Chapter 44
"Soldier of choice"
"It had a voice like static," Hawkmoon quietly explained. "It was begging me to let go. It was a spider in my hand, I think, but that... that was probably metaphorical. The last thing it said to me was to... to 'cut out the devil's tongue when he speaks'. Another metaphor, I guess."
"Does it have to be?" Augur inquired.
"That wasn't just some fever dream," Hawkmoon deadpanned. "I know what those are like - and I'm not supposed to have them, being what I am. All I get are Exo dreams. Memories. Sometimes time-bled, from me in another temporal instance I think, don't quote me on it, but that wasn't it. That was me of the present there, and it wasn't the golden field. There was no black tower in the distance. No army made up of everyone I've ever known. It... it was just... me and these... these subconsciously-seeded metaphysical concepts taking on comprehensible shapes. Psionic splinters; a message written in flickering colours and empty sensation. You can't tell me that it's my imagination running off with me. My processor doesn't do that anymore. It can't. Dreaming is for organic life-forms."
"And we are not organic," Augur slyly pointed out.
"That's my point. This was intentional. I was... speaking with something. That spider, whatever it was. And I don't know where it was speaking from. Or when. And..." Hawkmoon grimaced. "That thing was there. The one that almost killed us. Almost killed me. The one in the otherplane, the guy with the spear."
"The Dark Disciple."
"Whatever it was. It was there. Said... 'sink or swim'."
"Wither away," Augur remarked, "or rise up. Their philosophy. A tact we must steal, we must adopt, we must emulate to the furthest extent we can feasibly manage - before it claims us in mind and soul."
"That's..." Hawkmoon blinked. "Okay, look, that's just disturbing. How about no?"
"Which element of my stratagem frightens you so?" Augur questioned. He cocked his head to the side.
"Just about everything about it. I'm going to try to forget you even floated the idea. Right? Let's just pretend you didn't just advise me to go all Dark on Oryx's ass."
"Not the Osmium-blooded."
"Kharad-Tan then. Kharad-Tan's ass."
"I was merely referring to that which hunts you in worlds unseen," Augur corrected.
"Six-eyes' scrawny ass." Hawkmoon rolled her optics. "Whatever. Bad people's posteriors."
"You find this amusing?"
"It's that or I get all teary - without actually getting teary, so just sad and pathetic. No one wants that. And, uh… but hey, you know what else no one wants? Me taking a one-way trip down Nihilist Road. It's a bad way to walk." Hawkmoon paused, looked away. "If the trip doesn't kill you, it... well, it does kill you, just in ways you don't expect. Seen it before; most of the time Hive magic's the thing that tips warlord-wannabes over that edge, but greed's as good as."
"You are not greedy."
"Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea what I'm really like. Give me the promise of a good gun, a sharp knife, a stylish cloak and I turn into a hoarder the likes of which you can't possibly imagine. Kleptomania and all that. Damn if I don't miss cloaks..." Hawkmoon frowned, reached into her chassis and pulled her scarf out of internal storage. She tossed it loosely over her shoulders. Picked and pulled at it to get it just right - and... made a face. "Nah, even this doesn't work. What do you think? Bite the bullet and just grab the next cloak on offer? My concern's that it'll burn up the moment I use my thrusters, and even if I get a heat-proof one... I have wings. Like - that's an obstruction I can't get past no matter which way we slice the bread. Right?"
Augur just sort of... looked at her.
"Right." Hawkmoon nodded. "I'll never look good in a cloak again. Never. Flashy dress, not-so-high-heels, synth-skin paints - special occasion stuff, those I can live without, was never crazy 'bout them to begin with. A cloak? That's my livelihood. I've been deprived of my livelihood. Not enough to take my Ghost, my 'team, my home and body and time, but my ability to wear cloaks? My identity as a Hunter? That Worm. That Worm. I'm going to make Him suffer. Make Him run crying back to mama - if He even has one. I'm going to kill Him, I'm going to tear Him apart and make sure He never comes back. Never. Never."
"I find it remarkable that in the space of a few seconds you have all but convinced yourself that I am right."
Hawkmoon shrugged, only half-listening. She was still hung up on the cloak thing. And the dream. "Y'know, sometimes I just don't get it."
"'Get'?"
"Just... like, yeah, sometimes I can't understand why the universe is the way it is - full of lawbreakers and broken systems. There are rules, but we shatter them on wants and whims all the frickin' time. That's paracausality. I'm paracausal and I still don't really get it. Logically time itself shouldn't loop, shouldn't... bleed back onto itself, like it's doing for me. Death should be final. The only world-changing power should come from the business end of a gun. Instead we have demons and witches and nightmare monsters just about everywhere I look - even in my own mind, calling from their own temporal positions."
"Logically, this universe is slated to end only one way," Augur said carefully. "A superstructure of brass constructs bridged around a stagnating pool of thoughtless instinct."
"The Vex..." Hawkmoon said with a wince. "Yeck."
"Consider our position, Seeker. Without the freedom to break laws, all that exists would be subsumed into a single domineering pattern."
"I'm well aware. Seen too many nests of theirs to think otherwise."
"What does the spider mean to you?" Augur questioned. "If it is a metaphor - what does it symbolize in your mind?"
Hawkmoon vented a sigh and considered it. "A... a puppeteer. Maybe. It had... not even too many legs to count, no, it had an infinite number of legs. A leg for every strand on its web. A future. A path to take. Like... an oracle of some sort, a seer. Parsing through all those outcomes for one it finds favourable."
"Infinite futures?"
"Maybe. Don't take my word for it."
"And you are certain of this?"
"I know the kinds of shape these things take. The human mind - most minds, for that matter - can't comprehend infinities. It's like..." Hawkmoon bit her cheek. "Okay, so, there was this sub-... No, new... Look, I don't know what to classify them, but a new version of human called Awoken. They had some paracausal sparks of their own. Liked to play with marble and amethyst and bone. Well, they had these little plants - baryon boughs. Baryons are... I need to channel my nonexistent inner-Warlock for this, but baryons do things in infinities, I think, yet under observation they appear in not-so-infinite ways. The Baryon Boughs were like that - clouds of violet energy from a distance, but up close they consolidated into little trees, little saplings with defined branches. That's what the spider was like - a mess of webbing and legs from a distance but an animal I understood up close."
"You held it in your hand," Augur said. It wasn't a question.
Hawkmoon nodded. "What does that mean for me?"
"Perhaps you are a favoured future. Perhaps you are feared cataclysm to come. Perhaps you hold some degree of power over this insect. Some authority."
"Spiders aren't insec-... nevermind." Hawkmoon sighed. "How does anyone boss around something that knows the future? That's gotta be an ultimate power, not gonna lie." She frowned. "Like-... wait, can't you see the future?"
Augur impatiently flicked two of his tails. "Flashes of sharpened focus. A feeling of ill-fitting familiarity. Colours, sounds, names. Fine details missing a larger picture. Sometimes enough to gamble a forecast upon, sometimes... not."
"You foresaw me, didn't you?"
"Many foresaw you. Your arrival was... loud," Augur admitted. "The crater your landing has left behind will never mend, never fill up, and it will divert the flow of natural events for the rest of time to come."
"No pressure," Hawkmoon muttered. "So what now?"
"Gather a force-"
"I meant about the dream."
Augur sat up. "What is there to do? Can you walk through the unwaking world? Can you navigate the eddies of thought-streams and isles of rooted concepts?"
Hawkmoon offlined her optics and shook her helm. "I'm no Thanatonaut."
"Thanatonaut?"
"You know, em… dealers of death-dreams. Those guys. Playing Russian Roulette with a full chamber, and hoping there's a better place on the other end of whatever comes outta the barrel. Better visionaries than I could ever be."
"Death..." Augur blinked. "No. No death."
"Figured as much. Little more than our present budget can handle, right?" Hawkmoon sighed. "Mortality sucks."
Augur laughed.
It struck her, then, that it was the only sound she could hear.
"What..." Hawkmoon onlined her optics, optical ridges furrowed. She was up in an instant, looking all around. The gunship was still empty but for the two of them. The miner outside was silent; the idle chatter of Krenshans, Andegeans and Eimin-Tinii had fallen away. Even the shrill howl of Turedan winds had been muted, subdued, stamped down with a demand for universal silence.
She reached for the door. It slid open at her touch, retracting into the wall. Hawkmoon peered out, a half-dozen weapons configurations ready to go, but she instead found-
Most everyone standing about by the foot of the miner. Watching and waiting for Elphox, who was stood next to his squad's portable interstellar transceiver. The thing was spitting static with as much fervour as it was salvageable words, but Elphox was engrossed with the glyphs alighting on the terminal's screen, written in sharp Krenshan script.
Hawkmoon stepped out, strolled over to Snaptrap and asked, "What's happening?"
Snaptrap gave her a frightened look and shook his helm.
"Here," Elphox said suddenly. "Sightings at Kald's Anvil, Jiero-2, the Anaxi cluster, and... Iru, with an expected trajectory towards Nalphan Tox. Reports of anomalous activity in every single system mentioned."
"That's close," Clampdown gasped. "That's... that's very close."
"Too close." Elphox turned to the Andegean supervisor, oh, what was his name... Imaxis, that was it. "We're pulling back. You should too. Board up and fire on anything you don't recognize. Maybe the things you do, too."
Imaxis clucked with distress. "Is it really necess-"
"It's that or risk letting them in. Your choice. Either way - we're done here."
"As are we," one of the Akildn announced, possibly being Elulim or maybe one of veir kin. Ve didn't sound all that happy about it, either. Ve looked at Elphox, features hidden beneath the glassy visor of veir reinforced battlemask, but there was a tension in veir frame - a trembling anticipation, a tautness of constrained terror. "Good luck to you. Good hunting."
Elphox inclined his helm in thanks. A number of Akildn returned the gesture before they, quite rapidly, began disassembling their portion of the camp and loading it all back up into their gunships.
"There is trouble afoot," Augur whispered.
Hawkmoon gave him a no shit look - then approached Elphox, all slow and the like. "Uh, sir, what's... what's going on?"
Elphox barely glanced at her. "We're being withdrawn back to the Holdfast."
"But... why?"
"Anomalous activity in neighbouring star-systems."
"What..." Hawkmoon hesitated. Her first thought was Hive - but... that would've turned out differently, surely. Hive were anomalous, but their real impact was KILL, KILL, KILL. Elphox sounded too calm for that - much too calm. "What kind?"
Elphox trained on her a look of exhaustion, of unease, of genuine fear. It didn't fit his grizzled features. "Draconic."
...
"Oh." Hawkmoon blinked. "Oh, fraaaag."
"Suspected wyrm-migration," Elphox added with a grimace. He clenched his jaw tight. "No idea where it came from, or where it's going exactly, but everyone's going to have to keep their head down until this blows over - and I mean everyone. Thunderhowl's orders."
"But-"
"We'll be flying back to the Holdfast within the joor, Seeker. Make sure you're ready by then. Snaptrap! Fractyl! Get the transceiver aboard, now!" Elphox marched away, flinging order after order - and Hawkmoon just stood there, lost.
Draconic.
Sweet Traveler above - draconic?!
"That is... unfortunate," Augur mused.
You're telling me, Hawkmoon almost said. She settled for sharing with him a look of concern. He met it - and returned it, but with added meaning.
No.
No, he couldn't be seri-
He was, wasn't he?
Hawkmoon vented a sigh. "You've got to be kidding me."
They flew back to the Holdfast. Usually things were quiet and still on the outside, and only a little more lively on the interior, but something had definitely changed - because there was an abundance of small craft buzzing about the station like flies on a corpse, all frantic and needy and annoying. Most of them were clearly Cybertronian in build, but a few had some... notably alien influences. All streamed signals that were decidedly of Cybertronian design, though. No Eimin-Tin or Andegean or Hrudda or whatever else lived nearby. Just a whole lot of robot giants with a propensity towards reformatting themselves into other shapes - all caught in a tizzy over the cries of dragon, dragon, dragon!
Elphox radioed in just before they docked, reporting their arrival alongside a status update on the Andegeans and Eimin-Tin. Hawkmoon didn't pay attention; she wondered if the miners were going to be alright. Or even the snake-soldiers. She didn't want to underestimate them, but...
Dragon.
Dragon.
The very thing she was fearing - something unnatural and incomprehensible, ripe with all sorts of wickedly unreal power and a distinct lack of empathy for any and every other living thing. It wasn't Hive, sure, but... it wasn't exactly any better. A Traveler-damned dragon. And of course it was a dragon - the universe wasn't through with testing her yet, was it? No. Not for forever to come, by her count. And if it found somewhere populated, like someone's homeworld, like the Krenshan Holdfast, like... like Cybertron...
Well, there wasn't exactly anyone else nearby paracausal enough to stop it, was there?
They landed. Disembarked. Hawkmoon was the first out the gap - hurrying out through the arrivals terminal, brushing past technicians and officials and all but running through hallways. She skidded to a stop by the central elevator, pounded on the button, and when it arrived she rushed in and set it off - right to the deck where Thunderhowl's office resided. The doors opened and she dashed out, tearing through the halls until she arrived at the door, pinged the doorbell and impatiently waited for an answer.
It was slow to arrive. The door slid open, Thunderhowl on the other side, and he gave her a look that was so exhausted Hawkmoon almost felt sorry for being there in the first place.
"What?" he croaked. "What is it now?"
"Dragon," Hawkmoon barked.
He stared at her, optical ridges furrowed - then all of a sudden broke it off and rubbed his faceplates, reluctantly stepping back. "Come inside."
Hawkmoon entered. Thunderhowl led the way to his office proper, fell into his chair and stayed there. Hawkmoon pulled a stool out in front of his desk. "You warned-"
"There was a sighting by the Brachian border," Thunderhowl explained. He looked just done with it all. "We have you to thank; wouldn't have been keeping watch if it wasn't for your warning. As it is, we've lost the probes tracking the beast. It knows we've seen it."
"It came from the Divide?"
"Apparently so, though there's no way to be completely sure - and..." Thunderhowl gave her a pointed look, "no way to know from whence it came from. The Divide stretches far, Seeker. There's plenty of space to cover on either side - and little of it has been fully explored, let alone secured against these sorts of incursions."
"I... wasn't insinuating-"
"But you are considering it."
Hawkmoon hesitated. "I don't know. I mean, there weren't exactly dragons in abundance in Tai space, but..." There was one, she almost said. Almost. Refrained on the basis that... well, she didn't entirely understand it herself. "When dragons and Hive play together, it can get... messy."
Awful, more like. Horrible. Terrifying. Haunting. Nightmarish - and it was a nightmare she was still in the process of reliving, every single lonely moment. No Ghost, no Fireteam, no humans.
Nothing.
"Dragons are a problem anyways," Thunderhowl muttered.
"'Problem'?" Hawkmoon questioned. "You say it like you're about to do something about it."
Thunderhowl frowned. He didn't say anything.
"Holy frag, you are."
"Seeker-"
"You're going to hunt it."
"It's a precarious operation, but not impossible," Thunderhowl interjected. "I'm well aware of the risks - but this is a procedure my clan have carried out thrice before. Rest assured-"
"I want in."
Thunderhowl's frown deepened. There was a long pause. "No."
Hawkmoon narrowed her optics. "Sir-"
"No," he said, even more firmly. "This is no simple glory hunt, Seeker; this is a matter of safety, for both the wellbeing of Clan Krensha and every other sapient species in the local-"
"I want in."
"And I have given you my answer. You are not fit for it."
"Says who?" Hawkmoon angrily challenged. Her servos curled into fists.
"Says I. Says every mech I have assigned to watch over you."
"Watch over m-?! I make my own decisions. I'm hunting this fragging-"
"We received a message from Vos, only three joors ago."
Hawkmoon froze. She blinked, rapidly. "Th-that's... not relevant to this conversation at all."
"And yet look what it does to you. You are emotionally compromised; you are a weakness we cannot abide. Not with a dragon of all things." Thunderhowl paused. He clasped his servos together. "You have my attention. You have my interest. You have my concern. This, however, does not lend you a place of credence amongst those who decide Clan Krensha's future. You are merely an initiate, Seeker. And this request has been denied."
"I've killed dragons before," Hawkmoon seethed through clenched denta. The anger broiled in her, churned under her chassis, left her vents hissing and her engines growling. She needed this. She needed this. "I can do it again."
"Why don't I believe you?" Thunderhowl calmly asked. He weathered her glare and sighed. "I would advise that you refrain from exhausting my patience further. You agreed to join with us, to take what lodgings are only offered to our own. You have not yet earned the right to challenge my decisions. If you had done this in a more public eye there would have been consequences."
"Like what?"
"Like Noctorro tearing your wings from your frame and beating your plate into dented foil. We encourage a degree of individualism and valour in our members, but radical insubordination? That is another matter entirely. So, for your own good, wait a moment before firing another challenge my way and take stock of your current position."
Hawkmoon stood up. Her entire frame was taut with tension. "I... I need this. I need to find this thing. I need to kill it."
"Are you sure that's all you want?" Thunderhowl softly inquired.
"What?"
"Not to beg a favour off it? To hear the voice of a former trinemate one last time?"
"Like frag." Hawkmoon scrunched her faceplates up with disgust. "I know what wishes do to a person. No fragging way I'm risking that."
"Then perhaps you're wiser than I gave you credit for - but my answer is still no."
"I need to kill-"
"No. You don't. I can give you more work, if that's what you want, but not this."
Hawkmoon glared at him. Thunderhowl took it in stride and waited for an answer.
"We are finding little leeway here," Augur groaned. "Give it up."
"Fine," Hawkmoon growled. She turned on her heel and stiffly marched out. The Verunlix trotted alongside her, almost running to keep up. She didn't hear anything else from the mech behind - not even as she stepped back out the door and into the corridor beyond.
The moment the door slid shut behind her, Hawkmoon doubled over and braced against the far wall, gasping for a breath that would not come. No diaphragm, no lungs, only mechanical vents to cool down her burning core. It wasn't right. None of it was. A message, from Vos. A dragon, but they weren't going to let her kill it. The dream - the fragging dream. She... she hated it. Hated all of it. It left her furious. It left her fuel-tanks churning, her energon-lines afire, left her all but trembling with the emotion of it.
She needed to do something.
She needed something to... to change. Her situation wasn't tenable; it wasn't right.
Hawkmoon straightened up, straightened her spinal strut, straightened out her shoulders and wings. She briefly offlined her optics, counted to five and walked away.
It was depressing, walking through the Holdfast and looking at everyone panicking. No shouting or screaming or roaring or anything like that, but there was a tension so thick Hawkmoon could have cut it with a knife. Every was cast into an unnerving silence, and what mecha were about spoke in soft, hushed tones - as if scared that something could be eavesdropping, something with the ability to pounce on even the unknowing tease of worded desire.
Which, honestly, Hawkmoon found almost laughable. What kind of dragon needed words to grant a warped wish? Mere thoughts were enough to damn a soul - and these people, these Krenshans, were so tragically unprepared for it made her sick. If the dragon swung their way, they were done, no argument about it.
"Thrice, the wolf-lord said," Augur murmured. "Thrice he claimed, thrice he rode out to fend away the wyrm-gluttons, to spare his people their wonder-appetites. Thrice - and his people yet stand. You may be worrying for naught, Seeker."
Hawkmoon turned down a corner, down a quiet hallway absent of security cameras and eavesdropping mecha, and said, "And I've killed dragons in my own time as well. Fought in the Great Hunt and all. Still fell prey to one, didn't I? Twice, even!" She shook her helm. "A couple of achievements don't mean you're invincible from there on out."
"You believe him to be complacent?"
"I think he's old. I think he's slow. I think he's out of his depth."
"Traitorous words."
"You can only be a traitor if you're a part of the fold in the first place."
"As you desire to be."
"I chose, yeah," Hawkmoon admitted. She looked around - the coast was still clear. "But I'm that puzzle piece that does not fit. I don't belong. Not here, not anywhere. Suppose this is just me trying to get comfortable with that idea."
"And this? Once we slay this drake, will it slake your thirst for retribution?"
"Y'know what? It just might."
With no way forward and no way back, Hawkmoon retreated to her quarters just to escape the nervous looks and panicked whispers, locking the door behind her. She wasn't tired, physically, but then exhaustion never really felt the same as it used to. Joints worn and fuel low - that was how she knew her frame was nearing its limits. And she wasn't quite there yet. But mentally? Maybe, maybe not. What she was was strung-up, peering into every corner as if in anticipation that she would glimpse something there, something not right, something unreal and unreasonable. And she knew it was ridiculous - but that didn't stop her.
Not until she stretched out across her berth and forced herself to just... stay still. Think. Think.
"I think I'm going to dream again," Hawkmoon announced.
Augur lazily looked over at her. "You are?"
"I can feel it coming. This orn, next orn, decaorn down the line - I'm thinking it'll swing around soon enough."
"What does it feel like?"
"Like subconscious wonder. Like feeling smaller than I actually am. Traveler knows I'm a fricking giant right now..."
"Which dreams do you imagine will take you? Those of your ailing post-organic mind? Or those twinned to the very energy signature that gives you life, seeping through time?"
"I don't know. Uncomfortable ones, I'm betting." Hawkmoon sat up. "I'll leave it for a while. We need to make a plan."
"A plan?"
"Yes. A plan. To figure out how to pinpoint where this dragon is and how to get to it."
"And then?"
"Kill the bastard."
"Succinct," Augur said with mock approval. "Bold. Driven by pride - like everything you do."
Hawkmoon ignored the barb. "You got any suggestions?"
"Wait. Watch. To break rank now is reckless; patience is our ally here."
"But the dragon dies."
"If handled with care, yes."
"Good." Hawkmoon paused as a thought struck her. "And afterwards? After the dragon is dead?"
"Confer with its bones," Augur whispered conspiratorially. "Draw out the secrets of its glimmering heart. It is an edge, untapped. We have the means; we have the will. All we need now is the opportunity."
"That's..." Hawkmoon shook her helm. "That's a stupid idea."
"The remains of wish-beasts hold great potential. You professed to being a slayer of their kind, yes? Did your warrior-people never harvest their carcasses for power?"
They did, Hawkmoon thought. Again and again. A spine here, a skull there, some claws and ribs and teeth and scales and feathers to boot. I once saw another Hunter pull out a wish-wyrm's golden eye, just to track paracausal energy trails. I once saw a Titan unknowingly bathe herself in the blood of a freshly-slain drake, having crushed its head at the bottom of a Venusian riverbed with her bare fists. I once knew a Warlock bold enough to tear out the still-beating heart of a dragon and ferry it through a sea of Taken.
But she didn't say any of that. It would have meant admitting that there was some credence to what Augur was saying - and nothing terrified her more. Nothing disturbed her more. A dragon was responsible for kicking her into this mess in the first place. Using the parts of another... now that was insanity.
No.
No.
"We're doing this to keep people safe," Hawkmoon told him. "Not for our own benefit but theirs."
"Indeed," Augur softly replied. His smile disappeared. "Our work is most selfless."
"Not if this is how we go about it."
"You are uneasy."
"It's a dragon, Augur. Like hell am I going to trust anything to come out of this."
"A dragon saved your life," Augur pointed out.
"A dragon took it," Hawkmoon retorted.
"Thus all dragons are the spawn of evil?"
"Hey now, you want to kill it too." Hawkmoon grimaced. "'Spawn of evil'... Not far off. Only problem I have with that is the insinuation that something gave birth to them."
"A dragon will bear you no ill will."
"You know what, actually? You're right. A dragon is the very definition of evil. Not the Hive kind of evil, maybe, but they don't care. About anyone or anything. About basic fragging decency or making the morally right choices. They just... prey on people. Leave them ruined and broken. That's not right."
"So you intend to make it right?"
"Traveler knows how many dragons there are out there," Hawkmoon muttered. "But, Light willing, I'd kill every last one if I had the power. Every. Single. One."
"Pride and rage," Augur murmured. "That is all you have left in your heart."
"That there's the understatement of the fragging millennium," she replied. "We're killing this thing. That's decided. We're killing it for good."
"And use it?"
"... I'd rather not. Look, we'll..." Hawkmoon grimaced. "We'll play this by ear."
"'Ear'?" Augur sneered. "A mortal metaphor?"
"Something like that."
"Very well. We will... what is it you said? 'Play this by auditory organ'."
Time passed, slow enough to play on her nerves. Hawkmoon stalked the halls and corridors and streets with little direction and all the focus. Her aim was to find something, anything - like a whispered word, an echo of hearsay, the promise of a rumour - to give her a clue as to where to start. She was all set to leave; she didn't have many belongings to pack up in the first place. Her new tact, though, wasn't exactly working, not really, because the Krenshans evidently weren't the gossip-y sort - and even less so when a Seeker walked into a room. Hawkmoon contemplated using her fractal shroud, just to pass through unseen, but she wasn't confident that it would hold up under close scrutiny or that the older Krenshans didn't have mods equipped to help them peer past their own cloaking systems.
Augur, on the other hand, was having a day of it. The little fox scurried and prowled unbeknownst, a true phantom, and he came back to her every other joor with a vulpine grin and a nugget of news. The dragon was spotted here, the dragon was spotted there, the dragon had all but skirted the territory of this species or that race, almost all of them organic and all but a few still in their industrial ages. Easy pickings, little promise - vulnerable prey but shallow meals, Hawkmoon understood the why. Dragons liked things with power, with wisdom and experience and a keen understanding of the universe's natural and unnatural workings. Made for more ambitious wishes overall.
She built up a chart in her internal map of the local star clusters, drawing lines between every place-of-sighting. The beast was zigzagging to some extent, but from afar it almost looked like it was headed in a certain direction - inwards, cutting a path through to the galaxy's distant core and along the lawless fringe of the Brachian Divide. It was a good case to start with, but to a growing frustration Hawkmoon realized that yes, I know in a broad sense where it's headed, but I'll never know exactly where it IS.
There was simply too much ground (and space between) to cover - even if the information Augur was dragging back had any validity to it in the first place. There wasn't any known method of tracking dragons, not least across the black voids of space. They didn't emit energy signatures, they didn't leave thruster emissions behind them, they didn't even leave soulfire-portal residue in their wake. They moved too fast for creatures only capable of sub-light speed travel, but however they managed to flit between stars was a mystery.
"But your wolf-lord seeks to hunt it in our stead," Augur pointed out while she was poring over the matter.
"I know," Hawkmoon said with a tense nod. "Which means he has his own way of locating it."
"Perhaps-"
"He hasn't left yet, has he?"
"Not yet," Augur confirmed.
"Good. We need to get to it before him. Kill it proper."
"Why is it you believe he will not do the same?"
"He's not paracausal," Hawkmoon said flippantly. "Takes a paracausal creature to tear another one down."
"I wonder - do you recognize the arrogance in your own words? Or do you only perceive your claims as undisputed truth?"
"Now's not the time, Augur."
"When is it the time, Seeker?"
"When we aren't pressed for time," Hawkmoon growled. "Unless you've figured out how Thunderhowl plans to take the dragon down, please shut the frag u-"
"He has called for aid."
"... What?" Hawkmoon blinked, momentarily taken aback - and then the fear settled in, irrational and heartstopping. As if she still had a heart to stop. "From... Cybertron?"
From Vos?
"From quiet neighbours, territorial to a fault," Augur slyly explained. "I heard him howl to them in the dead of night - hushed and alone, with earnest placation and honest need. He believes himself lost without them."
"Who?"
An orn and a half passed before they arrived in their pod-ships, five vessels each. Hawkmoon was there to see them, lingering by the rear of a crowd of curious onlookers that had gathered within the station's primary docking hangar. All five ships were brutish things of purple shell and bristling with spiked cannons. They engaged docking clamps on the end of six insectoid stilt-limbs, locking on the hangar floor and walls before hunkering down and extending boarding ramps, airlocks hissing open. A mech, massive, stepped out of the closest pod-ship and looked around - and grunted the moment his red visor settled on the form of Thunderhowl.
"Beast," the Insecticon warrior growled through a mouth full of jagged teeth and curved mandibles.
"Ransack," Thunderhowl greeted. He nodded to the second Insecticon to clamber out, near as large as the first and plated in dulled silver. "Skrapnel. A pleasure. Welcome back."
"Yes, many thanks," the second Insecticon garbled. It had a voice rougher than sandpaper and was nearly incoherent as a result. The mech looked out over at the crowd of curious onlookers. "Many bodies here. More than last time."
"We've grown into something bigger since last you and I met. Something more stable."
Other Insecticons of various forms disembarked from the other pod-ships. Warriors all, each of them of formidable stature and brutish build - and still they all but blended into the mass of Krenshans present. Organic-like plating, biologically-inspired kibble, cold optics.
"Like Eecharik," Augur mused. "Let us hope they have not unknowingly smuggled in a false-skin trickster too."
Hawkmoon pressed her lips tightly together and tried her best to keep the grimace from showing. It took all she had not to snap at him, to remind him that the Eecharik had been people just like them, that they had been murdered as unjustly as every other client species under the Taishibethi Protectorate. That it wasn't right to poke fun at them, dead as they were.
But she saw his point. Saw the wisdom in it - to play safe, to play vague, to keep herself from veering too close to the hypothetical problem.
"Come," Thunderhowl bade the Insecticons. He turned and ushered them after him, a soft smile on his faceplates. "We have hospitality to share."
The Insecticons trailed after him with a series of communal clicks and hisses, venturing forth and mingling with the Krenshans - many of which met them with smiles and greetings of their own. They were friends, Hawkmoon saw. Old friends. The crowd was one that had formed to meet with old acquaintances - their quiet neighbours from all the way over in Nestpod XXVIII. Some stuck around, chatting up with familiar faces. Others, like Ransack and Skrapnel, trod after Thunderhowl to somewhere else. Some Krenshans too.
Hawkmoon, after a moment's hesitation, followed suit.
She found them settling into a great chamber Longhorn had once introduced to her as the 'longhouse'. From the huge doorways in, it looked like a great hall crossed with a basin, with gently sloping walls and stairs building down towards one massive platform. Alcoves had been built into the wall, where ancient tables and chairs had been installed, and at the very bottom was what looked to be something like a banquet table - stationed over a glass floor with a fighting pit underneath. At the other end of the room loomed a colossal statue, carved into the likeness of Onyx Prime.
The place was already lively. There were other doorways, Hawkmoon spotted, and a steady stream of Krenshans - most of them of the senior cloth - arrived by their lonesomes or in throngs. Insecticons, too, trickled in from behind her, some of them giving her a strange look while others ignored her entirely. A couple stopped to stare at the monument of the Prime and mutter their little prayers before carrying on, but most just treated it like business as usual. They loped and stalked and crawled, less mecha and more beasts, and the way they arranged themselves bore an uncanny air of unconscious synchronization. Their EM fields fizzled lazy and wide, raking against her own, but they didn't seem to mind that. Hawkmoon, on the other hand, was forced to pull hers in close just to cut the debilitating alien sensations away.
Within the hall Insecticons and Krenshans mingled, talked, introduced themselves. It was like they belonged together, naturally. And it befuddled her - because all the reports on Insecticons Hawkmoon had read indicated that they were nothing more than bestial killers without a shred of common decency. Which... wasn't far off what she was looking at, but they were presenting themselves to the Krenshans with a level of civility she hadn't been expecting. The Teletraan network had made the Insecticons out to be monsters. Vos had made them out to be a most dangerous kind of pest. Looking at them, she was under the impression that they were just grizzled grumps with a distinct lack of common manners. Matched the Krenshans to a tee, really.
They even transformed into animals as opposed to plain vehicles too. Three of them fluttered in the air in the forms of critters not unlike horned scarabs, propelling themselves with anti-grav field emitters in the shape of insectoid wings and low-powered thrusters.
"They are as Eecharik plated in steel," Augur yipped. "Just as your kind are Taishibethi gilded in silver. The mystery of convergence; the forever-search for the better shape."
Insects. Birds. Earth terms, but still universally applicable to entirely unrelated life across the universe. And still those insects, those birds, those reptiles and mammals and fish and squid and everything eventually culminated in the same thing: the humanoid body plan, bipedal and upright and intelligent. There were even a race of alien robots forged in the likeness of humans - a species she wasn't certain had even evolved at their point in time. The Books of Sorrow hadn't been terribly clear on timestamps. Oryx probably hadn't thought it important - but that was his whole spiel, wasn't it? If it died, it never deserved to live in the first place. It didn't deserve to be honoured with a grave. It was dead and gone and the living had to keep going.
She was supposed to keep going, too. Was that furthering the Hive agenda, then? Was she following their dogma, their irreverent approach to life everywhere, both living and lost?
"Go," Augur softly encouraged her. "Inquire. Investigate."
They weren't ready. Hawkmoon understood that with a keen certainty; the Insecticons weren't ready. Not for a dragon. They were no more paracausal than the Krenshans. No more than anyone around, really. Except for her, Lightless as she was. And Augur - though she wasn't entirely sure on that count. Maybe he was just as poorly off as the rest of them. Maybe he was useful. In the end, though, Hawkmoon doubted she had a choice in the matter.
It occurred to her, then, that maybe Thunderhowl was the better choice. It wasn't impossible for something causal to kill a dragon, but it wasn't as smooth. Simpler to just fight fire with fire - one creature that shatters the rules of reality by simply existing pitted against another. Maybe he was dragging in the Insecticons because he was expecting casualties and wasn't going to let his own people fall for it. Or maybe he knew something. Maybe the Insecticons were naturally well-inclined towards killing dragons. She didn't know. Didn't care to bet on it either.
Hawkmoon stepped forth. Walked carefully, watching her step and keeping an eye on those nearby. All her Hunter instincts were telling her that it was starting to get too crowded for her, too enclosed, that she would've been better off prowling somewhere else. All her Seeker instincts were saying the same - but with the twist that they urged her to hightail it outside of the station entirely, to fly for the stars and never stop.
"There you are," Jetstorm exclaimed, catching her off-guard. Hawkmoon blinked and glanced at the mech - and found him all but arm-in-arm with a slender hunchbacked Insecticon with a face like a cockroach, some alcoves down. The beastformer gestured to her, ushered her to them, and Hawkmoon reluctantly did so. Augur walked past her, all the way down the stairs and disappeared beneath the press of bodies there.
"A Seeker," the Insecticon hummed, stealing away her attention. "Do you stand for Cybertron?"
"... Uh, I doubt it," Hawkmoon said uncertainly. The inquiry caught her off-guard. She tried not to think about it. Didn't like where it led. "I'm like a..." Black sheep? No, that doesn't work, sheep aren't something they'd know about... "I'm just lost. Should I even be here?"
"Well, no one's explicitly barred, so..." Jetstorm shrugged. He'd misinterpreted her question.
She would have killed for a real answer.
"What's happening here?" Hawkmoon asked, nodding towards the central podium. "With Thunderhowl and the other mecha?"
"Pretty sure they're about to break out the high-grade. One last hurrah before they... yeah." Jetstorm gave her a meaningful look.
Hawkmoon quirked an optical ridge. "Head out to kill a dragon?"
"Yeeeaaah. Okay, see, I was trying be subtle because talking about... that makes people, myself included, a little uncomfortable, but you just... mhm, you did it. You just... did it. Thank you, Hawkmoon."
She rolled her optics. Went to respond with something snarky, something to retaliate with, but there was a screech and whoosh and one of the scarabs shot overhead with a shrill monstrous scream. Hawkmoon ducked, more on instinct than anything else, and her wrist-blades shot out - before the realization that it was nothing, nothing to worry about, nothing to get in a fit over hit her. She straightened, vented, retracted the blades slowly, with painstaking difficulty. The roar of the Insecticon had only drawn a little attention, and her reaction much less, but the result was an increase in chatter - as if the call was an invitation to speak up, let loose, give in to the urge to just talk, talk, talk. The room filled with it, swelled with it, thrummed with living noise
It was one of the very things she'd hated about the Last City - the crushing volume, the weight of so many people, the pressure of being expected to just... blend in, be a person like them, pretend you aren't any different. Pretend your nights aren't spent fighting with an army of everyone you've ever known to reach a dark tower. Pretend your days aren't spent hunting and killing and bleeding out in a muddied ditch while your Ghost hides from vengeful Devils. Pretend you have a future, that you aren't just a machine built in the image of a woman, that you weren't given a hard reset and sent out into the post-apocalypse to die all over again - as many times as needed.
"You okay?" Jetstorm asked, strangely concerned.
No, Hawkmoon wanted to shout, to roar, to scream. No - because she wasn't liking this, she wasn't made for this, she wasn't adapted for this and why now, why now, why now, why the moment she was at her lowest, why the exact moment she was alone.
"I'm fine," Hawkmoon said, still venting. Her engines were growling, working up a heat. "I'm just... tired."
Someone pressed an energon cube into her servos. Hawkmoon didn't know who. Jetstorm was there, that Insecticon-
"What's your name?" she asked, desperate for a distraction, for something else to entertain herself with, to take away from everything else.
The Insecticon regarded her quizzically. "Springbolt."
"You're here to help kill that dragon, right?"
"Uh, Hawkmoon-" Jetstorm started to say. He sounded ill. Uneasy. Uncomfortable. Distinctly so.
"Kill it dead," Springbolt confirmed. His beady red optics gleamed with a sort of hunger. "Rend it apart."
Hawkmoon nodded. Sipped from her cube. There, there, that taste, that un-taste, the sensation of liquid electricity, that feeling of energon going down and settling in her fuel-tanks - fuel-tanks, not stomach, but something belonging to a machine - it anchored her in place. No drifting here, no sir.
Then she stopped. Took stock. Said, "This is high-grade too."
Jetstorm nodded. Springbolt trilled and dug into his own cube.
"Alright," Hawkmoon murmured. "That's fair." She raised her cube. "Cheers."
Crota was dead.
Every bar, tavern and saloon from the Peregrine District to the Botza District was chock full of people looking to celebrate. The moon-demon was dead; His children were shattered; His army was beaten roaring and screaming back into the Hellmouth. The invasion was off. The Hive were defeated.
He was dead. The Prince was dead. Crota was DEAD.
They started off with shots, just to deliver that final shock to frayed nerves - just to treat hyperactive biological systems with something strong enough to leave a buzz. The three of them timed it together, squirrelled away in their booth and smiling, grinning, relieved at long last that they were alive, that their world was safe, that the deaths of thousands of friends and family had been avenged. Lennox-2 loved the way poor Jaxson's face wrinkled in disgust as he downed his glass, still young and new and only just getting his bearings. Old, world-weary Ikharos, on the other hand, put his drink away like it were water, unfazed - brow furrowed and nothing more.
"Yeah, no, I'd prefer something lighter," he admitted at length.
Lennox snorted. "You can have something lighter some other time. We're celebrating; get with the programme."
"Oh yes, because ingesting dangerous amounts of raw alcohol into one's system is a fantastic way to celebrate."
"Got it in one."
"Screw you," he laughed. Already his inhibitions were falling away and she - she LOVED to see it. Loved seeing him let loose and finally have some damn fun.
Jaxson gingerly raised a hand. "I... I feel a little off."
"That's just the poison at work," Ikharos told him, clapping him on the shoulder. "You'll get used to it."
"Dunno if I wanna."
Ikharos grinned. "Might not have a- Len, your real friends are here."
Lennox looked over her shoulder and saw them; Nadiya, fresh from a scouting trip looked like, and Quantis, dressed for a party. She turned back around, scoffing. "You keep saying that and it might happen."
"Oh dear, what will I ever do without you?" Ikharos drawled. He glanced past her. "Hey-ho 'Diya, Rhee."
"Ike," Nadiya warmly returned. She pressed in beside Lennox, Quantis doing the same on Ikharos's side. "Take it you heard the news?"
Lennox shared a knowing look with Jaxson and Ikharos. It didn't go unnoticed.
"Oh. OH," Quantis exclaimed. "You really...?"
"Jaxie here stuck 'em like a pig," Lennox whispered conspiratorially - past that panicked flutter in her heart, the memory of ash and blood and bellowing roars and a sickly green glow cast over everything. "You should have heard Him squeal."
"Our heroes," Nadiya purred. She leaned in against Lennox - who pressed into the feeling, sighing quietly. There was something in that warmth, that presence she needed. Something the alcohol hadn't yet helped settle.
The high-grade was good. Clean, vibrant, full of all those invigorating feelings. Hawkmoon paced herself, drank it slow and the like, but she could feel her control becoming... fuzzy. Imprecise. It was at that point she ground to a halt, arguing that letting loose was a bad idea, what with everything being what it was.
"How're you even planning on tracking the lizard?" Hawkmoon asked, feeling a little bold.
Jetstorm groaned. "Please. Can we just... not?"
"I know not," Springbolt admitted. "I care not."
"Right, right..." Hawkmoon frowned. Looked the Insecticon over. "Gotta say, 'm not familiar with your mecha. What's it mean to be an Insecticon?"
Springbolt gave her a blank look. "What is it to be a Seeker?"
"It means I fly."
"You are what you are. I am what I am. There is nothing beyond this."
"You sure about that?"
"I am of the nest. Nothing more. I work, I assist, I fight, I feed. That is all."
Hawkmoon paused. "Ooo-kay. And, eh, that's... satisfying, for you?"
"Yes."
"... Alright. Ok. That's cool." She glanced at Jetstorm, who gave her a look as if to say what were you expecting?
Something more.
"Where do you fit into all this?" Hawkmoon asked Jetstorm - more out of idle curiosity than anything else.
He raised an optical ridge. "Me?"
"Yeah, you. You're not a Seeker."
"No. I'm, ah..." Jetstorm lowered his voice, narrowed his optics. Studied her faceplates. For what, she didn't know, but that was what he was doing. "I'm a demi-Insecticon."
"... Okay?"
"Okay?"
"Are we? You look like you're about to shoot me or something."
"Oh." Jetstorm shook his helm. "Sorry, I was just..."
"You thought I was going to be all judgy."
"Yeah. Seekers aren't exactly-"
"I'm aware of our reputation," Hawkmoon interrupted. "But it's not universally applicable."
"Getting that now."
"Met plenty of good Seekers in my own time. Painting us all in one broad stroke is just... nevermind." Hawkmoon vented a sigh and looked away.
"I'm... sorry," Jetstorm managed to say. He sounded earnest about it too. "I apologize. Didn't mean to-"
"It doesn't matter," Hawkmoon said, waving him off.
It got quiet after that. Or at least quiet between the three of them; everyone else seemed to be having a blast.
Nadiya had dragged her off to dance. The drink in her left her with a fine haze - senses dulled, thoughts muddied, her guard reservations melting away, all courtesy of whatever mod the Bray Foundation had installed in her faux-digestive system to simulate inebriation. A social humanism, to keep the mind rot away.
It was the small mercies she loved most.
Music was playing, low and husky and impossible not to move to - so Lennox-2 moved, hands finding Nadiya's wrists, shoulders, hips, and she exulted in the feeling of a mirrored sensation. They danced together, entwined, and swayed to the lulls and rises of the song's every beat. She lifted her head, gazing up at the shifting lights; Nadiya pressed in to kiss her neck at the base of her throat. Lennox smiled, offlined her optics for a moment, and lowered her face to meet it in kind. She was left with the taste of cherry on what passed for her lips.
/
"Can you dance?" Hawkmoon asked.
"I... don't have those files downloaded," Cyberwarp sheepishly replied.
"It's nothing about files. Come on, I'll show you." Hawkmoon took her servo.
"'Moon, I don't-"
"It's about experience. We'll just do something slow. Here." Hawkmoon guided Cyberwarp's servos to her hips, placed her own on 'Warp's pauldrons, and guided them into a slow waltz. She could have broken out into something quicker, wilder, more impressive, but that might've scared the other femme off, so...
They got into a rhythm. Ignored what surprised looks and gasps and all else they garnered, focusing on each other - their own little world. Hawkmoon pressed her helm against Cyberwarp's own and offlined her optics.
This was good. This was enough to fill the gulf.
/
It felt like they were criminals, sneaking off past the familiar dunes of home and slipping into the anonymity of Freehold's eclectic nightlife. Adria's grip tightened nervously; Vaudren squeezed back. Their hands were together, had been for a while, and only when they darted into the neon-fronted entrance of a club did they let go and fully, entirely press into one another. To the dance floor they went, dressed up and dolled out and breathing in relief - because here they were, sampling something otherwise forbidden, tasting of the ported pleasures of Old Earth.
Her mother wasn't going to be happy. Adria had taken her dad's old hoverbike to do this. Which he'd been wholly onboard for, what with having slipped her the keys, but her mother didn't know that. Neither of them were going to enlighten her either. Pity it meant some stern lecture and cold looks down the line - but she was used to that, anyways.
Vaudren let go, drifted back, ushered Adria after her. Her dark uniform was nondescript, like Adria's, and though it was the nicest set of clothes either of them owned, it didn't compare to the glittering dresses and bright suits all around. Even so - she was the most beautiful thing Adria had ever seen.
Adria hurried after her, smiling and laughing and moving with the music, in tandem with Vaudren. They caught each other, hung to each other, danced and twirled and spun and pirouetted around one another, orbiting, traveling, caught on each other's gravities.
When the clock struck midnight, and the crowd of retroimperial military-students erupted into cheers to hallmark that new year, Adria pulled Vaudren in close for a heated kiss.
"I'm going to talk to Thunderhowl," Hawkmoon announced. She left quickly, just to put... whatever that had been behind her, and wove through the traffic headed up and down the stairs to the grand pedestal at the bottom. There, after pushing through a veritable ocean of bodies, she found Thunderhowl and Noctorro at the other end of the table and talking it out with Ransack, Skrapnel and another Insecticon. Negotiating, looked like. Or planning something.
A hunt. The hunt.
Augur was there too, perched on the corner of the table and listening in. He caught her optic and glanced back at Thunderhowl before nodding - an invitation to cut in if she'd ever seen one. Hawkmoon approached subtly, dipping around shouting, drinking mecha, and appeared by Thunderhowl's side. Ransack saw her first and threw a questioning stare her way. Thunderhowl craned his helm around; Noctorro as well.
"I'd like to-" she started to say.
Thunderhowl shook his helm, scowling. "I already gave you my answer."
"-to do something," she finished. "Please."
Thunderhowl exchanged a look with Noctorro.
"A Seeker?" Skrapnel growled. "Has Cybertron come begging for scraps again?"
"Easy," Thunderhowl retorted, holding up his servos. "She's one of mine."
"Yours?"
"She came to us in trust. You understand."
"She bears the plate of Vos," Ransack pointed out. He bared his teeth. "One of yourssss? Not yet, lord. Not yet."
"Be that as it may, she is still under my protection."
"We have no active quarrel with Vos," the third Insecton uttered, his voice barely louder than a whisper. Ransack and Skrapnel visibly backed down - and she couldn't blame them. He was larger than everyone bar Thunderhowl, clad entirely in red plating and outfitted with all sorts of combat-orientated kibble-modifications. A killer, plain as day. A monster. "Nor with Cybertron at large. But this is unprecedented."
"Quite." Thunderhowl inclined his helm. "However, that doesn't mean we cannot try."
"How long have you been here?" the Insecticon asked her.
Hawkmoon considered it. "With the Krenshans? Two, three decaorns overall, but less than half that time actually here, in the Holdfast."
"It won't be long, then, until they clap new steel on those wings of yours. What's your designation?"
"Hawkmoon." She raised her chin. "And you?"
The mech, red and silver, leaned forward and grinned - grinned as much as his horrifying mandible-laden jaws could allow. His visor, a bright green, glimmered with amusement. "Rampage."
"Charmed."
There was a pause after that. Rampage watched her, as if daring her to ask something else. Hawkmoon just stood there and stared back, quirking on optical ridge.
"True initiation is a while aways yet," Thunderhowl eventually told her, breaking that unholy silence. "I don't think you're ready for it."
No. Probably not. Hawkmoon shrugged. "Alright."
"What kind of work did you have in mind?"
"Prompt them," Augur whispered. "Request a post beyond this station."
"I don't know," Hawkmoon said - mostly just to sell the point. "Something to get me out and about."
Noctorro grumbled. "Don't test us, Seeker."
"I'm just saying-"
"You are not permitted to depart this station under any circumstances. That is an order - and you will follow it."
Hawkmoon bristled, her plating flaring out.
"'Torro," Thunderhowl warned. "Easy."
Noctorro snorted and looked away. Thunderhowl turned back to Hawkmoon.
"We can't afford to let you, or anyone for that matter, leave. You know that. I'm afraid you'll have to busy yourself with something more local-based for the time being."
"So there's no chance I could-"
"Wait," Augur interrupted. "Their topic has been swayed; leave them be."
"... Nevermind," Hawkmoon stiffly continued. She ducked away, left them behind without another word. The displeasure evident in her every furious step was something she didn't have to pretend.
"Well done," Augur called after her. Hawkmoon glanced back, just for a moment, and the fox gave her a wink - before she lost sight of him as she parsed through the crowd congregating by the nearest set of stairs. Hawkmoon took to them, hiking her way back out, and hesitated by the exit.
The idea of giving in, joining in with the Krenshan's little revelry was strong. But... no, it wasn't important. It wasn't... right.
She retreated to an abandoned floor on the station's starboard side, double checking to make sure no one was following. That done, Hawkmoon swept the place for bugs and cameras, and once finished there she situated herself by the viewport of a long-forgotten observatory deck. She waited there, waited for joors and-
Slipped into a solemn reverie, an unexpected sob rising from her chest and optics beginning to ache - ache with the urge to shed a few last tears. Hawkmoon strangled the sob, offlined her optics, angrily gripped her own sides and forced herself to stay still, stay quiet, shut the hell up and stop thinking like that.
Stop trying to be someone else.
Hawkmoon sighed. She was... drowning. In memories. Some of them her own, some of them... not quite. And the people - of course they had to be those memories. With that Vaudren woman. With Nadiya - sometimes friends, sometimes more. With... with Cyberwarp.
Oh Cyberwarp.
"Fuck," Hawkmoon breathed- no, vented. Vented. Not breathed, you silly goose, breathing is beyond you, don't you remember? You don't have lungs anymore. How do you keep forgetting that?
It's not right, Hawkmoon wanted to scream, to roar, to yell into the night. This isn't right. This isn't my body. This...
But it was no use. She hadn't any choice in the matter. It was a case of take what you've got or go without - and this was something she couldn't physically lose, lest her life be taken in the process. A death; a final end. That was all there was next after her current frame.
Her servos shook. Hawkmoon made an effort to keep from opening her palms again; her hands were scarred enough as it was, all inflicted by her own claws. She needed to... do something. Tinker with something. Something to keep her talons from wandering somewhere vulnerable. She emptied out her subspace, counting out the Tai trinkets and Cybertronian gadgets, filing them back inside until she came to her sword. Her Nullblade.
Úthaessel's Nullblade. Or, at least, the... what was it again, the Shadow-Emperor? There had been something there, something historic, but Hawkmoon - she hadn't asked. And she knew she should have done so. While she'd had the chance. Because now-
There were no Tai left.
Hawkmoon unfolded it. Her thumb hovered over the switch to activate the Void cores, but she refrained from flicking it on. It was... Even without the Void behind, the blade was sharp. Forged of something resilient, something that stubbornly stayed in good condition. She hadn't sharpened it once and still it kept a keen edge. Paracausally-attuned, maybe. It was a relic. Of something dead. A tool built to kill things that couldn't easily die.
"Be careful, Seeker."
Hawkmoon grimaced. "Augur."
He loped down one of the adjoining halls and leapt up onto the windowsill beside her. "It was a gift bestowed upon you by the Sun Emperor; it is a weapon with few equals. Not a toy. Please don't treat it as such."
Hawkmoon rolled her optics and retracted the blade's panels. They folded back into the hilt and clicked in place. "What do you have for me?" she asked in Taishbethi - just for that extra layer of security.
Augur shot her a sly look. "Your interruption planted the seeds of curious thought. The wolf-lord retreated to his study with companions in tow. They spoke of many things - even, briefly, you."
"I don't care about that."
"No? The Eecharik-in-iron were bewildered. They do not trust you."
"... I literally just told you I don't care."
Augur ignored her. "The warrior-in-red was dying to know more. Your wolven patron distrusts him. Diverted his attention with business - but I doubt the distraction will last."
"Alright?" Hawkmoon shook her helm. "Look, if he's interested then I'll just shoot him down."
"Kill?"
"What? No, I-... Oh, no, not that kind of shoot, I meant... nevermind. Can we cut to the chase, please?"
Augur circled around, tails swaying, and nestled by the corner of the viewport. The light of distant stars and closer starships played across his shadowy fur, the rays cutting through him with naught but a glitter of silver dust. "Your wolf-lord is playing a benign benefactor, employing as many as he sees fit. First he found his warriors, now he reaches out for a guide. One of yours, a mechanoform of bestial inclinations, but not of this place."
"Can you give me a name?"
"Ser-Ket. A wayward trapper, or so the wolf-lord proclaimed."
"Ser...-Ket." Hawkmoon tasted the word. "Mmm, no. Don't know 'em. That doesn't really help us much."
"No."
"Can you plant a tracker?"
"Likely not, Seeker. Manifestation of physical influence upon the universe of law and matter demands much of me. For a prolonged period of time? Doubtful."
"What if I get you close?"
"I have already taken that into account."
"What about a magic tracker?" Hawkmoon asked, growing impatient.
"'Magic'?" Augur tilted his head. "I do think you severely overestimate my capabilities."
"Then what use are you?"
"I am your ear, your eye, your tongue; have I not fulfilled my purpose?"
Hawkmoon scowled and looked away. "So... we have complete nada to work on. That's what you're telling me."
"We have little in the ways of causal means. Therefore, we must adapt and turn to other sources."
"I'm not making a wish. Okay?"
Augur cocked his head the other way. "If you say so."
"I'm not." Hawkmoon groaned. "Look, what if I cloak myself and fly after them?"
"Would they not detect you?"
"I... Probably."
"Would you even be capable of leaving this station without logging in your departure?"
"Okay, fine, that's not going to work-"
"Unless we incorporate a new element," Augur told her. "Within this station, you are chained beneath code and the expectation of mortal reach."
Hawkmoon gave him a tired look. "What are you getting at?"
"There are systems at work we may hijack, Seeker. Systems we have cheated before. Tell me - what know you of the Ley Lines?"
AN: Massive thanks to Nomad Blue for all the editing and feedback!
Also got Heartshadow first dungeon clear wheeeeeey. Slogged through Vow Master to get Disciple-Slayer, no Collective Obligation in sight, but hey, I guess this is the bone I get thrown and I'm okay with it.