I'm a bit late for this but...

Thank you all who have visited my story! There's over 700+ of you! I appreciate all those who have favorited/followed. It means the world to me! Thank you ComicArtrist, ZoyeZest and Hex-16 for you reviews! ImmaLoser, thank you for your feedback. As for your question, yes, there will be pairings, though right now, I do not intend to make them the main focus whenever I cross that bridge in the future.

Hex-16, I saw that you are looking for a read that is set before the war. I highly recommend The Wayward Path We Chose by Shade Penn and Rian Moeru. It is a great read and I enjoyed it thoroughly!

Anyways, back to my story. I hope you all enjoy this chapter! Let me know what you think :D

(I have another chapter completed, I'll release it sometime later this week)

"You piece of slag! You cheated!" CT-37 snarled, slamming his fists down on the table as he shot to his pedes.

The polished, purple and gold accented mech from across his didn't even flinch. Instead, he leaned back in his seat, folding his arms with an air of superiority. "Cheated?" he repeated, his derma curling into a smirk. "I don't know what you mean. Perhaps you're just terrible at this."

Why that no good-

"You scrap-eater!" CT-37 snapped, his temper flaring and battle protocols activating. He was tempted to shut them off, calmly walk away from this, but…

No.

He needed to show who the boss was here. No bot cheated and got away with it.

The miner lunged forward, knocking the table aside as he threw himself at the smug mech. They tumbled to the ground and his fist connected with a satisfying crunch of metal against the mech's faceplate, wiping the smirk clean off. The smaller bot grunted in pain, pawing at his dented faceplate.

Their scuffle caught drew some attention from the bar's patrons, who were not so subtly placing bets on who was going to win. CT-37 was briefly distracted by them, allowing the mech to shove him off. His opponent pushed himself back to his pedes, wiping the corner of his intake where a small trail of energon trickled down.

"You're going to regret that, dirt hauler," he hissed, his servo shifting into a blaster.

With a snarl, the miner activated his arm blades and charged at the mech, dodging the heated energon that smaller bot shot at him, and slashed viciously at the mech before him. His blades sliced across the bot's faceplate and down his chassis, leaving a deep gash that energon started to gush out of.

CT-37 realized he may have cut a fuel line.

His opponent's ventilations were louder than they should've been as his frame worked to cool him down. Clutching his chassis, the mech spat at him, "Big mistake, you low-caste scrap!"

His opponent leveled his blaster at him in a flash. The miner saw the blast coming too late. It struck him square in the chassis, sending him flying backward. He crashed hard into the wall, his frame denting the metal with the impact, energon leaking from where the blast had struck.

Dazed, CT-37 groaned as he tried to push himself up. The world around him was filled with static and error alerts, warning him of his injury. His vision slowly started to clear, just in time for him to see the mech advancing on him.

"You just made a big mistake, dirt hauler," the bot growled, standing over him and aiming his blaster at his helm.

"Big mistake?" CT-37 rasped, spitting energon at the bot's pedes. "You cheated me!"

The mech's optics narrowed dangerously and a malicious smile formed on his dermas. "You don't even know who you're dealing with, do you?"

The miner bared his dentas in a feral snarl, not caring who this bot was. At this point, all he wanted to do was hurt this fragger.

"You can't lay a digit on me!" the bot sneered. "I'm Senator Talos, 'con! I could have you deactivated with a single word."

CT-37's optics went as wide as Cybertron's moons. A-a senator? By the Fallen…

He was scrapped. He'd attacked a mech with power on Cybertron, all because of a stupid bet and his temper. His spark twisted with fear. Who knew what they would do to him, if this senator didn't kill him first.

The miner didn't want to find out what would happen to him and quickly made a decision. He swept the senator's legs from underneath him and pushed himself to his pedes, ignoring the pain that lanced through his frame. Talos snarled from his place on the floor, but CT-37 didn't wait for a retaliation.

He bolted, tearing out of the bar and into the streets of Iacon. He knew he didn't have long. Talos would have the enforcers on his tail, no doubt they were already on their way. His only chance of surviving was getting out of the city. Because if he didn't… he was dead.

Nightwing sat on the edge of one of Iacon's many bridges, a spot that held great significance to her. The chasm beneath her yawned wide, revealing a maze of streets below where bots moved around. She scanned the bustling crowds below, noting the different shapes and sizes of the bots who inhabited the lower levels of Iacon.

She popped an energon cube into her intake, chewing thoughtfully. The cubes were sweet and would melt on her glossa if she let them sit—which is what she liked to do. Her best friend used to tease her about that peculiar trait. It made her spark twist, thinking of him.

Out of the corner of her optic, she saw a flash of green. Nightwing turned her helm slightly and noted the mech that seated himself next to her. Whiplash. She gave him a once-over, internally grimacing at his latest paint job. His green paint clashed terribly with his vibrant orange optics and strips of light on his frame.

"Nice choice," she said dryly.

Whiplash grinned, placing down an attention deflector and activating it. A faint hum followed, barely noticeable, as the air around them shimmered before returning back to normal. "You're just jealous."

"I wish you'd stop wasting credits—" My credits, she thought, "—on terrible paint," she replied, tapping the datapad on her lap.

The AVL agent leaned back slightly, pressing a button on the side of his helm that retracted his visor. "I thought I looked good in anything," he paused and when she didn't respond, he continued, "So what's the problem this time?"

"A miner," she said coolly. "He lost a bet to another bot and unfortunately, let his temper get the better of him. He beat the scrap out of the other bot."

Whiplash smirked. "That so? Sounds like a good brawl."

"Not quite." She glanced at over at him. "The bot he beat up was a senator."

The smirk faded away, replaced by a serious, dangerous look. Nightwing knew that the mech didn't like senators, given his experience with them. It had taken him a while to trust her, and even so, she doubted he trusted her fully. "Slag. So the enforcers are on his trail."

"Yes," she confirmed, nodding. "The enforcers will find him soon if we don't act. He's stashed in a warehouse for now, hidden by one of my contacts. But that won't last long. I need him out of there and fast."

The mech peered over the chasm than spanned beneath them. "And where exactly do you think I'm going to take him? We don't have much room right now, 'Wing."

I'm working on that, she thought. It wasn't easy trying to move hundreds of illegal mechs from a safehouse in the lower levels of Iacon to Tarn, where they would be a bit safer.

"I'm sure you'll figure that out," she replied, handing him a datapad. "You always do."

Whiplash snorted, scanning the contents of the device. "Lucky me."

"Discretion is key, Whiplash," she reminded the mech, shooting him a warning glance. "If this draws too much attention, you and that bot 'll be scrapped."

He grinned, placing the datapad into his subspace. "You worry too much, 'Wing. I've got this. You can trust me."

Trust. It was a word she rarely used with others, and even with Whiplash, someone she had worked with for some time, the concept of trust was such a fragile thing for her. She would never trust anyone again, not after what had happened to her.

"Don't get reckless," she finally said.

"Me? Reckless?" He chuckled, picking up and deactivating the device. "You wound me, Senator. I'm always careful."

Nightwing gave him a pointed glare before turning her attention elsewhere. "Just get it done, Whiplash."

The mech muttered something that sounded suspiciously like an insult before she heard his pedes fading away. Inevitably, her optics drifted to the left, to that spot. This was the place her entire world had shattered into a million pieces, where he died.

She could see the ghosts of her past haunting her. The memory was so painfully clear that it almost felt as if she could reach out and touch him.

"I finally did it, Wings."

He had been so proud, his vibrant purple optics shining with excitement as he told her the news. He had finally managed to gather enough incriminating evidence against the Functionists. They had believed, so foolishly, that this would be the turning point of their world.

It was the breakthrough they had dreamed of, a chance to expose the rot in the system, to free the bots enslaved by caste and oppression. They had thought it would change everything, that they would make a difference.

But that hope had been so fragile, so easily shattered.

Her Conjunx had been smiling when the blaster bolt struck. It had hit him near his spark chamber, close enough to the spark to be fatal, but far enough that he had nano-kliks to live. She could still feel his energon splattered on her frame as she caught him from falling.

Nightwing shut her optics, trying to push the memory away, but it didn't stop. It never stopped. She didn't know why she kept coming back to this spot. Maybe it was because it was the last place she saw him, or perhaps, it was to remind herself of why she did what she did.

"No!" She had been gripping him tightly enough to leave dents, desperate enough to keep him as close as possible. "It's going to be okay," she lied to him back then, trying to convince herself more than him. "You're going to be fine."

He had known better. His optics dimmed dangerously, flickering as he weakly smiled at her, reaching out to her. His servo was trembling as he reached out and brushed against the delicate metal of her faceplate. He whispered three words.

"I love you."

And then he was gone.

The femme's spark throbbed, aching and reaching out for the bond that once existed between them. It was an emptiness that had never healed, a void that would remain forever. She hadn't let herself feel like this in so long.

Nightwing had buried it, buried him so deep inside her processor that she feared one solar cycle, she would forget about him and everything else that had once made her whole. She had been so young then, so stupid, to believe they could have ever gotten away with it.

They had been idealistic, reckless—two bots who thought they could take on the world together. They had believed in the same cause, believed in each other. And it had gotten him killed.

Nightwing ex-vented slowly, her optics still closed, though it did nothing to shut out the image of him dying in her arms. It haunted her, the memory replaying in vivid, painful detail every time she let her guard down. Every time she dared to remember.

He had been everything to her and when he died, it had torn a piece of her away, left a wound so deep she sometimes wondered if there was anything left of herself beneath the mask she wore. Sometimes, she feared there wasn't.

Since that solar cycle, she had built walls around herself, walls so high that nothing—and no one—could ever breach them again. She refused to let anyone in. Refused to ever feel that kind of pain again. It was easier this way, she often convinced herself.

Nightwing tore herself away from the abyss of the past and stood up from her perch of the bridge, averting her gaze from that spot. She straightened her frame, willing the memories to the back of her processor, though it did little to soothe the ache in her spark.

The senator crossed the bridge, heading toward the upper levels of Iacon where the wealthy and powerful lived. She ignored the few bots who glanced her way, who were not accustomed to see a senator out this early.

As she walked down the sidewalk, watching the street's traffic, her optics caught on something, halting her in her tracks. There it was—the shop. Wedged between two glamorous structures, the large window that dominated the front of the shop revealed the gleaming interior, filled with models of alt-modes on display. The store specialized in alt-mode customization, allowing bots to modify and update their forms—within the limits of their caste, of course.

Her spark twinged, and against her better judgment, she allowed herself to linger in front of the window. The store had hardly changed since the last time she had been here, but everything was different for her now. Back then, she had come here with him, long before they had become Conjunx Endura.

Her best friend had been so excited that solar cycle, buzzing with energy that constantly licked against her fields. He had just been rewarded by his higher-ups with a modification that would allow him to fly for his job, which back then, she hadn't known it was the Functionists dirty work.

"Come on, Wings!" he had said, grinning audial receptor to audial receptor as he pulled her into the shop. "I'm finally getting that alt-mode I've been talking about. You're coming with me to pick it out!"

They had wandered the store, inspecting the various alt-modes available for his new frame. She could still remember the way his optics had lit up when he found the one he liked—a bulky, high-end fighter jet that was perfect for his build.

"What do you think?" he had asked her, glancing at her playfully. "Think I'll look good in this one?"

She had rolled her optics, but a smile had tugged at her derma despite herself. "You'll look ridiculous."

That solar cycle had been so simple—an unremarkable klik in the grand scheme of things, but it had been perfect in its own way. Just the two of them, with no politics, no schemes, no threats looming over their helms.

She hadn't set a pede in that store since. Couldn't bear to. It was another painful reminder of the joy and life that had been stolen from her. It was a reminder that she had no one by her side anymore, no laughter, no warmth.

Nightwing turned away from the shop, unwilling to let herself linger in the past any longer. It would only make the void feel deeper, and she had work to do. There was always work to do, always something to distract herself from the hollow ache in her spark.

The femme continued her journey back to her apartment to await the news of the miner from Whiplash. She expected the AVL agent to strike tonight and she had no doubts that she would see his work plastered all over the DataNet.

Making her way down the sidewalk, Nightwing's optics scanned the golden-alloyed skyscrapers that stretched high into Cybertron's brightening sky. These were the homes of the privileged, her caste, the place where she was supposed to belong.

But it didn't feel like home. It hadn't felt like home in a long time.