Back from being out of town finally -_-

I barely had time to work on this,

But I won't give any excuses, so here you all go! :)

Love ya'll to bits for dealing with me,

Enjoy!

Of The Spark And Heart

Part 2

Chapter 77

Many things turned awful in a beautiful world. Plenty of things. There was the unfairness of the universe and its massive expanse. There was the definite truth that was life, no matter the life of the being. They could be in existence for a hundred years, or a million, but their mark would never stay within the fabric of history and existence. It was sad to think of, really. It was as if a speck of dust were floating in the ocean. Whom would notice a mere prick in the vast stretch of blue? And who would miss it?

Then there were the facts of living things that knew how to be scared and were intelligent enough to question everything and anything. They created terror. Before, it had been but a feeling of displeasure and insecurity. Now, it had a name. And when that name breached a processor, or a mind, bad things happened. Terror created desperation – it created betrayal. For it was terror, and fear, and fright, that became creator to these once nameless emotions. The worlds had been far better off without intelligence.

What would the universe be, without those whom knew how to question it? Blissful ignorance could prosper, and not an inkling of care would be felt for the inevitable wisdom that they would one day be nothing. They wouldn't know anything better than survival. Today was today, and tomorrow would come as tomorrow would come. But while a single entity must have lain, staring into star-crossed skies, their thoughts may have wandered. They'd questioned meaning. When they preached their doubt, it started the beginning of a species' thirst for knowledge. Many races were greedy with that sort of thing.

A fairly intelligent being was experiencing all that was terror herself. While she drove, wheels humming atop the rocks of pavement, she couldn't stop the racing of her thoughts. They became her own personal traitor as they scratched at her processor and tore at her spark. Dark whispers caressed her audios from their vile, poison-laden lips. They said that everything was her fault – that Galvatron had been right about everything.

A part of her wanted to banish Galvatron to the depths of her CPU. She wanted to delete the memories of him and force herself to forget all that was the incarnate of her horrors. Then again, why would she do that?

If Galvatron was erased from her processor, any and all reason behind her terrors would vanish with him. It would be empty pain, full of empty memories. That fate was almost worse than keeping the files of him. Feeling the weight of his digits as they slowly took her apart, piece by piece, bit by bit, until her very gridmap was unwoven…they were almost less frightening than starting all over again.

Something was tugging in her chassis, making it difficult to vent properly. Heat was riddling her frame, boiling her systems inside a cage of her own body. The glue that was holding her together was becoming soggy from the invisible tears she was shedding. Pretty soon she was going to fall apart completely.

A shiver rocked her form, making her tires squeal and her direction swerve. She hadn't noticed her rabid distraction until she'd nearly collided head-on with a semi truck. While its horn blared behind her, Fera Lennox let her plates tremble until she was concerned that she was going to transform here and now on the road. A vision passed by her, of the feeling of immeasurable heat as her frame rolled and tumbled across the concrete at one-hundred miles-per-hour.

She was exhausted. They all were. It was clear to see in all the meager faces and faceplates Fera came across on their day-long journey. Was it really that long ago? Had everything happened only yesterday? Their lasting line of defense was truly gone – ripped from beneath them without a single warning? It was hard to believe that after months of feeling secure, her home had fallen. Again.

Those whom had managed to escape had all gone their separate ways. As protocol permitted, all Autobots stuffed themselves with humans, and broke into various groups. Fera's group consisted of Optimus Prime, Cloudsong, Solas Kaon, Sideswipe, Jazz, Ironhide, and Chromia. Rethalia was missing from their ranks, meaning she was probably with another. Once away from ground zero, the parted groups would rendezvous at a singular location. There was just one problem: They had no point to meet at.

That Washington base was the third to be destroyed. Third. Fera had been keeping a comlink channel open with Solas after refusing to not be in constant communication with her Guardian following the attack. He'd agreed easily enough, and through a few mumbling sessions, Fera had come to learn of the destruction of the Diego Garcia base and the San Diego base. Along with the Saint Louis base, that made three totally destroyed, and one in the process of being rebuilt. There was no way the San Diego base could hold all the Autobots and humans. Besides, it was all the way across the country.

Things never got better. At this point all Fera could imagine was the worse. She could still see the stacks of smoke, spiraling into the skies to attack the purity of the blue…it had been terrible to see. All she'd known since coming online had been that pile of cement and rubble. And not to mention, the frames in the underground mausoleum were probably buried beneath that very rubble. Honorable mechs and fembots who had given their lives for the Autobot cause on Earth. And to see that they'd never even been given rest on their home planet... That in itself made Fera want to break down.

She hadn't known her venting had picked up until Cloudsong moved a bit closer. The tingling of a scan washed through Fera's frame a moment after. ~Your systems are a bit flustered,~ the fembot murmured through comlink, her voice soft. Fera knew that the apprentice wouldn't have seen anything because of the Stone and its fluctuating energy. Ratchet made that clear enough when he'd tried. ~Are you feeling alright?~

Fera didn't respond, afraid she was going to lash out at the innocent apprentice, or completely shatter on the spot. It wouldn't be fair to her. A sort of storm brewed inside of Fera, bubbling up and festering into a wailing turmoil of agony. It wouldn't be much longer before a piece of herself snapped. Through the silence, she could feel Cloudsong's concern through their comlink. Though the fembot was shy, that did not mean she wasn't persistent.

Suddenly Fera felt very, very claustrophobic. Seven lives were crowded around her in a way that made her feel like a caged animal. Optimus and Jazz were ahead of her, while Solas was on her right, Cloudsong to her left, and Ironhide and Chromia took the rear. Sideswipe was ahead of them all by a good mile, scoping out ahead in case of danger. Fera had the sneaking suspicion it was to get away from the others to sort out his anxiety over Sunstreaker's disappearance. The twins had to be going through separation issues.

Fera was too busy encountering her own problems to care much. Having herself boxed in, with Cloudsong's gripping voice coming in from her comlink, and Solas' brooding emotions wafting through his, she didn't know where to go to have peace. Panic began to set in, along with increasing paranoia. The fembot found herself looking toward the skies and the other passerby cars than the road ahead of her.

Solas came in closer as Cloudsong had, driving dangerously near to Fera – compared to other, Earth cars of course. His rumbling engine vibrated her frame from such a short distance, rattling her stirring emotions further. ~Tell me what's wrong,~ he told her gently.

Silence was his only answer, as it had been for Cloudsong. Fera was sure that if they were all in their bipedal mode, the medic apprentice and warrior would have looked at each other in mutual worry. There was no doubt that they were speaking already through comlink. That explained the fizzy, poor connection he and Fera were having. She tried zeroing in on the crackling static to help her, but it did nothing. The worlds were starting to spin. The air became impossible to vent when her circulation systems filled with fluffy tar.

~Fera-~

The fembot abruptly squealed sideways so hard that she almost rammed Cloudsong off the road. The Fiat Strata vehicle buzzed forward to dodge, leaving Fera's aggressive, Lamborghini Reventon alt mode to zip directly off the streets and across the gravel of the shoulder. She could feel the scratchy pebbles piercing her undercarriage, and taste the rocky dryness of the dirt on her sensors. Dust kicked up over her headlights, caking her white paint in a brownish-grey coat.

They were passing through a valley, of which had lush greenery beside the crumbling road they drove on, and soaring, rusty brown and red mountains in the distant horizon. Brown outcroppings ripped through the fiery clouds – souring into the bloodied and violet skies without such a care rather than to be the tallest and grandest. The way the dying sunlight touched the trees, setting their leaves ablaze, was rather beautiful. A purplish smoky color captured the canyons, lighting up the ribbons of layers of different rocks making them. If Fera weren't in the midst of a fritz, she would have appreciated them more.

Instead she fled into the curtain of trees without a hint of heeding the various trunks around her. They were tall and thick and immensely dark. In the night, she knew they would fade away into the shadows without trace. One of them clipped her side mirror, cracking the glass.

The fembot didn't stop flying through the blurry sheen of trees until she saw an opening break through the enormous run of thickets. Bursting through with an armor of grass stains and earth, Fera's alt mode averted almost at a ninety-degree angle. More dirt flew upwards in an explosive plume of showers while her tires fought to keep her upright. They failed, leaving her to tumble across her side and roll violently toward a lake that was situated in the middle of the meadow.

Before she could crash into it, Fera managed to transform. Her momentum kept her spinning limply throughout. She soon realized she had no control, and but could grab her helm to wait out her ride.

Damp grass carried her frame on a slippery slope, where she feared her unpleasant moment would never end. When she did slow somewhat, she flung her limbs outward. Her digits stabbed into the dirt, catching her mid-air and keeping her from turning for the countless time. The rest of her slammed with enough force into the Earth that all the cooling oxygen was stripped from her vents. Wet slivers of greenery lodged into her armor, filling her internally with clods of vegetation.

Her peds came down with her, one kneebolt planted while the other held firm on the ground. If it weren't for that leg being there to support her, she was sure she would have collapsed into the lake. In fact, she could feel her toelinks brushing the water as it lapped against the edge of the sand. Its chill ran as a spear through her very center. Only when she was here did she feel the haunting weight of the Galvanizer on her spinal support. The Stone was glowing brightly in tune with it, and both beat to the pounding patter of her spark.

Fera shot up to a stand, optics wide and vents wheezing. Heat coursed in vicious rebuke through her energon. A tightness was in her chassis and vents, keeping her from getting a proper intake. In growing fear, she pressed her servos to her chassis, as if pressing on it would loosen her systems. Of course, it didn't work, but it was all she could come up with. Pacing came next on her agenda. Her quick steps carried her so fast across the same ground so many times that she was aware of the path wearing into the grass from her steps.

Was the base being destroyed her fault? Of course it was. That outburst of energy from the Galvanizer undoubtedly must have been what caught the Decepticons' attention. The Autobots must hate her now. How could they not, when all they'd gotten for protecting her was death, destruction, and loss? She knew nothing about the honor of sacrifice yet. The mere figure of the image of the base in burning shambles made her tanks clench. While she paced, her processor ached.

The man whom had been her human father died because of her. Lero, Punch, and Soulsearcher died for her too. Solas nearly did. What if he too fell from being her protector? Or Optimus? Or Rethalia? Or another Autobot or human? Was she really all that important? If she was all Galvatron wanted, then she would have been happy to give herself up for the sake of saving those she cared for. But it wasn't simply her he wanted. The Stone was becoming a heavier and heavier presence in her collar, like it knew she was thinking of it. Perhaps it could. It was a part of Vector Prime's spark after all.

Fera placed her palm over it, hiding its glory from the worlds. Her circuits were burning up with the flurry of information passing through her. What if she'd never became? What if the Stone hadn't been passed down to her? What would the war turn out to be if she wasn't here?

Fera stopped dead in her tracks, her digits curling over the Stone of Primus. An idea breached her processor, dark and ominous. It promised retribution for her sins. It swore that it was the only way. All of this pain, and anger, and confusion could end.

She lifted her arm and released the blade that Bekos had given her on the Nemesis.

All it took was one, single sweep, and all of it would end.

Fera swallowed and gripped the handle of the blade until her digits hurt. The gears in them strained. Her spark strained with them. What did peace feel like? What was normalcy? Perhaps Fera Lennox had known what it felt like, not long ago. But this Fera –this monstrosity of nature that she figured herself to be– was no familiar to peace. Where would she go, when it was all over? Would she float within a sea of white, forever tormented by the memories of the life she'd left behind for the chance of deafening silence that could drive her insane? Would she drop into the nether of oblivious black, knowing nothing and no one? Or would she simply disappear – just like that, as if she'd never existed in the first place?

It was a risk she was willing to take, if it meant saving the lives she knew meant something to this world.

She lifted the cold edge of the blade to her jugular.

Peace.

Escape.

Sanctuary.

Coward. She was such a coward.

"Fera!"

The fembot dipped herself low, snatching the Galvanizer with her free servo from her spinal support. It mobilized at her touch, the crown of it spreading its three prongs wide. As shapes rustled in the cloak of the tree line, Fera held the Galvanizer at attention, aiming it for the source of the noises.

Through the perimeter of green, black, and brown, Solas Kaon emerged. Beneath the gradient skies, stuck between night and day, Solas' presence glowed. A brilliance captured in the flickering flame of his wild optics. Dapples of ashen onyx painted most of him, hiding him from sight until he'd stepped into the meadow. Grass caressed the sides of his peds, grabbing for what they couldn't keep. A lulling whistle carried in the breeze as it rustled the long, golden shoots

His features were plastered in a shade of worry. A break in his usual demeanor was enough to make Fera falter for a second. When he stumbled into the stretch of open land, already headed for the lake she stood by, she tensed. The Galvanizer lifted, keeping a taunt distance between she and her Guardian. He saw this movement and paused, optic ridges coming down. When his sights darted to the servo that held the blade to her neck, they popped wider and he jerked in preparation to come closer.

"What are you-?"

"Stay back!" Fera shouted, cutting him off. "I don't want to hurt you!"

"What are you doing?" Solas yelled back to her, servos opening. His took another step forward, and Fera lifted her chin, pressing the knife harder to her throat. The mech stopped immediately. "Don't!" His cry stopped her, if but briefly, and his features became pleading. "Why are you doing this, Fera?"

The fembot's faceplates turned to absolute torment as all the bottled-up emotions she'd been holding back spilled forth. Her vision blurred as stinging tears filled her sight. A warbled sound escaped her chassis as she finally quit trying to vent properly. It all hurt: her spark, her chassis, her processor…nothing felt right.

"I'm nothing but a danger to the Autobots," she called to him, voice marred with burning, passionate sadness. Solas stood still, listening intently with a helpless expression. Hot, slick tears flowed freely down Fera's cheekplates, and she wiped away at them with her arm furiously. "What value have I, other than this?"

She gestured at the Stone of Primus with the tip of her blade. Its pounding increased with her spark, turning her tanks upside-down and putting a fevered energy in her lines. Humans would call it adrenalin. "You could easily give this to Ironhide – he is the original Keeper of it anyway. He'd be a better Keeper than I. I'm useless. With me gone, the war would end and everything could become normal again. Galvatron will leave you all alone. No more of your friends have to die."

"You're wrong!" Solas barked, catching Fera off guard.

She jerked, cutting a small niche in her neck from the blade. In a moment of shock, she lost her grip on the weapon, and it fell into the grass. The Galvanizer collapsed inside of itself, becoming a simple staff in her servo. Fera placed her other one against her neck, startled at the feeling of energon leaving her. It was warm to the touch, and slipped between her digits in a way that terrified her into a paralyzed state. She could but stare at the blade at her peds, the edge of it painted with her energon.

When she bent down to pick it up, a black flash passed in her vision. Next thing she knew, she had been grabbed by Solas. How he'd gotten this close without her knowing, was unclear. Her frame was lurched right again, where she found herself chassis to chassis with her Guardian. When did she get this tall?

Solas had her gory servo in his, keeping it from touching the weapon she'd planned to be her finish. "You are so, so wrong," he murmured again, dipping closer. Their frames melded together, fitting piece for piece in a puzzle of perfection. Solas' faceplates bowed over her own, the light of his optics casting a waterfall of blue over her faceplates. "You're worth far more than a simple Stone."

His free servo came around, clasping her gently at the small of her spinal support. He tugged them inward, bringing them in contact from kneebolts to crest. His foreplate rested against hers. She could feel the fluttering of his vents on her frame, and it suddenly became easier to take in air of her own. Maybe her vents preferred the air Solas provided, and refused anything else. His nearness brought a heat to her frame that she'd yet to encounter.

"You are everything, Fera," Solas told her, his words matching the whisper of the evening breeze. His words tasted sweet. "Without you, the war would continue, and my friends would keep dying. It is the invaluable meaning you have in this battle that stands this importantly with us, as you and you alone are strong enough to do this. You are our hope, Fera Lennox."

"No, I'm not," she countered, shaking her helm slightly. She wanted to pull away, but she hadn't the strength, nor the will to try. "I get you and everyone else hurt. I don't want to be the reason they sacrifice themselves. I don't want to be the thing that will be on their legend where it reads the reason they perished. I'm not worth it – I'm not worth any of it…"

Solas let go of her wrist and cupped her cheekplate. It was an affectionate motion that she hadn't become quite used to yet. It surprised her a bit. "I would happily sacrifice myself so that you may live, and don't you ever forget that," he bit sternly, locking his sights with hers. "We all would give everything we have to keep you safe. It is not merely for your gift," he looked at the Stone at this, "but for the immense willingness to sacrifice yourself for the better good that you have our loyalty for. We consider you a part of our family. To lose you would be no better for us to lose a Prime, or even my spark."

Fera went rigid at that. His spark? She was his spark?

Her servos raised, grabbing his bracer with the strength of a sparkling. They were shaking from everything that had transpired here. Lingers of her panic were fading, replaced by the crippling relief of feeling she belonged – she was needed. It was a cowardly thing, to fear dying when she had been so set on taking her life…but she was glad for that fear and hesitation. Without it, the only frame Solas would be holding would be a cold one. Would she have felt his warmth against the chill of her frame as she left the world of the living?

"I'm scared, Solas," she murmured, tears falling down her faceplates again. Quickly Sol brought her against him, hiding her away from the universe by the shield of his arms. Pinned against him, she felt safe. There was no other place where she felt safer. She grabbed hold of the plates of his chassis, half-afraid that he would be stolen from her as he had been on the Nemesis.

"I am too," he admitted. Wasn't that not what he was supposed to say? He was supposed to be strong – the one that would promise her safety no matter what happened. Then again, that would be a lie, wouldn't it? He couldn't promise a lie. That wasn't Solas. And Fera felt reassured from that. They were scared, together.

"Where will we go? There's nowhere else left."

Solas kept quiet and strong, just as she needed him. If they stood here, forever, could everything go away? Could they remain just as they are, forever in their embrace, and let the worlds sort themselves out? No. Of course not.

"There's something I need to tell you," the mech rumbled after taking so long to speak that Fera was sure he'd forgotten her question. They parted, leaving Fera vulnerable to the drop in temperature from the approaching night. He took her servo in his, and then her other one, and looked her directly in the optic. "Do you remember the story I told you? Of my creator?"

Fera watched Solas, uncertain of where this was headed. She tried to recall the information he asked of her, yet all she got were muggy, distorted moments of anguish and betrayal. It wasn't a story she wanted to hear. To answer him, she shook her helm.

"No," she responded carefully.

A flash of hurt passed in Solas' gaze. But it was gone before she could question it. "My mech creator was a mech known as Deadlock," he began, rubbing circles across the back of her servo. "He was a Decepticon."

Just like that, everything she'd known became a lie again.

Fera wanted to take her servos back, but Solas grabbed harder to them, keeping her in front of him. "But he left the Decepticons and joined with the Autobots. He changed his designation to Drift and began training under another mech under the name of Wing."

"Why are you telling me this?" Fera whispered, her throat filling with a painful lump.

Ignoring her, Solas went on, "Long ago, back on Cybertron, a city-state known as Iacon fell. Within it, a building we called the Hall of Records was about to fall. The two mechs within charged with the protection of it found themselves at a very, very impossible situation." He stopped again, letting it all sink in. "They were protecting not the records stored there, but the Tools of Life, as well as their Stones. Thirteen Cybertronians, both mechs and fembots, were called to the building and shown to the Tools."

"Solas, I-"

"Ironhide was among them, as was Drift," he put in.

Fera's optic ridges came down and her features screwed into a state of confusion. The noises of night became a silent roar around them. Meaningless sound. "They were the Keepers," she assumed.

Solas' lip plates became a solid line, his optics growing hard. "Rodimus and Alpha Trion assigned each of these beings to one Tool, imprinting their gridmaps to the Stones so they may be used by that being and that being alone."

Fera shook her helm, her thoughts halting at the name Alpha Trion. That had been one of the mechs she'd seen in the visions of the Thirteen she'd been experiencing. He had assigned the Keepers? And Rodimus as well? "But what does this all mean?" she demanded, turning over her servos to grab his.

Solas took in a long, silent vent and sighed. "These imprints could pass down to offspring, which Trion and Rodimus did not conceive initially, as the Original Thirteen hadn't passed their attributes down to their progeny. When Drift left the Autobots, returning back to his old name of Deadlock and bonding with my fembot creator, Nova, he figured he'd left it all behind." Solas stopped. "Then I was created."

A great many instances had passed in the two –make that three– months that Fera had come into the fantastic, but scary world of the Autobots for the second time. The joy of meeting her comrades over again brought pain and laughs throughout the days. Truthfully, the chaos of seeing two mechs grappling in the halls over a cube of energon, or witnessing a fembot being embraced by her mech, made Fera happier than she'd been in the recent past she could remember. Everything beyond that was coming through the hazy pasture of her processor bit by bit.

She'd the feeling that Solas had indeed told her previously that he was part Decepticon by creation. That too had been stripped in her passage from human to Autobot. But nothing could have prepared her for collecting these tidbits that were definitely not spoken of before. Not this. It was happening really, really fast.

Fera stared off into the thickness of Solas' chassis, taking the chance to study each plate in turn. Each was carved by her optics, until the beating of both their sparks came into unison. How often had she taken refuge in his arms? Life before being an Autobot was frustratingly out of reach. At certain moments, it appeared as though she could simply stretch her digits out and grab what she wanted. At others, the memories were dastardly elusive, if not painful, and drove her to insanity while she leapt and bounded for what she couldn't have.

"However, I did say that the passing down of a Keeper's genetic code was possible, not certain," Solas informed her quickly, chassis plates lifting while she studied them. Each word was devoured by Fera, from the subtle slur Solas' emotion-drowned glossa, to the practiced technique of the English language he'd probably spent months perfecting. "My sister may have inherited it, or I could have. There's a possibility neither of us did."

Fera shuttered her optics and opened them again. Was there a song playing? Where was it coming from? It was very sweet…and comforting. It spoke without words, of wholeness and content. Basically what this world and life was not, was what it promised. It was tempting to fall prey to it; allowing herself to immerse in a land where falseness was truth and her spark and processor wasn't broken or torn in a million directions.

Solas was a Keeper, plain and simple. Fera Lennox was a Keeper too. Then why was everything so hard to comprehend clearly?

"We aren't alone, are we?" she murmured, pulling herself to his front. Her arms wrapped low around Solas' middle, her servos connecting behind his spinal support. Her helm laid gently on his chassis so she could listen to the soothing sound of his spark singing beside her own. When he didn't immediately place his arms around her, she wasn't bothered. That didn't mean she didn't feel better when he did, though.

"No," he said softly. "We aren't."

"Who else?"

Solas stopped and Fera sighed. If anything needed improvement besides her memory, it was Solas' trust in her. She wasn't a fragile piece of glass. She was ready. Hopefully some day, if they lived that long, he could learn that.

"Rodimus…only knows five. Alpha Trion knew the other eight," Solas murmured, sliding his digits up and down her spinal support. "Ironhide, Jazz, Grimlock, Bumblebee, and my mech creator, Drift."

Bumblebee? The adorable, kind creature whom Fera had come to adore? He was a part of their world as well? "Do any of them know?" she whispered, holding onto Sol harder in a moment of horror. The last thing she wanted was for him, or any of the other 'Bots to suffer more than they needed to. They'd gotten enough to last them for their lives over.

Fera could feel Solas shaking his helm next to hers. "No one but us, and Ironhide. The others had their processors wiped after becoming attached to their Tool." His lip plates brushed past her audio and Fera felt a shiver trickle down her spinal support. For a moment she had to stand there and appreciate that. Only moments before, she'd been ready to leave it all behind. She had been ready to slit her own throat and throw Solas away. Not for a moment did she think about what he would have felt or thought if she did that. She was so selfish sometimes.

A tear trickled down Fera's cheekplate as she turned her helm around, aiming it at Solas'. "I'm sorry," she told her Guardian from behind the muffle of his armor. She never wanted to actually kill herself. It was a desperate attempt at figuring out where she belonged. Was it with the mystery of the other side? Or was it here, to plunge into the depths of Hell on Earth and fight until she possibly lost herself in the process?

Solas understood. He always did. "No need to apologize," he murmured, pressing his lips to her foreplate. "Just don't ever do it again."

Fera had to look up at her Guardian when he said that. He wasn't looking back at her, but his bracer, which he was fishing something out of. He pulled whatever he was searching for out of subspace and promptly reached up to her neck, pressing it there.

"Mesh to stop the leaking," he explained quietly. "We'll have to get back to the others soon. Then Cloudsong can properly tend to you."

The night was a dangerous cape of stars against Solas' backdrop. Fera never, and couldn't, take her optics off of him. "Ok." There was an edge to his words that she couldn't describe. Was it protectiveness? Was it anger?

Solas was no stranger to admitting his weaknesses. He was capable of many things, including giving Fera a reason to feel safe and appreciated. However, that wasn't the problem facing them. Instead, it was the disturbing thought that the very enemy he couldn't protect her from...was herself.

To say things had gone smoothly was to blatantly lie. They'd gone very, very wrong. And one, particular mech, was not so happy with that fact.

Galvatron was inconsolable for the first while after the Autobots had managed to escape with his priority. While their tires spat dirt in fans of trails behind them, sprinkling various Decepticons with the disgusting organic material, he was already in full chase. At that point, Arachnid could feel the heat of the building they'd bombed flat curling over her spinal support. The human she had just swatted away was lying in a limp pile, their neck bent at an odd angle.

The fembot had picked herself up from the ground and watched her leader stride furiously across the stretch of grass after the two whom evaded him. Other Autobots managed to tear away in various directions through the trees, taking up groups as they escaped. Jets flew overhelm, obviously Decepticon in nature, with a slimmer Autobot flier rumbling after. In a swift, and clever move, the Decepticons veered left, and the Autobot banked right, following after their retreating peers. Sometimes, Arachnid was not proud to be a Decepticon.

This state of pandemonium had confused Arachnid during their raid, and as much, she had been left standing stranded in battle, with her sharp digits poised to strike at any who came near. As the pickings became slighter in size, the fembot had been handed less a chance at claiming sparks. A glimmer of striking gold pierced the airs then, almost blinding her in their fantastic, fiery hue. Beneath the flames in the skies of the setting sun, the mech's fantastic, and brutal frame became a feral shadow of the gladiator he had once been.

Immediately, Arachnid had recognized him, and with rage filling her from toelinks to crest, she took to launching herself at the nearby form of Sunstreaker. She'd grabbed hold of him from behind, sinking her claws into his armor and stabbing the appendages from her spinal support into his shoulderbolts.

The golden warrior bellowed in pain, and dropped the Decepticon soldier in his grasp. Together, they'd spun in a tight circle, with Sunstreaker grabbing at Arachnid as she clawing mercilessly at him from behind. All the fury and frustrations she'd been holding inside of her had betrayed the barriers she'd made. They flowed freely from the dam she'd stuffed them behind. Anger filled her limbs, making her processor muggy against all other distractions. With this mech, she fell into a world that wasn't this one. It was a state of unforgiving chaos that had come from a personal level. Arachnid was never this insane against other opponents. It was only this mech. Everything about him made her want to rip his helm off his shoulderbolts.

In her blind fury, Sunstreaker had managed to get his servos around her wrists. With a single, hard yank, he'd displaced her from his spinal support in a burst of dislodged armor, energon, and sparks. Next thing she'd known, she was on her spinal support, with the mech positioned above. When she'd opened her optics, there was a bright blue energon blade positioned directly over her spark. She was sure that she should have been deadsparked from the speed of it. But it hadn't moved. Sunstreaker had become frozen on the spot.

Arachnid then had tilted her helm upward to see the expression of shock and confliction on that mech's faceplates. With a hiss, Arachnid had his optics aligned with hers. "What's wrong?" she'd mocked him. "Do it. Kill me. I know you want to."

"No," Sunstreaker had said, his knuckles growing taunt as he'd grabbed the hilt harder, "I don't."

"I hate you," she'd seared at him without a warning. It was true. She did then, and she still did now. He deserved no less than her hatred after all he'd done.

A grimace passed over Sunstreaker's faceplates then. But had he expected her to say anything else? Did he still think she was the same Galefire that had fallen in love with him on Cybertron? Was he really so naïve to think that she could possibly still have a sliver of that wretched weakling still within her? When Galefire left existence, so did the attachment Arachnid had for Sunstreaker. All she felt for him now was hatred.

"I know," was all he'd said.

"I'll never forgive you," she'd snapped back, chassis lifting until the tip of the blade scratched her paint. "You destroyed my life. You took everything from me."

"I know…"

"I hate you."

"I know."

"I'm going to kill you," she'd told him next. Without remorse. Without hint of their past. It was all she wanted now, if but to stop the painful memories in her processor from all he'd taken from her. Her digits bowed in the dirt, their sharp tips stabbing into the loose earth. "I'm going to kill you."

"And I want you to be the one to do it," he'd murmured, too close for her comfort. That look in his optics stopped Arachnid in her tracks. It was pain. It was a phantom piece of himself that she'd broken vorns and vorns ago.

It was love.

Sunstreaker's helm snapped up and he bolted away, leaping over Arachnid and taking his life and wounds with him. Arachnid was left on the grass, until just a few nanoclicks before, with smoke burning in her optics and energon on her digits. A funny sensation took over her spark when Sunstreaker had left. Old scars that she thought she'd grown out of returned, splitting open and spilling her ancient emotions out into the open.

After that an unfortunate human had crossed her path, and the fembot had swiped at them in annoyance and anger. They'd gone flying, probably already dead from how hard she'd hit their spine, and struck a slab of rubble from the building.

In current time, Arachnid was situated in the center of the remnants of their battlefield, her servos twitching from closed fists to open claws. Nothing had turned out as she'd wanted it to. In fact, things had gone far worse than she'd believed they would. Unsatisfied with the restlessness of her spark, Arachnid roared and grabbed a Decepticon soldier by the back of its collar armor. Realizing it was the one Sunstreaker had been holding, Arachnid picked it up from the ground and stabbed it straight through the chassis. It went rigid, optics wide, and servos opened to grasp nothing. Energon poured over her arm, and sparks fizzled from either side of the hole she'd made. The thing's spark was in her servo, crushed on the outside of his spinal support.

It fell from her grasp as a heavy, satisfyingly deadsparked thing. Its life filtered through the grass, mixing with scarlet and brown and grey. That was a rather interesting color. It matched the basic feel of this entire battle. Humans, Cybertronians, and buildings had perished here this kalon.

Arachnid flicked her servo, sending energon flying out across the ground. Plenty of these deadsparked soldiers could be of use to Galvatron for his Kremzeek project. She'd basically done her leader a favor.

Others, wounded, or whole, stood around to hear what their leaders were to say next. Nightbird and Thundercracker walked from the shadows of the trees, without anything in their servos, and disappointment on their faceplates. Arachnid clenched her servos tightly, for she knew that not only would those two get reprimanded by Galvatron, but she would too. Merely for being here, all those few warriors Galvatron had taken with him on the raid would be struck down.

And low and behold, the Master of Chaos himself came stalking back from the cover of trees he'd disappeared into. His armor was caked with dirt and green stains, taking whatever small shine he may have had in the grey of his plates away completely. Now he was black wherever one may look at him. From smoke, coiling out in waves from his agitated systems, to the decomposing material that he left wherever he stepped.

His optics were even a sickening shade of absolute darkness. They were sunken in beneath his harrowing optics ridges and held a hue that most would consider that of a deadsparked mech's. His helm was low, his shoulderbolts hunched in aggravation. Those powerful arms of his bulged from the amount of pressure he was using to make the fists swinging at his sides.

"You've all failed me," he rumbled, voice carrying clear through the thunder of the Nemesis' engines and the continued falling of the former Autobot base. The Decepticon overlord raised his servo, and with a swift flick of his wrist, all soldiers were lain, unconscious, on the torn ground. Around Arachnid's peds, frames dropped like lead sacks. The only hint of their being alive was the faint rise or fall of their ventilation systems.

The warriors still remaining standing turned their helms around them in wonder. Their confused, yet awed gazes flew from frame to frame, finally landing back on their obviously displeased leader. Galvatron was headed for the center of the meadow, and when he got there, all activity ceased completely. Ramjet and Thundercracker backed up a pace, their dirt-covered, lacerated frames shivering in after-battle recovery. Thrust was by his lonesome, situated some thirty yards away beside a pile of humans he'd collected in compliance to his overly-compulsive-disorder. Nightbird stood to Arachnid's distant right, her servo resting on an energon dagger attached to her hipbolt. Cyclonus, Soundwave, and Astrotrain were nowhere to be seen. The smell of fear was heavy here. And it wasn't from the Autobots.

Galvatron stopped where he was, swinging his gnarled, twisted helm about his surroundings in a malignant, ruinous manner. "Whom determined the route of offensive attack?" he demanded, voice cold with an ominous calm.

When none spoke up, he roared in absolute fury. He lifted his ped and slammed it into the dirt, sending a shockwave across the entire field that nearly knocked Arachnid off her standing. A deep quake stole through the planet, followed closely by the deafening crumble of whatever was left of the building behind her. Where Galvatron's ped had landed, a notable divot scarred the Earth's surface. "WHO?" His exposed oral sheets passed in front of his warriors, and a gleam came to his optics that promised unmentionable punishment. "Step forth, or all of you shall have your helms crushed!"

At first, nothing. Then movement to Arachnid's side stole her attention. Her optics darted to her right to catch the owner of it, some thirty feet away. A slim fembot, clad in silver and violet, stretched her burnished leg forward and presented herself before all her shocked comrades.

"It was I, Lord Galvatron," Nightbird admitted in her monotonous way. Arachnid had to commend the fembot for her courage.

For a brief click, their Lord and Master stabbed his piercing optics into Nightbird. Their scouring glare took her apart till Arachnid was sure Galvatron could see the contents of her spark. Every memory, emotion, and experience was left for their leader to see. Nothing was safe. It was why many referred to Galvatron as the 'Unmaker'. It seemed a disturbingly fitting title.

Then, within a nanoclick, Galvatron had moved from his crater in the ground to Nightbird. None could have seen the streak of his body when he did this. Arachnid hadn't thought it possible of a mech his size –a good forty or so feet in height– could have relocated as swiftly as he did. Arachnid didn't know what she was thinking when fear came into Nightbird's faceplates.

Nightbird was emotionless. Every 'Con knew her as a stark and cold fembot, with nothing in her spark but ice. When actual emotion crossed her usually stoic faceplates, Arachnid felt her spark dip and her tanks clench. Electricity zipped up her arms, making the plates rise.

Then Galvatron's wide, ghastly servo was on Nightbird's faceplates. No matter how much she wanted to, Arachnid could not look away. It was all she could do, frozen, as the fembot was lifted into the air. Nightbird's servos were on Galvatron's wrist, trying to free herself with grabbing digits and kicking legs. But it was no use.

Galvatron brought his arm back. And in one fluid move, stabbed Nightbird through her chassis.

The fembot arched in Galvatron's grip. Her digits were strained in desperate claws, still in futile hope of survival. But her spark was in Galvatron's grip, outside the back of her frame. Energon spurted outward with it, along with a disturbingly beautiful show of sparks. As they rained down, the Decepticon Lord crushed the spark in his palm.

One of, if not the most, dedicated fembots to Galvatron fell from his grip onto the unforgiving stretch of golden grass and white vegetation humans called 'flowers'. A silly name. But they were pretty. Nightbird's helm rested in a permanent, silent scream on a collection of them. White 'petals' littered her plates.

"Failure is not acceptable from this point forth," Galvatron growled, his tone mixed with the otherworldly entity Arachnid had quickly become weary of. "My Keeper is of utmost importance in retrieval. Our steps, from henceforth, shall determine whether you live or perish. If not by my servo, than the Autobots'." The mech lifted his arm, squeezing the fist that had smashed Nightbird's spark. It was still covered in energon. "You will deadspark if necessary to insure Fera Lennox will return to my control. Do you all compute?"

All helms in attendance nodded, Arachnid's included. At this point, she was certain that many more of her peers were to perish under Galvatron's rule. And less by the fire of an Autobot blaster rather than a tormented end from their leader. Apparently, their chances had run out. This was it: the final stand.

Arachnid looked from left, to right of herself, taking mental notes on who she believed would be fate's next victim.

This one was a little shorter than the last chapter,

I'm sorry about that! D:

Hope you all enjoyed anyway :)

There's a lot of emotional mush going on here, and there definitely will be more.

We're reaching the end here people.

Who's got the tissues?

*Chapter Inspiration: Wide Awake= Josh Record*