Thanks everyone for returning this week! :D
School's finally out, and you know what that means!
I can finally catch up on everything I've been chocked up with :)
That also means that Memories Undone is going to be coming out, and maybe a few one-shots.
I'm really excited to see how you'll all react to them, I hope you like them ^_^
Enjoy!
Of The Spark And Heart
Part 2
Chapter 71
Being locked up somewhere would drown the sanity from any frame, no matter the confinement, rather, than by one's own consciousness. It was a sadder incident that it may happen to entrap the weary survivors of a torturous session by the enemy. Hadn't they been through enough? It was their intelligent, though daft processors that had become their worst disease. Not the enemy. The enemy was with them; something was closer than ever to breaching the part of themselves half their being refused to believe in. Fear whispered there. Coldness flourished.
Perhaps it inspired the chilled shiver of the mech's frame while he rested on the floor. He was undeserving of the berth provided, quite generously by his harborers, and he understood that fairly enough. There were no bars to be seen to curb out the worlds or slice upon the space in a nasty row of imprisonment, ever taunting him of the freedom beyond them. Instead a mercy was given by a metallic wall, plated in iron, with bolts along the seams.
Nothing overly sparse was here among him. Room was plentiful around the tingling airs. A berth was attached to the rear of it, hovering, waiting to be laid upon, casting a shadow that reached desperately at the body located mid-floor. Lights beat down from above, speaking of their utter displeasure of having this essence beneath their artificial warmth. As a matter of fact, there was no warmth to give. As if he were deserving of it either.
That guilt was eating away at him, as he'd known it would. Maybe it was of his own accord that this sense of self-loathing was becoming to existence. After all, these lights were of no sentient malice, the berth was of stiff iron, and the walls weren't leaning inward in anticipation to hear his anguished cries. Imagination was all it was, surely. Surely? There was the inkling of knowledge that magic could be at fault here. Nothing was as impossible as it was before. What did impossible mean anymore?
A snort left him. Magic.
Then that smirk fell back into its mediated frown and those broken optics split a little more. Distance was heavy in them while they focused on ahead. Without relative need to shutter his optics, the mech would leave them open and staring. On the floor they stayed, trapped there, abandoned there, while moments of visions fluttered about behind them. Permanently they were going to stay, too.
It wasn't as if this wasn't to be expected. Quite the opposite actually. This mech knew far too well of the consequences that may have befallen him. Yet, there he went, performing the work of the gnarled spark beaten into him while in the company of the ruthless for such many vorns. Despicable behavior was supposedly left in his wake with his defection. Then, out of considerable reason, he'd believed it was needed and necessary to bring his comrades -could he still call them that?- together with their separated peer. All they had ended up with was their goal perished and his sibling and his family unit in exchange. Out of their suffering, he had gained. What fairness was that?
Smothering his faceplates into his palms, he knew that it all had been thrown to Pit. They had suffered, only to get nothing out of return for it. He had been so sure... That mech, Punch, was supposed to survive long enough to get free. And he had chosen the kalon of his rescue to join with the Matrix. Frustratingly, he might add, the double agent had been the sole reason this betrayal had been made tolerable by him. Otherwise, it was for nothing. All of it. And what had they gotten out of it? New scars and a few human scientists?
Titanios smashed his entire servos against his faceplates, rubbing away at the images seared into his memory files. No matter how hard he tried, there was the knowing that those pictures would never again clear out of him. Not unless he preformed a full wipe and purged himself of all recollection of the past few groons. However, that wasn't possible. It wasn't right for him to become the confused prisoner, unknowing of the reasons of his guilt. They would stay good and planted in his very core until his last, rusting moments.
With vigor he planted those buzzing servos of his on either side of him. They were throbbing. They didn't hurt, of course, because it was of a different pain that they pulsed alongside the beating of his spark: Solas Kaon's energon stained those digits. They'd caused a suffering never deserving of forgiveness from the fembot, or her Guardian comrade. Though, it was the lack of leniency from Fera that would sting most in his putrid center. Solas was known to hold grudges with deadsparked mechs.
These joors of endless waiting were spent expecting the unknown to walk through those doors. They would part and allow in the mighty Optimus Prime to have counsel with him. Right? It only seemed appropriate that the leader of the Autobots would wish to confront the source of two of his Autobots' kidnapping. There was only the patience to be entertainment while Titanios fiddled with the nothing of the space as a means to not go insane himself. Thoughts were often a threat to such stability. The guards outside his quarters offered nothing to busy his CPU other than being him an energon cube or two. Thus, he'd began tracing patterns in the walls, meditating, or humming. All to dispel the silence.
Drifting musings were snapped as the barrier of the entrance interrupted his processes. It pulled aside, introducing a slighter figure into the space. This was definitely no Optimus Prime. Firstly, she was fembot. Secondly, she was far slighter in figure, with less dominant and intimidating paint adorning her lithe silhouette. And thirdly, she was of far more quiet beauty than Titanios cared to acknowledge in a mech such as the one he'd been waiting for.
Her designation soared up from his spark, bubbling through the recess of his throat to tickle the cords of his vocal capacitor. A taunt and dry glossa interrupted that sweet name to leave his pressed lip plates and firm mandible. They couldn't seem to escape, no matter his attempt. Disappointment was a tar in his vents while he fought with himself to look her in the optics. If not through words, then through contact would they communicate. But, she was not returning the gaze.
Expected as it was, it still pained him to notice the downturn of her usually vibrantly gentle optics from his. There was a slickness there that immediately led him into the knowing that she had been crying at some point or another. Along with that, a bit of dried lubricant was caked along the bottom rim of her optic slips. Crying for him and his betrayal to her? Or was it for the cringe-worthy torment envisioned in her comrades as she'd most definitely seen their condition before this?
Stiffly did he lower his sights as well. Why would Ratchet send her here, if only to force her to face the mech whom she undoubtedly hated? Titanios could sense it rolling from her in sickeningly thick waves of suffocating grief while she took those measured steps up to him. There was the feeling of flight in them. Every inch nearer to him, she broke his spark further. But she understood, didn't she? She couldn't hate him completely - not after all they had confided in one another about...
With daring he lifted his chin to watch Cloudsong place a lean bundle of materials on the unoccupied berth. Words tore at him as the ripping winds he'd felt in dropping from the Nemesis with Fera in his arms. Absently, his servo was resting on that mangled leg now. Was she here to repair it?
No, Cloudsong was not a high enough level of apprenticeship to preform that degree of operation.
Grace captured her every burning movement while she prepped her tools. They were picked up, cleaned, then placed neatly back down where they belonged in the row of supplies. A few were familiar, as they were basic procedure-based material. However, a more complicated set of scalpels, clips, and syringes full to the plunger with variously-colored fluids, sat on the ends. Cloudsong picked up one of these needles and a slate of temp plating before turning around to head for the frame sitting in the center of the ground.
Nothing was said while she dropped low to his level. There wasn't truly much need for her to get on her kneebolts, as Titanios was large enough that she merely needed to bend over to fit the plating to the wound on his chassis. Expertly, her optics studied the size, the gears already working in her cranial unit at measurements. Not once did they meet Titanios, and his lip plates pushed into a straight line.
Unable to take the calculated vigilance, he dared shatter their peace. "Cloudsong, I..." he began, trailing off when he made the fembot flinch. A jumpy one always, Titanios knew that she was prone to being easily startled. Nonetheless, that attribute had since faded some since their knowing of one another. One could go so far as to believe them to be gone as she became further and further accustomed to his presence. It seemed that comfort was gone, as was whatever chance of 'them' that could have been. He'd never paid thought to the damage he could have caused his relationship with Cloudsong, only in the one he had with the other Autobots, Solas Kaon, and Fera. This one should have been his first concern to lose. And now it was gone. That was painful in itself.
Ever the fembot of few words, Cloudsong stood and moved away to make the proper adjustments to the temp plating. Titanios slackened where he sat, shoulderbolts hunching, and form deflating. If there was ever to be a chance of her forgiving him, he needed to take the first step.
"Cloudsong, I did what I had to in order to get Punch back," he tried again, tone softer. All he could see over his shoulderbolt was the tensity of her curved spinal support and bowed helm. "It was a brash decision, I know, but I believed it was necessary to get him back to you all... I'd never believed things would turn out this way."
He didn't know what to expect as an answer, however, it wasn't what he was hoping for. She didn't give him a smile and tell him all was forgiven and things would turn out alright. She didn't yell at him and curse his name for eternity to come for endangering the lives of her comrades and letting one of them be killed. She didn't leave the room, and him, behind.
All she did was grab the torch in her servo a bit harder and cut away at the corners of the temp plating. When she was done, she returned to Titanios with fresh trails of lubricant on her cheekplates and a frown quivering from an aching spark. Here she lifted her servos and pressed the plating to his chassis, as she had been trained to do, for this long at least. It was ready to be attached when Titanios' fist curled against his leg. What was he doing, sitting here? Shouldn't he be apologizing and comforting her for what he did? Did he have the right to?
Right or not, Titanios raised his digits as means to place them against Cloudsong's cheekplate. Coldly, she avoided them - grip tightening on the temp plating on his front and expression deepening into a look of complete determent.
Hesitantly, he drew his arm back, servo stalling and faceplates beaten with a brutal longing. "Cloudsong..."
"I am here to preform primordial attention to your minor wounds," she piped in for the first time. Her voice was ragged - strained in the scorn of emotional weight on her vocal capacitor. "Ratchet will attend to you at a later time."
"Must you be so formal with me?" Titanios murmured, setting his servo back on the floor. There was a lack of feeling here that sucked all the air from Titanios' vents. It wasn't in the fembot's nature to be particularly blunt or aggravated with any being on base either, however, this refusal to give him an inkling of her thoughts was painful as well. If nothing else, it was equally as much.
A flitter of her optics brought their gazes together before breaking that contact. In that brief moment, all that needed to be relayed between them was, and Titanios nearly fell onto his spinal support. Such an array and depth of emotion this fembot was capable of. Yet, none of it was outwardly shown toward himself or others. Frustrating as it was to experience this, Titanios knew it was without saying that he would never truly get the true Cloudsong no matter which way he rubbed her. Perhaps Ratchet himself hadn't completely unlocked her either.
Flames hissed from the microscorcher on her digit tip. It wasn't until those tongues of heat scorched him that he realized the medic had neglected giving him a numbing agent. Was it on purpose? Intentional or not, Titanios allowed it to proceed.
The burn of course was agonizing. If any Cybertronian didn't react negatively towards a welding, they were deranged. Something had to be wrong in their processor. And as much, Titanios was having difficulty not squirming while the searing fire melted his armor through, fusing the gaping fissures between the temp plating and his own with blossoming throbs of heat. Tearing through him was the spikes of broiling energon, left unaided by the sedatives meant for them. A wince crossed his features unintentionally when his frame could no longer hide it. Cloudsong was only finishing up the top edge of the welding when the information must have dawned on her.
Swiftly, she pulled back, the microscorcher snuffing out so fast a puff of smoke curled up from the open end. An expression of horror was upon her. "I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, drawing her digit near her chassis. "I...I made a mistake..." Those delicate features of hers lowered with her optics after they passed quickly across his. That voice trailed into silence while the needle appeared.
When she leaned forward Titanios grabbed her arm, firmly, but gently. "I deserved it," he assured with the smallest of grins. "I can take a little pain. You don't have to use that."
"It's mandatory practice," she muttered as she took her servo away and guided the tool into the correct areas. "I could lose my title for neglecting procedure."
Titanios couldn't help the unwinding of his hydraulics when the medication took effect on his systems. The relief from discomfort drew out the sigh in him, however allowed the heavy weight on his spark to increase. The lack of pain brought off the blanket of obscurity and allowed him the full experience of self-loathing. It was with this dark spark that he knew a part of this would stay with him always, for vorns upon countless vorns to come. Too great to ignore, there would forevermore be that sliver to haunt his consciousness, and the same excuse to explain it. The cycle.
The fembot leaned back on her heelpeds to change from needle to scorcher and adjusted the flame to a lesser aggressive level. When it was to a point she liked, she blew away the debris on his chassis and swiped away a few particles of dust in her way. A lean took her upper half while she drug a slower pace along the edge of the temp plate.
Everything about her was shy. Crest to collar, a subtle glint of her helm bowed to the rear to collect at a point at the back in a common shaping from Cybertronian times. From shoulderbolts to hipbolts, there was modesty inside of modesty, with protoform almost completely covered and vents hidden well underneath flaps of tough shell. Hipbolts down, layers collapsing into the slant of her wedged heelpeds. On her chassis would be the Autobot insignia, produced proudly on front. And on her left shoulderbolt, a brazen medic's symbol would surround her C-class title emblem.
Optic ridges came downward as Titanios found something else in place of the original C-class symbol on that sloped shoulderbolt of hers. "You were upgraded into a B-class?" Titanios questioned curiously, gaze trailing along the steep climb of the wings added to the angled arch shape already around the medic's symbol. It was new and unfamiliar, and made Titanios feel that much more distant from the already hurt fembot.
Absently she glanced at her shoulderbolt and returned to her work. "Yes," she replied, shortly. What he wouldn't give to have emotion in their conversation.
"When?" he pressed, frowning.
"While you were gone."
Another guilty wave stole through him. This was something else he had missed as well, being away from these ranks - these ranks that had taken him in when his previous one treated him as a drone. As a liability. Here, each sentient being was treated as a Prime, no matter if they were human, Autobot, or other. And he had abandoned it, this fembot, and it's cause, without a second thought. It had been a reckless mistake for him to take their priority straight to the enemy. At that time, it had been genius to him. He doubted that if he'd known the repercussions of his actions that he would have gone on with the plan. There could have been another way. Now, there was no going back.
"I wouldn't blame you for being angry with me."
A long, long cycle came from Cloudsong's vents. A last flick of her servo completed the perimeter of the temp plate welding with a neat finish. Those wide optics climbed the length of him from injury to faceplates as if he were a mountain in the ranges of the Tanpinite Valleys. Servos, at one time he believed carved and molded to grasp his, rested harshly on her thighs. It seemed as though the worlds were being measured in her scrutinizing and no longer wet optics. The slips inside retracted and narrowed, assessing the one seated before her.
Finally, she said, "I am merely disappointed, Titanios."
That could very well have been a slap to his faceplates. "What better is that?" he demanded. She was in all right to hate him, and that he could take. And still, disappointing this meaningful being in his life cycle could very well be a wall he could not climb.
"I wish you hadn't done it," she went on, mandible tight as the fists clenched on her folded legs. "At least not without telling me. I trusted you Titanios, and you took that trust and abused it."
Trust. It all came down to trust, didn't it? Why couldn't there be more of it between them? Could there ever be?
"I'm sorry Cloudsong, I truly am."
The answer was there, in her optics as they broke into another series of wavering glimmers of lubricant: Never completely.
Her servo came up while her faceplates fell down, waving in front of her. "Just stop...please." A plea shivered with those words.
Unable to prevent it any longer, Titanios let himself reach forward and bring Cloudsong close to him. He pressed her against his chassis, her cheekplate against the opposite side from his wound. His long legs easily wrapped around hers, leaving her in a circle to sit in. Tucked close as his spark, their vents shared the same air and their frames exchanged an energetic warmth. His mighty servos cupped her spinal support, willing she stay near, though he knew the tenseness in her frame signaled her wish to move away. Though she didn't. She stayed still.
"You know I would never betray you, not after what happened between us," he murmured, helm dipping to settle beside her audio. "Cloudsong, you may be young, but I know for a fact you are not dull." He felt her start to push away and he held on tighter, silently begging she not tear away and permanently leave him behind like all the others had. She was all he had left. If she abandoned him, there would be no Autobot for him to turn to.
Her helm shook, then shifted her faceplates to hide in his armor. Her small servos laid on his front, digits trembling until she curled them into fists. "Fera got hurt because of you," she accused into the muffling presence of his mass.
Titanios went limp, but still somehow managed to hold onto Cloudsong. A cranial unit lifted, letting him stare off into the nothing while he processed on what to say next. "I know..." he admitted, slowly, unable to take his optics off the walls. It was far more stable than him. "And I will be making that up to her for the rest of my life cycle." His frozen gaze tore away and he set his foreplate on her crest, optics squeezing tightly shut. "However, for now, I simply want your forgiveness. I know you can't give it to me, but I want to hear that it may happen eventually."
"Titanios, I should be furious with you..." she said, voice shaking as badly as her frame with the pent-up words inside of her. They were swelling, he could feel them. And soon, she would burst. "I really want to be, but I can't..."
Her digits clamped over the rims of his plates wherever she could grab, holding herself hard enough to him that he almost fell over. A slick, heated liquid slipped down his front, and he knew, without needing to see, that they were the angry tears of the medic's apprentice attached to him.
Undeserving was how he felt to have them dress his armor. They were meant for a different mech, for whom this fembot deserved. Not a Decepticon and Autobot traitor whom had left her behind, only to return and grovel for her merciful favor. It went without saying that he could come up with nothing other than to rub a servo along her spinal support and trace the outline of the space between her shoulderbolts with his free thumb link.
"That's not how you are, love," he whispered soothingly to her.
"And I hate it so much," she hissed back from behind gritted oral sheets, hitting one palm to his chassis.
With one swift motion Titanios had Cloudsong before him, separated by his careful grip on her upper arms. Paths of lubricant decorated her flushed cheekplates, her optics filled with tempered wavers of light. A sniffle came from her nasal plate and her servos lifted toward her chassis. The look in her optics was oddly curious - a characteristic he'd believed she'd lost for him.
"I don't want you to ever change. You are talented and beautiful and kind and I was a fool to not have told you earlier. I can't ever say I'm sorry enough." It was all said at a tone barely breaking a whisper. Partly this was from his inability to dare break the sacred quiet enveloping them. The other part was because he was afraid to say these powerful words in the first place. Especially in front of the security cameras.
Cloudsong studied him again and drug a digit across her cheekplate to get rid of the lubricant. She then used her palms to press the rest of them from her optics."Please..." she began, lowering her servos and grabbing hold of Titanios' sights, "don't ever do it again...I was really hurt Titanios...and scared for you."
"For me?"
"Of course..." she said, pausing as if unsure of herself. "You mean a lot to me."
Here a great smile touched Titanios' relieved lip plates. A laugh would have escaped him if he would have let it pass. But the shock inside of him was too great to allow its passage. Instead it took place in his optics, which held onto the moment with the force of a dieing soldier to his life cycle. "Thank you," was all he could manage.
And when her lip plates opened to reply, he rose his servo to cut her off. "For everything. I want to make it up to you. I want to make all of this right. No more pain and no more lies, for eternity over." A chuckle eventually did manage to slip past, and still it was half that of a regular show of humor or pleasure or brutality. "But the only way it seems I could do that would be to bond with you at this point."
Instantly the shock registered. With a statement such as he'd made, it didn't take long to understand its meaning. How wonderful it would have been to see a smile touch her familiar and innocently beautiful faceplates then. Or hear an announcement of excitement as she threw her arms around his neck. Or feel the sting of her palm as it raped his cheek. Or taste the sweetness of she while she kissed him in her always too-gentle way that always reminded him of the Earth's breeze against his frame.
What was he expecting from her that he deserved? It wasn't as if he'd outwardly asked her to bond with him. And the idea utterly frightened him when he genuinely considered it. He'd hinted at it enough for her to know that the idea was in his processor. But what would it mean for the both of them? As he sat here, wrapped around this fembot, he could feel Bekos and the distant presence of the mech's own mate, so faint it would be passed over during his daily processes. What would Cloudsong feel to Bekos? The wind? A flower? The streams of bubbling mercury outside their domicile as younglings on Cybertron?
What in his right processor would let him think Cloudsong wished to bond with him in the first place? They cared for one another, that much was clear. But he'd still betrayed her. There was no erasing the past or what it had done to scar them. The only way for them to move on would be to move on together.
A stern line pressed Titanios lip plates together. Too many sparkbeats had passed for Cloudsong to contemplate on his vague, but real offer. In the back of his consciousness, this was the sole way he could make things up to her - if that was what she wanted, that was. Yet there was little but a slight parting of her lip plates and a widening of her optics before she pulled away from her partner. At some point he'd thought she was going to answer.
Then she stood up, more so stumbling those few steps away from him than walking. Clean movement was never really her forte, was it?
Either way she made it to the door with frame quivering and vents whistling for air. "I must..." she paused as she seemed to think on what to say next. What she said was already choked and strained, as though forced through a tight throat. That odd click of the attachments on her helm became the single most important sound for a split few nanoclicks. Finally she regained her train of thought and continued, "Go tend to your brother...and his sparkling." An uneven plate in the floor tripped the already unsteady fembot and she fell back, catching herself on the frame of the door and turning herself into it, depending on it to stand.
Titanios' servo was outstretched and he was unaware that it was. With a mangled leg, there wasn't the ability in him to stand and go to the ailing fembot. She aimed her optics away, nervously, but lingered. His arm dropped. She put in the code to open the door.
Still, there was that part of him that begged for one last chance. "Cloudsong," he called as she stepped outside the boundary of his prison. She stopped, spinal support turned towards him, apparently unwilling to stare the mech whom had become a traitor to her in the optic.
"I love you. That much at least is the truth."
And she walked out, the pressure of her essence in the room subtracted. A flush of air drifted inward without fail. The close of the doors was something permanent and strong. Two things he wasn't. Still a grin breach his wall of pity when four words carried in on that shut of the barrier. It was too quiet for a human to hear. To him, they were as clear as if she had shouted them.
"I love you too."
A great big world was out there, beyond the darkness - within an impossible universe full of it. And light. Lots of light. After all, there could only be light in a world of darkness, right?
Still there was something about this darkness that didn't settle well. It was dank. And cold. A type of coldness actually that struck to the bones. Electricity tingled in it as a living entity paving the space that allowed life to exist. Everything that could be fed from everything that would be, and so on, so forth. As matter worked, there would never be an end for it, but a forever beginning and cease that would continue onward through newness and reincarnation. A loop, if you will. And everyone was caught in it.
Scary things to think about... What could be the end? How would it happen? Would it be painful? What is after it? Would there be a way to remember their legacy? Would it be remembered? How long was afterwards to last, following the end? What would happen to the world left behind - would it continue on as if nothing had effected it? Would there be grief? Would there be love? What was love?
Am I capable of love? Of death? Of fear?
There was a way for her to figure this out for herself. Yet Fera Lennox -believe it or not- was actually afraid to answer them. If the answer she gave herself was wrong, she would lead herself into a place none escaped from. But if she gave the right answer, would it destroy her as it had so many others, or would it give her the edge she's sought for thus long? There was no telling what could become if she never took the risk to answer it for herself.
Still she was hesitant to give her final answer.
"Where would you be without him?"
That entity had been here for a time. Stalking at her side as the itch she couldn't scratch, they lingered on the very precipice of her peripheral vision. A lot had happened while they transported about around her. It had become a game for them by then to annoy her until she was on her kneebolts with her helm in her servos and a scream bleaching the walls that weren't there.
They, of course, were white. And she, of course, was scared. That didn't necessarily mean she wouldn't be able to go on. This far along she had made a pretty decent journey from doubt to bravery. All in the span of a few weeks, without the sun at her shoulderbolts, she had been from home to an enemy stronghold and back. It seemed not very many in her position returned from that kind of situation without serious permanent damage. Perhaps she did have a tick or two, if this pestering essence at her audio was anything to go by.
"Tell me. Do you love him?"
After some brutal self-meditation, she had managed to learn to deal with it. An answer had fluttered from her lip plates four separate occasions. However that entity, whom she referred to as 'Quintus', refused anything except a straight answer. That coldness was biting at her again. With a flinch she realized it was Quintus touching her - brushing by.
"Everything is awaiting you, Keeper," another voice chimed in slowly, carefully from the left. Fera did not turn, even as this tone was unfamiliar yet. She was uncertain if they too would disappear. "You simply must open your optics to it."
"That's hard," Fera intoned through a servo while she scrubbed it down her faceplates. It was shifting again. From hand to servo, servo to hand. Digits with claws scraped the metal and flesh of her features. An indent of her cheekplate popped out when she touched it. Her optics shuttered into icy-blue irises. Eyelashes defied gravity when they batted and curled toward the unreachable white overhelm. "I don't want to do it."
A third pressure filled the watery air trapped in the boundless walls. They were all in a cage within infinity. That cage was full of water. Fera struggled to regain the space to vent comfortably again.
"It is not as simple as you make it out to be, Nexus," her savior noted gently. Nobly, the notes of a warrior's song touch Fera's consciousness. Her sights turned on Solus Prime, whom stood with hammer and glory, to her near right. A smile was upon her searing faceplates and the handle of a hammer was in her servos while it rested on its double heads between her peds. In false realities she was as glorious as in life.
A shimmer split the space beside her. She paid it no larger heed as if it had been the kiss of the wind on her arm. A mech, massive in comparison, with a height requiring the thirty-five degree rear of the helm, appeared. White as purity, violet as satin, and gold as honor. Shoulderbolts a ventless width. Blades shivering at his sides. They were alive, that much was obvious, and vibrated intensely enough to blur at the edges while attached to him. As Solus' own, his optics changed from a variety of nameless hues.
"Overwhelm her, shall you," Vector Prime rumbled as he switched the blades between his servos. This was the clearest view of him she had seen. Making little sense, she didn't understand how this was an important enough event to reveal himself. Of all the times, now was the opportunity to reunite with another of her Guardian Primes. "Haven't she enough with the our Decepticon deviants?"
"I for one, believe her a better being because of her experiences," an entity stated gruffly, in an almost gargled manner. Blackness was beyond black on his paint scheme. The green there was sick as ivy. It was rare for his optics to change beyond grey or black or yellow. Pus yellow. "Believe the strength you see inside this one now, my brothers and sister."
"It is the Decepticons you favor, Liege Maximo," Solus entered, patiently. It could have been humorous, as a sound of laughter -or was it scorn?- trickled out of Liege's gnarled vents. Smoke curled over him, his frame but a moving liquid of onyx that hardened when he was still. The profiles of the pained screeched in the creases between each plate of obsidian covering.
Liege nodded his ghastly helm, as it was horned and twisted, with a sarcastic respect to his 'sister'. "They are the bluntest of our descendants; they deserve their note. Courage beyond empathy is why I pride as their influential inspiration."
A fifth entrance was made by a mech Prime. The orange death of sunset mixed with the flesh of brown Mother Earth. "Ego, my brother," he spoke with his wispy words. "Learn to control it." His armor echoed his attitude, which was sharp but smooth. A slope was in his helm, which was odd, until one noticed the layered attribute of it that added an interesting detail to it. His designation whispered forth without verbal need: Alchemist Prime.
"Spoken as the wisest of us, as you claim to be," a truly short mech sneered while he stepped beside Fera. Shorter than she, his helm came to her elbowjoint. His color clashed with hers, if she had a color, with his red and blue pallet. Without invitation he looked up at her, snorted, and stomped away. There was no reason for his irritation, yet, it amused Fera to see his shortness stalking into the wavering curtain of white. He sunk through the wall as if it were a barrier of milk. The ripples danced, then became still when Fera neared them.
Her hand came up, reaching. Unsuccessfully she went for it and missed everything but the air. A servo lowered to her side. Another was there to touch her digits and knit around her fingers.
As a fembot she glanced at Megatronus Prime. The evil sibling. One with the sway of Unicron in his processor and the bell of regret in his spark. She could feel it now: It was not the mirror of Galvatron. It was sad. That was the only way she could describe the turmoil of swelling, incredible rush of nauseating sorrow: sadness. Regret of the past most likely. He felt as if he were a fool. Unicron had used him, and thrown him away for no sibling to accept him again. It was sad.
"You feel it, don't you?" he murmured in his venomous grandeur. "My spark."
"Yes," she responded, gently, with a voice constantly in change. To describe it would be to say it was the hum of the ocean intertwined with the laugh of a snowfall. Then it would turn into the boring joke of a human.
His grip on her servo increased while the pump of his spark picked up a bit. Empty as it was, it was impossible to understand a creature complex as he anyhow. Bounding emotions coupled with a maze of a insurmountable intelligence made for an unstable system of a being. And trapped in this corporal form, there wasn't an escape. Happiness was there. The evil was there too, and it would always be, but it would never be as intense as it was before Optimus Prime killed him.
How did she know that?
Megatronus' spark told her.
When she turned away from where Micronus Prime had vanished she was still holding Megatronus' servo. Thirteen pairs of optics were upon her at this point. The crowding mass in the cage of liquid was crushing her vents. Here she knew she didn't even have to cycle the air to survive. Mainly it was for the comfort of familiarity. To feel the shudder of air as it entered and exited her systems was a stable sense of herself. Without it, her being was in question.
Primon was in the center of them, his presence drawing the optics without needing say a word. His was the heaviest being and stole away all belief of past knowledge and shamelessness. Being compared to him was as if compared to God. There was none. Edges of his armor mimicked his creator. A subtle detail stabbed in vain to pierce the virtuous entirety that made up merely his chassis. On his spinal support, the hilt of a blade teased the imagination.
Prima took her rightful spot beside her brother. It was beauty whom envied her. Ruby and silver were her colors of preference, with armor glistening in indescribable hues in all directions. Graceful swoops of layered covering trickled off her shoulderbolts. Thick, platinum slates gleamed when she shifted the slightest bit on her hipbolts and legs. Attached to her side was a mighty sword, angled at the ground, its tip less than a foot from the spaceless floor.
Fera witnessed them all taking shape one either of his sides, with Prima, Alchemist, Solus, Onyx, Quintus, and Nexus Primes to his right, and Alpha Trion, Liege Maximo, Amalgamous, Micronus, and Vector Primes to his left. Megatronus Prime was still beside her, clutching her servo as if it were she who the strength belonged. It was his rightful place to divert from the line of his brothers and sister. He was The Fallen after all. And so it would seem that not even the Primes were unable to process a grudge.
Another object of her interest was the faint pricks of light fluttering between the seams of each Primes' chassis. They were all a separate color, and none glowed quite the same in intensity. Primon and Prima were gold and white. The others were red, green, purple, black, blue, yellow, and a volley of undefined colors. Primon, along with those surrounding him, opened his chassis to the worlds.
Beneath it was a Stone. A glorious, terrifying, awe-inspiring, Stone. It matched the one on Fera's chassis, and unconsciously she placed the servo that Megatronus wasn't holding over it. A low vibration was rocking through her as she stood there, rumbling into her sole core. Even Megatronus' own chassis was opened, though his Stone was an ashen grey. Lifeless. Abandoned. Broken.
Vector Prime caught her view when her hungry gaze stripped these beings for answers. His chassis was full of a blue light. It put the skies to shame. The rivers and oceans beating at the shores of the Earth haven't the depth of emotion and raw power pent up in that mass of floating blue energy. It matched the one on her collar perfectly.
Vector Prime smiled at her like a father to his daughter. "You have a piece of me, Fera Rosalie Lennox," he said, gently, his voice rolling in waves through the matter of space-time. "As one of our last Keepers, it is in your fate to carry on our mission of stopping the Chaos Bringer and defining yourself in all time as our median in these wars."
Alpha Trion stepped up, his Stone a brilliant purple color. "It is not your choice to decide a favorable side, my dear," he put in carefully, features twisted in sympathy. "You are the tipping balance between these forces. As such, a rooted staple has taken part in the fabric of your life cycle, and fate, that you may be the deciding factor that if these wars shall be allowed to continue."
Fera felt her chassis tighten. Was it her right to take a large responsibility like this? To decide right from wrong? Why wouldn't she be able to pick a side then, if it was her responsibility to do so in the first place?
Pressure squeezed her vents and churned her tanks as Megatronus leaned down beside her audio. He was so much taller than she. "He means you are not allowed to die," he reiterated simply. "Unless of course you wish for both Autobots and Decepticons to drive the Cybertronian race into extinction."
"What happened to the other keepers?" Fera blurted, audios burning from where Megatronus' words touched them. "Why does it have to be me that decides the fate of the universe? Why not the Keeper of Primon? Or Prima?" This was a desperate attempt here. Fright was building in her, and it showed through the tremble of her digits. She took her servo away from Megatronus for the first time and crossed her arms, hiding their shaking from sight.
The Fallen could be felt to look down at her from her side. Not with contempt, as one would believe. It was a sort of shattered hope that had been in existence for too long and was slowly rotting away. That was the sort of thing Fera wondered if Solas looked like when she was turned away, or he was locked away in his room as he did sometimes. She often caught herself envisioning the things he did out of sight: cry, laugh, recharge, or break down - the opportunity of privacy brought out those factors of a being.
Solus stepped up, hammer slung on her shoulderbolt as it had been when Fera first saw her. There was a faint line across her abdomen. "You carry the only knowledge between them all of your being a Keeper. It is in your abilities to control your Stone, as none before you have, and thus we favor you for it." A smile touched her painfully beautiful lip plates and her mastered touch hardened on the handle of her Tool of Life. "Not merely for your bravery, which is amongst the highest of notability, but for your willingness and certainty to do what is right. You know your path."
"No, I don't," Fera replied, grabbing her upper arms and shaking her helm. "I'm not brave. I'm constantly second-guessing myself and getting in the way. I can't fight in a fighting war, and my processor is ceaselessly plagued by fear. Fear and fighting do not go so well." She lifted her optics and swallowed back the bulge in her throat. "Neither do I and responsibility."
"You doubt yourself," Prima noted in her smooth way, stepping up to lay a servo on Solus' shoulderbolt. The fembot of Creation stepped back to allow her sister forward. Prima had a tiny grin on her elegant features, that lit up the already white space further than her majestic crimson and pearl armor. "Unnecessarily, I may add. Was it not you whom stole away your Guardian's essence from the digits of our mighty creator Primus? Was it not you whom decorated yourself with its malison and drowned in mortality at the spitting words of Arachnid quartexes ago? Was it not you whom challenged eternity and stepped into oblivion to defend your mission and continue on in these worlds of reality?"
"That was the human Fera," the fembot murmured, ashamed, lowering her optics. They shuttered to a close, and Fera shuddered. "I don't remember being brave, or courageous, so I am not the warrior she was. I am...me."
A gentle, yet large servo cupped her shoulderbolt abruptly. It was pleasant to be in contact with, as it was warm and tender. There was an abolishing feeling to it, as if it may wash away her guilts and faults and make her a saint, as these beings of legend were that stood before her. They kneaded away her anxiety, leaving but a sense of security behind. "You, are you," Prima agreed.
"But, it is because you are you, that you gain our trust," Primon commented.
"And our protection," Vector Prime said.
"And our faith," Solus Prime smiled.
Those four were her family. As of now, their descendents now included she. Fera believed it in herself that she was carrying, deep within the depths of her gridmap, the ancient genes of a Prime. Or four. Or thirteen. It made her want to cry to know that it was not merely her mother, if she may be referred to as much any longer, that she had alone any longer. These were the ones that accepted her in her defaulted state. They treated her as a true Cybertronian. As a warrior.
Alpha Trion took his turn to step into the circle of statements, his faceplates wise and seemingly aged compared to his compatriots. He, unlike the others, appeared his age. "Our Keepers are ignorant to their abilities, as we had intended. Many have passed," he went on, glancing to Nexus Prime, who bowed his helm, "or have been lost to space itself," he looked to Amalgamous Prime, and the mech clenched his mandible. "However, unlike them, you are set in your goal and destination, my dear. Your path is clear and unbidden, unlike our swayed progeny. You hold the lack of war, but the wisdom of pain in your spark. Thus, you are our perfect Keeper. Our opportunity for final, everlasting peace, and an end to a war which has lasted eternity."
At this, Megatronus grabbed her servo again and held it tight. "You are your own being," he stated, narrowing his optics at Alpha Trion before returning them to the numb Fera. "You may choose to save the wicked, or save yourself. Our descendants are a marred race, inevitably on the direction of extinction, as your former species is. This does not have to be your war."
"Megatronus..." Solus warned, her tone low as she set the heads of her hammer between her peds.
Prima held up her servo, silencing her comrade. "No, no, he is in his right," she said with a frown that was never too severe. "Fera, this is your choice, and your life cycle. If you desire threat of it in order of restoring the peace our species have lost, our blessing may be with you." Her servo fell to the sword on her hipbolt and her optics saddened. "If you so find your life cycle worthy of experience without the presence of us or our kind, so be it. We will not force your action. Nonetheless, let me enlighten you now: you are our last hope. Believe me now, that we need you, Keeper."
Fera didn't know what to say. All optics were upon her, from Micronus Prime, with his Chimera Stone on his chassis, to Amalgamous Prime, with his Void Trion grasped firmly in servo. Each showed a hindrance of emotion that neither opted her decision go one way or the other. Megatronus refused to rejoin the ranks of his brethren, and stayed at her side as a forever rebellion to his peers. It was his support that made this all real in her processor. It was the heat in his touch that kept her grounded here. It was the force in his grip that gave her an anchor to wrap her frenzied processor around.
Fera let her optics travel to Vector Prime. He nodded toward her with a respect she knew she didn't deserve. It was either her mark of good luck, or goodbye. Whichever it may have been, it terrified her more than the sinful monster whom clutched at her servo as if she may be the entity that absolved him. Drug his evil away. Gave him a new hope to replace the old. Here she knew that it wasn't her choice after all. These beings were truly depending on her - Primes were depending on her.
And who could say no to a Prime?
Solas flinched when Ratchet tapped him on the back of the helm with his wrench. Though it wasn't a hard blow, it still startled the warrior.
He had been recharging in a seat beside Fera's berth, helm cradled in a nest of his arm, and his free servo clamped loyally on hers. Ratchet had finally finished transferring her into her proper frame, and was tuning up the last few points that needed work before moving on. All through this, Solas had refused to leave her side. He was afraid she was wake up without him here and panic. After all, she hadn't done that well when Ratchet went to inject her with sedatives in the hallway of the base when their group had returned.
It would be difficult to forget the way she held onto him even when she fell under, murmuring his name and begging he not leave her. Little cracks appeared in his spark at the helplessness and terror in her when she became limp in his arms then. Now it didn't feel right to leave her with the CMO when he had seen her that way. Ratchet had ordered he go recharge, but he gave a definite no and a good, challenging glare. Conceding to an injured patient was not usually in Ratchet's forte, but he could clearly see it would be cruel to separate the pair at this point. So, as compromise, Solas had rested next to his charge. He still felt like scrap. Less than before, but it was still bad.
"I'm done," Ratchet commented, setting his tools down on a nearby toolcart. Solas drew in a long vent and stretched, optics fluttering as they adjusted to the harsh medbay light. "She should be awake soon. I'll be away to help Moonracer with the injured who were with you. But I don't want you two trying anything while I'm gone." He waggled a digit at Solas and the mech stared dumbly at the medic while his drowsy processor let the information sink in. Ratchet rolled his own optics and set everything up for his assistant, Vanessa, to clean later.
The human herself was sitting next to Colonel James Marks, talking with him in their hushed language with a smile on her fleshed face. They were sitting on the edge of a berth, their legs hanging off the edge and swinging subtly through the sterile air. She laughed softly, her shoulders bouncing the threads of her raven hair. James grinned his bright white grin, his scarred fingers clamped on the cliff of the berth, his hazel irises watching the girl with a contentment Solas found only in the gazes of Optimus to Rethalia, or Greenlight to Wheeljack.
Two teal optics turned back to the medic, who was already halfway gone through the doorway to his medbay. When his peds had gone through the frame and his shoulderbolt was even with the darkness beyond it, he paused and turned his helm back over his arm. "And...be careful with her, Solas Kaon." His helm nodded and his optics hardened. "You have both been through Pit and back, however, I fear it was she that suffered most."
With that final parting he was gone with the drafts that petted Solas' dent-ridden frame. He had held off having them popped out, since his every astrosecond being here was spent at the flank of his charge. It was his duty to be stationed here, to support her, and protect her while she recharged. Ratchet had already won the battle of getting his patient to rest, however, every other warrior whom requested he separate from his guarded was promptly and swiftly denied. All except Sarah Lennox of course, asking to be beside her daughter as well.
She was sleeping across the room, on a stiff cot with a turquoise blanket atop her stiff, still body. Puffy redness kissed her cheeks and eyelids from her crying. Trails stained the sides of her face, even in dryness, and she murmured one single name in her sleep. A strong woman had finally broke. He'd known it would happen, and he was surprised she had lasted thus long.
James and Vanessa had gone silent after Ratchet's leave, and a frown now dressed the CMO's human apprentice's face. She was watching after him with a concern only a student may have for their teacher. James' own sense of sternness covered the dips of his chiseled jaw and high cheeks. He nudged Vanessa's shoulder and she jumped back into reality, black hair ruffling over her eyes.
As she gathered herself, giving James a small grin and nod to say she was alright, the colonel set his sights on the mech seated by the berth in the middle of the floor. Their sights met, and Solas set his mandible in a firm grip. A lack of recharge left his features open to the elements and allowed him no protection against the prying eye or optic.
Marks lifted his puckered, flushed knuckles to rub the back of his neck. Obviously he'd visited the sandbag in the artillery garage again. "Ratchet says she's going to be ok," he offered awkwardly to the injured warrior before him. Solas didn't reply, and turned his helm back to Fera, thumb link brushing circles on the back of her servo. James let his hand down and continued, "Mind telling me what you both went through up there?"
What was with humans and their insatiable addiction to noise? Silence was good at some points, and this was one of them. However, Solas was no more rude than he was hot-helmed, and so he let a wobbling cycle of air flow from his vents. "I would rather not talk about it."
The dents and welds scorning the image of him should have been telling enough of his and Fera's experience 'up there'. James Marks should have known as much too, for he was not one stranger to the tortures of war. The scars of his own body betrayed his journey through the tours of countries outside of this one. A few brushes with Decepticons marked him up along a few places he'd described to Solas once or twice. That could be the sole attribute shared between them.
Lifting his hands in a placating gesture, James respectfully backed off. "Don't then, it's up to you. But, from experience, I have to say that talking about things truly does help with the healing process." His elbows rested on his knees, his eyes turning a piercing jade. "Mentally, and physically."
"I'll keep that in consideration," Solas stated, keeping his spinal support to the couple. As far as he was concerned, this conversation was over. He didn't like where it was headed, and as much, he would like to keep it short and clean. Nevertheless he was thankful that a fellow fighter would try to make him feel more at ease.
Vanessa was ready to say something, he could feel it. And the usually bold woman never really kept things to herself when she had something needed to be said. Solas had only known her for the shortest while, however, so far, he'd swiftly come to realize that she could have very well been a twin to Doctor Shelby. Terra herself loved the apprentice.
His patience was mixing in with his anticipation. Solas tilted his helm slightly to the side. "Vanessa, I would appreciate it if you would not look at me as if I were a wounded animal," he told her coldly. He could hear her shuffling and then sitting still once more, or standing maybe, he couldn't quite be sure. A jacket that was always wound around her waist crinkled against the coarse fabric of her cargo pants.
"I'm not," she denied, voice weak and careful. It wasn't for him that brokenness was made for, but the friend she'd made that was lying on the medical berth. "I'm just worried for her. And not in the way you're thinking, but...more for what she'll think when she wakes up. This is the third frame transfer she's had in the span of two months. Ratchet said that merely one transfer would be stressful on a Cybertronian's systems every vorn." She paused, surely shoving her hands into her pockets. "I'm just nervous I guess that she'll break down somehow..."
"And that's not a bad thing to be, dear," a rough tone scraped from their place at the end of the berth. A collection of three pairs of sights snapped towards it. Solas found Sarah Lennox up on her elbow, blanket fallen to her hip, with her raw eyes cracked open and her dry lips in a smile. "We're all a bit nervous. To be truthful, I think I'm actually more terrified, if anything."
Her weary sights turned onto Solas, who had been studying her intently for any distressing signs. Her hazel orbs on his teal ones knocked his attention back to reality and drug his view from the lack of light in her once so brightly fierce eyes. Now Solas knew where her daughter had gotten hers from. "But we can't show her that when she wakes up. She's been through worse, and us harping over her ceaselessly will only result in her feeling crowded. I don't want my daughter to avoid us. I've only just gotten her back," the vigilant mother went on. The corners of her eyes lifted when she grinned again and she laid down on her side. "And Solas? Please be careful. The way your eyes devour that poor girl, we'll have nothing left to see of her."
She was asleep before she got to see the shock plastered on his faceplates and the stiffen of his worn frame.
A squeeze captured his servo in tightly and drew his attention back to the body on the berth. It was new and white and unmarked - everything that Fera was not anymore. Since their return from the Decepticon vessel hence, nothing would be the same. This attempt at returning her to Autobot standards would never work. If anything was the same, it was the armor around her chassis, which was left alone because of the system holding the Stone. Before, the Stone had been out in the open; exposed, it was left to the elements. Now it had a proper casing, and spot in her armor, where it would be protected by the crystalline cover and system regulating the energy output. It was supposed to help her processor sort things out as well.
Optics that were an almost iridescent shade of intense blue flashed as if never having been in recharge. They glowed in a shade that was indescribable. Their energy flashed strong as the Stone beating in tune with his spark on her chassis. He didn't pay attention to the fact of her Stone pulsing alongside his spark. It was her being awake that pushed that extra pump of excitement through him. He leaned forward and grabbed her servo with both of his, his frame tingling.
"Fera?" he murmured in Cybertronian, afraid to shatter their peace. "Do you know where you are?"
Those optics, full of the Stone itself, flicked over toward him, locking him in place. "Yeah...I think." If anything were devouring, it would be her optics. As they swept around, taking in everything and anything she may have seen, she took her time to answer back her Guardian. "We're back home."
The fact that she didn't use 'base' instead of 'home' made Solas want to grin. He allowed that part of himself to give in, and he studied his charge's curious gaze with a small upturn of the corners of his lip plates. "We're in the medbay. You've been through a frame transfer to get you back into an Autobot system," he said, leaning forward. Fera groaned and let Solas help her to a sitting position, where she then grabbed his servo again. "But, to warn you, he kept a few moderations. No matter how much I don't want to admit, the Decepticons have a higher advanced collection of technology than we do, thus, he figured it would be best to keep a few things the same... Including that."
Solas pointed to the chamber keeping the Stone protected in Fera's chassis. She looked down, chin almost touching her collar armor. Shaking digits rose from her side to touch the angles sides of the shape protruding from her front. There was a light to her features that spoke of a secret - a knowledge that was beyond him. Fera wouldn't keep anything away from him, unless of course it was for a good reason. She should be acting differently to the information given to her, but she was behaving as if she already knew she was to be transfered.
His optic ridges burrowed and Solas laid a servo on his charge's spinal support. "Is something bothering you?" he wondered softly, dipping his helm down to her level. Fera's optic ridges darted upward and collected in two pools before him. They were distant and distracted. A touch of sadness and frustration swirled alongside her gentle faceplates. Whatever was bothering her must be an overwhelming essence, if it was keeping her from reacting to a third frame transfer. There were a million-and-one things that could be effecting her since their arrival from the Nemesis. From Punch's mutilation to Titanios' betrayal - he lost count of the ways she should be fritzing at the moment. For once he was concerned that she wasn't losing her processor.
"What is wrong?" he questioned as Fera stared too long and blurrily into his optics. They were somewhere else far, far away. Sadly, in a place he may never be able to reach her.
"Nothing," she clearly lied, bringing herself away to tuck her legs close. The fembot twisted to the side and swung her legs down, her toelinks barely brushing the floor. A lithe spinal support faced Solas as her bowed helm trained her sights into her peds. She wasn't making a move to stand, which she would need assistance with at first, but simply sitting there.
After a nanoclick or two she finally did shift herself forward. Solas collected himself to a stand and made his way around the berth, intent on keeping by her side. Her servo remained on the berth behind her while her other opened at her side for balance. These new peds of hers were slim, but in a wedge, whereas before, she'd been standing on near daggers. These should be easier for her, but no matter the model design, it took time to get used to one's frame.
And when Fera's weak kneebolts gave out on her, Solas Kaon was there to catch her. His capable servos were on her shoulderbolts within the split sparkbeat it took her to gasp. His digits wound over the armor cuffs and kept her from crumpling to the unforgiving ground. A ground, which they both would rather have stayed far away from after this long orn trapped on one. Fera's grip was on his bracers, trembling, for the fear must have been in her brave spark as well. It was a shame he couldn't console her through their bond.
"That's it," he huffed, sweeping his arms beneath Fera's legs. "I'm taking you back to my quarters." In a single swoop he had her in a cradle to his chassis. She was a perfect size for him to carry, neither being too long, nor tall, for him to hold comfortably. Her servo was on his chassis and a lock was on her lip plates. The shame was there in her expression, however, she wasn't speaking up on it. Solas felt his spark drop in concern for her and he tightened his grip, as only he himself could do. No other 'Bot may hold her this way. No other 'Bot was capable of comforting the stubborn entity of she. It was him alone.
While they walked out, Solas noticed several things. James had Vanessa by the shoulder and was keeping her from speaking out against Solas' taking Ratchet's patient -as if she would have made a difference-. And Cloudsong was standing at the door to the space, a compad gripped to her chassis, and her expression speechless.
Sol stalked up to her and inclined his helm down, not very willing to be hostile with this fembot after all she had done for him and his charge both. "Cloudsong, please move out of the way," he requested, careful to keep his tone low and non-threatening. "I'm taking her to rest with me. We just...need to be alone for awhile - adjust to things again."
Without a word the apprentice stepped aside. Not a disapproving glance or remark of caution left her. She simply clutched her compad close and watched the Guardian take his exhausted and broken charge down the length of the corridors.
Solas and Fera both must have gotten lost in their own processors on the way down, because neither spoke while in their journey. The atmosphere had thinned some from their leaving the medbay and Solas found his musings to clear in the relatively quiet kalon. Soldiers where far and few in-between, and doctors where almost an extinct sight altogether. It was nice to find not much attention drawn to them both, and he found a sense of peace come over him.
Fera was resting nicely against him, her frame no longer restricted in that stuffy medbay. Solas found his grip had lessened some, and he found he could actually enjoy this new found freedom they'd been granted. It had been quite the while since they could walk without shackles to hold them back.
Yet he knew it shouldn't have lasted long. What kind of a fool was he?
Titanios himself was walking down the hall toward Solas, or, at least, limping toward him. Hawktail was at his side, aiding the severely injured mech most likely to the medbay to get his leg fixed. Solas couldn't control the reflex of holding Fera closer, nor the flinch of his optics as they narrowed. This was the last mech he'd wished to see pass him. What made it worse was that Titanios was blocking the path to Solas' quarters, and the hulking mech had now seen him and Fera.
Hawktail paused when Solas wished he'd kept walking. With every step the Guardian made, meant to take him to his personal quarters, the atmosphere thickened. Until his vents were physically fluttering from the depth of weight on them, Solas walked to the traitor and his helper. He stopped before them both, keeping his scalding orbs on Titanios and ignoring the armory smith altogether.
Titanios hefted himself up, situating his arm better around Hawktail's neck. His expression was openly shaded, with a mixture of hope, pleading, and anger flushing forth from his usually intense form. The mech was now cleaved, injured, and branded a traitor. Because that's all he would ever be: a traitor. To both sides no less. The mech would have been better off becoming a Neutral, or rogue even rather than coming here. Ultra Magnus should have left him behind.
Solas gripped Fera nearer to him, engines revving too low to hear. His spark thumped hard against its chamber, ready to burst. Fera was already recharging again against his chassis, unaware of the situation developing. The Stone glimmered faintly in tune with both their sparkbeats. The stench of a traitor was in Solas' senses.
Then again...the more he processed on it...wasn't he a traitor at one point? Leaving the Decepticons to join the Autobot cause?
No. No, this wasn't the same thing. What Titanios had did was inexcusable. Their paths were complete opposites.
"Sol," Titanios said, boldly shattering their silence. "I really need to talk with yo-"
"First of all," Solas began, words sharp as the sword hidden in his bracer, "Don't you dare call me that. You are an ally, not a friend." The former Decepticon snapped his mandible shut, struts groaning while he tried standing. Hawktail, the furiously stoic mech that he was, remained completely quiet. "Secondly, the only reason I haven't beat you within an inch of joining the Matrix is because you protected Fera while we escaped."
"I couldn't tell you what I was doing," Titanios reasoned, raising an open servo, "it would have ruined the entire plan-"
Solas barked and stalked forward to thrust his faceplates into Titanios'. The sole thing holding him back was the warning servo on his shoulderbolt from Hawktail, and Fera's stirring frame in his arms. The Stone brightened, then dimmed to a smoother shade. "Your 'plan' killed one of my comrades and nearly deadsparked us in the process," Solas growled. "It's going to take a lot more than excuses to get me to believe that you didn't help us back there only to save your own aft."
Titanios' already helpless features contorted to stone-hard shock. Solas blew it off and straightened slowly. His servos were burning to punch this mech across his faceplates again. After all, their suffering; their torture; their fear - it was all because this mech had betrayed them. Sol made his way around Hawktail and the wounded warrior to keep himself from balancing Fera on one arm and pounding out his frustrations on Titanios with the other.
For a brief while, Solas had believed this mech to be one he could see himself becoming comrades with. They'd been through the seemingly same thing, defecting from the tyrannical views of the Decepticons to seek the tired righteousness in the Autobots. They could have been brothers in arms.
But the instance Titanios put his dirty servos on Fera, all that flew out the window.
"Solas, I-" the mech tried again. Solas cut him off by flashing his oral sheets and spitting lubricant onto his peds.
"Keep your distance," he snarled. One last chance his optics danced between those of the mech he saw no fit of respect for. "Unless you want your leg to not be the only limb snapped." The door slammed behind him before something else could be said. And no doubt, there was plenty more he'd wished to say.
Things got a little tense, huh?
This was a pretty interesting chapter to write...
I pretty much made things up as I went XD
But, my readers, do you know that the climax of our ending is coming up?
Fairly soon, I might add, so everyone prepare yourselves for a lot of emotion, and action!
Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear what you think!
*Chapter Inspiration: Strange Birds= Birdy*