Well, I'm definitely ready for school to be over!
Still have finals to go, and then I'm out June 3rd.
Fun.
And what's more, had to say goodbye to the seniors leaving this year, and I nearly cried :(
But beside my softy heart!
Thank you guys for returning (or if it's your first chapter: get your butt to the first chapter, what are you doing, confusing yourself!? D:)
Enjoy!
Of The Spark And Heart
Part 2
Chapter 69
Fera's stunned form was taken into Bekos' frame, breaking her view of the convulsing mech in Solas' arms.
"Are you encrypting?!" Bekos demanded in disbelief, his servo holding Fera's helm to his chassis to hide her away from the scene. But it was too late for that. And his servo was failing to cover her audio, which was still aimed toward the noises in the hall. She could hear the screaming.
"It's the only way!" her Guardian yelled back, the crying taking on a new height of pain. The only way. Fera stared into Bekos' chassis armor blankly, unable to comprehend her own thoughts and emotions.
"Good Primus, Solas!" Bekos exclaimed while he tucked his own helm by hers. "There are other ways, this is so wrong!" It was interesting that a traitorous Decepticon would be concerned about right or wrong.
"Shut it!"
He sounded strained. Then again, the soldier sounded like he was in a lot of agony too. Should she feel bad for her Guardian, or the soldier? It was hard to tell. It was hard to process at all really. All she could hear was screams. They surrounded her as a blanketing copse of lead claws. Her screams, Solas' screams, the soldier's screams...
They sang clear and crisply, though covered by the servo of Fera's Guardian. Fera's plates crawled as they dripped down into the crevices of her armor. They all eventually stopped, but that was in reality. In Fera's processor, it never stopped. She could still hear it now. That soldier's frame was still shaking to her. His optics were still turned into the back of his helm. Solas' frame and blank, harsh expression was unchanging as he drug the life out of the enemy's frame.
A dull thunk hadn't yet happened, where he would then be left to fall onto the frigid, unforgiving ground that she and her Guardian had been subjected to these...weeks? Yeah. That's how long it had been. Full of torture and a sunless series of waking nightmares. To tell the truth, it was not so different from inside the walls of the Autobot base.
Finally Bekos released her and gave her the freedom of her limbs, of which had been taken for these endless days. Still she stood there, frozen, without the ability or will to move, and feeling as though her wrists and ankles were still shackles. They hung uselessly, held down to the floor by unseen chains. She'd forgotten how to use them.
How was he different anymore? The lines were blurring. And they had been for some time now, just, now so more than ever. Autobot and Decepticon were equals in her optics. They were vicious. He could be as well. Apparently it was necessary, for her, the Keeper of a Stone of Primus, to get out and survive. But at what cost? Innocence? Morality? Virtue?
How could he cause that suffering, after all they'd been through, full of nothing but it? It was too much. The mental capacity she held wasn't prepped for this kind of severity surrounding her. Maybe her human side may have dealt with it better, however, that certain tick in her processor was snarling on the edges of her conscious, waiting to rear up and take her over again. Fera didn't want to see him, and she couldn't. She didn't want to know that her Guardian had fallen to his Decepticon side. She didn't want the reality that he was capable of being cruel - of causing uncalled-for pain. There was a stubbornness and hope inside of her that he was the same as days ago; a month ago; a year ago.
Steps echoed faintly behind her after the scraping of dead metal into a room nearby. Still she did not move. There was a vice wrapped around her peds, locking her to the spot. When she felt his enormous presence near, of which had been comforting at one distant point, and saw his dark shadow drown her silhouette on the floor, she snapped sideways, dodging the servo lifting for her.
If he was reaching to touch her shoulderbolt, he couldn't anymore. Fera wouldn't let him. Not now. While his servo floated there, in empty space, his features open with hurt, she felt a pang of guilt. The dejection was heavy in the atmosphere, and it choked Fera like energon in her vents. There was a point she no longer could look into his optics, and her own averted. With a hard, concentrated set of his mandible, the mech sent his charge a lasting, regretful glance, and tilted his helm to the main hall.
"Come on...let's go."
It didn't take long to find the correct door, as Solas made well sure to keep his sights ahead and off of Fera while she trailed behind him and Bekos. She wasn't hiding the fact that she didn't want to walk near him. Now wasn't the best time she figured to travel at his side. Once, long ago, she wanted nothing other than to be next to him again, caught up in his arms. It was going to take time for her to flush the memory from her memories. And yet, she almost didn't want to.
Fera trod silently along, her optics drifting quite often up at the back of the noble, proud helm, and scarred armor locked onto the spinal support of her Guardian. There was a force within her keeping her from erasing that file. It was burning in her processor relentlessly, and taking everything she believed she knew about him and throwing it into question. That gentle touch was miles away. A voice in the back of her processor was telling her to keep that file as a reminder. Solas Kaon was not always the protector she saw him as. He was capable of being a Guardian. A warrior. A killer.
Nothing hurt so much than to realize that fact.
"Watch my aft," Solas intoned, turning the optic that wasn't covered towards Bekos. It was blue again, just as Fera remembered. Why couldn't it stay that way?
The former Decepticon waved Solas on and lifted his blaster, swiveling himself around to put his side to Fera. Not once did he look to her, his attention too focused on the area around them. That didn't bother her much, as he was a Decepticon, risking it all for a measly, no-name Autobot pet. Her own sights were on the mech whom claimed to be her protector anyway, watching his digits move expertly over the keys one after another.
Urgency bounced with Bekos as the mech restlessly shifted on the balls of his peds. Fera herself was anxious to get inside, but something was wrong here. She didn't know what was irking her troubled spark, and the discomfort it brought her to not know was enough to spur her own shuffling. Twice more her optics found the hearty length of Solas' digits; the furrowed shade of unease in his faceplates; the way he rested on his arm and left hipbolt while his bowed helm considered the keys seriously. When the door opened, both she and Bekos nearly jumped a foot in the air.
Solas went in first, faster than it took the door to open completely. His mass took up the space when he stopped dead. Bekos pushed in after him, and when he too paused, their combined width blocked the entirety of the entryway.
"Primus..."
Fera just managed to catch Sol's vented word as she neared them. There was no space left to see beyond with both mechs idling in the doorway. With a huff, she slid herself in behind Bekos and wriggled her way to get around. With his bulk, she was getting nowhere, and she planted her servos on his spinal support armor to urge him to allow her through. "What Solas, what do you...?" she grunted, shoving the ex-Con forward to make room for herself.
An arm, whether it be Solas' or Bekos, it really wouldn't matter in those following seconds, came out to bar her way. But it was too late. It slammed against her chassis, pumping her into the space of wall directly next to the door frame. Fera's optics moved faster than her frame did, and when they met the image before her, they widened enough to pop from her cranial unit.
"Oh...my God," she whimpered, her tanks clenching with the scene and her frame leaning limply into the silver wall, "what did they do?"
Two deadly servos clapped over her lip plates, lubricant collecting at the edges of her optic slips. They clouded up the vision of the body on the table until the curtain of liquid was all she could see. All she could do was stare. Maybe that was disrespectful...she couldn't help it.
Punch, or what was left of him, was laid out on the berth, his arms still bound at his sides. Shackles held his midsection down to the surface so he wouldn't get free. A revolting rift had cleaved a massive opening in his chassis. Left exposed to the elements, the mech's chamber was visible even where she stood. A clamp held it in place, and had forced the two barriers of his chassis to split. From nape to pelvic armor, he was stripped disconcertingly down to his protoform. The burned ashen glare of it shivered pathetically under the pale, sickly yellow light above him.
Energon was everywhere. It caked along the sides of his innards, which were either placed out of the way beside his frame, or exposed inside his empty cave of a shell. The lining of his chassis was coated with gruesome, Cybertronian gore. More of it was dried to his vents, which showed that a few were stuffed to stop the flow with fabric mesh, and that mesh was soaked through completely. Both servos were clenched in his final moments of immense courage. Heat made the air quiver with the lasting exhausts exiting him. Dots spotted his faceplates that were slack, giving them an ethereal glow under the crimson glare of alarms. Those optics that had once been full of desperate bravery were black as Galvatron's spark. Empty. Listless. Dead.
A sharp pinch captured her spark and tanks when she realized that the heat rolling from him meant that it was only recently that he'd left this world. They could have gotten here in time. They could have saved him. The tears rolled in fat droplets down her cheekplates. Nausea peaked inside of her, threatening to force a purge. Her throat hurt. Grief impaled her stunned spark. Her audios picked up on the screams staining these dusky, thick walls.
She began to shake, under a pressure so vast her internals systems released a keeling moan alongside her vocal capacitor. A black mass pressed to her front, shielding her from the sights sure to haunt her forevermore. Was this what Solas had seen in the war? Was this what the Autobots, and perhaps even the Decepticons, had gone through these long, long years? Was this what had turned them and caused that line to blur? Were they even Decepticons and Autobots anymore, or was this merely a war of survival now?
What war was worth this?
Fera moaned, momentarily forgetting about what her Guardian had done to the soldier in the hallway and wrapping her arms around him. One, single sob escaped her, sounding strangled and broken. Her chassis was strung up painfully when she shook, and her aching spark trembled alongside her. Inside of her, she was collapsed, shattered, crying out in sorrow and self-pity. All she wanted was for it to be over. Her inner self was giving up and curling into a ball between the peds of her Guardian, whom had done nothing but been there for her. Her outer self couldn't bring herself to be able to cry. She'd gone into shock, standing here, and she could but hold onto the sole pillar of support in the worlds while she slowly imploded.
"We were too late," Solas stated unnecessarily, holding her closer, as if he could squeeze out all the sadness within her.
Fera's helm shook from side to side, wiping her wet faceplates away against his armor. Each tear carried the picture of Punch's scattered, energon-splattered armor, and the tools covered in more of the substance, set out about the berth or toolcarts amongst the floor. It didn't help, and Fera couldn't contain the strength inside of her any longer to fight back the want to be comforted - the want to be held and reassured. Solas could try, but, in the end, her processor was going to break if they didn't leave here. Everything was lost anyway. Everything they came here for, all they'd sacrificed in this mission, was gone.
"He was just...I talked with him...he was just alive," she whispered hoarsely into Sol's chassis. "He can't be...can't be dead."
"I know, I know," Solas cooed, rubbing her spinal support, and spurring on another volley of tears from her. "They probably wanted information after they found out he was an agent." His voice was taunt and controlled. He was thinking too much. Fera choked on a cycle of air. She wanted to scream.
Swallowing lubricant to aid her dry and constricted throat, Fera said, "Do you think..." her optics shuttered, "it was long?"
"Yes, most likely," Solas relented, and Fera put her helm back on his chassis to hide her ugly twist of distress. "But Punch has a full wipe program that deletes his entire CPU in case he was ever captured like this. It's the same program they used for a Crident back on Cybertron. He probably didn't feel most of it." His comment was enough to distract her processor on, and just for a moment, she was able to process the deaf alarms and information rather than the body.
"What is a Crident?"
"A criminal whom has done an unthinkable act," Solas explained carefully, digits waving as they swept across the plates of her spinal armor. "A Cybertronian will have their entire CPU swiped clean, then be placed into the Terminal class as slaves."
A criminal? Punch? "But...he wasn't a criminal...he was kind he helped me and..." Her words cut off, too chocked up with emotion to be clear. Weak. She felt weak.
"I know Fera, Primus I do. He's just another innocent taken by this ridiculous war." Solas leaned away, placing a digit under Fera's chin and forcing her to look up at him. Their foreplates touched and Fera took in everything she could of her Guardian's overwhelming presence. Even if he was a soldier - even if he could tear a mech apart with his bare servos, Fera couldn't make herself frightened of him. It was because he was the danger he was that she felt so safe around him. It was all meant to protect her.
Their optics locked, sending a humming, purple bulb of light between their close faceplates. "Look at me. Focus on me alone," he coached softly. "I will protect you, as I always have, and I always will. Do you trust me?"
"Of course," she answered automatically. There wasn't need to think. It was clear as the pounding of his spark against her digit tips.
"Then let me protect you."
She wasn't expecting him to kiss her. That was the last reaction she would have been expecting actually. But it happened.
It was quick and firm, but the explosion of emotion behind that connection floored the fembot quicker than a punch to her helm. The tears stopped coming and the pain inside of her lifted, if but briefly. Bekos was no longer standing next to them in this moment. In that split sparkbeat of contact, Fera found a part of herself break into existence within the confines of her destroyed conscious. This wasn't the first time they had kissed.
Solas parted from her before the memory could fully take place inside her files. She had to hold herself back from jumping forward and kissing him again, if but to regain that memory. Making sure not to catch sight of the long-gone frame on the table, she drew away as he had, her arms pressing to her chassis. It was warm, just like he was. She was lucky the light of the alarms hid the rush of blue in her cheekplates.
"Let's move. There's nothing left for us here and staying will only get us captured," Solas said, touching Fera's arm before starting for the door. Bekos, having fallen quiet, followed without a word. Perhaps this was what had put it through his thick cranial unit of his corrupt faction. To have a mech like Bekos among them, there must have been a term where the Decepticons weren't this crooked. Would she feel such disdain for them as she did if they were still loyal to their original goals? Would they have done what they did if they were the same?
Fera brought the courage in her forth to dare peer back at Punch. Nothing was different, and she was ashamed to figure as much. She'd meant to only take one last look at him before she left, but a glance turned into a stare. While Solas and Bekos hurried out the doors, she was still, her fists clenched against her chassis, and her lip plates tingling.
They stalled at the barrier, and without turning to them, Fera numbly rushed to Punch's side. Her shaking arms lifted toward him. They hesitated, hovering over the empty fissure of his chamber - struggling to remain steady at the bitter smell of drying energon and scorched metal. And with a will that was not her own, Fera dipped her servos into the still-warm chamber. A shudder wracked her until she feared she may fall apart. Her slim digits locked around the spark already detached from him in the clamp and she wrenched backwards. It came free without much trouble.
Fera spun on her heelpeds, unable to stand being near the mangled, deceased Autobot any longer. The spark was tucked close enough to be her own. The subspace in her bracer made a good container to hold the precious cargo, and she swiftly shoved it inside.
Solas and Bekos gave her curious looks when she reentered the hall, and she stalled in speaking to slam a definite fist down on the keypad. It shorted out and the doors slammed shut, encasing Punch in a tomb. "They don't deserve this," she said with a stony tone as she pressed her forearm to her chassis. "Punch sacrificed himself so we could escape. I want to honor him properly when we get back." No more weakness. There was only room for determination.
The three sprinted through the corridors after that. There was nothing left to say, so why stay? It was a short run, full of rushing platinum walls drenched in scarlet and crosshatched in black shadows that yanked at them with grabbing hooks, and scrambling comlink screens that fizzed with Cybertronian glyphs and their three pictures. Soldiers that they had shot down on their way here were lined unconsciously by the corners, hidden in pockets of forget. Everything ended sure enough, considering the entire ship lurched sharply, throwing Fera and her peers off their standing.
Solas' servos caught her before she hit the ground and when they were stable again, she nodded her thanks to him. They did not say a word however, as the sound of marching peds canceled out any possible talk they could manage. Countless pairs of peds were slamming down overhelm, even surpassing the wail of the alarms. Fera and her Guardian's helms lifted upward, looking into the ceiling as silt was shaken from the cracks in the support beams that arched as ribs upwards.
"We can't go this way," Bekos told them, catching the pair's attention while he contemplated the map surely in his processor. "It's definitely going to be blocked off. We're going to have to take the docking bay."
"Isn't that at the rear of the ship?" Solas demanded, releasing Fera and leaving buzzing remnants in the shape of his digits behind. He stepped a few times toward Bekos. "There's no way we can get through the soldiers and warriors, and still get to the bay without losing our helms."
Bekos rounded on him, optics stabbed with frustration and shaded optic ridges. "Then I guess you better strap it down because that's the only way we can take. The east exit chamber is compromised. Any other escape options were definitely locked down by Platon."
Fera could feel Punch's empty spark capsule in her bracer, burning away at the layers of armor. She clutched it, shuttering her optics and fighting to process straight. There had to be a way out of this. None of the Autobots had been thoughtful to give her a map to memorize of the Nemesis ship, and as much, she was lost for plans. As greatly as she hated to admit, Bekos was the only hope she or Solas had to get out of this alive.
Solas didn't argue any further with Bekos when Fera placed a servo on his arm, nodding at the Decepticon they now called an ally. It went against everything she stood for to accept the help of a Decepticon. Titanios had ruined that for her, but, could that trust be restored? It would have to be if they wanted to escape. It seemed, ironically, that this Decepticon would be helping them survive.
Bekos was swift to run down the main hallway, two Autobots following right along behind him. Fera prayed that she was doing the right thing in believing Bekos. It was all she could do. It would haunt her forever if this was another trick. Solas' life was in her servos. She sincerely hoped it wouldn't end up the same way as Punch's. It still melted away in her bracer.
Solas twisted around the corner after Bekos, grabbing Fera's elbowjoint to keep her up to pace with them. She was doing better than he was at running, as her systems were fresher than his. It was Fera leading him on rather than the other way around, though his fist was tight on her servo. Their vents heaved and their temperatures raised. It was all they could do but ignore the warnings blaring through their optics and continue on. If she stopped here, there wouldn't be warnings at all to consider, but where she'd be going when her spark went dark as the one in her bracer.
At the end of the way, as expected, the crowd of soldiers was awaiting them. Fera wasn't sure if she should be relieved that it was mere soldiers instead of warriors, but she couldn't build the confidence.
With a defiant roar, Bekos and Solas joined shoulderbolt to shoulderbolt, their weapons raised, and charged the group. Fera was promptly left behind, servo open and cold, and frame powerless than to watch as a sea of red optics singled onto the two mechs approaching. Soldiers poured through the opening, ceaselessly filing past the doorway to get at the traitor and Autobot. The collision that followed their meeting was deafening to Fera's sensitive audios.
She stayed back, servos clenched into fists, as Solas and Bekos disappeared into the boundless, swell of Decepticons.
It took all she had to not go after them. They were lost within the time it took her to draw in a sharp intake of air. She very well could have gagged on that vent, as the constrictive pressure on her chassis was building to a bursting point. Servos laid on her chassis, more to hold herself together than pat away the discomfort. All of it had spurred from the decision to absently reach out to her Guardian through a bond she knew to be dead. Contact with the useless half of her spark exposed a deeper sense of depression in the recess of her processor. It was an unfamiliar sadness that almost didn't feel her own. Did he know? Could he feel her, reaching, though there should have been nothing there to reach for?
The flash of a sword peaked amongst the ripple of bustling soldiers. Sparks were piping in with the alarms while they shone their banner of crimson. A radiance of battle was dashing along the walls, contaminating them. Snarls and bellows of victorious agony scaled the tones. They sung along the frequency of Fera's trilling energon. Together they whistled a tune of anxiety. Like Bekos had done, she bounced on the ball of her peds, watching, useless, while the two mechs risked everything for her and the cause.
She didn't have a weapon, but perhaps if she stole one from that soldier lying on the ground not more than five yards away...
Rich calls of triumph roared against the blanket of countless soldiers. It broke through the endless supply of them, rolling over their helms, then reaching Fera with crippling power. The fight left her, only replaced by curiosity. Then shock. Then lovely relief.
Titanios himself was barreling in towards his brother, another violet and gold fembot running step for step along with him. In her servos was a piercing, double-edge sword, the center split by a line of bright, glowing energon. A swift swing of the weapon sliced two soldiers in half before Titanios could even knock one aside with his monumental weight. It was a sight to see her, graceful and deadly, though keeping a certain bubbly energy to her deadly dance that Fera found herself awed and confused over all at once.
The fembot managed to clear a path to Bekos and the pair turned their spinal supports together without needing see one another. As a single entity, they struck out. When one partner was low, the other would swing above. She jumped backwards suddenly, arching above her deft partner with her legs spread. Bekos used her distraction to pivot through in a crouch, taking out the legs of two soldiers. He finished them before they hit the ground. In the meantime, the fembot was yanking her sword from her victim's chassis. There wasn't a doubt in Fera's processor that they were sparkmates. Rethalia and Optimus had given her evidence enough to spot a connection such as that from a mile away.
Titanios made his move slightly less nimbly. He was more languid in his moves, and that slowed his movement. However, that was where his weaknesses ended. His thick, seemingly unpenetrable armor deflected many of the soldier's cheaper weapons. Every hurtling thrust of his massive peds, or jarring hammer of his fist, buckled his opponents on contact. It was no surprise when the battle ended within the minute, with four Cybertronians standing tall over their enemies, their optics gleaming with the aftermath of the fight and their vents heaving with flustered excitement rather than fatigue.
Solas was the first to move, turning his helm around and gesturing for Fera to come closer. "We're moving out," he told her ventlessly when she reached the group. "Titanios has the human hostages in place waiting in the docking bay."
Fera nodded, swiping her gaze towards the arrivals. Up close, with her blade resting on her shoulderbolt, Bekos' mate was actually a vent-taking creature. Her beauty did not surpass that of Rethalia or Solas Prime, however, she certainly caused Fera's self-confidence to be knocked down a peg or two. Violet covered her snake-like silhouette completely, excusing a few yellow marks on the armor hugging her curvy protoform. That bursting light that poured from her smiling, energetic lip plates was out of place here. When Fera turned her optics onto Titanios, his own darted away. Guilt.
"Is she the one? The Keeper?" the fembot questioned, her hipbolt angling outward. Bekos nodded and came up to his mate, crossing his arms. "I believed she would be bigger."
"Believe it or not, I was smaller," Fera retorted in bitter humor. She could see Solas looking at her from the corner of her vision, obviously surprised. He didn't yet know she could speak Cybertronian. And German. And Italian. And other Mid-Eastern languages. What a moment that would be to see him find out.
Bekos nudged his sparkmate, optics curved with warning while they settled on her. She wasn't looking at him, but a smirk changed her pretty faceplates into mischievous ones. "Fera, this is Thunderblast," Bekos introduced, gesturing toward the fembot. "My sparkmate."
Fera returned her sights to the purple fembot opposite of her, the tension changing quickly between them. She could tell there would be a complicated relationship for her and the fembot. If there could be one. Nonetheless, the last thing she wanted was to be made fun of right now. "I know. I could tell," she stated.
Thunderblast merely chuckled and lifted her sword, placing it on her spinal support. She then strutted up to Fera and clapped her servos down on the fembot's shoulderbolts. "I like this one, she's got a bite," she laughed, squeezing Fera's shoulderbolts before letting go. "You chose the right reason I guess for leaving it all behind, Bekos." Thunderblast was walking back to the mech, but her optics traveled back over her shoulderbolt to the fembot for a lasting time.
No further words came while the group came to terms with their new members. There wasn't any affordable time for that. A servo touched between her shoulderbolts and Fera knew without seeing that it was her Guardian. An unsaid understanding passing in that warbling moment. There was heat licking down her relay while they ran, side by side, with other frames locked securely around her. They were her protective shield. It was one she didn't want, but was wise enough to know she needed.
Alarms bellowed away, lifting away at the group with griping claws. They were tugging with all their might in attempts to stall the escapees. This was it. If they got caught here, everything they had worked for would be for nothing. It was with determination that they pressed on, along with a hidden sense of mutual fear that none of them dared speak of aloud. If one would break, the others would follow. It was with respect and wisdom that they pressed onward without a whisper muttered between their hurried steps.
Titanios acted as their tank. He was able to barrel through any standing in his way, sending many flying into the walls hard enough to dent the barriers they collided with. Fera winced along with the victims. It wasn't in her to be completely hateful of them. Even if they were apart of the faction that had done unspeakable things to her. They were merely dueling out their orders. And yet, she couldn't resist feeling a smidgen of satisfaction when the crack of an enemy's armor coupled in with the symphony of alarms.
When they reached an intersection, Titanios gestured the group forward, his expression solemn. Thunderblast ran past, followed by her sparkmate near after. When Solas passed the mech however, Fera found his frame pausing beside the hulking mech's. She ran onward from the two, her optics darting back over her shoulderbolt. Peds slowed down until they stopped completely, her concerned profile aimed for her mech and the one leading them on. Bekos and Thunderblast were meters ahead, their anxious bodies turned toward their late comrades.
"Fera! Solas!" Bekos hissed, waving them on. Fera ignored him after raising a servo. Solas didn't even give them that much, for his gaze was set solely on Titanios.
The camouflaged traitor straightened hesitantly before the scrutinizing optics of Fera's obviously aggravated Guardian. They stared for what felt to be endless hours. Fera knew they should move on, for the sound of soldiers marching in search for their group carried as a ghostly echo through the piercing wail of sirens. Yet she could not move. What would Solas do here?
Her answer came when Solas drew his arm back, and punched Titanios square in the cheekplate.
"That," he began, lowering his arm, "was for everything."
That clang, and Titanios' helm snapped to the side, made Fera's mandible fall open. Her lip plates parted and she began forward, only to be stopped by Bekos' arm on her bracer. There was nothing here keeping Solas from leaping at Titanios and tearing the mech's jugular out other than their approaching enemies and Fera herself. It was up to the mech whether they made it out here or not on the basis of a vendetta. Solas could end things here, saving it for another time, or beat Titanios within an inch of his life cycle, thus threatening the success of the already compromised mission.
However, no more strikes were thrown at the former Decepticon and Autobot traitor. His helm was remained angled away, his shamed optics lowered. A boiling pit of ebony rage rose within Fera's tanks and her optic ridges burrowed low. He deserved to feel that pain. He deserved to be guilty. For all he'd done, she may never be able to forgive him. She only wished she could have hit him herself.
"I need to know that I can trust you," Solas growled, his tone almost too low to hear above the alarms. Both Guardian and guarded paid no heed to Titanios' reaction other than what his answer may be. The mech returned his faceplates forward, lifting a servo to cup his mandible, where a small dent had marred it. Still, he kept himself from looking Sol or Fera in the optic. Let him regret what he did. That foul mech could wallow in his pity if he wanted.
Finally Titanios let his arm fall to his side. "You can trust me," he murmured. Fera frowned and Solas snorted.
"Louder!" the Guardian shouted. His voice rang clearer than the beating of Fera's spark in her chassis. She flinched, fearing they would be heard, though the alarms still cried. "Look me in the optics and tell me you aren't going to get us killed!"
"I won't!" Titanios snapped back, his sights locking on Solas'. He seemed to have broken, after all this, his gaze burning in a glaze of remorseful glory. He sank back, apparently fading under the weight of himself and what he'd done. "You can trust me. I'm done lying."
Solas stepped away at this. Without a lasting gaze at Titanios, he stalked forward to grab Fera by the upper arm. "Let's go," he rumbled, his gaze dangerously ominous. Fera trailed after as quickly as her shorter legs allowed, while still managing to see Titanios hurrying behind at the group's rear. He still held his sights away from the group.
They couldn't make it through the halls without blasting through a larger and larger congregation of soldiers. Their stifling collection banding together tight enough to a point where Fera knew she couldn't slip past by her lonesome if she had the chance. Heat built too fast too greatly when they flooded in to stop the group. It felt as though this were a glitched loop of a memory file, running over and over without sign of ending. It was always the same scene that would arise, with only a differ of location.
Then the warriors joined in with the barriers. It began with only one or two of them. Soon enough, there were whole teams fighting to keep Fera and her comrades from reaching the docking bay. Fera found herself hiding more than she ran, clutching the knife Bekos had given her harder than should have been necessary. Joints in her servos stiffened until it hurt to let go of the hilt. As much, she never let it go once. Hiding, crouched in the shadows, optics closed, with the knife pressed to her chassis. She dared not vent, though the volley of alarms and voices and armor on armor collisions could have drowned anything she produced.
Only when the servo came down on her arm and those familiar faceplates touched her optics did she move again. She was numb as she traveled with them. Lead filled her peds with the building sense of dread within her. It curbed her consciousness at a certain moment in their battling and her hiding that Bekos may very well not know where the docking bay was. Or, he could know that it was inaccessible and be leading them all in circles while he mentally panicked. Either option was not something she wished to consider.
As they ran on, the binds grew tighter around Fera's chassis. Solas was slowing, and she knew he hadn't much time left. She was dragging behind as well, perhaps not as much as Solas, however, she was lagging nonetheless.
When she figured her vents to burst and her processor to blacken, Fera watched Bekos lift his arm. The group slowed to a stop in an expanse of hallway much like that of every other corridor they'd passed. She didn't know how he could tell the difference. It was dimmed to let the brilliance of the sirens shine through. Support beams arched upward to meet at a light embedded in the ceiling. Seams leaked onyx darkness between each metallic sheet. After each cycle of light had ended, and before another had begun, one could not see more than a meter into the hall ahead without infrared vision.
But Bekos seemed to understand exactly where they were. There was that tensity in his frame where his shoulderbolts were slightly too wound straight and his legs too coiled for fleeing than they would be in relief. While they stood, awaiting their supposed leader's next move, Fera could feel the ship. It was groaning beneath her peds. The growl was reverberating throughout, shaking her clear to her core. And yet, it was not the ship's own moan of weathered weariness.
Galvatron was here. He was angry. And he was looking for her.
"We have to go," Fera bit sharply, grabbing Solas' arm. "Now."
He didn't answer her, his gaze too focused on those ahead of them. Fera gripped his armor harder until her digits dug into the lower layers of his protoform. A wince touched his features and he finally turned his optics on her. Turbulent anxiety swirled in their teal depths, shining through the curtain of red to hit her through the middle. There would be no getting to Sol in this mess. All he would tell her would be to stay low and stay safe. Same old, same old.
Fera huffed and leapt forward to step in front of Bekos. "We can't keep standing here, what are you doing?"
"Trying to find a way to the docking bay that won't end up with us deadsparked," he snapped more irritably than was probably called for.
"We don't have time for that, we need to move out now." Fera's optic ridges burrowed and the hue of her optics matched that of the sirens around them. Bekos' gaze still darted around her to see the hall, his servo laid on his mate's arm as he visibly fought with himself on whether to run or not. It made Fera's glowering sights deepen to see him ignore her. Didn't he know the danger of staying here?
"You don't understand," she said, taking one look at the hall Bekos was staring at and jogging towards the opposite corner that would lead them to the docking bay entrance. "Galvatron is coming for us, and he will leave none of you alive."
"Fera, wait! Come back!" Bekos hissed. Everyone gathered around the mech, bustling forward to call the fembot back. Solas took up Bekos' shoulderbolt, his optics wide.
As brash as the fembot was, she believed moving on was necessary. There was more than her life and the lives of her compatriots on the line. Humans were waiting in the docking bay, probably scared out of their minds, awaiting their rescue. She could relate to them by some, with what she remembered of being a fearful bag of flesh among metallic titans. It wouldn't be right to leave them, and as such, Fera Lennox trampled through the dark headlong towards the open docking bay doors. Shadows yawned beyond the entrance, only corrupted by the flash of red lights. A break in them exposed the terrified, pale face of one researcher huddled in the farthest corner by the ramp.
They were right there. Too bad soldiers were blocking her way from getting there.
Fera was in the doorway when a sea of soldiers paraded in through the hall to her left. She froze, unable to do much else, and gripped the knife in her digits impossibly harder. There was so many of them that she couldn't see the floor or a sliver of free space between any of them. How did they contain this many beings on one vessel? There had to be a limit.
As if answering her thoughts, the ship abruptly lurched. Fera was thrown from her peds to collide with the frame of the door. A jarring shock ran through her, pain shooting along her shoulderbolt and helm where she had hit. Gravity increased on itself to drag her frame down, then reversed itself to throw her skyward. A scream flew from her lip plates. Or was that from the humans? A cracked gasp escaped her when her frame struck the unstable ground again. Low growls rumbled throughout, causing her plates to tremble.
"Get back! Back!"
It was Solas' voice, hovering over her. Fera groaned and opened her optics. Low and behold, Solas was standing in front of her, sword and blaster brandished to the worlds. Titanios, Bekos, and Thunderblast were also there, keeping a defensive line between Fera and the Decepticon soldiers. She clutched the doorframe and struggled to pull herself up, the effort straining her arms. When she was standing again, she managed to catch Solas swinging his sword around towards the soldiers, warring them off.
Thunderblast had her own sword, however, it was split in half, providing both her servos with weapons. The mate she'd claimed was at her side as a sturdy sentinel. Titanios, once traitor, made his wide mass useful by shielding Fera with a wild gleam to his optics that promised he'd risk his life here. This was where they made their stand.
"Part yourselves and give us the fembot! You are trapped here, Autobots!" the Decepticon known as Cyclonus shouted over the helms of the soldiers. He stepped from their ranks, formidable essence leaking a threatening promis.
Solas crouched, his sword lifted and his shoulderbolts tense. "Take her from me."
The one they fought for was on her peds, craning her neck to let her wide optics view the scene better. Her servos were open on the wall behind her, and her kneebolts were bent. Cyclonus was willing to deadspark fighting to get Fera back to Galvatron. Solas was willing to die here to prevent that from happening. But what if they all fell? There were too many soldiers and warriors on the ship for them to possibly get out of this unscathed. If the Decepticons were to get her back to Galvatron, she would be bonded to the tyrant and the Autobots would be left helpless against him. She'd rather kill herself.
The fembot pushed forward before Solas as Cyclonus moved past the front line of his partners. She stood, wide, and unwavering, with servos shaking and her lines burning bright with unbound energy, and optics flaming in scarlet desperation, before her Guardian. Now was her time to protect. This was her opportunity to show what she was willing to do for them. For Solas. For the cause.
Fera Lennox pressed the blade in her grasp to her jugular.
Cyclonus and all other movement stopped. His arm shot out to keep his band from starting towards her and his optic ridges burrowed deep over his optics. Fera could hear Solas and the others calling her name behind her, yet she kept her mandible tight and ignored each one. Optics alight with distress, she kept the sharp edge of the knife pressed firmly up against her neck.
"Move back! Move!" Cyclonus bellowed to his troops.
Fera's vents fluttered and a spark flew from their stressed systems. Creaks sounded from her digits as they stretched to their limit around the hilt. Until she lost feeling in them, she kep increasing her hold on it. Her arm was unwilling to go onward, however, her processor was aware of the fact that she was willing to do what needed to be done.
"If you move one byte, I'll slit my throat!" she spat, lubricant flying from between her oral sheets. "I swear!"
"You wouldn't," Cyclonus dared, his optics narrowing and his digits curling before the line of soldiers.
"You don't know me."
"You haven't the ball bearings to do it."
"Watch me."
There was a hint of irritation inside of the fembot when he said this. To prove herself, she bit on her lip plates, took in a long, shuddering vent, and took a niche out of her neck. It hurt at first, but it was only a small pinch compared to what she had been through. Warm, thick energon beaded down her front over her armor to cover the black in a river of azure blue. The Stone of Primus was covered in the substance to blot out the light. Not a wince left her stoic features.
Cyclonus visibly stiffened and shoved those next to him further away. His armor had risen some off his protoform. The glowering shadows underneath his optic ridges deepened until they nearly turned black. The line along the side of his neck bulged and the gears of his mandible tightened.
It occurred to her that there was no response from Cyclonus because he was stalling. The only way she realized that was when Solas snatched her by the arm and yanked her back into the docking bay. A roar came from the Decepticon and he charged them, only to be cut off from the slam of the bay doors in his faceplates. A loud slam from outside the barrier told of his punch to the slab of metal.
"Stupid fembot," Solas vented, bringing Fera in for a hug before she could even collect herself. They embraced for a solid nanoclick before he held his charge out from him. His helm ducked and his optics searched for hers. "That was possibly the most reckless, insane, genius thing I've ever seen you do."
Fera shrugged, her features thoughtful. "We needed to get through. I was willing to do what it took to make sure that happened."
"Well I think we're alright for now."
"Your definition of 'alright' Solas, might be a little different from my own."
"No matter if we're ok or no, just don't do it again, you crazy 'Bot," Thunderblast called from behind Sol as she placed her blades back on her spinal support. They fused together, a seam struck down their center. "Or else this mission, and actually the war in total, would be worth nothing." Her optics flicked down over Fera's form then back upwards, her gaze scrutinizing. "And you can put that knife down."
She strutted away towards the humans gathered in the corner as Fera's arm snapped to her side, an audible clank attacking the audios of the fembot when the flat of the knife met her thigh. It attached to her pelvic armor, and she let go of it with a creak of stiff digits. Bekos was close on his sparkmate's heelpeds when he tore his optics away from her.
Fera wasn't concerned for the tiny beings sitting in huddles against the walls along the perimeter, so she returned to the mech in front of her and jerked when his servo raised to her neck. A gentle pressure brushed her jugular as he pressed a small mold of first-aid temp putty to the injury to keep it covered to let it it repair smoothly. Fera grinned and raised her digits to take his larger ones in hers.
"Thank you," she murmured, soft enough that only he would hear her. Solas nodded and let her hold his servo against the Stone on her chassis.
But when Fera's optics darted aside and locked on Titanios, who stood about a yard away, she let go of him. The traitor's side was to Solas and her, his optics passing by hers. Uncertainty was evident in his stance and the way he clenched his fists betrayed his anxiety. Regret burned through the space separating them. His lip plates then parted, his gaze flicking around nervously. Finally he started for her, servo open, and she stiffened. "Fera, I-"
"Are you three ready?" Bekos wondered, a group of four humans secured in his grasp. Two others sat on his shoulderbolts. Thunderblast held another two, a separate pair on her shoulderbolts as well. "We need help carrying these organics."
Fera moved her troubled sights from the large mech and followed Solas to the sparkmates, where she picked up a human for each servo. A man and a woman clung to her, their expressions wracked with fear. Smiling down on them, Fera shifted the researchers to get a better grip on them. "It's alright, I won't drop you," she promised in English, fitting them into the crooks of her arms. It seemed to help them some. Solas picked up the last four after plopping a man on her right shoulderbolt and another on her left.
As one, the group carried their cargo to the ramp, which sit closed while Bekos made his way toward the control panel. With Decepticons, Cyclonus included, banging mercilessly on the door outside, the ex-Con analyst went on trying to crack the code. It was with disdain that Fera saw the confusion and concentration on his faceplates. If the code had worked, then the ramp would have been down. Instead, nothing happened, and Fera was forced to swallow back her uncertainty and frustration at being kept from the last step to her eminent freedom. Growing ever more nervous, her helm turned around to the door and then returned to Bekos as he handed off the humans in his arms to Titanios and went at the keypad with both servos.
The strikes on the door became louder and Fera unconsciously squeezed her humans closer. Solas was squirming as well, his optics snapping around and the hydraulics in his arms hissing. "Bekos..." he urged, his tone warning.
The silver and black flier waved Solas off. "I know, I know, I'm trying," he insisted. Finally he slapped the side of the keypad, his vents releasing an unaccomplished snort. "I'm going to have to manually connect with the system and unlock the ramp through an interface sequence."
"Isn't that dangerous?" Thunderblast questioned, stepping up beside Titanios and setting the two in her arms on the mech's shoulderbolts. She walked over to join her mate and examined his work. "The ship could fry your processor - it's in emergency sequence mode."
Bekos sighed and his optics jerked to the door as another bang made the hinges croak. "Yes, but if we have any chance of getting out of here, it's a necessary risk."
Solas growled, catching the pair's attention. "Shut up and do it already! We don't have time for this!" His grip on the humans ruffled them and they each held on to whatever armor they could get their fleshy hands on like their lives depended on it. Fera wondered briefly if she looked like that when she had been carried by Sol. It was interesting to see their raw terror and the pure adrenalin strumming through the veins popping from their skin. She couldn't remember what it felt to be human. All she knew now was the Autobots and their ways. It made her a bit sad.
Bekos plugged in the tip of his digit into the systems and closed his optics. Immediately after, his whole frame became terse. The pivotjoints in his arms and kneebolts froze, his armor too still to be natural. Thunderblast hissed, grabbing her helm and nearly knocking the humans from her shoulderbolts off. The banging became louder. Thunderblast released a strangled cry.
Fera shivered when the shadows began to leak from underneath the door. Their nightly hue slithered as a serpent across the floor, trickling into the seams of the panels and swirling about the bolts. Along it crept toward her, taking light in with it and spreading as a sickly cobweb throughout. The air became stale, then bitter, then choking. It was becoming difficult to vent. Fera shook her helm, hefting the humans up closer to her. They were depending on her to get them to safety. No way would she allow that essence that had tortured her for so long capture them too.
"He's coming..." she murmured, stepping in reverse. Until her spinal support touched the ramp, she did not stop. Those in her grasp wriggled as they sensed her increasing discomfort. Solas saw her moving and the twist of paralyzing horror on her faceplates and his optic ridges came down.
"Who is?" he asked, walking a few steps at his charge. Her helm shook once, slowly, from side to side. Her optics refused to shutter, for she was afraid if they did, the entity would attack her. Concern licked across his handsome features and he turned his sights in the direction she was looking. "Fera, who is com-?"
"Galvatron," she whispered, hoarsely.
The word burned her glossa. Images raced rampantly in her processor of the being responsible for making all her nightmares turn into reality. Beatings, lashings, punches, burns, dissection... He'd known what her worst fear. There hadn't been a single digit laid on her. And that had been the worst part of it all. That had been her fear: failure to protect what she cared about most.
He was coming back to do the same exact thing as he had done before. He was going to break her down, bit by measly bit, tear apart the ones she loved, then exploit her until she ran absolutely dry. It was not in her destiny to end this way. One way or another, she was getting off this God-forsaken ship.
"Fera..."
It was him...he was here.
"My Fera, I require your presence..." A pause. Then a resounding pound that made her nearly jump out of her armor and the door to the bay shudder. "OPEN THIS DOOR!"
A mighty arch of blue lightning bent heavenward from Fera's frame, scaling through the air in a crackling split of cobalt power. A tendril fluttered along her arms, harmlessly passing along the human bodies, then continuing on in a spit of light around her fierce, petite form. A stray branch flew outward, hitting the ramp she leaned against with a wave of force great enough to send those around her to their kneebolts.
Solas and Titanios held their researchers near, dipping their helms between each body to protect themselves as well. Bekos removed his digit from the keypad and stared at the wonder of dancing lightning and armor before him. Thunderblast was only able to grab her humans before the wave hit her, knocking her back into Bekos. Fera shuddered with the recoil of the blast, her cargo just as shaken up as she was. Together, they recovered, their carrier's kneebolts buckling and her helm lowering some.
She wanted to say something as Sol started for her, but she couldn't. She nearly fell back when her support gave a pneumatic rush of wind and began to lower. The mech deemed her Guardian managed to save her however by grabbing hold of her bracer as she fell backwards, arms too full of human to imagine saving herself.
He juggled his own people and managed to yank her up again without much sign of effort. Words left her lip plates right as the billowing barrage of air stampeded into the space around them as the ramp finally opened, carrying whatever she may have said along it's untamed course. The flapping of the fabric of the humans' clothing beat at her audios as both those on her shoulderbolts flung their arms around her helm and neck. She did her best to shield those in her arms, and perhaps they were better off, as two massive creatures were isolating them in a cocoon of metal.
"We have to jump!" Solas shouted over the ripping winds, his voice stripped of volume. He turned his helm to the side, trying to fight against the drag of the current. Fera nodded, though she doubted he saw it, and collected herself in preparation. Solas laid his foreplate on hers, casting shadows on the terrified passengers separating them. "I'm right behind you!"
With this new sense of courage, Fera turned. Instantly the wind buffeted her backwards. Solas remained strong behind her nonetheless, urging her on with a few good, firm pushes to her spinal support. One step at a time, they painstakingly made their journey to the open ramp. Daylight was blinding, creating a blanket of white that she couldn't see past. It was as if the worlds themselves were trying to keep her from getting onward.
The harsh breeze whistled through the crevices of her armor and played with her exposed energon lines deep beneath the plates covering her. Chilling fists collided with the darkness, shoving it away and encasing her in a welcoming opportunity for freedom. They had to make it past this point. If they didn't, this all would be for nothing. They had to get past this.
Bekos managed to get to the ramp first, as he was closest, with his mate dragged behind him on her unsteady peds. Placing his humans against his chassis, Bekos stroked his mate's cheekplate and jumped out of the ship. Fera mutely called against the raging air, her voice unfairly stripped of sound. Then she remembered the mech was a flier, and her audios picked up on the thunder of rockets beyond the wind. Thunderblast followed suit, apparently a flier herself. And though time felt to have moved sluggishly by, Fera realized with a tingling numbness that it was her turn.
Solas was able to pat her arm, and she locked gazes with him. They would get through this, together. If it meant risking everything to get free, she would take that chance.
"This may hurt!" she yelled, tucking her helm close so the humans could hear her. With squinted eyes and hair whipping about their grimy, rose-colored cheeks, they nodded. Apparently freedom was worth this to them as well.
But as her ped hovered on the rim of the ramp, ready to lean her over the limit and send her plummeting down a height she did not know, an arm rounded before her, shoving two more people in her arms. Surprised, she could not react other than to take them so they wouldn't drop off the ship. Then, a set of burly arms wrapped across her girth, easily overtaking her size and picking her up from where she stood. Once cradled, six humans, two whom had been on her shoulderbolts, piled in onto her tanks.
Titanios' wide faceplates met her view. They were determined and sharp, so unaffected by the winds that Fera wondered if he felt it at all. With a final glance at her Guardian, Fera felt herself leaning forward. Then they fell.
It was such an easy thing to do. To fall into freedom. Why hadn't she thought of it before?
Her tanks were left somewhere back on the ship. Human screams bit at her processor until she encircled her arms around the six or so bodies trying to lay flat as possible against her. There really was no correct way to do this. She'd never been taught how to fall or what to do when she did. There was only her instincts to tell her what needed to be done.
Her lines came alive with frozen energon. Her spark pounded hard enough to jump out of her chassis and join with the clouds. The sun beamed blindingly down on them, and since she was held upwards, it shined right into her optics. With the wind creating a sucking voice of soundlessness around her, she didn't care. It was the sun. There was warmth here. That was real, along with the oxygen and the ship growing every smaller behind Titanios' scrunched faceplates and the petrified humans clamoring for a hold on her frame. Death was in their eyes.
They fell for eternity, caught in the protection of each other, and believing that this may be their end, or their freedom. Fera felt helpless when she pressed harder into the forms set into her front. A blinding ray of sunlight bounced from her optics, and she accepted it gratefully. It felt nice enough that she briefly forgot where she had come from, or where she was going. This was freedom, riding on the bridge of her noseplate and kissing the flats of her cheekplates. The Nemesis became smaller and smaller behind Titanios' shoulderbolt, eventually turning into more a harrowing vulture than a viscous, floating prison.
The impact wasn't as bad as she believed it to be. Maybe it was because Titanios was holding her, but either way, it didn't break her in half as she believed it would. Instead, there was an explosion of dirt, blotting out the sun once more as the dust burst through the clear skies. Earth lodged where earth wasn't supposed to be. All the air that had been around her seconds before was now stripped from her. A shock went through her spinal support and her neck hurt from the whiplash. A great recoil sent her systems into a hiccup, knocking her nearly delirious. Her vision swam and her plates rattled.
She was holding onto the humans tight enough that she could feel the tips digging into their flesh through their clothes. Gathering her wheezing systems, Fera shuttered her optics and tried waving away the silt. It wasn't until here that she found she was on the ground, shoulderbolts and legs buried in searing dirt from the stop, with her helm pressed to a sheet of bedrock. So that's why it hurt. Her optics fluttered and she coughed, rustling the few forms on her chassis. Where was Titanios?
Her question was answered when another muffled crack attacked the area feet away, showering her and her disoriented companions. It did clear most the debris from the air, and she was thankful for that. She noted that she was in a hole, maybe four feet deep, ten feet wide, with rings marking the years of earth she had burned through. Her arms completely folded across the humans when a few blades of grass spiraled through the cloud of brown. Lifting them, she found none of them hurt past a few lacerations or bruises. The one against her had a chipped tooth and a broken nose, but that was nothing compared to what Titanios was dealing with.
The mech dropped his servo down to pull her up. Letting the humans pile off her, Fera took that helping servo and brought herself out of the hole onto the plushness of the surviving grass around the rim of the crater. Titanios dropped to the ground when her ped met the level land, his own legs giving out on him. With a strained moan, he doubled over his limb, which, to Fera's horror, was snapped in half.
It was his left leg, folded awkward next to his clenched servos and agony-laced features. The armor was warped and the strut was bent at an angle that couldn't be natural. Cracks ran along the shocks and platforms of his toelinks.
Solas was nowhere in sight, and Fera tore her wide optics away from Titanios to look for him. Bekos was a few meters off, his humans standing feet from him, with his servos digging furiously through the dirt. A gleam of onyx met the mid-day light, sending a shimmer clear into her optics. Grinning, Fera struggled to keep herself planted by her humans to protect them than running to check on her Guardian. They needed her more.
Titanios grabbed her leg and Fera's helm snapped down on him. She lowered herself, getting optic to optic with him as best she could. She lifted her servos to touch his leg, however, she couldn't find it in her to set them down. What could she do? The Stone could fix this most likely, but she didn't know how to use it. As much, she was left helpless once again, with her faceplates drawn blank in deliberation.
"Fera," he gasped, grimacing and grabbing his thigh as a wave of pain passed over his broad, dirt-encrusted plates. "You need to run. Take the humans and get them to the Fabials...they'll know what to do."
Conflict shivered in her red gaze. Should she run? Or should she stay and protect a mech whom once lied to her faceplates? The answer was clear.
"No," she stated firmly. "I stay here with you."
"Fera-"
A ferocious bellow took up the clouds above them, catching their optics in a twin bout of awe. It was a feral roar, one, that Fera knew all too well. There was only one mech whose anger could empower him with that core-rocking battle call. Galvatron.
Following that bellow, a squeak picked up from behind Fera's spinal support. The knife Bekos had given her was up in an instant, waving the dirtied blade in a defensive stance. There was no threat, but a single figure, clad in scarlet, brown, and golden armor at the edge of the crater she and Titanios had made. This mech was one Fera knew as well, if but from what Solas told her. It was a Fabial whom stood in front of her now, two humans already in his blunt grasp. If she recalled right, his designation was Galax.
He spoke as she lowered her blade, "I can only carry three. The others will come for you and your friends." His voice was smooth and regal, his features slim while they addressed her. His piercing green optics lifted to the Nemesis circling overhelm. "We must hurry." That was the last thing he said before leaping into the air, transforming mid-spring into a giant winged creature. A phoenix? Was that right?
Titanios grabbed her shoulderbolt, turning her back to him. "Run, leave me here," he ordered again, shoving her backwards. Fera fell on her aft, lodging more dirt particles into her armor. Snorting, she shook her helm and gathered herself to her peds. She was going to stay here, at least until each human was rescued, if not for Titanios, and not a moment before.
Solas caught her view, his servo cupping his helm. Before too long, another Fabial, Corra if she was correct, showed up already in form. A gryphon? Could that be the puzzle of random animals standing with her Guardian? Sol removed his cranial unit from his digits and addressed her, pointing her to where he left his cargo.
The fembot Fabial disappeared around the mound Solas had made to retrieve those he'd brought. A man and woman were seated on her spinal support, two others gathered in her front claws. And off she went, leaving thirteen other humans ready to be rescued.
Where was the fighting? Why leave the base be while they simply stood down on the ground, prone, and open for attack?
Her reason came soon enough, when she turned to hand off six humans to Beta, a hulked-up, bulbous warrior, with cannons on his shoulders and glowing blasters warm with ammunition between each of his three helms. Nodding his center one, he bounded away into the cloud of obscuring smoke, throwing it up in a curling peel and revealing the place behind. The sight made Fera's tanks fall to her peds and her spark stop beating.
"Fera, I..." Titanios began, but trailed off.
Her shoulderbolts sagged, the fight leaving her in that moment of consternated shock. There was fighting going on, however, she hadn't seen it. Soldiers everywhere. Energon stained the ground. Blades caught the sun before slicing into pitch dark armor. Smoke billowed up from piles of rubble left in their wake. Optics dimmed. Frames fell.
The base was no more. No such thing was left here as a building. Everything was in shambles, from the collapsed roof, to the twisted, mangled pillars that once supported the structure. Concrete sat in crumbled piles of charred excuses of stony pebbles, with blackened smoke stretching in gnarled tendrils at the expanse of sky. Flames licked greedily at the air, stifling the blue for crimson and gold. Metal popped and fell, sending showers of spark sailing. Inside the pit of the earth that had once been the underground systems, she could make out the crushed scaffolds and catwalks and computers. There had been the medbay. That had been the main lobby. And there, that was the commander's office. Why did she know all of this?
Fera sank to her kneebolts, unable to stand any longer. Her helm tilted back, taking in the full viscosity of the smoke and its incredible height. The thickness was unbreakable. Turbine winds did nothing to spread it thinner, if but worsen it. Blood dripped in puddles where the bodies of humans were assumed to be. Injured ones limped away from the wreckage, their soot-covered faces smudged with trails of tears and scratches. Some helped their comrades away from it, arms around shoulders and heads tucked into chests to hide away their crippling grief and putrid screams.
Fera couldn't vent anything. The grass touching her digits crumpled under her servos, tickling the sensitive limbs with a gentle sway of pain. Their own sorrow could be as cleanly heard as those of the humans'. Fera almost didn't even notice when Zincar, in the form of a giant serpent, made his appearance, having just sliced a soldier in half, and picked up four humans with the gentleness of a mother to her child. Those were the last ones to be rescued. That left her, Titanios, Solas, Bekos, and Thunderblast left to the elements.
Burnt grains of dirt, broken apart so greatly by the blast that it could be sand, filtered through her digits. Lubricant slipped down her cheekplates. Why was she crying?
"They...destroyed it," she told the nothing as her Guardian in all his dirty glory jogged up beside her. His servos clamped on her shoulderbolts, his attention completely ignoring that of the injured Titanios sitting feet away. The black mech lifted Fera from her position and tried finding her faceplates, but she stared off into the distance without seeing him.
"It's a building Fera, we can't spend time grieving over it," he told her, placing a digit under her chin. Fera's gaze found his then, their color deepening with a galaxy of boundless wisdom. He fell quiet at them, unable to quite react to that look.
Fera pulled away from Sol and twisted back to the destruction, unable to feel her digits to her toelinks. Still, she walked toward it all, something far away calling to her. "No, no...wait. This place, it's familiar to me..." she murmured. She wasn't sure if it was Solas she spoke to, or the memories. They were gathering on the wisp of her memory, just where she couldn't reach. Taking a leap, she rummaged for their strings. The fabric was coming back together.
Into the ashes she fell once again to her kneebolts, optics widening with the killing strength of visions passing by. This was once a home. A safehouse. A prison.
"Oh...my God..." she vented, unable to take it all in at one time. "They destroyed it all."
Ultra Magnus was somewhere, fighting alongside the Fabial leader Cameo. They were a hideous dance of graceful danger, moving as one, battling as one, with but the flames at their spinal supports and energon on their armor to steal their beauty. If not sparkmates, they would be. Their winding forms fluidly translated that fact. Yet she could not appreciate it.
"Come on, it's not safe here," Solas piped in, taking her bicep in his servo worriedly. "You need to scan a vehicle right now and we need to leave..." A pause from the immovable mech. "This base is compromised." There was heaviness there when he spoke. He'd known this place too.
Fera was already busy scanning a broken motorcycle when he said this. She cut off her progress and stood straighter, her optics ridges knitting. They sent another spike of memories in her and Fera's features dropped along with her spark."This was my home..." she vented, feeling the tightness of Solas' all against her arm. "This was where you became my Guardian and I was kidnapped...and you were..."
Ultra Magnus and Cameo turned to them, waving the group onward with shouting hails. Fera heard none of it. Not when Bekos and Thunderblast took on their alt forms did she flinch. Not when Ultra Magnus made the brash decision to reform and tow Titanios' half-transformed mass across to the safety of the main road. Not when Solas Kaon called her name and Cameo snagged her bracer, forcing her to run into her first transformation.
It felt good. It felt strange. And still she couldn't hear anything but her streaming thoughts. They all left behind the flaming debris of the base as the American military came in, heroically saving the day far too late. In her rearview mirror, Fera stared.
"That is where you died."
Another week, another chapter!
Wow, this one caught up with me! 0.o
Friday came in way too quick...
I can't believe the year went by so fast, but I'm ready to move on to another year of school with the great friends I've made here :)
It's all you guys that keep me writing, and them that give me the smiles I need to write each word for this story.
I could never say thanks enough,
you all have heard it a thousand and one times already.
But really, thanks.
1,001 now :D
*Chapter inspiration: Headstrong= Trapt*