Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers.

Just the OCs and plot of this mess.

Wherever it will take me.

Okay, so I'm gonna do it. I'm just gonna post it.

Seven months of starting and restarting and I'm finally just gonna do it.

The first chapter of the story of the OCs that's been driving me mad.

This one will be very different from my other stories that I have up on this site, there will be hints here and there of a bit of the same story line I've used in The Guardian's Guildbut for the most part we're playing a whole knew ball game. One I hope that will be enjoyable.

So buckle up it's gonna be quite the ride.

EDIT: I have a wonderful new beta! We're going back through and sorta back editing the chapter when she has the time. So here is the first, hopefully, free of mistakes chapter!

Chapter 1

Dangerous Reflections

Pax Tran was not a city. It was also not a base or even really an outpost. It was a ten square mile radius of broken structures, pieced together into a sad, pathetic excuse for a blip in the sand on the outskirts of the Old Kaon territory. One of the last strongholds of every lowdown, no-good, two-bit lying waste of slag that was either too poor to wiggle their way past New Iacon's gates or too rich to bother trying. It was full of murderers, escapees, deserters, ex-gladiators, present orn gladiators, drug lords, gang officials, pleasurebots, fools, gamblers, drunks, junkies, and anybot that had nowhere left to fall. Because when you ended up in Pax Tran, you truly had hit the bottom of the barrel. There were not many places worse that a bot could end up than this place. Sure, you could find your way down into the tunnels if you weren't careful and you'd never find your way back out again, but really that, in the end, was a choice. This was the metaphorical ledge before the suicidal jump. The place where many contemplated those last few feet between themselves and oblivion. Where they decided… were those last few feet really all that far down?

It was a vile place, it was evil, it was broken, and it would chew you up and spit you out just because it could.

And that was why Jynx absolutely loved it here.

The hot stink of The Smelt flowing just on the other side of the red ridges of sand, the loud obnoxious sounds of fighting, drinking, and fragging that filled the streets. It all wormed its way under your plating and wiggled into your very soul until you could never escape the sounds of the screaming and the death that floated on the very air in this place.

The energon that pooled in the streets, the pain that clung to the shadows, the overall cruelty that just swallowed up anything that walked through those twisted arched pillars at the village gates. It was all enough to drive anybot insane.

Of course, Jynx was already long past insane well before she ever ended up here.

So in all honesty, she might not be the best judge of its character.

Snorting at the thought, the small yet lethal femme sashayed her way through the streets, mindful of where she placed her peds and of who she allowed to get behind her. She was known in this place.

Well known.

Most of those that the Underground was associated with were.

There was not much she had to fear, except those that outranked her. So it was not truly a foolish thing for her to walk right on by the quiet mugging that was going on in the dark shadows of an alley along "main street". Having no fear when she glanced that way and memorized the faceplates of the victim and the attacker in less than a nano-klick. She would be fine. The large orange mech would not pursue her when he was done with what he was doing. He knew better.

Jynx could hand him his very spark dripping in energon and place it in his palm before he'd even realized she'd moved, and she'd do it clean enough - if she felt like it - that he'd have a good few moments of horror to bask in before his processor caught up with the fact that he was dead. It would be amusing to watch.

She would know.

She'd done it plenty of times before.

Many times in that very alley that she had just strolled on past. Which was a fact that everybot in this pit hole knew all too well. Her designation was one the sane feared and the cruel respected. She was not something to be played with. No matter the fact that she barely reached the mid-section of almost all those around her. She was more than capable of slaughtering this whole damned village if she felt like it.

She had even pictured what it would be like. A time or two. What it would feel like to have that much energon gushing over her claws again.

For it had been a while.

She imagined what it would sound like, look like, smell like, and taste like. Still, she always ended up talking herself out of it. Because if she gutted the whole village, then where would she get her fun?

She would be downright bored!

And that was just not something that she could allow herself to be. Good things never happened when Jynx became bored. And since she was already completely and totally off her rocker, and still she knew that what would happen when she became bored would be bad… Then it really would be bad.

For her and every foolish thing around.

It was better in the long run if she left them alone - for the most part. Let them gut each other on their own. Every now and again came the few suicidal sparks that thought it wise to try their luck against her. Her taste for fun was usually satisfied with them and she would be sated. For a while at least.

It was a nice little arrangement that went on here, actually.

All the no-good lowlifes in this place got to go along their merry way of killing each other in their recharge and not a soul said a thing.

Not even that damned Prime.

Even that fool was smart enough to know, the village he'd only heard hearsay about - because none of those that lived here tended to ever let his little spies leave alive to go tell him what it was that happened in this place - was not something he could tame.

The only way he'd ever stand a chance of reining this corner of pit in was if he blew it off the face of the planet.

And that was something he'd never do. He was too good.

Breezing through the front door of Grease's, hardly a spark looked up to even glance Jynx's way.

She was fine with that.

She never bothered with them either.

The sun was still high in the desert sky when the doors slammed shut behind her. It was still a bit early for a drink - even in a place such as this - so the bar was relatively empty. Just a few overcharged bots sprawled here and there and a few gamblers still lost in their games of the night before. They were of little interest to the femme. She was here for other reasons and had no time to bother with them.

That, and they were smart enough to take one look, know who she was, and quickly look away.

Guess crazy bastards learned quickly after all.

Who'd have thunk it?

When Jynx reached the bar in the back of the dingy, dim, smelly building, she leaned against the dust and sand-covered surface, her shiny white paint looking out of place beside the dirty cubes that the massive grey mech behind the bar was cleaning with an equally dirty rag. Tipping her helm, she gazed up into his deep red optics through the black-tinted visor that hid away her own optics from everything around her. Even from the mech that brought her here, to the first place she could freely be alive.

Without even looking up, Greaseslick knew who was in front of him. For he made the decision - a rather stupid decision, if you asked Jynx - to be foolish enough to trust her a long time ago. And Jynx… Well, she was stupid enough to not slice his throat when she had the chance.

"Bit early for you to be around isn't it, Jynx?"

The small femme smirked, feeling her visor flash with the gleam her bright optics put off even through the dark glass. "What? Are you not happy to see me, Grease?"

He snorted. "When you rise before the moons it spells nothing but trouble."

"You know me so well. Don't you?"

"Unfortunately I do." He chuckled for a moment, then lifted those dark orbs to hold the narrow tinted glass visor of the twisted creature before him. If he were wise, he would be terrified to hold the gaze that burned through that one-way tinted glass. He would fear the monster he knew very well lived not so far beneath that pretty surface. However, no bot had ever called the old bastard wise and he had no plans of changing that anytime soon. Which was why he gazed at the relatively tiny - even for a mini - Cybertronian before him. "So it leads me to question, what are you doing here?"

Swirling around, the bright white femme cast a look about the room, not comfortable with keeping her back to the door even in the place she always returned to. So she leaned backward against the bar, her elbows resting on the cold metal as she took in the room and the harsh glow of the desert sun peaking through the cracks of the barred door. It was the same as it had been. For the last six vorns. Nothing changed.

Part of that was comforting, she guessed.

But in the end it really just made her want to come apart at the seams. For as much as Jynx loved this village, she hated the walls that kept her in every now and again. When she started burning.

She'd gone too long without some real entertainment.

Without something to chase those harder-to-scrub-away pictures in her processor away with. And it was starting to show. That was plainly obvious, since she was up along with the sun. She desperately needed something to do.

She was bored.

And bored was a bad thing.

Her long silver claws twitched for energon as her processor fought off the things she had long ago locked away. She'd been sitting still too long and once again felt like she was caged.

She needed to remind herself that she was wild.

Free.

Could do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted.

Her quota was paid for the next few decacycles, so her debt collector would not be sniffing around for a while. She was perfectly free to go completely insane. Only there was nothing in this magical village that demanded her attention. There was nothing exciting. Nothing new.

It was the same old same old.

Murders every night on the street corners, screams in the air, lies oozing out of the very sand that slid between her clawed toes, but she'd seen it and heard it all a billion times. Nothing of interest had come along for a while, and it was about to cause the femme to slaughter the whole population just to have something to do.

And since - should she slaughter the whole village - she would then have no further forms of possible entertainment in the long run, it seemed Jynx was going to have to take her boredom elsewhere. That or risk having to go find a new wonderful hole of pit to call home. Which would be more work than it was worth - she had no wish to go wandering off into the tame lands and have to 'behave' long enough to get to another place she could play and not have Enforcers breathing down her neck.

That last Enforcer patrol she gutted had been fun, and she had needed to remind the glitches of who she was - stupid fools thought they could point a blaster at her! As if - but in the end they never provided enough entertainment.

Sure, they begged, and blubbered, and bled plenty.

It just wasn't the same though.

They never fought back hard enough. They gave in too easily.

In the end there was no challenge, and a lack of challenge bored her.

Which, as previously stated, was a bad thing.

Turning back to face Greaseslick, Jynx gave him a half smirk and a wink through her dark visor. "I'm going for a walk."

The tall grey mech offered her another snort as he rolled his optics and went back to cleaning his cubes.

"Do whatever makes you happy, Jynx."

"Oh, I intend to," She assured him before balancing up on her pointed toes, pushing up on the counter, and then flicking him in the grey forehead with a dangerously pointed claw. He shook his head and pulled back - not afraid, just annoyed; for which, had it been probably anybot else in the universe, Jynx would have killed them on the spot (the not being afraid part, not the being annoyed part) - before he lifted an optic ridge at her.

"I figured you were about due for some fun anyways. I'll see you when you get back."

To those words her smile faltered slightly as she was reminded just how well this old mech knew her. How well he knew not only what made her tick, but so much else as well. Simply because he hadn't tossed a leaking, dying scrap-rat out of the airlock of his ship like he should have twenty vorns ago, and then, after he had patched said scrap-rat back up, the foolish femme decided to not slit his throat. Because it had been a moment of calm clarity among swirling winds of chaos for the first time in vorns for her, though now when she tried to think back and recall just why in pit she didn't do it she couldn't.

Just like she couldn't fathom the idea of why it didn't burn her alive inside that she let this mech trust her. That she didn't stab him in the back just to remind herself that she could - because she knew she could. And she'd do it some orn, she was sure of it.

It was a fact she reminded herself of often. That she could kill Greaseslick. Anytime she wanted. It would be easy. Flick of the wrist and it would be done. Or perhaps something a little more personal than that. Maybe she would make it slow. Drag it out and listen to him curse and cry and damn her for her betrayal. Let him know who it was that sent him packing to the nothingness beyond. Then, when she was done, she'd go digging around in that obviously messed up processor of his and find out just what it was she had managed to do that made the idiot glitch feel as if he could trust her.

And then she'd never do that again.

Yet she still hadn't done any of it.

Jynx, for some reason completely unknown to her, kept him around, or maybe it was him that kept her around. Whatever it was, she constantly found herself wandering back up to his doorstep. Even after she disappeared into the desert for decacycles chasing entertainment, even when she told herself that she didn't have to come back to Pax Tran. When she let the cold night air remind her that she could leave, turn her back, find another source of fun and have no need to be confused by why she didn't kill the old glitch just out of spite every time he turned his back on her.

Why it didn't bother her that somebot trusted her again.

Why she let somebot trust her ever again after how horribly wrong - NO! She was not going there again.

Shaking the thoughts away, the bright white femme cast him one last smile, tipped her helm, and swaggered back out the door into the sunlight without so much as a goodbye. Because there was no need for one. He knew as well as she did that she would be back.

Even when she lied to herself and said that she wouldn't.

As it turned out, Jynx didn't have to go far before she found something to amuse herself with. It was quite surprising though… It was not often one ran across a bright and shiny, waiting to be snatched and flown into a wall Enforcer ship this far out in the Old Kaon desert.

Her long claws twitched, her frame shivered, and the energon that flowed through her sang in her highly tuned audios as she crouched low among the hills of sand and stone, watching through her one-way tinted glass visor that kept others from seeing in, but offered no hindrance to her own view. Yet she did not do as her twitching frame willed her to do - which was stroll on down there and gut them all like the socket-fawns among cyber-coyotes they were - because something far more interesting was happening.

They were arguing.

The Prime's perfect little law department, that was going to help tame the wild Cybertron he and his 'cured' brother had returned to, was standing down there in the hot red sands yelling at each other like glitches.

And Jynx found it all very highly amusing.

"YOU WERE SUPPOSE TO BE WATCHING THE MECH!" The two-tone white and black doorwinged mech with the strangely random bright red chevron atop his head was practically foaming at the mouth as he stalked around in circles, waving his hands in the air before the two equally as annoyed-looking red and golden mechs of similar size and shape to each other that stood before him. Though even from this distance Jynx could tell they weren't completely similar - perhaps the same model, or maybe even siblings. The red one was tense as a bowstring while the golden was statue still, arms crossed, and even from here the small femme could see the snarl of his teeth.

They were downright ferocious; oh how she'd love to see how hard they'd fight before she slowly peeled their sparks from their chest. They would most certainly put up a good fight.

Her claws twitched.

But she held herself back; the happenings were far too interesting to send them all into a panic just yet.

That would come later.

After she'd decided who she would quickly send to the next life and who she would play with for a while until the things struggling under the bonds of her mind were put back in their place.

"IT'S NOT OUR FAULT! HE SLAGGIN' VANISHED!" The red one hollered.

"HE WAS LOCKED IN A CELL!"

"AND NOW THE CELL IS PRIED APART!"

Jynx tilted her head.

Pried apart?

Glancing around, she saw a twisted mess of dead energon bars in an oddly shaped sad little square. If that had been a cage, it wasn't much of one now. Her interest suddenly shifted.

A single mech did that?

Energon thudded in her audios making her shiver and grin. Now he sounded like fun. Wonder where he got off to?

"HOW DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE HE WAS PRYING IT APART!? WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP HIM!?"

"OH I'M SORRY, PROWL!" The red one snarled. "WE HAVEN'T RECHARGED IN SEVEN FRAGGIN' ORNS! WE FELL INTO RECHARGE!"

"NONE OF US HAVE RECHARGED, SIDESWIPE!" The one called Prowl, Jynx was assuming, threw his hands up in the air while a silver mech with a blue visor behind him came a little closer. A grey mech that looked very similar to the black and white one - only his paint was different - stood nervously off to the side, with a seemingly impatient and slightly larger white and red mech next to him.

"WE'RE SORRY, PROWL!"

"Hey, ease up the lot of ya." The silver mech's voice was quiet, obviously trying to stop the yelling, and she had to let the webbed audio sensors atop her head unfold so that she could pick up his accent-heavy soft tone. He placed himself between the snarling trio. "Calm down."

"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!" Prowl hissed.

"You're stressed, Prowler. We all are. We're all run a little ragged. We're frustrated, we're hungry, we're tired, and we want to go home. Ya wouldn't be acting like this if ya weren't. Calm down and think. This isn't you. You need to think."

For a long moment the two stared at each other, and even with the distance that stretched between them Jynx could feel the familiarity and trust in the air. And she cringed at it, pinning back her sensors and shuffling backwards. Suddenly these mechs were not so interesting.

In fact, they were downright boring.

Yep. Boring.

She figured this escapee would be far more entertaining, and far less emotional.

When the two-tone mech's head dropped and some of the tension fell from the air, she felt the shift run through her very spark. A part of herself she had long ago forgotten how to listen to. Even from where she was she could sense it between the bots, just as she could hear the whispered murmur of 'I'm sorry.'

Yep.

It was time for her to go.

Spinning in the shadows of the stone she was crouched next to, Jynx was about to skirt the little camp of sorts they had going down there to go find the tracks that would tell her where this escapee had wandered off to, so that she might have a little fun, when a bright flash caught her attention.

Her helm snapped up out of reflex to find whatever could be the source of a flash that bright in the middle of the desert orn, but what she found made her spark drop to her pointed toes. The flash rang out silently from the east, washing over the rolling sands, before the sonic boom that always followed a flash that bright slammed over the desert, knocking her back on her aft.

The force of the blast knocked the air from her cycling vents, and she coughed in surprise as she stared up at a sky that was suddenly spinning because of how hard she'd hit the ground, and she lay there for a moment in complete confusion before it clicked in her processor.

That was an explosion.

An explosion in the middle of an empty desert where the only thing for miles was a little hole of pit called Pax Tran. A hole of pit that was exactly in that direction.

With a strangled scared choke Jynx shoved herself to her peds, leapt forward, transformed into her four-wheeled alt mode and raced back the way she had come.

Standing there, in the rubble of that familiar shop and most of the block that Jynx had known like the back of her hand, was a strange thing now. It only got stranger still when she knelt and shifted through the rubble, somehow inexplicably knowing what she would find.

And find it she did.

That familiar grey faceplate and those deep red optics. Now empty and lifeless as he burned beneath the remains of his bar.

Greaseslick was dead.

That was plainly obvious to her as she gazed down into those empty optics.

He was dead. Gone.

The only mech in forty something vorns that actually was stupid enough to trust the little femme was dead.

And she did not understand this emotion inside her chest because of it.

This burning anger. This hatred.

Why was it there?

She should be happy.

It was a bad thing that he trusted her. This was the reason it had been a bad thing. She'd been dreading it for vorns now. So this should be a good thing.

This meant it was over.

No more stupid guilt in the bottom of her tanks. No more finding herself turning back to him when she'd been off playing for too long.

There was no bot now that would wonder where she had gone if she didn't come back. There was nothing but her and how she decided she wanted to terrorize the world every orn.

This was a good thing.

Yet when she lifted her ash-covered claws to touch her faceplate she found tears.

Tears?

Stumbling back from the fallen structure, Jynx turned to gaze around this now calamity-filled village. The screams of bots withering around her in pools of energon on the ground, slowly dying, buildings crashing to the ground as the flames of an energon explosion ate away at the old structures.

It made Jynx's energon sing. It made the burning deep inside her ease a little bit, with the itch that rose up under her plating to dig her claws into some living something and join the fun. It was already happening around her. Those that hadn't been caught in the blast were either swiping things or finishing off the easy pickings of screaming bots, and going on to the edges of the village where things weren't burning, or were just gathering what was left to head on to the next thieves' village they could find that was connected to the Labyrinth. It wouldn't be hard. Not really. If they dared to try the Labyrinth they'd be in Graz before the sun had set again three times. If they didn't they probably would have no trouble breezing through the Enforcers and taking the long way.

Jynx should be among them.

For as much as she loved this place, there was nothing to hold her here now. Because in all reality it had only been Grease that kept the femme here. It wasn't really in her nature to stay anywhere too long. She just didn't handle it well. She never had.

She loved this place because she could find fun, but she stayed in this place because Greaseslick had been here and because of the stupid guilt that had burned inside her when she tried to go away. Which was idiotic.

Because she didn't feel guilt.

Not anymore.

It wasn't allowed.

Jynx did whatever she wanted and she didn't care who it hurt. She tore bots apart while they screamed for mercy because she could. She felt no guilt for that. She never had.

Yet she felt guilt when she tried to leave that stupid old bastard. Just because he didn't kill her when he had the chance!

Snarling in frustration she angrily whipped the tears from her cheeks.

She would not cry!

She had not cried in vorns! Because there was nothing left worth crying over!

There was nothing to cry for because she didn't care!

Yes.

That was right. She had to remind herself.

She didn't care.

And she really didn't.

She. Did. Not. Care.

Greaseslick was dead. Somebot had killed him.

That bot had to be interesting, because the bastard had not been a pushover.

Yes. She would bet her spark that that bot was very entertaining.

That was just what she needed. That would make her forget.

She'd find this bot. She'd take them apart. She'd hear them scream.

Spinning on her heels, she strolled lazily through the drifting smoke that choked her vents and the burning flames that licked her plating, not even bothered by any of it. She simply found the least blubbering of the dying mechs in the street. He was brown-colored with grey accents and he currently had a giant shred of burning metal stabbed through his back. The explosion must have gotten him.

That meant he was close enough to see who caused it.

And maybe where it was they went.

Crouching down in the pool of his bright blue inner liquids, the bright white femme paused a moment to smirk at the feeling of the sticky substance between her toes. She took a deep breath of the scents around her: burning metal, cooking energon, death.

Jynx was grinning wickedly before her optics opened again. She could feel the twisted curl of her lips, how cruelly they arched against her softly angled faceplate. She had been told quite a few times before that when that smile graced her pretty faceplate, she looked downright insane.

She found it fitting.

Since she was.

Busying herself with the task at hand again, though, she latched hold of the sniveling mech's shoulder, yanked him up, and then flipped him back over. The shrapnel in his back drove in deeper. He screamed in agony. She laughed under her breath.

She leaned forward from where she was balanced on her toes as she rested her long thin claws against his leaking chest armor, and brought her small frame up over his. Her weight was pressing down and causing him even more pain, until she was level with his panicked and dying blue optics.

Energon rolled down in a steady stream from between his parted, gasping lips, and with a curious tilt of her helm she giggled, reached forward, and swiped some of it off before playing with the sticky substance between her thumb and forefinger.

"Help me!" He gasped and her optics returned to his. Because of her visor he could not see the roll of her optics, but she did it all the same.

"Help you?" She paused, basking in the wispy world of floating nothingness that had taken over her processor. There was nothing. Other than intrigue.

She was blissfully empty, entertained and free inside.

This was the feeling she craved. This was what she chased through the long wild nights. This was what she searched for. This empty open freedom where there was nothing inside her to weigh her down any longer.

So blissfully and magically free.

A world of swirling beautiful colors spun in her processor as a kind of wild light danced in the glittering silver optics that not even the dark tint of her visor could hide now, as she leaned closer until her mouth was even with his damaged audios.

"Help you, you say?" She giggled, pulled back, and then danced her long silver claws over his punctured chest. "No, I don't think I will."

Horror filled the light blue optics that stared back at her before the mech coughed again, splattering her front in energon. Her smirk only grew.

"Instead you're gonna help me, 'kay?" Her claws dug into his injured chest and he howled in pain, making Jynx tilt her helm. Her webbed audio sensors were standing to their full six inch height above her forehead, the two bright blue pieces of plating with the cobweb-like network of highly sensitive wires and sensors now unfolded behind them picking up every delicious noise she could find. "Who did this?"

He spit energon at her visor.

"Very well," One clawed hand retracted to rub the glorious substance from her sight before she flexed the deadly appendage between them, relishing in the bright blue liquid that sparkled there in the firelight. "We'll do it the fun the way then."

Like a viper-strike, her claws slammed into the mech's neck, ripping, puncturing, and slicing. In the time it took her to blink, she had almost severed his head from his body with a splatter of energon and a choked off scream as most of his neck was sliced clean through. Carefully pulling her hand back, she smiled at the mess she had made before getting down to business.

Pushing herself up and quickly giving him a once-over, she found the mech's syncing port. It was located in his right shoulder, which was thankfully undamaged; she was not big on doing this the old-fashioned way of cracking open his helm to dig around for a port in his processor. That way hurt her more often than not. Syncing was much more fun. Slicing the bent brown plating from his now lifeless and growing cold and grey frame, she chucked the useless piece over her head. Her silver optics quickly found the jumble of equipment she was looking for. A coil of two connector cables bunched up—not even neatly, she noticed - above a row of two ports. The mech's syncing hardware.

For most, the hardware was a way of communicating, a direct link not into a bot's spark but into their processor. All their thoughts and experiences. Right there for easy access and download. The equipment could be used for a variety of things though. To each his own, really.

Bots used them to communicate feelings and memories to those they trusted. It was a private look into a mind, and only the valued were supposed to have access. For there was also much damage that could be done if syncing hardware and access to a processor fell into the wrong hands.

Jynx's hands for example.

Oh, the havoc she knew how to cause. All the fun she knew how to have.

With a full body shiver of excitement, the little femme danced a clawed hand up her own plating to the small rectangular panel that was hidden away in the complicated plating of her right side, just above her hip. Tapping a claw against the panel, she pulled up the command to open the panel and felt it slide away beneath the pointed tips. What revealed itself was her own simple—yet far cleaner—bundle of two cables neatly coiled around each other above two ports. Jynx paid her ports no mind. She simply pulled one of her connector cables from its coiled place. Stretching the white-plated cable glowing with bioluminescent silver dots out to its three-foot length, she took hold of the pointed silver end. Without hardly even glancing at the hardware she'd seen a billion times, the femme plugged into the dead mech's syncing port and suddenly she was submerged in an onslaught of sound, light, and senses.

Entering another processor - even a dead one - without permission was not a feat to be undertaken lightly. A processor was a dangerous place to those that didn't know how to navigate it. There were bots out there that said digging around unwanted in processors could lead to insanity, that filtering through memories and emotion you didn't belong in would slowly twist your very spark until you no longer knew it.

Jynx was inclined to agree.

But, she'd done this plenty of times before. She was kind of scarily good at it.

So she figured, why stop now?

Besides, it was fun.

Shifting through the bombardment of emotions from the moments before this bot's death - fear, anger, hate, misery, and desperation - she spun the memories around in flashing frames of pictures until she found the few klicks before the blast had hit the mech. Finding what she was looking for was easy enough. She looked for the only logical thing that would be out of place; the mech that had done this. Since he obviously wasn't still here - she knew all the dying faceplates around her, she made a point of knowing all the regulars in this village - it meant he got away before he blew up whatever it was he blew up. Which Jynx had a sneaking suspicion was Grease's energon stash under the bar. Not that there wasn't plenty of things in this village to blow up; it just seemed that the blast happened just about dead center of here. And so Jynx searched.

What she found, though.

That was unexpected.

It was Grease's bar that blew. This mech that lay beneath her claws had gotten out just before the blast went off, he had seen the form of the black mech tinted in orange with flashing red optics laughing over his shoulder as he fled.

Red optics that snapped through Jynx's daze of peaceful nothingness and made her spark slide to a stop.

Yanking her sync cable from the port it was in, she gasped and scrambled backward, trying to shake the mental picture away as she shoved herself up while the image of those burning optics seared into her processor.

It had been a long time since she'd seen those optics… But not nearly long enough. With a strangled curse she spun in the direction where she'd seen the glitch run in the other mech's memory, with a seething rage now in place of the blissful nothing she had known just moments before.

Because the mech in that memory was Fallback, and she was going to fraggin' slaughter him.

"I can't decide if this is a really good thing, or a really bad thing," Jazz whispered to the crimson mech crouched to his left.

"Me neither," Sideswipe quietly answered as he and the master saboteur peaked out over the red dune they were crouching behind. Even from this distance, the screams and the crackling metal of a town burning to the ground could be heard. The red former melee warrior could see the pillars of blue-tinted smoke spiralling into the sky, and he could smell the stench of cooking lives as easily as he could hear their dying screams. Pax Tran was burning to the ground, and there were none down there in that pit-hole that cared enough to try and stop it. Sides knew their kind as well as Jazz did. They'd kill whoever was too weak to fight back, pillage the remains, and then leave the little town in the dust. On to the next lawless pit the wild territories had to offer.

And there were plenty of them.

The two that had spied in most of them would know, just as they knew this one. The only one they'd never managed to get into.

Oh, so many bots the Enforcers had tried to sneak in there, and oh so few of whom returned. Not even Jazz himself had been able to get in. Him! The Shadow of the Enforcers! He hadn't lasted more than two orns before one of those damn Ground sniffed him out.

He had been lucky to get out with his life, because he didn't get out with both arms.

Yeah… Ratchet hadn't been happy the orn he came limping back into New Iacon. Optimus hadn't been happy either. For that matter, Jazz wasn't happy. It had been a long time since he had gotten his aft that royally handed to him.

Now though, here he was. Not two miles outside the village gates, watching it and all his chances for answers burn to the ground. Sure, when the survivors had scattered to the wind they could sneak down and try to find their way into the tunnels, but without any info to guide them… Not even Jazz was optimistic enough to think they'd stand a chance. If the Underground didn't kill them down there, then they would probably just never find their way back to the surface.

Those tunnels were not called the Labyrinth of the Smelt for nothing.

Tilting his helm, Jazz opened his comm link. "Prowler?"

"What's it look like?" The once-upon-a-time SIC of the Autobots, now the Head of the Enforcers and Chief Advisor to both the ruling Prime and his Lord High Protector, answered in a clipped, annoyed tone. Not that Jazz was surprised. The first piece of actual information they'd been able to nab alive vanishes from under their noseplates, and now one of the closest - even if they hadn't managed to get in yet - wild villages to them was burning to the ground, all the clues it held going with it. Because of the glitch they let slip away from them.

That, and none of them had recharged in half a decacycle.

And Prowler really wasn't all that much fun when he was running on no recharge. Jazz learned that a long time ago.

Mech wouldn't even pretend to sort of understand his stupid jokes when he was like this!

It was downright insulting.

That was a matter to brood over at a different time though. Right now. the lot of them had far more pressing issues to worry about.

"Like my hopes and dreams vanishing in a cloud of smoke," Jazz answered.

Sideswipe - who could hear the open comm - snorted beside him and Jazz grinned, but Prowl didn't seem to think it was all that funny.

"I meant literally, Jazz."

"I know what ya meant, oh walking battle computer dearspark of mine."

"Hey, no flirtin' on the airways. We're on a mission." Bluestreak's teasing drummed in, to which Sideswipe fell back in silent hysterical laughter, Jazz chuckled despite the grim outlook of their plans, and Prowl very loudly snapped.

"Not the time! Either of you!"

"Ouch, somebot is still grumpy." Sunstreaker was most likely enjoying the tint that the former student's teasing had put on Prowl's cheekplates. Jazz once again had to roll his optics.

The silver mech could practically see the armor-melting glare his sparkmate was probably giving the big golden mech. Not that Sunstreaker was going to be the slightest bit fazed.

Though it was probably best if Jazz stopped the oncoming fistfight, since neither he nor Sides was there to break it up, and Blue would just try to jump between them and end up getting hurt while First Aid would stand there rolling his optics saying that he didn't agree to come along to fix idiots. Sometimes Jazz wondered if that mech had spent too much time with Ratchet over the vorns.

"Mechs, let's get back on track here, okay? I was just messin'."

There was a moment of long drawn-out silence, where the silver mech knew Prowl was plotting how best to strangle him in recharge with no bot knowing what happened, before he answered. "Right. On track. You were explaining to me how it looks out there."

"It's a big ball of energon smoke," Sideswipe chimed in helpfully, making Jazz shoot him a pointed look through his dark blue visor. Sides just grinned, pulling himself back to his peds, and peeking out over the sand again.

"Thank you for that oh so detailed observation, Sideswipe." Prowl sighed.

"You're welcome!" The red mech grinned cheekily, even if the stick in the mud couldn't see him. It was fun to torture Prowl, no matter where he was. The mech just made it too easy. Always had.

"How about one of the two of you try and offer me something useful now? Is there any sign of our wayward runaway?"

And the humor died in both mechs.

Sideswipe grew serious – never a good sign - as he gazed down at the burning village again, while Jazz propped himself up beside him, casting his gaze around the hills of sand.

"He did this," Jazz began. "Just don't know where he got off to yet. We'll have to circle the village. See if we can pick up his trail."

"He couldn't have gotten far," Sideswipe commented. "There are enough bots down there capable of at least keeping him occupied."

"He's a maniac, Sideswipe," Prowl pointed out.

"So?" The red mech shrugged, even though Prowl couldn't see them. Wasn't like the Autobots didn't have their own fair share of bots a little off their rocker. They had him and Sunny after all… And he knew they hadn't forgotten what the pair was capable of. Sure, they'd calmed over the vorns - with a bit of help both knew they would have gotten themselves slaughtered without - but that long ago learned way of being still bubbled under the surface.

It was the reason he and Sunstreaker were even on this mission.

Because Prowl needed two bots that could go toe to toe with a mech that was crazier than they ever were. Which was saying something. Because there had been a time when the pair of them had been so lost they didn't even know each other.

"So we must expect the unexpected."

"Isn't that why you brought us along?" Sides offered, as over their bond he could feel Sunny stiffen a little. He was not in the mood to be reminded that he was being used as a crazy-mech tracker. Sides quickly sent a pulse of calm through their link, but Sunstreaker slammed him out.

The red mech hid a flinch, trying to pretend that it didn't hurt.

However, his time to wonder over his brother's mood ended rather dramatically when a blaster shot nailed him in the side of the chest and everything just kind of went to pit. Knocked backwards with a pained grunt, agony burned into Sides' chest as he scrambled, every sense inside him screaming at him to get back on his feet, but if it hadn't of been for Jazz yanking him back by the arm he would have ended up with a rather energon-soaked hand stabbed through his helm.

"Holy frag!" He hadn't meant to hiss it over the comm links, but once it was done it was done, and a part of him registered the startled voices over the waves, was aware of his twin slamming the wall he had thrown up back down desperately and trying to get a feel for him, but Sideswipe didn't have time to deal with any of that at the moment. Because a massive bulk of black and orange and glowing red optics was bull-rushing him and the silver mech that had just saved his life – again – which meant that he had other things to worry about.

In a twist, before he could blink, Sides was on his peds with a snarl, and with a metallic 'shank' his dueling swords glittered into life.

Vivid blue optics narrowed into slits at the dark chuckle that rose up in the massive black monster before him, skidding to a stop at the sight of his blades. A part of him was aware of Jazz tensing beside him, the saboteur's own blaster drawn, but both of them knew that the gun might as well not even be loaded against this mech.

He put new definition to the word monster, and for Sideswipe to acknowledge something like that was saying something.

There was a kind of wild emptiness in the burning red optics that made even Sides' armor itch. There was nothing sane in that gaze. No kind of real thought process apparent in those optics. There was nothing but energon-lust and a twisted sense of hilarity that came from enjoying tearing out sparks.

Sideswipe had seen that kind of optics before.

In the two different reflections that both belonged to him and then didn't.

His own and his brother's.

Energon-covered claws flexed before him, the comm link in his audios rang and he ignored it, dark optics held and burned, and then with a snarl they sprang.

Everything was kind of a blur to her, and not the good kind.

It was not the blur of colors and scents that swam in her processor to chase away everything else. This was a blur Jynx had not known in many, many vorns. This was a driven will to kill; it wasn't her blissful fun of doing whatever she pleased however she pleased to do it.

It really wasn't a feeling she liked.

This overwhelming blur that blocked out even the giddiness that usually came along with the hunt. There was nothing but this cold swirling blackness with those burning red optics flashing in the stolen images frozen in her processor.

Fallback.

Fallback!

How was that even possible?

He was dead. He didn't get out.

At least that had been what she thought had happened.

None of that mattered now though. All Jynx wanted was those damned red optics fading out before her visor as she tore his spark from its chamber and crushed it in front of him.

Yes.

That would make her feel better.

So, so much better.

Once he was dead this coldness would go away. She could go back to laughing, go back to her blissful blur.

Her visor was tinted so black that the light behind it was no longer visible - the tint reflecting her mood - as she prowled the hot sand beneath her peds, following the coldness until she heard the sounds of clashing metal, snarling curses, and a familiar taunting voice that had her racing forward over the ridge of a sand hill to find something that made her halt on the ridge.

There was a flash of crimson red beside death black armor and a snarled hiss before two powerful titans collided and every sense inside Jynx came alive.

It was mesmerizing.

Almost nostalgic.

In a whirl of sharp swords and claws, the massive mechs crashed again and again - the red one on the defensive the whole time, as the mech she now was absolutely positive was that glitch Fallback slashed, and tore, and ripped into him. He had no sword, no dagger, and the blaster that lay broken on the ground by their peds was of no use. And it didn't really seem to be needed by the black demon.

Unease settled in Jynx's tanks.

Fallback had been good before - better than she was back then - but never that good.

And he had never fought so sloppily.

He drew energon and slashed off armor along with wires in every strike with those thick glittering orange claws, but the movements were all jerky and uncalculated. He wasn't looking for weaknesses. He wasn't fighting to win.

He was fighting to slaughter.

And his red opponent was just as dangerous as the monster was, but there was a purpose to his movements, a strategy he was trying to keep himself centered with. A strategy that was getting him his aft handed to him.

Jynx's claws twitched as she stared down the ridge, watching every upward thrust of an energon-stained blade only touch the wielder of those claws once or twice for every painful time the other dug in.

He was an impressive warrior, but against a mindless monster it was almost like he was… not afraid, but wary.

That was when Jynx caught sight of the blaster hole in his chest, hardly four inches above his spark. He was injured. Badly. And despite that, he fought well enough to still be standing.

Which was more than could be said for the silver mech struggling to get back to his peds at the bottom of the ridge. Tilting her head, the bright femme took in the silver mech with the blue visor, now dimmed and shattered from where it looked like he had taken a sucker punch to the faceplate. From her place on the ridge, Jynx could see the energon gushing from the deep slice in the mech's back as he struggled to stay standing.

Then her optics drifted back to the battling mechs.

The red one twisted, ducked under a slice of claws, and came up behind Fallback. He slammed his elbow into Fallback's main backstrut, which drew a dark laugh from the dark mech as he spun on his left foot and came up with the right one kicking the Enforcer square in the blaster hole in his chest. That drew a strangled curse from the red mech's lips as he stumbled, pain flashing in those vivid blue optics, before Fallback snorted, sprang, and with a painful-sounding crash had the red mech pinned to the ground with his blade-wielding arms pinned above his head and a clawed ped cutting into his neck as he trashed and snarled under the heavier weight holding him down.

"Sideswipe!" The silver mech shouted in panic, trying to stand only to fall back to his knees in the hot sand.

"You should have stayed in your pit, fool," Fallback taunted, digging his sharp toes into the mech's throat, cutting off his air supply and the energon flowing to his processor. The mech - she refused to give him a name in her mindlessness, there was no point, he wasn't going to make it out of this alive – snarled, kicking and wiggling against Fallback's hold, but it was obvious he wasn't going anywhere. Fallback was just too big for him to off-balance the way he was pinned. The red mech was going to die.

Jynx knew it, the silver mech knew it, the red mech knew it, and Fallback knew it. It was going to happen. He had lost, and so was the way of monsters. If you lost then you died; it was no bot's fault but your own.

However, through her fogged processor that watched the slaughter happening below her with morbid fascination a pulsing thought came back to her, that cold determination of earlier ringing true. Fallback killed Greaseslick.

And he was going to die for it.

The sooner the better.

Optics narrowing even further, she sprang. Her light peds thudded into the sand, a jump, a twist, a startled blue visor, a roll, a leap, vivid blue optics locking on her, red optics turning in confusion and then she barrelled full force into Fallback's back.

And she wasted no times with pleasantries.

"You slaggin' pit-spawn slag-eating fragging bastard! You're supposed to be dead!" Screaming with more ferocity than she had in a long time she took Fall to the ground with claws out, tearing and ripping into the sensitive panels under his winglets and making the huge mech bellow in rage and pain as they slammed into the sand. Her optics flashed dangerously as she scrambled when they rolled. Fallback twisted, using his weight and hers to throw Jynx off and send her flipping, but the femme was not so easily outdone. In a spiral twist of gleaming white armor she slid across the dark sands, drawing back her lips and hissing as wickedly as any feral robo-cat ever could, her visor darkened to a reflective mirror of black and her claws - already dripping in Fallback's energon - flashing in the sunlight.

The burn returned to her spark, the itch set in under her plating, her energon sang in her audios.

She was alive.

Oh so very alive!

"Jynx," The drawled dark tone was eerily familiar, making her armor prickle and hidden away marks of long ago burn in memory. Shaking her helm to clear her processor, she hissed through bared fangs at the mech who towered over her not four feet away.

"Fallback." She practically spit the designation.

"Here I was thinkin' yous was dead. Shouldn't yous be dead? After all, he is dead."

She snarled out a curse and threw herself forward, leaping for his throat only to have Fallback dance out of the way, leaving her to go flying through the air and skidding across the sand. He swung a leg to try and nail her in the back, but she darted to the side, spinning and coming up again with razor-like claws swiping him across the faceplate. He growled, slamming out with his own fist to catch her in the side.

The uppercut slammed into her side, denting plating and setting her sensor-net on fire as she felt energon lines and internal mechanisms rupture inside. It drew a pained gasp from her and sent her stumbling, leaving her back open for the cruel elbow that smashed into the middle of her back and sent her crashing to the sand.

Her helm and back seared in pain from both impacts, but not enough to daze her. Rolling to the left, she came up to her peds just in time to watch Fallback slam his clawed toes into empty sand where she had just been. She didn't give him time to realize he'd missed though. Gathering every bit of force she had in her short thin legs, she sprang for the mech whose lower torso she was hardly level with, and she caught him square in the hip. She heard something inside the mech's hip pop with the force of her jump, and he bellowed out a curse of pain, slinging a fist for her only to end up punching himself in the place she'd just injured as she sprang away again.

Dark red optics flashed in pain and met her own visor, where, even through the tinted glass, she felt as if he was holding her gaze. That mad swirl of animalistic notions and whims in his optics bore into her own swirling torrent of cold, single-minded determination that saw nothing other than the desire to tear his spark out. Just like he wanted to tear out hers.

A shudder ran through her insides, damping the fog ever so slightly.

In a way, staring into those optics was like looking into a dark, twisted sort of mirror. Even a bot as mad as she was knew insanity when they saw it. For even though she had realized long ago that she really was crazy - quite a feat, because most times insane bots don't think they're insane - Jynx knew in the end what losing a mind looked like and what it felt like. She'd felt it when it snapped and everything had kind of been a colorful, hilarious, yet empty blur ever since. She knew she had long ago left the land of rational processing behind, but still even she couldn't touch the level of madness that was practically oozing out of the massive black and orange mech who was now circle-stepping slowly with her through the energon-soaked sand.

Somewhere in the back of her processor, she was aware that her life's fluids were gushing down from the punctured dent in her side. She could feel the hot, sticky substance running down her plating, just as she could see the gashes she had torn in Fallback and the hobble in his step. It didn't click in her processor though. She was now lost in the depths of those optics that she had known once, and that were now the same yet so very different, and she wondered if the same could be said about her.

When Fallback laughed lowly though, she was snapped from her thoughts. "Little Jynx, still living in dreams."

She hissed at the taunt, her claws flexing and her spark burning.

"Poor little lost Jynx, you still don't understand do you? You still haven't figured it out? Even now after he is gone and you are left, you still won't accept the truth."

"Mute it!" she snarled, unwilling to wonder which he the big mech was talking about. Because it wasn't possible that he knew. It just wasn't. Then again, Fallback was supposed to be dead… so maybe that changed things. "I'll gladly shove your spark down your throat here in a klick or two, you scrap-rat bastard! Just stand still!"

"Stand still?" He laughed, a dark and empty sound that made her energon run a little cold. It wasn't natural, it wasn't right, and it wasn't just mad… it was empty. Sparkless, in a different sense of the term. "Nothing is still, Jynx. Haven't you heard? Still is dead. Just like sparks."

"You're supposed to be dead!" she countered, because he was supposed to be and her blurred mind was still hung up on that fact. She'd watched that damn place burn with him and all the others that wouldn't leave inside.

"You made sure of that, didn't you?" he taunted.

She hissed with another show of her teeth and her two longer pointed feline-like fangs.

"And yet here I am. Funny right? How it works. I'm still here, yet still is dead, and dead is not dead, and not dead is dead… you know a little bit about that don't ya? How it feels to be dead and to not be dead all at the same time."

She'd heard enough.

She lunged to the right, a bait move that she knew his animalistic-acting processor would go for. And he did - he went to meet the jump that wasn't coming now, as she sprang back left and then threw all of her tiny self forward, knowing that so close together she wouldn't have enough force to take him down. So instead of down, she'd go up.

Springing off the sands, she crashed into his chest and slammed her clawed toes in rapid session into his stomach plating, ripping and tearing and shredding as she doubled up her fist and threw it hard into the left side of his chest, feeling the thick armor bend and cave a little with the first hit. However, it wasn't enough for her to break through. She drew her now leaking and damaged fist back for another strike, only to feel two clawed hands dig into her back - yanking her off and tearing a scream from her vocaliser before she found herself slammed into the sand, the punch to the throat cutting off the sound.

Pain erupted with the hit as another set of claws - his peds - slammed hard into her middle, crushing and bending whatever it came in contact with again and again. She was far from done just yet though. Even with the energon that she was coughing up gathering in her mouth, she timed it for when his foot came up again and then she rolled for all she was worth. Throwing her weight upward, she sprang backwards onto her palms and flung herself around back to her peds, ignoring the flash of white-hot agony that ran through her in favor of spring-loading her step backward and throwing herself at Fallback once again.

She caught him surprised by the sudden lack of femme under his kicks, and this time when she slammed into his chest claws first she hammered her pointed claws into his chest hard enough to puncture the hardened armor right over his spark chamber. The metal buckled and bent as a scream tore its way through his lips while he ripped at her to try and pry her off, but she held fast. Every one of her claws pushed in tightly as she forced her digging right hand forward until she broke through the squishy inside of the chamber.

Victory flashed through her processor, her energon sang, as she threw her helm back laughing at the pain and at the trophy she was about to tear from the glitch's chest, grasping for the burning ball of hot light that should be there—

And came up with nothing.

Nothing?

There… there was no spark?

Her laughter cut off, her optics widened behind her visor, and she snapped her attention to the punctured hole. She hadn't missed. This was his spark chamber. There should be a spark.

But… there was no spark!

The low chuckle seemed to come from all around her because of how tightly she had herself clawed to Fallback. Somehow, in the eerie unease that flushed the blur right out of her, she tipped her helm back to hold the optics of the mech that even like this seemed to tower over her.

Even with her claws in his chest.

He somehow loomed, making every instinct inside her scream run. Because even insanity knows when something is just too crazy to believe. This was wrong. Oh so very wrong.

Where was his spark?

Everybot had a spark.

Only drones were sparkless, and this was no drone.

It was Fallback. She remembered him!

And she distinctly remembered that even back then he had a spark! As cold and merciless as he had been near the end, even then he had had a spark.

"Oh little Jynx," he rumbled deeply, and the highly tuned sensors atop her head pinned so deep into her helm that they left a slight gap against the white plating. For the first time in vorns she was absolutely terrified. "Still haven't figured it out. Sad, poor, lost little half without what makes her whole. You really need to figure it out darling. I'm a sparkless monster. We all are. Always were, always will be!"

And then he buried his claws in her shoulders and tore her off.

The pain shook her from her daze of confusion long enough to feel just how hard the glitch wrenched her arm as he flung her into a steep hill of sand. The shoulder joint in her right arm cracked with a sound that made her audios hurt even more than the screaming pain sensors did as she crashed into the dirt and her limb fell limp to her side.

The only thing Jynx was thinking, though, was that at least he didn't tear it off.

That didn't mean she wasn't in an insane amount of pain. Her helm and processor were spinning with how much negative sensation her sensor-net was throwing at her. Everything was starting to get hazy, whether it was from energon loss or pain at this point she wasn't sure, and her frame was just starting to get heavy. She wasn't going to be able to keep this up for much longer.

This had to end.

Now.

Shoving her still working arm into the red sand she spun back upright, working to get her heavy peds under her frame as Fallback slowly stalked toward her with his red optics flashing. His movements jerky and loose like an animal playing with its prey yet unsure if the game should end so soon. At the moment, Jynx was kind of hoping he'd decide to not end it quite yet, because that was the only chance she stood.

After all, how the frag did she kill a mech with no spark?

The only option she had left was to take off his helm.

Yes.

Yes, that would do nicely. She'd take off his helm and then she'd put it on a stake. That is if she could still stand by the time she had that magical feat pulled off.

From the corner of her visor, she caught sight of the red mech trying to hurriedly get back to his peds as the silver one not far off did the same. There was something flashing in the deep blue optics that were glued on her. Something she didn't understand, and refused to wonder about. They weren't going to be able to help her.

She would help herself.

She just had to time it right.

Balancing herself as well as she could on legs that wanted to sway out from under her, she hissed low and long at the massive mech that stalked toward her. His claws were dripping energon as they twitched in anticipation at his side, just as hers did.

"Hey! Fallback! Leave the femme the pit alone!" The black mech ignored the silver mech, who stumbled forward only to crash back to the sand grasping his side. Jynx wanted to roll her optics, and she might have if it hadn't been a risk to take them off Fallback for even the slightest of nano-klicks.

The glitched Enforcer needed to mind his own damn business. Stupid once upon a time Autobot, thinking he and his little red warrior friend could take on something as wild as Fallback was proving to be.

Idiots.

"You, coward, come here and fight me!" The red one managed to get his peds back under him and stagger back up, one arm grasping the horrible wound in his chest, but all that effort was going to be for naught.

Because Jynx saw her chance.

She saw it the moment the animalistic-minded beast took the bait. So in the end, she supposed the red mech's efforts weren't for naught, for they gave her the opportunity she needed.

"What did you call—GAH!"

It all happened quicker than the blink of an optic really.

One klick, Fall and Jynx had been staring each other down. And then Fallback had made his life-altering error.

He looked away from that pitch-black visor. So he never even saw what hit him.

Jynx had gathered the last of her strength, focusing it down into one well-aimed leap. So the moment Fallback's helm twisted toward the red mech she sprang, claws first, aiming for the softer wires at the base of Fall's neck, and she hit them dead on. His snarled retort to the warrior's sharp glossa was half out of his mouth before he even realized Jynx had slammed into him, had dug her sharp claws into the vulnerable wiring at the base of his neck, and shoved both hands deep into them, rupturing lines and shredding wires as she took hold of the main strut that linked helm to frame at the back of the neck and ripped with everything inside her. Just as his strangled moment of panic cut off she yanked upward, ripping connective plating, wires, lines, and so much more in a wonderful spray of bright blue that splattered everywhere as she tore the mech's helm from his frame and they went crashing back into the sand.

For a few moments after the loud bang of dead weight hitting the ground, Jynx just crouched there panting. Her ped claws still dug deep into Fallback's cooling frame, his armor rapidly graying as his paint nanites died. Through the dizzy haze that had taken over when they crashed to the ground, she realized she was now painted in her energon as well as his - a feeling that should have made her giggle like a sparkling and go dancing around in circles, only this time it didn't. She was dizzy and aching down to her very spark as she let go of that severed helm and watched it roll back into the sand and pooling energon. Those now dead and dark optics stared into her very soul in a mockery that left her feeling oddly satisfied.

That had been a long time coming, yet it felt different than every other time she had killed.

There was satisfaction - but there was also this coldness in the bottom on her tanks that felt like some kind of warning. Though she didn't understand what it meant.

Rocking backward on the massive frame she was perched on, she was going to try and stand; but somehow she found herself tipping sideways and crashing into the sand. Coughing as she tried to push herself to her knees, dragging her half-useless arm that had been used far too roughly just a few nano-klicks ago as the adrenaline had made her forget just how damaged it was and she had used it to rip protoform and armor apart. Energon splattered down around her, she could even feel it running down her chin in a steady torrent that should probably be making her a bit nervous. She just couldn't find it in herself to care, though, as she tipped to the side and found herself laying in the pool of mixed energon gazing up at the bright desert sky.

Somewhere inside her processor, she registered that she was dying.

She'd felt this before… many, many times before.

She did nothing about it though. She never did.

Death? It was not something she feared.

Pit? Ha. The only pit she believed in was the one she was currently in.

She wasn't afraid to die. Quite the opposite really. It was sort of something a cold, broken place in her spark embraced.

At least then it wouldn't hurt anymore.

Her vision was starting to go black and the world was fading into quiet bliss when something appeared over her. Hands gripped her, words were shouted through the fog, she watched a blurry red and white mech with light sky-blue optics frantically look her over before turning to his side and shouting something as she felt his hands flying over her frame. Another silhouette appeared before her visor, but at that point she couldn't make it out really. It was two mechs with a slightly smaller one strung between them, arms over both shoulders, looking down at her and saying something.

Words she could no longer hear, with emotions in their optics she could no longer read.

The last thing she was aware of before slipping into darkness was one of them nodding stiffly and strong arms from somewhere behind her wrapping around her and hauling her up.

And there it is. The first chapter of Jynx's story.

There are a lot of places its going from here, so if you like it please read and review. I really want to know what you guys think.

Usually I update once a week with my stories and I'm going to try and stay true to that, though we'll see how well that works out writing two at a time. No promises, but I will do my best. Now that it's started it will be finished. I refuse to give up.

So R&R please! :)

-Jaycee