BREAKING POINT

"And the further I get

From the things that I care about,

The less I care about

How much further away I get..."

-The Cure, "Fear Of Ghosts"

A high-pitched whine caught Upstart's attention, and he glanced up from the satellite images on his vidscreen just as Skate rounded a corner and transformed into robot mode, skidding to a halt in the middle of the small Autobot camp. He stepped quickly over to Upstart's "command post" - essentially a portable comm-comp and a collapsible shelter - and snapped to rigid attention. "No Decepticon activity detected, sir! No other activity detected, sir!" Skate reported.

Upstart nodded and opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by a dour voice from the turbopoker game the rest of his troops were gathered in.

"Of course there's no activity, Skate. Skask hasn't had any activity for several dozen millennia now. It will not have activity in the future, and I really don't know why you don't just go off and change your oil when Upstart sends you out to scout this dump." The new speaker was Towcable, dedicated repairman and dedicated pessimist.

"Look, Towcable, like it or not, there are precautions that need to be taken and rules that need to be followed. I'm no happier than you are about being pulled from the front lines for this backscrap garrison garbage, but just because you don't like a job doesn't mean you shouldn't do it well," Upstart put in.

"Not if the job isn't worth doing in the first place. We know for a fact that the Decepticons don't have any more militarization of this area than this same kind of perfunctory patrol along their OWN border with Skask."

"And they know the same. That's the point. If they found that there was nobody here, how long do you think it would take them to move in and fortify this place?" Upstart gestured out at the bleak, scarred visage of Skask. "Sure, the power struggle over Skask may have died abruptly - along with the city itself - when War-Lord Trannis decided to blast it to rubble from orbit, but the Decepticons aren't about to let an open door to the Autobots' flank stay empty for long."

"And how are they going to force an army through this pit? The Decepticons can't possibly want to be here any more than we do. I'd hate to meet the creature that could enjoy living in a graveyard like this."

"Oh, quit bickering, you two," scolded Featherweight, perched on the rim of Workhorse's payload bay. "The High Command says that this is where we go, then this is where we go. Unless you're willing to consider mutiny, Towcable?" A chuckle spread through the group at the glower the repairman shot at her, and the tense mood dissipated. Upstart finished reading his topological update, and he and Skate headed over to the now-resumed poker game.

Workhorse was in his heavy transport vehicle mode, having folded at some point earlier - Upstart guessed much earlier, since the practical supply chief was unlikely to stay in a losing game for long - and Featherweight, with the tiniest degree of claustrophobia, pondered her hand from his roof. Towcable sat to her left, scowling at his cards. Which didn't hint in the least about his hand - it was just his usual expression. The last member of the trio still playing was Kickstand, who leaned back in his chair with his feet on the table, a confident smile on his face and a high-power proton rifle in his off hand. Kickstand's pose indicated no more about the hand than Towcable's had; Kickstand was simply an old hand at turbopoker. He was actually the second-oldest member of the team, having been passed over for promotion more than a few times. The blue-and-red motorcycle was a wizard with anything that could be aimed and fired, but he lacked the inspiration and eye for detail necessary in a leader. Upstart had seen it himself, and apparently so had the High Command.

Regardless, he was a damn fine turbopoker player, and this time, at least, he had reason to appear so sure of himself. Featherweight called, and Towcable, grumbling, tossed down his three fives. Kickstand grinned broadly and melodramatically spread out an Inside Stasis Lock, easily beating the frowning Featherweight's hand. He reached out and collected his winnings, and the disconcerting size of the pile effectively ended the game. Towcable stood up and plodded off. Workhorse transformed, catching Featherweight in mid-air and setting her firmly on the ground before turning to follow Towcable. Kickstand, busy shoveling his loot into a sack, glanced around. "What, no more?" he asked the assembled Autobots. "I was hoping to be able to buy my way off this globe tonight."

Skate dove for the deck and started shuffling it compulsively. "Disable Mr. Diode? We could play Disable Mr. Diode! Someone's gotta want to play! Who's for Disable Mr. Diode?"

Kickstand gave a long glance at his wrist chronometer, and reacted with a long, slow expression of mock concern. "Well...you know, I don't want to spend my whole life playing cards, y'know. You have to leave a few thousand years to drink until you pass out...and I have to set aside some time for a career in the holovids. But I guess one game couldn't hurt."

Shaking her head, Featherweight warded off Skate's question before he could ask it. "Sorry, Skate. I'm all carded out. Anyway, I've got watch in a couple of breems. Maybe Creeper'll join in when he comes back from his shift."

"Watch. Yeah, That's right. Gotta make sure none of the roboroachs have decided to band together and try an uprising," interjected Kickstand sarcastically.

"Right, right, no problem! Creeper can play later, no problem!" Shaking his head emphatically to make absolutely sure that Featherweight understood that there was no problem, Skate turned to deal.

Featherweight turned to Upstart. "So, fearless leader, any pressing matters that need to be attended to, or can you spare the time to talk to a lowly soldier before she goes out to play sentinel against the boogeyman?"

There it was again, that strange pronoun "she"..."gender-specific", that's what they called it. He was still having some trouble with that exclusively organic idea being applied to his kind...though he was slowly getting a better grasp of it through his acquaintance with Featherweight. The strangest thing, though, was that nobody, including the beings in question, seemed to know where these "female" Transformers had come from. Most of them seemed to be relatively young, and besides their "gender", they didn't seem to have much in common. It was odd.

"Upstart?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, of course. I mean, no. I mean, yes, of course we can talk. What is it?" he stammered out, not realizing he'd been so absorbed.

"I was only thinking that you might not really understand the situation your unit is in," she smiled, obviously amused at Upstart's momentary consternation. "Towcable was only vocalizing, in his gruff and argumentative way, what everybody's thinking about this reassignment."

"I know - I'm thinking it myself! We were taken out of a front-line offensive action against a solid Decepticon enemy, where we could do some qualifiable measure of good, and got stuck in at a guard position that we only maintain because the Decepticons do, and the only reason they maintain one is because we do." Upstart sighed exasperatedly, then continued, "It's like this whole bloody conflict...nobody can stop for fear that the other won't. And so I know that we - or somebody, anyway - have to be here, but it doesn't mean I'm not frustrated."

Featherweight put her hand on his shoulder in a consolatory gesture. "I know, Ups...and you've got to remember everyone here feels the same way. Now, Workhorse will certainly never mention it, but you had to expect Towcable to crack sooner or later. Just try not to take that little skirmish, or any others like it, too seriously, hmm?"

"Featherweight, I can't afford to have disarray like that in the unit. It's going to make people ineffective, and an ineffective unit is a unit that I can't assure the abilities of. And if I don't know our abilities..." Upstart trailed off, and glanced up at her grimly. "I can't assure that everyone lives."

"You're a good protector, Ups. There aren't many people who could have gotten Creeper and I out of that mess with the Carnage Attack Squad in Tyrest. You do well."

He put his hand over where hers still rested on his shoulder, but the gaze that locked her optics with his was deathly serious. "Someday 'well' won't be good enough."

The deafening thunderclap of a Decepticon heavy cannon echoed through the camp, and the ground near the makeshift card table erupted in a spray of molten metal, smashing Kickstand to the ground and sending Skate hurtling through the air, to land twisted at Towcable's feet.

Eternal nanocycles passed, then the Autobots reacted. Upstart made a mad dash for the relative safety of his command post, with Featherweight right behind him. Workhorse drew his twin rotary pulse cannons and began calmly moving to meet them, spraying fire in the direction the attackers' shot had come from. Towcable pulled Skate to his feet and the two of them crouched behind the demolished remains of the table - not safe, but at least out of the immediate line of fire. Upstart threw himself at his rifle as another explosion wrought its destruction a few meters away.

"Behind the comm-comp, quick!" he shouted at Featherweight. He took cover himself, and finally had a chance to assess their opposition.

There were four Decepticons approximately three hundred meters from the camp; although the three robots advancing in a phalanx were heavily armored and bristling with weaponry (one of them hefting the smoking cannon that had dispatched Kickstand), the tank-mode trooper in the lead was what caught Upstart's attention. He had wicked-looking spiked treads and a large-bore flamethrower, true, but he also gave an clear indicator of why Creeper had failed to warn them of the approaching Decepticons: Upstart could clearly discern his fellow Autobot's corpse - or rather, what remained of it - chained to the scarred grey armor of the tank Decepticon's front end.

The Decepticons continued to bombard the Autobots' positions. Though Workhorse scored several hits on his way to Upstart's position, he was forced by sheer volume of fire to stop his retreat and take up the defensive behind a nearby ridge. Skate and Towcable, on the other hand, were rapidly losing what little cover the table had provided them, and as a jet of flame seared away much of what remained in a cloud of rolling, oily smoke, they had no choice but to chance a dash to the command post. Skate loosed off a few shots with his electrostatic burst pistol, giving Towcable time to transform and start moving, then transformed himself, shifting into his inline car mode and rocketing towards the desperate little stronghold with Decepticon fire all around him. He screeched to a halt and transformed back, joining Featherweight behind the computer.

Towcable was less fortunate. With neither Workhorse's armor nor Skate's speed to protect him, he was caught by a crackling particle beam from the Decepticon forces before making it even halfway and blasted to glowing fragments.

As the uncontrolled flaming wreck that had been the Autobot repair specialist veered sharply and smashed into an aluminum formation, the Decepticons, now very confident, continued closing. They were in the camp now, and they were holding their heavy weapons fire - because they wanted to make it more fun at close range, realized Upstart with disgust. Suddenly, Kickstand staggered quietly to his feet behind one of the flanking Decepticons, and gave a mirthless smile and wink to the astonished Upstart.

That did it; they had a chance, and he was going to take it. "Featherweight, Skate, you two are fast and undergunned. On my signal, you're going to get the slag out of here right quick and tell the High Command that we've got Decepticon forces well inside of Skask." Cutting off the nascent objections from the two with a sharp wave of his hand, he continued. "You don't have to like it, you just have to do it." He opened a channel to the remainder of his command. "Workhorse, Kickstand, pick your targets, cover your exhaust, and give those two a chance to make it home. On my signal, we show them that we've still got teeth." Upstart heard Skate change back to his vehicle mode behind him, and he knew Featherweight would be ready to spring into the air and assume glider mode at his word. His troops were well-trained. He hoped he could give those two, at least, a chance to serve someone else as well as they had served him.

The lead Decepticon transformed into robot mode, which sent Creeper's body crashing unceremoniously to the ground. Upstart's eyes narrowed. "Now."

Judging by the other Autobots' responses, Creeper's treatment as unpleasant baggage affected everyone equally. As Upstart and Workhorse popped up to engage, streams of hyperaccelerated protons from Kickstand's rifle were already tearing through the leader. They disregarded this entirely, and for several seconds of confusion, Upstart pumped beam after beam into the rapidly-distorting form of his enemy, heedless of the hammering from Workhorse's cannons or the continued fire from Kickstand. Finally, the Decepticon's powerplant could take no more, and he detonated in a blast that visibly unbalanced his teammates.

Burning pieces of wreckage rained down from the blast, and the other Decepticons were shocked into action. Snarling, the heavy cannon carrier spun around, using the momentum to deal a blow with his weapon that sent Kickstand bouncing away with a loud clang. The other two turned their fire on Workhorse, who was less protected than Upstart. The big orange robot stood as stolidly as ever, never faltering in his suppression fire even as his armor was scorched and shot away. Upstart saw that the first Decepticon was about to add his fire to the assault on Workhorse, and, screaming and blazing away with frustration, leapt into the fray.

The shots were wild, but enough of them grazed his enemy to get his attention. The Decepticon lowered his cannon arm, and drew a short, thick, brutal-looking gun. Upstart lunged, and the assault pistol spat its hail of deadly shells in a spray over his head - mostly. A few dozen rounds shredded his back armor, but he barely felt the pain as he tackled his adversary at waist level, sending them both sprawling. Upstart struggled to his knees, and viciously smashed the Decepticon across the face with the butt of his gun. The enemy robot had dropped his pistol in the collision, and he couldn't bring his cannon to bear - Upstart was too close. The Autobot kicked his opponent's arm out of position, brought his gun up, and fired. One less murderer to worry about.

"Hang on, Workhorse, I'm coming!" he called, stumbling to his feet...just in time to witness the unimaginably battered old Autobot finally succumb to a particle beam that punched through his ravaged chest armor and tore itself an exit in his back. Before Workhorse had even fallen, Upstart saw the remaining pair of Decepticons turn to him.

And something even worse. To his horror, Skate and Featherweight, though having fled at his signal, were turning back. "Primus, NO! Turn back, dammit! GO!" he screamed. The Decepticons capitalized on his distraction, and a barrage of munitions sent him staggering backwards. He collapsed into the rubble, defeated, pain coursing through every centimeter of his body. As his optics slowly began to dissolve into static, he saw the cruel grins of his enemies, his rifle lying far out of arm's reach, and the steadily growing form of Featherweight in her glider mode.

Suddenly, Skate was in robot mode in front of him, pistol at the ready and a grim look on his face. "Come on, Commander, we're going!"

Upstart unwillingly struggled to his feet, protesting. "Dammit, go...you bloody fools, you're supposed to be gone, someone has to survive, the Autobots need to know..."

"We're not going without you, sir! We're in this together, sir! Now get up, and we'll get out of - sheeeeeaaaaaaaaaakk!" Skate's words died with their speaker in the flare of a high-powered ion beam, and Upstart fell to his knees again, hopelessly. The battle-scarred visages of the remaining pair of Decepticons grew closer and closer, and the larger one cocked an oversized anti-armor shotgun.

And thin blue lines lanced from the sky. The three of them glanced up as one to see Featherweight, in her graceful, delicate glider mode, spiralling in, firing a nose-mounted laser.

Something in Upstart howled in offense at the inevitable outcome. Echoing its howl with his vocal synthesizer, he shot an arm out at Skate's fallen electrostatic bolt pistol, fluidly swung the arm up, and spat hypothetical death at the cold, homicidal vermin in front of him.

He had just enough time to comprehend that the tangle of wires spilling from his wrist socket was the reason for the failure of his offensive before the larger Decepticon reached him, and just enough time before the Decepticon sent him into merciful oblivion with the butt of his shotgun to see the other one fire a particle beam into the sky and to hear Featherweight's anguished cry...

==-

Upstart awoke to a bright shower of sparks, the hissing of wires, and a sudden, sharp pain in his lower side. Instinctively he shoved himself to a sitting position, and his optics started to resolve the scene. As the picture faded into contrast, he found himself looking into the concerned eyes of Featherweight, who had evidently been crouched over him. For a moment, Upstart tried to figure out what she was so worried about. Then he noticed the twisted, burnt wreck of her right wing and the charred ferrocarbon ribs sticking awkwardly out of her chest, and he shook his head. Of course, they were -

They were what? Dead? His race didn't have much in the way of an afterlife belief, and, Featherweight notwithstanding, this couldn't be heaven anyway - it hurt too much.

"Captured," Featherweight informed him, answering the as-yet unasked question. "Some of us, anyway." Her relief at his survival shifted back to worry. "The lucky ones."

"Some of us? Who else managed to make it out of that massacre?"

"That'd...be me, 'Tart," came a pained voice from behind him. Even through the wavering modulation and intermittent speaker shorts, it was immediately recognizable to him.

"Kickstand?" he asked increduously, straining to turn and see. He couldn't, though - in fact, he was finding it fairly difficult just to keep himself held upright. A minor complaint compared to the alternative, he admitted.

"The one...and...only," managed Kickstand.

"Feather, I'm having a bit of trouble, here..." Upstart indicated his immobile lower body, grimly re-realizing that his left hand was missing.

"Oh, slag, Ups. I'm sorry. I was just trying to reconnect your motility centers when you came to. I must have accidentally caused a signal-circuitry reroute. It's going to take a bit before I can hook this all back up, especially with nothing more than my standard first-aid skills. Towcable'd be a lot more help..." She trailed off dismally. "I'm...I'm sorry. I...it...it looks like a lot of this damage was actually done after you were down and out. They did the same to me, as best as I can tell, although not to the same degree. Kickstand seems to have avoided that - but, truthfully, I don't know how much more they could have done." As she spoke, she helped Upstart turn around, until he saw his expert gunner leaning against the wall.

In slightly less light, Kickstand's pose could have been mistaken for his usual slouch. But he wasn't slouched - he was propped, like a bundle of supply rods. His visor was shattered. His right leg had been twisted ninety degrees to the inside, and his other knee had been torn off. His arms were bent randomly at the joints, and his hands were missing fingers. The rest of his armor was either shot through by shrapnel or charred and blackened by fire, and - as the final detail - his chest had been caved in directly over the Autobot symbol by the cannon-carrier's devastating backhand. The remains of his face smiled ironically. "Boy, 'Tart...you look...bad. Haven't you...been taking care...of yourself?"

Upstart gasped. "Kickstand, are you...?"

"All right?" chuckled Kickstand harshly. "Not even close. But, all things considered, I'm willing to take what I've got."

Upstart turned away from the ghoulish sight, and gestured to Featherweight to continue effecting whatever repairs she could manage. As she knelt down over the access panel in his side, he asked, "So...I'm assuming we're the guests of the 'Cons that ambushed us."

Featherweight shrugged. "I'd assume so, yeah. But I was the first one to regain consciousness, and I haven't seen anyone since I did. There's one door over there..." She pointed off the side of his line of sight. "...and that's it. The ceiling's low enough to reach, probably, but there's no ventilation, no pipes, nothing that we could possibly use as an escape route. The door is, needless to say, very sealed, and none of us is in any condition to try and knock it down. I'd also guess we're somewhere in Skask, but my positioner's been blanked, and so has Kickstand's." Knowing what he'd find, Upstart checked his own internal navigation unit. It had been erased. "I've been busy fiddling with you two to occupy my time..."

Upstart nodded. "So we're the prisoners of an invisible group of Decepticons who shouldn't exist in a cell that's nowhere. Can't see getting out of that easily..."

"No, my dear Upstart, I can assure you you will not," came the disembodied reply. The Autobots glanced around, but there was no fourth party present. The voice was clearly coming over some kind of intercom, and it seemed to emanate from every direction. "Now that you are all at least reasonably functional, allow me to formally introduce myself. I am Screamweaver, the master of the small Decepticon force you have found yourselves the captives of. You have been trespassing in my domain for quite some time. I have been watching you - watching as you laughed, argued, worked, played, fought, and now as you died. My observations have led me to believe that your group is excellently suited for participation in my ongoing studies. This is fortunate for me, as my work has been limited as of late due to an absence of subjects, but decidedly unfortunate for you."

Upstart has no clear idea where to respond, so he merely raised his voice and addressed the room in general. "We were firmly within Autobot-held regions of Skask, performing a routine patrol of the area. Your attack and subsequent apprehension of us are direct acts of war."

The room echoed with a cold, inarticulate sound that it took Upstart a few nanocycles to identify as derogatory laughter. "War? My dear Upstart, our species has been at war with itself longer than you or I have existed. I hardly think my actions at this point are significantly more dark or vile than any others that that carnival of death has spawned. Regardless, your claims to Skask mean little to me. Both sides loudly announce their right to hold its lifeless span, and yet neither has any inclination to invest any effort or time in its occupation. I, however, have reconfigured a great deal of the subterrania of Skask to better suit my work, and therefore have a much greater personal claim to the region than the command of either side."

Upstart noted that both Featherweight and Kickstand had deferred to him in communication with this faceless enemy. He spoke again. "So what you're saying is that this establishment of yours is unauthorized by the Decepticons as a whole?"

"Oh, indeed. Even the work for which it is constructed is only superficially sanctioned by my esteemed comrades. Its location is unknown to them, and but a few possess the desire to learn it. The Decepticon nation, on the whole, finds my methods to be displeasing, though they eagerly accept the reports of my findings. They prefer to give me my instructions and then to have nothing to do with me, and, as deeply insulted as I am, of course, there are certain advantages to that system."

Upstart saw the opening, and desperately pressed on. "If the Decepticons treat you as a nonentity, why help them? Even if you don't want to be an Autobot, there's certainly no reason you have to be a Decepticon! There are plenty of neutral states - "

The laughter interrupted him. "Do not try to manipulate the manipulator, Upstart. The Decepticon philosophy is perfectly acceptable to me as long as it provides me with subjects and support for my projects. Projects which, to reiterate, you will soon be an integral part of." The tone changed from the straightforward and businesslike to one edged with a touch of pride. "My work will, once complete, expand the depths of our knowledge of the Cybertron psyche to heretofore undreamt-of levels. My name shall be cleared of the taint it has unfairly acquired, and my position in history as one of Cybertron's greatest minds shall be cemented. I suggest you seize the time remaining to you prior to your participation to reflect on what it means to be a part of that. Until we meet, my prisoners..." And with that, the voice ceased.

Upstart looked at Featherweight, knowing that the lines of worry etched into the living metal of her face were mirrors of those on his. Things were looking bad. Very, very bad.

"At...least...he was...polite," commented Kickstand.

---

"Soon", it eventually became clear, was a nebulous term as far as Screamweaver was concerned. Days passed, and their captor consistently failed to appear. The prisoners rapidly ran out of things to say to one another, and a forboding silence descended. Featherweight was eventually able to restore Upstart to a semblance of full functionality, which in practice meant that he could pace impotently back and forth across the small cell. Featherweight, meanwhile, sat staring at the floor, and Kickstand remained leaning where he was, on occasion hauling himself painfully across to another wall in a futile effort to break the monotony.

Upstart paused. He heard something, had been hearing it as long as he could remember, and the sound was slowly grating its way through his audio sensors into his brain. It was a humming, a never-ending humming, and it was slowly driving him insane. He wheeled suddenly on Kickstand. "Stop it! Stop! I don't know what you're doing, I don't know why you're doing it, I don't care why you're doing it! Just stop! Now!"

Kickstand jerked his head up. "What're..you...talking about, 'Tart?"

"That sprocking humming noise! I can't take it anymore! I ORDER you to stop making it!"

Kickstand's eyes narrowed at Upstart, and he peered strangely at his commander. "Well...SIR, that'd...be my severely damaged...processor turbine..." He gestured down at the gaping mess of his abdomen. "But...if...my life-sustaining functions...are disturbing you...sir...I'm sure I can...turn them off. Although you don't...seem to have...any problem with...HER shifting...her weight...every two nanocycles."

"Leave Feather out of this," snarled Upstart, adding his embarrassment at his original outburst to his indignation at Kickstand's finger-pointing. "She's not doing anything to you."

"No, not...like my...deliberate...attempt to...bother you..."

"Kickstand, I'm warning you now, I am still your commanding officer, and any more insubordination is gonna cause some right nasty payback, got it?"

"You...and...what Special Team?"

Upstart suddenly lunged for Kickstand, pent-up frustration and rage channeling themselves at the helpless gunner. He locked his good hand around Kickstand's throat, and again and again pounded the other robot's head violently into the wall.

Until he caught Featherweight's horrified expression in the corner of his optic. He released Kickstand, who sank to the floor, and staggered back, staring helplessly at his hand. He started to turn to Featherweight, to try to explain, to scream, to do something, when the door opened. Three pairs of optics stared at the open doorway, where a tall, grotesquely thin spectre of a Decepticon grinned coldly back at them, flanked by the two remaining warriors from the ill-fated battle at their camp.

"My, my," Screamweaver snickered. "It seems you've started without me." The prisoners finally got a sight of their nemesis, and it was not a pleasant one. The bulky forms of the glowering guards served to accentuate the almost unbelievable gauntness of their commander. Screamweaver stood with his arms folded - that is to say his primary arms. From the backs of his shoulders stretched four insectile manipulator limbs, even thinner than the rest of him, which traced an intricate and hypnotic web in the air. Tipping each was a vicious-looking implement - a pincer, a drill, a hook, a blade. His actual hands were four-fingered and taloned, and his mouth was currently twisted into a mocking smile. Above that were his emotionless green optics, and above those was a bright purple Decepticon symbol. The last two comprised the only color on his otherwise monochromatic black, white and grey chassis, and so forced one's attention directly towards his masklike face.

Upstart took a step towards their grinning jailor, then stopped in his tracks as the guards turned their assorted firearms on him. "Not so fast, hero. You're getting out of this cell, yes, but certainly not like that. No, I am afraid it has become time for you to make your grand entrance into the theater of research. Thug, Leverhead," he addressed his lackeys, "Place them in inhibitor cuffs. I have much to do, and I look forward to the coming events with a great deal of excitement. After all, I do so enjoy the opportunity for fresh blood in my work..."

---

"Emirate Xaaron!"

The unexpected mention of his name caused the golden Autobot Resistance commander to turn abruptly away from the reports of supply shortages from units along the Laari border, revealing to him the speaker's identity as Thunderclash, one of his subcommanders. "Yes, Thunderclash? Have you some further depressing news to give me about our hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned troops being slaughtered by Decepticons?" Noticing his subordinate's obvious discomfort, he forced himself to relax a degree. "My apologies. These endless requests for weapons and manpower...sometimes the effort is just too much. Now, what did you have to tell me?"

Thunderclash shifted his weight uncomfortably, then responded. "We've, er...we've lost contact with Upstart's patrol. They were in Skask, sir, and it's been three megacycles since they were last due to report in."

"Oh, brilliant...was it the Decepticons' Skask garrison?"

"Intel assures us that they haven't budged from their side of the city."

"Blast! I can hardly afford to send a unit to investigate when we're pinned down so badly in so many engagements."

"Perhaps a lone penetration agent? Even if just to confirm or deny that Upstart's gotten himself in over his head? It could be simple equipment trouble."

"All our other equipment is failing, so that seems like a rational explanation to me. Regardless, I agree that we need to know what's going on - at the very least, we need to know how many our numbers have been depleted by. Send a pair of your rear-echelon personnel in - nobody who'd serve us better on the front lines, mind you."

"Yes, sir."

---

If the wait had seemed an eternity from the constant surroundings and total lack of stimuli, then at least the same could not be said for their passage through Screamweaver's underground lair. A dizzying number of stairways, tunnels, corridors, walkways, and atria flashed by as Upstart and his fellow Autobots were marched at gunpoint to some destination known only to their captor. The group passed countless doors, all unmarked and identical. Upstart had no idea how anyone could possibly navigate in such a labyrinth. Eventually, though, Screamweaver paused in front of one of the entryways and turned the handle set into the center. The door hissed open, and they proceeded into a cavernous room, which was starkly and brightly lit, in contrast to what they'd seen of the rest of the complex. The door they had come through opened onto a sort of balcony that ran around the room's perimeter, and the floor was as far from it as the ceiling was. Arranged on that floor were over a dozen translucent containers, each approximately fifteen meters high, and each filled with some sort of greenish fluid. As Screamweaver led them down a narrow ramp and they drew closer to the cylinders, Upstart could make out forms floating within. Suddenly, Featherweight drew to a halt in front of him with a short gasp. Moving up alongside her, Upstart was suddenly able to see the forms for what they were.

Transformers. Transformers who had been systematically mutilated to an extent Upstart had never witnessed before. The one closest to Upstart had been a sleek white Autobot starfighter, until something - someone, in fact, Upstart reminded himself with a glance at Screamweaver - had pulled him apart at the waist. From the remains of his ruptured body, a network of tubes and wires poured out, connected to various apertures in the top and bottom of the tank. Upstart leaned forward to get a closer look, aware of the Decepticon behind him - Leverhead, was it? It hardly mattered - moving with him, prepared for trouble. Screamweaver strode over to a large console of some kind mounded on a podium in the room's center. As Upstart placed his bound hands against the glass of the cylinder in morbid fascination, the gaunt Decepticon tapped something into the console.

The bisected Autobot's optics snapped open. Upstart pulled back in horror. "Those - those - they're alive - for Primus' sake, what kind of creature ARE you?"

"My dear Upstart," began Screamweaver as he walked to join Upstart, casually disregarding the feeble flailing and muffled moans from inside the tank, "This is, as I have already detailed, my domain. Here, there is Primus, and then there is myself."

Upstart simply stared, realizing how completely detached from feeling the Decepticon really was. He barely seemed alive himself; his expression had yet to waver from that grin of open contempt, and he didn't even move like a living being. His motions were more like Guardian robots' - like he was a model being moved by unseen puppeteers with every infinitesimal moment.

"This is the artifact through which I shall ultimately reach my overall goal," Screamweaver continued. "Each and every subject who survives - or can be forced to survive - the tests relating to other, more immediate concerns is connected into this web of life, whereupon his thoughts, feelings, and - most importantly - agony are shared with every other member of the network. And that mass of raw neural data is fed into processors so sophisticated that you could not possibly begin to comprehend the most basic elements of their operation, there to be mapped, analyzed and extrapolated from. Eventually, I will have an utterly complete understanding of every facet of the Cybertronian mind. In the meantime..." Screamweaver rapped the tank before them lightly with his knuckles. "...I have the planet's most intellectually and viscerally stimulating aquarium. I shouldn't become too repelled by it, my prisoners. I can assure you, if you manage to survive your upcoming experiences, it shall be the last home you will ever know."

---

"Well, here they are. Or were, anyway," observed Stopover darkly.

Trixter's fuel ran cold. Yes, there they were. To her right, Stopover was gesturing at a clearing more recently battle-ravaged than the rest of Skask's miserable expanse. Strewn about it, like a handful of loose bolts, were the remains of possibly half a dozen Transformers, as well as rubble clearly identifiable as Autobot patrol equipment.

"We should probably go identify the bodies, see if there's anything that'll tell how they got done in."

"Not a very pleasant job."

Stopover looked at her skeptically. He was a big robot; his size compared to hers was probably why Command had paired them. Of course, he wasn't any more of a warrior than she was. With the Autobot forces as beleaguered as they were, Thunderclash had selected this investigative team from his support crew. Which explained an almost entirely unacquainted mechanic and resupply supervisor being together in the middle of potentially hostile territory, she supposed. It didn't make her feel much better. "Were you expecting it to be 'pleasant' when they told you to go in and look for some dead Autobots?"

"We didn't know for certain they were dead - "

"I'd say we do now."

Dropping the subject with a sigh, Trixter approached one of the closest bodies. It was lying face-up, or would have been if it still had a head. That first disquieting detail was followed by another almost immediately. "Stopover!" she called. "This one's a 'Con!"

Her partner turned from the shattered husk he'd been inspecting. "And mine's an Autobot. So there was some kind of battle."

"How many of ours are we looking for?"

"Uh, let me think. I was just reading their profiles back in the ship," he replied. "Counting the leader...um...seven."

"Right, then let's figure out if they're all present and accounted for, or whether we should be searching for survivors."

The two fell to their task, and fairly quickly had the numbers more or less determined. Four Autobots, one Decepticon, and pieces of one corpse which was so completely obliterated that it couldn't reliably be identified.

"All right, assume worse-case scenario. Even then, this means we're missing a pair of 'Bots," stated Trixter. "Either they've taken cover somewhere, which seems unlikely, since nobody's received a distress call of any kind - "

" - or they were taken by the others who were with your friend, there," finished Stopover. "So how do we find them? Aerial sweeps?"

Trixter nodded. "That might work, depending on where they are, and how well they're hidden. Anyway, it's got to be worth a shot."

"Okay, then. Let's head back to the shuttle and get this show on the r - uh, I mean in the sky," decided Stopover, laughing nervously.

---

"Move it, ya wimps! We got places to go, you and us, and draggin' yer feet ain't gonna get yas nowhere, got it?" Thug punctuated these lines with a vicious shove against Kickstand, rearmost in the column of Autobots, and was rewarded with the beaten gunner's helpless stumble into Upstart's back.

"Hit 'im, Thug! Hit 'im!" chanted Leverhead, the smaller of the guards.

"I tink I just may, at dat," rumbled Thug in agreement. "You shoulda stayed dead when Clubber whacked ya, 'Bot. 'Cause now I'm gonna - "

"You'll do nothing, Thug," commanded Screamweaver from the head of the line. "Certainly not while I lack the ability to measure the results. Now, kindly confine yourself to expediting this brief journey." He turned to Featherweight and gave her his wide, mocking smile. "It's so hard to find good help these days," he whispered conspiratorially. She pulled away from him with disgust. He shrugged theatrically and continued walking through the twisting confines of the base, his long legs flashing like scissors in the dimness. Upstart, deprived of anything better to look at, noticed how the torturer's almost sterile spotlessness provided a sharp contrast with the dankness of the tunnels and corridors.

Eventually, they stopped at another door, this one no more marked than the first, and Screamweaver once again let them through into a room. This one was much more small and cramped, barely affording their captor the space necessary to extend all four of his supplementary arms. The Decepticon waved casually at some kind of harness on the wall opposite the door, and Thug forced Kickstand over to the wall. He roughly removed Kickstand's inhibitor cuffs. Thug then shoved the Autobot into the harness. Kickstand grimaced as the guard slammed the wrist, waist and ankle restraints shut.

Once his victim was securely fastened, Screamweaver strolled over to the harness and swung it down and away from the wall, putting Kickstand horizontally in front of him. He then pulled some kind of conduit down from the ceiling and attached it firmly to Kickstand's chest via a gaping access port. Flipping a switch that lit up the harness like a stellar cluster and initiated a distracting hum, he turned to face the others.

"This is a reactor thermoregulation harness," he informed them, with the voice of an indifferent salesman. "It is designed for medical use, where, by affecting the containment shields of a Cybertron's powerplant, it can cause a reduction in energy output, thereby nullifying the effect of reactor damage, or it can increase reactor output to compensate for energy loss via compromised powergrid. However, I have found that, with modifications, it is additionally an excellent tool in my particular area of work. Observe." As the room's occupants watched mutely, through disinterest, wicked pleasure or abject horror, the battered red metal of Kickstand's chest began to glow with increasing brightness. As his core temperature soared, Kickstand stubbornly kept his mouth clamped firmly shut, refusing to give his tormentors the satisfaction of hearing him succumb to the searing internal pain. Screamweaver seemed to enjoy the display regardless, though, and his smile became still wider when an actual fire burst out in Kickstand's circuitry. The guards seemed more enraptured by the chance to poke the remaining Autobots in the heads whenever their prisoners seemed ready to make a move.

Suddenly, Screamweaver stretched out his pincer and flipped the switch back. The humming cut off, and Kickstand stopped straining against his bonds and sank down, unconscious. With one last longing glance at the smoking form, Screamweaver turned to his other captives. Striding up to them, he leaned down to stare Upstart directly in the eye. "I'm afraid you don't get to participate quite yet, my dear Upstart. I'm afraid I have something else entirely planned for you. So we shall take your erstwhile companion." With that, he spun abruptly, and poked Featherweight in the chest. "Come, Featherweight, your first ordeal awaits." Another gesture to Thug, and the Autobot found herself suspended from a hook on the ceiling by her manacles. As she dangled helplessly, Screamweaver stepped over and shoved her lightly, setting her swaying gently back and forth. "It is almost a shame to have to defile as rare and as ergonomic a being as this."

She gave him a scowl. "You're right, this IS torture. Set fire to me and shut up."

"Ah, it is always such pleasure to shatter a will such as yours," smiled Screamweaver. He raised his hand, and slowly ran a talon down the side of her face. She shuddered with revulsion, and he snickered...then, quick as a razor snake, lanced his hook-limb into her metal flesh and retraced his finger's path.

"You fuel clot! I'll tear you limb from scarecrow limb! I'll - grrrngh!" Upstart's forward progress was impeded by Leverhead's low bodyblock, and a dizzying roundhouse right by Thug put him down. He struggled helplessly, head forced up by Thug, and watched as Screamweaver cocked his head to the side, appraised Featherweight with the eye of an artist, and proceeded to deliberately carve her folded wings to skeletal tatters, periodically tapping a finger against his folded arms to emphasize the occasional suppressed cry.

---

Upstart stared coldly at Screamweaver. They were on almost-even ground, now; though the Autobot was confined in a chair in the middle of the well-appointed room, neither of them had any allies present. The other prisoners had been dragged off bodily to their cells by the guards, whereas Upstart had been led to this room by Screamweaver himself. Tempting as the chance for escape was, Upstart knew it was an illusion. Regardless of his captor's apparent lack of physical strength, he was still low on power and bound by his inhibitor manacles. Screamweaver, meanwhile, had his interrogation tools, and was at full strength. And even if Upstart managed to overcome him, what then? He had no idea how to get out of this maze, no idea where in Skask he would come out, no idea how to report to Autobase. And none of that would save his friends.

"Here we are, then," stated the torturer with a grin. "I have a surprise for you. Would you care to hear it? I shall assume the positive. It is this: you are not going to be harmed in the least."

"A game, Decepticon?"

"Not at all, my dear Upstart. I require a new troop commander - your group disposed of Grindstone admirably, and I actually owe you my gratitude for that. Grindstone was too intelligent not to be totally devoted to my work, and I suspect he had designs on my position. Now that he has been removed neatly from the equation - along with Clubber, unfortunately, who was an acceptably loyal and dull soldier possessed of low ambition - it frees up a niche which I believe you might occupy with exceptional skill."

"Why in the bloody Pit would you expect me to join you?"

"I expect you still have fairly vivid memories of the events of the last several breems, yes? I am more reasonable than to expect your services without some kind of trade, and the offer I make is this: agree to serve me, serve the Decepticons, and both of your teammates will be released, assuming they still function. Fail to comply - or attempt to delay for too long - and my plans shall proceed apace, resulting in either your comrades' eventual deaths, or their incorporation into my network. Neither outcome appears to be of much desirability to you."

Eyeing Screamweaver warily, Upstart asked, "Why should I trust you? And by the same token, why should you trust me? What's to stop me from playing your little game, waiting for my friends to reach safety, and then stabbing you in the back?"

Screamweaver's permanent smile gleamed back at him. "You have only my word that I will allow your fellow prisoners free passage to Autobot territory, but I can assure that my word is valid, quite apart from it being the only option you have, and I vow to you that no Decepticon shall damage your teammates if you agree to my proposal. As for your hypothetical treachery - suffice it to say that, before I accept your defection, I shall harbor no doubts as to your loyalty."

"I'd sooner swear loyalty to Megatron himself"

"Ah, but that would not save your precious friends, would it? No, you have very little to gain from an alliance with our illustrious departed founder. But you have everything to gain by joining me. Notably a purpose, a direction, a sense of satisfaction in knowing that you are contributing to the most important neuroanalytical study in the history of our race."

"By which you mean feeding your sick appetite."

Screamweaver snickered. "Sometimes the perfect scientist comes along for the problem. Can I help it if I have been called to such duty? No, I am as much a pawn as you, my dear Upstart. I have embraced my role - and I have no doubt that you will do the same, given time. The war does not intrude upon my affairs. It need never be a part of your life again. You, and either of your friends, if they choose, are free to stay in this impenetrable microcosm."

Upstart found himself staring into Screamweaver's optics, dimly aware of the manipulator arms sketching their abstract nothing at the edges of his vision. "A pretty vision you make it out to be - especially considering that hulking great pile of evil downstairs."

"If my research were directed towards mecharats, I would be studying mecharats. My research is directed toward Cybertrons. Besides," his nightmarish host added. "For them, at least, the war is over."

"One war."

"There is no conflict in their life, now. How can there be? They are but one entity, one community. Disagreement among them - and it is frequent, I assure you - cannot be a motivating force for violence. Even if they were physically capable of it, what mechanoid would wreak devastation on another when to do so is to suffer the demon of that very injury being wrought upon oneself? Who is to say that their lives, while guiding us through the murk of ignorance, have not been drastically improved?"

The shameless moralization in that sentence cut into Upstart's trancelike state, and he started, shaking his head violently. "No! No, no, no...that's ridiculous! They're in constant pain - pain that you've condemned them to! That's the entire point of your operation here, isn't it? Pain?"

Taken aback for the slightest instant, Screamweaver rapidly regained his composure. "Perhaps we shall continue the conversation at a later date; for example, when your fellow Autobots are undergoing their next test phases." He tapped a control on his chest, and spoke to the ethereal intercom. "Thug, Leverhead, come and relocate Upstart to his cell. We are finished here...for the nonce."

---

"What do you mean, they're not there?" asked Stopover.

"Exactly what I said. There's no trace of them - the scanners don't lie. Wherever our friend and his Decepticon assailants have gone, they're not in Skask," replied Trixter wearily from the pilot seat.

"Well, they haven't left. We have their borders under surveillance, and we know they didn't come through us." Stopover scowled and drummed his fingers on the bulkhead. "So if they're not in Skask, and they haven't left, there's not too many more places they can be. And the next most obvious place to look...is underneath."

Twisting partially around, Trixter looked at him with a skeptical expression. "No way are our sensors going to penetrate the surface, least of all in a distortion zone like Skask. How are we going to find an entry that could be anywhere in the city?"

Stopover frowned. "Hard work and dedication. We're going to land, we're going to get out, and we're going to go over every inch of this place on foot. We don't just write off inexplicable casualties. That's not what Autobots do."

---

It pounded it pounded it pounded it was everything the rush of oil through his head it coursed too long much too long they were going to be here forever too long he couldn't take it no more no more the pain and Kickstand and Featherweight...and Featherweight...how long had they been here? Upstart shook his head slightly. None of them knew. It all ran together at this point. It was all the same, whether it was being forced to watch Kickstand flogged with electron beams or staring dully as Featherweight crumpled into the cell after being gone for dozens of breems or listening to Screamweaver detail the horrors Upstart could negate by joining him...he didn't want to think about it, couldn't think about it, but there was nothing else to think about. None of them talked anymore, not even he and Feather, and the silence didn't help any. More, it hung there, the simple distance from Feather as bad as or worse than the hostility from Kickstand. But there wasn't anything any of them could do, not a thing...they couldn't fight back. They couldn't escape. Even Upstart hadn't received any repairs besides Featherweight's original tinkering, and the cumulative damage wrought on the others had made them barely capable of walking around under their own power, even if they'd possessed the motivation. They had one hope - that the Autobots had noticed the fight; that they had seen that they were gone; that their comrades were on their way to rescue them and kill this lifeless thing that had trapped them here. And if not?

He could change sides. That's all it would take. This torture was too long, longer than the war. But in reality, the war had been going on forever, far more than his pitifully few hundreds of years, and it would never end... not until long after they were all gone. It was almost like Screamweaver had said, anyway; there was really no war here. He wouldn't be killing anyone here, it would be...science...and it wouldn't matter whether they were Autobots or Decepticons, because they wouldn't be warriors. They'd be...they'd be...they'd... they'd be Upstart and Featherweight and Kickstand.

Upstart dropped his head.

---

Trixter hauled the warped metal panel up tiredly, revealing...absolutely nothing. Sighing, she dropped it. "That's it. I'm done," she declared, and plopped down on the ground.

"What?" scowled Stopover. "What do you mean, 'done'? We have Autobots to save, and a scorchload of Skask to find them in." He stomped over from the melted remains of what might have been a tollhouse of some kind, but his anger seemed to burn off as he walked, and once he reached her he gave her an apologetic look. "Ah, I'm sorry, Trixter. I'm just as slagged off about this as you. Gimme a break, huh?"

"Yeah, okay. I know how it is."

"Good. Then you also know that we have to keep looking. There's no other way to work this."

Trixter sighed again, then stuck her hand out. "Help me up?" she asked playfully.

Stopover grabbed her outstretched hand and brought her to a stand. "Now, let's just keep working steadily, and we can maybe get this done with. Procrastination's not gonna help anything much here."

"Procrastination always helps..." complained Trixter, but she headed over to a blasted line of transmission poles that looked slightly less unpromising than the rest of the area.

---

Even through all the shock, Upstart nearly couldn't care anymore. He had been dragged down to see Screamweaver, just like countless times before, and like every one of those times, the torturer had met him in one of the countless identical dismal rooms in the complex. This time, however, a table occupied the center of the room, and Kickstand occupied the table.

It was Kickstand, and he was dead. The light had left his optics; his Spark was one with the Light Beyond. He had suffered so much structural damage that Upstart couldn't even tell what the killing blow had been. Though his body was no longer in one piece, Upstart attibuted that to the post-mortem attentions of Screamweaver, who was currently elbow-deep in the dead Autobot's chest compartment. "Ah, Upstart. So glad you could make it. I have some...saddening news to report. But then," he added with a grin, pulling his hands free of the corpse with a shrug. "I suppose you can probably guess, hmm?"

"What...happened?" asked Upstart softly.

"I am as of yet uncertain. While the cerebral drill was the most likely candidate, it could have been a delayed reaction to the omicron-beam irradiation, or even just a general shutdown in response to severe and constant bodily trauma. I am endeavoring to determine the exact reasons as we speak." As he spoke, Screamweaver opened a compartment in the side of his chest, and one of the manipulator arms dipped down into it, emerging with a pincered claw affixed to the end. The Decepticon pointed at Upstart with the new appendage. "Now, I hate to mix business with pleasure, but I am obligated to ask. Have you considered my offer any further?"

Upstart clenched his jaw tightly. Not fair, this wasn't fair...

"After all...this unfortunate incident could have been avoided had you been more decisive."

He couldn't - no, not that, don't bring that up, can't think about that...

"And we can only afford one more such reminder. And a sad reminder it would be, I am certain."

Upstart broke. He had no choice, he had to, he couldn't let this happen again. Not to her, too.

The hatred in his voice was overwhelmed by desperation. "I'll do it."

"You'll do what, Autobot?"

"Damn you, you know what I'll do. I'll join you. I'll help you in whatever it is you'll have me do."

"Excellent. Excellent, indeed. You shall make a fine Decepticon."

"Because I'm a traitor and a failure?"

"Because, my dear Upstart, you have a healthy grasp of self-interest."

---

By whatever pathetic miracle, Featherweight was there when Upstart stepped quietly back into the cell. She glanced up at him as he entered, then returned to staring at the floor. She was curled up tightly, arms around her knees, and in all likelihood wouldn't move until she was dragged out of the cell again. "Feather..."

She looked up again, with an almost confused look on her face. Nobody talked anymore - what was he doing?

"Kickstand. He's...gone."

Upstart saw understanding grow in her optics. Ah, so it was just more bad news. That made sense. That computed.

He didn't stop. Instead, he walked over to her and knelt down. "Feather...it's my fault. I - I could have stopped this all long ago."

She blinked. "What...do you mean?"

"All of it. All the torture, all the pain...I could have brought it to end from almost the beginning." He looked down for a moment, then continued. "But I've been selfish..." he trailed off.

"What are you talking about, Ups?"

"Nothing. Nothing you need to worry about. Don't...just don't worry. I can get you out of this."

"There's...there's no way...you just can't...Kickstand's gone?"

He nodded. "I'm sorry. I should have done this before." He reached out his remaining hand to touch her face, and she closed her optics and leaned her head into it - until she realized what that meant.

"The cuffs - how did you - Ups?"

"I told you. I'm getting you out of this." He stood. "I promise you you won't be hurt anymore." He turned, opened the door, and left.

---

"Found it," Stopover said simply.

Trixter dashed out of the battered building she'd been investigating and looks around for her partner. He was standing waist-deep in a ditch they'd already checked over. "In there?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Would never have seen it, but I kicked a loose screw down there, and - I didn't hear it hit. And in this graveyard, that would have been hard to miss."

"So where was it?"

"Some kind of loose grating. With some kind of an access panel over it. Bolted down." He gestured meaningfully at a battered piece of charred metal. "Anyway, it isn't hidden anymore."

"So do we just rush in?"

Stopover pulled his concussion rifle from over his shoulder. "Well, not rush in, but we have to go in...we don't really have time to wait for reinforcements. If there are Autobots in there, they need help - and we've wasted a lot of time already."

Trixter drew her sonic pistol and nodded. "Okay. Think we can handle whatever's in there?"

"Don't have much choice, really," Stopover observed, crouching to pull up the grating. He lifted it easily; the door was obviously well-used. It swung up and away to reveal a deep, smooth-sided shaft with a series of rungs leading down into the darkness. He sighed, shouldered his rifle again, and started down the rungs. Trixter waited until he'd gotten far enough ahead, then holstered her pistol and started after him. It was a fairly long climb, and her mind had enough time to start to idly wonder about what they were getting themselves into. Neither she nor Stopover were combat-trained, and whoever was down here was powerful enough to wipe out an entire Autobot patrol. Then again, they had the advantage of surprise - assuming they hadn't tripped any alarms already - and the Autobots hadn't gone down without a fight. Maybe their numbers were depleted. How many of them WERE there, anyway?

The ladder ended, and so did her wandering thoughts. Stopover had, once again, readied his weapon, and was looking down a long, dimly-lit corridor. "I think I've figured out the best way to go."

She noted that the corridor only ran one direction, terminating at this end with the shaft and rungs. "'Kay. That'll work for me. Let's be careful about this, hmm?"

Stopover raised his gun. "That was my plan."

---

Screamweaver's metal teeth glinted as he smilingly outlined his plans to Upstart. "Soon, very soon, Upstart, you shall prove your allegience to me indefatigably, and then we wil set out to seize more subjects. I had planned on your team being the first, but through your proving yourself as a desirable asset, you also severely weakened my staff. However, Thug and Leverhead will serve you as you serve me - any opposition they have to that will be short-lived, I can assure you - and you shall use them to secure more Cybertrons as rational as yourself to serve us. And then, once we have a sizeable-enough pool of operatives, we shall begin to harvest in earnest." Upstart barely listened as the Decepticon raved about his diabolical plans. He was totally apathetic to them, he knew he'd hear them again and again, and his focus was actually bent towards watching as the torturer's manipulator arms swept expressively through the air as if to accentuate the brilliance of their owner's plan. "Ah, I can hardly contain myself at the thought of your test..."

"I hope it's multiple choice. I have to admit, I haven't brushed up on my copy of Raksha's 'The Decepticon Empire' recently..."

The Decepticon's optics flashed. "Ah, I am afraid you will find that in this test, you have no choice..."

---

"The other one's moving up, the other one's moving up!" yelled Stopover, straining to be heard over the thunderous exchange of weaponfire in the small room.

"I know, I'm on him! Just keep the other one from hitting me while I try and take him down!" she called back.

Stopover's rifle jerked wildly as he strafed the Decepticons again, and was rewarded with the sight of the smaller maroon robot staggering backwards to crash lifeless against the far wall. "He's dealt with! Dammit, Trixter, you can't take that monster!"

The other Decepticon was big - bigger than Stopover. He had a triple-barreled rocket-cannon of some sort that he fired at their position as he advanced. Luckily, the Autobots had began the fight, which had started abruptly as the exploring Autobots almost literally ran into the pair of Decepticons at an intersection, with better cover. Unluckily, they were seriously outgunned and overpowered even considering their new-found numerical superiority.

"Neither can you! So we both hafta try!" Trixter leapt out, and fired off a quick beam of concentrated sonic waves at the Decepticon. The attack barely caused him to blink. She snapped into a firing stance at shot him again, but he just laughed, reached out with his off hand, and, knocking her ineffective pistol away, grabbed her around the waist with one huge hand.

"Well, lookit what I founds myself. If it ain't an Auto-shield..." Snorting with laughter, the Decepticon hefted her off the ground and held her in front of him. She stared over her shoulder helplessly as Stopover tried to get a target. The Decepticon brought his cannon up and blasted away with abandon, blanketing Stopover with explosions. He shuddered, dropped his rifle, and stared helplessly at Trixter. Then the cannon sounded again, and he disappeared in a roar and a cloud of smoke.

"No...STOPOVER!" Trixter screamed. Enraged beyond thought, she drew her fist back. A slot unsealed, a slender blade slid out with a click, and she drove her arm with all the force she could muster into her captor's face.

"GNNNNNNNNNNRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAGH!" he bellowed, dropping his gun to claw at his shattered eye socket. "Oh, youse is SO gonna regret that!" He hurled her against the wall viciously, knocking her senseless and sending her to the floor. She braced herself for further violence, but instead she heard the Decepticon's heavy footsteps retreating back deeper into the labyrinth. Shaken, she got up and retrieved her gun.

"Oh, Trixie-girl, this is not good...you're way outmatched, here." This was madness, she couldn't take that kind of punishment again. Then again, Stopover would never take any punishment again, ever. "Oh, Stopover...slag it, I'm sorry." She straightened. He wasn't going to have died for nothing. One way or another, she finished this here and now.

She headed after the Decepticon.

---

The room that Screamweaver had brought Upstart to was more of a cavern. Apparently not part of the excavating that the Decepticon was so proud of, this was more likely a natural cave, formed under Skask's surface by bubble of molten metal or whim of Primus. Upstart really didn't care. The floor extended out over the cavern, and a door at the other end apparently led to some other area of the Decepticon's lair. A skeletal railing guarded the edges of the traversable surface, more as a nod to standard construction techniques than for any real safety purposes. Apart from that, the only separation between floor and yawning chasm were the four stout pillars that appeared to support the platform. They ran from the "ceiling" all the way down to the floor, presumably, and created a few abbreviated segments of wall on the way.

And standing in the center of the area was Featherweight.

"I don't under..." Upstart tried.

"Oh, I think you do, my dear Upstart. I think you know very well, indeed."

Featherweight was standing, manacled and unmoving. The fight had been crushed from her as much as it had from him - though she undoubtedly had better justification.

Screamweaver's manipulator reached into one of his torso compartments again, and came out gripping a Decepticon heavy impulse pistol. He smiled. "Loyalty, my lieutenant. I value it for a great many reasons."

Upstart tried to choke down the growing feeling that he was being sucked into a black hole. "So - so you're going to kill us both now? What would be the point of that?"

Screamweaver shook his head slowly, his maddening smile never changing a bit. "Oh, I do not plan on killing anyone, Upstart." The arm extended towards him. "Take the gun."

---

Thug snarled with disgust at how the tiny little Autobot had hurt him. She was going to pay for that; she was going to pay slowly and painfully, and he was going to laugh. But first things first; there were invaders in the base, and the boss wasn't going to be happy about it. He opened a channel over Decepticon frequencies.

"Hey, boss? Dis is Thug. We gots ourselves a problem..."

"What is it, Thug? I'm not in the mood to be disturbed right now," crackled the reply.

"Dere's some 'Bots in da base, boss. Or dere was. Now dere's just 'Bot." Thug took the moment to chuckle harshly. "Anyway, we ran into 'em after we chained da girl up, like you said. Bad part is, dey trashed Leverhead before I could ace da big one. Now dere's just a little ting, but she's a real pain."

"And I assume she's following you."

"Yeah, I assumes dat too."

"Very well. We shall make the best of the situation. Lead her to section 380840565-LD. We shall work from there. Screamweaver out."

"Thug out, too."

---

Upstart stared at the gun in his hand. It seemed like forever since he'd been armed. Now he was. Now he could gun this demon down where he stood, grab Featherweight, and get out of here. The other Decepticons weren't here; he'd have no better chance at escaping. Even if they didn't make it, the universe would be better off without Screamweaver. The torturer even seemed distracted by something. He could do it. He had the weapon. So why couldn't he do anything?

Screamweaver raised his voice. "You have a visitor, Featherweight." He snickered.

The pale green-and-blue Autobot lit her optics and looked at them. The same confused look from before crossed her face. "Ups...?"

Screamweaver strode forward, and Upstart helplessly followed. When the Decepticon snapped to a halt, Upstart likewise stopped walking.

"Kill her."

Someone raised the gun and pointed it directly at the Autobot symbol over Featherweight's laser core. Thug lumbered in and stopped, watching with a dull curiosity.

"Ups?"

Upstart fired, and the burst cut through his fellow Autobot, already weakened by their ordeal, like an Energon axe through grease. She didn't even scream or die spectacularly. She just let out a feeble squeak of pain and shock, wobbled unsteadily, and then slowly collapsed.

At that moment, a small blue Autobot came from the same direction that Thug had, and gasped with horror at the tableau she found.

---

The Autobot - Upstart, she remembered from the files - stared at Trixter like she wasn't there. Or rather. Stared through her. At something? She spun around just in time to greet the hulking, cyclopian form of the Decepticon she'd exchanged fire with at the entrance. He grinned cruelly, then reached out and grabbed her wing as she tried to stutter-step backwards. "Goin' somewhere, sweetheart? 'Fraid I owes ya sometin', first."

Caught off-balance, she reflexively tried to retract the trapped wing. There was a brief whine as the gears strained against her opponent's grip, then he twisted his wrist and ripped the entire assembly out by the roots. Trixter staggered away, oil pumping freely down her side. As she shook her head to clear her optics, something warned her to move, and she threw herself impulsively to the right...managing to escape the head-removing roundhouse the Decepticon had thrown at her. He still clipped her helmet, though, and the brunt of the blow smashed her shoulder pauldron to scrap. She landed awkwardly on her side, but kicked out blindly as soon as she hit. Through sheer luck, her blow caught him in the side of the knee, and he fell into a half-crouch. That gave her just enough time to stand up, level her gun -

- and get speared into the wall by a barbed hook that came out of nowhere. She started to turn toward the source, and was rewarded by another razored point pinning her gun arm up, also causing her to drop her only weapon. She strained futiley at the restraints - it was expected, she thought with inappropriate wryness - until two last hooks shot through her thighs, immobilizing her.

She twisted her head toward the sound of the soulless laughter that had started off to her right.

"Ah, this IS a surprise! Greetings, my dear. I am Screamweaver, and I welcome you to my world." With a smile that threatened to detach the top of his skull-like head, the grotesquely thin Decepticon gestured around the room using the arms that currently did not hold her firmly in place. "I am afraid, however, that it will be a very brief visit. However, lest you think I have forgotten my manners, allow me to introduce my associates. This rather large piece of slightly-damaged merchandise is Thug, and this is my new lieutenant Upstart. Unfortunately mislabeled as an Autobot right now, but I assure you the Autobrand is quite impermanent." As he indicated them, the pair respectively grinned brutishly and stared dully ahead. "And now I am going to award him the distinction of having disposed of a pair of the oh-so-rare female Transformers in a single day. Upstart, if you please..." Screamweaver trailed off and carefully stepped away from the wall segment he had Trixter pinned to. He grinned expectantly.

Upstart stared, heavy impulse pistol at his side.

The corner of Screamweaver's mouth twitched. "Upstart, you do not wish to follow such a glorious indoctrination into my service with immediate disobedience. Terminate the Autobot."

Upstart, eyes barely glowing, raised the pistol to approximately chest-level and pointed it vaguely outwards. And stopped.

"Upstart - you are mine. You will kill her immediately." Screamweaver's eyes narrowed, and his smile became even harder. "You belong to me now."

Upstart's optics flared, and met with Trixter's. For a brief moment, she read him completely - a mix of fear, helplessness, regret, anger, and most of all pain. Then it was gone. His head raised a fraction. "Well, fuck you, too." The gun barrel quivered for an instant, then locked into placed - aimed directly at Screamweaver. The Decepticon's eyes widened, and he ripped all his limbs out of Trixter, who slumped to the floor as Screamweaver tried desperately to shield himself.

Upstart's first shot blasted away a pair of the spindly manipulators and punched a hole in Screamweaver's chest. The second blew open his abdomen, severing one of the paired hydraulic supports there and evoking a long, high-pitched scream of anger and pain, which wasn't cut off until the third shot hit him square in the face, sending him backwards - and over the railing, into the deep abyss beyond.

Upstart blinked, then dropped the gun as though it were overheating. The sound as the pistol hit the floor was somehow louder than any of the actual firing. All three of the functional mechanoids in the room looked down at it. Thug was the first to come to life, growling viciously and starting towards Upstart. The Autobot stared at Thug helplessly. Thug raised a fist to strike.

Trixter's hood, already dented, crumpled violently as she crashed full-on into Thug in her vehicular mode. The big Decepticon went down like his strings had been cut, and Trixter transformed back into robot mode, collapsing down to her hands and knees on top of him. Upstart looked at her, but made no offer of help. Once she was certain she'd regained her balance and some semblance of composure, she stood back up. Upstart continued to look down at her emptily. His expression was...disturbing, as though whoever used to live in his head had checked out, and he was awaiting new tenants.

"Are you...okay?" she asked simply.

He wandered over to where the other Autobot - Featherweight - lie unmoving. He cocked his head and stared down at her, too late to apologize or say goodbye. The void seemed to have taken her swiftly. And Upstart turned back to Trixter, and he was suddenly animated again.

"Sure. For one thing, I don't have to worry about remembering our anniversary anymore..." he grinned shallowly.

And Trixter understood. "It's okay," she said simply, and nodded.

"Yeah. 'Course it is. And I get to go home and everything. Which it's about bloody time, because we - I've been stuck in this hole for way too long now. I need a drink."

"I've got a shuttle. We'll, erm, we'll hafta walk back a bit, 'cause I can't transform or anything..."

"Great. There's just...one thing I have to do first."

---

The computer system was unfamiliar, but it was no great task to set the massive generators that powered the underground complex to begin a sequence of reaction acceleration that would lead to a devastating system overload a short time in the future.

---

Trixter sat silently in her pilot's seat. They had taken off comfortably ahead of the vast pyrotechnic display that Upstart had prepared, though not so far that the small ship wasn't jolted when the blast that marked the merciful deaths of dozens of their fellow beings - and the schemes of one of the most twisted of those beings - brightened the dismal Skask horizon. She had yet to begin an official report; there would be time for that once they got to base. Anyway, there were aspects that could hardly be handled in a normal report...she glanced over at the battered figure standing at the rear window. He was staring at the column of fire and smoke that was rising slowly from his ex-prison. She didn't know what had happened down there; didn't know would could possibly excuse his actions. But the look in his optics had given her a feeling that he wasn't just the traitorous murderer he seemed to be. It wasn't that he had turned on and apparently slain his former "master"; she wouldn't put that past most of the Decepticons she'd encountered. No, it was something else. Just a...feeling. Not a very reassuring thing, but...

Upstart was worth redeeming. She'd bet her future in the Autobots on it.

-LV!