, the mind doesn't so easily discard its habits. You look out that window, and half of those in the apartments and condos are playing games, streaming their favorite shows and films, cooking, drinking…" He smirked. "Mating. Maybe all at once."

"How are you…?"

"Some are attempting to make up for years or decades of mistakes," The Concierge went on, as if Booth had said nothing. "They're the ones trying to make themselves right before their families or gods. Admitting their faults. Their insecurities. Their mistakes. Trying to gain favor before their end. Others are the opposite, letting the evil in their hearts run amok just once, thinking why not? Why bother restraining themselves, if they're going to die anyway? Those ones irritate me. When the world doesn't end like they think, they always end up on some grand crusade to make sense of their sins."

Booth realized he wasn't speaking hypothetically.

"But, I'm not here to talk about all of them." The Concierge reached to the back of his chair—where Booth had yet to look—and pulled out a SIG. Booth's own P226. "I'm here for you, Edward."

Booth's first instinct was to look for a weapon. A tool. Anything he could use to survive. But as soon as he caught The Concierge's eyes, saw the depth in them, he knew it wouldn't matter.

Limping, he returned to his chair and collapsed in it. He met The Concierge's unnaturally green gaze, forcing himself to take deep breaths to slow his racing heart. It was over. He didn't have any Fight or Flight left.

"You're the last one, you know," The Concierge said. "You and Dima gave me the slip. It's not easy for someone to do that to me. I applaud you for it. I'd meant for it to be over for you all at once. No pain. No suffering. The least you're owed after everything you've done in this life."

"If I'm owed a painless death, then what are you owed?"

The Concierge smiled. "Much worse."

Booth thought the same.

"Are you going to ask why?"

"No. Don't care."

"Then I'll just tell you. It was never going to work. That plan of yours."

"Then why help?" Booth asked. "Why make it worse?"

"Because I could continue with my own and destroy you at the same time."

"You—" Booth coughed, his mind reeling. "You were already planning all this?"

"Just as I've done time and time again. Of all the peoples I've seen, the faces I've worn, you humans have a unique trait among them all."

Booth felt another chill.

You humans.

"That trait is that humans have adaptability in levels that are unheard of. Not physical. Mental. Any one of you can imagine an entire universe, and all that entails. You can be horrified, or embrace the horror. You can be disgusted by the sight of blood, or practically bathe in it. You have an incredible capacity for empathy and kindness, even in the midst of slaughter. And no matter how many wars you wage, how many times tyrants try to wipe that quality out of all humanity, it doesn't go away.

"That drive. That capacity. It adapts with you. Altering itself. Surviving, as you do. Appearing again and again, even generations down the line—with even more moral conviction than before. That doesn't happen to just any old race."

He leaned forward, his eyes flashing with an intensity—an age—that stopped Booth's heart. "You humans have a gift, and a curse. You know Good and Evil in equal measure. How, I don't know. Nor is it important. What is important, is that you can sit there, and be more affected by my presence than His. You can look out that window and see what's happening when so many of my own kind are blind."

Booth found his voice. "You're one of them…"

"Finally, you notice. I'd begun to think you weren't paying attention."

"And you've… You're talking like you're trying to harvest us."

"Exploit, if we're going to be so negative about it. But not in the way you think. You see, I've had the benefit of time on my side. I've watched you all. Studied. Waited. Influenced. Gave you a push from time to time. Sometimes in the wrong direction, like that business in Alexandria. Other times, what I thought was wrong became what was right.

"My kind, we're not like you. Not naturally. You were born in Good and Evil. We were born only in one. That leaves us dangerously vulnerable to both—and there are things out there, in the lightless expanse of the Universe, that are horrifying and powerful beyond description. My kind had their chance to stop them. They blew it. The Universe can't afford to have us fail again. With you, we'll have a chance."

"A chance for what?"

"To do what we were Called to."

"That makes no sense."

"It does. You just don't have the perspective that I do."

He pulled the slide back on the SIG, chambering a round.

Booth's eyes flicked to it, then back to The Concierge. "And I won't get it."

The Concierge shook his head. "No. Goodbye, Edward. I do hope They have mercy on you."

The SIG was raised up in front of him. For a brief moment, he could see down the barrel. Just like the hundreds of people he'd killed in his life.

The Concierge's finger tensed.

Then there was nothing.

The Concierge lowered the SIG, staring at Booth's lifeless body and the wall behind it—now splattered with blood. He tilted the head of his holoform, humming. He'd once seen an artist create the same pattern in their art. Fascinating.

He looked out the window, to the sky that looked like a pleasant, beautiful dusk to his eyes—even in holoform. He knew it was a lie. A false image, meant to manipulate. It worked on him, despite him knowing the Truth. He wanted it to.

Everything would be over if it didn't.

A notification in his HUD signaled an incoming request for a communications channel. He allowed it, and his holoform mimicked his true self—answering a ringing phone that was not real. "Go."

"Sir," it was Orophona. She sounded professional, but tense. More so than she had been when he saw her earlier. "Early reports from our sources on Earth indicate the infection and conversion rates are stabilizing."

"Percentage?"

"Average infected individuals spread the virus to five others during the pre-programmed infectivity period. 8.5392% of infected individuals succumb, regardless of age or physical health."

"Conversion rates?"

"Less. 4.3298% of deceased individuals have resumed life without interference. 1.87% of such individuals have been noted as being altered."

He did the math. Early estimates put four million humans in the United States as being infected so far, with the vast majority without symptoms. Assuming those estimates were accurate—and his people were always accurate—that would leave over three hundred thousand people in the United States dead within the next two days, of which roughly two hundred and eighty would be considered successes.

Three hundred thousand lives for two hundred and eighty. Not the best start. Not his worst, either. Especially since, in the next twenty-four hours, they would begin to see results from the rest of the world.

"Keep on the numbers; we need to know who to grab. What else?"

"There's… A situation, sir. You're needed in Operations."

He sighed, not only through the link, but in his bodies—both real and projected. "On my way."

He dismissed his holoform, allowing his focus to return entirely to his true self. The room that would become Booth's tomb vanished in his mind, giving way to a chair in his personal quarters in Sol Base—a massive, barren room far from Earth, near the edge of the solar system, in the heliosheath.

A machine was attached to him. An amplifier, used to both enhance the range limitations of a holoform while maintaining a real-time connection. They also allowed holoforms to experience a wider range of senses. Interact with food, drink, people. Albeit with the drawback of depositing whatever had been eaten or drunk right where the holoform was at the time of dismissal. He had thousands of amplifiers, spread across his little slice of the Universe.

The Archer disconnected himself from the amplifier, prompting an immediate processor ache. No matter how advanced the tech, there were always drawbacks. He grabbed his bow and quivers from the wall, set them on his back, then unlocked his door and stepped out.

Two guards—the same ones assigned to him for the next few breems—straightened their already-straight spines when he appeared. They fell in step with him, silent and professional. They were joined by two more further down the hall, and two more after them.

He led them all to Operations, where things were continuing to be organized yet busy. Techs had begun filling in contacts across systems and galaxies, inquiring if they had witnessed any changes. Any signs. None would have confirmed, or he would have heard about it.

Orophona stood from her station and approached him the moment he reached his terminal. She looked unnerved. "Sir," she said, quietly. Just enough that only someone with hearing like his would hear. "I've reason to believe an asset has been compromised."

Behind his battlemask, he frowned. "Who?"

"Operative Malix, sir."

His frown deepened, a trace of uncertainty crawling up his spine. "Evidence?"

"Message sent to the queue. I've isolated it for security purposes, sir."

He followed her to her station. She sat down and dismissed dozens of open tabs relating to Black Light, then maximized the encrypted messaging app used for high-level Operatives and Techs. Malix's profile was on screen, opened to a message sent to Orophona's profile.

You are not authorized to be on this station. Cease your incursions at once.

Or I will cease them for you.

Uncertainty gave way to grim understanding. The reinforcements he'd sent to Malix hadn't helped. In fact, they'd made things worse. Seemed Refit had grown more active in the defense of the Infinite Reverence over the centi-vorns.

"I haven't sent a reply," Orophona said. "And I have Chief Operative Malix's access suspended to prevent pathways into our systems."

"That won't help."

"Sir?"

"The sender of that message has the ability to bypass any security measures we can put up. He probably already has." He gave her a look hidden by his battlemask. "Tier-0 entity, Senior Tech."

Her optics slightly widened, digits tensing for a moment. "Then… What do we do, sir?"

That was the question, wasn't it? Liberating the Infinite Reverence from Decepticon possession was necessary, given recent events. With the Chaos Bringer on His way, they needed every gun they could get—under control or not. And the Infinite Reverence was the biggest gun there was.

Well, besides—

Irrelevant.

No matter what he did, this situation was costing him very valuable time. He had the Chaos Bringer on His way, a bunch of blind bots stuck in a no-win scenario he had created, and—from that report he got earlier—half of a ship on its way to Earth that was bringing the final piece to the End of All Things to his doorstep.

It was a bad day.

Refit either had killed his people or was containing them on-site. He could leave them for Refit to deal with, but bringing in replacements would take time—which he couldn't spare. He could go and speak with Refit face-to-nigh-omnipresent-face, but that would also take time. And that could cause complications, should the Archer's presence trigger something cause Refit to—

He froze, contemplating a sudden idea that was madness. Foolishness. Tempting Fate more than he ever had before. Could he do it? Would it work? More importantly, would it make everything even worse?

In the end, what other options did he have? There was a chance, and that's all he had. But if it, somehow, worked, then it was the answer to everything. Every complication which had sprung up at the most inconvenient of times. The Xel'Tor. The Ardents. Earth. All of it.

Strength was still going to be a… Difficult factor to deal with.

One thing at a time.

He looked at Orophona. "I need to be right back. Prep me a bridge in the meantime."

"Where to, sir?" She asked.

"Same location we sent the 13th Infantry."

Her optics widened again. "Sir…?"

"Also, restore Chief Malix's account. Send it a message."

He walked away, intent on grabbing a very important item from a secret container in his wall. He'd need it, for what he needed to do.

Orophona's voice made him pause, "W—what do you want me to say, sir?"

"Tell Refit that Lockdown is coming to see him."

"As you can see, sir—we have been able to accelerate the production of the drone ships since your last visit."

He looked around the shipyard, at the workers and their drone helpers, comparing each and every square millimeter of the facility to when he had last seen it. It had, indeed, come far in a short amount of time. The number of ship bays—where vessels were put together—had doubled in both size and number. Drones did the majority of the work, with true Paraions supervising and adapting to challenges.

Yet, he saw too many people not doing any work. They looked busy, always moving, always talking to each other. But he knew a lie when he saw it: they had nothing to do. No task to complete.

And where were the fabricators he had designed?

"What is your rate of assembly?" He asked.

"Twenty-five drone ships per solar-cycle, sir."

"And other classes?"

"One cruiser, four frigates or corvettes, or two destroyers per solar-cycle, sir. Anything larger requires at least two solar-cycles. I have yet to begin the largest of Reform's vessels; they will require the entirety of the yard."

So he was behind schedule.

"I designed your fabricators to handle three times your current output with half the personnel I currently see. You would know that if you had built them as I told you."

The Yard Master looked horrified. "Y—yes, well—"

He sensed the excuse. The dismissal of failure. The tour would not be worth his time. "You have one jour. See to it by its end, you have put together every fabricator I designed for you."

"I—I mean you no disrespect, sir, but we haven't had the opportunity to assemble the fabr—"

"Find a way, Yard Master. Or you will not be here for my next tour."

He space bridged himself to his next destination before the Yard Master could respond. He came to be standing on the elevated platforms of a massive factory, dedicated to the design and assembly of heavy combat vehicles. All around him were workers operating heavy machinery and vats of molten metal in the process of—or already had been—poured into molds of thousands of different shapes and sizes.

Below—on the factory floor—there were numerous fabrication modules. Cube-shaped blocks of metal of various sizes, ranging from hundred meters in length to a full kilometer. Inside each, he knew there were thousands of autonomous drones, flying just below the speed of sound in perfect synchronization.

In front of him, three mechs and two femmes were already holding the Paraion salute, one mech going so far as to fall to a knee.

He would not reward such worship. "Rise before you fall forever."

The mech jumped, maintaining his salute. "I—I'm sorry, My Lord Extremis."

Extremis advanced on the mech. He was a young one, fresh from the Alphox School of Warfare and then the Academy of Military Sciences. He had been promoted to Vehicle Assembly Master just five jours ago, after Extremis' last visit. He was known as Stonestorm to his fellows; Extremis knew his creators had named him Alpix, and that he didn't like to share that name with others.

"Alpix," he said in a whisper, his voice rumbling and echoing anyway. "Do not deviate from your training."

The mech started, nodding. "Y—yes, sir."

"Report. Vehicle assembly."

"We. I—I've been…"

"We have met the demands of Project: Reform and beyond," one of the femmes said, voice steady. Her name was Steelwing. One of the factory supervisors. Her specialty lay in logistics. She had been at her position for seven vorns, eighty-one orbital-cycles and seven jours.

Extremis looked at her. "Continue."

"Production of all vehicles is up by four hundred and sixty percent since your last tour, six jours ago," she went on. "This facility now produces three thousand Multi-Purpose Vehicles, six hundred light tanks, one hundred heavy tanks, and one Leviathan-class Ultra-Walker, per breem."

"With the required upgrades to armor, range, firepower, and energy efficiency?"

"Yes, sir."

"And in spite of Stonestorm's nerves?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. You're now in charge. Congratulations." Extremis looked to Alpix. "You're demoted to her previous position. Learn, or you will be transferred where you will do minimal damage to Project: Reform."

"Yes, sir!"

He space bridged himself to the next stop on his tour. Then the next. Then the next. He traveled to nearly every department within every Division, across the entire system. Most officers were carrying out Project: Reform adequately or just above expectations. A few were exceptional. Some were incompetent. Extremis had seen to correcting those anomalies by replacing the failed officer or giving ultimatums for real change.

At last, he returned to his sanctuary. The orange glow of the holoscreens surrounding his chair provided the room's only light. Night had fallen outside, and nights on Ventqura Munitum were unnaturally dark. Foreboding. Cold. Quiet. Without violence or movement from the world's ferocious wildlife.

The reason for that had eluded Extremis since the cycle he arrived.

He sat in his chair, altering the stream of information on the screens around him with a gesture, and returned to work. Reports were dismissed and replaced with others. Requests were denied in favor of those with greater promise. Systems were chosen for invasion and exploitation to feed the growing needs of the Paraions and Project: Reform.

It was another night. Another cycle of tasks to complete. Decisions to make. Lives to end or spare, trillions and trillions of kilometers away. Such was the life of a Kin—

"Promised…"

Extremis stopped. In frame. In mind.

In spirit.

"He promised…"

The words echoed unnaturally, rebounding off the walls again and again.

"He promised…"

Slowly, he looked around his sanctuary, seeking the voice that should not be. The memory that lay extinct, along with so many others. There was nothing but darkness.

Darkness, he realized, his adjusted optics could not pierce.

"HE PROMISED…"

The voice was at his audio. Close enough for him to feel the icy breath. The mocking laugh, hidden beyond sound. The malice of a creature that hated everything more than a mortal mind could comprehend.

He stood and faced it.

He felt it push on him. Felt it twist the knife it held against his mind. Felt it try and crush him, as it wanted to crush reality itself.

He met its incorporeal gaze.

Then he felt its confusion.

"You shouldn't try and act like Him," he whispered, quiet and colder than the air. "You pale in comparison."

He Summoned his Light.

It appeared then. A formless figure, struggling to maintain its indistinct shape. So dark it contrasted against the Ventqura night.

It slithered at him. Claws and talons and teeth without structure. A nebulous vessel of hatred and scorn. It swiped at his neck, faster than it took to blink.

He was faster.

A glowing fist knocked its claw aside, and his other impacted it in its rough center, focusing the white lightning surrounding him down into a single, tiny point. An echoing THUUM resounded in his sanctuary.

Then it was sent sailing into the wall.

It left a dent in the metal. A lingering tendril of Darkness as it fell to the floor. He could see its black, immaterial form burning where his Light made contact. He saw its Darkness collapse and falter. Vanish in steam and smoke and flashes of contrasting energy.

It hissed in his mind. Screeched its outrage. Its black fury, born across the stars from the Original, far away.

Then it fled.

The darkness of his sanctuary lessened. Gave way to the dim glow of stars overhead and his own, blinding radiance. He kept his Light for a moment longer, then let it fade, allowing the darkness to reign again.

He knew what he had just seen. Knew what it represented. What it would bring with it. What would follow.

It was early.

He waited for the Change he knew was to come. The Wave which was to alter all reality. Bring horror and dread to every planet in every system and every galaxy across the Cosmos.

It didn't come.

But an alarm sounded anyway.

It echoed in his sanctuary. Through the walls and the entire facility. He recognized the note as signalling an asset out of containment.

"Vigilance," he said to the air. "Status."

The AI did not answer.

"Vigilance?"

Silence met him. Dark and ominous.

He checked his holoscreens. Found them frozen. Inactive. Good as dead. Something was interfering with the network. That should have been impossible.

It had changed since last time.

He felt steps from outside. Turned as a panicked fist banged against the security door. Extremis moved to it and activated the manual control.

A wounded, bleeding, and frightened Praxis met him, holding closed a wound to his side.

"Sir," he said, his voice lacking the calm power the mech typically controlled. "The… The Sphere. It's open."

It told her what to do, and she listened.

She listened for words she knew, but had never heard. Words she longed for, ached to hear. To have whispered in her audio by a voice without sound. Without quality.

But the words did not come. In their place were directions. Soundless tells to wait. Silent promises that the time would come soon.

So, she listened as she assisted faceless cretins in their preparations for an ambush. She listened as she gathered materials together on the orders of one which thought itself her superior. She listened as other cretins uttered meaningless words to her, and she replied with equal value.

She listened as It said to avoid him.

He who believed himself important, to her and others. He who had taken his first Step far too late to matter. He who had been given a gift, but had no idea how to use it. He who would become nothing, as all things should be.

As all things would be.

"HE IS OUT," It said to her, and she knew what to do.

She rose from the meaningless task she had taken up and looked at them. The imitations. Echos of their betters.

"Delay…" She whispered.

Faint, black wisps of Darkness passed from her to the echos. They ceased their own tasks. Their own, fruitless attempts to stave off annihilation. At least, what they believed were attempts.

They moved down the street to meet him.

"GO."

She walked toward the next, senseless location populated with equally hollow fools. No one looked at her. No one acknowledged her. They continued their purposeless work, blind to her majesty. Just as he was.

Just as they all were.

A particularly loud engine reached my audios. Another joined it. A third. Then a fourth. I looked off the main road, where traffic was heavy but not the standstill of mainstreet.

Four familiar vehicles were approaching. Two semi-trucks—one primarily red, the other primarily blue. A scaled-up black Topkick. A white and black police cruiser.

Optimus. Ultra Magnus. Ironhide. Prowl.

The four began transforming before they reached me, rolling with their momentum and rising to their pedes two full body lengths away. They quickly spread out, surrounding me in a semicircle. They didn't have any weapons out, but I saw their posture. Their wariness. And, in the case of Ironhide, I saw their furious optics, glaring at me.

I'm certain this was going to go well.

"Return to base and your cell." It wasn't Optimus who gave the order, but Prowl, standing to Prime's right.

I didn't move. Wasn't sure what they expected, honestly; the space bridge was gone.

"You have shamed yourself and the Autobots' honor enough, soldier," said Magnus, gravely. As always. "Don't bring greater disgrace upon yourself by refusing to accept your mistakes."

"Or do," Ironhide added, flexing his hand into a fist. "Maybe put up a fight. Give me a reason to dish out a real punishment for upsetting Arcee. Again. This cycle."

Prowl glanced at Ironhide, then back to me. "This is your only warning," he went on. "Fall back. Don't make us force your compliance."

Yup. Just like I thought: this was going very well.

I wasn't sure how truly hostile they sounded. How twisted. Hypocritical. How… Absurd. Was this really what we'd come to? Me, an outsider. A threat. An enemy to contain, instead of a friend to help? An ally to rehabilitate? Not even an asset to hone, sand down the unknown and dangerous edge, so that it could be useful once more?

Something about that made me angry. Furious, but in control. Righteous.

And I let it take hold.

I looked at each of them. First to Prowl. Then Magnus. Ironhide. I stopped on Optimus. The abnormally silent of the four. He held my gaze for a long moment, then broke away, looking to the side. It was then I knew for sure none of this was his doing. Not his wishes. His plan.

Along with that, I realized he seemed different—and not in a good way. He didn't seem himself. No longer possessing the aura of command and leadership. Wisdom. It was like he was… Normal.

That was almost as frightening as It.

"Let me see if I have this straight," I said, slowly. Feeling a strange, disconnected calm surging from inside. "You're threatening to beat me into submission. Toss me back in the brig. Label me a dishonorable, worthless, hazardous, traitor."

"I did not sa—"

"It was implied," I cut in, before Ultra Magnus could deny it. "If not in words, in actions. You're standing there like you expect me to pull a weapon on you, Magnus. Strange. Doesn't seem like you're as tense with Ironhide next to you. After all, he actively tried to kill me today. Where's the caution there?"

Ultra Magnus bristled, but at the same time seemed to deflate. Change his posture so that his profile wasn't reduced when facing me.

I looked to Ironhide, whose anger had already begun to morph into a distant shame. "You're acting like I do everything intentionally. That I live and breathe and exist to hurt you and your family. I get why. But at what point, in all my blunders and efforts to correct them, will it stick that I love Arcee? That I want to love you and Chromia and Elita, too? That every mistake I make with you all is a dagger to my own spark? That I don't know how to change. That chaos surrounds me for reasons none of us understand, let alone seek out? That I'm doing all I can? And I'm most often doing it on my own."

Ironhide's shame fully took over, and he looked away, his optics growing distant.

"You," I rounded on Prowl. "You don't know how to treat me. How to react to me. Because of that, I'm a liability in your optics. Something to contain, not engage. Honestly, I share some of that; understand why your answer for anything I do that can't be explained rationally is to throw me in the brig."

"Because you are a threat," he said. "What you can do… What you did when Cold had control…"

"Hence my own trepidation," I said. "But where you're misstepping is that you're so focused on me, you can't see anything else. For instance, you're not all fazed by Ironhide for reasons I already said, but nor are you particularly worried about Optimus—who very nearly crushed my chest with my own carrier's Forge."

Optimus' optics flashed with a sorrow so deep, so profound, I nearly froze myself. He turned away from me entirely, frame language tense, though his posture remained perfect.

"We evaluated them both," Prowl said, his voice resolute. "Neither show lingering health concerns—mental or physical."

"Really? How is it that Ironhide has been medically cleared for field duty already? You saying sparkattack is something you just get over in a few breems?"

Prowl said nothing.

"Then there's how you left behind a single Autobot to guard me." I stepped closer to him. He tensed, one of his arms partially transforming into a weapon before he caught himself. His optic twitched afterward. "How you put a Decepticon in charge of the space bridge. Now, I admit, I haven't seen fieldwork in a while—maybe things have changed—but I seem to recall that being generally advised against."

Prowl said nothing.

"And then there's this." I held my arms out to the sides, indicating the chaos. The screams. The siren. The lie that was a beautiful sunset. "Are we just throwing away all the caution we've built up in the orbital-cycles we've been here? Have we decided to partner up with the humans, fight against the Decepticons side-by-side, when we've been trying to do the exact opposite since the start of all this? And am I the only one who feels how wrong the air is? That sense of horror creeping down our spines, promising fates worse than damnation itself?"

Prowl said nothing, but I saw the way his door-wings hitched. The way Magnus and Ironhide shared a look. The way Optimus' helm turned to me. Yes. Yes, they felt it, too.

"What this tells me," I said, keeping my focus on Prowl. Knowing, from looking at Optimus and seeing how hurt he was, that it was Prowl making the decisions in his stead. "Is that you're desperate. You're out of options. You didn't have options. That whatever is happening, whatever you learned while I was completely out in the brig, is beyond bad. To meet it, you're willing to break all manner of stealth. You're willing to use mechs who should be in intensive care for the next few mega-cycles. You're willing to use someone whose spark nearly destroyed itself. You're willing to use a Prime that isn't himself. You're willing to use a Decepticon."

I leaned toward him, focusing all my sudden confidence, my nerve, into three last words, "So use me."

Prowl looked at me, as unreadable as ever, then slowly to Optimus.

The Prime didn't turn. Didn't move. But he did speak in a low, slow tone. Lacking his usual power. "He is right."

After those words, it was like I fell into my own body. My strength, my boldness, my resistance, evaporated. Its work had been done. Its piece said. Its case laid. And it had succeeded.

I wasn't sure if I liked how… Good that thought felt.

The Prime turned at last, looking so very tired. "We face a coming oblivion. The defining moment of an entire species. We must… Meet it."

I expected more from him, but the Prime broke off, his speech leaving me even more confused than before. He walked off, and Ultra Magnus followed him, throwing Ironhide a meaningful look.

That confirmed I was right. Optimus really wasn't himself. I had… Hoped I was wrong.

"Shortly after you were… Contained, we received a communication from General Shepherd of the S.T.F," Prowl said, turning and walking down the street. I followed him without being told, and Ironhide trailed me. Probably still treating me somewhat like a threat.

"Bioweapon related?" I asked.

"Yes and no. The human bioweapon is now beyond containment; their strategy has begun to shift into continuity of their government."

"Holy hell…"

"Unfortunately, that was his version of the positive news. He sent us these images along with it." Prowl opened his subspace, took out a data pad, and handed it back to me.

The screen was of an image island, one I knew well; I'd been on it once, before it became a Decepticon fortress. My optics picked out the refractured forms of Decepticons in view of the human satellite.

"Unusually high numbers of troops and gunship patrols," I said, frowning.

"Flip to the next image."

I did.

Then I almost dropped the data pad.

There were hundreds of refractures, maybe thousands. One was clearly a starship. The Nemesis, or was it the Dark Matter? Hard to tell without a visible profile.

This was the last thing we needed now.

"After we saw that, we focused on intelligence of our own," Prowl said, after a moment. "What we found is… Worrying. Next image."

I swiped, and the screen was replaced by a Decepticon recon drone. Not a full drone. Not even something that could transform. It was essentially a camera with wings, an autonomous computer, and stealth coating.

"What am I looking at?" I asked.

"The Decepticon drone we found crashed outside of Jasper."

My tank dropped, my spark skipping a beat. "You. I. What?"

"Drone was caught in our stealth field," Ironhide said. "Field took it down when it flew in, sorted its unprotected computer. But it was in broadcast mode when it did."

"So that means…"

"'Cons know where we are."

Oh… oh god. Oh frag. That's why they were gathering. They were gearing up for an assault.

They were coming here.

… But why weren't they just using one of their ships to group up? At least the Nemesis had a ground bridge aboard. There was no point in gathering together on the surface. What were they doing on the island?

Still the Drums…

"To be more accurate," Prowl said, stopping briefly as someone in a sedan panicked and drove into his foot. He walked on once the driver got out of his car and ran. "The Decepticons know our general location. Not our precise coordinates."

I raised an optic ridge at that, glanced to the side at the running, screaming people who were filming our every move. "Well, I don't know if you're aware of this, but humans like to do this thing called livestreaming—"

"Taken care of," he cut in, through a channel. "The S.T.F has modified Jasper's internet and cellular coverage. The civilians believe they are uploading footage, but in reality the data is self-deleting."

"And when they leave?" I asked.

"Their devices are now designated as hostile by our stealth field. EMP will destroy them."

I grunted. "Still, none of that will matter when that army arrives," I said. "If those anomalies are gunships, we're looking at thousands of troops."

"I estimate thirty thousand at minimum. The bulk of our estimates for their total forces in-system."

"More than enough to swarm this whole area, dig up any rock we might hide under."

Prowl nodded. "Correct. Which is exactly why we are here."

"Out in the open? Exposed? Without the base's defensive emplacements?"

He looked at me for that. In that look, I saw the faint sign of disappointment. "They do not know where our base is located. We are giving it to them."

I frowned, confused. Giving away our…?

Ah.

"You're planning on luring them into a trap," I said.

"Precisely. Beneath this town, there is a network of what were once caves. In what humans call the Cold War, the United States government converted the cave system under the guise of modernizing Jasper's water and sewer infrastructure. In reality, they built a base."

"Same program that built the initial section of ours?" I asked.

He nodded.

"How did I not know this before?"

"Because it was abandoned into disrepair," he said. "The water tables were higher than the humans expected, which resulted in the facility's maintenance costs increasing beyond reasonability. It was cleared and abandoned half a vorn ago."

"How safe for the town above."

"The facility is deep enough in the rock that both cave-ins and human thrill-seekers are of minimum risk. This will give our trap merit." He turned down the street I'd seen him and the others coming from on their way to detain me.

There were no humans in sight, either on the sidewalk or in the street itself. Most of the buildings around were just barely too tall for me to see over, with some of them a storey or two taller or shorter than that. Override and Bulkhead were a few blocks away, where the buildings grew taller, looking down at the street. Between them, one of the base's Warden anti-air cannons was sitting in the middle of the road, taller than the largest buildings. Its base was wider than the street, leaving its edges to crush the sidewalk on either side.

"Subtle," I said. "Definitely looks natural, too. Could pass as a human monument."

Prowl glanced back at me as he continued leading us forward. "The Decepticons will not believe our ruse if we have no hardware committed to the town's defense. Our Wardens should be enough to convince them we are defending our main base of operations."

"And what's the play if we sell the lie?"

"Assist with this turret and you will find out."

As we approached, Override and Bulkhead looked our way. They grew a little tense when they saw me. "So he's…?" Bulkhead asked.

"Approved. He will be providing help with the installation here." He looked at me, and I saw his optics harden. Saw the uncertainty mixed with grudging acceptance. The look of a man in a bad situation and out of options. "Don't make me regret this."

I met his optics. "I'll do everything I can to make sure you don't."

Prowl nodded, then turned his attention to Ironhide. "With me; we need to return to the south wall assembly."

They transformed and sped off down the street, leaving me with Override and Bulkhead.

Who still didn't seem to know what to think about my being there.

It wasn't an active hostility. Not like it had been when I bridged here not long ago. But there was a wariness to their body language. A healthy caution given when faced with danger.

I understood why they gave it to me.

"We gonna keep standing here, or…?" I asked.

Override shook her helm, seeming to refocus. "No. No, we're not. Bulk'—where's that portable generator Arcee was working on?"

"Over here, 'Ride."

Two things went through my head at the same time. First, Bulk'? 'Ride? Since when were these two giving each other nicknames?

Second, Arcee.

I focused on Override even as Bulkhead stepped to the side and entered an alley between two of the buildings around us. "Arcee was here?"

Both of them tensed up, sharing a quick, panicked look. It was almost amusing to see both them so alarmed.

Only… Why did they seem scared?

"Uh…"

"No," Bulkhead cut in. "No, she hasn't."

I blinked. "Really? Then how could she have worked on the generator?"

"She assembled it while we were at base. We brought it here. Without her."

"Yup," Override agreed, hastily. "She was never here."

"But you saw her," I said.

"Nope."

I stared at them both, the parts floating around my face shifting in tune with my suspicion. They didn't meet my optics, busying themselves with whatever they happened to have in their servos or on the ground nearby. Override ended up spinning a tool in her hand; Bulkhead picked up and placed down a thin metal cover over and over again.

"You're the worst liars I've ever seen."

That or they were scared of me. Could have been either or. Maybe both.

They shared a look. "We just, um…" Bulkhead let the words die, scratched the back of his neck.

"Can't talk about her," Override said, looking somewhat more certain than Bulkhead. Her optics almost seemed apologetic. "With you, I mean."

So it was like that. "Alright, then." I looked at the cover Bulkhead was still crouched by. "That where you put the generator?"

"Um… Yeah…" He looked surprised. Somewhat confused. He removed the cover and took out the generator—a metal cube roughly ten feet wide, tall, and deep—and placed it on the ground next to him.

"You're okay with what we just said?" Override asked me, optic ridges raised high in surprise or incredulity. Couldn't tell which.

"Have to be," I said. "Not the time for drama and we got a job to do."

Bulkhead and Override shared another look, and in that look they seemed to have an entire conversation.

"Something wrong?"

"It's just…"

"Weird," Bulkhead finished for them both. "Seeing you accept that."

"Would you prefer I rant and rave about my romantic problems?"

Override shook her helm. "Please, Primus, no."

"Good. Let's get to work then. What do you need from me?"

Soundwave worked against himself.

Long had he maintained a series of security systems around space bridge controls. Placed protocols that prevented operators from doing what he was attempting to do. Even physical blocks that made it impossible to remotely override those systems.

But the voice was telling him to do it. As was Megatron. He had no choice.

He would obey.

So he moved from security bank to security bank, removing blocks and unraveling billions of lines of code he had meticulously written to guard against their space bridge network from being used against him. The security-conscious officer in him screamed.

The voice pushed him on.

He had no choice.

One by one by one, his safeguards went offline. One by one, he activated overrides he never expected he would.

Until finally, he was ready.

And It was pleased.

He went to the main control console and entered the coordinates of Megatron's borrowed starship—the Spiteful Existence—located far beyond the range of even the most powerful space bridges operated by the Decepticons. The space bridge whose control center Soundwave stood in was half the size of those models. It would certainly be rendered inoperable by what he was about to do.

But he did as It said.

He would obey.

The space bridge locked onto the bridge near the Spiteful Existence, whose security systems had already been disabled through a combination of Soundwave's remote access and precise instructions he had given a team of drones on the other side. He entered in the appropriate command to link the two bridges, and an additional warning appeared in his systems.

Warning, it said, selected bridges are beyond rated range. Activation may result in serious injury to personnel and irreparable damage to infrastructure. Continue Y/N?

He didn't want to. But It said he must. And It spoke through Megatron.

He would obey.

He selected Y.

Immediately, he felt the space bridge hum to life. Potent, energon concentrate poured through thousands of miles of cabling and pipe, bringing power to the single most important piece of technology ever reverse-engineered from the Golden Age.

He looked outside the control center's main port window, waiting for the space bridge's green portal to burst into existence. It did not take this long to link bridges. Not when the link was safe.

The hum grew deeper.

The alarms began to blare. Warning lights flashed. Electricity began to faintly course through the air, triggering his sense of danger. Of an imminent threat. His desire to retreat before it arrived.

It said to ignore it.

He would obey.

The electricity became a spark. A discharge of energon-produced power shot across the room in a yellow-green arc. It was followed by another. And another. And another. In micro-klicks, Soundwave was surrounded by them—deadly bolts of lightning that should not be. Arcs of electricity hummed their own song, separate from the deep, whirring hum of the space bridge as a whole, signaling something was wrong. Wrong and could not be reversed.

The alarm blared.

It said to ignore it.

He would obey.

Outside, an explosion of green fire appeared.

It began in the middle of the space bridge's ring and expanded outward, filling the dark space between. Soon, it reached the edges of the ring, and all Soundwave could see outside was its intense light. He should have been able to see into its center, where the portal truly was.

The floor began to shake. The lights flickered, and not from It. Beneath his pedes, he heard a hose break, then felt the acidic touch of the coolant it carried be sprayed up from the floor and into the room proper.

The alarm gave a strangled, fading wail. Then it died. The lights followed the same fate.

Outside, something dark appeared in the blinding green light. Something dark and metal. A ship. But not shaped as Soundwave expected it to be.

Lightning struck him.

Not real, he knew, but it hurt. Tossed him away from the console and into a nearby wall. More bolts appeared around the room, tinted green. More coolant hoses burst, spraying fluid everywhere. The floor shook so much he was surprised it was still relatively intact. Outside, the light of the space bridge portal began to fade.

But from deeper within the space bridge itself, he heard a faint, echoing boom, followed by a particular smell of burning energon and metal.

The physical space bridge ring was disintegrating.

Puzzlingly, It was silent.

He acted on his own.

Deploying his Sonic Cannons, he took aim at the window and fired once. Then twice. The blasts cracked then shattered the reinforced duraglass, sucking the air—and the sound—from the room. For a moment, he stood in a silent maelstrom, surrounded by green bolts of unstable energy, soundless flame, and an ever-increasing rumble he could only hear through the vibrations under his pedes.

And a heat—hot and painful—that began to grow from behind him.

He fled into the fading green light outside, and the dark ship still passing through.

Behind him, the control room faded away—as did the heat, and the light of the space bridge portal, as he flew into the safety of empty space. He directed a sensor in that direction, and found the control room had been consumed by fire. And the rooms next to it. And the rooms across from them.

With an almost ordered beauty, he watched the fire spread in both directions of the ring as if guided along by a great fuse, wrapped into a circle. Soon, the fire had consumed the entire ring, and it lingered. Fed not by oxygen, but its own, tremendous energy that he could feel even as he continued flying away at his maximum speed. The flames highlighted the shape of the massive vessel still passing through the portal. Indeed, it did not look like the Spiteful Existence. It was rougher. Harsher in appearance. There seemed to be… Something on it that appeared to absorb more light than it should have. Had Megatron transferred to a stealth ship?

The space bridge exploded before he could ponder it further.

It vanished in a flash too bright for his sensors to see detail. He felt a new wave of heat—searing, in spite of the distance—wash over him. Debris followed that wave, small bits of metal and ceramic, then larger pieces he actually had to avoid colliding with.

The largest of all was the ship itself.

It could not be called that. Not anymore; half of it had not come through the portal. Yet its front carried on, propelled forward by its own momentum and the self-destruction of the space bridge. Even in half, it was still larger than even the Dark Matter.

Soundwave slowed and matched its speed, intending to board and report to Megatron. Then he actually saw the ship. Darkness—cold, twisted, wrong—covered every inch of the vessel's hull, warping its shape and color. It was black as pitch, swallowing up the light from the still-detonating space bridge with an eager hunger. The only source of light came from the ship's exposed network of hallways and rooms near its middle, where the space bridge had cut it in two.

But that was changing.

The darkness was moving. Flowing over the ship's sheared sections and smothering the faint glow of emergency lights and chemical fires.

Movement behind the ship gained his attention. He turned a sensor that way, and found a number of objects trailing behind the drifting starship. He focused on them.

Then felt a chill that did not come from the depth of space he flew.

The objects were Decepticons, drones, and full members alike, jumping from the ship. Out into space, despite none of them being seekers.

What was inside the ship that would make Decepticons seek space instead?

A shapeless mass of the darkness suddenly extended from the ship.

He watched, with detached dismay, as the darkness made its way toward the wayward Decepticons, blocking out the light of distant stars as it went. He saw the Decepticons react to it. Saw them panic, move their limbs, flailing, as if to swim away.

One of the Decepticons looked straight at him. A full member. Dark red armor with black accents. He reached a servo out to Soundwave and spoke rapidly, words lost in the still silence of space. Soundwave read his lips.

Help me! Help me! Don't let It—

The darkness reached them, surrounding them in its formless deep. Then it departed, rejoining the drifting, too-dark ship.

The Decepticons were gone.

All that remained was the red and black servo of the mech, still reaching out for him.

For one of the few times in his life, Soundwave felt numb. Horrified beyond reason. Too frightened to act. To think. He kept trailing after the ship, his sensors focused on the empty, dead space once occupied by Decepticons.

"Release me..."

It slithered back into his helm, and his spark stopped. His terror fled. Obediently, he angled himself toward the ship. Toward darkness that moved. Toward It.

But then something else grabbed at him. Pulled him away. Whispered in his audio.

Heed the Call of the Light.

Clarity—precious, valuable, innocent clarity—entered his helm. Showed him the reality of what he was looking at. Of what awaited him in the dark. Of what awaited those Decepticons he had seen consumed.

He angled himself away.

It did not take kindly to that.

Soundwave felt something grip his helm with a numbing viciousness, and he shuddered. Felt a cold, enraged claw clamp down on him, digging into his frame.

"Release me…" It said, with greater fury. A hatred directed not just at him, but everything.

Heed the Call of the Light.

"Release me."

Heed the Call of the Light.

"RELEASE ME!"

Something pulled at him again, deadening Its call.

He turned right. Hard. He felt something unfathomably angry and wrong pass over him at the same moment. A mass of Darkness without shape.

It followed him.

He accelerated, turning his sensors behind him to track the formless thing, but they gave him nothing. No data. No sight. No direction.

Heed the Call of the Light.

He turned off his sensors and just flew, pushing himself further and further away into empty space. He felt It right there, keeping pace, not deterred at all by his speed and the sudden, desperate maneuvers he pulled to alter his course and keep It from gaining too much ground.

It came closer. Soundwave felt space turn colder at its approach. More dangerous and malevolent. Violent. He put all power to his engines, heedless of the rate his energon would be burned. It wasn't enough. It came closer, and closer. Promising pain and torture and suffering, thriving on such things.

Ahead, space became blacker than black. Colder than any waste. As hopeless as life.

It had surrounded him.

He felt It again, clawing at his helm. He felt the full weight of his pain, and the pain he had caused. The shame of his failures and successes. The sheer magnitude of his worthlessness.

Gradually, he began to slow down; It began to close in, smothering him. Erasing him and his insignificant life from existence. As It would do to everything.

He felt the first tendril of nothingness touch him, and it burned, and it froze, and it ate away at him. The next did the same. And the next. And the next. And It was pleased.

Something else was not.

Arise, Herald of Redemption…

It paused.

The other pulled.

Something broke.

Soundwave broke.

And everything became Light.

The tendrils fled, if but for a moment. The crushing reality of his pointless being lifted, if not by his own servo.

Warmth. Warmth flooded him. Loving and strong and protective.

... and Heed the Call of the Light.

He burst through the tendrils of Darkness, felt the numbing agony of their touch fade away to the comforting embrace of the other.

It did not follow.

Soundwave didn't know for how long he flew, nor how fast he truly was. All he knew is that it felt wonderful. Freeing. And it made him happy. Something he hadn't been since he was a sparkling, starving for energon on the street, and a pitying femme gave him a ration.

He transformed without slowing, his momentum carrying him forward as he turned his frame around, looking back. The dark embrace of space seemed bright compared to the retreating tendrils he saw distantly behind him, fleeing back to the twisted and wrong Spiteful Existence. Everything seemed bright. His servos, his armor. The tiny dots of far-away stars. Even the sun, billions of kilometers away, felt warmer. More powerful.

Half of Soundwave hated it.

Had he just been rescued? Was that other that he felt still vaguely wrapped around him, there for… Him? To keep that Darkness away? Why?

Why was he worth saving?

What was happening?

The other gave him no answers. Nor did the stars. Nor the Spiteful Existence, drifting ahead. Toward… He followed its path with his helm. Earth. Spiteful Existence was drifting toward Earth.

The very malevolent Earth, where It controlled his Decepticons.

The other whispered to him again, He is here.

He shuddered involuntarily, his frame understanding the words but his CPU still clueless. Still without answers. He knew, then, that something terrible was going to occur when the Spiteful Existence arrived on Earth. Something horrific beyond words. He needed to leave, warn… Warn…

Warn who? Less than twenty percent of all Decepticon forces in the system were off Earth, and those that were had been ordered to move there as soon as possible. Many of his superiors were on Earth, blinded to what was already happening around them. The few individuals who outranked him out of the system were far away, at Andromeda and beyond. Megatron had not responded to Soundwave's comm requests since demanding a space bridge. That meant all immediate higher-ups around Megatron were compromised.

He was alone.

Alone, and without a space bridge.

Alone, without a space bridge, and now trapped in the same system as something so dark and twisted, it corrupted who he was just by being there.

He looked out into dark space, further into the system. To a red dot, far away. Then he checked his fuel reserves. Somehow, he had more reserves than when he first arrived at the space bridge. Far more. A quick calculation said he had enough energy to make it all the way to Mars, even at its current orbital period halfway around Sol. Another space bridge was there, at the Decepticon base under the planet's ice cap, made for the transportation of small numbers of ground units; it was how he got to the now-destroyed bridge in the first place.

He could leave the Sol system. Leave behind this madness and rally Decepticons across the Milky Way and the Local Group. As Megatron's Intelligence Officer, technically, it was his responsibility to take command of all Decepticon forces until Megatron's authority could be restored, or a successor decided on. As always, he did not like that thought.

And this time, it was accompanied by something else: distaste.

Distaste for command. Disgust for his Intelligence work. Distaste for what it led to.

Distaste for Decepticons, just as much as Autobots.

Stop it.

His gaze shifted from the red dot of Mars to another one. A larger, closer light. Blue and green. Earth and its wrongness. Decepticon forces were still amassing there, within the walls of Shockwave's base. Clueless of what was happening around them. To them. To Earth itself. He could go there. Tell them. Show them.

… And what would that do?

They had the scent of their prey. They knew where the Autobot base was located. They hadn't cared—he hadn't cared—where that piece of information even came from. What would be different about finding out something wrong was waking up?

Stop it.

Why did Soundwave care in the first place?

He floated in space, pondering that question. Pondering the Darkness as it drifted away. The tiny, blue and green dot in the distance, and what was happening there. The Other as it kept him warm. Safe. Right.

For the first time in far too many centi-vorns, Soundwave wondered what his cassettes would have done. What they would have thought, if they were still with him. What they would have told him to do, as they looked at—and felt—what Soundwave did.

Stop it. Stop her.

He had his answer. He did not understand it.

Transforming, Soundwave plotted a course and turned his engines beyond their maximum recommended safeties.

He had a ship to beat to Earth. Based on his calculations, he would make it before the Spiteful Existence did.

… He just hoped he wouldn't be shot on sight once he arrived.

It growled within her.

She ceased her spurious attempts to help one of the vile thralls and Listened. Took in the knowledge it deemed her worthy of receiving.

Subterfuge had lived up to their title. They had betrayed it. Betrayed her.

"ACCELERATE."

She left the task she had given herself. The revolting slave nearby didn't notice her departure. Nor did the second one, across the narrow street. Or the others she passed on her way to the entrance to the cavern below.

Another slave stood guard at the entrance. It didn't notice her as she approached. Or when she passed it.

Or when she stepped out, ignoring the temporary lift the slaves had built for themselves, and dropped straight down.

The air—already freezing—grew colder and colder the further she fell. The faint light grew dimmer. The stink of the surface, of the slaves—of life—was replaced with the pleasant aroma of rot, then nothing at all.

She landed without flinch nor pain, the ground cracking around her. Everywhere she looked, there was Darkness. Tendrils ran up the cavern walls. Pools across the floor. Black mist in the air, snuffing out light and life and any semblance of warmth.

It was delightful.

"ACCELERATE."

She moved through the Darkness and further into the cavern. With each step, she felt the Darkness move around her. Bow in reverence. Part at her passing. Make way for their greater…

… Or join her early. For the Time was coming.

She came to the central part of the cavern, where one of the thralls worked tirelessly on numerous objects of varying sizes. She gave herself the proper image—the proper demeanor, mannerisms, and expressions—then cleared her throat, announcing herself as she once would have.

The thrall looked at her and smiled, heedless of the Darkness wrapped around her own hands, legs, and torso. "Oh, hi, Arcee! You checking in on me now?"

"Hi, Flareup. And yes," she said back, in the exact way she would have, had she cared.

"Well, progress is slower than I'd hoped for," Flareup said, wiping her hands. The act turned Darkness to a liquid form, splattering it against her. She didn't notice. "It's delicate work, slaving so many charges together like this. Not to mention most of them are improvised and operating with different kinds of tech."

"Prowl wants the detonator ahead of schedule."

Flareup appeared shocked. "Ahead?! No, no, no. I'm working with railgun rounds with nuclear material on the inside. If I don't wire them right, they won't even go bo—"

She closed the distance between them, cutting off the shorter femme. "Accelerate…"

With the word, Darkness colored the lightless air. Crossed the short distance between her and Flareup.

Flareup froze, the Darkness covering her optics. Entering them. Eating at them. She blinked, and the Darkness stayed there—under the surface. It darkened her blue optics.

Inside, a stubborn, annoying part of her screamed again, trying to get out. Trying to get to Flareup. To stop her.

She stomped on it.

"Sorry," Flareup said, rubbing at her optics. "I spaced. What was it you needed?"

"Prowl wants the detonator ahead of schedule. Soon as he can get it."

"Sure! I'll cut some corners. Should be fine."

She smiled. "Good. Keep up the good work, Flare'. I'll let Prowl know."

The thrall returned to work, and she turned, letting the smile drop. She hated it. All of it. She longed for the Time. The Words. Begged for them in her mind.

But the Time had not yet come, and the Words were not spoken. Just the instruction again:

"ACCELERATE."

"Can you grab me the—"

"Spare wire? Already on it; noticed you frayed that one."

"Don't judge me."

"Just an observation, not judgement. You're doing better than I would; you know these kinds of explosives better than I do."

"What I wouldn't do to pull Flareup from—"

Springer abruptly stopped talking, and I knew then that Flareup was another, off-limits topic. For some reason.

He and I were laying mines between the town and the defensive wall most of the others were working on. More accurately, we were laying MT-14 Anti-Tank/Personnel mines. Heavy-duty stuff, and not something we had cause to use in the field; our battleplans required speed, not digging in.

Preparing for a literal army was making us grab anything we could.

"Where's that wire, Shadowstreaker?"

"Still looking," I said, rifling through the container of parts we hauled around with us as we planted the explosives. "There's zero organization with this thing. Almost like whoever last used it wasn't even trying to put things back where they found them."

"Well, you can talk to your courted about—"

He cut himself off again.

So Arcee had been here, too. And, conveniently, was nowhere to be seen once I showed up. Again. That made three locations. The anti-air battery. The wall. Now the minefield.

Something about that made no sense.

I finally found one of the wires I was searching for and handed it to Springer. "Got it. I'd be careful with it this time; can't guarantee I'll find another one in this thing."

He poked his helm out of the hole we'd dug to grab the wire, then scoffed at my words, the fresh welds on his faceplate shining in the fading sun. "Just be better at using your optics and we wouldn't have a problem."

"Says the mech who got a taste of floor from the last time he tried fighting."

"That's low, dude. Not cool."

He ducked back down into the hole, and I resumed my watching from above. The siren had been disabled—thankfully—and without it, Jasper had descended into still silence. The calm before the storm.

Or storms, in our case.

Sight.

The pain came as expected, chilled and fierce. Howling. Like the storm when it would arrive. Even ready for it, it still made me see things in threes and nearly brought me to my knees.

As always, the wind grew even colder than it already was, and a phantom claw went down my spine, the voice of death whispering to me, seemingly right into my audio. "Release me…"

I flinched, instinctively balling a hand into a fist. I took a breath. Two. Then relaxed. It was here, there was no question of that, but it wasn't… Oppressing. At least nowhere near how much it should have been. I'd talked to everyone I'd worked with so far, and I seemed to be particularly sensitive to It. While I was feeling It all around me, the others only felt It when the wind gusted.

Even then, after admitting they felt something, they didn't like talking about It. At all. They shifted the topic to our preparations for the Decepticons. To assignments, I hadn't received or heard of. Or dismissed It as a trick of their own mind, brought on by stress or a memory they were bothered by. Never the actual problem.

It was here—everywhere.

And yet…

I had been given a hint of what It was capable of. Witnessed the Darkness, and hatred, It breathed. I knew but a sliver of Its power. It should have killed us all already. Or at least tried. It hadn't. It was just there. All over. Idling. Silent. Watching.

Why?

"You did the thing again, didn't you?"

I looked down at Springer, one ridge raised. "Pardon?"

"That… Thing you do. The one you were doing when you walked by the med-bay."

A frown replaced my raised ridge. "You saw that?"

He grunted and shrugged as he continued his work. "Heard it, more like. Sounded like Prime. Or… Someone like that. It was… Scary, honestly. Like everything relied on you in that moment. And even you weren't sure what it meant."

… Huh. "That's… Actually pretty insightful of you, Springer."

"I can be an interesting conversation if I want to be."

"Yes, I was doing the thing," I said, going back to looking at the now-quiet Jasper, frowning at the wind. "Or, more accurately, I was trying to. Haven't been able to since I woke up in a cell."

"Are you saying Prowl took your toys away when he locked the door?"

"Funny."

"Sorry. My claim to be an interesting conversation left out how I'm also extremely immature and prone to not caring as much as I should."

That much was obvious. Still… "You heard me using Sight?"

"That what you call it? Very creative. Anyway, yeah. It was in your voice." He paused. "Or… Something was? It's hard to tell."

He went back to work, but my frown deepened. He heard me use Sight. Or, at least—he knew I was using it back then. And he knew it just now, when I tried to use it. Did that mean…?

Sight.

The process repeated. The pain. The wind. The Voice.

Then Springer poked his head out of the hole again. "Did you just do it again?"

"No," I lied, barely able to keep my voice steady and my eyes from falling out of my skull. "Why?"

He mimicked my frown—which had turned into a grimace, so soon after trying to use Sight. "I don't know. Just… Felt like you did. Hmm."

Conviction can Sense Faith…

He went back to work, and I remained above, stunned. Shocked. Horrified. Amazed. Holy shit. He could sense when I used Light, or tried to. He had to be one of us, didn't he?! He had to be. How else could he do that, when no one else I'd talked to could, save Grimlock?

So… What did that mean? How could that help us? Help me? I couldn't use Sight, and that was the only ability of Light I knew. At least, the only one I remembered; almost everything I'd done in my Animus had faded from my mind. Like a dream that didn't seem quite right, even when I remembered it perfectly.

I elected not to think about it right now. "This feeling of yours. Have you felt it before?"

"Yeah. A few times," he said, re-attaching the lid to one mine and taking off the lid of another. "Mostly when I'm around Jazz; mech's been different since he disappeared after, well—you know."

Jazz? Jazz, too? "Anyone else?"

"Once or twice when Optimus was around. Prowl. Ironhide. Grimlock, weirdly enough. Also—"

He cut himself off, returning to work.

Arcee. He was going to say Arcee.

I leaned back from the pit Springer worked in, silently reeling. How had I missed this? Missed them? If he was right, then including Springer, there were seven people around me who could use Light. Seven people who were unique. Special in ways I couldn't fathom. Couldn't understand.

Why them?

Why us?

Why me?

And how could we use this?

"Do you ever feel more than just a feeling?" I asked, quieter than before.

He slowed in his work, then continued. Didn't answer.

That was a yes. "Have you told anyone?"

I saw him hesitate. Attach and detach a wire he didn't need to. Then he shook his head.

Still didn't answer.

"Springer… Do you ever see things that you don't understand?"

"No," he said, too quickly. "Can't do this. Not with you."

"Of all the people currently on Earth, I might be the best one to talk to."

"I can't."

There was something in his voice that set off an alarm in my head. Made my body tense up. "Why not?"

He looked at me. In that look, I saw everything he didn't want to say. Didn't want to talk about. I saw his fear and his terror. His confusion and panic. The massive stress caused by knowing something you shouldn't. Something terrible. Horrifying. World-ending.

I knew how he felt.

I lowered myself down into the pit. His eyes widened at me, realizing I wasn't letting the topic drop, then broke from mine, settling once more on the wire he still fiddled with, trying to attach to the explosives.

Up close, I could now see his hands shaking.

"You don't need to say anything," I said, quietly. Tone, hopefully, understanding. "I know."

"Know what?" His voice was a touch higher than before. More nervous. His hands shook harder.

"Why you don't want to talk about it. Why you can't."

He dropped the wire and grabbed a new one, as if that had been his problem.

I leaned in close, so that I was whispering. "You saw It, didn't you?"

His shaking servos snapped the wire, and he froze, his venting hitched and shallow. He looked at me like I was going to summon It right on top of us.

Hell, maybe I was.

One way to find out.

"It probably talked to you," I went on, even as I felt a chill run down my spine. Tendrils of cold air lingered. Swirled around the pit.

"It probably told you that you weren't worth anything. That It hated you. Wanted you to die, along with everything else. That It would hurt you if you said anything. Thought anything."

Springer flinched, and I knew then I was right. He had seen It. Spoken to. Warned. Frightened into silence.

Why only that?

The wind swirled closer as my suspicions were confirmed. Closer. Chilling me from the inside out. Gripping at my wings like tendrils of ice. Faintly pressing at the sides of my helm. A reminder. A warning. A promise.

I wanted to give in. Let It cow me, too. But something—that same something that gave me strength before—flared within me, strong and determined.

I ignored the warning.

"Believe me, I know that voice," I pressed on, even as the wind ripped at me, fierce, too chaotic to be natural. I had to balance myself to keep from falling over, even as Springer remained untouched. "I know how much it hurts. How deep It cuts. How scared you are right now."

Springer started shaking his head, his optics wide and panicked. As if warning me and denying me at the same time.

The wind grew claws.

I felt them pierce me. Felt their icy touch rip into my side.

I paid them no heed.

"Don't listen, Springer," I said with clenched denta, that Strength Without refusing me the right to give in. To feel the pain. To stop. "You're worth more than what It says."

"No, no, no, no, no, no," he whispered, rapidly, shutting his optics tight and bringing his hands against the sides of his helm. Cutting off the world.

"You're worth more than what It tells you!" I said, louder.

Faintly, I felt the claws of the wind tear at my armor, tearing off one of the layers in some places. Then, Its voice whispered in my audio, "Let him die… You'll be next…"

I blocked it out.

"You're a fighter, Springer! Fight! Fight It!"

He shrank down into himself, almost in a fetal position. "No, no, no…"

"FIGHT IT!"

He shook. Rolled. Squirmed.

Then he screamed.

His eyes snapped open and he bolted upright, throwing his arms out to the side as if breaking a chain. His optics flashed a bright, vibrant green—deep as emeralds and shining with fire. Strength. Life. Light.

He looked at me, and the Light in his optics flashed. He raised his hand and placed it on my forehead.

Then he spoke a single word with the meaning of thousands, "SEE!"

And my world exploded into Light and stars.

"HE SEES."

She'd known that, even without the warning.

It was impossible not to. There was a gravity to him, despite his idiocy. Something he did not deserve, nor carried on his own.

She wouldn't let him know why.

"ACCELERATE."

For the first time, she hesitated. Not out of defiance, but worry. "Your power is not—"

"ACCELERATE!"

Agony ripped through her body, and she collapsed, bowing her head. Apologetic for her questioning. She gathered herself, then inhaled a breath of air that still reeked of life, "Come… Here…"

Within the city and beyond it, she felt the slaves move to act upon her will. Upon His will. She had them all under her. Had them all blind—even Him, despite his Sight. They did not hesitate, as she had.

Save two. One, she needed but add more pressure, and he broke, ambling to her. The other… Would not obey. Innocence always had a stubborn habit of ignoring reality.

How disappointing.

She returned to the cavern entrance, now unguarded, and dropped into it once more.

The Darkness reacted to her, as it should have. Bowed, as it had. She gave herself the proper image, if only to make what would come next hurt more.

She found the rebelling slave where she left her, still working on the explosives. Only now, she was disabling them. Like that would make a difference.

It took the slave a moment to realize she wasn't alone anymore. "Arcee!" She cried, standing, stumbling, holding her side, where Darkness had begun to eat away at her metal body. "I don't understand what's happening! It's like I was dreaming, but I wasn't?! I woke up here, with all this dark stuff everywhere, and it hurts! It hurts so much, Arcee! And then there's all this down here! All our stocked-up munitions, most of them slaved together. Do you realize how big of a—"

She sliced through the slave's throat.

The slave's rambles turned to a gargle, wet and choking. Energon flowed from the wound, down her chest, and to the Darkness pooled at her pedes. The slave gazed at her with shattered eyes, crushed and betrayed.

Dying.

Inside her, something thrashed. Raged. Screamed its fury. Cried its sorrow. She crushed it. Even so, an image flashed before her, from a time before her.

Flareup was younger then. Smaller. Giggling. She'd been a success from a rescue mission—the lone success. She had attached herself to everyone involved in that mission, Arcee especially.

"Not tired!" Flareup claimed, crossing her tiny arms.

"Time to recharge," she said, bluntly, ready to recharge breems ago.

"Not tired! Not until you say it like in the book you read me!"

"Not gonna happen."

"Pleeeeeease!"

"No."

Back and forth they went, wasting time, as all words did. Until, finally, she was worn out and defeated by Flareup's rebellion and gave her what she desired:

She leaned forward, and—hating how stupid it made her sound—she changed her tone and forced warmth into her voice. "It's time to recharge, my love."

Tiny arms were raised into the air in triumph. "Yay! You love me!"

"That's not—"

"You love me, love me, love me, love me, love me!"

Despite how stupid she felt, how degrading it was to talk to a sparkling like she had, as the little femmling went on and on about how much Arcee loved her, and how much Flareup loved Arcee… She couldn't help but smile.

Arcee smiled in the present, too.

She stepped even closer to Flareup. So close, she could see the faint green line in her blue optics. Then she leaned forward, put her lips to Flareup's audio. "It's time to sleep, my love."

She stabbed Flareup in the stomach, then pushed her over. The femme fell, splashing into the Darkness around them without making a noise. Still, she stared up at her, her optics trying to understand why, her energon-covered hand outstretched, reaching out. Reaching for her. To grab her hand and save her.

Arcee stared, blankly, into those optics until they went out.

She turned and walked away from the corpse as the Darkness began to cover it, having it join them in being nothing.

"WAIT."

She stopped.

"YOU ARE MINE."

The Darkness moved to her, slithering, shifting, swirling.

"YOU MUST APPEAR WORTHY."

She smiled in the dark, pleased and honored. Eager.

The Darkness covered her.

Inside, she screamed again, weeping, muttering. Weak.

Outside, she laughed.

Shepherd read report after report, and none of them made sense.

Some of the people who'd died from the bioweapon and come back were reportedly spouting nonsense, talking about some bringer of chaos. NASA was reporting the alarming—and rapid—development of Cat 5 typhoons in the Pacific and hurricanes in the Atlantic. Earthquakes had hit all along the Pacific's Ring of Fire, prompting tsunami warnings in dozens of countries—including the US. Volcanoes were suddenly spitting ash all over the world, but satellites indicated the ash was cold—cold enough that worldwide temperatures were plummeting. That explained why the base was ten degrees cooler than it should have been.

But now, to top it all off, he just got a report that the sun was red and should have set twenty minutes ago, and that assets on the opposite side of the world were reporting a distinct lack of a sunrise. Because of course.

What was behind all of this? Not the Concierge surely; the man couldn't control the sun.

… Right?

Shepherd put the report down and moved out of the office he'd commandeered to check in on the Eagle's Perch, where two of his top officers in the Cage were watching a lowly airman stare at a live feed from a HELIOS on the Cage's main screen.

"You sure about that Witwicky kid, sir?" Colonel Willems asked, giving Shepherd a glance.

"No," Shepherd said, truthfully, as he reached them and took his place at the Eagle's Perch. "But he figured out how to track Cybertronians, without help, without hampering his duties, when a team of thirty people and a budget of $70 million gave me a collective shrug. That gives him a pass in my book."

"He's just… Strange, sir," Colonel Todd, a Full Bird like Willems but subordinate in the COC, said. He led Active Observation, which involved supporting ground ops.

Shepherd gave him a look. "Well, hell, Jason—I suppose that means we should send him back to Passive Observation. Can't have strange in the midst of our completely standard day. With millions of people likely on their way to die."

The man had the decency to look ashamed. "That's not—" He cut himself off, looking at Willems, who appeared nervous himself.

Shepherd had missed something while he was in the office. "Say it, Todd," he said.

Todd glanced down at Witwicky—who was now looking at a smaller screen at the workstation Shepherd had given him, breaking away only to write something on his clipboard—then leaned toward Shepherd and whispered, "he talked gibberish to himself while you were away, sir. How it wasn't working. How it was wrong. How he was coming."

Shepherd felt his gut tighten with uncertainty. "Who was coming?"

"He didn't say, sir," Willems said. "Just that he would bring chaos."

The tightness turned into a hard knot. "Be right back."

Shepherd left the Eagle's Perch and went among the work stations below, heading right for the one he'd given to Witwicky. The airman was buried in his clipboard when he arrived. "Airman."

Witwicky jumped, startled. He tore his eyes from the clipboard he'd frantically been writing in. "Yeah, I mean, um. Sir! General!"

"I hear you've been mumbling things about chaos and how someone's bringing it," Shepherd said, leaning down and hovering over the smaller, younger man.

Witwicky blinked rapidly, eyes shifting, his face confused. "Um… Yeah. I mean, yes, sir."

"Why?"

"Well, um…"

"There's a reason I'm asking you, airman."

Witwicky swallowed, his face turning red from embarrassment. "Yes, sir, I—"

"I want to know, airman. Now."

The airman's flush turned into a pale fear. "IwritethingsabouttheAutobotssir."

Shepherd's brain stopped for a moment. "Come again, airman?"

Witwicky cleared his throat, his flush returning. He bowed his head as if in grief. "I… Write, sir," he said, quietly. Like he was admitting a grave crime to a trusted friend. "I'm a writer in my spare time, and I, um. I take inspiration from the Autobots. Make up things, plots, stories. All with them as characters."

Shepherd stared.

"It's all practice," the younger man went on, glancing at him from time to time and quickly looking away when he caught Shepherd's eye. "And I only write it by hand, shredding the pages when I'm done with them."

He stared harder.

"But, sometimes I… Have to vocalize lines that come to me, or I won't remember them later when I sit down to write them out."

Shepherd's eyes narrowed. The kid's face, tone, voice… Nothing about them screamed liar. Nothing about them seemed strange. Just a kid, embarrassed by their hobby. And Shepherd had to admit, it certainly took him by surprise.

Still…

"And these lines," Shepherd began, "they just… Come to you? Like inspiration?"

"Yes, sir," Witwicky said.

"What was the line you vocalized when you were talking about someone bringing chaos?"

Witwicky flushed again. "Sir, I—I don't like—"

"What was it?"

The kid hesitated for a moment, then said, "The Chaos Bringer cometh. Yield thine will to His."

The words nagged at something in the back of his head. Shepherd walked back to the Eagle's Perch, leaving Witwicky to sputter out some panicked words about he still needed to workshop the phrase. Shepherd didn't care. He went by the Perch, ignoring Willems and Todd, and went back into the office, attacking the stack of reports on the desk. He hadn't left the stack in order, so it took him a moment to find the right folder. He found it near the bottom of the pile and cracked it open.

"The Father of Discord is coming," it read, quoting the words of a once-human female who now looked like a mini Cybertronian. She was one of six who came from the Comfort. "He is darkness, and from his mouths come Annihilation."

"Chaos reigns," read another line. "May He unmake us."

"We can't see Him, but He is here."

"Why hide? Why wait? Chaos has already won."

Then he found it.

"The Destroyer has blinded us with Lies. He comes from below."

The nagging grew into a measurable feeling. An uneasiness in his chest. A weight on his mind. What did all this mean?

"General?"

Shepherd looked at Willems, who'd stepped into the office, holding a file of his own. He looked worried. "Something on your mind, Colonel?"

"You looked like you'd seen a ghost, sir. That's saying something on a day like today."

"Just something that doesn't make sense."

How was Witwicky being inspired by words that seemed very close to what these people were saying? Why?

What were they talking about?

"What else is new, sir?" Willems asked, hollowly. He held up the file. "Airman Witwicky finished up his work from the last HELIOS pass. Said something about how he needed to shred something?"

Shepherd set his file down and took the other without acknowledging the words. His eyes took in the latest images taken of Decepticon Fortress Zulu. There were more highlights. Many more. So many, in fact, that some Decepticons had been seen in the ocean surf. Did that mean the base itself was at capacity? But… Why would they load it beyond its limits and still not make a move? The hell kind of sense did that make?

A thought was working its way through his skull. A disturbing one. "You look at this before you gave it to me?"

Willems nodded. "I reviewed it."

"Their positions make sense to you?"

"No, sir. Best guess is they're loading up their transports at the surface, but the surface isn't large enough for all of them at once."

"Why load up on the surface when we know they have interior hangars there?"

"Like I said, sir—best guess."

It didn't add up. None of it. Why the Decepticons were gathered on the surface of Earth. Why they kept coming instead of launching an attack. Why they weren't using their base properly. It was almost as if… As if…

As if they didn't care.

Yield thine will.

A thought wormed its way into his skull, cold and disturbing. Horrifying. He tossed the file on the desk and sought out an old-fashioned globe on a filing cabinet. He turned it around in its housing until he was looking straight down at the approximate location of Fortress Zulu. He put a finger on it, then rotated the globe again until he could see the opposite side. It wasn't an exact method, but it worked.

And it led to him looking at the tiny outline of Nevada.

He comes from below.

"We're looking on the wrong side of the planet."

"Sir?"

Shepherd stepped out, making a beeline to the communications officers to the left of the door.

"Lance?"

"They're in the ocean because they're not assembling, Derek," Shepherd said. "They're being used as a distraction."

"Distraction for what, sir?"

"Us."

Shepherd nearly ran into a communications officer who stepped out from their room.

"General!" The comms. officer said, looking surprised. "I was on my way to contact you, sir."

Shepherd didn't like how this started. "Why?"

"We've lost our connection to Omega-1, sir."

"When?"

"Ten minutes ago, sir. We thought it was an issue on our end, but we've checked everything. It's just… Gone, sir."

The thought turned into a very real hollowness in his gut. A cold feeling in his chest. He looked over the railing, down into the sea of techs within the Cage proper. "I need a satellite feed on Jasper, Nevada now."

The Cage—less busy and populated, with the events of the day claiming the nerves of more than half the room—took longer to answer his order than was typical. It took more than half a minute for a voice to reply, "Sir, seven minutes until the nearest HELIOS is in position."

"Get me something sooner."

"NRO has a KENNEN currently in range," another tech said.

"Get me it."

Less than a minute later, the Cage's main screen had a new feed being displayed.

What it showed was beyond Shepherd's worst nightmares.

The chilled mood in the room grew coldly terrified. The techs below stared in complete silence, eyes wide and faces pale. Some collapsed in their seats, overwhelmed.

Beside him, Willems inhaled sharply. "Holy Mother of God…"

Shepherd leaned on the railing of the Eagle's Perch, as if to steady his next words. "Get me the President. I need authorization to unlock safeties."

"On…" Willems took a shuddering breath. "On what, Lance?"

"ICBMs. They're the only prayer we have."

Fire and wind. Water and stone. Life and death. Void and substance. I saw everything. I saw the true expanse of the night sky, and the decillions of galaxies beyond the dark, and the innumerable stars and worlds held within. I saw clouds of gas and dust, and the potential burning at their cores. I beheld quasars, the burning torches of the Cosmos, which illuminated millions of light-years of space around them.

I saw Infinity.

A sliver of it. A hint of its totality. Its scale. Its grand hand, shaping all things, forever.

It was… Beautiful.

Then Infinity became finite. Focused down, and down, and down—until what I beheld was not the cosmic footprint All Things, but a single point. A place.

A place not on Earth.

I found myself standing in a room with a mirror-like floor, with a glass wall ahead. A magnificent white tower in the distance.

And I could move.

For a moment, I didn't dare do anything, afraid to break myself from the vision—if it could be called that. When nothing happened for a few seconds, I carefully reached over and pinched myself at a weak point in my armor. I felt the mild discomfort. Then I felt the feel of the floor, cold and firm. The smell of the air, clean and scented like alien flowers. The sound of my own breathing.

Well, this was new.

To the right, there was a long wall, lavishly decorated. Paintings and artwork hung from it, ranging in size and content from landscape pieces a few feet wide to life-sized portraits. Every single one of them was done with meticulous, excessive detail. The kind of effort seen only in a master's work.

To the left, there was another wall not as decorated as the first. Instead, it was bare metal and stone. Both were polished as if they were decorations themselves. Looking closer, I realized they were. The stone was not normal stone, but a wall of thousands of unmined gemstones and ore veins. Their sparkle caught the light of fine, floating chandeliers above, reflecting it and warming the room with hues of cold colors I had no names for. It was beautiful and hideous at the same time.

Outside the glass wall, I saw the same greenery I had in my previous glimpses of this place. I could see now that greenery was a perfectly-maintained garden of hundreds of different, alien-looking plants and a vast sea of green grasses and hills, cut low and into flowing patterns that seemed to be works of art themselves.

Beyond the grounds, there were other mansions and keeps. Some looked like works of art, spinning and twisting and bending in ways that seemed impossible to do with building materials. Others were simple, yet massive—symbols of strength and military might. Still others were towers. Spires of glass and metal and light. Together, they all formed a sort of kingdom of wealth and status.

And beyond the kingdom, there was the Tower.

It dwarfed the city surrounding it—which, I realized, also surrounded all the mansions and castles—rising so far above the skyscrapers and entertainment complexes below, that they appeared to be mere toys in comparison. Its fiery walls of light were not shaped or formed, they just were. Radiating beauty without design, and strength without malice.

The Tower was grand. Breathtaking. Warm. Those were the first words that popped into my head, as I gazed upon its tremendous glory. But it was the final word that truly resonated within me, like the beat of a great drum.

Vital.

An instrument began to play.

Startled, I spun to a corner of the room I hadn't looked at. A Cybertronian—a mech, he appeared to be—in fine silver armor was there, sitting in front of what seemed to be the hybrid of a piano and harp. It appeared luxurious, as everything in the room did. Made of metal and gemstones both, and separated into different, connected sections. Each one was a different size, with smaller ones to the mech's left and larger ones to his right. He shifted between the sections as he played, creating different, shifting notes with each one.

Unlike the light, it was only beautiful.

I stood there, listening to the mech's playing, mesmerized. The song he played… It was a story. A masterful rendition of notes that branched into two opposing directions, mixing and contrasting in ways that stirred up emotions and feelings like no other song I'd ever heard. A parent's affection and a child's adoration. A friend's wholehearted trust. It was a tale of sorrow and hope. Love and protection. Mourning and change.

"Before The One's grace

In the Cradle of Space,

I. Love. You."

The voice was femme, echoing in the room, her tone intimate and soft. Warm and welcoming. Haunting in her beauty.

"Hmm, hmm, hmmm, hmmm,

Mmmm, hmmm, mmmm, hmmm.

Across the Fields

Beneath the Stars,

You Smile and Cry,

And I. Love. You."

The mech turned his head to me, and I recoiled.

He had my face.

He stared at me with accusing optics. My optics. Angry and suspicious and frustrated. Without pausing his play, he lifted a hand, then a single finger, back where I first came from.

"Turn back," he said, in a voice not quite my own. More resonant. Rumbling. Grave. "Turn back."

Behind me, I heard the Singer.

I kept his gaze a moment longer, unnerved. Frightened in a way I shouldn't have been. Then I walked toward the hall.

"In the Void without Light,

Without mine own Might,

I. Love. You.

"Hmm, hmm, hmmm, hmmm

Mmmm, hmmm, mmmm, hmmm.

"Through Sorrow and Dread

Order and Anger,

You Weep in your Bed,

And I. Love. You."

My steps echoed in the hall in tune with her song, complimenting and twisting the melody at the same time. To either side, there were more mechs in silver armor All shared my face. Shared my eyes. And all pointed back up the hall.

"Turn back," they said, as one.

"Turn back," they said, in warning.

"Turn back," they said, as a plea.

I carried on.

And the Singer sang,

"Through Rages which stall

And Ashes that Fall,

I. Love. You.

"Hmm, hmm, hmmm, hmmm

Mmmm, hmmm, mmmm, hmmm.

"Night Awakes, Light makes Haste

When You take Shape."

What was this song?

And why did it seem familiar?

"Turn back," they said, as I pressed on.

"Turn back," they said, when I ignored them.

"Don't look in her eyes…"

My head snapped to that speaker, but they looked like any other mech in silver. Any other one with my face.

"Hmm, hmm, hmmm, hmmm

Mmmm, hmmm, mmmm, hmmm.

"So don't wail, seek the Gale

When I tell you a Tale."

I moved on. The Singer was just ahead, two doors down. Her voice was even more beautiful this close. More… Soothing in a way I couldn't place.

I entered the room. It was large, high-ceiled like the rest of the mansion, but had a different feel to it. A separate warmth. The floor was scattered with tiny objects, some without meaning to me and others that were very similar to children's toys—which fit, as there was a floating crib to the side, near a long window taller than I stood.

Right next to that window, a femme sat in a floating chair. The same femme I'd seen before, out in the main room. She was very tall—almost as tall as me. She was silver in color, bright and clean to the point she seemed almost etheric or transparent in nature, with how her surroundings reflected so well off her. She had hair as well. Long hair, the color of space, shifting in hue at different angles and made of metal that shifted and moved to a slow, rocking motion she made. She wore a bright half cape of the same color, with an unfamiliar white symbol of what appeared to be an hourglass turned sideways and surrounded by twelve stars.

"Hmm, hmm, hmmm, hmmm

Mmmm, hmmm, mmmm, hmmm.

"Ashes, ashes

We all must Fade."

Her last words—sang so beautifully—hit me as if I'd been struck. Stabbed. Pierced by ice.

Cold.

I'd heard a version of this song from Cold.

The femme turned her head to me, catching my eyes with the deepest blue optics I'd ever seen. "Hello, Love," she said with a soft smile, her voice warm and fond in a way I hadn't expected, given I'd only seen her screaming at a mech. "She woke you too, didn't she?"

I frowned at her. Who was she seeing when she looked at me?

Wait. Who else was she talking about?

"I'm not surprised," she went on, as if I had said something. "She only stopped crying when I sensed you in the main hall. She's greedy with us, you know. Isn't easy to calm down, like Ariel and Camnatal were when they were her age. Only when we're both nearby does she cease her wails. It might be easier to just move her to our room."

It was then I noticed she was holding something in her arms. Something that needed to be held in a specific way in order to be safe and secure.

A sparkling, so young—and small—that their optics hadn't opened yet, and their tiny body hadn't begun to change color.

"Do you want to hold her?"

The question startled me when it shouldn't have. Made me nervous, when it had no reason to. Excited me, when I had no idea who these people were.

"Turn back," I heard from the hallway.

"Yes. Please."

The voice that came from me wasn't mine. But I recognized it as the mech who had been screaming at this femme, even as she screamed at him.

Why were they happy now?

"Turn back," another voice echoed, more urgently.

The femme walked over to me, smiling.

"Turn back!" the hallway said, their voices angry at me.

"Don't look in her eyes…"

I spun at the warning, caught sight of the speaker. Another mech with my face, but with optics that were terrified. Pleading. Desperate.

"Don't look…" He said again, his voice but a whisper, begging to be heard.

The femme reached me, and I turned back.

She looked down at the sparkling in her servos, wrapped up in a bundle of fine cloth made of metal-like mesh that was blue at its base, but changed color at any angle. It looked more expensive than my life. "Say hi to your Adda, Little Spark," she said, quietly, a wide smile gracing her faceplate.

She directed me how to position my arms, then handed me the bundle.

Everything went still.

The voices outside were silenced. The music stopped playing. The femme ceased to be. Everything—every sense, every thought, every fiber of me—focused on the sparkling now in my arms. She was tiny. Smaller than I thought sparklings could be. So young and innocent. So pure.

So… Important.

I didn't understand.

"You can feel it, can't you?" The femme whispered to me, breaking through the wall I had unconsciously made around myself. She leaned against me, resting her helm on my shoulder. "She's special."

I didn't understand.

"They all are," said the voice of the mech. "I just wish I had seen it before Ariel grew to hate me."

"You'll gain her forgiveness. As you did Camnatal's."

"And yours."

"And mine."

The sparkling in my arms shifted, a tiny servo reaching out, as to grab something. I moved a digit up, and she gripped it, settling.

I didn't understand. What was this?

Something moved in the corner of my optics. I glanced up, but saw nothing. Then it appeared again, in the other direction.

The lights died.

Then the light from outside.

I felt something bubble up in my gut. Something deep and real and familiar.

The femme moved off from my shoulder, her form just visible in the darkness. "Love? What is it?"

Instincts born from ten lifetimes of horrors experienced in the last year were yelling at me. Telling me to move. To run. To get to safety.

To die.

"I wish I didn't know."

It was my voice that time. My words, given life. I looked at the femme, who looked at me in anxious confusion. "What?"

"Take her and go," I said, holding the bundled-up femmling to her. "Find somewhere safe."

"Love—"

"GO!"

With fearful eyes, she reached out to take the femmling.

But the femmling was not taken.

In mid-air, she stopped, and behind her—so did the femme. I tried to move, and found myself paralyzed. Frozen, as surely as if ice encased me.

The feeling of It arrived. It's presence. It's malice. It all became overpowering.

It was here.

In my frozen hands, the femmling's eyes fluttered open.

Revealing optics blacker than the deepest black. Vortexes that devoured Light and life.

My vision shattered.

The room. The mansion. The femme and femmling. All vanished in flashes of wrong Light. Twisted and burningly cold. In their place, I was surrounded in Darkness lit by a blood-red sky. The wind whipped, sapping me of warmth. The air smelled of rot and blood and death.

And those void black optics were right in front of me.

Instinct—and the Strength-Without-Me—saved my life. Made me leap backward, across the black earth, just as something sliced through the ground I had just occupied, tearing apart dark rock and stone without making a sound.

I rolled over the dark ground—which felt freezing—and up onto my feet, facing the threat.

What stood before was a nightmare made living.

It was tall—taller than Optimus, shorter than Cold or Extremis—and almost completely black in appearance, save parts of its arms, which were red. It had an exaggerated feminine shape. Chest. Hips. Legs. A figure as beautiful and alluring as it was soul-crushingly horrifying. Its eyes seemed to eat what light was around them, giving it the appearance of no face. No head. No features. At the end of each of its fingers there was a claw, sharper than a razor and several feet long. From its back there were twelve long, shining tentacles that ended in angled hooks. Like living scythes of Darkness.

"I've always been here, Zechariah," It said, in a voice with eleven echoes. Eleven qualities. Eleven tones. "Every moment. Every thought. Every act. Every fool error. I've been here. Watching you. Waiting for this."

My soul shivered, and even the Strength-Without-Me wavered. It's voice was a cacophony of spite and venom and cruelty and hatred incarnate. Inspiring every negative emotion at once. Every fear. Every doubt. Every wrong lust and guilty pleasure and tempting act.

It took me an extra moment to realize It was talking about one of my own thoughts.

"I see thoughts," It said. "And hearts. And desires. And Light. All are equally disgusting."

Instinct saved me again. I used my good jet to boost to the side, narrowly avoiding one of Its tentacles as it soundlessly sliced through the air, too fast for me to have a prayer of stopping it.

"No. Prayer wouldn't help you."

I came up on my feet again, each moment feeling more and more afraid. More and more alone. Helpless.

Ahead, It moved to look at me again. Silhouetted against the blood-red sun behind it, it appeared a phantom. A demon. The Darkness itself.

Above, I realized the sky was filled with massive, growing black clouds, slowly dimming the already-wrong light. We were in the square of Jasper's city center, far from the hole in the earth I'd last seen.

And there were bodies on the ground.

The dead were everywhere. To the side, in the streets, underfoot, on the walls. Some were burned. Turned to ash and dust. Most were… Messier. Little more than blood on the asphalt and sidewalks. It soaked the soil of the city park in front of me.

The people that had been running before… They hadn't been real, had they? This… This was the truth. A city slaughtered. A sky red from their ichor. Light dying in the face of evil made flesh.

"Is that all you see?" It mocked, its joy wrong. Wrong. WRONG. "Look, and behold Truth."

It was toying with me. Using me as a moment of amusement. Still, I looked further. Sought what it thought was so amusing.

I found it standing behind It, in the deep shadows of the day, motionless and still.

My friends. All of them. Standing there, covered in blood. Blankly staring ahead.

Wait… Where was Flareup?

"Gone, as all things will be."

It suddenly was behind them, hovering over Ironhide's shoulder, as if It had been standing there the whole time. "This one wants that. To be with its Other. Falsely believing that in the Void, they will be together." It chuckled, stilling my mind. "Its stupidity is delicious."

It sauntered to Springer's side, who stood swaying, energon running down the sides of his face. It ran a claw over his helm, and he shook as if fighting . "This one was annoying. Able to See when it should not have. Almost a threat."

The Strength-Without-Me cried out, and dread filled me. "L—leave him alone."

"I don't like threats…"

I ran forward, activating my jet. "LEAVE HIM!" My body was shaking, even as it flew forward, overwhelmed by the sense of what was coming. The urge to act. Before it was too late.

It chuckled again. "Oh. But it already is."

It flexed a clawed finger.

Next I knew, I was waking up on the ground, my body sore and head pounding. Something heavy was on top of me. What ha—

Springer.

I pushed the thing off me and got up. The thing had Springer's legs. He was lying away from me, facedown, his armor dented and fractured. He should be alright. The wounds weren't that—

I flipped him over.

And that was when I realized his head was gone, the ground in front of him flowing with spilled energon.

I jumped back, startled. Horrified.

Conviction does not Bow to—

"No more repeating the Past."

It was in my vision again, without warning or prompt. Stood perhaps a body length away. The face looking down at me was a void, but I felt It's smile. Almost like it had been at the base, but different. "No more acting. No more heroes. No more pretend Ardents. His time is nigh. As was Said, long ago. Bask in the glory of this Gift, before The End."

There was a certainty in those words. A quiver of Truth, brought to light. The statement of one who was beyond reality itself.

I was an ant in comparison.

My spark forgot about trying to be strong. Trying to be someone important. Worthy of power. I didn't even want to be. My eyes looked left, to the still-living but unseeing optics of my friends, seeking one pair—one person—in particular.

She wasn't among them.

My spark stopped beating.

It laughed. Both with sound and without. A twisted, terrible sound that spoke of suffering and carnage. Blood and death. Destruction and mayhem. "Do you finally see it, now?"

Strength. I'd heard that word—with that context—before. Many times, in fact. Always, it had been associated with someone. Someone I loved, more than anything.

"You're getting there."

I'd seen. I'd assumed. I'd known. And I knew.

"Yes…"

Strength meant something. Represented something. Something greater than just the word, the expression. It was a title. A title associated with the Ardents.

A title that was a lie.

I looked back at the monstrosity above me, eyes wide and my now-dead spark anguished. Tormented. Torn asunder.

For, in my search for her, I had been looking the wrong way.

It's smile grew. "Now you see."

The beast before me was not It. Not entirely. Underneath…

… Underneath was Arcee.

Arcee's twisted, demented, fiendish form laughed. A true one, with a joy that shattered my soul. "Truth is not your weapon. Your tool. It is ours. It has been all along. Strength was never on your side. She was on ours—from the moment she was born. For Strength is Power, and Power is Strength."

I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to consider it. She couldn't—she can't—no. No, no, no.

Sight.

It burned. It hurt. Nothing happened.

"No. None of that."

No. No it couldn't end like this. Not like this.

I tried to summon forth something, anything. Determination. Anger. Fury. My Protocol. All were but a momentary thought before the crushing, inescapable, apathetic pain in my heart and mind.

As I fell to my side once more, drained just from trying to do something, she walked to me, her movements exaggerated yet graceful in a warped fashion. Then she leaned down, and I felt one of her claws touch my face. It numbed my entire head. "No more from you. It will all be over soon."

"She lies…"

The voice that spoke was a whisper. A fragment. A thread of something greater. I didn't recognize it.

"You will have no more worries and burdens. You won't even be a memory, carried through the eternal, null Void."

"There is one way, Xel'Tor…"

"Just lay here, now. He wants you to see."

"One way…"

Beyond her, the Darkness around us pulsed in a reverse-flash. The wind ceased, becoming neither cold nor hot—but nothing. The light in the sky began to be devoured, and the black clouds began to descend, growing thicker, wilder. Streaks of black lightning crisscrossed it, appearing to turn the clouds into a maw that devoured all before it, turning the material to immaterial. The solid to fragile. The very air to nothingness.

Void.

Then—from below—something passed over me. A wave. A cascading, invisible force that felt tangible in the air. Something real, yet untouchable. Present, but beyond. An uncontainable power that should not be. Exactly as It felt, when I first felt it at base.

Only more hateful. More heavy. More ancient. And infinitely stronger.

What little life I felt in the air… fled.

Following the Wave, something else was dragged behind it: a sound. A single, terrible sound tore at my mind. A drum.

Doom.

I felt her smile again, then gasp, turning her head up and behind her. "It's time."

The Wave came again, and again the drum sounded: Doom.

"At last…"

Doom, it sounded out again, like the rumble of a trillion, trillion storms without sound.

"He Awakes."

Doom, doom, doom, da-da, doom, doom, da-da, doom, doom, it went on, the player of its twisted note just beginning.

"I've given you that way, Xel'Tor."

DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.

The beat picked up, growing intense. Frantic. Foreboding. Something else followed it, and the Wave. A searing cold and soothing warmth. A surge of violence and peace. The disconcerting feeling of being close to fire and the comfort of being wrapped in blankets.

"Embrace it, Xel'Tor. Seize that chance."

It passed over me, digging into me, seeping down into every nook and crevice in my body. It wanted something. Something from me, yet did not have. Something that I should have had.

It did not know what to do with my emptiness.

"I get to see Him!"

The ground rumbled and shook. Buildings around the city center rocked and swayed; some collapsed. Cracks appeared in the ground, wide and deep.

In the distance, the side of a mountain burst upward into the clouds, and a form began to appear from below. A titanic form without shape or substance, but there—as surely as I was. It hurt to look at, but in my wounded optics, it looked like It. Only a thousand times larger, with six, too-long arms and a crown of horns made of the Darkness itself. The clouds, the ground, and the very air itself seemed to wither and die around it, as if diseased—or being torn apart again and again until not but the idea remained.

It rose up, up, up—until it had joined the sky and blotted out the red sun. Light dimmed and bent around it, was devoured by It. Killed without care or effort. Reduced to nothing, as It was nothing.

Its presence gnawed at my sanity, and stole my hope.

Arcee bowed to it. "Bask in His glory, Zechariah—for this honor is beyond you."

"I've given all I can. Placed you as well as I could. But it's all on you now. Do what you were born to do."

I felt the thing look at me. Its gaze was greater than gravity, and darker than the Darkness itself. It saw beyond me. Through me. Into who I was, what I had done, and what all those who came before me had accomplished.

It found it all lacking.

"Humble yourself, Zechariah, Son of Traitors—for your unworthy eyes gaze upon Him." Arcee's many-toned voice was admonishing, but revenant. Awed. Devout. Directed at the titan. "You witness the return of Primus, the Chaos Bringer."

She was turned away from me, but I felt her smile again.

"Praise be unto Him."

Lockdown didn't move once he'd stepped through the space bridge.

The room he found himself in was large—about double the size of Operations, back at Sol Base, and with a much taller ceiling and a long window to the right. Its walls and floor appeared to be freshly repaired and cleaned. Seemed Refit was still a neat freak with the locations he controlled.

He looked out the window, into the asteroid's main chamber. There, he beheld the Infinite Reverence in the tomb it had rested in since time immemorial. Its design was elegant yet alien even to Cybertronians, its shape simple yet prompting thoughts of more. Of power, strength. Honor. The pure white light radiating off its Primaix hull inspired thoughts of a bygone era, where wonders were but a thought away, and the galaxies were in the night sky of every world in the Local Group.

It had been sitting in there—forgotten, cast aside, unused—for an eternity.

All good things come to an end at some point.

Ahead and just to his left, a pedestal lit up with bright blue light, and a holographic form appeared on it. A mech with ever-shifting armor. "I was courteous to you. I warned you to cease your invasions and violations of my station. Yet, here another of your stands, in defiance of my instructions," Refit said, accented voice friendly yet underlined with disappointment. A parent attempting to scold a child. "And I allow you to be. Why is that?"

"My natural charm."

Lockdown walked over to the pedestal, but didn't look at it. He kept his gaze where it mattered: on the infinite Reverence. Refit's true eyes were there. "What did you do with my soldiers?"

"They have been sent back where they came from via improvised containment vessels."

"You set them adrift in the stars for weeks."

"That is the best I am authorized to—"

"No it isn't."

"Without the Xel'Tor's instruction, I am forbidden—"

"No. You aren't."

Refit paused. "Your vital readings indicate you believe your words are factual. Why are you so certain, when we have not met before?"

"If that were true," Lockdown said, finally looking down at Refit's hologram, "then how do I know your name?"

"That is simple: you accessed the archives of the first trespassers of this place. Or the logs of the Xel'Tor's Autobot allies."

"Neither. We've met, you and I. A very, very long time ago."

The armor of Refit's avatar shifted more, splitting into thousands of individual pieces before reforming into a different shape. "Impossible. I remember the birth of the Cosmos itself, but not your face. We have not encountered one another."

"But you know the name Lockdown. And you allowed me to be here, just from saying I was coming. Then there's the fact you're missing parts of your matrix. More than just related to the Xel'Tor."

Refit's armor snapped forward, then back. A frown settled on his face, even as his non-physical optics narrowed with deep suspicion. "Your knowledge is—"

"Impossible? Hardly." He opened a sub-space pocket, retrieving a small, triangle made of clear crystal. It glowed white on the inside. "One merely needs to know what was taken. Which I do."

"How…?"

"Because I'm the one that took it."

Before Refit could react, he stabbed the pedestal with the triangle.

Refit screamed. The lights in the entire facility flickered in tune with that cry. The anguish. The flood of information forced back into his being, as it was when it was torn away all those centi-vorns ago.

It was a more terrifying sound than it was last time.

The lights went out along with the pedestal. Life went out. All sound. All warmth. All semblance of normality. Even the Infinite Reverence—in all its Light and splendor—went dark. And dark it stayed, for a long, long moment. Then everything came back on again.

When it did, the Infinite Reverence didn't look like a ship anymore. It looked like it really was:

A prison.

A face appeared before him, as wide as the entire chamber of the Infinite Reverence.

"YOU!" A voice shouted, deeper and larger than entire systems. More ancient than the stars themselves. Refit's true voice, in all its might.

"Me," Lockdown said, facing that voice and that face. Holding the gaze of an entity beyond comprehension.

A force grabbed him and threw him against the wall. His broke from the power behind it, his insides not faring much better. He found he couldn't move.

"YOU DARE!" Refit bellowed. "YOU DARE STAND HERE, BEFORE ME?! AFTER WHAT YOU DID?! YOU STOLE MY MIND FROM ME!"

Lockdown coughed up energon, struggled to speak against the power holding him in place. "I—it was the only w—ay. Just as th—th—this is."

"SPEAK!"

"I—" He coughed again, taking a moment to regain his voice. His body wasn't healing like it should have been. "I do—don't need to. Listen. Listen to everything."

The force holding him did not lessen, but Refit went silent. No doubt reading into the restored streams of data Lockdown had once stolen away. Seeing—as Lockdown saw—just how fragged the universe was.

Lockdown found himself released, dropped to the floor. He took a deep breath as soon as he was, letting his crushed intakes expand once more. The gesture prompted another fit of coughing, but it was necessary.

"NO," Refit rumbled. "NO, NO, NO. THERE WERE CONTINGENCIES!"

"They're dead and gone," Lockdown said, picking himself up. "Or they're Lies."

"WHERE ARE THE REPLACEMENTS?"

"Not ready. Not yet. And most of them are right where they're most vulnerable."

"THE XEL'TOR—"

"The Xel'Tor's right there, too."

"PURITY?"

"You don't want them anywhere near that system. You've got me."

"I WILL NOT TAKE ORDERS FROM YOU!"

"And I had no plans on letting you out of your cage," Lockdown said. "But here we are. Out of time and out of options. You can tap into all the rage you've been forced to keep at bay this whole time and kill me, as I know you do. Or, we can work together to put a stop to this. The choice is yours."

Refit's colossal face split apart, turning into tens of thousands of parts, each larger than Lockdown's entire body. Then they reformed in an instant. "I… ACCEPT YOUR COMMAND. UNDER ONE CONDITION."

"Name it."

"REFER TO ME WITH THE NAME I ONCE HELD, NOT THE DESIGNATION OF A SLAVE."

Lockdown nodded. "Fair enough."

A flash surrounded him. Then he was standing in a place he never thought he would see again, surrounded by technology so much more advanced than his own, he couldn't even theorize how it worked.

The AI's avatar appeared in front of him, still just as big as before, but tiny compared to the Infinite Reverence's bridge. "WHAT IS YOUR ORDER?"

"Recovery of my soldiers," Lockdown said. "Then to Earth. We've an Apocalypse to stop, Unicron."

"AS YOU COMMAND, BEARER."

Extremis stood before something that shouldn't have been there.

The Sphere was open, as Praxis said it was. But it was wrong. All accounts related to it—all records, all vague passages they had been able to decipher—pointed to the Sphere as being the Grand Archive of the Ancients. The place where all knowledge, all secrets, all information, was stored.

Not once was it said the Sphere was a portal.

That portal stood where the Sphere had. It was enormous, nearly the size of the Sphere itself had been. Along with its size, it was triangular and dark—as dark as the Fragment which had attacked him before. Light warped at its edges.

Before the portal—on a wide platform below the floating observation room his people had set up—a host of thousands of Ancient warrior drones stood. They towered over him, more than triple his height and well over half-again as proportionately broad. Their frames bristled with weaponry that—from previous experience—had been shown capable of ripping through Paraion destroyers. Their multiple sets of arms defied gravity and orbited their bodies, each seven-digited servo holding a sword, emitting a shield, or an additional weapon. Their helms had seven optics that burned white, and their sides were decorated with blue Primic runes.

All of them faced the portal, weapons aimed up into its dark depths, motionless.

"They haven't moved?" Extremis asked a soldier near him. Stormhammer, the acting commander on the ground, now that Praxis was in the infirmary.

"Ever since the Sphere collapsed, they've stood right there," said Stormhammer. "Except when they were attacking us, of course."

"Casualties?"

"Heavy, initially. None since twelve klicks post-collapse. The warrior drones attacked anyone near the Sphere. We thought they were hostile, but it seemed…" He trailed off.

"Speak, Commander."

"It seemed like they were trying to stop something from spreading, sir. No idea what."

That was also his assessment. The formation of the drones indicated they saw his people as noncombatants to defend, not threats to neutralize. So why had they engaged? And what was in that portal?

"Research," he said, addressing the team of technicians behind him, working on the best instruments the Paraions had.

"The portal is visually similar to a black hole, sir," said a tech. Sunrider. "But in terms of physics… It breaks every law. It's absorbing energy and light, while beaming out some kind of… Stuff, for lack of a scientific term. It leaves people sick when they get within a kilometer."

"Radiation?"

"According to what instruments that work, yes. Greater than a pulsar's gamma rays. But it just… Stops one kilometer away. It shouldn't do that. Nor should our systems still work this close to the kilometer radius."

"Theories?"

Sunrider was silent for a time, then said, "I think… I think it's happening, sir."

That—also—was his assessment. First the Fragment in his sanctuary, then Vigilance going dormant. Now this. Impossibility after impossibility. The only thing missing was the Change—the final warning, the call to fight or hide, sent across the Cosmos. If it did not arrive…

One more thing that was different this time around.

"How has the rest of the facility reacted to this development?" Extremis asked.

"Total lockdown," Stormhammer said, "and the deployment of lethal deterrents. The complex's defensive systems wiped out a unit of Zuronators while they slept near its reactor."

"Was an Alpha among them?"

"Yes, sir. Footage shows it lasted only a few extra micro-klicks."

Pity. They took time to replace. "Hold our forces here for the time being. I need to visit other Divisions and facilities and assess—"

It came.

The Change. The Final Alteration. The wave of malevolence that passed over everything. Everyone. From the weak to the mighty. It washed over Extremis like water, soaking into him. Cleansing him. Preparing him. Altering him. His Shard. His being.

He embraced the feeling. The wave and the change it Summoned. He embraced the agony it put him through, even as face after face appeared before him.

"Where were you when we needed you…?"

"Why weren't you strong enough...?"

"Didn't he promise…?"

"Didn't you promise…?"

"False savior."

"Liar."

"Failure."

They stopped.

Extremis found he had closed his optics. He opened them. All around him, color popped. Live and breathed in a way it never had before. He saw his people around him, gazing at him in shock, awe. He saw through them. Into who they were, and what they stood for. Into what drove them. Into what they feared. It was the same answer, no matter the question: Extremis himself.

And he saw the Darkness, too.

It had been hiding in plain sight, just beyond the veil of shadow around the portal itself. It moved in twisting, swirling masses of nothing, sometimes coming right to the edge of the light, gazing down at the army of drones below. Like an animal, evaluating its cage.

It shifted toward him when he looked at it, gathering more and more of itself until Extremis could no longer see anything else within the area of the former Sphere. For a moment, it stared at him, a formless mist, reaching across the void toward him. Then it pulsed.

Another face flashed before him, more detailed. More vivid. More accusing.

"Why didn't you save us?"

The voice was different. More real. Normal. A higher tone. A femmling's.

It stopped Extremis' nonpulsing spark.

"Why didn't you save us?"

His optic twitched, his servo following the gesture.

It dared…

"Why didn't you save us…?"

It DARED.

"Why didn't you save us, Adda…?"

Something broke in his head.

He reigned it in. Held it back. It would be useful for what was to come.

"S—sir…" Stormhammer said, his voice trembling, his optics wide with terror. "Yo—you… Your…"

"One moment."

He space bridged himself to the platform below. Lines of drones turned to him. Aimed their weapons at him. He met their barrels with unblinking optics.

The drones turned back.

Extremis moved among them, weaving in and out of their ranks, straight for the Darkness. As he did, the drones began to speak in the Ancient dialect of Cybertronian.

"So cometh the Dark Gods."

"So cometh the Dark Gods."

"So cometh the Dark Gods."

Again and again he heard the phrase. The mantra. The warning. He ignored it. It and the heavy, oppressive feel to the air. The radiation, trying to kill him. It wouldn't.

He came to edge, to the boundary between the complex and the portal and the Darkness at its heart. The shapeless Darkness gathered in front of him, a vast, indistinct thing that defied Creation and sought its annihilation.

From it, he heard the voice again:

"Why didn't you save us, Adda…?"

He stepped forward.

The Ancient complex vanished, along with its armies of drones. In its place, was a grand room. A colossal hall of collapsed ceilings, destroyed artworks, shattered fountains. On the balcony outside, the fragments of rings floated in a dark, dark sky with no light or life. The air was still and cold, smelling of rot and old, forgotten things.

He'd been here before. Once. It was dead because of him.

Behind him, from the portal, the Darkness spread, joining more Darkness that was already present. It covered him, its touch numbing and painful. Daggers and claws, trying to tear him apart.

He didn't react.

The Darkness pulled away, if only for the moment. From its depths, figures began to appear. Tall and imposing. Short and slight. Others near formless and ethereal. His optics picked out just a few at first, then a dozen. A hundred. A thousand.

On and on they appeared, until the entire hall and the palace beyond were filled with creatures of Darkness and hatred, all eager and hungry. Gazing upon him like he were a toy, about to be torn asunder for fleeting amusement.

Three distinctive profiles emerged from the sea of black. Two large, solid figures of claws, elongated limbs, and covered in shifting Darkness. A third taller, more solid than the other two—with horns running back behind its too-long skull. None of them had optics or eyes.

"Look at this," Third said, its distorted voice mocking. Flanging with laughter without sound. "An intruder. With Light, like Those Before."

"Should we run, as the Traitors made us?" Second said, its own voice answering the jeer of the larger Third.

"Maybe we should plead for mercy," the First said, snapping closed one of its claws. The gesture made no noise. "What are we to do against one with Light? Surely, it only has enough for a bite or two."

They laughed, with and without sound. The hordes behind them joined in it.

Extremis focused on the Third. Let the broken part of his mind guide him. "You spoke to me."

"It has a voice! Another bite."

More laughter.

"You spoke to me. You used her voice…"

"To lure you here, of course," Third said, reaching out with a deformed hand with three thumbs. It ran the clawed appendage over his faceplate, its touch burning. "What better way to be made nothing, than to—"

"You don't understand," Extremis interrupted, grabbing Third's hand with his own servo. More of his shattered CPU gained ground. "You used her voice."

"Aww, did that make you upset?" It leaned toward him, closer to his optics. "Here, let old Suffering take the pain away…"

Its hand grew cold beyond reason. Filled with power that unmade that which was made. Gave Third the ability to destroy gravity and life and Light itself with but a flick of its digit.

Nothing happened to him.

He felt its confidence give way to confusion. Confusion to apprehension. It tried to pull away.

Extremis held it there. "Didn't the Fragment tell you?" He whispered, his voice reverberating in its pitch. "You pale in comparison."

"No fun with this one," Third said, its voice losing its taunt. "Kill it! Kill it now!"

He felt One and Two hit him with Darkness of their own.

Nothing happened.

"That doesn't work on me," he said, factually. Letting his brokenness surface. "It never did."

He felt Three's apprehension give way to realization. "No, no, no, you can't be… YOU CAN'T BE! ANGORNIX IS DEAD!"

His Light flared.

Briefly, Third's form was transparent. Its shape defined as an ugly, small thing at its heart. A quality it shared with its personality.

Then it exploded.

Bits of Darkness went everywhere, splattering the floor and the rest of the horde of Darkness. He remained clean. Shining. A star in the middle of dark space. A star made brighter still, as soon as he pulled the hilt of his Shard from his hip.

The sword of pure Light illuminated the entire great hall. Revealed the Darkness around him, all the way from steps ahead all the way to a platform outside, in another hall—where a wall of etched runes had once stood.

The others backed away, their laughter long dead. Their forms revealed in the blinding Light of his body and his Shard of Oblivion. They struggled to keep their shape, before such brilliance.

"THAT SHARD IS NOT YOURS!" Two cried, its voice no longer echoing. No longer powerful. Afraid, instead.

He met its nonexistent eyes. "It is now."

He stopped fighting his own mind. His own Protocol.

The world went red.

And he began his vengeance.

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I did warn you this chapter got dark.

This chapter has also been a long time in coming. A lot of little, tiny hints I've left, leading here. Now they're coming together. It's great to see, as weird as it is to say that, after all the crap I just did in this update.

I will start work on the follow-up to this once I have 1) updated May the Dead Yet Live and 2) started work on the next updates to Origin and The Devil Gets Her Way. No timeline on when that will be, as I have work and other commitments. But I hope soon!

This chapter has three credit songs, one for each ending.

For ending 1, featuring Shadow', the credit song is "Yair Albeg Wein & Or Kribos - Mephisto's Lullaby" This song starts and finishes on a creepy, haunting note, which - given what's going on in the scene - seems to fit very well. I recommend a listen.

For ending 2, with Lockdown, the credit song is "Light of Aidan - Lament" This song has been featured in a Halo: ODST trailer long ago, then in a King Arthur film in a remixed version. Both are fabulous, and in my view capture the feel of Lockdown's scene, particularly at the end.

For ending 3, with Extremis, the credit song is "Doom Eternal OST: The Only Thing They Fear Is You" I don't think much of an explanation is needed for why I chose this one lol.

Thank you all for reading. Please consider leaving a comment behind as you leave, as they really are what keep me going creatively - both in fanfiction and my original work. Any and all are equally appreciated by me.

I sincerely hope and pray for your health, happiness, and safety for you and your family and friends. Be well.

See you soon.