A Captured Beast Within a Human Skin

By Uniasus

Chapter 16 – K.O.

Bumblebee hadn't wasted time in informing the rest of the Autobots that he had found Sam's location, the south end of Japan's main island. When he met up with them, he still had the sparklings in his alt mode. They were currently chatting in the cargo hold of the plane they were in, Ratchet overseeing all five of them.

::Prime:: he initiated over the comm, not wanting the conversation to be public.

::Yes Bumblebee?::

::Beachbreak was the one who told me where Sam is::

Prime's attention had been on watching the sparklings, but at Bee's comment turned to look at him.

::Beachbreak? You sure?::

::I'm positive:: The look he gave Prime was level. He didn't want to out rightly accuse Prime of leaving someone behind, of not checking to see if a solider was really dead.

The other Autobot shook his head. ::That waterfall would have seriously damaged myself. A mech of Beachbreak's statue…:: Prime shook his head as he trailed off. ::It would have been a miracle::

::Miracles have been known to happen::

::Yes, they have been. I'm delighted to hear that Beachbreak survived. Did he say how he found Sam?::

Bumblebee shook his head. ::No, only that he would keep him safe until I got there::

The PA system crackled to life, and both Autobots paused their conversation to listen. "You guys might want to check out the news from Tokyo and consider changing destinations."

Bumblebee frowned, Sam was in that region. He plugged into the newscast with the other Autobots. Instantly he discovered stories about cars coming to life and taking over the city. All the photos he came across showed a mass of mechs he had never seen before walking down city streets with their guns out and shooting, people scattered about their feet either running away or laying still. There was speculation that it was connected to the display of the Fallen years ago, but the human that the aliens had been looking for years ago was already in their grasp. There was a picture of Beachbreak holding a human, Sam, close to his chest.

Bee searched the pictures the public was uploading to the news station's website. Most were of the unmarked mechs marching on the city, a jet he was pretty sure was Starscream in the air above them. But there were a few of a group of mechs huddled together, and there wasn't a single picture of them attacking anything. The group consisted of several mechs Bee didn't know, but also Beachbreak, Barricade, and Scorponok with a Navigator that may or may not be a Transformer. They all looked unwilling to be there and were usually depicted in a defense circle.

And then there was the stunning image of Starscream shooting a green mech dead while Sam struggled in his other hand.

Bee tried sending a comm message to Beachbreak, but it didn't go through. Starscream had most likely jammed his communication system.

"Change course and drop us off in the area so we can prevent Starscream from progressing any farther." Prime commanded. Bumblebee wished the plane could go faster, and as if reading his mind he heard the strain on the engines increase a tiny bit. They were already pushing the machine to its limits, but Bee didn't mind if it broke down and the plating fell apart once they landed. The important part was getting to Sam.

The city was a mess. The drones where everywhere and the Japanese government had sent in the military. They didn't seem to understand that Beachbreak's small little group didn't want anything to do with the takeover, that they were in fact shuffled along behind the army at gunpoint and any attempt to leave and make a break for peace was greeted with erect arms that had prepped cannons on the end or a peppering of shots from the F-22 flying around the scene. The humans just saw menacing robots, fearful creatures, that shone like the deadly swords of the samurai of the past and held in the center of their hands the all the firepower of a single battalion. Beachbreak could understand the attacks, but that didn't mean he liked them.

Thankfully the humans didn't know where to shoot, didn't know the vital spots on a Cybertronian's body, and just randomly fired upon them. They did a whole lot less damage to them than did the drones to Tokyo.

Samuel was being carried by one of the new sparklings, one who had taken the name Kiwi for reasons Beachbreak had no idea of, nor the time to ask. The sparklings were mostly in the center of the little powwow, Dundee in alt form and carrying Fizz's body, while Beachbreak, Cade, and Scorponok took up a triple point to stand guard. Not that they needed to do much. The drones usually took care of any military stand, and the few shots that did hit them did minimum damage. The biggest concern was following Starscream's orders before the drones decided to enforce them.

There was a roar of thunder as Starscream transformed and landed in front of them. He had one null ray pointed at Dundee while his other palm was opened and laid flat.

"Hand over the All Spark."

Scorponok chitted angrily, but Cade shushed him with a touch on his tail. "Surely the amount of soldiers under your command is great enough to fulfill your goals Commander."

The seeker sneered at the Ford; he knew that all of Cade's actions were performances. "One can never have enough, especially when you have traitors amongst your ranks and the ones you order are inexperienced." The null ray hummed as it powered up. "Hand him over."

Kiwi was in no position to step closer to Starscream, he was shaking, so Beachbreak collected Samuel from his arms and carried him over. He didn't want to, had seen the tears after the last time this happened, but he knew Starscream wouldn't kill Samuel. He was too important. But Dundee wasn't, and he was reluctant to lose another sparkling. To not do everything in his power for a companion, give any display that a mech wasn't worth much.

Samuel, thank Primus, was still asleep when Starscream took off with him, but Beachbreak didn't think that would be the case upon his return.

Military issue planes roared by above him, but they were not Japanese. Beachbreak zoomed in, noticed the NEST logo on the side of them, and smiled. Bee was here and things would be all right.

Or at least, they were supposed to be. Because not only Bee had arrived, but also a slew of Autobots including Prime himself. Beachbreak had mixed feelings about seeing the Autobot commander jump out of the plane, but it certainly meant good for his side. Until he realized all the sparklings had taken off, towards the main battle.

"Where are you going?" he called after them, knowing he couldn't stop them all and praying to Primus they were smart enough to stay out of the action.

Kiwi paused to answer before running after his siblings. "We have to protect Creator."

Beachbreak halted. Look at that, they're not even a full vorn old and yet ready to put their lives on the line for someone else. But Beachbreak had been doing it for many vorns, was practiced in the art of protecting another and yourself at the same time as best as possible. "We'll, I have to protect all of you, so wait up."

He took off after them in his alt form, and felt the footfalls of Barricade behind him. The ex-Con was a protector now too.

Of all the bad mornings he had ever had, waking up to Sally's screams and tears while once again trapped in Starscream's hand had to be the worse. Oh, and add gunfire that seemed to be aiming for him, if the bullet's ricocheting off Starscream's hand were any indication. Sam winced as a bullet grazed his shoulder, the wound welling up with blood.

"Calm down, calm down," he muttered under his breath to Sally. But she wasn't paying attention, and noticing the new army they had just been forced to waken, Sam felt sick to his stomach. No way was he going to be able to get to her to stop, so he just let her ride it out, trying to deal with his own pain at the situation, the way his head was swimming from Starscream waving his arm around to use the rifle on it, and the pain from his shoulder.

Eventually, the seeker got tired of holding him. The jet punched a hole in the side of nearby skyscraper, deposited Sam inside, and then took off for the air. The drones on the ground started moving, firing on the Japanese military and the rest of their surroundings. Including the building Sam was in.

He heard it creak and grown, and it might have swayed or it might not have, but he got the impression it had. Stupidly, he clung to a leg of a desk nearby. It wouldn't help at all if the building toppled, but at least squeezing the piece of metal gave him something to do.

Sam looked out the window. He could make out some of the drones, Sally running among them shouting 'Stop! Stop!'. But they didn't know she was there, only he did, and eventually she took up a place nestled into his side.

"They're not to supposed to be like this," she sobbed, burying her face into Sam's ribs.

"I know," he answered, wrapping an arm around her. "But you're not supposed to go around just creating sparklings cuz you feel like it either."

"Why not?"

"Cuz then stuff like this happens." Sally pulled back to look at him, lips puckered out and cheeks puffed, before deflating.

"So if I listen to you, will the pain go away?"

Sam twirled one of her blue pigtail braids around his finger. "Not all of it, but I'll do my best to make it as small as possible."

"And they won't do bad things?"

"I can't promise that, but I can give them to people who don't do bad things, so the sparklings grow up to be good people."

"Okay," Sally muttered, lax. "I'm sorry you're hurt. And that you don't grow new parts faster."

"That's okay," he gave a small chuckle. "I'm used to it."

There was the sound of a military plane, and Sam instinctively cured up, thinking it was airborne Japanese come to shoot at him. But it flew by the building instead. He crept slowly to the window, careful of the broken glass, and peered out into the city. It was a NEST plane and he let out a laugh of relief at the sight of it and the Autobots jumping from the side. "See that Sally? We're gonna be alright."

He spoke to soon. He watched as Ironhide took aim at the drones, watched as the shot went through a couple of them and then passed under his sight before it exploded. Sam felt the building lurch for real this time. The energy blast had hit the skyscraper's foundations.

"Shit." Sam scrambled backwards, barely noticing the glass piercing his palm. Furniture was shifting, coming at him, and he was dealt a dizzying blow from a file cabinet. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and with one eye winced shut turned to look out the window. His stomach lurched, watching the street zoom closer. There weren't many pedestrians down there, most had cleared out by this point, and the few he saw were pointing towards the falling skyscraper.

He moved and turned, placed his back against the wall and stared out the other side of the building at the receding sky. Sally was in his arms, warm and trembling, face buried in his shirt. Sam couldn't hear her sobbing, everything was eerily quiet, but he could feel it through his hands.

Sam took a quick peak around the wall and looked out the window. It surely couldn't be too much longer, could it? There was a mech down there, and as if sensing his look the transformer looked up. It was Kiwi, and the laptop was on his shoulder. But they were in no position to help, to far down the street; they had overshot his hiding place. He shut his eyes as he pulled back to his original position, tightening his grip on Sally. She didn't complain.

The building, and they, hit the ground with a crash. The force of it traveled through Sam's back, sending him back into the air to fall again onto the wall. He watched in horror as a fallen cabinet completed it's own fall, passing right through Sally and landing with a thud on his elevated knees. He screamed in pain and then tried to muffle it. He bit through his lip, the blood pooling above his chin.

Sally was by his head in a moment, hands over his mouth in a naive attempt to stanch the bleeding. It's okay, he told her, and reluctantly she pulled her blue hands back. Sam unclenched his jaw, testing the teeth holes in his lower lip with his tongue. The wounds stung.

"Samuel!" His Grammy shouted. No, not his grandmother, a mech. Beachbreak. "Samuel!"

"Here, here! We're here!" Sally called out, facing the left of the building and cupping her hands over her mouth. "He's hurt!"

But of course, they couldn't hear her. Nor his weak attempts at making words. Whenever his mouth opened, all that came out were grunts or groans of pain. As it worked out, they didn't need to hear him to know where he was. The left wall exploded inwards. Sam was glad he hadn't being lying near it.

The wall continued to explode, albeit by smaller amounts as a mech, Barricade, attacked it with punches in an effort to expand the hole. So preoccupied with the thought of the old cop trying to reach him in aide that Sam failed to notice Dagger's appearance until the small sparkling gently touched his hand.

"Hey there," Sam gave the Xbox a weak smile. Dagger twitted back, and then made his way over to the bottom of the cabinet. He made to lift it, but while the transformer was able to elevate it, he couldn't keep it up. It slammed back down on Sam's knees and the human gave a yelp of pain.

"Samuel!" And then Beachbreak was there, small enough to maneuver comfortably in the building. Kiwi had managed to get in, but he was too wide to not be aware of his movements. Barricade and the other new sparkling stood outside. Sam couldn't see Scorponok or Dundee.

Sam gave the quad bike a weak smile. Beachbreak bent down, lifted up the cabinet, and pushed it away from Sam. It rolled a couple of time before crashing down a few yards away.

He shouldn't look, but morbid curiosity made him. His knees were…ruined. Thankfully it wasn't gruesome, most of the blood was still in his legs, but his knees were swollen, already bruising, and his right thigh was bleeding from where a handle corner had bored into it. Give anything enough force, and the bluntest thing could become a weapon.

Beachbreak winced. "I can't fix this Samuel."

"I…figured. It's okay, human medics can."

The mech looked uncertain, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. Lightly Beachbreak crouched down and then picked him up, maneuvering Sam so he could hook his one arm around Beachbreak's neck.

"Let's get you to one of those human medics than."

It was chaos. Drones, humans, and Starscream. Drones who kept attacking, who wouldn't quit, who didn't speak. Humans who attacked at anything that wasn't of their own species, who got in the way, who were annoying. And Starscream, circling above, firing on them. He ducked, weaved, bobbled, fired. Buildings fell, he fell, Bots fell. But they all got up again. The only thing that stayed down were structures and human air vehicles. Things were confusing, telling Japan troops from NEST troops so Bumblebee resorted to just attacking when being shot at.

The strategy wasn't ideal, he was taking damage he could have avoided in other circumstances, and sometimes a drone or two would also get in a good shot. But not all his attention was on the battle around him. Most, yes, it would be foolish not to have it be his first priority. The rest of his processor though was scanning the area, all sensors stretched for any sign of Sam. Familiar biorhythms keyed up and placed side by side with those of every human he scanned.

NEST had dropped them off one at a time, Prime first followed closely by Bumblebee. Ironhide had been the last to drop from the helicopter. He announced his landing over the comm lines and the resounding 'pshew-thump' of his canon going off a full power echoed the announcement.

Bee felt himself smile. The old gunner always did like entrances.

A mechanical, Cybertrionian voice screamed from the direction Ironhide's shot had taken. "Creator!" It didn't mean anything to him, as once he checked that none of his own team and uttered it, dismissed the cry. But then it was followed by another Cybertronian voice, one he recognized and was just as panicked as the first. "Samuel!"

He froze, as did Ironhide and Long Arm who were close enough to hear the cry with their normal sensor settings. They hadn't been expecting it, had been caught off guard. Bee, who had been prepared, took off running in the same direction.

His bio scanners weren't picking up scans, but there was a human in one of the fallen buildings. Bee threw himself forward, transforming to his alt mode, and raced around corners and feet. The shots that hint him were miniscule, flies, unimportant. Sam was the only thing that mattered.

Getting closer to the human's signal, Bee slowed as his processor refused to let him ignore the other data he was picking up. There was one human and eight, no seven, mechs. Silently he transformed, still moving quickly, but taking care to remain unseen, ID muted. He didn't have to worry about humans at this point, the battle was behind him, the drone already having come through this area to leave it abandoned and wrecked in their wake. All he needed to concentrate on were the mechs and human nearby. He tried to read their ID makers, but not one of them had any. Or if they did, they weren't active. A dangerous thing to do, especially in an open war zone.

To be safe, Bee armed his pulse cannon, charging it up while he gathered information. Two of the mechs were tiny, a third human sized, and what he thought had been an eighth body was actually just that, a body. The mech was no longer living, but for some strange reason he was still being kept within the group's range.

Bumblebee turned around the corner to get a good look. There was Sam, injured and clutched in Beachbreak's arms, and Barricade was with them. He shot. Multiple times.

It was surprising how quickly the Decepticon went down, Bee didn't think his aim was that good, but the cop collapsed after the third shot. Bee wanted to get in more, make sure Barricade could never harm Sam again, but at the first shot Scorponok came running out of a nearby alley, where the dead mech and one other where hiding, and charged straight at him. The symbiote launched himself at Bee's face, giving the Camaro a perfect opportunity to land two shots on Scorponok's belly. The shots ricocheted off, failing to do anything, and before Bee knew it, the scorpion had knocked him over and was attacking the exposed cables in his neck with his mandibles while his tail arched up and slammed back down to tear through Bumblebee's plating and continue going until it hit the base structure of his thigh beneath it.

There was a human screaming, mechs screaming, himself included, and Bee simply tuned it out, focused on his task. Kill Scorponok. His hands came up, one on the symbiote's head, the other on his body. Bee kept the head steady and then pushed with all his might on the scorpion's shoulders. Like all symbiote's, it was easy to rip the body off the spine. It damaged the spark chamber too, ripping it open. Instant death.

He tossed the parts aside and found Barricade charging at him. A chorus of 'No!' followed him, spoken by Sam and the other mechs, but Bee ignored them, not sure what they were protesting. The scout spread his legs and hunched down. Barricade didn't stop, he threw out his wheel spike at Bee's injured leg. The Camaro brushed it aside and then they clashed, the sound reverberating off the buildings around them. Bumblebee shifted his grip, moving his hands lower, and lifted the Con up, flipping him over his shoulder. Barricade landed with a crash on his back, on top of Scorponok's head.

"Bee stop!" Beachbreak yelled. "He's –"

At which point one of the grenades Ironhide had been wanting to test, which Bee had planted on Barricade before flipping him, went off.

The explosion was bigger than he expected, much larger than what Hide had told him to look out for. Bee found himself blown into the air and knocked through a building. He stopped sliding halfway through it.

::How'd it work?:: Hide sent him.

Bee waited for his sensors to deal with the overload of sensory information before answering. ::You took the plans from Wheeljack, didn't you?:: He didn't get a response.

He hadn't been the only one thrown, or damaged by the blast. He had thought the other mechs, Beachbreak, and Sam had been out of the range for anything more drastic but heat and sound. But they weren't. He scans showed two mechs dead, the small ones, who had not survived the impact with the ground or surrounding buildings. But everyone else seemed to still be okay. He thought. Sam's vital signs were still strange and as such he couldn't be sure exactly of the human's status.

Bee stepped out of the building and made his way toward the small group. He paused at the entrance to an alley, giving the Navigator hiding in it a glance, but then moved on. The SUV hadn't done anything to label it as aggressive, however strange it was to be carrying around a dead mech's body through a battlefield.

"Give me Sam and Beachbreak," Bumblebee commanded, walking toward the small group of three mechs and one human. Beachbreak was lying on his side, Bee could tell he was hurt, but not too much, with Sam was next to him on the ground. The two unknown mechs seemed to bristle at the order, moving positions so they were between Bee and his friends.

Bee powered up his canon. He wouldn't shoot, not this close to Sam and Beachbreak, but the other mechs didn't know that. The scout looked for Decepticon badges, but he didn't find any.

"Back away from them."

There was the sound of transformation behind him and Bee turned to see the Navigator had come of hiding. He stepped out of the alley with a cannon pointed at Camaro's back. "Now."

The Autobot froze. He didn't doubt his ability to take out all three of them in other situations. If there weren't people he wanted to protect nearby. He hummed his cannon. "Walk away."

"No," the other three mechs said at the same time, all holding their guns at him.

Bee turned to look at the other two, whose alt forms he couldn't make out, and then past them towards Beachbreak. He couldn't see Sam, one of the mechs was in the way, but Beachbreak seemed to be talking to the human. Stroking Sam's side and saying something that Bee couldn't pick out. When he noticed all three offensive mechs tense, the scout shifted his right foot a bit back to get into a defensive position. And then Beachbreak let out muffled scream, drawing Sam towards him.

The two mechs turned and made their way towards Sam. The Navigator behind him did the same, running and pushing Bee aside as he moved. He…he hadn't…had he?

Bee took a few steps towards the small group but looked up at the sound of Seeker engines. Starscream quickly transformed and clung to the side of a skyscraper. "Pity. I needed more drones. You think it'll still work even though the fleshbag is dead?"

"Back off," Beachbreak hissed, pulling Sam's body closer to him while the Navigator helped him sit up. To back up the message, the two other mechs aimed their weapons at the jet.

Starscream laughed. "You can barely stand, and your two sparkling guardians don't stand a chance. Do you want to see them die too? How many has that been today, Autobot?"

Sparklings? Bee's spark skipped. Sparklings came online with the same physical structures as adults, nothing tagged them as young. It was only their interaction with the world, their lack of knowledge and awareness of social norms that gave their age away. And even then it was hard sometimes to know, so it had been common for a creator to always introduce a sparkling as such at the first opportunity, even before stating their own designation.

But there hadn't been time for that here, had there been? It had been obvious by the way they acted that the mechs Bee found at the hospital were sparklings (and the fact they had been searching for a creator). But these mechs, they had been ready to fight the entire time. They didn't act like sparklings. However, now that he looked for it, he could see all of the three unknown mechs send glances towards Beachbreak as if looking for direction. And the Navigator seemed to be drawing comfort from Beachbreak, if the way he was pressing into the smaller mech was any indication.

The one the Navigator had been carrying around?

And the other two dead mechs, the small ones?

Bee started to turn his head in their direction, but stopped. He didn't want to look. Not now.

"The only one dying here is you Starscream," Bee aimed and fired.

The seeker screeched as the shot hit the center of his left wing, turning his optics on to Bumblebee. "You!" Starscream sneered. "You can't stop me either."

Jumping from the side of the building, the jet transformed and raced towards Bumblebee. The scout held his fire, a stray shot would hit a sparkling, but had his targeting program follow Starscream even as he dodged bullets. The Decepticon roared over him and Bee unleashed a blast to the jet's belly. Starscream wobbled and pulled up, only to be met by the fire of two helicopters. It seemed like NEST and the Japanese were working to bring down at least one target.

After a quick three-sixty, the seeker veered away and the helicopters followed. Japanese jets soon appeared traveling in the same direction and Bee left the Decepticon Air Commander to the humans.

He put away his weapons, steeled himself, and then turned around.

Beachbreak was holding Sam to his chest, sitting in the street. If Cybertronians could cry, he would be. Instead he was emitting a low thrum, way below the range of human hearing, that their kind gave off when upset or grieving. Because Bee's facial recognition software was telling him what his scanners couldn't; there was no doubt that the human was Sam. And having his programs flash Sam's name on his HUD, along with the derivative of protecting him, made it that much more obvious that he failed.

The Navigator was mourning, as were the two other mechs. All four of them in a loose huddle around Sam, each touching some part of him. Sparklings, Sam's sparklings, lamenting the loss of their creator. Bee doubted any of them were even a week old. It was surprising they were still alive.

He winced at the thought of the few who weren't, looking back up the street at the Cybertronian bodies. Three sparklings, one symbiote, one Con.

One human.

Bumblebee turned and took a step toward the group, voicing his own distress at Sam's death. Beachbreak didn't seem to notice, but the sparklings did. The Navigator pointed his gun at him, as did one of the other mechs while the third shifted to place himself in front of Beachbreak and Sam.

This seemed to get Beachbreak's attention and some type of conversation happened between the four of them. Bee felt compelled not to listen in, he was pretty sure he wouldn't be hearing pleasant comments about himself.

Eventually, the tight circle loosed a little bit and Bee watched as Beachbreak transferred Sam into the arms of the Navigator. One of the other sparklings, the green one, helped Beachbreak to his feet. The small Autobot seemed to have trouble standing up right, his legs were damaged, so the sparkling helped him walk towards Bumblebee. It would have been an amusing sight in different conditions, Beachbreak came up to the sparkling's elbow.

Bee wasn't to sure if it would be wise to come closer, but after seeing his friend stumble a couple of times he slowly walked over to meet them halfway.

"Hey Shorty," he said just above a whisper when then were a couple of steps away.

Beachbreak stopped, and then smiled at Bee. "No one's called me that in a while."

"Well, it looks like you're still the shortest one in your group."

"No I'm…wasn't. No I wasn't."

Right.

"Bumblebee, this is Kiwi. He's a sparkling. They are all."

"I gathered." Bee shifted uncomfortably.

"Cade and I…had been taking care of Dundee, Fizz, and Dagger for almost seven planetary cycles. Kiwi and his brothers were just activated today."

"I'm…" His doorwings drooped and his mourning note dropped a third. "I didn't think Hide's bomb would do all that."

Beachbreak slid down the side of Kiwi's leg and took a seat on the street. Bee followed suit, trying to reduce the height difference between them, and Kiwi sat as well. "They're angry at you, for killing Sam. Killing their brothers. And two of their protectors."

"I'm sorry about that. I didn't know they, you," Bee nodded in Kiwi's direction, "were so young. And you know I wouldn't hurt Sam!" His voice pitch rose in distress.

"You were to protect Creator." Kiwi said and Bee nodded. "You didn't."

Bee winced, but nodded a second time while making his mourning more obvious. He couldn't voice the words aloud. ::I know:: he sent on a public channel.

"Was…Barricade really helping you?" Bee asked after a bit of silent staring at the asphalt.

"Yes," Beachbreak forced out. "We've been helping each other since Zambia."

Bumblebee saved his questions for another time. Instead he looked around the mech in front of him to Sam.

"Come on," Beachbreak said, struggling to get to his feet. Bee made a move to help him, but Kiwi got there first. Slowly they made their way over to the others.

"He was dying anyway," the small Cybertronian said as they walked.

Bee looked down at his friend. "What do you mean?"

"There was something wrong with his body. Scorponok found him at a hospital, about to be executed actually, but there was a reason he was at the hospital at the first place. During his time with us, he wasn't healthy. I mean…at this rate it wasn't drawn out."

He appreciated Beachbreak's attempt to find good in the situation, but it didn't make him feel better. What did was the lack of fight over handing Sam's body over to him. Bee suspected that Beachbreak had silently communicated with the Navigator. Carefully, with the most care he had ever put to a task, he took Sam into his arms and cradled him to his chest. He didn't pay attention to the particulars: a missing arm, crushed knees, signs of a lack of food and sleep, other various injuries, the crystalized salt on cheeks, and the odd bio readings he had gotten earlier. They didn't make much of a difference at this point.

A/N: If your upset at the rather unhappiness of this ending, you obviously haven't read my other TF stories. That being said, I was quite torn on how Sam was going to die because really, his body wasn't going to last for very long. Maybe a few months. Especially if he didn't create sparklings.

Just to maybe clear that up, I had Sam go through the side effects of accelrated brain activity, which led to sleep deprevation, and all those sysptoms really don't do a body good. Shivers, high fevers, and a general overal wearing down on the mind and body. Creating sparklings allievated the extra energy, thus Sam's clarity in these past to chapters, (not that he knows that) but I don't see him allowing Sally to make a ton of sparklings again. Maybe one of two, enough where they'd always be well supervised, but eventually being filled with All Spark energy would kill him. So it realy was a choice between a violent death, or one after a decent into craziness. My sister chose a violent one.

One more chapter left! Though it's really more like an epilogue. Thanks so much for following this story!