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A Spark Half on Loan

Shockwave has fought in the darkness for eons. Longer, in fact, than many races have existed. He has outlasted even ideologies that lasted as long as some species' existence. Now, in the darkness of exile, what waits for him? Peace at last, or war? Freedom, or subjugation? (Set in the IDW comics, Fanfic/AO3 does weird sorting for TF)

Twisted_Fate_MK2 · Anime e quadrinhos
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51 Chs

Luna Rosa - Finale

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They were being followed.

And not very subtly, either… At least compared to what he had grown used to, over the long millennia. Though, in true honesty, it was an impossible thing to compete with. Soundwave's expertise and exploits, along with his own more modest ones, left much to be desired from this world's offerings of such things. And thus, made detecting such clumsy attempts at espionage child's play. At least, so long as they lingered so easily within even his drone's sensor range, unobstructed as it was with their pursuer in the skies above.

Fools… Had they remained in the trees, he might have been unable to detect them, if they kept such range.

But then, how were they to know his true nature?

More importantly… He turned his attention to the woman, trailing along a dozen units beside him and several more to the north. As a copse of trees came between them, he reached out to embed one of his relays - a simple disk that adhered to the bark by way of a powerful adhesive - while she could not see him. A moment later, she would have been able to see his drone's back once more. When she kept her pace, he concluded she had seen nothing - as expected, but still, it was good to confirm such things.

All according to plan.

Save their follower…

The obvious question occurred - should he inform Summer that they were being followed?

The next obvious came in tandem, though - how would he explain that he knew?

And finally, above all - who was being followed?

It could be either - or both - of them. And between the two, he knew of no reason why Summer Rose, a simple mother of two and Huntress of only middling notoriety, would be tailed as such. But Shockwave? There were half a Kingdom's worth of reasons that he would be followed. That he would be hunted, and by one with the technology - his sensors, Luna affixed and in his drone alike, could discern Dust powered thrusters more than merely easily - to maintain flight for so long, with the confidence they would be able to intercept him even at such range if he took flight himself. Any alteration to their movement patterns, patterns held for hours now, could very well cue his tracker to become their attacker.

No…

He could not risk Summer Rose's life.

She had a daughter, dark haired and painfully familiar, to return to.

He would need to lose her, then - whilst simultaneously not precipitating a preemptive attack from his pursuer. An option more easily considered than acted upon, unfortunately. The easiest ways were all too dangerous - either their pursuers would react, which could prove hazardous to her, or he would reveal what he was, which was just as hazardous and risked pushing her away from trusting him. In a moment in which that might just kill them both.

Or, well, kill her and destroy his drone, at least.

A far more permanent problem for one of them than the other…

Conflict, unfortunately, seemed inevitable. Anyone pursuing him was far from likely to consider negotiation unless his Insecticons were involved, and he detected none nearby. Given the near zero likelihood that enough Insecticons to threaten him in any way could hide from him, or would even be so inclined to, he had to weigh his options. Options, preferably, of the non-orbitally stationed variety.

"Sol!" Summer's words drew him - mostly - out of his considerations. Enough that he swiveled at the hips, his sidearm snapping up to bark two shots up into the air. Each freed one of the Giant Nevermore's wings as it came down from the clouds. It fell, trailing giant feathers and smoke, as he holstered his weapon and turned.

"I can handle myself." He assured her, seizing the opportunity offered, as much as he found her a genuinely warm person. "I don't need you watching me, Rose."

"Okay…." She blinked, standing beside a tree twenty feet away, her bow in front of her and face screwed up in confusion. "That's… Rude."

"Not really." He grunted, "But you are free to think whatever you like."

"And I damn well will." She snapped back, "What the hell crawled into your ass and died?"

"Just keep your distance." He snapped, turning and striding away, "I don't want you in the way."

"What the hell…"

He disliked it, but the performative cruelty put her off enough she did fall back away from him. Another ten feet only, but that was progress. He took the chance to move away himself, adding another ten feet. Any space was good space, for the moment. And, hopefully, when his pursuer made their presence known Summer would be agitated enough with him to go off on her own and leave the mysterious stranger she'd met to deal with the people hounding him on his own. If only because she assumed they had a good reason to be after him.

Which was truer than she knew.

Suddenly, he detected motion ahead of him. A still signature which moved away from his side and into his path and then stopped. Unlike the animals which fled on his approach. Overhead, the aerial unit moved between himself and Summer. Blocking her. Resigned, he turned to the side, moving further away from the woman to make more space - enough she most likely couldn't even see him, now. The motion ahead of him returned, of course, moving to match him, but that was no matter.

So long as Summer was kept safe from his past, the setback of losing this body was… Negligible.

Within a minute he reached a small, ovular clearing backed on one side - the one to his rear, notability - with a steep dropoff topped by thick shrubs. The man waiting there was broad and bare chested, dressed in dark green trousers and open-toed sandals. He wasn't armed, but his dark skin was muscled and crossed by enough scars to make sure Shockwave knew he was a warrior.

Not enough for him, he suspected. But a warrior.

More importantly…

"I do not know you." He said, turning slightly and laying a hand on his weapon.

"No, you don't. My name is Hazel. Hazel Rainart." The man growled, his voice low and gravelly as he… Raised his hands. "And I don't know you. But if you'll let me, I'll save your life."

Hios processors all ground to a sudden, quiet halt as he registered the man's words. "What."

"I work for someone." He explained vaguel, "Someone that wants the woman you're with dead. My companion wants you dead, too. But I don't."

"You… Are not here for me?" He murmured as his mind caught up with him. Distantly, he was aware of the man's confused face and the fact he'd lost concentration on maintaining the natural expression and movements of a human body, which left him standing unnaturally still with a flat, void face. "You're… Here for Summer."

"We are…"

Suddenly, he detected the flying unit turn sharply and dive at high speed, building up energy as it came down. On a direct intercept course for where he expected Summer to be. Without thinking, he turned and raised his sidearm, barking out three shots in an effort to intercept the diving attacker. None struck it, but each was close enough that whatever safety systems inside the pursuer warned it off, and it turned away

Sol turned and knelt as the large man rushed towards his back, and then thrust up and in with his shoulder, checking his charge and throwing him back. He turned so sharply at the waist that his synthskin tore all along its edge, leaking the dull green coolant that kept it fresh. Leveling his weapon, he snapped off another two shots, which slammed into the man's Aura with enough force to throw him back.

But whoever Hazel really was, Shockwave's evaluation of 'a warrior' held true.

He hit the ground and rolled to the side, dodging a third shot as Sol stood. The man ripped a rock from the earth as he came up and turned, hurling it into the side of his weapon with nigh Herculean force. The stone shattered on his hand, ripping through synthskin and forcing his gun just to the side as he fired, so that the shot sailed over Hazel's head. Before Sol could correct, Hazel rolled forward onto his haunches and hurled another hunk of rock that caught him in the face, blinding him for a heartbeat.

He shook it off, but detected motion in the same moment and turned to bring his right arm up between them.

It gave way with little effort in the face of the powerful fist that came down on it, bending the superstructure of the limb and ripping apart its internals in a spray of dull green coolant, purplish energon, and black oil. He snapped a shot off but, blind, he heard it miss and blow apart a tree beyond the man.

Hazel pushed off him and backed away as Sol's vision cleared and snarled, "What are you?!"

He opened his mouth to speak…

And heard Summer's shrill voice break the forest silence in a long, energon chilling scream.

He knew her rough location, but there was motion - three signatures, intertwined closely - and so didn't dare open a Spacebridge to her directly. Instead, he rose and murmured, "More than meets the eye, Hazel Rainart."

"What-"

The Spacebridge opened below him as he leapt, but even so, opening it so closely burned away the synthskin and more fragile elements of his legs, exposing their silvery frames and winding, blackened cables. Hazel leapt for him but, several feet away, he had no chance. Sol vanished into the Spacebridge and turned, watching the wash of colors around him spin and splay for the micro-moments it took for him to move.

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"The hell is his problem?" She murmured, watching the man vanish into the treeline and turning to head off, falling more or less back into the formation that they'd sort of fallen into.

As they walked, she saw him turn off, making more space between them. She frowned for it, but if he wanted to be petty about whatever was stuck in his craw, she wasn't going to fight him on it. Or, more importantly, obsess over it and lure the Grimm in with how pissed it all made her. Which was one of the first things you learned once you were in the field. Emotional control meant you could avoid luring every fight right to you, and could instead take them in your own time, and on your own terms.

It did suck, though…

He'd seemed like a genuinely good-

She caught a flicker of motion out of the corner of her eye and her instincts screamed at her, drove her to turn and drive away. She hit the ground and rolled onto her hands and knees as something impacted the ground with a grunt. She rose, turned, and drew an arrow in one motion, gaze snapping around to a lithe man in loose, white trousers and an open, thin gray shirt. He chuckled as he ripped his twin-blade gauntlet out of the soil and stood, a long, segmented tail flicking behind him as he straightened and set his hands on his hips.

"Oooooooh, very good reflexes, little bird!" He hackled, cocking his head manically to the side. "Very good indeed!"

"Who the hell-" She flinched as gunshots cracked through the air, echoing distantly from behind the Faunus,who frowned deeply about something before he suddenly smiled widely and giggled. Summer snarled, "What the hell do you people want?"

"Oh…" He laughed loudly, throwing his head back and rolling it languidly along his shoulders. "Let's just say… You'll see soon enough!"

He punctuated his words by throwing his head and shoulders to the side in a move that should have sent him sprawling. Instead, his grinning face came down almost level with his hips as he sprinted around, one hand thrown back behind him while the other hovered at the side facing her protectively. She nocked the broad tipped arrow in her hand and snapped the shot off, but he threw himself down, rolling through the dirt like a pig in mud and coming up on all fours, rear raised and tail posed like a scorpion as he chuckled.

She reached for another and he charged, rearing up as he reached her and Sumer brought the flash-arrow around. She backpedaled and threw it at him, the sensitive head pinging off of him hard enough to disturb the Dust inside the little cylinder behind the broadhead. It went off in a flash and she turned to run while he was-

She screamed as a blow carved across her, searing pain ripping all along her back and shoulder, trailing fire like she'd been carved open. She staggered forward and threw her left hand back, yanking arrows free and throwing them above her as she went on. Her Semblance, Momentum, kicked in and coin them to face where she expected the Faunus to be, then accelerated them to nearly the speed of sound.

One of them, it turned out, was a blaze-arrow, which lit up the forest around her in a vibrant flash of orange and red that threw her pursuer away.

She drew another arrow and turned, ignoring the pain in her shoulder - and the confusion, since her Aura was still up - to bring a heavy, Dust imbued shock-arrow to bear on the man. He was smoking and singed, but seemed more amused than hurt as he came rocketing towards her. Snarling, Summer pumped Momentum into her arrow and let loose. The heavy, steel arrow shot free with the internalized kinetic force of a cannonball, backed by both her drawstrings, on a straight road to his chest.

Then a lance of green carved down and caught it in mid-flight, annihilating the arrow.

She snarled and reached for another, before a woman slammed down in front of her and spun on a heel, bringing her hand up and in in a thrusting motion. Three curved blades lashed out in tandem, and Summer brought her bow up to catch them. It came apart in pieces as the woman's fingers flicked and curled. Then she dipped to the side, and the Faunuse slipped by, black-wreathed hand snapping in and up.

She felt her Aura boil as it peeled away, and then felt the blade carve through her jaw and up, through her face and all the way up through her eye to the top of her forehead.

"Aaaaagh!" She screamed, louder than she ever had before, one hand clutching her ruined face and eye as she scrambled away. The other flicked out, hurling whatever arrow she'd had in her hand at gale speeds, but she had no way of aiming.

All she could see was red, and a spinning forest.

Her leg caught on a root and her scream cut off in a gasp as she fell, arrows shattering in her quiver and ankle twisted painfully. Still, she dragged herself away, desperately slapping the emergency release on her quivers as the Dust caught fire in her Quiver. It fell away with a click and she rolled over, crawling on her knees and hands, ignoring the pain in her face and her back and her leg as adrenaline flooded her and one word pushed to the front of her pain-addled mind.

'Ruby.'

She dragged herself away as fast as she could until she heard a man cackle and slam down onto her, both feet slamming down into the back of her waist.

"And where are you going!" He laughed, turning with all his wait on the small of her back and driving her face into the dirt. Her face bloomed with new agony as dirt, rocks and leaves were driven into whatever was left of her face, and she almost blacked out…

Instead, she snarled and threw herself to the side, throwing the man off her and yanking a rock out of the dirt. She could barely see through the blood washing across her face, but she could make out enough of a shape standing above her to throw the rock.

Then, she felt something slam into her sternum, and cold washed over her.

Whatever it was yanked out of her chest and she flopped, limp and exhausted, to the forest floor as a cold sort of fire burned through her veins. Then she felt a hand on her throat, dragging her up and turning to throw her against a tree where she slumped at its base.

"That should keep you still, hmmm?" The Faunus said as something stepped in front of her and squatted down. She raised a hand to push him away, but he just grabbed the hand and casually flicked his other out, washing her arm in fresh pain as something thudded to the ground.

Her hand, her foggy brain told her after a second.

He'd cut her hand off…

She felt something sharp dig into the side of her face, the intact side, and the man cackled, "Now, now, little bird. Stay awake! I told you you'd see what I wanted, didn't I? Well, now I'd love to show you."

"Tyrian…"

"Yes, yes, I know Hazel's little rules, but this is necessary!" Tyrian argued hotly, digging the blades in deeper. "Tell me, little bird… You don't happen to have any little birds of your own, do you?"

"W-Why…?"

"My goddess wants me to… Nip any problems in the bud, shall we say."

Ruby… He wanted to kill Ruby, too.

Rage washed over her, and she grabbed root in her other hand, her right hand. Ignoring the fire in her shoulder, she yanked the root free with all the Aura she had left to fuel her Semblance, and sprayed the Faunus with dirt based grapeshot. It threw him off her, and she was able to vaguely make out his white form flying away to crash into another tree. She made to chase, stumbled, and found a rock when it slammed into her head. Yanking it free she staggered up, hand raised to hurl lit like a cannon shot-

The world was washed in green, and she was thrown off balance as her weight suddenly… Changed.

Then, the agony reached her and she rolled onto her side, clutching at the burnt stump of her arm with a hand she didn't even have anymore. Mouth open in a silent, ragged scream, she gasped and trembled.

And then… The world was lit by a wash of different colors, before black washed it all away.

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Shockwave's drone appeared in a ball of fire and fury that annihilated the trees around him and turned, angling down at a woman standing over what his sensors read as Summer's - weak - bio-signature. He slammed down into her back feet first and wrapped his hands around her head, and then threw his considerable weight back to pull her down with him. As her legs kicked in the air, he kicked her away and pushed off the ground with his hands. He landed on the forest floor between Summer's broken form and the woman, kneeling and watchin the copper-haired girl hover in the air a few feet away.

He detected motion to his side and turned his head slightly to watch the scorpion tailed Faunus stand, shaking his head and running his fingers through his hair to toss away dirt and rocks and leaves. Grinning, he met Shockwave's gaze and crouched in a ready stance, arms spread to the side and bloodied blades glinting. Slowly, he turned to check on Summer more directly - bio scans could only offer so much data with the drone's relatively limited sensor systems.

She was… In bad shape.

Much of her face was bloodied and mangled, and she had a gash near the crown of her head. Her right arm had seemingly been seared away, and her hand had been cut off as well, blood flowing freely from it. That on its own would kill her soon enough. But she also had a sizeable hole in her sternum, just to the side of her heart.

He needed to get her out, to safety where he could treat her injuries…

"And oh so the 'innocent bystander' comes to play." The Faunus chuckled as Shockave turned to him, one hand drawing the sidearm he'd holstered for his landing maneuvers. "Quite an interesting way to travel, too…"

"Please." The copper-haired girl said as she hovered higher, blades orbiting her hands in little clusters. "Just leave. I… I do not wish to hurt anyone I do not have to."

"Oh, it's too late for that…

"Indeed." He rumbled, "It is."

His hand snapped up faster than was humanly possible and put a hyper-velocity round into the girl's chest. It did no damage, but threw her away and let him turn as the Faunus came in. He ducked under one wing and raised his arm to block the stinger as it came in. The barbed appendage tore through and punched out on the other side of his arm in a spray of coolant and oil, but accomplished little else.

The Faunus laughed and ripped it free as he spun, boot snapping out to catch Shockwave on the chest in a vain effort to push him back. Instead, Shockwave turned and let the leg shoot by, off-balancing the Faunus and forcing him to catch himself with a hand on the ground. Then Shockwave grabbed the leg and pivoted sharply, hurling him into a distant tree with enough force to shake its leaves free and break more than a couple of ribs that Shockwave's drone could hear.

The Faunus rolled as he hit the ground at the tree's base, but Shockwave ignored him in favor of the woman as she came back. Long lances of particle energy carved out and struck him in the chest and stomach, melting aay synth-skin and even a few layers of internal structure before the fire stopped and she strafed to the side, pulsing short bursts that continued to eat through him. He brought his sidearm around to throw her aside, but the Faunus returned them, blade whistling through the air as it cut up to throw his aim off and send the shot wide and high. Then another pulse of energy fire came in, melting through the weapon until it caught a capacitor and overloaded it.

As it exploded, he growled and split his attention to begin preparations for Summer's rescue. She was wounded, severely, and so would need much when he rescued her.

But this wasn't working…

He detected motion and turned as the large man from before finally arrived and leapt, bringing a fist around and catching his head with literally bone breaking force. For him. Shockwave heard the man grunt as he bounced back, favoring his other leg, but one of his optics had been shattered from the blow and his head hung off to the side in its mounting, and could only turn partially.

Before he could react, the Faunus leapt onto his back, burying both sets of blades into where a Human's ribs would be and using his weight to try and pull the drone off balance. It failed, but the maneuver shredded his internal systems while the aerial unit swiveled around to concentrate fire onto his exposed legs. A knee gave out, and Shockwave resigned himself.

To desperate measures.

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Tyrian leapt off his target and laughed as he landed and Hazel came in, leaping up and grabbing the machine, man, thing by the head in what almost looked like a wrestling maneuver. Using his weight, and the power of the arm currently keeping the thing in a headlock, he brought his legs turn and twisted. The head came free with a 'pop', sailing away and trailing three types of oil, sparks, and a warbling sound Tyrian enjoyed almost as much as the little bird's screams from earlier.

For a heartbeat, Hazel relaxed - until the machine turned suddenly and caught him across the jaw with a fist. He staggered and it twisted unnaturally, ripping up its own skin and clothes to snap a kicked at an impossible angle even for Tyrian himself that caught the large man in the bare sternum. Pain, he was immune to, but he still needed air, and staggered away to suck his breath back in after it had been driven out of him. The machine followed, though, leaping off the ground with the leg on the ground and spinning to bring the same kick it had lashed out with earlier down on Hazel's shoulder. Bone snapped and his arm sagged, useless and ruined, at his side before the machine grabbed him by the head and turned, hurling the man off to the side.

"Polendina!" Tyrian hissed as the man collapsed, heaving for breath and clutching his ruined arm, trying to re-socket it to keep fighting. "If Hazel dies, then so does your pathetic little pretend father!"

The girl didn't say anything, but Tyrian hadn't expected her to.

Instead, she shot down at lightning speed and turned, landing on her feet and throwing her hands forward. Floating Array, still in particle-laser format, lanced in to embed shallowly in the machine's chest and stomach. Then green fire spewed forth, straight into its soft innards and then back out the other side in a spray of uncontrolled fire and loose bits of machines.

Finally, it sagged to a knee, arm and leg spasming as it died.

Then, it went still, kneeling on the forest floor beside the dying silver-eyed woman.

"There we go!" he crowed, clapping and flicking blood as he came up behind the still woman. He laid a hand on her shoulder, smearing blood, and she flinched as she turned to look at him, eyes wide and wonderfully frightened. Grinning, he said, "I knew it! I just knew you had some brutality in you!"

"I'm not-"

A sound like fire cut them off and Tyrian turned as a stretch of trees and dirt vanished in a ball of fire and fury. As it faded, his smile widened at the towering, dull purple machine standing there. Its paint had worn down, and he could see some kind of grunge around some of its joints and plates,but it moved like lightning.

He laughed as the blast threw him away.

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Shockwave knelt and laid the small cylinder out, carefully opening the top so as to avoid spilling the nutrient-bath inside. The blue liquid sloshed as the tank settled and he turned, gently picking up the woman and laying her inside before sending the command signal for it to seal and begin the procedure. It did as told, small arms reaching out from the gun-metal sides to grasp her and pull her clothes off, which they pulled away to a waste incinerator at its base while others forced a hose down her throat.

She woke up at that point and, naked and floating in a vat, she panicked.

He sent a signal and anesthetics flooded the tank, washing her consciousness away. Gently, he reached for the tank-

Intense plasma fire slammed into his knee and he registered extensive damage as weather plating left unmaintained for too long gave way, exposing internal servos to the attack. He snarled, and turned, finally taking the flying woman in properly.

And then chiding himself as the obvious made itself apparent.

"Brrrrrrzzat!" He snarled, blasting segments of code and binary command signals directly into every sensory system he could easily access on the woman. She screamed, blades falling to hang limp beside her, and shot off in a random, zigzagging pattern while she clutched at her head as pain doubtless flared all across her body.

Really, she should have known such a weak firewall to her sensory neural network left her exposed.

Lifting the tube he turned and sent another weak, snap burst into the ground as Hazel hobbled after him. The blow threw him back and, incidentally, to safety as the space-bridge flared to life around him, ripping up soil and trees as he was transported away.

He arrived in a wide, bare, square room surrounded by a litany of access hatches, nodules, and doors and stuffed with crates of supplies for his own use. The space-bridge reception pad below him glowed as it cooled, but he ignored it, crossing the room to an Energon output module and grabbing the hose. Attaching it to the tube, he set it down and sighed, a deep rumbling sound that echoed around him.

As he rose, he murmured, "Now, I need an organics laboratory…"

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Summer woke up to… Not quite a headache, but an uncomfortable pressuring throb in the side of her head and her shoulder. Blinking, she opened her eye and then squinted them shut as some kind of… Not-water washed into it. It stung more than a little, and made her suck in a breath through her nose before she grit her teeth and forced her eye open.

She was… Floating, in an odd sort of bluish liquid.

Dully, she turned her head and noticed a dozen little arms, spindly and ending in little balls with four fingers out around it, were roving over her. Poking, prodding, sometimes slicing away the burnt flesh of her shoulder or cutting away at the side of her head. She didn't feel anything, though, and… Gods, it was so hard to think.

She felt tremors and turned, murmuring confusedly in the face mask she was wearing, "Where…?"

The cyclopean crimson eye that met her bored down from on high almost frighteningly. But, as it knelt, that fear sort of… Slipped away, into the fog. Along with everything else.He reached out slowly to tap a finger against something beside her tank, and suddenly she could hear things. Machines whirring, air pumps pushing and drawing air through her hose, a heart monitors, and so much else.

And, the voice, "You are in my base. Currently, inside a medical pod. Undergoing treatment."

"Treat… Ment…"

"You were poisoned, and I am synthesizing a cure using your body's own immune system, in consequence to the fact I lack a true sample. As a result, it will take some time." He explained simply, "I am also repairing neurological damage suffered to your brain and eye from the conflict, as well as nerve damage to your shoulder. Your hips were broken, but are healing. More concerning is the spinal damage, which I am working on solutions for as well, preferably in such a way that does not require its wholesale replacement. As well as manufacturing a new heart implant to attempt to replace your compromised one with."

Her heart was… She raised a hand to her chest, and found a hole ringed by metal just between each of her breasts. It was wide, and solid, and obviously purposeful. On idle curiosity, she reached in and-

A hand from the machine caught her wrist and pulled it away as the machine sighed, "Do not do that."

"Kay…" The arm remained, and two more swiveled to take either of her ankles and pull her legs still, too. Then she remembered and hummed, "My hand…"

"I replaced it." He said, then sighed, "But… The cloned limb is rejecting. Yet again. I do not understand why yet, but all the cloned hands have rejected… The eyes, as well."

"Mhm." She blinked, "How… How long…"

"A month, thus far." He answered, "Many more stretch ahead of you. I will continue cloning trials to repair you with. If that fails, I will attempt hybridized organo-cyber implantation. But I do not know how long you will be here. To fully repair your extensive damage… Could require years of work."

Years…

Finally, panic managed to push through the fog and her eye widened. Her breathing picked up and she met the machine's gaze, "N-No… T-Too long… R-Ruby, Y-Y-Yang-"

"I will return you to them, as I promised." He said as he stood, and she finally fully recognized who was looming over her. Shockwave went on quietly, "It will just take… Time."

"N-No-"

"I am sorry." He said, reaching out and pressing something.

Fog washed over her and, no matter how hard she fought, she felt it drag her down. And slid unconscious.

XxX----XxX----XxX

He watched the thin woman finally go still and sighed, leaning on the console and shaking his head. "I do not understand why their physiology rejects implantation… It would all go so much faster."

He registered motion, small and quick, flitting behind him, and spun, cannon swiveling up.

The familiar, bird-like machine perched over the access hatch to the room, watching him with bright, sharp, crimson eyes. It cocked its head, looking at his cannon, and he lowered it slowly, letting the Energon cool in its capacitors. Slowly, anxiously, he turned, hobbling a bit on his damaged knee-servo.

Quietly, he said, "Lazerbeak… You are here?"

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