One Human, One Spark 52

Something smelled fishy.

The first human using their cellular device? He didn’t think the kid would make the same mistake twice. The second? She would never. Twice in a row was suspicious, but Starscream deployed more troops. And an energon mine getting attacked at the same time?

Dumb. But Starscream was dumber, so Wheeljack watched arrogantly with his arms crossed as Starscream made a fool of himself scattering half the army across the continent. And, turned out, the mine was not under attack—the Autobots had used the derelict HARBINGER to infiltrate their communications.

Sly, he would give them that. But foolhardy.

“Open a ground bridge to the HARBINGER!”

No sooner had Starscream ordered Soundwave than did a blast rock up Darkmount’s base struts, rattling all the way to their height by the force of the blow. Wheeljack’s gaze flattened.

Grenade.

The fresh batch of Synthen burned in his systems. It created a palpable, stinging buzz that made his trigger finger itch and the urge to slap Starscream silly nearly reality. He wanted a fight. By Primus, he lusted for a battle so badly, to test his mettle, to spill bright blue energon over the floor. It teased him; incensed him; seduced him. Finally, standing from his cocky slouch against the wall, Wheeljack gave a salute to Megatron. “Don’t mind me,” he drawled with a roll of his optics. “I’ll be sure to mop up Scream’s mess again.”

Starscream began to make some sort of angry denial, but Megatron cut him off with an infuriated, “Do not flatter yourself, Starscream. I find it highly ironic that I can count on HIM to take care of the Autobots more than I can my own military commander!” He turned raging red optics into Wheeljack’s which gleamed back as a mirror. “Exterminate as many as you like, Wheeljack.”

He saluted. “I’ve got a date with half a Wrecker,” he growled, and he transformed down into his alt mode, driving quickly out into the halls of the Decepticon fortress.

That was one unfortunate downfall of being a wheeled Decepticon. It was going to take him longer to get down there in the thick of it, but Wheeljack prided himself on his swift alt mode. He gunned it through the halls, whipping by Vehicons and Insecticons and to the lesser populated halls so he could drive without obstacles.

Without obstacles, at least, until a red pickup trust sat parked sideways in the middle of his way.

Without knowing why, Wheeljack slammed down on his breaks, tires squealing and he skidded to a halt in front of the intruding truck that belonged no place but here. To his utter astonishment, a thin, tan human sat comfortably in the front seat.

For a second, in the deserted hallway, Wheeljack’s engine purred idle as he stared at the man and his truck and the man just stared back. Finally, he growled, “Move.” He didn’t know why. He could just move him himself. He could have just rammed him and not paid him any attention!

The human took a deep, lax puff of his cigar before he tipped his cowboy hat up to squint with steely brown eyes. “Wheeljack.”

“I said MOVE you fleshy meat bag,” Wheeljack snarled again, and he transformed abruptly up, metal clanging aggressively into place. “Or I’ll tear your ride into pieces and crush you with my bare hands.”

“’Fraid not, sonny,” the man said, assessing him calmly with shrewd eyes. “You and I need to talk.”

“You’ve got one more chance to get out of my way, chief.”

He nodded in thought. “I see you remember my nickname.”

Without warning, Wheeljack swung his leg back and kicked the side of the truck with all the force his body could put into one motion. It sailed away across the hall, flipping sideways in a stunning spiral before Wheeljack saw something he would never forget.

The transformation was unexpected, the truck doors swinging open, the bed parting and wheels grinding, morphing into a Cybertronian. The bot landed on his peds, just as tall and lanky as the old man had been, and his facial plates were an exact replica of the human’s. Standing up with a huff, Wheeljack narrowed his optics as he watched the mech pick up a Cybertronian sized cigar, replacing it in his mouth distractedly.

He grunted, cracking his neck. “Haven’t had to do that in a while . . .” he muttered to himself.

Wheeljack’s lips thinned, patience gone already. He drew his katanas. “I’m gonna cut your little friend to ribbons when I’m finished with you,” he threatened the Cybertronian.

Instead, the bot across from him just shrugged. “You can try.” The cocky claim made Wheeljack’s brow darken even more. “And who said we were two different souls in two different bodies?”

Wheeljack charged with an enraged roar. The rusty red bot didn’t move, but rather took his charge head on. His katanas slammed into the bot, but he didn’t so much as scratch him—his kick hadn’t even dented him. Wheeljack came with a flurry of swift and furious attacks that had the bot staggering back because of the force of them, but he didn’t take any damage whatsoever, as impenetrable as the Apex Armor.

When Wheeljack backed away for a breather, chest heaving with anger and rage, the chief grunted and crossed his arms. “Look, soldier,” the Cybertronian said with the same voice of the human. “I need to talk with you before you go out there and do something you’re gonna regret.”

“You don’t know anything about the future,” Wheeljack rasped. “And you don’t know slag about me!”

He surged forward again with guttural yells, and this time, instead of hitting him, he barreled straight through him, body phasing through him. By the time he had turned around, a magnetic yellow force field glowed in the bot’s hand, and Wheeljack shouted when he was pushed away by polarized forces. The world flipped and he felt his peds slam into the ceiling, and he swore fluently when his peds were magnetized to the ceiling. He threw his katanas at him, but the chief didn’t even pay attention to the blades that skidded harmlessly off of him.

Wheeljack growled, struggling. But he was caught fast. His hellish red optics glared into neutral white.

“Who are you? What are you!”

A smirk slowly spread across the mech’s faceplates. “Oh, now that’s the question that burns you up the most, is it?” he asked conversationally. He canted his helm to the side and lifted his brows. “You don’t know, and that’s what’s bothering you. You don’t know if I’m Cybertronian with a human partner. Or maybe I’m both Cybertronian and human, a bot that can turn into a human or a human that can turn into a bot.” He quirked his brow up, and Wheeljack’s optics flicked to the human suddenly on the bot’s shoulder. “Or maybe I’m something else altogether.”

“I don’t care what the frag you are!” Wheeljack finally managed to snarl.

Footsteps sounded. A surprised, “Wheeljack?” And then, Knockout jolted. His servos transformed to his buzz saws immediately. “An intruder—!”

Before Knockout could so much as take a step, the chief suddenly whirled with the attack. Palm facing flat towards the medic, sound waves suddenly blasted out with a rocking intensity that popped Wheeljack’s audio receptors. Knockout was lambasted directly in the front, and the medic collapsed in an unconscious heap.

The second the chief turned his back, Wheeljack drew his weapons. However, without even looking at him, the bot lifted his other hand and at the same time, shooting bright blue circular waves that froze him on the spot.

He couldn’t move. Not an inch. He couldn’t even speak, couldn’t even growl to let that mech know to stay away from him. It was infuriating! He couldn’t be bested so easily!

Instead, stuck completely immobilized and polarized to the ceiling, the chief turned his all-too-knowing gaze on the captive mech. Wheeljack tried to wiggle without any success—the disorienting sight of the mech able to use all of the Cybertronian relic powers had his circuits burning on edge. The chief pushed a sigh through his vents.

“Listen to me, soldier,” he told him, pale white optics drilling into his optics. He tried to look away, but his immobilization prevented him from doing so, and Wheeljack was left to suffer beneath that stinging, cutting, unnerving gaze. “I’m trying to help you if you’ll let me.”

When Wheeljack failed to respond—not that he could now anyways—the chief continued puffing on his cigar as he spoke. “You’re angry. And you’re afraid. I see it in your optics. You don’t know anything about me, you don’t know what’s going on with yourself with your Neurocaroxic line missing. You don’t know why people are lying, but you know they are, so that puts you up a step ahead of things. But your processor and your spark are on two different paths. You hate the Autobots with all your might, yet your spark is giving you mixed signals.” He quirked his brow. “Like the guilt that made you purge your tank?”

Wheeljack just glared as hard as he possibly could from his humiliating position. The chief’s robotic counterpart grunted, frowning at him. “Look. I’m telling you to get all the variables on your plate. You can tell the Decepticons are lying. But what about the Autobots?” He stepped forward, moonlit white optics boring into his soul. “You might want to broaden your horizons, Wheeljack. You might just discover something more than just a little interesting.”

Before Wheeljack could comprehend what just happened, the chief blew several lazy smoke rings in his face. Lubricant stung his optics, and just when the world blurred, Wheeljack felt gravity suddenly come back full force and with it, his bodily function. He crashed to the ground with a growl and flipped back to point both his ion cannons at the Cybertronian. Or the human. Whatever he was.

But he wasn’t there. As abruptly as he had been there, he was gone. Wheeljack vented raggedly, infuriated and toyed with as he always was. So powerful with the Synthen, but so powerless? So welcome, but kept in the dark? So determined, but so confused?

The juxtaposition of his spark’s desires grated painfully against what he knew. What he thought. It caused physical pain to flare across his neural circuits. Instead of dwelling on the strange happenstance, Wheeljack turned his way back down the halls, determined to find Twin Twist in the fighting ahead.

If he was going to get any answers, it lied locked in the Neurocaroxic spark line he didn’t have. And the only way he was going to get one was to take it. He’d gut the Wrecker no matter how many times it took to get what he wanted.

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It was like playing a game of chicken. Very dangerous, stupid, and full of bluster. And the sad part was, she wasn’t playing it with another ship, or even a chicken.

The Predacon was gaining. Elita One vented tightly, steeling her will and fear and gritting through it though her senses screamed to move, to evade, to do something about the beast gaining ground. She let it get close, and it barreled forward, focused on catching her and too dumb to realize the trick she had up her sleeve. Her optics narrowed.

“Ratchet . . .”

The beast drew so close it could snap at her tailpipe. It drew so close she could see the glint of the Predacon symbol on its chest.

“Now!”

She jerked the controls hard—since they were calibrated to Ultra Magnus’s heavier touch, something she didn’t want to change since she fully believed he would make it—and the ship veered up and away just in time to avoid the ground bridge dead ahead. The Predacon went barreling through, and the portal closed.

One rabid Cybertronian eating dragon checked off the list. “Elita One to stealth team,” she hailed Arcee and Bumblebee. “Status report.”

“Having a little trouble reaching the objective,” Arcee reported back immediately. Elita’s lips pressed. “Security was tighter than anticipated, Ma’am.”

“Keep them occupied,” she told her. Coasting the ship down, Elita parked it and disembarked. Wirelessly, she set the autopilot on, and the ship began to circle Darkmount. Hefting up her gun, she narrowed her optics and ran, gauging the leap half-heartedly, and she went ahead and leaped even before she knew if she could make it or not. Shooting inward, she blasted her way into Darkmount, frying a computer and a Vehicon in the process.

She worked her element of surprise. Registering the Vehicon to her left and right, she blasted the one on the right before he could even see her, and she gunned down the one on the left before he could retaliate. Darting and skidding to catch the other that was fleeing—ah, typical Vehicon troopers—she shot that one in the back too. Elita’s lip curled as she turned her sights on the power core, and a gunshot blasted her weapon right from her grasp.

Elita’s spark jumped, and she whirled. “Elita One!” Megatron landed across from her, and the smaller femme turned to face him, lips slanting downward. Megatron smiled toothily at her. “What a surprise! If you were so eager to meet with me, you could have used the front door, my dear.”

Her protoform prickled at his tone. “What makes you think I was eager to meet you?” she needled back, this age-old game of his tiring her. She chuckled huskily, saying saucily, “My spark mate has always been far more enticing than you.”

Megatron shook his head as if it were a shame, but he arched a brow her way. “Ah, but there will always be room for you by my side, Elita.”

Her trigger finger twitched. “Please, Megatron, don’t waste your breath. You and I both know you would never share your meager power.” You’d think, after millennia of trying, he would finally get the picture. It seemed no matter how she told him no, if she flat out told him, if she preached a message to him, if she broke any part of his body, he never took a hint. She often wondered if she was mere sport for Megatron.

“Of course not!” he exclaimed, placing a hand gracefully on his chassis. “Would you really think so little of me? You would make a fine Decepticon queen, a pretty little trinket to keep by my side for nothing more than political propaganda. Not to mention, a tasty tart.”

Elita rolled her optics. “Wonderful. Now I am reduced to political propaganda. You really ought to work on your clumsy advances on me because that was not flattering in the least.”

Megatron chuckled and grinned, red optics flicking up and down her lithe frame once. Predatory. Hungry. “And again you remind me of how much I like your fire. With an attitude like that, you would have made a magnificent Decepticon.”

She shifted her weight, not liking where this conversation was going. “Quit stalling, Megatron,” she said flatly. She drew her energon rapier in one hand, and wielded her dagger held backwards in the other. “I am not impressed nor will I ever be.”

He drew in a deep vent, chassis expanding like he could taste her scent on the air. He smiled. “Why Elita,” and his optics glinted as he drew his blade. “You don’t rush foreplay.”

He charged with a bellow, and Elita ducked beneath his blade, slashing quickly with her dagger. The tip whistled through the air when Megatron feinted lightly away and came back with a furious assault. Elita ducked and dodged, showing off her agility and grace as she danced around the room with him. They parted for the first time, and Elita kept her stance at the ready, energon rapier lifted and primed.

In the back of her mind, she knew she was no match for Megatron. Her battle style was ill-suited against his powerful, aggressive and highly trained skill. He had been fighting much longer than she had, and in conditions as gruesome as the gladiator pits. Elita knew when she was outmatched. But she also knew what she, herself, was capable of.

This battle was a stall and a gamble. If Bumblebee and Arcee could break through while Prowl and Twin Twist busied the guards, they would make it up to the power core while she combated Megatron. If not, she could take the winning shot when she could. Because regardless, she would disable the power core for the Autobots whether she lived or died. They needed Darkmount to fall to have a fighting chance. And Elita could feel Optimus’s life force slipping further and further away, a constant strain on the bond until she felt like it would snap at any given moment.

They closed in again, this time riskier than the last with jabs, thrusts, deep lunges, a daring and wild dance. Elita whirled, Megatron’s blade nipping at her paint as she let loose a yell a cut her rapier sharply across his upper arm. The energon powered weapon ate a slice through his armor that smoldered and curled from the heat. Infuriated, Megatron snarled and backhanded the rosy pink femme. Elita grunted and skidded across the ground, slamming into the wall before she could find her peds. Sheathing her rapier, she transformed her laser and aimed at the power core, but she faltered.

Unrest tore through her spark like a tornado. It ripped her apart from the inside, whipping up all of her turmoil, twisting it around, and scattering the broken bits for her to pick up. Optimus. She couldn’t reach him. He was there, he was just beyond the realm of where she could reach. Dying.

Megatron’s forearm lambasted into her, pinning both arms above her head. With a thin gasp back to the present, Elita blinked god-fearing optics up to her doom, not really seeing Megatron, but beyond him.

His fist descended on her jaw. Darkness.

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Slag proceeded a lot more normal as Wheeljack sped down the halls and found the fighting. No more freaky humans and their Cybertronian partners. That could obviously vanish into thin air. No, no more freaky slag for Wheeljack. Instead, his engine revved hot as he transformed up next to the Vehicons shooting down a hall at, presumably, the Autobot interlopers. They flinched instinctively when he approached.

“Hold your fire,” Wheeljack drawled to them. Hesitantly, they lifted their arms. He gave a careless shrug as he walked out into the line of fire. “They’re not gonna shoot me.”

He didn’t know quite how he knew. Maybe it was because of the twins hesitating to attack him until he laid into them. Maybe it was a feeling in his gut. Maybe it was just the chief. He didn’t know, but he transformed down, and he drove himself down the halls. He heard a surprised, *Wheeljack?* and then an alarmed, *Wheel—!*

Transforming up and grabbing his katana, Wheeljack took the blunt end and slammed it down square on the center of the yellow scout’s head. The young mech fell like a sack of potatoes, and before the blue femme could react, Wheeljack slammed his forearm into her throat, sending her pitching to her knees and wheezing for breath.

Wheeljack grabbed them both with disinterest, hauling them to their peds. Bumblebee whirred with disorientation, peds stumbling, and Arcee fought his touch briefly until he pressed his ion cannons to the backs of their heads.

“Walk.”

Vehicons immediately disarmed them. Forcing the hot barrel of his guns into the backs of their heads, the two Autobots began to walk against their will, hands held high in surrender. He had two, but they weren’t the ones he wanted. They remained outside and—per Shockwave’s data burst to him—also prisoner. They would keep them live prisoners until Megatron gave the order to terminate.

Well, that was SHOCKWAVE’S orders. Wheeljack wouldn’t wait to terminate the Wrecker. He had his own agenda to fill, and hadn’t Megatron said he could terminate as many as he liked?

Arcee looked back over her shoulder, worry and fear lacing her optics. “Wheeljack—”

He jabbed the barrel of his cannon forward and into her jaw, instantly splitting a lip plate as she grunted and faced forward again. He heard her growl shortly with anger, but she didn’t face him to speak to him again. “What are you doing, Wheeljack?”

“Resisting the urge to blast the back of your helm through your face,” he replied darkly candidly. “So I suggest you don’t try my patience.”

“No, I mean why are you with the Decepticons?” she snapped back shortly. “You’re an Autobot!”

He hit her in the back of the head again with warning. “Shut up, femme. I don’t associate with your kind.”

“What happened to you? What’s wrong with you?”

He jabbed her in the back again, making her stagger and cry out at the force of the blow. “There’s NOTHING wrong with me!” he bellowed into the hallway. His spark sputtered erratically when he saw her dip her mouth towards her shoulder in the effort to nurse her split lip, and he had to resist the strange urge to do it for her. “You pathetic Autobots need to get it through your processors, I’ve always been a Decepticon, there is nothing wrong with me, and nothing is going to change my allegiance!”

*But she’s right!* Bumblebee suddenly chirped up. *You’ve always been an Autobot! Why do you think you’re a Decepticon? I don’t understand!*

He pressed his ion cannons into the backs of their helms again, and he let them whir hot and loud with promising threat. “Well, I’m sure you can understand that if you don’t slag off and shut up, I’ll happily put a hole in your processor. Because if you two say one more Primus-damned thing, I’ll make good on Megatron’s generosity to kill as many of you as I like.”

It shut them up quick, but it didn’t shut up his spark and processor. It was like a constant tug-of-war, the crash of waves chipping away at a rocky shore as his mind wanted to pull the trigger and his spark wanted to . . . He didn’t even want to dwell on what his spark wanted to do. It scared him. It was AFFECTIONATE. Attached. Soft. And he hated it. By Primus, he hated it so much he was willing to rip the wires right out of his own chassis.

Wheeljack pushed them roughly along the halls of Darkmount, a feeling of respect bleaching stark against the lust for splattered blue energon every time he looked at the happy-go-lucky scout he despised. Arcee was something else altogether. Joy and relief and blinding infatuation juxtaposed against blinding hate, bitterness, and betrayal. It felt like his processor was trying to tear itself in half. It seemed like everything he stood for as a Decepticon had been corrupted by a fine line between love and hate, twisted beyond recognition and all he had to stand for it was his word.

However, he shoved aside all his insecurities as he forced the Autobot prisoners outside. His gaze settled on Shockwave towering over two mechs, and his red optics pinned to the Wrecker.

They almost couldn’t get to the small group quick enough for Wheeljack’s tastes. With an angry growl, he shoved Arcee and Bumblebee off to the Vehicons and he grabbed Twin Twist before the others could stop him. Hoisting the mech to the side, apart from the others, Wheeljack kicked the back of his knees in and forced the mech to the ground. A hand clamped down on his arm, five tapered digits squeezing hard.

“Wheeljack.” Immediately, he felt a chill through his system at the sound of that voice. “Hold your fire. We have not yet received orders to terminate the prisoners.”

He didn’t fight the urge to throw off his hand. Wheeljack shrugged away almost violently, both terrified and furious at Shockwave for no apparent reason. He couldn’t fathom the reason he was petrified, and it only made him angrier than he already was. He had worked by this mech countless times before! What was there to change things now?

“Don’t touch me,” Wheeljack hissed defensively. He glared piercing optics back at that one that blinked so soullessly. “You were there when Megatron gave me his sanction. I can kill all of these wretches and get away with it, and you know it!”

“There is value in prisoners,” Shockwave stated flatly.

He bared his denta. “I don’t give a frag if you want them for your operating tables. I want their energon carpeted on this ground, and I’ll spill every last drop, starting with him!” He gestured furiously to Twin Twist kneeling on the ground.

Prowl lifted his helm, frowning severely from beneath his red chevron at the irate mech. “Wheeljack, hold your fire. You are not thinking clearly.”

He backhanded the mech so quickly he nearly twisted an axel. “You’re next,” he sneered. Fiery red glazed into icy blue. “Just because I don’t like ya.”

Wheeljack whirled back to Twin Twist, leveling his cannon at him, shaking with agitation when Arcee cried out, “Wheeljack, STOP!”

He gave a harsh, barking laugh. He glared brittle crimson optics into the trembling femme. “You just earned yourself execution three,” he snapped. He grinned mockingly at Bumblebee who just stared in complete horror. “Congratulations, half pint! You’re the lucky last one! You’ll get to see your friends bleed out before I put you out of your misery!”

Arcee pleaded to him again, but Wheeljack ignored her, turning back to the Wrecker who was silent at his peds. He leveled his weapon, intending on blasting a hole the size of ego through his helm when he heard his voice.

“If you’re gonna kill me, at least have the good decency to look me in my optics.”

Wheeljack pressed the hot barrel of his gun to the back of his helm. “I don’t have any decency.”

“Scared?”

He flawlessly pricked his pride. Wheeljack struck him again, manhandling him around into position. He pressed his weapon into his forehead, and Twin Twist looked up at him.

It took every ounce of his will to coerce himself to look into those optics without wavering. The deadened look killed him. It absolutely tore him apart. He felt the seams of his volatile spark coming undone as the guilt raised its ugly head, a Hydra of sin and suffering. His cannon was charged, primed, hot. It was ready. His processor screamed at him to take the shot. Kill him. Take his Neurocaroxic line. He needed it. It was the answer to his problems, the answers to everything, what would set things straight when he could remember things for how they were without the spider web of lies to sort through.

His arm began to shake. He glared with as much contempt as he could at the Wrecker whose optics seemed to mock him. They were so empty and hollow Wheeljack was sure the screams of his brother would echo out of their depths. When he failed to shoot, he heard his almost inaudible whisper.

“Look. Look at what you’ve done to me.”

Wheeljack’s check twitched. He forcibly held back a stricken look, but his optics flared brighter, a naked panic rising in him as that emotion threatened to drag him under again. Despair sharpened to a deadly edge by sickening remorse.

He had done this. He had killed him. Made him a living corpse. A shell of what he once was.

*Look! Up there!*

Instinctively, Wheeljack’s helm jerked up. There. In the distance. Something was coming. No, someone. A closer look revealed a color scheme he knew. Optimus Prime, no matter how much bigger or how he flew.

Wildly, Wheeljack looked over his shoulder. Everyone had their helms craned up except Arcee. She was looking at him. Her gaze was raw with passion, and he could see her lip trembling from where she stood, hands above her head.

What was he supposed to do? Nothing made sense, it was all jumbled up, warped and distorted beyond what he could see. It was like trying to see through a fog with his headlights glaring back through the mist. Blinding. Deceptive.

I need to talk with you before you go out there and do something you’re gonna regret. What did words like that mean? What did that fragging human mean? He hadn’t made any sense! If he had been there to help him, he would have told him what was going on, not add more riddles to an already impossible puzzle!

Her love-sick look made him uncomfortable. He looked back down to Twin Twist, but the Wrecker still hadn’t attacked despite Wheeljack’s laps of attention. Despite him killing his brother. His gaze unnerved him too. Wheeljack looked down, spark sputtering rapidly as he quickly tried to think things through in this tiny window, but it wasn’t enough time to consider anything. It was either he act, or he missed it. Whatever it was.

His optics caught sight of the purple Decepticon symbol stark against his chassis. Crisp. Freshly welded with a touch-up.

You might just discover something more than just a little interesting.

All the variables . . . Wheeljack’s lips flattened.

Fine. Only one way to find out.