One Human, One Spark 33

“If we are to have any hope of recovering the Iacon relics before the Decepticons do, we must divide our resources.”

“But Optimus,” Ratchet said,” when it comes to numbers, we are already at a grave disadvantage.”

“Under the circumstances,” Optimus replied, “swiftness of action is paramount. This is one race that we absolutely cannot afford to lose.”

Wheeljack was glaring at Topspin and Twin Twist violently from across the base. His arms were crossed; his optics were narrowed. One finger tapped, idly counting down the clicks until he could finally get his hands on those ugly mugs.

You guys better be happy we have a mission or you would be nothing but spare parts.

The twins didn’t grace that with a response, but instead just shifted uncomfortably and clasped their servos in front of them over their delicates out of fear Wheeljack could somehow reach across the room and rip them off from where he stood.

Dare I ask what we did wrong?

If you don’t know that then I’m going to reformat you with a lug-wrench.

As Arcee and Bumblebee began to head out with Jack and Miko, Wheeljack slapped Arcee on her aft as she passed. “Knock ‘em dead, Doll.”

Arcee whirled on him with slitted optics and a point of her finger. “I so swear if you keep up stuff like that I’m going to take an electromagnet and shove it up your aft!”

As she transformed down, Jack straddling her and putting on his helmet, Wheeljack knew it was safe to call out, “C’mon, Doll, don’t fight it! You know you like it!”

An audible seethe and she had to go as they went out to the first set of coordinates for the Iacon relics. “Hey, Bee! Take care of my Babe!”

Just as he called that, Raf called, “Take care of him, Miko!”

Amused and disgruntled both, Wheeljack looked down on the tiny human. He blushed sky high and turned his face away. Wheeljack just chuckled.

Optimus turned with heavy step towards Topspin and Twin Twist. “Topspin, Twin Twist, prepare for departure.”

“You are headed for the equator,” Ratchet told them.

The twins hooted and raced up toward the ground bridge, itching to get some ‘Con blood on their servos and also to get away from Wheeljack. As Ratchet started up the bridge, Optimus informed them, “Raf and Agent Fowler will be your communications and transportation hub.”

The bots looked back to Raf, not knowing what to think of him yet, but all they got from Agent Fowler was a delirious, “I can haz cheezeburger!”

Twin Twist snorted. “Communications, huh?”

Topspin just shook his head. “I’d rather stick with the short kid.” The two Wreckers waltzed out knowing they had dodged Wheeljack’s wrath for now.

Wheeljack huffed. He looked at who was left in the room; he thought of the only two remaining coordinates. He blinked. His hands slacked. His jaw nearly dropped. “You can’t seriously be pairing me with the Doc.”

“My name is not Doc!” was the reflexive reply.

Then, with a snort, Wheeljack decided, to Pit with it! If he was paired with the Doc, he might as well make his life as miserable as possible while he was at it!

“You can’t be serious? WHEELJACK?” Ratchet exclaimed in horror. “But—Wheeljack’s insubordinate! A ruffian!”

“Charming of you to say, Doc,” Wheeljack drawled. Ratchet hissed instinctively at the misuse of the nickname.

“Your expertise is scientific,” Optimus stated, voice hard with no room for argument, “but Wheeljack is a highly capable warrior. You would be wise to welcome the temporary alliance.” He looked across the room and arched his brow. “That goes for you too, Wheeljack.”

“I’ll be sure to be on my best behavior for the Doc.”

“For the last time, my name is not Doc!”

Wheeljack just grinned. “Whatever you say . . . sunshine.”

An audible seethe.

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“Holy PIT! This place reeks!”

Twin Twist noted the smell, an astonishing and overwhelmingly amount of sulfur, but he discounted it easier than his brother as they fell in step, searching the area the Iacon databases coordinates had provided. When he had been down in the pits as a miner, you got used to disgusting smells.

Topspin waved beneath his olfactory system. “Aw, c’mon, Twist, this place is worse than the Decepticon barracks!”

Twin Twist snorted. “Ah, shut up, you’ll get over it. We’ve had worse than this.”

As they split up, Topspin contemplating this, it was a moment before—if he were human—he would have turned a shade of green. “Very VERY good point,” he called to his brother.

Twin Twist just rolled his optics as they combed the area for the hidden relic, but after several minutes of not finding anything in the barren wasteland, Topspin grunted. He accessed his comm. link.

“Hey, we aren’t finding anything out here. Can you reconfirm coordinates?” Not that he thought the Doc had bridged them out wrong, he just wanted to be certain.

“Triangulating your position,” he heard Raf ping back. A moment, and the boy reported, “You’re at the correct location.”

Topspin grunted in response. Twin Twist turned to him and arched a brow. “Think it’s underground? I can dig around if you’d like, though it’d be tricky to determine where the lava is flowing . . .”

Topspin frowned. “If these are the right coordinates, then I guess we’ll have to—”

Both mechs froze hearing thrumming wings. “Insecticons!” Twin Twist muttered. “Guess if the ‘Cons are here, the relic must be here too!”

Twin Twist squared off in the direction of the sound of the Decepticon and Topspin ducked down, propping his gun in the direction of the buzz. Then, the instant the Insecticon rounded the curve, both mechs open fired.

Blue lasers shot out, and then, instead of averting its path to avoid the range of fire, it plowed straight through and aimed for Twin Twist. He yelled when the Insecticon crashed right into him, dragging him off.

Topspin jumped up when Twin Twist was carried off by the Insecticon. “You fragger!” he shouted. He transformed down quickly, gunning it after them. “You weren’t supposed to let that happen, Twist! Argh! You’re always making things difficult!”

Twin Twist gritted his dentures, feeling a slight bit panicky without his feet properly on the ground as they whizzed around in the air until a sudden, painful stop as he felt himself slammed into a rock face. The world tipped and whirled again, and his weight left for a second before he crashed to the ground with a painful grunt.

Recalibrating his dizzied optics, feeling much better now that he was on the ground, Twin Twist stood up, glaring at his adversary that landed in front of him. The Insecticon was decorated with numerous battle scars, scars of pride and weathered skill and age. He shifted. The older the Insecticon, the harder the shell.

The giant Insecticon charged, and Twin Twist engaged in the close combat with him, the heavier blows of the ‘Con shocking up his suspension. He didn’t waver an inch, his shock absorbers taking the brunt of the blows as his forearm met his fist and he ducked beneath an arm heavy as an iron beam and clocked the Insecticon right in the jaw. They separated, and a smirk touched his lips.

“Ain’t that lazy of Megatron? Sends a bug to do his dirty work?” He tutted his glossia, shaking his head as he pinged to Topspin, “Hey, I’m over here. Where you at and when you getting here?”

The Insecticon growled, spitting back, “You know a thing or two about dirty work yourself, Wrecker.”

Twin Twist’s lips flattened. “I know you or something?”

“Half a minute out. Hang on that long for me, will ya? I’d hate to be patching you up the second we got out here.”

“If this bug keeps running his mouth that’ll be no problem.”

“I know your kind, as I’ve crushed more than a few Wreckers in my time.”

White hot fury blazed to life in Twin Twist at his arrogant claim, and it bled over the bond with his brother. Twin Twist paced around with the Insecticon, counting down the seconds until Topspin would get there. “You see,” he said back evenly, “the thing about bugs your size is they’ll make a bigger mess when I rip them open!”

Implanted brass knuckles transformed out of Twin Twist’s hands, and he engaged Hardshell again, taking the offensive to fuel his rage. He hit the bug with all his might, but he didn’t even feel his shell bend beneath the force of his blows. That was only made worse when Twin Twist suddenly got a face full of claws clocking his chin before picking him up by the neck and slinging him around like a toy. The ground whooshed up and a heavy grunt tumbled from his vocalizer. Desperately, he rolled away, and he felt the air move from where the Insecticon’s foot came down so hard.

“Hey, ugly!”

A volley of blaster fire assaulted the Insecticon from the rear, and Topspin ran up, skirting around and distracting the monster as Twin Twist gathered his bearings, energon leaking from his mouth. He rubbed it away in irritation as they double teamed the Insecticon, hitting and ducking away and short-distance attacks as the brothers wore him down with a fight. Twin Twist suffered a bone-shattering strong double-hit to the front that sent the driller flying back and shouting. Topspin skidded to the side, covering him and blasting a few more shots to the Hardshell’s front, but to his dismay, his bullets barely made the thing flinch.

Topspin darted forward with a flurry of quick fists, but it didn’t faze the Insecticon. Twin Twist transformed behind him, drills whining as he barreled forward when Hardshell slammed his brother to the ground. Topspin groaned and growled, and when Hardshell lifted his fist to crush his helm in, Twin Twist crashed into his side, drills tearing at his metal. The ‘Con shrieked in pain as his drills chipped and cut his armor, and with a grit of his teeth, Twin Twist transformed to bipedal mode again, grabbed a mandible, and yanked with all his might. It ripped free with another piercing shriek, and he fisted both hands together and threw them with the entire winding force of his body. His fists crashed into the ‘Con’s jaw, knocking him out instantly.

Twin Twist panted, staggering a moment before he whirled back to his brother who staggered to his feet. “You okay?” he asked, pressing a hand to his aching chassis where Hardshell’s two-fisted blow had literally dented it inward.

Topspin roughly wiped away the leak in his mouth. “Fine. Relic first, bugs later. We gotta find that thing before they do.”

Twin Twist frowned, turning as he said, “But we don’t—” And then, he paused. His optics narrowed at the ground, and then, he grinned. “Hey, Spin? Check out the creases in the ground there. There used to be a lava flow here. And what do you want to bet . . .?”

Topspin blinked. “Bet what?”

“Betcha it was carried downstream.”

“Carried downstream,” he repeated dumbly. Then, Topspin grinned at his brother. “You, good sir, are a genius.”

They transformed down and headed off, Twin Twist saying mildly, “I know.”

“Hey, Raf?” Topspin said into the communications. “We got a bead on the relic.”

“Raf’s busy,” a deeper voice cut in. “I’ll take it from here.”

The two Wreckers gave big laughs. “Oh! So big man’s got some brains!”

“Got enough beauty sleep?” Twin Twist said with rev of his engine.

Topspin sniggered. “Not that I think it’ll help you any.”

“Nice one, Spin!”

“I’m doing just fine,” Fowler cut in flatly. “Dreamt I finally got a little respect around here.”

“Oooh-hoo,” Topspin hooted. “You keep dreaming on that one, little organic!”

The human made a frustrated noise before saying cryptically, “What’s your status?”

“Came up empty at the provided coordinates,” Twin Twist jumped in on the explanation. “But I found the residue of an old lava flow and figured it must have carried the relic downhill.”

“Wouldn’t that just burn it up?”

“Nah,” Topspin added. “These relics survive interstellar transport. With all the hell between Cybertron and Earth, I think they could withstand a little molten lava. You don’t honestly think we’d put a relic in porcelain glass, do—Aw, scrap.”

Twin Twist looked over at his brother. “What?”

“What is it?”

“I’m leaking energon,” Topspin muttered on a slight whine. “Fragging Insecticon hit me hard.”

“INSECTICON?” Fowler repeated.

Topspin snorted. “Yeah, well . . . It’s probably nothing serious. Maybe just knocked a gasket loose.” Either way, he was running diagnostics to find the problem. It wasn’t a gasket, just an energon line cinched near a transformation gear. While he may cut through the line with numerous transformations, it was nothing life-threatening, just a tiny leak that would plague him. “It’s nothing to worry about. Trust me, that mech’s in way worse shape than we are!”

The Wreckers laughed again, getting a kick out of being back in the field. The boring days of interstellar travel to find the front of the war had taxed their patience thin, and they were glad to be getting back into the swing of things.

“Here we are!” Topspin cajoled cheerfully as the bin came into sight. He transformed up with his brother, and Twin Twist reached down to open the lid. He grunted, the thing sealed tight with rust and a fine crust of hardened lava, and then, it popped free so suddenly that he fell back with a thud.

Topspin gave a great laugh. “Nice one, Twist!”

Twin Twist wasn’t even mildly ruffled. He gave a little shrug. “I got the lid off,” he said with easy humor. He tossed it behind him, and Topspin just grinned as he checked out their relic—and he froze for a moment, the smell stinging his olfactory sensors with a nauseating sense before he backed way off the pod, motioning his brother back.

He mechanically touched his audio receptor. “Base, we have a problem.”

“Twin Twist, what is it?”

“It’s Topspin,” he said back. “We found the relic, but it’s a cache of energon.”

“That’s good, right?”

“No no no,” he said quickly, “not this kind.” He kept pushing his brother back, and it suddenly occurred to Twin Twist too what it was as he smelled it. “This is Tox-En.” The medic immediately rattled off the symptoms. “Causes nausea and dizziness upon contact; prolonged exposure weakens us to the point of paralysis; and then it snuffs out our sparks. It’s a rapid acting poison—We’d be dead within hours.”

“Well what are you talking to me for?” Fowler interrupted. “Get away from that stuff pronto! If it’s as deadly as you say, the ‘Cons won’t want it either!”

“No,” Topspin growled, “they’ll want it even more! During the War for Cybertron, some of Megatron’s scientists figured out how to refine raw Tox-En, turned it into a weapon of mass destruction. I’ve seen countless units wiped out by it, there’s no way we can let the ‘Cons get their hands on this.”

“So bring it back here—” Fowler started to say.

“No!” Topspin cut in again. “The stuff’s way too potent, even IF we had something to contain it in. I can’t risk that kind of exposure to the rest of us, much less what it would do to you humans!” The buzz of Insecticon wings filled his audio receptors, and he huffed in irritation. “I’ll call you back,” and he cut the conversation brusquely.

Both mechs looked down on the pod as each contemplated what to do with it. Finally, they looked at each other; and grinned.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“You know I know I’m thinking I know what you’re thinking.”

Their grins broadened. “Wrecker style, baby.”

“Let’s get it done!”

They easily left a little bit of the Tox-En in the bin as a decoy, Twin Twist rigging the lid so that when the ‘Cons took it off the grenade hidden at the bottom would blow. Fool-proof plan to knock out one of the fraggers on their tail. Then, they split up. Twin Twist would take the Tox-En to the top of the volcano and drop it in the lava and presto, no more Tox-En; he would be taking it because he could determine if the ground at the top was safe to walk on, and also because Topspin was leaking. Topspin would leave the Insecticons a phony trail as a decoy to buy Twin Twist some time.

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Oh-ho, MAN! Did the Doc ever scream like a light-weight!

Wheeljack chuckled to himself as he followed the coordinates to the Iacon relic. Half the fun had been getting on Ratchet’s nerves, the other half of the fun had been shooting down Laserbeak. It got even better since the Doc had shown his shrewd mind and instead of just simply planting a phony grenade in Laserbeak, they were going to plant a virus that would implant the entire Iacon database into their systems. Pretty nifty trick Ratchet and Raf were pulling.

Honestly, of the entire day, Wheeljack was only a little irritated because Soundwave had got a cheap shot to his right thruster, fried it, and the Jackhammer was grounded. Thus, he was driving and this whole trip was taking a helluva a lot longer, but if he could swipe a relic and stall Soundwave so Ratchet had time to infect his little snitch, overall—

It was going to be one HELLUVA day!

Filled with confidence, Wheeljack saw Soundwave with the relic in hand and didn’t think twice—with a mighty yell, he leapt recklessly down at the ‘Con in a downward slash, and true to Soundwave’s lightweight form, the ‘Con jumped back and out of the way. Wheeljack smirked from behind his battle mask.

“You dropped something!”

His head turned down the steep cliff sighting the relic at the bottom; his mannerisms bled of irritated astonishment.

The sunset dipped in a dramatic backdrop for their next tussle, and Wheeljack twirled his blades. Soundwave’s ever silent helm snapped to him as they squared off. Soundwave, rumored to be of equal skill to Megatron when they fought in the pits of Kaon. Now, it was time to see if he still had that skill.

“This should be fun.”

With a yell, Wheeljack closed the gap between him and Soundwave quickly. He slashed down again, and Soundwave dodged with minimal movements, a graceful dance of spins that avoided his every attack. He blocked his attacks—one, two, and caught the third beneath his arm, and with a tentacle, the extra appendage knocked Wheeljack back and ripped the blade from his hand. For a second, Wheeljack’s entire body tensed up as he quavered at the edge of the bridge and fought for balance.

As he reeled back upright, he saw Soundwave inspecting his blade, testing its weight and length with interest, as if he hadn’t held an actual sword in ages. Wheeljack narrowed his optics and charged again.

Instead of using the katana, obviously deeming that its shape and weight didn’t suit him, Soundwave instead threw it with pinpoint accuracy at the Wrecker. Wheeljack knocked it aside, leapt up for a downward slash, and he grunted when one of Soundwave’s tentacles grabbed his helm—

And lifted him all the way off his feet.

Wheeljack get a shout of surprise, not expecting the raw strength to come from such flimsy looking tentacles, and he felt himself slung and slammed forcefully into the ground. All the breath shocked from his systems before he was picked up and tossed to the ground again, this time sliding precariously towards the edge again. Wheeljack blinked with disorientation, optics fritzing as he quickly recalibrated to see, and he felt his shoulder grabbed, and forcefully turned over. A tentacle pressed on his chassis with the strength of a mountain lion, and he pulled on it, unable to move it. The other tentacle whirred and spun like a drill, and he caught it, yelling and snarling as he held it away from drilling straight down into his processor.

With a slight of his hand, Wheeljack forced the tentacle down into the other one, and both tentacles retreated with a silent scream. Wheeljack jumped up, and taking advantage of putting him on the retreat, slammed the front of his helm right into Soundwave’s face. Soundwave staggered back, and Wheeljack smirked behind his battle mask as a crack spread through his visor.

“There I go again shattering expectations.”

It was easy to blast Soundwave several times with his ion cannons, the ‘Con momentarily having his programming glitch from the sheer force of the head butt, and Wheeljack leapt, jutting his knee up into Soundwave’s chassis and knocking him off the ledge. They fell with a mighty crash, and Wheeljack smirked as he came up, pointing his ion cannon down at the ‘Con.

Too easy.

“Any last words?” Wheeljack snarked to him. He waited several moments, giving him ample time, but as he thought, the bot was obstinate and refused anything. “Right. Silent type.” And he charged his ion cannon, ready to make sure that the ‘Con really did embody the phrase silent as the grave.

Until, blinding agony.

Wheeljack roared, screaming out as the sound waves lambasted near his helm, so loud, so potent that it shorted out his optics and rang on such a shrill and vibrating pitch that it caused physical pain on his sensitive audio receptors. Wheeljack arched and howled, vocalizer cracking under the strain as the sound waves warped around him, grating against his processor, and making his systems malfunction. When the waves finally stopped, Wheeljack collapsed in a heap.

His optics caught sight of a staticy smudge moving, and then, with a last groan, lost his consciousness for a moment. He came to again a second later, struggling to stay alert and awake, but he couldn’t hear anything through the white ringing of his audio receptors. A fuzzy image of Soundwave pointing the Resonance Blaster at him processed in his mind, and his processor was so fried after taking the brunt of the weapon that all he could think was, Primus damn you, Miko, I’m sitting here dying at every turn and you want me to live? Pit, I’m so tired right now I’d rather just go to sleep and not wake up right now. Damn you for keeping me awake, Miko, damn you.

And then, the smudge of Soundwave moved. He was like a wraith in his static-filled optics, and he watched as Soundwave transformed and left. He barely heard the kick of his thrusters as his audio receptors began to recalibrate and fix themselves.

He didn’t terminate him? Now why the frag not? That didn’t make any sense. Oh, wait—the snitch. His snitch. Ratchet had his snitch. That was right.

With a heavy groan, Wheeljack summoned enough power to contact Ratchet. “Doc . . .” he slurred out.

“Wheeljack, I told you not to call me that!”

Ratchet’s exasperated shout did nothing but draw knives across Wheeljack’s audio receptors. “I’m sorry . . .” he breathed.

He could feel the pause from over the line. “Wheeljack? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

Was the Doc out of his mind? That didn’t matter at the moment. Wheeljack mumbled out, “Ah . . . Figure you got maybe . . . ah, two minutes . . .” His contact kept cutting in and out, and he kept having to reopen the link, unable to force it to stay up. “Maybe less . . .”

With a soft groan, Wheeljack sank down, unable to keep his processor functioning at the moment. He’d just take himself a short nap. Primus knew he needed it . . . just a short one . . .

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“Wake up! Wake up, Primus damn you, this is no time to be napping!”

SLAP. SLAP. SLAP.

His vocals fritzed and slurred. “Shtap hittin’ me, Spin . . .”

Harder slaps. “I’m not going to stop slapping you until you WAKE UP! Primus slag you to the Pit, WAKE UP! We’re almost there! You want to let those Insecticons walk all over you? Pitifulest of pitiful Wreckers because he wanted to take a NAP!”

Twin Twist finally got his sluggish systems to recalibrate slowly, blinking owlishly up at his brother who was stressed and tired, and had a new leak running down his shoulder. “What?”

“Get up,” Topspin snapped. He pulled him up, and Twin Twist groaned as he struggled to get his weak knees to lock and his ankles to stop wobbling. The world swam in a sickening world of blurs, and he blinked, trying to focus. “Just over this last ridge, Twist, and we’ll make it and the Tox-En will be gone, I promise. Now c’mon! Let’s get to it! We’re almost done with this hellhole!”

Twin Twist scowled, a little delirious and so dizzy he had to hold on to Topspin so he wouldn’t fall. “Fine,” he snapped irritably. He shoved the lump of steaming green raw energon into his brother’s servos. “You carry that slag.”

“Yeah, I’ll carry it,” Topspin said even as he felt his optics and olfactory systems stinging at the drugged poison’s steaming. He could feel its toll immediately, seeping into open wounds it reeked so strong. He looped his brother’s arm around his shoulder. “Last stretch, soldier, let’s get moving!”

Twin Twist grunted, struggling to stay alert as he shuffled forward with Topspin up the volcanic mountain. “And . . . the bugs . . . ?”

“Not here right yet, but I’ll bet my favorite blaster that they’re figuring it out by now.”

“Ngh . . .” Twin Twist gave a noncommittal grunt, swallowed up by the atrophying stench of the Tox-En that filled his systems to crippling.

“Hey, hey, did you know Fowler was an Army Ranger?”

Twin Twist fought against the tired sluggishness of his systems. “He was?”

“Yeah,” Topspin said with as much energetic bravado as he could, trying to keep his brother talking and alert. “Big hot shot. He’s done this before, y’know.”

A flat laugh as he stumbled over the ground, trying to get uphill with his brother. “Dragged butt with Tox-En exposure?”

“No no no,” Topspin said quickly, trying not to vent too fast so he wouldn’t take in as much Tox-En fumes. Still, it was either he take big whiffs of Tox-En or risk overheating in this Primus-forsaken volcano that was cooking them like sheet metal over coals. “He was caught behind enemy lines with his unit once. He did the same thing that I did, left a fake trail for the enemy.”

“Fascinating . . .” Twin Twist mumbled. He felt like he could barely keep his optics open. The dizzying heat that grew hotter and hotter the closer they got to the top of the mountain seemed to cause even more disorientation with heat waves tricking his already impaired optics.

Topspin shook him awake again. “Hey! Wake up! Look, we’re at the top. C’mon Twist, hang tough, we’re at the top—oh scrap. Is that okay to walk on?”

Twin Twist lifted his head, inspecting the summit’s crater. He could see the steaming hole in the crater that was slowly closing as the lava congealed, and after inspecting the area with a critical optic, finally deduced, “Yeah. It’ll hold us. It’s just some fissure vents. We’ll be fine . . .”

Topspin tugged him. “Then let’s go. C’mon, we gotta stick together and finish this real quick.”

As Topspin began to lead him out, Twin Twist grunted. “I’m right here. Go ahead and run up and dump it in there . . .”

“WRECKERS!”

Topspin jumped while Twin Twist simply gazed up in tired irritation that the Insecticons were back. Hardshell landed in front of them. “Put down the rock, and allow us to put you out of your misery!”

Topspin shoved the Tox-Ex back into Twin Twist’s hands, muttering, “Hold that for me.”

Twin Twist actually grew more alert with the enemy there. He lifted his head, staring a little blearily at the three Insecticons that had them surrounded. “Great. More flies to swat . . .”

Twin Twist took initiative, taking a grenade in his free hand, flicked the pin out with his thumb, and threw it at the ‘Con on the far side. It was blown back with a horrible screech, and all hell unleashed. Topspin battled again with Hardshell, a constant stream of curses as he was better at picking off his enemies with a rifle instead of trying to do hand-to-hand combat. Twin Twist, on the other hand, fell into his closer combat easier, even if sluggish, and he used the Tox-En to his advantage, gouging it up into the Insecticon’s throat. It shrieked when the metal bent in, the sizzled of the Tox-En and the lava steaming everything and it choked on the smell of the poisonous energon. With a wind up, Twin Twist socked the Insecticon in the face.

Topspin felt himself thrown again by Hardshell, and he landed, leg breaking through a thinner layer of solidified lava, and it plunged into white-hot liquids. Topspin screamed in raw pain as he jerked away, the heat eating through his metal and seeping beneath his armor to burn his protoform and circuits. Wildly, he knew he had to get their battle away from the mouth of the volcano or else fall through the weaker solidified magma, but as Hardshell bore down again, Twin Twist shouted out, “Hey, bug! Catch!”

Hardshell turned, and the Insecticon fumbled, catching the chunk of Tox-En, and before he could reset his footing, Topspin lunged and, ignoring the pain throbbing up his leg, gave his swiftest roundhouse kick. The Insecticon stumbled backwards with a screech, falling into the lava pit. Topspin limped to the edge, peering over, and he saw the ‘Con’s arm and a last bit of sickening green sink into the lava.

A garbled snarl from his brother. “Spin!”

Topspin whirled, servos transforming into his ion cannons instantly as he shot the Insecticon down from a distance. It fell with a shriek, several more blasts taking it all the way down.

He groaned—his systems felt sluggish. He could only imagine how Twin Twist felt, having carried the Tox-En the ENTIRE time. He limped over to Twin Twist, helping heave the exhausted Wrecker to his feet. “Fowler . . . Mission accomplished.”

Twin Twist’s voice slurred. “You’re gonna have to . . . tuck me in . . .”

Topspin chuckled as they helped each other towards the ground bridge. “Unicron’s Baby, let’s get the frag outta this place, right? Smells as bad as you.”

“Oh you’re one to talk—”

A blast ripped his brother from his arms, and Topspin felt blinding pain explode from across the bond. He pitched to his knees at the edge of the ground bridge, agony flaring bright behind his optics as his brother’s spark flickered offline.

“TWIST! OH PRIMUS PLEASE—TWIST!”

He was gone. A split instant, no warning, and he was gone. There was nothing left, just an empty, jagged hole in his spark where his brother’s spark should have been. Topspin groaned, pulling himself forward as he heard Hardshell’s triumphant screech behind him like Hell’s cheers in his audio receptors. Topspin dragged himself forward through the bridge, knowing he was next if he didn’t move, but unsure if he would rather just bite the bullet and get put out of his misery at this point.

“Shut the bridge!” he shouted, half in and half out. “Shut the bridge!”

He just barely managed to swing his legs inside before the bridge closed behind him. Cold silence blanketed the room as smoke poured from Twin Twist’s back, and Topspin groaned in delirious torment as he fell into that empty hole in his spark. The darkness there welcomed him, beckoned him, promised to erase his anguish. His brother was there, he had to go too . . .

“Twist . . . Twist . . . Twist . . .”