Ep 2: Volcano Hazards (Closed) - Finis

[Deleted]

Fairwinds was absolutely delighted, and had been standing stiff-excited since the courier had picked up on the goldfish.

Where Dart had been coming off as pretty cool but equally reserved, now she was all kinds of chatty and weird-friendly, with a speech pattern not unlike Fairwinds' own.

Decepticons did not get Earth idioms from only professional interaction with the natives. Dart clearly watched television and listened to human music and read stuff and knew about fairgrounds and aquariums and probably radiators and jam and Monty Python.

Fairwinds saw the femme's leg shift and her toes rest in a curl on the ground and immediately recognised the relaxed pose. In turn, the avian cassette settled neatly atop the rock and folded her wings back comfortably.

It was as if the Decepticon Commander wasn't two hundred yards away prowling for the blood of the Unmaker.

"I can pick out chemical trails, yeah," Fairwinds replied, her optics swiveling cross-eyed to look at her beak. "It's part of my infiltration schtick. Navigation of dark places you don't get invited to, like air vents and maintenance shafts and under the bed. But it's pretty rudimentary compared to you."

Her neck elongated as she emitted a digitized chirp, cocking her narrow head to one side. "Your sniffer is awesome! I mean, no way could I sniff out a roll of tape in that shitpit we call a repair bay. Master told me all about it whilst he was banged on the head and could actually emote emotions and have 'Optimus Prime' said at him without flying into a snarly-bashy rage."

Fairwinds laughed to herself. The sound of it rose and fell into a long-suffering, pantomime sigh. Easy as the laugh came, the volume was quite suppressed and clearly not intended for Megatron's audios.

"Ah, good times," she said, bending to rub one optic against her shoulder as if wiping away a tear. "Thanks for helping out with my foot-bits, by the way. Think I'd be walking lopsided and stumpy if you hadn't."

[Dart]

Underneath Fairwinds' feet tephra flaked off in bits. The volcanic mixture was like hardened, frothy concrete, and no match for her talons. Flakes of it silvered in the moonlight and curled to the ground. Lord Megatron's shadow stretched across the decaying stumps and dead grass.

"Chemical trails," the courier repeated, even as the image of a squished bird under someone's bed made her frown slightly. She'd had a bird stuffed into her wheel well once. That smell lingered.

Thinking on it, she was amazed he'd even picked her up. Dead bird and dingo pee. Those were two smells that just didn't go together in a bottle to daub on you, nope. Yuck.

"Infiltration? Oh. Hard work. Hard, hard work. Dangerous stuff, everyone on guard for it."

The courier kept her fingers curled over her hip panniers. Her thumb had stopped fiddling with the latch that opened and closed them. It just rested on the edge, smoothing a bit along the flat corner. Fairwinds' body language softened more - something she understood, the wings folded back, the gentle bob of a head and tail.

In turn, it settled her. When the bird chirped and cocked her head, the courier glanced over, listening intently. The left side of Dart's spoiler moved slightly on the hinge in the center of her back. It was just the barest hint of a tiny side-to-side motion before it rattled softly back into place across her shoulder.

"Aw, it was-- it's not the tape, ma'am, it's all the things that make up the--" she started to say and then she blinked. "He did? Oh."

He'd talked about it? Talked to Fairwinds about her help that day, a low-ranking soul on a mission for tape. At first there was that instant twinge; Dart didn't like to be talked about except to point her towards the next mission. It was just safer that way.

However, that whole incident with the repair bay? It had been an odd moment, and one she mulled on later and felt bad about. Memories were bad enough to lose, yeah. She could relate fully to that. But the thing was, watching him? Listening to him?

Lord Megatron's lost memory had opened up a small window to see how much he'd lost over the years. How much the eons had changed him.

This mech stalking across the remnants of a forest was not the same mech who'd asked for her help, and somehow, deep in her gut, she understood that. Body language, space, bearing, words? They were all different. The weight of time.

Dart shook her head. Snarly-bashy rage wasn't something she wanted to be on the end of, erk. She made a note never ever to say 'Optimus Prime' in his presence, for sure.

"Oh, you're welcome," she murmured to Fairwinds. "Honest. He was pretty concerned about what had happened to you then. I mean - I didn't realize you were... you, I guess. I mean, I do now, if that makes sense."

Her intakes drew air in a soft sniff, automatically keeping a wary tune with their surroundings.

"Er, was the purple color okay?" she asked, looking concerned. "I thought it was nice."

[Deleted]

Fairwinds nodded rapidly, her crests flapping and slapping with her enthusiasm. "Yeah, it was real nice! I had to bandage it on myself, like, so it was all lumpy and puffy, but it was so cool I did the other foot, too. I had adorably squidgy-shiny toes for the day. It was awesome."

The cassette gave a happy sigh, snapping her beak and gazing about them. It was a lovely day to be on a volcano, getting to know someone new whilst her master prowled around in the background in search for the blood of the Unmaker.

She mulled over Dart's penultimate remark, her processor naturally defaulting to non-sequesters. "Not everyone makes the connection at first. I don't have 'property of Lord Megatron' stamped on my aft." Fairwinds paused, optics zeroing in on Dart's purple brand with a smirk. "Well, actually, we all kinda do. Heh."

Fairwinds peered back at her own brands, boldly presented on the backs of both wings, and fluffed her feather-plates pridefully. "But yeah, no, I'm me and Master's Master and sometimes I'm docked but not usually, and hardly ever in public. Master's got this lone-wolf vibe going on. I was off in deep-space for a hella-long time. Like, my ports were pretty dusty when I finally got back! But he totally cares in a super discrete, rough-around-the-edges, 'I live in a cupboard like Harry Potter without the staircase' kinda way."

There was no note of upset in her tone, and everything about Fairwinds suggested a cheery satisfaction with the state of her relationship with her carrier.

Though, she did dip her head a little to confess: "It was sorta nice to have things like the way they were when we first met, though. Master was told to explore and talk and stuff to help the pathways heal, right, so we actually chit-chatted loads more than we have for years."

She cocked her head at a 110-degree angle, peering with interest at Dart. "How was Master with you in the 'bay?"

[Dart]

The courier could almost see the pride and delight that memory evoked in the bird. Chest out, crests up and down. With her reaction came an image of Fairwinds' viciously taloned feet swaddled in that purple tape. Like a pair of poofy snow-shoes. Dart couldn't help but- well, be delighted that that lucky find among all that mess had been appreciated.

It was simply rare, nice feedback; you did something right. Honestly, Dart knew. Praise for a job done well wasn't a very Decepticon way of doing things sometimes. You were simply expected to do your best and lay it on the line because that was your job and you better do it.

The left side of Dart's spoiler quirked. It lifted slightly, and shifted a bit on the hinge, flicking back-

Before the dark band of metal quivered into absolute stillness.

The courier shifted back a step at that keen gaze suddenly locked onto her mauled and tattered sigil. Her weight pressed back into the ground squarely over both feet. A look down now; her own blue optics drawn by motion to the brand that Fairwinds indicated, along with the silver lightning bolt it bisected. Both were hazed with pale red road dirt and grime.

Property.

A flicker of memory padded from those shadowed places in the courier's mind. We are not property, it rumbled. Then a flick of dismissive ear, and then it faded again into the dark spaces.

We all kind of do.

Dart's hands curled over her hip carriers, as if she was pinning herself to the earth. Dried mud and dust met her fingertips, gritty to the touch; but everything inside was there, secure and solid.

Fairwinds' body language radiated satisfaction though. Nothing anxious or worried. The bird ruffled out as contented birds did, she flashed a wing and preened more at discussing her station. Dart listened to her, taking in every word and motion. Pride at her master, at who he was, and her general tone about her situation.

"Deep space?" Dart echoed after a moment. "Like- exploring? In space?"

The courier looked up into the sky for a moment. Velvet black, a smattering of stars. The thin moon silvering. "I bet it's beautiful," she murmured. "Wait, you were gone for a really long time, ma'am? Doesn't that cause issues with a partner? I- I don't know enough about it, I'm sorry."

Then she inclined her head. In a cupboard? Like Harry-- hey, at least you probably get to go to Hogwarts someday?"

A soft huff of air escaped her. "In the bay? Oh. He was..."

Dart looked thoughtful for a moment. "He was someone else," the scruffy femme said quietly. She lifted her head and watched the mech in the distance searching the ground, sweeping back and forth, stalking the traces of that unsettling substance.

Left foot lifted. The courier pawed at the ground softly. Grey ash drifted up and feathered back against her grey shins.

"No. That's not right. He was himself, ma'am. Just- less history for him to be constrained to." Her voice was hushed; between her and Fairwinds alone, an observation given freely and honestly to the femme beside her. "Like how you said. Patient. Understanding. He knew what it was like to be wary, once."

The courier turned back. Her silver ponytail rasped against the edge of her spoiler, and at the noise immediately Dart twitched the strip of metal down.

"I bet it was amazing for you though," she murmured to Fairwinds. "I only guess at these things. You know. You know what he was like when you met."

A soft whuffle. "It- it sounds like you miss that part a lot, ma'am."

[Deleted]

Fairwinds leaned sideways so that she could lift a single leg and wave Dart's hesitant concern off with her foot. "Pff, nah, it's all good. Honestly it was awkward-weird as much as it was nice and chilled, like. There was this one time where he was holding this datapadd out, and he totally didn't know what to do but he didn't wanna embarrass anyone so he just stood there like it was a bomb."

She bobbed as she resettled and chuckled to herself, beak chattering. Inside the sharp mouth, her tongue splintered and reformed into a serpentine blade as it lashed about.

"Aw, and Master had all these adventures, too! I was in my cupboard with my toes all wadded up so I missed out on most of it, but he talked about going spelunking in the walls and meeting the pillbug and stuff over energon."

The cassette rolled her head back with another laugh, craning her neck until her optics were inverted and she could check on the progress of their leader about the crater. He'd crossed the length of it now and was circling back. She and Dart had another few minutes where they were safely out of audio range, and given how intently focused his prowl was, likely longer than that.

She snapped back up to regard Dart once more, the plates of her neck tessellating and folding over one another as the appendage contracted down towards her 'shoulders'.

"I think it was good. When I was in deep space, which was -yeah- pretty beautiful and cool so long as you avoided the bad radiation and the Autobutts and the junkers who want your twiddly bits for scrap, I missed out on a lot of stuff. Like the whole 'ditching stamp collecting and going for the potentially make-believe blood of Unicron' thing. We're not a true cassette-carrier partnership. Master had the software and the hardware installed after we'd been working together for ages. Since my original carrier took to the Well, actually."

There was a ripple of something cold in her field, optics dimming and reigniting with practiced ease. Whatever pain was still there, the cassette had mastered it. She knew who she served and was happy with their arrangement. Switchback and her kin were long gone and well avenged.

Fairwinds flicked the underside of her beak with a single talon again, then scratched at her rocky perch.

"I met Master after the clusterfrag with the Council, during the first campaign. He was already pretty serious-face then, but he was younger, y'know? Things like Kimia hadn't happened yet."

She rolled one wing forward in a shrug, the tapering plates of her flight 'feathers' fanning and contracting. "Everyone's different without big lead balls like that in their subspace memory place."

[Dart]

Listening to Fairwinds talk, the courier had settled back again; quietly cocking a toe and shifting her weight. Her fingers still rested on those carriers on her hips, her thumb softly flicking at the little latch. It moved but did not open, more of a settling gesture on the scruffy femme's part than anything too nervous.

A nod at the quick lift of the bird's talons.

Dart loved to listen to stories like this. Even looking out on the remnants of the volcano, the stripped trees floating in the lake, she could take in those moments offered and see them. Like holding out the datapad; that sort of social confusion that he'd touched on back at the storage spot, when he'd asked her to hunt for the parts to help the bird now perched on the rock nearby. Yes, Fairwinds had the perfect way to describe it, she decided. Awkward-weird.

Metal feathers rustled and clicked. Across Dart's shoulders her spoiler pricked up; she too had noticed Lord Megatron's slow quarter of the ground. So far he hadn't stopped to dig anything, and although she would not admit it, the courier was grateful for that. It was one thing to find a chunk, another to realize that one of the wild spaces she was awed by was riddled with it...

If that was the case, there was no way that she would ask Maximus come here in the slightest. She'd go pull that stuff from the cache and hope she got back to the other one before he came to find it.

First of all, there was the dangerous point of the Dark Energon itself. The thought of someone else coming in contact with it bothered her intensely. Dangerous. Too dangerous to even touch, ugh. The second point was that if she thought for one moment that Lord Megatron would be up on this mountain searching for it- no. Absolutely not.

"They- they want your bits for scrap?" she wondered, settling back into the conversation. "Oh. Wait, what? Stamp collecting? Sorry. I'm - I don't know what you're talking about, I'm not following that quite right I don't think."

She paused and eyed the other femme again and then this time she blinked, because the next part she did understand. They had not always been partners, nor had he always been her... carrier? That was the word, and she had had an original--

The courier's spoiler slipped back and tipped down ever so slightly. In the dark, the dimming of Fairwinds optics was noticeable.

"I'm sorry," Dart murmured, before she was quiet once more. It was hard to lose a friend. Worse to lose a partner and a friend both, she thought. How would you deal with that, being connected that close to another soul? Was that the right word, soul? Oh right, spark, spark was the right word.

Dart could admit, she liked the Earth word soul better. Not that she'd ever say that to anyone.

Another nod after Fairwinds had finished speaking. It made perfect sense. Everyone was different. It was those things that changed you, and not always for the better. Good memories often were buried under the bad ones; even in what short span she had she often found herself in that position. The thing was, not to let them take you worse places, and find those good ones again.

"I've never heard of Kimia," she finally asked, after Fairwinds had gone silent. "What was that? A planet? A battle?"

Not a mech. It didn't sound like a mech's name, she guessed. Something else, then.

Curious, her spoiler flicked upward and pricked towards where the other femme had settled on her rock perch.

[Deleted]

Kimia was... complicated. The facility itself was still mired in secrecy to the Decepticons, having been largely destroyed when they sifted through the debris for information. It had been a weapon in and of itself as well as a site to create weapons for the Autobots.

The Kimia battle had lasted years and cost them dearly. Now, if you wanted to underscore how utterly terrible and clusterfucked something was, you could make reference to Kimia as a shadow of a comparison.

Fairwinds leaned from side to side, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. Her expression twisted with her unease, and her helm crests were plastered flat to her helm.

"Sorta both. It was a weapons development facility - real cutting edge stuff. Sorta place you really didn't want two opposing factions to bust up at the same time, taking from the same toy box. Which is pretty much what happened."

She rubbed the side of her beak on her chest with a little snort. "I was only there for a little bit, doing data extraction on some of the development specialists, but the daily commute was a bitch. Lots of face melting, atomizing, exploding. You ever smell a spark explode? It's not great."

Her posture had shrunk as she spoke, making her already petite frame appear even smaller. There was a beat of silence after she'd trailed of.

The cassette's optics refocused on Megatron, whom was now only a few hundred yards away. His optics were still downcast and searching, lined with that otherworldly purple glow.

Fairwinds perked up in the mostly literal sense; frame rising and tone raising with a pleased chirp.

"Ey-up, Master's on his way back." She beamed up at Dart. "We should do this again sometime. Not the awkward waiting about, but the chit-chat. I like chit-chat. I get a lot of chat action, but not so much the chit bit, y'know? Only the Raddies really get all the Earth references."

She pulled a face, one optic darkening in a squint. "Soundwave probably would cuz he's all plugged in an' all, but I doubt I'd get any chit or chat with him."

[Dart]

It was the shift of the bird's helm, the long plates smoothing back that helped describe things even more than her tone and words. The courier rocked back slightly on her heels and lifted her nose to sniff at the air. It was almost as if she half expected someone to leap out of the quiet dark around them with the previously mentioned face-melting equipment.

Long, sharp fingers of shadow stretched along the edge of the lakeshore. The puzzle of dead trees bobbing in the lake sighed as they scraped along each other. Landscape of destruction.

Kimia clarified, one more piece of history she didn't know or have in her limited understanding. A weapons development place, but both involved? That didn't sound at all like any scenario she wanted to ever encounter. It sounded awful; and then she hesitated a bit. Data extraction on...?

A sympathetic look flickered in the courier's blue optics. "No, I haven't. I- I think I'll pass on that. The whole thing, actually."

If a Decepticon who was bonded to Lord Megatron said it wasn't great, it was likely a very understated moment. Her spoiler quirked slightly to the side and she huffed out a soft stream of air from her nose as if clearing her intakes.

Immediately though, she pricked her spoiler forward. The small tips barely flicked over her shoulders as if she was nervous about focusing it on the Warlord himself. The faint drift of foulness was back on the wind; and she turned her head slightly as if to avoid drawing it in.

There was a quick nod though, quiet agreement. Dart had liked the discussion, it was interesting to hear someone else with a handle on some of those obscure Earth moments. Like how many Decepticons really knew Harry Potter lived under the stairs. Dobby has a sock, Dobby is free!

Er, that one might be reaching a bit, Dart thought to herself. She'd always liked that whole exchange though.

"I'd like that," the courier said politely after a long moment. She would. Oh, she didn't expect it, the chances of them running across each other were likely slim. Fairwinds helped with Lord Megatron's business, and she- well, she worked for Pyrotech. Totally different worlds, with notably different end outcomes, no doubt. "No one really get much of it around me either, honest."

"Yeah, um... Soundwave might be a pretty quiet conversation," she agreed. It took all of her caution not to say one-sided. It just didn't sound like a nice thing to mention. She glanced at the big mech now turning back towards them. Immediately she straightened up and tucked her hands behind her back. "Yes ma'am, he is."

He apparently hadn't found anything else, and Dart was very, very grateful for that.

[Deleted]

Fairwinds undulated from side to side in an exaggerated shiver, her glossa protruding from her beak and splitting into its multiple extraction cables. The appendage reformed into a woven structure the shape of a blade of glass and her beak snapped shut with a clack.

"Ew with the ma'am, Dart. I get it's for show, but ick."

Megatron's looming figure was a physical symbol of the imminent end of their conversation. No doubt the courier would stiffen up even further than she already had, and it would be business-only right until the groundbridge home. Fairwinds glanced back, estimated them to have another minute before he'd hear them, then pinged Dart her comm. line frequency.

"Here's my private channel," she said, as if she'd handed the femme something physical. "For if you're gonna be stopping by, or if you wanna watch TV and chat. Like, Ru Paul's Dragrace has gotten so much more fun since Eddie and I started bitching live with each other. We're betting on the contestants, right, and he's always on duty when it's on and Master really didn't go for him being on-duty once a week in my cupboard."

She shuffled on the spot, talons scritching and tapping at her rocky perch. "So, call me maybe?"

[Dart]

Dart thought about it for a moment before she dipped her chin in a quick nod. "Okay," she murmured.

Best to leave it at that. She understood, a lot of mechs did it for show. For her though, she'd learned and it had become habit; something that was hard for her to change. It was linked into survival under certain circumstances. Addressing someone respectfully tended to defuse anger; there was no way in a million years she'd ever call Pyrotech anything but sir, and it had likely saved her life the first time in the canyon, with Maximus. Sometimes it threw folks to be addressed politely and if you could do that, it meant that you could at least slip out of there in one piece.

The ping of the private channel surprised her, and she straightened up, shoulders back as if she was ready to get a message. That also surprised her; she'd expected something else, not an invitation to watch television and chat. It was...

A very human moment. Casual invitation - want to watch TV sometime with me? Hang out? They did that all the time; she heard them as they walked by. Want to go to the mall? See a movie? Take a jog in the park tomorrow morning? Rarely Cybetronian, really. At least in the circles she lived in lately. More honest, somehow. Then again, something about the bird herself- something she couldn't put a finger on really. It was something, though- a drift, like a faint whiff of a smell you knew but couldn't place.

"If I get some off-time," she agreed solemnly with another nod. The frequency was there, filed away in an instant with other important comm lines. Not that she had many, but-- well there were a few special ones.

"Yeah. I'd like that, if it-it works out. I- I like TV. Never seen that show though, not watched TV in a long time."

A brief smile. "Thank you. For the maybe-invitation, I mean."

Dart turned her nose back to the mech approaching them and shifted. She settled her hands just a little tighter, and came to attention, waiting.

[Deleted]

Megatron had not solely been scanning for further Dark Energon crystals as he traversed the area. He had also been adjusting to the close presence of a new, complete sample.

Subspace pockets with quantum links to the physical form and spark, both, were not ideal places to store Dark Energon. It was why he had always tucked whatever shards he encountered close to his core - it allowed the raw power to absorb directly into his being, and kept the crystal itself unseen and protected. Whilst his subspace kept the crystal out of sight, the energy it emitted was not truly compatible with the mechanics and metaphysical particulars. Whilst the energy was drawn out, it had nowhere to go. It was like carrying a burning flare in his hand whilst simultaneously becoming intoxicated.

But the commander would not so much as contemplate exposing his spark on this planet, even momentarily. The shard that Dart had found would join his body and infuse his essence with even more of the power of Unicron the Unmaker once back on the Nemesis.

He approached the courier with the same slow, confident strides he had left with. Fairwinds stood primly at her heel, and Megatron saw by the lean of her body and the angle of her wings that she'd made a friend. And that the cassette was unnerved, a sensation underscored by the fuzzy prickle of suppressed unease across the bond.

Fairwinds had never much liked contact with Dark Energon. Her aversion suited Megatron, as did Dart's. Disgust and fear would dispel any temptation left in the space between oath-sworn allegiance and personal gain.

"There are no further fragments," he announced, leveling his stare on the courier. "Well done, Dart. I shall anticipate further discoveries in future."

That she had been able to find such a small, solitary shard in so large an area, without being attuned as he was, was truly impressive. He would see to it that Pyrotech did not squander such a valuable resource in future. If something were to happen to Dart now, the commander would be... displeased.

Megatron beckoned Fairwinds to him with a single talon-flick. It would only take a moment for the groundbridge to be established.

[Dart]

As Megatron approached, Dart's fingers locked tighter behind her. Fairwinds might notice that the courier's spoiler flicked nervously, pricking forward and back before it settled, slanted slightly behind her narrow shoulders. A soft huff from her intakes; a sniff at the air.

It was no longer washed away distance with the aircurrents on the mountain. That scent, sharp and dangerous, pooling back in the area as the massive mech took the last few strides across the ground to where they waited. Dart pushed her heels into the earth and did her best not to twitch or turn her head away, even though every single fiber of her wanted to reach up her hand and paw the smell out of her sensors.

At least there hadn't been more. The concentrations of odor had only changed slightly on the Decepticon leader. Dart wasn't sure if she was happier that he hadn't found more because of how dangerous it was to him - or that this place would have become a focus. For the Decepticons.

A place where a solitary soul couldn't stand among the quiet and notice the natural world returning and recovering a place scoured bare. Life finds a way. A human saying, yes, but one that she felt so many Cybertronians held close and tight. Sometimes you had to just see something else doing well at it to keep going forward.

When he spoke, the courier's slanted blue optics looked up, but she was careful not to make direct eye contact. The soft glow of them reflected off the underside of her dark visor. She nodded as his voice rumbled from somewhere deep in that massive armored chest.

"Thank you sir," she said quietly. The left side of her spoiler shifted slightly, back and forth ever so slightly, and then it stilled. A rare compliment for a job well done, even if she had stumbled on it by chance, even if her reasons for discovering it were not ones he ever would have approved of. Not in the slightest, no doubt.

The glow of the bridge was sharp against the dark. Electric green that lit up the shore of what had once been a pristine mountain lake. The courier stood and watched the whirl, grateful to have somewhere for her gaze to go besides Lord Megatron or Fairwinds as the big mech beckoned to the other femme.

Here. Now. Come along.

Even though Megatron never said a word to his cassette, the words felt almost audible to Dart. Some flicker of something she couldn't quite grasp; it slipped through her mental fingers and murmured as it curled around empty memory, trying to prod something free that wasn't there.

A surge up her main relays, shivering up a metal spine. There was an involuntary shake of her head, as if some insect was buzzing around her helm. The courier shifted her weight back and forth for a second, her toes pressing into the earth. Grass stems bent flat under her weight and then slowly curled back up the instant her feet moved away from them.

It took her a second to remember words and how to put them together. Oh. Oh, oh. Right, words. Answer. Answer him, you didn't finish answering him. Her right hand quickly slid out from behind her; she touched the ragged center of her sigil in salute.

"Absolutely, yes sir," she replied and meant it. If she found anything like it again (and she hoped she did not) it was never in any doubt. Only to Lord Megatron, utterly understood.

Then she settled back, putting her nose into the wind. It was automatic- she'd be on wary alert until he was safely gone from the area, just in case something was drawn by the glow of that bridge.

[Deleted]

Dart's fidgets and tics were not lost on the cassette. Fairwinds watched the femme adjust herself at their Lord's approach; absorb his praise; and then settle in on the cusp of relief when he readied to leave.

That was fair. Most folk got relieved when Megatron left. Fairwinds didn't take it personally. Of course it was more enjoyable to absorb the surge of relief and joy and righteousness when he appeared out of nowhere and stormed into the battle fray.

Swings and roundabouts.

Fairwinds extended her wings and did a running waddle-hop towards the Decepticon Commander, then launched herself into the air with a blast of her thrusters. She landed neatly on the massive expanse of his shoulder, settling in between the curving spikes and battle scars.

He turned as soon as she'd landed, marching with the slow stride of the utterly assured. Fairwinds pivoted her neck to watch Dart as Megatron approached the corona of the portal.

::Don't be a stranger, Dart!:: she sent over short-wave. ::Totally looking forward to chit-chat and hyjinks with you!::

Before Dart had the opportunity to respond, Megatron and Fairwins became a silhouette of a shared form and the 'bridge abruptly winked out.



<<OOC: Closed, unless Dart has some Final Thoughts. =)>>