Chapter Text
It all happened in a rush.
Kaon bolted onto the bridge of the Peaceful Tyranny, frantic in a way Nickel had never contemplated the mech might be possible of attaining. In fact, Kaon was so frantic that at first Nickel found herself unable to parse the words falling from Kaon's mouth. By the time they finally made sense, it was too late.
"—the Pet!" Kaon cried as he rushed toward Tarn, Helex hot on his heels. The big smelter mech looked decidedly less than pleased, all of that annoyed anger directed at his teammate. Worse, perhaps, was the way Overlord viewed the building scene with widening optics. A slow sense of impending doom sat heavy in Nickel's fuel tank as Overlord's perpetual smile curled deeper with growing amusement.
The ball of dread only bubbled larger as the situation played out, intensifying and playing like snippets as if saving the whole to memory might prove far too traumatic. "—a pet? Oh, this is—"
Overlord joining the conversation was not good. Not good at all. Never good.
"—rescued him!"
Nickel tossed her gaze back and forth, distracted by the flood of seething darkness in Tarn's field, like a bullied sparkling about to break with the need to prove himself. Her insides hollowed as her spark casing gave the sensation of dropping into her already fear-laden fuel tank. "Tarn?" she whispered, not sure if she wanted her words to reach him. "What are you doing, Tarn?"
"—the gulf between reputation and reality could be so—"
All her misgivings screamed at Nickel to move, to do something, as Tarn reached out a hand toward Kaon. It was far too gentle. A serene show that hid something putrid and rusted completely through. Time slowed and suddenly she saw it all with perfect clarity, every second, every moment, that followed burned into her brain module.
"Come here, Kaon," Tarn said with a gentle beckoning curl of his fingers, his tone soothing. The light caught on the sharp tips of his talons, the glint a silent howl of danger Kaon would not be aware of in his blindness, but left Nickel rooted where she stood. As Kaon came into Tarn's hold, his smaller red and gold frame was pulled in a comforting embrace. One hand stroked along the side of his helm as he relaxed against Tarn's broad chest. "I never realized that you cared for that creature as much as you do."
Her own hand shifted to rest on her chest, her spark pulsing with horror as sharp and whipping tendrils of vile disappointment lashed out from Tarn's field. She'd never felt such frozen yet burning rage in the entirety of her functioning, had never felt such helpless inability to avoid incoming disaster since Prion.
"Sorry—" Tarn paused for the briefest of moments, easing Kaon back away from him just enough to cup the smaller mech's helm between his hands.
The blunt tips of Nickel's fingers scratched at her chest, scraping the paint as she forced herself to continue watching. It was incomprehensibly obvious that Kaon was far too upset to be aware of—
RRRIP! It was an ungodly sound, every time she heard something of the sort. Never here, though. Never in the heart of the ship that had become a new home, second only to the team base back on Messatine.
Nickel didn't watch the end, only knowing that Kaon's helm still rested between Tarn's hands and a good length of his life cord tangled useless and exposed from the shredded remains of Kaon's neck. Her attention instead immediately focused on the decapitated frame tumbled to the floor in front of her, biolights gone dark. Behind her, as she chased after the fallen frame, pulling it to herself, Nickel heard the sickening crunch and squelch. A glance had her biting back a purge of the energon processing in her fuel tank.
Smeared across Overlord's broad chest were chunks of her friend's smashed helm and the dimming gore of energon no longer supporting life.
Cradling what was left of Kaon against her chassis, Nickel barely listened as Tarn continued his tirade against such things as compassion or feeling anything beyond the need for perfect adherence to the Cause. It very nearly hid the spike of regret he quickly buried. Her spark lurched as she automatically reached to stroke Kaon's helm, instead finding her hand covered in the dull energon already starting to go sticky.
"What have you done…?" she cried out, her fingers catching at the edges of the open space that had once housed Kaon's neck. No answer came her way as Tarn continued his pontificating to an Overlord that seemed more disgusted at the mess decorating his chassis. Deathsaurus, at least, appeared alarmed by what he had just seen, though he made no move to do anything.
"No more waiting. No more digressions." Whatever last bit of upset that might linger in Tarn's field was hastily locked away, leaving him a solid and unmoving figure at the center of the bridge. A more heavily imposing figure than Nickel had ever seen or felt him before, his deadly voice sent a new tremble of fear through her. From the sheer strength of the flex of Tarn's ability, she knew she wasn't the only one affected. "The players are in position and the sun is nearly set. And victory… is finally within our grasp."
Nickel understood the final confrontation on this planet was very nearly at hand, even without Tarn's announcement of it. Not willing to give up the cooling frame held so close to her chassis, though, she raised her voice loud enough to be heard over the clash fields seeking domination flicking around her. "If you don't mind, Tarn, I'll be taking the—" she hoped the pause and small tremor in her voice as it struck her just what she was about to say wasn't obvious, "—spare parts to my medibay to get them cleaned for when somebody needs them."
She wasn't the least bit surprised no one moved to help her. As easy as it was for her boys to absolutely decimate anyone whose name was on the List, they were decidedly more squeamish when it came to the wounding of their own. Seeing her lug around the decapitated and quickly graying frame of the one teammate they'd all considered exempt from Tarn's worst aggressions, the one member of the squad as yet never replaced, Nickel noted they chose to not even look in her direction. For such big and tough mechs, they were certainly cowards.
By the time she reached the door of her domain, Nickel breathed thanks that despite her size she was gifted the strength given to all medics. While it might not have been enough to cart around the likes of Helex or Tesarus, it was more than enough to get what was left of Kaon to safety. If she'd left him in the presence of Tarn in his current mood or risked learning if Overlord having any respect for the dead, Nickel knew she'd have nothing left to mourn beyond her memories.
She hauled Kaon's frame inside and slapped a hand over the console to lock the door behind her. Carrying him to the nearest medslab, Nickel set it at its lowest height before laying her burden across the surface. As hard as she tried to keep it gentle, she winced as the flopping limbs banged and crashed where they would. Getting them where they should be, Nickel patted at the slowly depigmenting armor of his chest. Her fingertips played a soft ringing chime along the blades of his turbine.
"I'm so sorry, dear Kaon," Nickel said, her entire form drooping as she allowed her sadness to finally manifest. Not even the slightest thrum of life played through the metal under her hand. "I know it's not any sort of excuse, but we both know how easily Tarn is played when his pride is on the line."
Running her fingertips over the thin blades of Kaon's turbine again, Nickel bit at her lip and looked away from the medslab. She'd watched far too many she considered friends—family—go gray like this. It was, perhaps, a touch slower than all her previous experience with the phenomena, but any number of things about Kaon's unique physiology might explain it.
"Well," she said with a heave of air from her vents, "suppose we should probably get this started. Don't know how much time Tarn's plan will give me, after all. Much as he says it's almost time, you know how he likes to grandstand. I could have until the hour hits or until the end of next week."
Paying no mind to the small quiver in her hands that had her struggling with releases, Nickel set about stripping away Kaon's armor. The removed pieces held onto their color better than those that were still attached to the protoform. Not unusual, but not notably common, either, when the original wearer no longer lived.
As both a Cold Constructed mech and a spark manipulated into outlier status, Kaon was born of strange things. She didn't know the story of his creation, but she was well-aware that such combinations were far from ordinary. It didn't make her feel better about the drying gore of sticky, puddling energon that dripped in rivulets dripping from the edges of the medslab. At least the wound he bore kept his internals from being flooded by whatever energon still remained in his lines. No, all of it flowed freely outside the damaged frame, coating her, the medslab, and the floor.
"Among a group of very strange mechs," Nickel said to the helmless corpse of her friend, reaching into his side to tug out his fully intact transformation cog, "you were without a doubt the strangest in many ways." She paused and turned the transformation cog over in her hands, tracing her thumbs through the grooves that allowed a bot to transform. "I do… did—oh, scrap that! I do love you very much for all that weirdness of yours."
The transformation cog gave a small twist in her deft touch, moving precisely as it should. Her first immediate thought was to toss it in the bin with the others she collected for Tarn and his damnable addiction. She could never have enough with the way he went through them. Nickel had no more than to glance toward the shelf the bin sat on, though, before she shuddered and tucked the transformation cog into a frame pocket in her forearm. She wasn't about to let Tarn smoosh another part of Kaon if she could help it.
Her spark quailed suddenly. The smaller scales of her plating ruffled and cold swirled through her internals. She wasn't much for omens or dark tidings, but heeding such once before had kept her alive for her boys to find her. Clutching at her chest, Nickel muttered to herself as she turned back to the medslab. "Bad sign, Nickel. Bad sign."
Moving to Kaon's chest plating, she tugged loose that brassy turbine cover, revealing the workings beneath. Unlike many, Kaon had extensive shielding to separate his spark casing from wires and connectors that weren't present in a standard chassis. He hadn't needed the protection, all of his internals built to withstand the sort of voltage he'd been capable of, but Nickel figured it was a safeguard, should his power go out of control. She gave the blades of the turbine cover a small and dispirited spin before adding the armor to her carefully growing stack. They gave a soft whir around the central spindle, lacking the faint buzz of electricity she'd grown used to.
Carefully disconnecting the wiring and front panel of the built-in baffle box, Nickel hesitated before steeling herself for the sight she was about to see. No medic in her experience enjoyed opening a chassis up to find themselves face to face with a spark casing holding an unlit crystal. She let her optical shutters slip closed and cycled a few calming breaths through her ventilation system. Then, she eased the shielding out of the way and looked inside the exposed deeper cavity of Kaon's torso.
And blinked.
Her jaw fell, her optics dialed open wide as they could. Nickel dived forward over the open chassis and watched with paralyzed awe as that crystal she expected to be dark glimmered again with the faintest of burning copper blue light. No, she thought with a small shake of her helm, antennae twitching in disbelief. She couldn't have seen that, but then came yet another flash.
"Oh, by the Hand," she breathed, leaning closer still as another, even fainter flash of the pale blue bounced off her optical lenses. In her despair, she'd forgotten the properties of the baffle box made it almost impossible to detect his spark at all even at its healthiest. Had she not been under the influence of her emotions, yanking the box open might have been her first inclination. A move that would give her even just a few seconds more to hunt down one of those infernal—!
Her plating flared and she leapt into action with a flurry that would have made Vos' whirlwind scrabbling look slow. "Where are you? Where, damn it all?!"
Throwing open cabinet doors with reckless abandon, Nickel sought the store of Spark Rigs her boys had brought back from their romp through Garrus 9. She'd tossed them aside with little care—no one ever brought back a live captive in need of such a thing, after all. At that moment, though, Nickel couldn't deny how very much she wanted to kiss Tesarus. To thank him for his declaration of, "Might be useful to have a stash. You know how Tarn is," as he dumped five of the wretched things on a medslab. If only she could find them now.
"Ah ha!" she shouted in triumph as she shoved aside a container of mostly complete spark casings set aside for the Pet. Yanking the scratched and dented devices from the back of the shelf they were hidden on, Nickel didn't have time to wonder whether they still even worked or not. It honestly didn't matter as Kaon was quite literally moments away from utterly unfixable deactivation, either way. "Don't you give up on me yet, love!" she called out as she dug through for the one in the best condition—she recalled one had looked almost perfect, despite the way her lugs had handled it. "Just hold on a bit longer!"
Prize in hand, she skated back to the side of the medslab, skidding to a halt with a squeal of her wheels as she set the rig down at Kaon's side. Moments later, the Spark Rig was open and powered up, ready to receive the crystal growing ever closer to dark in the open chassis before her. Her tools were out and so very cautiously extended into the baffle box, again thankful for the lack of spilled energon.
With both hands, she sought the minuscule bolts that clamped the casing closed, letting the loosened nuts drop where they would with tiny tings! as they hit the back of the box. After pulling the top section away with much more consideration when the last bolt was removed, she carefully grasped the crystal to the gentlest of her ability with a claw tool that quickly replaced the minuscule wrench. She lifted the crystal, holding her hand underneath, on the chance it should slip loose of the clamp during the transfer.
The crystal's dying flickers reflected in the lenses of her optics as she removed it from the open chest of her friend's broken frame. She moved as quickly as she dared, her own spark twisting tightly upon itself as the crystal slumped to one side in the hold of the claw. The fright of it had her holding her cupped hand closer to the fragile essence, ready, but hoping actually touching the naked crystal would be unnecessary. There wasn't much in the research she'd read regarding it, but what little existed spoke of the chances of contamination. However small those chances might be, Nickel hoped to avoid it, already knowing the unsterilized Spark Rig risked it more than enough. Keeping her own CNA uninvolved was the least she could do for the spark, if it survived the transfer.
The thought of it not surviving now that she had the barest hope torqued her internals hard, resulting in a twitch of her hand that threatened to drop the crystal in another slip. It dangled precariously from the grasp of the claw, shifting precious microns with each passing second. She grit her dentae, trying not to think about the damage she might be causing the fragile crystal with the force of how she held it.
"C'mon, Nickel," she encouraged herself, struggling against any further shakes that threatened her task. "Don't be hasty—!" She gasped as the crystal turned on end. "No!"
Nickel watched in wide-opticked horror as the rough, double-terminated crystal jiggled loose and plunged from the grasp of the claw. The claw clacked as the graspers closed on themselves. With a soft tink! against her palm, the crystal lit up with one last brilliant flare, then bounced and tumbled into the open maw of the Spark Rig.
Of its own accord, the rig pulled the flaps of its open top closed, sealing with a hiss and click of the powerful locking mechanism… then went dark, bereft of any sign of power. Her own spark give a weak flicker, her entire being drooping as she watched the Spark Rig sit unresponsive. Only cranking her audials to their maximum found the faintest hum suggesting it remained powered. Until it stopped, falling silent.
A deep sigh, flowing from the most hidden parts of her ventilation system, accompanied the crestfallen lowering of Nickel's chin toward her collar fairing. Letting the shutters close over her optics, Nickel turned away from the medslab and started a slow roll toward the door. Tarn must be waiting quite impatiently by now, she knew, and there was nothing keeping her in the medibay.
Beep!
She frowned, optics opening in narrow red slits as she slid a sharp look over her shoulder. Another beep and a dance of multicolored lights across the power panel of the Spark Rig had her returned quickly right back where she'd been. As she watched, the lights took on a recognizable pattern, followed by a series of chirpy beeps and a few shunting clicks. A final locking sequence settled with another, louder hiss as the lights assumed a standard display and the hum of power gentled into something most definitely on, but not overwhelming. The small screen at the top of the rig scrolled a readout that Nickel rushed to read.
[Containment: initialized… complete. Signature: recorded. Contents: stable.]
Nickel clasped her hands together over where her spark sat in her chest, feeling it pulse hard and bright in its casing. Her optics bled with light and dripped with cleanser. "Oh, we did it, dearspark," she whispered in a gruff and disbelieving voice to the Spark Rig, setting her hands on top of the box with care not to disturb it. "We did it! Well done!"
She wasn't sure how she ended up dragged into the mess she found herself in this time—well, she did, but Nickel wasn't going to dwell on it. No longer alone, no longer of the Decepticon Justice Division, no longer even short-lived Commander of a Warworld. Now claimed by a bunch of bottom of the barrel idiot degenerates masquerading as Decepticons and crewing with only slightly less idiotic Autobot degenerates, she faced the possibilities of a brand-new universe.
Placing a hand over the frame pocket at her hip that held the Spark Rig and its precious cargo, Nickel could only be grateful she'd the presence of mind to never leave it behind. Without her, eventually the Spark Rig would fail and the spark inside would fade. There was every chance deactivation might take her and the fragile spark she carried, but with her, Kaon retained a chance, however small, of continuing.
And maybe, just maybe, with her growing knowledge of the Lost Light and the freewheeling nature of the disparate crew, she might stumble across a miracle. For the time being, however, she would find a place to hide the Spark Rig from all prying optics. Including Misfire on the hunt for munchies.