Twist

Chapter 57: Nemesis

Temptest didn't expect anyone to be gone for very long. Starscream was just scouting, the Knockouts were just looking for a makeshift wagon, and Megatron was in the room right over there. Despite the assumption, Temptest found herself growing wary as their absences built up. After the first fifteen minutes passed, she went to check on Megatron, but he wasn't around.

Now it had been an hour and nobody had shown their faces yet. Something was wrong.

Temptest leaned against the wall as she walked down the corridor. Megatron couldn't have gone far, and the Knockouts knew better than to wander too far as well. They weren't primarily combatants. Still, she searched the top floor of the building and found nobody around.

She had her servo transformed into a knife by now and her battle instincts were honed into every small sound that her audio receivers processed. She considered comming her team now that she was unsupervised, maybe even ask for help, but Megatron might actually throw her off the balcony for that. He'd consider it a betrayal.

"Knockout?" Temptest asked into her backup comm again. "Where are you?"

No answer. Not even static. The message registered to her as sent, so nothing was wrong with transmission, but he wasn't responding. Neither was Megatron. Temptest cursed and wished she'd gathered Starscream's comm frequency, or the other Knockout's. It was frustrating, worrisome, and her spark was starting to ache again.

Temptest searched the majority of the building, finding no sign of her missing comrades. Outside was a different story.

There were scorch marks tracing the outline of the building, and the metal beneath was still warm to the touch. Temptest's optics widened. Could this be the work of a predacon? How come she never heard the battle? Certainly the top floor wasn't high enough to strangle the road of a predacon.

The building across the street was also heavily singed with a large hole in it. Craters led a path of large pedes straight through the building, in a circle around it, and then further inland. Temptest slowly made her way across the street and glanced back up to their balcony. As far as she knew, someone might have returned by now.

Still, Temptest pushed on. If she went back now, she wouldn't have the energy to return and continue searching if nobody was there. If she was the one missing, they could easily take to the skies and find her.

The hole wasn't anything impressive, but it did work as a great way to see into the rooms on the bottom floor since it removed all of the east walls. It was too large to be caused by a bot, and the soot fluttering down from above was a clear indication of a predacon's presence, but Temptest doubted any predacon had a flame strong enough to cause this much damage. And if it did...

Further inside, Temptest could see lines of empty racks. It looked as if the building hadn't been used in eons. Perhaps the destruction was to blame, but she could clearly see the trashed and wrecked floors in every room. Whatever had gone through here, recent or not, had completely raided the place.

Temptest stopped short at the sound of a muffled voice hidden somewhere in the chaos. It was too warped for her to understand, but she knew from the tone it was someone she knew well.

Quickly, but quietly, Temptest picked up her pace, stepping over rubble until she was leaning heavily against a support beam, listening in on the voices that steadily became clearer. Her legs trembled and Temptest knelt, trying to regain some of her strength.

"...can't you? You already have one," Optimus's voice was finally identified, but Temptest wasn't sure which one. There was a hint of desperation in his words. That kind of emotional appeal wasn't unusual for her Optimus, but considering the last time she saw (TFP) Optimus...