Fire of Youth
Chapter 33
*This is where things get...interesting. ;)
And just to clarify, words within two "~" are field glyphs
Someone else was looking at her. That was the only way to describe his strange expression. Age in his optics. Sorrow in his field. Grim foreboding etched onto his faceplates. Things like that didn't belong in someone as young as Smokescreen. They were all foreign. Out of place. He was supposed to be youth. He was supposed to be energy. He was supposed to be that stupid, blind optimism that she'd abandoned so many years ago. Those foreign things, combined into the one being they didn't belong near, made her mesh crawl uncomfortably. Thousands of tiny needles prickled on her armor.
~fright~ ~uncertainty~ "What kind of energy?" she repeated.
His narrowed, concentrated gaze averted to focused on the places he had so recently gestured towards. ~uncertainty~ ~anxious~ ~missing picture~
Her dorsal fins hiked up into a tight V shape. ~missing picture~ ~question~
He glanced back briefly before returning his gaze out into the compound. Some of it, the energy he meant, was caused by lingering tachyon particles, so she'd obviously been hanging around a jnbu'sktel for a while if they hadn't dissipated entirely by now – couple of hours maybe, probably more. No other explanation for them. But the thing was, the amount of tachyons was too low to result in the strength of the energy he was seeing. They were too few to really cause a detectable signal. Tachyons didn't cause burning sensations either, no matter how sensitive he was to energy now. The rest of the energy – it was the real cause of the trail, powerful, burning like a path of gasoline lit on fire wherever Miko had been and where she was now.
"What kind of energy?" she hissed in desperation. "Is it dangerous?"
Those burning blue orbs remained fixed on the distance. When he'd been around Miko, he admitted slowly, it hadn't seemed to have caused any harm to her – not that he'd been able to tell anyway. She'd acted normal enough to him. Brash. Proud. Ignoring the fact she was covered in cuts and bruises. He had no idea if it was harmful or if it had anything directly to do with Miko at all. Maybe it had to do with the fossil.
She let an impatient, worried growl escape, "Then take it from her. If its generating any kind of energy – which it shouldn't – we need to get a closer look."
His helm jerked back to stare at her. His expression and optics were normal again. Young. Energetic. Nervous. "That's just it. I have it right here."
He dug into his subspace and pulled out a piece of rusted metal so small he had to magnetize it to a single digit. He winced for no visible reason and let it drop with an oath. She knelt and magnetized it to her index digit. Not much to look at. Dirty; covered in rust; a couple inches long and wide, and remarkably thick for such a tiny piece of metal. But she felt no pain like the kind that the Prime had felt – felt enough to force him to drop it like a rookie cadet dropped a grenade.
"That's the source of the energy," he whispered.
She jerked her helm up to stare. Her spark jumped and quivered in its chamber.
"You're not serious. Smokescreen, that's insane! That – that's not even possible!"
"Is it?" he countered.
The black burn in his optics forced her sight to return to the scrap of metal on her digit. She could see the jagged edges clearer now, and maybe it was only because Infernus had mentioned a burning sense, but she felt (or thought she felt) a low-degree smolder coming from the rusted out metal.
Fire.
Every vein, every bone, every neuron, every organ burned in scalding flame. It burned the grass. It burned the trees. It burned the dirt. It burned the sky and clouds. But the fire didn't hurt. It was hot, but she didn't feel it. Not really.
The flames ahead parted at a roar – one that made the fires around her burn wildly. Three lizard-y heads tipped by bird-like beak snouts towered over her, attached to a body heavier than Infernus's but not as heavy as Bulkhead's. A long tail, axe-tipped, curled up to rest by the body. Four limbs burned the ground it stood on. She tried to shout "Cool!" but no sound came. She ran forward to get a closer look.
That must've been what set the dragon off.
The three-headed dragon reared up onto its hind legs, opened its beaks, and spewed roaring, screaming flame at her.
She woke in a cold sweat, her whole body hot like she'd been running in the heat like those army people, a squeak instead of a scream escaping her mouth. She swallowed once, hard. Frantically, her hands went to her arms, her face. No burns. No fire. Just a dream. Her eyes roved. The room was still dark. Her hand went to the lamp, then stopped. Jack's mom was still out like a rock in her own bed, but she was a light sleeper. Her hand retreated from the lamp, instead swiping her flip phone from beneath it. She squinted through the light of the screen.
b?
Miko? I thought you were in power down.
wuz weres smoke?
Talking to 'Cee. Why? What's up?
nightmare
Nightmare?
*dragon emoji* *dragon emoji* *dragon emoji* *fire emoji* o.O
O.O
The next message didn't come for almost three minutes, and it wasn't from Bulkhead. Ratchet's comm. thingy number came up in a new chat head.
You had a stressful day, Miko. On top of the files Jack found over the creature, it's not a stretch that your brain was trying to process it all – in this case in the form of a lucid nightmare.
but
Your body needs rest to heal after your reckless escapade today. We will discuss this further in the morning with Infernus.
fine -_-
She shut the phone and lay back down. The heat from the dragon stuck around.
An hour of trying that bordered on begging had yielded no results. He'd tried to get the piece of metal – piece of radial plating armor, Alchemist thought, due to the thickness of it – to talk to him, to get the vision to trigger. But he was empty-handed. Scorchmark refused to talk to him, and it seemed the more he tried to get him to talk, the more the piece of metal burned – something that had earned a thoughtful rumble from Onyx and Optimus together. Neither had elaborated, but he had felt the Beast Prime's presence fade. At that, he fumed in frustration, handing the piece of armor to Arcee for safe-keeping, and stormed out into the moonlight to shadow the energy trail. Still there. Still hot.
Scorchmark wanted to play hard to get. Mech was dead, and he was somehow managing it. Trying only made the answers he wanted skitter away.
He wasn't giving up, not just yet. He'd just have to get more creative. Work around the obvious answer.
Lining himself up with the burn and fiery trail, he began to stalk along its length. He let his sight wander. He could see a storm far out in the shadowy distance of the eastern horizon, beyond the range of sight of his team. Winds whipped and rain pounded against the rock and sand. Desert storm. Big one. In two distinct places he could see a spin in the clouds. Images flashed in his optics, the landscape and distant storm flickering like a bad signal. Sand and stone and cacti were replaced with flat green plains, and a tube of whirling grey wind and cloud stretched down to the ground, dancing and twisting and roaring through a town and devouring the dwellings in its path. He jolted as his vision snapped back to normal. Optimus had seen this before. Those rotating clouds were a warning of something worse to come.
[Prime?]
His pace faltered. [Doc? What's up?]
[Miko has suffered a peculiar nightmare of the Burner.]
He almost stumbled. Miko had had a nightmare of Scorchmark?
Ratchet confirmed. He had not garnered details on it, but Miko would discuss it come morning, and she had seemed unaffected – if perhaps understandably rattled.
He followed the trail nearer to the barracks, barely keeping his pace steady. No flashes came, and a scan of the building where June and Miko were revealed steady pulses. But here, outside the barrack building they slept in, the heat was almost unbearable, and the trail near the barracks was brightest. Growling, he left the trail and made for Hangar E. From a distance, he spotted the Thunderbird loitering beyond the hangar's threshold. His warning lights blinked softly but wildly.
~concern~ ~intrigue~ ~fear~ "Prime?"
He swapped forms to address him. ~fear~ ~question~
"The storm," Grimwing stated in a gasp. "Look."
His sight followed the Thunderbird's digit out to the eastern horizon. Lightning flashed among the clouds, and through the rumbling white he saw two tubes of grey wafting across the desert. ~clarification~ ~request~ He did not understand the look of abject terror on the other mech's face, and he understood less the strange gesture of his hand as his yellow gaze followed the twin twisters. Two digits extended from his fist, hovered over his optics, and jerked outward towards the storm. One digit fell to let its sole partner point towards the storm's roaring spawn. He muttered something in Navajo too quick to catch.
"Dead Man Walking," the Thunderbird murmured in English.
"What?"
"Dead Man Walking," the Thunderbird repeated. "An old belief of the Plains tribes. To see it is to witness a portent of death."
He knew it was just a storm that had spawned two tornadoes, but he still shivered. They looked a lot more like real legs now, legs of a giant, slowly striding over the darkened desert horizon and crushing anything in their path. On a world of so many fragile things, that the weather was so destructive was twisted. Earth itself was hostile and angry, indifferent to the suffering its phenomenon caused, or more probably taking glee in the devastation considering who lay thousands of klicks beneath the ground. How had they managed to survive so long on a planet that desperately wanted to kill them?
'Megatron, ironically, said it best,' Optimus rumbled. 'The human race is resilient.'
'Should I keep trying? To get the vision to trigger, I mean.'
'Kicking a dead horse isnae productive, lad,' Alchemist grumbled. 'Ah suggest you catch up on lost hours while you have the chance. The energy isnae bothering the lass – only you. One of us'll prod ya when Onyx gets back from bein' a ghostly P.I., or if something happens. We'll get the lass's story come morning.'
He gusted hot air out of his vents. A couple hours of power down after the insanity of the past day and a half sounded like paradise he admitted, padding inside the friendly warmth of the hangar. Drawing up to the medical berth where Blue was still lying, he coiled up, draping his tail over his optics.
The black came without a struggle.
The Isles felt empty.
They'd started to feel empty over the centuries – the Hunts had been long-lasting and relentless – and the war between Seelie and Unseelie had contributed just as bad. But this wasn't an empty of a lull between sides or even the sense of a death. This was empty as in "no one's home" empty. He'd checked the usual spots where the sides hid or gathered just to be sure. Nothing. No one. Everyone was gone. Even the bodies from the tombs. Not even the dead could keep him company. And that sort of empty meant just one glaring thing: the only place for steady fuel was the Seelie mine. He'd never taken sides, preferring to stay out of disputes (they weren't exactly healthy in the long run) so he'd be considered a trespasser at best. And mines always had guards and workers. 'Course, there was the age-old option of picking off said workers and guards, but they'd start noticing after a few "disappearances" out into the moors. After the incident today, they'd probably issued the order of "no following glow-lights; they're bad for your health." The Grey King's soldiers weren't too bright, but they weren't exactly stupid either.
His feathery antennae wiggled at the unpleasant realization of his situation.
Either he chose a side – or he'd eventually starve.
The 'Cons had numbers and resources behind them, but they probably wouldn't be too happy on discovering the fate of one of their own. They had ways of stealing inside a mind, tearing it apart for information. Lying wasn't possible. The opposing tribe, the Autobots, were ignorant of his acts, so would probably be easier to convince. Numbers and resources were uncertain though. Dare he risk it?
'What are you thinking, eejit?' he scolded himself. 'You don't even know where they are!'
Chirping, he lay his helm down on his paws and lowered his antennae. If only Cat were here. She could intel-gather better than anyone on either side – not to mention she could do it and not get caught. And, to be brutally honest with himself, he – well, he missed her. She wasn't there to mess with him anymore, and he couldn't mess with her. No traps bungled to backfire on him, no "gifts" left near her countless hidey-holes. Nothing. His spark felt a little emptier knowing she wasn't there. The dull skies and rain did nothing to improve his mood.
After the rain stopped and the sun set, he promised himself, he'd do some intel-gathering at the mine. Time wasn't on his side.
Out in the mist, a little light appeared on the hills to dance. In the wisps that came from its top he thought he saw a set of antlers.
Chirping, his helm lifted. Curiosity made him flash the lights than ran along the tips of his antennae.
The light on the hills answered, mimicking his flashes.
He flashed again to make sure.
It answered again.
His antennae stood straight up. He'd never had one of the lights "copy cat" him before. Most times they appeared, shone for a while, then faded away.
He decided to experiment.
Slinking to the edge of the mound's entrance, he flashed a message to the light in optical code. Three quick flashes, a long glare, two quick flashes, and four more flashes. He paused, then rapidly pulsed his antennae lights before letting them glare. Then he deactivated his lights. The light on the hills didn't answer. At first. As he watched, it answered with one long glare, five rapid flashes, three long glares, and a finishing flash. It then answered back again through six slow flashes, a glare, and a final rapid firing light show that slowed. Done "talking" it resumed its constant, feeble glow.
He froze. It had answered his question, affirming it, but should he trust it? It might be trying to pull his age-old trick on him.
The light "spoke" again. He almost jumped at the translation.
"Spritelight," it twinkled, "come. Can help."
He balked, lowered his antennae. It read his suspicion. Briefly, a form flickered around the silver-y tinged green light before fading away again. He balked further, ducking back into the mound just enough to be mostly hidden but still keep watch on the light. He hadn't imaged the tiny antlers.
"Come!" the light repeated. "Hurry!"
He hesitated further. The light had every right to give him a taste of his own medicine when he was the reason it existed. But what choice did he have? The light seemed sincere – how, he didn't know, but it did seem that way. That was the essence of a deception though: the trickster fooling the sucker into believing them to be honest. This could be a trick on the spirit's part – revenge. Or it might not be. There was only one way to answer that. Helm low, belly-plating almost brushing the stone and grass, he slunk out of the mound and into the rain. The light wavered, flashing once and flickering its shell form. Bucking, the tiny, short-horned stag bounded away in a blur of wavering colored light. Fast. Too fast to keep up on trod.
Still uncertain, he took off in a loud buzzing of his wings, lights dim to hide among the rain.
It was only then, after a breem of flying, in the air, that he realized the stag wasn't headed for the Seelie mine.
The stag was headed for the coast.
"Rafael."
The boy stirred on the passenger seat. Getting him situated last night without waking him had been one of the more delicate operations he had performed. He didn't want to wake him after the stress of last night, but he had calculated he had accumulated a solid eight hours now. Any longer and it could disrupt his cognitive functions, confusing his body needlessly into believing it was in another time zone.
"Ratchet?" he mumbled. He blinked as he rose. His hand adjusted the glasses that had until now been lopsided. "What is it?"
"You deserve an answer."
His eyes riveted onto him, "About what happened at Yosemite?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
He told him. He told him everything. But it wasn't the story of his meeting or the how of it all that caught the boy's attention. It was the very start of his story.
"Wait, what did you see over the grave?"
"His spark, I believe. Why?"
"What did it look like?"
After describing it, Rafael shoved the door open and darted up to the suspended lounge on the catwalks. Opening his laptop, he began to type in an almost feverish haste.
"Link up," he said. "But brace yourself."
He did. Dozens of internet search results filtered into his processor, all of them describing roughly the same thing: a sphere of colorful light. More and more internet pages came until they numbered in the hundreds.
"By the Allspark... Rafael, are those...?"
"No idea. Some of them may be natural phenomenon, like the wisps, but some of these other reports – I'm not so sure. No way natural phenomenon can chase people down highways."
"Chase people down highways?" Infernus wondered from his post by the hangar's entrance. "What the heck are you two up to over there?"
Rafael glanced down at him, "Um..." Then he looked back up. "We're not sure yet. We'll get back to you?"
Infernus cocked a brow ridge at him but didn't pry further.
Something shook her shoulder in the darkness.
"Miko," a voice whispered. "Miko!"
"F've m'minutes..." she mumbled.
"Miko, honestly," the voice insisted. "You do realize it's almost ten, right? You'll upset your circadian rhythm if you sleep in too late."
Her eyes opened. Jack's mom was there hunched over at her bedside, one hand on her shoulder. She thought she looked concerned, or maybe it was miffed. Hard to tell. Her brain and eyes refused to hook up. Blearily, she sat up. She still felt hot under the light sheet but not as bad, and at least she wasn't sweating any more. Ms. Darby must've sensed something wrong through her special nurse powers – her hand went to her forehead before she could really register it. Then she frowned. She rose and went over to the bag of medical supplies and doohickeys that sat on a trunk at the foot of her bed. One was brought out, and soon enough it ran across her forehead, beeping twice.
"Low-grade fever..." she muttered. Out of the blue she added, "Yes, she's awake."
Her Bluetooth was on, she noticed. She was talking to someone else.
"I'm fine," she protested.
Ms. Darby frowned, "If you have a fever of any grade you're definitely not 'fine,' young lady. Let me see your injuries."
She tossed the light sheet aside and rose. The woman scrutinized the smaller cuts and then gingerly removed the bandages protecting the uglier ones.
"No infections..." she muttered, "and no symptoms of a bug..."
Snorting, she rolled her eyes and asked if she could go. At that, the woman demanded where she needed to be in a hurry, so she explained impatiently and left it open ended. Ms. Darby didn't seem totally convinced (when was she ever convinced?) but at least she didn't try to barricade the door or anything.
Her hand went to her Bluetooth, "Could you send someone to pick her up?...Thank you, doctor."
She groaned. Great. Now the doc-bot was involved in this.
The nurse's hand went down. The nurse told her to stay still as she rummaged against in her bag. More bandages and creams were brought out. Some of them stung as they were wrapped around or placed, but the sting was nowhere near as bad as yesterday. Right on finishing up she heard the sound of a growling engine. Not Bulk's. This one was scratchier, less rumble-y. The door was knocked on and slowly opened. It wasn't the military uniform that gave Mark away – it was the smartphone, hastily tucked into a side pocket. He grinned and offered a casual salute to Ms. Darby.
"Somebody call for a taxi?" he teased.
Ms. Darby went over to him, "Could I have a lift, too? I need to have a little 'talk' with Ultra Magnus," she added, eyeing her quickly.
"Sure thing, ma'am. I'll drop you off where he is after we get little miss stowaway dropped off for her interrogation."
"Interrogation?!" the woman gasped. "About what?"
Mark laughed, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Infernus just really wants to talk to her. C'mon. It's getting hotter out by the minute, and these suits don't exactly breathe."
He led them outside where a Jeep was waiting. Just a regular old Jeep. And Ms. Darby got the shotgun seat. She was disappointed, but it was short-lived when the engine kicked into gear like a rabid tiger. It wasn't Bulkhead, but it worked. She smiled at the rush of wind over the open-top canopy. The instant Hangar E got into view she spotted Bulkhead waiting by the entrance. Prowl was out there with him. Mark honked the horn halfway there to let them know. Saluting to the black and white mech as he pulled up (and giving a cheerful smile that seemed to annoy him) he set the brakes and let her get out of the back on her own. Inside, Infernus was waiting, held back by Ratchet's hand. His eyes – his eyes, not his dragon eyes – locked with hers. She nodded.
With a wave and a parting honk of his horn, Mark went on his way.
Infernus made to charge, but Bulkhead swooped on her before he could get one foot off the ground.
"You okay?" he wondered. "Ms. Darby says your core temperature is higher than its supposed to be."
She rolled her eyes and snorted, "Psh! It's a tiny fever, Bulk. Chill. I can barely feel it."
"Small discrepancies can lead to much larger problems," warned Prowl. "I advise you not to dismiss this so carelessly."
She stuck her tongue at him.
Bulkhead brought her in and handed her to Infernus. She didn't understand why he winced the second her boots touched his hand.
"Bulkhead told me you had a nightmare?"
She shrugged it off.
"And you saw Scorchmark in it?"
Her arms folded, "Giant fiery dragon with three heads and a bad attitude, then yeah. Pretty sure it was him."
He continued to interrogate, "Can you tell me what happened?"
"Walked up to it and it spewed fire. What else? Woke up after that sweating. Had a hard time sleeping 'cause I felt hot. It's better this morning but I still feel like I got a bad sunburn or something."
The Prime tossed a look over at Ratchet and then turned back to her. There was something in his eyes. He held his hand out towards Ratchet and the doc's red beam swept over her a few times.
Holding a human was a delicate operation. The hand had to be kept still to prevent them from teetering or wobbling or, Primus, forbid, falling to their deaths. That wasn't made any easier when that piece of fleshy glass felt like a smelter in his hands, and her whole body was glowing with the weird energy. She seemed her normal, impatient, seconds-from-demanding-answers self though, like the nightmare didn't bother her all that much.
[Why the fever though? She was fine yesterday.]
[I can't tell. Her body is not reacting to any sort of infection or stressor. It is recent though. June checked her last night while treating her wounds and there was no fever. This had to have happened sometime last night.]
~dream~ ~link~ ~question~
Ratchet's field answered in a whirl of ~unknown~
'Any idea why she sees Scorchmark and not me?'
'Fer one, the lass's got him attached to her. See how his energy's nae melding with hers?'
He did. Miko's bombastic pink and red energy was separate from Scorchmark's blazing orange and yellow. Swirling and writing, but no merging into one fiery rainbow. It was just like Murdered: Soul Suspect. Miko wasn't a vessel – she was just something Scorchmark could latch on to, same as the piece of armor. And just like the game, it appeared there was little he could do outside of doing that. He hadn't tried anything destructive or damaging, but he could be biding his time, waiting to jump to another host. But, then again, maybe he physically couldn't do that or, stranger still, didn't want to. Scorchmark's energy hadn't even tried to jump to Bulkhead, he'd had the entire ride from the Isles to jump to the other Wreckers, and he'd had all night to jump to Arcee. But he hadn't.
'So how the heck do I get him off?'
'You will not like it,' Optimus warned.
'I don't like anything about this.'
'Place her on the ground, first.'
He obeyed, 'Now what?'
'Allow your mind to empty. Do not focus on anything.'
Not focusing on anything was harder than he thought. Disconnecting from Raf's laptop and Ratchet's console and shuttering his optics helped, but it still took a while. He let himself relax a little as he forgot about the tension of the situation and all the problems that insisted on pestering him. He felt the Matrix hum as the entity within stirred. He felt something slither out of the device, warm and soft. Panic suffused every circuit in his body, and his mind snapped from its unfocused state. That sense, that coiling snake – that was the exact same sense Optimus had detected right before – no way. No, no, no! He wasn't trying to –!
The coil connected.
Nothing happened. But something felt different. Not just in him, but around him. Something in the air. It made his mesh tingle unpleasantly.
'Open your eyes, little ember. The worst has passed.'
He did.
He yelped and stumbled back, hastily changing one hand into a blaster.
Looming behind Miko, smack in front of him in the hangar's entrance, was a three-headed dragon made of fire. Mist, dark and foreboding, lacking the speckled star-light he was used to, seemed to devour the sunlight streaming from outside and the fire from the dragon.
"What? What is it? What's going on?!"
"Put the weapon away, Prime!"
"Why are his eyes glowing? He's not touching the fossil."
Their voices felt distant, sounded distant, but were loud and clear. Like he was listening from far away, but he couldn't be – he was in the same room as them.
"Prime," Prowl said. "What. Is. Happening?"
He took one step forward. Scorchmark screamed at him. He kept the blaster aimed and stepped back.
"He sees something we can't..." Ratchet realized, "something not completely here."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"What about Miko?!"
'Now what?! I can't get near him!'
'Calm, little ember. You must remain calm, or this will be for naught.'
'You got me into this. Tell me how to get him off her! Now!'
'Convince him to stand down,' Optimus rumbled, 'that his mission is long over, and offer him a path home through the Matrix. It is either that, or meet him fully in the tbezn'hkol plane, the plane of existence he is occupying, and defeat him in combat. And the second option is infinitely more dangerous – for all involved.'
'I'm willing to take that risk. He's not interested in talking.'
'Try first, kid. Onyx would tell you the same thing – this way is loads safer. Least this way he can't hurt you.'
He took in some air to cool his overworked systems, lowered his blaster, and stepped towards the spectral beast. He addressed him, "Scorchmark!" The others shared shocked whispers. Scorchmark seemed insulted and spewed screaming fire from one head in warning. His flames swept by him without heat and without pain. He took another step forward. "I know you think nothing can stand in the way of your mission," he continued, "but you're wrong. Your mission ended the second you were killed. You can't do anything to further it the way you are now. So I'm giving you five seconds to leave Miko alone and go home, or I'm gonna be forced to make you submit the old fashioned way."
"The Builder brought me back once!" the dragon screamed. "With my shell in his possession, he will do so again! My mission will continue, and you and all who serve you will be consumed in flame! You are nothing more than prey!"
"You think that's a threat?" he snorted derisively. "Your fires will never match what I went through. Go on, sucker. Try again."
Scorchmark took the challenge, screamed, and spewed fire from all three of his heads. The burning tide washed over him as he kept getting closer. Another burning wave swept by him. He thought he caught a hint of fear in Scorchmark's rage-filled optics then, after the fire fizzled out behind him and he drew up to him. He stood in front of he beast for a moment. All three of his heads screamed and tried to bite and blister him in flame. The angry heads merely phased through him as if the Phase Shifter were active, as ineffectual as his spectral fire breath. His hand shot forward. Energy, blue and chilled, snapped around his center beak, then lashed around the other two. The fear became more pronounced. He yanked one head forward.
"You think I don't know fire?" he hissed. "I know fire. I am fire. I am Infernus Prime, and I order you to stand down."
Scorchmark blinked at him. Something in his attitude convinced him to remove the energy muzzles.
"Let go of her," he snarled. "Now."
The dragon's fiery energy detached itself, Miko swaying on her feet in response, unwinding and swirling until he stood before him in bipedal mode. He was an intimidating figure, he wouldn't deny it. Two of his heads formed his pauldrons, and the top of the third helm rested on his chassis. Without him asking, he sank to one knee, one hand crossing his chassis like a knight swearing loyalty to a king.
"I have no way home, Prime. The path is dark, and the lantern of home is long dim," His helm lifted, "You...you will send an oorstin vahan?"
"No," he answered. "I've got no reason to be nice to you after the stunt you pulled, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm giving you a short cut."
He focused. His chassis panels rearranged themselves to reveal the shining object within.
"Go home, Scorchmark," he said in a softer voice. "Your mission's over."
The once furious beast bowed to him and began to dissolve into connected streams that swirled towards him, the harsh burn they had once given now a low simmer. Scorchmark hesitated for a brief second just in front of his chassis, and then flowed in. Flashes of memory, Scorchmark's memories, collected over his life, appeared in his mind in a raging river only to slow to a halt just as the burn inside quelled. The roaring rapids of the dragon's life force became a gentle stream.
"Thank you, Prime..."
He shut the panels. A sigh of relief escaped him. Exhaustion made itself known.
"Okay, so now wh–"
The warm coil snapped free.
He fell.
"–ime? Prime?"
A bright light danced in his stuttering vision.
"Could you not?" he groaned, but it came out as an angry growl.
The light retreated. Ratchet's concerned faceplates met him. One of his hands extended. He took it, grateful for it keeping him steady.
"What happened?" Bluestreak demanded from the medical berth. "You did something, a-and then you drew your gun, and your optics were all glowing and weird, but you didn't have the fossil, and then you started talking to someone and then you did something, and something else, and then you –"
Ratchet interrupted, "You're unharmed?"
"Uh," he glanced at himself, "I mean, I think so."
"Good,"
Ratchet's hand clanged onto the back of his helm. He yelped at the sharp pain, "What the heck was that for?!"
"Not warning me first."
"Hey, 'scuse me! I barely got any warning myself! They threw me in before I knew what I was supposed to do!"
Ratchet forcibly guided him over to his work bench. His hand went out almost without thought to steady himself. There were still residual wisps of energy in the air, growing fainter and fainter. He couldn't tell if his sight was still under whatever effect the Thirteen had forced him, and the energy itself was fading away, or if they were gradually returning his sight to normal. He still felt off.
"What happened, Prime?" demanded his older brother.
"All due respect for your mental prowess, Prowl," Ratchet retorted, "what Smokescreen just experienced is not something you would be able to comprehend in an instant. Let him recover first before you assail him with any questions."
"Doc, just admit it," he said from the bench. "I performed an exorcism."
A wave of vertigo suddenly came. One hand went to his helm as the world keeled dangerous to one side. He groaned. Don't get sick, don't get sick, he repeated to himself. He began to cycle air slowly.
"Cool!" Miko exclaimed. "You mean I was possessed?!"
He managed a weak laugh in time to instantly regret it. The vertigo returned with a vengeance. She was less rattled than he was about the whole thing.
"No, not really," he managed. "More like an anchor."
Only Miko, he thought, would give a little noise of disappointment over being told that no, she hadn't been possessed.
Author's Note: Slightly shorter chapter. I may add a little more on later, but I dunno. Leaving it here feels the best.
