Nightstalker stared at the ceiling of her room, lying prone on her berth. She hadn't managed to get much recharge after leaving Cliffjumper alone in the dungeons.

She couldn't understand why out of all the bots she had tortured over the years, why was HE getting under her skin. Nightstalker had taken decontamination baths after these things, but she had never scrubbed herself so thoroughly before, as if the energon on her afterwards was a sickly plague.

She felt nothing for this mech. Infatuation was a rare to nonexistent thing for Nightstalker, and it was no different in this situation. Turning restless onto her stomach, Nightstalker debated herself.

That was possibly it. Cliffjumper had a big mouth, and more than once he had opened it enough to make her start thinking about herself. What kind of prisoner made his torturer doubt her very existence as worthless and meaningless? Agitated again, Nightstalker tossed a couple more times. She blamed it on the fact that he was trying to get under her metal. He wanted her to doubt herself and take pity on him. Nightstalker clenched her fists. No, she wasn't about to take pity on a loathsome Autobot of all bots.

Nightstalker's wings twitched. Primus knew she hadn't even felt like flying the past few days with her endless free time. Nightstalker scowled to herself. She was a seeker of all the pit-spawned things! She should be loving to fly! Angry and infuriated, Nightstalker tossed and turned again, restless. She wanted to attack his vocal processor today until he couldn't speak to her even if he wanted to, but logic won out that she needed him able to speak so she could get the information Starscream lusted for.

Nightstalker shifted again. Fli-Ni would know what to do. Her brother had always been a smart bot, cunning, and that had always impressed her. Nightstalker sighed, legs chafing each other. Fli-Ni. She focused in on him, remembering his cute form with his little wings as he would swindle himself into tight places to explore, or the way he could swipe energon cubes for the both of them to feast on. Her cruel side began to harden. Her thoughts turned venomous at the remembrance of that broad back that had turned away from Fli-Ni while he pleaded for help.

Her hands fisted. That Autobot had left him. The explosion still rang in her audio receptors. No Autobot deserved compassion after that, and Cliffjumper was no better. He was in league with the Autobots, and Nightstalker's lust for revenge finally propelled her to her feet.

She sat up. It was morning again, and she had stalled on his next torture for long enough. Standing and pushing away her feeling of discomfort, she wondered briefly what he would say to her today.

It wouldn't wait long, whatever it was. Nightstalker headed down the hallways and into the far elevator, letting it take her down into the dark chambers below. Taking another energon cube, she typed the password to his cell and entered.

Cliffjumper didn't say anything in greeting today. It nearly caused a sigh of relief to slip from her lips, but she forced the sound to stay inside and just hooked him to the cube. Stepping away to wait for him to refuel, it suddenly occurred to Nightstalker that his lips were moving. They trembled, forcing themselves open.

" . . . Hey there."

She flinched back, eyes widening at him. He was still covered in the soot from the explosion that had caused his capture, and now energon stained him too. His left hand was mutilated beyond recognition, he bore a gaping wound in his right shoulder that still had caked and hardened lava on it, his right knee still festered from Arachnid's venom, the left side of his face was marred with the punctures of her fingers and solidifying lava, the whip lashes all over his body had to pulse together in agonizing harmony, the slices from Arachnid's venom festered over the extent of his body, and her own claw marks decorated him from front to back. That . . . That wasn't enough to keep him from speaking to her!

Cliffjumper managed to bring his weak head up after a long moment. Those weary blue optics of his touched her orange ones, flickering with uncertainty and trying to focus in on her shadowy form. "I—I . . ." A trembling breath passed through his once-strong frame and a shiver. "I don't understand . . . how you can do this to people."

Nightstalker refused to answer, because the thought had unwittingly crossed her mind. Though, it wasn't everyone else that had bothered her, just Cliffjumper, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out why.

Cliffjumper slowly shook his head as the cube emptied halfway. "I don't know how you managed to live with yourself . . . Or do it . . . I know I couldn't."

"You can't be soft sparked," she stated as empty as she could. It was a true statement, and one she had been taught in an early age of torture.

He gave another embittered laugh. "You don't strike me like the type, but I'm known to be mistaken." Cliffjumper shook his head slowly. "I know I'm too soft for this . . ."

There was a long beat of silence, and then he gave a heavily sarcastic laugh, energon spitting up from his lips. "You know?" he said to her, shaking his head again when his blue optics pierced her. "At first, for some pit-spawned moment, I thought better of you when we started." Nightstalker tried not to flinch. "I don't know why. Maybe it was fleeting despair. Primus knows it is now."

They stayed silent this time, and Nightstalker shook off his words as best she could when he cube emptied all the way. She kicked the cube to the side, thinking she was probably going to need to another before today was over with—he was losing too much energon in too many places. He was probably too low as it was.

She tapped his good hand. "Shall we start here today?"

He took a trembling breath. "I'd rather not . . ." he whispered.

For some reason, Nightstalker listened to Cliffjumper. "Where is the Autobot base? That's all I want to know."

As she pulled out the half-used vial of Arachnid's venom, a hard shudder ran through his body at the sight. "I—I can't . . . You know this."

"Not can't, but—"

"Then I won't," Cliffjumper fixed himself before she could. She dipped her blade into the green liquid. "I won't betray them, and you know it . . ."

"Not today," she said. She fixed it under his chin, forcing his gaze up when the venom ate through the bottom of his chin. His blue optics were forced level with hers. "Today, you break."

She dipped the glass back into the vial, but was surprised when her communicator gave a ring. Startled, she blinked and answered. "Nightstalker here?" she asked, more confused than anything.

"Nightstalker," she heard Starscream hiss into the comm. "Kill the Autobot and bring him down to the mines. Immediately."

She stared at Cliffjumper who lifted his head to look at her. She gazed blankly at him, not understanding her orders. "What?"

"You heard me!" he barked before quieting again. "Kill the Autobot and bring him down to the mines quickly. Megatron has something nasty planned with that dark energon . . . and I don't intend to be that test subject. Immediately, Nightstalker."

Nightstalker felt confused when Starscream ended the transmission there. Cliffjumper's blue optics were hazy with the amount of pain he had suffered, and they flickered diligently as he tried to focus her in clearly.

Kill the Autobot prisoner. Easy enough. Nightstalker put away the venom with mechanical movements, her own mind stalling her final motions. Cliffjumper's optics looked at her curiously, unknowing of how to take her new actions.

Kill the Autobot prisoner? Nightstalker gaped at Cliffjumper, suddenly unknowing how to take a life. He had spoken to her when she was only there to hurt him in immoral ways. No, he hadn't just spoken to her, he had conversed with her and made comments that made her think for once about who she was and what she did. He gave her words with such subtlety that it made her metal crawl.

Kill the Autobot prisoner. That was her charge, and she should carry it out without hesitation. Nightstalker watched blankly as Cliffjumper frowned, trying to figure out what was going on through her mind and why she kept gawking at him. Cliffjumper's blue optics flickered, and it suddenly hit Nightstalker exactly how easy it was to stop his optics into complete darkness.

Kill the Autobot prisoner. Why was she hesitating to kill Cliffjumper? He was just another Autobot hostage and no different from the others. He was nothing new, and Nightstalker couldn't understand her hesitation. Why did Cliffjumper's words hit her harder? Why did Cliffjumper's actions strike her as more endearing? Why did she care more about Cliffjumper than any other prisoner she had? He was just another mech, and he shouldn't bother her as much as he did, and she fell into confusion that he held such power over her.

Kill the Autobot prisoner. Cliffjumper's crystal blue optics flickered again, and it was then Nightstalker realized Cliffjumper still had no idea what she was supposed to do. Cliffjumper cocked his head unlike the other prisoners, and Cliffjumper's blue optics scrutinized her unlike the other prisoners. Cliffjumper was studying her, and Cliffjumper was trying to understand—Cliffjumper. Cliffjumper. Cliffjumper.

Kill Cliffjumper. It was not an order Nightstalker was equipped to handle.

Nightstalker suddenly blanked her face, causing Cliffjumper to startle. "You need another dose of energon," she stated, and she turned on her heel and walked out.

She was shaking hard. She was a slim femme, small, petit, all of the above of tiny and she wasn't a fighter. She didn't even know how she was going to carry him—it was more like drag. Even worse, she had never tried to play off the irrefutable Soundwave, but then again, he shouldn't sense any deception from her . . .

Nightstalker struggled to keep her hands from shaking as she accessed the only computer source on the lower levels. She had never tried to access from this point, and she had never tried to deliberately sabotage the system before. Gaining access, Nightstalker controlled her scared shaking to focus in on her problem at hand, bypassing firewalls and digging deeper into the main hardware of the NEMESIS. Nightstalker went as deep as she dared, and she planted a quick-made virus there.

It infected the systems immediately, taking effect instantaneously. It was just like her others to make the computers exceedingly slow and sluggish to pick important things up, but this time she was sure it had knocked out all the cameras too. She took a stabilizing breath before accessing her communicator.

"Soundwave?" she said uncertainly to him, proud that her voice didn't quaver and that she sounded perfectly sheepishly guilty—which was true on one account. "I think my virus did a little more that time . . . Nothing was supposed to happen to the cameras, I swear, but I think it malfunctioned a little . . ."

He didn't say anything, as was expected. However, Nightstalker caught the feeling over the quiet line of tired resignation as Soundwave clearly moved to the nearest computer to fix her blunder.

Nightstalker cut the line immediately, dashing back to Cliffjumper's cell. He blinked hazily at her, and she cringed to herself at all his wounds—this was going to be very painful, and he really did need another stabilizing dose of energon. There was no time for that now.

He recoiled when she let her nanites crawl over him, but then his optics widened huge when he found his important systems rebooting; his weapons came online, his targeting systems, and his homing signal blazed on full force.

"What—"

"Brace yourself," she said brusquely. After letting his legs free of their stasis cuffs, she released him from the cuffs of his hands. He scared her stiff when he screamed loudly at the movement of his exceedingly damaged body, but she comforted herself that they were levels under—no one would hear them.

Instead, Nightstalker grunted low as his full weight suddenly bore down on her, nearly making her buck at the knees. She shifted him so she was under his right side with his festering right knee, gasping, "Your weight—take your weight—take your weight—"

The strain eased only slightly when Cliffjumper forced a shaky leg beneath himself, unable to sustain any weight on the right knee she had ruined with Arachnid's venom. His labored breaths filled her audio receptors as she tried to guide him from the room reeking of energon, lava, and poison.

"Where . . . are we going?" he gasped out, warm breath on her ear.

"I don't know," Nightstalker said flatly, hoping to Primus that they could possibly wing this or they were both dead. She didn't take the time to close the door behind her, she just focused on getting them moving one staggering step at a time, knowing they had possibly the tiniest window the sun could ever grace them with.

It wasn't until they were riding up nervously in the elevator that Cliffjumper asked, "Why?"

Nightstalker scowled to herself. It was going to be a question she would ask herself for the rest of her life. "I don't know," she muttered. She struggled to hold nearly his full weight that sagged against her. The door opened to a thankfully empty hallway.

"Seems you don't know a lot . . ." he whispered to her as they took their first steps in the deserted hallway, but she shushed him silent.

Nightstalker's orange eyes constantly swept the place. If one thing she did know, is why this wing was empty of all Decepticons. Because, Decepticon or not, torture wasn't pretty, and Cliffjumper's screams had to carry sometimes. Besides, it was like a blanket of death stifled you down the hallways to the torture chamber, so Nightstalker didn't fault them for avoiding the place like the Plague.

Oh, dear PRIMUS their progress was worth howling over! It seemed like it took hours to move down the mere extent of that hallway as they turned the next corner. Nightstalker let out a sigh when there was no one here either, but as they moved deeper into the ship she knew there would be more Vehicons around. Besides, Soundwave was liable to get all functioning back soon and see her helping along their captive.

Nightstalker's breath turned shallow like Cliffjumper's. He was literally panting in her ear now, body trembling in the sheer effort not to scream out at the movements that irritated his wounds, limp leg dragging uselessly in between them. Periodically, he would bite down hard on Nightstalker's audio receptor and whimper, a pathetic sound that tore at her spark.

Slag these pit-spawned hallways cursed by Primus himself to the bottom of Unicron's afterburner—! Nightstalker nearly turned down the last hall but luckily saw a Vehicon coming their way. She quickly pulled Cliffjumper back, causing him to keen a small sound between his dentures. As gentle as she possibly could, Nightstalker sat him on the ground and leaned him against the hallway wall. Filled with terror, Nightstalker let her left arm pop open and took out the wicked-looking-only blade from her arm, and she brandished it uncertainly. She had never been in combat before! Below the neck was the weakest point—just shove it up hard and hope she took him down in one blow . . .

Nightstalker's spark slammed violently in her chest as she waited for the Vehicon to come around the corner. She couldn't do this, she couldn't do this—she couldn't possibly manage to kill him. Nightstalker's shivers stuck in her ridged form as she waited painfully for the Vehicon to come, listening for his steps—

But he never came. Trembling, Nightstalker peered around the edge and saw empty hallways again. He must have gone into one of the adjoining rooms! She let out a heavily relieved sigh, falling limp and wings drooping a second before snapping straight. Shoving the blade back into its compartment, Nightstalker nervously rechecked all the hallways before leaning back down for Cliffjumper.

"All right," she whispered in a miniscule voice, terrified beyond belief. "Let's go."

Despite how he border-lined on falling into a forced stasis, Cliffjumper let her wrap his arm around her shoulders and haul him to his feet. Glancing back down the hallways they had come, Nightstalker cursed—they were leaving a thick and bright trail of energon, and she suspected belatedly that most of it came from Cliffjumper's mangled left hand.

Nightstalker glanced over at his face. The side she had messed up was on the opposite side, so she could only see his lips pressing tightly together and optic focused in on their escape route ahead—those blue optics fixated determinedly on the far door.

She swore each step was extremely loud and she feared a Vehicon would look out and spot them, but nothing happened except for their agonizingly slow staggering steps. Nightstalker's mind skittered over the frightening thought of Soundwave seeing them soon—he was either done by now, or he was about to be. Her measly virus wouldn't hold him out for much if any longer.

Nightstalker and Cliffjumper made it to the door with a desperate lung. Typing the code swiftly, the door slid open with a brutal gust of wind. Nightstalker thinned her lips hearing Cliffjumper's hitching breath in her ear.

"Plan?" he gasped helplessly in her ear.

Seeing how high up they were made Nightstalker dizzy for Cliffjumper. This wasn't going to work. "Grab on and don't let go!" she shouted to him. She took his other arm and wrapped both around her neck, cringing at the sight of his mutilated hand. The mass of wires situated themselves at her front. "Don't let go!" she repeated.

"You're crazy!" he managed to belt back before heaving deep breaths again. Nightstalker didn't think twice but transformed down into her tiny alt mode of a Cybertronian jet, thrusters kicking in on full power when they began to plummet.

She heard the angry whir of Laserbeak before doors clamped shut behind her, nearly taking the tips of her wings with it. Scrap. Soundwave was on them.

The jagged winds disturbed by the hulking NEMESIS whipped them about further. Nightstalker didn't try to guide where they were going at first, she just tried to keep them steady so she wouldn't lose Cliffjumper from her back. Her metal shrieked and groaned at the abuse, and warning signals filled her mind that she was pushing her thrusters too hard. She ignored them and rode out the angry tempest as best she could with a dead weight passenger.

Then, once they broke free of that maelstrom, they plummeted like rocks. Nightstalker gave a stifled shriek as she gave a hard thrust forwards so they would have more ground to cover as she maneuvered her engines painfully. She couldn't think about impact as they descended at an alarming rate to the rocky surface below—of course, it had to be fragging rocks!—and felt Cliffjumper's grip slacking.

"Hold on!" she bellowed at him in no uncertain terms. Her angry order managed to tighten his hold on her miniature alt form that could barely support him. Her spark leapt to her throat as she blasted every available emergency thruster on high when the ground rushed up to meet them.

The collision was detrimental to Nightstalker's wellbeing. Metal shrieked and tore from her body as friction sank its claws into her body. They skidded, and she screamed in pain as heat rose and triggered her sensors, pieces ripping away at jagged edges. She lost a heavy weight sometime to which she heard an agonized echoing scream, and then the world blacked briefly when she smashed into something hard.

Nightstalker came to half a second later with a heavy groan. She didn't want to move. She just wanted to lie there, but that was out of the question. With a shudder and howling body parts, she forced herself to transform, jagged parts grating painfully as she staggered to her feet. Energon was leaking from herself now, and she couldn't tell exactly where it came from, only a vague all around feeling.

Nightstalker's optics took in barren rocks, orangy/brown to the color, endless miles of empty rock and mountains pinning them around, and she found both her and Cliffjumper incredibly lucky that they had landed somewhere in a valley-ish area. She considered herself twice as lucky that she was awake, much less could even move after that treacherous crash.

Following her trail of energon and parts was easy to find Cliffjumper moaning on the ground. Another gash had ripped through his good shoulder, and the fall had twisted his mangled hand more.

Hearing the roar of engines, Nightstalker lifted her gaze to the still NEMESIS far above their heads. It wasn't moving, which was a horrible thought in itself, but it caused fear to coil in her throat when the bottom hatch opened. Five seekers fell out.

Nightstalker cursed their ill luck, grabbing beneath Cliffjumper's pits and not stopping to be shy of his pain this time. Pulling and dragging, his screams lead them to their location quicker, but she managed to get his body squeezed between the face of a mountain and a rock, and she filled the gap with quaking movements.

The roar of seekers filled her ears as each fell in front of her. She only had one gun. She let it pop free of her back and she caught it, bringing around front without truly knowing how to use it. Those five Decepticon seekers stood like death in front of her, lasers humming and pointed her way.

Nightstalker hoped to Primus that those Autobots had tracked Cliffjumper's emanating emergency signal. She hoped to Primus that they could come in and save the day, guns blazing.

Nightstalker was no one's brawler.

Author's Note:

Internet cookie to whoever can tell me why Nightstalker suddenly saved Cliffjumper's aft )