You guys are freaking awesome; I now have 100 reviews! On another note, I think you guys are either going to love or hate this chapter: there's a lot of yelling...and tears, many tears. I'm not sure how I feel about it myself, since the "We Rise" chapters were actually supposed to turn out much happier than this. Replies to anonymous (or unsigned) reviews will be located at the bottom.
Chapter Ten: …We Rise: Part Three
Miko stared in horror at the sight before her, unable to even scream her disbelief to the sky above because the sheer weight of it was pressing too heavily down on her, forcing all the breath right out of her lungs. She watched, wide-eyed, as energon sluggishly oozed from around the edges of Megatron's blade and dripped down Optimus' side to soak into the sand at their pedes.
Slowly, deliberately, Megatron stepped back, roughly pulling his blade from the wound. Optimus' massive form sagged, and he fell to his knees, one servo clutching at his ripped-open side.
She watched, feeling disembodied, as the Decepticon warlord chuckled, and then delivered a powerful kick to the Prime's side that sent him skidding through the sand, leaving a trail of energon behind him that darkened the ground.
"So this is how the great Optimus Prime dies," Megatron sauntered towards Optimus' collapsed form as he struggled to get back to his feet, "on his knees, defending a pitiful organic."
The word "pitiful" struck through Miko's stunned haze, and she looked around helplessly for something—anything—that could help her save the Prime. There was nothing! She cursed whatever god was listening for making her so puny and weak—so helpless—while the people she cared about more than anything in the world—the galaxy, really—were off risking their lives every day.
She hated everything about it, never mind the fact she often loudly declared it was awesome (and it was, really, but only after it was all over and everyone was together, and whole, and alive).
Megatron raised his sword, preparing to end it, and Miko did the only thing that was left for her to do. She screamed.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!"
Megatron paused, turning to look at her with irritation.
"You are quite the annoyance," he growled, and, with his sword sliding back into its hiding place, he raised his blaster and aimed at her once more.
"No…" Optimus groaned weakly, renewing his efforts to rise, only for one of Megatron's pedes to slam onto his back and pin him down. The warlord briefly turned a cruel smirk towards him before his fusion cannon began to charge.
"Relax, Optimus, and enjoy the front row seat."
The Prime turned his head to look Miko in the eyes, his pained voice urgent, "Miko! Run!"
She couldn't; and it wasn't even because she was staring down the glowing light of her impending doom like a wide-eyed deer startled into stillness by headlights, or because she knew that running would not be enough. She didn't run because there was a firmly rooted part of her that didn't want to leave him behind.
As the high-pitched whine grew louder, and the blast contained within the cannon barrel grew brighter, the only regret that truly crossed her mind was that she was born a puny human, too small and weak to stand up to the titan before her.
Staring down death's barrel in that moment, the only strength she found was in refusing to close her eyes.
And then a giant green, lumbering mass slammed into Megatron with all the force of a mountain, and pure, unadulterated relief swept over her as she recognized Bulkhead's massive form. Smokescreen and Bumblebee were right behind him, and, with an alarmed buzz, the yellow scout ordered Smokescreen to help him get Optimus' to his pedes. The rookie was already in the process of doing so, and put a servo to his comlink.
"Ratchet we need a bridge, now! Optimus is down!"
In the meantime, Bulkhead, standing protectively between Megatron and his comrades, gestured sharply to Miko, "Miko, get over here and get through the bridge as soon as it's open!"
Feeling dazed by the sudden turn of events, the exchange student could only shakily nod her head and jog over to them, her legs feeling like jell-o.
Across the battlefield, Megatron glared angrily at them, the death of Optimus having been snatched from his hands once more.
"Am I to presume that my men are…indisposed, then?" he growled.
Bulkhead slammed his wrecking ball into his opposite servo and rolled his head, loosening the neck cables as he narrowed his optics; "You could say that."
—and somewhere in the distance, a pair of red and white legs were shaking wildly as the half-buried owner screamed out muffled curses, and a blue mech with blackened armour lay sparking in a crater as sand began to bury him—
The enraged scowl on Megatron's faceplates deepened, and, with a snarl, he whipped his blaster around to fire.
A ground-bridge burst open at the same moment, and Smokescreen and Bumblebee ran through, their leader's arms slung around their shoulders.
Bulkhead spared only a moment to scoop the running Miko up, twisting in the process so his back was towards the oncoming blast—and hissing as it seared across his sensor net—and then dived in after them.
When the hum of the ground-bridge ceased and the only light left in the night was that of the stars and moon, Megatron's howl of rage echoed against the ancient pyramids.
Titania wasn't unconscious for very long. She woke up while Arcee was running through the ground-bridge back to base, finding herself cradled against the femme's chassis.
At first, she was too disoriented to make sense of the thrum of energy that was running through her body or of the star that felt close enough to burn her with how brightly—panicking, definitely panicking—it was flaring, but then she felt the ground-bridge close, the energy dissipating, and she felt the swift approach of another star—"Uncle Ratch, why's there a star in your chest?"—that clenched tightly as though to hold itself together as someone shouted, "Get her on the med-berth and call Nurse Darby!"
She shivered as she was set down, suddenly feeling cold without the warmth of that unfamiliar star—
Her father questioned the medic anxiously; "What's she talking about Ratchet?"
"I…I think she means my Spark…"
She cracked her eyes open and wrapped her arms around herself as she turned onto her side. She turned her head towards the direction she knew Ratchet was coming from even before she heard the approach of his pedes—it was too quiet beneath the roaring of the blood in her ears—and then closed her eyes again, letting the familiarity of his spark—the quiet grief coiling in on itself, though not as tightly as she remembered—cascade over her, and pretending that this was the same mech who had stared, baffled, as she tried to explain, in her stubborn, almost-eight year-old way, that there was a star in his chest.
"I'm fine, Ratchet," she suddenly spoke up, eyes still closed, before he could begin to scan her. She marvelled—with relief—at the way she could feel the hum of its activation even though it was far too quiet for her to actually hear, and realized, briefly, that she had never felt it so acutely before. "This is normal."
"I will be the judge of that," he growled, and she curled in on herself slightly as the scan passed over her.
Her eyes snapped open when Smokescreen's voice came over the comlink from the monitors.
"Ratchet we need a bridge, now! Optimus is down!"
The medic didn't hesitate; those last three words were enough to send him into a rushed flurry of activity as he rapidly tracked down their location and inputted the coordinates before pulling the lever.
Smokescreen and Bumblebee were the first ones through, supporting Optimus between them. Bulkhead followed closely behind and the bridge powered down.
Titania sat up and stared, stomach closer to Unicron's Spark than where it was supposed to be, and her eyes followed the trail of bright blue energon that was leaking from the gaping hole in the Prime's side.
A single, stunned thought of denial occurred to her. He can't die again.
She was snapped out of it by Bumblebee's distressed beeping that was too rushed for her to understand even just the gist of it, and, realizing that they were going to need the berth she was on for a patient in greater need, Titania shakily stood up and wobbled to the edge of it. Staring down, she seriously considered jumping the ten foot drop, but knew how idiotic that would be in her current condition. Her problem was solved when Ratchet swept her up in his servo and deposited her on the couch on the opposite side of his makeshift medical bay.
"Stay there," he ordered her gruffly as Smokescreen and Bumblebee laid their leader down on the berth as gently as they could.
Ratchet set to work immediately.
"Smokescreen, go to storage bay five; I need medical mesh, wiring, tubing, gears and shafts, and a cylinder of nanites! Bumblebee, set up an energon drip! Arcee, get over here! I need your hands. There's a bent fragment of plating wedged between the main fuel line and a jammed transformation gear. See it? Pull it out, gently. Don't nick the line! He's already lost too much energon!"
Ratchet rattled all of this off while his servos were busy clamping the compromised fuel lines shut and cutting off the mangled plating that was getting in his way.
Titania, with her lips pursed and eyes darkened to a storm-like quality, turned to face Bulkhead.
Miko was standing in his open hand, clutching the tips of his digits as she leaned anxiously over the protective barrier they formed. Her hazel eyes were only for Optimus, and Titania had seen the expression on her face often enough—on the face of a man whose brother had taken a shot for him, on Uncle Raf's face whenever his thoughts settled too long on Bumblebee—to know that it was guilt.
Ignoring Ratchet's orders to remain there—he was too busy to berate her anyway—she walked over to the railing, gripped it tightly until her knuckles were white, and, staring directly at Miko, not even concerning herself with the massive green Wrecker for the moment, demanded; "What happened?"
"We heard Optimus shouting for Miko—" Bulkhead began, but Titania raised a hand for him to be silent, and continued to pointedly glare at the girl standing on his servo.
"I was asking her."
The Wrecker seemed stunned by the harsh tone of her voice, and it took Miko a moment to tear her eyes away from where Optimus was being operated on to look Titania in the eyes. It didn't last long, and the fifteen year-old looked away as her eyes began to water.
"Bulkhead, please put me down," she said quietly, voice subdued. The Wrecker glanced hesitantly between her and Titania, but, after a moment, gently lowered her down. She stepped off of Bulkhead's servo and timidly stood before Titania, gaze stuck on the floor.
"What happened, Miko?" Titania demanded once more, even though she was sure she already knew.
"I…I…" she trailed off uncertainly, and then, suddenly, the words poured out of her—completely unfiltered—as though a dam had been broken. "Megatron was going to kill him so I threw a rock but then he was going to shoot me and Optimus punched him and told me to run but then Megatron stabbed him and—" she suddenly broke off with a deep, shuddering breath, wrapping her arms tightly around herself and glancing to the medberth where, for a nearly imperceptible moment, Ratchet had paused in his work as her words drifted over to him. He wasn't the only one who heard; Arcee's servos were clenched tightly and she glared at the shard of mangled plating she had just removed a moment ago where it sat among the pile of scrap metal, still slick with energon. Bumblebee was the most obvious, unable to stifle a whine of despair and frustration as he waited for further instructions ("Bumblebee, start cleaning up this mess; Arcee, hold these wires.")
"Oh Miko…" Bulkhead trailed off, sounding torn between anger and sympathy—how many times, after all, had Optimus taken a blow for one of them?—and the gentle giant clenched his servos and jaw as he stared at their leader's prone form; the Prime's optics were shut, having slipped into stasis from energon loss upon their safe arrival.
Smokescreen walked in, pausing in his steps for only a moment as he felt the tension in the room before rushing to set out the spare parts Ratchet needed in an orderly manner, handing the cylinder of medical nanites to the CMO immediately.
Titania felt Smokescreen's Spark flutter and fluctuate in what she was certain had to be slightly confused anxiety. Bumblebee's was trembling, perhaps it was with dread. Arcee's and Ratchet's Sparks seemed to fold inward, tightly controlled, but only barely so as they threatened to explode with what she knew to be rage. She was sure it was only the fact that Optimus' life was hanging in the balance beneath their very hands that kept them from ripping a strip off of Miko right then and there. In the meantime, Bulkhead's Spark felt like a combination between the latter two emotions, with a touch of anxiety occasionally causing the energy currents within to fluctuate.
And then there was Optimus; Titania had never felt such a bright, brilliantly burning Spark before, and even though it seemed to be slightly weakened by the loss of energon, it still pulsed steadily, reaching outwards as though trying to feel for something in order to reassure itself that whatever it was searching for was there. It wasn't difficult to recognize the signs of concern, and she barely stopped herself from chuckling inappropriately (in a bout of hysteria) at the thought that, even while in stasis and completely unaware of himself and his surroundings, Optimus' Spark still knew how to worry about others first.
Titania tried not to focus on her newly returned Sixth Sense—or her own anger and outrage that wanted to lash out at the girl in front of her—as she grabbed Miko's arm and began guiding the fifteen year-old to the stairs.
"We need to talk in private," Titania's tone was cold and hardened, leaving no room for Miko to protest, but also leading Bulkhead to worry for the emotional state his charge would be returned to him in.
"I'm her guardian, I'll talk to her—"
"You can talk to her when I'm done," Titania snapped, and never stopped walking as they reached the foot of the stairs. Bulkhead stomped a pede in front of her, blocking her path; now he was letting his anger at the whole situation show. Even if his facial expression hadn't been enough, she would have known it from the flare of his Spark.
"Look, you can't just waltz in and start—"
"BULKHEAD!" The heads of everyone in the room snapped around to stare at the incensed medic whose right servo was currently a soldering iron. Now that he had their attention, his voice grew quieter, and yet somehow more severe, "Let them go."
"But Doc—"
His glare intensified, "Let them go, Bulkhead," he turned his hard stare to Titania, and she witnessed the churning anger—and the expectations of this conversation's outcome—in them as he spoke again; "There are some things Miko obviously still doesn't understand about living in a war; maybe it will finally get through to her if it's coming from a human."
The medic turned his back on them, and Titania looked up to meet Bulkhead's gaze. Her eyes were hard, unyielding, and all too serious; they were a soldier's eyes, and Bulkhead reluctantly removed his foot from their path, allowing Titania to pass unhindered, still pulling Miko along.
Titania gave the pools of energon on the floor a wide berth, ignoring the pins and needles sensation that rushed through her due to the proximity—a part of her was vaguely alarmed that the sensation was so intense—and then proceeded to guide Miko down several corridors before walking into a random room and slamming the door behind them.
She flipped the light-switch, and it flickered on overhead with a buzz. The room was dusty and old, and clearly hadn't been used since the silo was first decommissioned many decades ago. It was too small to be of any use to the Autobots, and she thought it might have been a break room if the old, wooden, round table and four chairs were anything to base a solid assumption upon.
There was silence between them for a long, long moment before Titania spoke, her voice trembling with barely restrained anger and her fists clenched at her sides with her back still turned to the girl behind her.
"Optimus is lying on that berth because of you."
The accusation spurred some life into the exchange student.
"I know that, okay! I didn't mean—"
Titania whipped around, blue eyes darker than a thunderhead as she stormed forward and jabbed an accusing finger into Miko's personal space; "It doesn't matter if you meant it or not! It happened! And it happened because you were exactly where you weren't supposed to be! So I'll ask you again; whatthe hell were you thinking!?"
Miko's eyes grew more watery, her face turning red with shame; "I…I…"
"You what, Miko? Thought that you would add a few more Cons to your body count!? This is not a game! People die—"
"I KNOW THAT!"
The outburst derailed Titania's enraged rant as the tears began to freely stream down Miko's face.
"I know that…" the exchange student repeated helplessly, and Titania forced herself to restrain her anger in order to avoid doing more harm than good.
"Then why, Miko?" She asked, making an effort to soften the tone of her voice, even as she found herself frustrated by her inability to make a guess of her own at the answer.
The Japanese girl wrapped her arms so tightly around herself that Titania half-expected to hear her ribs creak.
"Because I hate this!" She replied angrily, tears still falling, "I hate it! Do you have any idea what it's like to have to sit around and wait? All because 'oh, there's nothing you can do, Miko,' or 'we have to keep you safe, Miko' and 'Miko, this is a war' and I know that! But what I don't know," the girl spun, rage visible on her face through the tears as she kicked over a chair with all the force she could muster, breaking one of the rotting legs, "is WHO'S KEEPING THEM SAFE!?"
The exchange student, despite her best efforts (which Titania witnessed in the clenching of her fists and the tremble of her shoulders) broke down into sobs, slowly slipping to her knees on the floor and burying her face in her hands.
"I-I almost l-lost Bulkhead," she went on, voice shaking and muffled, "to that fr-fragger Hardshell! And I can't…I can't…I can't come back to that again! I have to be there so I can see them win and live! We've helped before and if I could…if there was anything…"
The last of Titania's anger did not drain away completely at the sight (it wouldn't until Optimus looked into her eyes and assured her himself that he was fine), but it was quieted by a wave of sympathy as she remembered standing in a cave, facing her three beloved uncles and watching them glance between each other, silently debating about keeping her in the dark for her own protection; her own words returned to her then, words spoken by an impassioned girl who seemed much younger than she now felt.
"Besides yourselves, I am all you have."
Titania gave a resigned sigh—because she did know, she knew exactly how it felt to pace the edges of camp as a child or when she was too injured to be sent out, waiting to see who would come back and who wouldn't and stuck forever wondering—and crouched down in front of the girl.
"You asked me if I've ever seen an Insecticon…" she began, hesitantly, and waited as Miko rubbed the tears from her eyes and looked up before going on, "I've seen them pick up men and women—standing right beside me—up off the ground and carry them away. I've seen a lot of things, Miko, things that I don't want anyone else to ever have to see. That's why I'm here." She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, remembering…
—screams of pain, pleas for mercy, the body of a man she'd been speaking with mere moments ago as a speck in the distance, falling, falling—
"Miko, I know what it's like to want to make a difference, to do anything you can to make the helplessness go away, but you are not a soldier—"
The fifteen year-old opened her mouth as though to protest, but Titania cut across her before she could speak.
"—No, listen. You are not a soldier, and you can't be one yet, because you, and Jack, and Raf, and whoever else gets left behind are the ones who have to be there to remind the Autobots when they come back that the war isn't all that they have left in their lives."
Miko scowled at her and looked away, voice bitter, "You're a soldier, I saw your guns."
Titania reached out a hand and rested it on Miko's shoulder; "Look at me…Look at me, Miko."
Reluctantly, the girl did so, her hazel eyes still possessing a watery sheen. The time-traveller hesitated for a moment, wondering how much she should say and how it should be said.
"I am a soldier because I had no choice," she finally began, "Where I came from—when I came from…you were either a soldier or a corpse. There was no one to protect us, and there was nothing really left to protect, and I can't…I can't even to begin to try explain to you how fatal that is." She couldn't even begin to explain it to herself, all she knew was the festering hole in her chest that was the only thing left to drive her, and the emptiness in the eyes of men and women she had seen just standing there as a blast rushed towards them, living only for the moment they could die.
Titania reached up and briefly brushed her fingers over the surface of her beige, long-sleeved shirt, feeling the lump of the dog-tag hidden beneath it; "Miko," she said, forcing herself not to look away from the spectre of her mother she saw in the other girl's face, "I don't know how to make you understand. I can't make you understand. But if you are going to take away only one thing from this conversation, then let it be this: to put yourself in danger when you are not ready for it, is to put whoever loves you in its path as well."
There was another flicker of shame and guilt in the exchange student's eyes, and she quickly turned away, reaching up to viciously scrub at the last of her tears before asking, perhaps simply for the sake of trying to bring back a sense of normalcy, "You totally heard that from someone else, didn't you?"
A bittersweet smile briefly lifted Titania's lips as the irony of her own response was not lost on her, "My mother, actually."
Miko sniffled a little bit, "Sounds like a smart lady."
Titania's eyes stung, and she blinked the sensation away as her heart clenched in her chest, and she looked at the girl before her with a pang of longing for the woman who had once pressed their foreheads together right before a mission as she gently pried a gun—belonging to a thirteen year-old Kicker who had no idea where it had gotten to—from Titania's too small, seven year-old hands ("Take me with you Mommy.")
She had wondered then why her mother had sounded as though those words had come to her from the depths of a heart-ache that never really went away, and now, when her mother was dead and gone and she was left with only shadows, she felt that, maybe, she was starting to understand the woman better than she ever had as she quietly muttered, just loud enough for Miko to hear:
"She wasn't always that way."
June Darby was not happy as she marched down the corridors in search of her troublesome patient. She was irritated—"What do you mean you let her just get up and walk around after that!?"—and worried—"Is Optimus…?"—and feeling more than a little anxious, after having seen the gaping hole in the Prime's side, to determine whether or not the Autobots' tag-alongs had truly survived unscathed. (And she was going to have words with the both of them. Many, many words.)
A door swung open ahead of her, and she immediately adjusted her course to intercept Titania and Miko as they walked out, the beginning of her lecture already on her lips.
"What were you two thinking!?" She demanded irately, startling them both. Miko seemed to shrink in on herself, shoulders tensing as she looked down, which of course caught the attention of the nurse's ire, "Miko Nakadai, I would have thought that by now—"
"Nurse Darby," Titania suddenly interrupted, a warning in her eyes, "that's not necessary. We've spoken at length about this."
If it had been anyone else, June might have ignored the remark and plowed on through her lecture anyway; but this was Titania, a child who was more mature than most adults she had met and had seen horrors that even the nurse's own nightmares could never hope to match. So she paused, looked in Titania's eyes and saw exhaustion behind the warning, and then turned to find Miko's eyes were puffy and red and that there was a look of remorse—and was that a distinct air of pensiveness?—on her face.
"All right," she said, softening her voice as she recalled that Ratchet had briefly mentioned something about being confident Titania could get through to the girl when all others had failed, "Bulkhead's worried about you, Miko, maybe you should go see him."
The exchange student nodded meekly before glancing back at Titania, something passed between them as Titania nodded, and Miko shuffled away down the hall.
"Check-up?" the sixteen year-old asked warily as soon as Miko was out of sight, clearly knowing exactly why the nurse was there, "I told Ratchet I'm fine, it's normal—"
That seemed to set the woman off immediately.
"Nothing about this is normal!" She snapped, and then pinched the bridge of her nose, "I talked to Arcee, she told me what happened. She said you were screaming in pain, Titania. We need to run tests to figure out exactly why—"
"I already know why."
June gave her a bewildered look and Titania sighed; "I should've mentioned it earlier, but I just…" she shook her head, deciding to just toss the excuses away and explain now, "I'm an Energon Sensitive."
"Excuse me?"
"I don't really know how to explain it very well, but it happened just before I turned eight; I drank energon-contaminated water, it almost killed me. I survived but I've been able to sense energon and Spark signatures ever since. Unfortunately there's sometimes something of a…backlog, I guess you could call it. Energon radiation accumulates in my body, usually from weapon discharges, and it blocks my ability to sense energon. Eventually it wears off, and because the radiation was acting as a sort of insulation, suddenly being able to sense everything again is mentally and physically taxing. It's not the first time this has happened," Titania explained, and conveniently forgot to mention it was certainly the most painful it had ever been for her, or the fact that she could still sense the energon Bumblebee was cleaning up as clear as day, whereas before she would have only faintly been aware of it from this distance. It wasn't something anybody else needed to know.
June took a moment to absorb the new information, wondering how there could still be things left in the universe to surprise her when she frequently spoke with alien robots. Transforming alien robots, at that. She closed her eyes and rubbed tiredly at her forehead, feeling a headache coming on.
"I don't care whether or not it's normal," she finally said, "I'm still giving you a check-up and that's final. There's no telling how much you've exacerbated your condition and set back your recovery time with that little stunt of yours."
Titania's brow furrowed, and June thought the girl looked slightly irritated for some reason.
"That little 'stunt' was to stop Miko—"
"Don't give me that excuse! I've heard it enough from Jack, and like I've told him, you do not have to be the one to chase after her. You could have just told Ratchet what she was doing! He could've stopped her if he'd known, and with a lot less harm being done in the process!"
The time-traveller opened her mouth to protest, but found she couldn't offer up a refutation of June's assessment. Her grandmother was right, and Titania was at a complete loss to explain why it just hadn't occurred to her.
June witnessed the discontent her words had brought to the sixteen year-olds' face, and she gently laid her hands on both of Titania's shoulders, staring down into the girl's eyes with a warm, empathetic gaze; "I don't know why you think you have to do all of this alone, but you don't; all of us are here, all of us want this war to be over and help in any way that we can," she paused, briefly, and there was an almost pleading note to her voice when she spoke again, with an undercurrent of sorrow that plucked at the corresponding chord in Titania's chest, "I know there are things you're not ready to talk about and I'll still be here when you are ready, but until then, you have to promise me that you won't forget about the people who want to see that you're still here when this war is over."
"Who?" Titania asked refusing to let her voice crack as she thought about the people who had loved her; her parents, Uncle Ratchet, Uncle Bee, Bill, Rafael, and Kicker. People who were all dead—no, worse than that, they didn't even exist as she had known them anymore—so, who, she wondered, truly cared that much anymore? And not because of simple moral principles or pity, but because they knew and loved her.
She stiffened in surprise as June suddenly pulled her in for an embrace, holding her tightly, as though her arms could keep the wayward pieces in their proper places.
It had been a long, long time since someone had held her like this, and, against her will and better judgement, she found herself returning the embrace, the sting in her eyes becoming too much as the tears she had held back for so long suddenly poured over.
And June continued to hold her until the tears were gone.
That last bit wasn't originally planned, it kind of snuck in there (Titania really needed a hug though, she's pretty stressed out) On another note, the poll for Megatron's fate is still open and there have only been 14 votes out of 81 readers, please go vote. I have realized the results of this poll WILL slightly affect the story, mainly Megatron's further characterization and an event that's going to happen somewhere near the middle. Anyways, hope you all enjoyed the chapter and here are the anonymous reviews.
doodlesnoodles: I've never thought Miko was particularly stupid, just...naïve, very, very naïve...and also has no brain to mouth (or to actions) filter. I hope my characterization of her this chapter was believable, and don't worry about Optimus, he's a pretty tough guy. :)
redlinevcr: Yeah, sorry about the cliff-hanger, I seriously do try to avoid them but then they just kind of...appear on the page. I hope you continue to enjoy the story, and, unfortunately, there probably will be more cliff-hangers in the future.
Thunderweb: I'm so glad to hear that you like Titania; fortunately, she will have happy moments (if the plot bunnies don't drag me off on an angsty tangent again like they've done for the past three chapters), but, unfortunately, there's also a lot more heart-ache to come.
LadyBarricade: I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that my characterization of Miko shows where I intend to go with her. I personally don't really like Miko near the beginning of the series either, but as a writer, I can see the value of her annoying character; she creates possibilities for storylines simply by existing, and also provides most of the convenient comic relief and has room to grow into more. In this story, I definitely intend to make her grow (up) faster than she did in the show.
Guest (who uses reviews to ask when I'm going to update): I would appreciate it if you used an account to PM me with questions like this, because I can't answer you when you're anonymous and I have a rather busy life that would prevent me from writing and updating as much as I would like to and would appreciate your understanding.
