A/N: Apologies for the delay! I'd forgotten I hadn't actually posted this chapter yet, oops. D: This is the last of the chapters I've actually gotten completed, though I do hope to write some more at some point and finally finish this story off! Feedback is always welcome! :D

Back on the ground, Fireflight stood with the small group of Autobots, his weapons ready as he anxiously watched what he could see through the tree branches of the battle overhead. He suddenly twitched and stiffened, his optics wide. "I gotta go," he said distractedly, and before Prowl or any of the others could say anything, Fireflight had dashed out into the clearing and launched himself upwards, his shredded wing notwithstanding.

"What the slag-" Ironhide started, then fell silent in surprise as he saw what was happening. Beside him, Prowl could only watch in disbelief.

Just above the canopy, the five jet mechs came together in what looked like it was going to be an almighty aerial collision - but instead of crashing into each other, they swiftly transformed in mid-air, parts shifting and sliding into entirely new configurations, connecting one to the other. In moments, the five jets had been replaced with one sleek, massive, and deadly-looking giant of a mech. It landed heavily on its feet in the clearing, the ground shuddering beneath the impact. Its head craned upwards as it watched the Seekers coming in overhead before it swiftly brought both arms up. More parts shifted and twisted as its hands and forearms formed large cannons, and it braced itself before letting rip with both of them. Plasma-fire blasted out towards the Seekers, scattering them in all directions as they scrambled madly to avoid being blown apart.

"Sweet merciful hellfires," Sideswipe breathed, watching with wide optics from the shelter of the trees. Beside him, Sunstreaker nodded in wordless agreement.

"Agreed," Jazz added reverently. The Autobots watched as the massive gestalt continued to fire upon the scattered Seekers, causing some damage and preventing them from getting back into their formation. A pair of the Seekers strafed it from behind with laserfire, but the gestalt barely moved, and didn't even seem to notice. Finally the Seekers all fled out of range, trailing sparks and smoke, the sound of their engines fading into the distance. The gestalt fired after them a few more times, then watched them retreat until they'd disappeared from sight and out of scanner range. Once it was clear that the Seekers weren't coming back, it then turned to face the Autobots, retracting its weapons and being very careful as to where it put its feet.

Ironhide brought his own weapons to bear and stepped forward aggressively to face the gestalt. "Who the slag are you?" he demanded.

"Ironhide!" Prowl snapped. "Stand down!" Ironhide ignored Prowl though, and continued to glare up at the massive mech.

The gestalt didn't move, save to tilt its head slightly towards Ironhide; it seemed to have to stop and consider the question carefully before it replied. "I am... Superion," it answered finally, its voice a low rumble. "I mean you no harm."

Prowl stepped up beside Ironhide and forced his weapons down, giving the larger black mech a glare before turning to face Superion. "We don't doubt that," he replied levelly. "We would like an explanation though."

Superion paused, and then nodded slowly. "I will try-"

He was suddenly cut off by Hound, who had been keeping an eye on his own more sensitive scanners. "Missiles incoming! Hit the deck!"

The Seekers had let off a final parting volley of missiles from long-range, aimed directly at where the gestalt was standing. Everyone's heads went up in alarm for a moment before they scrambled for cover. Superion glanced back, then planted himself squarely between the Autobots and the oncoming missiles and braced himself. A moment later the missiles came whistling out of the sky and slammed into Superion's back in close succession, exploding in a riot of flame and smoke and swaying the surrounding trees with the shockwave. Branches snapped and broke and fell in a storm of twigs and leaves around them. Superion staggered forward from the force, swayed, then dropped to his knee, bracing himself up with one arm.

One by one the Autobots picked themselves up from where they'd taken cover, brushing themselves off and shaking their heads to clear the ringing noise caused by the explosions. Superion remained where he was, with dense smoke curling up from the ruins of his back.

"Are y'okay, big guy?" Jazz asked as he moved around to eye the damage on Superion's back, wincing slightly in sympathy. It was a mess of charred, half-melted and shredded metal, with missing chunks of armour exposing damaged wiring and circuits, all smoking and sparking. The backs of his arms and legs weren't much better; torn, melted, charred, blackened and streaked with soot.

Superion was silent and unmoving for a long, tense moment, then he straightened slightly, the visor over his optics flickering briefly before brightening. "I am still mostly functional, for now," he intoned. "Components, however, will not be able to travel separately."

Prowl grimaced. It wouldn't be easy getting Superion back to base unnoticed, but it would be even harder to transport five badly damaged mechs through the woods. "Understood," he replied with a nod. "Are you able to travel? Our base is a couple of hours drive away. We can help with repairs if you can get there."

Again, that long moment of silence before Superion replied. "I can fly that distance."

Prowl raised a browplate in surprise, but didn't question it for now. "All right. Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, escort him back in stages. The rest of us will follow as quickly as we can, and I'll let the Ark know you're coming. Try to keep out of sight as much as possible."

"Roger that, Prowl." Sideswipe looked up at Superion even as Sunstreaker moved off into the trees. "There's a maintenance track along a firebreak fairly close by here - we'll meet up with you on it, and go from there, all right?" He rattled off a set of coordinates, then waited for the giant mech's response.

Superion nodded once after a moment and carefully stood up, then leapt upwards without preamble. Hidden thrusters roared to life and nearly flattened the Autobots with sound and backdraft as Superion cleared the treetops and slowly soared off, keeping just above the canopy.

"Friendly, isn't he?" Sideswipe observed cheerfully before he hurried off into the trees to catch up with his twin. Prowl just shook his head, bemused, an expression which Ironhide and Hound shared to some degree.

Jazz brushed himself off, then glanced over at Ironhide with a grin. "So, you still think this was all just some kinda trap?"

Ironhide shook his head, still looking bemused. "Right now, I don't know -what- to think."

Prowl had to agree with him on that.

...

Superion's mind was a mass of confusion and conflicting thoughts. At first, there had been no time to consider anything more than driving off the attacking Seekers and keeping the Autobots safe. But now that he had time to think, it was proving to be an almost impossible task. Even answering the simple questions the Autobots had asked him had proven to be far more of a challenge than it should have been. A knotted tangle of information and emotions whirled and swarmed through his head, threatening to overwhelm him, and right now none of it made any sense.

He shook his head, trying to quiet all the conflicting thoughts and feelings bouncing around inside it, and glanced down at the ground below. Two Lamborghinis, red and yellow, rocketed along a narrow, deserted dirt trail, kicking up twin rooster-tails of dust. Superion glided along above them, his shadow falling long and dark across the ground off to one side as the sinking sun threw its rays across the world. He soon overtook the twins and continued gliding ahead, towards the coordinates they'd given him at the last stop. That, at least, was one part of his noisy, unorganised mind that was somewhat useful. It remembered things, remembered them easily and clearly, and presented what it remembered when he needed it.

The rest of his mind however was not so cooperative. With a low growl of frustration, Superion shook his head again. He was too tired, too sore, too confused to deal with sorting out everything else that was going on in there. It was -his- mind, not anybody else's, and he was going to take control of it. Right now, only three things stood out clearly from the mess; only those three things really mattered.

I am Superion.

The Autobots are my allies.

The Decepticons are my enemies.

That is all I need to know.

With those thoughts held uppermost, Superion suppressed everything else almost savagely, mentally pushing the maelstrom of other fleeting thoughts and emotions away until everything was quiet.

I am Superion, and this is -my- mind.

...

The twins pulled up simultaneously in a shower of dust and gravel, and Sunstreaker grumbled under his breath about scratches and polish. Beside the old dirt road, Superion stood and waited patiently for them to give him the next set of coordinates. They'd finally cleared the redwood forest, and the sun had mostly disappeared behind the horizon, casting the world in shades of purple and grey.

Sideswipe shifted his weight over his tyres and scanned the giant mech up and down, noting that he was looking more and more run-down with every stop. Although Superion's internal repairs had already kicked in to some degree to seal off fluid leaks, there was little it could do about the more severe damage, and exposed wires still occasionally sparked in the darkness. Not that Superion said anything about it though; he barely said anything, really, remaining stoic and silent unless asked a direct question that needed a direct answer.

"You look like slag," Sideswipe said frankly. "How're you feeling, big guy?" He waited patiently for the reply, though it seemed longer in coming than it had before, and he was sure that the large mech's optic band was dimmer, too.

"I am... still functional," Superion replied slowly after several moments. "I do not know for how much longer, though. Energy reserves are... falling to critical levels."

"It's dark enough now that he could probably just head straight to the Ark without much notice," Sunstreaker murmured to his twin. "There's not that many people between here and there, and I don't particularly want to have to drag him home."

"There ain't a towing package in the world big enough," Sideswipe murmured back with wry amusement. He flipped open a radio channel and had a brief conversation, then shut it off and backed up a little. "Right. You're clear to go straight to base now, big guy." He rattled off the coordinates before continuing. "Ratchet and Wheeljack will be waiting for you outside, they'll look after you. Got it?"

There was another long pause before Superion nodded slowly. "Understood." The giant mech waited until the twins had started off again before taking to the air, though Sideswipe privately suspected it had less to do with courtesy and more to do with Superion being close to exhausted. Nevertheless, a few moments later Superion passed overhead, cruising ponderously through the air towards the Autobot base. The twins followed, travelling in relative silence. The road whipped away beneath their tyres, their headlights cutting bright swathes of light through the evening darkness as they made their way home.

...

Superion slowed as he neared the coordinates that Sideswipe had given him, gradually descending as he lost speed. He cut his thrusters, landing on his feet with a heavy thud and dropping to a crouch as his legs buckled beneath him. It took just about all he had left to straighten up again and take the last few agonising steps forward to his destination.

Said destination was a flat clearing at the base of what looked to be a large, solitary mountain surrounded by rocky desert, its mass little more than a dark shadow looming overhead, silhouetted against the starry night sky. The clearing was lit with floodlights, making the shadows beyond them even darker in comparison. Superion could barely make out past the lights' glare the shape of some kind of entrance leading into the mountain itself. Around that entrance were several figures - some were obviously mechs, others were just people. All of them were watching him with various levels of wariness and curiosity.

Superion eyed the figures as two of them cautiously approached him. One was a white car mech with green and red trim, while the other was an average-looking human with reddish brown hair that was greying at the temples. "Who are you?" Superion asked them, his voice a low rumble.

"I'm Ratchet, and this here is Wheeljack," the man replied, gesturing back at his mech companion and keeping a wary eye on Superion. "You're Superion, yes?"

The gestalt nodded once, slowly. It was getting harder for him to think, but the two names rang a bell. "They... said you would help."

"That's right," Ratchet affirmed with a sharp nod. "We'll do whatever we can to help you."

"Thank you." Superion's head drooped slightly, his optic band dimming. "Commencing disassembly." The two hastily backed away to give him room, but for a long moment, nothing happened.

Superion was reluctant to relinquish his form; a part of him wondered if he would ever get the chance to exist again. Not even the prospect of relief from the pain made the idea any more palatable; being able to feel pain in the first place meant that he was alive. He didn't have the energy to consider it for long though; no matter how much he would have preferred to stay in control, stay in existence, his own body was overruling him. He was too tired to fight it.

One by one, Superion shut down the connections that held him together, but before he surrendered control completely, one last thought drifted through his mind.

I wonder… will I dream?

...

The first thing Silverbolt became aware of was pain. His entire body hurt, especially his back - but it was as nothing compared to the agony in his head. He had the most blinding, agonising headache he'd ever known. It throbbed against the inside of his skull, squeezed across the bridge of his nose, pulsed at his temples, and hammered at the back of his eyes. He tried opening his eyes, but what seemed to be almost blinding light stabbed into them and he swiftly shut them again with a faint groan. One thing that glimpse had told him though; he was no longer in his mech, and he had no idea how he'd gotten out, or where his mech even was.

Somewhere nearby he could hear quiet groaning that sounded like Air Raid, an even quieter whimper that was probably Fireflight, then Slingshot's voice as he croaked thinly, "I am never, -ever- doing that again."

Right now, Silverbolt couldn't help but agree with him. He tried opening his eyes again and struggled to see through the blinding haze of pain, but could only make out vague shapes moving around, darker shadows silhouetted by fuzzy halos of light.

"Take it easy there," a gruff, authoritative voice told Silverbolt as he tried - and failed - to sit up.

Silverbolt shook his head, then winced as the movement sent another bolt of pain stabbing through it. "My brothers...?" he rasped.

"They're all here, and we're looking after them. Relax, you're all in good hands."

Relaxing sounded awfully good right now, and so did unconsciousness. But there was something Silverbolt had to do before he could succumb to it, if he could just remember what it was. One hand reflexively went up to his pocket, feeling the data-drive there that Jen had given to him what felt like ages ago. He fumbled at his pocket and finally managed to withdraw the drive, gripping it doggedly for a moment. "Here," he rasped, shakily offering it to the nearest shadow. "This... should help explain..."

Silverbolt barely felt the data-drive being taken from his fingers; that task done, he let out a faint sigh of relief and gratefully let the darkness claim him.