Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the yet unnamed hospital on Sanctuary Station, in the Sol System:

I woke up.

I woke up, and I was alive, and I was curled into Soundwave’s side; all of me—not just half. I didn’t know what had happened on the Warworlds or the Necroworld after we left the fray, but we were alive. We were in the medbay…and Glit was watching over us, sober and confused. “What happened?” he asked when he realised I was awake. The words and his field were dumbfounded, rather than critical. “What did you do, exactly?”

“I don’t understand it fully myself.” I rested my chin on Soundwave’s chest, the better to hear the song of his spark. “Soundwave came up with the plan, and the Small Conversation agreed. Even the humans. Which was fortunate, because Tarn can’t hurt them by singing. They don’t have sparks. Rafael shook us out of the music, and Soundwave silenced Tarn with destructive interference…”

Glit nodded for me to go on.

“What I don’t fully understand is how Esmeral and I killed the Tarn who was singing through the system. He wasn’t physically present inside the server, and neither were we. But Esmeral’s avatar rose up out of the data structures and impaled him on her glaive, and then I tore his vox out of his throat…”

“Consciousness is information,” Glit said with a shrug. “I’m not saying I understand it. But it makes a sort of sense if you look at it sidewise. And where was Rafael? Currently the only human we have here is Miko.”

“Somewhere on Earth, I should think.” I shrugged. “I think they were with the other one of those three.”

“Jack,” Glit said, nodding. “So that’s why Nurse Darby’s been trying to reach me. I suppose…I suppose I should go and talk to her. Not that I know what to tell her.”

“Are they all right?” Humans forget how fragile they are, and then, sometimes, so do I.

“She would’ve been angrier if they weren’t. Did we win?” Glit asked softly. “I’ll want to be able to tell her that, if she asks.”

I didn’t really know. I wasn’t sure exactly why Tarn had finally turned on the Warworlders. I knew that they’d come to the Necroworld to kill Megatron and the other Lost Lighters marooned there, but I’d known about that because of the messages we had received. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Esmeral.

“You told me there was one Tarn left before you passed out.” Glit shrugged. “I guess you don’t know what happened to that one?”

“If Megatron didn’t handle him, Deathsaurus or Rodimus did,” I said with a shrug. “I’m sure he was looking for Megatron. Neither Drift nor I were aboard the Lost Light, and he can’t have known Brainstorm defected.”

Glit sighed. “There’s always the chance that he just wanted to commit suicide while taking the maximum number of people along with him, Ravage. I’m sure he’s been decompensating ever since Megatron left us.”

“If he were suicidal,” I said, “he wouldn’t have made fifteen clones of himself, started a flame war with me on the Big Conversation, or tried to destroy Esmeral’s marriage. Anyhow…Megatron sent me a note but I haven’t opened it yet. Perhaps that means he survived. He is very good at surviving things that would kill almost anyone else.”

Glit nodded. “Open it,” he said wearily. “Maybe he’ll tell us what happened.”

The note was a death poem. I didn’t know how to feel about that. Megatron’s sent me death poems before, but I would’ve thought he would send them to Minimus Ambus now, since they were practically conjunct.

I doubted he’d actually died, but I didn’t want to hear Glit crow about the idea that he might have. “He sent it before things went to the Pit,” I lied. “It’s private.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to know if it’s private.” Glit made a face. “Do we know what happened to the Lost Light? Misfire’s a wreck, and Jazz is worried about Mirage—”

Of course he was. “I’ll tell him Mirage left the ship with First Aid on the same day that I did.”

Glit nodded. “Why was there a mutiny? I didn’t think Autobots did that.”

“Getaway wanted Megatron off the ship,” I said. “I’m sure you’re about to say you sympathise…but he also threw out everyone on the crew who had ever so much as wished him a nice day, including Rodimus himself.”

Glit frowned. “I wouldn’t, you know. I don’t want anything terrible to happen to Misfire’s boyfriend, and I don’t even know most of those people. Except Blaster, who can go fuck himself on Unicron’s spike.”

“Jazz had words with Blaster about it before we opened the circuit,” I said, grinning. “Viridian actually spoke to Blaster herself. Out loud and everything. She said ‘fuck you’.”

Glit burst out laughing. “Well, good for her,” he said. “She’s with Jazz right now. Actually…Jazz has been running the Station since he woke up.”

I blinked. The Station, as a whole, was trusting the former Autobot TIC? “You don’t say…?”

Glit chuckled. “Oh, he didn’t assume command directly. He just…sidled into it. Whenever anyone wanted to know what you or Soundwave would want them to do…he had an opinion. And everyone wanted to hear it.”

I couldn’t help feeling warm and fuzzy about that, but I also knew it was problematic. “The Committee chairs have authority to act on their own without any input from Soundwave or me. Even when we’re not in enforced defragmentation. We don’t have a dynasty here.”

“Oh, they were involved. He had plenty of help and advice from Strika, Garboil, Misty, Laserbeak, Clobber, B4ST3T and Suckerpunch. But we live in the Sol System, and Jazz also knows what the humans and Autobots are likely to do if they start asking questions—better than anyone else here does.” Glit shrugged. “And I presume he had a fair amount of intel on Galvatron, which you should definitely take advantage of when the time comes.”

“Of course.” I nodded. “So everyone just did whatever he said?”

“Vortex said a few rude things,” Glit said, “but Buzzsaw shut him up.”

“As expected,” I said. “Vortex isn’t on any Committees, but he’s always got an opinion. Any other objections?”

Glit snorted. “Needlenose spent a lot of time bitching about how sleeping with Soundwave and you didn’t give him a place in Command—”

“Well, he’s right, you know.” I sighed. “Needlenose is annoying sometimes, but usually when we need him to be, to keep us all honest. I’m glad that people trust Jazz, though I’m not sure I should be.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” said Glit. “Cosmos was fucking furious. I thought he was going to throw down at one point, but…”

“Cosmos, throw down? I don’t think so! He’s not round because he’s a deep space vessel, he’s round because he’s a gasbag.” I giggled.

“Be kind, Ravage. Cosmos is still a little clueless about himself, and he can’t hurt Soundwave or Jazz nearly as much as they, and you, have already hurt him—even though none of you ever intended to. You’re Vox Destron. You don’t have to be petty.”

“You’re no fun today.” I shrugged. “What about Howlback?”

Glit shrugged. “She’s been conjunct for what, two whole days? And Grimlock’s surgery is coming up. They get to have fun for a while.”

“They’ll do that anyway.” I chuckled. “Still. Howlback’s conscience is an implacable master. If we’d needed her, she would have dragged herself out of bed, and she’d have made him let her, difference in size be damned.”

Glit nodded, and then his expression grew briefly distant. Checking his comms, I suspected. “Any news on Swerve? Silvermist just sent Misfire home. He’s too distracted to work.”

“I’ll comm him. If he doesn’t answer, I’ll get Nautica.” I sighed. “Or you could ask Nickel.”

“I could.” Glit winced. “I just don’t want to talk about Grindcore.”

“I bet she doesn’t, either.”

Glit nodded. “I did want a second opinion on Grimlock’s scans,” he finally allowed, and checked Soundwave’s monitors.

I had no idea what the readings meant. “Should I be worried? I assumed not, because you don’t seem to be, but—”

“Soundwave drained himself dry,” Glit said. “I’ve got him on coolant and energon drips and I had to stop his prescription booster to keep him from trying to concentrate on anything. I’ll start it again when his brain module starts to show conscious activity patterns, but he’s in defragmentation right now and that’s where he needs to be. The thing he did was dangerous and crazy and he’s lucky that he didn’t injure himself. Or any of the rest of you. I don’t know how the humans even got involved—”

“The Small Conversation?”

“I mean that I don’t know how they were able to participate.” Glit scowled. “How can humans run their processes on any computer, let alone one that’s parsecs away? I really better had call Darby back, Ravage. If you don’t mind comming someone from the Lost Light? I’m going to have to let her yell at me.”

“I’ll do that, and then I’ll go talk to Jazz.” I carefully disentangled myself from Soundwave and pressed a kiss to his oblivious brow, then slipped down out of bed. As my feet hit the floor, one of my wheels popped off my shoulder.

I bent over to pick it up, but Glit got it first. “I’ll reattach this first, I suppose.”

“Don’t keep Darby waiting. I can pop it back on, I’ve done it before—”

Glit frowned, first at the wheel, then at me. “Has that come off like this before?”

“A few times,” I said. “But if I can’t get it back into place, Jazz can. It doesn’t hurt—”

“That’s not good,” Glit snapped. “Sit down. You should’ve told me this was happening. When parts of you just fall off, it is supposed to hurt!”

I braced myself for the lecture and sat. “I’ve been busy, and so have you. Jazz said I need to use my vehicular mode more often—”

“Jazz is not a medic.” Glit’s hands were moving around on my shoulder, but that didn’t hurt, either. I turned my head to see what he was doing. “You don’t feel that?”

“I think I’m glad I can’t, based on the look on your face—”

“Jesus fuck, you’re rejecting your alt-mode reformat,” Glit grumbled. “畜生! You’re not feeling my hand because all of the sensors in there are dying or dead! Did Ratchet not scan you for compatibility before installing this?”

“I don’t know what Ratchet did,” I said, a little irritated. “I trust him, so I just let him do what I know he does best. You know how many times he’s saved my life. He’s been doing it since you were his apprentice—”

Glit glared in my direction, but it wasn’t really meant for me. “You sure he didn’t know about this mutiny? You told me before that he left the Lost Light before you did.”

“Ratchet wouldn’t have left me there—” I was shocked. “He went looking for Drift!”

“Are you sure?” Glit crossed his arms across his chest, then set the wheel aside. “I can put this back on, but I’m not sure how long I can make it stay put. Do you like driving? If you really want to keep a wheeled vehicle mode, we can try something else. I’d gathered you think that being a Jaguar is funny, but that’s a car from Earth, and if he used any parts from Earth…well, a Cybertronian model would be more you, don’t you think—?”

“I’m not good at driving. I’m not sure I care.” It was embarrassing. I hadn’t expected to be good at it my first time out, especially since I’d been driving through a desert with an agitated Viridian inside my cabin, but even though I practised with Jazz, I was still pretty terrible at it. “The last time Jazz and I went to the tracks for a spin, Dead End and Wildrider laughed at me.”

“They would.” Glit snorted. “I only tolerate Wildrider because Laserbeak likes him.”

I blinked. “She does?” I was starting to realise I hadn’t spent much time with Laserbeak lately. It bothered me, and it bothered me more that I hadn’t noticed.

Glit rolled his optics. “Yeah. Now they both get written up for shoplifting together.” He started to say more, but then he caught himself and scowled at me. “I’m not blowing off June Darby to stand around here and gossip with you about Wildrider, Ravage.”

“I refuse to believe that Ratchet would have intentionally installed an incompatible alt-mode on my frame and then fucked off to find Drift knowing that there was a mutiny brewing,” I growled. “He might not care what happens to Megatron, but he still loves us, and he damned well knows that Blaster would kill me just to take Soundwave out, or if he doesn’t, he’s got a disabling level of information creep at best. He wouldn’t have intentionally left me disabled—”

“Ravage.” Glit sighed. “He joined the Autobots. Back before it all went to slag, Ravage. When he knew what those bastards did to you, because he was the one who put you back together after Ratbat tore you to bits. When he had to pay Dominus fucking Ambus off to fix it so Pharma’s family couldn’t repossess me and sell me. And so I could get a severely limited medical licence.”

“He loves us—” I insisted, but weakly. It didn’t stop Glit.

“I know Ratchet loved us, but I don’t really know how much. I haven’t since then. You and Drift threw a fit when he left with that pendejo Pax, but he was the closest thing I had to a father, and you’ll never know how much it hurt me. I don’t know how to stop loving him, Ravage, but fuck if I’ll ever really trust him again.” I could see optical lubricant welling up in his eyes, but he held it back. “So I’m going to ask you again. Are you sure?”

I considered that for a moment, but I knew, both from our time together on the Lost Light, and from subsequent conversations, that Ratchet does care about me. And Glit as well, no matter what he thinks. “I am. Maybe he got the compatibility scan wrong, but he didn’t do it on purpose. He left because he wanted Drift. They’re together now.”

“Good for them,” Glit said sourly. “They deserve the happiness they’ve earned for themselves.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that, but I didn’t want to know, either. “You can’t blame Deadlock for leaving, not after Turmoil—”

“I worked at Grindcore. I don’t blame anyone for anything but Megatron,” Glit lied through his teeth. He picked up the wheel again. “You want it back on for now?”

“I’m not walking around lopsided like an idiot,” I said. “Put it back on. When you’ve got time to work out whether or not I can keep them, then…”

“You’ll pick a more compatible alt? You might be a better driver if you did—”

I snorted. “It hurt like the Pit getting those fuckers put on. If they have to come off then I’ll just be a cat! At least I have bipedal mode back. Really, I’m just as good now as I was when we were all kids—”

“Except for the spinal damage from those goddamn hip rockets,” Glit reminded me sourly. “Those have to come off, whether or not you end up losing the wheels. I don’t want to have to fuse your spinal struts like you were a damn human. I can’t believe Ratchet didn’t take care of that, either.”

“He probably thought I would be better off not being unarmed. Especially if you’re right and he even suspected that there was a mutiny. Which I don’t think you are.” I refused to believe that Ratchet had known.

Glit snorted. “You’re not unarmed as long as you have your brain. Let alone your claws, fangs and tail, and all of the training we’ve had. I knew how to destroy a mech long before I knew how to fix one, and you’ve been keeping up with the murder and sabotage parts of our training.”

“You really think Galvatron’s going to just wait for me to recover from all this?” I asked pointedly.

“He’ll fucking have to,” said Glit, rolling his optics. “Cheer up. Your mobility will improve. I can replace the damaged spinal struts when you’re willing to take a damn break. And since we were factory made, at least partially, I don’t have to wait for someone on Cybertron to dig up some very specific alloy that’s only found in certain hot spots and get it to Sanctuary. Like I did when I put Jazz back together.”

“What about the Predacon CNA?” I said quietly.

“I cultured the sentio metallico already,” Glit replied. “This may be a surprise, but your upcoming spine surgery isn’t.” Carefully, he reattached the wheel. At least I assume he was careful. He used a topical anaesthetic because he didn’t like the way my fuel line pressure reacted to being poked, but I didn’t feel a thing.

I watched Soundwave lie still in the berth.

“He’s almost finished defragging.” Glit sighed. “Finally. I’m still going to keep him unconscious as long as I can.”

I sighed. “I hope he isn’t missing any data. We ran our processes through networks he hasn’t been in since Maitriona left.”

Glit winced. “He is a special brand of stupid sometimes,” he said, almost admiringly.

“Would you rather lose the Warworlds?”

Glit frowned. “Okay, no,” he admitted grudgingly. “I can’t deny that risking a handful of people to save three inhabited planets is the right thing to do. But I care about you more than I care about anyone on the Warworlds. I shouldn’t, and I wouldn’t let it stop me if I had to make a hard decision, but…I love you, Ravage.”

His voice was very soft. “You’re my sister. And I know what you did for me. You shouldn’t have had to—”

“I wasn’t going to let Megatron kill you,” I said. “Not if I could stop him.”

Glit nodded, uncomfortably. “I might be able to let him die, now. I would feel bad about it, but when he couldn’t force me to let people die himself, he sent me somewhere that I wouldn’t have a choice. So: he can get fragged. I’m petty and I would feel guilty and pray for forgiveness if I ever let Megatron die. But I’m not the person I was before he sent me to Grindcore. And I wouldn’t risk you or Soundwave for him.”

I nodded. “We didn’t do it for him, Glit,” I said. “We had to stop Tarn.”

“I know.” Glit gave me a long, but slightly uncomfortable blink. “And I have to thank you all. For that.” He turned away and rummaged around in a cabinet, then tossed me a vial of crystals. “Eat one of these whenever you fuel until we figure out what to do about this,” he said. “They’ve got metal salts from Earth in them. It might help. It helped when we had to repair people with metal from Earth. Are you sure you don’t want to keep the alt if—”

“I’m sure,” I said. “I’m a Predacon. I don’t need a vehicular alt. I just thought it might be fun.”

“Okay,” said Glit. “I’m going to go call Nurse June. Wish me luck.”

In the secure psychiatric wing of Iacon General Hospital, on Cybertron:

Mirage knew the video of Getaway gloating about his mutiny was absolutely not a deepfake. In fact, he started to send a message to Prowl to make sure he knew, too, and then he decided not to, because he was sure that Prowl had something to do with it.

Jazz would never have chosen Getaway to be the lead on anything of importance.

Also, Jazz was probably a Decepticon, now. That was probably why he had not been involved.

Traitor. You knew what they did to me.

But if he thought about that, he’d become even angrier, and his fuel line pressure monitor would go off. If he was very lucky, First Aid would come into the room. If not, it would be someone who would demand to know why he was stressing himself when his mind was barely healed from whatever had caused the last round of hallucinatory episodes—and they wouldn’t have the clearance for him to explain it, so they’d be at a stalemate, and he’d probably end up being drugged.

Damn you, amicara Kytherion, and damn the fourteen different kisses I taught you, before you decided you no longer wanted to learn. And damn her too. I wanted to explain things to her, but she wouldn’t give me the time of day. And I don’t even think I can blame her for that. But she knows what she did. And so do you, Kytherion, amicara secerna.

The sight of Hound, standing aimlessly behind Getaway, made his spark ache.

Mirage should have been able to read his conjunx, even on video, where he would not, of course, be able to observe Hound’s field. He’d known Hound since they had been bitlets. (Just like Kit. But Kit was dead to them.)

Their relationship had always been deep, and while it had changed as they’d grown, and even after Mirage had discovered romantic love as a feeling, rather than as a performance, Hound would always be his first real friend.

(Except for Kit. Primus damn him to the clouds between worlds and the depths of the Pit. Kytherion was dead to him. Deader than all of the people that he and his…partner…had murdered.)

Mirage had known that there was a plan to depose the captains, although he couldn’t recall what his own role in it must have been. Now he knew that everything had gone wrong. He would never have agreed to follow that idiot Getaway. He would have done things differently. Successfully. And he would never have left Hound behind.

Hound wouldn’t have left him behind, either, unless he’d been ordered to.

But he’d been ill. Hallucinating, again.

Mirage did not get orders anymore. People who have hallucinatory episodes have to retire, unless they’re foolish enough not to tell their superiors. Mirage had told Jazz, and now he regretted it.

Nobody had ever figured out what caused the episodes. But they all seemed to have triggers. Mirage spared a moment to try, for the nth time, and discern what the trigger had been this time. Had it been when the ship interacted with its quantum duplicate, and suddenly she was a problem he had to face, every day—instead of one he only suspected because he left energon out in a bowl on the floor, and somebody drank it?

Had he been affected by whatever had made both Ravage and Getaway ill on the Vis Vitalis? He couldn’t remember. He should have been able to.

Hound had told him to go back with the Protectobots when they came to pick up First Aid. Mirage wasn’t sure why, but he desperately hadn’t wanted to discuss it with Rung. Hound had told him to go back to Cybertron, and be safe, and recover, and he would come back for him. Hound always came back for him.

But Hound would not normally have agreed to that. Not without very specific orders from Jazz or Prowl.

First Aid was standing in the doorway. Just watching him. Maybe for half a breem. Did he have an injector? Mirage hoped he had not lost so much of himself that he’d miss that. “Yes, Doctor?”

First Aid smiled wryly. “It’s late. Minerva wants to discharge you tomorrow, but as long as you’re here, I’m going to insist that you get your rest.”

“You’ll have to drug me,” Mirage said, “but I’d rather you didn’t.”

First Aid frowned gently. “Mirage,” said First Aid, “you look dangerous. At least to yourself, if not to anyone else. What’s going on? Are you seeing things again?”

Mirage glared at him, and then he held out the datapad. “Have you seen this? Did you know?”

First Aid came over to look at it. He watched the video silently, and then he looked up at Mirage with a frown. “…Getaway? Really, Getaway?”

Mirage nodded slowly. “You don’t…he didn’t mention anything to you, either?” Mirage glanced back down at the datapad. “I think…I think this was supposed to happen, but I don’t understand why I can’t remember that.”

First Aid frowned. “If someone gave you orders and made you forget them—which is absolutely a thing that happens, sometimes—it could have triggered this episode. And it would also be a crime to include you in something like that. You are retired on account of disability, Mirage.”

Mirage waved his free hand dismissively. “Exigencies of war,” he said, and—

First Aid cut him off. “We weren’t at war when the Lost Light left Cybertron,” he said flatly. “You were going to open a bar. And you did.”

“You can gather intelligence as a barkeep,” Mirage said quietly.

“You can. But you shouldn’t,” First Aid replied, with an implacable steely look that was completely out of place on his face, which was normally so friendly that even a visor and mask couldn’t hide that fact.

“Well,” huffed Mirage. “I can’t recall if I did.”

First Aid nodded. “That’s one reason why,” he said gently, and then he relaxed a little. “I don’t know about this. Getaway? Really?” He shook his head. “You know, it’s funny, but…I can hardly remember even speaking to Getaway. He was never very friendly, except to Tailgate, and that was kinda sus. I used to wonder why Cyclonus put up with it—”

Mirage shrugged. “Tailgate is pleasant enough, but he’s an idiot. As for Cyclonus, who knows what he thinks about anything?”

First Aid laughed softly. “We all know what he thinks about the Decepticons!”

“We all know he’s not a Decepticon,” said Mirage. “Even if we know he damned well used to be. Primus’ brow, he used to work for Galvatron.”

First Aid nodded. “I am honestly surprised that whoever gave Getaway this mission didn’t choose you. As foolish as it would be to put it in the hands of someone who has retired for your particular reasons…it’s no more foolish than choosing Getaway was.”

Mirage closed his optics for a moment. “I knew there was something brewing,” he admitted. “But not that Getaway was in charge of it. Whose idiotic idea was that, I don’t wonder? Jazz would never—”

“Jazz is a Decepticon now,” said First Aid. “I don’t know if he’s taken their badge, but—”

“Don’t remind me,” Mirage grumbled.

First Aid started to say something; he even made a noise or two behind his mask, and glanced away and out the window. But he didn’t say it, even though his derma was flushed.

“What is it?”

First Aid shrugged. “We’re going to have to learn to live with the Decepticons,” he finally said, “unless we want to go back to war.”

“They killed my whole family—”

“They destroyed all the Towers,” First Aid said quietly. “Yours was just one of the early ones, and—”

“If you tell me it ‘had to be done’…” said Mirage in a warning tone.

“I won’t tell you that,” said First Aid, which wasn’t at all the same as denying the principle.

Mirage didn’t feel like arguing with the only one of the medics he could stand discussing things with—and the only one with a clearance to know about most of it. He could pretend that it hadn’t been said. He didn’t even have to pretend. First Aid hadn’t actually said it.

“If you knew there was some kind of mutiny brewing, and you weren’t officially part of it,” First Aid asked after a moment, “why did you not tell Rodimus?”

“Because Rodimus deserved it!” Mirage scowled. “He lied about Drift. It’s obvious. Why in the name of Primus would Drift, of all people, have ever put Overlord on the ship after working so hard to prove that he wasn’t one of them anymore?”

First Aid blinked. “Okay, but why would Rodimus do it?”

“Who knows why Rodimus ever does anything.” Mirage shrugged. “I never understood why he let Optimus shove Megatron down his throat. The Lost Light is not an Autobot vessel. It’s private property. Drift gave it directly to him. I thought his protests were all for show—that he’d made some kind of deal with Megatron himself, although I wondered once or twice if Drift was in on it, until he got blamed for the whole thing.”

“Normally that would mean he actually was in on it. But Megatron and Overlord are enemies.” First Aid looked slightly sceptical.

“Or so they say.” Mirage frowned. “He didn’t do anything to stop Overlord from taking over Garrus-9, did he?”

First Aid shrugged. “You’d think he’d have wanted his people back, wouldn’t you? How much do you think Howlback knows?”

“Nothing that Prowl doesn’t know.” Mirage snorted. “I don’t believe she was a double agent, but I also don’t believe Prowl didn’t download everything in all her partitions before he sent her there. She certainly hasn’t been active among the Decepticons since she got loose. I bet she’s been wiped—until you brought her up, I assumed Shockwave had turned her over to the Justice Division.”

“Really? That’s what you think?” First Aid made a coughing sort of noise, and then sighed. “She’s running Security at Sanctuary Station,” he said. “I talk to Glit. We were apprentices together, and now that the war is over…I can talk to Glit.”

Mirage didn’t know what to do with that information. “Those damned cats,” he finally said.

“I wouldn’t,” First Aid said quietly. “Their training wasn’t so different from yours, Mirage. I’ve always thought you don’t like them because they remind you of you.”

“You have no idea,” Mirage said very slowly and very tightly, “what the cougaraiders remind me of. And I’m not going to tell you.”

“Fine,” said First Aid. “He sure seemed surprised when Ravage turned up. Rodimus can’t act. He can barely lie. If he was working with Megatron…he would’ve known about her.”

“Or he wants us to think so.” Mirage ex-vented. “I started feeding Ravage before she showed herself. I was honestly shocked that nobody else knew she was there. Anyhow, I thought whoever was in charge of the mission—and I probably thought it was Hound, honestly—planning the thing would be less moronic than this, and that after Megatron and Ravage acted on whatever their stupid plan was, we could put all three of them in the brig, and all I’d have to worry about was Soundwave.”

“No problem, just Soundwave?” First Aid looked even more sceptical.

“I can handle Soundwave,” Mirage said too quickly. “I’ve known him since we were sparklings, and so has Hound! And then Ravage decided to go home and not do whatever it was they were up to, so it wasn’t my problem anymore…”

First Aid thought about this for a moment. “You know,” he said, “I also thought it was very odd that Hound stayed behind when you left. But you didn’t question it, so I thought it was none of my business. It’s just that it isn’t really like him to leave you alone when you’re ill.”

It was probably a trick of the light, but in that moment, First Aid looked very nearly envious. “You’ll find someone,” Mirage said gently. “You’re a kind mech, and—”

“I’m weird,” said First Aid, and glanced away, the derma of his cheeks darkening slightly. “I’m actually too weird for Glit—we dated, when we were apprentices, but not for long. But I’m in a relationship, actually, and no I will not tell you about him. It’s long distance, for now.”

Mirage scowled at the window, because he didn’t want to scowl at First Aid. “Neither of you is as weird as you think, I’m sure. It’s my job to see through other people’s illusions. As well as creating my own. Anyhow…if you finally got Springer, congrats.”

“I’m not seeing Springer.” First Aid looked back up. “Don’t be angry, Mirage…but I think you missed a few. And that’s okay. You’re not doing this work anymore. And you need to stop trying to do it.”

“Don’t I know it,” Mirage fumed. “Why do you think Prowl put Getaway in charge of this mess and not me? It had to be Prowl.”

“Prowl is usually smarter than that. Isn’t he?” First Aid frowned.

“Prowl is not smart about people. He relied on Jazz for all the interpersonal information he needed to make good decisions. And Jazz…” Mirage frowned. “Jazz must have wanted this to fail. Unsurprising, given that Kit got under his plate, apparently…”

“I’m guessing Jazz didn’t even know about this.” First Aid cocked his head insofar as his frame permitted. “Who’s Kit?”

Mirage thought he was going to discorporate right then and there. Just slip right out of his frame and into the warm embrace of the Afterspark. But apparently, it was not actually possible to die of embarrassment. Only to wish you could.

“My cousin,” Mirage finally said, embarrassed at having allowed that to slip.

“What is a cousin?” First Aid asked after a moment, because of course he didn’t know the kinship terms that only people in the Towers used.

“My mother and his were siblings,” Mirage replied. “She was the second creation, and his was the first. He was a second creation as well. I was…the fifth.”

“Soundwave is from the Towers?” First Aid stared at him.

Mirage frowned. He knew this trick, dammit. He was being interrogated, and it was First Aid who was doing it! When had First Aid learned to interrogate people?

“Soundwave is from the Towers,” said First Aid. “That’s funny.”

“He was Senator Shockwave’s brother!” Mirage snorted. “Shockwave was the first, and intended to have a brilliant career, until he retired and allowed his offspring to have one. But he never accepted a match. And Soundwave was supposed to be somebody else’s match. That is what second and third creations are for. But he lost his wits.”

First Aid just stood there, listening.

Mirage sighed. “He lost his wits over somebody else’s property. At least that was what people who knew he had ever had wits said. Most people just blamed her, for taking advantage of someone so daft. But everyone thought she was dead, until they found out that she wasn’t. Which was often the last thought they had.”

“You shouldn’t talk about her like that,” First Aid said quietly. “She’ll write a poem about you.” He winced. “She wrote one about me, and now I’m afraid to go to Sanctuary.”

“You don’t have any reason to go to Sanctuary,” Mirage said loftily. “We need you here on Cybertron.” Then he sighed, and glanced down at the datapad. Apparently, he wanted to talk. Apparently, he might as well let himself be interrogated. “I used to be fond of Ravage, actually. She drew a rough lot. Rougher than Hound’s, though maybe not rougher than Kit’s. I thought she and Kit were like Hound and me.”

“Of course you did,” said First Aid. “They totally are.”

Mirage scowled. “The two of them murdered my family. Even the help. Every single one of us…except for me, and Hound, and one sister of mine who died later in the war. I will hate it more than you can imagine if I have to forgive them even a little.”

Chapter Text

In the Imperial Palace at Shin Uraya, on the Warworld Ankokuyousai:

Esmeral walked through the garden, inspecting things as she went. It had been part of her daily routine since she was old enough to climb the trees; now, it gave her a sense of peace in the midst of the terrible losses everyone had endured. It was more or less the same every day, though different things budded and blossomed at different times of the cycle that had taken the place of a stellar orbit since Ankokuyousai had been unmoored from the star that had birthed it. She normally went to the garden alone. But now? Now she was never alone. The newspark was always present; it sometimes produced flashes of strong emotion. Today it wanted to soothe her. But she was its mother. It was her job to do the soothing and comforting, wasn’t it?

The newspark was already growing up too fast. She’d risked both of their lives when she’d taken on Tarn the second time, and the first time she’d taken him on, he’d been trying to steal it. It had somehow become aware of that violence, if only because it had liked the floods of energy that had been released by the deaths of so many mecha at once. She felt she should be pleased that it had been able to draw some strength from that, but she couldn’t manage to get there; she was too unhappy that it had been forced to be present. And while it couldn’t possibly have understood what had happened to its sire, it was aware that just as it was growing a self, Deathsaurus was trying to restore and recreate his own, hoping that it would be just as strong, or stronger, than the self that Tarn had tried to undo.

When she thought of Deathsaurus, she could feel him. He was sparring with Rodimus. He didn’t like the Primacy, but he liked the younger Prime. Perhaps they were playing. If so, she was glad of it. They needed to play.

She was kneeling on the ground, engrossed in pinching wilted blossoms off a bush, when she heard light footfalls coming her way, and then a measured, quiet voice: “May I join you, Empress Esmeral?”

It was the green fox who had once been the Ultra Magnus. He didn’t wear his armour anymore. Esmeral approved of this. It was unwise to hide behind armour, especially when you were not at war.

“If you like, Minimus.” She wouldn’t ask, but it surprised her that he kept that name. The person who’d named him clearly hadn’t been kind.

Minimus watched her for a few minutes, and then he began to help. She watched for a moment, but he’d understood the assignment correctly. He was getting the ones that were nearer the ground. Although she was kneeling, they would still have been more difficult for her to reach.

“Thank you for the assistance,” she said. “I normally do this alone, as a sort of meditation; but soon it will be very awkward for me to bend at the waist.”

Minimus nodded. “How…how are you?” He asked the question carefully; they all did, always. The Autobots, the immigrants lost in time, and her own people: they were all aware that the honest answer for any of them was probably nothing like ‘fine’.

“As well as can be expected,” Esmeral said, with a genuine smile. She didn’t know much about any of the Lost Light crew, but she thought the fox was probably kind, and she liked the texture of his field. “So far, I’m carrying easy, and there haven’t been any crises today…so far. And how are you?”

Minimus didn’t answer the question. He did glance at her midsection, and then he quickly averted his gaze, aware that she must have noticed. Esmeral wouldn’t press him about it. She waited to see what he was going to say.

“It’s hard,” Minimus said, “to imagine being a sire, or a carrier. Most of us can’t, Ratchet says. I…probably can’t.”

Esmeral looked up in surprise. “What makes you think so? You’re one of us! We’re the only people who can, you know. Kaiju, youkai…do not say Predacon, here. We regard it as a slur. The word was used by the people who hunted my ancestors to extinction. The only Vaalim left are Deathsaurus and myself. It’s why my mother arranged our marriage. Fortunately, I did fall in love with him.”

Minimus did stare at her this time. “You’re…a therioform? You don’t look like Deathsaurus.”

“I’m not as old as Deathsaurus is,” said Esmeral. “I’m an adult, but I will still get bigger, depending on how much I fight, and the things that I eat. And you’ve never seen me with my wings fanned out.”

Minimus nodded, and glanced at the ground. “You said Maitriona of Uraya was your mother. I met her once. She was a truck. And your sisters are cars and rotary flyers.”

“I’m adopted,” Esmeral said with a soft laugh, but then her expression grew more sombre. “They brought me to her as a foundling two million years ago. There were no other chicks. The nest and the carrier weren’t found. The rest of us were probably murdered.”

“I’m sorry,” said Minimus. His voice shook.

Esmeral put her hand over his on the garden tools. “I don’t remember it. Or them.” She sighed, imagining him as a kitling, playing in a garden like this one. His family was noble. There must have been a garden, surely. “I’m surprised you think you can’t carry. The blue one, who died, was your brother? If you were both foxes, you were probably born, not forged, and they simply kept it a secret.”

Minimus began to shake all over, and ended up sat on the ground.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” said Esmeral. “Guyhawk didn’t know he was a person—we’ve never seen that kind of atrocity before here.”

Minimus shook his head. “He wasn’t a very good person,” he said, almost airlessly.

“People don’t have to be good to be loved.” Esmeral shrugged.

“Don’t I know it,” said Minimus, and glanced at his hands. “My parents weren’t good. My brother wasn’t good. And then I fell in love with Megatron. He could have been good. Should have been good. But there were things I don’t think he recovered from—”

Esmeral nodded. “Dezza loved him once, but he used his people very poorly. Even Ravage, who is his amica, doesn’t deny it. Are you and Ravage friends? You are both very interested in the proper order of society. I would think you have had many wonderful arguments.”

“Certainly not!” Minimus laughed out loud. “She hates me. I haven’t always been good myself. I have tried to be, but there were things I didn’t know. My…privilege…made me blind to the realities of our world. I was given the inner set of armour when I was quite young, before they let me out of the House for the first time. We always wore our armour when we were off grounds. So that no-one would know what we were. Ravage resents us because we were Autobots, and…”

Esmeral frowned. It seemed that no-one had known what he was when he became Ultra Magnus. This was a problem; but she could not imagine how awful it must have been to be raised to hide one’s truest self in shame. “You seem to have learned better, now,” she said after a moment. “I have no desire to rebuke you for actions you took that I never saw, and which never affected me, or my family, or my people here. But I can understand how she must feel.”

Minimus nodded, and then his derma paled. “How would I find out if I am capable of siring or carrying?”

“You should see my sister, Sai Moonheart, or her colleague Sai Galaxia,” Esmeral said, relieved to be speaking of happier things. “Before you merge sparks with anyone else, you should find out if you can spark or be sparked. You can’t spark anyone who doesn’t have the potential to carry. But I’m not sure it matters the other way round.”

“Spark-merging—that’s what causes it?”

Esmeral nodded. “Your parents should really have told you. What if you’d got yourself sparked while you were the Ultra Magnus? But now you know—”

Minimus sat stone still. Esmeral watched him.

“Some carriers,” she said after a minute, “can feel the newspark split from their own. If it happens during the merge. But sometimes it takes a while to coalesce, and in those cases…I didn’t feel it, anyway. Moonheart figured it out when I was unable to combine with the four of them. You can’t combine while carrying. In later stages, it’s difficult even to transform.”

Esmeral rested her hands in her lap. “You spark-merged with Megatron, didn’t you? How long ago?”

Minimus shrugged. “I can still transform. How would it feel…? Is it even safe for me to be carrying? I’ve got a green spark like his, and I can carry any weight that’s placed on me, but…Megatron is huge…”

“Not by my standards,” Esmeral said, unhappy that no matter what she said it kept making things worse. Still, if this was the worst crisis she had to face—well. They would just have to find out. “Get checked,” she said. “I’ll tell my sister to expect you this afternoon. I hope…I hope for your sake, that you’re not. And if you are…you have the right to choose for yourself what to do. Do not tell Megatron. At least not before you know. And if you don’t want to be sparked, you’re not obliged to inform the potential sire.”

The words came out a little more vehemently than she had perhaps intended them to.

“Wouldn’t it be wrong, to destroy it?” Minimus asked her.

Esmeral cocked her head to one side. Moonheart disliked doing terminations, but it was still a part of her job. She was absolutely sure that Moonheart would do her duty if Minimus asked her to do it. “It’s part of you, until it can live on its own,” she said, and then she leaned back on her heels. “…do you want to carry? For him?”

Minimus stiffened. “Whatever he’s done, the newspark is innocent of it—”

Esmeral cut him off. “We don’t even know if there is one. And I didn’t mean to imply that a child of Megatron wouldn’t deserve to be born. But the two of you are not in a good place right now. And he is unlikely to be in a good place at all at any time in the nearly foreseeable future. This would be hard for both you and your sparkling.”

Esmeral paused to send a comm to her sister. When she finished, Minimus was still waiting to see what she would say next. Therefore, she continued. “I also think that Megatron, with active sire protocols, would be an even more difficult partner than Megatron is without them. Right now, whether or not you are sparked, he doesn’t have active sire protocols. And if you tell him, they will be triggered, and then you will never be free of him.”

“Unless he’s executed,” said Minimus, bleakly, his optics dull.

Esmeral reached across and put her hand on his shoulder, gently. “There’s that. If the decision is left to Ravage, though, he won’t be.”

“She’ll have to do something,” said Minimus with a shrug.

“Yes,” said Esmeral. “She will. But knowing Ravage, it won’t be the thing that everyone else is expecting.” She patted his shoulder. “Don’t borrow trouble. Moonheart says you can see her right now. Do you want me to come along with you, or leave you to it?”

Minimus didn’t answer her. Esmeral decided to go along with him. She was afraid he wouldn’t go unless she did.

“Don’t be afraid to answer her questions, even if they are embarrassing,” she said as they neared the palace infirmary—Solara Souansha, they had an infirmary now! “I can leave, if you need me to.”

Minimus nodded. “There’s not much to be embarrassed about. My sexual history is very short. I’ve only ever been with Megatron.”

Esmeral was only surprised for a moment. If you spent your life hiding behind multiple suits of armour, and nobody was ever allowed to know that you were a fox…true intimacy would require divesting yourself from them, unless the armour was appropriately modded and you were satisfied to keep things casual. But Minimus Ambus had probably never done anything casual in his entire life.

It was a short walk. When they got there, Moonheart was completely professional. The examination was quick. Esmeral averted her optics when she looked into Minimus’ spark chamber.

“There’s nothing in there except you,” said Moonheart. “And as long as you don’t spark-merge, you don’t need to worry about becoming a carrier.”

Minimus swallowed. “We always spark-merged,” he said, almost inaudibly.

“Maybe don’t from now on,” Moonheart said gently. “With a partner from Cybertron, it’s probably far less likely to happen than it would if you picked someone here, even if they had a mechanical alt. But your spark is green, you’re a load-bearer, and he has a green spark, too, you said. I don’t know what that does to the odds. And foxes carry internally. Esmeral will give birth to an egg before that sparkling has reached its full size. You would not.”

“We’re not…we’re not exactly together right now,” Minimus said.

Moonheart nodded, her rotors swaying along with the motion. “Perhaps pick somebody else for your next partner. And…don’t do that until you’re more sure of them.”

“Most people don’t spark-merge every time,” Esmeral said, in a measured, diplomatic tone. “Deathsaurus and I were lovers once I was old enough, and once he was sure I actually wanted him and wasn’t just obeying my mother. But we never merged until just before our conjunx ritus. Some people wait until after. It’s unusual for people to merge in the early stages of courtship. In casual dating, most people don’t do that at all.”

“I wasn’t thinking of finding anyone else,” Minimus confessed. He looked lost. Esmeral felt for him. He barely knew either of them. Was there no-one he was closer to, to have this conversation with? Then again, she wasn’t sure whether he really knew anyone as himself…except, possibly, Megatron.

“You’ll find someone,” said Moonheart confidently. “Cute little fox like you? Perhaps I should say, someone else will find you. Someone who isn’t at the top of every Most Wanted list in the galaxy. There are a lot of people in the universe you’ve never met, and most of them haven’t committed a genocide.”

“…I don’t want anyone else,” Minimus said, a little more forcefully.

“Leave it,” said Esmeral, with a warning look at her sister. Moonheart had never had a serious relationship. She had no idea how Minimus had to be feeling.

“Of course,” Moonheart said. “Give it time. It’s just that for me, the best way to get over a mech has always been to get under another.” Then she frowned. “Of course,” she said, “not everyone’s like me. It’s just, you deserve to enjoy life, you know?”

At that, Minimus looked up at her sharply. “You and Megatron are the only people who have ever said that to me.”

“Then you have definitely been hanging around with the wrong people,” said Moonheart.

“Thank you for your help,” said Minimus. “I’d like to go now.”

Esmeral walked out with him. He didn’t seem to have anywhere to go, since he followed her. Halfway back to the garden, she turned to him and asked, “Are you all right? She can be a bit much, but she means well. Moonheart is married to her work, and the gestalt is commitment enough for her.”

Minimus turned on his heel to face her and stopped, right there in the hall. “Is anyone here all right?” he asked sharply. “I know that Ratchet’s under observation at your university hospital, but Drift barely shows his face around here. Your husband is grimmer than his Autopedia article and I know, from overhearing his court and his troops, that that’s not how he normally is. Rodimus is purple, Leozack and Vos don’t have any idea what to do with that colourful sparkling who stares at me all the time, Nickel and Lyzack are walking on eggshells, Swerve is glued to his mobile, Nautica’s fretting about Jazz and Ravage and Soundwave, Skids is fretting about Nautica, and is there anybody here who’s not bereaved—”

Esmeral cut him off with a sharp nod. She would normally never have tolerated being addressed that way by someone she’d just met. But after everything she and Deathsaurus and their people had been through under Tarn’s assaults, she was too tired to be angry at Minimus. And Minimus also had just lost his brother, who had been mentally injured and kept as a pet for years before Guyhawk unknowingly ended his misery.

“Trickdiamond is fine,” said Esmeral. “She’s always fine. She’s feeling some losses, but…she’s not a very emotional person. And according to Dezza, Cyclonus has always been exactly like that. I wouldn’t know; we seceded before I was old enough to be introduced to any of the Conclave. But I take your point.”

“I know that Megatron is terrible for me,” said Minimus. “And I know I shouldn’t. I don’t need your sister to tell me that I could ‘do better’ if I wanted to. But he also made me feel more seen than anyone ever has in my life, and I don’t just mean after we merged! I want him back.”

“I’m sure you can have him,” said Esmeral. Megatron had been very clear on this subject. “You know exactly where he is.”

Megatron had been asked to stay in his quarters; they were spacious enough, and his friends could come visit him there, but there were guards at the doors and they maintained a strict chain of custody when it came to his fuel. It was safer for everyone that way. All of the Warworlders who’d lost family and friends were unable to do anything more to Tarn, but they all knew Megatron had created the DJD.

“I do,” said Minimus. “And I’m glad you’re keeping it secret from almost everyone else.”

Esmeral smiled. “So if you want him back so very much, why don’t you just go and get him?”

Minimus stared at his pedes. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

Esmeral nodded. “Well,” she said, “don’t do anything rash until you do know. And if you do take him back…please, don’t get sparked.”

Dedication yawned. Leozack and Vos had left him with Nickel and Lyzack again. He didn’t mind. Of all the people around him, he hated them least. Nickel was nice and funny and he thought she probably liked him a little bit. Lyzack was reserved and awkward and she didn’t want to get too close to him, but she always ended up on the other end of the couch when he and Nickel were sitting together. She looked like Leozack, but she was a femme. She was prettier. Unfortunately, Guyhawk was part of that group that was always hanging around her.

He hated Guyhawk.

Dedication had learned exactly two very important things about life. The first of which was that everyone he had ever cared about had died, and he expected it to continue. The second one was that he was surrounded by all of the people who had killed them. If he didn’t go somewhere else, this was also going to continue. The problem was figuring out how to go somewhere else.

Drift had killed his carrier and stolen her hands for Ratchet.

His sire had been killed by numerous people, because he had made so many copies of himself.

Drift and Leozack and Vos had killed the ones who were sleeping. He didn’t know the names of all the people who had killed the others, but he had heard that Esmeral had killed one or two of them. And the last one had gone into a big black cloud with Megatron and Terminus. Deathsaurus and Rodimus had joined them. Megatron had come out with Deathsaurus and Rodimus. Terminus and his sire had not.

He didn’t care about Terminus. Terminus had killed another one of his sires.

Dedication knew that vengeance was an important part of justice. His sire had beaten that into his head. But he wasn’t sure that he felt like pursuing it. There were too many people who had killed his sire. And his sire was a cruel person, who had probably given them lots of reasons to do it.

But right after that, without any warning, Guyhawk had shot and killed Foxy. Guyhawk had thought that Foxy was going to attack Deathsaurus. Dedication was pretty sure that Foxy had been trying to go to the little green mech whom people had said was Foxy’s sibling.

This didn’t make any sense, because Foxy was a fox, and he never changed shape. The little green mech also never changed shape, and his shape was not that of a fox. But people seemed pretty sure about this. It had been a surprise. They had all thought Foxy was dead.

Leozack and Vos had claimed custody of Dedication, and Dedication absolutely did not want to stay with them aboard the shuttle where he’d lived with his sire and the unit he led. They had told him that they would teach him to dedicate his life to justice. His sire had also promised to teach him that, but nobody had ever asked him if he wanted to dedicate his life to vengeance.

It seemed unfair, when people had all kinds of lives, that he should be asked to accept this path without learning what any of the others were like.

His sire had not given him a choice. His sire had not given him anything but a name and a lot of orders to follow. At least his carrier had been affectionate sometimes. She hadn’t given him a name, but she had told him he could choose one for himself, someday.

There hadn’t been much to do on Delphi, but he had found ways to entertain himself, playing with discarded tools, downloading educational materials, scribbling on datapads, sometimes on walls.

His sire had expected obedience.

Dedication complied, insofar as he could. He had become very good with his knives; he did enjoy violence, sometimes. He would enjoy it a great deal if he got to inflict it on Guyhawk. But there were a lot of words that came with it, and while he repeated them all on command, he hardly understood one word in ten. There were more educational downloads, but the information in them conflicted with one another.

Often, Tarn put him in stasis. He would have no idea, when he woke, how long it had been since he’d last gone to sleep.

The worst of it was a book called Towards Peace. Dedication had been expected to keep the entire text indexed in working memory and quote it upon demand. Tarn treated this book, which appeared to be a story about things that had happened long ago, with an absurd sort of reverence. Sometimes, when Tarn was confused about things, he would take down an old hard copy of the book, flip through the pages, and touch the text with his optics shuttered. Then he would meditate on the words his digits had landed on.

His sire had never let him meet the other people on the ship, though he’d seen them on viewscreens. But Foxy sneaked in and played with him anyway.

And that had been his world, until it wasn’t. Now Lyzack and Nickel were both in the kitchen. He thought they were making snacks, but he could hear their voices, even though they thought they were being quiet.

“Ly, you have to talk to Esmeral. It’s not the kid’s fault.”

“I know that, Nick. I do. And I know you cared about Tarn—that he was your amica. I’m not even mad about it anymore. You threatened to do some crazy things, but…you didn’t actually do them. I know you want the kid. But Esmeral says that she won’t do that to Deathsaurus.”

Of all the people Dedication currently knew, Nickel was the only one he was sure wasn’t his enemy. Lyzack probably didn’t want to be, but he wasn’t sure about that. And she was Guyhawk’s friend.

“Hey Dedication!” Nickel came into the room with a platter of bright coloured treats. “Snack time,” she said, and set down the whole thing in front of them both. His sire had never let him eat the kinds of things that Nickel gave him all the time.

Dedication smiled around a mouthful of sweet glycol coolant, but he didn’t say anything.

Dedication’s sire had said that an Autobot was the second worst thing you could be, after being a traitor. But his carrier had been an Autobot, and his sire must have liked her at least a little, or he wouldn’t have existed. Foxy’s sibling was also an Autobot. Dedication wondered, sometimes, if being an Autobot was really that bad. He had gathered that both of his parents had lied a lot.

He had also heard people discussing a place called Sanctuary. If you were a Decepticon, and you wanted to stay a Decepticon, you could go there. Even if you were in trouble, as long as you agreed to do whatever it took to keep the peace. Perhaps this was also a lie, but he had heard Nickel and Lyzack saying they wanted to visit the place someday.

Dedication had told nobody this, but he had decided that if Nickel couldn’t get Lyzack to let her keep him, or if Lyzack couldn’t fix whatever made Esmeral want him to live somewhere else, he was going to go to Sanctuary himself. No matter what Lyzack, or Nickel, or any of the other adults had to say about it.

There were people around who were planning to go to Sanctuary to live, not to visit. Fangry and Stalker were going for sure; Stalker’s sister lived there, and he hadn’t seen her in a really long time.

Dedication would give Nickel and Lyzack a little time, but eventually, the people who wanted to live in Sanctuary would leave, and if Nickel and Lyzack didn’t care enough to get things settled in his favour, Dedication was just going to go there along with the rest of them.

At Starscream’s private residence in the forests between Iacon and Vos, on Cybertron:

“Optimus, you’re being too hard on yourself,” Starscream said, frowning. “There was no reason for us to believe that some nobody was going to take over the Lost Light, and that people you trusted would follow them.” He pushed the Bismuth Bites across the table. “Eat these. You’ve been drinking too much. That’s flight-grade energon—I don’t have anything less potent here because I fly. You will regret this if you don’t get some bismuth into your system.”

Optimus ate one of the ‘treats’ obediently. They really weren’t bad, no matter what Mirage and Trailcutter liked to say, but he was surprised that Starscream would keep them around. Seekers could tolerate massive amounts of high-grade energon without feeling any effects.

“I should’ve watched the rest of the videos.”

“Those were even more unbelievable than the mutiny announcement.” Starscream sighed. “Besides, that was my fault. For having an episode.”

“I’m still going to have someone from Caminus inspect your house,” said Optimus. “I thought you were hallucinating at first, I admit. But Bumblebee’s ghost reacted to what I said exactly the way that Bumblebee would’ve when he was alive.”

“Conduct unbecoming of an Autobot.” Starscream chuckled. “You have to admit that I would have no idea what that actually is—or how Bumblebee would react to hearing it. But checking my townhouse—”

“This house is nowhere near a town,” said Optimus with amusement. “Isn’t that why you chose it?”

“I chose it because it used to belong to my family. It was their hunting lodge, and Pharma and I used to sit on the roof and talk slag about all of the elders.” Starscream shook his head. “You know there’s a whole set of rooms upstairs that we don’t even use. I’ll show you sometime. We can figure out what to do with them, if you’d like. But as I was saying, checking the house won’t help. I’ve seen Bumblebee in the palace, and a few other places as well.”

Optimus took a moment—and another Bismuth Bite—to consider all of the different things that Starscream had packed into that single utterance, from his family history, to the complex location of the haunting, to… “Starscream. Are we a ‘we’ now? Do you really trust my taste enough to let me help you decorate your home away from home?”

“It’s just my home,” said Starscream, not answering the more important question. “The palace is not my home, even though I recharge there six nights out of ten, and sometimes even with you, now that the gossip is too well entrenched to bother trying to hide it from anyone. Besides…”

Optimus smiled, feeling just a bit smug. “Besides?”

“Besides. I like you,” Starscream said.

Optimus decided he could live with that. And perhaps also with Starscream.

Starscream’s cat only hissed at him two out of every three times they encountered each other, which was really a marked improvement.

“I think I love you,” Optimus finally said. He didn’t expect Starscream to say it back. And he didn’t. But he flared and lifted his wings and sat up very straight, and even though his smile was much more overt on the right side of his mouth, the whole thing was sincere.

“I think you do too,” said Starscream. “It’s a sign that you’re much smarter than I thought you were.”

Optimus laughed. “I’m still going to have you exorcised, just in case.”

“What if they exorcise me, and I stop being nice to you?” Starscream teased.

Optimus shook his head. “That won’t happen.” He held out his hand, across the table, and Starscream took it. He hadn’t thought Starscream would hold on for a bit after that, but that was what he seemed to be doing.

“You’re so certain,” said Starscream.

Optimus nodded, because he was.

“You’re the Prime. I’m the Emperor. I could also be your Protector,” Starscream said, not for the first time in so many words.

Optimus considered this, not for the first time. “I’d still rather be the one who protects you,” he offered.

“You can, if you like,” Starscream said. “You know that’s half a political move, don’t you, dear? You’re really not very Primal. I hardly expect that the two of us will ever have to defend Cybertron against evil forces in a massive spiritual battle.”

It did sound ridiculous, Optimus had to admit. “All right,” he conceded. It was an appealing thought. “Lord High Protector Starscream. It does have a nice sort of ring to it, doesn’t it?”

Starscream nodded. The smile was now on both sides of his face. “Thank you, darling.”

Optimus sighed. “There’s something you should know. The Matrix is…misbehaving.”

Starscream’s wings flickered upward again, but this time it seemed more concerned than possessive. “What do you mean?”

“It was burning in my chest the night the Luna Observatories saw the explosions. The ones from the Necroworld, and one of the Warworlds,” said Optimus, frowning. “I wasn’t doing anything, but the Matrix was.”

“It could have been something Rodimus did,” Starscream suggested. “I told you—once, when I was being mean—that he was better able to use it than you. Perhaps they’re still attuned. And don’t look like that—it might mean that some of the Lost Light people trapped on that planet survived!”

“When he returned it, it was broken.”

Starscream shrugged. “You don’t stay dead. Why should the Matrix stay broken?”

“You don’t stay dead either, and you’ve never carried a Matrix.” But Optimus considered this, briefly. “There was a time I thought that Megatron would be my Protector,” he admitted, because it sounded like something he shouldn’t say, but part of him thought Starscream would actually like hearing it.

“Good,” said Starscream with a deeply satisfied note, just as expected. “That’s one more thing I have up on him.”

“I don’t want you to be Hot Rod’s Protector,” said Optimus, surprising even himself as the words fell out of his mouth. Perhaps, he thought, he should put his blast mask back on. Instead, he ate another Bismuth Bite.

“Optimus Prime…are you jealous?” Starscream laughed. “You should be. I’m a catch. But I don’t want to be Roddy’s Protector. Megatron can do that,” he said archly, “if they’re both still alive. I do hope Rodimus is.” He apparently felt gracious, because he also said, “And most of the people who were there with him didn’t deserve to be.”

“No, they didn’t,” said Optimus, firmly. “Primus…those other videos were just awful. Ratchet is my amica, you know. I like to think I’d know if he—”

“They could all have hitched a ride with Deathsaurus,” Starscream pointed out. “I know we are supposed to be terrifying still, but we are not at war, and ironically, the Warworlds are primarily inhabited by civilians. I don’t think even Ultra Magnus would prefer to die over letting Deathsaurus and Esmeral rescue him.”

“Primus, I hope not,” said Optimus. The cat came into the room and jumped up on the table. It fixed its optics on Optimus’ plate. “Can cats eat bismuth?”

“Why not?” said Starscream. “Look, darling. You are chronically beset with guilt for many things that aren’t your fault, but I think you would feel even worse if your amica died, no matter how long it has been since you’ve seen him or how rarely you bared your sparks. My guess is that he’s on Ankokuyousai and he’s perfectly fine. They throw great parties there. He’s probably having a blast.”

Optimus gave the cat the last Bismuth Bite. It wouldn’t take it from his hand, though. Probably just as well. It might have bitten him. Then he frowned. “Starscream, some of those people said Ratchet was mind-controlled. If that’s the truth…he isn’t okay.”

Starscream frowned. “Tarn…would have kept him alive, at least until he started in on Deadlock. Drift.”

Optimus shuddered. “I’m hoping there wasn’t time for that.”

They were quiet for a little while. Starscream got up, went into the kitchen, and fixed himself some sort of viscous chilled thing made with glycol coolant and flight-grade.

“No, you can’t have one. You’ve drunk enough,” Starscream said. “But I’ll make you one later. Soundwave taught me this recipe.” He drank it through a curly straw. Optimus liked the picture he made with his lip-plates pursed around it, whether he could have one or not.

Then Optimus sighed. “If they are still alive, why haven’t we heard from them?”

Starscream cocked his head to one side, literally observing him from another angle. “Don’t be daft. Deathsaurus isn’t going to send his flightpath and roster out over open channels. But I would imagine that people are hearing from family and friends over personal comms…”

Optimus’ spark sank. “I haven’t heard from Ratchet.”

“Perhaps he’s recovering,” said Starscream. “Soundwave wouldn’t have done it for Tarn, and I don’t know if Bombshell’s even still alive. Mindwipe is in the Sol System with Galvatron. If it was a virus, or if somebody needled him, he’s probably still in treatment and he might not be conscious. Does Drift have your personal frequency public keys?”

“No,” Optimus admitted. “We’ve never liked each other. I used to arrest him from time to time when we were all young, you know.”

Starscream snorted. “I do know! Go comm Ultra Magnus, then. I know he’ll pick up for you.”

Chapter Text

In the Captain’s office aboard the Lost Light, somewhere between the Necroworld and its ultimate destination:

Getaway hadn’t expected a voice comm from Prowl, and he took it immediately. He’d planned to ask if he could take the comm on the bridge, so the whole crew could bask in the praise and share in his triumph—but he didn’t get the chance, and there were no pleasantries.

There was only shouting. “Getaway, what in the Pit have you done?”

Getaway cast the comm to the video screen on his desk. “I took over the Lost Light. Isn’t that what you asked me to do? And Megatron’s dead. Like everyone wanted.”

Getaway hadn’t expected Prowl to be angry. He’d managed to get Megatron and the Poetry Club off the Lost Light, hadn’t he? And just as requested, he’d left them on a mostly uninhabited planet in a neutral location. It wasn’t Getaway’s fault that the planet had been destroyed…and why should anyone care?

The Galactic Council had wanted to put on a show trial and a public execution, but their agent had carried a geobomb, and presumably, that had been the cause of the planet’s destruction. An impressive one, given that it had also taken out with the other habitable planet in the system and one of the travelling Decepticon Warworlds that had ensconced itself in the planet’s Lagrange points. Megatron was dead, and it had been done by GC technology. Clearly, that was what mattered the most.

A lot of other people had also wanted Megatron dead, but Prowl had been working with the GC. If anyone else was aftbruised about it, they only had themselves to blame for not being the ones to act first.

Prowl’s white facial derma was stained pink with energon flush. His fist was tight around the mug he was drinking from. “Megatron got away!”

Then the stupid green bird that went everywhere Prowl went screamed.

It took Getaway one ventilation cycle to fully process what Prowl had just said, and then it took him two more to accept that Primus had allowed this to happen.

Primus had to be testing him.

Then Getaway realised that Prowl was on Cybertron and had not seen for himself what had happened. Someone had told him that Megatron had escaped. It seemed very unlikely, given the number of planets that had been destroyed on the same day, that anyone on any of the three had managed to survive.

“Where did you hear this?” Getaway asked, in a much humbler tone than before. “Did the Galactic Council complain? Neech told me their agent was carrying a geobomb, and that they’d set it off if anyone other than them got their hands on the old tyrant—”

“Shut up and listen to me,” said Prowl.

Getaway chose to shut up.

“Either you, or someone else aboard your ship, made contact with the Decepticon Justice Division,” Prowl said through clenched dentae. “I did not authorise that. I promised Megatron to the Galactic Council on condition that they stop agitating against the Council of Worlds and contain the Black Bloc Consortium. And they would have done that, if they had been able to claim the kill!”

Getaway winced. “The DJD consider Megatron a traitor to their cause, and the Peaceful Tyranny has been following the Lost Light for some time. There have even been casualties. The most recently lost was Trailcutter.”

Prowl nodded, but nothing about his expression was satisfied. “How did they know they could stop following you and go to the Necroworld?”

“I don’t know.” Getaway frowned. “Maybe Blaster?” He was almost contrite, but it was hard to be. He’d achieved something, damn it! “I know he reads the Big Conversation, even after I told him he needed to stop logging into that digital septic absorption field. I always thought he was just spying on Soundwave. Perhaps he made a post…or someone else did. They enforce anonymity, but everyone who uses that site claims to know who the Decepticon officers are. And there are a lot of forums…but we don’t know if that happened, and I didn’t authorise this if it did. Those people on Sanctuary sure talk a lot.”

“I don’t care!” Prowl snapped back. “It was your command, and when they showed up, they had three Warworlds in tow, which would be hilarious, given the difference in numbers—if it hadn’t absolutely slagged my plans!”

Getaway thought to himself that Prowl should have been less surprised by the army that Tarn had brought with him. There were fewer than ten DJD members, and he would’ve brought reinforcements, too, given that Megatron had been accompanied by Rodimus (even without the Matrix), Cyclonus, Tailgate, and Ultra Magnus. It had actually been rather stupid of the Galactics to think that a single agent would be able to isolate Megatron from that group.

Primus was definitely testing him. But he had to make nice with Prowl, or he’d never get near the Matrix.

“Three planets blew up,” said Getaway. “Please explain why you think that anyone from the Lost Light survived that. Is that what the Galactics think? They brought a geobomb. That killed three planets. Insofar as I am aware, their agent went down there and never came back. He probably set the thing off. And Megatron probably died down there with the rest of them.”

The mug in Prowl’s shaking hand broke. Qaf went everywhere. The green bird flew up and out of sight, leaving an oily mess on Prowl’s shoulder.

“Getaway,” said Prowl, leaning into the screen, “this is a public relations nightmare of epic proportions. Those idiots managed to record a bunch of personal messages while they were down there, and somehow, they managed to upload them to news channels and social media sites all over the galaxy, backdated three weeks ago, although somehow nobody noticed until everything went in the smelter! And they included a recording of the message you sent to Megatron and his friends, which was not something you needed to do. I don’t think you’re suited for this line of work. Deniability is always important!”

“All right.” Getaway ex-vented. “I acknowledge that the message was a mistake. And it’s absolutely unfortunate that they were able to broadcast it across the galaxy, along with their other messages, doubtlessly claiming Primus knows what—but if they’re dead, then it’ll blow over in time. I don’t understand how the messages lead you to think that any of those people survived, Prowl.”

“I’m getting to that,” Prowl snarled.

“I’m listening,” said Getaway. What else was he going to do?

“This morning I received a comm from Optimus Prime,” said Prowl. “And he was concerned.”

Getaway snorted, but he managed to keep his optics from rolling. He had always admired the Primes, even before he had realised that he had all the sacred signs of Primal destiny. But that admiration had gone down the ‘cycler when Optimus had let Megatron go on this quest—and Rodimus had agreed to it. And now there were rumours that Optimus had taken up with Starscream. “What was he concerned about, sir?”

“Optimus informed me that he’d spoken with Ultra Magnus, who is apparently now a passenger on the Decepticon Warworld Ankokuyousai. He’d been concerned about his amica—Ratchet—along with the other members of Rodimus’ crew. Ultra Magnus told him that Ratchet was recuperating in Shin Uraya University Hospital—”

“Ratchet was never a part of this!” Getaway sputtered. “He left the Lost Light before Ravage did, and while he was weirdly congenial to her, he was never one of Megatron’s friends—why would he even have been there? And how?”

“Apparently,” Prowl said through his dentae, “Ratchet and Drift came back. And somehow, they were also aware that Megatron and his friends were down on the Necroworld, and decided to help.”

“I have no idea how they would have found that out,” said Getaway.

“Don’t you?” Prowl rolled his optics. “Do you really think Deadlock’s not also on the Big Conversation? Anyhow, that’s a digression.”

Prowl pulled a mineral bar out of his desk drawer and took a big bite of it.

“We don’t know if that’s how it got out.” Getaway watched Prowl chew and tried to be patient, because Prowl wasn’t going to be.

“According to Ultra Magnus, Megatron is also on Ankokuyousai. He’s forbidden to leave his quarters, but they’re comfortable, and his friends are allowed to visit him there. For all I know, he’s giving poetry readings!”

Getaway had nothing to say to that. He had known that Deathsaurus was there. General Neech had told him. But nothing he knew about Deathsaurus—especially the part where he’d come there with Tarn—had inclined him to think that Deathsaurus would rescue Megatron.

Prowl glared at Getaway. “Apparently, Deathsaurus and Esmeral are still deciding whether they’ll judge him themselves or let Ravage, who was not supposed to get off that ship alive, decide what to do with him!”

Getaway was absolutely horrified.

Prowl fixed him with a penetrating glare. “Did you know that there’s a Decepticon war of succession brewing, Getaway? And the primary claimants for the title are Galvatron and the Lady Ravage, who is thought to have Megatron’s imprimatur, despite the fact that he took the Autobrand and told them to turn themselves in or stand down. Her Ladyship is in Jovian orbit, and Galvatron is on Earth, so they will be fighting that out in the Sol System.”

Getaway wanted to care more about that than he did, but while he was an MTO and had been in a lot of fights, he’d never set foot on Earth or any other planet in that system, and he absolutely did not understand why so many people cared so much what happened there. Nonetheless, he understood that what was left of Autobot Command, and most especially the so-called Prime, cared very much about Earth, and that the Galactics were always sniffing around there—firstly, because its people were organic, and secondly, because both the Autobots and the Decepticons had made investments in the place.

“Look,” said Getaway. “I did my best to delete that bitch. But I didn’t even know she was there until Megatron dragged her out of the shadows, and from that point on she was almost never alone. Most of the time she was aboard, she was either in the infirmary, where Ratchet was giving her free medical care, or sleeping with Megatron. And when I did have the opportunity, Hound and Mirage—”

“Stop right there,” Prowl snapped. “Hound and Mirage were two out of three survivors of a brutal attack on their Tower and the mission commander was Ravage of Stanix. If you’re going to tell me a lie, don’t tell a stupid one. Why would they not cooperate?”

“I don’t know!” Getaway was genuinely shocked by this information. “All I know is that they got in the way, and the one time I actually had her down and alone, Hound interrupted me and when I turned around, she was gone. Later I got Mirage under the gun and while his brain was scrambled, all he would say was ‘We did it for Kit.’ Over and over. He said it would kill Kit if we took her out. I had to make them both forget it happened. And then, Roddy the Body decided that we should all go to this party that Thunderclash was hosting, and while we were all there, Megatron sneaked online and made her fucking famous, and then after that, suddenly everyone liked her.”

Getaway ex-vented forcefully. “So,” he said, staring right back at Prowl. “Who the slag is Kit?”

For an astrec or two, Prowl appeared to be genuinely boggled. He got the look on his face that he always got when he ran computations, and then he glared through the screen even harder. And even though he had clearly needed to look something up that was probably classified, he didn’t let up on Getaway. “That’s Soundwave, you dolt.”

“…what?” It didn’t compute. At all. “Why would Mirage care what happens to Soundwave? He is literally third in command of the enemy.”

“I don’t know,” said Prowl after a moment. “But they were both from the Towers, and Towers mechs had archaic names that they only used among their peers. Soundwave’s House, Kymatos of Kalis, was censured after his first murder attempt on Senator Ratbat, and Lord Vapourwave expelled and disinherited him. In the formal documents we preserved in his dossier, he was named as ‘Kytherion, called Soundwave ex doma’. I don’t know that dialect, but the translation in the file says it means ‘beast-caller’.”

“I wonder if they knew he’d conjunx one,” Getaway sniped. He was not prepared for Prowl to glare at him for that.

“Shut up,” said Prowl. “One of the best partners I ever had at Iaconian Metaforensics was an indentured cougaraider. If she hadn’t gone Decepticon, I’d still be working with her.”

“But she did,” Getaway pointed out.

“We used to treat those people very badly,” Prowl replied. “I don’t want Ravage dead because she’s a cougaraider. I want her dead so we can take Soundwave out, and to stop this idiotic Decepticon civil war. And you failed me in that respect.”

Then he noticed the mess on his shoulder, and wiped it off with a crumpled napkin. “You scared my bird, afthelm.”

Getaway sighed. “Soundwave allowed her to go off on this quest with Megatron. They were fragging the whole time. Do you really believe the rumours that Soundwave and Ravage have a spark bond? After she got in a fight with Megatron, and decided to leave the ship, she had a fling with Nautica, who was weirdly obsessed with her.”

“My former partner knew they did,” Prowl said. “She was Ravage’s sibling. They only made six of that particular model. Anyhow…the old Decepticon Conclave strongly discouraged monogamy. I’m not surprised she got around.”

Prowl’s lip-plates twisted into something resembling a smile. “Her sister did, too.”

Getaway frowned. This was not something he wanted to hear about. At all.

Then Prowl’s expression went sour again, but this time it was just a little more thoughtful. “Megatron isn’t the only person who needs to answer for his crimes. Soundwave’s no better. The Decepticons would have fallen apart milvorna ago without him. And while the Decepticons all depended on him, he depended on Ravage, over and above all his other deployers and agents. I don’t know if he’d drop dead if we killed her, but I do know he would be completely incapacitated.”

“Is he really a threat to us now?” Getaway wondered aloud. “Not that he doesn’t deserve to be executed in public, and not that I didn’t want to end her…but the Earth people like him now. Even though he was a part of Megatron’s occupation there. I’ve heard they only live for a vorn, and they change their minds as often as we’d change our tires, but…”

Prowl shrugged. “Soundwave says he’s a pacifist now, but the Station still defends itself when attacked. They say they’re anarchists, but it’s very clear that whatever Ravage and Soundwave say goes, and now she’s calling herself Vox Destron. Earth isn’t safe while he’s running Little Destron out there in Jovian orbit, even if she manages to take Galvatron out without nuking a major city or two. And I absolutely cannot believe that the Council of Worlds is going to accept Sanctuary as a Cybertronian colony.”

Then he lowered his voice. “I also want to know how he does what he does, because there are things he can do that neither Blaster nor Toaster nor Carmen can do, and none of the Con cassette hosts could do those things, either.”

“So that’s the real reason you have to kill Ravage. And that means you’re not really going to give him a public trial—or a public execution,” Getaway said, after a long moment. He didn’t particularly care what happened to Soundwave as long as he wasn’t out there endangering Autobots. Prowl could take Soundwave’s brain apart if he wanted to—he could even examine his spark, which was the usual source of powers like that, and that would be impossible if Ravage was alive.

Getaway couldn’t care less about Soundwave. But he was surprised that Prowl would admit it to him. Prowl did still trust him, at least with this. And that was a very important surprise.

“It’s not your concern,” Prowl muttered. “Shape up, Getaway. I’m tired of dealing with jackrods, frag-ups and traitors. If you actually think you can find the Knights of Cybertron, then fine, take your shot. I absolutely want you to keep Hound busy while I deal with Mirage and Soundwave. But if you come back with nothing after running around out there like a turbofox chasing its tail, don’t expect to advance in this organisation.”

In Ravage and Soundwave’s family quarters, on Sanctuary Station, in the Sol System:

“I’m glad you were helpful while Soundwave and I were being repaired,” I said, curling up next to Jazz on the couch, “but…what were you doing? Glit said you ran the place.”

Jazz threw his arm around me and did something with his digits to my shoulder wheel that probably should have been very nice, but I didn’t feel it at all. “Wheel’s loose again, babe,” he said, frowning.

“Jazz.”

Jazz shrugged, then glanced down at his hand. “Okay,” he said, “fine, we’ll talk about that, but I also want to talk about this. That’s getting worse. It’s time for you to go to a medic about it. It’s clearly a problem that on-the-spot auto repair from another, more experienced sports car won’t fix.”

“I know, Jazz. Glit says I’m rejecting the alt. Lean back, I want to put my head on your shoulder, but we are still talking about what happened while Soundwave and I were out.”

Jazz leaned back and let me lean, one arm around me like before, but no more digits in my wheels. I suspect he was afraid that one of them would fall off, yet again. “And then we’re talking about your alt-mode. That sounds horrific. And Sounders should’ve warned me you’d be like this, too.”

I got comfortable, and breathed him in. Fresh polish and wax. A hint of petrol, something herbal, and then just Jazz. “Soundwave and I have a mindlink. We handle things…differently. We do have to talk things out, but we always know when one of us isn’t willing to set things aside for later, so we don’t even bother trying to deflect unless there’s good reason.”

“Which is usually never,” Jazz teased, “cause he’s the same way. He told me this morning that he appreciated all my help but if the committees need guidance to answer their questions, I should help them figure it out themselves, and not make too many suggestions. He said if he wanted the decisions to be quick and dirty he could just read their minds and tell them what they should do, but that’s not the point of this place. The problem was, the chairs were arguing, and…I’m not used to that. Autobots don’t make decisions that way.”

I nodded. “You’ll get used to it,” I said. “Soundwave and I were organisers in Rodion before the war, which you probably knew, and no, consensus doesn’t always work, in fact you have to take a lot of votes when things are time-sensitive. But I’m not Megatron…and you’re not Prowl. Sometimes you have to let them argue a little while. If only to find out what they’re actually arguing about…more often than not, it’s not what they say they’re arguing about.”

Laughing, Jazz clutched at his spark chamber. “Ravage, I’m wounded! Do not compare me to Prowl!” He pretended to be having some sort of spasm for another few moments until I finally laughed, and then he leaned back into place and brushed his lips against my ear. “And I also don’t want to kiss Megatron,” he said in a whisper.

In spite of myself, I giggled. “Good, because we aren’t inviting him into the household.”

Jazz lifted me up into his lap and tried, unsuccessfully, to kiss me, because his front bumper and headlights were in the way. Then he lifted me up by the aft and set me on top of the obstacles.

I looked down into his visor. “Is it my mouth you want to kiss or my valve?”

“Do I get a choice?” Jazz grinned and looked up at me with one of the smiles I think he has saved in a folder and numbered. They don’t often work on me, but they’re cute. “Both is good. I like both.”

“When we’ve finished discussing praxis, and also when I’ve told you what Glit said.” And then I booped his nose anyway.

“I was just being Jazz,” Jazz said. “I said what I thought, just like I used to do with Optimus, babe. And with Prowl…when the rod up his aft shook loose. When Autobot leaders ask you a question, they really want to know what you think.”

I could envision that. “Okay,” I said. “But the Committee chairs aren’t used to being Optimus. Or even being me, one of the one person Megatron listened to even when he was upset…usually. Strika could get him to listen about military issues, so you’re probably just fine with her. Also, she’s been a commander off and on since before I was protoformed. She has confidence. Howlback was Decepticon Military Police, and sometimes she bends over backwards not to take lead, and sometimes you have to rein her in. But the rest of the chairs are new to the very idea that they get to decide anything. Silvermist has never been in charge of anything until she came to Sanctuary, and the same is true of a lot of the others. Before you give them advice of any sort, ask them how they’re planning to handle it, and see if you can get them to figure out what’s wrong with their plans—if anything—themselves. They can also talk to each other, but when we have scarce resources or time, that sometimes turns into an argument.”

Jazz paid attention, even with his nose less than a metre away from my modesty panels. “All right,” he said. “But sometimes there won’t be time. Glit didn’t tell you what Galvatron did, did he? Maybe he didn’t know. The casualties were few, and they were mostly human.”

I braced myself. “What did he do?”

“He started some trouble in China. Not much, but it was concerning.” Jazz traced something, a flower I think, on my thigh. “The Chinese EDC threw him out, and now he’s back hanging with Putin again. They don’t exactly like each other, but they’re the same kind of person, so…anyhow, Thunderblast commed and asked for you. She said her boyfriend wanted to know what you planned to do about it. We didn’t want to tell her you were out of commission, so I got on and told her to go to the Pit, and then I warned Charlie. But after that…everyone wanted to know what to do in case they sent any troops out here.”

“No,” I said, unhappily, “Glit did not tell me that.” I growled a little in spite of myself. “Glit doesn’t want me to take Galvatron on until after I’ve had this alt-mode replaced or removed and had surgery on my spine to take care of the hip rocket damage.”

“Why does it have to be you, specifically, and in person?” Jazz asked, resting his chin on my thigh. “Why can’t Strika, or I, or anyone else, just go down there and end him, or at least chase him out of the System?”

“You could.” I sighed. “But he’ll just come back, or someone else will take his place.”

“You really think they’re that organised?” Jazz looked doubtful. “Name someone who’s working for him that could lead them all.”

“Onslaught,” I said. Mostly because I don’t know Galvatron’s people at all. I liked to believe that this was why they followed him and not me. I know there is no way that he is a more reasonable or fairer leader than I am.

“Doubt it,” said Jazz. “Vortex is here. And if Vortex is here, then Onslaught’s at least considering coming here. Vortex could be a spy I suppose, but we’d catch him, because he’d be terrible at it.”

“Skywarp, if he’s still on that team—”

“Skywarp is going to die if he doesn’t let somebody help him soon, and nobody knows where he is. And he’s just as attached to you as he is to Starscream, even if he’s mad at Soundwave,” said Jazz.

I stared at him for a moment. I had never told Jazz about that. When had I had the time?

“I know you and Skywarp were lovers.”

“I’m not sure that’s what I’d call it,” I said. “We were friends. Benefica, but not amica, although maybe we should’ve been. He’d be a better amica than Megatron. I still want to be friends with him. And yeah, he fragged me through the wall sometimes, and one time into it, but…how did you know that? I don’t think we’ve ever discussed this with you!”

Jazz chuckled. “I caught you two on video surveillance once,” he said, and then sighed. “I was sad when I had to delete that, but I wasn’t about to put it in my report—”

I thought I should be annoyed (perhaps on Warp’s behalf, if not my own) but I couldn’t help feeling smug that Jazz had been watching us frag and enjoyed it. “Did you learn anything?”

“Do that thing you did with your tail to me sometime,” Jazz replied without missing a beat. “Warp seemed to like it.”

“Which thing? He liked a lot of stuff I do,” I said. “If I hadn’t been in a cassette, we would’ve been very compatible, but the size difference made some things difficult. If he ever joins Sanctuary, you can ask him if he’s willing to let you watch. Soundwave wasn’t into it, but Warp doesn’t mind showing off.”

But this was another digression. “This isn’t really about whether or not Galvatron can fuck around down on Earth. EDC has a lot more of our tech than they were ever supposed to, and Strika does mess up his fleet on a fairly regular basis. Even if we drive him out of the System, he’s going to keep coming back until I personally rip out his spark chamber, spit in it, and toss it back into his greying hulk. And no, I do not know who would take his place—Thunderblast would be one candidate, if I didn’t know no-one would follow her, but most of the people who are in his troops are younger people, people I’ve never even met. There’d be someone. A whole lot of someones. We’d have to get rid of them one by one.”

Jazz frowned. It was very impressive. I’ve never seen him look like that. “You didn’t say why it has to be you.”

“This is about Vox Destron,” I said. “Voice of the Undeceived…I prefer it to Emperor of Destruction. They used to call Megatron Voice of Tarn, and me Voice of Stanix. If a leader of the Decepticon movement doesn’t decide to step down and go on to something else—and most of us very much do not—there is only one way to get rid of them. And if there’s not a designated inheritor when someone steps down, or dies of natural causes other than the natural consequences of being completely murdered, then the claimants fight it out. And the only way to make any of them to give up is to kill them. Unless, of course, the losing party manages to run away without getting murdered after they cede the position.”

Jazz’s expression got even frownier. “You are my girl and also you’re Soundwave’s girl, and he is your sparkmate, and he is really not at all okay without you. I love you and I love him, and I am not actually thrilled, on behalf of you, and him, and myself, and Viridian too, that you have decided to take on a job with that kind of retirement plan.”

“Tough,” I said, and kissed the top of his head. “Everyone else who applied for it sucks.”

“Didn’t Tarn take a shot at it? So far as I know, you only killed one of him, and not by yourself…so how is it that much of a barrier?” Jazz looked up at me hopefully.

“Tarn had the DJD, not an army,” I explained. “As of my last conversation with Esmeral, there are only two and a half of them left and the half is a sparkling. One of them took on an apprentice-slash-consort, who is apparently the offspring of my sister Pounce, but they’re no longer going to hunt traitors, so I’m not really sure what they’re planning to do with their lives. The other one is a doctor and she has decided to stay on Ankokuyousai and probably marry her girlfriend…who is also, apparently, the offspring of my sister Pounce.”

I really wanted to know more about Pounce’s life, but that wasn’t the point.

“Anyhow, Jazz, it doesn’t matter who killed the last Tarn, or who killed the most of him. There’s nobody wanting to take over his claim. But Galvatron has a whole fucking army, and when I spoke to Vortex today, he reiterated to me that most of them won’t agree to support me even if we fight them and win…unless I kill Galvatron. He’s not even sure about Onslaught, which is why I mentioned him first.”

“Great.” Jazz frowned. “And what about the rest of Bruticus? It would be nice if we had a combiner, even if you do still have to kill Galvatron personally…”

“That’s not going to matter unless someone finds Swindle alive,” I said, and frowned, because I was worried about Swindle. Yes, greedy afthelm, one hundred percent. But Swindle was always useful, and I knew how to motivate Swindle. “We’ve got two of the Stunties, but they don’t really have unit cohesion anyway. Breakdown fucked off to be Knock Out’s conjunx ages ago, Motormaster is a notorious brute that most of the others want nothing to do with, and Drag Strip’s nomadic. I mostly hear about her from Glit, because they’re both on OnlyFans.”’

Jazz’s optics brightened, and then he cracked up. “Seriously?”

“Glit started doing cams almost as soon as the humans invented them. He doesn’t have to now that he’s head of the Station health service…but he’s kind of attached to some of his fans,” I explained. “And Drag Strip is…Drag Strip.”

“Yeah, no,” Jazz said. “I can totally see how that works for her, but where does Glit find the time with all the work he’s got here?”

“It’s a huge part of his social life, actually,” I said, and then I frowned, because that was too sad to bear thinking about too hard.

“Do you get to have backup when you kill Galvatron?” Jazz kissed the inside of my thigh. “I’d back you up. I wouldn’t even flirt with you during the process! Soundwave can’t do it? After some of the things he’s said about you, I bet Sounders would love to empty that cannon on his shoulder right into Galvatron’s face.”

“Then Soundwave would have the claim to the title, and he doesn’t want it. I suppose he could immediately abdicate, and name me as successor, but…that’s kind of lame.” I sighed. “It sounds like you two have discussed this.”

“Indeed we have, and I don’t think that’s lame.” Jazz kissed my other thigh. “You’ll at least take Laserbeak. What about assassination? I have no doubt you could kill him, love, I’m just freaked out at the notion of you trying to take him in a one-to-one face-to-face fight. We all know that isn’t your forte…and so does Galvatron.”

I shifted uneasily on his shoulders, and then Jazz grinned at me.

“I’m not doing that because you’re trying to get me worked up and it’s working,” I said. “I was already willing, I practically always am…but we have to finish this conversation, because it’s important.”

“Assassination, then?”

I sighed. “That’s what Starscream thinks I should do.”

“Excellent! For once I agree completely with Starscream!” Jazz shook his head. “…like that’s not weird, or anything.”

“You both like me,” I pointed out.

“Yes, and we both like Optimus,” said Jazz. “But I don’t like Optimus the way Starscream does, and Starscream doesn’t like you the way I do.” Then he made a big show of sniffing around my panels and breathing me in.

“The problem with assassination,” I said, “is making it unambiguously undeniable that I was the one who did it. Assassination techniques, by design, allow you to avoid detection and involve destroying evidence.”

“So don’t destroy the evidence!” Jazz crowed. “Record the whole thing and post it to the Big Conversation!”

…it wasn’t a bad idea, but. “I can’t. We’re not allowed to doxx ourselves.”

Jazz shrugged. “Record the whole thing and Maestro will post it? You have to do the killing by yourself. There is clearly no rule about not having witnesses, or you wouldn’t be worried about having to do it all by yourself, in front of his officers and his troops. Which, I would like to point out, in no way would prevent them all from killing you right afterward, unless we were all there, too.”

“You’re allowed to be,” I said. “That was also part of the original plan.”

“Kill him in his sleep,” Jazz said. “You’re not a gladiator. No-one with functioning processors really believes you should win like one. They’re just throwing this in your way to hold you back.”

I sighed, and petted the little sensory horns on his helm. He likes that; he leaned into my hand.

“If Thunderblast is in berth with him, can I kill her for you, or is that also not allowed?” The third kiss was closer to my panels than before. He made such a pretty picture with his head between my legs. And yet. Vox Destron is not allowed to be petty. Or ruled by her valve nodes.

“You should really File Intent first, just to be proper about it,” I grumbled. “You certainly do have cause. I will consider this option. I promise.”

“Good,” said Jazz, and licked over my panel seam. I transformed the panel away and let his glossa lick into me. I’d been good long enough. Now he could be good. And he was. So good. Jazz is a valve eater par excellence. The suction on my anterior node while he fucks my valve with his glossa isn’t even the most amazing part. I’m not sure how he does it, but sometimes it almost feels like he’s sucking my ceiling node, too. And I know he will never tell me.

After the first overload, though, I did ask him to take me back to a berthroom. Either his or ours was fine, but I didn’t want to be on his shoulders, on the couch, with his face in my valve, when Viridian came back from visiting Silverwing.

In the Imperial Palace at Shin Uraya, on the Warworld Ankokuyousai:

When the guards informed him that he had a visitor, Megatron had hoped it would be Minimus. But it wasn’t Minimus.

Megatron looked down at Rung and tried very hard not to scowl. “We are in Destron and even though I am still an Autobot, no longer a Decepticon, I do not have to do therapy here.”

“No, of course not. I’m not taking patients anymore. I meant that. After Froid and Sunder came, I tried to quit, and you wouldn’t let me, because there were too many people aboard who admit they need therapy.”

Megatron scowled. He hated not having a good retort prepared.

Rung walked into the suite past Megatron anyway. He was too short for Megatron’s arm across the entrance to be a deterrence.

“But they’ve got Froid now, even though he should’ve had his licence pulled too, and we’re on Ankokuyousai, which means that anyone who wants therapy can go to the clinics here in Shin Uraya. I’m still looking after Skids, but if he finds another therapist, I’ll be more than happy to send over my notes.”

“So what do you want? You might as well sit down—”

Rung did, and then he looked up at Megatron pointedly. “Minimus needs a therapist, but he appears to have drafted Esmeral for the job. I’m not sure how long that’s sustainable, but I’m not getting involved with that situation myself.”

“Minimus is right to stay away from me,” said Megatron. “I just wish he wouldn’t—and I’m not going to discuss this with you! What do you want?”

“I want to know what you meant when you said there were monsters we’d have to fight,” Rung said flatly. “That Terminus told you about. I want to know why you think they’re ever going to come back.”

Megatron was shocked that anyone had remembered that.

“Why do you want to know? What are you going to do about it?”

Rung looked up at him sidewise. “I was alive when they were on Cybertron, too. I’m very old, Megatron.”

Megatron sat down and commed the guards, requesting energon and coolant for them both.

“And also,” Rung continued, “when you do have to go to trial again—whenever, and wherever that happens—this should be made a matter of record. There’s no excuse for murdering entire species, you understand, but the fact that you had a reason other than simple cruelty, or wanting to take their planets and resources for Decepticon use, will mean something. You said you were trying to keep Cybertron safe. That’s a funny thing, coming from someone who started a war which almost destroyed the whole planet. You did destroy the ecosystem. I’m not sure why it came back.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t as destroyed as we thought,” Megatron responded. “Life—even organic life—is very resilient, very determined. It keeps renewing itself. Do you know how many infestations of organic life have had to be extirpated from Decepticon ships? A few bacteria, a local fungus or plant, small scavengers…”

He shook his head. “There was this red vine once; it flowered near radiation sources. Ravage decided that she’d be able to keep it under control. She made a perfume out of the flowers. But then it got into the vents, and into the engine room. And became a problem so unpleasant and persistent that even she was willing to help destroy it.”

“I may like Ravage more when I get to know her,” Rung mused. “And, all right. I doubt there was no life left on the planet. The animals have started to come back. There hasn’t been time for them to evolve all over again.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Megatron looked at him, frowning. “They altered us.”

“I know,” said Rung. “But without the hot spots bringing forth Primus’ own sparklings, why would they think we’re still here? Wherever they went, it has to have been far, far away. We haven’t heard anything from them at all.”

“I met one once. On Junkion. A small one, abandoned.” Megatron shrugged. “And Trypticon remembered them.” Then he frowned. “Rung…why did they shut Maitriona up for talking about them? Why do so many people who ought to remember them claim that they never existed?”

“They forgot,” Rung said easily. “Perhaps they were made to forget.”

“How exactly do you just forget something like that? Our governments…we have shadowplay, yes…but how would you do something like that to a whole population?” Megatron scowled at the datapad on the table. He’d been working on something, but he didn’t like it at all yet. It refused to take shape.

“Why do you think we did it?” Rung asked quietly.

“Because we won the war and drove them off, of course!” Megatron retorted. “Terminus remembered being in that war. He refused to be quiet—that’s part of how he ended up in the mines—”

“I can see that,” said Rung. “Terminus isn’t the quiet type. I think we won the war too, but…I’m not really sure.” He frowned. “There are a lot of things I don’t remember. I think someone didn’t mean me to, and I don’t think it was the Functionist Council. Despite enduring all their tender mercies, I never thought their interest in me had anything to do with the Quints.”

“No. Probably not,” Megatron agreed.

Rung continued. “And I think I was once important, although when I think about that, it seems stupid. But there has to be some reason so many people can never remember me. You remember me…and you’ll never know how much I appreciate that, even though you are completely infuriating, sometimes.”

Megatron nodded. “I still remember the day I saw you in Maccadam’s. When you asked for the curly straw. It made an impression on me…of course, so did Whirl’s beating.”

Rung flushed deep pink. “So many people do not remember me. And I think they’re not meant to. But it wasn’t me who decided that, Megatron. Why would I ever decide not to have friends?”

Chapter Text

From the Cybertronian Two-Tailed Turbofox Party official newsfeed:

Two-Tailed Turbofox: news you can’t possibly use!

Passivists unite! Our Autobot Prime and formerly Decepticon Emperor were caught in a kiss after making a scheduled appearance at the Iacon-Kaon final game of the Cybertronian Cube League Series. We wish them the best and brightest happiness, even though we didn’t get to vote for either of them. Perhaps the peace will last this time. Either way, public transport is now a reliable option again.

This is Charis Ambus reporting, and remember to vote TTT if we ever have elections again. Free engex and socialised healthcare for all!

In Prowl’s office, at the Autobot High Command building in Iacon, on Cybertron:

“Mirage,” said Prowl, “what are you doing here? Last I heard, you were in hospital, recovering from another episode. Did you leave something behind when you cleaned out your space?”

Mirage knew something was wrong when he heard the solicitous tone in Prowl’s voice. There was nothing about his body language or field that supported it (both of these said absolutely nothing at all) and if he had been concerned about Mirage’s health, he could have come to visit him in hospital. Which he had not. There had not been so much as a digital note of support.

“They released me today,” Mirage said, and made optical contact. It was clear to him that his release was the surprise. They stood there like that for a little while.

“Well,” Prowl said, looking straight into Mirage’s optics, “I’m glad that you’re feeling better.”

Mirage couldn’t help it; his lip-plates curved into a sidewise smile. “Did you practise that? If so, you should practise it more.”

“What do you want?” Prowl snapped. “If you’re looking for Jazz, he’s turned traitor. He can’t come back to Cybertron, and if he did—”

“You’d do what?”

Prowl was looking at him the way people normally did when they learned he’d come from the Towers. Like a princess who’d slipped his minders.

Mirage had been a very minor princess. Too unimportant to be offered a political conjuncture, he’d been trained to entertain his family’s guests at home. It had left him at a disadvantage in his early days as an Autobot, while he learned how to fight like a soldier. But he had never been allowed to be naïve. Princesses of his rank were not meant to be naïve. They were meant to be accommodating, seductive—and observant.

Was it his illness? He had hallucinations sometimes, but he couldn’t have reported them if he hadn’t known they weren’t real. What they were was upsetting.

“Go ahead, Prowl. Tell me.”

“Mirage, even if you had a right to be here, I would still be your superior officer.” The tone of Prowl’s voice remained even.

Mirage sighed theatrically. “Would you? What, exactly, does it mean to be second in command of the Autobots nowadays? The Prime is no doubt going to invite us all to his conjunx ritus before the end of the season, and so I have to wonder: does he even know what you’re doing? I doubt he’s giving you orders.”

“Optimus trusts me,” said Prowl, scowling back at him. “Optimus has never wanted a full accounting of my duties.”

“I certainly do believe that,” said Mirage with a bit of a sneer. “Jazz is on Sanctuary, yes, but I don’t know if he’s a traitor. Has he taken the Deceptibrand? Who would even be giving that out, now that Megatron has defected?”

“All hail Ravage,” said Prowl with a shrug.

“I doubt she’s giving out brands,” said Mirage. “The whole situation would reflect far better on you if you’d given him a choice. You could have asked him what he was up to, out there.”

“It seemed obvious at the time,” said Prowl, “and it is certainly very obvious now.”

“What’s obvious? That he’s making the best of the hand he’s been dealt, or that he’s actually become a Decepticon? I can’t believe the latter.” Mirage rolled his shoulder joints, and did it elegantly, too. “So what if he and Soundwave got caught on camera in junctio? Sleeping with the enemy’s part of the job, sometimes.”

And then Mirage gave him a smouldering look he’d been practising since he was ten, a look Prowl had never yet seen. “Or was it just my job?”

The green bird on its perch near the window rustled its wingblades, awakened, but then tucked its head down again. Prowl made a coughing noise into his hand. “If you don’t have a reason to be here, I will call the guards and have you removed.”

“I want to hear what you have to say for yourself,” said Mirage. “I know exactly where Jazz is, and he’s in good hands. The only person who knows better than I do what Soundwave has to offer a mech is the Lady Ravage herself.”

Prowl’s optics flashed red for a minim when he heard Mirage use the title.

Mirage walked further into the office, and his new paint job caught the brighter lights. He wore civilian colours now, refined and muted: soft grey and blue, and a gentle purple that was neither royal nor Decepticon. He’d had his facial paint redone as well. It wasn’t exactly like the face he’d worn as a princess; there was no feathered filigree surrounding his features. But his face was deftly contoured in blue and purple, and his optics were limned in electrum, because even now, he could still afford it.

His Autobrand was no longer red. He’d had it done in the purple accent colour. From a distance, one could mistake it for something else, although the Decepticons actually wore their brands in a wide variety of colours.

Prowl stared at him. “Are you considering something unwise? I wouldn’t have thought you’d betray your family.”

“They’re dead,” Mirage said, and admired the painted tips of his digits. It was true, if not an accurate reflection of his feelings. “Four million years gone. But I came here to talk about Getaway. Who has hijacked the Lost Light, and has taken my Hound.”

“Getaway has done what, now?” Prowl glared at him.

“And here I thought you’d given him the orders,” Mirage said smoothly. He had wondered if Prowl would lie.

“Do you think that I would have given Getaway permission to release Megatron?”

“Of course not,” said Mirage dismissively. “But he did it anyway, because he’s a loose blast cannon.”

“Do you think I’d have sent someone to do that job who’d lose track of Ravage and lose me my last chance at Soundwave?” Prowl snapped, and knocked the table next to the couch in the corner across the room with a fist. “Do you know what they’re doing right now?”

Mirage disappeared briefly. He appeared on the opposite side of the room from where the table had landed, and then he appeared to sit down on Prowl’s desk with an expression of pure insolence.

“You trusted him. He failed you. You didn’t tell either of us what the plan was. I know why you didn’t trust me, but Hound? I didn’t know that Ravage was aboard until she took the energon that I left out, and I’m not sure I understand why she did it. She could’ve let me believe that I was imagining missing fuel in the bar. The first time I actually saw her, I didn’t entirely believe she was real.”

Mirage shrugged. Ravage had played a game with him. He wasn’t sure what it was. He had no idea what the rules were. But she hadn’t done anything to harm him. And he hadn’t betrayed her presence, because he’d known that he might have imagined it.

Prowl’s expression softened slightly. “It must be difficult,” he said. “You’ve been a good operative…”

Mirage smiled, gently and misleadingly. “I knew someone was going to do something about Megatron, and Hound and I had had every intention of helping, except there was this funny little problem where we kept forgetting when and how that was supposed to happen, and meanwhile all these stupid things kept happening, and now my conjunx is gone!”

Mirage had not really been in the centre of the room. He had actually been standing behind Prowl, moving silently as he threw his voice into his false self. When he dropped the illusion, Prowl was sprawled ungracefully over the table he’d thrown, and the first thing he did was reach for his sidearm, but Mirage had it.

“Don’t use your theatrics to try and intimidate me,” Mirage hissed. “I really thought you were less of an imbecile than this, but you’re too angry for all of this not to be true. Who did you make your deal with, Prowl? Was it the Galactics, or was it Deathsaurus? I didn’t think you had an in with the DJD—”

“There was no deal!” Prowl sputtered.

Mirage nodded, and counted silently to eighty-three in order to let Prowl wonder what he was going to say next. He did not point the gun at Prowl, but Prowl could see it in his hand. With or without four million years of military service, princesses could still be deadly.

“Of course there was a deal,” said Mirage. “I’m sure that Optimus wasn’t in on it—”

“Optimus is shacked up with Starscream! There was no way I was going to tell him!”

Mirage pursed his lip-plates, and thought for a moment. Whatever Starscream and Optimus were currently doing, they hadn’t been doing it at the time the Lost Light had left Cybertron. But if he played along, Prowl would tell him a little more of his reasoning—whether or not he intended to. “The Galactics, then. Optimus doesn’t like them, and Starscream would hate it. Optimus would also hate the DJD, but Starscream might be amused by the idea of Megatron getting done in by his own rust-crazed lighthounds, and you might get away with that.”

Prowl glared at him.

“You didn’t know about Getaway’s deal, did you?” Mirage flashed him a long-practised smile. It worked well on dominant bots, and even better on bots who only thought they were dominant—particularly the ones who’d risen from the old lower ranks and would crave approval from someone like him, even if they thought they despised him and all that he stood for. “For all the good that tactical net does you, and all the dimensions you can see into, you’re a moron when it comes to dealing with people, and you don’t have Jazz around to take care of that, anymore.”

“Jazz was Soundwave’s mech anyway,” Prowl grumbled. “I have been going through records. He’s interfered countless times with my attempts to capture Soundwave and Ravage, without whom Megatron would have been virtually helpless—and whether or not you knew it, the two of you were involved more than once!”

“We weren’t in on whatever they were doing.”

“Really?” Prowl scoffed. “Then why didn’t you kill her? I don’t care if you believed she might be one of your little visions, Mirage! If you’d taken her out and she hadn’t been real, what harm could it have possibly done?”

“To the Autobot cause? Or to my stability?” Mirage shrugged. “The truth is, I don’t really want her dead anymore. And I think she knew it.”

“Why the Pit not?”

“There’s more to this than your anger at being betrayed. That’s happened before. You betray people so often they race you there.” Mirage sniffed at the air. “You’re really angry because he let you clang him once in a while. When you were angry, or out of sorts, and he thought it would settle you down. We all knew it. He slept with us, too. Did you know that, or did you think something special was going on? And it did calm you down. But it never meant anything, at least not to Jazz.”

“You can have his job if you want it—” Prowl choked out. “I don’t care if you see things in shadows, as long as you know they’re not real. And as long as you act when you think you might need to—”

“I don’t want the job,” said Mirage. “And I don’t want your spike.”

Prowl’s facial derma was a virulent shade of magenta. “I never wanted that from you,” he snapped, and contempt dripped from his words.

Mirage shrugged. “If I were willing to stay here, I’d talk Starscream and Optimus into giving me yours and making you work for me. If I wanted to be the leader of a strictly Autobot intelligence agency, which is what you are trying to run here, I could make better use of your tactical net than you do in this environment. But instead, I am going to go and find Jazz.”

“In other words, you’re defecting. I thought better of you. I could have you arrested—”

“You won’t,” said Mirage. “I will not be taking the Deceptibrand. The very idea is preposterous. But you should leave Soundwave alone. I know you want to take him apart and see how his gears turn, but don’t. You think that Galvatron is controllable, because he’s a brute. So did Soundwave, and look where that got him. Galvatron talked him into sending his conjunx on a stupid mission, and then betrayed him as soon as he got good and depressed because of it. Galvatron is a brute, but he’s sly. He will restart the war on Earth, and Soundwave won’t.”

“Don’t you mean ‘Kit’?” Prowl asked, as he seated himself at his desk. “Or is it Kytherion, now that you’ve been apart for so long?”

Mirage winced, and then wished he hadn’t. “I’m not sharing anything that has ever passed between myself and Kytherion with you.”

“Mirabilis,” said Prowl. “Mirabilis Quincunx of House Deleasmos.” His accent was terrible, but he did pronounce it correctly.

“That was my name,” said Mirage, resigning himself to not knowing exactly how much Prowl knew about him. Or his amica, from whom he had never formally severed himself, because it had been severed officially when Soundwave had been exiled from the Towers—whether they liked it or not.

“Yes. It is,” said Prowl.

“It means nothing to anyone other than Soundwave and Hound now, except for myself, of course.” Mirage sat down in the chair across from the desk and laid the gun down, but closer to his reach than Prowl’s. “That name is unfit for your glossa, and an insult coming from you. You don’t have the status to refer to me as Quincunx, and since all of my siblings are dead, it’s not even accurate, now.”

“Those fine distinctions are dead and good riddance,” said Prowl.

“Then let them lie in their vaults in peace,” Mirage retorted. “You sent Hound, and me, and you knew very well that he wouldn’t leave me behind, on a mission with Getaway, and now we’re separated.”

“So you are,” said Prowl. “When I contact Getaway, and give him his orders, I’ll pass along your request that your mate be returned. You can leave now.”

Mirage’s optics flared blue…and then violet. It was not unintentional, although it did come to him easily given his state of very real anger. “Let me tell you something you ought to have known by now,” he said. “People who don’t know us well think Hound is my guard, my big strong mate who takes care of the overclocked racer. They’re wrong. Jazz would have known better. Jazz knows that Hound is the one who can talk me out of things that will make life more difficult. And without him, you’ve got no idea what I’ll do.”

“That’ll be Soundwave’s problem now, won’t it?” Prowl shrugged. “What do you think your cousin is going to do for you?”

“Nothing,” said Mirage. “I’d Filed Intent on Ravage years ago. But I cancelled it formally, so he’d know that I’m not going to harm either one of them. If I were going to kill him, I wouldn’t do it through his spark-bond. That was one thing they didn’t do to our family.” He leaned back in the chair, giving the appearance of relaxing, still fully aware of his surroundings. Especially of the cameras, and the side doors. If Prowl did attempt to arrest him, or have him arrested, he wasn’t going to succeed.

“You just want to talk to Jazz?” Prowl didn’t seem to believe it.

“Well,” said Mirage, “at least some of the exiled Lost Light crew ended up with Deathsaurus, and so did what’s left of the DJD. Swerve talks to First Aid, you know, and First Aid is my friend.”

“What did Swerve tell you?” A flicker of interest within those cold optics. “Does he enjoy the Warworlders’ elegant little late suppers?”

Mirage laughed. “Go ask him yourself. Maybe he’ll tell you. I didn’t tell him that Getaway is your agent, because you hadn’t confirmed it yet. Anyhow, Jazz has gone and adjuncted himself to the only competent leaders that Cybertron still has in the Sol System, and I want to find out what he knows about this. If you’re nice to me, perhaps I’ll let you know how things are with the EDC. If nothing else, I can catch up with Noah. I want to see him again before he gets old and dies.”

“I forgot you’d had a human,” Prowl muttered. His field, normally unreadable, flared out in mild surprise, with a hint of disgust.

“That’s a vile way of saying whatever you think might have happened.”

Mirage let it drop. He would not waste his breath defending his friend. Nor would he say that he hoped Deathsaurus would go after the Lost Light. He had higher hopes of getting reunited with his conjunx via Deathsaurus than he did via Prowl. And he trusted Soundwave to convey the message.

“And if Jazz dies?” Prowl’s doorwings flared.

Mirage rolled his optics and snorted. “It won’t be your doing. The head of Sanctuary Security knows you as well as you’ve ever let anyone know you, except possibly Jazz, who has seen you more recently and spent more continuous time with you. And she has Filed Intent on you. She’s going to be looking for your operatives. She knows you’re venomous, and you’ll ruin your so-called friends as easily as your enemies. She has experienced that personally, after all.”

“Only if they betray me.” Prowl sighed. “You could—well, you know.”

“You want me to burn Jazz and take out Kytherion? My amica? No. The war is over, Prowl, and your tactical net has turned in on itself because you’ve got nothing to do, hasn’t it? Before long, you’ll be crazier than I am.”

As he spoke the words, Mirage realised that he actually did believe them. Prowl was going mad. He wondered if he ought to tell Optimus before he left. He wondered if Optimus would believe him. But if not, maybe Starscream would.

“Starscream’s inviting the Decepticons to join the Council of Worlds, planet by planet,” said Prowl. “Sanctuary. Ankokuyousai. Chaar. Velocitron. Optimus thinks he’s won because Megatron defected, but Megatron’s fucked off with the rest of the Lost Lighters and he’s probably also going to end up on Sanctuary. The Cons fucked us. And Jazz helped them.”

Mirage shook his head. “So what?” he asked lightly. “They’ve lost more colonies than we have, on account of the fact that Megatron kept destroying them. Even if they all agree, they still won’t really outnumber us.”

“Are you sure?”

Mirage shrugged. “I am sure I am not going to kill Jazz, who recruited me and taught me to live in a world where nothing I knew had the slightest utility, or take out Soundwave, which will also end Ravage, leaving Galvatron in charge of the Decepticons, and watch you talk Optimus into conquering Earth all over again, only with our flag, not theirs. And Ravage is not what I thought she’d become under Megatron’s hand. I hate her, but I must admit that.”

“Ravage and Deadlock played lob ball with your father’s head,” Prowl said, with a lopsided smile. “The indentured musicians played while she danced on the table. Megatron wrote a poem about it.”

“And now that I’ve read all her poetry,” said Mirage, “I know what my father did to her. I don’t forgive her. I never will. I’m not on her side. You’d be better off if Hound and I kept an Autobot watch on Sanctuary, but no, you’re probably going to be fool enough to send someone out there to try and burn all of us, and the poor sot will end up as dead as my father is.”

“You’ll shed your badge before you’ve been there a breem,” Prowl scoffed.

“If I do, it won’t be for any of the reasons that you’re imagining.” Mirage stood up. “If anything happens to me, Hound and Jazz will come after you. Wherever Getaway has taken my Hound, I know he won’t stay there forever. I know he hasn’t forgotten me. He will come to me if he can, and if he needs help, I will arrange his rescue, and I will be there when we find him.”

“Charming you think that Soundwave will help you with that,” Prowl mused.

Mirage looked back at him sharply. Prowl didn’t need to know that Soundwave—that Kit—had known Hound almost as long as Mirage had.

“I haven’t forgotten what you did to Howlback. None of the people who’ve worked for you closely have. She was loyal to Megatron, always; but she helped us when our interests aligned, and you used her for more than just information. She was a useful informant. She never gave us information that would hurt her people, but because of her, we got some of our own out alive. Yet you sent her to Garrus.”

Prowl actually looked a bit forlorn. “She was a Decepticon, and she shouldn’t have been where she was the last time I found her.”

“She was trying to find Grimlock. She told you that, and the other Dynobots told you that after you sent her away; they were done with him, but they did still care about her. You could have ransomed her back to Megatron and even got some of our officers back.” Mirage rolled his optics. “I don’t know what you wanted from her, but I’m sorry you didn’t get it. Or maybe I’m not. I doubt you deserved it.”

“If that’s why she went where she did, then I did her a favour.” Prowl chuckled. “I did send her directly to Grimlock’s location.”

“Just remember that she and Jazz are the only people on Sanctuary who ever held any goodwill for you, and now they both hate you,” said Mirage. “Don’t make me the third.”

“There’s only one thing I would ask of you now,” Prowl said, leaning forward. “And I think you might even be willing to do it. Will you help me get Megatron back to Cybertron, when he comes to the Station? You yourself said that you’d have supported a mutiny, had it been properly managed. Without completing his quest, the terms of his parole no longer apply.”

Mirage considered the question. Briefly. He was disinclined to agree. But he didn’t think Megatron deserved to have whatever amnesty Ravage would probably give him.

“Well, I certainly won’t without my conjunx.”

In the Imperial Palace at Shin Uraya, on the Warworld Ankokuyousai:

“I wish you’d reconsider,” said Lyzack, sitting down on the ground.

Esmeral was beginning to accept—to concede, even—that not only was she never going to be able to work in her garden alone, she probably actually needed the help. And Lyzack was her amica. She knew exactly what Lyzack wanted.

(It occurred to her that Tarn had been Nickel’s amica, and that this would have put Tarn within her concordium. She banished the thought at once, and with prejudice.)

“I’m thinking about everyone’s safety,” Esmeral said wearily. “The sparkling is very young. I know that. I don’t…I can’t even hate him for looking like Tarn. He’s got a lot of Seeker in him, though not enough to be born already flying. Perhaps you can teach him to fly. He’s got more of his other parent—whoever that was, I understand it was one of the Cybertronian Emperor’s flock—than Tarn in him. But Deathsaurus…you know what Tarn put him through.”

“I know Deathsaurus is strong and good enough to rise above it,” Lyzack said, stubbornly.

Esmeral in-vented. They were clearing out weeds, which seemed uncomfortably apt, especially since she knew very well that a sparkling, even a violent one, wasn’t a weed. “He is. But he isn’t the only person here who hates Tarn, amicara.”

“What do you mean?” Lyzack asked, frowning.

“I mean that there’s good reason we maintain a chain of custody over Megatron’s fuel, and keep his quarters guarded. There have been attempts on his life. No-one has died. I haven’t chosen to punish anyone very severely, because all of the people who tried it lost people they loved under Tarn’s occupation here, and I will call it that now, because that’s what it was. And I can. Megatron made Tarn what he is. Then he betrayed us all, and then Tarn went mad, and we’ve lost Kyoukichi, and we lost Blue Bacchus, who loved my mother as much as he loved Black Shadow, and he was the closest thing to a father I had. So on top of everything that happened to my conjunx, and to me…”

Esmeral shook her head. It was too much to go on with. “I understand exactly why people try it.”

Lyzack was alarmed. Even if Esmeral hadn’t been able to see her face, her field was all over the place. “Do you really think they’d hurt a little sparkling?”

“If I didn’t, I would have someone who didn’t live in the palace adopt him.” Esmeral sighed. “You are growing attached to him because Nickel is attached to him. But she didn’t know he existed until Leozack found him. He nearly killed Leozack, and yet Leozack’s willing to take him. But the reason I have insisted that he remain with you or your brother and…Forestock, as long as he’s here, is that the three of you—and probably Nickel as well—can defend him, if you have to, and even if he’s up to defending himself, he should not have to do it. The rest of these strangers don’t know our palace, our terrain, or our people. There have been no attempts so far. I want it to stay that way.”

“He’d be safe with us,” said Lyzack stubbornly.

“He’ll be safer where nobody knows nor cares who his parents were,” said Esmeral. “Sanctuary, perhaps. Vos—I mean, Forestock—and Leozack want to take him, I know, but I also know that he hates them, and I can’t even blame him for that. But Ravage could find him a family, don’t you think? I haven’t asked her about it yet, but you yourself told me that Dedication—let’s use his name—will at least speak to that brother of hers. He’s called Stalker, isn’t he? Your mother must have mentioned him to you at least once. I’d trust him with Dedication if he knew more about Ankokuyousai. He’s trained the way your aunt Ravage was trained. And your mother, Pounce, of blessed memoria.”

Lyzack was hurt. Esmeral could feel it, and she was sorry for the hurt. And sorry to remind her of the loss of her mother, though that was no recent thing. “I’ll explain this to Nickel,” she said. “I think Nickel and Glit are becoming something like friends. Glit is our mother’s sibling as well.”

“Exactly so,” Esmeral said. “He will still be within your concordium. Nickel and you can visit him. But he will be safe from the people here who remember Tarn and his mecha.” She sat back on her heels. “Lyzack…we are still learning what some of Tarn’s people were doing while they were here. They did not stay in the palace or their ship at all times. Some of them treated some of our people as badly as Tesarus tried to treat Di. That turbofox that Guyhawk shot—the one Dedication is mourning, I know about that—it was fed on at least one of my subjects.”

Lyzack shuddered, and put her hand on Esmeral’s shoulder. Esmeral was upset herself, and Lyzack knew it, though Esmeral was keeping her field and emotions controlled, partly because of her people and partly because of her newspark. It was not clear whether Lyzack was supporting herself, or Esmeral, through that touch. And it probably didn’t matter.

Esmeral let her, and then she let Lyzack help her back up to her feet. There was a small shrine in the deepest part of the garden.

When they got there, white flowers were growing around it. And they were not flowers that Esmeral had planted.

Esmeral didn’t even recognise them.

“That’s…unexpected,” said Lyzack.

Esmeral went up to the shrine itself and laid her hands on the little statue of Solara Souansha that occupied the alcove there. Something felt different. She was aware of a field, very faint, that did not belong to her. Or to Lyzack. And it wasn’t the shape of a prayer. She knelt down and put her hands on the ground.

“Who is there?” she said aloud and within all at once.

The voice came out of the ground. “Souansha,” it said: creator. But the voice did not belong to Solara, who was also called Solus on Cybertron. Whatever the voice was, it had taken that name for itself. Or perhaps it had always had that name. There had to have been a reason they’d given that name to the one Prime they, even after becoming Decepticons, had still honoured.

Lyzack gasped.

“Esmeral,” she said softly, “I can see lines on your face that weren’t there before.”

“We have believed that Ankokuyousai has been dead for millions of years,” Esmeral said, all in one vent. “And we’ve kept it on life support. But Ankokuyousai never existed, and Souansha…Souansha is beginning to wake from her long, healing sleep.”

There were tears on her face. She could feel them. So could Souansha, who reached out to her, and also to her newspark.

“We have lost so much,” said Esmeral, “but our world is returning to life. We can keep her alive like this for a while, I think. But before long, we will have to find her a sun.”

Later, when she returned to her rooms, Esmeral saw the pattern of biolights under her facial derma, sensors and transmitters that maybe had always been there but never before ever shown themselves. Without being told to, she painted within them, and lined her optical sockets as well.

Deathsaurus thought it was beautiful, and he told her so in more than words, that night when they merged.

While Esmeral had been in the garden—and Megatron had been talking with Rung—Minimus had gone looking for Rewind, who liked to wander around the palace. Rewind was fascinated by everything on the Warworlds. He had said that it was a window into the past of a part of Cybertron that the Iaconi government had all but completely destroyed.

This had confused Minimus, because the people of Uraya had never been conquered. They had simply left Cybertron, suddenly and all at once, in ships that no-one in Iacon had even known they were building, to find a new world.

When Minimus found him, Rewind was in the library, which really shouldn’t have been surprising. He was surrounded by datapads, some of them older than Minimus was himself.

The conversation he was about to have was not going to be easy. Minimus vented in deeply, exchanging the air in his frame, and braced himself for it.

“Minimus,” Rewind said, with a big, broad smile. “It’s so good to see you. I wish I’d known, aboard the Lost Light. We could’ve talked! Not about Dom—not if you didn’t want to, anyway—but there was so much else we could’ve discussed, things only you would remember…”

Minimus sat down across from him at the table. He was grateful that it was a table with chairs, even though that made it higher than he was strictly comfortable with, and higher than suited Rewind, as well. He wasn’t used to all the kneeling and squatting the Warworlders did so easily. “Rewind,” he said, “have you thought about how you’re going to tell your daughter that her carrier has died?”

Rewind stared at him with an expression that was equal parts horror and confusion. “What are you talking about, Minimus?”

Minimus sighed. “Surely my brother couldn’t hide the entire carriage from you,” he said gently. “Did he go on some sort of trip without you? I’ve gathered that would have been cruel, but well…did he try to convince you he’d just picked Charis up from a random hot spot, as if we’d still had a lot of active ones going back then? Surely you must have wondered why she looked so much like Dominus and I.”

“None of this is making any sense to me.” Rewind scowled. “Who is Charis?”

This was a response that Minimus hadn’t prepared himself for. And he was very uncomfortable; he was beginning to have unpleasant thoughts about mnemosurgery, which was a rotten thing to do to anyone, but a horrific thing to do to a Recorder—

“Minimus,” said Rewind. “Are you all right? Do you need to go to the infirmary—”

“Rewind,” said Minimus, “you’re a Recorder. Even a Recorder as old as you are—and I’m aware that you were significantly older than Dominus four million years ago, so you’re not young—should not have information creep that’s serious enough to forget the adoption…or birth, since that is apparently a thing that my family does…of a bitlet.”

Rewind glanced at the ceiling for a moment, his expression almost prayerful. His field was almost blank.

Minimus waited for him to finish processing the information. He didn’t know what else to do. He hoped that it wouldn’t be Rewind who needed a medic. Had he tripped some hidden routine, designed to keep Rewind from ever remembering something that he had been forced to forget about? And why would Dominus do that?

Dominus had been casually cruel. Thoughtless. Not spiteful. Perhaps he had wanted to protect Charis from the DJD in the event of his discovery, but Minimus couldn’t see how that would work, and why only Charis, not Rewind himself?

“Minimus,” Rewind said. “Look at me.”

Minimus nodded. “You seemed to be having a moment…”

“I was,” Rewind said, “but I think I know what’s wrong here now. Carrying, bitlets, sparklings…none of that is a thing where I came from. You forgot—like so many other people forgot, and it’s actually very hard for me, but I can’t really fault you for that…”

“I forgot what?”

Rewind’s voice was very quiet, but the upset in it would have been audible even if Minimus hadn’t been able to feel his field. Or smell him, which was something he did, now that he didn’t wear armour.

“The Dominus Ambus that I was conjunct with was not actually your brother. That’s why I was so uncomfortable during the memorial, and it’s one of the reasons I would have chosen Chromedome over Dominus if there had been any chance of saving him. Chromedome wasn’t my original conjunx, but he’s my conjunx now. I never knew that Dominus. I’m very like the Rewind you knew, and I really would have loved to reminisce with you—in part so that I would have known what was different before some of this came to light. But I’m not that person. I wasn’t him to begin with, and I can’t become him.”

Minimus shuttered his optics for a moment. “I’m sorry. I would never…I would never ask you to be someone you’re not,” he said. “Believe me. I’ve had to do it too long, myself.”

Rewind patted his hand, and Minimus opened his optics again when he felt the touch. “My former conjunx was a difficult, privileged person who took the credit for much of my work. But I did not have a twin named Eject, and I did not have a daughter named Charis. Don’t you remember? The Rewind who was conjunct with your brother died when the Lost Light crossed paths with itself in a different timeline, and I…crossed over somehow. And somehow, probably because that Rewind died…I was left behind.”

Minimus felt as if he were going to discorporate on the spot, just from embarrassment alone. “You and Dominus didn’t have a sparkling?”

“I don’t even think that was possible in our world.” Rewind shook his head. “And if we did, he never told me about it.” He glanced out the window. “Before I came here, I’d never heard of sparklings before. People are either forged or manufactured. Nobody’s ‘born’ in that sense of the word. We don’t have children like organic beings do. The first sparkling I ever saw for myself was the one who was chasing around after Dom, until he got shot. Of course, they’re all over the place around here—but is that child okay? I am worried about him.”

“I don’t think so,” Minimus said with a frown. “The Warworlders don’t want him to stay here. It seems cruel, but they are Decepticons, even though I do like Empress Esmeral. They want nothing of Tarn left behind. He’s going to have to leave, either with us, or with one of the other groups who want to leave when the Warworlds return to more settled space. But that’s…that’s a digression. Do you want to take him? The Empress would be relieved if you did, I believe.”

Minimus was also worried about the sparkling. But he wouldn’t have had the first idea what to do with one, even though it did keep looking at him like he ought to know it from somewhere. And when he thought about it, it seemed obvious that maybe Megatron shouldn’t be parenting anyone. Not just because there were so many people who wanted to kill him, but also because he had been badly brought up himself and wasn’t particularly interested in anything even remotely like therapy.

Rewind stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Again. “I don’t…” He shook his head. “If you wouldn’t know what to do with a child, I certainly wouldn’t know either. I would have to ask Chromedome. Anyhow, I do not have a daughter. Perhaps you should tell her, and perhaps you should also prepare her for meeting someone who looks like her ‘Sire’ but has no understanding of what that might mean. Are you close?”

“No.” Minimus felt his facial derma heat up. At one time, he had been very defensive about the situation; he’d even been angry with Charis. But now he was going to have to tell her that she had been right.

“I’m sorry,” said Rewind. “For both of you.”

“Charis never liked the idea of hiding her alt-mode,” Minimus explained. “She fought with Dominus, who warned her that whatever she did, she shouldn’t expect either one of us to do likewise. And after Dom left, Charis abandoned her armour for good. She said she was disappointed in me, and after I became Ultra Magnus, she never spoke to me again. And she refused to join the Autobots, because of those issues. Fortunately, she also refused to join the Decepticons. She’s been a Neutral for milvorna now, and apparently there is more than one Neutral party, even though Metalhawk wants us to think he can speak for them all.”

“Interesting,” said Rewind. “Is Charis a Recorder?”

“She has your interest in history, at least. She runs a political party on Cybertron. They’re…really not serious,” Minimus said, deeply embarrassed on several levels. “They want us to have socialised healthcare, which I think is a good idea. But they also promise that if they ever win an election, their government will provide all adults with a free case of engex each tenday.”

Rewind laughed at first, but then he stopped short. “Is Cybertron even having elections? Do you think she’s maybe a little…off balance?”

“I don’t know.” Minimus shrugged. “I mean…no, Cybertron isn’t having elections, but I don’t know much about her mental state. I think she might be saner than I am, but I’m not sure how much of a recommendation that is.” He bowed his head. “I don’t think she has much respect for me. She didn’t like my work, although she liked it better than her carrier’s. For someone with a strong interest in government, she’s not overly fond of law enforcement.”

Rewind laughed out loud. “Maybe I’ll like her,” he said. “What’s her party called?”

“Two-Tailed Turbofox.” Minimus sighed. “There’s an Urayan legend to the effect that sapient turbofoxes grow extra tails as they get older and more powerful—”

“I know,” said Rewind.

“I wasn’t sure,” said Minimus. “Perhaps your Uraya was different as well. Anyhow, her party’s mascot has only two, because it isn’t ‘seeking power’ as a goal.” It was hard to keep from rolling his optics. “I’ve seen her on news broadcasts wearing a fake second tail.”

“Are you sure it’s a fake?” Rewind asked, with a mischievous smile.

“Why, is that legend true in your universe?”

“How do you know that it isn’t true here?” Rewind said, which really wasn’t an answer. “These people here are mostly from Uraya. Maybe I will ask them. Anyhow, how did you know that she doesn’t have a real second tail? It does seem more likely that this is the case, but…all legends aside, she could’ve had another grafted on…”

“It was pink,” said Minimus. “The rest of her isn’t pink. At least, it wasn’t pink that day. She was white when she emerged. But she’s been lots of different colours, over the years. I worry about her. She’s a Neutral leader…that Metalhawk loathes.”

“There isn’t much we could do to protect her from here,” said Rewind, “but I’d like to meet her, if we ever get back to Cybertron. There should be elections, even if Starscream insists on being a monarch. He can’t make all the decisions. He literally can’t. He went to science school, not dictator school. Perhaps I’ll join her Two-Tailed Turbofox party someday.”

“I’ll arrange it,” said Minimus, although he didn’t think this was a good idea at all. “I think one of the reasons that I like Verity Carlo so much is that she reminds me a little of Charis.”

Excerpt from an essay posted to The Big Conversation by @cybercatastrophe (verified):

The war is not now and has never been over. When there is peace without justice, this is called ‘order’, and our war slips under our dermal mesh and hides in the silences. Even when we don’t speak it aloud, it expresses itself in the millions of petty cruelties and guarded retreats we experience every day. The only way to truly end our war is by concordant consensus, and that would require us to listen to everyone, whether we liked them or not, even if we were afraid of them, or worse, of becoming them.