Chapter Thirty
The Crystal Line
Warning: This second part of this chapter contains a character death, and some images of gore and violence. Rated M for safety.
Darkness.
Black, crushing darkness.
She looked from one side of what might or might not have been a room to the other, unable to see anything - the nothingness surrounding her was so pitch-black and impenetrable that her eyelids might very well have been sewn together to stop any infinitesimal glimmer of light coming to remind her of the fact that she could see, and that she was alive.
Wait... she wasn't alive, was she?
Rose took a deep breath, her hands automatically moving up her body to find the place where Sideways's horn had pierced her. Her trembling fingers came to something warm, and moist - she slowly traced the edges of the wound, knowing that it was there by what she could feel, and yet feeling no pain as she did so. She rubbed her fingers and thumb together, feeling the blood moving between them, but her entire body appeared to have numbed itself to whatever agony she might have experienced before she had come to this place... wherever she was.
So this was the next world, was it? It wasn't quite as she had imagined... she had expected either everlasting sleep, or some kind of glittering paradise on the edges of a clear, blue river, with angels and cherubs and the like. Perhaps this place was Hell... perhaps she had done something wrong in her life, and was destined to stand by herself in this suffocating obscurity until the end of time.
Tears slid down her icy cheeks as she remembered her last moments. How she had begged Ratchet not to leave her... held his hand... stared into his soft, cobalt-blue eyes as if the entrance to Heaven had been behind them.
Falling to her knees, she buried her face in her hands, letting a weak sob push itself from between her lips. It echoed through the emptiness; her own voice bounced back at her repeatedly, and she shook her head, realising the true horror of her situation. She was dead... she was actually dead. Her life had ended after nineteen years... nineteen years of monotony and routine that had finally had a chance to end when she had been allowed into the weird and wonderful world of the Autobots and their friends.
And now that chance had been wasted.
What would her mother say when she was told that her daughter had been killed trying to defend an alien robot - worse, what would her father say? She prayed that they wouldn't be angry with Ratchet, or blame him for her thoughtless stupidity... then she laughed hysterically, remembering that there was obviously no one to pray to now that she was here.
Rosa Lee Connelly.
Her head snapped up, her heartbeat staggering. "W-what? Who's there?"
There was complete and utter silence for a few torturous moments, and Rose looked about anxiously, wishing on everything she knew that she could see again. The fact that she was blind was terrifying her beyond anything else; in this state, she was all but defenceless, and in a very vulnerable position. What could this voice be - who did it belong to? Was it the Devil, or God - or something else entirely? She pushed herself away from the place that the sound had come from out of fear, but it was like moving through thick, unyielding treacle...
The voice came again. Hold on, Rosa.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Rose demanded, her voice cracking and her blood pounding in her eardrums deafeningly. "For G-God's sake - why can't I see anything? Who are you?!"
Someone.
Frustration was mingling with the terror building up behind her ribcage, making her clench her fists in aggravation and deal a blind glare to whoever might have been standing in the vicinity. "I know that!" she snapped, her voice edged with hysteria. "But who? Are you here to help me - or am I j-just supposed to sit here and -"
Wait,the mysterious person finished for her, as if it had read her mind.. Yes... that is precisely what you are supposed to do.
"Wait for what?!" Rose screamed angrily into the void, tears streaking down her ice-cold cheeks as she made to get up. "What am I doing here? Where am I going next - who the hell's supposed to be answering all these questions?!"
The voice waited a moment before it responded. Some questions are better left unanswered.
Rose found herself being pushed back under the force of some unseen weight, pressing her against the seemingly non-existent floor, but she still found the strength to resist whoever was trying to weigh her down. The closeness of the air - if it was air, and if, indeed, she was breathing at all - was making her want to choke... she had suffered from claustrophobia for years, and this was making her feel so nauseous that she could have fainted, but she was determined not to pass out... she wanted answers, damn it...!
"Answer mine," she pleaded, collapsing against the ground and letting her head roll back exhaustedly. "Please... I'm scared, okay?"
You need not fear, youngling.
She couldn't help but shake her head, a tiny sigh escaping her as she let her sightless eyes drift closed. "Really?" she murmured, feeling something like sleep overtaking her as arms enfolded her waist, dragging her down into the depths of oblivion. "I'm alone... I'm dead at nineteen... I died for someone that I don't even know is alive or not... and now I don't know where I am, or if I'm going anywhere else." She paused, feeling herself sinking but making no attempt to stop it. "And you tell me I don't need to be afraid."
You have no reason to be afraid. You have unbalanced the fates, Rosa... you have distorted the Plan with your deeds, and now that distortion must be straightened. But the time must be right... the Plan must unfold before it can be amended.
"I don't understand..."
You do not have to. You must wait... but your wait cannot be long.
"Hurry, Skyfire," Jade urged anxiously as the Spirit bomber landed, jolting her in her seat.
"I am trying, my jewel..."
Seraphim had sounded absolutely beside herself when she had contacted the adolescent brunette from the ground, and Jade was frantic to get to her friend before the femme did something really stupid. She had shouted something about Carlos being injured; begged for Jade's immediate assistance, along with Skyfire's; she had been screaming out each word like a woman deranged, and Jade had pleaded with her spark partner to land at once, in spite of how dangerous it was.
If Carlos was hurt...
Oh, why had this had to happen?! Damn it, she was Carlos's best friend - and they had ruined it all, at the precipice of a battle, by fighting over something as pathetic as a little crush she'd had on him in fifth grade. Okay, so it had been bigger for him... he... loved her... still loved her... but for God's sake! Why had he been so much of an asshole, when he knew that they might both be killed in this battle?
Skyfire had tried his utmost to land as close to Seraphim's co-ordinates as he could, at Jade's urgent appeal, but there was only so much room in the teeming, battle-torn conurbation for an aircraft of his sheer massiveness. He came to an undignified, hurried stop in a large, open stretch of partially demolished street, the tips of his vast wings knocking over several lampposts and trees as he skidded to a screaming halt, taking out a small group of drones with a burst from his machine guns as he did so.
Jade wasted no time in tearing the harness off, ripping the buckles from around her chest with trembling fingers so quickly that she almost cut herself in her haste. "Oh, God..." she fretted to herself repeatedly as she threw herself out of her seat. "Please..."
... before it's too late...
The young woman wrenched the cockpit door open, racing into the cargo bay without stopping for breath and climbing out of the bomber before Skyfire had even fully opened the exit hatch. She slipped beneath the rising door, swinging herself onto the grey ladder that was stretching towards the ground of its own accord - she jumped the last few metres, landing hard on her feet, before she turned and began to race towards a burning block of apartment buildings from which smoke was billowing, thick and black, from within the wreckage.
"Jade!" Skyfire shouted after her, his voice edged with fear. "Wait, Jade - it is not safe!"
Jade turned her head turned to face her guardian, and she saw that he was already transforming into his proper bipedal form to follow her. "I have to, Sky'!" she cried desperately, her voice cracking a little as tears sprung up. "Please - I'll be okay - but I have to help Seraphim!"
With that, she took off again.
It wasn't that she didn't appreciate the fact that he was looking out for her - she appreciated his love and guardianship more than anything else in the world - but it wasn't her safety that mattered right now! Whatever had happened to Carlos, it couldn't be good, from the way Seraphim had been screeching and bawling down the line - and the fact that the co-ordinates had been so close to the blaze made a thousand terrible images flash before her eyes, each one more gruesome and dreadful than the next. Carlos's features, filled with torment... marred by horrific burns...
No!
Each breath was like a sob as she pounded down the broken sidewalk, stumbling over the bodies of soldiers, and drones, and civilians... yet barely noticing the vacant, lifeless faces at her feet. All she could see was her nightmare visualisations of her friend's burnt-out body... oh, God... please don't let it have been the fire... anything but the fire...
Ash was starting to encircle her now as she came closer and closer to the building. She could see a huge, dark blue mass of smoking metal sprawled to one side of the building... looking like... a jet?... and yet something else at the same time. It was clearly the thing that had destroyed half of the structure as it had fallen out of the sky and onto the apartment block - the brick and mortar, strong as it might have been, had stood no chance against the enormous plane.
The smoke and cinders filling the air were a haunting reminder of that.
"JADE!" a hysterical voice suddenly wept from the obscurity, and her stinging eyes flew open in shock when she heard the accented voice that was filled with such distress. "JADE!Are you there?!"
She knew that voice...
"Seraphim!" the teenager coughed out. "Seraphim - where are you?!"
She staggered blindly towards the sound of her friend's voice, stretching a hand out in front of her and beating at the noxious air with the oversized cuff of her pilot's jumpsuit, narrowing her eyes against the high temperatures that burnt her face and eyes with their raw, flaming intensity. All she could smell was smoke... and fire... ash filled her mouth with every gasping breath that she took, choking her throat with dust and filth as her hand reached out for assistance... for another hand to hold it, and guide her...
And, then... as if a miracle had come...
... a hand did take hers.
Warm fingers interlocked with hers in a strong, firm grasp, pulling her through the charcoal murkiness and over the rubble that littered the sidewalk beneath her. Like a lost traveller that had finally found her way, Jade allowed herself to be guided away from the blaze, coughing so hard that she feared she might throw up.
Strong arms were suddenly wrapped around her, holding her upright, and she found that hot tears were streaming down her face from the smouldering heat that seemed to have singed her very retinas... she had wandered far too close to the flames that were ravaging the building in her sightlessness to the environment... hacking up the filth that seemed to have trapped itself at the back of her mouth, Jade clutched her saviour thankfully, and looked up into the pale countenance and familiar, clear blue eyes of...
"Rad?" she whispered huskily, her glistening eyes wide with incredulity.
He... it was... he was here. She had completely forgotten, in the midst of her adrenaline and terror, that he was coming back... and now that he was here, she could hardly believe that he was real. Unless... God forbid... she was hallucinating... overcome by the fumes... then he was certainly standing before her. If she was still cognisant, this could not be some cruel trick of the mind...
Rad was back.
The smile that graced his face, though feeble, erased every doubt that she could ever have had of his really being there. "Yeah, Jadie... it's me," he murmured hoarsely.
Jade didn't wait for an explanation.
Instead, she threw her arms around the tall, athletic teenager's neck and let her tears fall freely as she cried out in an excruciating muddle of elation, shock and pain... overjoyed, beyond anything she had ever thought possible, to see the young man that she had looked to as an older brother since before she could remember... and yet still filled with a terror that she had not known for many years for the other boy that had been just the same, before a pointless quarrel had divided them.
"Rad," she said urgently as he embraced her closely, her voice wavering and rough with dehydration as she clutched the back of his shirt tightly in her fists, "It's Carlos... he's h-hurt... d-don't know where... we n-need to f-f-find them..."
Rad was silent, though his arms constricted around her a little, pressing her against him comfortingly.
The fact that he said nothing disturbed Jade more than his telling her that Carlos was mortally wounded, or worse, ever could have done. She shifted in his arms, turning her soft doe's eyes to meet his sharper, crystal-blue ones with apprehension, her dark eyebrows knitting together in an anxious frown as she studied Rad's face, trying to understand what she found so frightening about his expression.
She saw it at once.
... it was... despair...
"R-Rad?" she stammered, her stomach clenching and something cold and heavy dropping into her heart like a rock and making a lump rise up in her throat, as if the ashes had congested there. "What is it? Y-you... oh my God, Rad, what the hell is happening...?!"
Oh, God... there were tears in his eyes...
Rad took a deep, quavering breath, and Jade's hands slipped from his arms as she stumbled away from him, every tiny crease of his agonised expression making her feel sick to the very stomach with worry and a desperation for him to stop where he was... to deny her the information that she wanted, and yet suddenly had no wish to hear. All she could hear, in her mind, was Carlos laughing about how Rad never cried unless something really, really bad had happened... like his team losin' the latest soccer game! he chuckled, his eyes crinkling at the edges.
She stared into his ice-blue eyes, willing him to answer her with her breath coming out in bursts that hurt her burning lungs, stabbing her between the ribs like a carving knife. Then he turned away from her, putting one hand over his eyes. "He asked for you," he heaved out in a muffled voice, pressing his sleeve against his mouth. "I'm so sorry, Jade..."
He asked for you...
... but that... that was what people said when...
Her brain could not register what was happening as Rad turned from her slowly and moved away, swatting at the last remnants of smoke that still hung in the air. Jade followed him obediently, stunned into utter silence by the thoughts that his words had planted in her mind.
"Jade!"
Seraphim's panic-stricken voice sliced into her soundless stupefaction before she was even aware of a moment passing, and she found herself being dragged forward from the wrists by a pair of slender, humanoid hands. The Autobot's slanted, cobalt-blue optics came into focus very gradually as she looked into them in silence, tears of bewilderment and sudden realisation coursing down her cheeks as Rad's words hit her with the force of an avalanche, making her reel in shock as if she had been punched full in the face.
Carlos was... dying...?
A light touch on the side of her head brought her back to an unfeeling reality, every part of her body numbing itself to the inevitable as the femme spoke again. "Jade - please, you gotta help," Seraphim pleaded frenetically, clearly not noticing her lack of sensation. "I - I dunno what to do - it's his legs, Jade! What the fuck am I s'posed to do with 'em?!"
"I... where...?" Jade whispered, her fingers flexing as she tugged her hands away from Seraphim's. "W-what about Ratchet...?"
Something was coming back to her, little by little... the cold, harsh dictation of logic that she preferred to the outburst of sentiment that she knew would come sooner or later, if what she feared was true. Ratchet was the medic... whatever happened, he would be able to do something, surely...
Seraphim shook her armoured head, her faceplates contorting into a look of true anguish and her optics seeming to quake in their fixed positions, as if tears threatened to be released from them. "He wouldn't be able to do nothin' - he ain't an expert in humans!" she protested frantically. "He's a field medic, not a friggin' doctor! I know he can help out wit' most things, but this - this - I - I ain't never seen him treat nothin' like this, Jade - th-there's so much blood -!"
Jade lurched forward, waving off the Autobot's attempt to catch her. She was going to faint... blood... Carlos...
... and then... she saw him.
A pool of dark, crimson blood had spread from the place where Rad was kneeling, like a worshipper in prayer, at the side of the slumped, recognisably human form that Jade's chocolate-brown eyes beheld as she stumbled to a halt, staring through her tears at the nauseatingly macabre sight that lay before her. Shattered, disturbingly pearl-white bones... horrifically mangled flesh, thick with blood that seemed too red to be real... this gruesome, appalling example of the mindless violence that the battle had brought, laid out before her in absolute, terrifying reality.
"Carlos!" she choked, almost retching on the single word before she fell to her knees, one hand striking the ground with a wet slap as her palm made contact with the blood. "N-no..."
He was dead...
Oh, it was all as she had feared...
God... she could deal with all of this. She could cope with the corpse... with the aftermath... with the blood, and the horror of death... but she couldn't handle the fact that she hadn't had a chance to say goodbye. And... and how sorry she was. Sorry that she had never loved him as he had wanted her to... sorry that it had separated them so distantly, after nearly two decades of friendship...
A weak, almost inaudible groan suddenly reached her ears, and she froze.
"... Jadie...?"
Jesus... he's still alive...
She didn't remember how she got to him. All she knew was that all of a sudden, she was kneeling next to Rad at Carlos's side, looking at his tortured face rather than his smashed-up legs. From what she had seen of them, they had been completely crushed and shattered by something... it was enough to know that he must be in agony beyond anything she could ever comprehend, and more than enough for her to be able to tell that he was not going to survive. There was no chance... none whatsoever... none...
Her lips were trembling so badly, by this point, that she could barely get the words out - but she managed to take his hand in hers, gently holding his bloody fingers in her small palm and squeezing them slightly. "I'm... I'm here, Carlos..."
Carlos nodded wearily; a motion so tiny that she almost missed it. "I'm... dead... lo siento... lo siento por todo..."
"You're not dead, bud," Rad choked out. "Just... just hold on, yeah? You're okay..."
But he's not...
As this thought passed through her mind, Jade could not help but burst into tears, overcome by everything that had happened to her. Her head lolled against Rad's shoulder as she fell back into a sitting position, almost gagging on the forceful sobs that were suddenly racking her small, slender frame. His arm came around her waist, and he leant his head against hers; she could feel him shuddering, too, and hear the tiny gasps of desolation that were escaping him as he held onto her.
Carlos's hand suddenly shifted beneath hers, and she wept bitterly when she saw him trying to lift it. "Don't t-try and move," she moaned wretchedly, but he ignored her. "Carlos... p-please..."
His reddened hand crept up to his straining throat at a snail's pace, shaking so violently that it was piteous to watch its journey up his blood-splattered shirt and to his collar. His fingers closed around something small, and his hand jerked spasmodically, ripping the mysterious object free of his neckline before he held his trembling fist up before Rad and the petrified, grieving Jade, who extended a hand unsteadily, her fingers twitching.
"G-give it... t-to... Lala..." he rasped. "T-tell her... I'm... sorry..."
Something small and hard fell into her palm with a soft clink, and Jade whimpered forlornly when she saw that he had handed her the little golden cross that he had worn since he had been a baby.
She took a deep breath, her face screwing up into a contortion of pure, gut-wrenching agony that should never have tarnished a countenance as fresh and naturally cheerful as hers had always been. "She'll... she'll g-get it, Carlos..." she promised as courageously as she could manage, though her voice had cracked as easily as a porcelain vase, and the pledge was made in a tiny, broken squeak as she tried not to suffocate on the thick, unyielding lump in her throat that was almost asphyxiating her.
Carlos nodded again, a pained wheeze escaping him as he coughed weakly, his eyelids drooping. "Adios, Rad... Sera... te quiero... Jade... lo siento... por... todo... y te amo mas... del mundo... y las estrellas en el cielo..."
Tears welled in Jade's chocolate-brown eyes and she shook her head silently, finding herself with no words left to express herself as beautifully as he had just managed to.
She wasn't fluent in his language... but she had understood every word of that declaration.
Oh, God... she had to do something for him... something to tell him that she forgave him from the bottom of her heart, and that she might... perhaps... have loved him, if she hadn't found her One... her true spark partner, whom she loved beyond anything in the world. It was something she would never, ever have so much as dreamed of doing, if it hadn't been this time, this place, and this moment... something that she needed to give him, if she was ever to be free of the guilt that his death would bring upon her.
One last gift... before he left them.
Forever.
Rad's arm slid from around her waist limply and willingly when she shifted forward with quivering hesitation, her body and mind immediately reminding her of how terribly wrong this was... in every sense of the word. But she managed to quell the reflexive urge to pull away from the broken soldier as she leant over his battered body, closed her eyes... and laid a soft kiss against his lips.
A stabbing soreness shot through her chest - the side of the spark that she and Skyfire shared, rebuking her with simple pain for her crime against her partner - but she managed, with desperation, to suppress it. Carlos's mouth moved very faintly against hers, his eyes drifting closed blissfully. She moved away after several moments of hush, yet their lips pulled apart so slowly, and with a reluctance that made a mockery of the guilt that was already descending upon her as she thought, with desolation, of her beloved Skyfire.
"Gracias..." Carlos whispered hoarsely, his head falling to the side, and into her lap. "Mi angelita."
And then... he was gone.
For almost an entire minute, none of the three who were left behind could move, or speak, or do anything but stare at the body of their fallen warrior. Then Jade turned her head and buried it in Rad's bloodstained t-shirt, muffling the sounds of her soft weeping as he hugged her tightly, rocking her as if she was a child again... a child who had played innocently with this boy, never knowing...
"It's over," she choked into Rad's chest, just as Seraphim let out the first of many cries of grief. "It's over."
The All Spark reacted to the incoming threat before anyone else in the room did; as soon as the echoing hiss of the vine-guards began to fill the room, Alexis found herself being yanked around on Optimus's shoulder at the neck, and the jewel threw forth a blinding burst of green energy into the darkness of the tunnel. A multitude of squeals announced that the blast had definitely hit something, but she knew very well that there was very little time left now... they had to get moving...
"Optimus - the Matrix!" she cried in a panic, her eyes widening and her chest clenching when she saw a faintly smoking tentacle creep around the edge of the tunnel. "Hurry!"
"I know, youngling -"
Even as he spoke, Optimus was raising his giant hands to the two windows of his Peterbiltvehicular form that formed the central part of his torso. Hooking his fingers around the edges of the glass, he pulled the two sides of his chest apart, and Alexis spied a bright blue light pulsating speedily from within it, as if it was a rapidly-beating heart - but she knew that it was his spark.
The spark of Optimus Prime... exposed to Unicron's guards...
As soon as Optimus had peeled the bright red metal back from the two sides his upper body, there was an agitation of hissing and rumbling from the tunnel behind them. Alexis screamed when she spotted the vines... ten... twenty... fifty of them, all slithering through the cavern's entrance... up the walls, across the floor... above their heads, entangling themselves around the stalactites... and then she spotted further yawning holes in the ceiling, from which more of them were emerging...
Optimus glanced behind him quickly before he continued with what he was doing... as if the fact that they were so ravenous for his life force was nothing. Alexis, on the other hand, felt her breath becoming sharper; faster - how the hell was he managing keep his cool like this?! Why couldn't she?!
Fuck it... she was so... human...
"Optimus... hurry..." she fretted in a husky whisper, her eyes feverish with panic as she stared up at the twisted mass of appendages above.
The commander paid her warning no visible heed; instead, he reached down to a point just below his spark chamber - where, Alexis could see if she leaned forward, a small red Autobot insignia was emblazoned. It was an innocent-looking example of their battle mask, but when Optimus pushed a giant finger onto it, she knew that he had just done something enormously momentous.
His spark chamber slowly slid upwards, making a soft humming sound that she could just about hear over the deafening hisses and slithering of the tentacles that were beginning to creep up on them; as it did so, something else began to emerge from below it. Alexis stared, her eyes suddenly full of a throbbing, scintillating, multicoloured light that was eking from where the small Autobot symbol had once been... slowly but surely, something was coming out from inside of Optimus's upper body, behind his thickest armour.
An orb - perhaps the size of a large beach ball - rose up from deep within the Autobot's body as Alexis watched in stupefied wonder, almost forgetting about the guards, and about Unicron. It was beautiful... violent crimsons and purples were mingled with brilliant blues, toxic greens and a multitude of other hues of every shade of the rainbow, encompassed within this glowing globe of pure, blinding colour.
Optimus wasted no time in staring at it, however; he reached inside of his opened chest and wrapped his hands around the two handholds that were on either side of the sphere. With a sharp tug, it had come away from his internal armour - he held it out in front of him, and Alexis could see that it was set into a bronze-coloured vessel of some sort.
Unicron chuckled sinisterly. "You cannot pass the shield, Prime. Even the Matrix cannot break me."
No, the All Spark agreed in Alexis's ear, sounding as if it might be smirking. But I can.
"I can," Alexis repeated under her breath, suddenly finding herself trusting in the necklace as she never had before.
He obviously hadn't heard her, but she looked up at her with clear exigency at this point. "Alexis - do you see this indent?" he asked her urgently, indicating a tiny, thumbnail-sized hole just above the multihued orb. "You must place the All Spark into here, aligning the jewel perfectly - do it now, or we will be overcome by the guards -"
"Optimus! I can't take the Goddamn necklace off, can I?!" she protested vehemently, shaking her head and giving the necklace a sharp tug to prove her point. "It's been on for too -"
The clasp broke.
Alexis blinked. "What...?"
The golden chain slipped from around her slim neck with a soft clink; the emerald-like gemstone fell into her outstretched hand, and she caught it, her fingers curling about the little jewel as she held it up to her eyes in absolute disbelief. She could see her petrified reflection in the bright green surface of the All Spark's crystalline prison, and she stared at it in disbelief. The weight that had been lifted from her... it was if she had been walking with rocks on her shoulders for all these years, and they had all just disappeared.
Did you honestly think that you were going to join with the Matrix too, Alexis Paxton? it asked her amiably, and she noticed, for the first time, that the collection of miniscule shards within it glimmered slightly with each syllable as it spoke. You are my carrier, not my collaborator.
"B-but... I... I d-don't understand..." she stammered. "I'm supposed to die... I'm joined to you..."
You are mistaken. It is the actual destruction of Unicron that you may not survive... you were not destined to die to cause that destruction.
Her mind was buzzing; she could no longer grasp what it was saying. When Optimus drew his amber sword in his free hand again, she knew she had very little time - instead of trying to figure out what was happening, or why, she extended her trembling hand and fitted the All Spark into its place in the Matrix. It fixed itself there flawlessly, and she dropped it as if was white-hot a split second later.
The guards attacked a moment later.
Acting as one, thirty or so of the thick, muscular, techno-botanic tendrils lunged for the Autobot commander, making hideous screeching sounds as they did so. They wrapped themselves around his powerful legs; lashed about his arms; one even made for his previously exposed spark, but he had already locked it back behind his chest armour. Alexis flew into a hysterical panic when she saw the Matrix fall from his hand as a vine twisted about his wrist - if these things got a hold of that - but she had to help Optimus! She couldn't just leave him...
The Matrix hit the ground with a resounding crash, coming to a dead halt at Optimus's feet. The All Spark was glowing brightly in its place, and the pearl-shaped mass of energy that made up the majority of the artefact began to shine far more fiercely, the colours virtually blinding Alexis as the room was suddenly dappled with an iridescent radiance that collided harshly with the dark light of Unicron's spark.
"Alexis, GET TO THE MATRIX!" Optimus shouted at her, and she suddenly found herself snatched up in one of his hands like a doll, clenched securely in his fist. "The orb - get the orb -!"
A powerful pull of his arm released him from the tentacle that had been trying to penetrate the weaker, thinner armour of his arm - screaming, Alexis squeezed her eyes shut tightly as she flew through the air, not knowing what was happening in the confusion that ensued. All she knew, a moment later, was that she was sprawled on solid ground, and pain was exploding behind her eyes and pressing at her cranium as if she had been shoved face-first into a trash compactor.
Stars burst at the edges of her vision as she groaned, blinking rapidly to stop herself from passing out. The kind of nausea that came whenever she whacked her elbow really hard was twisting her stomach like a whirlpool, but she ignored it - she had to follow Optimus's orders -
Craning her neck around painfully and clutching the top of her oxygen helmet in one emaciated hand, she cried out in denial when she saw Optimus being dragged towards one of the cavern walls: where, she realised, there were many protuberances that were similar to the one that had hidden Elita One. A vine whipped out from the floor, snagging his shins and causing him to fall to the floor with a thunderous crash.
"OPTIMUS!" she screamed. "NO!"
Oh, God... this was excruciating... the thought of the mighty Optimus Prime being reduced to the same broken shell as his mate had been was a thought that she couldn't stand, and yet there was nothing that she could do to stop it. The light in his kind optics being put out to become the ashes of what was once a compassionate fire... his spark failing to shine again... but she had no All Spark to help her now. She had nothing - no superhuman powers, no guardian angel, no lucky star that she could wish upon now.
She was... Alexis Paxton.
She was nineteen years old; she was from the small, sleepy town of Tranquillity, which lay on the edge of California; her father was Captain Adam John Paxton of the United States Air Force, and her mother was Jasmine Davis-Moore. She was the spark mate of Starscream, previously the Decepticon Air Commander; she would never see him again; she was weak, thin, delicate, and powerless to do anything to stop a war that she should never have been a part of in the first place.
How she had longed to be that girl since she had discovered what her family heirloom truly was.
And now that she needed to be something more than that... she wasn't.
Choking out a pitiful sob as the vines overwhelmed her only friend and ally in this Godforsaken place, Alexis slammed her fists into the ground angrily, gasping for breath. Yet through her bitter tears, her eyes found the Matrix... a mere metre or two out of her reach, burning more and more vibrantly with each moment that passed with Unicron still living.
The sight rekindled some tiny ember of courage that was still left inside of her - she staggered to her feet, driven by a desperation she had never known before that moment. Her painfully slender foal's legs were barely able to support her as she struggled to adjust to standing without the weight of the All Spark around her neck, and her head was throbbing agonisingly every time she moved. Even her oxygen helmet hadn't taken enough of the force of her fall to stop her from being injured... luck was never on her side...
Wobbling precariously on her feet, she stumbled forward, reaching down to grab one of the giant handholds of the artefact with her tiny human hands. She knew at once that she would never be able to elevate it... she had no strength left with which to do so, and it was made of some kind of heavy metal that she wouldn't have a chance against.
Unicron's voice suddenly boomed throughout the cavern.
"You cannot do it, Alexis Paxton," he declared darkly, and the guards hissed in the background. "You are weak and afraid. Prime will soon be drained of his life force... you have failed. I will be free to devour your planet, along with each and every one of you pitiful organic creatures... along with the Cybertronians that dared to stand in my way."
"Y-you're not - consuming - anything!" Alexis denied blindly, tugging at the handhold feverishly with her stick-like arms. "You will NEVER consume this planet - you're fucking dead, Unicron! Optimus is going to pull through this, you bastard!"
"I doubt that. Now... be a good child and unhand the Matrix."
"NEVER!" she screamed, though her arms were aching just from the effort of trying to lift the stupid thing. "I... I won't give this up..."
But much as she might have tried to deny it... she knew how right Unicron truly was. She needed Optimus's strength to lift the Matrix - Unicron's spark chamber was still several metres away across the cavern, and there was no way that she could drag it there, or lift it. She didn't even know what she was supposed to do once she reached it - the crystal wall still stood between her and the spark, and she had no idea how she was supposed to break through it. If only the All Spark would talk to her now... when she wanted it to...
She leant over the orb exhaustedly, defeated in every sense of the word. The colours burnt the backs of her eyes with their radiant intensity, and yet it was warm enough to make her want to just melt into it... lay down her life... make all of this disappear. Her fingers traced the gemstone stuck fast in the Matrix's receptacle, and she felt tears well up in her eyes. A single tear slid down her cheek and dripped downward, hitting the orb with a soft hiss as it evaporated into oblivion.
And suddenly... the orb was free of its vessel.
Alexis threw herself backwards when the multicoloured sphere came free of its bindings, moving upwards until it was hovering in front of her face. A thin line of blue energy passed from the All Spark gem and wrapped itself around the floating orb, lacing itself into the scintillating colours.
That was when Unicron spoke again.
"Kill her."
Shoot...
Immediately, the guards that had been waiting to strike from the upper and lower limits of the cavern lashed free of the cracks in the metallic rock, twisting towards Alexis from every angle that she could see through her tears of shock and terror. A giant, cold fist seemed to clench her heart tightly in her panic; before she could even consider what she was doing, she had sprinted forward, leapt over the bronze receptacle, seized the orb in both hands, landed like a cat, and made a wild dash towards Unicron's spark chamber.
Vines thrashed from the walls, the sharp tip of one slashing her across the arm viciously as she raced forward, ducking the ones that assailed her from above and jumping over those that came from below. She ignored the pain, tightening her embrace around the warm, shimmering orb, which was slipping out of her arms as if made of oil-covered glass.
Alexis knew how easy it would be to just lie down and wait for it all to end. To let the colours of the Matrix burn out. To let Optimus be dragged into the depths of the unknown, all for nothing... to let Earth fade away, as if it never were. But the thought that they might be able to live... that killing Unicron would save billions of lives in return... that drove her onward...
The guards were tearing at her clothes, at her helmet, at her skin; scrabbling frantically as they attempted to seize her, but she did not stop. All she could see were the faces of her friends... her mother... Starscream...
She would not let them go quietly into the night.
She was moving so quickly that she slammed straight into the crystalline shield that surrounded Unicron's spark when it loomed before her; reeling back from the force of the impact, she very nearly fell, but managed to keep her balance, as well as her precarious hold around the Matrix. She pressed her palm up against the ice-cold surface, and her breath became to come in white bursts of vapour as her entire body was subjected to a chill that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
The guards, Alexis, the All Spark warned. Bring forth the Matrix.
"So you are still talking to me, huh?" Alexis choked out, completely out of breath and feeling as if she might have a heart attack. But she could sense the incoming threat from behind her, and had no time to find the logic in what was happening.
The orb slipped in her hands as she held it up, but she compressed her fingertips tightly around its multihued surface, gritting her teeth determinedly as sweat dripped down her forehead beneath the visor of her oxygen helmet. Then she took several speedy steps forward, stretching her arms out in front of her and pressing the ball of colour up against the diamond-like material... and it melted away from the dazzling object, as if the warmth exuding from the Matrix had simply liquefied it.
Go!
She couldn't tell whether it was her thought, or the All Spark's; she didn't know what had happened, or why, or how. All she knew was that she had to get through... she had to get the Matrix to the Spark of Unicron...
With no time to wait for the entirety of the shield to dissolve, Alexis grabbed the sides of the gap she had created and hauled herself up through it with strength that was fuelled by adrenaline alone, drawing her knees up and forcing her slender body through the expanding opening with a scream of exertion. The ferocity of her action caused her to catch her boot on the diamond, and she tumbled headfirst into the spark chamber, her helmet hitting the floor with a resounding thunk of metal on metal.
This time, the resultant ache didn't even keep down for two seconds - hell, she'd had a lot worse - and she scrambled up again doggedly, still just about holding onto the Matrix as she gasped for the oxygen in her helmet.
Then she realised.
She was inside of Unicron's spark chamber... and there was his spark.
Nothing stood between her and the lightning-ridden cloud of black, tainted energy... not now that she had crossed the crystal line. It was whirling before her in a great, powerful column of something that was neither gas, nor liquid, nor solid, or any such state in between; a vortex so rushing and intense that she could feel it pressing and pulling against her slender form, calling her into the depths of the darkness in a language that she could neither hear nor understand.
Oh, God... help...
She didn't want to be near this thing...
Then, out of the blue, she could hear... people... people that were in pain... she could hear the sounds of people sobbing, women screaming, men shouting... guns rattling... swords ringing, as if being withdrawn from sheaths... the echoes of battle, and death, and fear. The shrieking clamour of metal and gears, growing louder and louder... the sounds that she could not rid herself of...
"N-no!" she suddenly protested as the noise began to consume her, wrenching her head around and tearing her eyes from the dark spark with a cry of denial and effort. "D-don't... I don't want to hear it..."
As her eyes filled up with tears again - God, there's so much agony back on Earth... such pain - she saw, through the saline haze, that the vine-guards could not penetrate the barrier that separated herself and the spark from the other side of the cavern. They smashed themselves up against the shield, trying to force their thick forms through the infinitesimal outlet that she had created, but to no avail... she was safe from their clutches... for the time being, at least.
But she was not safe from whatever it was that this spark of Unicron's could do. She was too weak... too weak to resist the seductive temptation that it oozed like poisoned wine, dripping with black promise...
Yet in spite of her vulnerability, Alexis could have sworn that she could hear the very faintest shadow of disquiet in Unicron's tone when he spoke to her again, his voice booming from within the very centre of the ebony whirlpool. "Lower the Matrix, girl," he snarled at her threateningly."You do not know what you are doing."
But Alexis could no longer hear him.
Through the thick, diamond wall of Unicron's spark chamber, she could just about see the disjointed image of Optimus in the glass, warped by the many tiny fragments of clear crystal, and the millions of Cybertronian hieroglyphics that stood between them. The vines were dragging him into the wall... winding around his neck, and pinning his mighty shoulders to the rock... but she could still see his blue optics, burning through the darkness... pleading with her... pleading with her to fight...
"Until all," she whispered, lowering her eyes, "Are one."
Until all are one.
Alexis turned around, facing the hub of all evil in the universe with a sudden flame burning behind her emerald eyes. Her near-skeletal hands held the Matrix up before those eyes, and the rainbow illumination flickered in her irises, lighting up the darkness inside of her where her spirit had been stolen away by years of carrying a burden that had never been hers to carry.
Then she ran... ran towards that evil...
"NO!" Unicron roared. "YOU ARE DOOMED, ALEXIS PAXTON! YOU ARE ALL DOOMED!"
"I don't fucking think so!" Alexis screamed. "YOU'RE ALL MINE, UNICRON!"
She was exhausted; weak; injured to the bone, and shattered both in spirit and body. But she still managed - with a frantic, desperate force that she had never known in her life - to raise the orb of the Matrix high above her head, screaming her final sentiments to the bastard as she did so - and hurl it, with every last ounce of strength left in her body, into the very centre of Unicron's spark.
The artefact disappeared into the depths of the vortex, plunging into the black brilliance before Alexis's eyes. She stumbled backwards, tripping over the laces of her shoes and falling to the floor, her chest heaving and her breath coming out in ragged bursts.
Thank you, little one.
And that was the last thing she heard before it happened.
The ground, the walls, and the roof of the cavern began to tremble. Unicron's spark glowed fiercely for a moment as the Matrix fell into it, and Optimus let out a weak groan from where he had fallen heavily to the ground from the suddenly slackened restraints; Alexis scrambled away from the illumination, panic finally overwhelming her as she realised, with crippling terror, that this was it. This was the moment that she had feared since she had discovered the necklace's terrible secret... the moment of her death...
Then suddenly she was running - sprinting towards the tiny gap that was still left in the spark chamber - she dived through the hole in the crystal and tuck rolled like a gymnast before she was up on her feet again - running to Optimus, and flinging her arms around his neck - burying her face in his armour as a shuddering to rival an earthquake overtook the rocky ground. She clung to him as a child clings to a parent; his hand came up to cradle her fragile, wasted body, and she squeezed her eyes shut tightly.
"Farewell, Alexis Paxton..." he murmured in her ear. "It was an honour serving with you."
"A-and y-y-you," Alexis sobbed inarticulately, tears already pouring down her pale cheeks as a deep, resonating rumble assaulted her ears. The blinding glare of Unicron's overloading spark was burning through her eyelids, such was its intensity... even they could not hide the shining light of death... "G-g-good-b-bye... Opti-m-mus..."
She could see them all. There they all were... her mother, the Autobots, the other kids... people she had never met, and never would... they were all back on Earth, smiling at her proudly as tears rolled down her mother's pale cheeks...
Then there was Rose, waiting to receive her... her father at her side, extending a hand to guide her into the darkness...
And Starscream...
Starscream...
Suddenly, the entire world seemed to rock, and Alexis choked out a sob that was so harsh that it felt like her heart was being torn out. Optimus grunted in what sounded like pain, but she was certain, for a moment, that it was just another part of the imminent explosion, and the earthquake that was preceding it. At least... that was what she had thought, until she heard the voice... the voice that belonged to neither Unicron, nor Optimus... nor even the All Spark...
"Get UP, you useless slagger!"
Oh, God - she knew that voice -
The next thing she knew, she had been lifted off the ground in a powerful metallic grasp - she screamed in surprise, thinking for a moment that it might have been a rogue sentinel, but she soon came to realise that who or whatever was holding her was not trying to suffocate or crush her under its weight. She was being held firmly, but gently enough so as not to cause her major discomfort - she looked up to see what was happening, her eyes wide with shock and terror -
... Starscream?
It couldn't be... but the crimson eyes staring out of the proud, angular face... it was...!
He didn't say anything to her - ignored her completely, in fact, as he threw her up onto his shoulder like a rag doll and seized Optimus roughly, dragging him to his feet and snarling as he did so. "GET UP!" he roared, and the commander stared at him in utter disbelief as he was heaved back into a standing position and shaken like a leaf in Starscream's clawed hand. "RUN, you absolute IDIOT! Don't just GAWK at me!"
"Starscream...?"
"YES, slag it all! Now RUN!"
Before she could so much as breathe, or scream, or protest in any way whatsoever, Alexis was snatched up in Starscream's hand again and crammed into some kind of compartment in his upper body, as if she was as storable as the patchwork chamois they had given him at Christmas. The cover of the cockpit that formed his chest sealed over her, and she fell against it harshly as soon as it had closed, her hands slamming into the glass as she stood up in her prison, trying her utmost to keep her balance in the cramped space.
What the hell was he doing here - how was he here?! Emotions were raging through her body like howling winds that tore her in different directions, ravaging every exhausted muscle and making her blood pump through her veins like gushing water, loaded with sudden adrenaline. Jesus... had Starscream come here... to save them?!
She was suddenly thrown against the glass agonisingly again, her helmet hitting the surface with a ghastly thwack.
Oh, God...
Starscream turned suddenly, and Alexis slammed into the other side of the cockpit, gasping when her elbow made sharp contact with her spark mate's metallic internals. She could just about catch a glimpse of Optimus's flame-red-and-blue paintwork through the filthy glass before the light from Unicron's overload became too bright... she threw a hand over her eyes to shield them from the glare, crouching down in the tiny cockpit space and wrapping her free fingers around a metallic protrusion to hold herself steady, her body tightening in preparation for the unknown.
She didn't know what he was doing... or why... or if it meant that she was going to live today.
But she knew that whatever it was... it was going to be one hell of a rough ride...