A/N: This was prompted by DeathStallion and Chimeradark on LJ. I own nothing and blame them entirely. ^.~
Asked the friar of the demon, "What is most to be feared? On heaven and earth and all realms between and below what is most fearsome of all?"
Replied the demon to the friar, "A mortal with nothing to lose," And with his words the demon died hearing last the friar's cries for behind them both there stood a mortal carrier, her grayed sparkling lying cold and dead at her pedes.
"The demon took what was mine and you friar treated him kind. For that which I have lost I send you both to the Unmaker's host." And so demon and friar alike fell to the mortal who lost her wee tyke.
A million war cries and screams of agony deafened the audios until all that could be heard was the nothingness of the battle field. Nightwalkers appeared and vanished in a shower of blackened dust. Werewolves fell to reveal the mechs that they had once been and lycans shattered like crystalline statues upon the ground splintering into a million shimmering starlight shards. The floor was gritty with unheard somethings that shifting and crunched beneath the pedes before shattering as whatever it had been turned into dust. The air in the cave was thick with the metallic ashes from slain nightwalkers. Torches, once brilliant in the darkness, gleamed dully in halos of blackish dust and pockets of white mist of the Veil.
Sunstreaker panted, his lycan form shedding small rivulets of pale mech blood from numerous wounds. Despite the presence of his brother at his back he knew they would not last much longer. Wheeljack, much too young for this battle, had fallen at their feet unconscious from exhaustion. Sideswipe snarled, lycan tongue lolling despite the snarl seemingly etched permanently upon his muzzle.
The ground at their paws was thick with the debris of death. Black ashes, white crystals and the fallen forms of once mortals now grey in death. The monochromatic tableau on the ground contrasted with the garish riot of colors the nightwalkers and darklings surrounding Sunstreaker and Sideswipe made. Overhead, a cry erupted followed by more blackened ash falling to the ground. Sideswipe glanced to the ceiling where Cliffjumper and Bumblebee hid. They were surrounded by nightwalkers and down to just their own short daggers. Any nightwalkers killed now were by sheer luck alone. Sunstreaker looked to the rear alcove where Ratchet had been, now only darkness remained.
"He's safe," Sunstreaker panted just loud enough for Sideswipe to hear, a pang of melancholy joy filling his spark.
"So, its time." Sideswipe replied, glancing with tired mischief towards his brother. As one they stood taller, taking back their nightwalker forms. With nothing friendly on the ground in their way they could finally lose the restraints they had worn for longer than they could remember.
"Move, quickly!" Ratchet hissed, guiding the captured mortals ahead of him through the small opening at the side of the stockade. "Follow the main corridor, you'll find a hole in the ceiling. You'll find your own way from there." He turned from the fleeing mortals, knowing he had taken too long in freeing the others.
Ratchet looked to the cavern beyond, breath freezing in his intakes. Wheeljack was nowhere to be seen. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe stood back to back hemmed in by the still massive horde. Along the ceiling more lycans and nightwalkers formed a moving carpet that had Bumblebee and Cliffjumper trapped in their nook unable to leave and too easy to take out.
"Give me my weapons." Bluestreak appeared before Ratchet, optics gleaming with a steady intensity he had never seen in the younger mech before.
Ratchet pulled off the unstrung bow that rested within the heavy quiver of arrows along his back over the healers satchel and handed the weapons to the other. "The instant you fire one shot they will be on us and I don't know if I can protect you."
Bluestreak looked over the horde, noting the absence of Wheeljack in its mists. "That won't be a problem." The young archer turned with deadly grace his lean frame stalking towards the large open hole leading to the main cavern. Behind him Ratchet and First Aid watched with bated breath as the archer's head shifted with a keening cry into that of a wolf's leaving the rest of his body that of a normal mech save for the thick wolf tail falling low to his calves.
"Primus blessed, what is he?" First Aid gasped seeing the archer shift from mortal to a mech-wolf hybrid monster of the like he had never before seen.
"Figures," Ratchet huffed, pulling several stakes from his depleted bandolier, "My brother would fall in love with a faoladh."
"A what?" Aid demanded as he stayed plastered to Ratchet's plating, hiding behind the only mech that seemed remotely mortal now that the other captives had vanished into the darkness of the tunnel beyond.
"Think of a good lycan that protects children and the sick. I've heard of them, but they remain hidden most of the time. And, its said that pissing them off is generally a really bad idea." Ratchet remarked, tensed and waiting as Bluestreak notched four arrows and let them fly, watching as the bewitched shots flew through a pillar of the Veil and split into dozens of shafts of light each piercing a nightwalker surrounding the Blood Twins.
"Primus!" Ratchet gasped, eyeing the archer warily. "He's pure blood and old."
"What do you mean?" Aid asked, awed as the nightwalkers went into a frenzy attacking each other the instant their brethren were rendered to ash.
"Faoladh are spirits, they are not born nor do they die. When they appear as mortals they inhabit the body of a sparkling and live as mortals for but one lifetime." Ratchet looked hard at the archer's back noting the ethereal silver glow about the young mech's form.
"He has only a dozen arrows." Aid whispered, "Even if each one becomes a dozen more they are still too many."
"I know," Ratchet replied softly, placing a hand on his apprentice's shoulder, "Follow the footsteps of the others and be safe. You have never been a warrior this is no place for you."
Aid gapped, optics wide as Ratchet passed Bluestreak, a firm hand squeezing the archer's shoulder as he passed leaping over the stone barrier between the horde and their position landing silently to face the monsters closest to them.
Within the center of the horde Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had stood as statues throughout the fray the air seething with a silent fury that coalesced into a midnight purple corona of evil about them. Fangs always pristine and sharp now became terrible daggers the gleaming white of new fallen snow. Their mouths opened in reverberating screams. Worse than the cry of the banshee, more piercing than the wail of a carrier holding her grayed child to her breastplates, their scream filled the air pulsating through the cave and all within. Once blood crimson and sunset gold they shifted, their true age showing in their very plating as the Blood Twins turned the purest mercury silver. Their optics became the purest white blazing fury as the twins focused on their enemies and vanished.
Ratchet's hands glowed brilliant green in the darkness, his weary muscle cables screaming in exhaustion from his many battles yet still he fought on. Bumblebee and Cliffjumper continued to hold back the ceiling-bound nightwalkers that constantly tried to reach into their small hiding spot and Bluestreak continued to fire his multiplying arrows over the horde. Still more of the moon borne and their minions poured into the cavern from caves beyond, their numbers unending like a tide of evil undermining the very foundations of the land.
First Aid held back, pressed against a tall stalagmite as he watched his friends do what he could not. Aid's hands hand known only healing in the city, the life he had led before his journeyman apprenticeship and thereafter Ratchet had kept him safe from all harm now, he watched as six battled untold scores before him and Wheeljack remained absent from his sight.
Suddenly in the mouths of the largest caves leading into their cathedral of stone the frames of untold masses of nightwalkers and lycans geysered into the ceiling forming a fountain of black ash and white crystals as scores perished from the unknown power. The geysers erupted again and again casting the horde into chaos as unknown powers rendered the untold masses into nothing.
Ratchet fought harder now, no longer to slay the nightwalkers and other creatures of darkness but now to keep his pedes in a veritable tide of bodies fleeing to the corners of the dark labyrinth from the new entities that hunted them. In an instant Ratchet found him carried away screaming and writhing like an offering to an arcane god for sacrifice and flew into the air with the horde below him as the geyser shot up once more. Only strong hands caught him, blazing white optics looked him over carefully before setting him gently on the ground.
"You should have left with the others." The being spoke in a resonating tone that ringed like the voice of Primus through His oracle. Ratchet felt breathless as he looked on the radiant being and felt humbled before it.
"I couldn't leave you two or my brother, Sideswipe." He looked up at the red hellion transformed into something as ancient as Primus and more beautiful than the moon. "I need to find Wheeljack."
"We have been guarding him. I'll take you." Sunstreaker appeared beside them all around more geysers lifted unknown numbers of the undead and immortal into the air leaching their existences away in a mere breath. The once golden nightwalker now identical to his twin save for the audio fins turned to Wheeljack's position.
They moved through the horde, their once powerful enemies seeming little more than sheep that shifted in mindless panic from hunters. No one stopped them and it was like walking in a disturbing dream neither kind nor nightmare but a strange unsettling tableau that would remain upon waking and for eternity pressed into their processors.
"Wheeljack!" Ratchet moved to his brother not bothering to look for wounds he simply gathered his brother into his arms and moved to the relative safety of the stockade. First Aid reached over the stone barrier between them, helping his mentor to pull Wheeljack from the battlefield. Once free of the main cavern First Aid knelt at Wheeljack's side just as ghouls and fiends of every description overran Bluestreak bearing the shrieking archer to the ground.
Ratchet turned, leaving his brother in his apprentice's hands as he attacked the nearest fiends and found to his horror that the ghouls he faced did not vanish when they touched the Dubhan ceann chòsach aura radiating from his hands. Ratchet gulped looked up into the blind optics before him as broken, crooked denta were bared in the hideous facsimile of a smile.
"Now you die Dubhan ceann chòsach, and we'll take the vampyres down with you." The creature hissed, looking over its shoulder as the death grey ghouls filled the cave tearing apart the remaining nightwalkers and lycans as they targeted Ratchet's lovers, the silvery nightwalkers aged beyond reckoning into the pure vampyres of old.
"We won't make it easy on you," Ratchet ground out, arms trembling to hold back the ghoul as others pressed in around him. He glanced behind him, to young innocent First Aid who knelt over Wheeljack a small, worthless dagger held up in defiance against the encroaching ghouls. 'So this is it.' Ratchet looked back to his opponent, accepting his fate with that of the others knowing that this finally was how they were to return to stand at the feet of Primus.
"Cliffjumper, we're gonna die." Bee gulped, watching as the ghouls slithered along the ceiling devouring everything in their wake and heading straight for their alcove.
"It's been fun – sort of." Cliffjumper replied, optics focused on the small figures of their friends in the stockade below. "Even Aid is trying to fight."
"Think we can signal the idiots to regroup?" Bee asked, nodding towards the silvery pair on the ground still battling with all their power and slowing from the constant onslaught.
"Have any rope?" Cliff asked as he took a last bolt from his quiver, "I was saving this for myself so I wouldn't change. Just in case."
"Sorry," Bee replied looking at the salvation shot kept for the moment when suicide became a better option than turning into a monster, now neither of them had that option. Bee produced a length of rope from his pack and watched as Cliffjumper tied it to his last crossbow bolt then launched their final missile to the mouth of the stockade.
"Time to go." Cliff leapt for the rope launching himself towards their friends with Bee right behind him. As Bee slid towards the small space of their last stand he whistled shrilly over the battle din hoping Sunstreaker and Sideswipe would understand. They had to fall back and this was their last chance to keep the horde from spilling through the tunnels to Crystal Spire and beyond.
Bluestreak screeched as the ghouls above him were suddenly pulled away vanishing into the horde. Where they had been now stood Sunstreaker and Sideswipe the pair slowly leaching their silvery hue away to be replaced by the scratched and tarnished, more familiar crimson and gold hues. "Thanks!" He gulped shaking with the terror he had not felt when the strange courage he knew he could never possess had held him sturdy.
"What do we do?" First Aid asked from where he knelt by Wheeljack, the white nightwalker finally regaining his senses as he came around.
"We fight." Ratchet replied, pulling energon cubes from his healing pack, "With all that we've got."
"To the last mech." Wheeljack rasped and finally pulled himself to his pedes snagging a cube of mech blood alternative from his brother as he stood. He sighed as he looked at their last meal, "To the end." The group raised their cubes as the ghouls advanced, swallowed their cubes in a massive gulp and tossed the empties behind them. Refueled and resigned they stood side by side each armed with talons or blades and waited for the final assault.
The ghouls came closer their misty forms flowing towards them in a tide of death. Closer, they could make out the colored glass that once shone from their optics. Closer, they could smell their feted breath lingering with the stench of decay. Closer, they raised their weapons and readied thir talons facing down their immanent deaths.
Cloí le liom: tapa dtagann an eventide;
an deepens dorchadas; Primus, liom cloí le:
nuair a theipeann Cúntóirí eile agus comforts teitheadh,
cabhrú leis an helpless, O cloí liom.
Words, long unheard and normally ignored filtered through the raucous of the cavern like the first light of morning blessing the new day after a storm. The ghouls slowed, uncertainty flickering across their degrading face plating. The precious words of hymnal faded and with it the small stirring of hope within Ratchet and the mortals' chests. They had heard a chorus of avatars sent by Primus to give them hope yet still they could only rely on themselves.
As if confirming their lonely state the ghouls launched themselves at their few foes ferocious glee twisting their features into hideous caricatures of mortal joy as they readied for the slaughter. Their undead frames mere finger spans from Ratchet and his friends when they suddenly were engulfed within the light of Primus and cast aside like dust upon a wind.
Is gá dom dod láthair gach uair an chloig a rith;
cad is féidir ach dod grásta an scragall tempter cumhacht?
Cé, cosúil le tú féin, is féidir le mo treoir agus fanacht a bheith?
Trí scamall agus solas na gréine, Primus, cloí le liom.
Overhead a host of valkyries filled the upper reaches of the cavern that swooped and dove to snatch ghouls and the few remaining lycans from the ground below. Behind them giant wood spiders and darklings of all shapes and sizes spilled into the cavern bringing with them the brilliant blazing hues of sunlight and the strains of Primus' hymns casting the undead back to the grave.
Eagla mé aon foe, le dhuit ar láimh chun bless;
ills bhfuil aon meáchan, agus deora aon bitterness.
I gcás Sting dorcha Unicron ann? más rud é, uaigh, bua agad?
Mé bua fós, más tusa cloí le liom.
Creatures of all types rushed towards the stockade, the once grand horde now reduced to little more than whimpering thieves stealing towards the few opponents standing between them and the salvation of darkness beyond. Sunstreaker, Sidewipe and Wheeljack moved to the fore facing the straggling ghouls, nightwalkers, lycans and werewolves slaying them swiftly. Bluestreak searched the stockade and brought out more arrows their former captors had sequestered nearby he handed shorter quivers of crossbow bolts to the mini-bots and the three archers knelt facing the approaching monsters with new-found courage.
Coinnigh tusa thy maitrís roimh mo shúile dúnta;
Shine tríd an ghruaim, agus mé ar an spéir pointe;
spéir na sosanna maidin, agus scáthanna vain domhain teitheadh;
sa saol, i bás, O Primus, cloí le liom.*
Ratchet and Aid stepped back, giving the others room to fight. Ratchet would step up when needed and Aid readied what supplies he had waiting for a peace he could only hope would come. Then the light of day filled the cavern and at its center stood a glowing being surrounded by a glowing corona of orange light. His voice filled the cavern as he sung the last lingering strains of the hymn surrounded by warrior priests of the Decepticon faith.
All around the glowing being darklings from Unicron's Gate in Pax Crystalia filled the room taking revenge on the gluttonous nightwalkers and ghouls that had reduced them to monsters in mortal optics. The remaining tides of battle surged swiftly and suddenly the cave, raucous with war for so long, was filled with aching silence.
The sudden silence hit them like a brick wall stealing the air from their intakes and their little remaining strength from their legs. Ratchet collapsed, falling to his knees in exhaustion as he stared at the figure he had not seen in weeks. "Brother Sun Storm," He spoke softly the face mask of his hunters' gear altering his voice. "I never thought I'd be glad to see a Lus na Fala."
"Ratchet?" Sun Storm approached slowly, warily eyeing the downed hunter with the bright yellow visor.
Ratchet smirked and pulled off his mask revealing his face for the world to see, his optics still the deep evergreen hue of the dubhan ceann chòsach. "Long time," Ratchet sighed, despite Sun Storm's sudden gasp.
"How long have you been wounded?" Sun Storm asked worriedly noting several long gashes and bite marks that had twisted and bent the hunter armor like tin.
"Wounded?" Ratchet looked down at himself uncertainly finally noticing his many wounds, the growing puddle of mechblood around him and then the wounds of his companions. As he sat there, exhausted and spent Sunstreaker and Sideswipe crawled to him, hugging him close to their trembling frames. Beside them Wheeljak drew Bluestreak to his chest and, shockingly, Cliffjumper staggered to First Aid drawing the young healer into a tender embrace.
"Huh, when did that happen?" Sideswipe asked with a rasp as he watched First Aid bury his face into Cliffjumper's chest plate trembling with the effects of terror.
"While we were too busy not looking." Ratchet replied with a smile, First Aid's brothers were going to kill him.
"The next thing that tries to take you from me will die." Cliffjumper swore, tracing Aid's face tenderly. Aid only closed his optics, letting his helm be cradled by his crush as he wrapped his arm tightly around the smaller mech's waist.
"Ratchet, can we go home now?" Aid asked softly looking wearily to his mentor.
Ratchet only shook his helm wearily, ignoring the healer valkeries landing around them that knelt to mend their wounds. "We get back to the surface and finish our route. Then we get to go home." Ratchet sighed from his position ensconced between the twins, optics closing from exhaustion despite the need to get back to the surface.
Sun Storm watched with a slight smile as the heroes of the hour slowly slumped into unconsciousness all falling into deep recharge in the stockade. "Come on, let's get them to the surface."
"I never thought that healer had the bearings to take up a weapon, let alone face a full nightwalker army." Lady Flipsides walked to Sun Storm's side looking on the exhausted warriors. "'The destroyers of the horde of darkness,' it has a nice ring, don't you think?" She glanced up at Sun Storm with an impish grin.
"If that gets out, m'lady, the bards will spread their fame all across Cybertron," Sunstorm spread his hand expansively, arm crossing the horizon within his mind. "And, they would kill us – repeatedly."
Flipsides chuckled lightly, "True, but for now, organize your priests. They will move our heroes to Crystal Spire. My healers will tend their injuries."
Soft voices reached Ratchet's audios, scents of clean linen and healing salves reached his nasal sensors and soft hands too small to be any of his companions gently wrapped new bandages around his wrist. The joint ached with burning intensity the pain telling him he had somehow sprained his wrist during the battle underground.
"Lady Flipsides?" Ratchet rasped weakly as his optics on-lined looking up to the small delicate face of the dhampiel lady of Pax Crystalia.
"Welcome back, brave healer." She smiled, "You've been asleep for all of a full day and you're the last awake. The others are in the main room watching a few of the horde survivors repair the damage they did. You, Master Healer, are a hero. Expect to be thoroughly mortified, rewarded, venerated and absconded when those lovers of yours get tired of others giving you all the attention."
"Survivors?" Ratchet asked muzzily.
"Yes, some – thirteen actually – hid in the ceiling when they realized your lot was more trouble than you were worth. They've been quite handy and have provided several detachments worth of details sent to the Emperor." Flipsides stood back, arms crossed as she smiled warmly. "When you feel you can stand and move about get up and go to the common room. You have several mechs waiting for you there."
With her last words Ratchet found himself alone in the room he and the twins had shared in the weeks of deep freeze. With a huff of weary aches Ratchet levered himself out of the far too comfortable berth and out of the room. It was time they recovered and got on their way again.
Brilliant afternoon sunlight cascaded through the nippy spring air. Birds long absent for winter had returned with their songs in full volume. Early flowers were just beginning to peek through the slowly melting snow and just ahead gleaming like a jewel in the white blanket of lingering winter sat Iacon.
"So, guess we'll finally get to meet your creator, huh Ratch?" Sideswipe asked with a hint of nervousness. Despite the battle under Crystal Spire and the slow journey from their northernmost city back to Iacon the biggest hurdle for Sunstreaker and Sideswipe claiming Ratchet as their own still remained. They had to convince his parents that they were in love with him – and that they were not next on the hit list.
"Afraid of a couple mortals?" Cliffjumper asked with a sneer from his position beside First Aid, possessively holding the larger hand.
"We only have to convince two hunters, you, shrimp, have to convince Aid's four brothers and his creators." Sunstreaker snarled unimpressed with the taunting.
"Sure, but his family doesn't make a living out of killing mini-bots." Cliff replied with a wide, shit eating grin that rubbed the twins' positions in their faces.
"What will happen, down there?" Bluestreak asked worriedly, "Ratchet and Aid go back to the medical collegiums. Ratchet, 'Jack and Aid have their families." Blue looked desperately at his new wandering family, his brothers in arms and lover and feared being separated.
"We have to report to Optimus first. All of us, we'll decide on what to do after that." Ratchet smiled with a calm reassurance he in no way felt. For the first time in years he felt like an errant youngling returning to his creators with bad grades and a letter from his instructors. Only this time he feared more for his lovers.
"Come on, what's the worst that could happen?" Wheeljack asked jauntily as he descended down the hill towards the home he had not seen in years, Bluestreak pulled lightly behind him.
"How come nobody ever asks what the best that could happen?" Sideswipe asked nobody in particular following Wheeljack with Ratchet and his brother in tow. Behind them First Aid tugged Cliffjumper and Bumblebee brought up the rear smiling like an idiot at his friends. How their journey had begun with a healer and his apprentice only to end with a triad of lovers and two couples he still was not quite sure of, but if they ever got their story to a bard it would make a ballad worthy of being recounted over the ages.
A/N:*From A Prayer Book for Soldiers and Sailors 1941, Abide with me; fast falls the eventide. With Lord changed to Primus, death changed to Unicron and cross changed to matrix. Translation to Irish by Google Translate. I do not know any Irish so I apologize if the translation is atrocious.
