Chapter 35
"I'm going to be running now, thanks, bye"
Frag.
Frag frag frag frag.
She was not ready for this. She was never going to be ready for this. None of them were.
"Run," Hawkmoon urged. "Run run run!"
"Spirits..." Oor'un'xu gasped. "By the elder queens, what is-"
"RUN!"
They ran.
Excubitors around them twirled and fired their lances. Proud, daunting warriors of the Emperor's personal employ, massive and brave and armed with some of the most fearsome weaponry she'd come across.
She didn't even look around to see if they were making an impact. Hawkmoon already knew what the result would be. Given the unflinching dark laughter following them towards the twinkling form of the open Raven bridge, there was no doubt about it.
And then she heard the whistling sound of a colossal sword being swung - followed shortly by the crunch of something, someone, being cleaved apart. Again and again. The Excubitors they passed first began to advance, angry, groaning with rage - and then the reality of their situation set in, and the Myods began to backstep, beating a fighting retreat, whistling sharply to one another in panic and distress. There were more thuds from behind, more screams of metal slicing through metal, and it was steadily coming closer.
It was coming for them. She was coming for them.
Xivu Arath. War Incarnate.
Hawkmoon glanced, out of the corner of her optics, at Nacelle first and then Oor'un'xu.
They could live. She could shove them on. The blood was on her hands, after all. The Warpriest's death was her doing. It was her the Hive hungered for.
"Don't you dare," Nacelle growled. His EM field was rife with panic and determination both - and it frazzled against hers. "I can feel what you're thinking, 'Moon. I'll drag you if I have to."
"Too much weight," Hawkmoon gasped. Her pain receptors, worryingly damaged, were growing numb. Her wings were... she could feel them, almost. Phantom sensations - of a cool summer's breeze, not the filthy feeling of raining ash. And her front...
"I don't care," Nacelle fiercely shot back. "We'll-"
The bloodied remains of an Excubitor flew past them, missing a shoulder, a shell and a head.
"Just move!" Oor'un'xu pressed with a sharp clack of his mandibles.
At least they were making good time. The Raven Bridge was getting closer, and closer, and closer, and-
There was another roar from behind. From the Knight. From the War God.
No.
You are mine.
You bleed, you fight, you war.
You are mine.
You reside in my realm.
My dominion.
My world.
Remain.
The power in the air, the pure indescribable field of strange energy pulsated around them. The earth trembled; buildings shook and crumbled, and parts of the streets around them cracked apart as biomechanical roots and vines and otherworldly growths forced themselves through - thirsting not for the sun, but for the spill of blood. Hive magic - and potently foul.
Hawkmoon snuck a look behind.
Xivu Arath had lifted Her sword - a tower of bright runes heaped on black steel. The power around it, behind it - it coalesced and then burst out a second time. And a third. With each drowning pull, those Myods closest to Her, brave little souls, died and were devoured, soul and all. And Xivu Arath grew, She grew. Larger and larger - Her own violence-drenched soul emerging into realspace.
Because this was where Her throne resided, wasn't it?
The Knight had grown - ten times its original size, easily. She was colossal. Xivu Arath, Hive God of War, stood among them in Her truest aspect, Her core-form. War was Her throne - Hawkmoon remembered that much at least from Ikharos's reports so long ago. The other gods had their courts, but the God of War carried Her soul-realm with Her everywhere She did battle.
Her sword raked across the sky. Soulfire burned in its wake, seeping into the air with every pass. The very air began to collapse under the weight of it all, local atmospheric gases crunching together. The ships caught in the budding vortex of emerald fire - Tai and Hive both - were burned alive and screaming. The fires drank them in, drank in their essences and lives and grew grew grew - flooding up above, towards the orbital element of the battle.
The Taishibethi didn't stand a chance.
"Go!" Oor'un'xu urged, definitely panicked, but they couldn't - because the distance ahead, irrationally, against all feasible odds, stretched. It broke all physical conventions - that the area between them and the Raven Bridge bulged apart, grew itself, pulled by invisible fingers, reality itself catering entirely to the War God's liking.
Hive never liked to play by the rules, did they?
Hawkmoon found herself yearning for somewhat simpler times, when she'd been able to do the same. Shatter physics over her knee - just because. It had been an almost even playing field back then.
Being mortal was terrifying.
One of the dead Myod parts lying on the ground ahead flashed towards them, thanks to the distance-dilation, and smashed painfully against Hawkmoon's shin - and she went down, tumbling over it, unintentionally dragging the other two with her. They stumbled and collapsed onto the shaking, stretching road, the others storming back to their feet - but it was too late. A shadow fell over them. Hawkmoon turned over onto her back - it hurt, it hurt so much - and scowled at the God standing over them.
Xivu Arath's sole visible eye stared down at them with a malicious sort of hunger, glimmering with a cruel intelligence. Green fires swept down the length of Her claymore, licking the chitin-plate of Her gauntlets and braces, glazing the ground below into green crystal where its dripping embers lathered. She drove it down into the ground beside them, annihilating an entire city block. She laughed and laughed and laughed, and reached down for them with a colossal set of brutish claws.
And then She wasn't there anymore.
Xivu Arath teetered back with a pained, furious roar. Her every stumbling step quaked the earth. A trio of red-hot slashing marks had been scored across Her cuirass - the chitin melting at the edges and dripping down Her suit of armour.
The entity responsible stood over them on their other side, between them and the bridge. It was... Tai, but... built of fire. A creature of pure Solar, spreading its wings out to set alight the very air around them. Not as large as the God of War, nowhere close, but still a dauntingly imposing sight. It shrieked at the Hive deity, promising nothing short of a painful, burning end, and it brandished its claws - and oh, its claws. They were weapons near on par to the War God's own claymore. Teeth drawn from a star, wicked sharp and forged entirely of billowing flames. It was... some Sunborn demigod-thing, not Ascendant or Dark, not even close, but still inconceivably fearsome in its own right.
"Now we run," Oor'un'xu chirped shrilly.
Neither Hawkmoon nor Nacelle disagreed. They ran - between the legs of the fire-Tai, ducking beneath its swaying tailfeathers and sprinting - or hobbling in Hawkmoon's case, and being semi-dragged by other two - for the Raven Bridge. Xivu Arath rallied Herself behind them and howled, claymore screaming as it swung for their fiery guardian angel.
Emperor of false outcomes!
Your reign is ended.
Your throne I will cut away.
Your dream of peace and consolidarity has no substance.
What cannot stand under its own weight will be swept away.
The tides will drown it.
The tides will drown you.
I will make sure.
Hawkmoon's optics widened.
"Wait, wait wait wait!" she spluttered, digging her heels into the ground - not that it did much. Slowed them a little, not stop. Energon loss was starting to get to her, starting to clog her systems with the lack of available fuel. "'Sel?!"
"Move, sky-runner!" Oor'un'xu snapped. "We can't-"
"FRAG!" Hawkmoon threw herself forward, pulling the others with her, all to avoid the monumental talon scoring where they'd just been standing.
The fire-Tai curiously looked down at them, having been shoved back, then levered itself back to its feet. It deflected Xivu's skewering thrust with a slap of its claws - and then the titanic pair crashed together. The resounding boom of chitin-mailed fist striking beak and the indescribable shriek of claws raking through dark bone-plates shredded through Hawkmoon's ailing audioreceptors. She was forced to turn the sensitivity down if only to keep her sensors functional.
"Hawk-" Nacelle started to shout, but the fire-Tai screamed. There was no doubt as to why; Xivu's claymore had pierced the giant phoenix through its shoulder. The God of War growled out a deep laugh and pushed, throwing Her flaming opponent down. The earth shuddered and tossed everything about - and Hawkmoon took a tumble. She tried, on instinct, to activate her thrusters - but most of those were gone with the rest of her wings. All she really did was propel herself an extra couple of meters. Or more than that, even. Meters were like inches to her now.
The front of her helm hopped off the road. One of her optics cracked. The pain paled in comparison to that of her back, of her wings, but that didn't take away from the shock of it.
"Frag," she croaked, lifting herself up onto her knees and servos. Energon steadily dripped out of her front and over her shoulders, running in thick rivulets down her arms. It lit up the shadow of her cut out against the glaring light of the fire-Tai above.
A part of her realized the serious danger of naked flames being so close to exposed energon.
Another part just couldn't find it in herself to care anymore.
The fiery Tai thing threw Xivu Arath off - shoved Her back towards the ugly ruins of where the university had once stood. The edge of it was dissipating, guttering out. Xivu Arath roared and swung Her greatsword as it came for Her, lopping off the... sun-avatar-thingy's head. The living fires shriveled up and died.
And the Taishibeth left standing where the fire-bird had once stood took one look at the impossibly massive Knight before her and then flew. Right for Hawkmoon; she barely had time to yelp as claws closed around her shoulders and dragged her up into the air.
Nace-
Nacelle was fine. He was a quick study, wasn't he? Took one look behind him, to make sure they were following, then roughly grabbed Oor'un'xu and hightailed it away - towards the flickering portal still being guarded by dutiful Excubitors who continued to fire past them with little regard towards their own survival. The only real issue Hawkmoon could spot was the War God furiously lobbing her claymore like a javelin right at them. Nacelle was already boosting through the multi-coloured disc, but Úthaessel had to swerve, and the sword carried on without them, bearing down on the Raven Bridge.
It had to move.
So Hawkmoon moved it - a mere split-second before the Godsword spilled through to the other side. Not actively, no, not even voluntarily - just thought about it, desperate, fearful, frenzied with panic, and it kicked the thing lodged in her chassis into action. The Raven Bridge didn't even blink out; the Aperture Scrambler simply reached through with an invisible hand, flicked a switch, gave its target coordinates a little adjustment and that was that. It winked at them a block to the left, completely out of the way, and they flew to it.
Flew through it.
Just as Xivu Arath dove at them, hand outstretched.
The moment they cleared out of the short energy tunnel and skidded across the floor on the other side, where a veritable legion of armed Excubitors stood at the ready, Hawkmoon shut it tight behind them. It spluttered out.
Then gaped open once more, the seams of it caught on the edges of titanic claws well-versed in the wounding of reality's finest fabric.
I am War!
I am not to be denied!
You will fal-
Hawkmoon shut it again - with more force, slicing the tips of the War God's own fingers right off.
Served her right, the stone-cold bitch.
"Did you...?" Úthaessel shakily gasped, staring over her shoulder where the Raven Bridge had once stood. There was an empty space in its place, and a pale metal wall behind it. The frame of a personal space-bridge signal-emitter was erected around it. Hawkmoon didn't know where they were, but while the architecture had the Taishibethi/Myod look, the tech was definitely in the same vein as that used by Cybertron. "How did you-"
Then she looked down. Úthaessel was kneeling at Hawkmoon's side, hands on her chassis - fingers dipping into the pooling blue. "You've burnt me," she remarked with incredible control, as if commenting on the weather. She didn't even sound pained in the slightest.
Hawkmoon sat up - or tried to. Her hips joints weren't really listening to her and her arms were filling her HUD with incessant system-failure warnings. Annoying, that.
"Oh."
What a word. What a fascinatingly expressive word. Nothing else could illustrate how genuinely upsetting Hawkmoon's own physical state really was. Not to the same extent.
"'Moon!"
Nacelle rushed to her. Úthaessel flinched and inched back, all four eyes wide.
"She needs repairs!" Nacelle shouted.
"A temple. This station has an onboard temple."
"We need the Auror-"
"No, there is not enough time. Excubitor! Quick - take this one to the Sun Temple, now!"
Hawkmoon wished she could have drifted into stasis-lock all over again, but apparently having denied it once meant she was to be punished by her own spark.
Úthaessel was there. Nacelle and Cyberwarp too, both frantically talking - but her audioreceptors had broken down by then. There were another pair of Tai, one being Kirtir from Jehennes' fleet and the other a complete stranger. The Tai worked on her. Úthaessel mostly, apparently not afraid to get her hands dirty. Or burnt, even. Nacelle helped out where he could; Cyberwarp was a little more well-versed in medical fields than him, but her servos were much too shaky. Probably because it was Hawkmoon on the surgery table, but... maybe not just that. 'Warp was too softhearted for her own good - or soft-sparked, rather.
Nacelle helped them to remove her plating the proper way where he could, but when push came to shove and she began teetering on the edge of a final full-system shutdown, Úthaessel bit the bullet and started pulling paneling off with her bare talons. At least she had the decency to snip out Hawkmoon's pain receptors near the start. Not that being confined to an old relic stone table, incapable of moving or even feeling, and watching out of the corner of her optics as aliens rummaged through her internal components was in any way a kinder fate.
"I've forgotten what it's like to die," Hawkmoon mused aloud.
If anyone replied, she didn't hear.
She tried to raise her neck. It wasn't obeying her command. With a vented sigh Hawkmoon murmured, "I wish I wasn't conscious for this."
Úthaessel paused. Her look seemed to say: are you sure?
Hawkmoon attempted a nod. Ended up moving her chin a little and that was it.
Úthaessel's hand delicately passed over her faceplates. Everything faded away.
The man standing before her, with his hands crossed behind his back and his hat off to convey some measure of respect, had no facial muscles to speak of/There was a woman at the door, short and compact and wearing the slim biosuit of a Jovian technician/The battlefield was pock-marked with piles of the burning dead. He was physically incapable of smiling/She was staring at her with haunted eyes/Thunderhowl tiredly huffed.
"You have my deepest sympathies./Is it really you?/This is no hunt, Seeker."
Adria wanted to punch him/Lennox-2 frowned/Hawkmoon stared - stared at every dead face turned their way, be they alien or no. She almost couldn't breathe/She sat up straighter, curiously tilting her head/Committed the scene to memory.
"Fuck you,/Who...?/This isn't what I intended," Adria swore/Lennox-2 paused/Hawkmoon muttered. "You're fucking lying!/Okay, who the hell are you?/This was supposed to be clean."
"I must regretfully inform you that I am not,/You don't... remember me?/War's never clean," the man evenly replied/the woman whispered/Thunderhowl growled. He brought one of his hands out - bearing an envelope/She stumbled to the nearest chair/The mech idly kicked aside an ossified alien skull. "It's my duty to advise you to get in touch with your psychiatrist, as I have no doubt these coming days will be trying, but just in case... feel free to give the Bray foundation a call./You don't remember.../I thought I'd already fought my war."
"What the fuck are you- Get out, get out, GET OUT!/Am I... supposed to?/No war matters like this one does."
"Good day, Ms. Lennox./We... we were.../I know that now," the man said with a stiff nod/the woman trailed off/Thunderhowl grumbled. He left/She gave Lennox-2 a sad look/He transformed and mournfully howled for all the dead to hear.
"Fuck.../What's your name?/There's no point," she wept/she asked/she reminded him.
The door slid shut behind him/Tears ran down the woman's face, streaming from eyes scrunched shut, as if to avoid looking at Lennox entirely/Thunderhowl gave her a distasteful look.
"You have two (2) appointments with Sir Etr-/My... Vaudren Arelos./Sometimes I wonder if I've picked the wrong side."
Adria threw an empty bottle at the automated intercom/The name meant nothing to her/She knew what he really meant, and she knew he wasn't being serious. Both cracked apart on impact/Utterly nothing/He was a wolf through and through, and he knew the truth better than anyone.
Her boy was dead/She didn't know this woman, nor did she care to/When push came to shove, it was better to buddy up with the bigger crowd.
Adria woke up with a dry, croaking gasp. She immediately found it hard to breath - wait, probably those arms wrapping around her shoulders, neck, head. She sighed into the soft fabric of the shirt pressed against her face, returning the embrace and letting her fingers sink into bare skin where the shirt hitched up.
"I thought you'd never wake," Vaudren murmured. She sounded close to tears.
"Takes more than a bullet to put me down," Adria tiredly joked. "Give me some breathing space."
Vaudren unlooped her arms and gave her a strange look - then cast it aside in favour of adorable relief. "I was worried sick."
"Told you I'd come back." No, it wasn't Vaudren causing it. Her throat was just very, very dry. It didn't feel like her lungs were taking in much air either. She could speak fine, though. Weird. Cryosleep fugue, maybe.
"... You did?"
"Of course." Adria rolled her eyes. "Did you really forget?"
"I... guess? It was so hectic-"
Was it? Just a couple of people in an open hangar, as far as she remembered. They had time, too. Lots of time before she'd been shipped off for that insurgent mess on Hyperion. Well - maybe in Vaudren's head. It hadn't been an easy goodbye. "I know," Adria comforted. She reached out and took Vaudren's head in her hands - thumb tracing her cheek, just under her eyes. Green eyes. Not her natural brown. "Did you get new lenses?"
"Um, no...?"
"Yeah you did." Adria rolled her eyes. "So - how's Benni?"
"... Are you alright?"
"Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?"
"I... I should get Úthaessel. Or someone. Please, just wait here." Vaudren moved, quick, for the door. Adria didn't recognize the room around them. Or the name. Was it her doctor? It sounded foreign. Was it Gaelic-Tethyan? Or from Triton's New Reykjavík? Didn't sound Terran, anyways. Nor from the other inner worlds. Well, Mercury maybe. Maybe it was Mercurian?
Adria frowned. "Who are you talki-... wait, Vaudren-"
"What?" Vaudren, just about to step out, froze and turned around. Stared at her. Stared at her. "Wh... what did you call me?"
Adria narrowed her eyes.. "Vaudren. Where's your ring?"
"My what?"
"Your-" Adria glanced at her own hand. Her own ring - plain red-gold band, single white quartz gemstone - was gone. She didn't remember taking it off. She never had taken it off. Never, not once. Not since it was first put on. "What... where is it?"
Vaudren was there when she looked up. Standing at the side of the table. Not a bed. A hard table. But her joints didn't ache. How long had she been there? "Hawkmoon, what's going on?"
"Hawk... moon?" Adria sat up, confused and starting to panic. "What are you talki-"
Her wing scraped the edge of the blue-soaked stone table.
Her wing.
She didn't have wings. Not after those Hive forced her to tear them off.
Hive.
Wings.
What.
"What the actual fuck is going-" Understanding pierced through the veil, and Adria- Hawkmoon gasped - gasped for a breath that would not come. Her chassis convulsed with a motion it did not understand, trying to expand a diaphragm that simply wasn't there. She rocked forward, pushing herself away from the bloodied altar, with Vaudren making way.
No, not her, not that half-forgotten phantom from another time, it was Cyberwarp, who caught her in her arms, servos looping around to alleviate the sting of the mild scrape on her lower wing as she fell to her knees. The digits, cool and pliable with their talons turned away, felt nice against the paneling over her newly reborn flight-sensors.
"That wasn't me," Hawkmoon said, shuddering and yet not. She had no muscles - synthetic or real - to naturally tremble with. Pistons and gears and lever systems, and they weren't made to shake. No, they were top-of-the-line machinery, built to last basically forever, even under extreme levels of duress. She wasn't fragile. She wasn't made of brittle bones and soft flesh.
Fuc- frag.
"I'll call Nacelle," Cyberwarp told her. There was a nervous quiver in her voice. "He'll get Úthaessel."
Hawkmoon weakly nodded, pressing her faceplates into the hollow between Cyberwarp's shoulder and neck. Looking for contact. Something to anchor her in place, keeping her from drifting onto the next long-extinct persona.
Nacelle swept in with Quell, and Úthaessel after them. The mechs made way for the Emperor - with something like a guarded reverence in their optics. Something had happened. Something she'd missed.
"What's wrong?" Úthaessel asked, gliding towards them. She sounded concerned. Almost looked it too. Maybe she even was. Hawkmoon didn't pay it much mind.
"She wasn't..." Cyberwarp spared Hawkmoon an unreadable look. "She wasn't her when she onlined."
"Hawkmoon?" Úthaessel leaned close. "Would you please look at me?"
Hawkmoon did as she was instructed - stared into the Tai's fire-filled eyes. And muttered, "You were there", while she was at it.
"Where?"
"Estrum."
Úthaessel slowly nodded. A pained look crossed her avian face. "I was."
"Why?"
"To extract you. I couldn't let you be captured."
"I know too much."
"Yes."
"But you weren't you either."
"My Solar-Aspect," Úthaessel supplied. "When needs must, I too fight my peoples' wars. But what of you? Are you aware of what's happening to you?"
"I'm fracturing," Hawkmoon whispered. "I'm... I'm hurtling towards a dead end."
"Oh?"
"I've lived too many lives. My first brain's still trying to figure out what happened in the meantime."
Úthaessel grimly nodded - her hooked beak dipping up and down. "You're regressing. The organic subconsciousness does not mesh well with the faux-flesh of the mechanoform."
"So you understand?"
"This condition is known to me - at least in part. Even among only organic bodies the transfer of a consciousness is a delicate procedure, and rarely ends well. The second Emperor died in her cradle trying to process all the memories of the first. She was the reason I know nothing of my forebears beyond their history and personal memoirs - her short-lived example set the precedent for every successor to come."
"That's... that's great," Hawkmoon rattled off, not really paying attention. "But can you help me?"
"... Is this a common problem for your kind? Your techno-organics?"
"What? Oh, yeah. Yeah."
"What was your solution?"
Hawkmoon paused. She looked away. "Reset."
She heard Quell take a step forward. She spared him a glance; the mech looked horrified.
"Reset," Úthaessel echoed. "Of your mind?"
"Yeah." Hawkmoon "I... I think I'm running out of time."
"That... may be the case," Úthaessel warily remarked.
"I'm... I'm scared. Please. Please don't reset me. Please don't let me reset myself. I... I don't want to lose all this. I don't want to live as someone else. I'd rather die as me than that. I just want to be me." She was starting to ramble. Hawkmoon knew she was rambling. She couldn't help it. Didn't dare to even try to stop, either. Hawkmoon looked down at herself, her somehow intact canopy, then back at her wings - her wings, right there, intact, the same way they'd been before the Celebrant had skewered them with swords - and then back to the Emperor. She tried to put on a brave face. "I'm alive. Somehow. Self-repair doesn't work that fast. Self-repair doesn't fix damage that severe either; doesn't regrow wings. You... you used your mother's magic, didn't you?"
Úthaessel said nothing. Just watched her, cautiously and the like.
"'Warp? Did she use her magic?"
Cyberwarp hesitated. "I don't know what I saw," she hesitantly answered. "I... couldn't make sense of it. There was fire and words I couldn't understand, but... I don't know."
"There was no time to ask for permission," Úthaessel softly explained. "I understand that you warned me against it, but-"
"Do it again."
"... Excuse me?"
"Do it again. Please, I don't want to reset, I don't."
"It's not so simple."
"Yes, it is! Dragon-magic-"
"Maladies of the flesh - even of Cybertronian steel - are nothing compared to the fragile seams of the mind," Úthaessel explained. "I healed your living form. I nursed you back from the brink of death with my magic, yes; I wasn't going to let you fall. But I cannot treat this. Not as I am."
"Are you saying there is a way?"
"One you would abhor," Úthaessel replied. She hesitated. "I have just abandoned a meeting with both the Star-Court and Admiralty Board to see to you. They are waiting on me; I must return to them. We will speak again, Seeker, I swear we will, but I have to leave you for now." She looked at Cyberwarp. "If there is anything you need, make your requests known to my Registrar-Deacons. They will do everything in their power to answer it."
"Thank you," Cyberwarp said, gratefully dipping her helm.
Úthaessel left them with a final chirp. She swept back out of the room, the edges of her tailfeathers and wings genuinely aflame, and left a thinning trail of smoke in her wake.
Quell looked between the rest of them and said, "What."
Hawkmoon shuttered her optics.
Her secret was out - or as good as. Nacelle shooed Quill out, Cyberwarp dragged Hawkmoon into a tight embrace, and both of their EM fields crowded her own. It didn't matter that she'd closed up her end of their trine-bond; they carried their emotions on their sleeves and she couldn't help but feel it.
Horror was chief among them.
They had the decency to stay quiet, to avoid asking her things. Oh, they had their questions - but they were her trine. Lovable bastards who had no idea how guilty they made her feel. Or how enclosed and trapped while simultaneously not alone.
She owed them something.
It was their trinemate they were losing.
"I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else," Hawkmoon whispered into Cyberwarp's audial, head bowed over onto the other femme's pauldron. "But only because I thought I was someone else."
Cyberwar's digits tightened. "Who?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Hawkmoon-"
"Someone a past-me loved."
No one said anything for a short time after that.
"How long do you have left?" Nacelle asked uncertainly. He hovered beside them, seemingly torn about what to do.
Hawkmoon shrugged. Or tried to. Her shoulders barely lifted. She didn't feel very inspired. "I don't know. I don't know if there even is an end to this... thing. My situation isn't exactly normal."
"And... what happens if it goes through?"
"Then you lose me and get someone else."
"Oh."
"I don't want to be reset," Hawkmoon gasped. "Please. If I... if I go under, kill me."
"What?!" Cyberwarp pushed her back at arm's length. Her faceplates were etched with shock and hurt. "No. No, no! I'm not-"
"Please," Hawkmoon begged her. "I can't do it anymore. I'm tired. This'll just give the next person even more baggage to deal with. They won't last long anyways. A newborn human mind in a mechanical alien body - it just won't work. They'll... they'll tear themselves limb from limb because they'll believe they're dead from the get-go. I've seen it happen before, with bad resets. You'll be doing everyone a favour."
"I can't-"
"I'll do it," Nacelle said quietly.
Cyberwarp looked at him in surprise. "No. No you won't."
"'Warp-"
"No!"
"Yes." Nacelle grimaced and glanced away, at the far wall. "Look, I've... well, I haven't seen anything even close to this before, but I've seen some things. Sometimes mecha are better off dead."
"This is Hawkmoon we're talking about!"
"Yeah," Hawkmoon muttered. "I'm the one asking for it."
Cyberwarp looked between them. "Frag you," she whispered. "Frag you both. I hate you both so much."
Didn't leave, though.
Didn't even let go of her.
The lingering effects of dreams and spirits and ghosts were slow to leave her. Hawkmoon kept picturing people she didn't know, flashes of faces she didn't entirely recognize, heard the gasps and grunts and cheers and cries and roars and whispers of so many familiar strangers. They clawed at her, the army set before the black tower over a field of reeds, and they bayed for her attention, her focus, her every waking thought.
Damn. Them.
"I need to get out of here," Hawkmoon said suddenly. Cyberwarp and Nacelle, optics having dimmed as the hours rolled by, perked up and looked at each other. "I need to get away from-"
And she indicated the stone altar her back was against. The one stained through and through with dried energon. Her energon.
They helped her up. Walked out as a trine, her stuck in the middle, head bowed and optics half-shuttered. There were hallways beyond, with barely any Tai present. They took to strolling through the corridors of the place in tense silence. It chafed on Hawkmoon's nerves.
"Estrum?" she asked.
Nacelle shook his helm.
"Frag."
"I grabbed as many locals as I could before Oor came for us. 'Warp got them through the Bridge."
"Ijutas?"
"Alive. Most of her coworkers too." Nacelle sighed. "It was too damned close, 'Moon. The whole thing."
"I'm well aware," she half-snarked, half-grumbled.
"I... sorry. I didn't mean-"
"Stop. Just... leave it." Hawkmoon winced. She was trying her best to ignore what had happened to her, still so fresh on her mind. It had been... an extreme experience - oh, the pain. Definitely something better left forgotten - buried and left to rot.
Not that she'd had much luck with that so far.
"How did you find me?" Hawkmoon questioned. "How did Oor'un'xu and the Myods find you?"
"I think someone mentioned something about the Augur," Cyberwarp replied, subdued. She hadn't said anything since Nacelle had agreed to Hawkmoon's request. "And Úthaessel was there. She was giving the orders when I came through. Her eyes were throwing sparks."
"I still can't believe she did... you know, that," Nacelle said. "Became... whatever that was. Or even that Hive Knight thing-"
"God," Hawkmoon corrected. "Hive God."
"It changed the world, 'Moon. You never said that was possible. Not like that."
"Xivu Arath plays by different rules."
"That was Xivu Arath?"
"Yeah. I..." Hawkmoon momentarily trailed off. "I never fought Her before. Her children and troops neither."
"Were there children present?"
"A daughter. I killed her, I think."
Nacelle frowned. "You did?"
"The Knight who knocked you down a floor."
"Ohhhh, right. Wait, you 'think'?"
"Don't know if she'll stay that way. Most Osmium blood is Ascendant. Only time will tell, really. You still haven't fully answered my question."
"Oor'un'xu just pointed us your way," Nacelle replied. "I didn't argue. 'Warp was one push away from screaming and we could feel... you being... yeah."
"I wasn't-" Cyberwarp started to say.
"You were."
"So were you."
"Eh, only when I was shooting my way in. Those Excubitors made it easy, though. They carved a path right through the city."
"And Xivu Arath carved through them," Hawkmoon dourly added. Her optics caught on something. A window - no, a viewport. She looked through it and... there, outside, was the Taishibethi home-system. Tai Prime some distance away, and given the lighting, the Sun must have been behind them. Either they were on a ship or... "Where are we?"
"The Raven Bridge's control station," Nacelle explained after a moment's pause. "I think the Tai call it Enlightenment."
A space-station. With their interstellar space-bridge built in.
Hawkmoon stepped towards the viewport. Nothing looked awry outside. The worlds blazed with life and the stars beyond twinkled merrily.
One could almost believe there wasn't a wave of genocidal monsters sweeping through it all.
Hawkmoon turned around. "What now?"
Úthaessel summoned them later that same evening to a small private library hidden deep in the Enlightenment's core. She was sitting behind the primary desk and held her head in her hands. Oor'un'xu sat at the edge of the desk, cleaning off one of his cannons with a dirty rag, and he gave them a nod as they arrived - ushered in by a pair of towering Excubitors.
"Estrum is lost to us," Úthaessel announced. When she lifted her head her eyes had a faraway look in them. "The God of War has taken it into Her own demesne."
"It was lost the moment She showed." Hawkmoon pulled back one of the chairs in front of the desk and bonelessly fell into it - literally.
"I've never..." Úthaessel groaned. "I've never encountered something so strong. She would have killed me if I had stayed. That's... never happened before."
"You being killed?"
"By something stronger."
"I thought the Khargrive killed one of your ancestors."
Úthaessel jolted. She pushed her chair back and stood up, pacing along the length of the finely carved study desk. "We need him. We need him with us - on our side."
"Out of our hands," Oor'un'xu quietly pointed out.
"Not entirely," someone else said from the doorway.
Hawkmoon stifled a pained groan.
"Augur," Úthaessel warily greeted.
The Verunlix floated in. Nacelle moved to make room as the orb hovered past - Augur's little shadow-fox form slinking low within his glassy cage. He stopped beside Hawkmoon and gave her a once-over look. "You still live," he remarked. "This is favourable."
Hawkmoon said nothing. Just set her jaw and looked ahead, optics roving over the bookcases. Lots of old tomes and scrolls packed in too. It was like a Warlock's version of paradise.
"Thank you," Cyberwarp told him, "for saving us. I mean that for all of you. Thank you so much."
"It's fine, sky-runner. All part of the job," Oor'un'xu quipped. "Plus, I get paid extra for my thrilling heroics, so... yeah."
"You... you do?"
"He does," Úthaessel tiredly confirmed. "And you're very welcome. It would be remiss of me as your host to leave you to the Foe's machinations."
"Right."
"But, and I must ask, why were you on Estrum at all?"
"There was a Marooner at the, uh... that cartography station on Osteor," Hawkmoon explained. "Had to stay behind. He asked that I give his gun to his cousin, and she lived on Estrum, so that's why."
"Ah. That was kind of you."
"Yep." Hawkmoon frowned. "Do you think the Hive tracked us there?"
"They did not," Augur Seven-One replied. "Though they caught your scent in orbit. Your hands are stained with blood."
"So I've been told."
"At ease, Augur," Úthaessel ordered. She turned her attention back to Hawkmoon. "I doubt it."
"But why Estrum in particular?" Hawkmoon asked. "Why'd they strike there?"
"Nothing 'particular' about it," Oor'un'xu shot back. "It wasn't Estrum alone they hit."
"It... wasn't?"
"They're attacking other worlds?" Nacelle worriedly inquired.
"Five," Úthaessel sighed. "And we've just received word that the Vahlu system is lost. The Arch-Fiend has committed His own personal strength towards conquering Osteor and Ziin once and for all. My Marooner fleets are outmatched; these... vile creatures wield powers we can hardly match."
"Then you definitely need the Khargrive," Hawkmoon said with a grimace.
"His strength, only," Augur slyly corrected.
"No." Úthaessel waved the Verunlix back. "We will not be having this conversation again."
"The liar swore his support against the Foe once before," the Verunlix continued, "and now his hollow oath falls apart, shown to be empty at last. You were warned, star-child. You were warned of the evil he would bring to bear on your young Protectorate."
"Not now, Augur," Úthaessel groaned. "Please."
"You were warned. I warned you, when you had ample time to act."
"The Khargrive-"
"Is still a Fiend's loyal hound. He now searches for a new master."
"He's not-"
"He drowned your ninth mother-incarnation in fire and blood - to preserve the newest Foe's right to live."
"Presage warned her against that same tact as well. Are you saying Presage One-Four is a liar?"
"Presage clings to the ideals of mortality," Augur huskily whispered. "We are not mortal; these flesh-dreams ill-suit us."
"We are not gods!" Úthaessel cried out in frustration. "Only the Sun has the right to be called such - not we! Do not insinuate otherwise, Augur!"
"Nay, we are godly puppets," Augur corrected. "Showered in false comforts, burdened fantasies we will never achieve. Utopian wonderlands governed by laws we will never pass."
"Leave me be," Úthaessel tiredly sighed. "Leave me be, Augur. I have a Protectorate to save."
"The liar must be reached. He must be made aware of the cost of betrayal."
"I won't have him killed."
"Because you fear the consequences?"
"Because it is impossible!" Úthaessel exclaimed. "The Khargrive is too mighty, and- and Crux is a place of death. None bar those of Tenerjiin blood may cross those mists. Even the might of a battle-plate would not be able to pierce the smog. He is lost to us all."
"Not all," Augur murmured. He turned to Hawkmoon. "Not if the soul is barred in steel or glass."
"Oh no, don't even think about it," Hawkmoon snapped. "I have more than enough scrap to deal with right now; keep me out of this."
"I will not involve them," Úthaessel hastily added. "They are my guests, not my servants. I will not endanger them - and I will not turn them into assassins. That is not our way."
"Without the liar's strength, there will be no way. Only he may match the Fiend's true might."
"Do not-"
"His power must be retaken. He must be returned to us in chains or as bones."
"Enough!"
Augur fell silent.
"That is enough!" Úthaessel continued. "You will be silent! This is a place of peace, Augur. This is my sanctuary for weary souls - not a place to plot the deaths of unruly vassals."
"Bygone kings," Augur hissed.
"All the same-"
"All the same, you will die without his stolen aid, o infantile queen."
Úthaessel pulled her arms around herself. "I must die, then so be it - as long as my people remain. May the next Emperor do better."
"The metal-cast will survive the death-mists. I have already proven as much."
"How?"
"The essence of Crux clings to its denizens; it follows them wherever they go. You know this. Triipotes-"
"Is gone."
Hawkmoon straightened up. She spotted Oor'un'xu doing the same out of the corner of her optic. "Is that why you had me speak with him? Wait, you were testing if-"
"Yes," Augur said, seemingly unconcerned.
"You were testing if I would die or not?!"
"No," Úthaessel interrupted, though she looked far from pleased with the Verunlix, "he was not. The death-mists have no killing power outside of Crux. The world is steepled in foul energies; only there does it quash unwelcome life. It does follow Tenerjiin abroad, but not to the extent that it fells those around them."
"Then-"
"Discomfort. Unease. Fear. Aversion to close proximity with the Tenerjiin in mind," Oo'un'xu explained. "The effects wear off after prolonged exposure." He slowly turned to face Augur with a thoughtful look. "It didn't affect her at all."
"So you want us to visit this Khargrive?" Cyberwarp surmised. Her servo fell on Hawkmoon's shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. It alleviated only some of her anger - but not all. She wasn't a fragging tool for some conniving alien bastard to wield as he wished. "Talk to him?"
"Capture. Kill," Augur Seven One hissed.
"They wouldn't be able to manage either," Úthaessel retorted.
"Then I will join them," the Verunlix announced. "My flesh is lost to me; the death-mists hold no sway over either of us."
"You don't have that power either."
"I will go," Augur stubbornly replied. "I must."
"Do so at your own peril," Úthaessel sharply chirped. "But you won't draw others unwilling into this charade."
"Then our gamble is lost."
"Fine, fine, frag it." Hawkmoon sighed loudly, frustrated, tense, on edge, angry - and frightened most of all.
She needed something to do. To keep her mind off... well, her mind. Sitting around and thinking about it just made it worse.
"You'll do it?" Úthaessel questioned, surprised.
"We'll do it," Cyberwarp confirmed. ::We will, won't we?::
::I'm not going to say no,:: Nacelle replied.
::'Moon?::
::I already agreed,:: Hawkmoon tersely asserted. "So will we go now, or...?"
"I have an upcoming meeting with the Marquess," Úthaessel explained, "in the morning, and then I set sail for Renaissance - one of the besieged worlds. It is a holy site to my people, and the Verunlix have had a vision concerning it."
Augur hummed. "A petty king, a slaughter-lord, a thief of innocent lives and climber of ambitions beyond the scope of his imagination - Ulhrag, son of Mahor, son of Balachast. He plans to cull the remaining denizens and devour them in secret, to betray his unholy King."
"Renaissance calls for aid. I will answer." Úthaessel leaned back. "We need one victory at least. To give the Protectorate hope." She exhaled slowly. "Accompany me to both and then I'll send you on your way with a battle squadron to Crux. Return the Khargrive to the fold, and we may yet survive this war."
"Now that's a tall order," Hawkmoon grimly mused.
"Taller if you forget about this," Oor'un'xu grumbled. He plucked something from his bandolier and tossed it to her. It was the Nullblade's hilt.
Hawkmoon frowned. "How-"
"You dropped it."
"Did I?"
"Yes. Don't do that again ."
"I'm sorry, I was dying."
"Oor is right," Úthaessel said, strangely worried. "You cannot lose it."
Hawkmoon raised an optical ridge. "I'm not a swordswoman. I'm sorry, and I appreciate the gift, but I'm not. I'm a gunslinger first and foremost; I gravitate towards shooting my enemies before cutting them apart. Not to sound ungrateful, but if you could give me a knife instead-"
"I'm entrusting you with the Nullblade."
"... Okay, what does that really mean?"
Úthaessel gave her a hard look. "This is important to me. Keep it with you, keep it close, never lose it."
"Al... right." Hawkmoon gave Nacelle a glance. The mech shrugged. "I'll try. It's a little hard to-"
"I could forward her a safe-matter mod," Oor'un'xu sighed. He gave Úthaessel a pointed look. "Link it up with your holy butterknife."
"You will be generously reimbursed," Úthaessel gratefully responded, "thank you. But how soon?"
"I'll get it for you in the morning."
"That is... rather quick."
"Your state of emergency has a lot of cargo ground-locked, 'Sel. I know some people who'd beg to get some of it off their hands."
"Contraband, you mean?"
"Now now, don't be..." Oor'un'xu turned to Hawkmoon. "Sky-runner, give a metaphor."
"Don't bite the hand that feeds you," Hawkmoon said.
"Oh, I like that. That Cybertronian or-"
"We don't eat," Cyberwarp explained. "We don't bite."
"Now that's not true," Nacelle pointed out. "Beastformers and Insecticons have denta custom-built for fighting."
Cyberwarp made a face. "But are they really..."
Hawkmoon just gave her a look.
"I mean, yes they are," Cyberwarp quickly amended.
Úthaessel looked between them. "There is one other subject I want to broach," she said slowly. Her eyes fixed on Hawkmoon. "You-"
"The Raven Bridge?"
"Yes. You... exerted control over it. You moved the opening point. You closed it. I spoke with the Bridge's technicians afterwards - they detected another signal wresting control of its systems from them."
Hawkmoon straightened up. "I, uh..." she looked at Cyberwarp, then Nacelle, and found both of them giving her curious, confused looks. "I have a stolen mod."
"A mod," Oor'un'xu repeated. "A cybernetic modification did that?"
"Yeah?"
"You stole this?" Úthaessel questioned.
Hawkmoon hesitated. "Not... not me. This... frame did. The femme who used to live in it. Before she crashed into the Sea of Rust, on Cybertron. She, uh, stole it from a Vosian weapons foundry. Left the weapon plans vandalized before pulling a runner."
"Can you use it on Hive portals?"
Hawkmoon blinked. She hadn't thought of that. "I don't... think so. The Knight who... on Estrum, yeah, that guy, he tried to pull a sword out of a rift. I didn't feel anything."
"But you felt the Raven Bridge."
"Yeah. It's designed for space-bridges and ground-bridges both. I guess your tech isn't so different from Cybertron's."
Úthaessel slowly nodded. "I see."
"Is this a problem?"
"No. So long as it remains out of the hands of those who would use it against us."
"And you don't see me as one of those?"
"No?" Úthaessel tilted her head. "Why would I?"
Hawkmoon furrowed her optical ridges. "You're too trusting."
"I choose to be."
"The seeds of a better world," Augur Seven-One muttered.
Úthaessel spared him an annoyed look. "If that is all, then I suggest that everyone present retires for the evening. I'll alert hangar control to permit you to leave," she said to Hawkmoon and her trine, "so that you may return to Tai Prime. Your kin are anxious to see you."
Hawkmoon grimaced. "Quell knows."
"Knows what?"
"Knows something. I'm not sure how much, but I wasn't exactly... keeping quiet. Why was he here?"
Úthaessel paused. "I... required assistance towards the finer details of mending your injuries. Your systems are not familiar to me; it takes more than magic and a will to save someone."
"Right, uh..." Hawkmoon hesitated. "Thank you."
"You are very welcome. But in future, please refrain from traveling the Star-Web without first consulting me."
"I'll, uh... I'll try," Hawkmoon said, trying for noncommittal. She stood up. "See you, then."
"Goodnight."
She made to leave. Cyberwarp and Nacelle left first, but Hawkmoon stopped by the door. Hesitated. Turned around. Said, "If there's anything-"
Úthaessel's gaze softened. "I'll look into it. Rest assured that I will. But you must keep in mind that your condition is... unprecedented."
"So there's not much hope for me," Hawkmoon surmised. She sighed. "Go figure."
"You allow yourself to be defeated too easily."
"No one's won this fight before. I doubt I'm going to be the first."
"The Verunlix have," Úthaessel murmured. "They survived their displacement."
"That's... that's great," Hawkmoon drawled, sparing Augur a veiled look of distaste. "I'll just have to find myself a spare crystal ball then, hm?"
"Get some rest. Leave this to me."
Hawkmoon vented yet another sigh and left.
AN: Thanks to Nomad Blue for editing, the legend!