Years later
Athena leans back in her comfy chair and looks at Talon sitting across from her. The bulge in her midsection is steadily growing larger and larger with each passing month, and she can no longer sit up straight but have to lean back to avoid her enlarged gestation chamber pushing unpleasantly into her internals.
Here in her laboratory, Talon is cut off from everything happening on the other side of the door and can focus on himself for once without fearing repercussions. Here, he is no longer the leader of the Polyhexian Cartel but a sire suffering from a terrible psychological trauma he needs her help to process.
"Can you sense anything from Torment?" Talon asks hesitantly, knowing that he with the question breaches the protocol for their therapeutic sessions.
Athena looks down at the datapad she is taking notes on without answering.
Torment has taken Talon's place in the negotiation with the Kalisian Mafia happening right at this moment on the outskirts of Iacon. She would have preferred to be there with him when he meets with Hyperline, but she can't because of her sparked state and her session with Talon, which she had refused to reschedule. Then again, if she didn't have this session with Talon, Talon would be at the negotiation, not Torment.
Because she is sparked, Torment is in a period of his life where he is highly unpredictable due to the active parental protocols affecting him. It had caused chaos in the preliminary negotiations leading up to the final negotiation between the two organizations when Talon suddenly couldn't represent the Polyhexian Cartel as he rightly should according to the underworld's politics―and ended with the agreement that neither Torment nor Hyperline would have any of their people nearby, lessening the danger of the parental protocols seeing it as a threatening situation. But it leaves both negotiators vulnerable to outside interference.
Talon moves stiffly in his chair, and she looks up again, taking pity on him.
"All is fine. Torment is calm and relaxed."
Talon visibly deflates, and she takes note of his reaction. He is opening up more and more about his feelings after the traumatic experience of losing Tidalwave at a point in his life where everything seemed good and he trusted people. The sudden unimaginable loss has left a lingering mark on his spark, and he is still grieving after this long because he has never given himself the time needed to process the traumatic loss.
They have come a long way over the past months, so she refused to move the session and denied Talon's presence at the negotiation. The negotiation with Hyperline would only get Talon to close up again and ruin all their hard work―forcing them to start almost from scratch.
When they started the therapy, Talon had signed a binding agreement to prioritize their sessions above anything else and forego pulling rank. It had been her requirement. Talon had first realized what that meant when she put her foot down and denied him. He had not liked it one bit, had argued fiercely, and she had let him let out his rage at her. She had stayed unwavering, and he had finally relented and accepted it―but with the caveat that she had to tell Hyperline why Talon couldn't fulfill his obligation.
"Let's go back to your-"
She stops midsentence, her spark flaring with worrying emotions from Torment―everything around her fading as she zeroes in on their bond.
At the negotiation, a well-honed sixth sense warns Torment about the incoming danger, and he dodges, transforms into alt-mode and speeds away as the shots get fired.
The Joint Investigation Unit's enforcers drop their stealth and begin to chase him while Hyperline flees in another direction with his own group of enforcers on his tail. Torment accelerates and swerves from side to side to avoid the weapons fire aimed strategically at his tires―his only weak spot when in alt-mode―while he attempts to lay distance to his faster pursuers and coordinates assistance with his escort.
When he sees his escort speed towards him from the opposite direction, he turns around with screeching tires, transforms in one fluid motion and assumes a defensive position with his weapons ready to be fired. He opens fire while his elites box him in to protect him and help him neutralize the enforcers.
Silence falls over the area when the last enforcer falls lifeless to the ground, and Torment steps closer, kicking the closest one condescendingly.
When do they learn they can't stop him no matter how hard they try?
The enforcer he had kicked onlines his optics and looks up at him in pure terror while energon spills from several critical wounds.
Torment crouches beside his downed foe and looks contemptuously at him.
"I should kill you, but I have promised my bondmate to avoid killing enforcers as much as possible. That is the only reason you and your colleagues are still alive. Activate your emergency signal if you haven't already, and you and your people will live to fight another day."
Then he rises, a sinister smile on his lips.
Better luck next time, director!
Turning away from his downed foes, he folds into alt-mode. Around him, his elites do the same, and they follow him in a close formation as he leaves the area and the wounded behind to their fate.
If they live or die are no longer in his hands.
He has kept his promise to Athena.
It is all he can do when he isn't the aggressor.
He can feel her in their bond―her pride in his rational handling of a dangerous situation where he could have easily lost control.
It is not easy for him to leave his enemies alive.
Even now, the parental protocols are screaming bloody murder at him, demanding he turns around to finish off his adversaries who tried to take him away from his vulnerable, sparked bondmate.
Only pure strength of will and Athena's love let him let them live.
Prowl stares into the intensive care unit, where twelve of his best enforcers lie in a coma.
In the time that followed 'the hour of reckoning' where the worst criminal organizations in their society had united to defend it, confidential information had leaked to the press. In the wake of the leaked information, people demanded full disclosure. And when the Senate finally bowed to the demand, there was a public outcry.
The Senate had been hung out as fools for blindly following a corrupt Vice President in the many global demonstrations for more transparency that followed.
The Senate itself had been in an uproar and had acknowledged the importance of a globalized law enforcement authority that could work with the various city-states and cooperate and coordinate with the local law enforcement in situations where a single city-state lacked the firepower to go against the criminals.
A new mandate had been given and a new Joint Investigation Unit had risen from the ashes of the former―this time created to combat terror and the growing organized crime on a global scale. With its new mandate also came the extraordinary power to set aside all laws if required to handle threats to society and to overrule any order given to a public authority by the Senate that would go directly against the public's interest. It is only accountable to the High Court of Justiciary, to whom it's director will answer directly after exercising the extraordinary power.
He had not expected to be seen as a worthy candidate for the director position after his close collaboration with the leader of the Polyhexian Cartel and his heir. He had broken innumerable laws as he did so―many of which would have landed him straight into prison if not for the unique circumstances under which they had been committed. But Enigma―the newly elected Vice President―wanted him at the head of the new Joint Investigation Unit and had pointed out how Prowl had stood firm in an impossible situation and had managed to work with the criminals without getting compromised.
A feat few would have been capable of.
Another reason to have him at the head of the new unit was his unique insider knowledge of the Polyhexian Cartel after he had worked so closely with the criminal organization. Enigma pointed out the value of that information when it came to combatting the strongest-positioned criminal organization in their society.
The Polyhexian Cartel had taken a severe hit when it relinquished control over Praxus' territory to the Joint Investigation Unit and would undoubtedly be looking to expand elsewhere. Enigma emphasized that they needed incorruptible enforcers like Prowl to spearhead the effort if they ever were to have a chance to stop it and the many other criminal organizations.
Nacelle had pushed for him to accept the position, but Prowl had still taken a few days to consider it before accepting the offer.
A few weeks later, the first attack on his life came as Talon had promised Nacelle, and Prowl had, with a smirk, watched his security detail take down the sniper as he removed the projectile that had embedded itself firmly into his recently reinforced chest armor right where his spark was without causing the intended lethal damage.
Who said you couldn't teach an old cyber-hound new tricks?
More attacks occurred in rapid succession, showing how desperate the Polyhexian leader was to silence him because Talon sacrificed some of his best assassins in the failed attempts on his life.
Then, a week after the latest attack that nearly had succeeded, a hacker had attacked their headquarters, breaching their firewalls as if they hadn't been there. The image of a black falcon appeared on all screens, but only Prowl's had a link. Of course, Shift could infiltrate their systems as effortlessly as this. After all, she was the one who had created their firewalls, and they had stupidly not thought to change them before then.
The link had activated a live feed from an untraceable position somewhere on the planet, and then he had looked at Athena.
Their talk had been brief, the look in her optics flinty when she had promised him no further attacks would occur.
He later learned that Nacelle had let slip to Athena what was going on after the near-successful assassination and wished he had been a fly on the wall when Athena went head-to-head with Talon over it.
The sight would undoubtedly have been glorious.
He had been grateful for her interference, but it also showed how problematic it would be for him to navigate his new position―because gratefulness leads to trouble in a world where he ultimately seeks to destroy the organization she now inextricably is connected with.
A small group of high-profile investigative officers still see him as biased and unfit for the powerful position of director because he once collaborated with the Polyhexian Cartel. But the statistics speak in his defense, showing how the Joint Investigation Unit's continued global effort against organized crime steadily progresses, and the indisputable efficiency has begun to silence even the fiercest of his critics.
Prowl's brows crease as he stares at the twelve stable but weak spark pulses.
"You couldn't have done anything differently," Topkick says as he steps up beside his superior and looks at their comatose subordinates.
"Even knowing that doesn't make me feel better."
He knew of Athena's sparked state and that Torment, because of active parental protocols, would be driven to wipe out his enforcers when not immediately killed―but had still ordered the shots to be fired, knowing the consequences.
He had had no other choice.
Their initial focus had been Hyperline when sources in the criminal underworld spoke about an upcoming negotiation between the Kalisian Mafia and the Polyhexian Cartel. The intention had been to attempt to capture or kill Talon when he was out in the open and susceptible to attack, but when Torment showed up instead-
Unexpected and catastrophic.
For reasons unknown, Talon had breached the underworld's political protocol and sent his heir instead of himself to the negotiation.
He should have canceled the mission and pulled his people out when their target didn't show up but had instead decided to attempt to apprehend or kill Hyperline. However, to do that, he couldn't order his people to ignore Torment. It would raise questions if he did since the heir to the Polyhexian Cartel would be just as good a catch as its leader and likely easier to kill.
He, of all people, knew how inaccurate that presumption was but still sacrificed his people for a chance to kill Torment he didn't even want. Because he could do nothing else.
That they all survived had been a statistical impossibility, but here they are, all alive and with a good prognosis for a full recovery.
It is an enigma and a fragile hope of change in Torment.
Only time will tell if Athena manages to further temper the killer in her bondmate or if she slowly succumbs to the predominate darkness in his spark.
All they can do is hope for the best and try to pave the way for the couple and the change they seem to herald for the Polyhexian Cartel―which means Talon's death. But, for now, the criminal underworld will keep to itself for a while to recover from the sudden power vacuum caused by Hyperline's death. Then everything will return to usual, and he will get a new attempt at Talon's life.