He lies barely conscious on the floor in the middle of a circle made up of his former colleagues, while Torrent calmly walks around him. His enemy stares at him with a dark expression completely devoid of his usual self-satisfaction.
The torture has taken everything out of him, but he still manages to smile faintly at the sight.
Brakewave didn't manage to break him, which clearly frustrates Torrent.
He had been on the verge of breaking a few times during the hour-long torture, but a thought of Athena and what Torrent would do to her if he knew how much she means to him had strengthened his will and determination to not give in to the unbearable pain.
When he dies, he will take that reassuring thought with him to his grave.
She will be safe.
Shift will ensure that she is protected.
This is his punishment for what he has done, and she is better off without him.
Torrent lifts him from the floor with a choking hold around his throat, and Torment uses his last energy to stare defiantly into the hateful optics of his enemy.
"You won't win." He wheeze weakly, and the grip becomes crushing and cuts his breathing off completely.
His systems begins to overheat due to the lack of cooling air while he hangs in Torrent's merciless grip, and countless error messages begin to flash and inform him about the impending shutdown of his few, still functioning non-vital systems.
They shut down, and then he receives a new error message, that informs him about imminent stasis-lock while a countdown begins.
His frame is too damaged and low on energy to sustain all of the important spark containment processes along with all of the other vital systems that keeps him alive, and he knows that he is about to die right now.
Peace fills him.
Forgive me.
Then the countdown reaches zero and he enters stasis-lock.
"...-an you hear me?"
Torment frowns deeply.
The voice is distant and distorted, but it slowly gets clearer when the words are repeated.
He is caught up in a pleasant darkness without any sense of his surroundings, and he wants to stay there. But the voice keeps repeating and it has begun to annoy him.
Slowly his optics begins to online, and he growls at the sharp light when he looks up into a bright white hospital ceiling.
His frown deepens.
What happened?
He should be dead.
The last thing he remembers is the impending shutdown of his vital, life-supporting systems just before Torrent strangled him into stasis-lock.
How is he not dead?
"You are a resilient one." The voice states and he slowly turns his head towards it.
The surgeon regards him calmly.
"We did not expect you would wake up so quickly after what you have been through. Your damages were rather extensive and you have been through a sixteen hour long surgery."
That explains the lack of pain, but it still doesn't answer the question why he isn't dead. And he hates to be this confused.
"We had to remove the warp-gate. It was so damaged, yet still active, that it at one point threatened your life. Our technicians should be able to repair it, but you will have to recover fully, before your spark and frame are able to survive the massive strain the major operation to get it reinstalled will cause."
"No." He says determined and hates how weak his voice sounds, "I don't want it back. You can keep it and do with it what you want."
He doesn't want anything that has anything to do with Torrent, and it is actually a relief to be free of it.
It had been a constant reminder of what he had sacrificed to get access to the technology.
His freedom.
Without it he is once again completely free.
No one owns him anymore.
Well...
A fond smile plays on his lips.
...except for a certain lovely little carrier.
If she wants him, that is.
"If you have any questions, then don't hesitate to take contact to a nurse. They are able to answer any question you may have."
The surgeon leaves him and Torment contemplates the information he has been given.
Half an hour later, there is a knock on the door before it opens and Shift enters.
He stares surprised at her. It is a rare sight to see her outside her workshop.
"Can you explain to me why I am not dead?" He asks curiously.
"I negotiated assistance from the Polyhexian Cartel."
Frag.
"You didn't..."
The hesitant, wary look in her optics instantly tells him that indeed she did, and his optics narrows.
"What did he demand?"
Her answer is an inaudible murmur.
"Shift..."
She looks up into the ceiling with a deep sigh.
"Access to Altihex's ballistic missiles in their next attack on one of their rivals."
"For frag sake, Shift!"
"What else could I do?" She asks angrily, "And I do not want to hear you say that I should have just let you die, because that's not how a friendship work, Torment! You have been there for me on several occasions and now it was my turn to be there for you."
"Do you have any idea how this stunt will look to the Joint Investigation Unit?!"
"What do they care if the cartels want to kill each other..."
"And when innocents die?" He almost roars, "Then what!"
Shift pouts at his fierce, scolding outburst.
"I'm not stupid, Torment. I will be on the sideline in case they risk hitting innocents and will detonate the missiles before any harm can be done."
No you won't.
Her words might sound sincere, but they both know that they are empty.
A deal is a deal, and no one in their right mind would want to incur the Polyhexian Cartel's wrath.
"Just please don't do something like that again in the foreseeable future." Torment sighs deeply, when he suddenly begins to feel emotionally drained and tired from the outburst, "We need the Joint Investigation Unit's benevolence."
Silence fills the room while Shift pointedly refuses to look at him, and his expression softens slightly.
"That said... I am grateful for what you did."
"Torrent is a coward. I knew that he wouldn't stay and fight if he got challenged by someone, whose firepower considerably exceeds his. I asked them to not hold themselves back and go hard on him to pull you out alive. Our former colleagues could maybe have confront the cartel, especially when in possession of the warp-gate technology, but they naturally follow Torrent's commands under the current circumstances. Which in this case is our luck."
What he wouldn't have given to see the confrontation.
"Where is Celerity?" He asks.
"She is at work approximately three floors above us." Shift explains before she gently adds, "She was deeply worried for you while you were in surgery. A month ago she would have been happy if you died, but now she can't stop worrying about if you actually had died."
She finally looks at him again.
"It seems like we actually are changing because of all this, and it feels really weird to go against our nature."
Torment smiles and laughs softly at her words before his expression turns serious again.
"Does Athena know what has happened?"
"No." Shift reassures him seriously, "We have already exposed her to enough stress as it is, and it was very uncertain if you survived. The lead surgeon told me, that your spark entered spark failure twice while they worked on you. I have made sure that she will remain unaware of what has happened until you tell it to her."
There is a knock on the door before it opens and Prowl enters the room flanked by Aurora and Topkick.
Shift retreats slowly to the other side of Torment's berth, far away from their uninvited visitors, while her gaze nervously flickers from enforcer to enforcer.
The two SIOs remain at the door, as if to prevent them from escaping, while Prowl calmly walks closer, and he and Torment stare silently at each other for a little while.
"I heard from a reliable source, that you had been taken to Kalis's General Hospital's trauma center by frontliners who belong to the Polyhexian Cartel." Prowl sits down and leans back in the chair beside the berth in a relaxed and non-threatening manner, "How are you feeling?"
The Director's voice is almost collegial and Torment shares a quick glance with Shift.
No handcuffs then...
It looks like Prowl wants to honor their alliance.
"Director, let me introduce you to Shift." He says instead of answering the question, "She is a very close friend and the only reason I am alive right now."
He refrains from giving further information about how. The authorities will learn about it soon enough when the conflict breaks out between the cartels.
Prowl stares calculated at the female sire.
"I suppose we all now and then need a friend to pull us out of a bad situation."
The deeper meaning behind the Director's words aren't lost on either of them.
Torment and Shift share a dark meaningful gaze.
Their intentions have been made clear to Torrent.
There is absolutely no way back, especially after what Torment just have been through.
It is time to make the alliance official with all that it entails.
"Since we now officially are allies, I request that the Joint Investigation Unit provides Shift and her bondmate with protection. Now that our intentions have been made perfectly clear to Torrent, she and Celerity are in direct danger. Torrent wouldn't hesitate to kidnap Celerity to force Shift to do as he wants."
Without Shift the Organization is handicapped, but not crippled enough to avoid a catastrophe. Torrent can easily bring a new hacker in to carry out their plans, but only few hackers are as good as Shift. And he wouldn't put it past Torrent to try to get his hands on her talents.
All of the Organization's agents are in position and ready to heed Torrent's orders to kill their designated targets and take over the vital key positions in the society, while Shift should have destroyed the military's systems and taken full control over their weapons systems and missiles. She would then have turned their own weapons against them and blown up their bases.
At the same time, Torment and his team should have assassinated the unaffiliated senators in a swift, devastating attack on the Senate before then turning their focus to the Joint Investigation Unit, the Special Forces and all of the planet's enforcement headquarters to execute the senior commanders and their highest ranked tactical- or investigative officers.
They would completely have razed them to the ground in a glorious satisfying bloodbath.
...if it weren't for Athena's timely interference and his change of spark.
Had he not met her, then he wouldn't have been in Kalis that night.
He would not have went to see Shift or discovered the full extent of his situation, and he would definitely never ever have considered to reach out to the Joint Investigation Unit.
Without realizing it, he fell in love with her the moment where she defied him and refused to accept her inevitable death.
"I assume you aren't as innocent as you look." Prowl addresses Shift with a lifted optical ridge, "And I am very curious to know how you got the Polyhexian Cartel to do a rescue mission."
"That would be correct, Director." Shift answers, and her optics sparkles with a delighted mischievousness when she introduces herself, "You and yours are most likely more familiar with my alias: the black falcon."
Aurora abruptly steps away from the door and walks towards Shift.
"You're the black falcon?!"
Shift nods with a grin.
"I certainly am."
Prowl looks curiously at Shift and then Aurora, and immediately begins to realize what's going on.
Aurora had worked with governmental cyber security before he joined the Joint Investigation Unit and became the head of their Center of Intelligence.
"I assume this is another wanted criminal?" He asks rhetorically in the light of the SIO's strong reaction.
"You have no idea." Aurora states coldly, "The black falcon is the fifth most wanted black hat hacker on the planet. We have tried to identify the black falcon for several thousand years, but without luck. She is responsible for innumerous attacks on our servers and infrastructure, and is the one, that was responsible for the largest electricity outage in recent time 213 years ago, that allowed an organized group of criminals to steal more than 157 million shanix from the Iaconian Trust Fond."
"She and the other black hats sell their abilities to the highest bidder in the criminal underworld and they don't care about who they risk hurting in the process. They have absolutely no ethics and enjoy to challenge each other into gaining access to and potentially destroy vital infrastructure as a test of their abilities, and a way for them to find out which one of them are the most skilled in their field."
"I could say that it is a honor to finally meet you." Aurora says sternly to Shift while he radiates open hostility, "But we both know that that would be a lie."
So Aurora has a grudge with Shift, just as Prowl has one with Torment.
"Are you both able to look beyond each other's differences and work together?" Prowl demands to know, and it is obvious that his question mostly is directed at Aurora.
Shift answers with a "Of course.", while Aurora remains silent before he finally answers with a stiff nod, "If there is no other way."
"Since it looks like the two of you are on a professional level with each other, why don't you take Aurora with you back to your home, Shift?" Torment proposes, "Take the most necessary things you and Celerity will need. It is not safe for either of you to stay there."
He turns to Prowl with a serious expression.
"I assume that you will allow her access to the Joint Investigation unit's network and computers?"
"You cannot seriously consider giving THAT ONE access to all of our systems or allow her to gain knowledge about our countermeasures, encryption codes, sensitive information and lines of communication, Prowl!" Aurora protests furiously, "She would not hesitate to sell the information to highest bidder, or worse, cause our systems to crash!"
"My name is Shift." Shift chimes in with a wide, cheeky and utterly incorrigible grin as a response to Aurora's demeaning reference to her.
"At the moment I don't care, Aurora." Prowl states harshly, "You have to put your grudge aside while we deal with this major threat to our society. If you can't do that, then I will have to remove you from your position. I will prefer not to do it, but if it turns out to be a necessary step to get this alliance to work, then I will not hesitate to do it."
Aurora looks shocked at his superior and is on the verge of continuing their argument, but the unwavering sternness in Prowl's optics makes him realize, that the Director actually is ready to act on the threat of removing him from his position.
"Fine." He growls dissatisfied, "I will work together with her, but don't tell me that I didn't warn you when she betrays us."
"Good." Prowl says seriously, "You don't have to like her. All I demand of you is that you can work together with her. You might even be able to learn something from her."
The fierce anger returns in Aurora's optics, but he wisely keeps his mouth shut.
"Come." Shift says and the SIO follows her reluctantly out of the room.
Prowl turns his attention to Topkick.
"I want you to ensure that Celerity is in safety until we have found a secure place for them."
Topkick nods and leaves the room, which lets Prowl be alone with Torment.
Prowl takes a deep breath and his doorwings lowers ever so slightly.
It's time that they have a spark-to-spark without anyone interrupting them.
"Why did you contact us, Torment?" He asks without any of his usual sternness, and his voice is full of genuine curiosity while he looks into Torment's optics, "What caused this change in your behavior?"
"It can't only be your vendetta against Torrent. If that were the case, then you would just have given us all the information we needed and leaned back to watch, while we handled the situation, instead of involving yourself directly and risk being arrested."
Torment stares silently at him, expression completely unreadable, and Prowl realizes while he stares into the cold, merciless and intelligent optics, that they when it come to it aren't that different. He can recognize traits in Torment, that he also sees in himself.
His skilled, tactical mind.
The brutal, cold-sparked efficiency.
And the willingness to do what's necessary to reach the goal.
Their moral codex just differ greatly at certain vital points.
A cold smile curves on Torment's lips before he finally speaks.
"It might sound cliché, but I needed a wake-up call."
"Athena?"
Torment narrows his optics and looks away, unwilling to openly confess to his feelings in front of one of his long-time enemies.
"I understand." Prowl says, his voice uncommonly soft, "Believe it or not, but Nacelle swept me off my feet the moment I laid my optics on him. I would do anything to keep him safe."
Cold dread instantly fills his spark the moment he has said those words, when he realizes what he has done.
He couldn't have painted a bigger target on his bondmate, all because he tried to be collegial with a temporary ally and for a moment forgot that said ally is a remorseless assassin with a fierce grudge against everything he stands for.
Their alliance doesn't change that fact.
There is a cold, dangerous glint in Torment's optics, which tells him that the assassin also has realized his fatal mistake.
"A bondmate?" Torment smiles cold and calculated as he studies Prowl's hardened expression, and the air between them are charged and tense, but then his smile softens slightly, "Relax, Director. I have no intention to hurt your beloved. I would have done it earlier, if I had known, but as I said, I have received a wake-up call."
The tension linger in the air between them, and now it is Torment's turn to hesitate as he studies Prowl.
"You-..." There is a sudden vulnerability in his voice and Torment takes a deep steadying breath before he continues. Prowl's openness has made him willing to voice a concern. "You're not going to warn her away from me?"
"I don't think Athena will listen to my warnings no matter what I tell her about you." Prowl answers with a defeated shake of his head, "And she seems to have a deeper insight into and understanding of you than I have, despite all of the time I have spent hunting you."
You have no idea.
A gentle smile forms on Torment's lips at the thought of Athena, but vanishes the next moment when he remembers something.
"You equipped me with a tracking device, didn't you?"
His words are sharp and accusatory, and he stares hard at Prowl.
"I did."
Sincere apology fills Prowl's voice as he confesses to what he has done.
"I knew that tracking you would be our only chance to apprehend you when all of this is over. I took a chance and decided to install the tracker in you the moment, when the opportunity presented itself to me in the form of your operation. And I'm sorry for the harm that it has caused you."
"I understand your reason, and to be honest, I would have done the same." Torment admits and accepts the apology.
"So, does this with Athena mean that you will stop killing?"
Torment stares contemplative up at the ceiling.
"You will have to wait and see, won't you?"
Prowl begins to smile despite the seriousness of the topic, and he rises and leaves the room to let Torment relax and recover from the extensive surgery.
He reflects upon what has happened during the past many weeks while he walks towards the elevators to meet with Topkick and Celerity.
It is a startling thought to realize, that a simple chance meeting between Torment and Athena is the only reason why they are in this fortunate situation and knows what is about to happen.
But sometimes Primus decides mercifully to lead them in the right direction. And his own decision to listen to Torment, when he had no reason to trust the assassin, is one of them.
He doesn't dare think about where they would be right now if he hadn't accepted Torment's demand to withdraw the protection of Athena.
Would the assassin have killed him that day in his office?
He will never get to know the truth, because he chose the right decision and laid their animosity to the side for the sake of their society. He had not known Torment's full intentions back then, but he did know that something important was about to happen when the assassin, that they all know has a fierce ingrained hatred towards the authorities, decided to approach them.