That wasn't the end, sillies!

Oh, and if you tried to vote and it didn't let you, that was my bad. It's fixed now, so if you did manage to vote within the first couple of days of the last update… couldja vote again please and thank you?

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy! Especially thanks to dixiegurl13 for knowing about planes :D

I'm gonna use the term 'stellar cycle' this chap, which is a little more than a year in Beast Wars. I miss that series.

Also, spot the Zoolander and Little Mermaid nods and I'll think about loving you forever : )

"No. No. And no."

"You haven't let me finish yet."

"Because the answer is no!"

Skywarp glared down at me, and I stared right back.

"Just once," he said, abruptly changing his tack to pleading, all syrupy sweetness. It was hard to resist him when he went all soft on me like that, but what he was asking me to do was ridiculous.

"I'm not walking into the lion's den, Skywarp!"

"Lion?"

"Look it up! Your brother is up to something, I know it! And you want me to go see him? In person? Did you hit you head when I wasn't looking? He thinks I'm an abomination! A failed experiment!"

Skywarp patiently waited for me to finish my tirade, then reached down and engulfed my shoulders in his hands. "He invited you himself. He wouldn't hurt you, little star."

I leaned in a little when he used the pet name, then jerked back as far as his grip would allow. "Sweet talking won't work. I don't believe he's telling you everything."

"Why would he hide anything? And I don't see what's so dangerous about a big kitty cat."

"He has something to hide because he. Is. Evil! And you try fighting a lion when you're six feet tall or less and made of lion food!"

"He's not evil, Bravura. Primus, give him a chance, would you?"

"I think he lost his chance when he implied I'd be a sparkling machine, back before he decided I wasn't even good for spare parts!" I was getting really angry now, and Skywarp was looking hurt and defensive. This was our first fight, and I wished it could have been over something like how to decorate the cave and not his family.

Skywarp didn't want to fight any more than I did. "Please, Bravura," he murmured. "For me. I'll stay with you the entire time. Plus, Thundercracker likes you. He won't let Starscream try to hurt you if I ask him to back me up." He leaned in and pressed his lips to my forehead. "For me."

I sighed heavily and leaned my cheek against his when he drew back a little. "You're going to get me killed, flyboy…"

"So you'll come?" His excitement was so palpable I could've popped it with a needle.

"Yes… But only because it'd break your heart if I didn't."

He swept me up and squeezed me until I started to creak, then set me back down and looked to the sky. "I'll tell him."

I heaved a sigh through my vents, watching his distracted expression while he spoke to his brother. I was jealous; he could speak to his brother, and they weren't even twins. Why couldn't I reach Hotrod? Was it just because I didn't have the equipment?

Maybe I could pawn a few doodads off of Starscream before he tried to finish me off.

I turned to survey out little home. Skywarp had gotten the explosives and a flattened a large space out weeks ago, and he'd carved out a comparatively shallow but very tall cave at the same time. He'd gotten his claws on a load of sheet metal, then he'd covered it in dirt and ash to hide the shine. The metal had been propped and welded into a shelter and was now an extension of the cave, though he had to slouch to enter.

I'd been e-mailing Mirage on a daily basis, ever since he'd sent me a panicky e-mail after nearly a week without any word from me. He knew I was ok from Hotrod, but he wanted to know exactly what sort of ok. He wanted information, and there were faint suggestions that he knew what Skywarp and I had been up to at night… Hotrod wouldn't tell something like that, would he?

Hotrod sent me e-mails often too, usually asking why I'd had a particular emotion that day. The first one had berated me for not even waiting a day after my choosing the Seeker to get physical with him. I could tell he was trying hard to sound like a protective big brother, but he'd felt very jealous for some time before he'd sent the mail.

I'd tried to explain everything to Hotrod, but his responses had been persistently disapproving on the subject of Skywarp.

I knew that if I asked Mirage or Hotrod for advice about going to the Decepticon base he'd tell me to run the other way.

But Skywarp was so sure…

He was looking at me now, watching the doubt and confusion play across my face. He swept me up and settled me on his shoulder. It amused him to no end; he knew I wasn't very happy up there, and it made me feel even smaller. Like a child.

"He said to come this evening. Starting last night they've had trouble with airlocks bursting out of nowhere. The Constructicons are in a state of panic trying to figure out what's going wrong. They're blaming inferior Earth materials."

I held onto the wing behind me as he sat down abruptly, then I slithered down into his lap, perched on one thigh and leaning against him. I couldn't stop worrying about the visit.

Skywarp had proven to be particularly sensitive to my feelings. I couldn't know if he was like this with everyone or if he simply knew how to read me in particular, but it saved a lot of time explaining my brief down moments. I still had them, the moments of sadness and regret where I missed a life that was closed to me forever… But even as my thoughts began sneaking to my lost past his hands curled around me and he slouched forward to rest his forehead on mine.

Everything's going to be ok, little star.

I trust you. I twisted a little to bury my face against his heavily armored neck. He'd begun calling me 'little star' when he'd discovered my fascination with the night sky. I'd begged for stories and images about his long lifetime out there. The pictures he'd given me were beautiful, huge suns looking small from across galaxies, asteroid fields dark against cloudy gas giants, an elaborate space station riding solar winds ahead of a magnetic storm…

"Come on, you've barely used your gun since you got it. Let's get some target practice, hmm?" Skywarp tickled a spot on my side, bare of plating, and I shivered with a giggle, swatting his fingers away and leaning back to look at him.

"I don't like shooting."

"I don't like to shoot, I don't want to fly!" Skywarp mocked. "What are you so scared of?"

The memory of a gun held close to my head as a weight pressed down on me-

I shook myself, but Skywarp had already seen the distant nausea in my face and sighed. "Ok, you don't have to answer that. I just wish you'd at least try to like flying. It's incredible to be so fast and free…"

"Heights. I don't like heights."

"That's just because you're afraid of falling. If you had wings and a real engine you wouldn't be scared at all."

I shrugged, then turned and hopped off of Skywarp's lap. "Let's stream a movie or something. I just want to chill today, until…" I trailed off.

Skywarp mirrored my shrug. "You pick. I'm not crazy about your human movies."

I smiled. He really was a good mech.

Starscream contacted his brother late in the evening. We'd gotten bored of Chinese bootlegs and decided to make our valley look a little more inviting by experimenting with rocks, but neither of us were any good at landscaping and so rather than an attractive arrangement of stones we had a lumpy pile of big rocks.

"What an eyesore," I mumbled as Skywarp scooped me up.

"Maybe some… sticks or something?"

I pulled myself up and kissed him lightly, resisting the internal fire that threatened to ignite at the touch. "Or maybe we should just clear that out tomorrow and put in a birdbath."

"You humans waste a lot of time making useless decorations."

"Birds use them."

"Who cares? They're birds. They've lived thousands and thousands of years without fancy vessels to bathe in." Skywarp rearranged me in his arms, then suddenly leapt into the air with a leap. His engines were familiar to me now, but still startling after the long quiet of the desert.

We climbed high into the cloudless sky. I had no idea what the Cybertronian equivalent of adrenaline was, but I was pumped full of it. I wanted to get there and get out as soon as possible.

The bright hot desert I'd become so fond of winked away into a chilly blackness, only to be replaced by a sensation I was unfamiliar with.

I looked around and realized I was feeling sea spray on my plates. Skywarp had teleported in low and was already setting his feet down on a platform with a tall building on its edge, just a few feet above the surface of the choppy gray water.

I looked around and saw that the only breaks in the monotonous expanse of ocean were dark clouds massing on the horizon. After a moment's thought I e-mailed the coordinates of the base to Mirage.

"There's a storm coming… Maybe we should go home," I tried weakly.

Skywarp didn't answer; the double doors on the side building opened and Starscream stepped out. I resisted the urge to lock up.

Skywarp eased me to the ground and walked quickly to his brother. They shared a warrior's handshake, even as Starscream settled his calculating optics on me.

Hotrod was acutely aware of my sudden distress, and even as I stood there I got an e-mail. What's wrong?

Visiting the in-laws. If it's a trap Mirage has coordinates. Sent.

"Bravura," Starscream began with what looked like a fake smile, "I'm so pleased you could make it. There's no reason to let the past get in the way of a… friendship."

Outrage and disbelief blossomed in the connection with my twin as he received my letter.

It was all I could do to keep my mouth from dropping open from the combined onslaught of powerful emotion and Starscream's freaky behavior. Skywarp's encouraging look was the only thing that could've made me speak at that point.

"Er. Yes."

Starscream seemed satisfied by my staccato response. "Come in, come in. Skywarp knows his way around already, but you need the tour!"

He herded us into the building, small when occupied by such large mechs. The door shut and then the flooring lowered into a much larger elevator. It was at least the size of the platform above and easily cleared the two Raptor's heads. It began its downward movement, giving me a lurch.

I surreptitiously compared the two brothers. They were a bit like human twins; when you first looked they seemed exactly the same, but in reality there were distinct differences. Skywarp was slightly taller. He had more plating and less exposed machinery on his front than Starscream. Skywarp's face was more open somehow, though he had thick armor plating over most his head just like his brother. Not to mention the purple detailing.

Now that the lighting was fair and I wasn't fighting for my life, I took in Starscream's appearance. He wasn't solid gray at all. There were black symbols painted all over his wings and legs, symbols I'd neither seen in the uneven streetlights nor in the darkness of the back road.

He caught me looking and smiled indulgently. I ducked a little behind Skywarp's leg, looking down nervously. This couldn't be the real Starscream. Could it?

"That's a lovely color you took on with your alt mode, Bravura," Starscream said. I looked up to find he was still watching me. "An improvement on those worn out pastels and pinks most neutral femmes seem to favor so much."

"Thank you," I said quietly. I wasn't about to tell him I hadn't chosen the color, having been too busy trying to avoid him on his rampage to be picky.

"Polite," he said to Skywarp with a nod.

"Not always," my Seeker laughed. "You should have seen her when I tried to take her skydiving. She's stubborn about heights."

I straightened stiffly. He'd wanted to carry me up almost to the point where the atmosphere gave out and then drop me. He claimed he'd follow me the whole way and catch me, but I didn't want to risk being a sand pancake.

Starscream laughed, a relaxed version of the madman's cackle he'd used before. "How strange. She should be itching to fly; look at those legs." He was eying me again. I tried ducking behind Skywarp completely to hide the digitigrade legs I'd inherited, but he nudged me to the front of him. I shifted nervously. How long could it possibly take to get down to this damnable base?

"She's got the same potential as Frenzy did. Before."

Starscream nodded. "You did say she was metallically identical. He could've been a Seeker, Bravura, if he'd only chosen to fly. And joined the winning side, of course."

"Oh," I said softly. He sounded so pleasant, talking about Frenzy. His kind had driven the mech to madness. It wasn't a pleasant subject at all.

Starscream moved forward just as the elevator shrieked to a sudden stop. I lost my balance, too nervous to be very collected, and recoiled when it was Starscream's hand that steadied me. I saw my reaction had irritated him, but he said nothing and straightened as the doors opened into starkly lit hallways.

He motioned for us to follow. I was immediately reminded of Autobot City. This place was nothing like the base Skywarp had scraped out of the ground. That oversized hole had been warm and pleasant; this base was all business.

Starscream was going on about capacity (they could house an alarming number of warriors) and depth (nearly a mile below the surface) but I was more focused on staying as close to Skywarp as I could without tripping him.

I glanced down an intersection as we passed through it. Skywarp halted suddenly and twisted to look down at me. Starscream stopped a few steps later and looked back.

"What?"

"I don't know, she's looking- oh." Skywarp laughed.

I'd seen a pair of Constructicons down the hallway. Without meaning to I'd both planted my feet in fear and latched onto Skywarp, tugging him to a halt.

Starscream peered down the hallway and laughed. "They're ugly, aren't they?"

I stared at the floor in embarrassment until I was scooped up and arranged on Skywarp's shoulder.

Relax, he sent through our contact. Nobody will hurt you.

"She's a little big for that, don't you think?" Starscream asked, the snobbish edge to his tone barely disguised.

"She's light. Besides, she's not even twenty stellar cycles old. Humans mature quickly, but she's not grown at all."

Starscream grunted, "You'll spoil her."

Please put me down, I begged silently.

Skywarp looked at me in surprise. Why?

I don't want him to think I'm weak.

Skywarp lowered me back to the ground, which earned a nod of approval from his brother.

Starscream regarded the pair down the hallway. "They're trying to improve the base's efficiency." They were crouched over an open panel in the wall, discussing something too quietly to be heard. "We have generators working overtime and it's barely enough to keep us going on minimum. Not to mention all the energon we have to produce down here. Fossil fuels just aren't feasible for conversion."

"What happened to the solar panels on the surface?" Skywarp asked as we began to move down the hall again.

"Most of them snapped off in the last storm. Speaking of energon, you haven't had any in weeks, have you Bravura? How'd you like to top off?"

"I'm fine, thank you." I tried to meet Starscream's optics but had to look away quickly. I didn't like his expression. If I needed energon, I'd ask the Autobots.

"No, I insist. You really shouldn't put your system through any hardships, as young as you are. Right, brother?"

"Yes…" Skywarp said uncertainly.

"Excellent! Come, I'll show you the dispenser."

I felt as lost in this base as I once had in Autobot City. This place didn't even have the convenience of arrows and directions written in English.

In a few minutes the Decepticon stopped at a closed door. He pressed his huge hand to a glowing pad high on the wall; I'd have to stretch to reach the bottom of it.

The doors slid open from the center. Starscream motioned for us to go in first, so Skywarp nudged me in. The dark room flickered to brightness as soon as I set foot inside, and I examined the place as the Seekers slid in behind me. I moved self-consciously, aware that I was in the way.

The room, like everything in the base, was oversized. Massive tables and chairs were smattered here and there. A huge flatscreen TV was mounted to the wall, the picture split into four different news stations.

Starscream made his way to the back of the room, gesturing for Skywarp and me to sit down at one of the smaller tables. The chairs were still a bit big for me, so I had to sort of jump into one and pull myself up awkwardly to be seated.

Skywarp tugged his chair close to me and sat. There weren't any arms on the deep-seated furniture; some of these mechs were ridiculously wide, rather like the Seekers.

I watched Starscream at what was apparently the energon dispenser. It was set into the wall next to another glowing blue panel, along with a keypad. Starscream pressed his clawed hand to the panel, then punched in a long series of numbers.

Two large energon cubes tumbled out of the dispenser into his waiting hands, followed by a smaller one. They were almost white, they were so bright.

As the Decepticon sat down across from us, Skywarp protested. "High-grade? She doesn't need that stuff."

"Oh come, can't we celebrate a little? A toast?"

Skywarp sighed, then reached across the table to pluck one of the big cubes and my small one. He handed the smaller one to me with a whisper. "Only a little, it's strong."

Starscream had that smile again, one that reminded me of a priest surveying his flock. I wasn't fooled. I was no sheep.

Starscream held up his cube, followed by Skywarp, so I did as well.

"To the future," Starscream said seriously.

"The future," Skywarp said energetically, while my own toast was a subdued echo.

The two larger mechs tossed back the cubes, so I tasted mine. It didn't seem all that different to me.

The two Seekers began chatting about their old alt modes after Skywarp asked if he had any blueprints stored. I absently sipped at my cube, admitting to myself that it did feel nice to refresh my lines.

Solar power could renew energon indefinitely, but it did get a little less efficient the longer you did it. Mine hadn't begun to do that yet, in fact I'd read it took years to become noticeable, but fresh energon was pleasant anyway.

Even sipping only a little at a time, it didn't take long for me to begin to feel the effects of the high-grade. Comparing this to my first experience with regular grade was like comparing a little piece of chocolate to a venti double shot orange mocha frappuccino.

I caught myself laughing at something that wasn't particularly funny. I didn't even mind the amused look Starscream was wearing; he wasn't so bad. He looked just like Skywarp, and Skywarp was hot. Not perfect David-statue hot, but smokin' nonetheless. I drained the last of my cube, then eyed it with a giggle. I ran out!

I repeated my observation out loud to the Seekers, and Starscream got up, taking my cube with him. I tried checking out his butt, but Transformers don't really have butts, and especially not Seekers. They were too pointy.

I slid out of my chair and laughed.

"Man, that storm's really blowin'! The floor's moving, 'Warp!"

I held my hands out to either side and crossed the few feet to my Seeker's chair, then started crawling up his leg.

"Stop. Stop it!" I yelled as I slipped a little.

"Stop what?" He asked. He knew what he was doing. So I told him,

"You know! You're… wiggling around! Like one a those… wigglin' things. God, what are those things called? Never mind. You're such a nice boyfriend!" I squeaked as he pulled me up into his lap.

"I don't think she needs anymore, Starscream."

"Oh, don't be such an oil slick. She's enjoying herself."

"Yeah, 'Warp. Don't be a mud in the stick in the mud in… Hmm." I reached out and took the cube from Starscream's waiting hand. "Why d'they call you Starscream? Is it you screaming, or the stars? Or is it stars cream and not star scream? Ha. Haha!"

I took another long sip from my cube even though Skywarp was clearly unhappy about it. I twisted around, cube clenched tightly in one hand, and pounded my Raptor's chest affectionately. "You are just the coolest, nicest, tallest guy I know. Just, really. The tallest."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome! Because you deserve it."

"Very affectionate little thing," Starscream commented.

"Yeah. Thanks," Skywarp rumbled.

"Well, she opened up, didn't she?"

"She's drunk of her aft. She probably won't even remember this tomorrow."

"She's right heeere!" I sang, then sipped at my cube again. "Why under the sea? Why not on the sand? Is it 'cause life is much bettah down where it's wettah and not on the land?" I laughed uproariously, then climbed to my knees and leaned across the table, not even waiting for a response from Starscream. "You," I said as seriously as I could, "were a jerk, before. So why, man?"

"Bravura," Skywarp chided.

"It's alright," Starscream soothed. He really wasn't that bad. Why didn't I like him? "I was a 'jerk' when she met me. I got a little ahead of myself, that's all. I've seen the error of my ways."

A little voice in my head was trying to tell me something, but I ignored it. It was boring. "I know, right? How'd you build this place so fast? All you clankers seem to build so freakin' fast!"

The door slid open and a Constructicon walked in. "Holy cow they are ugly," I hissed noisily to Starscream.

"Thrust sent in a transmission," the Constructicon said. Which one was he? "The part isn't working. They need the spare if you want everything operational on schedule."

"The moon project?" Skywarp asked.

"It's not really made of cheese," I informed the Seekers.

"Yes… I knew they'd need that slagging spare… I'm going to have to leave you two for now and drop it off."

"I used to dream of skiing down a mountain of moon cheese."

"Well…" Skywarp began.

"I called them the 'Swiss' Alps. Get it? 'Cept Swiss cheese has holes in it..."

Starscream paused and listened expectantly. "Yes?"

"Yeah, not so great for skiing."

"I could take it. I'd be able to do it a lot faster," Skywarp said reluctantly.

"You're not supposed to help them!" I whispered violently.

"That would save time…" Starscream said thoughtfully. "You'd leave Bravura here alone?"

"Well… I don't think she'll mind much right now."

"Dude I'm so telling on you!"

"I'm not breaking any agreements, Bravura."

"Still!"

Skywarp stood up, then set me down on the chair. "Show me the part, Mixmaster."

In a moment it was just Starscream with me at the table.

I eyed him, smiling. He smiled back.

"You're enjoying your time with Skywarp?" He asked politely.

"Yes. He's the best."

"The best what?"

"The best… in generneral. Gernenalal."

"General?"

I stood up and leaned over the table again, pointing at the Seeker. "Yes! Exactly! Man you're so smart!"

He smiled. He was kinda cute, like Skywarp. Skywarp was still the smokin' hottest. "Would you like to see my lab?"

"Do you do experiments? Like with the little volcanoes? I always wanted to make a little volcano!"

"No, I do much more important experiments." The Seeker stood and took his cube, which was still pretty darn full, and my empty one back to the dispenser. He came back to me after he'd put them away. "May I show you?"

"Yesss," I said dramatically, spinning and leaping off of my chair. I stumbled and laughed. "Man, fix the floor, Stars-cream."

"I'll be sure too. Shall I carry you until then?"

"Sure, 'Warp does all the time."

The halls were very blurry. I didn't like it, and made sure Starscream knew all about how much I disliked the decorating. It seemed that we got to his lab super fast. He set me on a table like Ratchet's.

"Do you know what happened to all the femmes?" Starscream asked gravely.

"Yeah, you killed 'em."

"Yes, we did. It was the biggest mistake we ever made. The All Spark is gone. Our race is in shambles, and with this war soon there will be nothing left but a few miserable survivors outliving their extinction."

I nodded. "It's sad."

"It's very sad. But I think there might be a solution. I think you're the key."

"Haha, no way!" I exclaimed.

"Yes… way. You see… I took Skywarp's machine. The one he used to heal you. But I'm having trouble getting the results I want. The experiments don't create happy and healthy Cybertronians like you. I get lumps of cold metal. I want you to tell me how they kept you alive."

"Um… when?"

He hissed. "When you became Cybertronian."

"Oh! Ok. Well, I pretty much died. My body rotted off. Sounds gross."

"Yes, I know that. But how did you get a spark?"

"Hotrod gave me a piece of his spark. It's why I'm not a really a girl. I've got a boy's spark."

The tiny voice in my head was practically screaming for attention now. There was something else, a feeling… Not my feelings. Angry and anxious.

"How did he give you his spark?" Starscream leaned in close.

"I don't know. I was like, dead."

Starscream snarled. "How can you not know? Didn't you care to ask? Do your origins mean nothing to you?"

"Dude I don't think they get it either! Relax, jeeze!" I crossed my arms and looked away from Starscream sulkily. "Hey," I suddenly realized. "How are you getting lumps of metal? What kind of… Are you experimenting on real people?"

Starscream glared at me and turned away.

"Omigawd you are! That's so wrong! They have feelings! It hurts like hell! How can you do that?!" I stood up and promptly fell backwards off of the table. I pulled myself to my knees. "I don't feel very good."

"I wonder…" I heard Starscream mutter. "Its spark is neither here nor there… If a true mech's spark created a semi-femme spark when given to a female… Could that spark produce a spark femme enough to bear young?"

I crawled out from behind the table and glared at him. "You are a jerk. Where's Skywarp?" I asked shrilly. "I want to leave!"

The Raptor rounded on me. "Oh, no. You're not going anywhere. I have an experiment to conduct…"

He started coming at me, so I started crawling away. I'd just made it to my feet when a hand curled around me and lifted me up. I felt a sharp sting in my neck. Everything melted into darkness.

"I don't know what happened! She was giddy, like she was drunk, then angry, then scared, and then nothing!"

"If these coordinates are right she's in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. We'll never get there in time to help her."

"Slag it all, what has Skywarp done?"

Voices, in my head… "Hotrod?" I tried to ask.

"Is she in any immediate danger now?"

"I can't tell, she's out cold. Wait-"

"Please help me," I tried to tell him.

"Nobody is going to help you now," a low voice said nearby.

I shook myself. It took me a moment, but my LP supplied what I needed to know. Starscream, the femmes, my spark… Skywarp, gone.

I onlined my optics. I was on the floor. My arms were cuffed behind my back. The high-grade still had me feeling slightly buzzed.

"I'm glad you're awake. The subject is ready."

I looked around frantically, found Starscream hunched over a table. A muffled sound, panting… The machine!

"No!" I screamed. "No, you'll kill her!"

"Not if you help me," Starscream growled. He came for me and there was little I could do to avoid him. He picked me up roughly and carried me to the table.

Terror and pity spiked through me. The victim was a thirty-something woman with dark olive skin and black hair. She was writhing as much as she could pinned to the huge table, trying to scream around the gag in her mouth. Her eyes were wide open, staring at nothing. The machine was on. She probably wasn't even aware of what was going on around her.

Even as I watched metal started punching through her skin from the inside. It snaked and curled in tiny, evil looking tendrils. They were dark, not chrome like mine had been.

"You're killing her," I repeated hopelessly.

"Give her your spark and she'll live," Starscream said with a shake.

"I don't know how!" I moaned. "I don't even know if I'd live through it!"

"You think I care if you die? I need a femme, not some miserable misfit. Give her your spark!"

He suddenly reached around me and snapped open my chest. I choked back a shriek when I felt a hinge crack. He grabbed me in both hands, then thrust me at the dying woman. "Do it!" He snarled.

Where was Skywarp? Hotrod, please help me… Please hear me,

There was no sign from my twin that he'd heard anything. Just rising alarm at my growing terror.

Starscream suddenly smashed me against the woman's chest. I felt her ribs popping…

"NO!" I shrieked. "No, this isn't the way! You can't do this, it's murder! You're killing her for nothing!"

"Then tell me how! Show me!" He pressed me down even harder. The woman's muffled screams trailed away; she couldn't breath.

"I don't know how. Please believe me, I don't know!"

A sudden shift of vertigo, sense of weightlessness… Then harsh reality as my body slammed against the far wall. He'd thrown me. I saw through dizzied optics as he smashed her body himself, silencing the faint noises. At least she isn't suffering anymore.

My whole body shook with a sob. How many had he killed like that? Did they have families, children?

Starscream turned on me. "I know you have the secret. I don't have much time. You'll give it to me, or you'll suffer like you've never suffered before."

I tried and failed to smother another sob. How could he? How could he do this to people?

He was coming for me. I struggled to get to my feet, trying to wrench my hands free of the cuffs behind me.

"Skywarp! Thundercra-"

He lashed out, smashing me into the wall again. Red lights were popping up like Christmas decorations all over my mind's eye.

He pressed hard, my whole body making frightening sounds as he bent my frame. I screamed as something inside me gave. A flashing red light-

I was wrenched into the air, thrown to the ground. He was saying something, couldn't make it out-

Another scream ripped out of my vocal processors as he stepped on my leg. Something split under the plating. My voice cracked and popped as I hit my volume limit. Another rise into the air, a finger thrust against my throat-

My screams cut off abruptly as he destroyed my vocal processors. The only sounds in the lab were my vents working overtime, a strange moaning coming from my chest, Starscream's whirring mechanics, and the machine angled over the table.

The machine was still on. I stole a glance and saw that the woman's body had been reduced to a mass of bloody wriggling metal. I would've gagged if I could've.

I looked back at Starscream. There was rage in his optics. So much rage, I doubted he remembered what he wanted from me. He only wanted to hurt me now.

Nobody was going to save me this time. I was alone. Skywarp might be locked up somewhere, unable to help. The Autobots were too far away. Thundercracker wouldn't take on Starscream alone. No hope.

Hotrod felt my despair. My connection flooded with support. I could practically here him telling me to keep going. To fight. Run. Whatever it took.

I absorbed the support even as Starscream slammed me to the ground again. His leg raised, aiming for my chest this time. Without thinking it through, I transformed my hands into scalpels and shook them. The cuffs slid off effortlessly. I shoved against the ground, rolled, and just escaped being crushed.

The mech snarled, but I was already on my feet, one hand a tiny, thin blade and the other becoming a tiny gun. The weapon hummed, ready to fire. I glanced around frantically, looking for cover on the way to the door and slapping my chassis shut to protect my spark. He grabbed at me, and I ran- or tried to. My crippled left leg gave, and I was down again, his swipe just missing me. He kicked me, but I latched onto his leg and kicked up off of his toes like Skywarp had taught me. I thrust my scalpel into his leg and slashed as much as I could reach. He roared and swiped at me, but I dropped off and hit the ground on my feet.

I tried to transform, but my systems denied me. The broken leg was misshapen. I spun and fired a shot at Starscream's face just as his hand reached down to grab me. He whipped back as the lucky shot got his cheek, unfortunately a place thick with armor.

I darted in and bodily yanked his foot out from under him, taking away his balance. He wavered and tipped, reached out to balance himself… His hand landed right in the mess of metal and humans remains on the table. It sank into the mass like it was dough, but when he tried to yank free it didn't seem to want to give.

I took the chance to hobble for the door, my crippled leg good for little more than balancing my awkward hops. I could just put weight on the tips of my toes, though it hurt like the Pit. Starscream roared as I muscled my way out of the lab; the door slammed shut behind me.

Stretch of hallway. Left or right? Didn't matter, just move. Energon and coolant were spurting from my leg. I couldn't hope to hide. My body was betraying me. I worked to silence my signatures, even if it was futile. Even if Starscream was right behind me. I had less than a twenty-foot head start at this point. I spun and shot again as Starscream came through the doors, but I missed completely.

I tried to express to Hotrod how sorry I was. I tried. My shuffling steps slowed, but Starscream was coming now, and his pace was as sure as ever. I prepared for the blow, the grab, whatevever pain he'd dole out… Hotrod was trying to emotionally bully me into doing something. But…

I saw the shadow over me, felt the Decepticon's signatures and let out a sigh. This was it?

Forgive me, Hotrod.

NO!

I pivoted, rolled under the long clawed fingers reaching for me and agilely slid to a pause between Starscream's legs. I fired up at his crotch and he made a roaring, screeching sound and slammed against the wall for balance when the plasma went exactly where it was supposed to go. Miraculously I was on my feet again and shuffling the other way.

I was rather too shocked to be pleased with myself. There was a snag in my sudden success.

I hadn't done any of those things. I wasn't even the one running now. Somebody was controlling me.

Still not the end! I think one more long chapter oughta do it :)