Chapter 10

"Frontier"

Stanix shrank far behind her. The next city-state over was Helex, bigger and busier than what she'd left in her wake. The buildings were wider and taller, reaching into the sky like bony fingers. The streets evolved into full-blown highways erected high above the ground on columns and stilts, a couple of which were choked with traffic congestion. Most of the vehicles were Cybertronians in their alt modes. She would have wondered why they didn't transform and walk around whatever was slowing them down - if not for the warning on her HUD that informed her it was a tad illegal.

Not for the first time, Hawkmoon counted herself lucky for being a Seeker. There was nothing to hold her down.

There were even other flyers - Seekers, she thought, until she saw that most were little better than helicopters and hovercraft, far too slow and clunky to be anything like her. There was one jet not entirely dissimilar to her, but it was nothing more than a smidge in the distance going perpendicular from her own route. They disappeared from her sight entirely, not a breem after her spotting them.

The rest of it, though, was incredible. She'd been in Stanix, but never the city proper; only ever in the surrounding suburbs or the wilds beyond. This was different. It was a genuine metropolis. More than even the Last City was. More than anything the Reef had to offer. Only the ruins of what was once the Earth's greatest urban sprawls could match the splendour of the alien city below - and unlike the majority of Earth, it was alive.

Hawkmoon swerved and weaved between skyscrapers, then on a whim transformed and landed on a tower's ledge where gargoyles wouldn't have been out of place. She perched down, knees bent and helm hanging over the edge, and took it all in - the gales sliding against her wings, the colour and movement filtering through the lenses of her optics, the sheer din of noise greeting her audials. It helped her, for a moment, to forget all that was going oh so wrong.

A creature darted past her helm and chirped, landing on the ledge a two arm lengths away. It looked like a cross between a sleek falcon and a heavy-winged bat, though entirely mechanical. It studied her with dull, curious optics that spoke only of animal intelligence. It was trying to figure out what she was. Hawkmoon smiled and waved, but the creature only tilted its head. Not all of Cybertron's fauna were capable of speech and higher thought, apparently. A pity; she would have liked some company, even that of an abnormally large bird.

It chirped again.

"Sorry," Hawkmoon told it, "I haven't got anything."

It chirped again. What did it eat, energon? She could have done with some herself, just to top off her fuel tanks. There was quite a stretch between Helex and the next city-state over. She had shanix enough for that, right? Hawkmoon checked her digital balance - and yep, she did. Not much, but certainly enough to grab a couple of cubes. She wouldn't starve before she reached Vos, at the very least.

With one final salute to the bird-thing, Hawkmoon leaned forward and allowed gravity to do the rest. She dove and plummeted down, fast, and only a few solid seconds later did she engage her flight protocols. Her thrusters spat and pushed her away from the tower, and her wings stretched out to catch eddies of hazy city air.

She soared. Her reign over the sky was absolute. She was above the troubles of the world below, beholden to no grounded law, drifting on winds entirely at her own leisure. Eventually she caught sight of something that looked remarkably like a street market and circled above, getting a better look. There was a stall by the road that looked to be selling energon, manned by a easygoing old femme and her very bored creation. Or maybe he was her creation's creation - she did look weathered enough a 'bot to be someone's grandmother.

Quaint, pleasant, honest? The stall had it all. Seeing an opening, Hawkmoon dove down and transformed in the air, landing as gracefully as she could manage. It earned her a few curious looks, but nothing accusing - that was positive, right? She walked up to the stall, smiled, and asked, "Could I buy a cube?"

The femme's optics widened. "Of course! Low-grade, or-"

"Low-grade will be fine, thank you. One cube only."

"Seven shanix, please."

Hawkmoon sent her the money; all purchases were done electronically, without any physical cash. It was as easy as shooting off a message. Which wasn't far from the mark, because the whole shebang was linked up with her comms system after all.

The femme handed over a blue crystal cube with bright energon splashing within. Lovely. She noticed the youngster staring at her in awe and gave him a wink. The human gesture was lost on him.

Hawkmoon wandered off, found a wall to lean against once her wings had been safely folded up, and unlidded the cube. She drank the energon gratefully. It tasted like gasoline and electricity mixed into a single smooth broth and she didn't care. It felt good just to get her fuel counter up.

When she'd finished, she looked around and... what, was she supposed to just throw the empty cube aside? That felt too close to littering for her liking. Was there anyone... ah. A bin - of sorts. The runes scrawled into the side said - oh yes, cube disposal. That was handy. Hawkmoon deposited the container, had a look about at other stalls, and, satisfied she wasn't missing anything, jumped up into the air and flew off. She transformed only once she was a sizable distance from the ground - she didn't want her thrusters knocking over stalls or bystanders - and blasted back up to where only the largest of towers reached.

Hawkmoon was almost sad to leave Helex behind, as short as her stay was. It had been... nice. She felt better for having dipped into what it had to offer, even if only surface-deep. The briefest taste of culture was better than nothing at all. It would keep her sated and content for a time. Hopefully long enough to figure out the what next?

Uraya was the next city-state over, but there was a sizable stretch of nothing but wide open plains and a couple of isolated towns in between. Hawkmoon felt exposed as she was, the only thing to be seen in the bright cloudless sky. Cybertron isn't an active warzone, she told herself, you can relax.

She wasn't reassured in the slightest.

Helex's outermost settlements disappeared and wilderness took over. There was no plant matter whatsoever, which had was quickly beginning to throw her off (is everything metal?), but there were crystal and metal formations in plenty to make up for it. Her sensors were sharp enough to pick out the small symbiotes and other little critters scurrying down below, looking for raw energon deposits or whatever else they ate.

That, at least, was interesting.

Hawkmoon performed a lazy loop. She liked the feel of her wings slicing through the air. She liked to hear the steady growl of her thrusters. She liked the sense of detached vertigo. She liked... being in control. It was a comfort all on its own. Too long had she-

Something caught her eye. Optic, whatever. Hawkmoon tilted and swerved through the air. There was a rock formation far below, obscure and otherwise unremarkable. She wouldn't have noticed it if not for the brief glint of something shiny and golden. That in itself was odd - everything else was dull grey or dull brown, or equally dull variations of them both. She dove down, transformed just as she landed, and checked for hostiles on pure instinct. Seeing nothing and no one, Hawkmoon approached the formation.

It looked like a sculpture - if the sculptor had decided midway through that you know what, screw this, 2D art rules! Flowing, fantastical images had been scrawled into the chaotic mixture of dull stone and dusty metals, with thirteen chiseled Cybertronian faces pressing forth out of the rock wall. They were scratched and chipped, but otherwise they were of incredible quality. Each face was starkly different, and rather distinct from common Cybertronian faceplates with crests, horns, and other just-as-odd features. Each of them had a sliver of gold in their optics.

All but the last to the right, whose faceplates were blank and featureless.

All were in a dire need of cleaning and upkeep, save one in the centre. It was the spikiest and most feral-looking of the bunch, with wild spindly horns arrayed around its helm like a monstrous crown. It even had a beak-like form over its mouth. It (he? she?) looked like the dangerous sort. Someone she'd have loved to get to know. Or rob blind. One or the other. Maybe both?

One of her sensors - not wings, optics, audials, or anything remotely close to what her human and Exo forms had - twinged. She lowered the sensitivity of it and twirled around, claws at the ready.

The short tan-brown plated femme behind her held out her servos and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry! Sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

"Who-"

"You're a Seeker, aren't you?"

Aren't the wings a dead giveaway? "Yeah."

The femme's green optics widened. "I've never seen a Seeker before..."

Hawkmoon forced herself to relax and cross her arms. "Well. Now you have."

"Yeah..."

"Who are you?"

"Who... Oh! Sorry. I'm Nyx." The other femme was a slip of a thing, barely up to Hawkmoon's elbows and thin enough that the Seeker's hand could have encircled her entire waist. Cybertronian size differences were as inexplicable as those of the Cabal - there was no reason for it, it just was.

"Hawkmoon." She tapped her chest. Tearing her optics from other femme, she looked around for any sign of roads or anything linking back to civilization. "What brings you all the way out here?"

Nyx pointed past her, at the cleaner-than-the-rest faceplates sculpture. "Him."

"Who?"

The smaller femme's smile faltered by a fraction. "Onyx Prime, of course!"

Another of the mythical Primes. Hawkmoon withheld a groan; she should have done some further research on the matter. "Ah. And... how is it Onyx Prime brought you out here?"

"I was going to offer him tribute, but…" Nyx's grin recovered. "We never get visitors around here. Well, I'll have to show you. Come with me?"

"Wait, what?" Hawkmoon frowned, taken aback. "Where?"

"Home. We've got a little den cleared out not far away."

"Den?" Hawkmoon looked around again. "Is there a village nearby?"

"Not exactly." Nyx leapt up and transformed. For a moment, Hawkmoon thought she was turning into a jet, but no. Not exactly. The alt form did have wings, but everything else was different. Nyx had turned into some kind of oversized, mechanical fruitbat.

"Huh." Hawkmoon tilted her helm.

"Come on! I have to show you to the others!" Bat-Nyx said excitedly. "This is great!"

Hawkmoon hesitated. She could have resumed her flight across Cybertron. By all means she should have. But... ah well, what was one little diversion? Just one thing to settle. "Is this a ploy to lead me somewhere secluded and murder me?"

"What?! No!" Nyx had the decency to sound scandalized. Look it, too - but only so far as a robot bat could.

"Alright, alright. Just checking." Hawkmoon activated her turbines and thrusters, lifting off from the ground. She didn't transform - given how much slower Nyx moved through the air, turning into a jet would have been needless and a tad mean. Not everyone could be as cool as her. "Lead on."

Bat-Nyx gave her what was probably a sour look. She fluttered away on wings of thin carbon-fibre canvas stretched between long slender fingers. It was hopelessly primitive compared with Hawkmoon's own flight systems, but all the more natural because of it. Still, not something she would have traded her boosters for. Not in a million vorns.

Vorns? Sweet Traveler above, she was starting to sound like the locals.

Bat-Nyx took her to what looked like a rudimentary camp. No, not even rudimentary - barely there at all. Just slabs of wild metal cut down to size as makeshift berths. Some wild energon crystals had been sparked into slow-burning flames, though for what purpose she didn't know. It wasn't like they needed to cook food or anything. Most notable of all were the four mecha arrayed around it - three mechs and one femme. All four turned their helms as Nyx and Hawkmoon arrived, one even going so far as to jump in a less-than-pleased form of shock. Each of their chassis boasted various types of kibble (the parts of an alt mode that served no purpose in humanoid form and were sorta just there), and the one who took to his pedes even boasted two thin, rounded, glassy wings.

"What are you doing?!" he demanded shrilly.

"Let me talk with him," Nyx whispered. She landed and approached. "Hey Venin."

"What's that..."

"Seeker?"

"Yeah! What in the Pit is that Seeker doing with you?!"

"I invited her here."

"... WHY?!"

"Because she's different?" Nyx shrugged with her bat wings. "I'm curious."

"Leave them be," the other femme rumbled. By the Traveler, she looked ancient. Her paint had been completely scoured from his frame, leaving her scratched and battered grey chassis bared to the mercy of the elements. She was stockier than any other present, and her orange optics were of the intelligent though uncompromising variety. "Who are you?"

Hawkmoon shrugged and said, "Just a passerby."

"Hmm," the other femme hummed sonorously. "Do you know who we are?"

"No. Should I?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Whether the wider world knows of us or not is of no great concern. You look weary-"

"I'm fine, actually."

"-so I bid you join us."

Hawkmoon lifted an optical ridge. "That's quite the self-assured offer."

The nameless femme said nothing.

"Who are you people?"

"I am Skold. This," the femme gestured to the winged mech, "is Venin. These two are Zad and Cohrada. You have already met Nyx."

"Charmed." Hawkmoon dipped her head oh so briefly. She glanced around at the mecha, not a little bewildered. "But that can't be the extent of it, right? I mean, like, who in the Pit lives out here in the middle of nowhere? Who are you people?"

"We are the students of Onyx Prime."

"... Oh." Religious alien wackos. I'm out. "Well it's been good to-"

Skolt craned her helm ever so slightly. "Venin. Fetch us another crystal. This one may need to refuel."

Venin scowled and transformed - into a giant robot wasp. He flew off on fast-buzzing wings. It was freaky.

Hawkmoon watched him go. "Huh," she said.

They called themselves beastformers. Nomads of some sort, roving across the wilds between the city-states.

"We are not Insecticons," Skold stressed. Hawkmoon had only a faintest understanding of what Insecticons were - less bright but far hungrier forms of sapient Cybertronian life. They were an industrious lot, apparently, but they preferred to keep to themselves. Or, well, as much to themselves as aggressive, overgrown insects with a penchant for crushing others at the slightest transgression could. "Nor are we Predacons." Predacons were draconic and extinct. Hawkmoon knew that much. Was there anything else worth knowing about them? "We are merely... devout."

"Devout," Hawkmoon repeated, "to this... Onyx Prime."

"Indeed."

"... Okay."

"His attentions grant us the forms to subsist and thrive where others would falter."

"Alright."

Skold's optical ridges lowered. "You do not believe?"

"I'm entertaining some doubt, I'll admit."

The other femme stood up. "Your form demands much energon. Ours does not. We can go decaorns without refueling."

"Fancy."

Skold transformed. Into a big metal tortoise with a fearsome beak.

Hawkmoon looked at the others. "You call yourselves beastformers. How do you scan the beasts to transform into?"

Zad shrugged. "Onyx Prime provides to his devout."

"Uhuh."

"It's in our energon. In our CNA. In our sparks and our bonds."

"I'm not really comprehending. Care to elaborate?"

Cohrada gestured to himself and then all his fellow nomads. "We are a clan. A dynasty. Our bonds tie us together as a family-unit. Our bonds carry information, imprinting on each of us the freedom to choose what we want. Our ancestors found the beasts, scanned them, and stored their forms in a codex we each carry. That is how."

"... So Onyx Prime had nothing to do with it."

Skold growled. "You would understand if you listened."

"I am listening. None of you are telling me anything clearly. Except for you," Hawkmoon glanced at Cohrada. "You're doing pretty well."

He shrugged and transformed into a cobra with a hood formed of blades and slowly slithered away into the dark of the night. If Hawkmoon had skin, she imagined it would have crawled.

The turtle-Skold shifted and lowered herself down onto her belly. She looked pretty comfortable. Her snarling visage relaxed. "You do not believe... because you are too lost, too astray with doubt."

Hawkmoon looked at her sharply. "What's it to you?"

To her surprise, Skold laughed. "You mistrust us, don't you? You need not; you are the first person we've spoken to in decavorns."

"Doesn't stop you from talking with people after I'm gone."

"Even if we were to meet with other mecha, we would not betray you. We are the faithful of Onyx Prime, not the craven secret-sellers of Kaon."

It hardly assured Hawkmoon. Not that it needed to; she was helpless against its pull all the same. She was a drowning woman in sight of land and she was going to swim for all her worth. It all came bubbling to the surface, despite her inward protests. "Screw it…" Damn her weakness. "I... saw a mech die."

Zad winced. Nyx lowered her head. Venin tensed but otherwise kept attending to the energon convertor in the centre of the makeshift camp. Skold nodded, her alternate form giving her an appearance of an ancient and wizened old dinosaur.

"I saw a mech die," Hawkmoon repeated, "and I don't know why he was murdered. I... I think it was because of me."

"Who killed this mech?"

"A captor of mine. They both were. The first mech betrayed the second and killed him."

"Why?"

"Because he looked into my mind and... and he saw something. He saw what I was. I don't why he killed because of it, but he did. And then he let me go, gave me the means to evade capture if anyone else was sent after me, and..." She recycled air in and out of her vents in rapid succession. "And told me where to go next."

"You trust him?"

"No!" Hawkmoon grimaced. "Well, I... I shouldn't, but... I have nothing else. Besides, if this does go bad, then... At least I'll face it."

Skold rumbled. "Why are you evading capture?"

"Because I don't want to get caught?"

"No. What is the reason for you being chased?"

"I stole something, apparently. Or... I didn't, but everyone thinks I did. Maybe they're right, maybe I did, but if so then it wasn't me."

"Then why did your captor release you? Did he find what he was looking for?"

"I don't think so. He saw... I guess he saw who I am."

"And who are you?"

Hawkmoon looked down at the ground below her pedes. "I should be dead," she mumbled. "I should be dead a thousand times over."

"But you're not," Skold said carefully.

"But I'm not." Hawkmoon vented a sigh. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I've never been much of a trailblazer."

Skold transformed back. "You are brave."

"Don't know about that..."

"You are brave," Skold repeated more firmly. "Lost, but brave. Do you have a goal in mind?"

"Get home."

"An honest aim."

Hawkmoon's wings twitched. She wanted to get back to flying. "I suppose so," she murmured. She got to her feet. "I'm... sorry, but I don't really... Can't stick around. I've got a long flight ahead of me."

Skold nodded. "You won't join our refueling?"

"Sorry."

"It's no matter. Our purposes diverge from here on out. This chance encounter has been... educational."

"You're telling me." Hawkmoon looked at each of the nomads in turn. "Thanks for... listening?"

Skold nodded again. "Fly well..."

"Hawkmoon."

"Fly well, Hawkmoon."

AN: Thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!