Uzi's plan to sneak out during the middle of the night was perfect. She started by hacking into the security terminals to temporarily disabled the hallway cameras. Then, to distract the main security teams, she set several fires on multiple levels using some oil and an old box of matches.

Having stolen the master key from her father's room, she finally reached the blast doors that separated the colony from the rest of Cybertron. Uzi thought that she made the perfect getaway. Her escape seemed perfectly executed, but she was thwarted by the simplest problem: the lever that controlled the mechanism for doors was stuck.

"Oh, come on!" Uzi groaned, struggling once more to pull down the massive lever in front of the doorway—but it wouldn't budge. "Is this thing glued or something?" she growled, releasing the lever and giving it a frustrated kick. Instantly regretting it, she hopped on one foot having clearly harmed herself. "Ow! Dang it, what is this stupid thing made of? Durabyllium?"

Frustration clear on her face, Uzi pulled out the master key she'd stolen, hoping it would somehow unlock the lever. To her dismay, there was no locking mechanism, no key slot, and nothing to scan—the lever was just a plain, stubborn switch meant to be pulled down. And it couldn't even do that. "Ugh, how is anyone supposed to get out of here if the stupid doors won't open?" she shouted, purely to vent, with no expectation of an answer.

Still one would come to her in the form of a question. "Did you try asking?" The lever said.

"Oh, the classic open sesame, why didn't I think of tha—" Uzi stopped mid-sarcastic sentence as she realized that the door lever just spoke. "Okay. Either, I finally lost it or you just talked." She would let the sentence hang in the air for a moment as she stared at the lever, and realized that the voice from it sounded like…

The hum of a T-cog broke the silence, and Uzi jumped back as the lever she'd been wrestling with transformed into a drone. Her father, Khan, now stood where the lever had been, his expression a mixture of deadpan annoyance and deep disappointment. "Well, I certainly hope you're not losing it," he said, voice edged with dry sarcasm, "but maybe that would help answer some questions. Care to explain what you're doing out here this late? And on a school night, no less?"

"Dad," Uzi began, suddenly feeling a mountain of nerves settle on her shoulders. "I was... on my way to make out with a conjunx endura that I totally have?"

Khan actually laughed at that. "Seriously though." In half a second, his face shifted back to the stern, no-nonsense stare. "Uzi, what exactly are you trying to do?"

"Okay, okay. You caught me... I..." Uzi stalled, searching desperately for the right lie. She knew that if she told the truth, her father would do everything possible in his power to stop her. "I was… actually looking for you."

An unexpected silence settled over the hallway as Khan seemed genuinely taken aback.

"Oh. I take it you've heard about the energon chip breaking?" Khan asked, then shook his head. "Oh, who am I kidding—everyone knows. Someone broadcast the entire thing on the colony's social network." Uzi couldn't help glancing away, knowing exactly who'd be behind that. Lizzy loved to stir things up, and while Uzi was glad that the truth was out, she knew the rumor mill would only add to her dad's stress. "People say some pretty awful things on there. Some are even suggesting it's a conspiracy. That I'm some kind of evil mastermind."

"They've clearly never seen you struggle to open a jar of energon cubes," Uzi replied, unable to stop herself from smiling at the memory.

"Exactly!" Khan exclaimed at the top of his lungs, before letting out a heavy sigh, hands planted firmly on his hips. "Everyone in WDF agrees that leaving would be suicide. But staying here feels like the same thing." Khan rubbed his face in frustration, clearly feeling the weight of the dilemma. "We are caught between a rock and, some kind of hard place."

Uzi held herself back from commenting, though she had a lot to say about the Worker Defense Force. The entire workforce, in her opinion, was a joke. Not even a funny one. It was filled with nothing but useless cowards that did nothing but play cards all day and night—literally. She can recall countless times where her dad had to find a new pack because they played cards so much the numbers would become worn out. They were still her father's friends and collages. So she will at least spare him saying such cruel words. Even if they were true.

Khan took a step toward one of the blast doors, his palm resting on its cold surface. "I wish things were simple," he said, his voice softer now. "I wish we could just make a door and solve everything. But doors take energon, and we've gotta start cutting down on a lot around here."

Uzi's attention was caught as she watched her father trail his hand along the door, a touch of sadness in his eyes. "I'm so sorry. And we were really set on giving you a new addition for you too. Maybe in a different time. I promise, dear."

"Dad, the doors aren't gonna talk back to you," Uzi said dryly, as if needing to bring him back to reality. Of course, she wasn't entirely sure it wasn't possible for a bot to transform into a door—she'd read somewhere about drones who could turn into chairs, so who knew?

Khan gave a small smile. "They used to. Long time ago, at least. She..." He paused, looking as though he was about to say something more, but stopped himself. "Ah, never mind that." He turned back to her, the fatherly suspicion now in full force. "Let's get back to it, young lady. What exactly are you doing here? Can't just be to check in on me, though...it's nice that you did."

Uzi hesitated. "I...need to measure the exterior hydraulic mechanism of door one for a school project."

Khan's brow lifted, his stare pressing. "Really?"

"Yes!" she insisted, scrambling to sound credible. "We're covering…uh, structural integrity, you know? The…uh, pressure points required to open and close massive doors." She shrugged. "For math class?"

Khan's look softened with amusement. "Math class, huh? And this 'project' needed hacking the security cameras, starting fires for distractions, and a midnight break-in?"

"I figured with what was going on...everyone could do with a few more distractions."

Khan chuckled "You're just like your mother...always taking the more fun route with stuff." Uzi couldn't help but smile hearing him say that.

"Good job, Uzi," she muttered to herself as she trudged through the snowy, metallic wasteland. The shattered skyline of Kalis loomed around her, ghostly in the dim light. Once a vibrant city, now just a graveyard of twisted metal and silence. "Keep proving the Decepticons are just a bunch of liars, exactly like the Senate wanted. Megatron would be so proud of you." Her voice dripped with sarcasm, and she sighed, staring down at the wrench in her hand. Her father's words echoed in her mind.

'Here, the wrench I used to tighten the bolts on my first door prototypes—and to put your mother out of her misery, when the murderous war machines got to her with their nanite acid—I want you to have it.'

Uzi rolled her eyes at the memory, as she wondered just how much he and other drones in their colony could benefit with some therapy. Although, a pang of guilt tugged at her. For all his quirks, her dad was likely the only one back at the colony who'd miss her. The moment he noticed she was gone, he'd be worrying himself sick. She did leave a note in her room explaining her plans. But she doubt it'll actually put him in any ease.

She'd put half a mile between herself and the colony before she stopped to really take in her surroundings. She was outside. She was finally on the surface of Cybertron. No more walls. No more feeling trapped. She should be happy, she would feel the rush of freedom. Instead all she could do is stare in awe of what was once a civilization. "It's…quiet," she whispered, the sound of her voice swallowed up by the vast emptiness. Kalis was truly a hollow shell. Whatever it had once been didn't matter anymore.

The city sprawled before her in haunting silence, its maze of ruined metal towers and crumbling vehicles stretching as far as her optics could see. The skeletal remains of skyscrapers loomed overhead, jagged and blackened, their twisted frames webbed with patches of frost-laden snow. Here and there, faint echoes of a long-faded civilization clung to the darkened beams, as if frozen in time by the cold blanket of an uncaring sky. The moon was barely visible through a thick haze of overcast gray, its dim glow casting pale shadows that deepened the shadows all around. Faint Thunder could be heard from far away.

"It'd be my luck that a storm starts the day I finally decide to run away," Uzi muttered, chuckling to herself as she swung her bag from her shoulder and began to rummage through it as she put away the wrench she had carried. She ticked off her checklist mentally. Energon goodies? Check. Blueprints for my gun mode? Check. Map of Cybertron cities? Check. Satisfied, she pulled out her own personal notebook, flipping quickly to her hand-scribbled plan. "Kaon's east of here. Two hics—that's… far. But not impossible. I think." She sighed and glanced back at the desolate cityscape. "Which way is east, though?"

Her visor flickered to show herself becoming worried as she searched through her bag again, she hoped to herself that was dumb enough to forget to bring a digital compass of some kind. To her utter horror, it would turn out she was. "Primus, damn it!" She slumped down onto a broken support beam and mulled over her options. Going back wasn't an option; she couldn't face her dad again, not with the explanation she'd have to give—as well she had been gone so so long he would have checked and found she was missing. If she did return, there would be no way for her leave again, not anytime soon. And time wasn't much a factor with the energon chip being broken. The entire mess of a situation made it feel like she was already lost.

"Guess I'll just pick a direction and hope for the best," she muttered, barely convinced by her own words. But as she closed the notebook in her hand, she looked at the Decepticon symbol that she had drawn on the front of it. She thought of their unwavering resolve, the stories of Megatron himself pushing through any obstacle to reach his goals and laughed as she thought how ridiculous it to give up at her first setback. She was a fighter, and she'd find Kaon somehow. "I'll find it," she said firmly, standing back up, her optics gleaming with renewed determination as she took her first step into the unknown.

She felt determined, she felt strong. She felt confident, and felt hope burn within her spark. It lasted for a solid ten minutes of walking, before she rounded a corner of overly large piece of rubble and saw...the Spire.

Uzi froze, her spark hammering in her chest as the horror of it all sank in. She'd expected to see the odd drone here and there, maybe the scattered remains of some old skirmish. But this…this was something out of a nightmare. Before her, the twisted, towering spire loomed—a monument made not of metal and stone, but of broken drones, piled high in a grotesque display. The tangled limbs jutted out in every direction, as though each drone had tried, in some last desperate moment, to reach toward something—escape, salvation, or just a final, futile struggle. Visors were frozen in various states of flickering failure, some still bearing the haunting glow of [Fatal Error] in red, staring blankly at nothing.

"Vector Sigma," Uzi whispered, barely breathing the words. Her optics were wide, scanning up the length of the towering pile of bodies stacked to the heavens. It seemed to disappear into the murky clouds, lost in the gray mist above. "It's real. It's shocking real." There was stories of such a thing. Of the drones that had left the colony, returning with scars and dead love ones. They brought with them tales of monsters and horrors. One of them being of this. Uzi had laugh at them, said they were hysterical. That it would only be a pile of a few hundred dead at most. The resolve she'd felt only minutes before felt laughably hollow now. She took a step backward, barely able to will herself to move away. "Okay. Not this way," she muttered, her voice quavering, the words spilling out faster as if she could talk herself out of her shock. "Other way it is."

She turned sharply, but the instant her foot hit the ground, a creak echoed beneath her. She glanced down, dread filling her circuits as she pulled her foot back to see a cracked visor staring up at her, still flashing the dreaded red message of [Fatal Error]. She'd stepped on the face of a dead drone, half-buried under snow, its twisted body hidden until she'd disturbed it. Only now did she realize that the snow-covered ground was dotted with metal fragments and broken bodies. Some drones lay exposed, others partially covered by the snow, like bones in a shallow grave, hands reaching out of the frost as if for mercy. The sight made Uzi's spark turn cold. She was standing on an entire graveyard, stretching across this entire part of city in every direction. Thousands—no, hundreds of thousands, possibly even more—lay here, their cold bodies filling the streets.

Panic shot through her like an electrical surge, and her only thought was to get out of there, to escape this valley of the dead. She began to retrace her steps, moving as quietly as she could, as though even the slightest sound might disturb the silence and awaken the ghosts of the city. Or worse, the ones that made such ghosts. She didn't dare to take her eyes off the Spire, as she could see that there was a opening upon the front of it. Within was a cavern of some kind. Possibly to house something? Or...

Uzi couldn't help but glance back at the drone she'd stepped on, fully taking in the scale of the Great War that had raged for millions of years. If this city alone held so many dead, then the planet must be littered with similar sites. "Primus… is the war even still going on?" she wondered out loud, questioning how such a conflict could still be raging if there were this many casualties in just one city. It was too much to think of, it was too awful to think. She had to—

"Whoa. That's… a bit extra."

Uzi blinked, her mind catching up to the presence in behind of her. Slowly, she turned her gaze, not believing for an instant that it was him—until she saw the familiar green of his visor. "Hey, Uz," Thad said, nodding casually before glancing toward the Spire. "I mean, I'd heard the stories, but it's insane to see for myself. Must be, like, hundreds of thousands piled up to make that thing. Maybe even—"

"Thad," Uzi interrupted, blinking hard as if that might make him disappear. But to her horror, he didn't. "What the shock are you doing here?"

Thad continued to act as if it were no big deal that he'd ventured outside the colony and stood with her right now before a living horror show. "Oh, we came out to look for you," he said, gesturing over his shoulder. Uzi leaned to the side and saw Lizzy and Doll standing just behind him, both staring up at the Spire with varied reactions. "Yo, loser, you're in the way of my shot," Lizzy said, holding up her Hasbro to snap a selfie with the Spire in the background. "Class is gonna flip their circuits when they see this. Doll, you want in?" Doll shook her head. "(I prefer to admire it from afar rather than be part of it. Besides, it's a bad omen to take pictures with corpses—you might end up as one of them,)" she replied, making Lizzy scoff in a playful way. "Oooh, look at you, being all foreboding."

Uzi took a couple of seconds to process the storm of emotions hitting her. She was caught between the dread of discovering the Spire and a simmering rage at realizing she'd been followed by all bots, it was these three. Her classmates—including two who'd never exactly been her biggest fans. Thad was…tolerable, at least, but this? This was almost too much.

"Nope," Uzi muttered, abruptly turning her back on the three and storming off. "No, no, no. Not doing this." She moved quickly, navigating her way through the street and around fallen drones, her only goal to put as much distance as possible between herself and the others. She could already hear Thad's footsteps trailing after her and his voice calling for her to wait up. "I said no!" she snapped, whirling around to face him. Without hesitation, Uzi's arm shifted, transforming into a barrel-like piece of her gun-mode. She knew it was mostly for show—she couldn't actually shoot without fully transforming, and her safety was still on—but the appearance alone was enough. Thad skidded to a halt, hands raised, the would-be weapon stopping him dead in his tracks. "Back off!" Uzi warned, her tone dangerously low. "I mean it, I swear by Primus! This is my journey to Kaon. I'm joining the Decepticons, and you're not taking me back!"

Thad stayed rooted, his hands up in surrender. "Easy, Uzi, we don't want to fight. Heck, no one said anything about taking you back," he said, clearly rattled but doing his best to keep his voice calm. Lizzy and Doll, meanwhile, stood off to the side, watching with expressions that bordered on disinterest.

"Can you be any more dramatic?" Lizzy asked with a scoff. "And Thad, she can't actually fire that thing. The firing mechanism isn't even connected to her arm. It's linked to her crotch—"

"How do you know that?" Uzi shouted, lowering her arm as a blush spread across her visor.

"It was in the notes you posted," Doll chimed in calmly, causing Uzi to groan and slump her shoulders in defeat as she reverted her arm back to normal. "Thad makes sense. Why are you two even here?" she asked, exasperation clear in her tone.

Despite Uzi's glare, Lizzy just shrugged, speaking as though this whole scene was an inconvenience, as if it was all too much of a hassle for her.. "We came as a favor. And, well, we couldn't miss the chance to get out of that colony. I mean, come on…" Her demeanor softened as her gaze drifted to the ruined cityscape, and her voice grew unexpectedly wistful. "It's…home." Much as Uzi hated to admit it, she understood. They all still dreamed of it—the original Primes, Primus himself, the Matrix, the Allspark, Vector Sigma. The list of names went on and on. To have a chance to experience any of it was beyond words. It was why so many would leave the colony, despite the dangers. They wanted to experience their home. They wanted to desperately be a part of it.

"Didn't peg you for a religious type," Uzi muttered, her voice tinged with bitterness.

"Oh?" Lizzy's attitude snapped back to its usual nonchalance in an instant. "What exactly do you know about me again?" Uzi just gave a dismissive wave of her hand, and the four of them stood in silence, staring at the ruins. They turned away from the Spire, their gazes drifting upward. Watching as the clouds above shifted and parted, Allowing them to see the stars for the first time in their lives.

"Beats staring up at the glow in the dark stickers in the Auditorium, doesn't it." Thad whispers. They all shared a chuckle. It was a somewhat peaceful moment, despite everything. Uzi would have found it comical if it weren't so bittersweet.

"I have to get going. I need to get to Kaon," Uzi said, her voice firm as she began to walk away again. "I promise, I'll come back with a new energon chip. After that, you won't have to worry about me. I'll be with the heroes of the war—"

She was stopped as Thad grabbed her by the arm.

"Uzi… please," he pleaded, his voice filled with desperation. "Who even knows if there's still a war going on? I mean, we're standing in the middle of a street full of corpses." Uzi glanced down and saw that she and Thad were still standing on the remains of fallen drones. Many looked as if they'd been torn apart by animals.

"Just look at the sign ahead of you," Thad added quietly.

"Sign?" Uzi blinked, surprised she hadn't noticed it before. Turning her head, she saw a large chunk of rubble that was no less than a few meters from her with something written on it. As if acting as a kind of morbid welcome mat for those that come to the Spire.

In the human language of English, it read:

ARE ALL DEAD

Uzi froze, the weight of the words settling in her cheat. The remnants of the city, the broken bodies around her, all seemed to speak in that single, haunting message.

"Okay. That's... admittedly very creepy."

"Why would you want to join this?" Thad asked, his voice tight with worry. "You know how dangerous it is up here—we all do. I mean, if the spire is real, what about the other stories of those who left the colonies? The giants, the drone-eating bugs, the one eye robo-satan, the pink tyrant, the angels of death—"

Suddenly, Uzi wrenched her arm free and turned to face him.

"Oh my Primus, how dense are you? I want to join so I can help end it! We live in a hole in the ground, wasting our lives away, doing nothing but just… nothing! There isn't a choice! We have to—" She broke off, tilting her head back with a groan of pure frustration. "Why can't you just understand—why do you even care?"

There was a pause, and then Uzi's expression softened, turning a bit conflicted. "Wait… this isn't some kind of thing where, like, the popular jock has a crush on the weird loner girl, right?"

Thad looked genuinely confused. "What? No. I mean, sorry, but… no." He scratched the back of his neck, trying not to seem too blunt. "I'm sure you're great, it's just, you know—" He trailed off, but they both heard Lizzy and Doll snickering nearby. "It's not that... there's another reason."

Uzi rolled her eyes, trying to hide her slight disappointment. "Then what? Why else do you feel like you have to stop me from doing what I want? I swear, if this is because you think the Decepticons are evil, then—"

"It's because I think you're the evil one!" Thad blurted, making Uzi flinch as though she'd been slapped.

"Uzi, look," he said, struggling to sound as sincere as possible. "You don't have any friends. You spend all your time alone, watching... weird stuff—"

"Anime isn't weird!" Uzi interjected, defensive.

"I mean the war videos! The ones where bots are killing each other!"

A small "oh" escaped Uzi, the reminder catching her off guard.

"You basically hate everyone. You turned yourself into a weapon—a gun! And now you want to join something where you're going to go and kill other drones, Uzi. And... that doesn't bother you? At least a little?"

"The killing people part? Not really. But that doesn't make me evil!"

"Uzi, it... kinda does."

A sharp clap cut through their exchange, and both Uzi and Thad snapped their attention toward Lizzy, who had stepped between them. With her usual, unbothered mean-girl attitude, she addressed them both plainly.

"All right, that's enough from both of you." She pointedly looked at Thad and jabbed a finger at his chest, pushing him back a step. "You need to give her some space. Uzi's made her choice, and you need to respect that. Freedom is the right of those who fight for it, and there's no one I know who's more ready for a fight than her."

Uzi blinked, taken aback. "Wait, you... know the Decepticon mantra?"

Lizzy just flipped her hair, letting the wind catch it as she ignored Uzi's question entirely, her attention already shifting away.

"And you," Lizzy continued, snapping her fingers right in front of Uzi's face, "wake up and realize that some people actually care about you. I don't know why; personally, I think you're about as likable as rust in my unmentionables." She didn't even flinch at the icy glare Uzi shot her way. "I get that not being normal is your whole thing, but could you, just this once, make an exception and realize that Thad—for some reason—actually wants to be your friend? Which, might I remind you, isn't something you have a lot of."

"...Bite me," Uzi replied on instinct, but the usual sting was missing. Instead, she slumped forward, running her hands down her face with a loud groan. "Ugh! Fine! You're right, and I hate it!" She turned to Thad with a reluctant sigh. "I'm sorry, all right? I said it. I know I'm kind of a mess. I just... thank you for being nice, I guess."

An awkward silence hung heavy as Thad's face softened with a smile. But Uzi barely noticed as she was too busy glaring daggers at Lizzy, who stood there with an infuriatingly smug grin, hands on her hips like she'd just won the day.

"For your information, I do have a friend! Me and Meatronrox13 have been messaging each other for years."

Lizzy just snickered, not even dignifying the statement with a response, which only fueled Uzi's irritation further. She opened her mouth, ready to start yelling something snarky back, but her words caught in her throat. There was a low rumbling in the distance, steadily growing louder—the unmistakable sound of engines, closing in fast.

The four of them turned, eyes widening as the shapes of several vehicles began to move towards them. The largest being some kind of military armored trunk tank, with a large cannon over the top of it.

"Uh..." Thad looked to Uzi as he took a step back. "Friends of yours, Uzi?" They was too far to tell for sure. But the way they were driving toward the Spire showed they weren't the least bit haunted by the sight. They might have been used to it—

"(Uzi.)"

Uzi turned to see Doll, who had bent down and was brushing snow off something half-buried. With a rough pull, Doll held up a jagged piece of metal plating. On it was the unmistakable Decepticon logo, scratched but still visible—a reminder of a long-gone era. Uzi's optics widened in horror as the realization hit.

"Autobots." She whispered the name, feeling a chill colder than the snow around her.