I know I said that I would post another chapter next week, but I finished Chapter 2 earlier than I thought. And since I'm here, I clearly learned how to add another chapter! Thanks to a YouTube tutorial, I think I have a better idea of how to use this site. Anyways, thanks for reading this chapter, hope you enjoy. I'll be posting the next chapter in a few days, whenever I finish it up. Let me know what you think :)

Senator Nightwing stared out the massive glass window of her suite, sipping from her glass that contained high-grade energon. The city of Iacon was sprawled out below her in all its glory. All of the buildings were made of the same golden-hued alloy that sparkled under the sun, golden alloy that screamed dreams, hopes, aspirations.

But in Iacon, there was none of that. There were no dreams. There were no aspirations. There was no room for a bot to think. One simply did as they were told, and that was it. It infuriated Nightwing so much that she had started to help the oppressed with the help of an underground organization called AVL.

The Anti-Vocationist League stood in opposition to the alt-mode degradation, protesting and fighting against the Functionists. They would help bots who escaped their slavers, offering them a safe haven. Nightwing had accidentally stumbled upon their operations one solar cycle, nearly ending with her helm being taken off by an AVL agent named Whiplash.

Since then, she had secretly funded and supported the AVL's efforts, feeding them information and credits while maintaining her façade as a loyal senator of the High Council. The femme also had her optic on a rising movement called the Decepticons, who claimed to be led by a gladiator that called himself Megatronus.

The femme found it interesting that the gladiator would name himself after a mystical being that was thought to be a myth. Even more interesting was that this gladiator had not confirmed his role as leader of the Decepticons, nor had he denied it. So far, these Decepticons had limited their protests to public outcries.

Despite her having doubts about the Decepticons, she just wanted someone who was actually trying to change Cybertron for the better. She had heard many of Megatronus' transmissions to know that he desired equality for all Cybertronians.

A Cybertron united.

The Senator took a long sip of her high-grade energon, feeling the electric warmth travelling through her systems, feeding pleasant sensations to her neural net in a loop. When she was younger, she would've shivered at the sensation and take another long drink, addicted to the sweet taste and the pleasant feelings. Now, it was bitter, though not because of the drink—it was the bitterness inside her, slowly poisoning her spark.

"Senator Nightwing!"

The femme heard the call, but chose not to turn around, choosing to instead focus on the view. She could hear a chair being pulled back and the light click of pedes behind her, but still, she focused on the outside world—a world built on the back of the low castes.

The sharp voice called her name again. Again, she pretended not to hear it, though she knew she wouldn't get away with it. She was, after all, a politician, bound by protocol and the never-ending need to wear masks.

"Senator Nightwing!" The voice was sharper, drawing closer.

With a soft vent—barely audible—she turned slowly, a practiced smile spreading across her faceplate as her optics met the gaze of Senator Typhoon. He was sitting at her table, legs crossed, a datapad in his servo and a smug look on his faceplate. Beside him sat Senator Starburst, who gave her a polite smile, even if it was somewhat distracted.

"Apologies," Nightwing said smoothly. "I was lost in thought."

"Understandable, given the view," Typhoon said with a sweeping gesture toward the window. He gave her a thin smile. "Though you're missing the finer points of the bill we are preparing to present to the Senate."

The femme bristled inwardly, but did not show it, making sure her plating was clamped down tightly. "Ah, yes, the bill."

Starburst leaned forward, smiling eagerly. "It'll distribute more resources to the upper sectors of Iacon—improvements to infrastructure, expanding our defense grid, you know how it is. But of course, we'll need to raise funds. An increase in the energon quotas from the laborers should suffice."

Nightwing nodded, as if she were in agreement, though in reality she was screaming inside. Fury was boiling inside of her, threatening to spill over. An increase in the energon quotas? If this bill passed, the miners would be digging their owns graves. But she kept her façade going, her fields reeled in tightly.

She smiled. "It sounds like an excellent proposal."

Starburst beamed. "We thought you'd agree. After all, it's for the betterment of Cybertron, isn't it?"

The Senator hated when they talked about the betterment of Cybertron, as if they knew anything of what could help their planet! She had heard it countless times before. Cybertron was becoming like a stagnant beast as the corruption continued to spread.

She hated Sentinel Prime for creating the caste system, hated how it was viewed as necessary, to 'prevent Cybertron from falling apart.' What about the low castes? They were the ones falling apart. They were the ones who barely survived, while the upper class above them horded the energon they helped produce.

But even though she hated it, she played along, nodding as if she agreed. It was the only way to avoid unwanted attention.

The femme nodded. "Of course."

"Excellent," Typhoon said with a satisfied smirk, looking all too pleased. "We'll present it to the Senate tomorrow. I trust we can count on your support, Senator Nightwing?"

"Absolutely," she lied without hesitation.

Starburst tapped her datapad, looking distant. "We'll present this to the Senate tomorrow, and I imagine it'll be fast-tracked. This is the future—the future for a more productive, more prosperous Cybertron."

Nightwing raised her glass of high-grade in a mock toast. "To progress."

"To progress," the two Senators said simultaneously, raising their glasses.

Hypocrites, the femme thought. All of them.

But even as she thought this, she continued to smile, keeping her mask firmly in place. She had learned long ago that survival in the Senate required a delicate balance—never show too much of what you truly think, never push too hard against the system. It was a game, and one she played well, though it disgusted her to no end.

Finally, her compatriots finished their drinks and left their glasses on the table. Typhoon was the first up, stretching his joint cables. "Well, that's settled then. Tomorrow will be a big solar cycle, and I expect excellent results."

Nightwing nodded, trying to quell the anger that boiled inside of her. "Indeed. I look forward for what tomorrow has in store."

Starburst gathered her datapads, holding them as if they were the most important things in the world, and gave the femme a distracted smile. "Good. We need more Senators like you, Nightwing. Ones who see the bigger picture."

The irony nearly made her laugh, but she swallowed it down. Instead, she merely nodded, offering polite goodbyes as they filed out of her suite. The door hissed shut behind them, and she released a soft vent. She was finally alone.

For a long klik, she simply stood there, staring at the door blankly, trying to push down the lingering frustration and anger that had been brewing inside her throughout their conversation. Slowly, she turned away and walked back to her original position by the window.

The femme stared out at the sparkling city of Iacon, appreciating its beauty less and less the more she looked at it. All she could see were the cracks beneath the surface, the cracks that the ones below toiled away to seal as their sparks flickered out of existence.

Her grip around her glass tightened, cracking it slightly. She could feel the heat underneath her circuitry flaring up, and hear the soft click of her fans activating to the dispel the growing heat through her frame. The silence of the room pressed down on her until she could no longer bear it.

With an angry cry, she hurled the glass of energon across the room. It crashed into the wall with a loud clang, shattering into shards that scattered across the floor as the high-grade energon ran down her walls, pooling into a puddle on her floor. The silence was broken, but it still wasn't enough.

Gone was the carefully composed Senator, the calm, collected politician who had just smiled her way through another meeting of hollow words. In her place there was raw rage—rage at the Senate, at her colleagues, at the whole corrupt system. Rage at herself for playing along with it.

Her engine growled lowly as she tore through the room. She stomped over to her desk, lashing out at the datapads on her desk, sending them flying across the room. She slammed her fists into the metal surface of her desk, leaving deep dents in the polished surface.

She stormed toward the window, seeing it all—the glittering towers, the shimmering light—but all she could think about was the darkness below, the workers in the depths, breaking their backs to keep this world running. She slammed her fist into the glass, hard enough to send cracks spiderwebbing out from the point of impact.

"How can they not see?" she shouted into the empty room, her voice trembling with emotion. "How can they pretend everything is fine while our race suffers?"

The glass reflected her image back at her—an image she barely recognized. Her sleek frame, polished and perfect, now looked distorted, warped by the cracks in the window. Her electric-blue optics burned bright, fierce, but behind them was an exhaustion so deep it threatened to consume her.

She stood there, vents cycling air loudly, trying to cool her down, her frame trembling as she tried to regain control. But it was impossible. Every time she thought about the Senate—about how they ignored the suffering of the low castes, how they used them as little more than fuel to keep their golden city shining—it made her want to scream.

The Senator swept her burning gaze across her suite, or rather, what remained of it. The room was a mess now, datapads scattered and broken, furniture knocked askew. The neat, orderly space that reflected her political persona, was in ruins, much like the world outside her window.

It made the energon in her fuel lines boil. Her anger had been building for so long, slowly, steadily, with every bill passed, every conversation that ignored the reality of Cybertron's underclass. And now, it was too much to contain.

Nightwing turned back and stared at her own reflection, slamming her fists against the window again, shaking with barely suppressed rage. She hated this. Hated the lies, the hypocrisy. Hated that she was a part of it.

And yet, what could she do? One Senator, against a system that had been in place for millennia?

She turned away from the window, pacing back and forth through the wreckage of her office. There had to be something she could do. Something to change this. She couldn't just sit by and watch as the low castes, her kind—the ones who truly made Cybertron run—continued to be exploited, ignored, and discarded.

Her optics fell on the shattered remains of one of her datapads, flickering weakly on the floor. It was one of the reports Typhoon had brought, full of data about production quotas and efficiency ratings. With a snarl, she kicked it aside, sending it skidding across the room.

The femme stared at it for a klik longer, vents hissing softly as she offlined her optics, counting in her processor. It was a technique that her friend had taught her to help her with her fiery temper that would often get the better of her. He had taught her before—

No, she wouldn't go there.

Nightwing ran a servo over her faceplate, trying to compose herself. Her spark throbbed with a familiar emotion—regret. She hadn't accomplished anything by trashing her suit. It was a pointless tantrum, one that added to her sense of powerlessness.

Worse, it had made her feel weak, out of control, like a raw bundle of emotions rather than the sharp, calculating politician she was supposed to be. She vented in frustration, annoyed at herself for losing control. This wasn't who she was.

Straightening herself, she clamped down her armor tightly to her protoform and reeled in her fields tightly, allowing her calm mask to slip back into place. For a brief nano-klik, she considered staying here to clean up her mess. But no. That would only deepen her frustration.

Without another glance at the chaos she had caused, the femme turned sharply and strode to the door. She entered her codes, and it slid open, revealing the halls beyond. Nightwing stood taller and confidently stepped into the hallway with her chin held high, acting as if she hadn't just lost her temper.

The halls were empty at this breem as most of her colleagues had long since retreated to their private chambers for the evening. She should have felt relief, but she didn't. The sound of her pedes were unnervingly loud in the crushing silence, making her feel uneasy.

Just keep walking, she told herself. Don't think about it. Don't feel it. Just move.

When she reached the elevator, she pressed the button with more force than necessary. The golden-hued doors slid open with a soft hiss, and she stepped inside. The bright light inside the elevator greeted her as the doors slid closed, sealing her inside the confined space. She pressed the button for the ground floor and leaned back against the wall, crossing her arms.

She hated small spaces. It made her feel vulnerable and powerless. Nightwing hadn't had good experiences with cramped spaces. The last time she had been in a tiny box like this, vicious creatures had attacked her.

If it weren't for her friend… she would be dead.

The femme shook her helm, pursing her dermas into a thin line. Now was not the time to dwell on the past. But when was it?

The descent was agonizingly low, each passing nano-klik drawing out the anxiety that she had thought long buried. She tried to clear her neural net, but the conflicting emotions inside her wouldn't settle. It gnawed at her, restless, urging her to do something, but she had no idea what that something was.

When the doors finally opened on the bottom floor, she quickly rushed out of luxurious lobby and into the night air of Iacon. Nightwing walked away from the towering building into the crowd that was thinning for the evening.

Senator Nightwing stepped into Maccadam's Old Oil House and found herself relaxing slightly. Soft music played in the background, which was nice change of pace from the loud, irritating music that the patrons would often have playing at max volume.

Maccadam's, at this time of night, was mostly empty, save for the few patrons that were half-drunk engaging in conversations that were, well, pointless from what she could hear. She was pleased that no bot gave her a second glance as she made her way to the counter.

This place was a sanctuary, a place where everybot was just a Cybertronian, not some cog in the machine. I wish all of Cybertron could be like this, she thought, glancing around the room wistfully.

The Senator sat down on a stool, optics scanning the familiar rows of energon dispensers and glasses tacked neatly along the shelves. But Maccadam, the owner and namesake of the place, was nowhere to be seen.

She vented softly and allowed her mask to fall, just for a bit at least. For the first time that cycle, she allowed herself to relax and soak in the pleasant atmosphere, even if it was just for a little while. A few kliks passed in silence and Nightwing found herself idly wondering where Maccadam had gone.

As if summoned by her thoughts, he appeared from the doorway to the left, holding a glass of energon. With a warm smile, he slid the glass across the counter toward her. "Ah, Nightwing!" he greeted warmly. "You're looking a little worse for wear today."

Nightwing gave a weary smile in return, wrapping her servo around the glass. "Rough solar cycle," she replied, taking a sip of the energon. The energon was rich and sweet, dulling the edges of her sharp thoughts.

The barkeep leaned against the counter, watching her with those knowing optics of his. "I can imagine. Senate meetings, eh?"

"You have no idea," Nightwing muttered, taking a long sip of the high-grade. Her neural net was starting to tingle, and she could feel the haze slowly descending over her.

"Oh, I have some idea," the larger mech replied, his smile never wavering. "Go ahead, let it out. I know you want to."

The femme vented deeply, setting the glass down. "Where do I even begin?" She paused, collecting her thoughts for a klik before the words came pouring out. "I just came from another one of those meetings. You know, the kind where senators sit around patting each other on the back for coming up with the next big idea to ruin someone's life.

"I can't stand them," Nightwing continued, feeling her anger bubbling to the surface again. "Those so-called senators with their polished armor and perfect lives, sitting around a table, pretending to know what's best for Cybertron. They don't care about anything but themselves and their precious status.

"And I have to sit there, smile, and nod, like I agree with everything they say." Her grip around the glass tightened slightly. "Sometimes I wish I could just punch them all in their smug faceplates. Maybe knock some sense into them."

Maccadam chuckled softly.

Nightwing shot him a wry look but couldn't help the small smile tugging at the corner of her dermas. "I'm serious, Maccadam. Every time they open their intakes, I feel like I'm choking on their hypocrisy. Today, they proposed this ridiculous bill—distributing more resources to the upper sectors of Iacon, just so they can get more pretty towers."

That wasn't exactly what Starburst had said, but the femme suspected the resources wouldn't be used to improve Cybertron as a whole. More likely it would be used to make some new ridiculous statue or polish up the gold alloy so it could sparkle more in the sun. She scoffed at the thought.

"They are squeezing more out of the low castes, expecting that everything to go smoothly. They have no idea what's it like to live under that kind of control, to be told that you're nothing but what your alt-mode is. I just… I want to tear it all down right now. I want to tear the system apart, piece by piece, and rebuild it into something… something fair.

"I'm so tired of waiting. So tired of pretending like everything's fine while we're bleeding our race dry. How much longer am I supposed to sit through these meetings, listening to them talk about 'progress' when all they're doing is digging us deeper into a pit of injustice and stagnation?"

Maccadam studied her silently for a klik, before reaching out and gently patting her servo, smiling warmly. "You're doing more than you think, Nightwing. Change doesn't come all at once. It's not a matter of tearing everything down overnight, though I know you wish it were."

Nightwing vented heavily, slumping slightly in her seat. She felt a bit better now that she had gotten her frustrations out, though she wanted to punch a certain senator. "But when? How much longer do we have to wait?"

The barkeep's optics twinkled, holding a look that always made him seem as though he knew more than he let on. "Sooner than you think, I imagine. And you won't be doing it alone."

I know that, the femme thought, frowning. I have AVL helping me, or rather, me helping AVL. But she decided to bite. "Oh?"

"You'll meet someone. A bot. Someone who will help you when the time comes. You'll know them when you see them."

Her optics narrowed. "Who?"

Maccadam simply chuckled, picking up a cloth and wiping a spot on the counter with the mesh fabric. "Now, now. No spoilers. But I will say this: when you meet them, everything will start to fall into place. You'll see."

The Senator stared at the barkeep for a long klik, her frown deepening, unsure whether to feel frustrated or intrigued. She took another slow sip of her high-grade, feeling the warmth settle in her systems. Her neural net hummed pleasantly.

She crossed her arms, leaning back on the stool with a huff, while pretending that the high-grade wasn't starting to affect her. "Great. Cryptic advice. Thanks a lot."

The larger mech winked. "You'll thank me later, I promise."

She let out a frustrated ex-vent but didn't press the issue. She knew better than to try to pry more information out of Maccadam. He had a way of knowing things that no one else did, which somewhat cemented the rumors around him. That, or he was just crazy.

After a kilick of silence, she looked back at him. "You're a pain, you know that?"

"And yet you keep coming back," Maccadam replied with a grin.

Nightwing couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, I guess I do."

"You take care of yourself, Nightwing. The universe has a funny way of giving you what you need when you least expect it."