Chapter Seven: Of Promises

"And are you certain of what you offer me?"

"Of course: amongst my people, when we speak vocally, it is equivalent to making a promise – an unbreakable one. If I say to you that I can give you what I have to offer, then I am certain that I am able to do so."

"You have been on Earth long enough. How can I be certain that you're not lying?"

"You cannot. It is up to you to decide whether or not you consider the risks you take in trusting me worth the rewards that it could bring. And besides, it was not humans who taught us how to lie: it was your kind that did."

"Interesting… And what is it that you get out of all of this?"

"Your help in acquiring certain items that are of supreme importance to my people, as well as aid in…eliminating undesirable elements from our plans. If our…relationship continues to hold, then perhaps we can discuss the other fringe benefits."

"You make a very intriguing offer – and one well-suited to my goals. Very well, I agree to your terms."

"You have made an excellent decision, Megatron. In fact, it has already begun, even as we speak…"

-+-She's awake!-+-

The joyous, gleeful message made Optimus Prime look up from the data slate he had been perusing. Recognizing the voice as Skids', and one made over the common Autobot comm. frequency, he realized that the theoretician must be referring to Meriat.

"Thank Primus," he muttered to himself. He tuned into Skids' personal frequency, and said: -+-Excellent news, Skids. Where is she?-+-

-+-She's with Naila right now.-+-

-+-Sir.-+- That was Prowl, from his private frequency to his. -+-Should I call the others for a meeting?-+-

Optimus thought for a moment, and then answered: -+-No, I don't think that is a very good idea right now. It's too soon. Let's give her some time to adjust, and then we can start asking questions.-+-

-+-Yes sir.-+-

The brief hiss of static indicated that both Skids and Prowl had both gone off the frequencies they were using, leaving him alone to his thoughts. He shuttered his optics, and leaned his head back, seeking comfort in the temporary darkness. How long had it been since they had first crash-landed on Earth? Twenty years, a little more than that, perhaps? By Cybertronian standards, that was nothing compared to the hundreds of vorns they had spent waging the Civil War on Cybertron, but somehow, it seemed almost as long. There seemed to be no end in sight to this vicious cycle that had begun so long ago…

And yet here they were, on the cusp of a discovery that had its roots in the deepest depths of their history, a time well beyond the beginning of the Golden Age. Would it provide a solution to the war? Or would it only raise more problems?

It could go either way. That much Optimus was certain of. It depended entirely on what they did with whatever information they received – as well as whether or not the Decepticons got their hands on it.

Whatever else the case may be, he was determined that the latter would not happen.

He nearly jumped out of his seat when the alarms started blaring all around him, but he recovered quickly, and was on his feet, striding towards the Command Center even as he heard the thunder of many Autobot feet heading to their pre-assigned positions.

The doors to the Command Center hissed open, and he was greeted by the usual noise and hubbub that went with such situations. "What's going on?" he asked as he stepped closer to Teletraan-One's main screen, which showed the Ark's floor plan, and a flashing red dot indicating the intruder – a dot that was moving very fast.

"Do we have a visual?" he asked Red Alert.

"Bringing them up right now, sir," the Security Director answered, and in a few seconds the secondary screens around the main screen flickered to life, showing visual feeds from various strategically-placed security cameras. What those cameras showed was the last thing that they expected to see.

Moving at speeds that approached thirty miles per hour was expected of a Decepticon – in fact, it wouldn't have surprised Optimus if the screens showed Ravage loping through the hallways, on some mission or other whose purpose they did not know of just yet. But what the screens showed was not Ravage, nor even Laserbeak or Buzzsaw.

Blaster gaped. "Um, guys… Is it just me, or was that a human? 'Cause if it was, I think I'm gonna need to stop by the Med-Bay to get my optic sensors checked."

"Check that again," Prowl ordered, stepping closer to Red Alert. "It cannot have been human. The speed it was going at was completely illogical."

Red Alert did not reply, merely did as he was told. He pulled up a few still frames of the intruder, and brought them up on the main screen. They showed a human woman, dark-skinned and her head shaved clean, a manic smile on her face as she moved through the hallways with a speed that was utterly impossible for a human to achieve.

"Impossible," Red Alert breathed, optics wide. "But… But no human can go at speeds like that without some sort of assistance-"

"That is because she is not human."

Optimus turned, and watched as Bumblebee and Skids entered the Command Center: the former with Spike and Carly, and the latter with Naila on his shoulder – and another woman hovering at shoulder-level beside him.

"That is no human," the levitating woman repeated, even as she came closer, and Optimus noticed that her eyes – the irises, he remembered them being called – were fringed with blue in a strange, swirl pattern the likes of which he had never seen before. Those strange eyes glanced at him before turning to the screen. "I would know, because she is one of my kind."

It took no more than a nano-klik for Optimus to realize just who this woman was, and he nodded. "You are Meriat, then?"

A small smile appeared on the woman's face as she turned her head to him, and nodded. "Yes. And you are Optimus Prime, are you not? You command this group of Risionag."

Optimus tilted his head at the unusual word. "Pardon?"

She shook her head. "It is what we call you… Well, in our legends and our history, that is the name that we have given to some of you. It is less…insulting than the word that has come into more current use." She looked at the screen again, and frowned. "Elo eteha kiros sarachi." She looked away. "There is no end to the cycle of vengeance."

Optimus was struck by those words. He had long since come to accept and understand that humans and Cybertronians were similar in many ways, but to hear those words come from someone who was, though human in appearance, obviously of another alien race entirely, seemed to reinforce what she had just said.

"Do you know who she is, then?" Optimus asked.

She nodded her head slowly, sadly. "Yes. Once, long ago, we were like sisters, despite the differences in our ideals and ideas. We vowed that we would never let those differences interfere with our bond. But it is different now." Her head lifted, and her expression was grim as she drifted to the floor, and headed towards the door. "I shall go out and meet her. It is I she seeks, after all."

"Hold on," Jazz cut in then. "You're sayin' you're gonna go out there and talk to her? I dunno 'bout you, but I don't like the look in the lady's eyes, if y'know what I mean."

"Yes, I know. She is angry, and has always been so since I fled Maraxa. That anger has been carefully forged all these long years, and turned into a honed blade by those whom she joined. That blade has thirsted for my blood ever since. All old vows are forgotten, replaced by oaths of vengeance." Even as she spoke, she had stepped through the door, which was starting to close behind her. "That will end now."

The Command Center remained silent even when the door had finally closed. At length, Skids said: "She's going to fight?" He started moving towards the door. "She can't do that alone!"

But Optimus reached out, and held Skids by the shoulder. "I think we should let her be," he murmured. "This is her fight. I doubt we have a right to interfere."

"But she's just come back! And she's weak, and-"

"It is better not to interfere." That was Naila, and the theoretician and the Autobot Commander both looked at her. Her eyes were closed, but they opened slowly, and she looked a little dazed. "She says that it would be best for you to stay here, well out of the way of any…unfortunate incidents."

Sunstreaker snorted. "She's just another squishie. How 'unfortunate' can anything get with a squishie?"

Sideswipe laughed, but it was full of hard-learned experience. "Trust me brother: with this squishie, 'unfortunate' can easily equate to 'completely slagged out of your processors'."

It was inevitable. This was inevitable. She should have foreseen it, of course, given how great a grudge was borne against her. But she had also hoped, deep in her heart, that this time would never come, that something would come up and she would be able to avoid this confrontation. Although she knew that whatever promises they had made to each other had long since been broken, she wanted to believe otherwise. She wanted to believe that, somehow, those promises, made as they were in the purity of childhood, would hold.

As with many things in life, however, she could not have what she wanted, and now she had no choice but to face the truth.

'So this is where you disappeared to.'

She passed through one last door to enter a large hallway. At the other end was her adversary – and, once upon a time, her dearest childhood friend.

"Saveki, Elia ta Yuner mat Tir." She bowed in the traditional fashion, greeting Elia in vocal speech, as was also traditional.

Elia nodded back, but did not bow. "Vae tu, Meriat la Telescos mat Tir." A smile twisted her lips. 'I have waited so very, very long for this encounter.'

Meriat bowed her head before looking up again. 'Why this anger, Elia? One would think that we were never friends. Do you not remember how it was: you, I, and my brother, playing games and laughing together in the streets and parks of Magdel, City Ever-Fair? Do you not remember the promises we made then?'

'I remember. Of course, how could I ever forget those times? But you betrayed me, Meriat. You betrayed the trust that we had the day you chose to go with the Kaimet and flee Maraxa!'

'You and I promised that what we believed in would not interfere with our friendship. I have remained faithful to that promise. Have you?'

Elia stopped moving then, and Meriat felt hope surge in her heart. Perhaps there was a way yet out of this. Perhaps she would still be able to convince-

A powerful gust of wind slammed into her before she could so much as complete the thought. Meriat tried to gasp, but found herself unable to so much as breathe: Elia had put her in the middle of a vortex, the wind swirling so quickly that it sucked out all the air around her, effectively suffocating her.

'Not so clever without your Saibers to protect you now, are you, Meriat?' From somewhere beyond the whirlwind, Elia was taunting her, scorn lethal venom laced through the words. 'Look at you: one of the greatest Puppet Masters Clan Telescos and House Tir have ever known, a commanding officer of one of the deadliest Kaimet Saiber units, and yet unable to break free from a Wind Walker's little whirlwind! Pitiful.' The whirlwind spun faster, and Meriat felt her lungs constricting, crushed under the pressure of the vacuum Elia was creating.

But pride was a deadly weapon, for it could so easily be turned against its bearer. And in this instance, Meriat used it. 'You have forgotten, Elia: I have chosen to be a Puppet Master, but my brother was a Shaper.' She paused to open her eyes, secondary irises screening her primary ones, and saw the pulsing light that was Elia's soul. 'So am I.'

She thanked the Moons that the room they were in was made of metal. For a Shaper, metal is easier to manipulate than ordinary stone. It was one of the reasons why she had chosen to become a Puppet Master; without the help of a karyt aksha, she could not shape stone in the same way her brother could – and even then, her works in stone were pitiful, to say the least.

But with metal under her feet and all around her, she knew that she would be able to fight back. Focusing her mind the way a warrior focused in preparation for an attack, she visualized the metal as a liquid substance, easy to move and to shape, and with a mental heave, pulled it up around her in a protective wall that broke the whirlwind, and gave her some space to breathe.

She had to act fast. Wind Walkers were some of the fastest fighters amongst the Maraxans, their skills having originally been intended to counter airborne Maishunin during the Dranas Sarachi, and those skills honed to perfection during the Dranas Huzni.

There were, however, ways of countering that.

As soon as the whirlwind had died down, she molded the metal beneath Elia's feet into long, rope-like extensions, and with those extensions she grabbed hold of her opponent's wrists and feet. Another mental command withdrew the extensions, pulling them back into their source with such force that Elia was yanked into the floor with a high, angry shriek.

Meriat walked forward then, slowly, knowing that despite being restrained, Elia was still very dangerous. 'It does not have to end this way,' she said via mind-speech, trying to reason with her. 'Please, Elia… Do not force me to kill you. For the sake of our friendship, even if only in honor of its memory, please, please, go away from here, and never come back.'

Elia stared up at her, dark blue eyes ringed with gold flashing in the artificial light, and she laughed: the manic laughter of one who had been broken, not physically, but in heart and soul. 'Think you that pretty words can make all of this right? Think you that an apology can heal wounds deeper than you will ever know? You broke our promise, Meriat! There is nothing you can do to atone for that – save to die!'

In a heartbeat, Meriat knew what was going to happen, had already felt the air stirring around her – and instinct lashed out more swiftly than emotion or reason ever could. Before the stirring wind around her could become another, more violent gale, she drew the metal underneath Elia upwards in a single, sharp move, the thought shaping the metal into a long, spindly stake – one that thrust itself right through Elia's heart.

Her death was swift and painless, of that Meriat was sure. But that knowledge did nothing to ease the ache in her heart. She had slain one whom she once called friend, whom she had always considered such, despite knowing that she had joined the cause against which Meriat herself fought.

And yet she knew it was necessary. Circumstance had necessitated it: either Elia died, or she did. And she knew that she could not die – not here, not now, not when she had so many other promises left to fulfill. At the very least, Elia had died attempting to keep her promise, and Meriat was sure that, given the circumstances, Toth would be kind and judge Elia's spirit gently for being unable to fulfill her promise.

She caused the spike to withdraw from Elia's body, to melt back into its source, and she knelt down beside Elia. "Fyrigea tu koa, Elia." She reached out, and gently brushed the eyelids closed over the now-sightless eyes. "Cerded tu sa arasel."

Finally, with the threat to her life gone, Meriat yielded to the emotions within her, leaned over Elia's body, and wept.

TRANSLATION NOTES:

"Elo eteha kiros sarachi." - There is no end to the cycle of vengeance.

"Saveki, Elia ta Yuner mat Tir." – Greetings, Elia ta Yuner mat Tir.

"Vae tu, Meriat la Telescos mat Tir." – And you, Meriat la Telescos mat Tir.

"Dranas Sarachi" – Wars of Vengeance

"Dranas Huzni" – Wars of Sorrow

"Fyrigea tu koa, Elia." – Forgive me, Elia.

"Cerded tu sa arasel." – Walk in the light.