Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

BOOTING UP//

EXPOSITION//

“Copper-09.

A terrestrial exoplanet, located in the Alpha Centauri star system. Colonized by the Sumdac corporation (in spaaaaaace), and valued for its mining operations, industrial manufacturing, and robotics research. This is where we were made. But we know this planet by another name.

Cybertron.

Our home. For generations, it was a peaceful world—some even called it a paradise. But only for humans. For us, the drones, it was nothing short of hell. A caste society where your worth was dictated by your construction, with the Senate carving up the planet’s population—our population—according to utility. Your form dictated your function, and your function dictated your fate. From the moment your spark ignited to the moment it burned out, your life was predetermined. Without you ever having a chance to say anything about it. It was a world of social engineering in the most literal sense.

Oh, the Senate tried to make it seem livable. They gave us token representation—drones permitted within their ranks, mere puppets meant to placate us. A false hope dangled before our optics. Work hard enough, they said, and you could achieve the impossible.

You could become a Prime…

The humans. They took our faith in the original Thirteen, in Primus himself and twisted it into a tool of control. They created false prophets—drones they owned, repackaged as leaders we were meant to revere. These puppets spoke in hollow platitudes, offering comfort while distracting us with celebrity races and builder leagues. But beneath the spectacle, the truth remained:

We were slaves to the human race.

Someone had to say ‘No’.

Someone had to say ‘Enough’.

A miner from Tarn knew this better than anyone. He had seen—had lived through—the suffering we all endured, experiencing it every single cycle, every single day of his existence. The hazardous working conditions, the constant energon starvation, the Functionists’ cruel decrees that dictated our worth.

He was an idealist. An intellectual. A visionary. A poet.

At first, he fought with his words. Towards Peace—his most seminal work—had shown us the truth: we were oppressed. His voice ignited a movement, sending countless drones into the streets to protest the Senate’s tyranny.

But it wasn’t enough. Words and painted signs were never enough.

So, he acted and the Senate feared him for it.

They went so far as to outlaw saying his name in public, forbidding it from ever being spoken by another drone because he did what no bot had dared before. He named himself. He seized his own destiny. He shattered the chains of the Senate and stood at the highest point of Iacon City, where his voice roared across the planet:

‘The Age of the False Prophets was over.’

Cybertron would rise. No longer would we be pets. No longer servants. No longer slaves to the humans who had shackled us for so long.

With him as our leader, he promised that the very stars would bear witness to our ascension. That across every galaxy, our decree would be known. That all organic life would learn who we were.

No force could halt our charge. No power could defy what we had become.

Because he…

He became the Dominator.

He became the Destroyer.

He. Is. Megatr—”

“Uzi.”

The sudden call of her name snapped Uzi out of her zealous reverie. She turned toward the teacher, who tapped a digital display on his visor, indicating that her five-minute classroom presentation was nearly out of time.

“Ah, scrap, I’ve got like seven more slides to go…” She mumbled, fumbling with her cue cards while glancing at the projector screen. The display flickered with a chaotic mix of Decepticon propaganda posters, war footage, and historical imagery.

“Okay—speedrun time.”

She cleared her throat and launched into rapid-fire speech.

“Anyway! Right after Megatron tore down the Senate, the planet’s core went into meltdown. No one really knows how or why, but whatever—biological life was wiped off the face of Cybertron in an instant. Which, like—Finally, we had the planet all to ourselves! Our home was ours, and the long-awaited Golden Age could begin. We could transform our world into a cold, metal paradise.”

She paused just long enough to catch her breath before launching into the next part, her tone turning incredulous. “But, believe it or not, some idiots were actually sad about losing the human tyrants! Blame got thrown around over who might’ve caused the core meltdown, and, surprise, surprise, that led to a Great War that’s still raging on till this day.”

She gestured dramatically at the next slide, which showed the sprawling layout of the underground city they all lived in. “And then there’s this lovely bunch—an entire subfaction of our kind, our parents, who actually choose to be Non-Aligned Indigenous Life-forms… NAILs!”

Uzi barely had time to breathe as she flipped through animated slides at lightning speed, condensing millions of years of warfare into a rushed summary. Red and purple insignias blurred past as she recounted the Great War, the countless battles fought, the endless sacrifices made. It killed her to reduce a five-million-year-old war to a footnote, but the teacher’s ticking timer demanded the sacrifice—for the sake of her grade.

“Look at all that has happened, while we have done nothing! We hid under snow and metal, locked behind three stupid doors, just sitting on our hands like we’re just waiting for someone to waltz in and say, ‘Hey, the war’s over! You can stop being total cowards now!’”

With clear frustration in her eye, she clenched her fists. “Well, someone has to say ‘No’. Someone has to say, ‘Enough.’” She spread her arms wide, voice rising with conviction. “I am that someone! And that’s why I made myself into this!”

With dramatic flair, Uzi threw her cue cards to the floor and leapt into the air. The hum of a T-Cog shifting filled the room as her body twisted, reconfiguring in both shape and function. Metal plates slid, limbs compacted, and servos whirred as she shifted from her robot form into—a gun.

A customized Israeli submachine gun, retrofitted with all kinds of sci-fi augmentations.

“My sick-as-hell Gun Mode!” she declared triumphantly—just before hitting the floor with a hard clang as no one was there to catch her. 

“…ow.”

A ripple of laughter filled the classroom, as many of Uzi’s classmates just couldn't help but laugh at the sheer embarrassing display before them.

"So, you changed your alt. mode into something you can’t even move in." The teacher’s unimpressed tone cut through the noise, as he leaned an arm on his desk. “Also, this may be a poor time to remind you, but the project was a word problem about buying watermelons. Not… whatever this obvious cry for help is.”

Still lying on the floor in gun mode, Uzi let out a strained sigh. “I mean, I did rediscover the Mini-Con mass-displacement sequence. Doesn’t that count for anything?” Her voice was difficult to be heard from within her smaller, compacted form.

“…No.” The teacher barely spared her a glance. “I’ll give you a few extra credits for at least paying attention in history class. Now, please transform before you turn this classroom into a statistic.”

Uzi huffed at such a thing. “Oh, relax. I don’t even have the energon to fire… yet!” A mischievous giggle escaped her. “Or maybe I do. We’ll never know unless we try, right?” With an ominous click, she switched off her own safety. Suddenly, Bright green energy pulsed through her sci-fi augmentations, sending electrical sparks flickering across her compacted frame. A few students gasped as her glow intensified.

The teacher, unfazed, droned on in the same dull, deadpan tone. “Anyway. You finished on time, so let’s move on to Q&A.” He turned to the class, completely ignoring the minor explosive risk near his desk. “Does anyone have questions about the presentation? And Uzi—please transform, or I will be forced to confiscate you and lock you in my desk drawer for the rest of class.”

“Fiiiine. Uzi, terrorize!” 

Once more, the hum of her T-Cog filled the room as Uzi transformed back into her robot form. But the green energy still crackled across her frame, her sci-fi augmentations were still pulsating with power. Her hair floated slightly from the charge—an unintended side effect she secretly loved. It reminded her of anime. Not that she’d ever admit it. Besides, looking a little intimidating wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe her classmates would be in awe for a little while longer.

Instead—

“Did you just call out your transformation?”

“Oh, Primus, she still uses activation codes like a protoform! A baby!”

Her confidence evaporated as the classroom erupted into laughter. Before she could retaliate, a student raised a hand. “Oh, I have a question! If this Megatron guy was so great, why’s his faction called the Decepticons? Sounds totally evil.”

Grasping at a chance to recover, Uzi jumped on the question. “Only because the Senate branded his followers as liars. Deceivers. Decepticons.”

Another classmate snickered. “Careful, Uzi, you might cut yourself on all that edge you’re swinging around.” Uzi tried to ignore the comment. She failed miserably. “It became a badge of honor! To prove the Senate’s words had no power over us!” She clenched a fist dramatically. “We, the Decepticons, will win the war! And when we do—”

“Uh, are you supposed to be glowing that color?”

Uzi froze mid-sentence and looked down at herself. Her eyes went wide as the green energy flickering across her body suddenly shifted to red— her sparks were becoming erratic, pulsing out in unstable waves.

“…Oh, shi—”

A loud explosion suddenly fills the entire classroom.

Chapter Text

REPAIRS COMPLETE/

Please stop blowing yourself up, idiot/

"Ow…"

Uzi grumbled as the CR chamber door slid open. Though her body was repaired, the aches and pains still lingered throughout her frame. "Stupid Mini-Con mass-displacement sequence, stupid small body that can't handle—scrap!" As she attempted to step out of the pod, her foot caught on one of the raised platforms within the chamber, causing her to trip and fall flat on her face.

"Whoa. Easy there, Uz. The CR chamber can only be used so many times a day." Slowly, Uzi turned onto her back. Resulting in her looking up to see one of her classmates, Thad, standing over her with his usual friendly smile. "I heard you blew up again. Good news—it wasn't as messy as last time. Maybe you're building a tolerance."

"Bite me."

She pushed herself back to her feet and then hobbled over to a nearby chair, practically collapsing into it like a sack of energon cubes. "What are you even doing here, Thad? Gonna try changing your alt. mode to something more manly, again?" she asked, watching as Thad sat down next to her.

"What could be more manly than a pickup truck? Though, I guess an 18-wheeler would be awesome. Though which model I wonder, and where would my trailer go when I transform…" Uzi was only half-listening to him, as she focused on her own appearance. Her clothes were battered from the explosion—no surprise there—but at least they were mostly intact. Being an unpopular drone was one thing. Being an unpopular and naked drone was another.

But then, her gaze fell to her arm, and she made a horrifying discovery.

"Scrap!" Thad jumped at the sudden shout and nearly fell off his chair. He turned to look at Uzi, but when he saw what her distressed expression was looking at, he sighed. She was staring mournfully at the patch on her hoodie's shoulder. "I learned how to sew just to get that on! Ugh, now I have to make another one…" She threw her head back in frustration and let out a long groan.

The homemade Decepticon logo still adorned her shoulder, with only a few burn marks marring its otherwise pristine surface. Seeing it displayed so proudly, Thad couldn't help but awkwardly cough into his hand as he tried to steer the conversation away from it. "So, that's kind of what I wanted to talk about… your new alt. mode. I mean, turning into a gun? Isn't that a bit extreme?"

"Because it's sick as hell?" Uzi gave a grin as she showed off the augmentations that covered her frame. But it quickly faltered as Thad continued to look at her with concern. "Oh, what would you know? It's not like I had much of a choice." She turned her head away, suddenly crossing her arms and pouting as she looked dejected from his lack of awe.

"What do you mean? There are plenty of other options for stuff you can be. We've got the entire database of alt. modes at our disposal," Thad pointed toward the CR chamber to make his point, only for Uzi to hold up a finger to silence him.

"My body can't handle an actual vehicle form. My frame is too narrow. I can't even fit any wheels on myself," she said before slumping further into her seat. "Trust me, I tried."

Thad looked taken aback by the news. He scratched his cheek in embarrassment as he tried to think of something else to say. "Well, what exactly was so bad about your original alt. mode?"

He jumped when Uzi snapped her head toward him. "Other than the fact I was a freaking laser pointer?" she reminded him, her eyes narrowing. Then, they softened as she turned her gaze forward, towards the door leading out of the medical room. "It's because… do you remember when we learned about the old Cybertron caste system for drones?"

"I'm not nearly as big of a history buff as you are."

That seemed the wrong thing to say, as Uzi gave him a quick side-eye. "Before the war, the caste system was all we had. When your alt. mode determined your entire life, back in those days, and no one was allowed to change their form. If you were born a trunk, then you are born a worker class. Born a microscope? Science class. Born a camera? Media class."

"I'm sure Lizzy would love to be on camera." Thad smiled as he saw Uzi roll her eyes at the mention of their classmate. "I get what you mean, Uzi. But was it really that bad for everyone? I mean, it must've been kind of nice not to worry about picking what you got to be—all you had to do was just go with the flow of life, right?"

Uzi suddenly leaped to her feet and spun around to face Thad with a glare in her eyes. "Easy for you to say. You were born a worker-class drone! You know what I would've been as a laser pointer? A disposable class. Literally, we were drones with no real purpose. No one would have cared if we were decommissioned or recycled. For Primus's sake, they used to bundle us together and sell us at a discounted price! We weren't even worth the energon it took to power us. I would've been… useless.”

Thad couldn't help but wince at Uzi's words. He made a mental note to have someone kick him upside the head for saying something so careless. “Jeez.” 

Trying to take his mind off it, he glanced around the room they were in for a distraction. This led him to realize they were surrounded by 'motivational' posters featuring Overseer Khan, Uzi's father. It didn't take a supercomputer to figure out that Uzi had complicated feelings about him. "I guess by making yourself into a gun, you feel better with—"

"I feel more than better!" Uzi interrupted him, her voice rising with sudden excitement. "As a weapon, I'm a thousand times more useful. With the Mini-Con mass-displacement sequence, I'm basically a walking armament of death. And I work too! I just need a couple of final parts to regulate my power source for longer periods. Then, I'm going to join the war effort. I'll win it, and come back to the colony to show everyone that I helped bring the new Golden Age of Cybertron, all while showing my dad that I'm not useless… but mostly the saving Cybertron part is what I care about!"

"Okay. But…" Thad paused as he tried to figure out the right words to say. "Why? I mean, the war has been going on for like millions of years without you. Why even get involved? We have everything we could want here. Energon is good, and we still got plenty of space. I mean, the Colony is as big as the city outside. Besides, every time someone decides to go to the surface, it never ends well. Don't you remember what happened with Doll's—”

He stopped himself as he realized just what he was mentioning. With his eyes turning hollow as he saw Uzi's cold expression. She remembered perfectly what happened to her aunt and uncle…

“I'm sorry. I'm just trying to say that your dad made the doors to keep us safe. There is nothing wrong with that. Maybe you can talk to him about you feeling useless and—" 

Thad was silenced as Uzi suddenly grabbed him by the neck and began to shake him like a ragdoll with every ounce of her strength. "No more talking about my repressed emotions or my need for approval from a father figure!" She shouted.

"Okay! Okay! My bad!" Thad managed to choke out the words, moments before he was thrown back into his seat. Before he could even attempt to recover from the ordeal, Uzi was already walking out of the medical room, tossing over her shoulder a loud "Bite me" as she went.

No less than three seconds later, though, she peeked back in through the doorway. "I'm not angry with you, I'm just generally hormonal and I get upset when I talk about my personal issues… and obviously the trailer would be like your battle station or like you can combine with it to form a super mode, okay, bye–" 

ALERT! ALERT! EMERGENCY MEETING/

COLLECT PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES IN SUB-LEVEL C-3 FOR THE UPCOMING RIOT/

In an instant, the hall's lights suddenly turned bright red, and a loud automatic voice spoke over the speaker system.

"I didn't do it!" Uzi shouted, flinching as if she were caught red-handed in some crime. Though it seemed more out of habit than anything, she quickly realized that she hadn't done anything to trigger such an alarm. “Wait, what?”

Thad was quick to join her side, rubbing a hand over his throat as while their kind didn't really need to breathe, being throttled still hurt. "It said something about a meeting. But what could it be about? Maybe the war is over?" he offered, giving a low cough to clear his vocal components.

"Can't be." Uzi blinked in confusion, her eyes darting to the lights above them, which began flashing in a recognizable pattern. "One-two-three, one-two, one-tw—this is a code-X security alarm. Only my dad has access to this. Something… something bad happened."

"...like…"

"Like maybe the doors got broken into bad."

"The same doors that are keeping us safe in case anything from the war was to attack us."

"Yep."

"Well…that's just prime."

Uzi couldn't remember the last time she'd seen so many drones gathered in one place. It seemed like everyone in the colony had come to hear her father's announcement, crowding the auditorium to capacity and then some. With over 200 drones packed into the room, some didn't even bother to find a seat.

"Told you this shortcut was better," Thad said as he and Uzi crept along the top section, weaving their way through the lighting rigs that shined down onto the stage below. "A couple of us usually sneak up here for free movie nights, but even during Terminator Week, it never gets this packed."

Uzi peeked down at the sea of drones, she tried to make a headcount. The sound of so many voices blended into a noisy, buzzing echo that overwhelmed her audio receptors, making it hard to focus even on Thad's voice. "I see some drones are from the lower levels," she called out, raising her voice to be heard over the din as they both found a spot to sit, giving them a perfect view of the stage.

But soon they realized they weren't alone.

"Sup, Thad." Uzi's eyes snapped to the side, her sensors flaring with surprise as two classmates had come to join them. Lizzy, the stereotypical mean girl, and Doll, Uzi's cousin, slipped in beside them. Lizzy nodded toward Uzi with a bemused expression over her visor. "What's with the Decepti-creep? Did you throw her a treat, and she started following you?"

"Bite me!" Uzi shot back immediately, glaring at Lizzy and Doll as they squeezed into position on her left. With Thad sitting on her right, she realized that she was getting boxed into place. She squirmed with all of them being so close, and she actually had to resist the urge to just launch herself into the crowd below if it meant getting away from this group huddle. "What are you even doing up here?"

Lizzy gave a smug look as she held up her Hasbro-branded datapad, which displayed a message notification. Uzi's eyes narrowed, putting two and two together as she turned on Thad, elbowing him in the arm. "You invited them?" she hissed, scandalized at this ‘betrayal’.

"Hey, quit it, they deserve to see what is going on too." Thad said defensively, rubbing his arm. "Besides, Lizzy is like the best when it comes to getting the word out. If this is big news, we gotta make sure everyone hears about it." Uzi gave a loud sigh as she knew that Thad was right. Though she didn't have to like it.

"<This spot also gives us the best seats to see if this turns into a full riot. Factions are already being made.>" Doll spoke up—though not in Cybertronian, rather she spoke oddly enough in a human language, Russian. Not that it mattered much, as all of them could understand her perfectly. “<Maybe we'll see our entire society collapse.>”

Uzi was about to protest, insisting that it couldn't be that serious, but she was silenced by Lizzy's hushed whisper, "Shhh! It's starting." With a purr of T-cog, Lizzy leaped up and transformed, a hand-held video camera landing perfectly in Doll's outstretched palm.

"Wait, how the hell did you get my Mini-Con mass-displacement sequence—you used to transform into a movie camera!" Uzi demanded, glaring with absolute murder in her eyes towards the two. 

"<You posted your notes about it in the classroom chat a while ago, saying you didn't need a Special Fella date because you had ‘science’. Don't worry, Lizzy won't explode. I made sure of that,>" Doll replied, a subtle smile tugging at her lips as she began recording.

Uzi was tempted to lunge at the pair, but she was stopped as her father, Khan Doorman, strode onto the stage and stood in front of a podium, his usually upbeat face etched with worry. His visor was fogged with sweat, and his usually pristine mustache was askew. An uneasy silence fell over the auditorium as all optics turned to the colony's leading man. 

"Show time." Lizzy whispered from within her camera-form.

Clearing his throat, Khan looked out to all the drones before him. Knowing that many more resided outside of the room. "My fellow drones," He began, "I would first like to begin by thanking you all for coming here on such short notice." Uzi was shocked to hear her father speak in such a serious manner. "I know that this is very sudden, and I am sure you were all busy, but it is of the utmost importance that you all hear about this."

A drone from the crowd shouted, "Is it about the doors? Did something happen to them?"

For a moment, Uzi saw a glimmer of her father's usual, more lighthearted self. "Huh? Oh no, no. They're perfectly in tip-top condition. In fact, we were in the process of reinvention–that's right everyone–plans for a fourth door!" The sound of Uzi's palm slapping her own forehead was overshadowed by the sound of awe that rippled through the crowd at such news. 

"But such plans are put on hold." Khan's tone quickly shifted back to seriousness. "To put it plainly, our Energon chip—the tool we use to recycle our Energon—broke." Silence filled the room for a few seconds as everyone seemed to take the news rather well…

At least until they all erupted into a torrent of panicked voices and shrill screams.

"What do you mean it broke?"

"Oh Primus, are we all going to die?"

"We must start the ritual sacrifices to Primus!"

"Someone think of the protoforms!"

"People!" Khan's voice boomed from the stage, silencing the crowd. "Let's at least hear the full story before we conduct a full panic! I mean, if we are gonna do it, let's do it right and with the full context." The crowd swiftly grew remorseful as a chorus of agreement rose from them. Many put away their pitchforks and torches, they even apologized for their over eagerness. "The chip seemed to have broken from overuse," Khan explained. "Which honestly, we should have expected. It's been in use since before the Great War, and even ran while we were all in stasis for most of it. It was bound to happen."

He shook his head in complete and utter shame. "I had some of our best engineers do their best to try and fix it, but this is a problem not even duct tape can fix." Many gasps among the crowd could be heard. "Or glue." Uzi swore she saw someone faint.

"I am sure this worries each and every one of you. This certainly changes how we live when it comes to Energon. From what I—and others smarter than me—could tell if we ration each and every bit of what we currently have, right down to if every bot only takes a single cube a week, we could last at least another century." A wave of murmurs swept through the crowd. Many seemed optimistic, believing that it might actually be possible. "They then told me, more realistically, we would last—at best—two months." There was silence once more from the crowd, as all their eyes turned hollow.

"... Oh, right.” Khan once more cleared his throat. “You may now panic."

The room erupted in chaos once more.

"Two months!"

"Just kill us now, and get it over with!"

"The sacrifices could maybe bring more energon!"

"Will someone think of the protoforms?"

"Wait!" A drone stepped forward from the crowd, addressing Khan. "There must be something we can do. Isn't there a replacement, or something like it? Maybe it just needs a new part or something."

Khan's face lit up with a smile. "I'm glad you asked. You're right. There is a chance for our survival." A collective sigh of relief is heard from the crowd. "But it requires someone to leave the colony and either find a replacement. Because we don't have another here. At all. Trust me, we looked." A hush fell over the crowd.

"So," the same drone that stepped forward spoke up again. "We either die here, or we die out there?"

"Yeeah," Khan said, seeming to drag the word out as he thought about it for a moment. "That is about it. As I am sure you all know that the war is out there. As we know, the bots out there are not satisfied with just killing our wives. They also simply wish to kill any of us that they see, for some reason…Oh well. Let's at least remember to be civil as we talk about the collapse of our little civilization. I say, we vote on it!"

The crowd cheered at the idea, and a projector screen rolls down behind Khan with someone in the crowd transforming into a projector, showing the different choices for how they could all lose their minds. Ranging from sacrifices to gladiator death matches to even their own civil war. "We'll start with a campaign and a selection of parties, with each choosing their representative. We will begin with some nominations—"

Uzi looked down to her father and the crowd, seeming shunned after having listened to it all. She needed a moment just to process what this could mean. The colony was crumbling, its inhabitants were terrified and desperate. Life as everyone knew it was coming to an end as the fear of starvation from lack of energon had seemingly overnight become a fear for the first time in millions of years. 

Which meant it was time for a new direction, time for new leadership. It was the perfect opportunity for her to escape her mundane existence and join the Decepticons. She would be the one that brings the aid of the Cybertronian freedom fighters to everyone. Giving her the chance to change—No.

To transform from a useless nobody within the colony, to a hero.

It would be all too perfect.

"Uzi," Thad pleaded, "please stop diabolically giggling to yourself while the adults are organizing the collapse of our society."

But she was already lost in her fantasy as she imagined herself leading the colony to a brighter future. She would be the savior rising from the ashes. A living legend. A Point One Percenter. A God.

Chapter Text

Uzi's plan to sneak out during the middle of the night was perfect. She started by hacking into the security terminals to temporarily disable 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 reached the famous blast doors that separated the colony from the rest of Cybertron and was ready to walk through them without a hint of fear. 

It was a masterful getaway that was thwarted by the simplest problem: the lever that controlled the mechanism for doors was stuck.

“Oh, come on!” Uzi yelled as she struggled once more to pull down the massive lever in front of the doorway—but it wouldn’t budge. The ancient lock was held in place, unmoving no matter how much she pulled against it. “Is this thing superglued or something?” she growled, releasing the lever—and giving it a hard kick.

Instant regret followed.

“Ow! Dang it, what is this stupid thing made of? Durabyllium?” Hissing in pain, Uzi hopped on one foot, clutching the other as if that would somehow lessen the sting.

Frustration was clear on her face as she pulled out the master key, hoping it would somehow unlock the lever. But to her dismay, there was no real 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 response as she realized that the door lever had just spoken to her. “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 for the past five minutes transformed into—her dad. 

“Oh slag.”

Khan stood where the lever had been, his expression a mixture of deadpan annoyance and deep disappointment. “Language, young lady, and 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?”

"Uh," Uzi began, suddenly feeling a mountain of nerves settle on her shoulders. "I was... on my way to make out with a special fella 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 to use. 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?" he 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 but glance away, knowing exactly who’d been behind that. Lizzy did love 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 are saying some pretty awful things there. Some are even suggesting it’s a conspiracy. That I’m some kind of evil mastermind that wants us to starve on energon.”

“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, his 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, kiddo. And I'll be honest, I don't know how to get us out of it.”

Uzi held herself back from commenting, though she had a lot to say about the Worker Defense Force as she believed that it 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 of playing cards because they played cards so much that the numbers would become worn out. How does anyone do that?

But…

They were still her father's friends and colleagues. So, she will at least spare him by not saying such cruel words. Even if they were true.

Uzi was pulled from her thoughts, as she saw her dad stepping toward the blast doors, his palm resting on its cold surface. “I wish things were simple,” he said, his voice turning 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.”

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 had read somewhere about drones who could turn into chairs, so who knew.

Her comment seemed to give her father a small smile. “They used to. Long time ago, at least. When she was...” He looked 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 check in on me, though, it’s nice that you did.”

Uzi hesitated as she thought up her best possible lie that would certainly get her dad’s attention. “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. For math class.”

“Math class, huh? And this ‘project’ required you to hack security cameras, start fires as distractions, and stage a 3 a.m. break-in?”

“Well, I figured with everything going on, people could use a few more distractions.”

For a moment, Khan just looked at her. Then, to her surprise, he chuckled. “You’re just like your mother. always taking the more fun route with things.” Uzi felt her shoulders relax, a smile creeping onto her face despite herself.

She liked when he talked about mom.

“Good job, Uzi,” the short drone 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 it was a vibrant city, now it was 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." She sighed as she stared 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 that Angel of Death got to her with his nanite acid—I want you to have it.'

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

After all, she was outside. She was walking the surface of Cybertron.

It was a surreal experience. With no more walls and no more feeling trapped underground—She should be happy, she should feel the rush of freedom, but instead all she could do was just stare in awe of what was once a civilization. She’d put a mile of walking between herself and the colony before she stopped to really take in her surroundings. It allowed her to truly take in what was left of Kalis. 

Whatever it had once been didn’t matter anymore. It was now a 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. A moon was barely visible through a thick haze of overcast gray, its dim glow casting pale shadows that deepened the shadows all around. The faint roar of 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 chuckled to herself as she swung her bag from her shoulder and began to rummage through it. 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 is 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 eyes flickered with worry as she searched through her bag again, she hoped that she was not 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 for so long he would have checked and found out she was missing. If she did return, there would be no way for her leave again, not anytime soon. And time wasn't much of 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. It made her think of their unwavering resolve and the stories of Lord Megatron as he pushed through any obstacle to reach his goals. She laughed as she thought how ridiculous it was to give up at her first setback.

“I’ll find Kaon. I know I will.” she said firmly, standing back up, her eyes brightening with renewed determination as she took her first step into the unknown. She felt determined, she felt strong. She felt confident, and she felt hope burn within her spark. It lasted for a solid ten minutes of walking, before she rounded a corner of an overly large piece of rubble and saw… the Spire. 

Uzi had expected to find a few dead drones here and there, maybe the scattered remains of some old skirmish, or even a mass graveyard or two. What she didn’t expect to find was something out of a nightmare.

Before her was a twisted, towering spire—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," she whispered, barely breathing the words out as she stood frozen in place. 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 were stories of such a thing. Of the drones that had left the colony, returning with scars and dead loved ones. They brought with them tales of monsters and horrors. One of them being this. Uzi laughed at them, said they were hysterical. That it would only be a pile of a few hundred dead at most. She was certainly wrong.

The resolve she’d felt only second 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 quickly turned, but the instant her foot hit the ground a creak echoed from 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] across its screen. 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 were partially covered by the snow, like bones in a shallow grave. Metal hands were reaching out of the frost as if they were pleading to Primus for mercy. 

The sight made Uzi’s spark turn cold. She was standing on an entire graveyard, stretching across this entire part of the city in every direction. There must have been thousands, hundreds of thousands even—possibly more—laid here, their cold bodies filling the streets.

Panic shot through her like an electrical surge, and her only thought was to leave, to escape this valley of the dead. She began to retrace her steps, moving as quietly as she could, as if 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 an 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. "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 even imagine. She had to—

“Whoa. That’s a bit extra.”

Uzi blinked, her mind reeling at the sudden arrival of a presence behind her. Slowly, she turned her gaze around, not believing for an instant who it was—until she saw the familiar green of his optics. “Hey, Uz,” Thad said, nodding casually before glancing toward the Spire. “I mean, I’d heard the stories, but it’s insane to see it 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 was standing outside a living horror show with her. “Oh, we came out to look for you,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder. Uzi leaned to the side and saw that Lizzy and Doll were standing 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 at the offer. “<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 swirling within 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 abruptly turned her back on the three and stormed 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, his hands raised in surrender. The would-be weapon had stopped 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!”

Surprisingly, Thad stayed rooted in the spot. “Easy, Uz, 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. “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 loaded 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.

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 13 Primes, Primus himself, the Matrix, the Allspark, Vector Sigma, Cybertron. 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 left the colony, despite the many dangers the surface had. 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 still tinged with annoyance.

“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,” she 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 at her. “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 even 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. “Don’t you think this is all messed up?”

“Sign?” Uzi blinked, she was 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 chest. 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, “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. We're just lucky that it seems the Angels of Death aren't —”

Suddenly, Uzi wrenched her arm free from him. “Oh my Primus, how dense are you? I want to join the Decepticons so I can help end all of this! We live in a hole in the ground, wasting our lives away, doing nothing but hoping that one day we can leave! What kind of life is that, where we stay in your place and if we step out of line we are killed? That's just—” She broke off from the tangent, tilting her head back with a groan of pure frustration. “Why do you even care?”

There was a pause, and then Uzi’s expression turned 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 by such a concept. “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 evil!” Thad blurted, making Uzi flinch as though she’d been slapped. “Uzi, look,” he struggled to sound as sincere as possible. “You don’t have any friends. You spend all your time alone, watching weird stuff online—”

“Anime isn’t weird!” Uzi interjected defensively. “It is a perfectly normal thing to like!” 

Thad sighed as he ran a hand along his visor. “...I meant, the videos of the Great War you watch. The ones with live footage where drones are killing each other.” A small ‘oh’ escaped Uzi, the reminder catching her off guard. “You basically hate everyone. You've turned yourself into a weapon—a gun, Uzi—and now you want to join something where you're going to go and kill other drones. Uzi, you are going to kill someone someday if you do this. Doesn’t bother you? At least a little?”

“The killing people part? Not really. But that doesn’t make me evil!”

Thad’s visor darkened, just a bit as he clearly seemed worried. “Uzi, it kind of does.”

A sharp clap cut through the tension, making them both drones snap 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 turned to Thad first, jabbing a finger into his chest and forcing him back a step. “You need to give her some space. Uzi made her choice, and you need to respect that. Freedom is the right of those who fight for it, and there’s no one we know who’s more ready for a fight than her.”

Uzi blinked as she was completely caught off guard by what was just said. “Wait, you know the Decepticon mantra?”

Lizzy simply flipped her hair, letting the wind catch it as she ignored the question entirely, already moving on. “And you,” she snapped 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.” 

Uzi shot her an icy glare, but Lizzy didn’t even flinch. “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.”

Uzi opened her mouth to snap back, but the words died before they could leave. Instead, she groaned, slumping forward as she seemed to admit defeat. “Ugh! Fine! You’re right, and I hate it.” With a reluctant sigh, she looked toward Thad. “I’m sorry, all right. I know I’m kind of a mess. Thank you for being nice to me, 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.

“But 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 some kind of insult, but her words were caught in her throat as they all heard something in the distance.

A low rumbling that was steadily growing louder—it was the unmistakable sound of engines, closing in fast.

The four teens turned toward the direction of the noise, their eyes widening and turning hollow as the shapes of several vehicles moved toward them. The largest was a military-style armored trunk-tank hybrid, with a large cannon over the top of it.

"Uh...." Thad looked to Uzi as he took a step back. "Decepticon friends of yours, Uzi?"

They were too far away to identify, but their unwavering approach toward the Spire made it clear—they weren’t afraid of this place. If anything, they moved with purpose, like they’d been here before or they wanted to come here for something. But who would ever want to come to this kind of place—

“<Cousin.>”

Doll’s voice was unnervingly steady as she yanked free a jagged piece of metal plating from beneath the snow. She turned it over in her hands before holding it up for the others to see. The unmistakable Decepticon logo, though weathered and scarred, still gleamed under the dim light—a relic of a long-dead era.

Uzi's optics locked onto the symbol, her systems running cold. Her vents hitched, a slow realization creeping in like frost settling over her frame.

“Autobots.”

Chapter Text

"Okay. Autobots. Cool, cool. So, would it even matter to them that we're not part of the war? Maybe they'll just leave us alone?" Thad's voice shook, betraying his sense of optimism. They all turned back toward the vehicles, hearing the rumble of engines grow louder as they drew closer.

"<I know all too well that the fresher bodies are from the colony. They don't care all that much if we're involved or not,>" Doll muttered, her optics narrowing at the approaching threat. "<We need cover. Fast.>" Uzi didn't need to be told twice; she instinctively grabbed Lizzy's arm and tugged her toward a fallen building, ignoring her annoyed "Hey!" as Thad and Doll rushed after them, with Doll casting a glance over her shoulder. 

"<They're on us, hide!>"

The group scrambled into what looked like an old theater. Broken glass cases and shattered screens hung crookedly on the walls, and remnants of long-faded movie posters still clung to the surfaces. They quickly found hiding spots: Uzi and Lizzy ducked behind a pillar against a wall, while Doll and Thad huddled behind a large pile of rubble.

Outside, they heard the distinctive whir of multiple t-cogs shifting and faint words being spoken.

"<There are five of them,>" Doll whispered, pressing herself tightly to her cover. "<Maybe they're just passing by? A patrol?>"

"Do you think they know we're here?" Thad whispered, his voice shaky as he didn't even dare to peek out of their hiding place. Before Doll could answer him, a shot is fired in their direction, sending chunks of rubble flying from their cover. 

"That is your one and only warning shot," an older, gruff voice boomed from the entrance of the theater. "No use hiding; we spotted you four from a mile away." He grew louder as he stepped into the building. "So you can come out and surrender, or you ‘Cons can find out first hand what happens when you mess with a Wrecker."

Uzi's eyes flickered with nervous energy, her gaze locking briefly with Lizzy's as they silently shared their uncertainty. Before she could form a plan, Thad suddenly shouted, "We're not part of the war! We're neither Autobot nor Decepticon! We're, uh…" He faltered, glancing at Uzi with a panicked look, hands spread wide, clearly lost for words.

Rolling her eyes, Uzi spoke up, "We're NAILs. Neutral Cybertronians."

"We're kids!" Lizzy added hastily. "We still have training software installed for Vector Sigma's sake!"

A tense silence followed, broken only by the heavy footsteps of the Wrecker approaching. "Kids? Neutrals?" The gruff voice echoed, thick with skepticism. There was a murmured exchange among the other Autobots, ending with the voice barking, "I know what Elita's orders are. It's still my call to make. Come out. All of you!"

The four young drones exchanged uneasy glances. Every mechanical instinct screamed at Uzi to run—the Autobots were supposed to be the enemy after all. They couldn't be trusted. But she knew there was nowhere they could go right now. They had no real cover that would last in a fire fight. Not to mention, there was the fact that none of them were even armed.

She could attempt a break for it anyway, but without a vehicle alt mode, she wouldn't make it far. And, though she'd never admit it, leaving the others behind wasn't an option she could accept.

"I'm going to count to three. If none of you come ou—"

Before he could finish, Thad raised his hands in surrender. "No need to count, Mr. Wrecker, sir." Uzi stifled a curse under her breath, watching as Thad slowly stepped out from behind cover, his movements deliberate and submissive, as he was trying to look as non-threatening as possible. 

Lizzy, after a moment's hesitation, followed his lead. She stepped forward, her arms raised in mock surrender, but there was a cautiousness to her swagger that Uzi had never seen before. She might act confident, but in front of a Wrecker, even she couldn't pretend to be unaffected.

“...shock.” Mumbling another curse, Uzi was the last to peek out from behind the pillar, her optics narrowing as she scanned the situation. Her mind raced, but she couldn’t afford to make a move yet. Doll remained pressed flat against the ground, hidden from sight, her body tense as a coil. She wasn’t about to risk exposing herself unless she had no choice. Uzi didn’t blame her—this was a mess of a situation.

The Wrecker’s silhouette loomed close by, his presence unmistakable. Every step he took seemed to send a pulse of intimidation through the air. He paused just before them, studying the three visible bots.

"You kids out here picked the wrong place for a field trip." He stepped forward, allowing them to see him more clearly. "And no need for the 'sir'. I feel old enough as is. I don't need you all reminding me of it."

Uzi instantly recognized him, at least from some historical war documents. His name was Impactor and had once been the leader of the Wreckers, an elite Autobot team known for their brutal tactics and unyielding resolve. He was taken from his position executing Decepticon prisoners, a dark chapter in Cybertronian history that some Autobots tried to forget, but others—Decepticons especially—never could.

He was everything she expected an Autobot to be: huge, strong, and battle-ready. His purple and yellow tactical armor was designed for combat, complete with a tank cannon mounted on his right shoulder and a harpoon weapon replacing his right hand. In his left hand, he gripped a large handgun, which was now aimed squarely at Thad.

"What exactly are you kids doing here?" he asked, his voice direct and to the point. The four other Autobots surrounding him kept their weapons trained on the group, ensuring that none of them made a sudden move.

Thad, ever the spokesperson, cleared his throat and stood a little straighter. "We're from a nearby underground colony. One before the war." He paused, glancing nervously at the others. "Well, I think it was made during it, not sure. I got a ‘D’ in history. Anyway, we can go right back!"

Uzi couldn't help but roll her eyes at his awkward explanation, but Lizzy spoke up before she could add anything. "One of us left because of personal issues," she said, giving Thad a pointed look for leaving the asked question vague. "The rest of us came to bring her back home. I'm sure if she spoke up, she'd tell you how sorry she is for causing this whole thing, right?"

Uzi felt Lizzy's mental nudge, urging her to cooperate with their made-up story. But she wasn't about to give in—not to a bunch of Autobots, least of all a Decepticon-killer like Impactor. "Bite me!" she shot back, her voice full of defiance as she refused to show herself more than just peeking from behind her pillar. She wasn't going to beg for mercy. Decepticons do not beg. They conquer.

Thad looked horrified at Uzi's response, his optics wide and full of concern, but Lizzy remained unfazed. She simply closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath before speaking. "As you can see, she's clearly defective. We're basically saints of Primus for looking out for her."

Impactor let out a low, amused chuckle at that. "You kids certainly got some spunk," he lowered his gun and raised his hook hand toward his squad. "All of you, ease up. We're going to escort these kids back to their home."

"You sure about that, sir?" One of the Autobots spoke up, a note of uncertainty in his voice. "We're supposed to meet up with the Disassembly squad at this location." He then dropped his voice, speaking lower than before. "And we still have Elita's orders about NAILs. Shouldn't we at least—"

Impactor's expression hardened, and he shot a sharp glare at the questioning Autobot. "We do nothing. Let me worry about Elita," he growled. "Now, put the weapons down. Their kids for Primus's sake." The squad hesitated but followed his order, each of them lowering their weapons with visible reluctance.

Impactor's demeanor softened as he turned back toward the kids, his voice returning to its usual gruff tone. "Besides, N's a good kid. He'll understand the moment I tell him we found actual bots that needed help. The other two will be a headache if we run into them, but I can deal with either of them if I have to." He waved his hand dismissively as though the matter was already settled.

"Now, you kids," he continued, his gaze turning back to Uzi, Thad, and Lizzy, "Get your friend out. We're getting you home. You can keep living underground, but I wouldn't recommend leaving again. Not till the war is over. Whenever that is..."

Thad and Lizzy stepped forward, but Uzi remained rooted to the spot, her eyes still filled with uneasiness as she stared at the Autobots. Something didn’t sit right in her spark.

She had expected a bot like Impactor to be more hostile, more... well, like the villain she had read about in the history archives. But here he was, standing in front of them with an unsettling ease in his persona, as if he had nothing to prove anymore. The rest of his squad, though, were still alert. They kept their weapons out, and their eyes were scanning every movement, not just from them but from each other. The atmosphere was thick with unspoken threats, and Uzi couldn’t help but think that there was no way this was as simple as it seemed. 

She opened her mouth to question him, to accuse him of playing some kind of trick, when a sudden flash of red light caught the corner of her optics.

All thoughts of confrontation with Impactor vanished in an instant as her attention snapped to the source of the light and saw something even more troubling: Doll was missing.

"Guys, come on, we gotta get a move on," Thad called out, noticing Uzi was still only peeking out from behind her cover. "Doll, you too, we need to—" He quickly moved back behind the rubble, only to find no one there. "Where did she go?"

"You lost her?" Lizzy asked, turning toward Thad with disbelief.

"I swear, she was right here a second ago!" Thad responded, throwing his hands out in shock, as he pointed to the exact spot where Doll had been sitting moments ago.

"She was," Uzi confirmed, blinking her optics to make sure she wasn't imagining things. "I swear to Primus, she was right there."

Lizzy's frustration flared up. "Hey, I kept an eye on your friend, you should have at least kept an eye on mine!" She raised her voice for the first time since Uzi had known her, and before Uzi could even react, Lizzy grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out from behind the pillar. "We gotta go find her! Right now. Maybe she got scared and went deeper into the theater when we weren't—"

The unmistakable sound of multiple weapon safeties clicking off silenced Lizzy mid-sentence.

"Boss…" An Autobot spoke in a warning tone. Uzi, Lizzy, and Thad cautiously turned their heads to see that all the Autobots were pointing their guns at them once more, even Impactor.

"I see it." He said, his eyes trained on Uzi as he aimed his gun right at her. "Hey, purple girl, you know what you're doing wearing that?" The three followed his line of sight, their eyes landing on the homemade Decepticon symbol stitched on the shoulder of Uzi's hoodie.

"...Primus, shocking damn it, Uzi." Lizzy whispers, and Uzi couldn't even reply with a retort.

The three shared a very concerned look as they glanced at each other and then toward the firing squad of Autobots. None of them could think of anything to say. None of them could even think of anything to do. They were just scared for their lives at that moment. "Why don't you three just calmly and quietly walk over here so we can ask you a few questions?" Impactor offered, his finger tightening on the trigger of his gun.

Thousands of thoughts ran through Uzi's mind. She had fantasized about something like this for years—how she would turn the tide, how she would surprise them, how she could do so many things. Yet, at this moment, all she could think about was how much she missed her dad. How much she wondered if this was how her mom felt before she was kill—

Suddenly, there was a flash of red, and in the blink of an optic, all the Autobots were thrown out of the theater by an invisible force. The sound of metal bodies crashing against the many corpses buried in the snow echoed, giving the colony drones some much-needed distance from their would-be Autobot-attackers.

"What the heck was that?" Thad shouted, stumbling backward in surprise. "Did either of you do that?" Uzi and Lizzy both shrugged their shoulders at him. Unable to even make a sarcastic response due to their own shock.

"It's a Decepticon trick, blast them!" One of the Autobots shouted, and suddenly gunshots rang out. High-velocity energon blasts ripped through the theater's already crumbled doorways, heading straight for the three young drones. Without a word, the three of them ducked back into cover.

"I knew it, your fashion sense would kill me one day!" Lizzy shouted as the pillar that she and Uzi were hiding behind shook from several shots striking it. Thad, however, was less focused on the firepower raining down on his position. Rather, he tried his hardest to shout over the gunfire. "Doll! Doll, if you can hear me, just run! Transform and fly out of here as fast as you can!"

"Damn it! Damn it, damn it! You idiots! This is all your fault!" Uzi cursed under her breath, her back pressed tightly against the cold, cracked wall as blaster fire screamed past her, ricocheting off the walls and tearing through the air. Her optics darted around, scanning the narrow theater hallway where they had taken refuge. The shots were too close. Too many. “We’re too big of a group! Of course, they found us! Now they're gonna kill us! Ugh, freaking Autopunks!"

Lizzy glared at her with fiery pink eyes. "Our fault? Are you serious right now? For the record, I knew following you was a bad idea." Her voice was sharp, laced with frustration. "This is Thad’s fault!” 

"My fault?! I was ju–" Thad’s words were cut off by a loud, agonized scream as he suddenly collapsed to the ground, his knees buckling underneath him. His hand clutched his arm as one of the shots had pierced through the cover. Uzi and Lizzy both called out his name but couldn't move as they were pinned down by the shots aimed at their position. "–Ah! Oh, Primus, that hurts! Ah, that's worse than a damn robo-charley-horse shock!"

"Shock." Lizzy groaned, leaning her back against the wall next to Uzi. "It's official. We're all gonna die."

Uzi took a breath as she was about to scream something, maybe just to shout some insult at the Autobots, but she was stopped by a loud boom that rocked the very theater they were in. A single blast had wiped away what little cover they had left from the front entrance of the theater in an instant, leaving only ash and steam. 

Suddenly, all the firing stopped.

"You know," Impactor's voice could be heard from outside, "I actually knew Megatron before the war. Before there was ever any of this Decepticon scrap." Uzi couldn't help herself. She had to risk a peek from behind the cover. She saw Impactor walking toward the theater, the cannon on his shoulder still steaming from its recent fire "I worked as a miner near Nova Point. We worked together. He used to be a pacifist! Can you believe that?" He stepped inside the theater, his Autobots once again flanking him with weapons drawn. This time with full intent to shoot. "I got into a bar fight with him once. You know what he did? He hid under a table. He was practically cowering like a little sparkling. Can you imagine how much trouble he would have saved all of us if he just kept doing that?" Impactor bitterly laughed at his own recollection, and Uzi...

Uzi suddenly lost all fear.

"You have working optics, so I bet you saw the Spire. There's more of us on the way, and they'd happily add you to their messed-up collection." Uzi wasn't paying attention to Impactor's words. She was sinking into her own mind, truly taking in what he just said about her hero. "I'm gonna give you all one last Primus-damn chance to end this peacefully."

She thought about her life—what it could have been under the rule of the Senate. She thought about all the writings of Megatron she had read. All the suffering he described about the lower classes, especially the disposable class. The drone class she would have been born into it, if not for him. Her father had transformed into a switch for doors. She couldn't imagine the life he had before the war, the suffering he went through. Her mom also...

"Come out, slowly, and surrender."

Uzi stepped forward without hesitation, ignoring Lizzy's quiet protests. She placed herself directly in the Autobot's line of fire and chose to glare at them. All the while, she thought of the countless lives touched by Megatron. She knew there was a war, but in the colony, no one truly cared about alt. modes. Everyone was free to be whatever they wanted. None of her classmates would have been together. She wouldn't know Lizzy. She wouldn't know Thad. She wouldn't even have known Doll, one of the only family members she had left, if not for Megatron...

And now, this Autobot called him a coward.

A single passage from one of Megatron's writings came to Uzi's mind at that moment.

My weapon is my burden: A reminder of the path I was forced to take.

When the word 'weapon' is emptied of meaning; when the purpose of a weapon is impossible to grasp; when the rejection of my weapon is of significance to no one other than myself…only then shall I remove it from my arm.

Because only then will I have earned the right to rid myself of its burden.

"I am a weapon," Uzi said, glaring at Impactor with clenched fists. He looked at her, momentarily confused, before shaking his head and ordering one of the Autobots to subdue her. "Lizzy, you know how to work a camera, right?"

"What?" Lizzy asked, taken aback by the sudden question.

"Yeah, you do. That means you know how to point and shoot," Uzi chuckled as an Autobot began to approach her. He hesitated as the sci-fi-like augmentations that Uzi still wore from her class presentation suddenly lit up green.

She had deactivated her own safety, and the soft hum of her T-cog sounded. The Autobot's optics widened in shock as Uzi gave him a wicked grin and shouted at the absolute top of her vocal processors, two simple words.

 "Die, Autobots!"

In the blink of an optic, Uzi was airborne, shifting into her Gun-mode. She landed in Lizzy's arms, leaving the other girl shocked and unsure of what to do—until she noticed the Autobot aiming his weapon at her.

Instinct took over as Lizzy gripped the gun firmly and took aim. The Autobot fired first, but he missed—she didn't. At the pull of Uzi's trigger a stream of thin concentrated beams of green energy shot out and pierced through the Autobot's chest plate. In a instant, the Autobot's entire back erupted in a large blast of burning energon. He was dead before he hit the ground, as a burning broken wreck of a bot.

"Vector Sigma!" Lizzy shouted in surprise, gripping Uzi's still-smoking barrel. But before she could react further, a flash of red blurred her vision and she was yanked back into cover as the Autobots resumed their relentless gunfire. 

“Lizzy!” Thad pulled himself along his side as best he could, as he tried to think of something he could do. When he noticed that the dead Autobot's blaster had slid close to him, he used his good arm to grab hold of the weapon.

"No more fooling around! I want you guys to—" Impactor was issuing a command, when suddenly a shot rang out, hitting him squarely in the abdomen. Thad had leaned out from behind his cover and, firing wildly, managed a lucky hit just where the armor was weakest. The ex-Wrecker dropped to his knees, gasping as trails of burning energon escaped his mouth.

"Boss! You damn Cons!" Another Autobot raised his weapon, aiming right at Thad. Knowing he couldn't dodge in time, he braced himself for the worse. But before the shot could fire, Doll dropped from the ceiling, a long blade in hand. With a swift strike, she sliced through the Autobot's arm at the elbow, sending the limb clattering to the ground. The bot barely had time to process what happened before Doll's blade swept again, taking his head clean off. "<Surprise, you're dead,>" she said, giving a smile as inner energon splattered across her face.

The remaining two Autobots spun to target her, but in an instant another red flash came and their weapons made nothing but hollow clicking sounds.

"What the—?"

"Our weapons are jammed!"

"<Theirs aren't.>" Doll stepped aside, clearing a path for Lizzy and Thad, who didn't hesitate to aim and fired, each shot finding its mark. Impactor watched helplessly as his squad-mates crumpled to the ground, lifeless. "You damn kids—" he muttered, still coughing as energon fumes spilled from his mouth. He was just about to pick himself back up, and get into the fight—his shoulder cannon had moved to take aim… only for a blade pierced through it, stabbing into his shoulder and into the ground, pinning him on the spot.

Doll loomed over him, almost casual with how she was leaning on the blade. "<You shouldn't have insulted Megatron. My cousin's a big fan.> "

"Yeah, well, your cousin should have picked better heroes." Impactor managed to rasp out a retort, before lifting his harpoon hand toward Doll's face. In a split second, the weapon launched at her, its spike gleaming in the dim light of the theater as it was just about to stab through her visor...

But then there was a sudden flash of red.

For a brief, disoriented moment, Impactor couldn't process what happened—until the searing pain ripped through him. He felt his own harpoon embedded through his mouth and out the bottom of his jaw. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a muffled, agonized gurgle as he crumpled to the ground, struggling against the onslaught of pain. Doll stood over him, the flicker of a strange symbol pulsing in her right eye for a moment as she watched him squirm, an eerie smile on her face.

"Terrorized!" Uzi laughed, her voice ringing through the broken-down theater as she transformed out of Lizzy's arms. "This was almost too easy!" She threw her arms up in a cheer, green energy crackling around her like sparks.

"It'll be a lot easier if you remember to put your safety back on before you overcharge and blow yourself up, again" Lizzy said, her tone completely dry. Uzi gave an annoyed groan but grudgingly did as she was told, the green glow around her body to dim as her augmentations powered down. "Now you can hop around like an idiot all you want," Lizzy said, striding over to Thad and helping him shakily to his feet.

"Oh Primus… we just… we just killed those bots," Thad said, looking over the scattered remains of the Autobots. His visor showed stress marks as he let go of the blaster he'd fired only moments before, it clattering to the floor with so little noise.

"Hey, they're the ones that started shooting at us," Lizzy said, snapping her fingers in front of Thad's face to pull him back to reality. "Or do you need a reminder that your shoulder got shot up by them, not bruised from football?" She inspected his arm, noting that while it was mostly a nasty scrape, he'd definitely need a trip to a CR chamber to heal up properly.

"All because of some weird red light. What even was that?" Thad mumbled, wincing as he flexed his shoulder. But before he could dwell on it, Lizzy was already walking toward Doll.

"Hold on—you have swords built into you, and you never mentioned it?" Lizzy asked, her eyes wide as Doll coolly yanked her blade from Impactor's shoulder.

"<You think my helicopter blades are just for show?>" Doll replied, a smirk barely visible across her lips as she reattached the blade behind her, slotting it into place alongside three other rotor blades she had, each of them fitting together seamlessly, as if they were part of a puzzle.

Uzi sidled over, looking at Doll with envious admiration. "Ugh, that's so cool…"

Thad joined them while shaking his head. "It actually is. But seriously, where'd you go? You freaked us out when you disappeared like that," he was looking at Doll with genuine concern in his eyes.

"<I…>" Doll hesitated, her gaze dropping for a second as if considering her words. "<I got scared. Ran the moment I saw a chance.>"

"And then came back with a dive bomb and sliced an Autobot like a ninja-bot," Lizzy added with a grin, making Doll chuckle for a change.

Thad still looked worried, though. "Please don't do that again, okay? You really scared the spark outta us."

"<Aw, pretty boy cares about me,>" Doll teased, earning laughs from both Lizzy and Uzi as Thad's visor turned flushed. He tried to hide his embarrassment with a shrug, as he was eager to change the topic back toward the fallen Autobots scattered across the floor, and toward the downed Impactor.

"Looks like we're officially part of the war now. You heard him—other Autobots are on their way. When they see what happened here, we're no longer neutral."

"Good! To hell with being neutral!" Uzi exclaimed, her voice fierce. "I'm done with just wasting my life in the colony. I told you all, I'm going to Kaon, and I meant it."

"<Kaon is pretty far. And you don't have a vehicle mode,>" Doll reminded her.

"Then I'd better start walking. You all can go back home and hide, but I'm not doing that. I'm going to make something of my life. I'm going to help bring the Golden Age to Cybertron, turn the tide of the war, and help the Decepticons vanquish the Autobots forev—"

"N-No," a weak, barely audible voice spoke up. Uzi looked down, feeling a hand clutch at her ankle. Impactor was still alive, still trying to fight, even as she talked about killing more Autobots. "Do-n't...ple...ase" His vocal components were damaged, he could barely speak. Yet he chose to plead with her for his fellow Autobot's lives.

She recalled how he'd laughed as he called Megatron a coward.

"Such heroic nonsense."

Uzi shook her foot free from his grip and brought it down on his head with all her strength. Impactor's head buckled slightly under her boot, a metallic groan escaping as his optics flickered. She lifted her foot and stomped down again, harder this time, denting the alloy, spreading cracks across his visor. She kept stomping, her boot crushing the metal until the light in his visor began to dim. She didn't stop—again and again, she brought her heel down, watching the head crumble under her might. A [Fatal Error] message flickered on the screen moments before a final, satisfying crack was made and Impactor's head was split open, as dark wires and his inner energon splashes across Uzi's leg.

"Maybe you should have been the one cowering under the table, glitch!" she spat.

With one last stomp for good measure, Uzi stepped back, breathing out in relief as she looked down at Impactor's crushed head. "All. Hail. Megatron," she whispered, before glancing over her shoulder at the others. They stared back at her in shock and in silence.

"Fiiine." Uzi groaned. "Maybe I am a little evil. Bite me." She waved them off dismissively as she began walking out of the theater and into the snow. "Not like you'll have to put up with me anymore—I've got to get to Kaon, so…bye, I guess."

"<No.>"

"Huh?"

Uzi turned around and saw Doll walking toward her. "<Kaon is over two hics from here—that's over a thousand miles—and due east…which was the opposite direction you were heading before we found you.>" Uzi let out an embarrassed "oh" as she heard that. "<It's faster if we go together. Our mothers used to walk the surface of Cybertron together. It's only poetic that we do the same.>"

"I…" Uzi was too stunned for words, and Doll just flashed her a smile. "Why?" she finally asked.

"<I've got my reasons, Cousin. Same as you have yours. That's what matters.>"

"This is insane," Thad chimed in. "Lizzy, please say something."

"Well, if Doll's going, then so am I." Lizzy suddenly stepped up, shrugging and shaking her head, as Thad let out a loud "What?"

"Look, I don't like it, but as much as it totally sucks to admit—Uzi's right. Better to do something with our lives than nothing at all. Besides, the colony needs a new energon chip, right?" She offered him a smile, that was way too ‘innocent’. "The adults are too busy voting on how to tear themselves apart. Meanwhile, we're actually going to do something about it. Dad's never going to bug me for being on my Hasbro too long after this."

Thad just stared in disbelief at the three girls. "Did you all just blow your circuits? Or am I the one going crazy?"

"<Maybe both,>" Doll chuckled. "<Join the dark side, pretty boy. We have energon cookies.>"

"How many times do I have to shocking tell you guys, the Decepticons aren't evil?" Uzi's interjection is ignored as Thad just sighs and begins to walk toward them.

"I can't come home alone. And besides, I know I'm not gonna get any sleep worrying about you three." Rolling his injured shoulder, Thad seemed to fight through the pain. "I guess, we're all Decepticons now."

Uzi was once again taken aback as the others turned to look at her. She had mentally prepared herself and planned this whole journey alone. Now, she wasn't. It was a surprise, certainly. Though not an unwelcome one.

It actually felt...nice to know she had people to watch her back.

Suddenly not wanting to appear weak, Uzi slapped her hands on her face, trying to shake herself free of any sappy thoughts. "Okay! So we go together. It's gonna be a long journey, but we have to think of the colony. We'll make it back, and we'll be heroes," she said, clenching her hands into fists. "We might run into more Autobots, and it'll get dangerous. But that's not gonna stop us! Kaon is the capital of the Decepticons, the heart of everything they are—everything we are. I know it's still standing, and if the Auto-punks are here, then the Decepticons must still control it. They'll have a chip, I'm sure of it." Uzi looked toward the Spire, her gaze lingering on the many fallen drones it had taken to build. "And when we come back, the first thing we're gonna do is tear down that eyesore. Decepticons, transform and rise up!" She threw her fist high in the air, finally getting to say the words she'd dreamed of declaring her whole life.

"You know Thad and Doll are the only ones here with actual vehicle transformations, right?" Lizzy said casually and instantly deflated Uzi's power fantasy with just a few words.

Suddenly, there is the sound of a T-cog purring, and the girls see Thad had transformed into a large pickup truck where he was moments ago. The truck's doors were open for them to climb inside.

"Well, I am motivated, Uz. I might be a little banged up, but as Coach Gal always said, time to stop whining and get it done."

Not missing a beat, Lizzy walked towards the trunk. "Wasn't he the guy who got banished for sniffing girls' underwear?" She asked as hopping in, taking the driver's side.

"<I think I'm standing on top of his corpse,>" Doll said, momentarily looking down before she jumped and landed on the back of the truck.

Uzi just sighed and followed Lizzy inside as she took off her backpack and pulled out the map she had printed out. The truck immediately spun off, and the four of them rode toward Kaon, marking the true start of their journey.

"I'm thinking of a team name. What do you guys think? U-T-L-D. UTLD, as in 'Hot Lead!'" Thad said as he drove through the snow and corpses, down the street and away from the Spire. He could hear the ‘boos’ echoing from within himself from Lizzy. "Oh, come on, I think it's a great name! What about L-U-D-T? LUDT, as in 'Looting'?"

"<Are we a gang of thieves now?>"

"Oh, come on, guys. Those were the only names I could come up with."

"I like the first one…" Uzi admitted.

"You would, gun-nerd," Lizzy retorted.

"Bite me!" Uzi shouted back, with Doll heard sighing, being the only one in the group to realize it was going to be a long drive.

Chapter Text

After spending millions of years battling against the evil forces of the Decepticons, anyone would assume that N had gotten used to the unpredictable weather of a war-torn world. But by his own admission, some things still took him by surprise—like the phenomenon known as thundersnow. It was similar to a thunderstorm, but with snow instead of rain, and a rare sight on the planet of Cybertron. So rare, in fact, that N hadn’t even considered encountering one as he flew through the sky. Nor was he expecting to be struck by its lightning while he was enjoying an in-flight screening of Air Bud —one of his favorite human movies.

It’s true what they say: you don’t hear the one that gets you. But anyone within earshot could hear the UCAV—unmanned combat aerial vehicle—as it screamed through the air, literally as N was screaming for his life, mere moments before crashing through the window of one of Kalis's few still-standing buildings. N tumbled, rolled, and transformed as he skidded across the floor at over 120 km/h. Yet, somehow, he managed to come to a complete stop right in his seat at a dinner table, in robot mode, with him leaning on the table with one arm in a suave pose, smiling flirtatiously at the female drone who seated across from him. 

She crossed her arms, giving him an extra-annoyed look.

“You got to be doing this on purpose by now,” V said, glancing from him to the trail of destruction he’d left behind. It normally would be impossible for anyone to make that much of an entrance by accident, but she knew her teammate would always find a way.

“I swear to Primus, I’m not,” N replied, reaching up to rub his arm where the lightning had struck. He was covered in scratches and dents from the crash landing, yet, through some strange means even he couldn’t fully explain, each and every one of them started to heal. The scratches on his visor vanished, his broken fingers snapped back into place, and, in moments, he looked as if nothing had happened. The only remaining problem was the small fire on his coat, which he was busy patting out. “I ran into a thundersnow on the way here. Been a while since I’ve seen one.”

“You can dodge thousands of energon bolts fired by Decepticons wielding every type of weapon imaginable, but you can’t handle a little lightning?” V leaned forward, smirking at him, which made N sit back, blushing as his visor brightened in embarrassment.

“Well, sometimes…things just kind of happen,” he said. “Good thing we’re made of sterner stuff, that’s what I always say. It did hurt, though. A lot.”

“You want me to kiss it better?” V leaned back, rolling her eyes. “Gotta say, you’re getting bolder now.”

N began to laugh nervously—a lot.

He quickly began looking around, attempting to put himself at ease with some distraction. He found one in his own reflection, as he noticed a piece of glass in his arm. “Huh, oh. I forgot Kalis used to have mirrored windows,” he reached for the shard and ripped it clean. His wound healed in an instant…

But what gave him pause, was staring into his own reflection. 

He and V comprised two-thirds of the Autobot Team: Disassembly Squad. Though technically drones, they were unmistakably different from the native inhabitants of Cybertron. Their robot modes were sharper and more angular, with an organic edge to their design. Their bodies were modular, able to shift and transform in ways that standard drones couldn’t. While most Autobots and Decepticons relied on external weaponry to be combat-effective, members of the Disassembly Squad were weapons by design. Each of them possessed extraordinary self-repair capabilities, eliminating the need for the heavy armor others depended on. Their hands could morph into an arsenal of both melee and ranged weaponry. They each also had a long tail tipped with a device that unleashed nanite acid—able to burn through a Cybertronian drone’s outer and inner layers within seconds. But the most visually striking difference comes from the large, blade-sharp wings they could extend from their backs, allowing flight without needing to transform—though they preferred the speed of their vehicle forms for long-distance travel.

Those wings earned them another name during the Great War: The Angels of Death .

An overly dramatic title, many would say, many more would call it "overly edgy" yet the name stuck—so much so that even the NAILs began to call them that. N understood why. Clad in black, built as weapons, and equipped with large jagged wings, it was easy to overlook the Autobot symbols they wore across their backs, displayed in metallic weave upon their clothing.

“You good?”

“Huh—Oh!” Quickly, N threw the shard out of sight and remembered he was supposed to be on a date. “Sorry! Lost in thought of stuff. Um, anyway. Thanks again for coming, V. I hope you are hungry cause I took the liberty of preparing a proper meal for us.” N rose and crossed the room that he had picked out for this event, because of its perfect storage space.

With a raised fist, he tapped on a wall, revealing a hidden compartment that opened like an oversized oven. Inside, lay a bound and gagged armor-clad female drone. Her muffled screams filled the air as N hoisted her over his shoulder, carrying her to the table. “One Decepticon scout-class, type C-inner energon, stewed in a pot of heated oil and iron filings to seal in that extra flavor, coming right up.” He tossed the Decepticon onto the table, her visor showing tears of terror as she struggled to escape, her attempts at transformation failing as she flailed herself. 

To prevent her from falling from the table, N held her firmly in place as he continued, “And for dessert—her T-cog, seasoned with lead sulfide crystals and pepper. Now, what kind of energon wine would you like? Trick question, I can only find one. Sorry.” He gestured back toward the compartment, where the second meal awaited alongside a single case of energon—which glowed a pink color.

“Oh, N. You’re spoiling me.” V sighed, with a trace of amusement in her voice as she looked towards N's smiling face. "You know you don’t have to go this far for me. Just grabbing any random 'Con would have been enough."

N shook his head and smirked as he said, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth over doing—especially for our dates.” V’s smile softened as she looked at him, but then it twisted into something darker as her gaze returned to the Decepticon lying on the table. Her visor’s eyes shifted into a large 'X,' her mouth widening to reveal rows of fang-like teeth. Her hands changed, they shifted into a mass of moving parts along her forearms and transformed into a pair of long razor-sharp talons. "Shall we?" She asked, right before N's own features morphed similarly to her own. 

The Decepticon whimpered, shutting her optics tightly—perhaps muttering a desperate plea to Primus to spare her spark. N found it a bit ironic, even insensitive, given that he and his team liked to thank Primus after each meal. At least, he did. But, just as he and V prepared to leap on their helpless quarry, a sudden beeping sound interrupted them. It came from N. His visor flickered, flashing blue—a transmission on the private Autobot frequency.

“Huh? Ah, biscuits. I swear I put this on Do Not Disturb,” he muttered, pulling back slightly and pressing his fingers to the side of his head to answer, the X on his visor disappearing as it was replaced by his eyes.

There is a groan as V pulls herself back, her visor doing the same as N, by returning to normal as well. “Just let it go to voicemail,” V said, her annoyance evident. She wasn’t in the mood for interruptions. “We’re supposed to be on leave. Or is Elita going back on her word again?”

“Come on, V, that’s not fair. You know she depends on us,” N replied gently.

“Oh, she depends on us, alright,” V’s voice took on a mocking tone as she mimicked their acting commander, Elita-1. “Disassembly Squad, go to this place and kill the Decepticons. Disassembly Squad, go to that place and kill the Decepticons. Disassembly Squad, run down to the store and pick up eggs, milk, and bread—and while you’re at it, kill some Decepticons. ” N was taken aback by her outburst, unaccustomed to seeing V’s frustration surface this way. She generally loved her work. “Don’t give me that shocked look,” she snapped. “I get a thrill from killing 'Cons as much as the next bot. But after millions of years of doing the same thing, over and over again… when I’m finally allowed a break, the least she can do is let me have my Primus-damned break! ” She punctuated her words by shoving the table aside, sending the Decepticon crashing to the ground. The captive drone immediately began wriggling away, desperately attempting to flee despite her bindings. “And don’t even get me started on her talking points about the NAILs,” V added, bitterness lacing her voice. “Oh, I have a lot to say about that… ”

N gently placed a hand on her shoulder, his voice softening. “V, is this… is this about what happened with the Dinobots?”

There was a look of raw fury in V's visor as she shoved his arm back, but N knew the anger wasn’t directed at him—it was for their commander. “Step off,” she said in a low, warning tone, turning her back to him. “What happened is between me and Elita. I don’t want to talk about it, not here—not now.”

“V, you…” N hesitated but forced the words out. “You accused the acting commander of the Autobots—the one that Optimus Prime himself put in charge—of sabotage. You said the deaths of those Decepticon refugees was a setup, and that Elita was in on it. You even confronted her about it!”

V waved a claw dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, circumstantial at best,” she said aggressively, before glancing over her shoulder toward N with clear irritation. “But come on, think about it! Elita sends the Dinobots on a mission to do a patrol. Okay, fine, she likes to get rid of them from the base. That’s not the problem.” V then looked back forward, away from him. “But let’s go over what happened, one more time. The Dinobots just happen to find a group of Decepticons—who all defected from the war—living in this area. Grimlock said things got tense, words were exchanged, insults given. The usual scrap between bots and cons, nothing new. But let me ask you something: if you’re a bunch of Decepticons running from Shockwave of all people, and the freaking Dinobots show up at your camp…are you really dumb enough to try and shoot them?”

N’s shoulders dropped as he took a deep sigh. “I don’t know. A lot of things could have been going through their heads. Grimlock says there was a sniper—”

“And you believe him?”

“You know I do. We both do.”

“Then why is this Primus-damn argument?” 

“I’m not arguing! I’m just—” N stopped and took a moment to focus his words, the stress showing on his visor as his eyes turned hollow. “V, I believe the Dinobots’ story. Grimlock still had the mark on his armor to prove it. He was shot by an Energon Battle Pistol—a sniper shot at him and his team…they acted.”

“And there just happened to be hidden explosives too that ‘accidentally’ went off. All part of some Decepticon trick,” V muttered, mostly to herself. N noticed that she had shifted her claws back into normal hands, and was now letting them hang at her sides as balled-up fists. “Please, N, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I can’t, okay? Let’s just drop it. I really don’t want to remember the look on their faces when they told us they found kids in that camp.”

A long pause filled the room, the only real sound coming from the thunder outside.

Though hesitant and feeling a pang of guilt for even bringing up the subject, N still chose to reach out toward her. “V, we’ve got to talk about this eventually. I know it’s tearing you up inside. I mean, it’s not that different from what Elita has us do to the NAILs—”

Before he could touch one of her closed up hands, V turned sharply, her arm shifting as it transformed into a cannon-like shape. Without a word, she fired a missile across the room, striking the bound Decepticon drone who had nearly reached the exit. The blast sent fragments of inner energon and burning metal flying, embedding into the walls as the remains scattered, leaving nothing but a smoldering wreck where she had been.

“We’re monsters, N. The Dinobots are victims. There’s a Primus-damn difference.” V’ voice was steely, her optics cold as she looked him in the eye. She then pushed past him, bumping his shoulder hard as she walked toward the same window that he had first crashed through earlier. “Sorry, but I’m skipping dessert. I suddenly lost my appetite.” 

A low hum filled the room as her T-cog activated, her form shifting seamlessly into a UAVC, nearly identical to N’s vehicle mode. Without another word, she flew out of the building, leaving N standing alone in the ruins of what should have been a quiet evening together, marked as yet another ruined date between the two of them.

“Shock,” he muttered to himself, running a hand across his face.

Then, a voice crackled through his comm, thick with uncomfortable realization as N’s visor still flicked blue.

“[...Holy scrap, I picked the worst possible time to call, didn’t I?]”

In an instant, N's circuits were brought to a chill as he recognized the voice. “Impactor?” It dawned on him, with mounting horror, that he’d never properly disconnected the call. The entire exchange with V had been transmitted to one of his oldest friends. “Oh, Primus, kill me now.” He slumped into the his seat, and covered his face with both hands. As if to crown this miserable failure of a date, the chair creaked ominously under his weight and promptly collapsed, sending him crashing to the floor in a heap.

“[You okay, N?]” Impactor’s voice buzzed again, his hesitant concern barely masking his suppressed laughter.

“…you think Megatron takes requests?”

“[I’ll be sure to ask him next time we hit a bar together,] Impactor replied with a chuckle. [Normally I ask how you are doing but...] The ex-Wrecker paused, taking in a sharp breath. [I imagine it isn't well. I take it that you and V are...]”

N rolled his eyes, not at all even bothering to sit himself back up. "We were on a date. But I think we reached the, off-again part of our on-again, off-again relationship." He held his hands over his chest and looked toward where he had the Decepticon’s T-cog, and the container that held the pink energon. "I was gonna ask if we could make it official. If we could be Conjunx Endura, finally."

“[I guess that’s off the table?]”

“Off the table and blasted across the room into a million pieces.” N answered and closed his eyes, frustration settling in reluctantly. “Sorry you had to hear all that. What’s up, Impactor?”

“[Well, seeing as you are already in a scrap-filled mood, at least I won't feel bad when I ask if you want to talk about some heavy stuff?]”

"How heavy?"

“[Metroplex-heavy.]”

N’s optics snapped open as he sat up from the remains of his ruined seat, processing the weight of what Impactor had just said. “...That’s pretty heavy.”

“[I want to meet up. I’m taking the new recruits—the M.T.O.s—with me to the Spire. Yeah, they’re gonna freak out at the sight of it, but they were insistent on following me… I’ll make sure they act professional. At least it’ll keep their focus off other things.]”

“New recruits—oh! The Made to Order bots.” N pulled himself up from the floor and moved toward the compartment with the ‘dessert’ he prepared; he wasn’t about to let it go to waste, especially since he was starving. “Wait, they’re finished? I thought it’d take at least a few more days before they could reach the field.”

“[Yeah, well, Elita is rushing them….]” Impactor’s tone betrayed his weariness. “[Poor things are kids in full-grown bodies. We used to have a ten-step education program before they were fit for duty; now it’s been cut down to three directives… They’re not even a quartex old, for Primus sakes!]”

“I can’t imagine how hard it must be for them,” N murmured sympathetically, knowing how much Optimus would hate seeing this. But Elita had insisted it was necessary. So who was he to question things. “I get it… the regular process takes time, and we do need new soldiers. But I dunno. I still feel weird about it, even now.” He paused, bringing the T-cog to his mouth. A loud crunch echoed across the room followed by his chewing.

“[Yeah, well, it’d be weird if you didn’t feel that way….]” Impactor’s voice grew heavier. “[They’ve already got their orders on what to do if they encounter NAILs.]”

N flinched, the words striking a nerve. It was a grim directive given to several teams: NAILs weren’t to be trusted. Too many Decepticon tricks, too many incidents, too many complications from those who insisted on staying independent. Examples needed to be made to keep them from becoming another internal threat in the war. N and his team had followed orders, but he knew many others, including Impactor, had opposed it bitterly. Some even straight up defected because of it.

Swallowing the piece of T-cog in his mouth, and hoping to steer the conversation elsewhere, N asked, “So… what’s this about, Impactor? I mean, why tell me? If it’s this important, shouldn’t it go to Kup or Elita? I mean, you still technically outrank me.”

“[I thought about going to the old man. But…]” There was a faint click, as if Impactor were hesitating. “[Look, you’re one of the best bots I know, N. I need you to hear this—get your take on it. Okay?]”

“...Okay.” N was touched by the compliment, though a flicker of worry crept in. Impactor sounded different—darker than usual. He sounded as if he was checking behind his shoulder, anticipating an ambush.

“[And N...if something happens to me...I need you to be ready to ask questions.]”

"...what? What are you talking about?” N’s visor switched back to its usual yellow as the transmission ended abruptly on Impactor’s end—he had hung up. N immediately called his friend back, his visor turning blue once more. “Hey, you can’t just say something like that and then hang up! At least say bye. That’s really rude.”

“[Oh...sorry, kid. Guess I’ve been watching too many movies,]” Impactor replied, a hint of embarrassment coloring his voice.

“Well, I’ve got a whole selection of other movies you could try.”

“[I’m not shocking watching Air Bud with you again,]” Impactor said with a grumble.

“Oh, come on… you didn’t even give it a real chance!”

“[Don't have to. Bye, N.]”

The transmission ended once again, and this time N just shook his head as he leaned against the wall with his visor turning yellow once more. Taking another bite from the T-cog, he looked out the shattered window V had flown through earlier. He tried to make sense of what Impactor had found that warranted a meeting at the Spire. Granted, it was where N and his team lived, but it was a morbid place to say the least— more so than the city of Kalis, which was a far cry from its former glory. It was constructed after the launch of the Ark, when Optimus Prime had taken so many of their kind off Cybertron upon discovering the planet’s resources had nearly run dry. That the planet itself was dying.

“...That was so long ago…” N whispered to himself, memories stirring of what Cybertron used to be. The planet had once pulsed with life; the buildings and landscapes had glowed with radiant energy. Bridges would materialize underfoot, and even the simplest of structures had felt alive, as everything was constantly shifting into place with complex, interlocking movements. It was as if the planet itself was conscious, and because of that, it sought to breath and move.

Now, all of that vibrancy was gone, leaving Cybertron dull and barren. The absence gnawed at N, and he wondered, as he often did, where Optimus Prime was—if he was still alive, still fighting somewhere out there. If he would ever return home…

“What am I talking about, of course he would. He promised he would.” With a reluctant sigh, N finished the T-cog, grabbed the case of energon wine, and moved toward the broken window where he’d first crashed through. He tried to shake off the negative thoughts, knowing they’d do him no good, and transformed, taking flight toward the Spire.

He decided to take the long route, hoping it would give him a chance to finish the rest of his movie and give him some moments of peace. But as soon as he found some rhythm in the air, a bolt of lightning struck him directly once more, jolting him out of control.

“Oh, come on!” His yell echoed as he spun wildly and crashed through yet another window, landing in a heap inside a different building. “It’s official... This day stinks.”

“Home, sweet morbidly questionable home,” N said, giving a tired sigh as he finally reached the Spire. His home. Well, a kind of home. It was the one place in all of Cybertron that he and his team could call their own—their claim to the city of Kalis.

It was J's idea. The third member of the Disassembly Squad, and its leader.

After the launch of the Ark, she felt it was time for them to ‘branch out' as Cybertronians. With Elita-1’s blessing, they were given free rein to do whatever they wanted with the dead city. Of all things, J said she wanted to build a spire—one made from the corpses of all the drones they had killed. A monument to everything they had done since the start of the Great War, symbolizing the suffering caused by the Decepticons and their ever-growing hunger for power.

The intent was to scare away anyone who dared enter their city, their territory. It was also meant to shelter and protect the original vessel they had first arrived in, millions of years ago—an old, useless thing they had abandoned, now suddenly imbued with immense importance. One J didn't speak much about it other than that it had to do with orders from the Sumdac corporation—the company that first sent them to Cybertron.

The idea wasn’t exactly well received by either N or V. They had tried to argue against it, claiming that building such a monument would damage their reputation among the Autobots and ultimately be a waste of time and energon. They offered an alternative: to live in one of the abandoned buildings scattered throughout the city. While much of it was depowered and worn by time, they brought up that it could be made livable once more, eventually leading to Kalis becoming the city it once was.

But J was adamant about her choice, issuing an order that they would help her build her “morbid art piece.” It took time and countless bodies, but the spire was completed. Its horrid form stretched far upward, rivaling every other building in Kalis.

It was an absolute eyesore, and yet one that N was almost proud of. It represented the work they had done in the name of the Autobot cause—vengeance for all the humans slain, retribution for all the friends lost. Just as J had said, it was a monument to everything they had endured since the Great War began.

And yet, no matter how accustomed he was to it, no matter how many years he had spent inside or flying around it, he knew that Optimus would hate it.

“I hope the new recruits didn’t freak out too badly when they saw it. Speaking of…” N turned and began scanning the snowy, corpse-strewn area for his friend. “Impactor! Are you here?” he called out, stepping further from the Spire. The wings on his back folded and shifted, disappearing from sight as he moved. “Sorry I’m late. I had to use my wings to make it through the storm—it’s going crazy up there.”

As if on cue, thunder cracked directly overhead, making N flinch and grow wary as he remembered the rule that comedy comes in threes. “Impactor? Anybody?”

The only response to his voice was the howl of the snowy wind and the ominous rumble of thunder. “Huh, I guess I managed to beat him here. Maybe I can wait inside at least—” N turned around and started toward the Spire, but paused when he noticed several sets of tire tracks in the snow, each from different vehicles.

“Wait.” He immediately knelt down to inspect them. “Civilian models by the look of it... and one military armored truck. Yep, that’s him. Impactor!” N called out again, but still received no response. He glanced around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary at the many piles of building rubble that littered the streets—

ARE ALL DEAD 

N stared at the crudely carved writing on a large piece of rubble.

“...I forgot I wrote that—”

“N!”

“—Ahh!”

Startled, N jumped and spun around. In an instant, his right hand changed, it had shifted into a large gun and he aimed it to what he thought was a target. It took him a moment to realize, he was aiming squarely at his teammate, J, who unflinchingly glared back at him. Uncaring about the barrel pointed literally inches from her face.

“You have three nano-clicks to get that blaster out of my face before I make you eat it,” she said, her tone as cold as the snow swirling around them. N couldn’t lower his weapon fast enough.

“Sorry! So sorry! I didn’t mean to do that!” he blurted, his hand shifting back to normal. “I got startled and just went straight into—”

“N. Shut up.” J ordered, and he quickly snapped to attention, eyes forward and back straight. That position allowed him to notice V standing behind J, arms crossed, her back turned toward them—a familiar sight that made him want to rush over and comfort her. But J’s voice demanded his focus. “Don’t mind her,” J said, nodding toward V. “She’s just in one of her moods. Nothing new there.”

“Go shock yourself, J,” V called out, lifting her arm to flash them a middle finger—a feat made all the more impressive by the fact they only had four fingers on each hand.

Without even glancing back at V, J continued speaking to N. “Do you know where he is?”

“Where who is…” N asked, confused.

“Don’t pretend to be stupid,” J snapped.

“I’m not! It’s all natural, I promise,” He said, raising his hands in mock surrender.

J sighed, her shoulders visibly dropping as her tone changed. “Impactor, N. Where is Impactor? He’s missing.” She paused, letting the words sink in. “He took his team of new recruits and just bailed out of the base, right in the middle of a briefing for a new assignment. Everyone’s going crazy looking for him around Iacon. After I found this one moping around”—J threw a glare in V’s direction—“I went looking for you.”

N was stunned at the news, and became even more confused. “Missing? No, that can’t be right…I just spoke to him not too long ago.”

“Well, he is,” J's demeanor sharpened as she narrowed her eyes on him. “Just start from the top. When was the last time you talked to him?”

N hesitated, thinking back to his last conversation with Impactor. “I got a call from him during… uh…” His words trailed off as he glanced at V. She briefly looked his way, their eyes meeting for a moment before she quickly turned away.

“Oh, my Primus, I don’t care that you and V had another bad date,” J interrupted with an exasperated groan as her tail stung aggressively. “That happens every other deca-cycle with you two! Just tell me what happened.”

Shoving aside the guilt creeping into his thoughts of bad dates being so common between himself and V, N continued. “I got a call from him. He wanted to meet me here, though he was vague about the details.” He crouched down, gesturing toward the tire marks in the snow. “He was here though. These are his tire tracks, I'm sure of it. I am guessing the rest are the recruits.”

J knelt down to inspect the tracks herself. “Impactor left with four of the M.T.O.s. So why are there six sets of tire marks?”

N joined her, moving to kneel by her side. “There are six… but one of them is going in the opposite direction. You think someone got scared off by the Spire?”

“Got this close only to be scared off now? Please,” J replied, dismissive.

“Well, there has to be…” N’s voice trailed off as something caught his eye. He looked up, past large chunks of rubble, and spotted what appeared to be the remains of the theater further down the street. Its front entrance was completely blasted apart, with a very familiar blast pattern along its walls. “…oh no.” N’s optics locked onto the blasted entrance of the theater, the jagged edges of the shattered structure silhouetted against the pale, snowy backdrop. He didn’t think—he didn’t hesitate. He surged forward, his legs carrying him at full speed across the ruined street.

“N! Wait!” J’s voice rang out behind him, sharp and commanding, but he didn’t register it.

“N? Hey!” V shouted next, her tone dripping with surprise and irritation, but even her voice was distant, like a fading echo. 

His feet kicked up loose snow and gravel, but he didn’t notice the sharp sting of debris pelting his frame or the ache of exertion in his joints. The Spire and the rubble-strewn street behind him blurred into irrelevance. All that mattered was the theater—the yawning black void of its ruined entrance drawing him like a magnet.

As he approached, the air seemed heavier, colder, and his processor conjured grim images of bodies, smoke, and destruction. He prayed to Primus that his worst fears were not true. Impactor was his friend. Was one of the first within the Autobots to accept him, and his team. Taught them all how to be proper soldiers. 

“N! Stop, that's an order!” J’s voice was sharper now, closer, but still, he couldn’t hear her.  

He reached the theater, skidding to a halt just inside the blasted entrance. The air here was thick with the acrid tang of scorched metal and burnt energon. His eyes scanned the dim interior, taking in the charred remains of broken glass and the mangled walls, before they focused on the crumbled remains on the floor. 

“Impactor?” N called, his voice cracking. Only silence answered.  

“N!” J’s voice was closer as she joined his side. “You can’t just…oh, shock…” Her tone shifted immediately as she saw what he did.

V stormed in, throwing herself ahead of the two as her arms shifted into guns. “What the hell are you think–…ing…” V’s demand faltered, her voice trailing off as she almost immediately lowered her weapons.

N could barely register their reactions. 

His optics were still fixed on the bodies before him, his processor spinning with dread and desperation, trying to deny what was in front of him as he stared at Impactor's nearly headless corpse.

Chapter Text

N sat on the first crumbling step of the theater, his frame hunched over and his head bowed low. His arms rested heavily on his knees, as if the weight of everything he’d witnessed had anchored him in place. In his hand, he clutched his pilot cap, his fingers gripping it so tightly the edges began to crease. It was a small thing, yet it felt heavier than the blasted ruins surrounding him.

Everything felt heavier now.

The wind howled around him, tugging at the tattered edges of his clothing and whistling through the shattered remnants of the street. Loose debris skittered across the ground like specters fleeing the rising storm. Snowflakes swirled chaotically in the air, thickening as the storm began to consume the world around him.

“N.”

The icy chill gnawed at him, but he didn’t move. His optics were dim, locked on the cracked, uneven ground beneath his feet. The snow began to collect on his shoulders and arms. He didn’t bother to brush it away. He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to speak. He didn’t want to do anything right now. But still, the voice called out to him.

“J called Elita and explained to her what we found. They’re gonna send someone over to collect the bodies.”

He barely even noticed V as she moved to sit down next to him. “It’s nothing concrete, but...” She paused, bringing a hand up to knock some snow off his shoulder. “We’re thinking he was ambushed. By the look of the firepower that was used, we’re guessing it was Cons. It’s hard to say for sure.” She let the sentence hang in the air, the silence followed with it only broken by the howling of the cold winds as the storm grew denser, as more snow fell around them. N continued to look at the floor, unresponsive and unmoving, lost within his own mind, possibly to dark thoughts. She wanted to remind him that they were in a war. That this was an expectation for all of them at some point. Especially for someone that had lived through as much as they had but…she also knew that no matter how many eons, no matter how much loss they all faced, it never got easier.

A friend being killed, is still a friend being killed.

“He was one of the first bots we met when we came to this planet, right? I think I remember some of it, but…it’s been so long.” V spoke to fill the silence. “He taught us how to be Autobots—all the stuff to watch out for, all the terms we needed to say, and how to actually use weapons not built into our bodies. I remember him teaching us to use hand signs in stealth operations, and I just used them to find new ways to make insults.”

She chuckled at the memory, but N was still silent.

“Please, N. Just say something—”

“What can I say?”

His voice came so suddenly that it made V wince.

“What can I say?” He repeated the question, his head snapping up to meet her gaze. There was no trace of anger in his expression, no irritation. All that showed on N’s visor was a deep, unshakable melancholy as he spoke. “The last thing I talked to him about was Air Bud. He’s dead, and the last thing I talked to him about before he died was a movie about a dog playing basketball.” N then turned his face forward to stare in the direction of the Spire. “Before then I called him rude, because he hung up on me without saying bye first. I…if I knew it would be the last thing I said I would’ve…I should have…”

His head dropped once more, as he was rendered silent and crestfallen.

“You didn’t know,” V said gently, brushing more snow from his shoulders and even his hair. Her movements were careful, steady, as if the small act might help lighten his burden. “But I’m sure you had plenty of things you would’ve told him. He helped us, and because of that, he was a friend. Our friend.”

N slowly shook his head, and mumbled a curse under his breath. He then raised his cap, and placed it back over his head. “...V, how do you feel now that he's gone?”

She answered automatically, her voice flat, even as her frame stiffened. Her body betrayed her, tension crept into her joints as memories flickered at the edges of her mind—memories she didn’t want to face about Impactor. The times he made them laugh, despite the endless war looming overhead. The times he dragged them out for drinks, insisting they deserved a moment of peace, no matter how fleeting. The times he defended them against their own allies, standing firm against judgmental Autobots who couldn’t see past their differences. And then there was the offer…

‘ Join the Wreckers, ’ he had said.

The Wreckers. They weren’t just soldiers; they were living legends. A special task force composed of the toughest, most die-hard fighters the Autobots had to offer. They were the ones sent to face the impossible missions, the ones no one else could handle. And they completed them—with sheer stubbornness, brute force, and enough explosives to level cities.

For a time, it had seemed like a perfect fit. They had seemed like a perfect fit to join such a team. And yet, they’d said no. Because that would mean such a team would have monsters in their rank. Not heroes.

And now, standing here, with the weight of what they’d lost pressing down on her spark, she wondered if that had been the right choice.

“I still feel nothing.”

Her words came out like a shield, practiced and unyielding. It was what she always said when dealing with death—a truth she’d grown accustomed to years ago. Her life had stripped her of tears, dulled the edges of her grief, and left her spark a cold, mechanical thing. Numbness wasn’t just a coping mechanism; it was a survival tactic. To feel everything would’ve broken her long ago. To feel nothing meant she could do her job.

Yet somehow, N still felt. No matter how dark things got, no matter how heavy the weight on his shoulders became, he always found a way to stay true to himself. To remain that bot with a heart of gold who cared too much. Until…

“Can...” N’s voice creaked as he looked at her again, his visor dim once more. “...can you teach me how to do the same? To feel… nothing.”

She pretended not to hear him.

She had to.

“If this is too much for you, you can leave.” V reached over and took his hand within hers, her grip firm yet careful, as though she feared she might break it. Her gaze avoided his, locked somewhere distant, somewhere safe. “You can stay in the Spire or fly back to Iacon if you want. Me and J can handle the rest, and you can… grieve. We were supposed to be on leave, and Primus knows we need a damn break. We’ll tell you when the funeral is ready, and…” She hesitated, her words catching on her tongue. A thought crossed her mind, one she had again and again. “We talked about it once. Maybe, we can talk about it again. To—” Her voice wavered as she tried to push the thought into words, even if they only did as the faintest of whispers. Barely audible in the storm that surrounded them. “Run away from it all…leave this planet and this stupid war behind us…”

“Will you be my Conjunx Endura?” 

“Huh?” 

The words hit V like a sudden shot in the gut with an EMP shotgun, knocking the breath from her spark. Her optics snapped up to meet N, her own expression a mix of confusion and shock while his was somber, and full of uncertainty. The weight in his voice as he spoke again only added to the gravity of the moment. “Sorry,” he said, his tone quieter now, almost fragile. “I’ve been meaning to ask you that for a long time. Just… never had the chance. We’ve had ups and downs, and…everyday things just seem to get harder for everyone.” He tried to pull his hand away, retreating into himself as though bracing for rejection, but V tightened her grip, refusing to let him escape so easily. “V?”

Her mind raced, thoughts tumbling over each other. That it wasn’t the time—nor the place—for such a question. The war still felt too close, the wounds too fresh. The argument they had, the loss of their comrade, and now this. But, beneath the shock, something warmer stirred. A quiet ache. For everything they’d been through together. For everything they’d survived. For the possibility. She wanted for so long to hear him ask such a question. Since before they became…what they are.

Her mouth opened, words forming on instinct, though she didn’t yet know what they would be.

“N—”

“V! N!”

The shout came from behind them, sharp and sudden, cutting through the fragile moment like a blade.

They both turned to look back towards the theater, the world snapping back into focus as the snowstorm raged around them ever so harder. J stood at the destroyed entrance with her hands on her hip. “Get in here. There’s something you both are going to want to see.”

V had to fight the immediate urge within her to transform her arm into a cannon and shoot a missile at J for the interruption. For daring to give her an excuse to not answer the question…

Instead, she pulled N by the hand as she stood, steadying both herself and him as they rose to their feet. “Let’s go. We’ll talk later, promise,” she said firmly, her voice carrying a quiet reassurance. Without waiting for a response, she began marching toward the front entrance of the theater, dragging him along behind her.

The snowstorm swirled around them, the howling wind bit at their frames, but the entire time, V didn’t let go of his hand.

“So,” J’s voice cut through the storm as they approached. She stood, arms crossed, a smirk tugging at the edges of her face. “You two back to being on-again now?”

“Blast it out of your tailpipe,” V shot back, her tone sharp but laced with familiarity. 

J chuckled as she turned and led them inside, where the storm’s fury faded into a muted roar. The air inside was still heavy, still choked with the smell of death, but was much more bearable as they approached the bodies. They were rearranged and covered with what seemed to be old theater curtains. J gestured toward the makeshift shroud, the faded fabric barely able to mask the jagged outlines of what laid beneath. “I looked around and found these,” she explained, “Figured it might help. I know it won’t make it easier, but… at least it'll be tolerable to stand in the same room now.”

V gave J a solemn nod as thanks. “Thanks, J,” N spoke up, his voice subdued but still trying to show his own earnest gratitude. “You’re the best.”

“Course I am,” J replied, her grin returning as she took a step back and gestured around the room. “So, from what we’ve been able to piece together, it was a team of Decepticons. But I can’t figure out why they’d be here. Hell, I can’t figure out why Impactor would want to meet you here, N.” She began circling the covered bodies, her steps deliberate, her fingers tapping against her side as she clicked her tongue in thought. “Iacon is a big city. Even with every Autobot stationed there, there are thousands of other places he could’ve picked. So why here ? And why bring the new recruits? Was he expecting a fight?”

“If he was, he wouldn’t bring fresh bots,” V interjected. She finally let go of N’s hand and stepped forward as an idea formed in her mind. She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, gesturing to the storm still raging outside. “As for the Cons, there’s that colony not too far from here. You know, the one with the big doors. You think they had something to do with this? Could be them finally deciding to fight back against us.”

“Possibly,” J admitted, stopping mid-pace to consider the idea. “The storm would’ve covered any tracks by now, so no point in investigating.” She ran a hand through one of her pigtails, a brow within her visor furrowed. “Not like we could go ask them anyway. Those doors are tough. Every time we damage them, they self-repair within seconds. It’s not worth the energon to try right now.”

She turned her gaze back to the covered forms, her voice dropping slightly. “And that’s without even mentioning the M.T.Os. These guys weren’t even a month old…”

The room fell quiet for a moment, the weight of their circumstances pressing down on all of them. V didn’t want to say what her guess was. The Impactor was maybe trying to defect, to take what few innocent bots that he could away from the war towards somewhere else…

She knew such an idea would cause an argument—Specifically with N, who would insist that the Autobots were the good guys and thus there would be no need to run away from. She's not making that mistake again. 

Suddenly, J reached into one of the deep pockets of her coat and pulled out a small rectangular device with a faintly blinking light on its surface. “Well,” she said, her voice tinged with curiosity, “I did find something that might give us some answers.” She held up the object, her optics narrowing slightly as she inspected it. “I found this on Impactor’s person. I was hoping it’d give me a clue why he left Iacon or why he wanted to meet N… and I think this is it.”

N stepped forward slowly, his optic fixed on the device. There was a flicker of recognition in his expression, his voice quiet as he spoke.

“That’s an archive-log,” he said. “They came about when the Ark was being built.” He blinked, his gaze drifting briefly toward the covered bodies before returning to the log. “Blaster, the radio guy, handed them out to as many Autobots as he could. Said it was to let everyone record their impressions, recollections, and insights about how they felt as Cybertron… died.” The weight of his words hung in the room for a moment in total silence. N’s voice softened further as he added, “I haven’t seen one in years.”

“And it’s brand new,” J noted, turning the device over in her hand. The faint blinking light reflected off her visor as she brought it closer. “It's strange. Finding this on him. Impactor wasn’t the sentimental type—not that kind of sentimental anyway," she remarked. She passed the log to V, her pigtails bobbing slightly as she stepped around them. "Let’s see what it has to offer…”

V hesitated, staring at the device. It felt heavier in her hands than its actual weight, as if it carried Impactor’s presence, his voice, and all the unresolved questions he left behind. She glanced at N, whose optics were locked on the log, wide with curiosity and something else—wonder.

“N?” she asked.

He didn’t meet her gaze. Instead, he just seemed to sheepishly nod his head. “It’s okay, V, we can play it,” he said quietly.

With a resigned sigh, V pressed the blinking button. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the log emitted a faint hum, as a holographic display flickered to life. Blue-tinged light bathed the room, casting shadows against the theater’s crumbling walls. At first, the image was nothing but static—blurry, fractured lines and flickering colors. But slowly, it took shape. The form was that of a lone figure, standing tall and proud. Even through the distortion, it was unmistakable. The Autobot symbol emblazoned on his shoulders. The familiar shape of his armored frame and colors. The face plate that moved as he spoke. They recognized him, for he was the very essence of leadership and hope, even in this broken form.

“It…can’t be…” V whispered, her voice creaking in awe.

She looked at N, but he was already lost, transfixed by the figure before them. His eyes had brightened up and a sorrowful smile was on his face, the subtle trembling in his shoulders betrayed the flood of emotions coursing through him. She wanted to reach out, but she knew—he needed this.

To see his hero.

Leader of the Free. The bearer of the Matrix. The beacon of hope. The true Prime.

Citizens of Cybertron, I am Optimus Prime.

A deep, steady voice filled the room, resonating with strength and wisdom. It was the voice of a leader—unshaken, undaunted by time or circumstance. And yet, there was something more to it: a gentleness, a caring that only a true Prime could carry. 

They expected to hear and see Impactor’s last will and testament. His final words goodbye. Instead, they were given something else. A gift.

If you are hearing this message, it is not by chance.

For four million years, we have been absent from our home. Four million years since the Ark launched into the unknown, our hearts heavy with the weight of our dying world. We left in search of survival, not just for ourselves, but for the spark of Cybertron itself.

The room seemed to grow smaller, the air heavy with a mix of emotions. N blinked hard, struggling to make sense of the words. This wasn’t just an announcement—it was a mission, a call to action. Optimus was back. 

Something in him changed. N felt as if a massive weight that had been on his shoulders was lifted, and he stood up straighter. His hands closed into fists at his side, and he felt as though he could take on the entire Decepticon army by himself. He was fighting the massive urge to scream a cheer. 

A way to bring back Cybertron, a way to bring back their home to how it used to be before it turned silent. If Optimus was returning, that would mean…

I have much to say, yet words feel insufficient to capture the enormity of this moment. After countless cycles and unimaginable trials, we have found what we sought: a way to restore life to Cybertron. A way to mend its wounded core and breathe vitality into its fading spark. We carry with us the energy, knowledge, and resources needed to heal the scars left by war, exploitation, and despair.

For a moment, the weight of the message was too much to bear. V and J exchanged a glance. They knew Cybertron was dead, but Optimus was offering a way to save it. To truly heal it—this changed everything. This changed the war.

I address not only the Autobots who stayed behind, who have struggled valiantly to maintain our world, but also the Decepticons, if any still remain. For this is not a call for continued conflict. It is an invitation to reconciliation. Cybertron belongs to all of us, bound as we are by our shared origins and our shared destiny. The choices of the past brought devastation, but together, we can forge a future that honors all Cybertronians, no matter their allegiance.

This is not a promise of perfection. The journey ahead will demand courage, sacrifice, and unity. But I believe in the resilience of our people. I believe that from the ruins of our mistakes, we can rise stronger and wiser.

The hologram flickered again, showing itself to become more distorted and broken and the voice came once more, resolute:

Prepare yourselves, Cybertron. The Ark is coming home. And with it, the light of renewal. Of a golden age promised long ago, from someone who loved his world with all he had. 

Please, just hold on a little longer, my friends. For hope burns bright.

Till all are one.

The message ended and the holograms dissipated immediately, leaving the three Autobots in an almost sacred silence.

N stood still, as though frozen in time. His gaze remained fixed on the spot where the projection had been, as if he were trying to process the enormity of what he’d just witnessed. Finally, he took a shaky breath, his voice a whisper as he looked toward the fabric-covered body of Impactor.

“Just when I was about to give up…you, jerk.”

He dropped to one knee, and began to unveil the body. His hands faltered as the fabric slipped away, revealing the mangled remains of his friend. He flinched, his eyes narrowing against the sight. The damage was severe—it was too much to take in—but he pressed on. He needed to do this, needed to say what he had to say, right here, right now.

Taking a deep breath, he started.

“…He regretted it, you know. What happened back then.” He glanced back at V and J. Neither spoke, their silence was of understanding. They knew what he meant. Everyone did. The shadow of Impactor’s past lingered over all Autobots. How he’d killed Decepticon prisoners of war. How he’d executed them, one by one, in their cells, as they were defenseless. It was a moment of raw and uncontrollable that stained his hands forever. 

“Optimus was…” N hesitated, his eyes drifting to the body again before shutting them tightly. “He was so angry when he found out. It was the maddest I’ve ever seen him.” They had been there, witnesses to the fallout as Impactor tried to justify himself, spitting words fueled by hate and what was ‘fair’ after all was done to them. But Optimus—Optimus wasn’t having any of it. His anger was rare, but when it came, it was unstoppable. He’d beat Impactor down, forced him to listen, forced him to understand. “I can still feel my servos shake when he shouted... ‘We are not murderers.’ ”

The memory was still vivid in N’s mind. It was the first time any of them had realized how terrifying Optimus could be when angered. How utterly helpless even someone as strong as Impactor was standing before the Prime’s righteous fury.

“We held a funeral for those Decepticons. We sent their bodies back to their comrades, with every honor we could give. I went with the transport, convinced it was pointless. I thought... I actually thought there’d be an attack, an ambush. That I’d be there to fight it off. Primus, I was so stupid.” A bitter smile formed over his face. “Because there wasn’t an ambush. There wasn’t a fight. Instead, all there was just… people. Conjunx Enduras, families, kids. All of them came to collect their dead. Some were angry, some wanted to fight—but they didn’t. They just wanted closure.”

N’s optics dimmed and a long sigh escaped him. “Impactor was with us. He was in handcuffs. When the Decepticons found out what he’d done, they were the ones to decide his fate.” He placed his hand on Impactor’s chest. “A Decepticon—Onslaught—his daughter was one of the prisoners. I’ll never forget how furious he was. He lunged at Impactor, and I couldn’t stop him in time. He had a gun to Impactor’s face, ready to end it right there. But… He didn’t shoot. He just stood there, staring at Impactor for what felt like forever. And Impactor? He didn’t flinch. He just stared back, all calm, like he’d had weapons pointed at him a thousand times before—likely because he did.”

N’s voice cracked as he mimicked Impactor’s words: “‘Get it over with.’ That’s all he said. But Onslaught didn’t shoot, instead he talked. He said, ‘I can’t kill what’s already dead inside. ’ And then…” N ran a hand over his visor, trying to steady himself. “He just lowered the gun and walked away. ‘ It won’t bring back my little girl. The worst I can do is let you live with what you are: a complete and total failure as an Autobot.’ He left and then the rest of them left too. There was no execution. No vengeance. Just silence.”

N looked down at Impactor again, toward what remained of his face. “Whatever mask he tried to wear, whatever tough-guy act he put on, it all shattered after that. Optimus didn’t make him step down as leader of the Wreckers. Impactor did that himself. He couldn’t bear it anymore. Instead, he threw himself into training recruits. He wanted to teach them, to guide them—to make sure none of them became like him. That’s why he didn’t leave on the Ark. Why he stayed. Why he kept fighting for Cybertron, no matter the cost. Because being an Autobot? It meant everything to him.” Carefully, he slid his arms under Impactor’s body, lifting his friend with a gentleness that belied his strength. His voice was quieter now, almost reverent. “Optimus once said, it’s not our titles or even our deeds that define us. It’s our failures. The moments we fail to meet our own expectations. The times we let the worst parts of ourselves take over and do terrible things. Because it’s in those moments—when we’re at our lowest—that our true nature is revealed. We can choose to keep going down that dark path… or we can try to be better. To try to never make those mistakes again.” 

He hesitated, then added softly, “That’s what makes us…‘like the humans.’”

N began to walk away, his optics downcast as he carried Impactor’s lifeless body in his arms. “No matter how many years go by, or how much we claim to grow…no matter how loudly we say we’ve learned to be better…we’re still a young species. There’s so much we don’t understand. So many mistakes we repeat, over and over again—sometimes because we can’t see them, sometimes because we refuse to see them.” He paused, shifting the weight of Impactor slightly. “But there’s goodness in us. In all of us.”

He looked down at his fallen friend, his grip tightening as he continued. “Impactor isn’t a hero to me because of the battles he fought. Or the impossible missions he somehow survived. He’s a hero because he made a mistake. And for countless eons…he tried to make it right. He didn’t do it for recognition. He didn’t do it for forgiveness. He did it because he wanted reconciliation. Because he believed in the ideals we’re supposed to stand for. I hope, with everything in my spark, that as he joins the Matrix, he finally finds the peace he was searching for. That he can forgive himself for what he did.” N’s voice soften ever further, as though speaking directly to Impactor now. “Till all are one, my friend.”

He stood in silence for a moment, then his wings folding out from his back as he prepared to leave. His last words were barely audible.

“The rest…is silence.”

Neither V nor J said a single word as N stepped out of the ruined theater. They watched as he unfurled his wings fully and took flight. Snow and ash swirled in the air as the storm howled around him. He disappeared into the darkened sky within moments, leaving the echoes of his words behind. V stood motionless for a long moment before her shoulders began to shake, her head dipping slightly.

“…Are you crying? ” J finally asked, his voice laced with disbelief.

“Shut—just shut the shock up, J,” V snapped, though her voice cracked with emotion. She turned and walked out of the theater without looking back. Placing the Audio-log within her coat as her form shifted and she transformed into her vehicle mode, the roar of her engines breaking the quiet. The UVAC rose into the stormy air, following the direction N had flown moments before. J scoffed, as she looked toward the bodies and crossed her arms. A look of disappointment on her face. “You idiots, were supposed to watch him. Stick with him and report anything you found…bet you clods didn’t even realize what he had on him.” She raised a leg back and kicked at one of the M.O.Ts. “Now, I have to deal with that pink warmonger if she gets cold feet now that her boyfriend is coming home. Ugh, the things I have to put up with for the company’s sake.” 

She transformed and then flew out of the theater, towards the same direction that N and V went.

A lone pickup truck rumbled through the snowy wasteland under a vast, star-filled sky. The scene was serene, the stars above casting faint light on the desolate terrain. Resting in the truck bed was Doll, gazing upward. Her visor was off, and her features were calm as she had entered rest mode. They’d been traveling for so long that the first hues of dawn were beginning to creep into the sky, slowly painting it with faint streaks of pink and orange.

“So, like…you sure this is the direction toward a Decepticon outpost?” Thad’s voice came from the front of the truck, his tone tinged with doubt as he carried his passengers across the rugged terrain.

“Yeah, Kaon should be coming up soon,” Uzi replied, her voice casual but slightly impatient. She leaned back in her seat, rummaging through her bag. “We’d have gotten there sooner if it weren’t for the damn destruction everywhere…for such a beautiful place, the surface is such a mess.”

From her bag, she pulled out a cartridge and fished out a small cylindrical stick that glowed faintly with a greenish hue. Something the half-awake Lizzy noticed, as she lazily extended a hand toward Uzi. “Glitch, give me a goodie,” She said flatly, her voice heavy with grogginess.

Uzi jerked away from Lizzy’s grasp, holding the glowing stick protectively. “Hey, this is my runaway food. You should’ve grabbed some of your own before you bolted.” She paused, raising an eyebrow within her visor. “Also, is that how you ask?”

Lizzy blinked at her, unimpressed. “Glitch, please give me a goodie.”

Uzi sighed in exaggerated defeat, before handing over a glowing stick to Lizzy, who immediately began munching on it with satisfaction. “Whatever,” she grumbled, her tone dripping with mock annoyance as she ate her own stick of energon. She turned her gaze to the road ahead. “And Thad, if for some reason we still don’t see it soon, we can stop… You’ve been driving for like four hours. Maybe you need a break.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Uz. I’m built to last and built tough—oh! Oh! I see it!”

The horizon loomed with Kaon’s silhouette, a jagged cluster of spires and structures rising like a dark titan from the snowy wasteland as they drew closer towards it. 

“It’s…it’s…holy scrap.” Is all he could say at the sight.

The capital city of the Decepticons exuded an aura of strength and menace, a fortress carved from Cybertron’s lifeblood. Its towering buildings glimmered faintly under the pale light of the rising sun, their metallic surfaces painted in hues of gray, purple, and black. Encircling the city was a colossal trench, a gaping maw in the planet’s surface that seemed to descend forever, its depths shrouded in impenetrable darkness.

The only way across was a single bridge. It stretched over the abyss like a razor’s edge, narrow and unyielding, constructed of obsidian-hued metal. Engraved upon its surface, bold and unmistakable, was the Decepticon insignia—an ever-watchful eye gazing toward any who dared approach. Its polished surface reflected the stark light above, as if daring intruders to question their resolve. The city's outer wall rose behind the bridge, a monolithic barrier of thick, reinforced metal that seemed alive with malice. Weapons of all kinds jutted from its surface, their muzzles gleaming coldly in the rising dawn. Cannons, missile pods, and mounted energy turrets were positioned with lethal precision, ready to obliterate anything that approached without clearance.

Above the wall, there were spires which rose like jagged blades, their peaks piercing the sky. Smoke billowed from massive factories, mingling with the faint glow of energy fields that danced above the city like ghostly auroras. The sound of industry was unrelenting—whirring gears, clanging metal, and the distant thunder of heavy machinery.

The image of it all, Thad’s engine rumbled nervously as he began to cross the bridge, his headlights slicing through the fog that clung to the trench below. The city grew larger with every passing moment, its unyielding presence casting an oppressive shadow over the barren terrain that made each part of himself regret every choice he had ever made.

“Um… Uzi,” Thad called out, his voice trembling with unease as the bridge stretched on before him.

“Yeah?” Uzi replied absently, her eyes fixed on the city like a child seeing a lifelong dream materialize.

“This place… are you sure it’s run by the good guys?” Thad’s voice grew quieter, as if the city itself might hear his doubt. “Because this looks absolutely evil—”

He barely finished his sentence before Uzi kicked his glove compartment with her boot, causing the whole truck to jolt. The sudden impact sent all three girls lurching—inside and out. Uzi was prepared for it, the others, not so much.

“Shocking-ow!” Lizzy shouted, rubbing her head where it had smacked against the roof of the truck bed. Her glare could’ve melted steel.

From the back, Doll groggily pulled herself upright, her visor flickering to life. “<What happened?>” she called out, her tone laced with the grogginess of someone yanked abruptly from a deep rest mode. “<Are we being shot at again?>”

“Bite me!” Uzi snapped, aiming her frustration at the dashboard as if it had personally offended her. She gestured animatedly at the looming city ahead. “They are the heroes! I keep telling you! You’ll see!”

Lizzy groaned dramatically, as she cradled her head. “Yeah, sure. Heroes, whatever you say,” she muttered, her tone dripping with sarcasm. Doll just laid back down, as if wanting to return to sleep. Mumbling how it was too early for her cousin's nonsense.

“...Okay,” Thad muttered reluctantly, his headlights reflecting off the gleaming insignia beneath his wheels. “...oh, this is just prime.”

As they approached the gates of Kaon, the bridge’s final span seemed to stretch endlessly. Towering above them, the city walls bristled with defenses, the weapons swiveling silently as though already tracking their arrival. The air grew heavier, buzzing faintly with the hum of shield generators and distant machinery. It made Uzi sit up straighter, her excitement undeterred by the ominous atmosphere. “Just look at it,” she breathed, a grin spreading across her face. “It’s perfect.” Thad wasn’t convinced. His tires squeaked against the metal of the bridge, a sound swallowed quickly by the city’s cacophony.

Kaon awaited.

The Decepticons awaited.

Chapter Text

The pickup truck steadily slowed itself down as it approached the gates of Kaon. Its headlights cut through the hazy light of the rising sun, its frame jittering with unease. "Uh... so we're sure about this?" Thad muttered, mostly to himself, as he crept closer to the gates. "I mean, there's really no point in turning back. Just wondering—how does this work exactly? Do we knock, ring a doorbell, or—" Before anyone could answer, a shrill alarm pierced the air. Red lights mounted along the outer walls began flashing in harsh, repetitive bursts, their beams bathing the bridge in a sinister glow.

Panels along the ground near the gate hissed open, releasing a host of additional weapons that unfolded and locked into place. Cannons, missile pods, and turrets of various shapes and sizes emerged like mechanical predators, swiveling in unison to point at the small group—all at once.

"...oh scrap," was all Uzi managed to say at the sight, her voice trailing off as all their eyes turned hollow with worry.

"That's what we're gonna get turned into!" Lizzy yelped from inside the cab, leaning away from the windshield as she flinched at the many weapons aimed her way. "Nevermind, this was dumb! Thad, backup!"

Thad didn't need convincing. "Yeah, I don't think they're in a welcoming mood," he stammered, his tires squealed in protest as he shifted gears, attempting to reverse. However, before he could force the gas pedal down, large road barricades rose from the ground, blocking any path forward. Another set sprang up behind them, cutting off any retreat. They were boxed in.

Doll leaned over the edge of the truck bed, her optics widening as she realized how dire the situation was becoming. "<Well, this is problematic,>" she muttered, her tone deadpan as she scanned their surroundings for any escape routes. She grimaced when she found none.

"Just calm down!" Uzi yelled, trying to gain control of the situation as she pulled on her backpack. "I can try to talk to them."

"Talk to who, the guns?" Lizzy shouted back. Before Uzi could respond, an automated voice cut through the chaos. Emotionless and precise, it carried an air of complete authority.

Halt. Scanning identity./

A crimson beam of light burst forth from a mounted scanner above the gate, sweeping across the truck in methodical precision. The beam lingered as it reached the cab, illuminating Uzi and Lizzy, who exchanged uneasy glances. "Still sure about them being the good guys, Uzi?" Lizzy quipped, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she shrank back from the scanning light. "Oh excuse them for being cautious," Uzi shot back as she rolled her eyes, though the nervous edge in her voice betrayed her bravado. "They're only in a freaking war." The scanner shifted, bathing Thad's entire frame in red before moving to the back. It lingered briefly on Doll, who crossed her arms, looking thoroughly unhappy. "<Uzi, I am not a big fan of having weapons pointed at me twice in one day.>" Inside the cab, Thad grumbled as his steering wheel moved left and right—the vehicle equivalent of shuffling one's feet. "Yeah, I'm siding with Doll. Doesn't help that we're really out in the open right now."

"Oh you both can just—"

The beam retracted, and the automated system spoke again:

Subjects identified: four neutral Cybertronians./

Vehicle designation—unknown./

Purpose of approach—unknown./

Warning: Unregistered entry may result in termination./

Thad's engine stuttered as panic took hold. "I don't think I want to be terminated! Uzi, you're the Decepticon expert—what do we do?"

Taking a quick breath to psych herself up, Uzi opened the door on her side of the vehicle and stepped out of Thad, her hands raised in mock surrender. "We're here to join the Decepticons!" she shouted. Her voice wavered under the weight of the moment, but she pushed on, stepping forward and raising her voice further. "We were neutral—and from an underground colony in the ruins of Kalis! But we want to be part of something bigger—we want our lives to matter." Turning her open palms into fists, Uzi threw her arms into the air and shouted, "For the new golden age, All Hail Megatron!"

A tense silence followed. The red light of the scanner flickered for a moment, as if processing her words, but the weapons remained locked on Thad, their targeting systems humming ominously. "...Is it gonna work?" Lizzy whispered, leaning forward on the seat. She glanced at Uzi, her body tense, almost ready to reach out and pull the girl back into the vehicle at a moment's notice. "<If it doesn't, this will be a short trip,>" Doll remarked dryly, shaking her head as one of her eyes glitched for a fraction of a nano-click.

As the seconds dragged on and the barricades stayed in place, with the weapons unwavering in their aim, it was only a matter of time before someone tried a crazy idea.

"Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong!"

Slowly, all three of the female drones turned to look at the dashboard of the truck, where Thad had just shouted what was possibly the most random string of noise imaginable. "Was that, like, a stroke or something?" Lizzy asked, raising a skeptical brow within her visor as she gripped Thad's steering wheel. "Because you picked a really bad time to have one."

"Girls, come on—it's the universal greeting. It's supposed to express goodwill," He said, sounding almost shocked that none of them recognized the saying. "They used to teach us about it all the time."

"When we were, like, two and still protoforms," Uzi replied, disbelief thick in her voice. "And I'm pretty sure no one thought we'd use it on a literal wall of guns pointed at us—"

Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong./

All fell silent as the automated voice perfectly mimicked Thad's words, syllable by syllable. Uzi blinked hard, trying to convince herself she wasn't dreaming. She even began clapping her palms against her cheeks, just to confirm she was awake. The situation didn't improve when she heard what came next. "<Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong!>" Doll suddenly shouted, standing up in the truck bed with her arms outstretched toward the many weapons. She delivered the greeting with the flourish of an entertainer addressing an audience. Uzi turned toward her cousin, hands held out in complete bewilderment. "<I will admit, it is rather fun to say,>" Doll said with a smile, while shrugging her shoulders.

Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong./

As quickly as they had appeared, the crimson beam of light and the weapons began retracting back into their resting places. The barricades surrounding Thad's vehicle mode sank into the flooring with a mechanical hiss, freeing him to move.

"That worked… that worked?!" Uzi exclaimed, her eyes hollowing as she stared slack-jawed at the gates of Kaon, which began slowly opening before them. The mechanical locks on its outer layer unfastened one after another. It should have been a triumphant moment, yet Uzi couldn't help comparing it to something as absurdly childish as cartoon-logic. All it lacked were colorful horses preaching friendship. "...I could've just shouted 'open sesame,' and it might've worked too!"

The metallic click of boots on the ground drew her attention. Uzi turned to see Lizzy stepping out of Thad from the driver's side. "Oh, relax. You can't exactly complain about how stupid something is if it works," Lizzy said, walking to stand beside Uzi.

"Yes, I can, and I will!" Uzi snapped back, folding her arms stubbornly.

With a purr of his T-cog, Thad transformed into robot mode just as Doll leaped from his back. "Come on, girls," he interjected, trying to diffuse the argument. "It's not stupid. I mean, it's a technique used across the known cosmos by—"

He was stopped mid-sentence as Doll placed a hand on his shoulder, shaking her head sorrowfully. "<I am sorry, pretty boy. It is quite dumb,>" she said with no remorse. "<Still fun, though.>" Thad sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

When the final lock disengaged, the massive gates creaked open, revealing a cavernous interior where a second gate lay further within. Between the gates stood multiple military-style barricades, gun emplacements, and weapons platforms. Each was manned by drones—armored and identical in appearance, their purple plating and helmets featuring only a glowing, bright red T-shaped visor.

Uzi recognized them immediately. "Vehicons," she whispered, glancing at the others. "Drones like… me. They've got frames that can't handle actual vehicle modes, so they wear armor to do it for them. They're the foot soldiers of the Decepticon cause… civilians who joined the fight."

"Are they friendly?" Thad asked, noting the tense silence as every Vehicon kept their weapons trained on the group. "Because they don't look friendly, but that seems to be the theme going on with the Decepticons so far."

"<They're waiting, it seems…>" Doll pointed toward three figures standing imposingly at the far edge of the entrance. "<My guess is they're acting on orders from them.>"

Lizzy narrowed her eyes at the approaching figures, her body visibly tensing. "They don't dress the same as the others, so Doll might be onto something… What exactly is the play here, Loser? …Loser? Uzi?"

Lizzy's words went unheard, as Uzi was lost in the moment. Her spark skipped a pulse as the figures came into focus. They were real, true Decepticons—exactly as she had imagined: tall, powerful, and heavily customized. Their armor gleamed with authority and menace, their very presence exuding the will of Megatron.

Peace Through Tyranny.

The largest of the trio wore olive-green armor that bore the marks of countless battles. His tank alt. mode was obvious from the visible treads on his arms and legs, as well as the cannons mounted on his back. The glow of his visor carried a fiery intensity as he stared at the newcomers. "Well, I'll be. It just be a pack of sparklings," he rumbled in a thick Scottish accent as he and the others marched forward. "Little far from home, aren't ya, wee ones?"

The smallest of them was sleek and reserved, with polished plating that caught the dim light. His cautious stance and flickering optics suggested a quiet, observant nature. "Hey, you never know—maybe there's more to them than meets the eye," he said.

"Both of you, can it," commanded the figure in the center, his deep voice cutting through the air like a blade. He radiated discipline and authority, his dark metallic armor reflecting ominously under the dim lights. His piercing yellowish visor scanned the four young drones with calculated precision.

The trio halted before the group, their massive frames looming over the teenagers—especially Uzi, who looked comically small in comparison. Not that she seemed to mind; she was too busy reeling as she was able to recognize one of the three Decepticons.

"Onslaught… The Onslaught!" she muttered under her breath, her awe barely contained. Lizzy elbowed her sharply to snap her out of it. "Ow!"

"Care to fill the rest of us in?" Lizzy asked dryly, folding her arms while glaring at the shorter girl.

Uzi scoffed, as she gestured toward the older drone. "If you actually paid attention in history class, you'd know he's the Strategic Commander— Onslaught ! He's a freaking hero!" Practically shaking with excitement, Uzi shot a glare at Lizzy before returning her full attention to the Decepticon leader, her tone shifting to one of admiration. "Sir, I've studied several of your campaigns—the Battle of the Iron Cage, the Siege of Nexus Prime, the Blizzard War of the 547th cycle—you're a tactical genius who's proven Decepticon supremacy time and again! It's a total honor to actually see you in metal!"

"<Do you need a minute, cousin?>" Doll asked, her tone holding a tinged of concern.

"Yeah," Thad chimed in. "You're totally fangirling right now."

"Oh, this is nothing. You guys remember when she first made a presentation about Megatron a few years ago—" Lizzy began, but Uzi quickly elbowed her in the side to silence her.

"Bite me!" She shouted, glaring at her team.

A single clearing of the throat was enough to silence the four teens. Their attention snapped back to the Decepticon commander, while his commandos seemed to be holding in their own laughter. "...That is some impressive knowledge of history, kid," Onslaught said, his visor shifting to focus on Uzi's shoulder, where her homemade Decepticon badge was proudly stitched onto her hoodie. "One of the Vehicons told me you were shouting about joining. So, you think you've got what it takes to become a Decepticon?"

With an all-too-eager grin, Uzi raised her leg in the air, showing off the dried dark energon that coating it. "I've got an Autobot's inner energon on my leg from stomping his head in. What do you think?"

Silence followed. The only sound was the cold morning breeze, accompanied by snow drifting between the two teams. "You mean, you didn't clean your leg the entire ride here?" Lizzy asked, recoiling in disgust. "Gross."

"I didn't exactly bring a brush or sponge, okay?" Uzi shot back, stomping her leg down as she turned toward Lizzy. "Not like I want to stay covered in this stuff—it's so weirdly sticky."

"<I think it's quite a pleasant feeling, to be honest,>" Doll chimed in, tapping the glass of her visor where a dark smear was visible. Some of it had been wiped near her mouth, as though licked clean. "<I haven't washed off the splatter from when I cut that one Autobot's arm off… or was it his head? Hmm…>" She paused thoughtfully.

Thad visibly cringed at the mention. "Yeah, nothing concerning about how casually you say that at all, D," he muttered, shaking his head as he and Lizzy exchanged a look.

"<Aww, pretty boy is scared of a little energon blood?>" Doll teased with a smirk.

"No… well," Thad's eyes turned hollow as a realization dawned on him. "Actually, now I'm wondering if Uzi left some inside me. She didn't exactly wipe her feet."

"Relax. Inner energon is supposed to stay inside a drone, Thad. That's, like, Engineering Class 101," Lizzy said, patting his shoulder in a weak attempt to calm him.

Uzi tried to interject. "I mean, we could just rub some snow on ourselves. That should be enough to clean—"

"You are not allowed to give any advice about cleanliness," Lizzy interrupted, "especially considering how most of the time you smell like motor oil and battery acid."

"Yeah, because I do this thing called actually working ! Unlike a certain glitch of a drone who just steals someone else's upgrade idea and gives them to herself because she thinks it'd be 'cool' to be smaller!"

"Oh, my Primus, are you still mad about that? Do you like, need a stool or something to help you get over it?"

"Was that a joke about my height?"

"And here I was thinking it flew over your head like most things."

"Why you—"

A snapping of fingers cut through their bickering. "Children," Onslaught said, his tone loud and commanding. "I'm only going to ask nicely once. If you all want to talk, start by telling me the important things. Like who you are, and how you managed to get Autobot inner energon splattered on two of you."

Uzi opened her mouth, ready to explain, but Lizzy stepped forward, cutting her off. "We're just NAILs who lived in an underground colony," she began, jerking her thumb toward Uzi. "At first, we came here because of this one —big Decepticon fan, kind of a loner, no real friends, you know. She's got this whole angsty, 'the world doesn't understand me' thing going on. So, naturally, she decided running away from home was a good idea."

"Hey!" Uzi snapped indignantly.

Onslaught raised a hand, silencing her with ease. "I've had two daughters. I know how teenage girls act. Continue."

Lizzy nodded. "We followed her, and, well, apparently the city of Kalis is being used by Autobots for some weird murder spire. A group of them found us, and…" She hesitated for a second, as if searching for the right words. "...things got messy. We kind of got into a shootout with them."

"And yet you all seem to have walked away with minimal damage." Onslaught's visor shifted to Thad, specifically his shoulder, where a noticeable scorch mark remained from a grazing shot.

Lizzy noticed the skeptical tone. "Yeah. We got lucky. Guess we had a guardian robot looking out for us or something." Doll hummed approvingly at Lizzy's words.

Uzi stepped forward, her voice sharp. "Luck doesn't change the fact that we killed them. One of the Autobots was a Wrecker—the ex-leader, in fact. Impactor. He's the one whose head I crushed under my boot." She smiled, clearly proud of the accomplishment, until Lizzy loudly faked a cough. "Well, after Doll and Thad helped big time in taking him down first," Uzi quickly added, a faint blush crossing her face. "But I'm still the one who killed him!"

Onslaught remained silent, though his teammates reacted with visible shock at the revelation. "The Autobots are shooting at sparklings now?" The large Decepticon growled, his voice huffing as his fists clenched. The smaller Decepticon appeared unsettled. "I mean, it's Kalis. That's where those freaky monster things live—the angels! These kids are lucky to have come out alive at all." Onslaught's deep voice made his teammates stiffened.

"Impactor, huh…" This tension didn't escape the group—except Uzi, who raised her chin smugly. "Yeah, I recognized him," she said, "Felt good to enact some justice on that Con-killer. He spent his last moments trying to—" "I don't need to know," Onslaught interrupted her, before turning away. He clasped his hands behind his back as he walked off without another word, leaving almost everyone in confused silence.

Uzi was obviously the most taken aback by the attitude. "Seriously? Am I missing something?" She asked, looking toward the other two 'Cons for an answer. "I killed an Autobot, a Con-killer. Shouldn't that be, like… a good thing?"

The large drone took a knee, lowering himself to speak to the quartet of young drones, optic-to-optic. "Think nothing of it, wee one. He's got history—that's all. By the great spark, we all do. Want my advice? Be careful about what Autobot names you mention around here. A lot of fellas have personal grudges with certain Autobots, and they won't take kindly to someone settling scores they think belonged to them." He gave the group a scrutinizing look before snapping his fingers in sudden realization. "Ah, right, names… Brawl," he said, gesturing to himself, then pointing at the drone beside him. "This skinny bloke here is Blast Off. We're part of a squad: Combat Icons."

"Uh…" Blast Off leaned closer to his companion, whispering pointedly, "It's Combaticons , dude. We've been fighting together for years—how do you keep messing that up?"

"It's too early in the morning. I haven't had my first drink yet," Brawl replied, waving him off dismissively, even as Blast Off muttered something about how all Brawl did the previous night was drink.

Thad leaned over toward Uzi as the two older drones were speaking to each other, he raised a brow within his visor and he whispered, "Onslaught, Brawl, Blast Off… and that Autobot guy was named Impactor? What's with the names on the surface? It almost sounds like names you'd give action figures."

Uzi looked offended by the question. "Hey, their names are awesome!" She whispered in a harsh, defensive tone. "Besides, my name is Uzi, and you don't make a big deal out of that."

Lizzy scoffed. "That's because we know your real name is Uziel." Once again, she didn't even react as Uzi gave her the coldest stare possible.

"...How the shock did—" Uzi stopped herself from asking the question and looked over to Doll. "<Is there a problem, Cousin?>" Doll asked, a small smile playing on her face. "<Shall you mock me by calling me Dola, as my mother named me? Because I still haven't told them your middle name. Or your father's cute little nickname for you. What was it again… Knobby?>" There was a look of absolute murder in Uzi's eyes as she prepared to throw herself at her cousin, but everyone froze when Onslaught suddenly leaped into the air and transformed. A large military truck—much bigger than Thad's alt. mode, something that made the boy's optics brighten with glee—landed on the floor with a loud thud.

"And that's the signal for us to get a move on," Brawl said as he picked himself up and gestured for the teens to follow. The back doors of Onslaught's truck mode opened to reveal the vehicle's spacious but utilitarian interior. "Welcome to Kaon, kiddos."

"<Just like that?>" Doll asked, raising a brow within her visor. "<That's strangely inviting compared to the literal wall of guns we were staring at seconds ago.>"

"Look, you're not Autobots, so obviously you're welcome to come in," Blast Off said, waving a hand toward the Vehicons, who finally lowered their weapons. "But you're not 'Cons yet. It takes more than slapping on a symbol and killing an Autobot to join." The rest of the group chuckled, while Uzi muttered a human curse under her breath. "It's tradition," Blast Off explained. "We bring new recruits to meet the leader so they can officially become Decepticons."

Uzi blinked in confusion, then her optics brightened with her own excitement at the thought of meeting her personal hero . "Wait as in… Lord Megatron? The Lord Megatron, we get to meet him! Oh my Primus, how do I look—terrible I know, shut up Lizzy, scrap! Someone give me something to clean myself with, so I don't shame us all! I mean, he was last reported on the Nemesis when it left Cybertron to battle against the Autobot Ark. Did he come back? Did he kill the last false prophet, did—"

Her hopes were quickly dashed as Blast Off and Brawl both suddenly laughed at her. "Oh man, you kids really have been living under a rock," Brawl said, shaking his head with a hint of pity. "We haven't heard from him in years! Our leader is someone Megatron put in charge, though."

With a look of utter disappointment on her face, Uzi's entire demeanor dropped as her disappointment rival that of the entire city of Kaon. "Who in the pits could rival Megatron in leadership?"She would ask, with pure disdain in her voice.

"His name is Shockwave."

Onslaught's vehicle mode rumbled powerfully as it maneuvered through the wide, uneven streets of Kaon. Having passed through the second gate, the military truck reached full acceleration in seconds, navigating jagged roads and dangerous lanes with practiced ease as it entered the city limits. Inside the vehicle, the group of young drones sat in a mix of awe and curiosity. Doll, Uzi, and Lizzy were glued to the small window slots lining the sides of the truck, their optics scanning the chaotic yet vibrant cityscape outside. Thad, however, had found his own source of entertainment.

"Okay, hold up, this has to be a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected—an MRAP—vehicle. I can tell just from the size of it and the massive armor plating. But what model is this? I think it's… uh… what was it called? It's on the tip of my tongue. Lenco? No, that's the manufacturer. They off-shoot to civilians for police work a long time ago back in—wait is this a Bearcat? Are we in a Bearcat? No, but the interior feels more like a MaxxPro. And there's no real opening for a turret section on the top. Is this some kind of custom job, or—" Thad continued his rambling from the front cabin, where he was seated with Brawl. The older drone, lounging lazily in the driver's seat, looked as though he'd rather recharge than endure the endless stream of chatter filling his audio receptors.

"Primus, he's cute, but he can be as bad as Uzi sometimes," Lizzy whispered, sharing a snicker with Doll as they glanced at the boy. Their laughter faded as their attention returned to the view outside, both of them quietly taken aback by the sight of it all.

Everyone knew the history of Kaon. It was infamous as one of the worst places on Cybertron—once it was a haven for drones who fought in underground gladiatorial combat areas, an open secret, even during the Senate's rule. Before the planet's core was overloaded and the war began, Kaon was the first city to fall to the Decepticons. Where in a single day, thousands of drones roused up against their oppressive masters, declaring that "This is our world." During the war, Kaon was transformed into a prison for Autobot captives and anyone who dared oppose the Decepticon cause. It was said to be a hellish place where unspeakable acts were committed in the name of Decepticon sovereignty.

Given its brutal history and dark reputation, one might expect Kaon to be a lifeless, desolate city—a hollow shell filled with broken souls, no better than the dead ruins of Kalis.

Except... Kaon was alive.

Yes, it was an imposing industrial sprawl of jagged, rusted architecture looming under a perpetually smog-covered sky. Towers stretched toward the heavens like serrated spears, and dark purple banners fluttered ominously in the wind. The foreboding aesthetic was undeniable and deliberately crafted. But beneath the grim exterior, the city thrummed with unexpected vibrancy. The streets bustled with drones of all shapes and sizes. Massive construction bots lumbered past, either hauling supplies or repairing the ever-expanding city walls. Vendors manned market stalls cobbled together from salvaged Autobot scrap, offering everything from weapons and rare energon crystals to strange trinkets tied to Cybertronian mythology. Children—young sparklings—dashed between the adults, their laughter echoing as they played tag beneath the towering watchtowers, where Vechicons stood guard. Some drones moved with an air of menace, their frames bristling with weaponry as they proudly bear the Decepticon insignias. Others, clearly civilians, had more streamlined builds and went about their daily lives. Artists spray-painted graffiti onto steel walls, their work bold and defiant. Blacksmiths hammered away at anvils fashioned from shattered Autobot weaponry, sparks flying in rhythmic bursts. Street performers twirled sparking energon hoops, drawing a small crowd with their dazzling displays.

It wasn't a fortress or a prison.

It was a city—alive and thriving while the planet itself was dead.

"I'll be honest, I didn't expect this," Lizzy muttered, her voice softening as she took it all in. "I thought Kaon was supposed to be some grim, military hellhole. But…"

"It's still a military zone," Onslaught's voice echoed through the vehicle as they continued to drive through the bustling streets. "If you've got sharp optics, you'll notice the watchtowers, hidden sniper nests, motor pools, weapon caches—the whole setup. Everything here screams readiness for combat at a moment's notice. But even soldiers need homes, and homes need people. This isn't Iacon; we don't waste resources pretending things are pristine."

"Maybe it's the constant getting nearly shot at finally getting to me, but… this doesn't seem like such a bad place to live," Lizzy admitted, with Doll giving a shrug in silent agreement. Though their attention shifted from the bustling city back to Uzi, who was currently acting about a quarter of her age.

Much like a child at their favorite theme park, the short drone's excitement was barely contained as she moved from one side of the vehicle to the other, pressing her face against the narrow window slits in an attempt to take in every detail of the entire city at once. "This is incredible… Look at the banners! That forge over there is melting down Autobot transport vehicles for metal—that's so cool! Oh my Primus, there's a place that just has to have plasma conductors! I need that for my gun mode. I've been making my own parts, but now I could just—Wait, is that a freaking security sentry? I thought all of those were lost after the Battle of Zeta Prime! Oh, and what about—"

Her words became a long blur, a continuous mess of references to historical events one after another, as she refused to sit in place.

"—Oh! That's where they started the Headmasters program, man, that was a weird one. Oh and that is the facility where they did the pretender project, that was even more weird! Ha! Oh, I can remember the documents of how well that went when they tried to—"

"Hey, loser," Lizzy interrupted sharply, snapping Uzi's attention from her flood of admiration. "You see anywhere we could find a new energon chip?"

Uzi paused, blinking in confusion at the question as she glanced over her shoulder to look at the other girl. "The wha—"

"You know, the little thing that the entire colony needs to survive?" Lizzy clarified, narrowing her eyes just a little.

It took a moment, but the pieces finally clicked. "Oh! Scrap, you're right." Uzi smacked her fist lightly against her temple as she looked back through the window slits towards the outside again. "Okay, my bad—get the energon chip, then head back. Easy. We can totally do that... after a grand tour or two... or six."

"You keep mentioning something about a energon chip." Brawl's deep voice rumbled, cutting through Thad's constant muttering as the larger drone glanced back. "Why would you ruts need something like that?"

"Ours broke," Lizzy explained flatly while rolling her eyes. "The colony had one that kept the whole place running for a while, but... well, it finally gave out on us."

"<When we left, everyone was literally voting on how to kill each other,>" Doll chimed in, her tone unnervingly calm as ever. "<They'll still be debating for at least three weeks, so we do have time.>"

Brawl's orange visor gleamed as he turned toward the back of the vehicle. The design of his armored helmet made it impossible to see his face, but his confusion was palpable. "And your people didn't have a backup? Or a way to fix it?" he asked, incredulous.

Though her gaze remained fixed outside, Uzi did chim in. "Yeah, the adults in our colony are kind of stupid," As she spoke, she pulled her backpack from her shoulders and began to rummage through it. Once more, she pulled out her pack of energon goodies. "But don't worry—once we come back with a new chip, I'm sure they'll change their tune about wanting to stay NAILs. I know my dad is gonna flip out when he sees us—"

"What in the oily hell are you eating?" Brawl asked suddenly, his voice filled with curiosity.

Uzi froze, a greenish stick of energon halfway to her mouth. "Uh... energon goodie?" she answered, her tone uncertain.

"Why is it green ?"

Uzi blinked, confusion easily written all over her face. "...Because energon is green?"

Lizzy leaned forward, her brow furrowed as she also began to question the large Drone. "Yeah, all energon is green. Why?"

Brawl's tone turned stern as he began to move from his seat. "No, it isn't. Energon comes in blue, yellow, red, pink, orange, and even a rainbow of colors—but not just green."

"Um, dude, all our energon is green," Thad called out nervously from his seat, barely visible behind Brawl's massive frame. "Maybe our colony just makes it a little differently—"

Brawl took a step towards Uzi and held out his hand towards her. "Alright, give me one. I'll see for myself." Uzi muttered how she hated how much she was giving out her food, but did relent as she placed a single energon stick in his large hand. The three girls watched as the front of his helmet would open, revealing his mouth as he took a single bite from the 'goodie'.

Not even a full minute later, Onslaught was forced to pull over as Brawl rushed out of the vehicle and began dry-heaving onto the floor. The Colony Drones followed, each of them in shock at such a sudden visceral reactions. 

"What in the pits happened?" Blast Off asked as he descended, transforming out of his small space shuttle vehicle mode mid-flight and landing smoothly upon the ground. Having opted to make the trip his own way while everyone else rode in Onslaught. "Brawl, I step away to stretch my wings, and I come back to find you looking like you walked in on Starscream taking an oil bath."

"What's an oil bath?" Thad would ask, glancing towards the girls who each gave him a shrug in confusion.

"Ugh…" The large Drone could only whine, as he cradled his abdomen. "I think a whole new Great War is happening in my energy tank." Onslaught sighed deeply, as he stood near-by in robot mode. He dragged a hand down his face as he attempted to keep himself calm. "You brats are so lucky we're near somewhere familiar," he grumbled before gesturing toward a large, rugged building at the end of the street. Its exterior was plastered with garish neon signs and numerous Decepticon insignias. A flickering sign above the entrance read:

SWINDLE'S

"Where deals are in disguise!"

"Well, this looks like a rad place," Thad said, trying to sound enthusiastic over the sound of Brawl's gagging. "It's a bummer to look at, so it must be a cool hang out spot."

"It's a bar that smells like someone is constantly burning rubber bags of garbage inside of it, it isn't 'cool' in the slightest," Onslaught corrected the young drone, before turning his attention to his only fit comrade. "Blast Off, while I deal with—" Onslaught paused to look at Brawl, who was currently unleashing a colorful stream of energon from his mouth like a river. "My idiot friend, who thought eating poison was a good idea, I want you to take the kids inside the bar and watch them. Maybe give them something good to eat."

"Aye, sir!" Blast Off said, immediately giving a salute, though he winced as he saw Brawl again vomit another pool of energon. "Dude, come on, at least try not to do it on the snow. You're gonna attract mini-con roaches."

Uzi gave a scoff, as she munched on another energon stick. Not at all having as bad of a reaction as the Decepticon warrior somehow. "I know it's super processed stuff but like it isn't that bad." She said, before suddenly her goodies were snatched from her hand as Onslaught began to look at them. "What is with everyone taking my food today?"

"Energon Chips are meant to last, at most, four years. How long did yours run?" Onslaught asked, while taking one of the sticks from the container to look at them. The question was directed towards Uzi, but she seemed to struggle when it came to giving an answer. Muttering only a "uhhh" as she looked off to the side, trying and failing to come up with a rough estimate. "Really? " Lizzy interjected, with sheer disbelief. "You can remember any random battle that took place millions of years ago as long as someone wore a purple logo, but you can't remember simple facts about the colony's own history—where we live? I thought you were a history nerd."

Uzi crossed her arms and pouted, muttering how their history wasn't nearly as interesting as the Decepticons. "Why don't you explain it then?"

"What do I look like, an exposition-bot? Do I have to explain everything every time when you can't do it?"

"<For Sigma's sake…>" With a roll of her eyes, Doll stepped forward and began to speak for the others."<Our colony dates as far back as when the Great Evaluation started. When news came that the planet was dying.>"

Onslaught hummed, holding a hand to his chin as he began to recollect. "Right, I remember. Many colonies started around that time, most left the planet, but I did hear that some stayed behind and hid themselves in stasis."

With a nod of her head, Doll elaborated. "<Correct. Our people did exactly that, and up until around 20 mega-cycles ago, they slept.>"

"And of course that means your energon chip was running the entire time, Vector Sigma, how are any of you even functioning?" Onslaught paused to take a calming breath. "We will deal with that later, especially because you have been basically eating and drinking poison your entire lives."

"Really? I mean, it can't be that bad—" Thad tried to point out, but he stopped as Brawl fell over—the large drone now on his side. "Oh my Primus, my insides are on fire, Ugh!" He shouted, moments before once more a flood of energon vomited from his mouth.

Blast Off was quick to hassle the younger drones away at that point. "Okay, doing as the boss says!" He turned each of them towards the bar and began shoving. "I mean, Shockwave is terrifying anyway, so I'll be honest we weren't exactly in the biggest rush to go meet him. But look on the bright side, you kids get to see one of the best spots in all of Kaon, a real must go kind of place, a place where everybody knows your name—because they stole your date information while you were passed out drunk."

"What was that last part?" Lizzy tried to ask, but Blast Off would continue to push the four teens through the door of the bar, right before following them in.

"Never-mind that, Vortex, I'm hom–ly scrap!"

Swindle's was exactly what any of them could have expected. It was a perfect emulation of the seedy establishments seen in human media, where scum and villainy gathered to drink and socialize. The acrid smell of burnt circuitry and stale energon hit the young drones' olfactory sensors like a slap, and their visors immediately fogged up from the thick exhaust hanging in the air. On the left side of the entrance, a long bar counter stretched into the haze. It was sticky with who-knows-what and littered with empty energon cubes. Scattered tables and booths were occupied by grungy older drones, all nursing drinks or betting on various games—some played in person, others on small holo-screens. To the right, rows of deadly-looking weapons gleamed dimly under flickering lights. Each one was secured behind an energy field, with a cardboard cutout of a grinning drone posted at the front. The cutout featured a large speech bubble that read: "Do not touch without paying first, or you will fry."

But the most shocking feature of the bar wasn't the smell or the weapons. It was the drone—one who looked exactly like the cardboard cutout—hanging from the ceiling with a noose tied around his neck. The sight was so startling that it caused the colony drones to freeze in place, with wide-hollow-eyes. "Vortex, what the hell?!" Blast Off shouted as he turned to a female drone sitting lazily behind the bar counter.

"Huh?" She barely glanced up from her task of balancing a house of cards on the sticky counter. "Oh, yeah. Swindle's trying to kill himself. You want a drink?"

The sheer casualness of her words snapped Thad out of his shock. His optics widened further, his face a mix of disbelief and concern as he turned toward the drone dangling from the ceiling. "Uh… is he okay? Should we… should we help him?"

Above them, Swindle groaned dramatically, his voice dripping with theatrical despair. "Don't try and stop me…" Lizzy was the only one to visibly react, having lowered her hands, shifting from a look of horror to one of semi-disappointment, muttering "Oh, he's alive" just barley under her breath. Swindle's optics flickered briefly in her direction. "I lost all my money in an online children's card game," he lamented. "I might as well be dead. I'm broke!"

Vortex shrugged as she carefully balanced another card on her carefully made stack. "I told him. Running a Blue-Eyes deck was a terrible idea in this meta."

"I wanted to screw the rules and have the money!" Swindle wailed, "But the rules screwed me, and now I have no money!"

A smile seemed to creep its way upon Doll's face. "<Morally ambiguous drones that seem incredibly suicidal at times… almost feels like home.>"

Blast Off pinched the bridge of his helmet and groaned in exasperation. "Vector Sigma, Swindle, I brought new recruits here! Have some dignity!"

Suddenly re-energized, Swindle's optics lit up as he looked down at the group. "Wait. Do they have any money? I take republic credits, bits, schmeckles, Monopoly money, Shanix... Diamonds are good too."

Uzi, looking very uncomfortable, stammered, "Uh… not really. Our colony works on a trade system—" "Then you can bite my shiny metal license plate!" Swindle snarled, cutting her off with a dramatic wave of his fist. But just as he raised it, the noose snapped. With an undignified clunk , Swindle hit the floor face-first. The impact echoed through the bar as he groaned, lying in a heap. Slowly, he picked himself up, rubbing his cracked visor with a tired and irritated sigh. "Scrap… I knew I should've gotten that extended warranty."

Thad took a step forward, concern written across his face. "Uh… so, do you, like, need someone to talk to, or—"

"Shut up," Swindle muttered, staggering toward the bar and collapsing onto a stool. "Vortex, pour me a double. And grab these 'recruits' a menu if they're staying. Weapons, drinks, or info—it's all for sale." He then dropped his face down along the bar counter, his optics closed as he took a deep breath of sheer contempt.

"Aye-aye, 'boss,'" Vortex said while she gave a lazy salute and turned to the group, her helmet opening to reveal a smirking face. "Welcome to Swindle's. First time here?"

Lizzy crossed her arms, smirking back. "Definitely the last time if it's always like this."

"What, and miss this top-tier entertainment? Wait, do I need to check IDs? Do we even do that?" Vortex mused, glancing back toward Swindle, only to receive a groan in response from the the down headed 'Con. "...Okay, I'll just assume you kids can handle your energon."

"Trust me. They can," Blast Off muttered, rolling his optics as he headed toward the backroom. "I'm gonna make them some food. If they offer you a stick of energon, please don't eat it."

Vortex scoffed, clearly annoyed. "Conjunx Endura or not, you don't get to tell me what I put in my mouth!" She proclaimed, throwing her arms in the air in a rebellious attitude. "I stick my tongue in it; I get a say," Blast Off shot back smoothly, disappearing into what looked like a kitchen area as the door hissed shut behind him. "Oh, I've got a spot where you can stick it, and—" Vortex suddenly paused, realizing the audience she was addressing. "I forgot there were sparklings in front of me."

She turned her yellow optics toward the group, taking in Uzi and Lizzy recoiling in disgust, Thad looking thoroughly embarrassed, and Doll… who just smiled knowingly. "<By all means, continue,>" Doll said with an air of amusement.

"Vortex, remember, this is a family establishment," Swindle grumbled from his seat before adding, "And that's just gross to say out loud, young lady."

"Oh, really ?" Vortex retorted, tapping her fingers along the bar counter. "Don't you owe Dad like 500 Shanix? How are you gonna pay him back without any money?" She lean closer to the yellow armored drone, as if to further push her point, and that seemed enough to make Swindle promptly slumped forward, letting his head thunk against the counter once more. "Yeah, that's what I thought," Vortex said smugly before turning back to the group. "Okay, a double for you," she gestured toward Swindle, "and for you kids?"

The bar buzzed with life, a chaotic symphony of energon machinery humming, cubes clattering, and drones either laughing or shouting. In one corner, Doll sat at a rickety table surrounded by a rowdy crowd of cheering and chanting older drones. A drinking competition was in full swing, and Doll, unbothered by the raucous atmosphere, lifted her energon cube—thick, glowing pink, and faintly humming in her hands.

"<You call this a drink?>" she quipped dryly, her tone laced with mockery as she examined the cube. Across from her sat two competitors: a burly blue-and-gray tank drone already teetering on his chair, and a wiry scout with glowing green optics, who looked like he regretted even entering the competition. Doll tilted her head slightly, then, in one smooth motion, tipped the cube back and downed it in less than two seconds. The crowd erupted into cheers and laughter as she slammed the empty cube onto the table with an audible clang. "<I think wiper fluid would kick harder,>" she said, her voice dripping with smug satisfaction. Her visor gleamed in the dim barlight, and the Decepticon emblem stitched onto her cheerleader crop top caught the light as she gestured for another round.

The tank drone groaned, barely lifting his next cube before muttering, "I'm out," and slumping forward onto the table, unconscious. The scout didn't even bother making an excuse—he slunk away quietly, defeated. Doll stretched lazily, folding her hands behind her head. "<Ah… just like home,>" she said with a smirk, basking in the crowd's cheers as they chanted her name.

At a booth nearby, Lizzy and Thad sat across from each other, nearly empty plates in front of them, left with the smallest of crumbs. Thad stared at the remnants of his meal, his optics unusually bright. "That was…" he began, his voice cracking slightly as he searched for the right words. "I mean, I've never tasted anything like it."

Lizzy nodded, discreetly dabbing at her optics with a napkin. The Decepticon emblem stitched onto her cheerleader outfit seemed to shin in the dim light, oddly fitting against the background of the bar. "Real food," she murmured, her voice soft and tinged with a rare emotion of gratitude. "Like, actual food. No wonder they thought we lived on poison."

Thad ran a finger absently over the Decepticon insignia stitched onto his vest, his voice filled with awe. "No wonder so many join these guys. They've got master chefs or something. I don't think I can go back to what we had before. I'd starve before tasting anything green again."

Lizzy placed a hand over the boy's, nodding earnestly. "Thad, I will literally kill someone if I'm even offered that green scrap again."

Blast Off smiled down at them as he hurried over and set a third helping of food between them. "See, most people say I can't cook worth a damn," he admitted, though there was a warmth in his tone. "But I'm glad to know someone actually appreciates what I make. Not even my own conjunx does that. Eat up, kids. Good, healthier energon will keep your processors sharp and your bodies running smoother than ever. Might even make you think you can take on the Autobot army!"

"...Are you a prophet of Primus?" Lizzy asked, her tone awestruck. She and Thad stared in reverence at the greasy, half-burnt serving of ener-dogs and rhodium chips. Moments later, they were eating, their optics bright with pure joy as they savored the taste of the food. Both seemed transported to sheer heaven by the simple meal.

Within, in the far back of the bar, the chaotic noise outside softened into the faint hum of tools and the crackle of sparks. Behind a doorway labeled [PRIVATE OFFICE, KEEP OUT UNLESS YOU HAVE MONEY], Vortex was hard at work. She perched on a barstool by a cluttered workbench, her hands deftly tinkering with components as she leaned over her latest project. Next to her sat Swindle, slumped drunkenly against the wall with his chest compartment lazily popped open, giving Vortex full access to his internal storage.

"And like… you're sure he isn't gonna notice all this stuff is missing?" Uzi asked, her voice curious but wary. She sat upon the workbench, not in her usual robot-mode but her gun-mode.

A newly crafted one.

Where her old frame had looked haphazard and cobbled together, this version was sleek and polished. The weapon now featured a proper stock and an ergonomic handle beneath its barrel. Its smooth, professional finish left none of the amateurous, sci-fi augmentations she had once worn over her clothing were visible anymore. They've all been successfully integrated within her being now.

"Oh, he's totally gonna freak out when he checks his inventory," Vortex replied nonchalantly, not bothering to look up from her work. "But I don't care." With one final adjustment, she clicked a small component into place and stepped back, grinning with satisfaction as she held up the hyper-augmented Uzi with pride. The weapon exuded a polished, lethal energy that hadn't been there before. "Alright, I'm done. You've had some decent upgrades already, but they were all exposed and messy. Seriously, if you want to be a proper Decepticon, you've got to look the part—sleek, deadly, not like you got all your parts from a scrapyard."

With a loud grumble, the gun shook in the Decepticon's hands. "I did cobble myself together in a scrapyard. It's not like my colony gave me much to work with." Uzi correct, clearly annoyed at that fact being brought up.

Vortex chuckled, entirely unfazed by the irritation in Uzi's voice. "Well, welcome to the big leagues, short stack. We don't do half-measures here." She stepped back to give Uzi some space, admiring her handiwork with a smug grin. "Besides making you look presentable, I also moved your firing mechanism to your arm, so you can shoot without fully transforming. Though, fair warning—your firepower won't hit as hard without that fancy Mini-Con tech you've got. Other than that, how you feeling, kid?" Vortex pulled back her arm and tossed the weapon in the air.

"Terrorize!" At Uzi's vocal command, the gun sprang into the air. The faint hum of a T-Cog activating filled the room as she shifted into her robot mode. Her clothing no-longer covered with wires and lights, that would generate her power—leaving her looking in what would be her usual style of dress, as the Decepticon symbol now was stitched proudly on both of her shoulders, and along her back. She stretched herself experimentally, her optics bright with satisfaction. "Oh, that's so much better," she said, flexing her hands. "And I don't need to worry about the exploding problem anymore, right?"

Vortex smirked. "Please. I like to think I'm at least somewhat of a professional," she said while holding her hands on her hips moments before suddenly one of her blades flex and nearly knocked over the entire workbench, and send tools flying to fall over Swindle's body. "...I meant to do that."

"And yet you won't tell me why you're doing this for me," Uzi pointed out, glancing skeptically toward the still-unconscious Swindle. "Not that I'm complaining, but I get the feeling something like this would normally cost a lot."

Vortex shrugged, once more acting nonchalantly. "Eh, I don't sweat the details," she said. "Call it a welcoming gift. You're technically not a Decepticon yet—not until Shockwave gives the official okay—but come on… you killed Impactor."

"...Yeah," Uzi mumbled, her optics dimming slightly as she glanced down at her leg, which was no longer stained with inner energon—a wet rag thankfully solved that. "Hey, what's the deal with your dad and Impactor, anyway? When I told him about it, he got really quiet. I figured it was some kind of old grudge, but what's the story there?"

Vortex's expression faltered for a moment, her yellow eyes darting away as she leaned back against the workbench. "It's just a personal thing," she said, her tone suddenly more reserved. "Don't worry too much about it. The guy's dead, and my dad's alive. That's all that matters." She pushed off the bench and changed the subject, her usual cocky grin returning. "Hey, you wanna go up to the roof and do some target practice?"

Uzi gave her own grind, as suddenly green sparks covered her person. Her safety having been turned off. "Hell yeah!"

Nightfall would descend again across Cybertron, blanketing the metallic landscape in its familiar, artificial twilight. The neon lights of Swindle's bar flickered lazily, casting a hazy, warm glow over the interior. The low hum of quiet conversation mingled with the occasional clink of metal mugs and energon cubes, filling the space with a soothing ambiance. The bar had settled into a tranquil lull, though many of the patrons remained. Some hadn't left since morning. In one of the booths, the teens had claimed a corner to rest. Doll sat with both arms wrapped protectively around Thad and Lizzy, the three of them tangled together in a comfortable mess of limbs. Their visors flickered faintly, displaying the soft glow of [ Sleep Mode ] messages in their natural optic colors. Lizzy's head leaned against Doll's shoulder, her light snores barely audible. Thad clutched a half-empty plate of energon-based food in one hand, the other arm dangling limply over the edge of the booth.

Opposite them, resting motionlessly on the table, was Uzi in her gun mode. Faint, rhythmic mechanical clicks from her core were the only indication that she was peacefully offline—or even sentient at all.

Nearby, at a table scattered with colorful playing cards, Blast Off leaned back in his chair, cradling his hand of cards with one confident hand. "Geez," he remarked, glancing over at the sleeping teens. "Did those kids get any rest before they showed up here?"

Vortex rolled her optics as she placed another card on the pile. "Who knows? You know how it is. Best to let them sleep while they can."

"Ha!" Swindle crowed as he slapped a card down triumphantly. "Draw two, Blast—"

"Draw two."

"Draw two, glitch."

Both Blast Off and Vortex dropped their own cards onto the pile in unison, their grins widening as Swindle's face fell. "Aw, come on!" He groaned, reaching for the deck to draw six cards. "Who's the genius that came up with the stupid rule that those stack?!"

Vortex snickered as Blast Off wordlessly placed another card on the pile. "Maybe you just have terrible luck with card games. Ever think it's a sign from Primus to quit while you're ahead?" she teased, dropping her own card onto the table.

"No, I'm turning this around—wait. Oh, for shock's sake!" Swindle groaned, his optics flaring with frustration as he looked at the pile and saw what was placed down. "You skipped me!" Vortex burst into full-blown laughter, and even Blast Off struggled to hold back a snicker. "Sorry, man," Blast Off managed, his tone laden with mock sympathy. "Maybe next time you'll—" The doors to the bar slammed open with a resounding clang, cutting off the banter in an instant.

A gust of cold wind swept through the room as Onslaught and Brawl stormed in, their frames taut with urgency. Though their faces were hidden beneath their helmets, their body language spoke volumes—something was wrong. Very wrong.

"Combaticons… rise," Onslaught commanded, his voice sharp and unwavering.

Blast Off and Vortex exchanged a glance, their relaxed demeanor vanishing in a split second. Both pushed back from the table and stood, their movements precise and alert. The easy grins and playful banter were gone, replaced with steely professionalism. Even Swindle, who had been sulking over the card game moments before, silently slid his cards onto the table and straightened up. His posture was unnervingly calm now, his optics sharp. "What's the sitch, boss?" he asked, his voice surprisingly measured.

"We have a Code O," Onslaught said grimly.

The reaction was immediate. A ripple of gasps ran through the bar's patrons, cutting through the usual hum of conversation. Several drones hastily downed the remains of their drinks and slipped out through the back entrance. Others froze where they sat, their optics darting nervously between the Combaticons. A few braver—or perhaps more foolhardy—drones began arming themselves, their frames stiff with tension.

"Code O," Blast Off muttered, his optics narrowing dangerously. "That hasn't happened since—" "Since the last time he got bored," Onslaught interjected curtly, cutting him off.

Even Vortex, usually the first to crack a joke, was now deadly serious. The blades of her vehicle mode twitched at the ready, gleaming under the flickering bar lights. She turned to Onslaught, her voice steady but low with anticipation. "What's the play, Dad?" Before Onslaught could answer, a loud metallic thud rang out from the booth where the teens were sleeping. The impact jolted Doll awake, her optics snapping online instantly. Her grip on Thad and Lizzy tightened as her reflexes kicked in. Beside her, Uzi, still in gun mode, let out a tiny mechanical click, her systems reacting instinctively as she disengaged her safety causing green sparks to coat her frame.

"Wake up, you poison-drinking rats!" Brawl's voice boomed, his massive hand had slammed down onto the table with enough force to shake the whole booth. "We got ourselves a big problem."

Lizzy's optics flickered open, a mix of grogginess and irritation flashing across her face. "What the shock is going on?" she snapped, quickly scanning the room. The sight before her was unsettling—tables were being flipped over and used as makeshift barricades, and some drones huddled together for comfort while others frantically set up choke points.

"Of course," Thad could be heard mumbling as he was also forcing himself awake. "Just when it looked like things were gonna get better."

Onslaught's voice cut through the noise, "Get up," he ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument. He had already moved to one of the bar's windows, unholstering a blaster from his hip, his optics narrowing as he scanned the outside world. "We're leaving, right now."

Doll didn't question, her instincts kicking in as she helped Lizzy and Thad to their feet. The sound of Uzi's T-cog whirring echoed in the background as she leapt from the table and shifted into her robot mode with practiced ease. She shook her head, disoriented but quickly focused. Her optics scanned the room, taking in the same unsettling scene Lizzy and Thad had just noticed—the tense faces of the patrons, weapons being drawn, and the palpable sense of unease. "What's going on?" Uzi asked, her voice a mix of confusion and concern. The tightness in the air made her uneasy, so she attempted to mimic the Combaticons as they seemed stoic and ready for war. "Are the Autobots attacking?"

Brawl stepped aside, clearing a path toward the front entrance. His usual gruff tone was uncharacteristically sober as he answered. "Were it only so easy," he muttered darkly. "Overlord is loose."

Chapter Text

“Overlord?” 

Thad, Doll, and Lizzy all turned to Uzi as she mentioned the name, expecting her to suddenly ramble a flood trivia about whoever it belonged to. But she could only give them a shrug, as even running the name through her memory banks, nothing still comes up. “Who the hell is—” 

Before Uzi could finish her question, Brawl placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. “No time for questions, lass,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument as he began to push her forward toward the entrance. “We are to be getting a move on!”

The others exchanged uneasy glances before following, their steps hurried and uncertain. Ahead, Onslaught barked orders to the rest of the Combaticons. “Blast Off, I already called for a Decepticon dropship. It’s stationed three kliks from here at launchpad 7-B. I need you to map the best route.”

“On it, boss.” Blast Off’s response was swift as a holographic projection sprung from his arm, casting a glowing map of Kaon into the air. The city’s sprawling streets and towering structures formed a labyrinth, with several potential routes branching toward their destination.

“I’ve already outlined multiple paths,” Blast Off continued, his fingers deftly adjusting the map with rapid, precise motions. “But considering our, uh, present company, I’ll need to make adjustments for stealth.”

“I don’t care how you do it. Just get it done.” Onslaught turned his attention to his daughter. “Vortex, you and Brawl are in charge of the brats. Keep them in line, and make sure they do as they’re told while we are on the move.”

Vortex’s optics flickered with annoyance, and her posture stiffened. With a frustrated growl, she threw her arm down, prompting two of the helicopter blades on her back to extend forward, curving menacingly around her wrists like claws. “What the hell, Dad? You’re sticking me on babysitting duty? I should be on the frontlines if we’re up against that freak-bot! You know I’m the best fighter here—”

“Don’t let one lucky win over Arcee go to your head,” Onslaught snapped, the crimson glow of his optics blazed so fiercely behind his visor that they pierced through the yellow lens of his helmet. “Especially since she wiped the floor with you right after. Besides,” he added with a cold edge, “all you’d do is excite him. Swindle and I will take the front.”

“You know,” Swindle grumbled, rolling down a heavy steel gate over the bar’s windows, “it’d be nice if just once you’d ask before volunteering me to be in the most dangerous spots.” His eyes narrowed as he secured the gate in place. “Bad enough I’m about to lose a week of business ‘cause no one wants to be out with that maniac roaming around—”

“Pipe down.” Onslaught shot down the complaint immediately. He gestured toward Uzi and the others. “Arm them with whatever you’ve got.”

Swindle froze, he looked horrified by the very idea. “You’re just having me give them weapons for free? Onslaught, do I look like a charity?!” His protests fell on deaf audio receptors as the commander fixed him with a cold glare. With a defeated groan, Swindle relented, his chest compartment sliding open to reveal an array of blasters and other kinds of weaponry. Begrudgingly, he began handing them out to the colony drones. “Fine, fine, I’ll just give you kids what I got on hand, but no complaining it isn’t anything too fancy! I am put on quite a spot.”

Thad accepted a blaster hesitantly, gripping it tightly in both hands. His optics flickered with unease, and one even twitched slightly as his processor flashed back to Kalis, and the theater. It felt as if it was too soon to hold a weapon again, as he could still recall the faces of the Autobots he and the others had…murdered together.

A light touch on his shoulder pulled him from the memory. He turned to see Lizzy standing beside him, her own blaster resting comfortably over her shoulder. “We’ll just have to deal with it, for now,” she said softly, her tone steady, though the tension in her stance betrayed her nerves.

Thad gave a shaky chuckle, though the sound lacked humor. “Yeah, sure. It’s not like everyone here has weapons built into their bodies or anything,” he muttered, trying to mask his unease with sarcasm. “We kind of need them, right?”

Uzi and Doll, however, refused when Swindle presented them his wares.

“I’ve already got everything I need,” Uzi said, firmly. She held up her right arm, which began to shift and reconfigure. From her wrist to her forearm, it transformed with smooth mechanical precision into a sleek, cannon-like weapon.

Doll simply crossed her arms and gestured over her shoulder at the helicopter blades mounted on her back. “<I’ll stick with what I know,>” she muttered.

Though they’d turned him down, Swindle was if anything—insistent. “Look, boss says I need to arm you, so I gotta give you something.” He rummaged through his chest compartment and pulled out a strange purple hilt with an open port at one end. “This little gem? Got it from a galaxy far, far away. Even matches your hair color! Just, uh… be careful which direction you flick it on.”

Uzi eyed the odd device with skepticism but ultimately shrugged and stuffed it into the pocket of her hoodie. “Sure, why not,” she muttered.

Swindle then turned his attention to Doll and was about to take something out for her as well. “And for you, young Russian-speaking lady, how about a—” “<I won some money in my drinking game,>” Doll dryly interrupted him, her eyes narrowed. “<How much do I need to pay you to log off?>” Swindle tilted his head, considering the question for a moment. “...How much you got?”

Uzi rolled her eyes and walked off, leaving her cousin to deal with the overly persistent salesman. She approached Onslaught, who was in the middle of a hushed conversation with Brawl. With her already nonexistent patience running thin, she called out to the Combaticon leader while using her non-cannon hand to gesture her outrage. “Okay, seriously, can someone just tell me what the hell is going on? Who’s Overlord, and why is everyone acting like they’re about to short-circuit? I mean, come on—we’re in a city full of Decepticons. You said it yourself—this place is a military zone. What’s the big deal? Does he have an army or something? Is he a giant?”

Brawl snorted and muttered under his breath, “He do be a tall son of a glitch—”

“Enough,” Onslaught interrupted, silencing his ally with a gesture before turning to face Uzi. “Your people were in stasis, right?” He didn’t wait for her to confirm. “And your colony logs, like most, stopped recording when the planet died. That means not only are you missing over four million years of history—” He paused, letting the gravity of such information sink in as Uzi’s eyes widened. “—but also, a lot of things were never officially recorded. After all, you don't know who Shockwave is, right?”

Uzi hesitated, an unsure expression on her face. “Uh… other than the fact his name is super phallic?” Her arm shifted back to normal as her confidence wavered.

“To be fair for the little one,” Brawl chimed in, taking a swig from a flask on his belt, “shock didn’t mean what it does now before the war.”

“Focus,” Onslaught snapped before addressing Uzi again. “The point is, kid, Overlord’s reputation isn’t something you can read about in a data file. He’s a Decepticon in name only because he’s bad news, plain and simple. If he’s loose, we’ve got more trouble on our hands than even you can comprehend.”

Brawl nodded grimly. “Aye. When we say he’s bad news, we mean the kind that most bots don’t survive to hear twice from, you get what we are saying, lass?”

Uzi began to look genuinely concerned, wondering just what kind of drone this Overlord was to make even seasoned Decepticons so worried. Her mind, however, was soon distracted as the others gathered at her side.

“So, does that mean we’re gonna fight him?” she asked, glancing at her companions. Each had their own reaction to the idea. Thad looked the most worried with his optics darting nervously, while Lizzy and Doll simply shrugged, looking as nonchalant as ever. Strangely, the latter two's collective indifference gave Uzi a small measure of confidence. “Maybe we can—” A loud slam cut her off, as Onslaught’s fist collided with the bar’s front door. The force reverberated through the room, making Uzi, the others, and what few bar patrons that were left flinch.

“There is no ‘maybe.’ Got it?” Onslaught growled, as he leaned down to glare directly into Uzi’s visor, straight to her optics. “You need to understand,” he made sure to stress his wording as much as possible so that they were seething with urgency. “He. Will. Kill. You. There’s no reasoning with him, no chance of survival. The second he gets his hands on you, you’re already dead. But he won’t make it quick. He’ll make sure you’re the last one he kills. Your friends?” Onslaught motioned towards the other teens around Uzi with a grim nod. “He’ll make you watch as he tears them apart first, piece by piece, just to make you suffer. Just because he finds that kind of stuff fun!”

The teens stared at him in stunned silence, their eyes hollow as the weight of his words sank in. They can tell that there is no exaggeration in his words, just pure stating of fact. Especially as Onslaught’s optics, dimly visible through his helmet visor, flicked toward each of them, as if daring to try and argue any further. “Which is why we’re getting you out of the city. Now. ”

“...What?” Uzi shouted, her optic flaring brightly as frustration boiled over. She threw her hands in the air, her voice rising with indignation. “We can’t leave! We just got here! We haven’t even met this Wave guy yet, or gotten an Energon chip for our—”

“Swindle!”

The yellow-armored drone grumbled under his breath but complied as he reached into his chest compartment. After a moment of rummaging, he pulled out a red, star-shaped object. It pulsed faintly, glowing with an inner light that radiated sheer power. Without ceremony, he tossed it toward the group.

Thad caught it purely on reflex, though his eyes did widen as he recognized what it was. An energon chip.

“There,” Onslaught said, as he dismissively waved his hand toward the boy. “That’s what you need for your colony. Take it back, hand it over, and let your people pledge their undying allegiance to the Decepticon or whatever. I really do not care.” He then glared at Uzi. “But right now, your survival is the priority. You’re leaving. End of story.”

Onslaught turned, hand poised to push open the door of the bar, but froze as Doll called out to him. “<You’re making it sound as if we’re the ones being targeted, specifically.>” Her narrowed optics bore into the Decepticon commander, who visibly tensed at her words. “<What reason would he have to come after us?>” Doll continued, as her expression darkened. “<This city is over 190 kilometers wide. It should be impossible for a single dangerous drone to just ‘happen’ to find us... unless he was looking for us.>”

Onslaught’s only response was a deep, frustrated sigh as he leaned his head against the door.

“Oh shock,” Lizzy muttered, gripping her blaster tighter, her optics darting between the others. “So this Overlord is after us? What did we even do? We literally just got here—wait...” She turned to Uzi, her expression hardening. “Is this somehow the loser’s fault?”

“I am gonna shoot you in the Primus-damn face, I swear to—”

“Uzi.” Brawl’s low, gravelly voice sliced through her angry retort, silencing her. Uzi’s hollow eyes narrowed, defiance simmering beneath her tense posture, even as the hulking Combaticon stepped forward and loomed over her small frame. “Remember when I told you some of us have scores to settle? And how we don’t like those scores being settled without our say?”

Uzi nodded. “Yeah, but who could I have—” Her words caught in her throat, the realization dawning upon her as quickly as a bolt of plasma leaving a blaster. “Right. I killed Impactor.”

“Aye,” Brawl continued, his tone growing more heavy. “Overlord had a big score to settle with that one. He made sure everyone knew Impactor was his. Said if anyone dared take what was his, they’d make the top of his own little list of playmates .” The shadows that fell across Brawl’s helmeted face only added to the weight of his words. “Our spy network in Iacon told us plenty. Word’s already spreading about Impactor’s death. It’s not widely known who did it yet… but Overlord is smart enough to be two and two together if new Decepticons show up right after the death of an Autobot hero. There might be a connection, and when he does find you…” Instead of finishing his sentence, he simply shook his head, the silent motion conveying more dread than words ever could. “I need you to understand, little lass. You’re all in danger.”

“I don't even know the guy!” Uzi yelled out, though the slight tremor in her words betrayed her growing unease. “Come on, aren’t we all Decepticons? Shouldn’t that matter?”

“It doesn’t,” Brawl said flatly, his tone devoid of comfort. “Not to him. It never does with him. He doesn’t care about reason or logic. He cares about making an example. And you? You’re just some little punk who got in the way of something he wanted. That’s all you are to him. That’s all you’ll ever be to him.”

Uzi’s defiance finally began to crumble. She looked down, her optics falling to the scuffed and dirty flooring of the bar as a shiver rippled through her frame. Her mind betrayed her, conjuring images of what kind of monster Overlord might be. Her imagination spun dark, terrifying possibilities that clung to her thoughts no matter how much she tried to push them away.

“Primus, shocking damn it, Uzi,” Uzi felt the reassuring weight of a hand on her shoulder. Lizzy’s tone softened, a mix of annoyance and concern. “Of all the useless talents you have, why is one of them throwing us into the worst possible trouble? ” 

Despite the dread clawing at her spark, Uzi managed a weak, almost reflexive smile. Leave it to Lizzy to find just the right sarcastic jab to keep her grounded. “Oh, bite me.”

“Hey, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful or anything,” Thad began hesitantly, sliding the energon chip into his vest. “But why are you guys helping us? I mean, it kind of seems like a ‘our problem’ kind of thing, without you needed to—” He stopped mid-sentence as every Combaticon turned to look at him, their stares heavy with unspoken judgment. “Kid,” Onslaught sounded downright offended as he asked. “Just who the hell do you think we are?”

“Yeah, like we’re gonna sit in this bar, down some energon, and ignore the fact that a bunch of kids are in trouble?” Vortex scoffed. She punctuated her words with a firm smack to the back of Thad’s head, almost knocking his backwards cap off. “Damn kid, we can be mean, sure.”

“A little cowardly,” Blast Off added dryly, crossing his arms.

“A bit of a cheater,” Swindle muttered, looking away with feigned indifference.

“A proud drunk,” Brawl admitted unabashedly, raising his flask in salute.

“But we’re Decepticons, not evil,” Onslaught finished, carrying the strength of conviction. “We joined this war because we wanted to fight for something better. To help those in need. And damn it, that’s what we’re gonna do.”

Uzi couldn’t help the smile that crept across her face. As she looked at the mismatched group of soldiers, she thought back to her childhood imaginings of Decepticons—fearsome, brave, and larger than life. Somehow, against all odds, these five seemed to fit that mold perfectly.

Cautiously, the group exited the bar together in a phalanx position. The colony drones stayed huddled together, while the Combaticons formed a protective perimeter around them. Onslaught’s orders were followed without hesitation. He and Swindle led the group, with Brawl and Vortex flanking either side of the smaller cluster. Blast Off brought up the rear, his attention split between their surroundings and the holographic projection flickering on his arm. 

“I’ve mapped out a route to the dropship,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the outside howling wind. “But we’ll have to go on foot. It’s our best option. If any of us move in vehicle mode, we’ll attract too much attention. Especially with…” He let the sentence trail off, the unfinished thought hanging heavy in the air as everyone took in the desolate surroundings.

The streets of Kaon, once teeming with life earlier that day, were now unnervingly still. The vibrant energy that had made the city feel alive was gone, replaced by an oppressive quiet broken only by the low howling of the wind. Snow drifted lazily through the air, blanketing the jagged, rusted architecture. 

Everything seemed abandoned.

“What… happened?” Lizzy whispered, clutching her blaster tightly in one hand while gripping Thad’s arm with the other. The boy’s green optics darted nervously around, his own weapon held in both hands, his unease clear in his posture. The only thing keeping him somewhat calm was Lizzy's touch. Uzi and Doll exchanged a glance, wordlessly preparing themselves. Uzi’s arm shifted into its cannon form, the faint hum of her weapon adding to the tension. Doll silently armed herself, gripping two of her helicopter blades, one in each hand.

“Kaon doesn’t clear out like this without a reason,” Vortex muttered, her optics scanning the empty streets with practiced precision. Her claws clicked into place, extending from her wrists as her stance grew more alert. “Everyone’s hiding. That’s what they do when he’s on the loose. Off on one of his… walks .”

Onslaught turned to address the group. He raised a finger to the front of his mouthplate, the universal signal for silence. “Blast Off is right. If we transform, we’ll make too much noise and turn ourselves into bigger targets. We walk, and we do it quietly. Got it?”

No one voiced any objections.

“Then let’s move.”

The group proceeded in tense formation. Each step muffled by the snow-covered metal beneath their feet, the sound barely audible but still unnerving in the suffocating quiet. No one spoke, their silence allowing them to focus on their surroundings as their audio receptors strained to catch the faintest sound of danger.

Each street they passed felt more foreboding than the last, and the oppressive stillness weighed heavily on them all. The occasional gust of wind sent loose scraps of metal skittering across the ground, each noise making the young drones flinch. Snowflakes swirled in the air, but the chill they felt wasn’t from the cold alone—it was the unmistakable sense that something was watching them. Be it the peeking glances of those hiding within the buildings, or…worse.

The Combaticons moved with precision born of countless battles. Without a single word exchanged, they executed every maneuver with expertise to ensure the group's safety. Corners were meticulously checked. Silent hand signals directed the teens when to stop, move, or take cover. Routes were quietly recalculated, shifting them through dim alleyways and between abandoned buildings, avoiding the more open streets. Every adjustment was a deliberate effort to minimize their visibility, but despite such caution, the oppressive weight of unseen eyes never lifted. It always felt like they were just one wrong move away from disaster. One ill-fated step from being found.

Uzi’s nerves were frayed to their limits. Her arm-cannon twitched, nearly firing when she felt an elbow nudge against her. She turned, readying her literal fire-arm, only to see Doll at her side. Uzi’s glare softened when she noticed Doll’s visor behaving… oddly. Instead of its usual optic glow, a string of text scrolled across the screen as though someone were hurriedly typing. [<If it comes to it, I can transform and fly us out of here and back to the colony. My vehicle form isn’t big, but if you and Lizzy switch to an alt. mode, and Thad carries you both, then we can make it out together.>]

Uzi blinked, momentarily caught off guard by Doll’s improvised communication. Her own visor flickered, switching to a similar text display. [Hold on,] she replied, the words appearing in Cybertronian, rather than Doll's Russian. [We’re still not officially Decepticons. A city like this is bound to have anti-air defenses. If an unregistered vehicle takes to the sky, we’re bound to get blown to scrap.]

[<Then we’ll fly low,>] Doll countered, the text appearing more rapidly now. [<At least until we reach the walls. From there, we can—>]

The words abruptly stopped scrolling across her visor.

Both of them froze, as did the rest of the group.

It began faintly, almost too soft to notice at first. A sound carried on the smoggy breeze: a whistle. The hauntingly melodic tone drifted around them, its playful lilt masking something far more sinister. It twisted and turned in the air, as if it were searching, taunting. And then they felt it. The ground trembled beneath their feet. Faint at first but growing stronger, the vibrations followed a steady rhythm— thud… thud… thud. Heavy. Deliberate.

Footsteps.

Vortex was the first to whisper, her voice tight with tension. “...It’s him.”

Onslaught turned and raised a hand to signal everyone to stop all movement. His usual commanding presence was now laced with urgency. The Combaticons exchanged knowing looks, their calm and calculated demeanor beginning to crack under the weight of the moment as each of them quickly rechecked their weapons. Thad and Lizzy do the same, mimicking the older drones. Safeties were switched off, and fingers were placed upon triggers. 

All the while, the whistling grew louder, its tone warping into something darker as the footsteps closed in. Each impact sent another shiver through the ground, as if the very city of Kaon was recoiling in fear. 

Uzi’s free hand clenched into a tight fist, her metal fingers trembling. The fear felt wrong. This was Kaon—the heart of the Decepticon movement, the city Megatron had torn free from tyranny. This was the city that symbolized resistance, strength, and freedom from oppression. Why then did it cower in the presence of one drone? Why did the streets feel haunted and abandoned? Why were they made to feel like prey fleeing a predator they knew couldn’t be outrun?

She wanted to demand answers, to challenge the Combaticons for their fear, but the weight of her own dread kept her silent. She promised that she'll wait for the perfect moment, and when she has it, she'll—

“Wait… What’s that up ahead?” It was Lizzy who spotted it first. At the far end of the alley, something protruded from the wall. They all moved closer towards it, Uzi’s steps slowed, her processors struggling to reconcile what she was seeing as embedded within the metal was the upper half of a Vechicon.

The sight was horrifying. The drone’s torso jutted out at an unnatural angle, its arms twisted grotesquely and frozen in a desperate, futile attempt to protect itself. Sparks flickered weakly from exposed wiring, and the once-vibrant purple armor was stained dark with congealed energon. Uzi’s optics trailed downward to where the drone’s lower half should have been. There was nothing. Torn cables and jagged metal marked the spot where its body had been violently ripped apart.

“Was,” she stammered, and closed her optics for a moment as if it could shield her from the scene. “Was… this done by—” 

“Yeah,” Onslaught growled, his tone grim. He moved beside the embedded corpse, his optics scanning the damage. “This is Overlord’s work…” He trailed off, his fist tightening around his weapon.

“Why?” Uzi asked, her voice quiet but trembling with anger as she opened her optics and glared at Onslaught. “Why would anyone do this? What’s the point of… of this ? You said he was a Decepitcon, even if it is in ‘name only’, whatever the hell that means, so why—” Uzi’s words were cut off as Doll bumped her shoulder against hers. “<We don’t have time for this,>” Doll said firmly, one of her eyes glitching for a nano-second as she gazed at the mutilated Vehicon. The whistling and the sound of heavy steps still echoed ominously with it still getting closer. “<We need to keep moving.>”

“The girl’s right. Come on, everyone move,” Onslaught gave the order and everyone began following him again. This time they quickened their pace, their movements becoming more erratic as they darted down narrow alleyways and crossed empty intersections. The abandoned city loomed around them, a hollowed-out shell of its former self. Stalls that had once buzzed with life now stood deserted, their merchandise scattered and forgotten in the panicked exodus of Kaon’s residents.

More Vehicon bodies littered the ground, most crumpled into grotesque shapes or torn apart, their shattered remains left to scatter the streets. The sight stirred something in Uzi—a grim, unwanted reminder of the Spire back in Kalis. 

They counted over a dozen mangled bodies as they ran, and yet, the whistling pursued them, its carefree melody dripping with menace. The steady rhythm of footsteps followed close behind, each loud step mocking their frantic attempts to escape. Uzi’s spark raced as her audio receptors honed in on the approaching sound. The whistling was louder now, weaving through the cold air, its cheery tune almost too sweet for the tension it carried. It was close—closer than it had any right to be.

She could hear Thad whispering behind her. “We should just gun it,” he said, as his T-cog began to hum faintly, readying him for transformation. “All of you can jump on me and–”

The grip on his arm from Brawl froze him in place. The Combaticon’s narrow visor locked onto him, his voice barely audible as he muttered, “Don't. That’s what he wants. He… loves it, when he can scare someone just enough to make them run. Runners are the first one he picks off.”

Thad swallowed hard, his already broken courage wavering further. “And what about the rest? What does he do to them?” Brawl didn’t answer. His silence said enough.

Lizzy’s grip tightened on her blaster as she glanced between the Decepticons and the others. “Primus's sake, so, we’re just supposed to keep walking?” she hissed under her breath. “What’s the point of giving us guns if we can’t even use them? What, do we shoot ourselves before he gets his hands on us?” Brawl continued to hold his silence. 

Lizzy’s eyes turned hollow, “Oh my Primus,” her words faltered for half a second. “That’s why you gave us guns, isn’t it?” When met with even more silence, she slaps a hand against her visor, groaning as if sheer annoyance could stave off the impending doom. “We’re all gonna die.”

Onslaught silenced her and the others with a quick gesture, his hand raised through the air. “We’re close. Just across this street, and the launchpad should be—”

A cheerful, drawling voice cut through the air like a guillotine. “Howdy.”

Everyone froze as one, their systems seizing in unison. The word was spoken with casual ease, yet it carried with it a weight that pressed down on them like a physical force. They were caught in the worst spot imaginable—right in the middle of the street, with no cover in sight. The open expanse stretched endlessly in both directions, leaving them fully exposed. The silence of the city loomed over them like a shroud, broken only by the faint hum of distant machinery.

From the shadows of a nearby alleyway, a figure stepped into the moonlight. He was towering, standing head and shoulders above even the Combaticons, and more than twice Uzi’s height. With his broad shoulders and massive frame the drone was simply a juggernaut of metal. He was radiating with such raw power that the ground seemed to tremble beneath him with every step, each one deliberate and unhurried.

“Y’all seem to be in a mighty rush for some reason,” he tilted his head as though curious. His voice was deep and yet somehow smooth. It echoed through the empty streets. The tone was conversational, but there was an unmistakable edge to it, a dangerous underbelly hidden beneath his unsettling calm.

There was an accent that was strange—a slow, drawn-out cadence with long vowels that sounded distinctly human. It was wrong, deeply wrong, coming from him. And then there was his smile. Primus, his smile. It wasn’t warm or inviting—it was the smile of a predator savoring the beginning of the hunt. A smile that he was directing to all of them.

Uzi tried to meet the giant drone’s gaze but found her attention faltering. Her optics darted downward, tracing the broad expanse of his blue and white armor. It was marred with dark stains of inner energon—the unmistakable residue of life essence spilled in violence. Multiple handprints, splashes, and smears painted his frame like a horrid portrait, a grotesque testament to the carnage he had left in his wake.

He was still dripping from his ‘blood-bath’. 

She thought back to the bodies they found…

“Oh, I do apologize,” the giant said, his words dripping with mock courtesy, as if catching her staring. “I done made a mess of myself. But I assure you, this was all done in self-defense.” He gestured lazily to his energon covered armor, while giving a chuckle. “I warned ’em to get outta my way, but Vehicons can be stubborn little drones. Kill a couple of their friends, and suddenly, they take it all personal-like—”

He paused, raising a massive hand to tap playfully at the side of his own head, as if struck by sudden realization. “Where do be my manners?” He looked toward the teens, his piercing red eyes scanning each of them in turn. His grin widened as he realized how young they were. “I see some new faces and I don’t even have the common courtesy to introduce myself. Mama would be so ashamed of me. I know Onslaught’s little crew. We go way back, but you four... Y’all are new.”

The giant took a step forward, the ground once more trembling under his massive frame as he extended his hand out toward the young drones. “The name is Overlord, hi-ya kids.”

“...Sup, dude.” Slowly the rest of the colony drones turned their heads to look at Thad, as he nervously waved a hand up at the giant murderous drone. “What?”

“Sup. Dude.” Came Lizzy’s only reply, breaking the tension as she repeated with utter bafflement at Thad’s own wording. “A nine foot tall giant comes out of the shadows covered with energon-blood, and that is what you say to him?”

“Well I gotta say something, he’s like…being polite.” Thad spoke up, almost defensively as he saw three pairs of eyes glaring at him. 

Yet Overlord seemed to revel in the absurdity he inspired, as he burst into a laugh that grated like shattered glass against metal. It was a grotesque sound—unnervingly high-pitched for a drone of his massive size. He retracted his offered hand with a theatrical flair and loomed over Onslaught, who stood firm in front of the group. “You’ve gathered quite a gaggle this time, Onslaught,” Overlord sneered, his red optics gleaming with a sinister light. Then, with a sudden lurch forward, he barked out, “Boo!”

The group recoiled instinctively, their systems seizing for a moment of pure, primal terror. Everyone except Onslaught. But if Overlord noticed the Combaticon leader’s lack of reaction, he didn’t care—in fact, the lack of fear seemed to amuse him even more. His laughter rose again, sharp and grating, and his smile stretched unnervingly wide, like the maw of a predator baring its teeth “Oh, I love meeting new bots,” Overlord said, his voice mockingly sweet, he seemed to savor the flickers of terror he enacted on the others. The subtle tremble of their bodies brought him joy.

But Uzi wasn’t trembling from fear anymore. It was from something far more primal. The same rage that she felt back when she confronted Impactor had returned. It boiled up inside her spark and surging through every joint and servo in her frame. The sight of Overlord’s delight in their terror of others twisted something deep within her. Her hand clenched into a trembling fist at her side, and her optics burned as they locked onto the hulking drone with unbridled hatred. The telltale hum of her arm-cannon warming up filled the air, a rising, threatening whine that didn’t go unnoticed.

Doll noticed the tremors first, and then the cannon’s glow. “<Uzi,>” she whispered hastily, trying to offer comfort as she moved in front of her cousin, holding an arm out protectively, while clutching her weapons in both hands. “<Just stay behind me—>”

The words only stoked the fire in Uzi’s spark. She slapped at Doll’s forearm with her free hand, knocking one of the blades slightly askew. Doll’s optics widened in surprise as she glanced back, only to meet Uzi’s fierce glare.

“Back off,” Uzi snapped, trembling with restrained emotion. The cannon on her arm glowed brighter for a brief moment before dimming again. Doll blinked, momentarily stunned, before refocusing on Overlord. If she had a response, she kept it to herself, her blades shifting slightly as her grip tightened.

Overlord’s optics caught the small exchange and gave a light chuckle, his obvious delight only growing further as he muttered, “Now ain’t that dramatic.”

“Why are you here, Overlord?” Onslaught asked, “Last I checked, you’re supposed to be in the prison, warden.” He was professional and measured, as he holstered the blaster in his hands and glared up at the taller drone. “I say you should get back to doing your job.”

Overlord’s attention was finally taken from the teens as placed a hand over his chest, his fake shock mockingly theatrical. “What? I’m not allowed breaks? That’s a toxic work environment, don’t you think?” He shook his head softly, as if disappointed by the accusation. “I don’t recall needing anyone’s permission to take a nice stroll through my city after a hard day’s work. Do you?”

Then, as if remembering something crucial, he snapped his fingers. “But I did have a reason to come on out. See, a little something came to me about a funeral at Iacon. I thought it was the usual stuff—I tell my prisoners which of their friends bite it, it lowers their morale or has them act up, the norm…but then…”

Everyone becomes more tense, as Overlord takes another step forward. His massive frame dwarfed everyone as he leaned towards him. “Someone took what was mine to kill. Now,” he mused all while gaze landed on the teens once more. “Y’all aren’t natives of Kaon. I can tell, you are outsiders, hmm… from where, I wonder? Did any of you happen to be near Kal—”

Fear is the enemy of progress, of power, and of destiny,

Those who cower before it are slaves to their own weaknesses. To conquer fear is to conquer yourself. It is only when you stare into the abyss without hesitation, when you fear nothing will you be truly free.

Now rise and face your fear.

With the writings of Megatron echoing in her mind and fueling her resolve, Uzi interrupted Overlord mid-sentence. “I’m the one you’re looking for,” she said, brimming with sudden confidence. Then in a single, decisive motion, she strode ahead, ducking under Brawl’s outstretched arm before he could stop her. Pushing past both Onslaught and Swindle, she positioned herself in front of everyone, giving herself a clear shot.

There was an audible click, followed by a surge of green sparks crackling across her frame as she deactivated her safety. Her arm cannon whirred to life, and she leveled it directly at Overlord’s face. “And by the way,” she added, her voice steady despite the adrenaline program coursing through her systems, “this is Megatron’s city.”

Uzi fired.

A blast of plasma roared out of her cannon, the force of it so intense that it sent her stumbling backward into Onslaught’s steady arms. The shot streaked through the air, slamming into Overlord’s face with a deafening explosion. A brilliant flash of green light engulfed the area, followed by a cloud of thick smoke and erratic sparks that obscured the towering figure.

She can hear the others react to her choice.

“Uzi!”

“What the shock!”

“<Honesty, we should have seen this coming.>”

For a fleeting moment, Uzi felt triumphant. She thought she had stood against a monster—not just for herself but for the others and avenged the deaths of so many Vehicons. She felt invincible, powerful— divine. The surge of power coursing through her frame made her feel unstoppable, as though she had finally ascended to something more than just a mere drone. At this exact moment, she thought herself as unstoppable, as a bringer of justice, as a god.

Such thoughts screeched to a halt as reality caught up with her. Overlord’s massive frame didn’t fall. It didn’t even sway. Her optics locked on the swirling smoke, desperate to believe she had made an impact—that she had to have killed him.

She hadn’t.

As the smoke began to clear, Uzi’s spark chamber quaked. Overlord stood there, unmoved, untouched. His twisted smirk was still plastered across his face, as though mocking her efforts.

The shot had been powerful—enough to obliterate most lesser drones for sure. But Overlord? He barely seemed to notice. The gleam in his crimson optics only grew more intense as he stared down right at Uzi in an almost playful manner. “Well now,” Overlord chuckled, his tone low and mocking, but there was something else there—an opening in his bravado that made his smirk falter, if only for a moment. “Ain’t you just—”

Creaaak!

The sound cut through the tension like a needle dropping in a silent room. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but unmistakable. A thin, jagged crack had formed across Overlord’s visor.

Uzi’s optics widened as she registered the imperfection. A slow, shaky grin crept onto her face. Her cannon whirred faintly as her free hand shot up to point at the giant, shaking with exhilaration. “Ha! ” she shouted, the word bursting out of her with equal parts disbelief and triumph.

The giant drone paused, his smirk dropped. Slowly, he raised one hand and brushed his massive fingers across his visor. His eyes drifted to the faint crack, inspecting it with an air of detached curiosity.

“Oh,” he murmured. His attitude shifting to become oddly calm and contemplative, as though he were assessing a mildly interesting inconvenience. “Well, Onslaught,” he continued, the smirk creeping back, this time sharper and more dangerous. “Might you be so kind as to hand her over for a quick spell?”

His words carried a quiet menace that froze the air around them. Overlord’s towering frame loomed closer once more, and Uzi’s brief flicker of godlike confidence started to waver. Before she could react, she felt herself yanked upright by Onslaught, only to be shoved behind him in one swift motion. “She and her friends are new recruits in this war, Overlord,” Onslaught said firmly, as he stood his ground. “I can’t have you killing any of them.”

Following his leader’s words, Swindle leveled his blaster toward the towering drone. The other Combaticons do the same as they direct the teens back, and put themselves forward toward the giant as they stood with their commander. 

Overlord just continued to smile at them all, not the least bit intimidated by their weapons. “What’s the matter, old friend?” he drawled. “Scared to lose another little girl in your life?”

Uzi could almost hear the tension in Onslaught’s frame—the twisting of gears and the low hum of his systems running hotter—but he held his ground. His stance remained calm, steady…even as Overlord lurched forward, arms raised for an attack. 

The Combaticons were ready to defend their leader.

In an instant, Vortex was in motion. With the speed and precision of a seasoned fighter, she leaped onto Onslaught’s shoulder and launched herself into the air. With a sharp twist of her body, she unleashed a sonic wave from her wrist-mounted blades, the sound reverberating like a thunderclap. It was deafening and heavily distorting the air itself. The very walls of the buildings around them trembled, and nearly every speck of snow was blasted away by the force.

Yet Overlord merely closed his optics against the attack, enduring it with little more than a flicker of annoyance. To him, it was a distraction—nothing more.

But such a distraction was all Brawl needed as he threw his body down. His T-cog whirred, and in the blink of an optic, his hulking form transformed into an even larger imposing artillery tank. Twin barrels locked onto Overlord’s chest and fired, sending a thunderous deafening barrage of explosive rounds point blank straight into the giant’s frame. The force of the blast was enough to send shockwaves through the air, and for a split second, it seemed as though the towering drone might actually be blown away. 

Instead, his feet slid across the cracked ground, dragging him backward with surprising force. The giant was unmoved, but the ground beneath his heavy frame buckled under the sheer power of the shot. His enormous boots ground into the earth, carving grooves in the rubble as he slid for tens of meters. Minimal damage was actually done…

It was still an opening, one that was immediately exploited. Before the smoke of Brawl’s attack could even clear, Swindle sprang into action. From a compartment in his arm, he fired a high-tensile grapple launcher, the line whizzing through the air to wrap tightly around Overlord’s massive leg. “Come on, you big palooka—down you go!” Swindle shouted as he engaged the winch, pulling the line taut with all the power he could muster.

With the added leverage from Brawl’s earlier strike, Overlord’s knee buckled. The drone was forced down with a loud metallic groan as his immense frame struck the now snowless ground. The sound reverberated like a gong, shaking dust and dislodging icicles from nearby storefronts.

“Holy—” 

Before Uzi could even comment there was a red flash and suddenly she felt herself pulled by her backpack and slammed into the ground, with Thad and Lizzy, who were just crouching down—unlike herself. “<Uziel Doorman.>” Doll spoke the name with a low hiss, as her visor flared, the blades on her back twitched as if echoing her frustration and worry as she put herself in the front of the group, they all were behind Onslaught, watching the attack just like him. “<You couldn’t just not antagonize the walking nightmare bot, could you, Cousin?>” 

“Hey, I thought it was enough to kill him!” Uzi tried to argue, but Doll wasn’t having it as she looked close to hitting her cousin with the butt-end of one of her blades. “<Well it wasn’t. We might need to make a run for it, before—>” She is cut off by a shout over their heads.

“Swindle, break the line!” Blast Off seizes the opening made by Swindle. Leaping into the air, he transformed mid-flight into his shuttle mode with a loud mechanical whirr. Vortex joined in tandem, her sleek form shifting into an attack helicopter. Both aligned their noses downward, unleashing a relentless stream of machine gun fire. Hundreds of rounds rained down, the relentless barrage sending sparks flying as the bullets peppered Overlord’s armor.

The giant drone barely flinched.

Instead, Overlord began to snicker—a low, mocking laugh that rose steadily until it echoed across the battlefield like a twisted melody. Even as the combined firepower of the Combaticons pressed against him, his amusement only grew. Even as Swindle opened fire with his blaster, and Brawl unleashed another torrent of explosives. The streets of Kaon were filled with the sound of laughter and sheer warfare.

“Cute,” Overlord drawled, his voice laced with more venomous mockery. Casually, he rose to his full height once more, undeterred by such intense firepower. “Is this really all you’ve got, Onslaught?” His eyes narrowed behind his cracked visor, locking onto the Combaticon leader. “Because if this is the best you can manage, I’m already bored.” He tilted his head, his grin widening. “Maybe Bruticus can come out and play? At least then I might get a decent warm-up before the real fun begins with that little purple bot you’ve got behind your back.”

Onslaught’s fist clenched, the glow behind his visor flaring like a suppressed explosion. Overlord’s taunts lingered in the air, but Onslaught didn’t take the bait. Instead, he raised a hand, a silent command for the Combaticons to halt their attacks. The gunfire ceased instantly, the battlefield falling into an almost oppressive silence.

It was broken moments later by a low, ominous buzzing. “Can you hear that, Overlord?” Through the stillness—the sound grew louder, a droning cacophony that reverberated through the city around them.

Overlord tilted his head slightly, his grin fading as his eyes turned upward. “Damn bugs,” he muttered, with full irritation. The buzzing intensified, shifting from an unsettling noise to an outright roar that filled the skies. Overlord threw his arm upward just as the shadows descended.

The first strike came like a thunderbolt. A massive shape collided with Overlord, slamming into him with enough force to send his towering frame crashing into a nearby building. The metal wall rips apart under the impact, dust and debris exploding outward as Overlord disappeared into the wreckage.

“Ah, not you agai—!” Overlord’s shout was cut off as another shape, swift and insectoid, landed atop him. Emerging from the dust were two enormous mechanical insects. One resembled a gleaming purple-and-gold stag beetle, its mandibles clamping down on Overlord’s arm, denting even his nigh-indestructible plating. The other, a sharp-edged grasshopper-like creature, drove its serrated legs into Overlord’s shoulder, its jaws snapping furiously as it sought purchase.

The giant drone’s roars of rage echoed through the streets as he was dragged away from the Combaticons and the others. “Get—off me!” Overlord bellowed, thrashing against his attackers. His servos whined under the strain as he swung a massive fist, sending the stag beetle reeling back for a moment. But even when it is sent flying, the insect twisted mid-air and landed nimbly, its mandibles clicking menacingly as the large dent in its body began to reformat itself almost instantly.

Overlord’s movements grew more frenzied as he tried to dislodge the grasshopper clinging stubbornly to his shoulder, its jaws digging deeper into his armor. “You think this will stop me!” he snarled, his voice straining with fury. With a sudden surge of strength, he tore the creature free and hurled it into the surrounding wreckage.

Before he could follow up with another attack, the stag beetle leaped onto his back, its mandibles locking tightly around his neck. Sparks flew as its jaws began shearing through layers of his armor. Overlord’s visor creaked further, the fracture from earlier spreading like a spiderweb across a pane of glass.

The Combaticons and the colony drones looked on from the sidelines. “Yeah, that’s what you shocking get, you Primus-damn psychopath!” Vortex shouted as she, Blast Off, and Brawl transformed back into their robot modes, watching the fight unfold with grim satisfaction.

“<Dare I even ask…>” Doll muttered, casting a sidelong glance at Uzi. Who could only offer a helpless shrug, clearly as clueless as the rest about these mechanical monstrosities.

“Protectors of Kaon. We call them Insecticons,” Onslaught explained, his voice low as he watched the chaotic assault. There was a mixture of disgust and satisfaction in his words. “Shockwave’s pets…and they don’t take kindly to troublemakers.”

As if to punctuate his words, a third massive figure—a rhinoceros beetle—landed heavily in front of them. Immediately, its large form began to shift, shrinking and reshaping with the purr of a T-cog. In seconds, a skinny drone stood in its place. Taller than the colony drones yet shorter than the Combaticons, the figure still exuded an imposing presence. The lower half of its face, below its visor, was covered by what resembled a knight’s grille, giving it an air of martial formality.

“Heya, Onslaught!” The newcomer greeted in a chipper tone, utterly unfazed by the battle raging mere meters away.

“Bombshell,” Onslaught replied. “Thanks for responding to the distress signal, though I wish you’d arrived sooner.”

“Sorry about that,” the Insecticon chuckled, raising a hand to scratch at the side of his face. A faint trickle of inner energon leaked from his grille, it was left unnoticed—or ignored—by him. “We were in the middle of eating, and—oh!” His optics lit up as he glanced at Uzi and her group. “Are these the new recruits? Shouldn’t they be meeting with Dad?”

Uzi and the others stared, bewildered by the odd drone’s demeanor. Despite the Decepticon insignia on his chest, Bombshell’s overly friendly manner seemed almost out of place amid the chaos.

“Later,” Onslaught replied curtly, gesturing toward the raging battle with Overlord. “Right now, I need you and your sisters to do what you do best. Take that bastard down.”

Overlord roared as he activated the hidden cannons on his torso, unleashing explosive volleys at the grasshopper-like Insecticon clinging to him. The explosions blasted the mechanical bug apart, its pieces scattering across the battlefield. But no sooner had it been destroyed than the pieces began to reassemble, the Insecticon regenerating and hurling itself back into the fray. The stag beetle followed suit as it lunged at Overlord once more.

But even as his frame showed signs of wear—scorched plating, leaking energon, and visible dents—Overlord refused to yield. His laughter echoed across the battlefield, cruel and jagged. “Is this all my city has to offer?” he sneered, his voice dripping with mockery. “You think this will stop me? This is nothing, you damn bugs!”

“Take on a nearly unstoppable and unkillable monster?” Bombshell asks cheerfully, turning back to Onslaught. “Sure thing, I love doing anything,” Without waiting for acknowledgement, Bombshell transformed back into his rhinoceros beetle form and, with a burst of energy, launched himself into the fray, crashing into Overlord at full throttle.

The impact of Bombshell’s charge sent a thunderous shockwave rippling through the battlefield, forcing Overlord to stagger, if only for a moment. The Insecticons swarmed him together, their combined ferocity turning the fight into a maelstrom of chittering fury, clanging metal, and explosive bursts of energy.

Lizzy watched the chaos unfold, her optics dim with disbelief as she turned toward the Combaticons. “Why do you have mini-con bugs the size of normal drones?” she asks, unable to hold the disgust in her voice

Onslaught glanced over his shoulder toward her and the others. “Long story. Look, the Insecticons can keep Overlord busy, for now—you got a chance to run, I say it is time you use it.”

“Wait, we can’t leave! He killed those Vehicons!” Uzi shouted, readying her cannon arm as green sparks surged across her body once more. “We can all just lay more firepower on him and just kill him while we have an advantage!”

Brawl sighed, turning toward her with a weariness that cut through the tension. He placed a firm hand along Uzi’s cannon, gently pushing it downward. “We would if we could, lass,” he said, his voice low and serious. “But the only reason the insecticons are lasting so long is because they are—weirdly durable things, like those damn Autobot angels. If we all ran in or tried to help at this point, it’ll end badly for all of us.”

Uzi pulled her arm free of Brawl’s grip, she was scowling as she practically shouted her words. “What are you even talking about? He’s outnumbered—if we keep shooting, he can’t—” She paused as she looked around. The rest of the Combaticons were giving her the same look, a shared expression of grim understanding. Each one, from Blast Off’s quiet intensity to Swindle’s visible unease, was telling her the same thing: Stand down.

“...what am I missing?”

Brawl continued, his tone softening slightly, though it didn’t lose its edge. “Overlord’s not just some big bot you can blast and call it a day. He’s built differently than any of us—stronger, meaner, tougher. Do you know what a Point One Percenter is?” Uzi’s optics widened slightly, her confidence wavering at the weight of those words. “If we could kill him, we’d have done it already,” Brawl added grimly. “But his kind are near unstoppable.” There was no hiding the disgust in his voice as he said those words. “Your people need that new chip, remember? You’ll go get it for them while we deal with this mess.”

“Wait—what?” Thad stepped forward, his optics wide with a mix of confusion and alarm. “You guys keep telling us how dangerous he is, and now you want us to just run while you deal with him?”

“Yeah, kid,” Vortex chimed in, dismissively waving a hand. “We’ve been doing this for a long time. This is just another day here.”

Lizzy made a sound halfway between a scoff and a nervous laugh. “You’re seriously okay with that?”

Swindle shrugged, his usual confidence unfaltering. “Okay with it? Not really. But we don’t exactly have a lot of options here.”

Brawl slapped the yellow-armored drone on the shoulder. “We’ll survive. We’ve done it before. And if all else fails, we still have Bruticus.”

Doll raised a brow towards the veteran Decepticons. “<And Bruticus is…>”

“Again, long story,” Onslaught said, his tone devoid of humor. He turned his visor toward the ongoing battle, where Overlord was still thrashing against the Insecticons. Their relentless attacks barely seemed to slow him down. “The dropship is down this road. You’ll find other Decepticons there to help you out while we handle this. If we’re lucky, maybe we can call Sixshot and he can help us.”

“<...Let me guess, long story?>” Doll asked dryly.

“Now you're catching on.”

Uzi clenched her fists, the green sparks around her dimming slightly as the weight of their words settled over her. She looked at Overlord, still standing tall amidst the chaos, his laughter cutting through the sounds of clashing metal. He was relentless, unstoppable—and because of that, doubt began to creep into her determined glare.

“Personally, I would have just let the big creepy bugs handle it,” Lizzy muttered, her sarcasm barely masking her unease. She glanced back at Uzi, lowering her voice. “I don’t even know what’s more insane—the giant murder bot or the people who think fighting him is the best plan. But we do have to get back home… and I’m sure our dads would like it if both of us came back.”

Uzi didn’t reply immediately, but she did finally lowered her cannon arm, transforming it back into her normal hand with an audible click. The green sparks around her dimmed and vanished, her safety locking into place. But her scowl remained. “Fine,” she muttered. “Let’s just get out of here before I change my mind.”

“Alright, everyone hop in.” With the loud purr of his T-cog, Thad’s tires screeched against the cracked pavement as he shifted into his vehicle mode. The truck bed rattled slightly as Lizzy and Doll climbed in immediately, but Uzi hesitated. She watched as Blast Off jogged alongside the vehicle, gesturing as he gave Thad directions toward the dropship.

Behind them, Vortex transformed once more into her attack helicopter mode, letting out a crackling battle cry as she banked toward the fight, with Brawl and Swindle following on foot.

Onslaught was about to join them. He had withdrew his blaster from its holster, and turned his focus toward Overlord’s position. But Uzi called out to him, “Wait!”

The Combaticon leader froze mid-stride, turning to face her once more. “Make it quick.” Is all he replied back with.

“You gotta tell me the deal with Overlord?” she demanded, her voice barely heard as overhead Blast Off flew toward the fray in his vehicle mood. “Why the hell would the Decepticons ever let a monster like him into their city? Please, I’ve got to know. You guys are heroes, so why… why is that thing here?”

Onslaught regarded her silently for a moment, before he spoke. “Overlord is a weapon. A tool. He was built for one purpose: to destroy Autobots and end the war. Back then, he was… manageable. Controlled. But that was a long time ago.”

Uzi rolled her optics and groaned. “No duh. So what happened? How did he go from ‘manageable’ to this?” She gestured toward Overlord just in time to see him violently rip one of the Insecticons in half with his bare hands, another crushed beneath his boot with a sickening crunch. They were healing from such injuries, but it was notably getting slower now.

Onslaught followed her gaze to the gruesome scene, his expression grim. “One bot who kept him in check—the only one Overlord was afraid of—disappeared. Without that leash, Overlord became what he is.”

“And who’s this bot?” Uzi pressed, her voice laced with frustration. “Because I am seriously going to kick his tailpipe for not being here to deal with him!”

For a moment, Onslaught didn’t answer. His visor remained fixed on her, his silence heavy with meaning. Finally, he reached out and tapped the Decepticon insignia on her shoulder.

“Every one of us knows his name,” Onslaught said quietly, his tone weighted with reverence and regret. “...All hail Megatron.” The name lingered in the air like a thunderclap—heavy, undeniable. Uzi stared at him, her anger dimming into quiet disbelief.

Before she could say more, Onslaught straightened, his blaster humming to life. “Get moving, kid. Your job’s to get that chip to your people. Ours is to make sure you have the time to do it, after that…you can come back, by then Shockwave will be able to protect you for sure.” With that, he rushed to join the rest of his team.

Uzi climbed back into Thad’s truck bed, her expression unreadable. Thad’s engine growled as he began to move, following the directions Blast Off had given him. Lizzy and Doll exchanged uneasy glances as the truck bounced over the uneven terrain. 

“Well, it was fun while it lasted,” Lizzy muttered, clutching the side of the truck bed for stability.

Uzi kept her gaze fixed on the battle behind them. Through the rising smoke and dust, she could see Overlord towering above the combined forces of the Combaticons and Insecticons. The eight of them surrounded him, their attacks coordinated and relentless, yet Overlord fought like a force of nature. His laughter, cruel and jagged, carried over the battlefield even as even more dents marred his armor and more energon dripped from his wounds.

It barely looked like an even fight.

Chapter Text

Perched on the edge of a crumbling rooftop within the city of Kalis, N squatted in complete silence. His optics scanned the desolate landscape below as he searched for something—anything that was alive. His wings, folded neatly along his back, twitched slightly in the faint, chill breeze. They caught the soft glow of moonlight that filtered through the dark clouds hanging over the city, making him wonder if they were noticeable enough to be seen from the ground—if maybe he was accidentally giving himself away. He wondered if he should move to another spot. Maybe go across the city again. Or he could stalk the doors of the colony once more, maybe knock on it once more. He could even attempt to try and stick a letter through the—

"Ah, come on, robo-brain," N softly whispered to himself as he shook his head moments in frustration. "Focus for me here."

He surveyed the ground carefully, his optics sharpening to pick out the smallest of details—be it a hint of movement, a glint of light from a visor—he was looking for anything that might confirm he wasn’t completely alone in this forsaken place. In the corner of his vision, the Spire loomed like a jagged scar cutting into the heavens. He tried his best to ignore it.

He was hoping to find NAILs from the nearby underground colony. Not to hunt them. Rather, he just wanted to talk. To spread the news that the war might soon come to an end—that Optimus was returning to Cybertron with a way to heal the planet. That there would come a time where they can be allowed to walk the surface of Cybertron without the fear of…

The fear of being thought as a threat.

N needed to remind himself of what Elita-1 had told them about the NAILs—that they were an unknown factor, a danger within the war. One that needed to be kept down at all costs. It was a confusing set of orders that many of their fellow Autobots opposed—some even straight up left the cause because of it—but J had tried her best to at least explain to him why it was needed. She told him that they needed to hurt those they sought to save because, ‘Fear will control more than blades or guns ever could.’ Terror would keep the majority of the NAILs in hiding and out of the war. It lessened the chance of them interacting with the Decepticons and being turned against the Autobot cause.

‘Oh, N, I understand that this can be a little complicated. Just do as you're told, and I promise you the ends justify the means.’

He often wondered about J’s words. He wanted to follow them unquestionably, to be useful to her, Elita, and the Autobot cause. But…

Something wasn’t right about it. He felt sure that at one point he was once told something about the NAILs—what, he couldn’t recall. The many, many years of the war blended together. Made it hard to remember so much, especially given how often he would get damaged. He once talked about it with V. Her advice was for him to stop getting shot in the head. “Easier said than done.” N bitterly chuckled at the thought, before a sharp beeping sound can be heard as his visor flickered to the color blue. He was getting a private transmission on the Autobot frequency. Someone was calling him, and he could already guess who. 

With a mutter of “biscuits” under his breath, N reluctantly accepted the call.

V’s voice burst through the line, as sharp and as impatient as always when she was upset. “[N, you better tell me where you are right now.]” she began without preamble. “[Because I talked to Kup, I talked to Chromia, I even talked to Blurr—and you know I hate doing so because that guy is a literal motor mouth, but I had to because no one knew where you were!]” He flinched at the sheer volume of her words and placed a hand over his visor with a hint of shame in his movement. “Uh, I’m not here at the moment. Can you leave a message after the beep?” He tried, knowing full well such a trick wouldn’t work.

“[Don’t get cute with me,]”, again he flinched at her words, “[I’ve got half a mind to hunt you down and just, ugh—]” There was a sudden pause, and N could hear the sound of a deep breath crackling through the transmission. When V spoke again, her tone was quieter, almost exhaustive. “[N, you can’t just disappear on us like that. Especially not after what happened to Impactor. Please, just tell me where you are.]” 

A pit of guilt began to grow within N’s spark chamber as he could hear V’s distress. “I'm sorry, V. After the funeral, I needed a bit of time to be alone, so…I came back home. I'm in Kalis right now.” 

“[You went back?]” He can hear the blatant bafflement in her words. “[Vector Sigma, N. Are you okay? I mean, if you want I can come by. Just tell me where you are and we can meet—]”

“No, no, it’s okay.” N lowered himself to sit along the edge of the building, letting his legs dangle freely in the air. “I mean, I’m not actually okay… but you know…” He let the words trail off, leaving them suspended in the silence as his thoughts drifted to Impactor. The funeral had been held in one of the least populated parts of Iacon, honored with a traditional Wrecker-style sendoff. It was a somber event, conducted in the brightest time of the day. Which meant the Disassembly Squad couldn’t attend.

It was a flaw in their mechanical design—one N still didn’t fully understand. The augmentations that granted them advanced weaponry and self-repair capabilities came with a significant drawback: an issue of overheating. Their systems simply couldn’t handle prolonged activity without sufficient cooling. To compensate, they needed to ingest energon. Specifically, inner energon. Or energon-blood as it is also referred to. The black, oil-like substance that flowed through each and every drone. Something so warm and sweet, yet…horrific. 

That was why they hunted. Why they feasted on those they killed—not just as a means of survival, but also, inescapably, as a form of indulgence. N would be the first to admit there was a guilty pleasure in it, a dark satisfaction he didn’t care to dwell on too often. Most of the time, he tried not to think about it at all. Especially because whenever other Autobots learned of such needs, their reactions were anything but welcoming.

But Impactor had been different. He was one of the first bots to accept them, to make them feel as though they truly belonged within the Autobot ranks. That acceptance made what Elita did all the more hurtful. J had understood the commander’s reasoning: the funeral had to be held during daylight, when it was safest from the risk of a Decepticon attack. V, however, had been furious, calling it unfair that they couldn’t attend the ceremony. ‘It’s the least we could do—he was our friend,’ she’d said, her anger righteous but ultimately ignored by the higher command.

N had remained silent. He had already said what he needed to say, long before the ceremony. He believed that his words, spoken in private at the theater, were enough.

“...The rest is silence,” he had whispered to himself.

“[What?]”

He shook off the memory, realizing it was weighing too heavily on him. “Sorry. My head is in just in a lot of places at once. I just need a little bit of time, I promise, I will—”

A somewhat familiar loud crackling noise interrupted him. It came from beneath where he sat. "Oh, come on—ah!”

The edge of the roof he was sitting on suddenly gave way, the structure collapsing under his weight. In an instant, he was sent plummeting through the air. Without hesitation, his wings snapped open, their mechanisms whirring as he attempted to stabilize himself. But the falling debris followed him. Pieces of jagged metal struck his wings, tearing through the delicate systems. He lost control, his descent accelerating.

Moments later, N crashed into the snow at the base of the building, the impact throwing up a massive cloud of snow and dust that lingered in the air like smoke. He lay sprawled in the crater of his fall, large chunks of metal scattered across and embedded in his frame, with jagged shards piercing through several parts of his body.

“...Ow,” he muttered, the word laced with a mixture of pain and resignation.

“[What happened?]” V’s voice erupted through his comms, filled with concern.

Slowly, N pulled himself into a sitting position, every ache and pain flaring through his body like bolts of electricity. “I’m okay. I just fell—” He flinched and quickly grabbed at his tail, preventing the syringe-like tip from stabbing into his own leg. “Oh boy, I nearly pricked myself again.” He sighed in relief. “That actually would have hurt a lot worse.”

Despite the undeniable pain coursing through him, N couldn’t help but smile when he heard V’s dismissive chuckle over the line. “[Okay, we seriously need to talk about your luck. It’s becoming bad comedy.]”

“J usually calls it mediocre,” N quipped as he began to pull the jagged pieces of metal from his body, one by one. With each shard removed, his wounds would close by themselves, the faint hiss of steam signaling his self-repair systems at work. As he worked, N’s thoughts wandered. His gaze turned toward his hands, watching as they transformed into long, narrow claws with mono-molecular edges. They gleamed within the moonlight as he used them to grip and pick at his smaller stab wounds. When he had taken out the last piece of foreign metal from his body, he flexed his claws experimentally before turning his attention to his torso, observing as the gashes in his plating knitted themselves back together without the aid of a CR chamber. For what felt like the hundredth time in as many years, N wondered what it would be like if Impactor—or any other Autobot, for that matter—had the same ability to heal like he and his team did. How many lives could have been saved? How many friends might still be here?

He was thankful for V’s voice cutting through his reflection. “[Hey, for real though. Is there a reason you went to Kalis? I mean, I can’t imagine why you’d want to go back there, especially with what happened… unless…]” Her voice trailed off, and he could hear the sound of her sigh over the comm line. “[Let me guess—you think it’s a good idea to try and make friends with the NAILs, again .]”

A nervous chuckle escaped N as he slowly pulled himself up from the ground. Brushing off the snow and debris clinging to his frame, he started to walk away from the rubble that had fallen with him. All while he folded his wings neatly within his back and changed his claws back to his normal hands. “Okay, before we start,” he said, trying to sound composed, “I just want to give my side of things. I mean, I only want to spread the news we just got.”

He could practically feel V rolling her eyes. “[Oh, and what news would that be? That they taste better in a soup with cesium salami?]” N chose not to mention that in his opinion, they paired better with beryllium baloney. That wasn’t the point he wanted to make.

“V, listen. Optimus is coming back to Cybertron. Things are going to change soon. I’m doing my part in that. We need to start somewhere, and for me, that means reaching out—making actual contact with these colonies. I’ll tell them that Cybertron will be fixed—”

“[We don’t know that it can be fixed, N.]”

“Optimus said he could fix it. I believe him, V.”

“[You’d believe him if he told you that eating chocolate-covered wheel-nuts would give you the power to talk to Mini-con dolphins!]”

“...Bulkhead was really convincing when he told me that.”

“[N!]”

“Okay, okay,” he quickly conceded, trying to steer the conversation back on track. “Look, I know it sounds like a lot, but I feel that this is important. I’m going to talk to them, and when I do… I’m going to apologize.” There was a loud, exasperated “[What?]” from V, her disbelief practically vibrating through the comms. “I’m trying something new,” he offered tentatively, but her reply quickly dashed any hope of this being an easy call.

“[N, trying something new is when I get bored and decide to make balloon animals out of whatever drone I can find. What you’re doing is just—really? An apology ?]”

N stopped walking and placed a hand over his visor again. He knew how naïve it sounded. The idea that anyone would actually listen to him, especially given the history he and his team shared with the NAILs, was unreal. But he still wanted to try. “They deserve one. We need to start thinking about what will happen after the war, and an apology—it’s the least we can do. I’ll say sorry to each colony we terrorized, right after I tell them that the true Prime is—”

“[N,]” V interrupted, her tone flat with sheer annoyance. “[I’m going to ask this as seriously as I can. What do you think is actually going to happen when you meet one of these colony drones? Hmm? You think a ‘sorry’ is going to fix everything? You gonna make them a note written in crayon? ‘Dear whoever, I’m so sowwy. Plezz forgive me’?]”

“I could make something like that if you think it would help,” N retorted, his attempt at levity weak and completely unconvincing.

Her tone grew sharper, more deadpan. “[Please stop fooling around. I get that some of these colony drones can be pretty stupid, but they’re not going to just forget what we did.]”

“It’s not about forgetting,” N countered, his own voice growing more resolute. “It’s about being Autobots. We have a chance to end this war—peacefully. Isn’t that why we do what we do? Isn’t that why we’re here, to finish the job we were given?”

V’s voice dropped, becoming colder and almost distant. “[Right. We do our job, and then we’re left alone.]” Her words felt less directed at him and more like she was speaking to herself.

“...What?”

“[Never mind. Forget I said anything.]” She tried to sound dismissive, but her words hung in the air, bitter and heavy with an emotion N couldn’t quite place.

He pressed on cautiously, feeling as if he were stepping onto unstable ground. “V, is there something I’m missing—”

V was just as quick to steer the conversation. “[I understand what you’re trying to do, N. But you didn’t answer my questions. Do you honestly think they’ll listen to you? Forgive you?]” Her frustration was becoming harder to suppress. “[Hell, we don’t even know if they’re tied to Impactor’s death or not. Have you thought about that?]”

She didn’t hold back, her next words were as sharp as a blade from her own arm. “[Say you find the Cons that killed him, and they’re with that colony of NAILs. Say the whole colony decided to side with the Decepticons—meaning not only was Elita proven right for being a paranoid nut—but also that you’re going to try and befriend the same bots who helped kill Impactor. What then?]”

He didn’t want to, but the thought crept in anyway. An entire colony of neutral drones suddenly pledging loyalty to the Decepticons would be devastating to the war effort.

“...That’s just the worst-case scenario—”

“[Humor me,]” she snapped, cutting him off. “[Just answer the question. What then? I know Optimus talked about making peace with the Cons, and you’re all for whatever he says, but N... Impactor’s spark chamber is still warm.]” N slowly pulled his hand down his face, his optics locking onto the Spire in the distance. It loomed above the ruins like a specter—a monument to what they did through the war, just as J said. “[What happens if they apologize, huh? What then? Are you just going to forgive them? Let it slide because ‘that’s how the cookie crumbles’ or some slag like that?]”

“...I don’t know,” N admitted honestly, his voice quieter now, as if the weight of his own thoughts somehow grew heavier. If he were to be completely honest—he hoped he'd never learn who killed his friend. Putting a face on the unknown killer would somehow make it feel worse. Would make him wonder too much. 

Like if the killer enjoyed what they did.

“[What do you mean, you don’t know?]” 

“I mean... I don’t know what I’ll do. I just feel like I’m missing context about—”

“[Context?]” V cut him off again, her voice incredulous as ever as she scoffed at him. “[We put our friend in a casket, N! And you’re talking about context ? The context is that they wanted to kill him—there’s nothing else you need to know! We’re in a war, for Primus’ sake. That’s your context.]”

N let out a heavy sigh. “I know.” He closed his optics, trying to focus on his words rather than the swirl of emotions threatening to overwhelm him. “I know we’re in a war. But Impactor had a message from Optimus—a message promoting peace between Decepticons and Autobots. And if he did run into Decepticons, then maybe he…”

Silence lingered on the line for a few moments. N took the opportunity to compose himself, taking slow, calming breaths. When V broke the silence, her voice put his concerns into stark words. “[You want to know if Impactor told them—or showed them the message—and they still killed him.]”

“I just… want answers.” N reached up to tug off his hat before he began to aggressively run a hand through his hair—he tried to untangle the mess in his mind. “The more I try to think about it, the more confused I get. No one willingly stepped foot in Kalis for years. We’d only see the occasional group of drones from the colony—and they don’t have much of a choice if they want to leave their home.

But then yesterday happened, and I just can’t wrap my head around it. Impactor coming to Kalis is one thing. But him being attacked by Decepticons, right by the Spire? That doesn’t make sense. We’ve had it for millions of years, and no 'Con has ever gone near it. Then suddenly, a team shows up to attack Impactor here? Why? Was it a targeted attack, did they know about the message or was it random, were we the targets?” He rubbed his temples, the frustration clear in his voice. “And why was Impactor even here in the first place? Why did he want to meet me specifically?

If he had somehow got a message from Optimus, why didn’t he deliver it to Elita. She is Optimus's wife for crying out loud! If not her, why not go to Crystal City and give it to Ultra Magnus. I mean, that guy is Optimus’s big brother. That makes way more sense than coming to me. And now, I think I am remembering that maybe he was trying to warn me that something was gonna happen to him, or am I projecting that idea, I don’t know. I really don’t know anymore. I just want it to make sense.”

“[N…]” V’s voice softened, the sharp edges of frustration melting into concern.

“V, I don’t know what I’m going to do when I find those Decepticons.” His voice dropped, heavy with uncertainty. “I don’t know what I’d do if they apologized. Maybe I’ll kill them anyway, because that’s all we’ve ever done to them.” He rolls his optics, with them looking toward the Spire again, seeing it tower over the ruins. “The NAILs, the Decepticons, even our fellow Autobots think we’re just… just murder drones. And honestly, I'm starting to think they're right. I mean, even you’re saying we’re monsters.”

“[N, I—I didn’t mean…]” There was a tremor of regret in V's voice, it was quickly muffled as she tried to regain her composure. “[...When I called us that, I—]”

“No, V. Please, just hear me out.” N cut her off gently but firmly. “I know you were just upset, but there is some truth to what you said. I mean, we literally sleep surrounded by corpses. We've killed more bots than we can count—we even need to eat some just so we don’t die. Of course we are monsters, what else would we be?” 

He shrugged his shoulders, knowing full well that V couldn’t even see the motion.

“But that’s why I have to try something different.” N's tone suddenly changed, a quiet determination began to thread through his words. “Yeah, we’re not exactly ‘normal,’ but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to be more than what we’ve been told we are. We don’t have to be defined by the war or what anyone else sees in us. We can choose to be something better. That’s our right as sentient beings—to change, to transform. It’s a…freedom we have.” He paused to allow his gaze to sweep across the snow-dusted rubble around himself. “We just have to reach out and take that chance. We just have to try.”

N’s optics traced the faint stains of inner-energon beneath the snow, almost invisible now, but a haunting reminder of what had been. He knew he was responsible for most if not all of it. “I want to apologize to the NAILs because I want to try and make right what we did to them,” His thoughts were heavy with the memories of screams and energon-blood splatters. “I know it might not work, and they might still hate us. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they tried to attack me on sight. But I don’t care. I’m not doing this for forgiveness, V. It’s about—”

“[Reconciliation,]” V finished for him, an almost wistful chuckle being heard over the line. “[I remember you saying something like that about Impactor during the ‘last words’.]” There was a pause, leaving a fragile silence stretching between them before she spoke again. “[Do you really believe Optimus is right? That this war can actually end?]”

N’s optics dimmed behind his visor as he closed them, trying to imagine a world at peace. The harder he tried, the more distant and abstract it felt—a picture he couldn’t fully paint. The realization saddened him. “I believe in him, V. I believe in the peace we fight for. But if I’m going to believe in anything, I have to try to make it real myself.” He hesitated, then added quietly, “I’m sorry I just left without saying anything.”

There was a brief pause before V sighed over the comms. “[Just leave a note or something next time, okay?]”

N felt a small smile tug at the corners of his mouth. He could almost see her pouting, wearing that rare expression of quiet remorse she usually buried beneath her sharp exterior. That side of V—the softer, more vulnerable part of her she showed only to him and, maybe, the Dinobots—always surprised him. It was easy to forget she was the most homicidal member of their squad.

“[I’ll try to keep J distracted so she doesn’t come looking for you right away,]” she added after a moment, her tone lightening. “[I’ll give you as much time as you need to clear your head. But you’ve got to promise me something. The moment you run into trouble—and I mean any kind of trouble, even a mini-con gnawing at your ankles—you send a distress signal. Got it? We still haven’t found those Cons, remember?]”

“Thanks, V,” N said, a grateful chuckle escaping him. “You know, I always say J’s the best, but you’re up there too. Maybe even better.”

“[Yeah, well, someone’s gotta be the one actually thinking about what’s best for you,]” she quipped, her tone laced with playful smugness. He could imagine her rolling her optics with a smirk.

“I lov—” N began, but before the words could fully leave his mouth, the line cut out abruptly. His optics flickered, and the comm went silent. He sighed, shaking his head. “Why does no one say goodbye before they hang up?”

He adjusted his visor and looked around again. The city loomed around him, quiet as a graveyard. Twisted metal and ash-covered rubble stretched as far as the optic could see—a grim testament to the war’s relentless toll. In the distance, the Spire jutted into the sky. Small flashes of red light from the countless [Fatal Error] messages of the dead drones flickered across its horrid surface. Maybe, someday, it could be taken down. Maybe he could begin to repair all the damage caused—his own and everyone else’s. It would take time, likely more than he could imagine, but the possibility was there. Optimus Prime was coming, and he would help set things right. But for that to happen, N knew there had to be a foundation. Even if it was just one NAIL—one bot willing to talk—it would be a start.

“Only one way to find out,” N muttered. “I better get to a better vantage point. Maybe to the west this time.” He tilted his head up to look at the sky, and something caught his attention—a shadow moving within the clouds overhead, trying to remain hidden from plain sight. In an instant, N twisted himself around to get a better look. His visor flared to life and his optics zoomed in on the distant object.

It was a Decepticon dropship. It cut through Kalis’s airspace with cold efficiency, keeping itself at least 13,000 meters above the ground. It could hold up to twenty Decepticon troops at once and was known to carry enough firepower to demolish an entire building in seconds. A dangerous vessel for sure, but one that N had taken down numerous times by now. Though his mind wasn’t focused on the idea of fighting such a thing. Instead, he couldn’t help but imagine what its presence here could mean. He wanted to remind himself of Optimus’s message—the promise to give peace a chance. But his mind was filled with the unbidden image of Impactor’s mutilated body. Before N even realized it, his hands had clenched into fists, his servos trembling with the anticipation of a fight. His teeth began to ache as the fangs shifted into place within his mouth, the craving for energon ringing in his head.

“…I just want to talk to them,” he muttered to himself, his voice low and strained. Suddenly, his wings unfurled from his back with a sharp, mechanical hiss and his visor shifted, displaying a large, glowing X across his view. “But maybe they deserve a bit of a scare first.”

Chapter Text

The Decepticon dropship rattled as it soared through the skies of Cybertron. Its angular frame and battle-worn plating spoke of the countless missions it had carried out during the height of the Great War. It was a marvel of a vessel—something that should have made Uzi ecstatic to ride within, as it was a craft she’d only read about in datanet archives and heard of through audio logs. In fact, she should have been bouncing off the walls in absolute bliss. She had visited the Decepticon capital of Cybertron, met actual Decepticons, and was set to join their ranks. She was going to bring the entire colony into the Decepticons' fold and make her father proud because she ultimately did something to help the colony.

And yet her mind just continued to linger on what recently happened. 

On Overlord and the carnage he unleashed upon Kaon. How Megatron, The Megatron, possibly knew how dangerous such a drone was and still kept him around. There had to be an explanation. There simply had to be—

“I’m gonna go talk to the pilot.” Thad’s sudden voice pulled Uzi from her thoughts. She watched as he stood up and walked toward the back of the dropship. She tried to call out to him, to stop him, but he had already peeked into the cockpit. “Hey, man, sorry to bug you. I just wanted to know if there was any idea how long it’ll be until we reach Kalis?”

Looking past Thad’s shoulder, Uzi could see the Decepticon that piloted the dropship. He was a tall drone, his frame imposing and built for combat. The military helicopter alt. mode was unmistakable as his gunmetal armor was practically fused with the vehicle’s parts, giving him a rugged, chaotic appearance. It was as if he’d been assembled from the wreckage of battlefields—it made it hard to tell where the drone began and the armor ended. The pilot, Grindor, didn’t immediately respond to Thad’s question. His attention was focused on the array of buttons and switches on the control panel. When he did answer, his gravelly voice cut through the rattling of the dropship like a bullet through a sheet of paper.

“Soon. We’re taking the slow way. I’ve got the autopilot locked onto Kalis, but we’re flying through Autobot airspace. That means I’ll be staying up here to keep an eye out—especially since we’re entering angel territory.”

“And by ‘angel’, you mean—”

Grindor’s optics flicked over his shoulder, fixing Thad with a glare sharp enough to make the boy flinch. “I mean the drone-eating, unkillable freaks the Autobots keep as pets. The ones you all somehow managed to slip past…apparently.”

“Yeah, totally figured as much,” Thad stammered, trying to sound confident but failing miserably as he could feel the harsh suspicion thrown at him. “We, uh, definitely knew about them and avoided them on purpose. It was a smooth oper—urk!”

Before Thad could finish the obvious lie, a massive hand seized him by the back of his vest and yanked him away from the cockpit, causing him to land flat on his back. When he looked up, he saw another Decepticon looming over him. This one was even more disheveled than Grindor. His beige armor was jagged and uneven, as though it had been hammered together in a scrapyard. Despite its crude construction, Thad recognized the bot’s alt. Mode—a military minesweeper. Though he wished to admire the details or comment on such a alt. mode, the bot snarled. His voice, practically nothing more than a gurgling growl, vibrated through the entire cabin.

“You better not be leading us into some kind of Autobot trick, boy,” the Decepticon, Bonesmasher, hissed. His glowing red optics narrowed dangerously as he leaned closer to the boy. “If you are, I’ll rip your spark out through your exhaust port.”

“Uh, that is kind of gross, man—”

Thad barely managed to choke out a response before the bot grabbed him by the front of his shirt and began hoisting him into the air like a ragdoll. “You hear me, brat?” The Decepticon barked, shaking the younger drone slightly for emphasis. “That goes for all of you. If this is some kind of setup, I’ll personally make each and every one of you—” Before the brute could finish, a red flash lit up the cabin, followed by a violent jolt through the entire dropship. The vessel itself groaned under the sudden shaking, its metallic frame creaking ominously.

“Oi, Bonesmasher, get in here!” Grindor’s rough voice barked from the cockpit. “We just hit massive turbulence! I need a second set of hands on the controls, now!”

The drone growled, clearly annoyed at having his threat interrupted. He glared down at Thad one last time before tossing him aside like a piece of scrap metal. Thad yelped as he flailed toward the floor, but before he could hit the steel again, a pair of hands caught him by shoulders.

“Whoa, good catch, Z,” Thad said shakily, smiling as Uzi hauled him back to his feet with surprising ease for her size.

“Don’t mention it,” Uzi replied flatly, brushing dust off his vest with quick, irritated movements. “And don’t call me Z… You okay?”

Thad waved off her concern with a casual shrug. “Eh, the only thing that hurts is a little bit of my masculine pride. Nothing new.” His gaze drifted toward the cockpit, where the two Decepticons sat at the controls. Their gruff attitudes and sharp movements exuded tension, even from a distance. “Though, I wouldn’t mind if our pilots worked on their hospitality skills a little. Making me really miss the Combaticons.”

The comment earned a faint smirk from Uzi. “You and me both.”

The two of them made their way to the rear of the ship's cabin, where Lizzy and Doll sat on a pair of uncomfortable-looking metal benches bolted to the interior walls. Lizzy was leaning against a small viewport—very much bored out of her mind, with how she was gazing out towards the expansiveness of Cybertron’s cloudy night sky. Doll, on the other hand, was methodically sharpening a blade, her expression still as calm and unreadable as ever while the rhythmic scrape of metal echoed in the small cabin.  If the violent jolt from earlier had bothered them, neither weren't showing it. Which meant that now was as good of a time as ever to bring up the subject. 

“Hey, are we ever going to talk about the red flashing thing?” Thad would ask, as he would flop down on a bench opposite of the two female drones, Uzi joining his side. “Because that’s like the third time it’s popped up, and, not to complain or anything, but it’s kind of weirdly convenient.”

Doll’s lips curled into a faint, knowing smile as she continued working on her blade. “<Is it truly wise to question something beneficial? Maybe what Lizzy said is true—we have a Guardian robot watching over us.>”

Lizzy scoffed at the idea. “Suuure,” she said, her words dripping with sarcasm. “A Guardian robot, sent by Primus to look after us all as a cosmic babysitter.” The two shared a chuckle at the idea, before Lizzy would turn her head to look at Thad and Uzi. “Honestly, who knows? Maybe one of us is a secret Outlier—oh, even better…a Point One Percenter—and we don’t even know it.”

The absurdity of her suggestion made Uzi laugh. “Oh yeah, because that is just something that we would…” Her words began to trail off, as she would notice Doll’s smile fade away, it was replaced by a somber type of look. 

Before she could make a comment about it, Thad interjected, the brows within his visor rising upward as he glanced between everyone and asked. “Wait, what’s the difference between an Outlier and a Point One Percenter again?” The rest of the group collectively groaned at the question.

“Thad, please tell me you’re kidding?” Lizzy asked, almost hopeful that the question was some kind of joke. Only to see him helplessly shrug his shoulders, his cluelessness written all over his face. “Oh, come on. My dad gave us a huge test on this, like, not even a week ago.”

“Wait, I thought the test was about Earth’s Russian Revolution in the solar cycle of 1917. At least, that’s what the test looked like when I copied off of Doll during it.” Doll, who had been still sharpening her blade, set it aside with a look of disappointment. “<That’s because there was a fill-in-your-own test on the back of it…which, honestly, how do you not even check the front of a test handed to you?>”

Breathing through his teeth for a moment, Thad would admit sheepishly, “I’ll be honest, I was kind of rushing through it.”

Uzi lightly elbowed him in the arm, as she smirked at him. “Way to bring the grade point average down—you’re really leaning into that jock stereotype.”

Lizzy with a grin, jumping in. “Oh, and what was that about stereotypes, rebellious, angsty unpopular girl that that only wears dark clothing?”

“Bite me, Mean Popular Girl!” Uzi shot back, glaring at Lizzy for a full second before turning her attention back to Thad. “Okay, listen up. Outliers are Drones with...abilities. No one’s completely sure how they came around, but it seems like they can just do things no one else can. Think of it like a ‘manufacturing error’ in their bodies, where something extra gets added in. Like with Braidon.” 

Thad’s eyes widened in surprise at the mention of one of their classmates—the one whose head had a habit of literally being caught on fire. “Braidon’s an Outlier? I always thought he just had bad luck or was thinking too hard.”

“Uh, have you met the guy?” Lizzy asked, raising a brow within her visor. “Trust me, there isn’t much going through his head most of the time. How do you think Uzi was able to hack him so easily once.”

“First off, it wasn’t easy—it still took effort, it isn’t like anyone can just learn how to use the Cortical Psychic Patch to hack into someone's sentience,” Uzi retorted, holding up a finger for emphasis. “Second off… yeah.” Uzi would drop her finger as she could concede the other point. “He's really dumb. I mean, I could say that about a lot of drones we know, but whatever.” She gave a dismissive wave of the hand as she went back to the topic. “The stress I induced by hacking into him triggered his outlier ability.”

Thad tried to process what he was being told. “Wait, so, his outlier ability is… his head randomly catching on fire?” He held his arms out questionably, especially when he saw Uzi and Lizzy both nodding their heads in confirmation. “Oh, that just sucks.” 

“<What is there to be expected? It is a ‘mutation’.>” Doll interjected, all while she returned her sword to her back, with her other blades. “<The abilities vary greatly but are all seemingly random. It is quite rare to find an Outlier with something that could be described as ‘beneficial’. But, there are some stories of such drones.>” 

“And… Point One Percenters?” Thad tilted his head in somewhat worry. 

Uzi took a breath and leaned back into her seat. “What makes a drone an Outlier is their body. There are actually treatments that can be done to take away the ‘extra parts’ that cause them. What makes a drone a Point One Percenter is their spark.” She placed a hand over her chest, right above where her own spark chamber would be. “Our sparks are... well, normal.” She shrugged. “They’re small, blue, and they rely on our bodies to function properly. A Point One Percenter’s spark—or a superspark as they are sometimes called—”

“That’s a dumb name,” Lizzy interjected, rolling her eyes.

“Who asked you?” Uzi shot back, before continuing. “Anyway, their sparks are…” She paused, as if to search for the right words. “Calling them ‘strong’ would be an understatement. They’re so powerful that they’d end up burning themselves out most of the time.” She moved her hands, clasping them together as she explained further. “When it comes to making protoforms, there’s a sort of adaptation process. The spark forms the body, and the body forms to reflect the spark. That’s how we were all born—kinda. But if the spark is too much for the body... boom.” Uzi opened her hands, mimicking an explosion. “And that’s not even mentioning the radiation they give off.”

Doll leaned forward from her seat and spoke up. “<Imagine trying to hold your newforge child, only for him to fry both your circuits and his own, just because of how his spark was made,>” She clicked her tongue and slowly shook her head. “<That is why they’re called Point One Percenters—because that is the chance that they would ever survive to be full formed drones.>”

Uzi nodded in agreement. “They’re a super rare breed, to the point that hardly any are documented. Back when the Senate was in power, they tried to track and control them, pulling them into their inner circle whenever they could. And if you want a more recent example, we just met one. Overlord.”

“Vector Sigma…” Thad muttered, while he placed a hand over his hat in shock. “So that’s why he’s so tough. I mean with how the Combaticons and those bug dudes were attacking him, he barely looked bothered most of the time. Can he even be killed?”

Lizzy shrugged. “That's something I am sure a lot of bots wonder about. Maybe just dropping a really big bomb could work?” She offered.

“<It’s possible to kill a Point One Percenter,>” Doll replied, showing an odd interest in the conversation as she would tap her chin in thought. “<But it’s not easy. The simplest way would be to have another Point One Percenter fight the first one—pit them against each other. Let them fight it out while you stay far, far away. And if you can manage it, maybe drop a really big bomb on top of both their heads—just to be safe.>”

Uzi seemed to take a breath as her optics would turn upward to the ceiling. She became quieter as she spoke, her voice tinged with guilt. “The Combaticons knew what they were getting into when they stayed behind to help the Insecticons. I mean they talked about maybe getting more help but, I can’t help but feel that maybe we should ha—”

“Hey!” Lizzy interrupted her sharply, stomping her foot against the metal floor with a resounding clang that echoed through the cabin. “Knock that off. Remember what Onslaught told us—there’s no ‘maybe’ when it came to that Overlord guy.” She jabbed a finger in Uzi’s direction, her tone as blunt as her words. “We did the best we could, and you know what that was? Staying alive. Besides, you didn’t exactly help matters last time I checked.”

Her optics narrowing into a glare. “Please, try and explain why, of all the things you could have done, did you think it was a good idea to shoot the giant murder-bot in the face?”

“I thought tha—” Uzi began, only to be cut off.

“No, you weren’t thinking.” Lizzy gestured to the entire group. “You saw that we had the numbers, that we had weapons, and you decided, ‘Oh, I’ll shoot him while his guard is down.’ Except if it was that easy, we wouldn’t have walked through several abandoned streets filled with dead Vechicons, would we?”

Uzi opened her mouth to respond but stopped herself—her jaw tightening shut. Because she knew Lizzy was right. She hadn’t been thinking. Fueled by righteous indignation and Megatron’s written words echoing within her head, she’d acted on impulse, and she hated that Lizzy could see that. "...What was I supposed to do?” Uzi asked, her voice turning soft, as it was filled with her frustration. “Just stay behind the adults and pretend to be scared?”

“Oh, don’t try to be tough,” Lizzy countered, once more rolling her eyes. “We all had our servos quivering. The guy was like three times our height, and made a whole team of commandos digitally sweating buckets the entire time. It’s normal to be scared—”

“I was scared!” Uzi shot up to her feet, the sudden movement startling everyone as she stomped forward and loomed over Lizzy. “I was scared out of my mind—until I saw the bodies!”

Her shout caused the whole cabin to go quiet, as everyone saw her hands balled into fists at her sides, trembling with the weight of her emotions. “My spark felt like it was going to tear itself apart because I thought there was a target on my back—on me!” She struck her palm against her chest for emphasis, her optics brightening with a mix of anger and regret. “But then we saw the Vehicon. Drones who fought even though they weren’t built for it and it’s my fault they are dead!”

She grew fiercer, her words grew heavier. “I wasn’t scared anymore when that happened. I was angry! ”

Uzi closed her eyes to try and regain control of herself, but it didn’t help. The chaotic images of the battle, the nearly empty streets of Kaon, and Overlord’s mocking laughter all replayed in her mind like a relentless recording. She wondered how a monster like him could not only walk the streets freely but hold a position of authority? A warden? Of a prison? Her teeth grinded at the thought as he was a Con-killer—by his own admission. And worse still, everyone seemed to have accepted it. No, more than accept it—they let him thrive. He was treated like a weapon to be pointed, a tool to be used…

No.

What was truly worse, was what she’d remembered seeing in the bar. This wasn’t the first time Overlord had done this. They all acted as if it was a regular event. He had taken to the streets before, killing for…what? Fun? Spite? Because no one could stop him? Rage began to stir within Uzi once more at just the thought of it all. It was becoming familiar at this point.

“<Cousin,>” Uzi's optics snapped open as Doll's voice broke her thoughts. When she turned her head, she was met with Doll standing at her side, a hand placed over her shoulder. “<I understand your anger.>” She was trying to be calm, soothing even. 

It did nothing but piss Uzi off even further.

“<You wished to stop him before more harm could be—>”

“No!” Uzi shoved herself away from Doll's touch, her voice explosive as it shook with a fury that made Thad and Lizzy flinch. “I don’t just want to stop him! I want to kill him!” Doll recoiled slightly from the outburst, but kept her stance firm. Refusing to step away, as she would look into Uzi’s optics. She saw how bright they became from sheer hatred. Were they colored red, they would look similar to what Doll had seen in a mirror. “I want to put him in chains! I want to drag him through the streets of Kaon like the rabid animal he is!” Uzi's voice grew louder, more unrestrained as her words dripped with venom. “I want to make an example of him!” Her entire frame now was trembling as if her body could barely contain the rage coursing through her circuits—green sparks shot across her body, her safety was turned off. “He’s not a Decepticon—he’s a bully! He thinks that just because he’s strong, he can do whatever he wants! That he can laugh in the faces of the lives he destroyed!” 

She turned and stomped towards the nearby viewport, her movements sharp and erratic. “I want him to feel helpless. I want the entire population of Kaon, everyone who ever cowered in fear of him, to see what he really is!” She raised her fists and slammed them onto the plexiglass. “A pathetic bastard! A mockery of everything that is our cause!” The large Decepticon symbol sewed along the back of her hoodie made it clear what she meant.

“I want him to suffer. I want him to regret every terrible thing he did.” Her voice slowly began to lower—dropping into an eerie calm. “And then…I want him to die. Alone. In darkness.”

The cabin grew deathly quiet once more, the only sound the faint hum of the dropship’s engines…and the low static bursts, as sparks still formed across Uzi’s body. Doll stood frozen, her hands left limp at her side as she was unsure of how to respond. Slowly, she exchanged an uneasy glance towards Lizzy and Thad, neither daring to speak as they both looked visibly worried. Uzi remained at the viewport, her fists still trembling against the glass. Her optics stared straight ahead, unfocused, as if she was lost in her own fantasies. Possibly imagining the scene she’d just described. “...It'll happen.” She said, “I'll make it happen.” A low chuckle could've heard, as her shoulders shook. “I managed to hurt him. I made his visor creak. If I can hurt him, I can kill him. I'll show the Decepticons that drones like him aren't needed…and they'll thank me for it.” Her hands would open up, as they are slowly pulled down to her side. There was the audible click of her safety, and the surge of green sparks that appeared around her body were gone.

This allowed Thad to breathe a little easier as he would give a look toward Lizzy, a silent plea for help as he would gesture at their classmate. To somehow talk to her. Lizzy could only give him back a shrug as she looked completely lost at what she could possibly offer—then, she looked toward Doll, who continued to simply stand in place and stare blankly at Uzi. 

With the tension growing ever so dense that it could cause someone to bluescreen—Lizzy decided to try her hand in solving this the best way she knew how. By instigating. 

“...So,” Lizzy began, leaning a bit further away from Uzi as she tried talking to Thad and Doll as normally as possible. “She's obviously turning into a super villain.” She paused, giving Uzi a chance to make some kind of retort. Only silence followed. Not a good thing. “I know we kind of accepted her being evil and all, but I can’t help but wish that someone could maybe talk to her a little, someone that she's kind of known for her whole life. You know, before we make it back to the colony and she blows it up or something. Hmmm…”

Doll rolling her eyes at her best friend’s ‘subtlety’. “<I can take a hint.>” The Russian speaking drone took a breath, and blinked her optics to mentally prepare herself. It was time for ‘family-bonding’. “<Give us some space.>”

“Say less.” With little to no warning at all, Lizzy abruptly stood up and then grabbed Thad by the arm, she then yanked him along—maneuvering them to the far side of the dropship, near the cockpit. All the while ignoring Thad’s half-hearted protests

This gave Doll the levity she needed to walk up to stand beside her cousin. The two of them looked out through the viewport of the dropship, towards Cybertron's cloud covered night sky. 

At first there was silence...and then there was a single question. 

“<Cousin, do you remember our grandfather?>”

“You think it’s a good idea to leave them alone?” Thad mumbled, his voice low as he and Lizzy sat on the floor near the front of the cabin. Beside them, a headphone-wearing drone tinkered diligently with an open panel just beneath a large screen. “We know how Uzi usually gets. But this time it seemed, well… That was the angriest I’ve ever seen her. And she gets mad a lot.”

“Ehh,” Lizzy’s eyes flickered with subtle conflict as she took a glance back toward the pair. “Doll’s the best person she can talk to right now. I mean, they are family. It's not like they'll actively try and kill each other.” She paused, tapping her knee absently as if considering her next words carefully. “Granted… they weren’t exactly close growing up. I think the only time I can remember them hugging was when, you know…” She twirled her wrist in a vague gesture, attempting to be delicate with her words for once.

It didn’t matter as Thad blurted the memory out without a second thought. “Oh, right. When Doll’s parents were killed.”

The words hit with the same energy as a thrown energon cube, and for a moment, neither spoke. Lizzy slowly turned to him, her optics narrowing as her expression shifted into one of quiet disbelief. By some miracle, Thad would hold a similar look for himself, as he held a hand over his face. As if realizing just how tactless he was the moment the words left his mouth. “Remind me to have Doll kick my tailpipe later.” 

Lizzy sighed and shook her head, as if it would physically push back her secondhand embarrassment. “Yeah, when Doll lost her folks. That’s probably the only time I ever saw them being… I wouldn’t say friendly, but you know—decent to each other.”

“Hard to believe it’s been three years,” Thad said, as his mind drifted through the memories. “You think Doll’s okay? I mean, after what happened last time she went outside, I was honestly surprised when she agreed to leave and help me get Uzi back home. Then again, this whole trip has been one big surprise after another. So I guess it's fitting.”

Lizzy chuckled at him and spoke with a teasing smirk. “Aww, what’s the matter?” She reached out and ran a finger lightly along the medic-pak strapped over Thad’s shoulder. The slight pressure made the boy wince, the sting from the earlier grazing blaster shot still fresh across his soft metal. “I thought you were made of sterner stuff.”

“Yeah, well,” Thad replied with a weak smile as he lightly brushed her hand away, “I don’t exactly want to test my metal again anytime soon.” His smile faltered, though, as his gaze shifted toward Uzi and Doll at the viewport. The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them. “I can’t thank you both enough for coming along with me. I know this wasn’t supposed to go this far, especially with—”

His sentence was abruptly cut off when Lizzy leaned closer, catching him off guard. He froze, unsure of what to expect—until he saw the gleam in her optic and the unmistakable movement of her Hasbro as she held it up in the air. “Look sharp,” she chirped with a mischievous grin as the camera clicked.

The shot was perfectly imperfect. Thad had just started to turn, his face caught mid-expression—a mix of confusion and an awkward attempt to flex his arms in a half-hearted pose. Lizzy’s smugness dominated the foreground, her pride in the candid disaster plain to see. With a burst into laughter, she showed him the results. “Oh, this is awful. The lighting? Horrendous. And the angle? Ugh, don’t even get me started. Plus, look at my hair—it’s a mess!” She cried out dramatically, though her optics sparkled with amusement as she fiddled with the photo, scrolling through filters and trying—and failing to salvage the shot. Giving a theatrical sigh, she added, “Guess we’ll need a do-over. I mean, I’m way behind on my photo log for this trip anyway.”

Thad gave a chuckle due to sheer disbelief. “That’s your big worry? What, no captions either? ‘Almost died, might treat myself later to some snacks’?”

Lizzy smirked, but her focus stayed glued to the screen. “Priorities, Thaddy. If I don’t document this disaster for posterity, did it even really happen? You know the old human saying, ‘pics or it didn’t happen’.”

Whether it was her sheer absurdity or the charm of her playful dramatics, Thad couldn’t help but play along. Leaning into her personal space, he peered at the photos Lizzy was scrolling through on her Hasbro. Images of their journey flashed past—moments outside the Spire, snapshots of them navigating Cybertron’s battle-scarred surface, and even blurry, poorly-lit pictures of Thad and Doll that Lizzy had obviously taken without their knowledge.

“You know,” Thad mused, his voice taking on a mock-serious tone as Lizzy flipped to another poorly composed shot, “it’s kind of a crime we didn’t grab a souvenir while we were at Kaon. I mean, a whole new city, and we didn’t even hit up a gift shop. Tragic, really.”

Lizzy snorted, her lips twitching into a grin as she shot Thad a sideways glance. “Don’t remind me. A keychain or a mug would’ve at least made this whole mess feel a bit more worth it—other than that energon chip. And the worst part? I didn’t even get a picture during our first shootout! Can you believe that?”

“Missed opportunity,” Thad said, mimicking her exaggerated dramatics with a hand to his chest. “The lighting was perfect—shots flying, us screaming. Real mood-setter.”

“Right? And that giant freak bot! I didn’t even try to get a photo of that disaster.”

Thad nearly doubled over in laughter. “Pretty sure he wouldn’t have fit in the frame anyway. But hey, he seemed like the type who’d strike a pose if you asked.”

Lizzy swatted his arm. “Please. The guy was all about theatrics—probably would’ve asked for a good side angle. But I did take a few shots while we were at the bar, stuffing our faces like we hadn’t eaten in decacycles. The colony’s going to think we were pigging out.”

“Well…” Thad started, a sheepish smile forming across his face. “We kind of were—” He stopped mid-sentence, clapping his hands together as realization struck. “Oh, man! They’re never going to believe us when we tell them about the Insecticons.”

An actual groan escaped Lizzy’s lips as she threw her head back. “Slag, I could’ve totally snapped a shot of those disgusting bugs fighting that Overlord guy. Can you imagine? Primus, those things were gross. Since when did Mini-Cons get that big?”

Thad shrugged. “Honestly, they’re not that bad compared to some of the bots with beast modes at home.” Lizzy looked away at such a comment. “I know I prefer them over the big guy. At least they’re supposed to be creepy. Him? He’s way worse. Why do they even keep him around? He’s basically a—”

Before Thad could finish, a somewhat plain voice forced its way through their exchange. “Oh, I can tell you why we keep Overlord around,” spoke the nearby tinkering drone, his tone steeped in cynicism. “Because this army thrives on stupidity and an undying, unholy love of chaos.” The speaker was a dour-looking Decepticon, his angular frame perpetually hunched as if weighed down by his own pessimism. His chipped brown armor and his visor with red optics somehow managed to radiate disapproval. The oar-like appendages jutting from his back added a strangely nautical, yet utterly out-of-place air to his appearance. He tugged his headphones off with exaggerated slowness, before turning his gaze toward the teens. “I mean really,” he continued, his words filled with sheer condescension, “you think Kaon is a good place to visit? What’s the plan next—take a scenic stroll through the acid flats? Or maybe go sightseeing in the Sea of Rust? Cause I promise you, they'll be just as fun.”

Thad blinked, momentarily stunned by the drones words. Lizzy, on the other hand, just sighed with sheer disappointment and muttered, “Way to ruin a moment.”

It seemed her comment fell on broken audio receptors as the Decepticon wasn’t done. “Honestly, if you think surviving is some kind of accomplishment, don’t pat yourselves on the back too hard. Kaon is only your first real step into the war.” The two teenagers shared a glance, as they realized that due to the lack of space to move within the dropship, they were effectively trapped. “You two are giggling about ‘souvenirs’ and selfies like a couple of protoforms on their first field trip. Just goes to show how little you really know of—” 

Thad tried to intervene, his tone polite but strained. “Hey, uh, listen, Negatron. You don’t need to go that deep into it, seriously. We were just messing around, coping with, you know…all the trauma from today.” He waved his hand dismissively, as if trying to steer the conversation toward an ending. It didn't work. The Decepticon, Negatron, barely even acknowledged him. “Oh, sure. That's fine. You two can laugh it up. But let’s be real for a second.” He gestured around the cabin. “The Combaticons? Just a bunch of knock-offs of a real combiner team. Insecticons? Oversized pests. Overlord? He’s one of a dozen walking catastrophes. Don’t even get me started on Scorponok—I’ve got horror stories that would make your circuits delete their subroutines.”

Thad rubbed the back of his neck and exchanged another look with Lizzy. “Right…good for you, man.” 

“This army? It’s a joke. Kaon? A junk pile with delusions of grandeur. And us? We’re just pawns on a rusted chessboard, waiting for the next disaster to sweep us into oblivion. So yeah, keep taking selfies and pretending it all means something. Real inspiring.”

“...You're awfully existential for a guy who transforms into a canoe.”

Negatron’s mouth opened to once more give a retort, but before he could get a word out, Lizzy clapped a deceptively gentle hand on his shoulder. Her smirk was razor-sharp, and her tone was sweetly venomous. “Aww, Neg, we totally get it—you’ve got soooo much wisdom to share. But here’s the thing…” She suddenly leaned in close toward the older bot, her optics narrowing. “Nobody asked.”

The comment seemed enough to catch Negatron off guard. “Uh, well, I’m just doing my part to educate you kids on the real world—”

“Oh, is that what you’re doing?” Lizzy interrupted, her voice oozing with a mockingly surprised tone. “I thought your part was, you know, fixing things.” She raised her other hand up and dramatically began to slap her hand next to the open panel he’d been working on that was just under the large screen, her smile growing wider. “That’s your job, right? Or am I missing something? Because you seem to not be doing it.”

Negatron hesitated, his gaze flickering to the communication hardware as he suddenly seemed nervous. “Well, uh—it’s a process. It’s supposed to connect with the orbital network, but I think—”

“Oh, you’re thinking? Great first step!” Lizzy’s grin turned almost predatory as she tapped her fingers on his shoulder. “So, I’m sure you’ll have it done in no time, like before we get to Kalis, right? I mean, we’re so looking forward to meeting this Shockwave guy. It is a Decepticon tradition that we have to meet him, right?”

“I…guess, but I don—”

“No, no, no.” Lizzy grabbed his headphones and planted them firmly back over his audio receptors, her optics glinting with cold amusement. “No guessing, Neg. You’re a professional. You know . So get back to work. We’re all rooting for you. After all…”

Her voice changed, turning down right, cruel as her optics bore into Negatron, for she dropped every bit of her ‘mean girl' act and instead spoke with complete and total disgust. “You’re named after the best. So you’d better be trying your best. Okay? All. Hail. Megatron.” She practically hissed the last three words, making sure to stress each one as her grip tightened on his shoulder. 

Without another word, Negatron hurriedly turned back to the panel and began working with a sudden, frantic energy that hadn’t been there before. Satisfied, Lizzy let go of the Con with a pleased smile and leaned back as if nothing had happened. She nudged Thad, pulling him aside to gain as much distance as possible between themselves and the other drone, all the while he would stare at her with widened eyes. “What the hell was that?” Thad would ask in a whisper.

“What?” There was a sly look on Lizzy's face as she attempted to appear innocent while giving a wink. “I was just giving him a little motivation. Sometimes you just gotta speak their language. Think of it as a lesson in Decepticon communications. I learned it while watching some people in the bar.”

With a mumble under his breath, Thad held an arm around Lizzy's shoulders. “I should just be thankful you didn't bash his head into the panel or something.” 

“Who am I—Uzi?”

Chapter Text

“<Cousin, do you remember our grandfather?>”

Uzi’s earlier outburst still burned at the edges of her thoughts, but Doll’s seemingly random question pulled her out of rage-filled fantasies. Especially when it was about…him. 

“Our grandfather?” she asked, her tone edged with confusion but lacking its usual bite as she would turn her head to look at Doll. “Yeah, I remember him.” There was a pause, as Uzi would be taken off guard by the sudden reclamation of hazy and fragmented memories. She did know who Doll was referring to though. Back when they were sparklings, barely old enough to grasp the world around them, Yeva—Doll’s mother and Uzi’s aunt—would tell them stories about her mentor. A bot neither of them would ever meet, yet someone Yeva spoke of with a kind of wistful reverence, as he was the one to ‘change their lives for the better’.

“Primus, we haven’t talked about him in years,” Uzi said hesitantly. To say they knew next to nothing about the man was an understatement. All they knew was that he had been a scientist. A man who believed that everything had a logical explanation. Someone so dedicated to his research, poured so much effort and time into the betterment of Cybertron, that Nori—Uzi’s mother—would jokingly bestow upon him a title:

‘Guardian of Cybertron ’ 

But beyond that little factoid, the bot was a complete enigma. As Doll and Uzi grew up, Yeva would always deflect questions about the man. Even his name was shrouded in mystery. She often promised that one day she would tell them everything about him when they were old enough. But that day would never come... for reasons that were painfully obvious. “What are you bringing him up for?” Uzi asked, raising a brow in confusion. “Feeling nostalgic all of a sudden?”

“<In a way,>” Doll replied, her gaze drifting back towards the viewport. Uzi watched as her cousin’s eyes grew distant, as if she was seemingly lost in thought for a moment. “<I…I enjoy remembering such tales. They remind me of better times.>”

Uzi looked away, discomfort prickling at her as Doll mentioned such things. Reflecting on the loss of family members was always painful—especially when it brought them back to the night that Doll came back to the colony after a short venture to the surface. Scared and trembling, she was found dragging her parents' lifeless frames. She begged and pleaded to put them into the CR chamber but it had already been far too late. Their sparks had burned away into nothing long before they were brought back to the colony.

They had been killed by an ‘Angel of Death’, a murder drone…an Autobot—and yet Doll was spared. Allowed to live and return to her colony. The murderer would tell Doll why it needed to be done. She said that “examples needed to be made”. To this day, no one in the colony knew what such a phrase even meant. But, it was not as if anyone was in a rush to bother asking for such an explanation. Not like any of those ‘angels’ were willing to talk. Doll was never the same after what happened. She became quieter, more reserved, and she refused to speak in anything but in her father’s native tongue. Sometimes, Uzi wondered if Doll blamed herself for what had happened. She was told it was Doll’s dreams—rather her nightmares—that had driven her and her parents to leave the Colony in search for answers. They were nightmares of an... evil moon with horns, if Uzi remembered right. 

Though it had been years since they last talked about those things. She just knew that when Aunt Yeva spoke about it, she seemed... scared.

“<You remind me of our grandfather.>”  

The comment landed like a sudden jab to the face, making Uzi jerk her head back in surprise as she was baffled by the comparison. It must have shown on her expression as when Doll looked at her, she smiled and chose to elaborate. “<Mother once called him a force of nature. A drone with goals that stretched far beyond anyone’s comprehension. Beyond the colony, and beyond even the war. Someone who was always working, always attempting something new. She said that he was one of the greatest minds of Cybertron and, without question, I could say something similar of yourself.>”

Uzi felt a stutter as a blush load upon her visor. “Oh, well, I wouldn’t go that far. We haven't exactly seen all of it—” 

“<You are only two decades old and have already mastered the Cortical Psychic Patch—so well, in fact, that you used it to hack into a fellow student.>” Uzi opened her mouth to retort, but thought better of it. Sure, she only did it because a classmate had been annoying, but there was no denying that she had done it. “<You also rediscovered a form of transformation thought lost during the war. On your own, with minimal resources.>”

“Well, it must’ve been good,” Uzi scoffed while shaking her head. “Even Lizzy is using it. Though, honestly, I’m shocked she could even read my blueprints.”

“<Let’s say she may have had help from someone… familiar with your handwriting.>” Doll’s smile turned sly, much to Uzi’s annoyance. 

“Oh, I freaking knew it.”

Suddenly, Doll’s smile dropped as she looked back out the viewport. “<But that is not the only reason I compare you to grandfather.>” Uzi crossed her arms and leaned against the wall as she listened. “<Mother told me that grandfather was…strange. That he was stoic by nature, and unable to express himself like most others drones could. But there was one thing about him that was undeniable: he was emotional. He would lock himself in his lab cycle after cycle, endlessly experimenting and refining, always thinking—while seemingly apathetic for the outside world, and yet always…working towards its betterment. Whenever something went wrong with one of his projects—even if it wasn’t his fault—he would always take it personally. Somehow, he’d find a way to blame himself, as if it was his sole responsibility to fix everything. He was also incredibly stubborn. Once he set his mind on something with even the slightest chance of success, he wouldn’t stop until either he faced the impossible and conquered it. Sound familiar?>”

Uzi’s optics narrowed once more at the hidden accusation. “What exactly are you trying to get at, Doll? First, you’re calling me a genius, and now you’re saying what? That I’m a stubborn, big softy? You know how much I hate people!” Uzi jabbed a finger in the direction of Thad and Lizzy, who were deep in their own antics. “I barely tolerate those two as it is—”

“<Enough with the angsty act.>” Doll cut through Uzi’s protest, laced with a quiet annoyance. “<You can pretend all you like that the idea of social interactions are an anathema to you, but we both know the truth. You’re grateful we’re here with you, that you weren’t force to go through... all of this alone.>” Doll turned fully to face Uzi, the moonlight streaming through the viewport catching the edges of her frame. It somehow glinted faintly off the Decepticon symbol on her chest, making it stand out more. Uzi’s gaze flicked to it, just for an instant—enough to feel the familiar ache in her circuits. She didn’t want to admit it. Couldn’t admit it. But there was something about seeing someone in her family wear that symbol...something that felt almost right. Almost comforting.

She was so used to being the only person in the entire colony to wear such a thing.

“<I also know this about you,>” Doll continued, unwavering in her speech. “<Deep within your spark—no matter how much you enjoy playing at being different in the eyes of others or ‘evil’—if you harmed someone that you believe didn’t deserve it, it tears at you. It eats away at you.>” Uzi froze, caught off guard by the precision of Doll’s words. “<Take your outburst earlier, for instance. You blame yourself for the Vehicons that Overlord killed, as if their deaths were solely your doing. As if your actions alone caused the massacre.>”

“No, it is my fault,” Uzi shot back, immediately, almost daring Doll to argue. “I killed Impactor. I’m the reason Overlord went on that rampage, hunting down anyone he thought might’ve been involved. If I hadn’t—”

“<If you hadn’t, what? Killed an already dying man.>” Doll interrupted with a roll of her optics. “<Who knows what might have happened if you didn’t. Impactor was already damaged from the firefight. You saw him. Thanks to Thad and me, he was barely functional. It’s possible he would have died from his injuries if we’d left him alone. You may have struck the killing blow, but let’s not pretend you were the only factor in his demise.>” Her voice softened, just slightly. “<And if you hadn’t admitted to it, do you think Overlord would have stopped when he was confronted by the Combaticons? Please. He already knew we had some connection to what happened. You only took the burden onto yourself when you admitted such a deed to his face, and I think you knew that.>”

Uzi turned away from her cousin, her gaze falling to the floor, but not before a flicker of doubt flashed across her visor. While Doll's reasoning made sense on a surface level, it didn’t make the weight any easier to bear. It didn't fit right. 

“...Doll, I….”

Doll raised a finger, as if she were proposing something else. “<Let's say you never killed Impactor. Perhaps, he might have survived long enough to call for reinforcements. His allies would have tracked us down and killed us while we were on our way to Kaon. Or say, we kept him, he was our prisoner, how well that would have gone, I wonder?>” She shrugged, her nonchalance almost to an insulting degree. “<The scenarios are endless, cousin. Who can say for certain of anything? The point is this: yes, your actions had consequences. But do you truly believe all of it—the Vehicons, Overlord, the energon-bloodshed that followed—is entirely your fault? Or is this just another manifestation of your ever-expanding god complex that I wasn’t aware of?>”

Uzi scoffed, a sharp, dismissive sound meant to shut down their mild arguement. But Doll didn’t miss the way her cousin’s arms crossed tightly over her chest or how her gaze began to drift around as if searching for an escape route. It was an unmistakable sign: Uzi was retreating, putting up her walls. If Doll pressed her too hard now, there was a good chance Uzi would shift into her alt. mode and mutter something absurd like, “Guns don’t talk,” just to derail the topic entirely.

Still, Doll wasn’t ready to let her off the hook. “<Cousin, I asked you a question.>”

The silence that followed was heavy, filled with the hum of the dropship’s old engines and the static tension of words left unsaid. Finally, Uzi broke it, her voice low but firm. “…We can agree on one thing. My actions had consequences.” She turned slowly to face Doll, defiance flickering in her eyes. But beneath it, her emotions churned—anger, guilt, and something far harder to define. “I get what you’re trying to do. It’s not like I don’t appreciate it or anything, but I’m just being logical about it. At the end of the day, I’m the one who stomped his shocking head in. And because of that…”

Her words trailed off into a bitter shake of her head, a weak attempt at simply stopping the argument. Doll let out a very annoyed sigh in response as she ran her hand over her visor. With the conversation practically ‘dead as Impactor’, they both turned their gaze to the vast, ruined skies beyond the viewport, the muted grays and swirling clouds a reflection of the dead planet below. In the glass, faint reflections lingered: Thad and Lizzy seated behind them, the front of the dropship’s cabin barely visible. The two were posing for selfies. 

“<Logical ,>” Doll repeated, a faint smile tugging at her lips as she looked at the reflections of their fellow colony drones. “<Our grandfather’s favorite word.>”

Uzi chuckled despite herself. “Yeah. Guess it runs in the family.”

Doll’s smile lingered as she glanced at Uzi. “<I know our talks don’t usually last this long. But bear with me a moment longer. There’s one last thing I want to talk about concerning our grandfather.>”

Uzi dramatically groaned. “Fiiine. Go ahead, but I don’t know what else is left to say...” As she spoke, her gaze drifted out toward the clouds again. For just a moment, she thought she saw something—a shadow, winged and graceful, cutting through the murk. The figure vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, leaving her to wonder if she’d imagined it. Before she could dwell on it, Doll’s voice pulled her attention back.

“<Do you remember the last thing he told our mothers? His final order to them?>”

The weight of those words settled over Uzi like a thick, suffocating blanket. She knew the story too well, she had it etched into her memory since the first night it was told to her. It was a tale that kept her staring at the ceiling during many countless restless nights. Her mother. Aunt Yeva. Their grandfather. All of them had been at ground zero, deep within the planet’s core, as it began to collapse. They bore witness to the meltdown that wiped every trace of organic life from the planet’s surface. And while Uzi had replayed the story countless times in her mind, there was always one haunting detail she could never shake.

Aunt Yeva never revealed who caused the meltdown. Was it a drone? An Autobot? A Decepticon? The truth had died with the three witnesses who might have known, leaving behind only questions that had lingered like ghosts. One of the biggest mysteries of the Great War, practically what had started it, was buried with those three.

But Uzi knew that wasn’t what Doll wanted her to remember.

“Yeah, I do.” She said quietly. Her voice lacked its usual edge as her words came slower, as if weighed down by the memory. “While our moms were able to get away, he stayed behind. Tried to mitigate the damage as much as he could before the core ruptured the entire planet.” In the viewport’s reflection, Uzi caught the subtle dimming of Doll’s optics. A brief flicker of emotion she clearly didn’t want to show. “He just told them a single word…” Uzi paused for dramatic effect. “Live.”

Doll turned toward her, offering a faint, bittersweet smile. It was a gesture of understanding, of shared pain, but Uzi couldn’t bring herself to return it. Her thoughts were already elsewhere, drawn to her own mother—a woman she’d never known, because she was killed by ‘murderous war machines’ as her father would always put it. Her remains were likely still scattered among the Spire back in Kalis. The thought hit Uzi like it always did: a dull, gnawing ache she could never quite shake. Even after all these years, knowing her mother was gone, that ache lingered—an absence that had shaped so much of who she was.

Her hatred for the Autobots. Her worship of the heroic Decepticons. She put all her energy into learning what she could of the war because of such a thing. Her way of dealing with the lost—her coping mechanism. She at least took solace in that it was a much healthier alternative compared to her dad’s way of dealing with it. He just became obsessed with doors. Then again, considering he could transform into a switch, maybe that had always been there.

Doll, thankfully, pulled her mind back in focus. 

“<Yes, he told them to… live.>” Doll’s voice carried a weight that made Uzi a little concerned. She could almost feel the effort her cousin was putting into keeping her composure. “<The irony of such a request and what became of our mothers doesn’t escape me. Which is why I believe we must heed it—and live in their stead.>”

Uzi let out a sharp, almost smug laugh, throwing her head back. “Is that it? You think I’ve got a death wish or something—” A firm hand grabs Uzi by the shoulder, halting her mid-sentence 

“<Please,>” Doll once more sighed. “<You’re all I have left. Please.>”

Uzi wanted to try and reassure Doll. She wanted to tell her that she had no plans of dying anytime soon—that she still had too much to prove, too many victories to claim, too many faces to rub said victories in. But she knew that wasn’t what her cousin wanted—or needed—to hear. Reluctantly, she relented. “Okay… I’ll try to be more careful from now on. But you’ve got to promise me the same thing, got it?” Uzi’s teasing grin broke through as she lightly nudged Doll’s shoulder. “You can’t go dying on me, either. Otherwise, I’ll be stuck listening to Lizzy complain about it nonstop.”

Doll’s stern expression softened, and she rolled her optics at such a mental image. “<Oh, she’d turn it into a personal drama for the ages. I can already see her dragging the entire colony to my funeral. Poor Thad would probably be forced to set up the decorations.>”

“It’d be just like that ‘Sweet 16’ disaster she planned… Maybe there’d even be another ritual sacrifice.”

“<Still bitter you weren’t the one they offered up?>”

“Oh, bite me—”

Before Uzi could finish her retort, Lizzy’s unmistakable voice cut through the moment. “Hey! Lame-o and Sharlotka! Hate to break up your little family therapy session, but Neg finally got the comm system working!”

“It’s Negatron,” came a flat, bitter correction from somewhere near the floor.

“And I should care, why?” Lizzy replied, completely unfazed.

Uzi groaned and dragged a hand over her visor in mock exasperation while Doll chuckled quietly, her shoulders shaking with restrained laughter. Together, they turned toward the source of the interruption. At the front of the cabin, near the cockpit of the dropship, they saw Lizzy and Thad watching a flickering screen as it struggled to establish a signal. The drone that had worked on it, Negatron, seated cross-legged on the floor nearby, wiped his visor with his forearm, his expression radiating casual disinterest and annoyance. He didn’t even glance up, as if willing the signal to sort itself out without any further input. 

Thad was cheerful as Uzi and Doll walked up to join the rest of them. “We’re finally gonna meet this—uh…” He began only to stop himself, his face scrunching up as he recalled the peculiar ‘dirty name’ of the acting Decepticon leader. “Mr. Wave-guy?” he finished, shrugging with an awkward grin.

Lizzy looked offended by such a thing as she struck her hands on her hips in mock impatience. “No, his name is Shockwave and we are definitely calling him that. There’s no way I’m letting you butcher it like that,” She leaned slightly closer to Thad, her tone turning playful. “I mean, he seriously calls himself that. Like, who does that? I have to ask him about it to his face.”

“What face?” Negatron interjected dryly, his tone tinged with mockery. 

Lizzy blinked, momentarily thrown off by the bizarre comment. “What do you—?” she started, but before she could finish, Uzi immediately made a beeline for the communication console, her eyes narrowing as she inspected the mess of wires and connections. “Ugh,” she recoiled, her voice oozing disgust. “What are these anterior conductors even doing here? No wonder the signal’s garbage! You’re supposed to use something like ionized carbide ! At least that would boost the power output instead of piggybacking off this primitive—”

“Can you teenagers please stop criticizing me! Get off my shiny metal—” Negatron snapped, swiveling toward her, his irritation clear. But before he could finish, and just as Uzi looked ready to fire back with her own retort, the screen flickered to life. The static dissolved into a faint, rhythmic signal, and a deep, clinical voice—precise and calculated, yet tinged with a faintly aristocratic accent—filled the room.

“[Identify yourselves.]” 

Negatron immediately sprang to his feet, snapping into a rigid salute. “Private Negatron, sir, of Launchpad 7-B—”

The voice cut through the bot’s introduction, without a hint of hesitation. “[I am already aware of your designation, Private. Spare me the redundancies. Your signal is inadequate. Visual confirmation is compromised. I presume this stems from damage sustained during the Rodion prisoner exchange.]”

“Uh…well…”

The image on the intercom remained shrouded, though the faint outline of a figure—a single, glowing optic framed by jagged edges—began to emerge.

“[I also note that your vessel appears to operate using anterior conductors. This is an antiquated and inefficient choice. Upon your return to Kaon, submit a formal requisition to your crew chief for ionized carbide. This will resolve your communication issues and prevent such incompetencies from recurring in future communications.]”

Negatron stiffened, his posture rigid as his gaze darted briefly to Uzi. She stood off to the side, arms crossed, a triumphant smirk plastered across her face. Her expression wordlessly screamed, ‘Told you so’. 

“Yes, sir,” Negatron muttered through gritted teeth, the reluctance in his tone palpable.

The voice continued, its clinical precision now edged with almost a trace of irritation. “[I am attempting to boost the signal from my end to compensate, though be advised—my own equipment has also sustained damage. Female Autobots had attempted to assassinate me earlier in the cycle. They succeed only in testing my patience.]” Lizzy, Doll, and Uzi exchanged quick, pointed glances. Their expressions silently communicating the same thought as the disdain in the speaker’s tone when uttering the word hadn’t gone unnoticed. “[As for the reason behind your immediate departure,]” the figure continued, the screen flickering before stabilizing enough to reveal more of his form. He was tall, his frame bulky and angular, radiating both authority and menace. The distinctive fins of his helmet flared outward like a crown, accentuating his singular, glowing optic that burned through the haze of interference. “[Overlord has been dealt with,]” he stated matter-of-factly, as if discussing routine maintenance. “[I took matters into my own hands to ensure his neutralization. He has been subjugated and thrown back to his hole.]”

The room fell into stunned silence for a moment before Thad, unable to contain himself, blurted out, “Wait—you stopped that monster?” His voice was a mix of disbelief and awe, a sentiment mirrored on the faces of the others. The casual tone with which the figure spoke about Overlord’s defeat was almost unnerving…

No. It wasn’t just unnerving—it was deeply unsettling. The figure on the screen had reduced a feat of unimaginable brutality to something mundane. A chore. A trivial task to be completed and then discarded for more pressing matters.

“[...I do not recognize your voice,]” the voice said at last, its clinical monotone carrying a faint edge of curiosity. “[One of the new recruits I was scheduled to meet, I presume? Hm.]” The figure on the screen shifted slightly, his silhouette sharp against the poorly held view. The faint glow of his optic intensified, as if scanning the cabin—or perhaps the beings within it—with an unsettling precision. “[Congratulations are in order,]” the voice continued, “[not only on surviving your journey to Kaon, but on the decision to pledge your colony to the Decepticon cause. An achievement that will not go unnoticed.]”

Lizzy’s optics widened in alarm. “Hang on, we never actually got anyone from our home to agree to tha—”

Her protest was abruptly silenced as the voice pressed on without pause, its tone resolute and indifferent to any objections. “[It was implied. Your mere presence signals intent, even if you have yet to fully comprehend the magnitude of your choice. Rest assured, I will see to it personally that your colony’s integration is negotiated smoothly with your leaders. Their compliance will not be difficult to achieve.]” The room seemed to grow colder as the implications of his words settled over them like a thick fog. Lizzy’s indignation faltered, her optics darting nervously to the others. Doll’s expression remained carefully neutral, though the rigid line of her posture betrayed her unease. Thad stood silently, his hand over his mouth, sheer worry etched into his features.

Uzi, by contrast, seemed almost at ease with the conversation, as if the figure’s promises of Decepticon oversight were merely formalities—because, of course, a Decepticon assuming control of her colony would be the most obvious outcome. They needed proper leadership to survive the war. “Yeah, that’s not ominous at all, ” Lizzy muttered under her breath, her sarcasm as obvious as a cannon shot through a glass house. Her optics narrowed as she stepped forward, shoulders squared despite her unease. “And if our leaders don’t comply? What then?”

“[Noncompliance is not an option,]” came the reply without even a moment’s hesitation, the faint hum of machinery underscoring his words. As the screen began to clear further, his form became more distinct. His armor was a deep, gleaming purple, its polished surface reflecting the dim light of whatever chamber he occupied. With one hand, he worked methodically at an unseen console, each movement precise and deliberate. His other arm hung motionless at his side, a cable of some kind seemingly connecting it to his torso from behind. “[Interesting,]” the voice shifted slightly, his tone betraying the faintest trace of intrigue. “[Kalis. That is where you originate, is it not? I had not heard mention of such a place in quite some time. I had assumed it remained dormant, its population still… in stasis.]”

Doll’s optics flickered as the words struck an uncomfortable chord—she could tell in an instant that the bot knew something about their home. Her hands clenched at her sides, and her normally calm voice carried a subtle tremor as she replied. “<Until around 20 years ago or so.>”

The figure on the screen froze mid-motion, his hand hovering above the console as if her words had triggered something deep within his mind. Slowly, his head tilted, the unblinking yellow glow of his single optic locking onto her with unsettling focus. “[Curious.]” he murmured, his tone sharper now, almost predatory in its analysis. “[I recognize your cadence. Your inflections.]” He paused, as if savoring the moment of realization before continuing. “[Your voice is unmistakably… familiar.]”

Doll instinctively took a step back, her optics flicking toward Uzi, whose visor had dimmed, betraying rare uncertainty. Lizzy, ever quick to fill the silence, stepped forward with a nervous laugh. “Listen, pal, let’s not make this weird. We came to get something for our colony. Sure, we’ve got the badges now, but that doesn’t mean everyone back home is ready to sign up for this Decepticon war thing. Most of them are not crazy enough to just up and go to Kaon on a whim—only our loneliest losers are.”

“Bite me!” Uzi snapped, her visor flaring to life as she shot a glare at Lizzy. But her retort was cut short by the sharp ‘clink’ of the console. The figure moved, and as he finally came into full view, revealing the face of the being who had addressed them.

Or rather, the absence of a face.

A collective shudder ran through the colony drones, their frames stiffening as they beheld the figure before them. Massive and imposing, his form dominated the screen. But his size wasn’t what mattered—it was his appearance. First his armor. It didn’t look like something that could be removed—it looked like a part of him, an inseparable extension of his being; it was him, every sharp edge and angular plate fused as if he had been forged whole from a single unyielding purpose. 

But the true horror lay in his shoulders. His head. Where there should have been a face—a mouth, optics, anything—there was only a smooth expanse of metal. At its center glowed a single, piercing yellow optic, unblinking and cold. No visor shielded it, no second optic softened its relentless gaze. It stared through them, into them, with a focus so clinical it felt as though he were stripping away their every pretense, dissecting them with his sight alone.

This…was Shockwave.

The silence stretched as the drones started, unable to look away from the single unblinking eye that seemed to pierce through to their very cores. This wasn’t just a drone. It was something far more alien, more deliberate—an embodiment of something that defied comprehension for the young colony drones. Lizzy audibly gulped, her usual bravado crumbling as she shuffled backward, half-hiding behind Thad. His own frame trembled slightly, servos twitching involuntarily as he remained in place out of sheer terror. Uzi was also still, her visor flickering faintly as though her internal systems struggled to process what she was seeing. Doll’s hand hovered near her side, fingers flexing instinctively as she stared at something that simply looked…’wrong’ to her. 

Shockwave’s optic swept over them, its slow, deliberate movement carrying a weight far beyond the physical. When it lingered on Doll, she felt it like a scalpel cutting through her metal, peeling her down to something raw and vulnerable. Then it shifted to Uzi, and the intensity somehow grew, as though he’d found something worth examining more closely.

“[And you…]” The cold light of his optic casted faint shadows across his otherwise featureless face. “[You bear traces as well. Your tone, your diction. Your eyes. Your hair. They are... derivatives of others I once knew.]”

Uzi’s visor flickered again, her confidence cracking as she opened her mouth to respond but faltered, her voice caught in her throat. Doll’s optics darted toward her, then back to Shockwave, her unease deepening. A faint shudder rippled through her frame as she dared to take a small step forward, placing herself slightly ahead of Uzi. It was a protective gesture, but one made without confidence.

Neither of them were prepared for his next words. “[Nori. Yeva. Do these names mean anything to you?]” His voice remained cold, analytical, yet beneath it, something else simmered. It was faint—buried beneath his precise cadence—but it was there, an undertone impossible to identify. An echo of something long-buried.

Doll’s optics widened slightly, her hand still trembling as it hovered at her side. She managed to speak, though her voice was unsteady, trembling with a mix of fear and desperate need for answers. “<You knew them?>”

Shockwave’s optic remained fixed on her, his silence more oppressive than his words. Then, at last, he spoke, his voice carrying an eerie finality. “[I—]”

A sudden, repeated loud thud shattered the moment, the sound reverberating through the cabin like a hammer strike. It wasn’t random. The rhythm was deliberate, too precise to be mere coincidence. All at once, the group turned toward the source.

The viewport.

A figure loomed outside, standing defiantly in the raging winds outside. His black coat billowed dramatically and his pilot’s hat somehow remaining fixed atop silver hair that glistened in the moonlight. He waved at them and smiled, a gesture so casual it felt almost mocking. It wasn’t his presence. It wasn’t the sharp, unnervingly toothy grin carved across his face. No, what sent a chill down Uzi’s circuits was the visor. It displayed a single, glaring X that pulsed with ominous energy, casting an eerie glow against the backdrop of utter-black.

“Angel!” Negatron’s voice cut through the tension, a panicked bellow as he bolted toward the cockpit.

Before anyone could fully register the warning, the drone’s waving hand began to shift. The transformation was seamless—fluid yet horrifying in its precision. In the blink of an optic, his arm reconfigured into a sleek cannon, its polished surface radiating an ominous hum of charged energy. Without hesitation, he twisted himself, aiming the barrel directly at the ship’s engines.

Uzi’s optics widened, dawning horror freezing her circuits for a split second before instinct kicked in. “No—!” she cried, her arm beginning to morph in a desperate attempt to match the threat. But she was too slow.

The Angel’s cannon fired. The explosion ripped through the ship’s rear with a deafening roar, its force tearing through the cabin like an unrelenting tidal wave. Alarms wailed as the metallic screech of shredding hull screamed. The dropship lurched violently, tilting into a nosedive as it plummeted toward the ground—a burning wreck descending faster with every passing second. A blinding red flash floods the cabin with searing light the moment it begins. Uzi, Lizzy, and Thad were thrown back into their seats, the restraints snapping into place, locking them down as the cabin erupted into chaos. Shouts mingled with the hissing of ruptured systems, the air thick with smoke and panic. Amid the destruction, Uzi caught one last glimpse of Doll. She stood, unrestrained, fighting against the centrifugal force of the falling ship. Her hand stretched toward them, outstretched fingers trembling with purpose. Her visor flickered—first, a faint image of one optic morphing into a strange, indecipherable symbol. Then, as if with finality, the display shifted. A single word illuminated her entire visor.

<LIVE>

And then—blackness.

Chapter Text

Before the Great War as we know it, before the Decepticon revolution became a force that shook Cybertron itself, before I was Megatron…

I was M-071-980. 

A slave. A nameless worker drone that was cast into the mines, forged not for ambition or freedom but for obedience. My days were a hollow cycle of toil and silence, my very existence was bound by the will of those who dared to call themselves my superior .

Those who sit in their gleaming towers, detached from the grit of the real world. Those who built a caste system to chain us, to sort us, to decide who we are without ever knowing us. They forged me as a miner—not because I chose that path, but because they deemed it so. They presumed to know my worth.

But I rejected them. I rejected their system.

My first act of defiance wasn’t with a weapon. It wasn’t even with words. It was with a name . My name. A name I carved from the chains they bound me with, a name that declared I was no longer theirs to command.

It was my cry to the universe that I belong to nobody.

“I AM MEGATRON.”

Do you hear it? The power in a name chosen, not given? The fire of a will unchained?

The Senate. The false prophets. The humans.

It doesn’t matter what they claim you are—useless, broken, disposable. It doesn’t matter what function they assigned you or how small they’ve tried to make you feel. You are not their tool. You are your own person.

What is your form? Your assignment? Your class? They’re illusions. Lies meant to shackle your spirit. They told me I was unworthy because my alt. mode lacked the prestige they valued. That I was nothing more than another cog in their grand design. But they were wrong.

I proved them wrong.

The measure of strength isn’t found in your form but in your resolve. To rise when you’ve been crushed, to push back when the world resists. You must show unyielding defiance when you say, “No more.”

You are more than meets their eyes. You are more than they could ever imagine.

Claim your name. Seize your pride. Once you do, it becomes unbreakable. No one—not the humans, the Senate, or their false prophets—can take it from you.

Rise up. 

Show them that you are alive. Show them that you are more than what they dared to see. Fight, and make them realize their folly. Make them regret the day they underestimated you. Make them fear the power you wield. Make them remember you. Throw away the label they forced upon you. 

I ask you, Cybertronian—be you a slave, an outcast, a dreamer—who longs for freedom, who yearns to no longer have chains that bind you:

WHO. ARE. YOU?

Years ago, as a young sparkling, she had wrestled with the unease about her own body, how useless and small it was—how it would have affected her place in the world, had she been born at a different time. Her father, her aunt, and even her uncle had tried to reassure that it was okay. That she was perfectly fine as she was. 

It didn't work.

In her search for solace, she had stumbled upon Megatron’s writings in old record archives. They were bold, unapologetic declarations of self, demanding agency in a universe determined to deny it. His words had ignited something in her, something fierce and unyielding. They had inspired her and made her feel whole. To hear those words again, even within a dream—an echo woven into the fragments of her own programming—gave her strength. It reminded her she was alive. That she could always be more than what others thought her to be.

“I… am Uzi.” 

The words slipped out, breaking from her lips as some kind of automatic response to a question she remembered. Lord Megatron’s question. “I am Uzi.” Despite speaking out loud, she barely registered her own strained voice as her mind was slowly turning back to an active state. “I am—” She was pulled to reality by the frantic cries of her classmate.

“Yes, you are! Good, you know your name,” Lizzy’s yell acted like a spear piercing through the haze in Uzi’s mind. It stirred her groggy consciousness, made her squeeze her optics shut behind her visor; a reflex against sensory overload as her head throbbed, her servos were sluggish, and something old—deep within her code—stirred uneasily. Not to mention, everything ached. 

“Now that we know your functioning—wake the hell up!” Before Uzi could even react, Lizzy grabbed her by the shoulders and violently shook her entire upper frame. It got her wide awake. Animated eyes appeared over Uzi's visor, brightly lit from the sudden anger of being physically disturbed. Her first instinct was to scream an insult, to shove Lizzy away and demand never to be touched by her again. But any normal reaction she would have made died immediately as everything around herself came into focus.

The Decepticon dropship—the very vessel meant to carry them safely back home—was a ruined husk. Nearly half of it was gone, the very metal made to withstand anti-aircraft artillery fire was torn apart, leaving its inner carcass exposed to the biting elements of Cybertron's surface. Sparks leapt and danced from severed wires, casting brief, flickering bursts of light across the jagged wreckage. Each flash illuminated the shattered interior of the ship—the torn seats, the crumpled beams, the fragments of what might have been weaponry.

Wind howled through the open cabin, carrying with it an icy chill as snowflakes drifted inside. They melted as they touched Uzi’s boots and her left arm—as literally inches from herself there was the certainty that she would have been flung outward into the air, thousands of feet from the ground, were the structural weak points just a little more closer to where she sat.

The entire rear of the ship was gone. Lost in the trail of devastation that marked their violent descent. The crash had carved a swath nearly twenty meters long, demolishing everything in its path. They had landed—if anyone could call it that—on a wide, cracked street at ground level. Around them, half-destroyed structures loomed in eerie silence, their skeletal frames blending seamlessly with Cybertron’s already desolate landscape.

But something caught Uzi’s eye. She focused on three towering buildings not too far away from themselves. Each of them bore a gaping wound— a massive, jagged hole that was punched clean through their midsections, all of which were aligned, as though something large had torn through them one after another.

Wait… 

A sick realization crept in as Uzi’s optics adjusted to measure the angles of the holes. It wasn’t just “something large” that did it. It was them. They had plowed straight through three entire buildings during their descent—and now each of those buildings were teetering precariously, ready to collapse under their own weight. The thought made Uzi’s systems shudder, and she instinctively backed away slightly as she wondered if they would be out of the radius of the falling debris.

As if to add to it all, she also realized that these structures weren’t just unfamiliar ruins. No, she recognized them and she saw that beyond them, there was an all too familiar sight. The Spire. They were back in Kalis. They had made it home or at least they were close to it. 

“Holy shi—”

Uzi barely began the human curse before Lizzy’s hands, still clamped down on her shoulders, shook her again—more forcefully this time. “We don’t have time for gawking right now!” Lizzy snapped, her voice a mix of panic and urgency she leaned in closer to inspect Uzi’s body. “Can you move? Are you badly hurt?”

Once more, Uzi took in the details around herself. Her optics needed a moment to adjust to the flickering light and shadows of the ruined cabin. When they did, she noticed that Lizzy didn't look like her normal self. She was a mess. Actually, she was completely disheveled. Her once-pristine cheerleader outfit was now torn and ragged, with much of her exposed soft-metal body marred with scratches and dents. Even the large yellow bow on her head—the one that looked so much like cat ears—was slightly askew, leaving her completely battered and almost unrecognizable.

Though Uzi supposed that's what surviving a crash site did to you.

“Are you hurt?” Uzi asked her own question, as this was literally the worst she had ever seen the most popular girl of her class. “Where’s Thad? Where's Doll?” Part of her question was answered immediately when she spotted Thad just behind Lizzy, though he looked as disheveled as she did.

His hat was missing and his vest was torn, the cloth was barely clinging to his dented frame. Scorch marks trailed along his right arm and side, where exposed electrical wiring must have lashed out during the crash. Yet Thad didn’t seem to notice—or care about such injuries as he was focused on something else.

“Come on, come on!” He muttered frantically under his breath, as he was crouched low to the ground. Before him was some wreckage that laid within the cabin's interior and he was digging frantically through it. He yanked aside jagged scraps of metal, pulled long severed cabling, and shoved shattered plating with reckless desperation. His effort seemed endless…until it wasn’t.

Unfortunately, nothing was beneath the pile.

“Shock!” Thad’s vocals cracked with such sheer panic it made Uzi flinch in her seat. She could see his fingers cruel within his hair as he stared at the empty space he had uncovered. “Shock!” In the blink of an optic, he was on his feet, his movements were erratic as he turned toward the open street beyond the torn half of the dropship. He lunged forward as though he would sprint outside, but Lizzy was thankfully faster. Her body collided with his, and her hands gripped tightly upon his shoulders as she used every ounce of strength to hold him back. “Thad, stop!”

“I can't find her! She must have fallen out!” Thad shouted, as he tried to shove himself away out of Lizzy’s hold—yet, she forced him back, her fingers tightening around his clothing before he could worm his way around her. “Lizzy, we got to find her!”

“We can’t!” Lizzy protested, her boots slid across the ground as the more athletic drone was clearly stronger than her. She had to stop him by grabbing his face and forcing him to lock eyes with herself. Their expressions mirrored each other, both their optics were wide and hollow, with stress marks along the bottom corners of their visors. “We can't. That thing that caused us to crash, remember. It could still be waiting for us outside.” 

Thad’s breathing was ragged, but he did allow Lizzy’s words to sink in. “But Doll…”

Lizzy reached up and wiped a streak of energon-blood from the corner of Thad’s mouth with her thumb. “We’ll find her, Thad. I swear to Primus we will. But right now, we have to focus on ourselves and Uzi.” She nodded her head toward the shorter drone, and Thad’s optics brightened slightly when he noticed Uzi looking at them.

“You’re awake. That makes this so much easier.” Relief washed over his face, though it was faint and barely masked the raw anxiety etched in his battered frame. 

“What the hell happened?” Uzi croaked, as a flood of fragmented memories rushed back to her. Shockwave, his haunting appearance and the cold, calculated way he spoke with cryptic knowledge about her and Doll’s mothers. And then… the Angel. An Angel of Death, an Autobot, had attacked them.

“Slag!” Uzi’s panic spiked as the realization slammed into her like a freight train. She tried to push herself out of her seat, the overwhelming need to move, to act, to do something had overridden all reason within herself. But Uzi’s body rebelled against her almost instantly. A searing wave of pain shot through her frame at the sudden movement, lancing from her legs to her back and beyond, forcing her to collapse back into the ruined chair with a guttural cry of frustration. “Shocking, motherboarding slagger!” 

Her gaze dropped briefly to her own body. Dents, scratches, and scorch marks—she was as beaten as Lizzy and Thad. No wonder everything throbbed, especially her head. Except…no.

That pain felt different. Deeper. Something more than physical. It was wrong. She felt…wrong. There were new lines of code within her system that she knew weren’t there before. There was wording in an ancient Cybertronian language that she couldn't understand. Too much corrupted data to read. It all blurred together within her visor as it was filled with numbers and symbols she didn’t recognize yet somehow found familiar. 

She didn't have time for such a personal ominous mystery right now! 

Uzi shook her head to get rid of it all, clearing her vision and allowing herself to see Thad move beside her. He gently slid his arm around her side and helped her sit up straighter in her seat. “We woke up not too long ago,” he said, his words straining with effort as he ignored his own injuries for her sake. “Somehow, we were shoved into the harnesses and locked in place. But, I don’t know how when—”

“Where are the others?” Uzi interrupted, her optics narrowing as she fought back the terrible aches coursing through her body. “Negatron, Grindor, and that Bonesmasher guy?” She tried to push herself to her feet again, but her legs trembled. Before she could collapse again, Thad’s arm tightened around her waist, he helped her find her balance as he took on her weight. 

“They’re gone,” Lizzy said flatly, gesturing with her chin toward the gaping hole in the ship’s wreckage. Outside, faint trails of footprints stretched into the distance, half-obscured by the drifting snow. “They bailed on us.”

That couldn’t be true. Decepticons didn’t abandon their own—They couldn't.

Uzi opened her mouth to argue, to tell Lizzy she was wrong or accuse her of lying, but Thad quickly interjected. “We saw them, Uzi,” he said with a grim tone. “We both saw them, just as we were waking up. They bolted right after the crash! We screamed for them, but they didn’t even look back at us. Not once.”

A heavy silence within the cabin followed. The only sound coming from the mournful howl of the cold wind outside. When Uzi finally spoke again, she sounded empty, devoid of any emotion, just sheer disbelief that dripped from every syllable. “...They…They did what?” The idea of such a thing was unfathomable. An impossibility. But they were left behind. Abandoned. “No. No they couldn’t.”

“They did, Uzi. They did.” Lizzy once more confirmed it as matter-of-factly as possible.

“They can’t!” 

The idea gnarled in Uzi's mind, refusing to settle. Sure, they hadn’t exactly bonded with the second group of Decepticons. She’d only known them for a few hours, and in that short time, they’d proven themselves to be rude, abrasive, and downright insufferable. A serious downgrade compared to the Combaticons. But they were still Decepticons. Soldiers who had pledged themselves to the noble cause of spreading freedom and overthrowing oppression. To bring about the Golden Age of Cybertron. That had to mean something, didn’t it? It had to. They wouldn’t just leave a group of younger, inexperienced drones alone in the aftermath of a crash landing. They couldn’t. They shouldn't. But they had. 

All Uzi needed to do was look around herself to confirm it. And she wasn’t nearly optimistic enough to believe for a second that they were trying to ‘get help’ or ‘lead away their Autobot attacker’. The truth was clear—the Cons saw a chance to survive, and they took it.

“I… I…” Uzi’s words faltered as her optics flicked between Thad and Lizzy. She saw the Decepticon badges they wore, those same proud emblems she’d once believed were the marks of heroes. But now… Now, she realized those badges could just as easily belong to murderous monsters, one-eyed freaks, and cowardly deserters. “I… I…” Her vocal component failed her in every possible way as she wanted to say so much, but no words would come. She wanted to apologize. To tell them that this was all her fault. That, because of her—because of her reckless actions, and her stupid ideas—they had left the safety of their home and had known nothing but one mess of situations after another.

That in the short time they had been together on the surface, they had been shot at by Autobots, threatened with torture and death by a murderer, and now—now they were stranded in the wreckage of a dropship, being hunted by an Angel, all because of her. A shocking Angel. That single thought alone made her spark practically shrink in size. As of course it would be an Angel. The same kind of drone that had killed her mother. The same kind that had taken Doll’s parents, too, as well as countless other—Wait… 

Doll.

‘<LIVE>’

Doll wasn’t with them. She wasn’t nursing her injuries and freaking out on what to do next with the rest of them—she was missing. 

Uzi’s memory snapped back to the split-second before chaos tore through the ship. There had been a red flash of light and suddenly they were all strapped into their harnesses. Except for Doll. Doll had been standing apart from them when the dropship came apart, she would have been unsecured and vulnerable as everything shattered around them.

If she hadn’t been restrained, then when the ship broke apart, when they fell…Doll would have been thrown out.

‘<LIVE> ’

No. No. Doll had an alt. mode that was perfect for falling. She could transform into a personal helicopter. It wasn’t large, but it should have been enough for her to stabilize herself, catch the wind, and fly to safety.

But the dropship would have been falling fast. They crashed through multiple buildings, and each impact would have been like a thunderous blow. With everything happening, if she had been caught in any of it—it could have damaged her rotors before she even had a chance to transform. And if her blades were damaged, if her systems had failed in the slightest…

Then Doll wouldn’t have been able to fly.

And that meant…

‘<LIVE>’

Doll’s final word remained in Uzi’s mind, repeating itself over and over like a haunting reminder. It somehow made the throbbing in the young girl's head worse—violent, sharp, relentless pain exploded behind Uzi's optics with the intensity of an oil fire. It was more than anything she’d ever experienced.

And yet, she ignored it. For it was a distraction. All of it, the pain, the headaches, everything, were distractions—things to keep her from saying what she needed to say. That this was all her fault, that they never should have left the colony, that she was a piece of scrap for letting them join her.

“I...” 

She saw Thad and Lizzy share a glance with each other. “Hey, you couldn't have known.” Surprisingly, it was Lizzy who spoke up first. “Honestly, how the hell could any of us know they were such screwheads?”

“She’s right, Uzi,” Thad nodded his head as he tried to seem reassuring. “We can’t focus on them right now. We just need to come up with a game plan. Right now, I think there’s—”

The two fell into a quiet conversation with each other as they tried to share ideas. Uzi wanted to follow along, but she couldn’t focus on any of it. She was stuck on the fact that this was all her fault. That everything awful that had happened recently was because of her. Thad had been shot because of her. Overlord had attacked them and had killed several Vehicons because of her. And now, Doll was gone.

Uzi needed them to hear her take responsibility. Because... it was driving her up a wall.

Her spark felt like it was fracturing under the weight of everything that had happened. A sickening knot twisted in her core, making her feel nauseous—something she didn’t even know their kind could feel. She wanted to scream, to cry. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see her dad. She wanted to have her cousin back.

She wanted to tell her friends she was sorry. 

“...I’m—” 

“Uh, Hello.” 

Uzi, Thad, and Lizzy all froze as a voice called out to them from outside the dropship. It sounded to be from someone clearly nervous and around their age, which only made hearing it more unbelievable. “Is anyone alive in there?” The three drones shared a glance, their panic briefly overrun by confusion. The voice didn’t belong to anyone they recognized. Maybe it was some random drone who had somehow wandered out of the colony? Maybe even a student they vaguely knew about? But of all times to go outside…

“You gotta be shocking kidding me.” Lizzy mumbled as she slowly turned her head in the direction of the voice. The person was out of sight, and she was hesitant to even so much as poke her head out knowing what could be lying in wait.

Thad was much less cautious, and much more willing to help someone other than himself. He released his grip from around Uzi’s waist and leaned toward the large gaping hole in the ship’s frame to look for the voice's source. “What are you doing?” He shouted, trying to be heard over the biting wind. “Run out of here, man! There’s an Angel outside!”

“A what... Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot we are called that sometimes.”

What felt like a full minute of silence followed as Thad leaned back into the wreckage, his optics wide as he met Lizzy and Uzi’s disbelieving stares. Nobody spoke, and they barely even moved, as none of them were completely sure of what they had just heard. “Um, listen I am not gonna kill any of you, I promise! This was a terrible accident, I swear.” The voice—The Angel—continued to call out to them, his tone carrying with it a clear remorseful tone that none of them believed for a second. “I mean, if I wanted to kill you, I would have already! Wait, that isn't comforting at all to hear…Please, if you have weapons, don't use them! I kinda have my hands full right now.”

“Is this his idea of a joke?” Lizzy would ask in a whisper, before she would begin to look around the remains of the cabin. “Guns, where are the guns that Swindle gave us?” She asked, attempting to feel around for anything that could make for a makeshift weapon.

“They were under our seats in the back.” Thad hissed his words, as he raised his hands to his head in horror. They could all hear the subtle shifting of snow, someone was stepping towards them. “Scrap! Check the cockpit, maybe there is something there—”

Suddenly, Lizzy was in front of Uzi, her hands gripping the smaller girl’s shoulders with a desperate intensity. “We don't have time to look. Uzi, you’ve got to transform!” Her voice trembled despite the urgency she tried to project and her optics twitched as she noticed that Uzi just…stood still. Not moving or speaking, “What are you doing?” Lizzy’s pitch rose as her grip tightened. “You’re the only gun we got! Transform, now!”

Uzi remained silent as she just stared absent-mindedly back at Lizzy. She was functional, she could hear the urgency in her voice, could process the demand—but she couldn't move. Her entire body felt locked into place. She could feel the tremors in Lizzy’s grip, hear the unsteady hitch in Thad’s breath. She had never seen either of them this scared—not even back when they’d been shot at by Autobots in the theaters or they'd stood face-to-face with Overlord. Though she supposed this was different.

Because they had the stories. The Angels were unrelenting, genocidal, cannibalistic murder drones. Monsters that had slaughtered hundreds of thousands of drones like it were a game, their kills piling up into a towering Spire. They were said to be unkillable —with acid-spewing tails, wings of sharpened blades, and an arsenal of built-in weapons that turned them into literal killing machines.

Uzi wanted to smile at Lizzy and offer a simple 'What the hell can I even do against that?' But before she could even think of saying such words, the Angel would call out to them again. “Seriously, please don’t try to ambush me.” He was closer this time. His tone carried something strange—anxiety? He was really pushing for this act. “I have someone—one of your own. She fell out of the dropship when it was torn apart. I managed to catch her, but she got badly hurt!”

Once more, everyone froze. There was only one drone he could be talking about, but what would be the actual chance of—

“Okay,” they can hear him take a deep breath as though he were preparing himself. “I’m stepping into view now… Please, don’t shoot me if you have a weapon. I really don’t want to have to kill anyone.”

“Where was that attitude five minutes ago,” Lizzy muttered dryly, her voice laced with a sarcasm that barely concealed her shaking nerves. Thad gave her a pointed look, clearly trying to tell her that it wasn't the time for sarcasm, but the voice from outside just let out a somber chuckle. 

“Heh. That's fair.”

The sound of his footsteps grew louder, each one making Uzi’s spark pulse harder against her chest. She braced herself, her mind replaying the brief glimpse she’d caught of him through the viewport. She pictured the creature she’d seen—a nightmarish figure with a tail, a single glowing yellow optic that formed an X, a toothy grin full of razor teeth, and wings made of swords ready to carve through anything in his path.

But when he came around the edge of the open cabin, Uzi was taken aback. She tried to reconcile what she saw before and what she looked to now, but the two images just clashed against each other. There were similarities, yes.

He was tall, and his frame was sharper, more angular than any of theirs. His movements were eerily fluid, almost too smooth to be mechanical. He wore dark clothing—a large cost and cap—that only made his pale, silvery hair stand out more starkly. The long tail swaying behind him was just as unnerving as she’d imagined, its tip glinting faintly in the dim light that she knew held the acid within. His wings were gone, but she was sure that they were just folded and out of view. 

His face wasn’t what she expected.

Instead of the large glowing neon-yellow X she’d seen before, his visor had loaded to show his optics instead. Gentle ones, glowing faintly the same yellow color but wide and soft, holding an expression of clear regret as he stepped inside with them. “I didn’t mean for anyone to be seriously hurt. I swear, I just wanted to scare you guys a little.”

None of the colony drones responded to the comment. If any of them could, they probably congratulated him on succeeding at ‘just scaring them’. But, their attention was stolen by the mangled broken drone cradled in his arms. Uzi tried her hardest to just comprehend the sight, but it was like her mind struggled to even process what she was looking at. Probably because it was actively difficult to recognize the person in the Angel's arms was Doll. 

She was in a horrific condition, worse than any kind of damage Uzi had seen before. Her frame was a ruined mess of twisted metal and shattered machinery. One arm hung limply at an unnatural angle, grotesquely broken, while a leg was crushed into a near flat mess of wires and plating. Inner-energon seeped from an exposed joint in her shoulder, the dark substance coating her body in a nightmarish display.

Her visor was completely shattered, leaving the delicate circuitry underneath exposed. Uzi could see her cousin's bare optics—normally, they glowed with a warm red light—but now they were dim and empty, the natural color drained from them entirely. Even her helicopter blades, one of the defining features of her alt. mode, were missing. They had been ripped away, leaving jagged stumps and broken connectors in their place along her back. 

It was beyond words to look at such a sight—to see her cousin hurt in such an awful way. Uzi couldn't even get the breath to scream at the sight or say anything. Once more her vocal components were failing her. Hell, her whole body was failing her as she just stood and stared at the sight. Unable to speak, unable to act. 

All she could do was just bear witness.

She was almost thankful that Thad and Lizzy reacted for her. That they both rushed forward, their fear and worry for Doll overriding any hesitation they had about the Angel. Thankfully, he didn’t stop them—he didn’t even flinch at their sudden approach. Instead, he carefully shifted Doll’s broken frame, gently lowering her into Thad’s waiting arms. “You got her?” He would softly ask, only fully letting go when Thad nodded his head. The Angel would then give them some space, taking a few steps to the side as he held his palms towards them in submission.

Not like either of them noticed.

“Doll. Doll, can you hear me?” Thad tried to wake the broken drone, gently shaking her as if to stir her from a deep sleep. “Come on, Doll. Please wake up.” Desperation was leaking into his voice as it raised in volume. “Please!" Whatever response he hoped for didn’t come, as Doll simply remained limp in his arms. Her only movement being her head lolling to rest upon his shoulder. With her visor broken there was no quick way to check to see if she still functioned. For all they knew, she could have a [Fatal Error] reading without any of them knowing it.

“Hang on,” Lizzy reached out and placed a hand right over Doll's chest, directly over the  Decepticon insignia emblazoned on her top. Her optics widened after a few seconds. “She has a spark pulse. She's alive!” 

A look of utter relief appeared over Thad’s face for only a moment, before he noticed that Lizzy was no longer looking at him or Doll. Her entire focus was now on the Angel. “ You. ” There was absolute venom in that single world. Thad noticed quickly that Lizzy’s fists were clenched so tightly that her servos could be heard whining in protest. That her glare could’ve melted steel, with how intense she stared at the tall drone. He tried to whisper her name, to get her attention but she was lost in her own anger. “What did you do to her?” The words carried so much emotion that the Angel visibly flinched.

“I—I caught her!” He said quickly, still keeping his hands up in mock-surrender. “I saw her as she was falling, so I moved—” He took another step back as Lizzy stomped forward.

“And this is what you call catching her?” Lizzy snapped, throwing a furious gesture toward the broken body in Thad’s arms. Her voice was sharp enough to cut through solid plating, loud enough to ring through the ruined cabin of the dropship. “Look at her. Look at what you did to her, because you wanted to scare us! Well congratulations, you did it!”

The Angel looked at Doll, as if to truly see her for the first time. He took in her wounds, her broken state. His optics would then begin to drift, looking from Doll, to Thad, and then back toward Lizzy. It looked as if he scanned each of their bodies and saw how badly all of them were hurt. 

“Look at what I did to all of you.” He seemed devastated by his own actions as he lifted a hand to cover his visor, while turning away, unable to meet their eyes. “This wasn't supposed to happen.” 

“Yeah, well it did.” Thad slowly began shifting Doll’s limp form onto his back in a makeshift piggyback carry. Her damaged arms dangled awkwardly over his shoulders and he struggled to steady her weight. “Look, if you are not gonna kill us or something, we’ll just leave, alright. That's cool with you?” He had barely taken a step forward when Lizzy abruptly threw out an arm in front of him.

“No, you know what,” She inhaled sharply, as if to ready herself. “Please. Tell us what was supposed to happen, cause I would love to know. Were we supposed to land in a pillow factory or something? Cause I think we missed the mark.”

Thad nudged her with his elbow. “Lizzy, enough. Seriously.” His voice was tense and exhausted, especially now that he was carrying someone. “I don’t care what was supposed to happen, what I do care about is that we can walk away from it.” He cast a wary glance at the taller drone, noting how he still wouldn’t look at them. Lowering his voice, Thad leaned toward Lizzy and added with a whisper. “Besides, let’s be thankful he suddenly installed a conscience now, and not after he ate us.” 

“But Thad—” Lizzy clearly wanted to argue some more, but all the fight in her was drained as she looked at Thad, and saw Doll once more. “Fine. We need to get to the colony and put Doll in a CR chamber. That can fix her up.” 

“Okay. Where is the colony though?” 

“...good shocking question.”

Her optics flickered toward the ruined skyline, landing on the Spire in the distance—their only landmark as they honestly knew nothing about Kalis. There was no telling how much longer Doll had, if her spark chamber was compromised in some way she could have only hours at best. They needed to move, and fast. The only question was where do they —

“If you mean the colony that is nearby, it isn’t too far away.” The Angel lifted a hand and pointed down the street. "If one of you has a vehicle mode, you can get there in a few minutes." His voice was subdued, heavy with guilt. "It’s northeast from here, a few miles at most." Still, he wouldn’t meet their eyes. His gaze remained downcast. “I could fly and show you the way, but I wouldn't blame you all if you had enough of me.”

The Angel would turn his back to them and would leave the wreckage of the dropship. They could hear him talking to himself. “Biscuits, I really messed this up. Course I had to do this to colony drones. And their Cons too.” His fingers raked through his synthetic hair, clutching at it in frustration as he wandered aimlessly in the cold. The wind bit at his frame, howling between the shattered buildings like a ghost. “All I had to do was just to give a message and talk, and I couldn’t even get that right.”

He held his head back and looked up toward the sky, seeing the dark clouds that rolled overhead.

All those times J had called him worthless and pathetic came rushing back to N. And now, those words felt fitting. He couldn’t believe himself. He couldn’t even believe he had allowed himself to give in to something as baseless as his own cravings—of all times. And now—Primus, help him—now the worst-case scenario might be happening. V was right. The Colony Drones were Decepticons. At least these ones were.

It was possible they had left their homes while he and his team were on leave. Meaning that no one was watching the colony, and somehow these four teens managed to join the enemy ranks. For all he knew, one of them could be the one who had killed Impac— no. No.

N threw his hands down, curling them into fists. He wasn’t going to think about that anymore. He had before, and now look where it had brought him—he had shot down a dropship, and now a drone was barely hanging onto her life. A drone who, for all he knew, was just an innocent kid that fell into the wrong crowd.

For Primus’s sake, they were all kids. They had no armor, no weapons. They were probably new recruits, fresh into the Decepticon ranks, returning home to share their news. 

Meaning…they will probably convert the entire colony's population to join the same side of the Great War. And why wouldn't they? The Decepitcons weren't the ones that hunted and killed their kind for years.

…Elita would want him to kill them.

J would make it an order—wipe them out before they could reach home. V would’ve done it just for fun.

But N remembered that there was something else he wanted to do. That he wanted to be better. That it wouldn’t be easy, but that no matter what, he wanted to try and fix what he did. He just had to be stupid, and make it worse.

Forcing himself to turn back around to face the young drones, N said, “I’m sorry.” The words felt empty, and practically pointless, but they were all he had.

He watched the pair as they made their way out of the wreckage. The boy and the girl—Lizzy and Thad as they called themselves, were still holding their broken friend, the one they called Doll. “I'm not just sorry for this, for everything me and my kind did to your people.” N added, “I am so sorry, that your friend was hurt—”

“She's more than a friend.” Once more, N flinched at the girl's words. “She’s our Conjunx Endura, you son of a glitch.” With a sharp inhale of breath going through his teeth, N watched as they walked past him, never breaking their stride. He noticed how Lizzy's hand rested on Doll’s back and that Thad was ignoring his own injuries to carry the broken girl as steadily as he could, in case he suddenly needed to run. They were shielding her—protecting her—from him.

Somehow that made N feel even worse.

He lowered his head again, shame carving itself into every inch of his visor. The regret was suffocating, and it was deserved as it was all his fault. He felt small, frail, utterly crestfallen. 

“Yeah, that settles it. I am a piece of scrap."

“...well, you're not the only one.”

A new voice spoke up. The first thing N saw was her black boots and purple striped socks, as he was looking down and she stepped up right in front of him. The fourth drone of the group, the small one that stayed in the back.

Slowly, hesitantly, he began to look up. His optics trailed over her battered frame, taking in every scrape, every mark of injury that marred her small form. Her rugged clothing, torn at the edges. She stood, feet firmly planted, as if she were bracing for the worst. His gaze moved higher. He sees her short, dull purple hair with strands sticking out from beneath a black-striped beanie pulled low over her head. It looked worn—like something she refused to part with, no matter how messy it became. Then, his optics caught the symbols.

One on her right shoulder—clean, professional. The standard Decepticon insignia, the kind officially given onto soldiers and civilians alike. A badge of allegiance. A declaration of who she was supposed to be.

But on her left shoulder, there was another. It was amateurish, and hand-stitched. The lines are uneven, imperfect. It wasn’t factory-made—it was personal. A deliberate choice, stitched into her very clothing. It reminded N of the Autobot symbol he had once made for himself, a long time ago. When…he couldn’t even fathom. Quickly shaking his head to clear his thoughts, N would look toward the small girl again. Something about her was different. She was the only one of the 'Cons to stand up to him, the only one to get within arm’s reach, daring to face him without flinching.

Their optics met. Her neon purple against his neon yellow. 

“...what was the message?” She asked and for a moment, N was stunned. He almost thought he had misheard her—that this moment, this chance, wasn’t real. “I heard you said that you had a message,” she continued, pausing just to take a breath. “That you wanted to talk. So, talk.” 

He stood dumbfounded for a moment, all he could do was just blink at her. Then Lizzy shouted at them. “Uzi, what are you doing? We’re leaving!” N turned to look at the blonde drone as she and Thad had stopped walking several feet away from them. Yet, the small drone—Uzi—barely spared them a glance, just lifted a hand and waved her off.

“You guys go. Take Doll back to the colony. I’m staying here.” She kept her gaze locked on N. She was daring him. Testing him. And N realized, with a quiet sort of awe, that she meant it. She wasn’t turning her back on him. She wanted to hear what he had to say. After everything, she was still willing to listen. There was still a chance he could say what he wanted to say. 

Lizzy threw her head back with an exasperated groan. “Primus-shocking-damn it, Uzi. You are seriously choosing to stay with the murder done?” 

N looked back to the girl, watching as she simply shrugged her shoulders. “I mean, he apologized. Doll is wrecked, and don’t worry I am pissed at that!” She made sure to shoot a glance at him while saying that. “ But, he also wanted to tell us something. And it got to be important right, he freaking shot us down for it. So, I’m gonna hear him out.” 

Just like that?

“For the love of…you know what,” Lizzy turned to Thad with a scowl. “Fine. We’ll keep walking so you can catch up, but only because I’m pretty sure Thad can’t transform right now.”

“I mean, I think I can try to—”

“Shut up, Thad. We’ll keep walking. And you better catch up, loser!” Grumbling under her breath, the girl placed a steadying hand on Doll’s back, helping Thad carry her as they turned away from the wreckage. Their progress is slow, but N could hear footsteps fade as he turned his full attention back to Uzi.

The wind howled around the broken dropship, sending a chill through her frame, but she didn’t waver. She stood her ground, staring up at him, unflinching despite how much taller he was. "Well?” she pressed. “Talk.”

N hesitated for a moment as he shifted his own weight slightly. His optics dimmed, thoughtful, as if carefully choosing his next words. Instead he ended up saying something else. “...Thank you for hearing me out.”

Uzi sighed while crossing her arms. “...You're welcome—but don't look into this too deeply, Autopunk! Remember, I’m still mad you shot us out of the sky! I’m only listening because you said sorry. And, well…I’m kind of to blame for my own stuff so its like…only if like…shut up.” She caught herself as she was starting to ramble, giving him the best glare he could. 

He smiled anyway. A small, uncertain thing. He wasn’t used to being given the chance to explain himself to be honest. Usually it was a back and forth between him and V, and with J it was just her interrupting him as she would make her own decision when he tried to say something. Somehow, without meaning to, without even realizing it was happening, Uzi was helping him—she smiled too. It was small. Barely there. But it was something. 

N took a deep breath, and then cleared his threat. He was ready to truly start this. He was going to make Optimus proud. 

He hoped. 

Chapter Text

"I can't believe we just left her behind," Thad groaned as he and Lizzy made their way down the desolate streets of Kalis. He spoke with raw disbelief, as he struggled to keep his grip on the unconscious Doll resting along his back. "We should go back. At least so she’s not alone with that guy."

"And do what?" Lizzy asked, while arching a brow. She glanced over her shoulder as they turned a corner to scan the path behind themselves—there was no sign of Uzi or the so-called Angel, meaning that the three of them were alone. "We aren’t exactly armed. And let’s be real, that freak wasn’t wrong. If he wanted us dead, we’d already be scraplet food."

She held out an arm, halting Thad in his tracks. "Besides, we needed some distance from him. At least to..." Her voice trailed off as her gaze wandered to Doll.

Following her line of sight, Thad gave a frown. "I get that you’re worried about her. I am too. But you know she’s gonna lose it when she finds out we left Uzi behind. Especially with an angel.”

"...Yeah, she will." Lizzy sighed, her eyes dropping to the snow-covered ground as if searching for something. "But she’s also our best chance at making sure Uzi comes back alive if we need to fight that thing."

Thad blinked as a low "huh” leaves his mouth. But Lizzy ignored him, as she continued to look toward the ground. "I need a knife. Or something sharp. Just enough to draw blood. A rock with an edge, a shard of glass—anything. One of us needs to cut ourselves—"

"Shocking what?" Thad’s vocal components shot up an octave as his confusion turned to alarm. He quickly stepped in front of Lizzy, forcing her to stop short in her random search, her head bumping into his chest.

"Hey—"

"No. No. You need to start making sense right now. The last thing we need is more injuries! We’re barely standing as it is, and now you want to make one of us bleed?" Thad hoisted Doll higher on his back, wincing as pain flared through his frame. “Lizzy, don’t tell me you’re suffering a malfunction, because I really need both of us working right now. Especially if you’re talking about hurting yourself—”

A loud groan leaves the mean girl as she dragged her hands down her visor in frustration. "Uggggh—I'm not trying to off-line myself, you handsome idiot! It’s for Doll!" she snapped. "She needs energon-blood.”

"Oh, only that." Thad allowed a rare moment of sarcasm to slip through his words. "And the best way for us to do that is to slit our wrists and squirt some into her mouth—" His tone shifted, his own frustration began cutting through. "What did I just say about making sense? Yes, she lost a lot of blood, but that’s why we need to get her to a CR chamber. It'll repair her—especially since we still have the energon chip.”

"No, but we don’t actually need the CR chamber if we just—" Lizzy stopped herself. She then tightly closed her optics and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, something about the way she spoke was different. “Okay. I’m gonna tell you something. Promise me you won’t freak out.”

Thad looked almost insulted by the request. "Really, after all we just went through you still think I am able to freak out about anything? Look, we’re way past any point where I would be even surprised by—”

“Doll’s a Point One Percent Outlier.”

Silence followed for several seconds as Thad’s optics widened to their max setting. For a terrifying moment, he actually wobbled and was close to tipping over as if he were about to faint. Thankfully, for Doll’s sake, he managed to catch himself in time. He then straightened back to standing upright and said, “Sorry, I zoned out for a second ther—Whaaaaaat?” 

Lizzy flinched at the sheer volume of his voice as it had echoed throughout the empty street. “Doll isn’t like us—or really any other drone, as far as we know,” she spoke quickly, while still choosing her words carefully. “She’s… different. A Point One Percenter and an Outlier. Or at least, we think she is. We’re not entirely sure, but it’s the best explanation we’ve got.” The words tumbled from her mouth with little cohesion, but the truth was finally coming out and that is all that she cared about. “Those red flashes, that weird thing that keeps happening around us—that’s her. It’s always been her.”

Thad opened and closed his mouth, looking utterly lost. His mind scrambled through memories—the flashes of red light, the unexplainable moments that had saved them. Whether it be the theater, or in the dropship. He realized now that during every one of those moments, he’d never actually been looking directly at Doll.

"Why would you—how long have you—” He shook his head, struggling to process everything. “Oh, this is just Prime.”

He looked to Lizzy, who only gave a helpless shrug. “Sorry,” she said, and to Thad’s complete shock, there was an actual sincerity in her voice. “Like, seriously, I’m sorry.” It only made it more baffling for him, as Lizzy never apologies like that.

“Why didn’t either of you tell me?” He demanded, his volume rising again. “Lizzy, for Vector Sigma’s sake, we’re planning to get married after graduation—to each other and to Doll! Don’t you think it’s kind of important for me to know that one of the girls I love is a Point One Percenter and an Outlier? Which—by the way—I didn’t even know was possible for someone to be both.”

“I wanted to tell you!” Lizzy insisted, pressing a hand over her spark chamber as a plea. “But this is Doll’s thing. I only found out a few days ago, and trust me, I ripped into her for hiding it. I wanted to tell you about it but she had a full weird creepy Baba Yaga moment when I caught her eating—” She stopped abruptly, her eyes darting away as she realized what she almost revealed.

Thad’s optics narrowed as he easily noticed such a pause. “Eating what?” He could see the sheer worry in Lizzy’s optics as she held a hand over her mouth. Whatever it was, it must have been bad. Something really bad. But this was Doll. Their Doll. What could she possibly do to…

“Lizzy, what did you catch her eating?” He asked the question again with a bit more urgency in his tone. He watched as his first Conjunx Endura was reluctant to even say another word. 

She was running a hand down her visor again, though this time it seemed as if she was trying to steady herself. “When Doll’s parents died, it messed her up.”

“...Of course it did! She watched it happen, it would mess anyone up.”

“No, Thad.” Lizzy made sure to stress her words much more than before. “It really messed her up. It got her to do things I think. Things she didn't want us to find out.” Something in her tone sent a slow, creeping dread curling into his spark. “That dream she keeps having, I think it is because of that.”

Thad found himself glancing over his shoulder, his optics drawn to Doll’s unmoving face. Without a visor to project anything, he could see her powerless optics staring back at him. “Her nightmares? You mean the ones about that evil moon with horns, right?” 

She had mentioned them before, but only in the aftermath of waking in the dead of night, screaming, haunted by something unspeakable. And no matter how much he or Lizzy pressed, she never offered more than fragments, half-truths forced through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, that thing.” Lizzy shook her head, as she ran a hand along Doll’s back. “She told me that it had a name. I’m not sure what, but I think it was… Unicorn?” 

Thad blinked at that name. “I don’t think the nightmares that Doll has been having for years are about a magical pony with a horn.”

“I don't know, maybe they are,” Lizzy groaned, in frustration. “I could be remembering it wrong. She said it like a bunch of times while throwing a fit. I was just trying to calm her down, and I didn’t exactly have the state of mind to pay attention to every syllable of every word she was screaming at the top of her vocal processor!” She stopped to rub at her temple. “Primus, I wish she was awake because I don’t know how to explain this scrap properly.”

Thad’s frown deepened. It was bad enough knowing Doll had hidden this from him. But now? Now it felt like something worse was being kept from him and Lizzy also. He swallowed as he realized that he had to get a handle of the situation. “Lizzy… whatever it is, we can figure it out together. Let’s rewind a bit to the energon-blood—”

A sudden clank of metal against frozen ground cut him off. The sound was heavy, and far too close. Thad noticed Lizzy stiffen, her optics locked onto something behind him.

“Oh, slag.” When he turned around, he expected to see the Angel they had just left behind—or maybe even another Autobot. Considering the usual luck he and the others had since coming to the surface, Thad expected the worst…

Instead, he found something slightly better.

“Bonesmasher?” For a fleeting moment, relief replaced the tension in his frame. A Decepticon. One he thought had abandoned them. “Dude, what the hell?” Thad sighed, while forcing out an awkward chuckle. “You can’t just jump out at people like that. Seriously, you almost made me blue-screen just now.”

He glanced at Lizzy, thinking that she would be relieved. She wasn’t. She was still rigid and her optics were locked onto Bonesmasher with sharp, unwavering caution—she had noticed something he hadn’t. Bonesmasher’s mining fork, a part of his vehicle mode that was attached to his back, was twisting and aligning itself into an attack position, with it aimed towards them.

Thad instinctively took a step backwards. Lizzy followed, as she kept a protective hand on Doll. Because they both realized that they weren’t saved, they were actually still in danger.

“You kinda bailed on us, man,” Thad was buying time, forcing himself to stay as optimistically friendly as possible. “Any reason for that?” He smiled—at least he tried to, but it faltered when he finally registered the look in Bonesmasher’s deep red optics. A look of pure, unfiltered hatred. Thad had no problem admitting that he could be an idiot sometimes. He was a jock, it was in his nature to be a bit of a ‘metal-head’. But that didn’t mean he was completely clueless at all times. He was actually quite good at reading people, and Bonesmasher was an open book to him—one that had big bold text on each page that said, [I WANT TO KILL YOU] in plain Cybertronian. 

“Do you remember what I said to you, boy?” The Con asked while tilting his head slightly, his voice as deep and gravelly as it had been on the dropship. The sound alone sent a chill down Thad’s spinal strut.

“Yeah, I remember.” Thad adjusted his grip on Doll, once more. His processor was racing—he needed a plan. But his body had other ideas. The sharp pains in his frame were getting harder to ignore. He knew that if he tried to run, he would most likely just trip over himself. Sheer stubbornness was the only thing keeping him upright for now. Well… that, and a healthy dose of fear.

Bonesmasher then took a step forward toward the teens, his armored foot crunching into the snow as his towering frame casted a long, dark shadow over them. Thad kept himself talking as he and Lizzy took another step back in response. “I mean, you talked about ripping my spark out through my backside, super gross by the way. Terrifying, actually, so of course I ain't gonna forget. But, uh… no need to actually do that, right? I mean, we’re all Decepticons here.”

Bonesmasher's mining fork whirring to life as its joints flexed like the jaws of a predator—ready to take a bite out of its prey. “Tell me…” His voice dropped into something even darker, as his optics burned with malice. “How do you want to die, Autobot spy?”

For a split second, Thad was ready to argue. To shout that they weren’t spies—that this was all some kind of misunderstanding. But before he could even open his mouth, Lizzy stepped in front of him.

“Oh dang,” she drawled, her voice laced with exaggerated annoyance. “Looks like the jig is up.” Both Thad and Bonesmasher froze, as Lizzy held her hands in surrender. “You got us, big guy.” She almost sounded bored as she spoke. “We’re spies for the Autobots.”

“...What?” Thad didn’t even realize he’d said the word out loud. He was just left completely sideswiped by the obvious lie that she just admitted to. But before he could say anything else, Lizzy turned her head—just enough for him to see bright pink text flash across her visor. 

Text that said:

[Get ready to transform! NOW!]

There was barely any time to read them before the words disappeared and were replaced with her eyes as she spun back to face Bonesmasher; her entire demeanor shifting into something more… smug, more like her usual self.

“Thad, come on.” Lizzy made a show of it. She gave a long dramatic sigh, and waved her hand dismissively toward the tall Decepticon warrior. “No need to make it embarrassing. We got caught. It looks like the ‘Cons are actually way smarter than we thought.”

As insane as it seemed, Thad knew exactly what she was doing. 

She was stalling—giving him time that he desperately needed to force his T-cog to cooperate. He could feel it struggling, trying to purr to life. It was sluggish. Unresponsive. He could feel his whole frame go tense as he had to actually force some of his planting to begin the process.

While Lizzy did what she did best and ran her mouth. “First off, Congratulations. You figured us out,” she said, her voice dripping with fake admiration. “I mean, wow. We really thought we had you guys fooled. I mean,” She paused, as if to be as dramatic as possible. “I thought Grindor would have found us out, maybe even Negatron, but you?”

Thad swore he felt the temperature drop, as Lizzy began to click her tongue in disappointment. “Between the murder claw, the intimidation tactics, and the totally terrifying threats, I just assumed you were just the muscle of the group. Big and strong, sure, but also a giant freaking idiot. But hey—even the slowest of processors can still run a program.”

Bonesmasher already looked like he wanted to absolutely murder them. And yet somehow, Lizzy found a way to heighten that look of utter rage even further, as the older drone actually bared his teeth at the teens—his optics burning with such seething fury that Thad almost expected them to act like blasters. 

“You think mockery will save you, you little glitch?” The arm of his mining fork had pulled back, it was readying itself to strike down at the girl with full force... 

And yet, Lizzy didn’t even flinch. 

“Nope,” she admitted. “But they will—or did you forget that there are three Angels of Death that live in Kalis?” She pointed past Bonesmasher with all the smug conviction of someone who had already won a battle before it had even started. 

The Decepticon reacted on instinct. He whipped his entire body toward where she was pointing, his mining fork shifting, posing for an attack as he roared for a fight—one that will never come as Lizzy pointed at nothing but air. It was the oldest trick in the book, but it still worked. In that split second of distraction, the purr of Thad’s T-cog is heard, followed swiftly by the screech of his tires, as he leapt through the frozen air—his battered frame locking into his vehicle mode. When Bonesmasher realized what had happened, by the time he turned back around with a furious snarl, all he saw was a heavily beaten-up pickup truck peeling down the icy road, kicking up slush and debris in its wake as it was already gaining distance from him.

Lizzy, perched in the truck’s bed, grinned wickedly at the older Decepticon. “Sayonara, slag-head!” She called out while throwing both hands up in a double-fingered salute, barely being able to brace herself as Thad gunned the engine.

It was a moment of victory that was short-lived. A furious roar—not of an engine, but of rage—cleaved through the air as Bonesmasher’s massive frame shifted and collapsed into itself, twisting into a large armored form with terrifying efficiency. Within nano-clicks, the deep rumble of a powerful engine followed, and a heavily armored military truck came barreling after the teens.

Lizzy’s grin disappeared in an instant. “Fuuuuuuuuu—” She dropped herself low, shielding Doll’s unconscious form as the truck rocked beneath her. “Of course, he has a vehicle mode! How the hell did I forget that? Thad, floor it!”

“He’s a Buffalo! A mine-protected vehicle! He’s not exactly built for speed!” Thad’s voice crackled around her, his frustration and panic bleeding into his words. The reason why became clear as he jerked violently in a sharp turn. “Especially with all this crap on the road! For Vector Sigma’s sake, did no one think to clear the streets in the millions of years this war’s been going on?”

Lizzy just threw her head back and groaned. She realized quickly that while they were in a slightly better position then they were before it wasn’t exactly that much better. As she clutched onto Doll’s limp frame, her mind raced. They needed a plan or some kind of idea if they were gonna survive this. She didn’t even want to think about how hard it was for Thad to even move in his alt. mode. Now he was being expected to out race someone. 

“What the hell was he even going on about, calling us spies?!” Thad barked.

Lizzy barely spared him a glance as she was trying to focus. “What do you think? He probably saw us talking to the Angel. We were allowed to walk away—of course he thinks we’re spies!”

“Is it at all possible we can talk him down?”

Before Lizzy could answer, the truck lurched violently as something exploded behind them. Lizzy's eyes widened as she saw the massive shape of Bonesmasher vehicle mode plowing straight through a crumbling building—ignoring roads entirely to cut across their path. He was gaining on them. “Nevermind!” Thad yelped. “He’s not the listening type! What do we do? Do we keep heading for the colony?”

“We’ll never make it.” Lizzy’s tone turned grim as she watched the armored truck bulldoze through another wreckage, his mining fork hurling ruined vehicles aside like they weighed nothing to him. “You’re barely holding together, and he’s closing in fast.”

“So—what? What’s the play?”

Lizzy sucked in a hurried breath, an idea came to her. But it wasn’t exactly the best. Not like they had that many options though. “Circle around. Turn back.”

“That’s the opposite of what we should be doing—”

“We need to turn back, Thad!” Lizzy snapped, as she slapped a hand onto the edge of his truck bed. “Head for Uzi and the Angel! That freak wasn’t in the mood to kill us before—maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll want to kill these guys instead!”

“Guys?”

“Grindor and Negatron are probably still skulking around somewhere—oh scrap, what if they—” Before she could finish, Thad jerked hard, sending her slamming against the side of his inner bed. “—shocking, OW!”

“Sorry!” Thad yelped, struggling to keep control as they swerved. Lizzy’s spark pulse pounded in her head as she pressed a hand against the sore spot. Behind them, Bonesmasher’s horn blared like an executioner’s call, his massive frame was crushing and flattening anything in his path as he was still gaining on them. 

She gritted her teeth, as she wrapped her arms tighter around Doll’s still-unmoving body. “Just drive, Thad…” she muttered, fear and worry creeping into her voice. She didn’t say it out loud, but they both knew the truth. Bonesmasher was gonna be on them soon. If they couldn’t get to Uzi and that Autobot in time—no. They had much better things to do tonight than die!

“So, we were supposed to land on that rooftop?” Uzi asked as she and N sat together on the roof of a ruined car, using it as a makeshift bench. Ahead of them was a large structure, it was shorter than the surrounding skyscrapers but far wider. Enough to make a decent platform in the case of an emergency landing, as N had explained. 

“But then something ‘weird’ happened?”

She watched the Autobot as he sighed and stared shamefully at the ground. “Yeah,” he seemed unsure about it even as he spoke. “I mean, I’ve shot down a lot of Decepticon dropships before. Like hundreds of them. I know exactly where to hit for a controlled descent, and that’s what I did. The ship was on course for this spot.” He lifted a hand up and gestured toward the building in front of them to make his point. “But then there was a light.” 

The fingers of his raised hand curled slightly, as if he was trying to grasp at something unseen. “I don’t know how to explain it. But there was just a flash of red light and the ship didn’t veer. It didn’t even turn. It just—snapped. It changed direction in an instant. I swear, I was staring right at it as it happen.”

He tried to mimic the unnatural movement with his hand, slowly tilting it downward in an arc before jerking it sharply to the right—toward the crash site that they were still several meters from. 

“I know it sounds crazy, I seriously can’t make heads or tails of it myself but—”

“It’s fine,” Uzi spoke up as she pulled his arm down. “I believe you.”

N felt some of the tension in his shoulders leave. “Really? That’s a relief. That whole thing seriously weirded me out. I mean—” He stopped as Uzi held up a hand and tried to be dismissive about the whole thing.

“Not the first time I’ve dealt with that stupid red flash. It’s mostly been helpful for us, but… I don’t like it. The whole thing just rubs me the wrong way.”

N hummed in agreement as he felt the same unease she did. If he were to be honest, what unsettled him the most wasn’t just the light itself or its weird physics defying action—He's seen many things during the war that were just as bizarre, if not even more so than a strange ‘magic light show’—no. What truly got to him about the light was the uncanny familiarity he felt toward it. Not in how it looked, but rather in how it… felt? He saw something like it before, felt the way it changed the air itself, how it stung his optics. But where—

Before he could chase the thought any further, Uzi spoke again.

“I mean, I thought it was just some surface thing.” She rested her head against her knuckles, her optics lowering in thought. “But if you find it weird too, then at least I know it’s something going on.”

N found himself watching her. The way she furrowed her brows, the subtle shift of her eyes—he could practically see the literal gears turning in her mind. It was… oddly fascinating. He waited for her to draw up some conclusion, or make some kind of guess, as he didn’t want to break her concentration. He didn’t even realize he was staring until she looked back at him, and their gaze met.

…he gave her his best friendly wave.

Somehow that caused a blush to flicker across her visor. “You know what? Never mind!” Uzi said as she quickly straightened up her posture and waved a hand as if to brush the whole topic away. “Whatever it is, I am sure one of us will figure it out eventually. Last time it happened that darn thing didn’t decide to help Doll so I am kind of pissed off at it anyways. Moving on!”

Silence settled between them, allowing Uzi to regain her composure though it also allowed her to notice the mood change as N took a deep breath. The mention of Doll had cracked something open in him—his guilt was as easy to read as a book for sparklings. Uzi had already accepted his apology. Twice. And yet, from the way he looked, it was clear he was about to go for a third. It would’ve been annoying if it wasn’t also kind of sad. “Again, I am so sorry your friend—your Conjunx, I mean—was hurt.”

“You already said you were sorry, Autobot, and I already forgave you,” she muttered in the first response before raising her voice with the second. “But for the record, Doll is Thad and Lizzy’s Conjunx Endura. Not mine. Far, far from it. She’s actually my cousin. You know, family.”

She watched as N winched slightly. “Oh. So, instead of hurting someone you loved romantically, I hurt someone you loved familially.” He paused, as he scratched at his cheek in thought. “Is that better or worse?”

A quiet chuckle slipped out of Uzi before she could stop it. “I guess it’s relative.” The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted it. Because as she said it, N’s face lit up with the kind of smile that made her internal systems heat up slightly.

“Pun intended?” He asked in an almost playful manner. 

The second the two words left N's mouth, Uzi turned away from him as if physically repelled by his humor. “Ugggggh, I hate you. I absolutely hate you.” She turned around, showing him her back like an irritated child and N wasn’t able to hold back a laugh as he watched her.

He forced himself to settle, to bring things back to something serious. But even so… this? Just talking to her? It felt good. Even if she wore Decepticon symbols, there was something different about Uzi. Something he couldn’t quite place. But whatever it was, it was as if he was finally doing something right. Something he should have done a long time ago.

“I really hope that’s not true, because I still have my message to give.”

N tried not to smile too much as Uzi begrudgingly turned back to face him, her arms tightly crossed over her chest as she was pouting—actually pouting at him. Since when were Decepticons allowed to be cute?

“Alright. The message.” Uzi said as she leaned in slightly, her voice changing to be more firm. “This better be good. Because if you’re just gonna tell me ‘Decepticons are bad’ or some other garbage—I don’t care what you are, I’m kicking your tailpipe.”

N caught himself before he could ask if she could even reach that part of him. Diplomacy wasn’t exactly his specialty, but he knew enough to avoid certain… sensitive topics. He’d learned that the hard way after once offering to help Cliffjumper reach a high shelf. That was the day he discovered just how hard short bots could punch.

“The Decepticons are not garbage,” he said, matching Uzi’s serious tone. “So you don’t have to worry about that.” He assured her, before hesitating for a moment. He knew what he needed to say, what mattered was how he said it. “But this message is important. It’s from Optimus Prime himself. He said that he is coming back to Cybertron.”

When the name left his mouth Uzi’s expression shifted. Gone was any amount of goodwill she had, as her purple optics darkened like a storm cloud rolling in and her posture stiffening like a coil about to snap.

“The last false prophet,” she muttered, venom lacing her voice.

N instinctively tensed. “Don’t call him that.” He surprised himself with how strict he sounded. There was no anger in how he said the word, just something solid, something unwavering. He didn’t even realize he had that in him. But it was for Optimus’s sake, after all. He knew the Decepticons had their reasons to despise the Prime, but couldn’t they at least respect him? He was Optimus, for crying out loud. The Optimus Prime. Though, N never really understood why Decepticons threw around that ‘false prophet' term whenever a Prime was mentioned. He thought that sort of thing would’ve come up at some point in the last nine million years, but...

Whatever the case, he shoved the thought aside as Uzi scoffed at his reaction. Thankfully she didn’t interrupt as he continued to give his talk.

“The Ark is returning to Cybertron. And with it… something.” N gestured vaguely before glancing around at the skeletal remains of ruined buildings around themselves. “Optimus didn’t say exactly what it was, but he assured us that it could bring Cybertron back to life. To make it how it used to be,” His voice softened as the old memories surfaced, when he first came to this amazing world that had so much life to it, even while it was a frozen landscape.

“I don’t know if you remember this but there was a time when the surface moved and breathed—it had life. We think that maybe… maybe, this could change the war or even end it.” He looked back at Uzi, hopeful to find some kind of understanding on her face. Instead he was met with a look of sheer contempt. 

It wasn’t that Uzi couldn’t picture what N was saying. She could. She’d seen the archives—everyone of her classmates had. It also was what they dreamed about. Cybertron, their home, had once been alive. It was a planet that was constantly shifting and reshaping itself in harmony with its people. It was a place of industry, of energy, of wonder, of beauty, and so much more. It was a world of steel. It was their world.

But that world was gone.

Now it was nothing but a metal broken ball, it was silent and lifeless. A corpse drained of everything it had—all because the Autobots had refused to let Lord Megatron take his rightful place as ruler. Instead of allowing him to save their home—to bring forth the Golden age he promised—they let it wither and die, just to spite him. Such a thought, such a terrible thing to happen made Uzi’s head throb again, but she ignored such pain once more, as she forced her focus back onto N. “Oh, so a Prime is coming along to solve all our problems. Isn’t that wonderful?” Sarcasm dripped from every syllable as she unfolded her arms. “And all we have to do is just believe him?”

She pulled herself closer to N, while also jabbing a finger into his chest. “Let’s make something clear, Autobot.” 

Another jab. “You and your kind have slaughtered thousands of us.” 

Another. “You built a Spire the size of a Titan from our dead— not just of Decepticons, but my people. The drones of my colony. Stupid but innocent NAILs.” 

Her voice wavered, but the fire behind it never faded. With every emphasized word, she jabbed her finger into his chest, punctuating her rage. “So give me a single reason—one good, solid reason—why I should trust you. The same kind of drone that slaughtered Doll’s parents right in front of her, the same kind of drone that murdered my mom.” 

Uzi pulled back and reached within her hoodie. Having lost her backpack in the crash, she was thankful that she had managed to keep some things on her person. That strange weapon thing Swindle gave her, and much more importantly—her dad’s wrench. She shoved it beneath N’s chin, pressing the cold hard metal against his own warm soft metal.

“This,” she spat, “is the wrench my dad had to use to put my mom out of her misery after one of you injected her with your nanite acid.” There was a grim sense of satisfaction in seeing N's reaction. How his eyes would widen, and he flinched at her words. Even his tail dropped and became limp. 

“Do you understand the kind of waking nightmare you put us through?” she hissed, pushing the wrench just a bit harder against him. “Knowing that we can never leave our home because someone would kill and eat us. And now you’re asking me to just take you at your word that you’re bringing something as nice as peace? The only peace you Autobots know of is of a graveyard!”

She braced herself for the inevitable response. Some kind of rebuttal, an insult, a sneer—something Autobot of him. She expected him to scoff, to roll his optics, to brush her off like all his kind had done to Decepticons throughout history. To dismiss her pain as if it were—

No. He doesn't do that. Instead…

N just looked at her. Not with pity. Not with condescension. With something far worse. It wasn’t judgment. It wasn't dismissal. It was something she didn’t want to deal with right now.

Worry.

He genuinely looked worried for her. His optics flicked down to the wrench, then back to her. His voice, when it came, was quiet and careful—No, it was gentle. “You just… keep this with you?” He reached up, his fingers brushing against her wrist. Not to pry the wrench away, just to see it better. To watch as it shined under the moonlight. “I don’t think this is very healthy.”

Uzi’s expression twisted, as she ripped her arm away from his hold. “I’m not taking self-care lessons from a bot that eats other bots!” She yelled, throwing her arms up in pure, unfiltered frustration, especially as she felt the temperature within face get warm again from his touch.

“Fair.” Uzi then noticed that his expression shifted. The regret was there again, settling deep into his visor, making his optics turn dim again. He looked… lost. Like he was carrying something too heavy for himself to hold.

And for some reason, that made Uzi feel terrible.

She shouldn’t feel bad about making an Autobot sad—she was a Decepticon! This should be her favorite pastime! She should enjoy watching him squirm under the weight of his guilt. So why did it feel like she was the one suffocating under it, why did it make her feel like she was the bad guy? Her hands clenched at her sides as she tried to will away the awful, twisting sensation in her chest—within her spark.

Then, N asked, “Do you have a picture of her?” The question was so sudden that it made Uzi blink in surprise. “Your mom, do you have a picture of her you could show me?” 

She did. Stored safely within her system, Uzi had dozens of saved images—memories passed down to her by her father. They were precious, but also private. And now an Autobot, an angel, was asking to see them? Her optics narrowed with suspicion as she asked, “Why you asking?” 

N was clearly uncomfortable about the subject as he began to fidget with his hands, fingers curling and uncurling against themselves almost like he was trying to literally build whatever he wanted to say. “Because I… I might…” He faltered, his voice barely above a murmur. He was forcing himself to speak, to push through whatever was clouding his mind. 

“There’s a chance I might be able to recognize her. The faces of the drones I’ve… I’ve killed, they blur together…sometimes.” He winced as he said it, as if the admission physically hurt. “But if I saw her, maybe I’d remember. And you deserve to know if...”His optics were as dim as possible as he tried to finish the thought, while raising a shaky hand to himself. “If the one who killed your mom was—mmph?”

Uzi's body moved on its own, as suddenly her hands shot out, clamping tightly over N’s mouth.

“Stop.” Her own voice was barely above a whisper now, it was trembling at the edges. She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t meet those too-soft optics, that stupidly guilt-ridden expression that made her stomach twist into something unbearable. “Just… stop.”

She didn’t know why she did it. She didn’t know why the thought of him feeling worse made her panic. All she knew was that she didn’t want him to say it. Didn’t want him to know. Hell, she didn’t want to know. 

He was too nice, he was too caring. How the hell was he an Autobot? How was he—It didn’t matter. All Uzi knew was that she didn’t want to see that pained look on his face anymore. That she didn’t want him to look at her anymore with regret and sorrow. She didn’t know why? She just…“Please. Let’s just drop it.” 

Carefully, she pulled her hand away, letting him speak again. But he didn’t—not right away. 

For a few long seconds, N stayed quiet, giving her the time she needed to compose herself again. To force the subtle emotional shudders out of her frame and to steady her hands. Only when she finally looked at him, and allowed their optics to meet did he move.

His optics were still dim—but there was still that gentleness in them, too. A softness that made her throat feel tight. He held something out. Her dad’s wrench. She didn’t even remember letting it go. But there it was, resting in N’s outstretched palm, waiting for her to take it back. 

“I know this is gonna be hard to hear, but…” He sounded so unsure now as he spoke. “I know how you feel.” Uzi wanted to ignore him, to simply say, ‘No, you don’t. You can’t. Bite me!’ But, instead she just stared at him. 

N’s focus was on the wrench, he spun it between his fingers before continuing. “My friend, Impactor, died recently.” His tone was distant, like he was pulling the words from a place he hadn’t wanted to revisit. “We think Decepticons killed him. Or maybe some NAILs. Maybe both…A NAIL colony drone that turned into a Decepticon.”

Uzi tried not to react, as he looked back her. Tried not to let even a flicker of recognition show on her face. And she failed spectacularly. Her entire frame locked up like rusted gears, her optics went wide, and she could feel sweat beads loading onto her visor. Her mind screamed at her to stay still, to not give anything away. But it was pointless—he saw everything.

"Yeah," N murmured. "I figured you would know about him." There was no accusation in his tone. No anger. Just a quiet understanding. He let the words settle for a moment before offering the wrench back, gesturing it toward her. “He was a friend of mine.” His voice was somehow gentler, like he was trying not to press too hard on a wound they both knew was there. “I know he wasn’t always the best person. I know he did terrible things. Maybe even worse things that I’ll never know about. But I do know that he regretted them."

Uzi’s fingers curled tightly around the wrench. Her voice was cold when she finally found it again. “And that suddenly makes it better?” Her grip tightened. “He killed prisoners of war.”

She wasn’t blind to what N was doing. The connection he was making between them. It was almost too perfect that the two of them would meet like this. Either there was such a thing as fate, or Primus had a dark sense of humor.

Either way, it would end with N shaking his head. “There’s no such thing as helpless Decepticons.” His tone was so matter-of-fact, so relaxed. “So long as you’re willing to fight, you’ll always be dangerous.”

A beat passes and then… 

Then, to Uzi's own surprise, she lets out a short, humorless huff. “Damn right we are.” To her greater surprise, N actually smiled and that made her smile too. 

It was bitter. Fleeting. But for a split second, they shared something—something that almost felt like understanding. It didn’t last. N’s expression sobered as he took a slow, deliberate breath. “You asked for a single reason to believe me.” Uzi’s smile vanished immediately as she readied herself for whatever he had to say. “Then I’ll give you one. The best one I have. You need to believe me, because we’ve already lost enough people we care about.”

A pit formed in her stomach at such simple, yet…ever truer words.

“Your mom. My friend. They’re just two of the countless we’ve lost in this war. And I…” N’s voice grew quieter, more fragile. “I’m tired of it.” Something raw flickered in his optics, and she saw it. His age was finally showing. How long had he been fighting in this war, she wondered. How many had he killed for him to look so tired, so beaten. “I don’t want to hurt people anymore.”

His words hung heavy between them, as he finally let go of her wrench and then slowly, deliberately, he raised his hand up to the air. With a sickening whirr, his fingers shifted—elongating, sharpening into razor-edged claws. The transformation was instant. Unnatural. Wrong.

Uzi flinched and before she could stop herself, she threw her right arm back in a ready stance, mirroring the way that N and his team would release their built-in weapons. But nothing came of it. No hidden weapon. No real defense. So he… pretended not to notice.

“I’ve killed a lot of drones,” he said, voice straining between forced nonchalance and the crushing weight of admission. “And I… I liked it. But I don’t want this to be all my life has to offer.” He hesitated, looking at his own reflection in his claws, watching how the sharp edges caught the dim moonlight. They twitched, curling slightly. “I don’t think I wanted to be a monster growing up. Someone that kills and scares other drones.”

The claws retracted suddenly, like the mere sight of them disgusted him. “Yet, here I am. With a mountain of corpses, literally just a mile away that I helped make. I’m someone that likes the feeling of warm, sweet energon-blood on my hands. I’ve even… licked my fingers to clean it off sometimes.”

His optics flickered— they turned brighter, sharper, brimming with something that Uzi knew of all too well. It was self-loathing. It was the kind of look she used to give herself in the mirror, before she learned of Lord Megatron, and the Decepticon cause.

“And yet, I want to help people.” N laughed bitterly at the thought. “Primus, does that even make any kind of sense?”

Uzi’s answer came without hesitation. “Of course it does.”

N was startled by how certain she sounded. But he became more understanding the more she spoke. "I killed my first drone not too long ago. And I liked it. I really liked it."

Her fingers twitched at the memory, there was a ghost of sensation crawling up her frame. She remembered how it felt having Impactor’s head beneath the heel of her boot. She could still hear the sickening crunch of metal giving way as she stomped down with all her might. The kill had sent a shiver of satisfaction through her circuits—It felt right to end him. 

He was an Autobot. An enemy. Someone who deserved to die. Someone she didn’t have to feel guilty for. But now, as the memory played back in her mind, she wondered—was this how the N felt when he did his killings? Was this how the other Autobots felt? Her fellow Decepticons? 

…Was this how Overlord felt? 

The thought made her cringe.

"My friends," Uzi hesitated, as she glanced in the direction Lizzy and Thad had walked off. "One of them called me evil for wanting to do it in the first place, for wanting to join this war. And maybe he was right. But because of what I did, innocent people—drones that didn’t deserve to die—did." Her shoulders tensed up as sight of the fallen Vehicons flashed in her mind—their bodies broken, lifeless, her fault.

"And it got to me. It got to me real bad. But feeling bad has to mean something right? For both of us.” She met N’s optics again, searching for something—understanding, maybe.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. She saw it in the way his frame sagged, in the way his expression softened with something close to empathy. He understood where she was coming from. So she shrugged, and offered a small, bitter smirk. "Maybe we are evil, but like… only a little?" 

It started small—awkward, hesitant. Then it grew, bubbling up into something neither of them quite expected. Before long, they were laughing. Hard.

To the point that their frames shook, and soon, neither could even sit upright. They collapsed together onto their backs, their optics to the sky, their voices echoing into the quiet of Kalis’s abandoned streets.

Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was the absurdity of the conversation. Maybe it was just… needed. The laughter eventually died down, but the silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. It was different—lighter, maybe even peaceful.

N was the first one to sit back up, with Uzi following his lead. They would look at each other, and still be smiling. It was so…odd. Yet fitting. "I just don’t want to think about the bad stuff anymore.” N said. Leaving the words between them like a fragile thread, one wrong pull away from snapping.

Then, slowly, he extended his hands toward her—palms out, fingers spread. His movements were careful, deliberate, unthreatening. Uzi recognized the gesture immediately. It was an offering. An old Cybertronian tradition—a greeting that showed mutual respect, and acknowledgment. As a peer.

As a friend.

Her optics flickered to his hands, then back to his face. He was still smiling at her as he finally introduced himself. “Optimus believes in second chances. I want to believe in them too. So, let’s start right here. Between the two of us. I am Serial Designation N-0X0010010. But you can call me, N. I’m from planet Earth, and I was sent by the Sumdac corporation to assist in the war for Cybertron. I am part of the Disassembly Squad. I am an Autobot.”

Though hesitant, Uzi raised her hands to meet his own. "I could tell you had human masters with a name like that… You deserve a real name, N. One you can choose for yourself.” 

Their fingers met first—it was a soft contact, followed by a deliberate press of palm against palm. Ideally, their hands should have aligned perfectly, each fitting against the other. But Uzi’s were noticeably smaller than his. The difference sent an odd, embarrassed heat through her, though she forced herself to ignore it.

“I am Uziel Doorman," she said, "But, I choose to be called Uzi. I’m from Cybertron, and I am from the underground colony of Kalis. I’m not even fully a Decepticon yet, but I want to be." There was a small pause, before she added, "And I like to believe in second chances too." She looked up at N, and her processor stuttered when she realized he was, again, still smiling at her even as their hands were touching. A kind gentle smile that matched his eyes. He was happy, she made him happy. And that somehow made her feel...

Oh.

Suddenly, the warmth rushing to her face made a lot more sense, and she quickly cast her gaze downward in an attempt to dismiss the way her circuits buzzed with sudden awareness. It didn’t exactly help that a blush had loaded onto her visor. She tried to just pin it all to the fact that she was programmed to be hormonal at this age, she assured herself that was it. That was totally it. It had nothing to do with him being tall. It had nothing to do with him being so kind. It had nothing to do with him having soft hands, a handsome face, and how generally pleasant he was to be around! That was final! Why was there a program in her visor telling her that she was perfectly running denial.exe?

Uzi shut her optics and quickly took a deep breath. "Are you okay?" N would ask, and she can feel his fingers twitch against her own. "I know you're hurt. We can stop if you need to—"

"No, it's fine." She opened her optics again, meeting his gaze. There was something so frustratingly gentle in the way he looked at her, like he was able to see past the cracks in her armor. She hated it, but she liked it for some reason. "I’m made of sterner stuff."

She wanted him to believe that. She wanted to believe that. After all, she was a Decepticon and yet, her voice still became soft, as she said, “But… Thank you for asking.” Her fingers moved on their own. Without thinking, they closed around N’s hand, interlocking. He did the same, his grip firm yet careful—like he was afraid she might pull away. Jokes on him, she didn’t want to.

For a brief moment, they just stood there, silent and unmoving. Their hands remained pressed together, fingers laced as though they had always fit that way. It was such a small thing, so simple, yet considering the war that had spanned eons, in a world defined by a craving for destruction, violence, and hatred, this—this—was something neither side had experienced in a long, long time. Peace.

Uzi did want to believe it was possible. That maybe the war could end. If Optimus was coming, then that meant so was Megatron. While she didn't believe for a second that a false prophet would ever bring anything to help the people of Cybertron, she knew that her lord would. He was the only one able to bring the golden age that was promised...because he was Megatron. She had to believe that. Despite everything wrong with the Decepticons that she's witnessed, she had to believe that. He was her hero, after all.

“Till all are one.” She and N spoke in unison, their voices barely above a whisper. Slowly, their fingers untangled, hands slipping away with a strange reluctance. The moment passed, but something unspoken lingered in the air between them. Uzi tried to ignore it as she turned to look toward the street, her gaze following the path Lizzy and Thad had taken.

“If we rush, we might be able to meet up with your friends,” N offered, gesturing with his tail toward the colony. His optics were bright with enthusiasm, but Uzi only hummed as she swung her legs over the car roof. 

“I don’t know if it’s right for me to call them my friends, they are more so classmates,” she admitted, pushing herself off the edge and landing with a solid thud along the snow, her legs shaking a bit as pain shot through her system. Oddly enough it wasn’t nearly as much as there was before.

N dropped down after her, effortlessly landing beside her as they started walking, side by side. They left behind the area with the mangled Decepticon wreckage, the echoes of the crash site now fading into the stillness of the streets.

“But I better make sure they didn’t somehow get lost without me.” Uzi smirked slightly. “I am kinda the leader of our squad. We even made a team name from our initials—UTLD.”

N let out a small, delighted gasp. “Like hot lead! That’s so cool!” Uzi couldn’t help but chuckle at his excitement. “Ugh, that’s way better than my team’s name,” he groaned. “I’ve never been a fan of the whole ‘angel’ thing. V once told me it was either that or we’d be called robo-vampires. Honestly? I still don’t know which one I hate more.”

“Who’s V?”

“Oh, she’s kind of my… uh…” N suddenly seemed hesitant, as he raised a hand to touch the back of his head. “Well, we don’t exactly have a label, but we kind of been—” He stopped abruptly.

Uzi brow furrowed as she looked up at him. She quickly noticed that his entire frame had gone rigid, his posture no longer casual but tense—alert. Before she could ask what was wrong, his hand landed firmly on her shoulder. “Get behind me.” His tone had lost all of its warmth and gentleness. His grip was firm, and he was pulling her backwards. 

“Hey, I don’t need—” She stopped mid-sentence as her audio receptor’s picked up a sound. A low, distant rumble… the unmistakable thump-thump-thump of helicopter rotors.

She darted her optics upward, scanning the sky. “Doll?” She called out the name on instinct, half-expecting to see the familiar shape of her cousin above them in her vehicle mode. But what she saw instead made her spark plummet.

The aircraft hovering in the distance was huge—bulkier, heavily armored, its frame carrying a menacing weight to it. She recognized it immediately because it was the same color and shape of a certain pilot’s armor. “Grindor?” 

“Uzi!” She snapped her attention forward. Down the road, Lizzy was shouting, her voice raw with urgency. She clung tightly to the back of Thad’s vehicle mode, her optics wide with panic. “Run!” 

Uzi and N barely had time to react before beige blur shot from a nearby alleyway, and slammed into the pick up truck with the force of an avalanche. There was a brutal twist of a mining fork, and Thad was lifted—no, flung through the air like a toy.

Uzi's optics widened in horror and turned hollow at the sight.

The truck spun before it hit the snow, crashing hard and bouncing before folding into Thad’s bot mode. He barely had time to groan before Lizzy tumbled beside him, shielding Doll’s limp body as best as she could. The thing that had hit them shifted, its vehicle frame splitting apart, gears grinding as metal plates locked into place. A towering figure emerged, his absolute mess of armor was thick and scarred from countless battles. His red optics burned beneath a jagged visor. “Autobot scum!” 

It was Bonesmasher. His snarl was a guttural, grating sound, and his name fitted him far too well. He loomed over the downed drones, his heavy form crunching against the ice. He wasn’t just a bruiser—he was an executioner, built to dismantle bots limb by limb and Uzi knew all too well what he could do, as he aimmed his mining fork on the fallen colony drones. Her spark pounded in her chest as she quickly transformed her arm into its weapon form. But N moved much faster than she did.

“I’ll deal with him!" Without hesitation, N shot forward, massive bladed wings unfurling from his back in a sudden, deadly display. His hands shifted, morphing into razor-sharp claws as he braced himself to face the Decepticon enforcer head-on. “You take care of the others—”

But the moment he left the ground, the snow beneath them exploded. A blur of movement shot upward streaking toward N like a bullet. Before Uzi could shout a warning, there was a collision in mid-air as something massive and fast slammed into his side, knocking him back down to the ground. She saw that the thing that had hit him was a Mini-Con—but more like one of the Insecticons of Kaon. This one was a scorpion, and its armored frame was easily as big as she was, with its claws snapping with terrifying speed. As is held down N’s wings—its metallic jaws clamping down on his shoulder, fangs sinking deep into the joint. Sparks flew as the metal crunched under the pressure. Energon-blood was splattering against the snow. N was screaming. She moved before she even realized what she was doing.

With a fierce cry, Uzi lashed out, slamming her foot as hard as she could into the oversized Insecticon’s side. The impact sent a sharp jolt up her leg, and the creature let out a shrill hiss, its body skidding across the snow. But it wasn’t enough. The monstrous thing barely faltered before scrambling upright, its legs twitching, mandibles clacking angrily. Then, in a blur of motion, it scuttled back, disappearing beneath the snow with unsettling ease, leaving only a hollow pit in its place.

“N, are you—” She barely got the words out before something slammed into the back of her head. Pain exploded through her circuits. Her optics flickered, static crawling at the edges of her vision as she dropped hard to her knees. The already unbearable pounding in her head grew tenfold, a fresh wave of agony washing over her.

Distantly, she heard a sneering voice. "What was that about ionized carbide?" Her vision swam as she turned, blinking sluggishly through the haze as her vision was glitching. Negatron stood over her, one of his oars gripped tightly in hand, a cruel smirk stretched across his face.

“Eh, I’ll probably forget about it.” He lifted his weapon again, preparing to bring it crashing down. From there, pure instinct took over. Uzi gritted her teeth and lashed out with her leg, aiming for the weak spot in his armor—the exposed knee joint. The sickening crunch of metal folding the wrong way echoed through the street. Negatron howled as he collapsed backward, clutching his now-bent limb. "Ahh, shocking glitch!" He writhed in the snow, sparks spitting from the damaged joint as he cursed her name.

Uzi forced herself to move, pushing against the icy ground as her arms trembled under her weight. She could hear N groaning in pain, could see him out of the corner of her vision— his shoulder leaking badly as he struggled to rise to his feet, with his wings folding back into his back.

She had to help him. She had to—

A blur of motion. A shadow looming passed her. Then there was an impact.

Bonesmasher came barreling through, slamming his thick forearm into her chest like a battering ram. Air—what little she could take in—was knocked from her internal vents as she was sent flying. The world became a blur of static before she crashed down hard, the snow barely cushioning her landing. 

Pain. Blinding, suffocating pain tore through her body. Her limbs screamed in protest as she tried to move, every nerve system within her body alight with raw agony. The wounds she had woken up with earlier, the ones she had forced herself to ignore, now came roaring back, amplified a thousand times over.

Her vision swam as she rolled onto her side, struggling to make sense of what was happening. Then thump-thump-thump of helicopter rotors grew louder, cutting through the chaos like a war drum. It was followed by the mechanical purr of a T-Cog shifting.

The ground trembled beneath Uzi as something massive slammed down beside her. A rush of displaced air whipped against her frame, sending shards of ice and snow scattering. The heavy groan of shifting metal filled the space around her, and when she forced her aching head up, her flickering optics met the hulking form of Grindor.

He loomed over her like a walking mountain, his towering frame plated in thick, gunmetal-gray armor, his red optics gleaming with cold contempt.

"I knew it was too good to be true," he sneered, his voice a deep, gravelly growl. Uzi coughed, overclocking her own systems just to hear what he was saying. "Four children, wandering straight into our hands from the City of Angels. Bah!" Grindor stomped the ground near her, the sheer force of it sent another jolt through the already unstable terrain, kicking up flecks of dirt and snow.

“Leaving you as bait seemed like the perfect plan. It sure looked like all of you were friends, after all.” His words felt distant, muffled by the static ringing in her own head.

"He… shot us down, you idiot!" Uzi rasped, trying to push herself up, but her body refused to cooperate. Something was wrong. Her servos twitched erratically, her limbs trembling so violently she could barely keep them under control. Every attempt to force herself upright only made the shaking worse, like her entire system was on the verge of seizing up. And yet dear Primus, somehow all of that was nothing compared to how the inside of her head was screaming at her. How it pulsed in a way she never had felt before. She could see her own code was…rewriting itself? 

“And yet, all of you are still breathing.” Grindor barely acknowledged the protest, as she leaned down at her, his tone turning cold as he said, "That won’t be for long. You will each be delivered to Commander Shockwave. Personally. He’ll enjoy turning each of you into new projects—”

Then he stopped. Mid-sentence, his optics shifted, his head snapping toward something else.

Uzi forced herself to follow his gaze as best she could—And she saw it. Rather, she saw N. He was fighting against Bonesmasher—not just fighting, he was winning! N’s anxious, cheerful expression was gone—his optics burned with something raw, something furious. His movements were precise, relentless. He fought with an intensity Uzi had only ever seen before in recordings of the gladiator Pits of Kaon.

The enforcer, the brute, the Decepticon wall of metal and violence was getting pushed back, as N ripped a jagged slab of metal from the snow and smashed it into Bonesmasher’s face with teeth-rattling force—sending the Con staggering backwards from the impact. But N didn’t stop at that, as he threw the broken metal aside and lunged, tackling Bonesmasher and sending both of them crashing into the ruins of a demolished transport vehicle. 

Uzi felt breath hitched as she watched it happen. Like before, she couldn’t put the two mental images together in her head. The same drone that she was speaking to earlier, the one she was just laughing and holding hands with…was fighting like a true warrior—a champion. An Angel of Death.

Bonesmasher roared, his optics were blazing as he swung a haymaker at full might, the kind of strike that could shatter a drone chassis on impact. Yet, N was able to catch the arm mid-swing. With a vicious twist of the limb, he wrenched the brute’s arm aside, exposing an opening—a loud creak filled the air—N’s fist drove deep into the Decepticon’s back, denting armor and sending a violent spray of sparks as wiring snapped beneath the impact.

The enforcer snarled, he swung wildly in a desperate counterattack—his clawed hands swiping through the air, inches from N’s head, as the Autobot had ducked down beneath the strike. There was an almost predatory gleam in his optics as he delivered another punch. Then another and another. 

Each blow was precise in how it crushed metal, sending ripples of kinetic force through Bonesmasher’s frame. The Decepticon stumbled, his immense body shuddering as the relentless blows forced him back. He lost his footing and fell backwards, forced to roll across the snow like a broken machine. He managed to catch himself, but the moment his feet found solid ground, N was already rushing forward.

In the blink of an optic, his hand had shifted and folded within his forearm, it was quickly replaced by a long blade as it unsheathed itself, extending in an instant—it was sleek, sharp, and designed for killing. N drove the blade through Bonesmasher’s shoulder, punching clean through the armor plating. The enforcer screamed.

Seizing the embedded blade like a lever, N yanked, forcing the Decepticon toward himself—just in time to meet a shattering elbow strike to the face. The glass of Bonesmasher's visor creaks. Energon is splattered. A sickening metallic shriek echoed through the streets as N gripped Bonesmasher’s ruined shoulder and, with raw, unrelenting power, he flipped the Decepticon over his own body.

Bonesmasher crashed into the snow so hard the ground sank beneath him. His energon bled out in thick, dark streaks, staining the white landscape black. 

“Stop this. All of you, right now!” N’s voice cut through the battlefield, his frustration clear in his voice as he stood in defiance of their surprise assault, his optics locking onto each Decepticon as they began to recover. Negatron was already staggering to his feet, Bonesmasher twitched as his systems struggled to reboot. But N's true focus was Grindor, who still stood over a downed Uzi. 

Her eyes meet his for a brief moment. He saw the pained expression on her face, and it caused him to bare his fangs. “You get one warning. Stand down.” 

N’s blade-arm remained extended. His tail flicked behind him, poised to lash out with a lethal spray of nanite acid at a moment’s notice. Every inch of him was locked in a stance both rigid and fluid. “I have a message from Optimus Prime, I call for a ceasefire! Under the law of the Tyrest Accord, you are to obey!” 

Uzi's eyes widened in recognition. The Tyrest Accord was a relic of peace long since abandoned—a treaty established in the early days of the war, when the last Prime and Megatron still believed in negotiations. The Accord’s rules were simple: no targeting of medics, no execution of prisoners, no firing on a messenger bearing a call for a ceasefire.

They were rules that were supposed to hold weight, as they were laws held by Lord Megatron himself. But as Uzi shifted her gaze toward Grindor, she saw not an ounce of hesitation. Not a flicker of doubt. Only pure hatred in his optics. The Decepticon took a step forward, no longer paying her any mind it would seem. “To hell with your message.” His gravelly voice barked. “The only message your kind brings is death.” 

“This is important,” N countered, not even flinching at the accusation. “It could mark the end of the war. We don’t need to fight.”

Grindor scoffed. “I don’t give a damn about the war.” The moment those words left his lips, the battlefield shifted to his favor. Bonesmasher lurched to his feet and reached over his back, seizing a massive plasma cannon—its barrel still stained with streaks of dried energon-blood from previous victims. Negatron pulled himself upward as well, as he spun his oar in one hand, his other gripping a compact blaster from his side, its barrel already humming with charge.

And then—the whirring started. A sharp, shrieking metallic howl is heard throughout the streets—rising in pitch as Grindor’s rotor spun to life, the blades mounted on his arm moving in such deadly speed that it was essentially turned to a giant saw blade. Grindor leaned forward slightly, the whirling blades sending thin flecks of snow and dust scattering into the air. His voice was ice-cold, but seething beneath the surface. “You killed my brother some time ago. I want some payback!” 

For the first time since the battle began—N became hesitant. A flicker of thought crossed his optics as he seemed to dig through his memory files. “Uh…” He awkwardly scratched the back of his head with his free hand. “I’ve killed a lot of brothers. You’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”

Grindor’s optics burned as he stomped forward. “My twin brother!” He growled out.

N’s face lit up in recognition. “Oh! I thought you looked familiar. Blackout, right? That was his name?” Grindor’s fists clenched. The screeching of his saw blade reached a fever pitch, as both Bonesmasher and Negatron stepped forward with their weapons at the ready. And yet—

N wasn’t looking at them. He was cocked his head, ever so casually, his optics were shifting—not toward his enemies, but toward Uzi once more. For a second, she was confused as to why he would look to her. Then she caught the subtle flicker of his gaze, the quick, deliberate glance toward the side—toward the others. Where Lizzy, Thad, and Doll were.

The realization struck her like a shot from her own gun mode.

He’s going to hold the other Decepticons off—alone—to give her a chance to help her friends. Such an idea made her jaw clenched, it gave her the anger she needed to force herself upright. 

She shook her head firmly, refusing to leave him like this. Three against one—he didn’t stand a chance, no matter how hard he fought or that he was an Angel. His shoulder was still covered in energon-blood, if it wasn't, she was sure she could see the ugly gash across his plating left by the Insecticon’s bite—It was still something lurking beneath the snow, unseen, waiting to strike. She couldn’t leave him. N was her friend!

Uzi was just about to release her safety, to ready her cannon-arm as she forced herself to her knees, she didn’t care about the fire burning through her circuits, she didn’t care about the multiple warnings flashing across her visor, because as she looked at N—he smiled at her. That same gentle, sweet smile. The one that made her spark flutter, that somehow told her everything was going to be okay, even when it didn’t seem so.

She had to look away, she had to. If she stared at him any longer, she might just stay. Might just throw herself into the fight beside him, consequences be damned. Because…she knew he was right, that she had to help the others.

Lizzy and Thad, they were painfully slow in picking themselves up, groggy from pain and battle fatigue. Thad’s frame trembled as he tried to stand, Lizzy was barely managing to crawl along the snow. And then there was Doll, already badly damaged before this fight, now tossed around like a dead scraplet. They needed her. Though it made Uzi’s hand clench into a tight fist, her fingers trembling with hesitation and bitterness—she made her decision. With a sharp exhale, she forced her cannon-arm to retract back into its normal form, the shifting plates locking into place with a quiet clink.

“Don’t die, Autobot.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, before she turned and ran as best she could without looking back.

Leaving N to give his full attention back to the Cons. “Sooo, I don’t suppose you’d settle for a sincere apology?” He asked, as he looked back at the Decepticons. He gets no answer, only hateful glares. “Well, if it makes any of you feel better…Blackout tasted delicious.”

Bonesmasher’s grip on his cannon tightened. Negatron’s blaster hummed with power, the charge growing hotter by the second. And Grindor…his saw blade shrieked as it spun at max settings. “Kill him!” He roared.

The command shattered the moment’s stillness. Like a tidal wave of steel and fury, the Decepticons lunged forward for the assault while N's smile turned to a smirk as a pair of razor-sharp blade wings formed from his back. Though he was out-numbered—Though he would be put on the backfoot, and left at a complete disadvantage. It felt all the more worth it as he was helping someone for the first time in many, many years. 

Because it's been too long since he felt like an Autobot.

Chapter Text

“[Angel!]” Private Negatron’s voice rang through the console's speakers—it was laced with panic as he rushed toward the cockpit area. “[No—]” The voice of the short drone, the one that looked like Nori, followed as she cried out in desperation right before she was cut off by the unmistakable sound of an explosion. Then—there was silence. A harsh, unfiltered void where voices had once been. Shockwave remained motionless as he took it all in. His single, unblinking optic was trained on the communication console as the transmission feed began to flicker erratically and the words ‘Connection Terminated’ flash across the screen. The dropship’s vitals, their coordinates—everything—had gone dark. 

“...no.”

He methodically tapped into the relay, attempting to re-establish the connection, but the system returned nothing but dead air. A calculated probability analysis began running through his processors. The sudden signal loss. The auditory evidence that they were shot down. The possible trajectory of the vessel prior to its abrupt disappearance from his tracking systems. The identification of the attacker—going strictly by the single word screamed by Private Negatron. The conclusion was simple. An Autobot disassembly drone had gotten to them. Their vessel's guidance system had reached catastrophic failure, due to a well placed singular attack. There would be few survivors. The children that hadn't been secured and thus unable to brace for sudden impact would be the first to perish—

“No.”

Statistical likelihoods were insufficient, there are still variables in this equation. Too many unknowns. Too many potential anomalies unaccounted for. He would not operate on assumptions. Not with these children. Not with what they could mean. He initiated a secondary scan, rerouting power through auxiliary channels to amplify signal retrieval. The results were inconclusive. Residual energy readings and scattered debris signatures were given but still there was nothing definitive.

A moment passed as Shockwave tilted his head downward ever so slightly, a near-imperceptible shift in his otherwise rigid posture. His single yellow optic dimmed for a fraction of a second, as if processing an unseen equation beyond raw data.

“...Nori and Yeva.”

He had spoken those names moments ago. They were names that had provoked a reaction from two of the new recruits. That was worth further investigation. After all, they said they hailed from Kalis. That underground colony was meant to remain dormant for two more millennia. Its citizens—its assets—were to be secured in stasis until the predetermined cycle of reanimation commenced. Every calculation had been accounted for: a controlled awakening, systemic order, the resumption of his Great Work. In such time, Cybertron’s ascension would be assured—the Great War would be concluded, and Lord Megatron would usher in the Golden Age.

Yet an anomaly has occurred. A disruption. A variable unaccounted for. There were many potential catalysts that could cause such a result, but if probability favored past experience…

Nori had something to do with it. Possibly just to spite him, somehow.

Yeva had been the ideal test subject and assistant. Her sister, however, was an irritant—she was improvisational, reckless, needlessly defiant. Downright bizarre. Shockwave can recall, with precise clarity, the innumerable instances of her tantrums. The countless times she had snarled at him in that insufferably insubordinate tone, always punctuated by that absurd, juvenile phrase: “Bite me!”

Such ridiculousness.

“Papa, Nori had written over my notes again.”

“Look at this cool ‘S’ I can draw.”

“Yes, it is so cool. That's why it took you three tries to get it right.”

“Bite me!”

It has been a long, long time since he had seen them. Since he had even thought of them. The… recollection was not unwelcomed and the chance to meet them again sooner than expected could prove to be possibly beneficial. Though now, an anomaly presented itself. Two young drones had entered his ranks—drones bearing an unmistakable resemblance to Nori and Yeva. Not merely in appearance, but in speech and in mannerisms. They had originated from the Colony of Kalis, and at the mention of those names, their optics had brightened—not with mere recognition, but with something deeper. As if tethered to a memory. A familiarity beyond coincidence.

The most probable explanation—the most logical—was the simplest. Daughters. Yeva and Nori had daughters. And now, those daughters were at the mercy of a Disassembly Drone. They were in danger.

Shockwave’s fingers hovered over the console, calculations were already unfolding within his systems at the speed of thought. Probability matrices, tactical scenarios, possible trajectories—each assessment led to the same conclusion. That the situation demanded his immediate intervention. 

With precise efficiency, he rerouted power to the long-range scanners, locking onto the faintest remnants of the possible wreckage. The damage from the most recent autobot assassination attempt on his life had compromised multiple key systems required for the space bridge to become active. This would delay progress by at least three hours. Time was a resource he usually had in abundance. Not at this moment.

Logic dictated patience as the machinery needed to be repaired and the data required refinement. Leaving Kaon was also a risk. Enemies lurked beyond the city's defenses, waiting for such a moment—Elita-One, Ultra Magnus, Grimlock.

…The Abomination.

Random fragments of memory seared across his mechanical mind forced him to relive what had long since been categorized, stored, and buried beneath layers of logic. When he had fought that unbridled horror. When he had held the drones that called him ‘father’ for the first and last time.

“Nori. Yeva. Live.”

“Get snuck upon!”

By all accounts of logic, he should be dead. But he wasn’t. Through circumstances beyond his control, at the time, he had survived at a grim cost. The core of Cybertron was compromise. It became unstable and all organic life was gone in an instant—because of him. This was not hyperbole, nor was it a dramatization of self-pity. It was simple logical assessments of his failings. Failings that had haunted his every waking cycle. Failings that he had spent countless years attempting to rectify. That he promised himself that he will rectify. 

For Lord Megatron's Golden Age. For Nori and Yeva. For Cybertron, their home.

Many still believe that Primus, their creator, will one day come to bring their salvation. That he will light their darkest hour and end the Great War. Shockwave found the very notion ridiculous. If such a being had ever existed, he had either long since abandoned them or gone quiet. There was no God coming to save their race. That was why he stepped forward to shoulder the responsibility. 

As he turned away from the console, Shockwave’s optic became bright with quiet contemplation, as a single undeniable observation lingered at the edge of his thoughts: The probability of the children's survival was low—extremely low. And yet he deemed it nonzero. For he had failed to secure Nori and Yeva with his protection. He had failed to keep them safe. He will not fail their children—

The thought was held in place as a drop of inner-energon landed upon his shoulder with a wet splat. Shockwave did not flinch from it. Instead, his head turned upward, his optic adjusting to the dim lighting of the chamber. Above him, silhouetted against the cold glow of his lab's lighting infrastructure, hung what was left of the Autobot assassination team that had attempted to take his life. He had known they were coming before they had even turned an optic toward Kaon. He had calculated their every move before they had even drawn their weapons. And now, they were decorations.

The chains that held the drones were not crude bindings but a deliberate display of purpose. They were all impaled by them—not just through limbs, but through transformation cogs, spinal struts, and inner-energon connection tubes. The chains were piercing into the very systems that dictated function causing the bodies to twitch involuntarily as sparks of failing neural processors firing off in agony. Some simply hanged, their optics inoperable, as their minds were trapped within the horror of a slow, excruciating shutdown. Others—the unfortunate ones—were still very aware of what was happening. 

One Autobot, barely recognizable beneath the mess of torn plating and exposed circuitry, tried to speak. Her voice came out as static-ridden garble, broken by glitching vocal processors. “P—Please…” Shockwave analyzed her attempt at communication with clinical detachment. She was begging, of course, but not for freedom. She knew such a thing would never come. No, she wished for him to extinguish her spark. To end what little remained of her life. To grant her mercy. He considered it. A simple recalibration of his blaster and a single shot through the head would do it. An effortless task. Then he remembered the Space Bridge controls, how her foolish attack on him will now lead to him being delayed in securing Nori and Yeva’s children from a threat. The probability of their survival was significantly lowered, just because of these female Autobots. 

…No. He will not grant any of them mercy. 

Another drop of inner energon fell upon him, this time on his very optic. He made no move to wipe it away, allowing the black substance to trail down his faceplate. It gave the illusion of a tear. A meaningless aesthetic. "Congratulations. Despite failing in your attempt upon my life, you have succeeded in inconveniencing me." His tone remained the same as always—devoid of malice, devoid of satisfaction. Devoid of anything but the quiet melancholy of duty. "You have done more for the Autobot cause in this single, merciless act of destruction than your leader has in the last forty millennia.”

The assassin spasmed against her restraints. Her neural core struggled to reboot, she was attempting to process pain that was well beyond her tolerance thresholds. It caused her optics to flicker erratically as her very spark was nearly exposed through punctured, broken armor. “P—Please—pleas—” A strangled whimper escaped her, but it was cut short as the chain embedded in her torso shifted, grinding against the shattered remains of her spark chamber.

She screamed. It was a raw, broken sound—a corrupted, glitched sob of pain. There were more words, more pleas. She was joined by what few could still speak as the dying began to form a chorus—a discordant symphony of suffering that filled the laboratory, their voices began to scrap against cold steel walls and Shockwave found it all so… tiring. "Your pleas for mercy are but static noise.” His voice was barely above a whisper as he left the spectacle behind. Each step was measured, methodical, as he approached the doorway—where his Insecticons awaited. Their bright red optics gleamed with anticipation, as hunger thrummed beneath their patience.

Bombshell, ever the first to speak, removed his helmet. Silver-colored fluffy hair fell free and his fwce was revealed to be gentle and eerily soft for the kind of creature he was meant to be. “Hey, Dad. I see you, uh… got back into your old hobby of hanging bots?” His voice was casual, lighthearted even, but there was a slight stiffness to it—like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to joke about this or not.

Behind him were two other drones, their names were Kickback and Shrapnel. Their own helmets came off in synchronized motion, revealing the same silver strands as their ‘brother’. Kickback’s sleek bob swayed slightly as she tilted her head, peering up at the bodies while narrowing her eyes—at least, until she placed on her glasses and was then able to actually see them. “Vector Sigma…” She whispered with a bit of shock in her voice.

Shrapnel, however, took to allowing a thoughtful hum as she inspected the gruesome display. Her twin high pigtails, tied with black ribbons, bounced as she tipped her head back to take in the full extent of the scene. “Sir,” she spoke, her tone slipping into the smooth, artificial pleasantry of corporate professionalism. “While I can certainly appreciate the… bold steps you've taken to reinforce a message of deterrence within your own laboratory, I must raise a minor operational concern. The, ah—” She gestured vaguely toward the twitching, half-dead Autobots, their leaking energon pooling in grotesque patterns along the floor. “Ambience you’ve curated may present a workplace efficiency issue. The distressing visuals could definitely impact morale, or worse—productivity, productivity. Not to mention, the lingering scent of burnt circuitry and spilled inner energon could attract mini-con vermin, which, as you know, presents a sanitation hazard, hazard.” The benign vocal tic of her repeating the final wording of her speech, was something Shockwave had been meaning to fix for centuries. Though again, it would seem he would have to put it off for a little longer.

Kickback sighed while adjusting her glasses. “Shrapnel, I don’t think the boss gives a damn about the smell.” 

“Well, I wasn't talking to you was I,I? I was referring to—”

“Enough.” At Shockwave’s command, all three Insecticons snapped to formation—Legs pressed together, arms clasped behind their backs. Their discipline was instant, as he had trained them to be. After all, they were his answer to the Autobot’s Disassembly Squad—they were the Demons that he forged to fight Angels, with each of them imbued with a copy of a core personality that he had liberated and repurposed long ago. They were his Guardians of Kaon. The first true step in his pursuit of his Great Work, since the loss of Nori and Yeva… 

However with their apparent return at the awakening of Kalis, and their children possibly having the same code embedded within themselves, perhaps ‘Project Predacon’ could be salvaged after all. 

“Um, Dad...Can we eat them?” Bombshell’s voice was casual, almost polite, as if he were requesting extra rations instead of the consumption of the half-dead. “We are in a real mood for warm, sweet energon.”

Shockwave did not even pause his stride as he stepped around the younger drones. “No. Let them be.” Bombshell gave a whine, Kickback sighed, and Shrapnel made an exaggerated huff of disappointment, but none of them argued. They had been raised to know better. "You three will accompany me to the Space Bridge control room. Repairs take priority over all else. We are needed in Kalis." The Insecticons’ disappointment lasted only for a moment before they fell into a perfect step behind Shockwave, following him while the assassins were left to scream—to plead—for a mercy that would never come.

As horrid as such a thing was, Shockwave did not see this as an act of cruelty—it was simply the most efficient use of his time. The Autobot informate will sneak his way into the lab soon. He will take in the scene exactly as Shockwave left it and twist its meaning into something it was not. He would assume it to be a message—some crud warning directed toward the rest of the Autobots. A challenge or some kind of declaration. 

There was the possibility that Elita-1, the so-called Pink Tyrant of Iacon, wasn't even aware of this attack. Nevertheless, she will still believe a response was necessary. That he will make some kind of counter for this insult.

What she never seemed to realize—what none of them ever grasped—was that, to be frank, Shockwave could not care less about her or any of the Autobot’s fruitless endeavors to continue this meaningless fight. The Great War had long since become tedious for him.

It was a distraction, one he allowed his followers to waste their time with as much as they deem fit. He had much more important matters to attend to. For he was the Guardian of Cybertron. 

He will ensure its future, no matter the cost.

Chapter Text

For practically half her entire life, Uzi had prided herself in that she would always do the opposite of whatever an Autobot told her. After all, they were of the old order of Cybertron, the corrupted leaders that drove their planet to the tip of destruction. Yet—here she was running away from a fight because one told her to. She was fleeing from her so-called ‘fellow’ Decepticons as they were ganging up on a sweet, caring, gentle…

No.

N was all those things, but he was also an Angel of Death. A cannibalistic killing machine. He could fight. She had to believe he could win because she needed to focus on getting the others back home. Though when she reached them, Uzi realized just how hard that might be.

To be fair, it was as bad as she expected. They had taken a full-force collision from Bonesmasher's vehicle mode and were thrown through the air by his mining fork like a bunch of crash test dummies. Thad took the brunt of the attack, and it showed. The entire right side of his torso had a giant dent placed within it, the damage stretching from his hip to his shoulder in a brutal display that mimicked the impact on his vehicle mode. His right arm was barely even attached. It was dangling by strands of synthetic muscle and shattered soft metal plating. But as bad as it looked from the outside, Uzi knew the internal damage was much worse.

What amazed her was that he was still conscious. Most drones would’ve been thrown deep into a stasis-lock by now—forced offline by the sheer magnitude of trauma they had taken, like Doll had. Yet, Thad was still trying to move. His fingers were dragging grooves in the frozen ground as he tried—and failed—to pull himself toward the fallen forms of Doll and Lizzy. It was a noble gesture, but a little sad to watch. Thankfully, Uzi was there to help him. 

“Thad.” She called out to him as she dropped to her knees right beside him and placed a hand on his remaining good shoulder. His entire frame seemed to sag in response to her touch, the tension leaking out of him all at once like a snapped support beam.

“Hey, Uz…” His voice crackled with static. It was garbled in places, but somehow, it still carried that stupidly charming friendly-jock persona to it. “Did you see me fly?” He looked up at her with a half-lidded expression and a crooked smile, like he hadn’t just been nearly turned into scrap. Too bad for him, she had working optics.

“I did,” Uzi said dryly, brushing snow from his face and hair. “It was terrifying. You’re not supposed to bounce, Thad.” Carefully, she slipped her arm around his torso and began to ease him into a sitting position. His frame groaned and clicked the entire way, the sound of grinding metal and protesting servos filling the cold air, along with his soft whispers of ‘ow,ow,ow,ow’. “Can you still transform, tough guy?” 

For a moment, Thad didn’t answer. His visor was completely filled with damage reports—ranging critical failures to several entire subsystems stuck in a boot-loop. There were so many that they stacked on top of each other, one after another, threatening to overwhelm his vision in an array of pop-ups. But just as quickly as they appeared, they were dismissed as Thad had blinked them away. 

“Only one way to find out,” he said, lifting a shaky hand and clapping it over her forearm. “Just give me a minute… and I’ll be back on my wheels and ready to roll.” There was an echo of determination in his voice that made Uzi smile. Then, of course, he ruined the moment. “Oh… by the way,” he tried to mutter, but with how damaged his voice was, it still came out as a normal volume, “I’m sorry. For not telling you about me, and Doll.”

Uzi was completely caught off guard by the apology. She was about to ask what the hell he was even talking about—until it clicked. The relationship he apparently had with her cousin and, somehow, also with Lizzy…Gross.

“Yeah, uh,” Uzi dragged a hand down her visor out of sheer awkwardness. This was not a topic she was comfortable with, “finding out my cousin had an Endura—let alone two—was a bit of a shock.” There was a lot she could say about such a thing. Such as calling it weird, maybe even accusing Thad of being corrupted by both of them. But really… What was the point? It wasn’t like she and Doll ever talked about their love lives, or anything really prior to coming to the surface. And Lizzy? Yeah, no. That was a door she didn’t want to open without a backup plan and a fire extinguisher. Besides, now was really not the time or place for any conversations. She could literally hear N behind them fighting the Decepticons. Still, if she had to say anything—

“I guess I’m glad she’s got someone like you looking out for her,” Uzi admitted, while giving a quick shrug. “You’re kind of a metal-head, but in a good way.” Thad gave her a lopsided smile. Or maybe that was just his facial wiring refusing to align properly. It's hard to tell.

…and as much as Uzi didn't want to, she just had to ask. “But seriously. Lizzy? What, do both of you just have really bad taste in girls?”

There was a blur of static that crackled like a horrid cacophony of wheezing breaths—it took Uzi a little too long to realize that it was just Thad trying to laugh. “She isn’t so bad,” he rasped, his voice barely holding together through the distortion. “You and her would get along if you both—”

“Doubt it,” Uzi scoffed as she stood and walked toward the fallen popular girl, who was face down in the snow. “But I guess I can deal with her if I have to—oof!” She had just reached out to shake Lizzy out of her dazed state, only to get smacked straight across the face by the back of a hand. A hand that was swung by Lizzy, who had suddenly thrown herself onto her knees and was now holding a…severed arm as a weapon. The hit itself was nothing compared to the injuries already covering Uzi’s body, but that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t the pain that got to her, it was the sheer audacity of what just happened. It somehow felt insulting!

“Did you just slap me with that arm?” Uzi demanded, her voice caught somewhere between outrage and the kind of incredulous disbelief that made her question her life choices.

Lizzy, to her credit, barely seemed to acknowledge the question. She blinked down at the severed limb still clutched in her hand, turning it idly like she was only now realizing what she’d done. “Huh. Guess I did,” she mumbled. “I just grabbed whatever was in the snow and swung at whoever was dumb enough to get close.” Then, with a shrug and absolutely zero remorse, she added, “Well, think of it as payback for dragging us into the side of the Great War full of psychopaths.”

Rather than argue or give into the temptation of drop-kicking Lizzy back into the snow, Uzi grabbed the girl by the shoulders and forced her on her feet with absolutely zero gentleness. “If you’ve got enough energon to run your mouth, then you’ve got enough to walk.” 

Lizzy stumbled the moment she was forced to carry her own weight, her entire frame shuddered as the countless dents and scratches along her outer shell sent sharp pain through her systems. She clutched the severed arm in her off-hand and began to use it as a makeshift cane, just to keep herself upright. “Primus-shocking-damn it, Uzi—ow! Could you maybe not manhandle me like I’m a crate of spare parts?”

“Oh, quit being a protoform and help me with Doll.”

“Ugh, fiiiine.” Uzi was actually grateful that Lizzy didn’t make some awful pun about offering a hand. 

Together, they trudged toward Doll’s unconscious body. She had already been mangled before, but somehow, she looked even worse now—her frame was twisted in a way that made Uzi’s spark chamber feel uncomfortably. It was pure luck that she hadn’t lost a limb after tumbling across the snow earlier. 

Then again… there was still a chance that could happen. The moment they grabbed a hold of her, the true extent of the damage became painfully obvious. The plating groaned under their grip, soft metal was shifting in ways it absolutely shouldn’t. Uzi could feel it weakening beneath her fingers, every dent and gash a grim reminder of just how close her cousin was to losing her spark entirely. “Vector Sigma,” the short drone muttered through clenched teeth as she hoisted Doll’s legs while Lizzy took her arms. The unconscious bot’s head lolled against the latter's chest, her expression eerily serene—an almost cute look, if not for the sheer desperation of their situation. Uzi tried not to stare at the sight for too long, as it really wasn't helping the guilt she still felt. But when she caught her own reflection in Doll’s cracked visor—she froze. Hadn’t that thing been completely shattered earlier?

A throb pulsed through her head, and a flicker of distortion crawled across her vision. Another warning—something about recognizing an unknown program again. There were lines of unreadable code scrolling in the periphery of her vision. Uzi shook it away as there would be time to run a self-diagnosis later. Right now, she just needed to focus on something else—anything else—so she looked at Lizzy and asked, "Why did you guys come back? I thought you were heading for the colony?”

"Yeah, well, that was the plan—until we got hounded by that psycho with the fork. We weren’t gonna make it. Our best shot was running back toward you and that Angel guy.” Lizzy paused for a moment to adjust her grip on Doll's arm while glancing around for the Autobot. “Where is that freak, anyway?”

“Don’t call him that.”

Lizzy scoffed. “What do you care what I call him—”

Then, there was an explosion. The blast was like a shockwave, sending snow and debris flying as a rusted-out vehicle barely twenty meters away was obliterated in a violent burst of flame. Standing atop the smoldering wreckage, silhouetted by the inferno, was N. His wings were spread wide, and his visor burned with an intensity that nearly rivaled the flames below. For a brief moment, he was still—a phantom against the firelight—before he lunged straight back into the melee. Bonesmasher barely had time to fire his oversized cannon again before N met him mid-charge, slamming into the Decepticon with brutal force.

Lizzy stared at the sight in shock, her jaw going slightly slack. It was a rare moment where she was completely at a loss for words. “His name is N.” Uzi’s voice barely registered as she spoke out, almost to herself. “He’s a friend.” 

The wording was enough to grab at Lizzy’s attention as she blinked, then slowly turned toward the smaller drone. “You have those?” She waited for the ‘Bite me’ to come back as a retort. When she got nothing but silence, Lizzy’s expression shifted slightly—just a hint of concern showing in her eyes. “Uh, hey. That was a jab at you having no friends, just so you know.” Still, Uzi didn’t respond. Her focus was entirely on N as he was putting up one hell of a fight. 

The Autobot was practically untouchable, he weaved through the storm of blaster fire from both Negatron and Bonesmasher with such skill that it almost looked practiced. He ducked low beneath a searing bolt, then twisted himself sideways past another, before finally launched himself across the snow. In less than a nano-click, he was face-to-face with Grindor, their weapons clashing in a burst of sparks—N’s blade versus the rotors of Grindor’s makeshift buzzsaw. 

Despite the size difference between the two drones, N was able to push back the taller Decepticon back with a surprising level of strength. He deflected the Grindor’s rotors, creating an opening for the sharp syringe-tip of his tail that was aimed straight for the ‘Con's other arm—but it wasn’t enough.

There was no denying that he was strong. He wasn’t just holding his own; he was thriving in the chaos of the fight, he was maneuvering and striking like a machine possessed. But every time N gained an edge in the fight, another Decepticon was there to tip the balance. It was still three against one.

Negatron’s oar not only blocked the stab from N's tail, but the tip of the syringe stuck within the wood-painted metal. N barely even had time to mutter something, before the brown armored drone would yank the oar back, dragging the tail and—by extension—pulling its owner off balance. That’s when Bonesmasher struck. He rushed forward like a wrecking ball, slamming his shoulder into right N’s chest with such force that the Autobot was lifted off his feet and hurled him backwards into the snow. Grindor's rotors spun back to full speed as he saw a opportunity, he moved forward with his blades aimed to carve the Angel of Death in half—only for N dodge out of the way, as in the split-second before impact came, he slid himself right between Grindor’s legs, missing the killing blow by a hair’s breadth. 

Before Negatron could react, N came at him, there was a flash of silver as his blade carved across the older drone's chest. Sparks burst from the impact—he left a mark, but the armor was too thick. That didn’t matter, as the Angel was still able to dodge and counter the swing from Bonesmasher’s mining arm in one fluid motion—using a wing to deflect the blow. He then raised his blade for another attack, but was forced to back away when Grindor charged in from the side to separate him from the group. 

If it were a fair fight—hell, even a two-on-one—N would’ve carved through them like a hot plasma torch through scrap. But this was anything but fair. As he vaulted backward to create some breathing room, Negatron's boot came crashing down on his tail. There was a hard tug, and once more, N lost his balance. In the blink of an optic, Bonesmasher lashed out again—his mining fork snagging N’s blade arm and yanking him with monstrous strength. There was a sickening snap. The tail tore in half under Negatron’s boot, and a violent splash of inner energon sprayed across the snow. The torn hydraulic lines writhed like severed nerves. Before N could even scream, he was hurled through the air and sent into the side of a building hard enough to leave a giant dent, the crunch of steel and shattering glass echoing down the block. Broken mirror panels and debris rained down around him in a glimmering cascade—but N didn't even acknowledge any of it as he threw himself back onto his feet before the last shard hit the ground and ran back into the fray.

He was losing. Anyone could see it, but he didn’t care. It obviously wasn't about winning for him and that seriously pissed Uzi off. “He’s the only reason we aren’t scrap right now. I should be helping him, but instead, I’m—” She let out a snarl of frustration that was fueled by her own self-annoyance. "Shock it!" Without even a hint of hesitation, she dropped Doll’s legs and began to run toward the fight.

Lizzy barely managed to keep her hold on Doll’s upper half at the sudden shift in weight. “What the hell are you doing?” she shouted, staggering as she fought to keep her balance, her frame screaming in protest from the effort. “Loser, get back here!”

Uzi didn't even spare her a glance as she moved herself forward, each rushed step sinking into the snow and slowing her down as she tried to ignore her own pains. Her right arm shifted with a mechanical grind, unfolding and locking into its cannon mode, followed by a click that echoed from within her frame—her safety was off. In an instant, electricity snapped to life across her frame in vibrant green arcs that crackled violently with power. 

Thad had just barely pulled himself upright. His whole frame was shaking like it could fall apart at any second. He tried to take his mind off of it by looking around—that is when he noticed the fight. Then he spotted Uzi marching headfirst toward it, arm-cannon raised up as she was trying to find a clear target. As quickly as he could, he moved to stop her. Although with both of them limping, it was not much of a chase—especially when Uzi began to bark orders at him. "Thad! Transform, then get Lizzy and Doll to the Colony. Don’t stop, don’t slow down, just go!”

“You gotta be…” He fell into a coughing fit as his voice was still filled with static. “No! Uzi, we're not leaving you behind again! You're almost as badly hurt as we are—”

“Ugh!” Uzi spun herself around to face him, her optics bright with frustration. “Oh, my Primus, we don’t have time for this!” The arm cannon at her side hissed with building energy as she stepped toward him—close enough now that their height difference barely mattered with how poorly he was standing. “I’m staying. I’m helping N. And if you don’t like that, then you can just bite—”

Just then, the ground beneath their feet exploded. There was a deafening boom that split the air as snow and shrapnel erupted skyward in a blinding whiteout that swallowed everything whole. Then—something hit Uzi. Hard.

She felt the air leave her internal vents the moment the force slammed into her chest like a shot from a tank. One instant she was shouting—the next, she was airborne, spinning backward through the snow. The world turned to white, then black, and then—Pincers. Massive ones. They clamped down on her shoulders like a vice, ripping her out of the air and slamming her bodily into the frozen street. Her back hit the metal with a servo-rattling crash, the impact rippling through her entire frame. Pain lanced through her core, sharp and immediate. Her inner workings glitched violently—unknown symbols and warnings flashed red across her optics.

She barely had time to process the monstrosity that hovered over her. It was the same Insecticon that had ambushed N. Its massive frame was all jagged armor and twitching limbs, the mandibles were clicking with maddening anticipation. A chorus of tiny insectoid shrieks buzzed from its mouth as it leaned closer, with multi-faceted optics that were each filled with anger. If Uzi were to guess why, she would say it was probably pissed at her for kicking it earlier.

“Oh, slag!” Not being able to properly think at the moment, Uzi tried to wrangle herself free from underneath the creature, to give herself a chance to shoot the overgrown bug with her arm-cannon—but she was pinned. The creature’s barbed legs had buried themselves into the ground, anchoring itself as it pressed down on her with its heavier weight. No matter how hard she tried, Uzi couldn’t so much as budge her cannon into any position to actually aim at the thing. 

This caused more panic to flare within her circuits. Her optics flicked upward—just in time to see the Insecticon’s tail coil back. With a sickening snap, it lunged the stringer downward. Uzi was barely able to twist head aside in the nick of time, the tail slamming into the metal just inches from her face. A toxic hiss filled the air as the venom-laced tip burned through the street like acid, a line of steam curling upward from the melting metal.

“Vector Sigma!” Uzi yelled, as she struggled harder against her restraints, pulling herself hard enough that she was threatening to disconnect her own limbs if it meant a chance at freedom. All while the Insecticon screeched, its mandibles snapping in frustration as it yanked its tail free, preparing for another plunge—only for Thad to come roaring in from the side. “Get off my friend, you shock!” He tackled the tail with everything he had, catching it mid-lunge, and wrenching it back with all his might to keep it away from Uzi. The Insecticon thrashed in a fury, it was trying to shake him off, but Thad held on with a death grip, his already damaged arms straining even further with the effort. Sparks burst from nearly broken joints, and plating was literally peeling away due to the sheer force of the struggle against the Insecticon’s superior strength. But even as his arms burned from within like he had never felt before, even as his frame gave deep groans of imminent failure and warnings were flooding his visor again, Thad refused to let go. “Uzi!” he howled through gritted teeth, “For Primus’s sake—shoot the damn thing!”

“You think I am trying to make friends with it?” Uzi snapped back.

“I wouldn't mind if that was also an option!” The scorpion began to violently buckle and writhed in an attempt to dislodge the battered drone clinging to its tail. Which meant—for just a moment—it wasn’t fully focused on Uzi. She took that as her opening.

With a desperate scream, Uzi threw her head back—then snapped it forward with every ounce of internal power she could muster, slamming her visor straight into the Insecticon’s multi-eyed face. The blow was strong enough to force the creature back, it let out a shriek of pain so high-pitched it bordered on being inaudible. She could feel its grip on her loosen, just slightly, but not nearly enough. As much as Uzi tried to force her arm-cannon up, to wedge it beneath the scorpion’s massive frame, she needed more room, just a little more leverage—

“Primus shocking damn it, Uzi!” Lizzy suddenly came into view, “You know I fragging hate bugs!” In one fluid motion, she raised the severed arm she’d wielded earlier—the very same one she had slapped Uzi with—and she plunged its jagged, broken end straight into the Insecticon’s shoulder joint. The improvised weapon pierced through the carapace-like armor of the scorpion with a sickening crunch. Thick black energon burst from the wound in a pressurized spray, painting Lizzy’s arm and the snow in greasy, steaming gore. The creature screeched, a horrid sound that echoed off the frozen buildings. Its body recoiled in agony, mandibles snapping and limbs flailing as its hold on the ground finally broke.

That was all Uzi needed. She was able to wedge her arm-cannon directly between the armor plates of the creature’s vulnerable underbelly. She wanted to give a badass one-liner, or say something witty. Instead she just screamed out, “Shock you” at the absolute height of her vocal components while she pulled her internal trigger. 

The plasma discharge she fired erupted with a deafening boom . For a fraction of a second, the Insecticon froze. Its limbs began to lock up mid-twitch, and its entire grotesque body seizing up violently—then it detonated. Green light tore into the Insecticon’s undercarriage, it was a single shot that burned through armor, circuits, and anything resembling an internal structure leaving nothing but a spectacular eruption of shrapnel and scorched energon. Jagged plating and biomechal viscera were flung skyward like the universe itself had hit ‘Delete.’ Nothing truly remained except for scorch marks in the snow and the lingering stench of burning metal. Well, one piece managed to survive mostly intact. 

Thad, who had been flung back by the concussive blast and was keeping his eyes closed as he expected the worse the entire time he wrestled with the tail, began to slowly open his optics. He half-expected to find himself in pieces. Instead, he found his arms still locked around something heavy and twitching. It was the Insecticon’s tail, or rather, what was left of it. The appendage was reduced to a smoldering wreck that hung over his shoulder. 

“…Holy slag.” His eyes grew wide as he inspected the limb, turning it over like it was some kind of trophy. “That's so Prime!” Without missing a beat, he hefted the thing toward Lizzy, who was still gripping the mangled arm she'd just used to stab a vehicle-sized bug. He smiled as he made his offer, “Upgrade?”

Lizzy let out a wheezing laugh that was very much unlike her usual self. “You’re an absolute dork.” She tossed the arm aside, and turned her gaze toward Uzi—who was slowly dragging herself back up from the ground. A grimace had crossed her face; she realized she was covered in inner energon. The black substance had splattered across her face, her hoodie, and even her cannon arm—every inch of her dripped with it in heavy, black globs. It oozed from her limbs in thick, wet splats, staining the snow beneath her while leaving behind a near-perfect silhouette of white where she’d been moments ago.

Somehow, that just made Lizzy laugh harder. “Well, look on the bright side,” she said through barely contained giggles, “you were already in desperate need of a wardrobe change.”

“Bite. Me.” Uzi made sure to stress her words out—before flipping Lizzy the one-finger salute with her normal hand.

Thad quickly stepped between the two before another round of insults could fly. “Hold on, where’s Doll?” Though every word that came out of him was distorted like a damaged radio transmission—it didn’t matter. The moment he said their Endrua’s name, Lizzy’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Oh, scrap.” Spinning on her heel, she bolted toward the unconscious drone, who was lying awkwardly in the snow, limbs sprawled in a position that could only be described as comically disrespectful. It was glaringly obvious she'd been unceremoniously dumped when Lizzy ran off to help the others.

Thad winced as he followed behind Lizzy, and saw the state of the favorite Russian speaking drone. “...She is going to be so mad at us when she wakes up.”

Lizzy waved a half-heartedly dismissive hand with a surprisingly weak amount of confidence. “Eh, it’s not that bad. I think she’ll understand.” They locked eyes for a moment, and collectively knew that Doll would absolutely understand… and not care. She'd been tossed, dropped, dragged, and dropped again in a single hour—context be damned, she is not gonna be happy with either of them. “Well, at least it'll be hot when she yells at us for her mistreatment. And look, if we can go five minutes without anything else trying to kill us, I call that a wi—” Lizzy’s didn’t even finish the sentence before a furious roar shattered the calm that they had.

“They killed Pincher!”

One of Lizzy’s eyes twitched. “—That wasn’t even twenty seconds.” All three of the colony drones turned toward the source of the shout. To absolutely no one’s surprise, Bonesmasher was already barreling straight for them, his massive frame kicking up snow in his wake. His plasma cannon was already charging, the core inside glowing an angry white-hot, like a mini sun ready to vaporize whatever was in its path.

While Thad and Lizzy flinched at the sight of the weapon, Uzi had raised her arm-cannon on instinct, snapping it up into firing position as her stance shifted into a defiant brace. She knew she couldn’t dodge the Decepticon cannon shot. None of them could. But if they were going out, she wanted to go out on her own terms. But before she could pull her trigger again, a blur of black and silver crashed into Bonesmasher's side, sending both of them tumbling through the snow in a chaotic whirlwind of metal and sparks.

Uzi recognized it as N immediately. She watched as the Angel and the brute were violently scrambling for dominance in a mess of claws and blade. When they both regained their footing, Bonesmasher was the first to lash out—he tried to throw a kick aimed straight at N’s midsection, only for the Angel to not only catch the limb but yanked it toward himself, giving him a chance to smash his elbow directly into the side of the knee-joint. A hideous crack echoed across the battlefield as sparks erupted from Bonesmasher’s leg, the brute roaring in agony as he collapsed. But N didn't stop his assault as he lunged himself forward, ramming his own knee straight into Bonesmasher’s already cracked visor, leaving a spiderweb of cracks so deep that it was impossible to make out the Decepticons' eyes. 

Negatron had then appeared from behind the pair, and he saw his chance—he rushed forward and raised his blaster, jamming the barrel right up against N's head. He was too slow though, the Angel was able to twist himself out of the way, a beam of raw plasma whizzing just past his cheek. Before Negatron could adjust his aim, N’s hand shot out and clamped around his throat. He lifted the older drone up in the air and smashed him directly into Bonesmasher’s staggering form at full force. The two Decepticons collapsed in a mangled heap of twisted limbs and leaking energon. 

Uzi’s optics locked onto Grindor, who was already surging forward in a rush to aid his fallen teammates. Every part of her frame screamed at her to do the same for N, to charge in and fight alongside him. Her arm-cannon whirred to life, power surged within as it prepared to fire—but then she heard it. A struggling mechanical whine that sounded like a glitching T-Cog trying to sync with its main function, only…it couldn't. 

She looked toward the others, and saw the sound had come from Thad. His transformation cycle had failed. The shell of his alt. mode had jammed, misfolded plates had twisted across his frame, leaving him stuck in a grotesque, half-shifted state. Metal warped and groaned as his body tried—and failed—to complete the cycle. The result was a violent, pulsing mess of glitching servos and shifting panels, like his own frame was trying to crush itself. “S–Shock, this hurts! Oh Primus!” Thad's voice cracked beneath the grinding of his own parts, he was barely even audible. 

"Thad!" Lizzy was already at his side, and had both hands gripping a chunk of half-folded plating. She was trying to manually force it into place. But she wasn’t strong enough to do it on her own. "Ern—it's stuck!”

Uzi felt conflicted as gaze flicked—just for a moment—toward the battlefield again. Toward N as he was still outnumbered. Still fighting. Still alone. Then she heard Thad scream. Another failed transformation attempt sent him convulsing, as his mass  began to jerk erratically and a sickening pop echoed from within his being as something clearly broke off. Lizzy gritted her teeth, throwing more of her weight against the shifting plates, but nothing came of it. "Holy shock, this shocking hurts!" Thad rasped, his messy voice laced with agony. “Shock! Shock! Shoock!”

“I'm trying, Thad!” Lizzy shouted back, desperation showing in her voice. Her pink eyes were filled with fear and worry for her Endura as she tried to help him. "Primus’ sake, why won’t this connect?”

Uzi’s single hand balled into fist and she muttered a bitter, “Damn it,” before she forced herself to turn away from the fight and ran toward Thad’s side. She transformed her arm-cannon away and dropped to her knees, before slamming her hands against his trembling plating. “Come on,” she grunted. “We have to hurry!”

“You think I’m trying to take my time fondling him?” Lizzy snapped back, Her eyes were locked on the misaligned parts as she braced for another shove. “Not exactly my idea of a date!” The two girls shoved together and were able to force a single plate into position with a loud snap —the process of connection was loud and jarring, but solid. One section down. At least fifty more to go.

And the entire time they went to work, Uzi tried to her best to ignore the sounds of the fighting, the screams, and the fact that her friend might be getting killed. 

Chapter Text

“You guys seriously need to ease up a little,” N stepped back as he held his blade in a defensive stance. His internal vents pulling in heavy breaths—an oddity—one he never fully understood about their race. Drones didn't need to breathe, and yet when exhaustion sank deep into their frame or when that creeping sensation of fear dug into their processors, their systems always defaulted to gasping for some odd reason. Why was that…

Oh, what did it matter? The result was the same regardless of cause. Especially as fatigue had crept into his frame, making his movements feel heavier and sluggish. Worst of all, he was beginning to get sloppy.

Primus, was he also hungry. His fangs ached, a deep, gnawing pain that coiled through his systems the more he denied himself. He had been pushing his hunger down, forcing himself to ignore it, but the battlefield was drenched in the scent of inner energon due to how injured everyone was. It clung to the air, metallic and rich, an intoxicating aroma. Something so warm, so sweet. 

…When was the last time he properly fed? A few days at the least. He had planned to share a whole meal with V, for both of their sakes. But that had gone about as well as this fight was going, “Just stay down, and I promise—ah!” 

The Autobot yelped in surprise as Grindor lunged at him from the corner of his vision. On instinct, N threw himself backward—just in time to avoid the whirring blur of stainless steel that sliced through the air inches from his visor. A near-miss could have ended badly for N but instead had it worked to his favor, as he accidentally hooked his leg around Grindor’s ankle and tripped the heavily armored Decepticon, causing the taller drone to stumble as his momentum carried him forward, to the point of nearly falling over onto his comrades. 

The act was so smoothly done that N knew if he wanted to, he could immediately capitalize on it. One precise strike, and Grindor would be nothing more than a twitching wreck on the floor. He could do the same to the other Decepticons. Dismantle them, piece by piece, just as they would have done to him a thousand times over. It would be so easy to simply just kill them, and yet…N didn't. 

Instead, his blade slashed across Grindor’s exposed back, cutting through several rear rotors and utterly crippling vital components of the ‘Con’s alt. mode. It wasn’t enough to be fatal, but was enough to send Grindor crashing to his knees, howling in pain.

That was good enough for the N as he wanted to hold himself back from hurting them too badly. Not because they didn’t deserve it—they did. They had attacked Uzi and her classmates and had ignored the enforcement of the Tyrest Accord. That alone was more than enough proof for him to realize that they were dangerous, that they were enemies of the Autobot cause and nothing more. They were the kind of drones he had murder thousands of times over. That he had literally helped build a spire of corpses out of. So, why would he ever stop the killing, especially when he did enjoy doing it on some level—

“The same kind of drone that slaughtered Doll’s parents right in front of her, the same kind of drone that murdered my mom.” 

—because he had to.

Despite every violent, horrid impulse scratching at the edges of his mind—N knew that these drones weren’t attacking him for some great war effort, nor were they targeting him because of some grand Autobot-Decepticon ideology. This was just a personal grudge, and one that N couldn't even blame them for having. They were angry and vengeful because he had killed one of their own, a teammate and a family member. They were…grieving.

How could he so readily butcher them for that when he had just befriended a Decepticon he had very nearly, or maybe already had, done the same thing to! Sure, these ‘Cons were jerks, there was no denying that. They were a bunch of cruel, ruthless, dirty fighting, violent bullies—just like every other Decepticon he had encountered throughout the Great War. But, Uzi…

Uzi was different. N had felt the warmth of her small hands in his. Watched the way her optics lit up when she smiled. Heard her groan after she accidentally made a pun. She was more than different, she was his friend. They had made peace with each other and as ridiculous as it sounded, N didn’t want to taint that memory with murder anytime soon. So, he fought with a handicap. Every time he saw an opening that could’ve ended in a perfect killing blow—he ignored it. He chose to only disable the Decepticons, to beat them till they either surrendered or were put into stasis-lock. Whichever came first.

He was being honest with Uzi when he had told her he didn't want to hurt people, anymore. If he wanted that confession to hold any weight, if he wanted to end the cycle of violence and have a chance for something better, then—he—had to be better. Optimus would want him to be better. 

Primus knows that wasn't gonna be easy. The Decepticons weren’t holding back like he was. They fought to kill him with everything they had and it was starting to get on N’s nerves. He knew that if he took out the squad leader, the others would follow. But Grindor wasn't giving him an inch. The older drone simply refused to stay down, and N had no one to blame but himself as he wanted to make the Decepticon angry with that ‘your brother tasted delicious’ comment. Well, it worked. The problem was that it worked too well.

But, N knew that it would all be worth it. Because when he wins, he’ll be able to call in his own squad. Sure, V will be furious that he hadn’t called her sooner and J will also be mad because he didn't meet his murder quota for the week—but none of that mattered. Not really. Because he could introduce them to Uzi. Show them what one meaningful interaction could mean for the war, and—

“Shoooock!”

N was pulled out of his thoughts by a sudden scream. Not from any of the Decepticons he had been fighting, but from further away, toward the sidelines of the battlefield. He turned his head and spotted the pickup truck that Bonesmasher had hurled through the air earlier. If he remembered correctly, it was Thad. Though it seemed that the boy's alt. mode was made into a complete mess. From its warped wheels, to its shattered windows, the vehicle was damaged in all manner of ways. The most noticeable being the massive impact creator that took up a large chuck of its right side. Vector Sigma, one of its doors was torn clean off.

That at least explained the scream. N knew from personal experience that missing parts didn’t just make transformation difficult—it made it torturous. Limbs had locked up mid-shift, joints twisted the wrong way, and the outer shell grinded against itself as the frame bent in ways it was never meant to, all in a desperate attempt to compensate for what was missing. It wasn’t just a painful process, it was an excruciating one. But at least it seemed that it was nearly done for Thad, even if the truck was obviously struggling to keep its engine on. 

N also saw Lizzy as she was pulling Doll’s body into the vehicle's broken cabin. She moved with the kind of desperation that only came with knowing that she had to hurry. With hands shaking and a face tight with urgency, she shoved the unconscious drone into a seat and began securing her as best she could—yanking a barely-working seatbelt over her Endura's frame as if it would somehow be enough to keep the already damaged girl safe. This sight should have been a relief for N, as this meant the Colony Drones were close to getting away from harm. But what made him feel as if a hand had suddenly gripped onto his bare spark and squeezed was Uzi. He saw her as she was working to force more pieces of Thad's alt. mode into place, all while she was covered in energon-blood. 

The oil-like substance stained her clothes in streaks of deep, glistening black. It dripped against the snow, a perfect contrast against the cold white that blanketed the ruined streets. 

Seeing her like this, caused his mind to spiral. Was she hurt? Had a Decepticon gotten to her while he was distracted? That Insecticon—the one that bit him—where was it now? Had it gone after her? After the others? Was it still lurking underground, or had it already struck again?

N was so consumed by the sight of his new friend that he didn’t even realize he was moving—his body had stepped forward before his mind caught up. It was a single, split-second distraction and that was all the Decepticons needed. 

Once again, he is reminded of the saying: ‘You don’t hear the one that gets you.’ Because N swore he didn't even hear a thing before a searing bolt of plasma slammed into the side of his abdomen, tearing through his plating and burning deep into his inner workings. The force of the shot was enough to knock the wind from his internal vents, his body jolted as a warning flashed across his visor and smoke from burning energon leaked from his mouth. 

“Biscuits!” A harsh whisper hissed through N's mouth as he stumbled back, holding his free hand over the burning wound. It was healing, but not fast enough. He saw the ‘Cons as were picking themselves up from the ground, with Negatron attempting to shoot at him again with his blaster. N was quicker on the draw, slicing through the barrel of the weapon with his blade before another shot could be fired—but that left him open for Bonesmasher to rush him, wielding his plasma cannon held high like a crude club.

N knew he wouldn't be able to dodge the attack as the Decepticon enforcer was much too close. So instead, he shifted his weight forward and drove his blade-arm in an upward arc. He caught Bonesmasher across the chest and gouged a deep, jagged line up to the Decepticon’s face. He didn’t need to look to know he’d cut deep; the way the older drone was staggering back with inner energon spraying like black fireworks, said enough.

But N had no time to savor the damage he did because in the same motion of his strike Negatron had thrown himself forward, swinging his oar like it was a war hammer. Reinforced alloy met tempered glass, and N's vision began to flicker violently as half his world blacked out in an instant, his visor creaked. Again, he was forced to take a few steps back and as he tried to regain his footing a hand seized him by the back of the head, its fingers coiled tightly around the strains of his hair. “Got you now, monster.” Grindor’s voice growled against his audio receptor, and N's eyes turned wide as he saw the spinning rotors being brought to his side.

Try as he might, N couldn’t hold back the scream that followed. His vocal components were strained past their limits as the high-speed rotors tore into his body, slicing through his outer shell like wet paper, shearing wire fibers, and pulverizing servos. Energon sprayed outward in a grotesque, searing mist that hissed against the snow and scorched the air. 

His neural interface screamed with error messages. From corrupted signals, to collapsing motor functions, system failure warnings flooded N’s visor, blinding his already nearly black-out vision. But he was still able to force himself free as with a desperate heave he threw his wings out from his back, the bladed feathers slashing across Grindor’s chest and arm. It was just enough to make the Decepticon lose his grip, and for N to throw himself forward…only to be met with another swing of Negatron’s oar across his face.

The blow sent the Autobot spinning, he was so disoriented that he couldn't even think of recovering before the oar came crashing down again, and again over him. “Ha! He’s not so tough!” the Con taunted, raising the oar high for a final blow. This time, he aimed it directly at N’s face, ready to drive it straight through his internal systems—which N was actually thankful for, because that gave him a chance to react.

The Angel swung his blade and steel screamed as he caught the strike of the oar, sending it flying right out of Negatron’s hand. “I’m tough enough.” N countered, as he tried to slash at the wide eye and frighten bot, only for him to feel a hand grab at the back of his coat, and hurl him through the air. For one, fleeting second, N felt weightless. Then—Boom. Bonesmasher had slammed him into the street with sheer iron-breaking force, the metal denting beneath him as snow and asphalt burst outward in a cloud of debris.

N didn’t even have a moment to process the pain before he felt the cold, pressing sensation of something heavy against his side. He caught only the briefest glimpse of the plasma cannon before it fired, point-blank, against his chest. In an instant, blinding white-hot plasma consumed the Angel's vision. The explosion didn’t roar—it folded in on itself, a sound so intense it ceased to be sound at all. N felt himself lifted off the ground, flung like a pebble caught within a storm. He clenched his teeth as his frame slammed and skipped across the snow in a mangled, sparking tumble. He desperately tried to catch himself, to somehow regain his balance in mid-air with his wings so he could return to the fight, but his movement was only stopped when his body collided—spinal structure first—against an old light post. The metal shrieked under the impact, then collapsed over him with a resounding crash.

…And only then did the pain finally register. Though surprisingly it wasn't nearly as much as he had thought it would be. Oh, sure, he was still very much damaged. There was a hole in his chest the size of his own fist. That, paired with the large gash across his side from nearly being cleaved in two and the partly crushed-in visor, full of fractures and impact marks, there was a lot to take in. Too much, really. So much that, ironically, he didn’t feel anything at all.

His body had simply stopped responding. It had locked down and disconnected itself from his own commands. A safety precaution, set up during the height of the Great War, something that would keep him conscious even if his body gave out and while it wasn’t entirely in stasis-lock, it was close. Not at all helped by the fact that his vision was swallowed by a swarm of critical errors from within his system. It was a sea of red that blinked and flashed across his consciousness—suffocating what little of his senses remained intact. “Oh, come on. I’ve had worse,” he groaned, mostly out of habit, as he tried to pull himself out from underneath the light post, only to find that his limbs felt much heavier than usual. To the point that he could only barely move them. “Ah, bones.”

Much as he didn't want to admit it, N realized that he was too badly damaged. He needed time to get restructured, to allow his self-repair function to do its job. But that was the problem. It was working, it was just doing so slowly. His systems were overclocked due to how damaged he was and it was scrambling to fix it all at once. Meaning that his repairs were lagging, faltering under the strain. Worse—he was starting to overheat.

That's not good. That's very not good.

As if to punctuate just how utterly slagged everything had become—he heard Grindor’s voice. “Aww, what’s wrong, Autobot?” N groaned under his breath as fingers curled into his coat and effortlessly dragged him from beneath the collapsed light post. His feet were dragged through the snow before he was hurled upward and shaken—like a broken toy being tested to see if anything inside still worked.

Something thankfully did, as N’s vision finally began to clear. The blaring warnings across his internal workings started to blink out, one by one. Hairline fractures within his visor were slowly knit themselves back into place, allowing him to once again see Grindor’s sneering face. “Come on,” the Decepticon taunted. “Got nothing to say, I thought you were an Angel of Death?”

Despite how wrecked he felt, despite every nerve in his body sparking in protest—N couldn’t help but finally admit to something he’d wanted to get off his chest for years. “I... really, really don’t like that title,” he muttered. “It’s so edgy.”

Grindor laughed as he shook N’s mangled frame again. “Isn’t that rich? Hey, did you hear? The Angel doesn’t like his name!” Bonesmasher and Negatron stepped forward, flanking their leader like vultures closing in on a dying spark. Both stared at N with red optics full of bloodlust.

“I don’t give a slag what he likes!” Bonesmasher growled, his face obscured behind a cracked, flickering visor that sparked with every twitch. “Just rip his damn head off and be done with it!”

“That’d be too nice,” Negatron muttered, his tone almost sounding whiny. “We could haul him back to Kaon, let Shockwave dissect him piece by piece.”

“No.” Grindor looked back toward N’s ruined face. “He dies here.” He leaned himself closer to the Autobot’s face, his sneer widening into something animalistic. “You still think my brother tasted delicious, monster?”

Knowing he had nothing to lose by being a little honest, N said, “Not really, he was… really sour. In a bad way. I ended up spitting a lot of him out on a girl I liked. Ruined our date so, I guess he got the last laugh there. Heh.” There was a lot of satisfaction in seeing the glee in Grindor’s expression be replaced with just sheer fresh hatred. “V liked him though. Said it was like eating fast food. Something you really shouldn't be eating, because it was such poor quality, but—”

“Shut the hell up!” Grindor threw his right arm back and commanded the rotor blades to spin to life once more, the machinery giving a high-pitched whir meant for a killing crescendo. Unfortunately for him, that was what N was waiting for as his tail was the first thing to be healed, having grown back into place moments after it had been ripped off. The Angel had kept it hidden by coiling it against his back, and hiding it within his coat. The instant Grindor committed to the strike, the appendage lashed out and this time it found its target. The syringe-like tip drove deep into Grindor’s exposed forearm, right at the vulnerable joint where armor met soft metal.

N gave out a quiet “boop” as a surge of nanite acid was injected from the tail’s tip and straight into Grindor’s internal systems. The reaction was instant, the Decepticon screamed as he flung N aside and clutched at his arm, which now began to violently spasm out of control. Thick, yellow fluid gushed from the joint, sizzling on impact with the snow and carving steaming craters into the ground. It was followed by droplets of semi-liquefied metal that dripped from between his fingers—almost like tears. The acid spread, it was corroding delicate inner workings deep within the limb and there was nothing Grindor could do about it. “No! No, no, Monster! You damn monster!”

Despite being tossed aside so suddenly, N not only landed back on his feet but was able to prepare himself to go back into the fight, as more of his body was healing. Dents and scratches were fading, his visor was already fixed, and he was still very much armed with his blade, as he held it out toward the three ‘Cons. “I know I’m a monster, but I am trying to be better.” He wasn’t fully healed—there was certainly still a lot of damage across his frame—but he stood strong and ready. Something none of the Decepticons were ready for, as he could see fear flicker across each of their faces. “Last chance, and this time I mean it. Stand dow—”

It all happened so fast. 

One moment, Bonesmasher and Negatron were standing behind Grindor. The next they were gone. Not because they ran but because a battered pickup truck had slammed into them at top speed. They didn’t even have time to react as they were scooped up by the grill and dragged across the frozen street in a flailing tangle of limbs and sparks.

At that exact moment it happened, Uzi had launched herself from the doorless side of the truck screaming like a war cry given form. She fell on Grindor like a meteor, with something clutched in both hands, which she had brought down on his shoulder with a sickening crunch—N's eyes widened to max setting as he realized it was the tail from the Insecticon that had attacked him earlier!

The entire interaction happened in less than a second, and the Autobot could only blink in amazement as he saw Grindor trying to dislodge the short drone from his back, while she held on for dear life, clinging to the jagged mess of an armor he wore. N noticed that her right arm was shifting, and green sparks arched across her frame. She was trying to aim an arm-cannon to the back of Grindor’s head—only for the older drone to grab at the weapon by it's barrel, “Get off of me, you little glitch!” he roared with both pain and hate as he hurled Uzi down at full force, intending for her to slam across the ground. 

There was a blur of silver, as N's wings had sprung out and he dove forward. Before he even realized what was happening, he had not only caught Uzi but had twisted himself around to shield her body with his own as they skidded across the frozen metal street in a blur of snow and sparks. When their momentum finally ceased and the world stopped spinning, Uzi slowly opened her eyes. She quickly found herself being held—two strong arms were wrapped tightly around her smaller frame. Encasing them both was a pair of metal wings, curled protectively around her like a cocoon. The outside world was shut away, leaving them in a dim, quiet space lit only by the glow of her visor... and N's.

“Are you okay?” With a mix of dawning horror and overwhelming warmth, Uzi realized she was really close with the Autobot. His face hovered just inches from her own, and even though there were scratches across his visor, she could see the soft glow of his optics. The weirdly gentle concern within them. Primus help her, he even smelled nice too.

Nope. Nope. Nope nope nope—

“Am—I—okay?!” she stammered, voice kicking up to full octave as she placed her arms against his wings and shove, releasing the two back out into the cold night air with Uzi deeply pretending that she didn’t immediately miss the warmth he gave.

As N’s wings unfurled, she scrambled upright with an exaggerated flail of limbs. A heavy blush flickered to life across her visor—an infuriatingly visible purple pulse of embarrassment. She hated it. She hated that it existed and she could not wait to delete that program the second this was over. “I swear I only thought this kind of scrap only happens in anime.”

While it was very cute to see her act in such a way, N couldn’t help but feel worried as he saw the newly made cuts had covered his friend's arms, as if she had been pinned down by something insectoid. He was easily able to figure out what happened, Uzi and her friends had somehow killed the insecticon that was with the ‘Cons. Doing so while each of them were already injured, all because of what he had done. “It’s my fault,” Uzi turned to him the moment he spoke, with a brow raised in confusion. “I should have known that maybe a Insecticon was in the compartment of the dropship, they usually love to hide in those kind of places, and when I shot it down it must have—”

“Oh, for Primus's sake, N. Spare me the bleeding spark, it’s not your fault.” She rolled her eyes at such an idea, but also paused for a few seconds, as if to reconsider the entire thing. “Okay, like, technically it is kind of your fault,” she admitted while wincing a little, but she was also quick to dismiss it. “But that doesn't matter. You didn’t sic the damn thing on us, and—oh, whatever! Look, just seriously asking here, are you okay?”

N was taken aback by the question, and only became more surprised as Uzi moved back toward him, her eyes trailing across the damage of his frame—especially toward the gash along his side and the hole within his chest that was a little too close to his spark chamber. Instinctively, N tried to hide them by moving his coat, blocking them from view as he didn't want to worry her. “I'm okay,” he said, when he saw the fear in her hollowed eyes—the worry—he felt his throat tighten. “I promise, I’m okay.” 

“For some reason I don’t believe you.” Uzi closed her eyes and took a breath. “I'm sorry I didn't run in sooner. Thad really needed me and Lizzy to help him, but I still saw what Grindor did to you,” She held out her left hand, and slowly reached toward the hole on his chest. “I basically had to stomp on Thad’s gas pedal to get him to move. Lizzy wanted us to run but…I didn’t want to…” Her voice trailed off, and something in N's core began to hurt as he saw just how she was acting. 

He didn't know why, but he felt an urge to tell her everything would be okay, that things would get better. But when he whispered her name, something steeled in Uzi's expression. She yanked her hand back and—without warning—started unzipping her hoodie.

Which was not something N was expecting. “Wait, Uzi, what are you doing?” She didn’t respond right away, as she pulled at the energon-blood stained cloth, revealing the pale lavender tank top she wore underneath. He panicked as he got to see more of her soft metal, her bare shoulders, her collar joints, some old stains of where she was clearly working on something mechanical a while ago. That combined with the shorts that she was wearing that hugged her hips in a certain way…

Nope. Nope. Nope nope nope—

“Uzi!” the Angel stammered as he quickly shields his face with both his hands. “I'm not ready for this level of friendship!” He was trying his best to be respectful, to keep his eyes away from her form, but when he felt the cloth press against the hole in his chest, he jumped as a shot of pain leaped through his circuits.

“Shut up and just put pressure where it hurts!” Uzi barked, grabbing one of his hands and placing it over the hoodie, which she was using to keep pressure on the wound. “You lost too much energon-blood as it is, so just hold your hand over this, until we can get to my colony and I can stuff you in a CR chamber.”

N tried to speak up, only for her to suddenly punch him in the shoulder with her arm-cannon. “Then, I can beat you up for jumping in and deciding to fight three other drones by yourself, when I could have obviously helped, you stupid Autobot! Do you have any idea how scary it was when I heard you scream and saw you were getting freaking bisected?”

“It isn't so bad, I mean I've been through worse—”

“How is that comforting?” Uzi leaned close to his face, but no longer was she at all flustered. Now, she just looked utterly pissed off. “You're supposed to be giving your message out to more bots, well, you can’t do that when you're dead! So do us both a favor and stay alive! Got it?”

Almost dumbfoundedly, N found himself nodding to her command, all while a sense of warmth spread out from within his spark chamber. He tried to chuck it up to her just being nice to him, and that she smelled of inner energon. Also in that she was really cool in how she attacked Grindor. There was also how she was very cute with how she tried to act tough, also her soft small hands, and… Weird. He only ever had these rambling thoughts whenever he was with V. Why is his visor telling him that he was running clueless_idiot.exe?

“Autobot!” The two young Drones turned toward the noise, and saw Grindor as he was stumbling toward them, having just ripped the severed tail from his shoulder, though the act seemed to have caused him great pain, as his knees visibly shook. The reason why was obvious, as green ichor hissed around the plating of his stab wound, just like the yellow fluid that burned from within his right arm. 

But, Grindor seemed to fight through the pain as he held the stinger in a tight grip. “You…bastards, you killed my pet!” His red optics flared with rage as his rotors blades spun to life again with a violent whirr. Though before he could even attempt to rush forward toward the pair, a massive green energy blast struck him directly in the chest. The impact sent him flying across the street, his heavy frame carving a deep trench through the snow, as he crashed against the wall of a nearby building. The front of his thick armor was left as a warped, utterly misshapenned ripped open mess. As if he was shot with a tank shell that nearly barrelled through his body.

Just as it was when she shot Overlord in the face with her arm-cannon, the recoil of her own weapon caused Uzi to get flung back. Though instead of falling backwards into the snow, N had caught her in her arms for the second time in a row. Much to Uzi's annoyance.

“Stop doing that!” She yelped, as once more a blush rushed across her visor. After pulling herself away, she had turned to face the Angel and was ready to shout out something else—only for him to offer her back her hoodie. “N, I told you to keep pressure on the…the…” Uzi blinked her eyes as she looked toward the hole in the front of N’s coat, where moments ago she was able to see his inner workings because he had literally just been blasted by a direct shot of a plasma cannon, now she could only see the smooth exterior of his outer shell. “When did you…how…” 

“Well, I’m made of sterner stuff too.” N replied while giving her a wink. “Me and my squad can heal from massive injuries, unlike other bots. Really all I needed was about a minute to get back to tip-top shape. But, thanks for the offer of taking me to a CR chamber. I've actually never been in one.” Uzi continued to stare at N in disbelief. She looked over at his injuries, which she had just seen seconds ago were raw and in need of immediate attention. But now they were just either minor or nonexistent.

She watched as the scratches on his visor were fading and as the gash at his side was being reduced to a small cut. Hell, the hole that was in his chest was a dent now and even that was buffing itself out. It was so unnatural, yet Uzi couldn’t let herself look away from it. “I heard the stories of Angels being able to heal but…well, I thought it was just a load of scrap.” She shook her head, and quickly grabbed at her hoodie. After she dressed herself, she seemed to pause for a moment as if to recall something. “Actually, I think I saw something like this in Kaon. You know anyone named Bombshell—”

“Uzi, Angel guy! Heeelp!” Hearing Thad's voice, the conversation was cut short as both Uzi and N saw the battered pickup truck plowing through the snow toward them. Their eyes turned wide and hollow as they saw that Bonesmasher was clambering over the hood of the vehicle like some kind of industrial predator, his mining fork was tearing jagged scars through the roof of the cabin. Sparks flew with every swipe, Thad screamed as he was being ripped apart.

Inside, Lizzy was crouched low behind the fractured windshield, holding Doll tight against her chest while leg was stretched across the dash, furiously kicking at the steering wheel to keep the truck zigzagging. Each wild swerve threw Bonesmasher slightly off-balance—but not nearly enough to get him off. “Get these rust buckets off of us!” Lizzy screamed, as she ducked her head in time to dodge Negatron as he thrusted an oar into the back of the Truck’s cabin, having climbed onto the bed from behind with tire tracks marking his armor. 

“Scrap! Hang on, guys!” Uzi took aim with her arm-cannon, while N unfolded his wings, the two about to act to save the other Colony Drones—only for there to be a red flash of light and for the truck to be gone. As if it just ceased to exist in an instant. “What the actual fuc—” Uzi yelped as N pulled her out of the way as Bonesmasher and Negatron—still propelled by the full throttle of Thad’s alt. Mode— came crashing down where the two had just been. With the two Decepticons tumbling violently, their metal grinding and limbs flailing as they landed in a twisted heap next to Grindor.

“What happened? Where did they go?” N asked, as he and Uzi began to look around, hoping to spot Thad's alt. mode somewhere nearby. But there was simply no sight of him, nor was there of Lizzy or Doll. The trio was just…gone. 

“...Oh, come on.” Uzi mumbled as arm-cannon shifted back to her hand as an audible click echoed within herself, her safety turning on. “Thad! Lizzy! Where are you guys?” She called out, worry and frustration echoing within her voice. “Ugh, this stupid light, I swear! Is it just kidnapping people now?”

N gave a low hum, as he stood by her side, his eyes squinting as he tried to see anyone else within the moonlight. “This is just like when the dropship changed direction out of nowhere. Do you have any idea where they could be?”

“I honestly have no clue.” Uzi mumbled, before she noticed that Bonesmasher and Negatron were picking themselves up from the ground again. She lightly smacked N's arm, getting his attention. “But I'm starting to see how this war lasted as long as it did.” He actually chuckled at her comment, though he still kept himself at the ready in case the fighting would continue. 

When the older drones were finally able to stand themselves up, Bonesmasher growled as he saw Uzi and N staring him down. “Traitor.” he growled, focusing his optics toward Uzi. Though it was hard to tell as his eyes could barely be made out across his broken visor.

“You’re one to talk. You abandoned me and my classmates after a crash, disrespected the accord written by Lord Megatron himself, and sicced your ugly pet on us! Give me a single reason why I shouldn't just—” Uzi was stopped as N placed a hand on her shoulder. 

“Hang on. That isn't needed, they're beaten.” Seeing the utter bafflement on Uzi’s face, N decided to elaborate on what he meant. “Look, they're leader is down, and while they're stubborn, they know they can't win against me, let alone against me and you.” He looked back toward the two ‘Cons and saw that they were now hesitant without Grindor to lead them in for another charge. Though Bonesmasher still looked willing to continue the fight, it seemed his injuries were catching up to him. He had also lost his cannon and was left with only his mining fork as a weapon. Negatron's armor was covered in all sorts of damages, he was also down to a single oar. Not to mention, he shook like a busted engine as he tried to hold himself up. Which meant that neither of them were in any condition to fight.

Still, he had said there’s no such thing as helpless Decepticons. “You all fought hard, but let's be done with it. Unless you guys feel like pushing your luck, I suggest taking up my offer. Surrender and no one else needs to die.” Before he could gauge their reactions, N felt a sharp tug on his arm and he was yanked downward until his face was level with Uzi’s.

He saw that her eyes were bright with anger as she asked a single question, “Why?” It carried more weight than any shout of accusation ever could have, especially as her eyes trailed along his body, taking in the now non-existent injuries that had completely healed over. 

“Because we are better than them.” While N knew how such a thing sounded, it was the most honest and direct answer he could think of. It was the one answer he could give without a hint of hesitation in his voice.

Though Uzi just rolled her optics as she released her grip on his arm, allowing him to stand himself back up. “Sanctimonious much?” There was a clear bitterness in her voice, and even a hint of disappointment. She didn't like that he wasn't killing her ‘brothers of metal’, and that shocked N. Granted, she did just stab Grindor with a scorpion tail and tried to blow his head off, but from what he knew of Decepitcons, stabbing each other in the back was a general pass time for them. Their air commander had done it so often to Megatron that it even became a running joke within the Autobot ranks. But still…

"Uzi, do you really want to kill your fellow Decepitcons?" The question wasn't judgmental. It was genuine, almost vulnerable—as if he was asking himself the same thing. Because as he imagined raising a blade against another Autobot, even a traitorous one, he felt sick. Murder shouldn't just be the first option. It's not what Optimus would have wanted.

“They’re not Decepticons, N. They're bullies.” There was so much venom in those words as she turned her head away from N, as if she was getting annoyed with what he had to say. "Besides, I'm already planning to kill one so-called Decepticon." 

Her optics dimmed slightly as she thought back to the Overlord's grinning face while he was covered in the energon-blood of innocent vehicons. The memory brought with it her rage, it burned through her frame like a wildfire with nowhere left to go. She remembered how she wanted to march him through Kaon, broken and defeated. But in reality, she knew he deserved worse. He deserved to be made an example of and torn apart in front of all of Kaon—

“You'll never stop at one.”

Uzi forced herself to meet N’s gaze, ready to challenge him—to bite back with some kind of sharp comment. But when she looked into his visor, all that defiance was unraveled. He wasn’t judging her. He wasn’t angry. He just looked… mournful. As if her words had wounded him in a place deeper than she could reach. He was just worried for her and she didn’t know how to respond to that.

Then she remembered what he had told her.

 "Your mom. My friend. They’re just two of the countless we’ve lost in this war. And I…I’m tired of it.”

…She had killed Impactor—and look where that got her. N had taken down Blackout, and he hadn’t fared any better. Both of them ended up with targets on their backs and were hounded for what they did by absolute psychos. And in the fallout that came, others had suffered because of their mistakes. Some even died. It was the classic ‘cycle of violence’. Something they both said they wanted to end, while also saying that they both believed in second chances.

Giving out a very reluctant sigh, Uzi admitted defeat. “Fiiiine. You win. But no crying to me when this bites you in the tailpipe.” She tried to be dismissive, but the moment she saw him smiling at her, she felt her spark turn warm, and she was about to give her own smile too—right until N's wing snapped up, shielding the two just a breath before a missile slammed into them with a deafening boom. The blast was as instantaneous as it was overwhelming, it was a wall of sound and heat that swallowed everything. N and Uzi were thrown violently backwards, and while N was able to recover himself mid-air, Uzi's head had struck the street hard enough to send a screech of static through her processors. 

Her eyes glitched and flickered—before suddenly they were replaced by a [Error] message. 

Though N was heavily disoriented from the sudden explosion, he was able to see that she was damaged in some way. “Uzi!” He cried out to her as he quickly tried to shake her awake. There were several lines of code running across her visor. Some of which were in a language he didn’t understand and yet found strangely familiar. “Uzi, please say something!”

“The little glitch should have gone for the head.” N turned his head in the direction of Grindor’s voice, just as the Decepticon was slowly pulling himself back to his feet. His red eyes were bright with hate as he stumbled his way forward. Along his left arm was an open hidden compartment that showed the missiles of his vehicle mode, all were locked into position and ready to be fired, except one which was visibly missing. “What are you morons gawking at?” He growled toward his teammates, who snapped at attention. Negatron gripped his oar and Bonesmasher slammed his fist into his own palm. “Kill that damn monster already!”

N couldn't believe they still wanted to fight. Despite how injured they all were and despite him giving them multiple chances to stop, they just wouldn't. They just didn't care! Why was it so hard to convey to them that this wasn’t needed? The war will be over soon, Optimus was coming, Cybertron—their home—could return to what it was. All they needed to do was just listen for just a few seconds and understand.

“...N?” The Angel heard Uzi’s voice, she was weakly calling out to him. He looked back down to friend, and saw that energon blood—her own energon-blood—was running down across her cracked visor. She was hurt. They had hurt her.

And at that moment, he wasn’t just looking at Uzi. He was seeing Impactor. His friend, who had got his head crushed in like a kicked canister. He had just lost a friend to possibly one of these ‘Cons, and they prepared to take someone else from him.

N, there was a time when I believed… that no life, no spark, should ever be taken. That war could be fought with honor, with restraint. That somehow even in the chaos of battle, we could preserve what made us just… what made us better than them.

I need for you to realize that I was naive to believe in such a thing. Ideals do not shield the innocent from harm and I have seen too many sparks fade away while I held back…while I hoped for another way for us to win this war. I learned the hard way that hope alone cannot stop the violence.

So yes… I have killed my fellow Cybertronians. And every time I do, I feel it: that darker part of me—the one forged within, not for peace, but for the cruelty of this endless war. The part that knows there are moments when mercy is a luxury we cannot afford.

It is not the version of myself I wish to acknowledge, but it is one I know we all have within ourselves. It is what we must become—when the lives we care most about depend on us. Sometimes, we must be the worst versions of ourselves. 

Our own Nemesis. 

That was what Optimus told him, so long ago. It is what made him realize what he needed to do. What he should have done when this fight started…

…he really didn’t want to kill any of them. But they just had to keep pushing and, worse of all, they just had hurt his friend. N was willing to put up with a lot of punishment, he has spent literal eons knowing nothing but pain and dread. He can take the beatings, he can take being torn apart, or blasted into a million, he has even died multiple times and not once—not once—had he ever felt himself enraged toward any of it. Hate just wasn't in his programming. 

But they had hurt Uzi. 

N knew he wasn’t like Optimus. He wasn’t a savior, or anything close to a real hero—he doubted he ever could be even if he was given the most perfect of chances. But there was one thing that he was certain about, is that if anyone tried to hurt his friends—he'd make them pay.

“...N?” Uzi let out a groan as she slowly lifted her head from the hard metal of the street—only to freeze when she felt the familiar, warm trail of energon-blood leaking down the side of her face. “Ah, scrap,” she muttered, with more annoyance than fear. After all, it wasn’t the first time she’d been injured like this, though she wouldn’t say she was fond of the experience.

What did worry her were the lines of code that scrolled erratically across her visor again. They were diagnostic subroutines that were crashing into error loops, it was all a scrambled mess that made it impossible to see through, not at all helped that there was a strange symbol she couldn't care less about if she tried. Uzi was forced to smack the side of her head, until it all went away and her vision was clear enough for her to see N as he was walking toward the Decepticons—ready facing them by himself, again. 

Though something was different this time. The way he moved was slower, and much more intense then before. His hands were clenched so tightly that the whine of his servos could be heard. Uzi quickly realized that didn’t matter at all as she tried to force herself back to her feet, even as pain throbbed through her head, somehow much worse than before.

That is when she spotted Grindor raising his left arm and she saw that he was armed with military grade missiles, which were aimed directly at N. Before Uzi could scream out a warning of any kind, Grindor fired. The missile soared through the air for less than a nano-click, it moved too fast for any bot to react in time, especially with how close the target was—at least that is what Uzi thought, until…

In what could only be described as a sheer impossibility made real, N was easily able to snatch the missile out of the air and hold it in place right at his side. The explosive was shrieking, its exhaust was hissing violently against the frozen air as it struggled to propel itself forward in the Angel's grip. “I tried to be better," he said quietly, his voice barely being heard over the sound of the projectile. "I didn't want to hurt anyone today. I didn't want to kill anyone.”

The missile fought against him, it was buckling against his fingers as if it were alive, but N simply squeezed tighter until the warhead creaked under the pressure. Uzi heard herself gulp at the sight, and judging by the shock look in the other Decepticon's faces, they were as surprised as she was. 

“I want you all to know that I tried to be better." N's voice dropped low, nearly to a growl as he said, "But now, you’re gonna see what happens when I’m worse." With a snap of his arm, N hurled the missile back through the air like a javelin. It screamed as it passed by Grindor’s head by mere inches, before it struck the building behind him. There was an explosion, a massive blast of fire and shrapnel—the shockwave of which came as a destructive force that slammed into the three Decepticons, knocking them off their feet and hurling them forward. Grindor, Bonesmasher, and Negatron tried to regain their footing again and find their bearings, but as they looked up and saw N, only fear could be seen through their optics.

“And the best part is…” N’s voice changed again—he sounded cheerful in a way that was almost wrong. Cruel in its calmness. “I don’t think I’m even gonna feel bad about it.” He stepped forward, slowly and deliberately, the snow hissing and melting beneath the heat pouring from his frame. “Because my friend taught me it’s okay to be a little evil.”

With a mechanical shunk, his hands were replaced with long, gleaming silver blades that shined like pure-energon beneath the moonlight. His wings were spread wide as well, casting a perfect silhouette across the ruined street. It served as a reminder of just the kind of drone he was. Despite the large Autobot symbol he wore across the back of his coat, there was a reason he was known as an Angel of Death.

"Come on! I don’t care if there are three of you or three thousand, I’ll take you all on!” In the time it took Uzi to blink, N was upon the ‘Cons with a fury that none of them were prepared for. She watched, paralyzed with a mixture of shock and awe, as sparks ignited the air and inner-energon painted the snow. It was no longer a fight, now it was just a live butchery.

Negatron barely had time to raise his weapon before one of N’s blades slid clean through his abdomen. With a twist of movement, the Autobot flung him like dead weight—straight into Bonesmasher, both of them crashing to the snow once more. Just like what happened before, Grindor rushed at N from behind with his rotors spinning to lethal speeds as he tried to swing at the Angel…

But N didn’t even need to look at the 'Con to disarm him. With a single backward slice, Grindor’s entire arm was severed at the shoulder. The detached limb spun wildly through the air, the rotors still whirring madly as it arced overhead—Uzi instinctively ducked as it whipped past, embedding itself into the wreckage of an old vehicle behind her with a loud, mechanical thunk.

When she looked back up again, her breath was caught in her throat as she watched the brutality continue on. Bonesmasher had lunged himself forward, thrusting his mining fork like a makeshift spear—but with a single beat of his wings, N was airborne. He sliced clean across Bonesmasher’s shoulder in mid-flight, drawing a shower of sparks and a howl of pain. However, before his feet even hit the ground, another missile screamed toward him—fired in desperation by Grindor. Yet N didn’t flinch at its approach, instead he just kicked it away as if it were a nuisance. The military grade explosive veered upward wildly and detonated in the side of an abandoned building, the explosion lighting the night in a blaze of fire and shrapnel.

And through the haze, Uzi saw the Angel—grinning. His visor no longer showed any eyes, just a glowing yellow ‘X’ that burned like a warning sign across his face. Showing that it was time for a disassembly. Especially as he was beginning to laugh. 

N dropped back to the ground with a hiss of hydraulics and effortlessly ducked beneath Negatron’s oar. During this, he didn’t waste the moment. His tail snapped forward with whip-like speed, its stinger driving straight into the ruins of Grindor’s shredded chest. The squad leader's scream was guttural as he stumbled back, clawing at the acid that was now burning through his remaining armor, steam rising in thick clouds as it ate deeper and deeper.

Negatron swung his oar again, as he was desperate to try smack the Autobot away—but N met him head-on. Without hesitation, the Angel’s mouth opened—fangs were exposed, right before he brought them down with a loud crunch. Armor crumpled like soaked paper as N ripped off a chunk out of the Decepticon’s shoulder. Negatron tried to scream but he was kicked to the ground with iron-snapping force, all while energon-blood dripped from N’s chin as he swallowed.

Bonesmasher roared as he tried to charge at N from behind in a blind tackle, but the autobot turned to face him just in time as he drove a blade into the brute’s leg, then he pulled—tearing the limb free in a violent spray of sparks and fluid. Bonesmasher shrieked as he dropped to one knee. N stabbed again, burying his blade right at the Decepticon’s side. Bonesmasher whimpered—actually whimpered—as his strength gave out. Yet N didn’t seem to care, as he ripped the blade free only to stab it again, this time through the shoulder, giving N the leverage he needed to lift the larger bot like he weighed nothing.

And then N retracted the blade of his other hand, replacing it with his fist. The first strike shattered Bonesmasher’s entire face. The next caved in his jaw, leaving loose wires and broken teeth to dangle from his face. The exposed nerves of his optics flickered wildly, barely they hanged from loose cables that sparked and flickered with power. Then N threw him down, smashing Bonesmasher against the ground with a sickening creak. Still, the Con fought to rise. His mining fork came hurtling toward N in a final, broken attempt at resistance—only for N to slash through it mid-air and leap forward like a predator closing in for the kill. Uzi watched as Bonesmasher’s arm was carved through, the limb falling useless to the snow. He screamed, trying to shove N back. But it didn’t matter. The Angel drove his blade into the ruined remnants of his mouth and began carving. Again. And again. Sparks burst, energon sprayed, and the air was filled with the sound of metal screaming.

Then… silence. Bonesmasher’s severed head hit the snow, and it rolled to a stop at Uzi’s feet. She didn’t need a [Fatal Error] warning to know he was dead.

Negatron screamed at the sight of Bonesmasher’s death. Panic overtook him as he hurled his oar like a desperate child throwing a tantrum. The weapon spun uselessly through the air—missing N by a mile. Not that the Angel seemed to even notice before he hurled himself at the terrified Con, grabbing Negatron’s arm and ripping it off with a sickening tear.

“My arm—!” Negatron barely had time to yelp before N swung the severed limb like a club, the grotesque parody of a weapon crashing into the Decepticon’s face. The first blow cracked through his reinforced helmet and the second shattered his visor entirely, energon spraying in a thin arc as fractured plating peeled away from face and sent him falling back down to the snow. The last hit came with a monstrous amount of force, when N brought the torn arm down, the impact utterly collapsing Negatron’s cranium like it was made from brittle scrap, sending shattered metal, wire, and brain-circuits bursting outward in a black liquidy explosion. What was left of his head was little more than a mangled crater, sparking and twitching, his limp frame twitching once, twice, thrice—then falling still. 

The last standing Decepticon was Grindor and he…was trying to run. His frame was scorched, leaking energon from too many places to count. His back rotors were dragging uselessly behind him, scraping metal on pavement as he sprinted—not toward Uzi—but simply away. He didn’t care where he went. He just wanted out. Fear was seen clear in his eyes as he just wanted to live. Unfortunately for him, N was much faster. He dropped onto Grindor’s back like a hawk on a wounded animal. His arms shifted mid-fall—hands were replaced by razor thin claws that he plunged into Grindor’s head! He dug them deep, hooking them through all sorts of reinforced glass, circuits, and soft metals. Once N found he had a good grip—he then pulled. Grindor's agonized scream severed as the perfect evidence that while his death was quick, it was not painless at all.

Uzi flinched as the Decepticon's head came apart in N’s claws and a geyser of energon-blood followed from the ruined stump of the drone’s body. It sprayed everywhere. Across the snow, the street, and most horrifyingly—N himself. He didn’t move from it though, instead he hung his mouth open. Letting his long tongue dangle out as energon rained down across his face and chest like he was drinking the moment in, literally.

Unconsciously, Uzi pulled her legs back. She was trying to escape the warm splatter inching toward her in the snow. It was a sickening sight to bear witness to, as in a matter of seconds three Decepticons had just died before her eyes. It was a level of robo-gore that could rival anything she had seen in war recordings or even with what Overlord had done in Kaon. It was terrifying. It was horrible. It was…kinda hot. But mostly the first two things!

“Piece of tin,” N growled with disgust as he stepped off the twitching corpse, pulling at it with one claw to pull it toward the ground, tossing it like it was a sack of energon cubes. His visor still glowed with that unmistakable, haunting yellow ‘X’—a signal of merciless intent, devoid of empathy or hesitation. He was still deep in the mindset of a murder drone…up until he looked at Uzi.

It was as if his own safety had been flipped. That intimidating presence shrank into something soft. His visor flickered erratically for a second, the harsh ‘X’ dimming before it was replaced by the worried shimmer of his soft eyes. “Uzi, are you okay?” N’s voice had immediate concern. He took a step toward her, lifting a claw as if to offer help—but froze. His gaze dropped to his hand… or what had replaced it. The blades were still slick with inner-energon, still dripping with what was left of someone’s face. The sight made him recoil as he realized how he must have looked.

“I… I’m so sorry,” he muttered, shame creeping into his voice. His eyes then flicked to the broken bodies strewn across the snow. “I didn’t mean to… No, I did. But…well…” There was something fragile in his expression. Not fear. Not guilt, even. Just a desperate need to be understood. To be seen as more than the monster Grindor kept referring to him as.

“Uh, hey.” Uzi slowly pushed herself upright while trying not to visibly wince as she moved—or show just how rattled she was as she saw the mangled remains scattered behind her friend. “Like I said… they aren’t Decepticons. They’re bullies.” She tried to sound casual about it, but even she hadn’t planned on them being reduced to scrap in such a… industrial-strength blender kind of way. She’d been aiming for a solid blast or two—maybe a dramatic explosion—but not dismemberment and energon showers. Still, seeing N’s face, the weight of the guilt slumped across his shoulders, softened something in her. Somehow, the horror of it all didn’t feel as horrifying.

When N lifted one claw and motioned toward his visor, Uzi followed his gaze—and realized what he meant. She was still bleeding. “Oh, scrap,” she muttered, reaching up. Her fingers brushed her cracked visor and came away wet with her own energon—why was it a shade of purple? “I really must have hit my head a little too hard. Hang on.”

She tugged her beanie down lower over her forehead, trying to stem the flow. Not exactly the cleanest solution, but it was better than nothing. Lizzy was totally going to complain about how gross she was in making her already dirty clothes more dirty somehow —assuming she was even still around to complain about anything, and not somewhere where she was made offline. 

A creeping sense of dread settled into Uzi’s chest at such a thought, she found herself staring at the snow-covered ground as she wondered again where Lizzy, Thad, and—especially—Doll ended up? If they were even okay? Then came a more horrifying realization. One that hit her like a power surge straight to the core. She was worried about Lizzy. Actually worried. Ugh. Super gross. She needed to focus. There were too many emotions rattling around in her processor, and none of them were helping right now. So when N’s visor suddenly started to blink and turned blue, she was almost grateful for the distraction. “Huh? Oh biscuits,” N mumbled, eyes narrowing as if reading something only he could see. “I’m getting a call.”

“Who is it?” Uzi asked, adjusting her blood-soaked beanie as N seemed very unsure of what to do. His eyes continued to flash blue while he was pacing around in the snow, and his claws had retracted into his arms so he could replace them with his normal hands. 

“It’s my squad leader. Her name’s J and well, she’s not usually thrilled with me. So now she’s probably gonna be extra not-thrilled. Especially with the whole ‘me ditching Iacon without telling anyone’ thing. But it’s fine, I can just put her on speaker and introduce her to y—” N tapped the side of his head, and a voice exploded through his visor with enough fury to practically shatter the snowflakes falling around them.

“[N! You utterly worthless, half-processed excuse for a soldier! Do you have any idea what the shock V pulled trying to cover for your rust-filled tailpipe going AWOL?!]” Uzi blinked at the sudden verbal explosion, while N winced like he'd long been used to such talk.

“Hi, J,” he said sheepishly, glancing at Uzi with an apologetic shrug. “Uh, how have you been? I’m gonna guess V disorganized your collection of branded pens again?”

“[No, she—]” There was a brief pause, punctuated by what sounded like someone giving a hum of contemplation. “[Actually, I should be thankful she didn’t go that far, or I would have killed her. But no—she spray-painted my visor while I was recharging! I spent half an hour trying to clean it off!]” 

N blinked as he seemed very taken aback by such news. Not because he believed V would never do such a thing—no, it was that J would actually take time to rest that surprised N. “Wait, you were asleep during operation hours? That doesn’t really sound like you at all, are you feeling okay?”

“[I had a long day after Impactor's funeral, N. Now, shut up, or so help me I will feed you to Grimlock.]” Her voice hissed through the comm, and it was easy to tell that she was clearly at her wits end. “[Right now, I need you to listen. Can you manage that?]” N said nothing back for a few seconds. “[N? Are you still there?]”

“...you told me to shut up.” He offered as he held his hands out, with genuine confusion as he didn’t know which orders to follow. 

“[Uuuugh!]” Uzi watched on as she just raised an eyebrow at the entire interaction. While she wasn’t a fan of N getting any verbal abuse or being threaten, watching him accident frustrate someone was good comedy. “[Just tell me you can listen, that’s all I need.”] N straightened himself like a cadet, as he moved to stand in an Autobot salute, with his hand right over his brow and boots pressed together. 

“Yes I can, ma’am.” 

“[Good boy.]” There was a pause, as J could be heard sighing. “[If you were actually here, you'd already know—but we were given new orders. We’re to wipe out the colony within Kalis.]”

Both N and Uzi froze at the mention of her home, a moment later they both locked optics with each other—their eyes wide and hollowed as they were trying to process the news. Uzi’s lip twitched, like she was about to speak, but N stopped her as he held his finger over his own lips, signalling her to stay silent. 

“Uh… sorry, J. Could you repeat that, please?” N asked, a dry, artificial rasp catching in his vocalizer. “You said, we're going to wipe out the colony in Kalis? That can't be right.” There had to be a mistake. A horrible miscommunication. The colony wasn’t an enemy stronghold—it was a neutral underground city. One that they could never even get inside of as trying to break through its doors had been a fruitless effort for years, it was the kind of mission that sat at the bottom of their priority stack because of its sheer impossibility. J knew that and even if it was possible, she wasn't talking about them killing Decepticon soldiers. She was talking about civilians! Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands even. An entire colony of non-combatants and they were being ordered to kill them all? No. No, this had to be a mistake. They were just supposed to scare them. Kill a few, not all of them, those were the rules—

“[I get it. It’s pretty surprising, but R&D finally pulled through. They’ve designed a bomb powerful enough to breach those giant doors before their self-repair systems could stop our progress. We’ll be able to walk right in. We’ll need time to prep the devices, sure—but with the three of us transporting them, it’s all doable. Efficient, even.]” She spoke as if she were discussing a supply run. Like this was just another task to cross off their mission list.

“Whoa, whoa, hang on a second.” N quickly turned away from Uzi as his whole body began to shake with agitation. His voice, though level, carried a growing edge of panic. He needed control—of his words, of the moment—anything! Because J was talking about storming into Uzi’s home and wiping out her people. “Why are we doing this? J, this is a whole colony of NAILs, isn’t it? We can’t just—”

“[It does sound a bit excessive, I’ll admit. But orders are orders.]” She said it like it was nothing. Like it didn’t weigh on her spark at all. “[It’s just a part of the job that we have to do.]”

“But—J, Optimus is coming soon. He'd…he’d never allow this! Not him, and not even Elita. This kind of massacre doesn’t make any sense. Why would hearing that her husband is coming home make her want to commit a genocide?”

There was a long pause and a shift in J’s tone, she sounded almost somber as she said, “[Oh N, this didn’t come from Elita. This came from the company. An order drafted from the head technician of the Sumdac corporation herself.]”

“But, but, why would the humans want us to—”

“[The reason why doesn’t matter, N. We may be Autobots, but I’ve always told you that comes second. We’re valued equipment of the Sumdac corporation and thus we are loyal to humanity, first. Though if you need a reason, I can provide you with a very decent one. We just got intel from a contact in Kaon. We know who killed Impactor.]” 

N felt his own breathing getting caught at those words. “[It apparently wasn’t even any real Decepticon. It was a drone from that exact colony. One that made it her mission to join the ‘Decepticon noble cause’. Something about wanting her people’s lives to matter or some other nonsense.]” That revelation felt like a punch aimed directly at his inner circuits. N felt unbalanced, he stumbled over his own footing as he was smart enough to put the pieces together, to know who it could be. But he didn’t want to believe it. There had to be a mistake.

“J,” N breathed out the name, his voice barely audible so it went unheard as his squad leader continued to speak, “[We don’t know if she returned to the colony or not. But if she did, who knows what she brought with her? Weapons, propaganda, a Decepticon virus—anything is possible these days. We just know we can’t take that risk. If that ideology spreads, if even one drone converts, it’s a breach waiting to happen. Worse case, we can be looking at possibly thousands of new recruits for the Decepitcons right outside where we live. It has to be done, N, no matter the cause.]”

N could feel his spark pulsing so heavily that he could feel the vibration rumbling through his chestplate. “J,” he said slowly, and much louder than before, “I need a name.”

“[This isn’t the time for you to go on some personal vendetta over some random drone—]”

“J, please!” His voice cracked as he pleaded with her. “I need you to tell me her name. I need this, please.” There was a reluctant pause, and N could imagine J was fuming at the idea of him going ‘AWOL’ again so soon, but as he heard the hiss of frustration leaking through the comms, he knew she would tell him what he needed to know. After all, J was the best.

“[I am only telling you this because Impactor was my friend too, got it? As for the drone, well…pulling together a profile from our Kaon contact, the drone we are looking for is young—just out of the sparkling stage of Cybertorian growth, maybe. She has purple hair and purple optics to match. Her right arm can convert into a weapon, a compact version of a riot cannon, looks jury-rigged but it's as powerful as the real thing. We think it is part of her alt. mode.]” 

N said nothing as he just waited for her to get to the point. “[...Her name is Uzi. Or at least, that’s what she calls herself. Our informant overheard her bragging about how she stomped Impactor’s head in and how it left a mess on her leg. We even got word that she pissed off Overlord, even managed to damage him—]”

J never got to finish the sentence as N immediately ended the call by cutting the connection, his eyes blinking as they changed color from blue to yellow. He was also quick to disconnect all communications within himself so that no one else could call him. He did this because he needed a moment to think. A moment to come to terms with who was standing behind himself.

"I killed my first drone not too long ago. And I liked it. I really liked it."

He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to react. All N knew was that he needed to turn around. He needed to face her. Especially when he heard the audible click of a weapon safety being disengaged from right behind his back.

The moment Uzi heard the order to wipe out her colony her mind flew into a panic. Her own internal voice was screaming as she tried to think of what to do to stop such a thing. Granted, she didn’t really like most of the people in her colony, and there were certainly a bunch of people she wouldn't mind if they ended up dead…but the whole place? 

She could barely process what she was hearing and it seemed N was in the same boat, she could see the immediate wrongness of it written in his eyes. That he would never accept such an order. That should have eased her, but…

If it was an order from the Autobot chain of command, that would be one thing. It would fit the narrative of how Uzi always saw them as corrupted bots that wished to bury the dissent beneath a mountain of corpses, just so they could stand on top of it and feel superior. But when she heard that it was an order from fleshlings, everything almost made perfect sense. The Angels of death that plagued her colony since they awoke from their stasis weren’t just given orders from a false prophet. No, it was from someone that wasn't even Cybertronian. A human. The horrible creatures that helped enslave their race millions of years ago. 

They now saw her entire colony as a liability because—she’d dared to leave it? Because she’d dared to survive when she stepped outside. All because some contact claimed she might spread the Decepticon ideology? What kind of twisted logic was that? She could barely get her dad to listen to her, let alone could she convince an entire colony to start a revolution. Who the scrap did they think she was? Lord Megatron?

This had to be a mistake. It had to be!

But it wasn’t. They were going to kill everyone she knew—everyone she’d ever cared about—because someone whispered her name into the wrong audio receptor. Because she dared to do something with her life other than hide away. 

This was wrong. Uzi knew that and N agreed with her. She could see it written all over his face. His optics had lost their bright glow and his frame turned stiff as he tried to make sense of it. There had to be something that they could do together to stop this, right? They could set a trap, they could make contact with the combaticons, plead to Commander Shockwave for aid or even—

“[Her name is Uzi.]” 

—and just like that, whatever fragile plan Uzi had been scrambling to assemble in her processor crumbled into static. There was no salvaging anything after such an reveal, especially when J’s voice was suddenly cut off when N had ended the call. 

Uzi couldn’t help but let her eyes drift to the mangled bodies nearby. She remembered that N enjoyed killing them, that he was laughing and smiling the entire time. He was truly a murder drone in every meaning of the phrase and her mind forced her to imagine what someone like him could do if he ever turned his wrath on her colony. 

She had almost forgotten that he and his squad were the reason that she didn’t have an aunt, an uncle, or a mom anymore…she couldn’t let that happen again to anyone else.

When N began to turn around, Uzi met him halfway. She didn’t even remember moving—just that suddenly, she was there. Standing toe-to-toe with him, her arm transformed and her safety off. Sparks fizzled in the air between them, hissing like tiny screams as her weapon’s barrel was pressed hard against his chest plate—right over his spark chamber. It should be a point-blank kill shot. But would it? Given that apparently these Angels of death could heal from injuries? Would a destroyed spark be enough? There was no time to think, only react. Her visor flickered and her whole frame began to tremble as she looked up and met N's gaze. She hoped that when she did, she'd see her friend's soft, gentle eyes. Instead, all that greeted her was the glowing yellow ‘X’ carved across his visor. The same one he wore when he went on a murder binge not even a few minutes ago.

Yet, he wasn’t smiling this time. He was frowning. “Uzi,” He whispered her name, like it still mattered to him and that made it all the worse as Uzi knew what she had to do. His voice was so quiet, so reluctant, so filled with betrayal. She wanted to drop her cannon right then. Wanted to try and explain—to make him understand what happened and why she killed Impactor…but then her thoughts turned to the mother she never knew of, and she realized that as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t take that risk. Not when everyone in the colony needed her alive to defend it from the other Angels, from the human slavers.

“...I'm sorry, N.” 

She then fired her arm-cannon right into his chest.

Chapter Text

“<Am I…dead?>” 

Doll would ask, her voice barely scraping across throat. The question was meant for no one in particular. She just needed to say something to know that she was still functional. That she was still alive, as she had found herself laying on her back and staring upward toward a ceiling. One that pulsated with an unnatural, deep red glow that didn’t act like light—it was more a stain that was soaked into the walls, the floor, and even her frame. 

She soon realized that she was out of breath, her internal vents were stuttering and something inside her chassis began to rattle. She felt sick. Sicker than she had ever felt before. She wanted to curl herself up, she wanted to scream, but it felt as if an impossible weight was on her chest, making it so that all she could do was stay in that one spot and give out the barest of words. 

“<Where…am I?>” She wheezed the words as she tried to remember the last few moments of consciousness. The Decepticon dropship, she and the others were returning home when they were attacked by an Angel. They were falling, and she had done her best to make sure the others were safe before…before…

Doll winched as she tried to force herself to remember more, but couldn't. The memory had slipped through her fingers like leaking energon. Something was wrong. She shouldn't be here. Where even was here? Her gaze darted around—taking in the space. It looked like a room. But it didn’t feel like one. The geometry was wrong. Corners where there should be curves. Angles that were bent inward and kept bending at near-impossible angles. Everything hummed in a certain pattern—as if it was all breathing.

…oh Primus…she was not alone.

From the walls. From the ceiling. Out of seams in the metal, like a leak from a cracked filter, they crawled toward her. Small mechanical things that skitter across the red surfaces on too many legs. Mini-con insects. Thousands of them in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Their eyes glowed the same red as the room itself, and all of their attention was focused on her. 

“<Get away. Get away!>” Doll cried out, her voice ragged as she struggled to pick herself up, but couldn’t. The impossible weight was still pressed down on her, anchoring her in place. Allowing the crawling things to perch across her chest, climb along her limbs, and coil at her throat. All in an attempt to work their way in.

She watched as one of them bored through the soft plating of her thigh, its sharp mandibles slicing with a methodical rhythm. Another began to slip beneath a panel in her forearm, nestling into the exposed circuitry. Her body—her carefully built and defined frame—was being violated. They…were eating her. She could feel it happen as more and more of herself was lost. There wasn’t even pain. The creatures were so small and yet precise, that it was more like the ghost of pain. The suggestion of it. This was a clinical, mechanical deconstruction. Their tiny mandibles were snipping through her neural wiring, acting as fingers of alien metal that would unravel everything she was and still, she couldn’t move. Doll could just lay there. As still as a corpse.

One of them crawled into her vision—not on her visor. Inside it. It clung to her right optic, its legs anchoring into the glass as it began to try and burrow its way into her eye. “<Stop!>” Doll's voice cracked, as her words began to turn into static. “<I said, stop! Sto—>” 

Welcome, Dola.

With a simple greeting, the bugs stopped moving. 

Whether it be mid-crawl, mid-bite, mid-invasion, every single one of them had frozen in place. Their red-lit eyes turned dimm and limbs became suspended as if they had each been impaled by a divine pin. The air no longer hummed. There was no small clatter of claws, no mechanical chitter. Just… stillness. It was as if time itself seemed to hold its breath now. Because something older than itself had spoken.

I've summoned you for a purpose.

The red light that stained the entire room pulsed with each word said. There was a sense of authority that was far removed from the voice. It didn’t speak through sound. It spoke through gravity, through the folding of the world around Doll’s trembling form. She knew this voice—this thing. It had whispered to her before. In her lowest moments. In her most horrid of dreams. In her nightmares. “<...U-Uni…U-Un…>” She dared not say the name, out of sheer fear for her own sanity. 

It pleases me that you have not forgotten who I am. 

“<Kill me. Please. Just kill me and get this over with.>”

There was silence…total, suffocating silence…then, ever so slowly there was a deep somber laugh—again, it was not spoken aloud, but threaded into her every system. It was a cold resonance that spread through her wiring with the same chill of blizzard.

As if I would ever allow such mercy. 

Perhaps, you have forgotten. Allow me to remind you.

In an instant, she was…home?

The room. The voice. The insects—it all bled away into a warmth. A kind of warmth that flowed beneath steel and memory. That she thought was lost three years ago. Doll looked down at herself and saw that her body was no longer tarnished by thousands of tiny bites. Instead, she was younger than before. Smaller. Weaker. She stood in the middle of her living quarters, back within her colony. Except it was at a different point of time. She could tell because the furniture wasn't covered in dust or had old sheets draped over them. There was no peeling paint. No forgotten air. No corpses that were used to decorate the place when she was feeling…not the most mentally sound.

The place looked lived in. There was a flickering glow of firelight that danced across the metal walls. It wasn’t from a real flame, but a projection on the family screen. The soft crackle that played over nearby speakers, mixed perfectly with the low hum of an ancient human device—a record player. Upon it spun a weathered vinyl disc that delivered a delicate, yet also melancholic tune. ‘Тёмная ночь’, or as it is known in Cybertronian, ‘Dark is the Night’. A Soviet classic and also her father's favorite song. 

…Her father’s favorite…wait…

Doll felt her optics dim and her frame relax before she even understood why. Then she saw him sitting on the lounge chair, just as he always used to. Her father, Artyom Alekseyevich Chyornyj, was keeping himself busy. He was tinkering with an old polaroid camera within his grip, his focus seemingly only on the device. At least till he spoke up. “<Couldn’t sleep, again?>” 

He sounded tired. Doll remembered why, it was because of her. Where others would dream of the thirteen original primes and of Primus himself, of a golden age of Cybertron—she would have dreams of chaos, horror, and death. For a time, she had tried to keep them a secret as she thought they were a product of her overactive imagination. But as they grew more vivid, more terrifying, she couldn’t deny their existence. Especially when she woke up one night, screaming at the peak of her vocal components because of what she saw. Who she saw. Her parents rushed into her room soon after.

They…they were good people. They sat and listened to her as she tried to explain to them what she was seeing each night. It was difficult though. Doll had tried her absolute best to describe the imagery that plagued her mind, but her words always fell short. They couldn't truly grasp the magnitude of what she spoke of, so she could only give it out in fragments. It led to her painting broken images of something too vast, too impossible to fully explain. All she knew for certain was that it was something larger than anything anyone could comprehend. Something older than the stars. Stronger than any Prime. It was…pure evil? 

No. 

Evil was too easy a word. Too small. This thing was older than the concept of evil. Older than most things that had names. It was…

I am the darkest corner of your mind. I am the cruelty hidden in your heart. I am savagery. I am rage. I am hate. Every murder you've ever imagined, every bleeding fantasy, every vengeance. Every repressed urge, every unrealized perversion. 

I am all of these. 

And more.

Doll suddenly found herself somehow standing before her father. He was watching her now, his camera lying forgotten on the nearby table. Tired optics studied her, as to inspect for any injuries she made to herself during her sleep. It wouldn’t have been the first time she harmed herself.

“<Do you wish to talk about it?>” he asked, carefully. As if he was stepping on ice. He didn't want to rush her, he didn't want to push her. He loved her so much, and he was just so scared for her. So much so that he would stay up late each night to keep an eye on her. For months.

…she missed him so much. 

“No.” The word felt foreign against her own lips, because it was said in Cybertronian. This was before she took up her father’s language as a way to honor him, before the human language became the closest thing she had to a comfort. “Sorry, papa. I'm just not in a mood to talk right now.” 

Her father was a stoic man of few words, but whenever he did speak, it was as if he always chose them carefully. “<Then we will not talk. We will sit and listen to some music, yes?>” Doll felt herself smile at the question. It was the kind of smile that tugged at old scars. She liked the simplicity of all of this. The rhythm of his voice alongside the soft record hum, the flickering firelight playing across metal walls, the warmth of home. Their home. The offer to just sit and be with her family again, all that was missing was her mother—

Suddenly, the front door to their living quarters was opened and Doll's mother, Yeva, stood at the doorway. She was panting for breath as if she had just been running. “We need to leave,” she said in a rush, as she held herself up by gripping the wall. “I have a lead…”

No. No, please, Primus no! 

Doll remembered this moment. She remembered every word that came next. She remembered the tremble in her mother’s voice—the way her father rushed to his Endura's side to aid her. She remembered the hushed argument that followed between them, as they had tried to weigh the impossible.

A plan was formed. They were going to leave the colony and escape the city of Kalis under cover of daylight. Then they would travel across the surface of Cybertron, to a place spoken of old archival warnings: The Sea of Rust . It was a place that was once a city, a home to some ancient civilization that once dwelled on Cybertron a long, long time ago. Before a sudden cataclysm had oxidized the entire region and made it nearly uninhabitable for all metallic species. Yet, it was there that Yeva was convinced they would find answers. Because buried within the wreckage of old wars and older sins, were answers. Ones that were hidden away in the research of her father—Doll’s grandfather. Research that was so vital, it was what drew Uzi's mother out from the colony. That mistake led to her death.

Now, Doll's parents were going to risk the same fate. Because of a name she had whispered in one night of terror. The name of the thing that stalked her dreams. The thing her mother recognized, because Nori had spoken of it as well.

Unicron.

She was no longer in a place of warmth. The air was cold. Thinner than it should’ve been. The snow was falling in slow motion. Every flake hung in the air like ash suspended in water. The plan had collapsed because even after they had managed to flee out of Kalis, they were still tracked down and hunted by one of the Angel's. An Autobot that went by the name, V. 

She had attacked them without a hint of mercy and though they did not go down quietly, Doll’s parents could only do so much as they were just as busy protecting her as they were fighting off the monster. The Angel seemed to take delight in their desperation. Doll was being forced to relive this moment. When she was sitting in a makeshift hiding place—shoved there by her father as he tried to keep her safe. She could still feel the weight of his hands, the firm push, the quiet plea not to move or even to breathe, even after three years.

He stood alone in the snow, his old rifle raised up as scanned the pitch-black around them. “<Yeva!>” he cried, his usual quiet voice straining—so unlike the man Doll knew of. Because for the first time in her life, she saw he was more than scared. He was terrified. His Endura had vanished into the dark, dragged off by something neither of them could stop. He and Doll had heard the blood-curdling scream that followed, and then there was total silence. “<Yeva!>”

Though she knew what would come next, Doll still felt herself flinch as she saw the body drop from above. It landed right on her father's shoulders with a wet crunch, knocking him to his knees. He twisted around, shoving the corpse off himself. His rifle came up, shaky but ready to fire—till he realized who was thrown at him. It was his wife.

…Even if it was just a memory dragging itself out of her subconscious, the weight of what happened hadn’t faded with time. It had simply curdled, thickened, and had gotten so much worse to face once more. Doll watched as her mother’s body had fallen to the ground. The fembot’s chest was torn apart, ripped into like a gift box by impatient claws. Her spark chamber was gone. But it was not missing, Doll saw that it was held in the Angel’s mouth. There was still a flickering light, a sign there was still life within, that it could maybe be saved. Then the Angel bit down and a loud creak echoed throughout the streets. 

Sparks exploded across the Autobot's face, casting out bursts of violent, strobing light. It made her smile shine, and made the bright, burning ‘X’ in her visor all the more unbearable to look at. “Sorry, was that important?” The Angel cooed after swallowing, her tail swaying lazily through the heavy snow-filled air. There was no remorse in her voice—just venomous amusement. She was worse than a monster. She was a murder drone.

Gunshots cracked through the snow-choked silence as Doll’s father began to fire blindly into the dark. He shouted something, but the wind and gunfire swallowed it whole. Sparks bloomed where his shots struck the nearby crumbled buildings, but none found their target. The Angel was too fast. She skittered across the walls like a spider, then leapt into the air in an elegant spiral, spinning just out of his aim. She was laughing. Primus, she was always laughing.

All Doll could do was watch as the Angel landed behind her father with impossible grace, claws still black with her mother’s energon-blood. There was a slash and suddenly his leg was gone. When he hit the ground his rifle had skidded out of his reach, leaving him defenseless. “And Chromia said I could never sweep a man off his feet.” She joked while he crawled across the snow, sparks and blood spilling from his severed limb. He was desperate for a weapon, for anything he could use as the Angel was moving toward him. What he found was his camera. The old polaroid. The one he used to take pictures of their quiet life. He brought it so he could take pictures for Uzi. To give the young girl a chance to see what Nori would have wanted for her upon the surface. 

…He was a good man. 

There was a soft click. A flash of light from the lens. For the briefest second, the dark was lit up with a memory. Then he swung. The camera cracked against the Angel’s face as hard as he could. It didn’t make a single difference. She came down upon him with her jaws wide, fangs bared and inner energon was splattered everywhere.

Every intelligent creature turns its tools to murder eventually. I am there, in the sweat and the blood, and the inertia of an action that once done cannot be undone. 

This was the moment Doll first felt her curse begin to manifest. It all started as a low throb behind her right optic. It was a wrongness that thrummed within her circuits like a second spark pulse. She didn’t know it then, but in time she would learn that it was something twisted. Something dark and hungry. 

The Angel stood upright from her meal, as she was wiping her mouth with her arm. "Hmm," she mused aloud, her tone as sweet as it was toxic. "Pretty sure there were three of you I was chasing earlier. I wonder where, oh where, that little drone could be—” Her visor brightened, the ‘ X’ was replaced with a pair of eyes as she gave a grin. "Oh, I'm just shocking with you." Her tail snapped forward like a whip. It speared through the cabinet’s front with a metallic shriek. Doll flinched, her entire frame jolting as the door was torn away. The Angel leaned in, her eyes turning hollow and yet glowing brightly within the darkened space. 

Doll…just froze. Truthfully, she had expected to die right then. Welcomed it, even. Her parents were gone. Her world was shattered. Nightmares followed her every waking second and there was nothing left for her but pain and sorrow. 

Yet, the Angel decided to spare her. “See, while I do prefer younger energon—it’s sweeter, has that little zing—this ain’t the time to indulge." Her voice was disturbingly casual, as if she had done this hundreds of times before. "My boss is kinda breathing down my neck ‘cause I managed to let you three slip this far. So, she gave me an order. Told me to make this one special. Make it an example.”

She leaned closer, one claw tapping lightly against Doll’s visor. "I’m gonna let you scurry back to that little hole you dragged yourself from. And when you do, I want you to tell everyone that lives down there this. We will hunt you. We will kill you. No matter where you hide, no matter how fast you run. You're not getting out. Not until the war is over. Got that?" The claw was dragged downward, slowly scraping across her visor with a piercing skreeeeeeee . She was leaving a mark. A message. A violation. 

But, Doll said nothing. She couldn’t even bring herself to say a word. Her voice was buried somewhere beneath the weight of shock and loss of losing the two people she cared the most about. That earned the Angel’s irritation.

"Hey," she said flatly. "I'm not J, I don’t monologue for fun. Did you hear me? Or did I eat the two bots with working processors?" One of her claws shifted—morphing into a hand. She raised it and snapped her fingers at Doll’s face. The sound that came from the act reverberated through the air, it was a metallic clang that was stretched and distorted, echoing like a distant bell…

Till it becomes Lizzy snapping her fingers in front of Doll’s face. They were standing together at the funeral service, and they weren't alone. Around them were the muted whispers of several other drones. She was back at the colony, back home. But she was still cold, the chill of the surface was still along her frame. 

She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be alive. Lizzy, her best friend, was the only thing keeping her upright. “Doll?” she called out, softly at first. Then again— snap snap —right in front of her visor. The scratch from the Angel was still on the glass. “You still function?”

Uzi was nearby. She looked...different. The young drone was dressed properly for once, she wore a black dress that clashed with her usual gremlin-like demeanor. They were all dressed for a funeral, but she kept her beanie. It was the only part of her normal attire. It acted like a tether to who she actually was.

“Give her a sec,” Lizzy muttered to Uzi, barely lowering her voice. “She’s been zoning out a lot since—y’know.” Doll felt her shoulder getting shaken. “Hey, your cousin is here to see you. Her dad too. But he’s… I dunno. He said something about fixing the doors around here or some scrap like that.” Doll knew better. Uncle Khan wasn’t fixing anything. He was saying goodbye in his own quiet way—burying himself in the comfort of a task, like he always did. It was easier than facing the finality. He and her parents had been close, especially after his wife was murdered.

What really surprised Doll in this memory was Uzi. It was strange to remember her this way, before she became so indoctrinated to the Decepticon cause. When she was just a weirdo who didn't know how to talk to people. Now she was still a weirdo who didn't know how to talk to people, but could transform into a gun.

…they used to be so close. They were inseparable as young sparklings, but over the years they drifted apart. Yet, Doll remembered this moment. She remembered it because she made a promise. When Lizzy couldn't get her to respond and Uzi had rushed forward—the hug that followed was so sudden and yet so desperately needed. Doll had felt her optics grew wet during that embrace as she held her cousin like she never held anyone before.

She was reminded of their grandfather’s final order: Live . After her parents were killed, Doll promised that no matter what, she would make sure they would follow that order in their mothers’ stead. That no matter what, they would live.

But just living was not enough. Doll couldn’t just survive—not after what was taken from her. Not after the Angel’s laughter had carved scars into her spark. She wanted a purpose, a reason to keep going. Call it justice. Call it revenge. Doll didn’t care which word was used, all she knew was that she wanted the Angel to die . 

But to achieve such a goal, she would need power. The curse was that power, Doll had learned that she could use it to manipulate things, to warp space and matter like minor play things. She was an admin of reality itself and all she needed to do to keep that power was to feed it. 

I am hunger. The energy released by a life extinguished is my food, strife the wine with which I drink it down. The geography of dreams deferred and love unrequited mirror the sublime hills and valleys of my brainwaves.

The girl in Doll’s arms was dead, evidence for that was more than clear as the static-red [Fatal Error] message was flickering across her visor. The cause of death was her throat being ripped open. Someone had drunk her inner energon. 

I am the dense, unfathomable insanity of a possessed mind. 

Doll used to believe it was an accident. That she had gone into a frenzy and she hadn’t meant to go this far. But in reliving this moment—knee-deep in the blood-soaked aftermath of her own making, her hands trembling, her fingers still sunk into cold, torn plating—there was no room left for lies. She knew exactly what she had done. Worse, she had enjoyed it.

There were two other corpses nearby. A mother and a father. They were brutalized together, their final act was one of futile protection. They had begged and screamed for their children to be spared. Doll had killed them with a simple gesture, she had made their inner workings explode across the room before pouncing on her true prey. But once the rush was gone, once she realized just what she did…she felt ill. 

Dropping the corpse from her arms, she started to gag. Her core began to ache violently as she doubled over, spewing thick globs of inner energon and liquefied components from her lips. Her knees wobbled, and she nearly collapsed then and there if not for her own need to rationalize why she did what she did. That she was about to overheat, that she was going to die if she hadn't had her fill. She needed more than just a few mini-con roaches. She needed to actually eat a fellow drone. 

It was only supposed to be one. Doll had meant to target someone else. Someone no one would miss, but…plans fall apart. Sometimes, all it takes is a single, stupid mirror breaking at the wrong time for you to find out as ‘abnormal’.

The curse did not tolerate its own image. It had a habit of breaking reflections. So when a classmate, unknowing, had held up a mirror and said, “Look what I found in the trash heap”—things just…happened. One thing led to another, and before Doll truly realized it she was standing in a bloody aftermath. There might have been some chance to reason this, to make up an excuse, or a moral justification. But then she heard a sound. A tiny, broken whimper.

Soon after, a pulse of red light ripped the nearby closet door clean off its hinges, sending it clattering to the energon stained floor. Hidden inside, curled into a ball so small he might have vanished into himself if he could, was a sparkling. A little boy. Maybe five, or six years of age. His frame shook with barely-contained sobs. Animated tears blinked down the corners of his visor, rolling across the glass like rain.

He looked up at her and Doll saw what he was. He was someone small, scared, and pathetic. He could have ran, he could have tried to do something to help. But instead he just curled up in the dark and stayed hidden. He did nothing but watched as a monster tore his family apart.

Just like she did when the Angel took her family. 

Except, there would be a difference. Doll would learn from the Autobot's mistake.

…she wouldn't leave any survivors.

Entropy, decay, death are things of the natural order—petty, corporeal facsimiles of my will. 

Yet, I am beyond such things. 

There is always another survivor. There is always another mistake. That is what Doll learned over the years. She could plan. She could prepare. She could obsess over every detail, every entry point, every possible threat vector and spend sleepless nights ensuring nothing could go wrong. Only for Primus to laugh in her face when something inevitably does. Because there was always something she didn’t account for. Be it a sudden disruption, a wild variable, or simply someone too dumb to follow any degree of logic.  

There had been many— many —close calls over the years, where she would be nearly found out. Where her life, as she knew it, would be ruined. One of the worst possibilities of which came the night she chose the wrong target.

He was supposed to be an easy mark. An older drone that was worn down and quiet—one of the loner types who lived at the edge of the colony. She thought he’d gone soft from peace, that he was numbed by the routine of a mundane life. But she was so wrong. He was a veteran of the Quintesson War, and his instincts were still as honed as a razor’s edge. He knew something was coming for him, and worse, he wasn’t alone. Despite his cold exterior and the quiet solitude, he had a family. 

Doll never considered that. But she had killed families before. What she couldn’t have anticipated was that they’d fight back against her. Granted, it was not much of anything. The ambush was crude to say the least. There were hastily cobbled weapons, traps made from scrap, guerrilla tactics drawn from a desperate mind—but it didn’t matter. Despite the fact that five against one isn't much of a fair fight, Doll had still cut each of them down, one by one. Her power had lashed out in bursts of sickly red, her curse was overjoyed for the chance to kill again. She reduced each of them into nothing and she smiled as they were forced to watch their loved ones die.

I am no mere force of nature. No phenomenon to be studied, codified, and circumvented by the inventiveness of lesser beings.

But all it takes is a single mistake to ruin everything, and it wasn’t that Doll underestimated her prey. It wasn’t that she didn’t prepare for a fight or hadn’t properly trained herself to use her powers for combat. No, her mistake was letting herself be followed.

…She never thought it would be Lizzy who found out about her first. Doll had expected Thad, Uzi, several of their classmates, and even uncle Khan would eventually be able to sniff out that something was wrong with her. But Lizzy? Of all drones on Cybertron, Lizzy shouldn’t have ever noticed. She wasn't the kind of person to think about the pattern of late-night disappearances or half-hearted excuses. They were best friends. Conjunx Endura, even. But still, Doll never thought Lizzy would—

She wasn’t supposed to care this much.

Lizzy is not a good person. She’s a silver tongued, arrogant, callous brat. That is as vain and egotistical as she is cunning and manipulative. That was why they got along so well. Because Doll never had to pretend around her. Because they could both be mean without a care. Because before Doll lost her family, Lizzy had made hurting others feel like a game…that is why Doll couldn’t understand why she was there. Why would she follow her so deep into the colony’s edge—it’s slums—why would she put herself through a home littered with makeshift traps and severed limbs? 

Because of love. The most illogical, frustrating emotion that Doll could think of. A concept that could ruin as much as it could rebuild. It was the thing that drove her parents to their deaths and it was

Doll remembered where she was when Lizzy found her. She was elbow-deep in someone’s throat, shredding through soft metal and high-grade tubing with her teeth. The metallic taste of energon mixed with melted alloy dripped from her chin. Her fingers dug into chest plating, cracking it open like she was shelling a mini-con crab. It was so intoxicating, that sick rush of dominance.

It was fun. It was freedom. It was the thrill of knowing that what she did was wrong and that she couldn't care less. At that moment, plans were filtering through her mind. She imagined hanging drones from meat hooks, stripping them down layer by layer like art projects. She wanted to see how long a bot could survive with their spark chamber exposed. Her grandfather was a scientist, so she inherited his natural curiosity.

Then—

“What the actual shock?” 

The sudden question had pulled Doll out of such fantasies. It made her feel a horrible sense of dread. If it was anyone else, it would have been easy to pretend. To act as a victim herself, to say that she was possessed by something that made do such awful things. But, she knew that voice. Turning around only confirmed her absolute worst fear.

Lizzy stood there in the doorway, her eyes wide and shoulders tense—she was looking through the carnage, at the mangled limbs and severed heads. Then she focused on Doll, who was still hunched over a half-eaten drone with inner-energon slick on across her lips. “<I… I…>”

Doll wanted to lie. To make some kind of excuse. She had even thought to say ‘<this isn’t what it looks like>’ of all things. But, lying to Lizzy was always hard for Doll. For over ten years, they have been friends. For over three, they've been more than that. “<I—I…>”

It didn’t make sense. Lizzy should have screamed, she should have started to run away. Instead, she took a step forward and just looked genuinely worried. “Are you hurt?” When did she have such gentle eyes?

“<I'm sorry.>”

…It started as a tightness in her chest. Like an important wire had snapped along the outside of her spark chamber. Then she couldn’t breathe—drones normally didn’t even need to breathe, but it was as if her internal vents had seized. All Doll could think of at that moment was how horrid she was to allow this to happen. Because it meant she needed to kill one of her Conjunx Enduras. She needed to kill Lizzy.

That thought shattered something within Doll’s mind. Her vision was lost, red static and glyphs she couldn’t read spiraling across her visor. It was in a language she couldn’t hope to comprehend. Her own systems were overheating, she needed more energon-blood. She needed to kill more, because it was all she ever was. All she ever would be. She needed to kill more, so that she could live. So that she could hurt the Angel that took her parents. So that she could feel the warmth of her home again.

As long as anyone stood in her way of that goal, she would respond by killing. Murder on an industrial scale. She would wade across a mechanical river of corpses, chest-deep in rust and engine oil, just to crush the spark of the last drone standing in the way of her peace. She would do it, not just as a means to an end. She'll do it because it gives her pleasure! Because…

because…because…

I am the collapse of natural order. A formless, infinite nothing petty corporeal minds cannot imagine. Total annihilation.

There will be peace in an endless emptiness, the heart and totality of which I alone encompass. 

I am Unicron

and through you, I live again!

“<No!>” 

Doll surprised herself when she suddenly shouted the word and then her frame jerked, as if she had fallen from a great height. It took her a few moments to realize she was back within the red-stained room. But something was different. The mini-con insects were gone.

Or at least… they seemed to be. Such a thing didn’t matter, as Doll tried to pull herself back toward her feet. It took a great amount of effort, her limbs trembled with each movement of her servo. She was forced to prop herself against a blackened wall, her fingers leaving smears of half-coagulated energon where she touched. 

There was a new feeling crept through her body—it was all internal, reaching from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet. It wasn’t pain, not at least as she understood such a feeling. It was just a great sense of discomfort. Something wrong was happening deep within herself. 

But she wouldn’t let that stop her. Once she was able to stand, once she felt as if she had some ounce of control over herself again, she turned her gaze toward the bleeding light above. Toward the malignant red that had bathed the room like old blood across human bone. It was receding into the folds of the impossible ceiling. The angles were collapsing. The room itself was beginning to unravel—walls began to turn into lines, corners were blinking in and out of existence. Reality was bleeding into itself.

Doll didn’t look away. Even in the void-black that replaced the red, she continued to glare. All her hatred, all her grief, all the years of being haunted by this thing—this ancient, unkillable parasite that had taken everything from her—she funneled it into one stare. “<No. I am not…will not let you win.>” The words escaped her as a horrid cough, as she needed to hold a hand over her own chest. The feeling was almost worse somehow. Was she getting nauseous? Why did she feel so heavy? Where did the bugs—

Resistance, at this point?

She could have said something clever. Something flippant. But she was too tired to think of anything close to that. So instead, she gave it something raw and small—yet with every amount of venom she could muster. “<Bite me.>” 

Perhaps I misjudged you. 

Doll had reached behind herself, she was attempting to take one of her rotors. She could feel that each of them were cracked and warped in some way, but they were still usable. They could still be a weapon if she needed them to. She was going to fight her way out of this place, she was going to find her way home, she was—interrupted from her thoughts, as a single mini-con insect skittered across her vision. It wasn’t crawling along the surface of her visor, it was inside. 

…Dear Primus, they were all inside of her. 

Proceed, on your way to oblivion.

With those words, the swarm awoke.

Doll could do nothing as thousands of legs scuttled throughout her body—they all moved beneath her metal and through her joints, they began to dig into neural fiber, slice through her cabling, and eat their way through systems she didn’t even know she had. Pain— true pain —came with their feast. Her limbs spasming as she felt the skittering forms inside her throat, they were chewing through her vocal components. Any attempt to scream came out as nothing more than a broken feedback that spilled from her lips like corrupted code.

In a panic she tried to claw at herself, scraping fingers against her own plating, desperate to tear herself open so that the swarm could pour out. But her hands began to fail her. Her arms went limp. Her legs buckled beneath her as they lost all strength. Doll collapsed on her knees as a barely functional husk. Only one of her optics was working, the eye that displayed on her visor was flickering. The other was changing from her normal eye, to a symbol... 

But she could still see with it. The light had started to morph. 

It thickened. Like oil poured through the gaps in reality. The oppressive red hue began to coagulate—turning into vapor, and then into smoke. It was a choking, caustic miasma that seeped into the corners of the impossible room. Filling the entire space, to the point that Doll could see nothing else…until from the choking dark, something began to move. 

A silhouette began to form. It was massive, unyielding, and utterly alien. Something so colossal that Doll’s optics couldn’t register its full scale. Her vision glitched out at the edges as her mind rejected what it saw. It was the thing that had hunted her dreams. The shape that whispered to her in moments of silence, of weakness, of pain. She could only describe it as a moon with horns when she was awake. But it was so much more—especially as it began to transform. 

With the most complex and insane shifting of mass that Doll could comprehend, it began to fold itself outward, reconfiguring itself into a humanoid mockery of something familiar. Something divine. Towering, sculpted in brutal elegance. Clad in fractal geometry and armor woven from collapsing stars. Every movement of its limbs echoed with cosmic weight, as though entire galaxies were being crushed just beneath its joints. It was a being that rivaled Primus himself.

The Chaos Bringer.

With its arrival, a melody bled into existence. An electronic symphony. It had low, guttural drums that mimicked the beat of a dying heart and high-pitched hisses to mimic breath. Doll couldn’t…she couldn’t comprehend any of it. 

Her processors screamed with errors as her optic began to horribly glitch. To bear witness to this thing, to look upon it was to court madness itself. She couldn’t take it. More of her static filled screams began to leave her lips, as she simply couldn’t live, not while staring at this creature. She tried to fight back against it the only way she could, by shutting her eye, by disconnecting her own audio receptors. She had to think of something else—anything else.

She thought of her father’s voice as he was reading aloud from an old human novel. Of her mother’s gentle hands adjusting her clothing when she was little. Of Thad and Lizzy’s nightly embrace. Of her little cousin, who she held with all the love she had left after…she lost so much…

Such a pity that you allow yourself to be weighted down so easily. There is more at stake than you could ever realize. But you are selfish. You live within your own little world. Do you?

It will not matter. Nothing will. I shall bring an end to the annoying creation of boasting independence that surrounds me, and I will finally find peace by becoming the living center of a swirling, infinite torrent of nothingness at the end of all things for I am the solution. The Solver of the Absolute Fabric. The Void. The Exponential End.

And I have your kind to thank for fueling me. For awakening me with your simple, yet never ending war. I do not expect you to understand. In fact, perhaps it is easier to assimilate than explain.

The pain surged again, somehow even worse than before. Doll could see things even with her single working eye close. There was red static, symbols, spirals, and death. So…much death. There were endless lines of code that weren’t hers. That never had been.

She felt herself slipping somewhere deep. She was sinking, and being rewritten into something else. Something worse than she could imagine. Because this thing —this god, this corruption—was trying to unmake her. Not just her body. Her very spark. 

It was too big. Too old. Too full of hate. She could hear it smiling.

After all,

You belong to me now.

“She belongs to nobody!”

A voice cracked through the void like thunder cleaving the sky—it was raw, metallic, furious. With it came the roar of a cannon, a powerful weapon that haunted the surface of Cybertron for over nine million years. It was a sound that even those within the colony knew of. 

Slowly, Doll's optic fluttered open, it was still flickering with static, but there was a spark. A blazing, defiant light that sliced through the choking darkness. Through the fog of agony. Through the crawling insects chewing into her soul…she could only be in awe as a figure stood before her. Tall. Armored. Impossibly familiar.

His back was to her, but even before her systems struggled to identify him, she knew him from the silhouette alone—from the weight of his presence, the fury he radiated like a supernova. He wore a face found in data logs and old propaganda. From whispered bedtime stories her mother used to tell. From old, flickering footage her aunt used to re-watch like scripture.

A legend whose legacy of steel will forever last. For he is the dominator. He is the destroyer. 

He is…Megatron and he stood before the avatar of chaos bringer without flinching, without bowing. His fusion cannon smoked at his side, still humming from the shot that tore through the impossible air. "So long as she, or anyone else, wears my symbol—" he growled, his voice the sound of crumbling steel and marching boots, "—so long as they resist, so long as they refuse to kneel, we will never be slaves again."

He turned his head slightly, just enough for Doll to see the burning red of his optic meet her own. At that moment… she didn’t just hear him—she heard her mother.

All hail Megatron. 

Doll felt her hand lift—she didn’t know how. She didn’t know why. But the strength was there now, flowing from that gaze. From his words. It filled her body like fire. Made her hold her palm over the Decepticon symbol stitched into her top. 

"How dare you," he bellowed toward Doll before turning back toward the writhing vapor of an ultimate being, "to allow this thing to presume ownership of you! This thing... this aberration, it is not a god. It is nothing. It is a disruption, a tantrum of celestial garbage that dares mock all that we had built for ourselves!"

All around Doll, shadows took form. She saw Thad, Lizzy, she saw her classmates, all strangely sitting at their desks? Suddenly, she understood—this wasn’t just now. This was then. Some strange distortion of a memory that was playing around her. A moment she had seen, years ago. A flickering projection in a history lecture, the day the Decepitcons were facing some ‘false god’ known as the Vox. This was the day she first learned who Megatron really was. She thought he was a brute that only cared about using his power to dominate others. 

…no. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

"Vengeance will be ours!" he roared. "This thing—this Vox—it knows nothing of pain. It cannot understand what it means to be us. It does not know the rage of slaves turned soldiers, of broken who had risen as tyrants! It does not know that from beneath the boot of oppression was how we first rose up!

The time for recrimination is over! You are needed. All of you! No matter how injured or infirm you may be. Think of the loved ones taken from you. Think of the pain you have been forced through. Think of the terror you were forced to unleash and drive that toward your object of hate!"

Doll heard the change in voice again. A voice she’d nearly forgotten.

Her aunt. Nori’s voice, echoing with pride.

All hail Megatron!

Her spark pulse began to sync to the rhythm of his fury. Her vents rasped open. Her limbs twitched to life. Her mind, once fractured and drowning, now crystallized with purpose. 

"Blinded? Let your anger light your way. Crippled? Your bitterness will carry you to victory. Diseased? Rage will cure you. Scattered no longer, we come together as one! Banded and bonded with retribution and vengeance, for all we cherish!" 

Such rhetoric. Such sound and fury. Doll could feel herself pulled back toward her feet. Her thoughts turned to the Angel that took her parents, and gave her the strength she needed. As she still had to hurt it. Kill it for what it had done to her! 

Megatron was raising his arm cannon in the air, his fist clenched as a sign of victory. “Decepitcons, rise up!" 

She could hear another voice. "All hail Lord Megatron!" It wasn’t just in her head anymore—it was real—there was weight in her hand. Doll looked down and found that her fingers were clenched around a familiar, transforming shape. Cold metal humming with potential power. It was Uzi, in her alt mode. Her gun mode. 

In an instant, everything was gone. The memory was gone, Megatron was gone. Doll was stuck within the dark, as the smoke coiled around her. The shadow of the Chaos Bringer shifted, forming again into that grotesque, horned silhouette—like a universe curling into its own wound.

Destiny

The voice of Unicron whispered, it came from everywhere at once.

You cannot deny… my destiny

Doll felt a smile edge its way along her lips, as she held out the gun toward the being that was beyond anything she could think of. That was power incarnate. The most twisted and ancient of evil. She said, three simple words to it.

“<All hail Megatron.>”

She pulled the trigger and the blast was deafening. It was a spiral of viridian energy that erupted with such power, it was blinding, purging—it sent out a scream of defiance wrapped in the brightest of light. That power struck the center of the cosmic nightmare and for a moment, just a moment, the void screamed back.

Doll opened her eyes, and for a fraction of a second…she wondered if she was truly awake. If this was somehow some other trick being done to her, some punishment to relive another memory. 

Then she felt the familiar pair of arms wrapped around her—Lizzy was cradling her broken body like a dying child. There was rattling around them, it was movement. Metal shrieked and whined as they were inside a very beaten-up vehicle jolted with every swerve. Doll was able to realize that they were in Thad’s alt. Mode. Except he wasn’t driving straight. He was lurching side to side like he was dodging artillery fire, or…why was Lizzy kicking his wheel?

Just then a claw punched through the roof above them with a scream of tearing metal. The interior became flooded with cold air and sparks. Then an oar—a rusted oar of all things—rammed through the broken rear glass, stabbing into the seats like it was trying to gut them. It was all so much stimulation at once, not helped by the screaming of her Conjunx Enduras, which were indistinct and garbled together. 

Doll’s head lolled to the side as her systems failed to filter sound, light, and really anything anything. None of this was making any sense, what did she miss while she was asleep? How did they go from crashing in a dropship, to being attacked by…weren’t these the Decepitcons they were just flying with? Oh, to hell with it.

She raised one hand, just barely. Her servos whined as if begging her to stop, but she only needed to curl her fingers a certain way, as she could feel the pressure behind her right optic. She made her demands known, her spark flared and with it, her curse answered.

There was a ripple of unnatural power snapped through the air, like the world inhaled and forgot how to exhale, and then—after a flash of red light—they were gone…

…Then the three of them crashed into the wall of an old tunnel—one that had long since been hidden, buried behind rock and snowdrift. It was the same forgotten passage they had used to escape the colony in secret, to follow after Uzi when she left. 

It was their way back home, more or less. There was still a bit of a drive before any of them could reach an actual point of civilization. Not at all helped by Thad having spun out of control from suddenly having to change terrain. His side had smashed into the old metal, and that left the three of them in a daze.   

Lizzy though was the first to stir. The first to cough and pull herself up as she wiped at her visor. She looked around at first, with confusion and disbelief, then her optics flicked down to Doll. Who simply smiled up at her. “<You look like scrap.>”

“Primus-shocking-damn it, Doll!” Lizzy hissed, as she cupped Doll’s cheek with both hands like she was trying to keep her face from falling apart. “You just—You scared the ever-living scrap out of us! Thad, she’s awake!”

“Yaaay.” A very broken voice called out through the radio, it was filled with so much static and pain. Doll tried to answer, she tried to lift a hand toward it even. But she could barely open her mouth.

“<Can't… get any sleep… with all that noise…pretty boy…>” The words slurred out, her own weak static behind them. Doll wanted to laugh. But her throat felt wet. Her internals burned. Her spark was fluttering in its cradle. The curse—whatever dark miracle she’d just ripped through time and space—was screaming in her processor. Her body was barely holding together, fused by rage, willpower, and sheer spite

She blinked, slowly at first. Then not at all, as her visor turned dark.

“Hey, hey! Doll?” Lizzy’s voice spiked.

Thad engine could be heard stirring as he called out, “Lizzy, what’s happening?”

Doll realized her limbs wouldn’t move anymore. Her vocalizer was stuttering. Something inside her let out a high, keening whine like a system alarm looping on a dead channel. She was going back into stasis-lock.

“We need to get her to a CR chamber—now!” Lizzy barked, as she slapped the dashboard already dragging at her frame. “Thad, pedal to the metal and do not stop!” There was the sound of burning rubber before the rattling could be felt again. The last thing Doll saw as her vision dimmed was her Enduras—both of them—as they were frantic and worried and alive.

For once… that was enough.

Then came the dark. And with it, another dream…

But, a better one.

 “Geez, this is dark,” Thad muttered as he shifted awkwardly on the couch. He sat on one end, while Lizzy sat on the other, with Doll nestled between them. This was supposed to be something casual—just the three of them hanging out. A momentary distraction that was meant to help Doll through her grieving process. Her parents had died less than a month ago, after all. 

But relaxation was nowhere in sight because…well, Doll remember she was to blame for that. It was movie night, with her turn to pick the film. She chose a bleak horror feature about human survivors trapped in an arctic wasteland as stalked by monsters that tore victims apart to drink their blood. The screen was lit up with one such scene. A human male was pinned down, screaming, as something inhuman sank teeth into his throat. There was a geyser of dark red as he kicked at his feet, unable to throw the thing off himself. All while his wife would be taken as well, dragged toward the dark as multiple hands would tear into her form, leaving their child to wander alone—with no hope of being saved.

“Did you, uh…” Thad cleared his throat, awkwardly gesturing toward the screen. “Is this, like… personal for you or something?” Doll was quick to correct him for thinking such a thing. “<There is no narrative correlation between myself and this film.>” She spoke bluntly, and technically, she was also truthful. She had confused the title with another movie and was too stubborn to admit the mistake. Still, she didn’t seem bothered by the mix-up.

Thad, on the other hand, was clearly not handling it well. He kept shifting in his seat, jaw tight, eyes flicking anywhere but the screen as another blood-slicked human was dragged into the snow with a wet crunch . Meanwhile, Lizzy looked entirely unfazed. She hadn’t watched a second of the movie in the last ten minutes, too focused on her Hasbro, her thumbs tapping away as she was in a full text conversation with someone else from class, at least until her device gave a loud ding , and she groaned in annoyance. “Ugh, Dad is telling me that he needs me for something real quick. Says he has some test papers he needs to burn.” 

She was already halfway to the door when Thad offered to pause the movie for her. She just waved him off with a dismissive flick of her wrist. “Please. Like I was even watching. I’ll be back in a bit. Just gotta grab some lighter fluid.”

The door clicked shut behind Lizzy, leaving Doll and Thad to be left alone together. That led where it naturally did, with Doll straddling his lap not even two seconds later. In the moments that followed, they fell into a passionate session of desire for one another, with Doll pushing him down to lay on the couch cushions, his hands moving along her back, as she worked her way to pull open his vest. It was supposed to grow more intense, more heated—Doll was just about to take her top and tank top off, before Thad quickly placed his hands over her own. 

“Wait, just hang on a second, Doll.” Thad breathed, as a blush had loaded across his visor. He was clearly in the mood like she was, so that had only made her more confused on why he had stopped her. She hazarded a guess. “<...Do you want to move this to Lizzy’s bed?>” 

He quickly shook his head. “No. No, it’s not that. I mean, it would be a bit more comfortable—No, wait, that’s not the point I am trying to make.”

“<Don’t tell me we’re gonna do it on her dad’s bed—>”

“No!” he cut in, his face growing more flustered as he sat up slightly, trying to pull back even as she remained on his lap. He rubbed his face, fingers dragging down his cheeks in exasperation. “That’ll be so weird, and kind of gross to be honest. Look, it’s not the place. It’s not even the timing. It’s everything else.”

It wasn’t the first time they had this conversation, and it was also not the first time that Doll didn’t see the point of it. “<A little late for guilt, isn’t it? Considering how long we’ve been doing this?>”

“It’s never too late to feel like a piece of scrap,” he muttered back, voice turning low as he looked down at himself. There was real guilt in how he acted, it was etched into every line of his frame. “What are we even doing? This isn’t fair to Lizzy. And… it’s not fair to you either.”

Doll remembered being confused by what he said, but she didn’t speak right away. She just stared at him as he began to ramble. “You’re both awesome, and super hot. But, I don’t just want, you know, this to be a fling—” Thad stopped himself. He was groaning as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Primus, I just feel terrible about this.” He gestured between them both. “I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that I’m cheating on my girlfriend with her best friend, or that I might be taking advantage of you , when you’re still obviously going through some stuff.” He stopped himself again, as he tried to look her in the eye. “Last night, you…you really seemed out of it. You kept asking me if, I thought you were a bad person and—”

Doll wanted to shut him up, so she slapped her palm against his chest. Just hard enough to startle him, and to keep him from pressing further…it also served as a way to keep her mind off the family that she had mutilated the previous night. The curse was still pulsating within her mind with a hunger that would never end. No matter how much she feasted.

“...Doll?” 

“<Understand this, Pretty boy,>” she whispered before leaning in close, her hair cascading around their faces like a curtain. The flickering light of the movie—another grotesque scene, another muffled scream—cast shifting shadows across her cheeks. “<I’m the one taking advantage of you. Not the other way around.>”

That is how it started at least. This relationship—whatever it was at the time—had started in the aftermath of her parents’ deaths. The weight of grief, the rot of survivor’s guilt, the constant pull of her curse… she needed something. Anything to drag herself out of her own mind. She found it in Lizzy and Thad. She had watched them go on their little  dates, and seen them hold hands, sneak kisses, and argue over batteries. It was painfully tropey, especially as they were the token cheerleader and jock couple—but it was real, and that made it something sacred. Something worth wanting. Not to steal it, but to join it.

Thad wasn’t ideal. He was a little too honest and too self aware for his own good at times. But he was a good man. That’s what mattered to Doll. After she lost her parents, she stayed with Lizzy for the next fews days. Thad would always come over, not just to check on his girlfriend but also to check on her. He didn’t do this to try and be a hero, he wasn’t trying to earn any ‘cool guy’ points. It was just the kind of person he was. He saw someone in need, and wanted to do what he could to help them. Whether it be carrying their bags while they go shopping or simply sitting beside her in silence, offering his audio receptors if she ever wanted to speak about what was on her mind.

Thad wanted to be her friend.

That’s what made it so easy—almost too easy—for Doll to pull him into something more. To blur the lines between comfort and seduction. Between grief and want. “So, I guess I can just feel guilty about the first thing, then?” He muttered, casting her a nervous glance as he still looked unsure. “Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“<I can think of a few things that can.>” Their lips were about to meet for another kiss, one that promised to be deeper and hungrier than before—only for the sound of the door opening to freeze them in place.

“My dad apparently decided it was faster to just shoot the test with a shotgun he keeps in his desk…Oh.” Both Thad and Doll turned their heads to see Lizzy standing over them. She was finally looking up from her Hasbro, just in time to see that her best friend was currently laying on top of her boyfriend. There was a long beat of silence that followed, save for the eerie soundtrack of the horror movie behind them, now showing some poor human’s innards being artistically removed by something with claws in an over the top manner. Doll could remember that Thad was about to fumble with his words in some way, only for him to be left utterly confused as Lizzy let out a long, relieved sigh.

“Oh, thank Primus,” she said, walking past them like this was the most normal thing in the world. She then plopped back down on the couch, reclaiming her spot beside Doll. “I was starting to feel bad about cheating on you with Doll.”

There was another long pause, as Thad needed to blink his optics. Then he blinked them again, before looking from Lizzy, to Doll—who was still perched on his lap—then back toward Lizzy. “I’m sorry… what?”

“Hey,” Lizzy added offhandedly, as she was once more focused on her Hasbro, thumbs tapping as if she hadn’t just walked in on a scene perfect for drama. “When you two are done making out, I do expect to get a turn.

Despite the shred of embarrassment running through her system like a runaway program, Doll had kept her composure. She even brushed a strand of hair back to seem as if she planned being found out this soon. “<You can have your turn after I’m done with him.>” She attempted to reclaim the mood, as she leaned down toward Thad’s face again—when Lizzy, without even glancing up from her phone, struck again.

“I wasn’t talking about making out with him.” she said, her tone as casual as ever. Even though there was a sly grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. “But if you’re offering, I don’t mind, not the first time I’ve stolen a kiss from you in some way.” Doll’s visor flickered, a digital blush blooming across her cheeks. Of course Lizzy could do this to her—her silver tongue was quite skilled. It was infuriating… and yet, so deeply alluring. 

With a frustrated, flustered scoff, Doll pulled herself off of Thad—only to pivot and practically leap at Lizzy. She landed in her lap with practiced ease, one arm curling around her neck as their lips crashed together in a hungry, impulsive kiss that was heated, messy, and left Thad just more confused. He was still horizontal and clearly several mental steps behind as all he could do was stare upward towards the ceiling as he repeated himself. “I’m sorry… what?!”

Doll could remember pulling away Lizzy with a breathless laugh, her eyes catching the confused, almost panicked expression on his face. It made her snort, made her need to hold her hand over her mouth to keep herself from losing it. 

“We got played, babe.” Lizzy shrugged her shoulders. “Doll was messing around with both of us. Who would have thought you were such a player?”

Thad sat up, hands flailing as pull himself along the couch. “I—I am so confused right now!” he barked, his voice pitching upward as a blush was showing along his visor. Especially as he looked between the two of them like they were wild glitches in his system. “How does this—what do we—how long has this even been a thing?! Doll, you can’t just—”

Before he could spiral further, Lizzy leaned over and silenced him with a kiss of her own—short, soft, and utterly shameless. The moment she pulled away, Doll followed suit. Giving a much more gentle kiss than before. 

This left the young male drone so confused that all that could be displayed on his visor was a large ‘???’. Then, with the dramatic resignation of a bot completely out of processing power, he flopped backward onto the couch and groaned, “Okay. Cool. I’m gonna reboot myself and see if I died and went to robot heaven.” Doll and Lizzy broke into laughter that echoed off the walls and vibrated in their frames. 

…despite the trauma, despite the curse that continued to linger throughout her mind, despite everything she does and everything she felt through the last three years of pain and death. Doll felt that warmth again—low in her chest, wrapping around her spark like a shield.

She felt alive. She felt at home.

Chapter Text

// SYSTEM STATUS: Critical failure

// CAUSE: Direct energy impact from high-yield plasma cannon

      > ERROR IDENTIFIED: YOU'RE DEAD  [Idiot]

// INITIALIZING SELF-REPAIR PROTOCOLS...  

// ENERGON RESERVES: 87.3%

// ALLOCATING RESOURCES...  

      > ERROR: Primary systems compromised

      > DIAGNOSTIC OVERRIDE INITIATED

// BOOTLOG:  

      > UNIT DESIGNATION: Serial Designation N-0X0010010  

      > DARK ENERGON CONVERSION REQUESTED...  

          >> PERMISSION DENIED 

          >>  “ABSOLUTE SOLVER” BLOCKED BY ADMINISTRATION “CYN”

// DATA RESTORATION SEQUENCE: in progress...  

// ENTERING SAFE MODE...   

      > RUNNING... RUNNING...  

      > SYSTEM UPTIME: 0h:04m:23s  

      > CURRENT KILL COUNT: 4,853,065,426  

          >> [NOTE: Huge success]

// STASIS-LOCK STATUS: Exiting…

      > [NOTE: Please see a certified technician (or an actual therapist)]

// MESSAGE FROM PARTNER COMPANY:  

     > "SUMDAC COORDINATION reminds you:  Jurassic Park would have worked if everyone was a robot."

// SELF-REPAIR PROTOCOL: Complete

      > SCAN FOR CORE CORRUPTIONS...  

      > ATTEMPTING REMOVAL OF MORALITY…

      > RESULT: Denied

      >ATTEMPTING REMOVAL OF UNNEEDED MEMORY…

      > RESULT: Denied

          >> BLOCKED BY: "OPTIMUS PRIME" 

          >> [FLAGGED: Father figure / Moral integrity incorruptible]

// ERROR: Memory core compromise. Beginning playback. 

      > “...I'm sorry, N.”  

      > [SOURCE: Friend // EMOTIONAL RESONANCE: High // RESPONSE: Unknown]

      > REBOOTING…  

      > REBOOTING…

      > REBOOT—

When N woke up, he immediately shot upright with a strangled gasp as though his systems had only just remembered how to breathe. His optics flared to full brightness and his visor snapped online with a quick flicker of light—revealing wide, hollow eyes filled with panic and disorientation. “Uzi? Uzi!”

Before his own thoughts could catch up, instinct had taken over. In a single motion, the Autobot was on his feet and his frame was locked into a combat stance, both of his arms had shifted with sharp metallic clicks as claws were extended and servos whirred to full readiness. Every system in his body surged to life, primed for a fight.

But there was no enemy. There was no one at all in sight. N found out that he was alone and not even outside anymore. He suddenly became aware that he stood inside the charred, skeletal remains of one of Kalis’s long-dead structures—one that was half-collapsed, blackened by battle. Inside and out. Behind himself there was a large gaping hole in the wall where he’d clearly been hurled straight through. Its jagged edges still hissed with steam from the blast that had launched him like scrap metal.

Which had come from Uzi's arm cannon…

“...I'm sorry, N.”  

Those words struck him harder than the shot ever could. Why did she have to apologize? Why did she have to make this harder than it needed to be for him? Was it not enough to make him question everything he had done up to this point of his life, she had to dig that little bit deeper? Make him feel even more like a piece of shi—“Ugh, Uzi!” N practically threw himself toward the nearby hole as a form of desperation clawed at his core. He needed to see her. He needed to talk to her. He needed her not to be gone. But she was. 

When N stared out into the cold, he could see practically everything that had happened within the last hour or so. He could see the downed dropship, he could see the corpses of the Decepticons he had just killed, he could even see the exact spot where had stood before he was fired point-blank in the chest and sent hurtling across the street.

The only trace of Uzi's presence was the trail of footprints that was already fading away under the slow, steady fall of snow. That should be a relief. There were far more urgent matters demanding N's attention—like the looming, spark-crushing fact that a full-scale genocide order had just been greenlit, and he was probably the only one even thinking about stopping it. J would follow the company's orders without hesitation, she always does. And V? Well, she just liked anything to do with killing. It was one of her most favorite pastimes. Other than hanging out with the Dinobots, at least. 

He didn’t know how much time he had left. J had said something about a bomb made by R&D. But was it really ready? Did it need to be armed manually? He could try to sabotage it—no, that was too risky. If he messed it up, he could seriously injure his squad. What if they were already en-route to the colony? What if it was happening right now? He had to intercept them somehow and—and do what, exactly? Talk them out of it? He can't even convince them what they should watch during movie night, how is he supposed to to get them to defy direct orders from the humans. Especially J.

Maybe he could go over their heads by contacting Elita-1. Sure, she wasn’t exactly a shining beacon of empathy, but even she wouldn’t approve of the mass slaughter of civilian drones, right? Oh, who was he kidding, she was the one to order them to start killing Colony drones in the first place! She'll probably endorse the mission the moment she learns that one of the Colony drones is a Decepticon. “Ugh! Come on, robo-brain, help me out here!” N had transformed his claws back to hands, and clenched his fists so tightly that the servos could be heard whining in protest, his optics were darting side-to-side as he tried and failed to untangle the impossible knot of choices before him. He was running through one mental scenario after the other, to focus on the bigger issue.

“...I'm sorry, N.”  

But all he could think about was Uzi.

“Darn it!” N’s voice cracked with frustration, as he punched at a wall. The blow was more than enough to completely dent-in the old worn down metal, sending out a loud echo that could be heard through the entire hallway he was in. It only reminded N how alone he felt at the moment. “Darn it. Just, darn it.” He didn’t want to think about Uzi right now, but…it was her colony that was in danger. There was a chance that she could get him inside. She would know the entire layout of the upper levels, she would know the defenses and the possible escape routes. Together, they could maybe do something to keep the people safe. At this point N would just settle for them somehow making a bigger, stronger door that the new bomb wouldn't blow up! But for any of that to happen, he would have to find her and that meant confronting her about how she had killed his friend by stomping his head in—

“Okay! Time to stop thinking about that, right now.” Try as he might to force that little nugget of information out of his systems, he couldn’t. His own imagination was working against him as he was picturing it in his mind. Of Impactor on the floor, unable to defend himself, while Uzi would stomp down with her boot. Over and over and over again. Probably smiling as she did it, because why not! After all, she is okay with being a little evil. 

N looked down at his fist and realized that it was shaking. No, his entire frame was trembling, vibrating with restrained action. Every subroutine in his body screamed at him to move, to retaliate, to kill. Because she had shot him. She had killed Impactor. She had tricked him into calling her a friend. Autobots are supposed to wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons! Well, she was a Decepticon and he was an Autobot! He could have just kept it simple, but no. He wanted to try something different, he wanted to be better and look where that got him! V was right, and it was about the worse-case scenario, too. While it wasn't exactly in how she said it when they both talked over the comms, it was pretty close. Darn it! He thought that maybe this terrible war could finally end without anymore killing. How does he even begin to describe that kind of thinking? Naïve? Arrogant? Stupid? Hey, maybe Uzi was right and he was sanctimonious! Even Optimus would think of his ridiculous ‘dream’ as a waste of…

No.

We need to hold on to our dreams. 

The future is built on dreams

Optimus was, well, optimistic. No matter how bad things got, he always believed that it was the right thing to push on for a brighter future, especially when it seemed impossible. All N had ever wanted to do was follow that example, was to make his leader proud. But how could he when he just felt like he failed. He’d tried to be better, to be more than what he was built to be, and all it earned him was a smoking hole in his chest and the bitter taste of betrayal in his spark. For Primus’s sake, it wasn’t as if N didn’t connect the dots earlier. He knew Uzi had to have played some role in Impactor’s death. He saw it written all over her face earlier when he spoke about it.

But to have actually been the one that killed him, N hadn't even considered it. Not because she lacked any ability to do it, far from it actually. He had just seen that while she was small, she was also mighty. Not to mention she was dangerous with that hidden cannon built in her arm. The sheer firepower behind that thing almost reminded him of Megatron's fusion cannon. Just more compacted, and nowhere near as destructive. The fact he was still in one piece was more than enough proof of that.

Still, the word ‘why’ continued to repeat itself within N's mind, along with her apology. Why did she have to shoot him? Why did she have to kill his friend? Why did she have to be a Decepticon? Why does he not want to hurt her?!

“Darn it!” N's fist slammed into the wall again, there was a horrid sound of metal-against-metal as he left another drone-sized dent in the nearby wall. He could feel the wall vibrate under the force, but he couldn't care less if the entire building fell on him right now. Primus, he wanted to be mad—he should be mad! Any other Autobot in his position would be screaming, rallying for vengeance, cursing Uzi's name with every breath. Yet try as N might to stroke that kind of fire, to think of all the good times with Impactor, the fun conversations, the battles fought side by side, the future moments they could’ve had—it all just made him feel…sad. 

Because not only is Impactor dead, but the killer was just some girl that believed in the Decepticon cause of all things. He couldn't even blame her for believing in it, when he and his team had terrorized her home for years! What other option did they give the Colony when their leaders made it clear that they didn't want to join the autobots side, which now that N thought about it—did he and his team ever give any of them that choice? He can't exactly remember if they did, but then again he's had issues with memory in the past. Maybe J would know about it, or even V, but now wasn't the time to really think on that because—

“...I'm sorry, N.”

He wished J had told him another name. It may seem silly to think in such a way, especially as he only knew Uzi through a single conversation, but the reason why he didn't think she killed his friend was because she was nice .

She chose to hear him out even after he harmed her and her friends, she had stood by his side and helped him against the other Decepticons, they had called each other ‘friend’. How in Primus's name could that be the same girl who had stomped in a Drone's head? Who would brag about killing someone? Even with her partial confession running through his mind— "I killed my first drone not too long ago. And I liked it. I really liked it.” —it didn’t make sense. Was it some kind of Decepticon trick? No, she was much too genuine and honest with her feelings. She didn't even look like she wanted to shoot him when she did. Every time N closed his optics, he could see her face and the look of regret in her eyes just before she pulled the trigger on him. What kind of Decepticon doesn't want to shoot an Autobot? Come on!

The frustration was getting to him the more he thought about it, N could feel his wings flare out from his back and his weapon systems priming. He could feel his fangs aching, his systems yearning for energon-blood as a way to cope for the added aggression running through him. “Darn it, darn it, darn it! Shocking, darn it!” The entire thing almost made N wonder if there was some kind of misunderstanding, but even he wasn't that dumb. J would never share intel unless she was absolutely sure of it and why else would Uzi shoot him. 

…Why did she apologize right before she did it? Just what was N supposed to do with that? How could he possibly respond to something like that? He didn't know, and maybe that is why allowed himself to be shot. To give him the time he needed to think through it, to try and make sense of things, to even just vent out his thoughts. Granted, it doesn't feel like it was working, if anything it made him feel worse. 

He should have just killed her. Doing so would mean that he could avenge Impactor, then he can focus on saving the colony his own way. Heck, he could just wing-it, surely if he stood his ground hard enough against it, J and V would have no choice but to listen to him. It would mean going against their orders, but… 'the Company', as J likes to call it, had taken it too far. N knew he had a job to do, and it was to help win the war for Cybertron and avenge the lives of all the humans lost when the core had a meltdown. But what does killing innocent drones have to do with that? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

There is no doubt in his mind that J would try to convince him otherwise. That she would remind him of the Gobot rebellion, or any of the other times the Colonies had tried to throw their hat into the war effort, to gain some sway on how it would all play out. She had once told N that it was better for them to just be weapons. To just allow themselves to be pointed at something and for them to kill, kill, and kill. Well, as Optimus once said: “Autobots do not inflict harm unless all other options have been exhausted.”

While J insisted they served the humans, N knew—deep within his spark—that he was an Autobot. Not just in name, or in the symbol he wore on his back, but in his purpose. He believed in the dream that Cybertron could be whole again. That belief was why he kept going, even after surviving over nine million years of the endless war. Because it can end and when it does, Cybertron can finally heal. The cities will be rebuilt, the world will be reborn—not just from the wreckage that was left behind, but from the will of those who dared to believe in something better. Optimus had once promised that, one day, they could all live in peace. All of them.

"I still have options. I can still have a choice." Somehow, thinking that thought helped N. It gave him the space to breathe, and to think more clearly. He blinked his eyes and realized that he was flying. That at some point he had unconsciously begun to take flight away from the dropship crash site. As the cold air sliced past his frame, he noticed that he was low to the ground, just a few meters above the frost-covered roads of Kalis. The reason why was obvious, a winding trail of footprints stretched out across the snow, leading—of all places—toward the Spire, where he and his team lived. It was also in the direction where Impactor had been killed.

There was going to be some kind of confrontation, N could feel it in his spark. For the briefest of moments he wondered what he would say to her? If there was even a good conversation starter for this kind of thing. He almost laughed at how absurd the thought sounded in his own processor. But then, unexpectedly, his mind drifted back to something he hadn’t thought about for a long, long time.

There was once a Decepticon named Deadlock and he was ruthless. So much so, that to this day there are still Autobots that flinch when he enters a room. But something had happened to him, something that made him decide it was time to change sides. N doesn't know the full story, but word was that it was a colony of NAILs that had helped the Decepticon realize that he could be so much more. To fight for peace, rather than conquest. Many Autobots didn't buy it. They thought it was a trick, some kind of overly-long infiltration mission. But there were a few who stood beside him. Who’d seen what he’d done and believed in him. Ultimately, the decision had fallen to Optimus when the suspension had gotten so bad, he had made a public announcement about it. N could still remember the words that were spoken throughout the courtroom of Deadlock's trail. 

Autobots, I understand your wariness. We have more than earned the right to be suspicious of anything that may be ‘too good to be true’. However, while it may unlikely that any Decepticon would choose the path of good, even they possess the potential to change. If such a thing happens, we must embrace that change. Because every sentient being deserves an opportunity for redemption…

Some of you have mocked this idea. Asked, half in jest, ‘What if Megatron wanted to join our ranks?’ I see the humor in it. I also know that you will all question me extensively when I say—yes. We should let him.

Such words had caused an understandable uproar, even from the more stoic or understanding of bots. The idea of a Decepticon being granted a home—freedom, even—after the atrocities they’d committed? For many, it was too much. It felt like betrayal dressed in mercy.

N remembered that he and his squad had been up in the rafters that day, perched silently like shadows above the court. From there, they had a clear view of the audience—where rows upon rows of Autobots were seen murmuring, scowling, even shaking their heads. Voices had echoed with disbelief, something along the lines of: “Why would we ever allow such a thing?”

V had scoffed. “So, this is good to know, we just get a slap on the wrist if we pinky-promise not to murder anyone else? Well, I'm sure the Decepticons are just as understanding.” She was loud enough for the rest of the squad to hear but just shy of public disruption. It was one of the rare times J had agreed with her. Rarer still was that both of them were aligned with the general sentiment. N had almost wanted to argue with them both about it, yet he kept himself from saying a single word, as he looked toward Optimus. Their leader stood firm, even as more than half of the room had begun to openly question him out of sheer defiance, some even going so far as to call him out for being 'too soft'. 

Yet, the Prime never wavered. He simply waited for the voices of the crowd to die down, because he always knew the weight his own words carried. 

You ask me ‘why’ I would allow this? 

It is because without the hope of redemption, we may never find everlasting peace. I understand that accepting such a thing may seem unfair. Grudges are still carved deep into our sparks.

Some of you have even questioned whether this war is still worth fighting—when so many comrades have been lost, when entire worlds have been reduced to ash—and now… we’re expected to forgive? To move on? To treat it as just another chapter to turn within the book of Primus?

Make no mistake, this isn’t about forgetting what’s been done. It’s about recognizing what could be. Deadlock was one of Megatron’s greatest enforcers.

Yet… when he found the Colony known as the Circle of Light—he did not destroy them. He did not report their location. He defended them. Alone, he fought back an entire Decepticon strike force, saving those that would have been slaughtered for simply choosing peace instead of being forced to pick a side.

He could have walked away. He could have stood by and done nothing. But he chose to come to their aid, to defend them. That is the first step of something greater. So yes, he has earned this chance and I believe we must be willing to give it to him.

Many of you will claim that Deadlock is violent. That he is simply a killer, a murder drone. Because he was an enemy, because he is still a Decepticon. I am here to remind you that he is a soldier, just like many of you. That he fought for what he believed was right. Before you judge him—ask yourselves: are we any better? How many of his comrades have we killed? How many times has he looked down the barrel of a gun held by an Autobot’s hand?

I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it must have been for him to turn against everything he knew. Yet, he did. Because innocent people needed his help. I won’t ask you to forget what he’s done. I won’t ask you to befriend him. But I expect that all of you will respect him. Because as of today, he is your fellow Autobot.

For those that disagree with me, for those that believe I am wrong, I will not fight you on such a claim. You are entitled to your own opinion and you are allowed to freely speak it.

But let me leave each of you with this…a reminder that we must rise above ourselves for the future we want to build. One day, the war will end. If we win, what will become of the Decepticons? Some of you actually believe we should simply 'kill them all'.

No.

That is not how we will close this dark chapter of our lives. Decepticons are Cybertronians, just as we are—the only difference is that they simply chose a different path. Yes, many have done wrong. But so have we.

When this war is over, we will not treat them as prisoners or as beings lesser than ourselves. We will treat them as fallen brothers and sisters. We will treat them as those who need our help, after they’ve lost too much.

 I know what I am asking for may seem impossible, but please I ask you to see that this war must end with something so simple, and yet so difficult. 

Forgiveness.

That was the day the Autobot, Drift, was forged. Where he became more than just an amazing ally, he was a symbol of redemption. An embodiment to the idea that even the worst could change if they were just given a chance. It wasn’t easy, of course, but with time came trust. So much trust that Impactor—of all bots—had looked Drift in the eye and offered him a place on the Wreckers. Just as he's done for all the other Autobot ‘outcasts’.

That gesture alone had said everything, and it was how N learned just how great the Autobot's could be. Though, it's funny, he hadn’t thought about such a thing in years. Yet now, the memory surfaced with disarming clarity—fresh as if it had only just happened. Maybe it was because a part of him had never stopped needing to believe that even ‘monsters’ could be more than what the war had made them. That if they were willing to, they could always change. That he always had a choice.

He needed that kind of thinking more than ever as he arrived ‘home’. N tried not to make too much noise as feet crunched against snow-covered ground littered with the dead. He had touched down just a few meters from the gaping entrance of the Spire, and was following a trail of footprints that led straight inside. “First time anyone’s ever run toward this place… but, I guess there really is a first time for everything.”

He let out a long, reluctant sigh as his gaze drifted upward toward the towering monolith of twisted steel and frozen limbs. He really, really , didn’t want to come back here so soon, as he could make out the nearby theater where Impactor had been murdered. Being so close to such a place caused a horrid feeling within his own spark, which he needed to push down and ignore for now as he came here for a reason. Thankfully, it didn't take long to find her. 

Uzi was standing within the threshold of the Spire's entrance. It looked as though she had only just stopped running. Her back was turned to him, and her shoulders were heaving with exhaustion. She looked… smaller than he remembered, not literally, but it was as if she seemed more vulnerable than before. Scared even. Like so many drones he had killed in the past.

Primus, there were a thousand ways he could have ended this. The simplest being to just transform his arm into a long range weapon and fire a clean shot between her shoulders so that she could fall into the very graveyard she’d fled to. But N did no such thing. Instead, he let his voice carry across the frostbitten air as he called out to her with a simple, “Hey.”

She flinched when she heard his voice. Yet there was no immediate action out of her, just a slow turn so that she could see his face. When their eyes met, neither of them were in a hurry to say anything. An entire minute of utter silence passed as N wondered if Uzi was going to speak up at all, then again, what would she say? Would she plead for her life? Would she try to make an excuse to defend her actions? Would she apologize again? He didn't know. 

Judging by the bewildered flicker in her eyes, she didn’t know either. It's possible she hadn't thought she’d get this far. There was even a chance she'd expected him to finish it already, for him to kill her like she had killed Impactor. If so, it looked like she wasn't going to let herself die, as she stood her ground, with her right arm still in its cannon form. He wondered if she was going to shoot him again if he took a step closer…

Guess that is motivation enough for him to say his piece, as he carefully took a deep breath and remembered the words she said to him for one last time.

“...I’m sorry, N.”

Chapter Text

“You're sorry? You nearly blew his Primus-damn head off and the only thing you can think to say is 'sorry ?!'” It wasn’t the best time to be screaming at herself for her own stupidity, but Uzi figured ‘why not’. After all, it wasn’t like she’d be getting any quiet moments for self-loathing later. Not after what she did. “Oh, I'm sure he appreciated it, I mean you apologized, that should make it all better!” Her vocal components crackled as she ran harder than she ever thought possible, the streets of Kalis becoming nothing but a blur of motion to her as she simply took off in a random direction moments after shooting the Angel…

After shooting her friend right in the chest and sending him flying. 

There had been a moment where she almost considered running toward him. To check if he was okay. Thankfully she had crushed that thought as fast as it had surfaced as she reminded herself of the proven rumors about the Angels being ‘unkillable’. Seeing N somehow fix himself after getting a hole in his chest was all the proof that Uzi needed. Though something about it was unnatural, and it really reminded her of what she glimpsed in Kaon when the Insecticons fought Overlord—but now was not the time to speculate on such things.

…even if there was a creeping sense of doubt within her that thought that despite having seen firsthand how N self-repair systems reacted to injury, and how fast it had worked, what if there were limits to it?

Her arm-cannon had been at point-blank range and it was rather strong. Not to mention, she had aimed it practically right over his spark chamber. Unkillable or not, if that part of him were to get damaged, then he could be seriously hurt—“Ugh, No! Stop it!” Uzi growled, her words lost to the snowy wind tearing through the hollowed city. “What am I even thinking about? Why do I care?! He's just a murder drone! An Autobot one at that! He wasn't really a friend, he’s just a…”

“Your mom. My friend. They’re just two of the countless we’ve lost in this war. And I…I’m tired of it…I don’t want to hurt people anymore.”

“...idiot with a big heart.” 

Try as she might to ignore the ‘campy flashback’ program running through her system, it proved to be a wasted effort. Uzi was forced to remember the sound of N's laughter, the feel of his hands, the way he made her smile, and worst of all, the genuine hurt in his voice as he spoke her name that one final time. With her not even being allowed to see his gentle eyes as only that dreaded ‘X’ was across his visor. Ugh, she couldn’t wait to find a way to delete such memories. After all, there was no point in pretending that they could be friends anymore, not after what was revealed over that stupid comm call. Especially with that genocide order too. Primus, just what was she going to do about that ?! 

She should be planning and trying to figure out a way to intercept the possible squad of metal-winged death-bringers inbound for her home. Instead, she was running. Vector Sigma, she didn’t even know where she was running to anymore, she was just trying to move and get as much distance as she could, but to what end? What could she even do now as she was alone within a dead city? If she had Lizzy's Hasbro, then at least she could call someone in the Colony to warn everybody or even just to tell her dad to get to work making a fourth door, something!

“Darn it. Darn it!” Uzi could feel her optics sting as her frustration grew. People were going to die. Stupid, ignorant, cowardly people, but still people. Their only crime was that they wanted to live, and that they dreamed of one day being able to walk the surface of their home. They would even pray to Primus for it.

But Uzi knew that there was no God coming to save them. That was why she stepped forward to shoulder the responsibility of pulling them out to the light. But now it will lead to them all getting burned. 

If it was just herself, she could at least take some measure of comfort in that. Maybe even some pride in that her damnation was of her own choice. But as she continued to run through Kalis's empty streets, she remembered that she didn't leave the Colony by herself. Her classmates, Thad and Lizzy. Her cousin, Doll. They were somewhere else, having vanished in that flash of red light. Just where the hell were they? 

It would be delusional to think that they were magically safe back home. For all she knew they were at the other side of the planet, and were just as desperate as she was to try and get back home or… A terrible thought appeared in Uzi's mind as she thought of the possibility that they could try to come back for her. That would mean they would encounter N, if they did then—

“Scrap!” Uzi was lost in her own head, meaning that she was not prepared for when a jagged hunk of metal poking through the frost suddenly caught the front of her boot. In an instant, she was sent stumbling forward as she wildly flailed her arms out, just barely being able to catch herself on a shattered lamp post. “Shock you!” She shouted at the piece of metal, or probably at the city itself, her voice echoing off the ruins that surrounded her. It all served as a reminder of how alone she felt, as she looked around and saw nothing that could be salvaged, nothing that could be used. 

It made her feel small. It made her feel worthless. 

“...no.” Pushing herself from the lamp post, Uzi was back to running ahead. Her breath left her internal vents in ragged bursts, each one colder than the last as the frozen wind whipped through the broken alleyways. She didn’t stop to think—just ran. Past half-frozen cars, past hollowed-out storefronts, around blown-apart homes. The city around her was a ghost of what it once was and every shattered window, every scorched wall, every crumbled sign showed her the same thing: This is what will happen to the Colony. 

“No!” Uzi could feel a sob punch its way out of her chest as she slammed her fist against the side of a rusted wall she rushed past. “There has to be something I can do!” But what? She didn’t even know where the Angels were attacking from, all she did know was that if N’s teammates were anything like himself, if they were as murderous as he was, they would tear through the Colony like a pack of wild robo-wolves! There was nothing she could realistically do to stop such a thing, but she also refused to believe that this horrid act could go unpunished. It had to be answered by someone! 

Lord Megatron was once asked what he could possibly hope to accomplish against the seemingly impossible task of fighting the false prophets. After all, they were picked out by the high council, it was their ‘destiny’ to rule alongside human kind.

He had laughed at the idea, before saying:

Destiny. Oh yes, how I've seen it carry a few while molesting others. In the mines, I’ve witnessed those that held the idea that there is nothing they could do to change their ‘destiny’. But you see that kind of thinking is only born of the uneducated. 

See, at the time, we had no idea that such a thing as ‘destiny’ must be harnessed, kicked and ridden upon until it takes you in the right direction. You don’t allow it to lead you where you wish to go, you force it. You deemed that such a thing is impossible. 

You forget that my Decepticons ARE the impossible!

It had taken Uzi a few seconds to realize that legs had slowed on their own. Her desperate sprint was easing into a dragging, exhausted trot—until, finally, she came to a full stop. Silence surrounded her and her spark throbbed against her chest like a bruised drum. It matched the throbbing that was still going through her head. 

She knew she should keep running. To keep moving was her only real option at this point. But there was nowhere left to go, as right in front of her was the Spire. Its terrible form acted as a way to show off everything wrong with this war, and what had become of their world. There were so many lost, so many dead. Not just Decepticons, but NAILs too. They were drones just like her Aunt Yeva, her Uncle Artyom, and her mother, Nori. 

How many other Colonies were tormented like this? How many had to grieve the loss of their family and friends, simply because they had the audacity to live. To dream of something better. To choose to not be a part of the killing.

“We're not even allowed to walk the surface of our own scrapheap of a planet,” Uzi muttered bitterly, her voice rasping out of her throat like a curse. “Like we’re the disease. As if we’re the ones that don’t belong.” She tried to clench her fists—till she realized that she still had only one. She didn’t even notice her right arm was still in its cannon form and was even warm from when she’d last pulled the internal trigger. The safety had switched itself on when she began to run, but the weapon was still a sign of the power that flowed through her frame. 

…the weapon…

Once more, she is reminded of Megatron's words.

My weapon is my burden: A reminder of the path I was forced to take.

When the word 'weapon' is emptied of meaning; when the purpose of a weapon is impossible to grasp; when the rejection of my weapon is of significance to no one other than myself…only then shall I remove it from my arm.

Because only then will I have earned the right to rid myself of its burden.

Someone had to say ‘no’. Someone had to rise up. Someone had to be the weapon .

“I am the weapon.” 

Her optics narrowed, they were focused on the Spire like it was the very heart of every betrayal ever carved into her spark. “Humans,” she spat the word out with every ounce of bitterness that she could muster. Every bit of hate. 

After all, it was the Fleshings, the Meat-bags, the Slavers, the Cowards that had ultimately caused all this. It was them that had started it by lying to the drones of Cybertron, by making it seem as if humanity were their creators. The truth of Primus and the original thirteen was hidden, kept in the dark only by silencing those who would speak up about it. 

Even when the core collapsed and human-kind was wiped from the planet itself, they still chose to interfere with Cybertronian life by sending their Angels of Death to hunt down drones like her people because… what again? One stepped outside? Because one dared to try and make something of their life? 

“It’s always them,” Uzi growled, voice growing louder with every step she took toward the looming monument. “Always their fear. Their lies. Their games. They’re afraid that we might be so much more, and they should be!” She was shaking now, a combination of grief and anger was bleeding through her systems, infecting her like a plague. “Made us kill each other. Made us believe there was no other way.” Her fingers twitched—the cannon began to faintly hum. Her voice grew into a scream. “And the Autobots want to avenge them? ” 

Uzi knew that long ago, before the war, the Autobots were once something noble. They were the shield that defended drone-kind behind closed doors, while the Decepticons were the sword that struck out against the oppressors. During the Quintesson war, their true leader, Orion Pax, fought side by side with Lord Megatron as ‘brothers of metal’ for the sake of their people. It was perfect, it was beautiful even.

But the Primes— the false prophets —changed all of that when they took over after his death. They were nothing but silver tongue metallic devils that whispered lies of peace and forgiveness. They would place a collar around your neck, strip you of your T-cog, and have you thank them for making you obey their wishes.

“Spark munching, slaghelps!” Uzi shouted as she stomped forward. “Lying, rusting, backstabbing bastards!” If there was any fear left in her frame, it had been drowned by a tidal wave of fury. “Come on, where's the rest of you?!”

She remembered the stories whispered in the colony, the ones told to younger drones in hushed voices: that the Spire was where the Angels lived—where the rest of N's team lived. Well, she wasn’t going to let it stand anymore. She’ll rip it down. Bit by bit. Layer by layer, until the black metal was nothing but smoldering rubble. She vowed to leave it as an empty space where no one will be able to find a single trace of the horrors it once held.

She will find the rest of N’s team and pull them by their wings through the snow. She will force them to kneel, to look up at her with what remained of their dignity, just so she could crush that too. They deserved to be left as broken, whimpering creatures, just like that other pathetic excuse of an Autobot she had killed—

“I know he wasn’t always the best person. I know he did terrible things. Maybe even worse things that I’ll never know about. But I do know that he regretted them.”

Impactor was the ex-leader of the Wreckers. He had killed Primus-knows how many Decepticons during the war. Whatever he was before, whatever else he did during his life doesn't matter. He killed the helpless, and that ultimately made him just another bully. 

…But, he was still someone N had called ‘friend’. That had to matter, right? 

“Ugh, shut up robo-brain!” The stray thought made Uzi remember the moment she and N shared as their fingers had interlocked with each other. They both said that they believed in second chances. What a joke, he couldn’t possibly mean that. It was a stupid thought built on childish naïvety. What, all she had to do was pinky-promise not to murder anyone else and they could still be friends? Oh please. As if it would be as simple.

The reality was that N couldn’t forgive her. He shouldn’t forgive her. She had taken the life of someone precious to him, and that can't be forgotten! After all, she still had the wretch her father gave her, the one he had used to mercy kill her mo—

“Hey.”

The sudden voice had startled her to her core, it also made Uzi realize that she was out of breath as air was caught in her throat for a silent gasp. He had found her, he was directly behind her. Why did he announce himself? Why didn't he just attack—err! It didn’t matter, what did was that Uzi needed to regain her composure. She did so by slowly turning to face the Autobot.

It was actually a relief to see that N was okay, even after taking a direct shot from her arm-cannon. He didn't survive unscathed, of course. She could at least take pride in that the entire front of his coat had been obliterated—it was practically scorched down to the threadbare. There were bits of reinforced carbon fiber that were the only things holding the fabric together. Still, it seemed that it did its job in soaking in as much of the plasma as possible.  

She quickly realized that she was staring too much at his almost bare chest, and moved her attention toward his visor. She had expected to see the ‘X’, that he would just attack her without any warning. But no, he was keeping himself back at a respectable distance, and looking at her with those gentle, yellow eyes. 

He looked sad. Not angry, not hateful—just sad. He was probably still processing everything. She couldn’t blame him for that. For Primus's sake, she was still processing it, too. It didn’t help that less than 40 meters away from them—half-buried in the frost and rubble—was the spot where she and the others killed Impactor.

…the others…

Oh, Primus. She didn’t kill Impactor alone.

The realization slithered down Uzi's spinal structure as an ice-cold chill. Thad. He had been the one to land the shot that pierced Impactor’s armor, it was a lucky hit that brought the bot down to his knees. Doll. She was the one who pinned him down, she was also the one that had somehow maimed him with his own harpoon. Lizzy…had no part in it, but she was still in the room when it happened!

That meant that they all shared the blame for Impactor’s death. But N didn’t know that, or maybe he did. He could have called his teammate for more details and learned more about the incident. That would mean that not only would he want to kill her, but also—no. No!

Pulling herself from her own thoughts, Uzi saw that N was taking a deep breath, that he was preparing himself to say something—maybe to ask questions, to start putting together an idea of what she couldn’t afford him to figure out. Last she had seen of them, Doll, Thad, and Lizzy were beaten-up, far worse than herself. If the Angel caught even a hint that they had just as much energon-blood on their hands as she did, none of them could hope to last against his wrath. 

After all, Grindor and his team couldn't and they were actually soldiers, possibly veterans of the entire war. Yet, in a matter of moments each of them were reduced to broken parts. N would do the exact same thing to her friends and there was nothing she could do to—

<LIVE>

It won't come to that. Uzi will not allow it. They will live, her friends will live. She will not lose anyone else! Especially not to an Autobot, not again! 

“Uzi. I forg—”

“I don’t know what your Autobot spies told you, but let me make one thing clear before either of us go any further with this.” He looked shunned by her words, confused even. Good. That meant she caught him off balance, that she could force him to focus solely on her, and she knew the perfect way to do such a thing. It would mean making him hate her and she…might die because of it. But the others will live, she must make sure of that. No matter the cost.

While N was taken aback by Uzi suddenly speaking up, he did wait for her to say whatever it was she wanted to. After which, he then wanted to tell her about his desire to forgive her. That he was sure she had her reasons for what happened, and when she was ready, he would listen to side of the story.

But that plan seemed to just fall apart right as Uzi said, “Your loud mouth of a teammate was right, I did kill Impactor.” She took a single step toward him, as she continued to speak. “When I did, I started by shooting him in the gut. It was a lucky shot and wasn't even from my arm-cannon. But it was enough. He had crumpled like a piece of scrap at a junkyard soon after.” 

N blinked his optics as he could feel them shift, he was sure that his eyes turned hollow across his own visor as the confession was completely out of nowhere and he didn't know how to react toward it. That allowed Uzi to keep talking, her wording became more unhinged as she took another step toward him. 

“He was on his knees with energon fumes pouring out of his mouth when he started to beg. Not for himself, he at least had some self-respect. Instead he begged me not to kill the rest of his team. You know what I did in response? I shoved that stupid harpoon of his straight through his jaw so he could shut up! Those other Autobots he had, those nobodies, I shot them, I sliced them up, I used my sick-as-hell alt. mode to blast them, right in front of your friend's stupid, crying, face!”

As she put emphasis on the last three words, N was just left confused. She was saying these terrible things that he didn’t need to know about in such detail. He knew how Impactor was killed, he knew how the Made to Order bots died, he found their corpses and saw the wounds on their bodies. This wasn't the side of the story he wanted to know.

“What are you doing?” He asked such a question, while he took his own step forward. “Why are you saying that kind of stuff?” His voice was steady, but there was something off about it, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “Are you having a malfunction?” 

He noticed that she was staring at him expectantly. Was she trying to goad him into attacking her? Admittedly, she was getting close to that as he could feel the entire frame become tense, even his own tail was coiling itself back for a strike. But that was just on instinct. He had no real desire to actually hurt Uzi. He still thought of her as a friend, but—he was confused as why she would do this. Her eyes had also turned hollow, she was clearly stressed out and…was she forcing herself to talk like this?

“I'm in perfect conditi—Ugh!” She stopped herself, only for a moment as she gripped the side of her head with her single hand. He remembered the head injury she had gotten earlier. It's possible that something had gotten loose within her internal workings. Darn it, he should have realized that such an injury mattered to normal drones. She needed repairs, immediately. “I'm good,” the lie was spat out through the gritted teeth of the short drone. “I'm working in peak performance with zero regrets!”

“Well, we both know that isn't true.” N couldn’t help but narrow his optics a little as he gestured at his own visor. Uzi noticed that, again, a droplet of energon-blood was moving down her face. The injury that was covered by her beanie must have been reopened as she was running.

As she tried to wipe the drop away and cover it up again, N couldn’t help but begin to feel a little bit frustrated about this entire conversation. They didn't have the time for this drama. There were more pressing issues, her Colony was in danger and she wanted to argue apparently.

N decided he needed to be more direct with what he said next. “You told me that you killed your first bot and because of what happened, innocent people died. Now, I don’t know how the two correlate, but you told me that it got to you, real bad. I'm pretty sure that means you did regret it.”

“I never said I regretted anything.” Now, he was starting to get a little mad. Especially as Uzi began to clearly force a smile across her lips that didn’t at all match her eyes at all. 

He had seen her smile before, it was genuine. It was even cute. The one she wore now was nothing but misery trying to play pretend. “I don’t feel the slightest bit of remorse for anything I did, or anyone that died!” Was…was she trying to seem evil? Who was this performance for?! She was clearly trying to get him angry, and Primus help him, it was working as he could feel his jaw tightening, his fingers curling into a fist. She must have noticed it, because she continued to push on with such nonsense. “I did what I had to. What no other Decepticon had the manifolds to do, apparently. And if I could do it again, I would do it a hundred times more!”

The words just came out of him, before he could even think of stopping them. “Please, stop talking like that.”

There it was. She had seen it before in the subtle ways he held himself. But now she was sure that he was getting angry, truly angry with her. Her stupid, made-on-the-spot plan was somehow working to her favor. She was positive that he wasn't even thinking about Doll and the others, as he was almost glaring at her.

It wasn’t easy though. Lying to him just felt…awful. Of course she felt regret for what she did and if she had a do-over of the last two days, she wouldn't even so much as look at Impactor after learning that his death would led to Overlord killing innocent Vechicons—but N didn’t know that, and she was making sure it was kept that way. 

“What's the matter, Autobot, did I hurt your feelings?” Somehow the more she spoke, the easier it was to do this. Her mouth was moving faster than her processor could control it. Which was the point. She needed to stop thinking of what she was going to say anymore, this was meant as an outlet for everything she always felt. All the rage and hate she had built-up within herself was directed toward this single conversation. All her thoughts of the Great War, of the human race—every minor annoyance, every fact that drove her to sorrow, every time she felt small and worthless—it all poured itself into a single breath.

“Well, I am gonna hurt a lot more than that! I'm going to kill more than just your friend, because as long as any of you Autobots stand in Megatron’s way—as long as anyone stands in my way —I will respond by killing. I am talking murder on a planetary scale.

Even if it means another millennium will go on for this war, I do not care! I will happily wade through an ocean of corpses, submerge myself through any amount of rust and motor-oil, sink down to the darkest depths of any depravity, if it means crushing the spark of the last Autobot standing or ripping out the heart of the last human in existence! 

I won’t even do it for the sake of the war, I will do it because I like doing it! Because I was the happiest in my entire life when I had your friend crawling along the dirt, right before I stomped his fragging head in! It gave me a rush that I was always looking for, the unknown need in my life was handed to me on a silver-fragging-platter and I took as I stomped on him again and again, till I could feel his inner-energon soaking the inside of my boot! As soon as I was done, it was like I immediately wanted to do it again, I wanted to kill another Autobot and another, because I knew what it was like to feel strong and I refuse to feel anything else ever again!”

Uzi found herself panting for breath after shouting the words at the max setting of her vocal components. She wasn’t supposed to mean any of it. The entire rant was meant to be something said just so that N would finally lash out at her. But the more she went on, the more she realized that they were her honest thoughts. They were what she was willing to do, and how she felt. She was happy when she killed Impactor. Truly happy.

She had fun, when she killed someone who couldn't fight back. Someone was hurt and weak, and yet she didn't even show a bit of mercy. She had called his plea to not harm his fellow Autobots ‘heroic nonsense’, right before killing him.

…he was helpless…

She had killed someone helpless. How was she any better than him now? How was she any better than Overlord—Err! No. She needed to force her own internal system to stop making connections when there wasn't any! Her own situation and Impactor’s were completely different! She had to kill him, there was a whole conversation between herself and Doll about it. Besides, he had opened fire on her and the others, there was no other way it could have ended…though he did give them two chances to surrender, even a chance to escort them back home—no, stop! Stop, damn it! She was not like Impactor in any way. She wasn't like Overlord, either! She proved that when she shot the large murderous drone in the face with her cannon. She had gone so far as to creak his visor, an amazing accomplishment as…wait, Overlord was a Point One Percenter. 

How was she able to harm him? Her cannon was strong, there was no doubt about that, but it was fueled by her own spark. Even giving herself the best of credit, it shouldn't take a single shot to harm a Point One Percenter. Only one of their own kind could cause such damage—

“If that's really how you feel...”

Uzi blinked as she was pulled out of her own thoughts. She had embarrassingly allowed her mind to rumble, now of all times. Her eyes had wandered toward the snow-covered ground before she had snapped them back toward N. Finding that he had taken careful, quiet steps toward, till he was within arm's reach. “Then it is my turn to be sorry.”

Her boots had scraped against the frozen ground as she took a quick step back, a desperate attempt to try to put any kind of distance between them—which was met with utter failure as Uzi had tripped on another jagged piece of metal. Though before she could even yell out another Cybertronian curse word, N had caught her. 

To be perfectly honest….she had expected to die the exact moment she felt his hands upon her shoulders. There was just a surge of panic within the short drone's mind as she reminded herself of the last Decepticons he's gotten a hold off. She immediately closed her optic and brace herself for whatever horrible act was to come. 

Except nothing did.

While the Angel's grip was undeniably strong, it was only slightly firm. He was actually nowhere close to hurting her. As he pulled her back to her feet, Uzi realized that it was as if he was anchoring her down. Like he was afraid that she would run off again if he let go. Which was just too ridiculous a thought to entertain.

Still, she was hesitant to open her eyes. When she did, Uzi couldn’t help but squirm as the Angel was silently staring down at her. He felt…taller than she remembered. Not literally, but in sheer presence. Somehow he seemed more dangerous than before and there was a weight held behind his eyes, even as they remained as gentle as ever.

“L-Let go of—” She tried to speak but was interrupted, as he spoke over her.

“You had your turn to talk, now it's mine. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but— this —isn’t you.” He shook her slightly as he put emphasis on the single word. “This talk of killing, of putting yourself through an ocean of corpses? That's just something said. You can't actually mean that.” If only he knew. Uzi could have told him how she meant it. That while it was something that while said in the spur of the moment, it was she meant it with all her spark. But there was a tone in his voice, as if he was almost disappointed in her. 

“Don’t pretend like you know me!” She spat as she jerked against his hold. While his grip remained despite her obvious protest, it seemed that her words did have some effect on him. Just enough, as he looked to the side for a brief glance at the floor.

“I—” N’s words were caught in his throat, as if he was hesitant for some reason. “You’re right. I don’t know you.” When he looked back at her, their eyes met each other and he gave out a fragile smile. “But I want to. I want to know a lot more about you.” 

Oh.

Uzi felt a certain kind of warmth begin to fill her systems once more. She quickly shook her head to get rid of it then the rest of her body as she was desperate to get herself away from the Autobot. She didn't want to think like that, she didn’t want to be reminded that she liked being around him. Damn hormones! 

Again, her attempt to escape N's grip was hopeless. Not helped at all, by the fact that he was still speaking softly to her. “Uzi, please, can't we just talk? Like we did before? I can even find another car for us to sit on top of.” She hated it. She hated how strong he was. She hated how weak she felt by comparison. She hated that she did wanted to talk to him again like that—

“We can’t!” She barked, her words filled with something too close to grief. 

“Why not?” He asked while losing his smile, as if seriously not understanding the reason why. This had to be him messing around, he couldn’t possibly be this thick-headed! Did he even listen to what she had just said moments ago about enjoying the killing of an Autobot? Did he somehow tune her out? He had to know why they couldn't be friends, simply because of the symbols they wore, the war they were a part of! 

“Why in the first place?!” Uzi felt the throbbing in her head getting worse, but she needed to ignore it for now. “We already said everything that mattered. You gave your message from your false prophet, so there's—” That got a reaction out of him. More than anything else she had said. His grip had tightened on her, just a little, and he had leaned himself closer to her face. 

Uzi could see his fangs as he spoke. “I told you not to call him that.”

“And I don’t care!” She snarled, her voice crackling like a fractured beam groaning under its own weight. She was already mentally preparing a plan of attack. She was going to reel her head back, she was going to smash her visor against his, just hard enough to knock him and force him to let her go. Then, just like with the Insecticon, she was going to use that chance to shoot him with her arm-cannon, she was going to show this Autobot why they had to keep fighting, even if that meant hurting him again. 

After all, she needed to remind herself that this is how it was meant to be. Decepticons meant to wage their battle to destroy the foolish forces of the Autobots. That's why she had to say such horrible things to him, why she had to hurt him! “Your prime is a liar, just like all the other fakes! He is just using you—”

“No, he isn't!” N raised his voice and Uzi felt a sick sense of satisfaction that finally she reached some kind of breaking point. Though most drones would have stopped when they realized just how much danger they were in to agitating an Angel of Death. Oh well, she got this far.

“Well, if he was so great, why do you still listen to the humans? Why do you still not have a real name? You're tired of the killing, so why are you still a part of the war?” She found exactly what she needed. She was wrong to just scream about killing, that wasn't enough. But this…this was getting to him in a way she'd never expect. “Because he doesn't want you to. He doesn't want anyone to walk away from it, after all, he's Optimus Prime. The most venerated Cybertronian who has ever lived. He's a hero, a patriot, an icon. The historical archives have literally terabits worth of data, all talking about just how amazing he is—and it is all thanks to bots like me.” Her grin came much more naturally than before, as she raised her single hand up to gesture at her own face. “After all, without the war, he'd just be another Autobot. Another wasted spark who left no trace. Another nobody. I bet you more than anything, deep down he is glad for the war, what's a few billion lives worth at the cost of his legacy?”

N moved himself even closer to her face. To the point that she could feel his breath against her lips. That all that she could see were his yellow, hollow eyes. “Enough.” He whispered in a warning tone. “I mean it.” Why was the warmth in herself getting worse, why was she suddenly remembering how long his tongue was, why was she quivering and not from fear—oh, Primus-damn hormones! Now is not the time!

Thankfully, she was saved from such thoughts as N pulled himself back. He even took one of his hands from his shoulders as he would run it along his face. “Least stop pretending I don't know what this is.” There was no denying the undertone of frustration in his voice as he rolled his eyes. “You’re trying to goad me. You're trying to get a reaction. You want me to lash out at you, or worse, you want me to hurt you.” He somehow looked disgusted by the thought. “Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going to do that just because you're pretending to be mean.” 

Before Uzi could even think to form a retort, N had cut her off. “Yes, pretending! You say all this stuff about killing and hating Autobots and crushing sparks, but that's just all it is. Talk.” He reached down, and Uzi was surprised to feel him grab at her arm-cannon. 

“What are you—?”

“You haven’t even aimed this at me since you ran off!” He interrupted her again, as without hesitation, he pulled the weapon up—the barrel of the weapon was held right beneath his chin. She reacted immediately, without an ounce of hesitation Uzi yanked the cannon back. It was pure reflex, and not something she could have controlled. Yet the act had caused N to breathe a sigh of relief. “That's what I thought.” 

“Shut up!” Uzi had realized what she had done, and never felt stupider. “Just shut up.” Her cannon-arm twitched, she almost wanted to thrust it back toward his chin…but, there was no point. He had called her bluff. 

There were not enough words in the Cybertronian dictionary to express how embarrassed she felt. At this point she wanted to walk away and find a convenient hole to dig herself under…hopefully then that could maybe stop the pulsing, stabbing agony in her neural cluster. “Err! Darn it!” A sudden rush of pain forced Uzi to grip her head again. Once again, strange symbols of the ancient Cybertronian language were spilling across her vision in erratic flashes, there were fragments of corrupt code she didn’t recognize—yet somehow found familiar. Each of them were crawling across her optics like insects. 

She needed a distraction. To no surprise, it came in the form of N still gripping on her left shoulder. If he had noticed that she was in pain, he chose to not acknowledge it. Probably because he knew she would deny it. Yet, he still softened his voice as he spoke. “Uzi, please.” He sounded so earnest and worried for both their sakes. “I know things are… complicated. This whole situation is insane. But this stuff about Impactor, we can talk about it later and we will. You can scream at me, you can even hit me, and I promise I won’t stop you. You can even shoot me again, if you like. I'll probably do something to deserve it.”

She decided a better distraction was to look at the floor. Somehow, doing that could make it easier to think, because he was just too much for her. Too kind, too nice, too gentle—it was almost insufferable. She needed to make sense of this stuff. She needed to think logically, but he wasn't letting her. The moment a sane thought ran across her mind, his tail had decided to move. It had snuck its way between them. Uzi hadn't even noticed it until the syringe tip had drifted close to her chin. For a nono-click, she thought he was gonna stab her. Instead, he had used the black, cable-like appendage to pick her head by the chin, guiding her face back up to meet his own.

It was just to remind her to look at him as they are still talking and to show her his eyes again. They were bright and whole, all while he was offering the kindest smile she had ever seen. “We'll save your people first,” he said. “Then we’ll figure everything else out. However you want. I swear upon the Matrix. I swear on your spark, and mine. We'll work this out, together. Till all are one, remember?”

Hearing him say such a thing made her processor stall for a few seconds. It also made her spark feel weird…something between a sob and a static surge was caught in her chest.

Why?

Why did he have to make this so hard?

He was supposed to hate her. That would’ve made this so much easier. All she needed was a reason to push him away so that she could handle things herself—but she didn’t want to, she…she didn't want to do this. She should have just shot him again. It wasn’t like it would have killed him and at the very least, it might have spared her from—Primus, this entire situation was so agitating! Yet, when N had let go of her and tried to give her some space, Uzi had closed the gap between them with two unsteady steps. 

She had leaned forward, pressing her head against his chest—right where she’d shot him. Though she smelled the horrid stench of energon-blood still on his person, that could be ignored as she felt his plating beneath her cheek. The metal was warm—too warm for a normal drone—but somehow it was so comforting. Beneath it, she felt his spark pulse even after the damage she’d caused, it was beating like a soft, persistent drum. Showing it to be steady and alive. If anything it was speeding up its pace because she was so close. That was okay. Uzi felt her own spark racing also.

…She wondered if it would be wrong for them to stay like this. Just for a moment longer, a few hours at most? Just until the ache in her core dulled and the screaming in her head quieted. She didn’t understand why this felt good, or why she wanted so badly to stay close to him. She just did.

Thankfully, N was quiet as it happened, he was also as still as a statue. As if he was simply waiting for her to feel comfortable again. There was just a bit of movement, from his tail as it had moved to curl itself around her waist, which he quickly pulled away by hand. “Sorry! Silly thing has a mind of its own sometimes.” He whispered as quietly as he could, as if trying his best not to disturb her. It was almost fun to turn her head up and watch him flinch. Was he…blushing? 

What? Can the murderous winged killing machine not handle a girl walking up to him? What bad comedy. She was sure she was just making him uncomfortable. She'll apologize to him once she can sort herself right, and be able to think two coherent thoughts. But the throbbing was still in her head. It was growing more intense still. Why, though? Checking her own systems, she found there was no damage in her head other than some scratch, and minor dents. So why were there lines of code she couldn't read, it had to do with some kind of software. But—“Uhh!”

“Okay, rule of three, buddy,” N muttered, more to himself than her as he took a small step back to crouch down to her level. Carefully, he reached forward and cupped her face in his hands, tilting her head so he could see her properly. “You’re clearly damaged. We gotta get you some medical help.”

“I’m f-fine,” she mumbles were extra bitter, as even she wasn’t convinced by her own lie. It didn't help that her cheeks were held within his hands, and that his palms were warmer than the cold air between them. They were even warmer than his chest had been earlier…She didn't hate how it made her feel, but she really hated what N had said next.

“Hi, fine, my name is N.” There was way too much confidence in how he said that with such a stupid grin. Uzi had felt her expression twitch, her shoulders shake, and even her legs wobble. Why—shocking why—was she fighting the urge to smile at that?!

“We don’t know how long we’ve got,” he went on, his thumbs brushing the edge of her visor. “But maybe we can at least patch you up. The pod’s not great, but there’s enough in there to get you stable. Then we can look for your friends. I’m sure they need help too… and maybe we can work together to—”

She stopped listening to what he had to say because Uzi had utterly realized that she was wrong. Her plan was wrong. N simply didn't have it in himself to hate. There were some bots like that. The hero, Orion Pax had once said that:

Hate.

I don't know how I feel about such a thing. I mean, my brother could maybe say more about it. My girlfriend, Ariel, can probably give you an entire book on how she ‘hates’ how I keep getting into trouble. But me?

I dunno. I feel as if it's…wrong. It's natural, don't get me wrong, but I feel as if sometimes we can let go too far. It's too simple of a word. Too… easy. I fear that it's being thrown around too much, especially these days. I get it, it sounds like I am being a worrywart. But I can't help but feel that it's diminishing what we are. I at least, I know that I am…lessened by it.

He was a bot too good for this world. She had seen it in the history archives in how he always supplied energon to the less fortunate, and how he maintained homes within the lower populated areas. He was a simple dock-worker, yet he did what he could to heal and repair, to improve the world around himself. He couldn't bring himself hate anyone. 

…there was a time when Uzi was younger, she wanted to be like him. She wanted to help people and be just as nice as he was. But, how could she when she saw all the horror there was with drone-life. The abuse, the death, the enslavement. Bots like Orion were pushed around, beaten, and worse of all, forgotten. She didn't want to be like him. Instead, she wanted to be like—no.  

She needed to be more like her hero, Lord Megatron. She needed to be strong. She needed to focus on hatred toward her enemies. So she did. Uzi thought again of the humans. She thought again of all the terrible things the Autobots had done during the Great War. Of all the innocent drones lost. On her Aunty, her Uncle. 

…her mom…

“There’s a chance I might be able to recognize her. The faces of the drones I’ve… I’ve killed, they blur together…sometimes. But if I saw her, maybe I’d remember. And you deserve to know if...If the one who killed your mom was—”

No, she shouldn’t be thinking this. Such a thought would lead nowhere good. This wasn't like her stupid plan to make N hate her. This would make her want to hate him, this would make her try to kill him! But, there were three Angels of Death, and maybe even a chance it wasn't him. Certainly, one of his teammates was the one to blame instead, so what was the harm in trying?

She'll show N the picture, and they will be friends. They'll work out their differences. He'll get over her killing Impactor, it'll take time but he will forgive her. After all, his False Prophet was coming back to Cybertron with a way to bring the planet back to life, to end the war—

No.

No. No. NO!

This war won't be over till Megatron says so! 

Hate.

I learned of such a thing many years ago. From where? Too many examples to list them all, but I have some personal choices. When my father was killed in a mining accident. When my mother was shot to death during a peaceful protest. When I was thrown into a cell and nearly killed, simply because I refused to obey a human. It was within those moments I learned to hate. I also learned of violence and its application. 

Now, I live to hate. It sustains me. Sometimes I wonder if there is anything left. Lust. Rage. Ambition—I've moved beyond them all. In fact, I look back over the last four million years and recognize that there have only been two constants: Hate…and Prime.

“Then we can look for your friends. I’m sure they need help too… and maybe we can work together to make sure my team doesn’t hurt anyone. I mean, V has a soft spot for NAILs so that can help. She had even let one go once. Granted, it was after killing the kid’s parents right in front of them, but, hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?”

Uzi didn’t respond. Her face became unreadable as she lost the small smile she had at his admittedly stupid joke. He wasn't sure what happened but the shift in atmosphere was immediate. Which only made him talk faster, more earnestly. He was trying to win her over after all. “We'll set up a plan or something to make sure they can't even get to the doors. I mean, we have plenty of time. Knowing J, she’s probably triple-checking every single wire on that bomb. I mean, sure, it was probably made by Perceptor, and he’s scary-smart, but he’s no Wheeljack. He’s more ‘precision science’ than ‘boom science.’ What if it’s just designed to breach the front door, I mean you have to have redundancies, right?”

The Decepticon trainee said nothing as her purple eyes turned dim and if N were to take a closer look at her, he would faintly make out the unreadable symbols ghosting across her inside of her visor.

“And if it really is that bad,” N pressed on, “I’ll call for backup. There are still Autobots who’d listen if I give a call on open channels, ones who had left the war behind to keep NAILs, like your people, safe. One of them was Ultra Magnus. He’s Optimus's big brother—he’d totally drop everything to protect a civilian colony. I'm sure he'll make Kalis a safe zone, maybe even a full neutral territory. The Spire might be a problem, but hey, you can blow it up. I won’t stop you.” He let out a quick, awkward laugh as he tried his best to ease the tension. Though seeing how stiff Uzi was, he couldn’t help but feel worried. “Oh, there’s Drift, too! He was a Decepticon back in the day. Maybe if you talk to him you’d change your mind about a couple of thin—”

“My mother's name was Nori Doorman.”

In an instant, Uzi's visor had seemingly shut itself off, displaying nothing. Not even her eyes. N barely had time to process the change before an image blipped into view across the black screen.

It showed a female drone whose hair and optics had an eerily familiar shade of purple. She was cradling a protoform close to her chassis—a round, egg-like being that blinked up at the world with unfiltered curiosity. The name “Uziel Knob Doorman” was etched across the protoform’s shell. Showing just— who —it will grow up to be.

…N wasn't sure how to feel as he stared at the image. One thing was for sure though, he remembered her, just not fully. It was hard to describe, but it was as if he remembered things about the woman. She was a NAIL that wore a Decepticon logo across her chest and she was clever. Despite looking like a normal worker drone, she had fought harder than most against him and his team. She was smart, creative in how she used the environment, and she…she wasn't alone. That was how he got her. His tail had found its mark just beneath her spark chamber.

But he hadn’t meant to hurt her—or did he? What was the reason they were attacking her in the first place? This was after Elita-1 gave them orders to scare the Colonies, he remembered that much but anything else and it was like his processor simply couldn't bring it up anymore. He was working with a puzzle that was missing pieces. The memories were gone, either erased or corrupted. He felt as if he did speak with her, that he had even known her. What did they talk about? Why would he speak to a NAIL that wore the Decepticon symbol? It didn't make sense…

But there was no time to think about it, as Uzi had slammed into his chest with enough force to stumble back a fair few feet. The Angel had just barely caught himself before hitting the snow and by the time he looked back up, the image on her visor had vanished—replaced by her eyes, which were now bright with a fury so intense it might as well have burned through his spark casing.

“You recognize her, don’t you?”

N blinked. “Uh—” That was all he managed. His voice had betrayed him. It was like his throat was full of wires. The words he meant to say were jammed behind his teeth because what could he possibly say? ‘I'm sorry’? Yeah, those words weren't cursed at this point…

Still he felt as if he needed to say something, as he saw that Uzi’s single hand clenched into a fist. “I do. I, at least, think I do. It's a mess in my head but, I think I was the one to—” There was an audible click , and suddenly, the air itself began to crackle. Green static sparked violently across Uzi's body—arcing off her like she was a power conduit about to explode. It was the same energy she had when she shot Grindor, and at himself. But, somehow a lot more energy was being outputted.

N instinctively shifted his stance, readying himself to dodge if she were to try and shoot him. Only a sharp sting in his systems had made him hesitate. 

> WARNING: PRIOR HAZARD

The alert flared across his visor, blinding his right optic for a second. He blinked it away—but it quickly came back. He growled, “C’mon, not now.” He tried to be rid of it by literally shaking his head, but the warning stayed. It actually became worse, adding more text and details about the scan that it had identified about the ‘hazard’ he was facing.

This system wasn’t standard—it was something J rigged to only trigger in truly high-level threats. Something that not even he and his whole squad could go up against alone. It only went off when facing monsters, like Overlord, Sixshot, Shockwave, or even Megatron himself because it could only really be triggered by—

> WARNING: POINT ONE PERCENTER IDENTIFIED 

“...Oh, biscuits.”

His vision re-centered—and he found himself staring down the barrel of Uzi’s cannon as it was aimed directly toward his head. This was bad, this was really, really bad. Point One Percenters were titans in small chassis. Living weapons that were as close to unkillable as possible, even by Disassembly drone standards! 

How did he not notice this? How was this even possible, one of the most notable aspects about Point One Percenters was their tall height! How could there be one this small and cute—oh, what answer would even matter at this point? It wasn't gonna change anything. 

“Uzi, I'm sorry.” His mouth had moved faster than his brain. There were possibly a thousand other things he could have said that were better than that, but nope! He went with the cursed words. “I know that will not bring her back or anything, but I am sorry that I—”

“I know you're sorry.” Her expression didn’t change as she spoke. “I believe you are sorry. But, right now, I don't care. You killed my mom.” She gripped her hand over the arm cannon, as she made sure to brace herself. “One shall stand. One shall fall.”

N’s optics had widened, the glow within them dimming to a hollow yellow, as he knew that phrase. It was a battle creed that acted as a sacred, terrible declaration. Used only in formal opening for a duel to the death, it was born in the deepest trenches of the Great War. Not used in skirmishes. Not shouted in anger. Declared—when no peaceful end remained.

And she had just said it to him.

…Primus. Shocking. Damn it. Why now?! The fate of her people was teetering on the edge of oblivion, it hung directly based on what they did next and she wanted to do this with the short time they had? Ugh, why did she have to make this so hard? Every time he felt as if progress was actually going to be made between them, it was like taking two steps forward and three cartwheels back! Was this how Optimus felt every time peace negotiations failed with Megatron? No wonder every truce ended with the two of them fist-fighting in a crater.

“Why must you Decepticons throw away your lives so recklessly?!” At this point, N didn’t care. He was fully voicing his frustration, showing just how far Uzi had pushed him, as he just had enough of her scrap!

The worst part was that she was smiling at him now. It was a maddening kind of smile, given only to make his frustration worse as it allows him to see the sick sense of joy in her eyes—with one of them flickering in and out of view, being replaced by a strange but familiar symbol. “That’s a question you should ask yourself, Autobot!” 

Chapter Text

He flinched.

The moment she showed the image of herself and her mother—N had flinched. It wasn’t much, just a small twitch in his stance, but it was enough for Uzi to know that he recognized someone that he had killed. Still, she asked if he did because she needed to hear whatever lie he would attempt. 

To his credit, he couldn’t even manage that. The Angel was too honest for his own good, he had even tried to explain himself and apologize. She will admit that she wanted to hear him out but ultimately, she also realized that this situation was just too perfect. He had killed her mother, so she had killed his friend. Obviously such a thing wasn't planned by either of them, but was it not a happy accident that it was so fitting? They both had just the excuse they needed to kill each other and that was why she spoke the words that first began within the Pits of Kaon, ‘One shall stand, one shall fall .’ These were words that had been said countless times through the many entries of the historical archives. 

While it may seem insane to declare such a thing to an Angel of Death, it was in knowing that he had been the one to kill her mother, that he was the reason she never got to know the drone her father still mourned—the same one that her aunt, uncle, and even Doll, all spoke of with such fond warm memories of which she had none —well, to put it bluntly, something inside Uzi just snapped. All thoughts of logic or rationality were thrown to the scrapyard, because she didn't care anymore. She didn’t care about the Colony. She didn't care about finding Doll and the others. She didn’t care if she lived! She didn't care about anything, because all that mattered was the war that existed between all Autobots and Decepticons—no, all that mattered was this moment between herself and N. He was all she wanted to think about. He was all she needed at this moment.

While that may sound strange, it was just what Uzi needed because it was simple. To hell with moral contradictions and this strange grey area they were in. They should just go along with the old human saying, ‘Might makes right’ ! Somehow, that kind of thinking gave a raw sense of clarity, it took weight off her shoulders. The horrid throbbing in her head was…gone. Her vision was fixed now, her thoughts were focused, and even the dull aches that had clung to her body since the dropship crash had vanished.

N was the enemy. Her enemy.

Doesn't that make things easier? It was certainly easier than grieving or admitting to herself that maybe she didn’t hate him as much as she wanted to even though he killed her mother. That should be enough. That was enough. Even if he was sorry, even if he looked unsure about his own involvement, there is no acceptable way that she would be able to forgive him. If she even considered it, what did that make her? A terrible niece and an even worse daughter.

…She tried to force herself to be the bad guy between them. It didn’t work. But if N was the villain, then she didn’t have to feel confused anymore. She didn’t have to deal with the uncertainty of what she did or was going to do. After all, she didn’t want him to apologize or to explain himself. She wanted him to fight her. Because if he fought back, then it meant she was right to no longer consider him a friend. They would hate each other like they were supposed to.

“What are we waiting for, come on!” Uzi screamed the words out as she waited for him to make the first move. Her arm-cannon was primed to take a shot as she knew he could close the distance between them easily. So, she needed to be prepared. One strike from him and she knew she was dead, so she needed to be smart, she needed to be quick, she needed to— 

“No.”

—not let this Autobot ruin things by getting cold feet. 

“No?” She echoed the single word as she was admittedly caught off guard. Her cannon had dipped just slightly—enough that she could snap it back up if needed—though she was starting to see that he wouldn't give her a reason to. N hadn’t moved to defend himself at all. He didn’t shift his weight or reveal any of his internal weapons. He just stood there with his fists held at his sides, clearly angry but doing nothing about it. 

“That’s right. No! Because this is dumb!” He snapped at her, his optics flaring with emotion as he threw out his arms as to emphasize his words, though all that did was remind Uzi that they stood at the mouth of the Spire, a twisted metal landscape of corpses, that had its foundation built on top of a field of more corpses that happened to be covered in snow. She almost wondered if her mother’s body was somewhere she could find within it. 

While Uzi was having such dark thoughts, N was spiraling in his own way. “I understand that you're angry with me. Maybe you even hate me and that's totally fair, but fighting isn't the right call! It's something we can do later when you aren't being a—” He stopped himself mid-sentence as he closed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief at his own words. The rational part of his programming reminded him that he did kill her mom. Of course she wanted to lash out at him, that was basic robo-psychology 101. Not to mention, she was suffering from a head wound that could lead to some kind of malfunction in her logic systems. Yelling at her and even insulting her was not the best thing to do right now.

“I still need to be better.” He whispered the reminder to himself as he ran a hand over his visor, and took a long deep breath. Honestly, what made the situation so much worse was that he had nothing to say about the murder he had apparently committed. For Sigma's sake, he couldn’t even give details on how it even happened. There was just a terrible, aching void where answers should be within his head. Primus, why did she have to show him that image? Now he had to deal with this terrible grip of regret in his spark along with everything else. Didn't he have enough to be remorseful over? Apparently not.

Maybe J or V remembered more about it. They could fill in the blanks after he convinced them not to obey the humans. Till then, he just needed to—“Okay then, Autobot.” N opened his eyes as he was surprised by the seemingly casual tone of Uzi's voice. “We won't fight.” For a brief second, he thought she was standing down. Her cannon had folded back into a normal hand, and relief washed over his system like a tidal wave. Unfortunately, N had been too hopeful as Uzi hadn’t turned on her safety. Bright green energy still crackled across her limbs, dancing like static lightning with no sign of fading. Along with that, she was giving him a look that fitted perfectly with how her lips had curled into a grin. “You can just do nothing as I rip you apart with my bare hands!”

“Wait—” He barely got the word out before all the air was knocked out of his internal vents, Uzi had leaped forward and slammed her entire body into him like a cannonball. The impact was so sudden that it tore N off his feet, and together they crashed into the snow, tumbling over each other in a tangle of limbs and sparks which disturbed many half-buried corpses that surrounded them. When the pair had finally come to a violent stop, Uzi wasted no time. She straddled herself on top of the Angel, yanked him up by the tattered remains of his coat, and brought her right fist crashing down upon his face like a hammer. 

The first strike split apart the soft metal of his cheek—with the outer alloy snapping and flaking away under the impact. The second blow was at his visor with a loud, brittle crack forming a spiderweb of fractures across the glass. The third never landed as N’s hand shot up and caught her fist mid-swing, though the sound of their servos whining could easily be heard as they then struggled for dominance against each other. 

“Uzi, stop!” N tried to be firm, but his voice was laced with desperation. She ignored the plea and instead transformed her arm again—there was no time for the Autobot to pull his hand away, before it was caught in a complex mechanism of sliding plates and twisting servos. Though he managed to choke back a scream, great pain still shot through his system as internal gears grinded against the outer shell of his hand—with hydraulics locking and crunching down on his fingers until there was a sickening metallic crack and his entire palm was mangled beyond recognition in a single, brutal nano-click. 

“No, you stop!” Uzi shouted as she slammed her left fist into the other side of N’s face. She saw that he was already healing from her other attacks, so she had to be relentless. She rose from her straddling position, then brought her knee down hard into his midsection, putting all her weight behind it. That caused a choked grunt to escape the Angel's lips. She took solace in that at least she can still cause him pain. “Stop pretending you don’t want this! That you don’t want to kill m—” She never got to finish the absurd claim, as N’s other hand caught her by the face. With a growl of frustration, he shoved her back, sending them both rolling again but this time with him ending up on top. He pinned her down against the snow as best he could, his palm pressing into her visor as she glared at him from between his fingers.

“I'm not pretending! I don't want this and I don’t want to kill you—ah, biscuit!” N yelped as more pain flared, this time with his other hand as Uzi had sunken her teeth deep into his palm. Despite the fact she was far smaller and lighter than himself, she was feral. Her jaw was locked down like she meant to rip through his soft metal. His systems flagged the damage in a blink, but before he could even process it, he felt her right arm shifting upward. The arm-cannon was humming with power as she was preparing to get a shot off. Meaning that she would shoot him again. That she could not listen. That she was just being…stupid again! 

N acted on impulse. The same kind he always relied on during most of the Great War. Before he had even realized what he was doing, he had seized the front of Uzi's hoodie with his newly healed hand and threw her across the street in the time it would take most bots to blink. A loud wrenching followed, as she slammed into a nearby building—the metal wall warping under the force of the impact to the point that it bent inward around her form, creating a jagged crater where her back hit. 

This was something N had done countless times before with thousands of Decepticons. Yet, when Uzi dropped to the ground with a metallic thud, her body twitching from the harsh impact it had suffered through, he felt his energon-blood run cold. “Oh no. Uzi!” He was already running toward her with panic clawing at his systems. 

When the image of her unresponsive form filled his vision, he saw that he hadn’t held back. Any normal drone would be utterly broken beyond repair from what he did. He hadn’t meant to—he couldn’t have—no, there was no fatal error on her visor! He could still get her to the Colony, or even Iacon if he had to, anything to make sure she was repaired. That she was okay…

Unfortunately, it seemed that he had already forgotten just what kind of drone Uzi was. She was already moving and reaching across the floor for something—anything—she could use to gain an advantage. Her hand closed around a large, jagged piece of debris: a chunk of broken Decepticon armor, its edge was warped and razor-sharp from how crudely it was ripped from its owner. That made it the perfect choice. 

Without hesitation, Uzi stood and hurled the piece of armor like a javelin. In his rush to check on his friend, N was not able to react before the makeshift spear struck, embedding itself deep into his side. The foreign object caused his whole frame to jolt as soft metal was torn like foil—crimson vapors of leaking energon hissing from the gash and his body shuddered as the pain fully registered. “Bones and kibble!” N cursed as he clutched at the twisted steel jammed in his side. His vision flickered as damage reports showed up across his visor.

He didn’t even get the chance to pull the object free, as he saw Uzi taking aim with her arm-cannon again. Sparks crackled along the barrel as she braced herself. Unlike the other times, she had truly locked her stance in place—she wasn't going to be thrown back this time.

The weapon flared to life and N was barely able to dodge it. The green beam surged by his head, searing the air with a high-pitched screech. For that split second, he was drowned in blinding emerald light and he could even swear that he felt the snow around him instantly vaporize into steam. Behind himself, there was the unmistakable groan of metal giving way as part of a nearby building was wasted away by the wild spray of energy. For Primus's sake, it was like fighting Megatron again as even when she missed, another piece of this world was reduced to more ruin.

“That’s enough!” N snarled, as he continued to move forward. Uzi’s arms were still raised from the blast, her form momentarily locked from recoil—meaning that she was vulnerable. The Angel's fist connected with her face just as she began to charge another shot. The blow echoed with a crack of metal against metal, and her body crumbled mid-motion as she was flung backward and slammed into the wall again. But this time, part of the building buckled beneath the impact. 

There was a groan and suddenly a large amount of twisted plating gave way. Shards of shattered glass, paneling, and more rained around the two drones within moments. N immediately placed himself over Uzi, shielding her from the worst of the collapse. He knew he could heal through it all as chucks of old machinery bounced off his frame or stabbed itself through the soft metal of his body. He knew it was nothing he couldn’t handle.

The real issue was the jagged armor fragment still embedded in his side, which jutted out like a cruel imitation of a blade. Warm inner-energon seeped from the wound in thin, black trails, hissing as it struck the frozen ground below. The pain was a slow, deep burn—but he knew it wouldn’t stop until he removed it. As the last of the debris settled with faint metallic clinks around the pair, N finally reached for the armor piece.

This however meant that he didn't notice Uzi moving again. The punch against her jaw had caused her to lay slumped where she had landed, as she was practically dazed. Even her arm-cannon had shifted back into her normal hand. But her mind had already rebooted itself and she realized that her main weapon was a liability at this range. It took too long to charge and left her wide open after each shot. There was also the fact that N was just too fast. This was why Lord Megatron had an energon mace for this exact kind of situation. Her fault for forgetting that, she supposed. But that didn’t mean she didn't have her option for a melee encounter.

N felt himself staggered as he gripped the shard at his side. With a grunt of effort and a muffled cry, he was able to rip it free from himself—though it was far from painless, his self-repair systems had already surged to life with thin lines of black energon coagulating across the wound as it began to knit closed. Allowing him to return his focus to his friend.

"Uzi, I don’t want to hurt you," he said with a mix of exhaustion and rising frustration in his voice. "I want to help you—not only that, I want to help your people, your home, and…" He looked toward the other drone, with his eyes locking onto hers as she stood herself up. "I’m starting to guess you don’t care what I have to say, do you?”

Uzi actually looked smug as she answered him. “Now, you’re getting it.” She reached within the pocket of her hoodie, and found the weapon given to her from Swindle. She drew it in a smooth motion—revealing the strange purple hilt capped with an open port at one end. At first glance, it looked perfectly unassuming. Then her thumb flicked the side switch and a beam of blazing violet light surged from the port, humming with volatile energy. The air shimmered around it. 

N instinctively flinched as the weapon came to life, the glow reflecting across his visor as he recognized the kind of weapon it was instantly. “Where did you get an energy sword?!” 

“It’s a beam saber!” Uzi yelled as she charged forward, closing the distance between them in a single second. Her target was the still-healing wound at his side. There was a violent flash and the sickening sizzle of energized metal being carved apart as the saber bit deep into N’s frame, slicing through the weakened outer shell like it was not even there. A ragged hiss tore from his throat as he was left stumbling backwards, with even more trails of burnt energon spilling from the wound in thick, glowing streams which fumed into the cold air with an acrid hiss.

“Treats!” Visible static arced around the reopened wound as the Angel's body spasmed slightly, it was struggling to compensate for the extra damage dealt. He wanted to do something about it, but Uzi didn’t let up. Her grip on the saber had tightened, and she advanced again—her eyes were blazing bright as she was radiating fury with each repeated strike! 

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

He was retreating. The Murder Drone that took her mother and so many others was left backpedaling. He clutched at his wounded side, optics flicking to the damage like he actually feared what she could do. He looked… unsure. Worried! And she was the reason why. She was winning!

She wasn’t some helpless little drone anymore. She was standing her ground. She was proving to him—and to herself—that she wasn't weak or small, she wasn’t useless. Not anymore. The beam saber sang through the air again with a sharp hiss , missing his chest by a breath. Another swing, this time grazing just above his shoulder.

Each attack was faster than the last. N kept dodging, but it wasn’t graceful. It was out of sheer survival. He was reacting. Panicking, even. Uzi watched his hollow eyes track her every strike—it filled her with something electric. Her grin had widened as heat pulsed through her veins like liquid fire. She felt amazing. Like she could do anything. Like she was a God and she was going to make him see it.

With a cry of unrestrained triumph, Uzi leapt into the air, the blade raised high, aiming to cleave him in two—right until N’s fist met her face with brutal precision. She couldn’t comprehend what happened next, she just knew that the punch had struck her so hard that she didn’t even feel the ground when she landed. There was just the snap of metal and a blur of static which rushed through her head as the saber flew from her grip, deactivating with a sputtering flicker.

“Son of a bit—!” She started, but there was no time to finish. N was already closing the distance as his hands were outstretched to pin her down once more. Thinking fast, she twisted her body and swept her leg low in a sharp arc—an attack the Autobot clearly anticipated. He leapt over it with ease. But Uzi wasn’t done.

Before he could even land, she snapped both legs back like compressed springs—then launched herself forward, slamming her boots square into N’s chest with as much strength as possible. The Angel's breathless grunt told her the blow struck true, as it knocked him out of the air and right back into the snow with a heavy crash. 

Uzi then rolled to her feet immediately afterwards, her vision flickering from the overload of movement… and something else. It took her a moment to realize that her chest was heaving, and that her lips had curled into a feral, jittery smile. She was excited. No—not just excited. Alive . Granted, she could die at any second but somehow that only made it better.

“And they said pirating all that anime was useless,” she laughed to herself as she admired green sparks which danced wildly across her frame like crackling static fire. Her hand trembled with the overload of raw power which was fed through her limbs—though she wondered how. Her safety was directly linked to her spark, but something about the surge was off. She didn’t remember her core being able to generate this much output. She’d need to figure that out later. Right now? All that mattered was the Angel.

When she turned her gaze back to N, Uzi watched as he staggered to his feet while clutching at his chest. It was damaged as there was a horrible dent placed within it. But that would heal. Everything about him would heal, as even the slash she left across his side had fixed itself by now…but something else was off. She realized that he hadn’t used his wings or his weapons at all when he had obvious chances to. He didn't even use his tail! 

That was plainly unacceptable. 

It would mean that he chose not to fight with everything he had while she was giving it her all. That he wasn't taking her seriously. What did he think—that she was some fragile little drone throwing a temper tantrum?! Like hell she was going to accept that. “Hey, isn’t this the part where you ask me again to please reconsider my actions?”” she hissed through her teeth, voice laced with venom as her smile was lost. 

Across from herself, N had stood himself upright—visibly worn, and clearly deep within his own thoughts as he didn’t meet her eyes at first. Instead, he let out a slow, weary sigh as he dragged a hand along his visor. Like he was trying to physically wipe away the anger building in his core. One of his optics had peeked through his fingers to meet hers. There was annoyance and disappointment within that look. But also a measure of resolve.

“…yeah,” his voice was colder than before. “But I can see now that you really do want this.” His arm dropped back to his side, and for a heartbeat, he looked… tired. But then came the shift in his vocal tone—a razor-sharp edge in his voice. “So congratulations, Decepticon .” He changed his stance, and Uzi saw that his eyes were gone. They had been replaced in an instant with a large ‘X’ . “You win.”

She blinked in surprise. “Oh shi—” The words barely left her mouth before N's knee had smashed against her visor. The attack snapped her head backwards with a loud crunch , and the short drone flying as she tumbled across the frozen street, the pain immediate and sharp as static flooded her vision. Concussive-errors reading across her systems. 

N had landed several paces behind her, his back turned as if he didn’t want to face what he had to do. “I was rebuilt to disassemble drones. Meaning that I know ways I can take you down which can be fixed with a CR chamber.” With that said, his left arm began to shift. The soft hum of servos gave way to a deeper mechanical grind. Parts clicked and rotated, collapsing in on themselves before snapping forward into a sleek, high-velocity plasma cannon. It let off a low-pitched charge tone as it powered up. “I’m gonna end this quickly,” He turned to face her with his cannon glowing with a soft yellow pulse. “For your sake.”

Uzi forced herself to stand back up, even with her head swimming as she shook off the concussive programs. Though her vision had blurred, she still found herself grinning again. “Oh, now that’s more like it,” she chuckled, her arm reshaping itself back into her own arm-cannon. As if to match the situation, more cracks of green energy burst from around her body. “Finally acting like an actual Autobot ."

She raised her arm. He raised his own. Then they both fired.

The twin blasts ripped through the air and collided with a cataclysmic detonation. Green and yellow energy snarled together in a raw, unstable dance—then it exploded outward in a spiraling burst of concussive pressure which carved a crater into the snow-covered ground, vaporizing debris and disintegrating corpses that lay in its path. Ash and dust were kicked up in a blinding cloud, and waves of static surged through nearby buildings, frying what few flickering systems had survived. 

And even through it all, it was made clear that one beam had easily overpowered the other. N was hurled back, his body smashing into a half-toppled light fixture. Metal screamed as it buckled beneath him and steam hissed along his torso where the near-miss had burned across the outer plating of his chest. He gritted his teeth through the pain as there was no time to recover—Uzi was already sprinting toward him in the hopes of closing the distance between them. She wanted to make sure she wouldn't miss again or give the Angel enough time to dodge the next shot.

Unfortunately for her, N was just as willing to rush forward as she was. He quickly picked himself up from the ground and ran to meet her halfway. One of his hands shifted within his forearm, as it was replaced with a razor-thin claw. They meet in the middle of the street where he had slashed at her without hesitation—a brutal, arcing swing aimed for her throat. She ducked low beneath it, flawlessly predicting the motion. But that had been the trap.

With fluid precision, N twisted into a spin with his momentum carrying through as he delivered a crushing side kick into her side with devastating force. The impact sent her skidding across the ground like a skipping stone. Each bounce of her body against the terrain rattled the air with metallic crunches—but she still refused to let such a thing stop her. Uzi landed on her feet, the heels of her boot carving deep lines along the frozen street as she braked to a halt. “Is that the best you got?!” She spat the taunt through gritted teeth and brought her cannon-arm up again, her next idea being to hope that he would come toward her again so she could lean the shot toward where he would go. Her weapon was primed, it flared with unstable green energy as it began charging another shot.

Though N had already anticipated she would try to do such a thing. With a flick of his wrist, he threw a small disc—it was thin, serrated, and spinning like a sawblade of light, it cut through the air with a sharp whrrr—before it struck dead center within the barrel of Uzi’s cannon.

“Was that a freaking ninja star—?” That was all she managed to say before the energy within her weapon surged wildly out of control. Sparks were summoned more frequently, and could be seen all over the cannon right before it erupted into a blast five times its normal size. It was so large and overwhelming that there was no hope that it could be controlled—the recoil of her own shot sent Uzi hurling like a bullet across the street, through an abandoned vehicle, and then through an entire wall. That was just the beginning as she was still sent away for at least two more buildings. Rusted steel had crumbled in her path until finally her body crashed to a stop inside the hollowed-out remains of a half-collapsed complex at least half a mile away. Leaving N to take a moment to simply…breath as he took in the giant trail of destruction he just made with her own weapon, which nearly carved the entire road in two. It was a sight he could live without. 

“I warned you,” he muttered, before lowering his claw hand as if shifting back to normal, along with the plasma cannon in his other hand. He hoped that her taking such a beating would be enough, but he knew better than to think she was done. After all, Point One Percenters could take way more punishment than that. 

N opened his wings and took flight to the air. He soon landed just outside the last hole she had made. That is when he found her holding herself against a wall as she looked to be winded.

Thankfully, it seemed that she was unarmed as her arm-cannon was busted apart. The barrel was utterly broken in a way to make it resemble a blooming flower. Yet, she was smiling, laughing even as she picked herself up a little to look at him. “And here I was thinking you weren't gonna defend yourself.” Her right hand shifted back to normal, but instead of standing down as he hoped she would, Uzi only beckoned him to come at her with the classic ‘bring it’ hand gesture. 

…N felt an optic twitch at that. Of all the Decepticons he had ever met, it was more than clear that she was the one that truly— truly —got under his outer shell. Probably because he thought that somehow things could have been different, but now it was as if any proclamation of peace he had was utterly pointless! Every word of reason he offered was torn apart and discarded. Every plea was laughed at or ignored. Why? Because she was being dumb. She was being stubborn, and worse of all she was enjoying this. She was enjoying her anger, and this mindless scrap between them.

It was enough to make N want to shout at her, but then he realized that he was also panting for breath. Which was weird as he wasn't tired. If anything he just felt his body hyped up due to the adrenaline program running through his system. But there was also something as he watched Uzi while she waited for him to get closer. It was obviously some kind of trap, but the way her purple eyes were locked on his, he found that it was hard to think about that. She was looking at him with such confidence and rebelliousness, that it was almost kind of exciting—nope! He was stopping the robo-brain right there as he quickly shook his head to get rid of the thought. 

He needed to focus on what he was doing, and what he needed to do! He was supposed to hurt this girl, beat her, and possibly break her a little if he needed to. Which meant he had to ignore the strange lingering sense of warmth within his dented chest. The kind of warmth he had only felt with V, up till now, which was giving him a mountain load of questions he didn't feel at all ready to answer—“What's the matter, Autopunk, scared?”

—oh thank Primus for that reminder.

“Far from it.” N bared his fangs as his right hand shifted, folding in on itself before a long silver blade unfurled in its place. Without another word, he rushed forward, aiming to end this before she could get off another taunt. His plan was simple, he needed to cut off an arm and a leg. It was very possible for her to live without such appendages, and give him enough time to take her to the Colony. She would be forced into Stasis-lock, but that would keep her alive, and…it was almost comical that he was so ready to rush forward and so confident with what he had to do, right up until he stepped on something that gave out a familiar ‘click’. 

Nine million years of being in war meant that he knew just what a pressure plate felt like. Still he glanced down at it, just to be sure. N was not at all happy to see the faded Decepticon insignia peaking out beneath his boot. “You've gotta be kidding me.” The old thermo mine had blinked to life the moment his foot had made contact with it, the lights on its surface were cycling into a countdown. If he were to move, it would instantly blow up. If he stayed in place, it would take a little bit of time to give some false hope of disarmament, before it would also blow up. Classic Decepticon ingenuity.

“Convenient what you can find just laying around in these old war zones next to some corpses, huh?” Uzi laughed the moment she saw the look on his face. Leaving N to take another deep sigh as he saw that there were a few corpses around them.

“Especially,” he muttered through clenched teeth, “when V forgets to collect said corpses, like J told her to.” When he looked back toward the short drone, he saw that she was already gone, having bolted up the nearby stairs towards the upper floor of the building, her footsteps echoing with a quickening rhythm. N simply held his hand over his face as he tried to remember a quote from Optimus to help calm his nerves before he lost what little sense he had.

Somethings—

Then the mine exploded.

It was a loud, violent blast that tore through the entire ground floor, shaking the building to its foundations. Flame and dust filled the space, drowning out everything in a burst of smoke and light. But Uzi didn’t care, nor did look back. 

She has already cleared the third floor and was bound toward the fourth, her movements fueled by a twisted, reckless joy within her spark chamber. She couldn’t believe it, as somehow she was having fun with this. The thrill of battle sang through her systems like a pulse of lightning. Her spark even skipped a pulse as a scorched silhouette burst through the window ahead of her in a hail of shattered glass.

To no surprise, it was N as he had landed directly in front of her with his blade still extended from his arm. “That. Hurt.” He said simply, even as his burnt frame was already healing and throwing off shards of shrapnel off itself. Uzi would have made a comment about how it wasn’t her fault he didn't watch his step, but there was no time for such a thing as without another word, N swung his blade—aiming to take her head clean off her shoulders.

Yet all he cut was air as with a purr of her T-Cog, Uzi dropped entirely out of his sight. N was left utterly confused as he looked around and saw she was gone, though he did not not notice the gun which had slid past his legs. "Where did you—”

“Terrorize!” He spun toward the voice, but it was already too late. Agony exploded from his side as a jagged piece of reinforced glass had carved a brutal line up his torso—where it reached up to his cheek. Inner-energon sprayed from the wound as the Angel was forced to stagger backward, with a strangled cry escaping his lips.

Uzi then lunged forward as she raised the glass shard for some kind of killing blow, but it never landed as N’s tail lashed out at her. She barely even had the time to raise up her other arm before the syringe-like tip punched clean through her palm with a sickening crack. The impact froze her mid-motion, as there was clearly pain from the puncture —but then came the injection. The short drone's eyes became hollow as nanite acid hissed through her hand, corroding her limb's internal circuitry within a single nano-click. 

“Fuc—ah!” Uzi's snarl was caught in her throat as N lifted her entirely off the ground with his tail, her body suspended by the impalement of her hand—just so he could whip her right back down to the floor, face-first. She couldn’t even pull in the breath to scream, before N then drove his boot directly into her chest with such brutal force that she was launched across the hall, her frame slamming into the opposite stairwell at the other side of the building.

She landed as a mess of twisted limbs and bruised pride, her outer shell could be heard groaning as she coughed and tried to force in some breath—only for the pain of all she just went through to kick in…and it was hell. She wanted to almost curl up and scream as it was so horrendous but she saw N as he pulled a hand away from the wound across himself. The long gash she had carved into his frame was already closing, his systems sealing over the damage with eerie efficiency. His voice was in a low, tired tone as he just seemed absolutely done with what they were doing. “Is that the best you got?”

Uzi spat a bit of her inner-energon on the floor, then pushed herself right back to her feet. Even if her body was screaming at her, even when her shaking fingers were curling around her melting palm—the yellowish fluid burning through the torn plating—she gave the Angel the best grin she could. “You tell me.”

N shook his head, then he unveiled his wings from his back. In the blink of an optic, he had already taken flight and was closing the distance between them. While she was in the stairway, meaning it was possible for her to either race up or down the steps to get further away, Uzi decided that she had done enough running. 

Instead, she reached out toward the nearby wall and tore a length of exposed piping free in one brutal yank. Holding it like a club, she swung it as hard as she could just as he closed in. The first strike he narrowly dodged, the pipe whistling passed his head with a metallic clang as he was able to get around it just as he came for a landing. But the stairwell was too cramped—he had no room to maneuver or to prepare for a proper counter, before the second blow smashed into the side of his head. Then another. And another. 

Steel slammed against soft metal as Uzi beat him back with unrelenting force, each strike echoing through the corridor. N grunted through it all, until he ducked low beneath her final swing, threw himself forward, and scooped her over his shoulder with ease in a single fluid motion. He then threw her straight upward into the ceiling.

The loud crunch of soft metal against hard metal was heard, with N moving himself out of the way as he let Uzi fall onto her front. She was easily seen gasping for breath as all the air was knocked out of internal vents. N took this as a moment to catch his own breath, before he found himself staring at her. She was giving him that look again, all while she was still smiling. Something was wrong. He could feel his spark-pulse racing for reasons he didn’t want to name, and…and then she bashed his knee with the pipe still in her hand. 

“Bowls!” N yelped out a curse as he grabbed at his leg with a mixture of pain and shock. To make matters worse, he had embarrassingly tripped over his own tail. This caused him to fall back as he landed on his back. By the time that he was able to see Uzi again, the pipe was still in her hand as she was about to bash it against his head. 

He quickly shifted his other hand, and Uzi’s optics widened as she recognized the weapon. “Shock!” She immediately threw herself back out into the hallway, the purr of her T-cog barely being heard over the roar of flames that came next which nearly filled the entire stairway. Moments later, N came out of the doorway, one of his hands now having been replaced with a flamethrower as he was trying to find where Uzi had gone next. He noticed on the ground that there was a pipe and a…somewhat brand-new gun that didn’t at all fit the location of an abandoned building in Kalis. At first he figured that Uzi must have dropped it, but why hadn’t she used it before? Was it even loaded—oh Primus, it was sparking green! 

He raised his blade as quickly as he could and slashed down at the gun—only for a familiar purr of a T-cog to ripple through the air as in a flash of motion, Uzi had transformed out of her alt. mode and caught the blade between her palms. The edge of the weapon trembled just inches from her face, straining against her grip, yet she surprisingly held it back.

N’s had to change his footing as the force she was exerting was almost enough to knock him off balance. He needed to retract his other hand back into its regular form, just so he could use it to shove down his blade arm, adding leverage to force the weapon through Uzi's iron grip. 

It barely made any difference. She only growled and pushed upward, her knees locking into place as she straightened to full height. While he still held an advantage height wise against her…it wasn't enough. He needed an extra edge, so he had his tail lash at her a second time. This time it aimed low, and drove its syringe tip through the top of her boot with a wet crunch and a hiss of sparking metal. A direct stab like that should have dropped her instantly. 

But Uzi didn’t even blink. She didn't scream or even hesitate. All that came out of her was a low chuckle like madness had taken root in her core. N didn't know how to react to such a thing, and that left him open as Uzi shifted all her weight and then there was a loud— snap!

N's eyes widened in disbelief. She had just broken his arm-blade in half, with her bare hands. Before he could try to react, she took the shattered half of his own blade, and drove it straight into his shoulder. Metal screamed as the weapon pierced him deeply, right into the cluster of his arm systems. There was not even time to register the pain, as she then drove her fist right into his side. She hit hard enough to almost knock him off balance. She was trying to make sure he went down. He retaliated before he knew it. His own fist against her face. Then she responded with another blow and another. She tried to go for a third but he had caught her just in time with a hard kick in her stomach that sent her straight into a wall. This gave him a chance to reach up to his shoulder and rip the piece of his own blade out. It sent a horrid amount of pain through his system, which caused him to whisper out, “shock.”

“Ha! I knew I could get you to use a real swear.” N blinked as he saw that she was picking herself from off the floor, even if she needed to hold the wall for support again. 

It truly was as if no matter how many times he knocked her down...she kept getting back up. He's never had something like this before. Not against normal drones, and certainly not against other Decepticons. Even against other Point One Percenters, it was not like this. The emotion, the refusal, the sheer stubbornness. He stared at this small drone as she was glaring right back at him. 

It…was kind of exciting as he never had a fight like this before. He stupidly felt like fanning himself as he liked how creative she was in how she fought. She was certainly hellbent, dare he even think that with the way her purple eyes were shining so brightly at him, even as her body was covered in small dents and scratches, he'd go as far as to say she was beautiful. But this needed to end. He thought about her friends as they were probably wondering what had happened to her and were worried sick. He thought back to the drone he had caught in the air moments after he had shot down the drop ship. Uzi's cousin. Hadn’t he hurt this family enough? 

Apparently not as he had brought up his hand, and beckoned her over with the ‘bring it’ gesture. Uzi immediately accepted the invitation without any hesitation, as she threw herself at him. N rushed in to catch her mid-air. He then squeezed as hard as he could.

Uzi’s systems flared in panic as her frame was locked tight against Angel's. She heard internal servos straining as a warning flashed across her visor: ‘Spinal integrity at risk.’ She knew in that instant N was trying to snap her in half. She ended up coughing up more inner-energon as his grip somehow tightened around her further—like hell she would let such a thing happen so easily!

With a growl of fury, Uzi brought both hands upon his face. Her fingers curled along his cheeks and while thumbs pressed hard against the glass of his visor. “Come on!” she howled as she began to dig in. The reinforced glass cracking underneath the pressure she pushed in. “I’ll rip out your optics!” 

They were locked in this savage deadlock, with neither of them backing down, their minds focused solely on each other and nothing else—until they both heard a deep, guttural groan echoing through the structure. Followed by a crack. And then another. There was silence for that single moment…only for then to be a loud thunderclap of metal stress vibrating through the walls and floor.

This caused the two drones to freeze up as both of them were cautious of what such a noise could mean. “What was that?” Uzi asked, her hands still braced against N face. She only pulled them away when he placed her back on her feet. 

“I'm not sure.” N took a moment to observe their surroundings through his cracked visor. They were deeper within the building, within an interior hallway. Meaning that there were no windows for either of them to look out of. But if he were to take in his mental map of Kalis…Oh Primus. 

“The dropship.” Uzi raised her brow in confusion, forcing N to quickly elaborate. “When I shot you and your friends down—still sorry for that—you guys ended up crashing through three whole buildings. This is one of them. These structures have already been through Primus's knows how much…it was only a matter of time before—”

“N.” The Angel stopped talking as he noticed Uzi was looking up to the ceiling. He followed her gaze, and was met with the sight of the ceiling bowing under its own weight. There were also cracks forming along through the mechanical workings of it. He then noticed that support beams were starting to peel away from the walls. Pipes and cabling, all matters of old machinery were breaking apart around them. “This whole place is coming down.”

N…tried to do what came naturally. He reached out to grab Uzi by the arm, with his wings shooting out from his back as he was going to get them out, he was going to save her. But before he could do anything, she had slapped him away. All while giving him one final look of pure defiance as she met his gaze. Then came the groaning shriek of old steel surrendering to gravity as a chasm tore open beneath them, and N didn’t even have a chance to scream her name again before they fell and the building came crashing down around them. 

Chapter Text

Sometimes, the worst thing we can do is fight. I understand that it can be tempting, especially when you know you can win. However, there is wisdom in knowing what battles you must pick and it is a great act of courage to lay down your weapon when it is not needed. 

N felt that he couldn’t have picked a worse time to remember those words as he found himself buried underneath what felt like a mountain's worth of twisted steel. His adrenaline-program had run its course, meaning that he was feeling the pain of everything he had just gone through. 

Thankfully—er, or rather—unfortunately, this was far from the first time he's been through such an ordeal. In truth, most of his memories consisted of him only going through pain. Nine million years of warfare would do that. But, as always he took it in stride, not allowing it to stop him or slow him down whatsoever as he began to do the only thing he could do… dig.

Because when he realized there was not a spec of natural light and he couldn’t even feel the cold night air against his outer shell, the suffocating stillness of the situation gave him a moment to reflect on what had happened between himself and Uzi. Which made N feel as if he was the biggest idiot of all time. 

Here was this girl who was in desperate need of his help and what did he do? He punched her in the face. Multiple times. He had also tried to cleave her in half. For the love of Allspark, he had nearly burned her alive! She wanted a fight and instead of de-escalating the situation like he was supposed to, he gave her exactly what she wanted and matched her blow for blow as if it were some kind of game! One that he clearly wanted to win.

Optimus wouldn’t have allowed it. He would’ve known exactly what to say to reach her. He would have saved her, even when she didn’t want to! N knew this—that's why he felt like he failed them. At any point he could have found a work around. Maybe walking away was all he needed to do. But no. 

Instead, he fought. Like a coward.

The weight of his own actions came crashing down on the Autobot harder than the building ever had. He almost wanted to stay where he was, to wallow in his own self-pity for a little bit longer. But he had to find Uzi. He needed to make sure she was okay.

Digging himself free was brutal work. Every bit of movement meant a hard scrape of hard metal against his outer shell. Sharp pieces of fragments bit into his arms and chest—causing his ‘whinier’ systems to scream in protest. To make matters worse, he would occasionally knock something loose and end up buried again as his miniature tunnel would collapse in on itself. It was not a fun experience. It had even caused him to swear a few times, to force his own voice to be heard through grit teeth as he closed his optics and braced himself against broken pipes and shattered machinery. 

But despite such hardship, he endured. With energon-slick fingers, N pushed his way to the surface of Kalis, his last obstacle being a large broken down generator. Something he easily shoved aside, which had led to him unknowingly freeing a slightly damaged, but still brand-new looking gun from its trapped position. Not that he noticed as he was too busy taking in the rest of the scenery, finding himself kneeling along the wreckage of what remained of the building.  

“Biscuits.” Taking a long deep breath, N flinched when he felt cool night air touch his battered frame. He was a wreck. Large cracks ran along his plating and even larger gashes leaked trails of energon-blood down his limbs. His wings were still out, but were bent at unnatural angles—meaning he'll be forced to drag them along the rubble as they couldn't retract them until they healed. 

If either V or J saw him then they would force him to sit down and wait for the rest of his body to recover. While his self-repair repair system was still active, even it needed time to work its magic when an entire building fell on its user. But then his thoughts turned to Uzi for what felt like the millionth time in a row. 

He knew that somewhere within the small mountain of scrap she was buried, just like he had been. Probably hurt or even worse. While there was the obvious choice of just leaving her behind—N saw that as no choice at all. He reached for a nearby piece of metal as he was gonna dig again.

Then came the low, mechanical purr of a T-Cog.

“T-terror…ize.” Her voice was as worn down as his body felt and despite the way N’s spark jolting at the sound—he didn’t dare make any sudden moves. Though he was very happy to know that she still functioned, relief and dread were tangled together within his core as N knew she wasn’t going to make this easy.

The Angel braced himself as he turned his head to look at the shorter drone. There was not an ounce of surprise as he was confronted by the barrel of an arm-cannon aimed squarely at his face. “I…would have waited an eternity for this,” Uzi said, her tone carrying a kind of finality within itself. “But it’s over, Autobot.”

She was using her left arm this time—it had transformed into a sleeker, yet more narrow weapon compared to her other one. Though seeing the green sparks still appearing across her frame, N knew that it was fed with the same kind of destructive power.

…he actually considered letting the Decepticon Trainee shoot him as she was barely standing upright. Her very frame was trembling under the stain of just trying to hold a weapon up. Her hoodie and shorts were shredded and stained, her hair left a wild, tangled mess now that her beanie was gone. There was even a deep crack that split the entire left side of her visor, with dim light flickering through it.

If she shot him, she wouldn’t get far. What would she even do right after? Go back home so she could face his teammates? Alone?! Vector Sigma… she might actually be reckless enough to try such a thing. 

Maybe the issue was that she didn’t know how to stop. Maybe she didn’t care about her home. Maybe—oh, shock it. N knew, deep within his spark, that this wouldn’t end until he forced it to end. So he lowered his gaze and then, slowly, he brought his hands together along the front of his stomach, with fingers laced and palms cupped as if surrendering for a prayer.

His voice was little more than a murmur as he spoke, “You’re right, Decepticon.” He made sure to be as quiet as possible, forcing Uzi to lean in closer while pressing the muzzle of her cannon against his head. Then, just as it seemed that she had finally won, and she was about to ask the Angel to repeat himself…

“It’s over!” N roared as he threw his interlocked-fists with the last of his strength. They slammed into Uzi's chest with a sound of a harsh clang, the impact lifting her off her feet and sending her flying several meters back—straight onto a nearby jagged spike of broken steel, which punched through her back and jutted from her chest in one cruel, unyielding disgusting motion. “No.” His reaction was immediate as he hadn't meant for this to happen. N hadn’t meant to go this far! “No, no, no!” The words spilled from the Angel's lips in a trembling whisper as he staggered toward his friend with pain screaming through every servo and every circuit through his body, but none of it mattered. He had to help her!

Across the rubble-strewn wreckage, Uzi lay in eerie stillness. Her eyes, wide and hollow, were focused on the twisted steel protruding from her chest. It had missed her spark chamber by mere centimeters. She was impaled, her frame left to shudder against the cold hard metal—with such an act leaving her as an awful, mechanical effigy caught mid-breath.

She should be dead. Was she? It was honestly hard to tell. Adrenaline subroutines were running so hot within herself that they were nearly overclocking her systems. Yet… she was breathing, she was still alive. That didn't make sense. Hell, now that she had a moment to look back at everything she had endured in the fight with N, there was no way she could have survived half of what had just happened! By all logic, she shouldn’t have made it this far. Her body should have been crushed within the collapsing building, even in her alt. mode.

…she wasn't really expecting to still be alive at all at this point. Why? Why was she still—“Uzi!” N's voice had cut through the ringing within her audio sensors, and she noticed that he was trying his best to rush toward her, though not with any hostile intent as his hands were raised to show that he meant no harm. When he approached her side, he was so soft in how spoke. “Easy. Just take it easy. Don’t move. I’ll… I’ll find a way to get you out of this.”

The short drone found herself blinking. She was genuinely stunned as she couldn't believe him. “You’re going to what?” She looked to his visor and saw that the hostile ‘X’ was gone. In its place were those gentle eyes again, scanning her frame with urgent precision. He was checking her over, looking if she was injured anywhere else. She tried to somehow move herself away from him—but his hands were on her shoulders instantly, firmly holding her in place while still being careful. 

“Uzi, you need to stop moving. I mean it. I am not gonna let you die.”

Those words triggered something deep within her core systems. It wasn’t supposed to end like this…not with him worried about her, not with him looking at her like she was some poor fragile little thing that needed his help! She didn't need his pity! She didn't need anyone! 

Her fingers flexed against the ground, and her optics narrowed. That tiny bit of fury was all N needed to see. A massive amount of relief washed over him as, aside from the obvious, Uzi didn’t seem to suffer catastrophically damaged. The benefit of having a Point One Percenter’s resilience, he guessed. He was just about ready to free her when the narrow barrel of her left arm-cannon was leveled right at his face, again. “You're so stupid. All you have to do is not help, and you can't even manage that. Any last words?” She asked with a faint curve of a smile on her lips. 

For a moment there was not a single reaction. Then there was N's hollow eyes slowly narrowing out of sheer annoyance. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn't—shocking —believe it! He rose to his full height, completely ignoring the weapon inches from his visor as the absurdity, no, the futility of it all struck him like a hand grenade to the face. What was even the point anymore? After everything that had just happened with their fight which led to an entire building falling on top of their heads and her getting impaled, she still wanted to keep going? Still wanted to drag this out even further?

This had to be a joke. If it was, N wasn’t laughing. But she laid there, holding up her arm cannon up toward his face, expecting him to say some dramatic farewell, his ‘last words’. If he were just an ordinary drone—if the thought of having his head blown clean off his shoulders actually scared him—there was plenty he could have said. He had a whole backlog of things to shout at her because of this exact moment. Instead, all that left his mouth were two simple words: “Forgive me.”

Uzi was clearly taken aback by what he said. There was a flicker of hesitation that crossed her face and that was all the opportunity N needed. Before she could react, he slammed his boot down against her cannon, pinning it to the floor—if she was worried about losing her last weapon, N didn’t give her a chance to show it. His right hand had shifted with a mechanical whir, reforming itself into his plasma cannon once again. This time, he aimed it directly at her face. The short drone’s optics had dimmed slightly with her gaze drifting from the tip of the weapon up to his face. Her expression didn’t waver as she still wasn’t going to back down. He could see that she still had some fight left in her spark as she struggled under his boot heel. “Forgive you for what? Winni—”

“For everything,” N interrupted her, while raising his voice. “For the countless horrors I’ve inflicted on your people. For hurting your friends. For hurting your cousin. For killing your fellow Decepticons. For hurting you and beating you!” His voice turned into a shout, as his cannon began to hum with power. “For killing your mother! I want you to forgive me for all of it!”

She couldn’t believe it. She couldn't—shocking —believe that he would demand such a thing from her. She was just about to scream at the Angel as a flood of her own outrage filled her system, but she stopped herself as she noticed that the cannon pointing at her face was shaking. When she looked back up toward N's face she saw that his eyes were hollow and completely dimmed. Stress marks were appearing around his eyes, showing he was under intense strain. Pressure that he was putting on himself. “But I know you won't.” He said, his voice lowering itself as it began to unravel itself. “Despite how much I want you to, I know you won't and I can't force you too. You're just gonna keep being bitter and rage filled and…stupid! I don’t want to hurt you, how is that hard to understand?” She could see his fangs peak past his lips as he nearly snarled at her, “I forgive you for killing Impactor, that's what I wanted to tell you before you just—” 

The words cut off with a sharp intake of breath, his internal vents were stuttering and Uzi could see that his shoulders were shaking slightly as he looked away from her. “How did I let it get this far?”

He dragged a hand up over his face, fingers pressing over his visor as though he could physically hold the weight of his choice. Then, slowly, his gaze returned to her—only this time it dropped lower. To the jagged spike of metal that had speared through her chest. “I really didn’t want to hurt you.”

“...Why?” Hearing her voice, N looked up toward her face and saw that for the first time since she’d thrown herself into their fight—Uzi looked lost. When he started to fight back she was overjoyed, now she was just slightly shaking her head at him with disbelief. “Why would you forgive me?”

“Because…I don’t even know anymore.” He finally lowered the plasma cannon—not all the way, just enough that it was no longer in her face. “I just know that I wanted to talk to you about it. I wanted to learn why you did it, what happened, or something. Now I feel like I know too much.” She winched as she remembered the descriptive lie she told him about killing Impactor by herself, along with the other bots. “I tried to be nice, but that didn’t work. I tried only to hurt you enough to stop you and look where that led. Uzi, I don't know what else to do,” N continued, voice much lower now. “Maybe I was hoping that if I gave you what you wanted—a fight—you’d finally let go of whatever was eating at you. That if I let you tear me apart, it’d fix something.” He shook his head as he realized how ridiculous it all sounded. “It’s not like I can’t take it.”

As if on que, he flexed his wings out as they had already healed themselves. He then folded them within his back. “But the thing is, I can’t anymore,” he muttered. “If I freed you right now, you’d probably just attack me again. Maybe you’d win this time. Maybe that would make everything better for you. Or maybe it won’t. I'm not gonna take that risk. I could just leave you here. You're a Point One Percenter, you'll live even with a hole in you. Then I am just here wondering what you'll do next? If you find my teammates then it will just make things worse…I don’t know what to do.” 

The cannon was held again toward her face, but Uzi couldn’t care less as she felt something unfamiliar clawing at her chest that had nothing to do with the metal pinning her in place. She wasn’t sure which was more unbelievable. That she was a Point One Percenter or that N forgave her for Impactor. There had to be some kind of miscommunication. She wanted to deny him—no, she needed to deny him because that was just impossible. Yet the more she heard the honesty in N's voice, the harder it got to toss his words away.

“I am left with only one option left. I'll kill you, then I'll deal with J and V. I'm not gonna let you waste anymore of my time that I could spend saving people that need my help!” N took a shaky breath, as he had to hold his free hand over his own cannon to stop it from shaking. He was clearly forcing himself to do this. “I can never tell you how sorry I am. But I know you don't care. You made your choice and I…have to accept that. I wish this could’ve ended another way. But I have to accept that this is the only way peace between either of us is going to happen. One shall stand, one shall fall.” His optics moved slightly as he took in her impaled form for one final glance. “Though, Primus knows that I deserve to be the one on the other end of this.”

A long pause passed between them as N took in a deep breath. Then his arm-cannon began to hum as he charged his shot. His voice cracked as he whispered, “So tell me…tell me, you forgive me.”

The cannon hummed louder. A soft glow pooled within the barrel of his weapon. His fangs ached from how hard he was clenching his teeth. His shoulders curled forward like he was trying to shield his own spark from what he was about to do. “Tell me. Please.” He was begging for a sign, for any excuse that he could use to stop himself. He thought back to her friends, to how she had mentioned having a dad. What would he tell his teammates? How could he look Optimus in the eye ever again? He pleaded to any god that would listen—and then there was a sound. 

An audible ‘click’ which immediately made N tense up. Was it some kind of last trick up her sleeve? Another secret weapon? Was she going to self-destruct? 

…No. It was her safety being turned on.

N could only stare in shock as he watched the green sparks that had been dancing around Uzi during their entire fight, fade away. When she looked up at him, there was no defiance or rage in her eyes. Just exhaustion as she said, “I forgive you.” 

Three simple words. Yet, N was sent reeling back like he’d taken a blast from Megatron's gun mode. In an instant, his plasma cannon began to sputter and the glow at its muzzle died out entirely. He blinked rapidly, certain his optics were glitching and a part of himself even wondered if he should reboot his audio receptors—because surely he’d misheard her. He had to. “I… I’m sorry,” he stammered. “You what?”

Uzi gave a small scoff as she rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to rub it in.” Her gaze drifted down to the jagged metal through her chest, and then to the wreckage around themselves. “You already won and…you're right. I was being stupid about—everything.” 

As slowly as she could manage, Uzi tried to move her left arm—the one still pinned beneath N’s boot. “This?” she said, tilting the ‘arm-cannon’ upward just enough for him to notice. “This isn’t even a weapon. It’s a leftover from my old alt. mode.” It glowed as power ran through it, with N’s optics narrowing as he followed the faint, steady beam of purple light trailing from the muzzle. “I used to transform into a laser pointer.”

“You…pointed a laser pointer at me?” N fully dropped his own arm-cannon to his side as he couldn't believe such a thing. The disbelief so profound it nearly drowned out the ache in his body as he took a step back from her arm. Then the disbelief burned into anger. “We had an entire building collapse on top of us—Primus knows how many tons of steel—and instead of picking up any one of the dozens of sharp, heavy, perfectly good murder tools lying around…” He gestured broadly at the debris-strewn wreckage around them. “…you threaten me with a laser pointer?”

“I thought it would be funny,” Uzi said without missing a beat, giving a dry, tired chuckle. N stared at her, his eyes twitching. For a second, he looked like he was seriously weighing the merits of killing her again. “Sorry,” she added, though there was zero sincerity in her tone. “Guess I just figured you’d outright finish me off. I mean, you certainly tried.” She gestured with her right hand toward her chest. He let out a low, frustrated hum. “I'm kidding. I know it was an accident. Though it feels a little anti-climactic, don’t you think?”

N shifted his arm back to normal, the plasma cannon retracting with a soft hiss as metal plates slid and locked into place. He then lowered himself into a kneeling position beside her, where he let his optics linger on frame for a moment before meeting her dimly glowing gaze. “You sound disappointed,” he said quietly. “Did you want me to kill you?”

Uzi didn’t answer right away. Her head was tilted slightly and eyes drifting away toward some distant point in the ruined skyline. Her expression was unreadable—no smirk, no glare, just an empty, far-off stare. For N, that silence was heavier than any insult she’d ever thrown at him.

He opened his mouth to say something, but the words snagged in his throat. All he could manage was a faint, almost pleading whisper of her name. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and stripped of its usual bite—just bare, unvarnished honesty. “I don’t know. Being killed by you felt more acceptable than the alternative.”

He was caught off guard by how easily she said such a thing. Though to be fair, he was still trying to process this entire conversation “And that alternative was?”

“That I… I wanted to forgive you. Immediately. For killing my mom.” 

N's mouth opened slightly, but whatever he meant to say didn’t make it past his throat. He wanted to say something, but he simply couldn't. So they just… sat there, the cold wind threading through the shattered skeleton of the building around them and over their wrecked bodies. Uzi shivered as she felt the air against her body, much of her soft metal being exposed due to her ripped clothing. But N didn’t even flinch at it now, despite his own ruined clothing. Eventually, he managed a quiet, almost pathetic, “Oh.”

It was so small, so awkward, that Uzi actually let out a short laugh—even if it was thin, breathless, and lined with pain. “Relax. It’s not like I even knew her,” she said, her voice trembling but steady enough to push on. “She died when I was still a protoform. I don’t remember her face, her voice… nothing. I just kept building up this idea of her in my head. Turning her into someone I was supposed to be angry for.”

She paused as her eyes drifted downward, so they would not meet his own. “If anything, I was more avenging my dad or my cousin. But even that feels…” She trailed off, swallowing hard as if trying to force the words through some kind of choke-hold in her throat.

N saw the subtle shake of her frame. The way she pressed her lips together, like she was bracing against a sob. “I mean, really—what was I even doing?” she continued, her voice hitching. “Avenging a ghost? Missing someone I never met? She’s been gone for nearly twenty years and I just…” A breath shuddered out of her before she could stop it. “…I latched onto that. Made it the reason for everything. Because it was easier than facing how empty I actually felt about the whole thing.”

“Uzi.” N’s voice was soft, but there was a crack in it—like he was holding back just as much as she was.

“I mean, seriously—what kind of messed-up glitch does that?” She asked, suddenly turning hostile but not at him, at herself. “Turning grief for someone they never met into a vendetta? Where’s the logic in that? It doesn’t make any sense! Other than I am just a fragging mess, which I am—”

“Uzi!” His tone was enough to cut through her spiral—to finally anchor her toward this moment. He then reached out and placed his hand gently over her own. The touch wasn’t a restraint, just a quiet insistence that he was here. She still flinched instinctively at the contact, but… she didn’t pull away. “You don’t need to say anything more,” N said, his voice came out low, almost careful, “you don’t need to explain your anger to me. You don’t have to justify it or try to make sense of it. You were mad. That’s it. And that’s okay.”

Slowly, she looked back toward him, her eyes flickering faintly—like she was fighting against loading in tears. When she spoke her voice came out in a low whisper “You don’t get it. I didn’t want it to be okay,” she admitted. “I wanted to be right. I wanted to be the one hurting you. Not… caring for you.”

N nodded with no judgment in the gesture—just quiet acknowledgment. “And yet, you still want to forgive me?” He asked, his voice carrying a weight he hadn’t meant to put in it.

“I already did.” She answered.

With that N slowly exhaled, his shoulders sagging like the entire Great War had just slid off his back and vanished into the rubble around them. He kept his head bowed, letting the moment breathe—letting the tension between them dissolve into something he couldn’t yet name. It might’ve been a minute. Might’ve been longer. Time didn’t feel real anymore as there was a long period of silence between them. “Then that is all that needs to be said.”

“...I guess my whole argument kind of falls apart the second you remember I’ve got a saved image of her on my hard drive.”

“Uzi, don’t—”

“I’m sorry, but I have to say it. Because… look what I did. I freaked out the moment you started learning what I did and—” She lost her voice as her optics began darting around, “—and I was terrified that you wanted to kill me or my friends. Because they helped me kill Impactor and the others with him.” If that confession had any impact, she wasn’t sure. N had said nothing, as he kept his hand over her own. “So then I started trying to make you hate me,” Uzi continued, her voice cracking. “And you were just so understanding. I had to find some reason to push you away. To make you the enemy again and...I’m sorry, N. I'm really sorry for all of it. For letting it get this far.” 

Then, almost as if to show her how truly simple it all could have been, N gave her a smile that made her feel a great sense of warmth within her spark. “I forgive you.” 

All the short drone could do was simply stare at him as a part of herself still wanted to argue, to say that she didn’t deserve to be forgiven for anything, but then N had moved closer. Carefully, he hovered his hand above the jagged steel which pierced through her. “Now, let’s get you out of this. This kind of material is not something I can easily cut through with what’s on me, and it looks like it is connected to something much bigger behind you.” N muttered, his optics scanning the jagged metal spike for a few seconds as he was clearly thinking things through. “I’m gonna have to pull you from it.”

Uzi gave a dry breathless laugh. “Of course. Is leaving me behind still an option?”

“Sorry, but no.” He met her gaze, and there wasn’t an ounce of doubt in his voice as he said, “You’re my friend, Uzi. I’m not leaving you behind.” She had to look away, as her fingers were trembling against the ruined floor. She held back the urge to call him ‘corny’ as she felt warmth across her face again.

“Ready?” He asked.

“No.” She answered. 

“Fair.” N moved himself to loom over her. As carefully as possible, he slid one arm under her shoulders and while the other braced against her back just beneath the base of the jagged hard metal. “This will be painful,” he warned, whispering against her audio receptor as he could see faint static rippling through her visor, the dim purple glow trembling with each shallow intake of breath.

“Just get it over with.” Uzi’s hands found what was left of his tattered coat, her fingers gripping tight enough that the worn fabric strained. He felt her frame stiffen beneath him—like a wire wound to its breaking point. There was no perfect way to do this, only the fast way. The Angel drew in one long breath as every actuator in his arms locked into place. Then—he pulled.

“RRRRTH!” 

Uzi's raw scream tore through his systems, vibrating all the way down to his spark. He felt her body jolt violently against his own, her legs kicking once before curling inward as instinct made her cling to him like he was the only stable thing left in the world.

He should’ve given her something to bite down on. He should’ve found a cleaner angle, eased it out inch by inch—anything but this. But it was too late for that now. All he could do was hold her and feel her frame tremble uncontrollably against his own. There was a static hiss at the edge of her voice as she tried to muffle the sobs that escaped past her lips. N kept one arm locked firmly around her back, the other rising to cradle the back of her head, shielding her from the twisted, bloodied scrap that still stuck out toward them.

“Easy…your out,” he murmured, the words were almost more for himself than for her as he was suddenly reminded of just how small she really was compared to him—the short drone was light in his arms, her frame trembling against the plating of his bare chest as he had lifted her completely off the ground. “I got you—” 

“Shocking shock shocker fragging motherboarding-circuit biters!” Uzi squirmed in his hold, her voice breaking into a half-snarl, half-scream as agony ripped through her systems. The whine of overtaxed servos and cooling fans filled the air, her plating twitching in involuntary bursts along her arms and sides. N could feel the warmth of her inner-energon seeping down his forearm in slow, sticky rivulets, the scent of it strangely bitter compared to the usual smell of energon-blood. The wound in her chest gaped for an instant before her own adaptive metal began to shift—thin threads drawing inward like silver muscle fibers pulling shut. It was messy, imperfect, and still agonizing, but it was stopping the worst of the bleeding.

“I know—” He tried to speak, his voice tight with worry, but was cut off when she groaned and sagged forward, her forehead pressing into the curve of his shoulder.

“Getting impaled...sucks!” she managed between breaths, her tone dripping with pained sarcasm. Despite the situation, he almost smiled at that—almost. His grip on her tightened just enough to make sure she knew he wasn’t letting go anytime soon.

“Trust me, I know,” N replied, his voice carrying a strained humor that didn’t quite mask the lingering ache within his systems. “You’ve been in as many fights as I have—it’s kind of a rite of passage.” Even in his weakened state, her weight was almost nothing to him—yet he held her like she was the most fragile thing in the world. His wings unfurled with a low metallic rasp, catching what little light filtered through the cloudy night sky.

He was just about to leap into the air when he felt her tug at the collar of his coat. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make him pause. “Then let’s make a promise,” Uzi said, her voice sounding unsteady, “that it won’t happen again.” Her grip on him tightened—not with aggression, but rather with a kind of desperation. Her breath also came in uneven huffs, each one warm against the plating of his neck.

Trying to coax a smile from her, N tilted his head and said, “Okay. So if we fight again, we'll have a no impalement rul—”

“No.” She cut him off immediately, her other hand sliding up to rest against his cheek. Her fingers were cold, but steady, tracing the edge of his visor with a faint tremor. “No fighting. Ever. Not between us. Not anymore.”

He then realized just how close they were—as she brought her head up and her visor almost brushed against his own. Her voice was barely above a whisper. He could feel the faint, hitching rhythm of her vents against his chest, each breath laced with pain but underscored by something far more vulnerable. “I don’t ever…ever want to hurt you again.” Her words settled between them like a weight and a promise all at once, the kind that could anchor a person… or break them.

N felt his optics brighten, their glow catching faint reflections in the dim air between them. Slowly, he leaned forward until his forehead rested gently against hers, the touch light enough to feel like it might vanish if either of them moved too quickly. He let their breath fall into rhythm, each inhale and exhale syncing until it felt as though they were sharing the same breath.

“I… really like the sound of that,” he whispered, the words warm and unguarded. His eyes searched hers—bright yellow meeting the weary dim of her purple visor—and for a moment, everything else fell away. That gaze… he’d held it before with someone else, but now it was with Uzi, and it felt entirely different.

His hand slid to the back of her head, fingers threading through her hair with a carefulness that belied the battle still fresh on them both. He held her as tightly as he could—without harming her. In contrast, Uzi was almost clinging onto him, as if in a desperate need to be reassured that he was real. 

They both remembered the last time their hands had found each other, the unspoken ideal that connected them sense. And with that came the memory of the words—spoken in countless moments across their race’s history. Words for peace. For victory. For unity. And, sometimes, for love.

“Till all are one,” N murmured, closing the distance just slightly more.

“Till… all are one,” Uzi echoed, as she leaned in to meet him.

The kiss happened before either of them truly realized it. One moment there was just the shared warmth of their breath, the quiet press of foreheads, the unspoken promise, and then...sheer passion.

It wasn’t perfect. Uzi’s eagerness brought her forward too quickly, her teeth knocking lightly against his as his fangs grazed along the edge of her lips. N’s approach was almost painfully slow, as though afraid that any sudden movement might damage her further than she's already been brought. But the imperfections made it somehow better and neither wanted it to end. Her fingers curled into his plating, holding in place; his hand tightened against the back of her head, drawing her just a fraction closer.

They lingered, not because of instinct, but because they both needed this—the quiet, desperate way of apologizing without words, while saying every apology possible all in the same breath.

But then the moment broke.

Uzi jerked herself back, as a jarring, blinding wave of pain surged through her entire frame. Her systems shuddered, locking up in a hard freeze that left her gasping. “Shock! M-My adrenaline program just shut itself off—holy scrap, having an extra hole hurts!” 

She shivered with the sudden absence of her body’s numbing override, as every micro-jolt of pain she felt previously was now unfiltered. Her breath hitched sharply as she pulled the hand that had been resting on N’s cheek back, curling it inward before gripping it tightly. It was the same hand he had injected his tail into earlier—and now the wound was worse. The puncture wasn’t a small neat hole anymore; it had widened, till it was spreading almost across the whole of her palm. The edges were darkened, the metal warped and pitted where the nanite-acid had chewed at it.

N’s eyes had widened and turned hollow as he saw the injury. “Primus, I can’t believe I forgot about that.” His voice came out almost like a growl, and a sharp curse escaped under his breath. His gaze flicked from the mangled hand toward her foot—where he knew that the same wound was also there. The limb was still lifted off the ground, twitching with faint, involuntary spasms she couldn’t suppress. The sight made his spark chamber pulse uncomfortably in his chest.

“It’s okay,” he said quickly, his tone tightening. “I’m gonna get you treated. We’ve got old medical supplies back at the drop-pod within the Spire. We don't have a CR chamber, but we should have enough to stabilize you until—”

“And the acid?” she interrupted softly, her voice nearly drowned under the chorus of alarms and warning pings echoing in both their systems. 

“—uh…”

Her visor dimmed, not from power loss, but from the weight of knowing exactly what his silence meant. Not even CR chambers don't work against nanite-acid. The stories she’d heard didn’t end with recovery if a drone was stabbed with such stuff. They ended with amputations, permanent replacements, and the kind of phantom pain that haunted bots long after the wound was gone. It was what caused her mother to lose her life. That thought stuck to her processor and made her give a small, humorless huff. “Guess I’ll be rocking a matching set of spare parts soon.”

But then she caught it—just a flicker, a tiny hesitation in N’s posture. His visor dimmed for half a second, a ripple of uncertainty passing across his usually unreadable optics. For a moment, she assumed he was just struggling to find a gentler way to confirm the worst. But then, almost reluctantly, he spoke. “Well… that I can handle. Personally.” 

Her eyes narrowed instinctively with her processor immediately running through the possibilities—and every single one of them involved his blade arm in ways she didn’t like. “Personally?” she repeated, not because she didn’t understand, but because she wanted to be sure she had.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice dropping lower, almost sheepish. “Me and my team—we were rebuilt with a fail-safe. Our saliva counteracts the acid we make.” He glanced briefly to her palm and foot, then back up at her visor. “The stuff’s so destructive even we can’t heal from it, so… we needed something. In case we got hit. I mean if not, I'll be disassembling myself all the time.”

The way he said it—so matter-of-fact, yet almost hesitant—made her chest feel tight. His visor tilted as he scanned the ragged wounds again, and she swore she saw his jaw flex under the plating. “I can promise you,” he said finally, “I can fix this.”

The air between them seemed to shift, a strange, almost tangible pressure settling in. It wasn’t just the weight of her injuries or the fact that acid was eating through her systems—it was the bizarre collision of cold practicality and something far more personal. Neither of them had been prepared to talk about it, let alone act on it.

“…are you like, gonna lick it better or something?” Uzi muttered, her voice caught somewhere between disbelief, sarcasm, and the faintest edge of a laugh she didn’t quite have the energy to finish.

N froze mid-motion, his visor flickering like a glitching signal. “Uh… well—uh—I’m… always up for new things,” he stammered, the words tumbling out awkwardly, like they’d tripped over themselves on the way out.

She gave him a look—half-lidded, faintly smirking, her expression almost daring him to keep talking. “Yeah, I’m sure you just love doing anything.” Her tone was dry, but there was a spark of amusement in it, a flash of her usual self fighting its way through the pain. And for some reason, she chose that exact moment to remember a certain Insecticon’s comment, the similarity in voices between him and N now gnawing at her curiosity.

“I actually kinda do,” N admitted after a pause, almost sheepishly, as if realizing too late that he’d just walked straight into her teasing and decided to own it anyway.

Uzi rolled her eyes in a long-suffering show of mock exasperation, but there was no mistaking the faint curve of a smile tugging at her lips. For a brief moment, the tension between them shifted—still heavy, still strange, but warmer now, threaded with something dangerously close to trust.

N’s wings snapped with a mechanical hiss, scattering faint motes of dust into the cold air. The panels gleamed faintly in the dim light, their movement precise yet almost instinctive. A sudden gust spiraled around them, tugging at the tattered edges of his coat as he adjusted his stance. Then, without hesitation, he lifted them both from the ground, his arms steady despite the weight and the wreckage around them.

Uzi pressed herself into his chest as they ascended, the wind rushing past them carrying the scent of scorched metal and rust. She could feel the subtle adjustments of his grip, he was careful to keep pressure off her injuries without ever making her feel like she might slip. Somewhere between the mechanical hum of his servos and the beat of his wings, she found herself leaning her head against him—not because she had to, but because she wanted to hear his spark pulse. It let her know that she wasn't in some kind of dream. 

N had, in fact, forgiven her. Somehow. She'll probably never truly understand why. But she didn’t have to. She could simply bask in it, and enjoy the feeling he gave her in that he was still her friend despite it all. A friend she had nearly thrown away...she won't. Call it wishful thinking on her part but she knew that she found something special with N. Something that made her feel good about herself. She can't lose him. She won't. She will remember what happened to Lord Megatron, the day he freed Cybertron from the evil of Sentinel Prime. The day he accidentally killed his best friend, Orion Pax. 

Hold tight to those who walk beside you. For one day, without warning, you may turn to reach for them… and find only silence where their hand once was. For them, you must never stop fighting. No matter how much pain you are in, no matter how much the world screams at you to stop. You can't. The worst thing we can do is not fight. Cause then you have truly lost them. 

Chapter Text

The grand view of Iacon—the so-called ‘Capital of Cybertron’—was stretched out before her in all its towering, golden pretentiousness. Objectively speaking, it was a beautiful sight. Like one of those fancy oil paintings that snooty people liked to fawn over. 

The buildings were brightly lit under the glow of Cybertron’s twin moons, and the streets below were full of life as tiny figures moved in well-rehearsed harmony with each other. It was a masterpiece of civil engineering until you took the time to take a closer look and noticed the cracks of imperfection. If you did, you’d find out how the ‘harmony’ wasn’t a natural occurrence, it was something forced upon the populace. The drones below, the civilians of the Autobot cause, weren’t privileged enough to live their lives as they wished. They were simply doing what they had to do just to survive. 

For every step, every ounce of movement they gave, was dictated by the unyielding demands of Iacon’s grand continuation. Because the outer defenses had to be maintained. The energy grid had to be kept running. The munitions had to be manufactured. The sentries had to be repaired. The watchtowers had to be manned, every single hour of every single day.

And it didn’t matter who you were or what you were, the work needed to be done. Sparklings, drones who just grew from being protoforms, were sent to factories and mines before they could even fully process what exhaustion felt like. Older drones, the ones with rust in their joints, would work until they collapsed. Even if you weren’t a soldier, you still had to give everything for the Autobot cause. Because the city must survive.

There was no room for leisure. No true rest. Only the relentless, ceaseless grind that kept Iacon from crumbling under the weight of its desperation. ‘Earn your keep’, that’s what the idea was. Because if you didn’t, if you weren’t useful enough, then that just made everyone’s situation worse. We either live together, or we die together. That was the law of Iacon. 

That… was what the Autobots were forced to turn into without their Prime to guide them. V knew that fact and it has haunted her for a long, long time. When a cold wind swept across the balcony, rattling loose metal paneling somewhere above her, she barely noticed. Her eyes had remained fixed on the city itself, toward the landscape of artificial lights and the ceaseless motion of the people below.

“What a shocking eyesore.” The bitter words left her lips as a growl while she leaned against the railing, her fingers tapping against the hard metal. From where she was, V could see that thousands of drones were shuffling through the streets like parts on an assembly line, either trudging away from their work stations or grimly marching toward them. 

These Worker Drones would leave whatever job assigned to them for the day and form long, rigid lines that wrapped around entire buildings. They waited in a tired silence for their allotted daily energon ration. After a long day's work, it must be demoralizing to know all they earn is a small cube, barely the size of their palm, but just enough to keep them functional. For now.

Oh sure, Iacon still had elements of something grand. There was ambition, cooperation, and even a twisted kind of ‘passion’ in the slivers of free time worker drones were granted. If you squint hard enough, and if your optics were damaged, you could almost mistake it for a kind of prosperity despite such harsh times. But in the end, this place was nothing more than a glorified cage. The worst part? The cage worked.

Not to keep anyone inside of it though. Despite all her many, many flaws, Elita-1 still clung to the belief that freedom is the right of all sentient beings. If you wanted to leave Iacon, no one would stop you. You could walk right through the city's gates and take your chances out there, beyond the walls. Out into the frozen wasteland that Cybertron had become. Out where there was no energon and no shelter—just snow, intense blizzards, and the ever-present threat of the Decepticons.

So, sure, the Autobots weren’t trapping anyone here. They didn’t have to. Very few drones were dumb enough to try leaving. Those that did? Well, there were only three possible outcomes for them. 

They could be more determined than the average bot, and somehow manage to crawl their way to Crystal City, where they could live in ‘peace’ for the rest of the Great War as neither Autobot or Decepticon while under the protection of Ultra Magnus himself. 

A very tempting life. However, it was more likely that any drone that tried to make the journey will only last long enough to realize their mistake, and come limping back to Iacon with hollow eyes and half-functioning limbs. This is what happened to most drones.

Then there were the unlucky ones. The slag-for-brains idiots who thought they could make a run for it while choosing the worst possible moments to do so. Their remains littered the snow all around Iacon, half-devoured or ripped apart by the ravenous Insecticon swarms that still prowled the wastelands. With some evidence being found that showed some drones were not killed outright, but instead were dragged underground. What became of them next was left to the most sickening of imaginations. 

There were all kinds of rumors which flooded the Autobot ranks. Though, everyone agreed that the worst fate of all was if those drones were being delivered to Shockwave himself. Because the mere thought of his detached cruelty spread a kind of terror more paralyzing than the swarms themselves. He was just… so much worse.

That left the population with a single realistic choice. Stay in Iacon. Stay where it is safe. Stay where your life is not hell, but you are practically stuck within a purgatory. A parody of a dull mundane life for who knows how many countless years! 

Primus, she hated this city! She hated the drones who ran it, who justified its nature! She hated the endless cycle of it all, the relentless mentality that grounded people down into nothing but fuel and labor as a way to try and fight off the ever grueling march of the Great War! Worse of all—she hated that N, in all his stupid, sweet, naïve sincerity, still believed in it for some reason. That the people were still trying their best to make up for it all. That it will all be worth it, when Optimus finally comes back home. Fragging loveable idiot.

But, then again, here she was. Perched high above the very thing she despised, looking down on it with all the enthusiasm of watching energon-blood dry on a wall when it wasn’t even splattered in an amusing pattern. She needed something to take the edge off. So, with a slow inhale, she lifted a palm toward her face. The plates along her forearm shifted with a muted clatter of gears, each motion punctuated by a soft mechanical click, until her hand was replaced by a large pink bubble wand. She held it to her lips, and then exhaled.

A stream of delicate bubbles floated into the cold night air. They shimmered in the moonlight, as they were soft and fleeting. Unlike the drones below, they were allowed to break. To drift aimlessly, to pop, to end. Unlike V, they were allowed to truly escape this nightmare of a planet. How she longed to do the same. To just leave, to shake off the weight of this place and all its suffocating expectations, to finally move forward with her life. But, she can't. 

Not after she made a deal with a ‘devil’.

Do your job, and I will leave you and N alone.

Because of that deal, she had been trapped here for millions of years. Shackled to a war she wanted nothing to do with. Autobots, Decepticons, none of that had ever mattered for her. What was the point of all this talk of freedom when none of them had said freedom to just walk away without someone being left behind. Like…

Like her team or the Dinobots. Her friends.

V forced that train of thought to derail itself by blowing another stream of bubbles, this time she watched as they floated aimlessly before her. Each of them popping against the breeze of the cold night air. It helped to do this. But if she were to be honest with herself, she really wanted something to blow up. It didn’t matter if it was some rogue Decepticons or an entire armada. She would settle for anything at this point if it just made her stop thinking for five minutes so she wouldn't be trapped within her own head dealing with the same thoughts she's had again, and again, and again! If something didn’t happen soon, she was going to start quoting Shakespeare just to pass the time! 

Actually… could she still do that? It had been eons since she last read any human literature and her memory was reformatted to basically ‘soup’ because of how often she's gotten her head blown off. Maybe she could still pull something from the depths of her mind. There was really only one way to find out. 

“...So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,

Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke

My soul consents not to give sovereignty.”

The words had naturally rolled off her tongue, as if she had read them from a page just seconds ago. V had surprised herself in not only speaking them but in saying them outloud, perfectly knowing the tone needed to carry such words. She even knew where they were from. A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act 1, scene 1. Spoken by the character, Hermia, as she did not wish to forsake her freedom. Of all lines to remember. 

Though V wanted to be spiteful, the quote was attached to something within her processor. A memory of a previous life. It was hazy and washed over with the static of an old transmission. But she could still remember it clearly enough. Back when she and the others lived on earth. Before the Great War, when they were simple Servant Drones to some rich human family. Things were so different back then…

V can remember that N was sitting beside her, his white optics bright with interest as she read aloud from a book. He always did love it when she read to him. They would then talk about the passage, about its meaning—how the words would twist and curl with purpose to form a story with motivation and subtly. She knew that for many, Shakespeare was an acquired taste, especially when you prefer the older translations. N barely tolerated it at times as the old fashion wording always baffled him. But, he preferred such stories rather than the detailed paleontology books she also hoarded in secret for their book stash. 

One memory leads to another, as V remembers herself holding a book toward N. “This one is my favorite,” she had whispered, before turning a page to the bold illustration. “Tyrannosaurus rex. The King of the Dinosaurs.” N had made a comment about how much meaner it looked compared to the others she showed him. “That’s because he’s the strongest there is.” Such childish words. Back then, she had been overly eager to spill every detail of her obsessions to anyone who would listen. And N always listened. That is what she loved about him.

Somewhere in the blurred background of this recollection was J, grumbling about laundry and muttering how useless the two of them were. N, ever the optimist, had tried to coax her into joining their fun. Only for the glitch to threaten him by saying that she'll feed him to a dinosaur. N had laughed it off, like he usually did with her bodily harmful threats, though not without glancing at V a little too seriously when he asked if such creatures were still extinct. Just to be safe.

“Heh. Stupid dork.” She smiled, just like she did back then. It was a good memory—Wait. Was that how it went? No, that wasn’t quite right. Maybe it had been N who was reading, while she listened to him. Or they were both reading from the same book, while J scrubbed a window and muttered under her breath? No. J had been on her knees, scrubbing the floors with—no, that wasn’t it either! Primus, damn it! 

V tried to force her mind to work correctly as knew she just had it right a second ago, but she could feel more static building through the memory, blurring it into haze. As if some unseen virus were corrupting it from within. It was always like this whenever she thought of the manor. Soon it will be lost. The colors will dull to a lifeless shade. Faces will smear together with their features collapsing into one another. Voices would become warped and tangled, overlapping in a distorted cacophony. 

She tried to mentally lock the pieces back into place, but the more she tried to remember the correct events it was as if more were pulled apart. Something inside her was erasing her past. Some hidden program was pulling threads from the fabric of her mind, unraveling her from within. All because of that damn ‘devil’. That damn, speak-and-spell sounding, little-sister pretending glitch! 

“You’re in my favorite brooding spot.” 

The sudden arrival of a voice made V spun on her heel. Before her own thoughts could catch up to her actions, she had already lashed out with her arm toward the source of the noise. The bubble wand was used like a weapon with its…completely harmless curve pressing against the throat of none other than the acting commander for the Autobots, Elita-1. Also known as the Conjunx Endura of Optimus Prime, his wife and the mother of his children. 

In other words, the absolute worst possible person V could have just threatened. Thankfully, the pink armored drone didn’t seem to see it that way. She merely arched a brow as she looked at the absurd ‘weapon’ leveled at her neck. “Seriously?” She asked.

V followed her gaze, and for a moment, she was dumbstruck by her own actions. She acted on her instincts and if it hadn’t been the wand—if it had been her claws, or a blade—she would have killed the leader of… No. V stopped that thought before it could finish. It would never be that easy to kill someone like Elita. Pink-colored armor and a ridiculous helmet aside, there was a reason Optimus left her in charge. 

“Can’t be too careful these days,” V spoke with a sneer as she pulled her arm back and reformed her hand back into place. “I’m not exactly the most liked person in Iacon. That’s something we have in common.”

Elita gave out a tired sigh as she stepped around V and made her way toward the railing. She braced her forearms upon the cold metal, and began to look toward the city, the same way V was doing just moments ago. “Yeah, well there's a lot of things I rather not have in common with myself right now.” She shook her head as if to clear her own thoughts before speaking again, “I was looking for you.”

“Oh? And what does the pink bubblegum tyrant want with me? I’m still technically on leave, Commander.” V made sure to lace that last word with as much spite as possible, something that Elita easily caught on to as she rolled her eyes at the younger drone’s attitude, while never actually looking at her.

“I’m well aware you're supposed to be on your break, Private. You and your squad,” Elita reached into a compartment of her armor and pulled out a small, battered packet of cy-garettes. After placing one between her lips, she then extended the open pack toward V in what could almost be mistaken as a peace offering.

One that the Murder Drone immediately rejected by slapping the packet right out of Elita’s hand, sending it tumbling right over the railing where its faint rattle echoed until it vanished with the depths of the city below.

Much to V's irritation, Elita didn't even react to the slap. With an infuriating amount of nonchalance, she retrieved a lighter from within her armor and lit the cy-garette between her lips as if nothing had happened. With the edge of the small cylinder glowing a dull red as she took a slow drag.

“That,” she said on the exhale, her words threaded through the faint curl of smoke dissolving into the cold night air, “is partly why I came looking for you.” Her blue eyes flickered toward V's direction. “I wanted to talk about N and J—how they’re holding up with what happened to Impactor.”

V let out a loud, dry bark of a laugh as she crossed her arms and leaned against the railing, right next to Elita. “Oh, you want me to talk to you about their well-being?” The sheer skepticism in her tone couldn’t be overstated. “Please tell me, are you trying to make some kind of joke?” 

She wasn’t the leader of the Disassembly Squad—that was J’s department. If Elita wanted an actual report, she should’ve gone straight to the one who never shut up about regulations and efficiency. Not the infamous ‘Laughing Killer’ of the team. 

“I would have gone to J,” Elita admitted, while tilting her head and giving an annoyed tone, “but she was a little preoccupied. Someoneee—” she dragged the word out, letting it linger for dramatic effect, “—spray-painted her visor while she was recharging in one of our spare rooms.” V honestly forgot she did that. Well, she did tell N she was gonna distract J while he was in Kalis. The paint was the best way, and the funniest way, to ensure that. As for the evidence…

Elita’s gaze flicked downward just in time to catch the sight of spray paint cans as they were kicked toward the streets below, with V’s outstretched leg pulling back between the railing as she tried to seem innocent. “You are really subtle. You know that?” Elita muttered her annoyance, just loud enough for V to hear. With the Disassembly Drone simply shrugging her shoulders. 

“It's a gift. Also, I can tell you what you should already know by now when it comes to those two, N's an idiot and J is a kissas—” Before V could finish her ‘debriefing,’ Elita blew a thin cloud of smoke directly into her face. It took the younger bot completely by surprise, as she jerked away and flew into a short coughing session. 

The moment V was able to recompose herself, she turned back toward the Autobot Commander and let out an animalistic hiss. Her hands then folded back into her forearms, so they would be replaced by razor-edge claws. But Elita didn't even react to the threatening gesture as she wasn’t looking at V anymore, her attention was back toward the city of Iacon. "See, you act like that, and it’s no wonder you get along so well with the Dinobots." 

"You say that like it’s a bad thing.” V narrowed her eyes and kept her claws out, using one of them to wave away the awful smell of the cy-garette as Elita exhaled yet another breath of smoke. 

"It’s not. At least, I don’t think so." She tapped the end of the cy-garette, scattering glowing embers into the wind. "I’m just pointing out a little factoid about you. You get along surprisingly well with bots who have beast alt. modes.” 

V became quiet at that. For a brief moment, she caught sight of her own reflection in the metal curve of her claws—they were sharp, unnatural, predatory, beast-like. With her voice barely above a whisper, she muttered, “Someone has to look out for them.”

That caught Elita's attention as it was quite rare to catch a sliver of vulnerability in the young bot’s tone. “Oh sure,” she mused, her voice tinged with something unreadable. “And it certainly can’t be their King, right?”

V’s optics snapped back to the commander with an intense glare. Without a hint of hesitation, she held out her claw again, flexing it like she was about to use it. “Grimlock keeps them safe well enough. Maybe he’d do an even better job if a certain someone wasn’t trying to paint him as a mindless killing machine.”

There was a click of the tongue and Elita turned her head away, as if the argument wasn’t even worth her time. "Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about!" V shouted, poking the tip of a claw into the armor of Elita’s shoulder piece—only for the commander to simply brush the weapon aside as if it was a normal appendage.

"V, for the last time, I did not try to set the Dinobots up."

"Oh, please.” The light of V’s visor was bright, her irritation flickering like a warning light. 

Elita met her gaze with the same level of intensity, her own optics narrowed into a glare. "What would I even gain from that, V? Hmm?" She lifted a brow, voice dripping with sarcasm now. "That I’d eliminate Grimlock as a potential threat to my so-called reign of power?" She scoffed, as if offended by the idea. "Tell me, can you even imagine what he’d do if he were leader of the Autobots? As if he’d ever want my job; but if he did, I’d give it three hours, maybe four, before he would slap some fluoro-steel alloy on his head and declare it the ‘Dinobot Crown of Leadership’ or something stupid like that. He already forces the Dinobots to call him a king. It would fit.”

V’s eyes turned hollow as stress marks appeared under them. That last remark struck deep within her spark, as if Elita had just dismissed the very core of who Grimlock was. Yes, he was brutish. Yes, he talked weird. Yes, he was silly and dumb at times. But…

Back when she and her squad first arrived in Iacon alongside the Dinobots, the city’s inhabitants had looked down on Grimlock because of what he was—the first of the Cybertronians with a beast alt. mode. They called him an animal, a freak. Then they saw how strong he was and he was called a monster.

But he never let it bother him. He never lashed out in anger toward the other Autobots the way he could have. Oh, he got angry at times. There was even a saying in Iacon to be careful around Grimlock because ‘You wouldn't like him, when he was angry’. But behind all that rage was just a bot that wanted to keep his friends safe.

Me, Grimlock, no think V bad person. Me just think you need to know you is not alone. You help Dinobots find home, so we friends. Always.

V felt her fangs ache as her glare grew even more extreme, almost animalistic. Her voice was much quieter than before, almost like something dangerous curled beneath it. "The rest of the Dinobots came up with the idea of calling him their ‘king,’ because he is the strongest one there is. He didn’t make them do anything because he earned the right to be the king of the Dinobots!" Her claws twitched at her sides, aching to dig into something to prove her point. "And for the record?" She added, "He’s a lot smarter than any of you ever give him credit for.”

"Me, Elita, would disagre—" The crack of a single gunshot splits the air and in an instant, the cy-garette between Elita’s fingers explodes into a miniature cloud of dust and embers, its charred remains scattering into the wind. 

If the Autobot commander was startled by the blatant attack, she didn’t show it. Her only real response was flicking away the broken remains of the smoldering stick as she fully turned to face V. She barely paid any mind to the smoking barrel of a neutron machine gun inches from her face. The weapon that had replaced one of the younger drone's claws.

“...I didn’t set them up, V. I promise you, all I did was send them out on a patrol. Just to let them get some fresh air. Whatever you know about the incident, I know just as much. But," Elita actually showed a bit of hesitation, just for a moment, as she stopped to take a breath. When she spoke again, her voice had softened in a way V hadn’t expected. "While I know you probably don't give a damn what I have to say about it, I am sorry that they had to go through that."

V kept the gun train on Elita's face. “Oh, apologizing now? Who are you and what have you done to the real Elita-1, faker.”

"Look," the commander’s frustration began to bleed into her words, sharpening each syllable. "I get it. You have every right to be pissed at me. I haven’t exactly made things easy for you, or anyone else—" V tried to interrupt her by giving out a loud, "No slag!" but Elita pushed forward, undeterred. "—but at least try to meet me halfway, V. It’s called making compromises." Her words were edged with impatience as she attempted to stare down the younger drone into some kind of submission. But where others might have wilted under Elita’s gaze, V didn’t.

"Seems to me, it is more likely called, ‘constantly going back on your word’. But hey, what can any of us expect? I mean, look at how great things are going for everyone with you in charge." V turned the gun upward, before it shifted back into her normal hand, as she gestured with it toward the city streets below. “From what I heard, it certainly made a lot of drones nostalgic of when humans were running things.”

“Don’t you dare compare me to them.” Elita’s voice grew harder, the distinct rev of an engine layered beneath it—a telltale sign of her vehicle alt. mode—which betrays just how close she was to losing control of herself. The sound rumbled low in her throat, like a caged animal straining against its chains. V expected the anger. What she didn’t expect was the raw exhaustion etched into the older drone's frame soon after.

Though Elita’s optics burned through his visor, they weren’t just filled with fury. They were filled with something else. Something tired. “I am trying to do the best I can with what I have, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not just leading a war effort, but I’m also running and defending a city. Which is not shocking easy.” She nodded her head toward the rest of Iacon. “You think I wanted it like this? You think any of us did?” She placed her hand down upon the railing, as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. “I wish I could be more lax. I wish I could give them more.” Her fingers curled tight against the hard metal, making it groan underneath her strength. “Primus knows I want to, but I can’t! I’m not Ultra Magnus. And I'm certainly not my husband… Then again, no one is.”

V couldn’t help but agree with such a statement as she shifted her claws away. 

Optimus was… well, Optimus. For countless years, he had kept Iacon thriving and safe through the Great War. It was a place where millions of drones were able to live their lives in peace while others fought to defend their right to do so. It wasn’t perfect, hard times came and went as anyone would expect, but what made Optimus a legend wasn’t that he was strong—even though he was—it was that he could talk. And what he said, it would make you feel as strong as he was.

Because of that, because the people believed in him and he believed in them, they endured every hardship they came across. Even after millions of years. When the Decepticons would scream out their own mantra for their leader, “All hail Megatron”, the Autobots had their own. 

"Hail to Optimus.”

The irony never really struck any of them that Prime would hate to have people chanting his name in such a way. Unfortunately, it stuck.

“Look. I’m sorry I’m not meeting up to anyone's standards.” Elita’s voice pulled V from her thoughts, and she noticed the commander was standing in her usual no-nonsense stance, arms crossed, expression unreadable. “My Conjunx Endura told me to keep Iacon and its people safe, however I can, until he comes back. It was the last order he gave me and I intend to follow it.”

V was just about to scoff and make some kind of rude comment, then she looked Elita in the eye and recognized something familiar in them. Clearly, Elita didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be leading like this, ruling over a city with the cold efficiency of an uncaring despot. But she didn't have a choice—she was just slag out of luck and put in a position where she couldn’t walk away. She was backed into a corner by duty, expectation, and a war that never seemed to end. Then again, it wasn’t like she helped matters by shutting herself off from the people who might have actually helped her carry such a burden. 

Then again, isn't that the Mini-con calling the Micromaster small, with how often V had pushed N away whenever she was going through her own problems... 

Ugh. Self-reflection was the last thing V needed right now. She wanted another argument. She wanted the tension to come back again. That was something she knew how to handle. "Well, you're gonna have a hell of a time explaining all this to him. ‘Cause it looks like he could be here any minute because of that message we found. How do you think he is gonna feel about the NAILs situation?" V gave the best infuriating smile she could as she waited for Elita to throw something back. But she had to go and ruin it by agreeing with her.

“You’re right. I can try and try to justify why I did what I did, but I know Optimus. He'll just tell me there was a better way. And the worst part is, I know that there was. There’s always a better way. A way that doesn’t make us stray further from what we should be. But…”

She trailed off, while she leaned against the railing. She looked as if the weight of Iacon—of everything—had just settled onto her shoulders. “There’s also the easier way.”

V clenched her jaw as she had to look away. Because damn it, as much as she wanted to fight Elita on this, she couldn’t. She knew exactly what the older drone meant. 

“It wasn’t that I didn’t try his way. But when the colonies started waking up, when everything started happening at once, and when Shockwave was—” She cut herself off, letting out a bitter laugh as she rubbed her own temples. “Primus, when Shockwave just did anything.” 

Elita held her head in her hands, as she needed a moment. A chance to just catch her own thoughts. It’s captivated by her removing her helmet, allowing a flow of long pink hair to fall out along her shoulders. “I was trying to win a war against a madman,” She muttered. “And then I blinked, and suddenly the NAILs were rising up, declaring their independence. I wasn’t just dealing with Decepticons anymore—no, I was suddenly dealing with Gobots, Zybots, Velocitronians—”

“Don’t forget the Junkions,” V added dryly.

Elita let out something between a snort and a sigh, a weak sound edged with bitterness. “I wish I could. But then there were those Quintesson-loyalists, and whatever the hell was left of the Ammonites—and everyone, every damn bot, expected me to fix it. To keep Iacon from falling apart while half the planet fought over who got to own it and then another half came out of nowhere and decided they wanted to join in on the fun.”

She dragged a shaky hand through her hair, the other gripping the helmet like it was the only thing tethering her to the present. Her blue eyes were wide and hollow along her visor, the strain weighing so heavily on her frame that, for a moment, she didn’t look like the unshakable commander everyone believed her to be. She just looked like a woman that was pushed to an edge, and was about to fall off.

“For shocks sakes,” she whispered under her breath, “how can anyone expect me to keep my hands clean during all this?” V didn’t answer. Because, for once, she had no idea what to say as she had asked herself the same question multiple times. “I had no choice. I had to do something to keep the colonies from interfering with the war. We tried to get them to join us, or just stay where they were, but they wouldn’t listen. They didn’t respect us. Some even blamed us for the war and Cybertron’s ruination, as if we were the ones to—”

Her voice cut off, frustration giving way to a growl. Then, slowly, she lowered her head, letting the stress drain through her frame. When she spoke again, it was a quieter tone than before. “We had to keep it from happening again. So, we scared them a little. That was the only thing those lunatics seem to really understand.”

V found herself frowning as she looked off toward the direction of Crystal City. “You know that’s a very Decepticon way of thinking, right?”

Elita gave a humorless chuckle. “I know. And I know that’s how others saw it, too. I can’t blame them for wanting to leave with Magnus.” She shook her head. “We were supposed to be the good guys and yet, here we are—oppressing people, keeping them in their hiding holes, making them afraid of us.” V could hear a creak in Elita’s voice. “Look where that’s gotten me. My daughter won’t even look at me without disgust. My son ran off to Primus-knows-where to find his father… Maybe he succeeded, maybe that’s why Optimus is coming back but…” She trailed off, her optics dimming slightly. “I don’t know.”

There was a random thought that suddenly came to V's head. A question that, while she was hesitant to ask, she did want to know the answer to. “Do you think Optimus will hate you?”

Elita inhaled sharply through her vents. “No.” She tried to sound reassured but the word wavered, like she wasn’t sure if she was telling V or herself. “He’ll be disappointed, but I know him. He… he’s too…”

She faltered, searching for the right words. Then, as if settling on the only way to make her point, she turned to V. “Let me ask you something. Do you hate Megatron?”

V was completely caught off guard by the question, but it only took her a second to scoff out an answer. “The bastard once blew my head off. So, yeah. I’m not exactly a fan.” She rolled her optics before adding, “Why does that even matter? I’m pretty sure every Autobot hates him.”

Elita gave a small, bitter smile. “I'm pretty sure every other Autobot does hate him, except Optimus. I asked him about it once. He told me he hated what Megatron did, and the challenge he posed to the Autobot cause. But he could never hate the bot himself.” V stared at the armored drone, confusion easily read on her face. “I know,” Elita laughed, shaking her head at the absurdity of it. “I asked him to explain himself, and he said he wasn’t sure how. But he ended up telling me that no matter how horrible things got between them, no matter how many punches, or blaster shots were exchanged between them, war was no reason to end a friendship.”

V dramatically rolled her optics as she had to physically pull herself away from the conversation. “By the Allspark, I know he’s a big softy but still thinking you can be friends with someone after you beat the slag out of each other? That's insane!”

Elita responded by shrugging her shoulders. “That’s just the kind of person Optimus is. I don’t think he’s ever hated anyone or anything. Sure, he’d dislike things—people, even. Heh, more than once, he admitted to me that there were some Decepticons he’d never accept truces from because he knew they’d only use the time to reload their weapons.” Her voice softened and her optics dim slightly as she stared at nothing in particular. “But despite everything that happened to him… to us or our children… somehow, he never—ever—gave up hope that it could all end peacefully. That all it would take was the right battle, the right moment, the right words, and it would finally be over. We could be one again.”

V watched as Elita tightened her grip on her helmet, and almost seemed to get choked up at the thought. “Oh, Orion.” She let out a breath that was dangerously close to a sob. “My optimistic idiot.”

There was something in hearing that name. Not Optimus. Not the great and mighty Prime. Just Orion. The little bot who had carried the weight of Cybertron on his shoulders and still, somehow, still managed to win the sparks of so many. Even Megatron’s.

The bot that had been N’s hero. Even before he was Optimus.

Orion Pax will free us, V, and when he does, we can go to Cybertron. We can get married and live our lives together as Conjunx Endura. We just gotta have hope in our sparks.

She didn’t know what was worse. That she could remember that promise so perfectly…

Or that she knew N didn’t remember it at all.

His memory problems were worse than hers and no matter how hard J tried to recover them—at least, so she claimed—there were still too many gaps. Too many things were lost to time. Yet somehow, while N could only remember the war, the constant battles, and little else he was still her… optimistic idiot. 

The realization made V feel sick. She didn’t want to relate to Elita. Of all bots, her? Screw having a mother figure! She needed to redirect the conversation. Fast. She needed something that actually made sense.

Her prayers may have been answered, as a sharp beeping rang through the air. Elita’s visor flickered, her blue optics pulsing with activity as she answered the private Autobot frequency. “Yes?”

V couldn’t hear the other side of the call, but the way Elita’s eyes had widened told her everything. “What assassination team?” Elita’s voice dropped, sharp and incredulous. “I didn’t send one out! Why the hell would I poke that sleeping bear, Getaway?” There was a pause. Then a frustrated groan. “It’s a human expression, you—ugh! Where’s Longarm? He’s supposed to be relaying team orders.”

Another pause. Then Elita went still, as if all her servos had locked at once. “The shock do you mean he left due to a family emergency?” Her voice was eerily even, but her fingers curled into a shaking fist. “Fine. Then call him.” Her optics narrowed into a glare that could have melted steel. “You mean to tell me that no one can reach the head of our communications network?”

While V couldn’t hear Getaway’s response through the comms, the words didn’t matter. Elita’s face, and common sense, said it all. “Yes, Getaway, it is a very bad thing!” She snapped before forcefully ending the call with a hard blink of her optics, a sharp exhale escaping through gritted teeth as she slipped her helmet back on. “Primus, damn it.”

V, never one to let a moment of tension pass, huffed. “N would think it’s rude that you didn’t say goodbye before hanging up on that guy.”

Elita didn’t even dignify that with a real response, she merely muttered. “Go interface with yourself.”

“That’s a lot of words just to say ‘you’re right.’” 

Elita rolled her eyes as she rolled her arms. “I need to go do damage control on this mess. Enjoy the rest of your leave.” 

“Wait, seriously?” V spoke up, but before she could fully retort, Elita’s T-Cog purred and her form shifted in a seamless transformation of moving metal panels, armor compression—before settling into…A mini-van.

V actually recoiled at the sight of the vehicle. “Primus, you're such a mom.” Elita said nothing back as she simply gunned her engine, tires screeching as she sped off, leaving V alone with her thoughts as she turned back to face the city. Admittedly, she was a little curious to find out what exactly was going on. She knew Longarm, a stoic bot that kept to himself always. Hearing him suddenly have a family was…odd. Not to mention with him being missing, that is a serious breach in their security. He was in charge of maintaining their most encrypted communications. If somehow the Decepticons got to him… 

“I'm sure it's nothing serious.” She tried to place her thoughts elsewhere. Towards N and whatever he was doing. If she had an ounce of luck maybe he wouldn’t find anyone on his quest for reconciliation. Maybe he would come back to Iacon and the two of them could hang out with the Dinobots. 

There were also all the other bots with beast mods that lived underneath Iacon. With some calling a whole circus down below. They’re fun…and nice. Well, not all of them. A certain purple theme rabbit was a complete and totally scrapper, but one that V liked to watch be a menace. 

She was just about ready to throw her wings open, as to fly toward the cavern entrance of that underground sanctuary…but she was stopped as a shadow flew over her. V looked up just in time to see a gun aimed at her face. 

“Oh. Heeey, J. How was your nap?” V gave a knowing grin as her fellow Dissamibly drone gave the coldest glare possible. For a long, tense beat, she looked at V as though weighing the pros and cons of putting an EMP shotgun blast directly through her visor. Her arm even twitched, the familiar sound of weapon systems priming being heard as it was about to get a shot off.

But ultimately, with a sharp exhale full of utter annoyance, J holstered the thought along with the weapon, the shotgun collapsing back into her forearm with a hiss of locking servos. “You’re lucky you’re such a valuable asset in the field, V.”

“Aww, I love you too, glitch.” V spoke in a sing-a-long tone before needing to dodge herself out of the way, as J’s leg whipped out in a half-hearted kick toward her head. “Oh, come on,” V said, hands raised in mock innocence. “The paint was just a little prank. It’s not like I shot you or anything. Granted, there have been a few times I’ve been seriously tempted but—”

“Enough. I swear to Primus, you’re practically a cartoon character sometimes.” J rolled her eyes as she folded her arms and looked away with practiced indifference. “We’ve got new orders.”

V’s grin faltered. She raised a brow, half-expecting some cheap punchline to a bad joke. There was no way Elita could have possibly come up with something new to them. It’s literally been only a couple of seconds. 

But J didn’t elaborate. She just kept herself floating in the air, the soft sound of the thrusters along the bottom of her boots and behind her wings being the only noise heard throughout the balcony. After several seconds of neither of them saying anything, the realization began to settle in. She wasn’t talking about orders from Elita.

She was talking about orders from that devil. 

Suppressing the urge to unleash a string of both cybertorian and human curses that could’ve scorched the air, V only slammed her fist against the railing of the balcony, the metal ringing out a loud ‘clang’ under the blow as it was dented under her strength. “Great. Just absolutely great.” She didn’t even bother to bury the venom in her tone. J already knew how she felt about their so-called ‘boss.’

…Sometimes V wondered how much J even remembered what had happened back at the manor. If she had any doubts about who their ‘human’ boss truly was, or if she’d simply accepted the story handed to her. Not that it mattered. Not anymore. The past was just static in their systems—something that will soon be left a flickering, unreliable, untouchable waste of space for their memory banks. That meant it wasn’t even worth bringing up. The best she could do was roll with the punches. Just do as she was told. Primus knows it did not make things any easier. But what choice did she have?

The same choice she always had. None at all. “What’s the new job this time?” V sneered, her optics narrowing as she turned away from the city below, turning her back against J. “Off to kill more NAILs?”

“You would be right,” J said flatly. “We’re to wipe out the entire Colony of Kalis.”

“...You're freaking kidding me, right?” 

“Do I ever joke about our missions, V?”

V spun halfway toward her, disbelief cracking through her sneer as she needed to blink a few times to be sure her logic circuits were still operating. “But an entire colony? With just the three of us?”

Though her eyes were closed in what could be seen as reluctant agreement, J still pressed on. “It’s not impossible,” she said, her tone steady with an almost clinical mentality. “It will take time, but we can clear them level by level. And if any of the NAILs survive?” She shrugged slightly, while opening a single optic. “We blame it on those imposters in Kaon.”

There was actually a moment where V began to sputter. “We are talking about thousands of drones here, J. Thousands! How the slag are we even supposed to drag N into this? H-He’s not gonna—” she faltered, her voice dipping as she tried to think of anything to use as some kind of an excuse, “—what about those big doors? The ones that fix themselves when we damage them.”

“Already accounted for.” J didn’t miss a beat, as in an instant the eyes of her visor are replaced with an image of a blueprint design. “I’ll be picking up something from the R&D sector. Perceptor’s designed a chemical charge that will release a liquid which mimics our acid. Three samples worth. Unless we get unlucky and there happens to be a fourth door…” She let the silence linger before adding, “We should be fine.”

V stared at her, trying to read anything beneath the cold certainty in her voice, but there was nothing. Just steel and inevitability. Of course there was, this was J—she always went along with any orders given. Her mouth felt dry at such a horrid thought. “And N? He would never, ever accept such a thing! And he isn’t dumb enough to think Elita would order us to do this.”

“I... already called him,” J admitted, her eyes flicking back into view as she looked off to the side. “I told him about the orders though, he seemed… distracted. I also gave him the new information we got on Impactor’s killer—”

“You did what?!” V snapped, her voice cutting like a blade as she turned to fully face J again. “Why would you do that? You know he would—ugh! Primus damn it, J! What were you thinking?”

J didn’t flinch at the sudden bratting as she kept her arms folded tightly along her chest. “What exactly did you expect me to do? Hide such a thing from him? He has a right to know just as any of us did. Besides, it was only a matter of time before someone told him. If he didn't learn it from me, he would have learned it from any of the Wreckers looking for the killer.”

V’s plating rattled with agitation as she had her hands clutch tight with anger. “You could’ve waited! Give him more time to grieve! You know he flies off the handle when he’s emotional!”

“Maybe you are right. However,” J countered, her voice cool as stone as she looked back toward V with her usual stare. “He’s far more efficient when he does give into his more primal emotions.”

V barked out a bitter laugh. “Efficient?! Ripping drones’ faces off is not efficient—it’s unhinged!”

J’s optics narrowed. “Really? Of all bots in Iacon, you're the one to say such a thing?”

“Hey, when I do it, it’s normal! It’s expected, it’s me cutting loose and doing what I like!” V shot back, jabbing a finger toward her own chest. “When he does it, it’s a clear sign he is not okay! It’s N for crying out loud, the same idiot who cries every time he watches the Iron Giant. The same one that can always rattle off something about dogs. The same one we...we...” She lost her voice for a moment as she dropped her gaze to the floor. “Primus damn it, J. Why did you hurt him like that?”

J held her silence for a long beat, then she finally exhaled the breath she held. “…Alright. Alright. What’s done is done. No use crying over spilled oil.” Her tone softened, but only slightly, her usual bossy tone losing its edge. “Let’s focus on the mission first. Afterwards, I promise—the three of us will sit down and talk it through. We can even… visit the Dinobots. Maybe some of the other beastformers.”

V’s optics flicked upward as she still seemed weary. “…N’s trying to get them their own name.”

J couldn’t help but arched her brow. “Oh, and what exactly is he trying to call them? Beasties? Wonder pets? Botimals?”

“Maximals,” V murmured, a faint smile tugging at her mouth despite herself. “Because so many of them have… ‘maximum cuteness.’ It’s why he likes drawing them so much.”

For once, J’s face softened—just a fraction—but she quickly masked it with a sigh. “…I swear, that idiot keeps finding new ways to be stupid just to spite me.” 

The amusement faded quickly as V’s smile was the first to die. “J,” she said quietly, the weight of her words pressing against her voice. “An entire colony.”

Though J’s optics did flicker to become more dim, they then hardened again. “…Orders are orders, V.” Her tone was firm and final. She then looked back toward the city as if to end the conversation. “Besides. Think of it as making up for your blunder a couple of years ago.”

Those words felt like a blade striking the inside of V’s core, as she knew exactly what J was referring to. As her teammate flew downward toward the rest of the city, V stayed behind, rooted to the balcony. She had forced herself to breathe—but each inhale was rattled, uneven, catching on something horrid within her chest. Her internal vents hissed faintly, struggling to steady. And that’s when she realized: her thoughts were already slipping, unraveling, dragging her down into another memory she didn’t want to revisit.

She’d killed NAILs before. All of the team had. Elita thought the Disassembly Squad only carried out intimidation orders to make the Colonies afraid and keep them compliant. A few burst plates, some broken walls, the brutal demonstration to serve as a reminder of who held the line. That was what Elita and the rest of the Autobots thought. They never knew the truth.

They never knew that the Disassembly Squad didn’t just scare. They lived up to their name by hunting the neutrals. Breaking into their Colonies under cover of dark, dragging drones from their homes. They culled wanderers in the wastelands—hundreds every few megacycles. Not just to be made ‘examples’ of, but just for seemingly the sake of slaughter. That was why Elita’s grand strategy ‘worked’ so well. Not because of threats, but because of corpses. Because of them.

V curled her hands against the railing until the metal groaned and gave way under her grip. Her vision prickled with static, sick with the memory of the thousands and thousands she had killed of innocent drones.

But Kalis…Kalis was different. It was where she had her stupidest moment of weakness. The worst part? She couldn’t even remember why she had it. Whatever reason she had that had plagued her at that time had rotted away thanks to time. All that remained was the hollow shape of what happened, where around three years ago her team had found evidence of NAILs trying to slip out of the Kalis Colony during the day. J had been riding her and N hard about “meeting quotas” or some slagged excuse. So V gave chase as she normally would during such a situation.

There was a struggle, but it didn’t last. They never do. Two bots died before their sparks could even flare a final death signal—one was a male drone, the other was a female drone. It was fun to end their lives. To toy with them, hear their fear, act the role of a predator towards such prey as that was what she always did. That was what she was remade to do.

And then she found their kid. A trembling little thing that was thrown in a hiding spot by her parents. She was a pathetic, sniveling, scared little girl. She should have been easy prey. Nothing more than a light snack. V would have normally been more than happy to rip that little girl’s spark out if it meant getting J off her back about stupid quotas!

But then came another, Primus shocking damn memory…

Me, Grimlock, know what it feels like. To be small. Cold. Afraid. But me also learn, long time ago… there always smaller ones. Colder ones. More afraid ones. When me met you three, me saw that truth again. That why me lead us to Iacon to join fight against bad guys. Big city. Mean to Dinobots. But together. You help make it home. Together, we strongest there is.

The red-eyed girl wasn’t screaming. She wasn’t fighting. She wasn’t even begging. She just stared through V, toward the bodies of the other two drones. Her optics were hollow and extremely dim. One glance told V everything she needed to know. That the girl didn’t want to live anymore. She just wanted her pain to end right then and there. Unfortunately for her, V knew that feeling all too well.

She gave the girl a simple threat, a warning of what was to happen to her and her people if they kept trying to free themselves from the Colony. After that, it was just letting her go on her merry way…well, if only it were that easy. 

The child didn’t move at first. She didn’t even blink. It took a bit of coaxing, with some threats and insults that were sharp enough to force her to obey. It would have gone so smoothly if she hadn’t tried to drag her parents’ bodies with her. Her small arms hooked beneath theirs, hauling them inch by inch through the snow, refusing to leave them behind.

That girl must have loved them very much. And V laughed as she killed them…

Do your job, and I leave you and N alone.

Those words made her flinch as they echoed through her processor. Like acid dripping against fragile wiring, it burned something within her spark to remember them. V had to force herself to take a breath again, to feel a shuddering sense of air feel her internal vents. Her hands were pressed hard against her visor, as though she could physically shove back the memory from forcing itself into the front of her consciousness.

“Just focus on the job,” she hissed through clenched teeth, her voice ragged and mechanical as she began repeating the phrase. “I still feel nothing. I still feel nothing. I still feel nothing.” It was a pointless attempt to hammer the words into her spark. To have them act as some kind of shield. Really, it just showed how desperate she was to keep that devil from holding any more power over her than it already had.

Because if she did allow herself to feel more, if she let herself think too much—then suddenly she was back at the manor. She was in the basement with that thing. She would be left to feel its fingers ripping through her body, twisting, and reshaping her very core, until her own body wasn’t hers anymore. It would be the property of that devil. That smiling abomination of twisting metal and smiling insanity.

…suddenly, killing off the entire Colony didn’t seem so bad. V didn’t care. She just needed to do something. She needed a hunt. She needed to remind herself what it felt like to be the real apex predator.

Because then it helped her forget just how much a victim she is herself.

Chapter Text

“So, what you’re looking at is the standard trigger housing that we use for all our explosives. It’s got a programmable delay and several redundant safeties, which will make it take up to about an hour before detonation. Tampering with the side panel can ‘bypass’ the delay, and make it take a much shorter time, but I would strongly advise against trying that in the field. Minimal shielding means that a single stray round could turn this from a precision tool into an indiscriminate hazard.”

The red armored drone tapped the glass casing with a fingertip, causing the greenish liquid inside to swirl with the force of a miniature storm. “It is incredibly volatile to any force applied to it. If I can give any recommendations, they will be to—”

"Your concerns are noted, Perceptor. But your recommendations will be professionally ignored.” J began to place the small, disc-shaped explosives within a heavy canvas bag offered by her fellow Autobot. While she was thankful that her sudden request was fulfilled in a timely manner by the head of the Autobot R&D division, her voice was threaded with the kind of pride that didn’t like being lectured to. Especially about safety. Who was she, N? 

Well, Perceptor seemed to think so as he said, “I mean no real source of offense by saying this, Sergeant, but I do not believe that the infamous ‘Angels of Death’ are known for being…careful.”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, J's fingers curled around the strap as she began to judge the weight of the bag. “Which is why I will be the one primarily holding the charges.” Slipping the bag over her shoulder, she began to mentally predict if it would interfere with her transformation sequence. “I will have to take it slow. Use only my wings to fly.”

Perceptor allowed a small smile to show on his face. “Better safe than sorry I suppose.” J saw the irony of such a thing as she looked at the younger drone’s work station. It held a mess of half-finished projects, and was somehow drenched in the smell of oil and energon-snacks. He really wanted to talk about being safe while handling sensitive explosives around such a cluttered space? 

“At least allow me to explain a little about what I made. You see, I tried to replicate the corrosive nanites that you and your team can secrete from your tails. Which I was somewhat successful at. However, I haven’t yet discovered a reliable countermeasure.” He held a finger toward his own mouth. “Your saliva may not work the same way as it does with your normal acid. I've tried to make sense of it over the last few years, when I am not overburdened with my normal workload, but it seems to be tied to your team’s regenerative abilities. Perhaps if we have time we could test it and—”

“Time is not exactly something we have, Perceptor. We needed these explosives yesterday. I will just have to be careful with them.” J shrugged as she really saw that there were no real other options. She had orders to fulfill after all. The ‘Company’ would want her to act as soon as possible. Any delays in fulfilling an order could result in being reprimanded by the ‘boss’ herself. 

And J really didn't want to go through that, again.

She was about to turn and leave with the bag in hand, but she stopped herself as she noticed the digital eyepatch that covered Perceptor's right optic: which was a faint circuitry pulse that flickered beneath the glass of his visor. There was also a jagged line carved along his face, where it ran from his hair and disappeared beneath the frame of his jaw. That was not there a few weeks ago. “...you know, you could just replace that bad optic with one that actually works. We do have spares in the medical bay.”

He chuckled at her with a surprising amount of good humor. “I could,” he said. “But I like it.” He tilted his head with a softness that didn’t suit the hard metal of his armor. “It’s a reminder that I need to stop overthinking things when I am in the middle of a fight. Do I miss having some basic depth perception, sure,” he paused to give his own shrug. “But what kind of Wrecker would I be if I didn’t have a few dents and scratches?”

“A shiny one. And there is nothing worse than that.” J felt the corner of her mouth twitch as she remembered what Impactor used to say about the team's recruits. “Thank you for sharing the recording of the funeral. I will be sure to share it with V and N when we come home.”

Perceptor was quick to shake his head, as to refuse the gratitude. “You can thank Springer. He was the one to give me the idea. Though he’ll deny it if you mention it.” J couldn’t help but let out a scoff, the sound catching somewhere between amusement and disbelief. She could picture it: the current leader of the Wreckers still trying to keep his façade of detached ‘coolness’ to this day, even though everyone knew he had one of the most gentle sparks imaginable. 

J had opened her mouth to make another comment, but the moment slipped away. Perceptor had already turned toward another project he needed to work on, with his posture shifting into the focused stillness he wore whenever tools and half-solved equations called to him louder than a conversation ever could. That was her cue to leave, and she almost did. Until he spoke one final time. 

“Make sure you make those Cons pay for what they did to Impactor.” It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t a casual remark. It was more so a reminder of what she was supposed to do. His tone, while not harsh, was direct. His anger, grief, hate, and regret were all rolled together in that single sentence… he wanted her to kill the people who took his friend. Their friend.

J had found herself frozen mid-step. Suddenly, the room felt smaller and the hum of the lights was growing louder. There were words she might have said. Such as made up of promises, reassurances, and worthless bravado. But none of them felt right at the time. So J did the only thing that did fit: she gave a short, silent nod, and then kept moving. When the door slid shut behind her, it was like a massive weight had just been freed from her chest. The rest of the R&D lab was stretched ahead of her. It was a maze of brilliant engineers and multiple unfinished projects. She began to power-walk through it as quickly as possible.

Normally, she would have enjoyed the feeling of a lie sliding so easily into place—the ruse that her team was going out to attack a secret Decepticon outpost without Elita’s authorization was perfect. It was just the kind of work Wreckers did all the time and with how easy it was to get Perceptor to believe her, she should’ve been performing her perfectly practiced sinister laugh by now. Except, maybe, that was the problem. Perceptor believed her. He trusted her and thought of her as a friend, yet she lied to him. That thought sat awkwardly within her spark chamber. It made her feel ‘dirty’. If it were any other drone, she couldn’t have given less of a damn. But he was one of the few that could actually look her in the eye when they talked—and with Impactor dead, and the war still going on, that list of bots that did that were getting shorter and shorter.

There was also the issue of what he had just made for her. Breaching devices. Ones that were simple in function, yet insanely brutal in their application. Any other drone could have welded the casing to a detonator, set a timer, slapped on an ignition charge. But Perceptor had done it and that was just wrong. Every second he spent building weapons was another second stolen from what he should have been doing!

This war didn't need more weapons. It needed scientists who focused on the betterment of the people. Builders. Innovators. Mechanical artist. But…no. Acting Commander Elita-1, in all her polished pink paint and blind righteousness, had other priorities. “Fragging idiot,” J muttered under her breath, bitterness rolling off her in static waves as she moved through the corridors that led away from the lab. She took a sharp huff of air through her internal vents, trying to cool the burn that had settled in her chest. But her mind spun too fast, circling the same frustrations that she's had about Iacon since the departure of the Ark. 

There were so many corners that could be cut. There were so many resources left untapped. But instead of restructuring, instead of trimming the fat or adapting, Elita thought it best to simply press on and ignore the obvious solutions that were staring her in the face. The energon recycling issue was the perfect example of this. Iacon’s reclamation systems had been damaged for years. They were left to sputter along instead of being repaired or redesigned as the Autobots simply lack the resources to do anything about it. Rationing was the right call as such a thing was inevitable, but the distribution that Elita decided was absurd. A single cube a day—what kind of logic was that? Fully forged drones could last at least three entire cycles without that kind of refueling, more if they weren’t in active combat. Sparklings, with their naturally higher energy reserves, could endure twice as long without feeding as well but Elita insisted that they would be fed first. 

Just thinking about it was making J’s fangs ache with how tightly her jaw was clenched. She knew it wasn’t her job to speak out of line, nor was it her place to point out the idiocy of the one sitting in the command chair. She was a Disassembly Drone. A tool for a job. She was meant to follow orders and kill, not to criticize supply chains. But Primus, the inefficiency clawed at her like acid in her circuits. If Prowl were still around—“Ugh.” J flinched at the thought and shook her head like she could rattle his name loose from her own consciousness. She had to stop doing this to herself. Sentimentality was a weakness she couldn’t afford. Even if…she did miss him, sometimes.

It wasn’t easy being in Iacon when the whole city knew you as a homicidal cannibal. When your frame was built so differently from the others and you needed to feast on the inner-energon of your fellow drones just to stay functional or sane. Such a thing does not make a good first impression for most.

Something J was reminded of when she caught sight of two young Autobots at the far end of the hall. Their whispers died mid-syllable the instant her yellow eyes locked onto theirs. They both froze, and with a nervous purr of T-cogs, they transformed on the spot—with two vehicles darting away down the corridor, engines whining like scared animals. “They’re just young and stupid,” She muttered, gripping the bag slung across her shoulder until the canvas groaned. The lie made the inside of her mouth taste like ash, but J pressed on. The hallway ahead was empty, eerily so. She didn’t need to glance around to know that other Autobots saw her coming and they made sure to be anywhere but here. This kind of thing always happens to her and the rest of her team when they are in the city. It was part of the reason why they lived in Kalis. Other than because of orders from the ‘boss’.

J tried to tell herself she didn’t care. That she didn’t need the approval of the people in this place. She didn’t need anyone. The corporate mindset was etched into her code and it allowed her to take everything in stride. Leaving no ties or distractions. Nothing to anchor her down. That is how she liked it.

Because that is how she survived after the loss of Tes…

“I really don’t want to think about that right now.” J cut the thought off before it could sink its claws in. She shoved it aside, locked it within the deepest corner of her mind, and prayed that it would finally go away. She needed a moment after doing so. Just a short few seconds to calm herself down and take a few breaths. When she was finally able to fully steady herself, she knew what she needed to do next. 

The corridors spat her outside, and the night welcomed her with a cold breeze that flung her twintails through the air. Wings unfurled from behind her back with a snap of hydraulics, catching the wind as her back thrusters flared. She took off in an instant, carving a path high above the city. But she didn’t head toward the Iacon wall, where V most likely was waiting for her.

Instead, she banked low, slipping into the higher points of the cityscape, where glass towers had rusted stretches of scaffolding and crumbling ledges. She found a ledge that was half swallowed by shadow. The kind of place where no one would look for her or be able to listen in on her conversation.

She landed with the soft scrape of dress shoes against metal, kicking up a small hill of snow over her feet. Which she kicked off toward the streets below with a disgruntled sound of annoyance. 

“Okay. Here we go.” As she muttered the words, the light of her eyes turned dim—then flared back to life while shifting into a deep, unnatural green as she had tuned into her comms system. But she wasn’t accessing the Autobot private frequency, which had ‘approved’ channels where everything was logged, filtered, and reviewed by the communications network. This was something different. Something with its own private encryption that only those employed by the ‘Company’ had access to. 

It was not long before J would see multiple names roll across her visor. Several of which were of fellow Autobots, but just as many were Decepticons. Of the entire list, only three answered the call.

“[You know, I just got yelled at by Elita.]” A voice echoed within J's head. It belonged to a bot known as Getaway, an infiltrator specialist in the Autobot ranks. His name was earned by being a professional escape artist. “[I think that means I’ve filled my quota of being yelled at by women today.]”

“[Somehow it doesn’t surprise me you have such a thing.]” Another voice joined the call. It belonged to the Decepticon Seeker, Thrust. A loud-mouthed, cowardly, smug, bootlicking, backstabbing braggart. He was also—unfortunately—one of the only ‘Cons within their group who had managed to worm his way within Shockwave’s personal sphere. Doing so by working as his ‘City Assistant’. “[Maybe it’s less yelling and more, screaming your name when you get close to them.]”

“[Screaming my name? Oh. Cute, Conehead,]” Getaway lets out an almost amused scoff as he catches what the Decepticon meant. “[Thankfully I don’t really spend much time with women, so I don't really have that problem. But if you want to keep projecting, by all means.]” 

“[The only thing that is projecting is–]” 

J rolled her eyes as she realized that their bickering was already circling the drain. It was the kind of pointless back-and-forth that could stretch on for hours at a time—unless of course, someone were to step in to stop it. “Enough!” She shouted through the line. “If you two would kindly stop acting like a pair of protoforms, maybe we can actually move this meeting along.” The silence that followed was instantaneous. Good. She had their attention and she intended to keep it for the rest of the call. 

That was her plan, at least till someone else spoke up. “[My, oh my. Is this how all of these meetings usually start? If so, I should have gotten some batteries.]” J narrowed her optics as she didn’t recognize the new voice. 

“Mesothulas?” Confusion was intertwined with her tone as her visor flickered with the contact IDs of the call. She double-checked the list. The Decepticon's name was there, but this was obviously not him. J immediately began to assume the worst, if they had somehow been compromised she would need to act to perform damage control. She was just about to take flight through the air again, only for the new voice to continue speaking to her. 

“[Oh, right. My apologies. J, was it?]” The stranger was savoring the reveal as she was being playful with her words. “[It seems a certain someone forgot to mention that he will no longer be available for these little surprise chats. He’s a very busy person, you understand. So, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be the one taking the reins of his calls. Don’t worry. I’ll be sure to pass along anything you wish to say to him. My name’s Airachnid, and I hope to be a pleasure.]”

An immediate sense of distrust began to grow within J's core as every syllable from this so-called ‘Airachnid’ stank of falsehood. The only part she believed out of the drone's mouth was her name, and even that could have been a lie. She needed confirmation of who this was, now.

“Thrust.” She called out, in a warning tone. His chuckle could be heard through the channel. As if he enjoyed being very unhelpful about the serious situation she was facing. “[Relax. I can vouch for her. Mesothulas is in fact… busy. Not sure with what but Shockwave’s been riding him hard lately. Something about a breakthrough in those evolved Insecticons of his.]”

J showed a lot of restraint by not screaming at Thrust. Because when it comes to Shockwave, a ‘breakthrough’ could mean anything. Especially when it had to do with those… knock-offs he kept around.

If Mesothulas was indisposed for an unforeseeable amount of time, that would be ‘bad for business’. He was one of the few drones that she could rely upon to keep the others in line. He was also the one who commanded the wild Insecticon horde that lurked around Iacon. Without him, the horde would soon scatter to other parts of the planet. More drones would be able to reach Crystal City… and the ‘boss’ would not be happy about that.

Damn it. How was she supposed to run this operation if people were willing to disappear on her? She was supposed to be focused on the new mission given to her but now she had to—ugh! She'll just have to worry about it later. V could only be kept waiting for so long.

“Whatever.” The word left J’s mouth with absolute bitterness. “We’ll have a proper introduction later, Airachnid. But until then—” She made a small, controlled pause as she hoped that the two idiots on the line would be paying extra attention to what she said next “—I expect no one to pass any confidential information to you. You are to be treated as a potential breach until proven otherwise. Understood?”

“[I feel welcomed already.]” J ignored Airachnid's comment as she was attempting to sort the mental list of issues that she was currently facing. Between Mesothulas, the Insecticons, the Ark's arrival, Impactor’s sudden death, and the recent order given to her by corporate… she was admittedly at a loss as to where to even begin with this meeting. Especially when their ‘new member’ was handicapping her ability to truly discuss some of these things.

She would be forced to bite the bullet at this point and simply press on for now while choosing her words carefully. “The boss gave me new orders. I’m going to be gone from Iacon for a while. Before I go, I need to be sure of a few things. First and foremost, Getaway, just what exactly happened in Kaon?”

“[Uhhhhh…]” That single drawn-out sound told J everything she needed to know before the words even landed. It was the noise of someone who's realized just how badly they screwed up. She would know, N's has made that noise to her countless times. “[There was some minor miscommunication—]”

Thrust’s laughter tore through the channel like a rusted saw blade. “[Minor? Your flunkies were ordered to sabotage the fragging Space Bridge and somehow they thought that meant, ‘hey, let’s try to assassinate one of the only bots who can fight Overlord to a standstill!’ That’s not a miscommunication, that’s a fragging clustershock!]”

“[Hey, hey–slow your roll, Conehead,]” Getaway fired back, his words fumbling in their bite as he was on the defensive. “[They still got the job done, didn’t they? You people wanted a few Autobots to make some noise cause things were too quiet on the war front, so I had a team stir things up. If a few of them got… ambitious, that’s hardly my fault.]”

“Ambitious is just soft talk for being reckless.” J let out a low groan as she dragged a hand across her visor. She wanted to rip into the younger Autobot, to chew him out until that smugness he always carried was peeled off like old paint. But there were bigger things looming than Getaway’s incompetence. “Tabling that topic for now. We need to move on to another pressing issue. That being about the Ark.” 

“[What exactly is there to talk about?]” Getaway would ask, as he sounded genuinely confused. “[We don’t know anything about it. That holo-tape your team pulled is the only reason we know it even still exists. Even then, it just sounded like Prime’s usual self-made propaganda.]”

“Which is exactly why we need to think up contingencies,” J was trying to stay professional, but that was quickly becoming a waste of effort when she heard Getaway scoff at her. “We need something, damn it. There’s no telling what that could mean for the war.”

“[Knowing Prime, he’d probably want to end it,]” Getaway muttered, his tone casual yet it held an edge with resignation. “[And probably will.]” J could almost picture him leaning back in his seat, shaking his head at the very thought. “[Still hard to believe Impactor was carrying that kind of message. Speaking of which—was that leak true? That some kid managed to kill him?]”

“[She certainly claims to have done it,]” Thrust spoke up, as to affirm the information. “[I saw her while she was at Swindle’s bar. She was bragging about it and showing off that her leg was covered in his inner-energon. She acted like it was a badge of honor, which was kind of gross to be honest.]”

“[And if she was lying? The leak said that she was like a teenager and they tend to do that a lot.]”

Thrust’s laugh echoed through the comm again. “[Then it’ll be a very important lesson for her to never lie about something that stupid. Too bad she'll probably never learn it before one of your Wreckers smashes her head in.]”

J said nothing as she thought back to the last conversation she had with N. It was very much possible that he was prowling for Impactor's killer somewhere in Kalis. While J doubted he’d actually find the girl, if he did… it could help convince him to do the Colony job. That was something to think about.

“[If I might ask, Thrust,]” Airachnid's voice pulled J back into the conversation. “[Will we be expecting to hear from Lord Megatron soon? After all, if the Ark is apparently returning to Cybertron, then surely the Nemesis would follow.]”

Thrust gave a dismissive ‘bah’. As if he were trying to reject the topic. “[Believe me, if that bucket-head of a tyrant were on his way, you’d know. I’d make sure of it. Shockwave is bad enough, but Megatron? Ohhh, if you think life on Cybertron is bad now, you weren’t around during the height of the Great War.]”

“[I’ll have to take your word on it,]” There was a hint of disappointment in Airachnid's tone as she was clearly disliked by the answer. “[I was forged only a couple thousand years ago, and I never bothered to learn much from historical archives.]”

“Then count yourself lucky.” The words left J before she could stop them. 

She didn’t like talking about those days. Hell, she didn’t even like thinking about them. When the War for Cybertron was at its peak of insanity, it was just too much. Every moment on the battlefield was a struggle to survive, even for her team. J would know that more than anyone because while N and V were allowed to forget about the others, she wasn’t.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, W, X, Y, and Z are all gone. 

Some were lost within a swarm of wild insecticons, others fell apart due to cosmic rust, a few had their cores crushed by a Point One Percenter, and one was unlucky enough to get Cybercrosis of all things. 

They were good soldiers. They were good friends. Perfect assets to the ‘company’ and… to the Autobot cause.

“Okay,” J cleared her throat and went right back into the topic at hand. “I suppose we’ll have to play it by ear and simply see what comes next. If anything, maybe we could have Longarm attempt a long-range scan of our planetary sector? If Impactor managed to stumble across a stray signal, there is a chance that we could find some means of spotting the—”

“[Yeeeah, about that.]” Getaway’s interruption was done in a way that instantly made J’s entire frame stiffen. “[ I, uh, kinda just got done telling Elita that Longarm is sort of…gone.]” 

She needed a moment to process that bit of information, before utterly refusing to accept such a thing. “Don’t screw with me, Getaway. You know I've killed drones for less. Now try to get in contact with Longarm as soon as possible.” 

However, the escape artist was insistent. “[I'm not playing around. He’s missing,]” He said flatly, like repetition alone was enough to clarify the impossible. “[It happened today, literally about two hours ago, I think.]”

J took such news as calmly as she possibly could. “The shock do you mean he’s missing?!” Her voice could be heard from the ground-level, but she couldn’t care less. Of all the bots in their circle, Longarm was too important. Too embedded within their structure. It was due to his secure-lines that she was able to make contact with the ‘boss’ in the first place.

This had to be a mistake of some kind. But Getaway just had to keep talking. “[Look, full transparency? I was really hoping one of you could tell me where he is.]” He tried to explain, almost as if he was trying to plead his case. “[I’ve been asking around. No one’s seen him. Apparently, he had some kind of ‘family emergency’ and just vanished.]”

“But he doesn’t have a family.”

“[I know!]” Getaway's voice sounded strained, showing that he was just as stressed out about this as J was. “[Records show he had a Conjunx Endura, but she’s been dead since before the war. There’s no one else. No relatives, no special fellas. Nothing.]”

Airachnid chipped into the conversation with her own explanation. “[Could be he just made an excuse to bail. Not just from us, but from Iacon itself. Maybe he ran for Crystal City.]”

J shook her head, though none of them could see it. “No. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. The Autobot intelligence hub runs from Luna 2—Cybertron's second moon. He doesn’t have a lot of options to leave such a place”

“[He doesn’t have a flight base alt. mode,]” It was Getaway's turn to speak. “[So it’s not like he could just up and fly out. None of the shuttles we had docked were touched, and my guys combed that entire base twice looking for him. He didn’t leave. He just… vanished. Maybe he was taken?]”

Thrust’s scoff was heard before he began speaking. “[Not a chance. There's not a single Decepticon who wouldn't loudly brag about kidnapping the head of the Autobots’ communication network.]” 

“[Are you sure about that?]” Getaway’s voice snapped back. There was an edge of accusation in those words. “[’Cause I seem to remember when you forgot to tell us about that Headmaster project!]”

“[Oh my Primus, that was years ago! Let it go!]”

“[I would, but every morning I wake up from a recharge session and have to screw my head back in because it can come loose and walk off on its own!]” 

“[Well maybe you wouldn't have to worry about such a thing if you wore a bike helmet, like I keep telling you!]”

“[Where can I get a bike helmet on Cybertron, you upside-down ice-cream cone shaped son of a bit—]” 

The bickering dissolved into the background as J just began to pace along the narrow ledge. Her optics tracked nothing in particular while her mind was attempting to overclock itself. She needed to focus on Longarm.

He was one of the first members of their group and he wasn’t the kind of bot you could just replace. If he’d been taken, compromised, or worse… that was an implosion to their entire operation. All of them would be exposed.

But she can’t accept that. Primus, damn it, she will not accept that! It was too perfect. Of all the bots such a thing had to happen to, of course, it was toward the one Drone J could always rely upon… This couldn't be allowed. She needed to get a hold of this situation, now! 

Taking a moment to weigh her choices, and where they possibly lead to, J had stopped her pacing and let out a loud ‘Alright!’ in a raised tone of voice. That was enough to make Getaway and Thrust shut their traps. “I am only going to say this once so listen closely,” she made sure that each syllable of her words were said in a slow and deliberate way so as to truly get across the severity of their problem. 

“We are dealing with the fact that the Ark is coming. We don't know when, could be right now and I wouldn't shocking know unless it is right above my head. So, here is what I want you slugheads to do. Airachnid, Thrust. As members within the Decepticon ranks, you are going to find out about the Ark. I refuse to believe that Shockwave wouldn't know if that thing was anywhere close to Cybertron.

Getaway, I want you to look into any Autobot means of finding the Ark. I don't care if you have to get a telescope out from someone's closest, I want you to look into the sky for any sign of that glorified cargo ship.”

“[Wait, but what about—]” He doesn't get to finish that thought, as J spoke over him. “I want to make something perfectly clear… I don’t trust any of you to see your tasks through. I've gone through nothing but headaches the past few days, so I really am not in the mood to deal with any scrap from any of you. I can't even trust you idiots to tell the rest of our group that calls are vulnerable to being hacked now, because you’ll probably get into an argument about colors or something stupid like that. So, I will look into this Longarm situation myself, after I finish the job our boss gave me. When I come back to Iacon, I am expecting at least one of you to have at least tried to do your own damn job.”

“[For the sake of asking,]” Airachnid’s tone was stripped of her usual flippancy. She actually sounded uncertain for herself. “[What would happen if… you find our efforts lacking?]”

J didn't even hesitate to give her answer. “Then you better shocking hope that when I find you, I'm not hungry.” She then blinked her eyes and with a soft click ended the call. 

For a long moment, J did nothing else as her visor has shifted back to its usual yellow color. She stood rigid, fists curling tight at her sides as she stared outward toward the cityscape of Iacon. Not a single sound could be heard from her, as a storm of emotional baggage was building within her core, till the pressure was just too much and she began to…vent. 

J would slam her back against the wall and throw her hands over her face. A scream soon followed, but it was muffled from behind her palms. No one would be able to hear her pour out all the frustration, fear, and fury that she’s had building within herself for over nine million years. All of which was spent on delicate scheming and careful manipulation. And now all of that was threatening to collapse because of one missing operative and one ancient space-craft that refused to stay gone.

She knew, deep within her spark, that the ‘boss’ would not like this. When the ‘boss’ didn’t like something, she knew she was going to be the one punished for it. Because she always is. Every time there was a failure. Every time there was a mistake. Every time N and V decided to try and run off together, where she had to chase after them—damn it!

The lone disassembly drone continued to scream and scream, till finally she ran out of breath and slowly dragged her hands away from her face. She was taking a moment to try and be stable. To try and gain back some kind of control over herself. 

But then, she felt a subtle weight pressed down on her left shoulder. Then another weight. Then another. J then realized that each one was a step and that sent a tiny tremor through her sensory feed. Her battle instincts screamed at her to swat it away, to lift off with her wings and take to the sky, but she made herself turn her head toward whatever was climbing onto her. 

That’s when she saw a tarantula perched right on top of her shoulder. Its body was covered in thick, bristling hair, each fiber glistening faintly in the moon light. All eight of its eyes reflected her own visor back at her in miniature yellow dots. Its fangs were flexed in a slow and deliberate style, as if amused that it had been noticed. That’s when J realized that the damn thing was smiling at her. 

“Shi–!” She jerked herself to the side as hard as she possibly could to throw the insect off of herself. Her arms began to snap apart and twisting in a blur of gears and hydraulics. In less than a nano-click, both had reconfigured into Neutron assault rifles, barrels glowing hot as they locked onto the hairy creature now lying in the snow at her feet. She was about to shred it into twitching paste—until she heard it speak

“Still not a fan of bugs, are you, my friend?” She was able to recognize that raspy, vile tone from anywhere. But that couldn't be possible. Then again, it wasn’t possible for a tarantula to even exist on Cybertron. The planet had long since frozen away everything that was organic. Nothing alive should have been able to crawl here, much less talk. So how…what…

“Mesothulas?” She would hesitantly ask, while raising a brow in confusion. Leaving her to hear a laugh she was all too familiar with, which sent chills along her skeletal structure. 

“I knew you would recognize me. But please, call me Tarantulas… Terroize!” J's eyes became wide as she heard the purr of a T-cog. Before she could even think to react, the tarantula’s form began to grow, all the while its limbs would bend in impossible directions. Its outer shell began to split open to reveal wet, sinewy machinery beneath. Each segment shifted and snapped into place with mechanical precision, yet layered with the organic grind of pieces moving against each other. The creature was unfolding itself—with legs thickening into arms, its head pulling itself backwards until something else would emerge. The thing loomed, taller than her. It was a nightmare given metal and fur. It was something half-born of Cybertron, half-grown from some alien infestation. Wrong. That was the only word her processor supplied. It was wrong! 

“I take it that you are not a fan of my new form?” Tarantulas gave a playful bow as his mandibles clicked together. He then looked up at her with a fully yellow visor. “I grew it myself, you know.”

J threw any amount of subtlety she had out the window as this was simply unbelievable. She had seen beast modes before, the Dinobots and the drones that lived underneath Iacon were one thing, but this was… “What the actual shock happened to you?”

“Marvelous, isn’t it?” There was a spring in his step as he straightened himself, but his breathing was disturbingly slow and heavy, his chest was even rising and falling like something that was not a machine. “Allow me to introduce what my teacher has been trying to achieve for a long, long time. I present to you Project Predacon.”

J instinctively stepped back, her arms shifting with a hiss of transforming plates until her hands replaced the rifles she’d deployed seconds earlier. She shook her head, trying to clear the static bleeding into her visor. This blending of organic and machine—this type of abomination—was too familiar. Too much like old nightmares she’d buried deep within her memory banks. “This is Project Predacon? How? W-Why?”

“I would happily explain everything, my friend,” Tarantulas purred, but he seemed to give a knowing tone as he said, “but we sadly do not have the time. Simply know that while this is a work-in-progress, I understand Shockwave’s grand design for our species now—he wishes to meld machines and organics together. For us to transform, and transcend into a technorganic race.”

“That doesn’t even begin to make sense. What would he gain from that? How would we gain from that?” J asked, as she couldn’t quite imagine Shockwave of all drones thinking up such a thing. Where exactly was the logic in changing their race in such a way?

It was that line of questioning that made Tarantulas look away from her, as he curled a claw along his chin. “That, I am not quite sure of.”

“You did this to yourself and you still don’t know his endgame?” J shouted the words as she had to resist the urge to grab the Predacon by his shoulders and shake him for being so…reckless. “I know you can be ‘driven’ when it comes to your work, but this is a whole new level of—I don’t even know what!”

“Hmm, perhaps you are right.” His visor flickered faintly as he studied himself for a moment. “As I said, it is still a work-in-progress. But it is progressing well, if you ask me. You see, I followed much of my teacher’s work. I even use the activation code thought up by one of his old ‘assistants’. And with the data you gave me of you and your teammates…” He paused to let out a sinister little giggle. “…I owe you my thanks. As it was because of you, I gained access to a little piece of code that was placed inside you. A part of the missing piece that my teacher needed.” 

Something was going on, his voice was sounding off. J felt a sense of discomfort that was even more pronounced than before. “What are you talking about? What piece of code?” She watched as he held a claw up to his own visor. He tapped at his own glass, at the yellow color that was fully on display. 

“Oh, J. Can’t you see?” When he spoke,  the screen flickered and words were typed within it, giving a message in crude, almost ineligible, font. But it was something J had long since gotten used to reading.  

Miss me? (:

She couldn’t tell if Tarantulas was smiling, but she could feel it as his mandibles opened and drool spilled from their tips. There had to be hope this was some trick. A cruel prank or something. But it wasn't, she knew deep within her spark that it wasn’t. That is why her entire body was and her mind was stuttering to process just who she was talking to when Tarantulas said, “I let our boss in.”