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just-some-friendly-fun · 2 days ago

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✦ ᴀ ɴᴀᴍᴇʟᴇꜱꜱ ɢʀᴀᴠᴇ

: ̗̀➛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ #: ᴏɴᴇ-ꜱʜᴏᴛ (OC x Canon)

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: The days that follow after the dawning truth that befell Iacon, and the waste that had been laid as a result of the new leaders of Autobots and Decepticons have now stirred a mutlitude of reactions amidst the people of Iacon. Some feel betrayed and others angry over the lies they'd been fed their whole lives, and even some stir in denial as a result of their false Prime and all he'd done... While others bear a more personal wound after his termination.

■ ᴛᴀɢꜱ/ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: HUGE TF: One Movie Spoiler!! Major Character Death, Angst, Hurt, Character Grieving Over a Character's Death, Graphic Violence (Gore), Assault (someone gets a bottle thrown at them), Sentinel Prime & D-16 Megatron are mentioned, but only appear in flashbacks.

✎ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 6,869

ׂ╰┈➤ A/N (if needed): Felt like putting one of my OCs into the emotional meat-grinder for fun, and also I'll post a song that I listened to while writing these, because yanno. Also, if I do need to tag anything else please lmk. This is sort of my rough first-time posting smthn like this, so lmk what you think!

▶︎ ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: ᴍᴏʀᴀʟ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴛᴏʀʏ - ᴀꜱʜᴇ

Three.

Weeks.

It had been nearly three weeks

Three weeks since the fall of Sentinel, when he had finally been shot down for flying too high where he should've never gone in the first place, and ended up crashing violently back onto Cybertronian soils as his plummet burned him alive and seared his frame.

Seared every part of his legacy, his influence.

His reputation and face once so boldly plastered onto every wall and holographic transmission, now torn down by servos once so welcoming and worshipping of their false God... Now turned to claws that dug angrily to tear off his face, his mark on Iacon, his history.

And maybe it was all deserved in the end, it really was--some way or other.

Memories of the day arrived in a constant fold, time and time again, washing over what little peace she had since the loss. It would often come to tear at her again when she had thought too much--and far too long on it, more than she was willing to admit.

Sunblitz wished she never did think on it sometimes, wished she hadn't been there during the execution, wishing that she didn't have the exact front row seats to his public execution that never stopped to remind her day in and out on what the color of Sentinel's frame looked like when his t-cog was torn out from him.

Or was it ever really his t-cog to begin with?...

Sunblitz's talons dragged further into her berth as it let out a weak scream from the metal to metal contact. Her pain bleeding into the desire to hurt what couldn't speak. To destroy something when her entire life had been practically wrecked in itself, the fault befitting more to the cup of her servos than any other.

She closed her optics and rendered herself locked in her own berth, her coffin of sorts, and waited for the rust to settle in, beginning first where her spark laid beating still--painfully so.

The flier tried to keep her optics shut tight, before re-opening them again, then closed, then open, a constant dance out of the darkness casted by her eyelids and to the shadows she casted over herself as she hid from the world beneath a tarp.

She was trying to furiously eradicate the memory from her processor core manually, time and time again as she writhed uncomfortably, merely pushing the recollection back only for it to have struck her back harder, running away and only to be captured and let go again.

✦ ✦ ✦

"No!.. No--!! Please! Please! Stop! Stop!" Sunblitz screamed, helplessly dragging herself on the floor, claws reaching to the open air as several of the golden death trackers and guards lay beside her in a heaping mess. Each of the polished plating reflected the appearance of her dreadful look as coolant furiously spilt from her faceplate to follow the tear-like designs already pre-made upon her looks, now giving them a real purpose, to no longer imitate for the sake of art.

Pain gripped at her very frame, seeping into the wires and plaguing her systems with a hot sensation that made it unbearable. She could feel the shock settling in as she pushed herself across the ground with the exposed axis of her legs, the exposed wires trailing along. She choked back a cry with every time the raw wound touched to the ground. Her legs were strewn about elsewhere by the hands of D-16, a cost of her duty--but by accordance to his views, a cost for intervening in this public execution.

No.

Not D-16.

Something far worse than Sentinel could've ever been in her optics. By the hands of a--a monster in his place.

She crawled pathetically with desperation, the pain of her missing legs searing through her sensors with every drag as she pathetically moved with desperation to stop D-16 while he lifted Sentinel into the air for all of Cybertron to see.

This wasn't how things were supposed to go... This shouldn't end like this.

"No..! No!! No--Please!!" Her voice rang shrill, a shattering pitch that went unheard. Sentinel was lifted higher and higher, the Prime's mouth agape once the silver mech behind him began to fasten his grip around one half of his body and then the other before a loud, sickening wail of stretched metal sounded in the air, slow and torturous.

"STOP!--"

A cacophony of limbs, wiring, and steel flesh began to split as the city of Iacon fell first to hearing Sentinel's choked screams of agony, followed by bloodlust-filled hollers and cheers below somewhere amidst the exiled. His helm tilted further back, his servos unable to stop himself from breaking into two as he was split apart by servos fueled with rage. This was the end.

Her optics had met to his, and every part of her screamed in her mind--get up!

GET.

UP.

But the painful truth took hold to her. She wasn't going to make it. She couldn't do a thing in this state but watch, helplessly with her optics torn wide open to remember this moment vividly, for the rest of her life. She should've looked away, saved herself the addition of another drowning tidal wave of pain until, for the briefest moment Sentinel had left, he spoke up, and out rolled a final lie to the world, to her.

"It's... Alright-" He choked, ".. It's gonna be okay-"

His words no longer existed, cut short, and abrupt, followed by a crash of metal and snapping circuitry, and wires that filled the air. It was still day and yet with every spark that flew across her vision and crackle of electricity, for a moment. She thought she was seeing the stars to the universe die out.

And then, she was no longer looking at optics lit with life anymore, as his body--a part of it-- fell before her and it took...

One.

Two.

Three flickers.

Before the rings in the lens of his optical receptors went out one by one, until he had finally been rid from the world, lips parted in a silent scream that Sunblitz herself couldn't have voiced for him as her vocalizer had been strained to its limit, leaving every choked cry to befell her to become agonizing.

Even when his death wasn't enough. Sunblitz lifted her helm to watch while Megatron proceeded forth, unsatisfied yet of his slaughter. He began to reach down, tearing open the chassis and into the chest cavity again to feast upon the rewards that lie waiting for him. Sentinel Prime was soon desecrated, robbed of the very thing he stole from another, Megatronus' t-cog now befitting to the new brutal revolutionist who preached to his followers below.

Her spark hammered against her chassis, the echo ringing in her audial receptors at the sight and she felt a stinging urge in the back of her throat to throw up, force everything out as her tears were the first to begin spilling from her in rapid streams. In her last morsels of strength, she crept forward, sliding close enough to pull what remained back to her, and to reap the scavenged remains, holding close while it was already beginning to dim into a cold, gray design. She held to his body, offering a warmth that was meaningless, pleas left unheard, gripping to it.

Sunblitz sobbed into the side of his helm and lifted it carefully off the floor and laid it against her, to find some meaning to the weight and to trick herself into believing, despite the odds, he was alive... Even for a moment, shredding her sense of reality just for a droplet of delusions. It didn't help when the weight had grown a smidgen lighter, cold.

She didn't know what compelled her to say it, but as her spark began to wring itself dry from the twisting threads of her own emotions, she spoke up.

"Don't... Don't you dare leave me like this, Sentinel Prime..." She silently sobbed, "Don't you dare... Go," Before burying her faceplate into the crook of his neck.

✦ ✦ ✦

An abrupt knocking came at the door, violently yanking Sunblitz from the cycle of pain Sunblitz had thrown herself within as she pushed up to her knees, her fore-helm against the berth. She waited.

"Sunblitz. Open up. You can't stay in there forever,"

At the voice of her carrier, Sunblitz shifted further into the blankets as if to hide from an unseen gaze. She was beginning to feel the tarp she concealed herself with grow taut against her wings. It tangled and snagged onto several nooks and crannies along her frame. A soft creak of her body became her only response, and in turn, another knock came harder than the last.

"Sunblitz." Voltcharge began, and from there. Voltcharge didn't have to start any further on her lectures or demands.

Sunblitz knew better.

So, with aching resistance, she slowly untangled herself and yanked on the tarp, attempting to throw it off of her frame but only stopped from her harsh throws and pulls once it snagged sharply on the parts between her arms and wings. A trickling sensation of pain seeped with the tight lock she found herself in, forcing her to halt abruptly.

She grimaced, forced to be gentle to herself as she searched her frame for the snag, and slowly unloosened the tangled tarp from the space in-between her gears, before resuming. Her fight became a loss. Her optical receptors slowly adjusted to the dark silhouette of her room, only illuminated by the slight crack that remained ajar by the curtain-covered glass wall that led out to the balcony of her room. She stepped out of her berth, and let out a ragged sigh, breathing in and out to make sure her vocalizer hadn't strained itself too much from the countless hours she spent in her vulnerability, wondering if the walls had been thick enough to conceal and keep her secrets in.

She hoped they were.

Heavy trudges answered to the door, she swiped her face-plate and reached for the input pad of her door, slipping the code with a few clicks of the keys before she came face to face with the older femme beyond, and a tray full of energon cubes stacked into a loosely designed pyramid, with a few blocks here and there led astray from the initial concept clearly. Sunblitz glanced at the appeasement gift, then to the older femme.

Voltcharge's audial finial twitched, and she slowly offered the tray forth, serving to her first patron of the day.

For a moment, Sunblitz eyed at the cubes, and then back up to Voltcharge in silent questioning, her vocalizer unfit to produce any real words just yet before the silent exchange ended with a sigh.

The older femme re-adjusted the positioning of her hold on the tray and spoke up, plucking a cube from the arrangement, "Might've over done it a little but... You skipped on refueling hours quite a bit ago, I thought I'd bring extra," She expressed, explaining to the design as it left Sunblitz to huff.

"... I don't need it," She said, internally cursing as her words began to drag with a prominent rasp.

Her carrier was immediate to the slight catch in her throat and the voice Sunblitz carried, before she spit-fired back a solemn response, "Like slag you don't," Before visibly liftening her sharpened optical ridges and softening her gaze. She bit down her glossa for coming off too strongly and to make up for it, a quiet "sorry" escaped her and she shifted her placement beneath the tray again, to selected one of the Energon cubes. She plucked to one of the cubes, the one from the very top now lying at the bottom of Sunblitz's outstretched hand, "... Just, take one, at least. You can't keep neglecting your health like this," Voltcharge spoke, with a touch of concern in her voice, her optics dimming to a pleading look.

By way of her weakened state and inability to deny the truth, Sunblitz couldn't help but begrudgingly sigh. She to the cube, placing it on her glossa as the conveyer-portion of it began to coax the cube into the back of her mouth and she proceeded to consume it under Voltcharge's careful gaze until it let up.

The older femme sighed with relief and her sharp gaze dulled to a passive look, her optics adjusting and brightening as she nodded at her eldest's compliance before walking off.

She paused briefly in her strides to look back at Sunblitz, tilting her helm in gesture once she noticed Sunblitz hadn't followed, "C'mon, come downstairs and help me get The Rewind up and at 'em, hm?"

Sunblitz huffed, "What's the point?..." Sunblitz remarked, Nobody's going to be coming here not after..." She trailed off, and pursed her lips, the fresh memories arising once again and making the sweet aftertaste of Energon on her tongue go sour while she gazed on to her carrier.

Voltcharge stared on and, she responded, offering Sunblitz another cube from the tray to goad her out of her room. Reluctantly, Sunblitz followed to pick up another Energon cube, and then down the stairs went Voltcharge who spoke between every step, "... It still doesn't hurt to keep it open for the people that still need this place. A place to come down to and rest, have a drink or two after everything," She advised. "The people need it. They deserve it,"

At that, Sunblitz couldn't deny the older femme's reasonableness on the matter. The idea of keeping The Rewind opened right after felt at some ways... Capitalizing off the conflicts as of late, but with the intentions her creator carried, it sways the thought.

Yet even then, Sunblitz wondered if the same could be said for her--whether the resolution would be just that simple, or enough. Her own mind felt like a mess, a steaming, hot pile of burning slag that not a cup of high-grade could fix or extinguish. Either way, she shook her helm to push her problems aside and followed dutifully after, syncing her steps to Voltcharge's,

"... Fine,"

✦ ✦ ✦

Slowly, but surely, Sunblitz had resumed to aiding Voltcharge in setting up the establishment, the floors were cleaned, booths and tables polished, and inventory stock was checked, and so on to make the space cleaned up just right to keep the welcoming atmosphere hanging. A few customers had arrived in soon, not many clearly as she noticed that some hung outside the entry point, some merely turning away when they caught glimpse of Sunblitz to mumble something beneath their breath.

She pursed her lips at the hateful gazes that came and go, but she didn't necessarily point and blame them for it, not after everything.

She looked back into the rest of the establishment after giving the bar top a firm wipe-down. The place was nearly desolate, mind a few customers here and there that laid in the far corners, drinking themselves silly and having a good cry into their mugs. Others had finally gotten some shut eye, slumped in booths and tables--only finding rest when the drinks had pushed and encouraged for them to submit to the need for recharge, ending their days of neglect for rest or previous inability to.

No words were spoken amongst what remained of her family, as she looked around. Voltcharge was working behind the countertop as usual, having wiped clean the same glass when all others were already accounted for, and Razorcase was helping check up on the generators and other technical areas of the bar--trying to keep his own servos busy to occupy his mind from the messy days. At some extent, Sunblitz had even begun to wonder how her other sisters were holding up after the mess... Or at least one of them, no... Both.

She didn't even want to think of it like that, and regardless she did, now her attentions lingering on the thought of Silversong, and how she was doing since her body was... Recovered from the rubble.

Her tank began to coil uncomfortably again while she gripped the microfiber rag and to the shelf she was cleaning now, her claws lightly digging into the material of the furtniture.

Silversong had known to D-16 far longer than Sunblitz ever did, and she almost wondered whether somehow or other if Silversong had any part to the slag-show that resulted in all of this. And even without the role for causation, she almost wondered if Silversong did anything to stop that monster from becoming who he was and-

She stopped, her servo gripping fiercely into the steel shelf, nearly leaving indentations to the edges. The teeth of her digits had carved up the paint and material, dirtying the golden tips.

Sunblitz stared for a long moment, peeling her hand back and removing the rag from the shelf to clean off the evidence from her talons before deeply sighing. I need to get out of here, she thought, internally fearful of harming something else now while in her moments. She abandoned from her post from behind the countertop, throwing the rag loosely onto the flat of the table as she passed by her carrier in a speed-walking motion, catching their optic..

"Where are you going, Sunblitz?" .

Sunblitz continued her strides, slowing them down a step to speak rather than abandoning to Voltcharge's inquiries completely, "... To... Somewhere, I guess to uh. To get my processor off of things, y'know?" She remarked, trying to keep casual, extremely eager to leave.

"Do you need me to come along with you?-"

"No!" She abruptly began, like an uncontrolled blast from a gun, her words came out too sudden, too explosive than she would've liked-- which now left her patting out the flames of where her words ended up striking, looking to the surprised bartender, as guilt briefly glimmered in her optics.

Sunblitz cleared her throat "No--I mean, it's... Fine. I..." She waved a dismissive servo, averting her gaze, "I think--I'd like to go alone," She said.

After a moment of awkward silence, she slowly pivoted on her heel and pushed to moving towards the door again"... I-I'll be back soon, I promise,"

"Alright but, stay safe out there," The older femme resumed, and just as Sunblitz prepared to leave the establishment, she freezed at Voltcharge's next remark, morally obligated to stop and go like a delayed clock--uneven in its ticking and pace.

"-And you know you can always talk to me, right?" Voltcharge hummed, "Or Razorcase or even..." She froze mid-gesture, her own words now carrying too short and dropping like a dead fly.

She had trailed off, and Sunblitz had already known painfully too well what she was intending to say.

Your sisters.

But that option wouldn't be available at this moment, not with the current state of things as it almost made her scoff at the thought. Silversong was the last person she wanted to talk to right now, yet the only one she felt tempted to reach to, to demand answers even if it meant to grip to her unconscious form and to scream at her from there, to ask what had happened when she had disappeared off with the group of miners and came back to all this. And as for Hightop? Primus knows where she's gone since all that had happened, having remained holed up in her room from time to time or either gone elsewhere.

Her family was currently a mess of itself, so to her. It only felt right to leave and find her own space rather than rely to her closest ties--not while they were like this--a conflicting tangled web of lies, and mistrust, uncertainty and cluelessness, to put it crudely.

"Yeah. I know," She said, more lenient to brushing off the offering more than anything to seek her own methods of peace. She began to resume her trek, looking to her side and reached out as she took to an abandoned bottle of cheap high-grade left behind by some sap she remember slumped here from yesterday. Before waving out at the door, "I'll see you soon, Voltcharge,"

With that, she bid farewell and shortly departed, having felt the set of concerned optics burn into her back, attempting to shrug it off as she disappeared out the doorway.

✦ ✦ ✦

"... Dirty traitor!"

"Lowly scum bag!"

"Wasn't it your job to protect us!?"

"Slagger!"

Sunblitz raised her forearm as a glass bottle crashed against her plating, wincing. Her forearm shielded herself from the shards that flew explosively in their own web of directions, fortunately none having entered in places she didn't want them to.

She opened up her optics devoid of glass--and made sure to keep them that way while she hurried off before another bottle could be thrown at her, narrowly missing her helm and into the wall she darted past.

The barrage of hostile messages barely relented with each step, wondering whether she should've just changed her passage route as it was beginning to become slowly more populated with bots who saw to her and thought,

"Now there's an outlet we can use. There's the one who was apart of this mess,"

Damn it all, she thought as she dodged poorly to a thrown can that nearly caused her to trip.

The group of various bots she had passed began to raise their volume with each advancement she made while walking away, wanting to remind her of her past with every opportunity they still had in her presence.

Sunblitz knew that she could've flown here, made it easier for herself had she taken to the skies but there was no longer any pride for her gift of wings. At the very moment, most fliers weren't regarded very well, considering that most of the fliers that once made up the population of Iacon were associated one way or another with Sentinel, some thought back to either the ex-High Guard, and Sentinel's personnel, now turned Decepticons or either dead.

Even if she did take the option, she couldn't put much trust that it'd be a smooth sailing without someone deciding to take her down from the skies with just one very accurate and emotionally driven throw of a tool or some other, so for now. She dismissed the thought and forced herself down this walk of shame, venturing on and taking to the strikes of cans against the helm, sheet metal and anything else that proved to be a rather effective tool to remind her of her regrets and faults for ever associating so closely with Sentinel Prime.

She wondered if he'd be even laughing or pitying her from where he stood in the afterlife by now.

Down the streets she went, down every road, and path. Her pede followed to very calculated steps, an internal route that she had followed time and time again to visit to the one place where she'd be able to find some quiet to herself... The one place where she truly could speak to someone freely without interruption.

She turned up around a corner and glanced around for a moment, having drawn out on the farther side of Iacon city down at the outskirts. She sighed, and trudged up to a particular space, twisting to one more corner, down a flight of short stairs.... And there, she found herself face to face with Sentinel Prime.

...

Or what was left of him really.

The intricate statue that remained of his head had been worn out, cracked in the side of the helm where it had its first taste of concrete after several of the miners down in the center of Iacon took it down from its shiny pedestal, the only recoverable part she could find in the mess of broken pieces of his limb and bod.

His faceplate adorned to smears, and scars, littered in desecration that aimed to ruin everything he found so perfect in himself. His jaw had been broken off too, ironic, to say the least--perhaps for the sake that he could tell no more lies. Even in this petrified yet solemn expression.

Beside it, there was his wings--his actual wings--clipped from the scene during his fight with Megatron. She even wondered how she had managed to find these in rather adequate condition, after her recovery, and after her makeshift trials with the new leader, Optimus Prime. She had initially suspected that someone would've at least made a grab for them to destroy and throw away or some other. Yet it didn't feel so much as a lucky find and more of a dreadful discovery that some part of him survived when the rest hadn't.

It was the only thing she had left of Sentinel to remember of him, not that he had deserved much of a proper memorial in the eyes of the people who once adored him.

Sunblitz almost wondered what they had already done to the rest of his frame already, probably melted it down into slag and then thrown away to be turned into garbage, some sort of tragic cycle of being used to be rendered useless again, or perhaps turned into something undignified, a crude design of his visage to remind all of Iacon the liar that had been plaguing their government for years... Or maybe her processor was all too forgiving, too kind, and uncreative at the moment to really wonder what happened and what they'd done to it, because most certainly, she knew that Iacon bore no kindness for being played like fools, nobody would.

Regardless, she took to the one thing she had left and properly arranged to the space again as it had come undone since her time away, keeping everything into place. His helm laid at the foot of a piece of debris, chipped poorly to make for a headstone. His wings leaned against the side of it, folded on the other instead of displaying proudly.

His name was once etched on the stone but became desecrated by her own golden talons, for the better--she thought. Otherwise, had anybody found the space she had been visiting to, Sunblitz was most definitely certain they would've just destroyed it completely, to purge Iacon of the traitorous figure.

The flier eventually settled, only after scarring to the stone obelisk again, making her... Seventh notch in the material before sitting down in front of it where she could face the decapitated stone helm.

She watched it, as it watched her, and with a deep sigh. She pushed out her first words to the open air,

"Hey," She greeted, with no mirth, and nothing short of forced casualty.

...

Silence.

As to be expected.

...

She slowly clenched her digits close and parted her lips, ready to speak again until... All the words she had, mingled into something else altogether, her internal script becoming unwoven by the letter,

"I..."

Sunblitz took in another breath, her ventilators whirling as her processor tried to find something, to untangle the words and make this as clean as possible, gripping to the lower end of her facial plate.

It shouldn't have been this hard--she's done this before.

She was speaking to a rock for Primus' sake.

"I--hff." She huffed, and tried again and only embarrassed herself further when a choked noise escaped.

Primus, she looked insane.

"Ugh...Hhhgghh---!!! Frag. Frag it all I guess! Let's just. Let's just roll with the punches," She expressed, miserably reassuring herself as she threw out her desired, clean scripts out her mental window, doing it the way she's always done...

Not like the ways that she was once used to, no.

There were no more cleanliness to anything she did, she wasn't given that option anymore. Just a mess, of herself and--everything!

"Frag it--frag it all! I don't even know what the hell I'm even doing here, talking to this--talking to you--I look insane!" She exclaimed, judgmental of herself in every part when the figure before her wasn't even alive for her to blame.

Throwing her servos forward and glaring at the Sentinel helm, she huffed at its natural indifference, "Y'know what? I bet you're all up happy--happy and prancing about in the Allspark right now, all giddy and slaggin' gone stupid with joy that you didn't have to fight bolts and nails to prove your innocence, huh?! That you didn't have to be down here like all the rest of us facin' the consequences of your own actions!" Sunblitz breathed, her chassis rising and falling as her anger steadily rose with the silence from the stone, pinching the metal between her optical ridges.

She was right somewhere, this was stupid--let alone embarrassing to be talking to this inanimate object that looked like her last partner albeit bodyless...

and... Jawless... And lifeless.

But, damn if she did and damn if she didn't--whatever she was doing. It was working in getting her to talk and so she persisted, sighing and grabbing to the stone head, holding it close in hopes that it would help burn her out soon enough in her tangents and hopeless rants.

"You don't even KNOW how absolutely fraggin' grueling it's been bein' around here and cleaning up after you!" She hissed, "... Telling and begging all of Iacon to believe me--me! One of the very closest people to you--you, who had to go and blow up everythin', and make an absolute slag show out of this entire thing!" Sunblitz exclaimed, shaking her helm, "I--I honestly can't believe it! Do you even understand how terrible it was?! To be looked at and ridiculed, to no longer make people feel safe around you when you swore to protect them?!"

She almost felt like throwing the helm out of her lap. Her digits wrapped tightly around the sides, watching as the material cracked slightly, breaking under her harsh gaze and even harsher treatment.

Sunblitz forced herself to exude once again, some extent of restraint, not wanting to actually break him despite the temptations that lied in the back of her processor to do so, to take and find some peace in destruction, as she always did, be it on herself or something else.

She closed her optics again, gritting her dentas and sucking in a sharp breath--then carefully dropping the helm back onto foot of the obelisk to keep it away from her talons, scoffing at it instead.

Reeling in her anger, she found the strength to speak up once more when she had the coherency to, forcing herself to drop her dignity out so that her whirlpool of thoughts at the moment would be better balanced and given light of this opportunity. She doubted that she'd ever get the chance like this to speak to him, to argue like she used to, to hear his stupid voice, watch his face crack with bafflement at her defiance.

This was her taste of reprieve and for her alone, so she'd be sure to relish in every part of the taste of it,

"... All of Iacon's struggling to process what you did still, half the center of the city is wrecked and we've got new messes arriving soon. There's... There's Decepticons and Autobots now. And... And they're being lead by the miners that--- you messed up, the ones that.. You.. You tore out their transformation cogs from?!... I mean, who does that and... And you lied to me! You lied to me this entire time and kept it secret--from me!!" She pointed to herself.

The decapitated head only stared and continued to say nothing.

Sunblitz huffed and shook her helm, not even understanding why she was getting so worked up about this statue-head not reacting, not saying a word, blinking, anything--and yet she knew somewhere, that some other. It was the simple work of projection, forcing all her emotions onto this single, lone block of stone that made it real enough for her to converse with--or rather simply fill the silent space around with her voice. Every echo coming back in her own words felt just right enough to make up for a conversation, even if it felt a little mocking and uncomfortable.

She didn't know if that made her more of a fool to the fact that she tricked herself into believing just enough that this hunk of rocks was him, or the fact that it was working.

Her thoughts lingered and delved now that she was alone and face to face with him, some part that fooled her just enough.

She thought back and swam in her memories, no, not swam--she began to drown in them and her own doubts, sinking further into the spiraling whirlpool of her mind before, bobbing to the surface again with an unsteady realization, "...Primus, how long have you been lying to me? For how long did you keep up this facade?"

Silence.

"... Was there every any truth to anything you said...?" She muttered in disbelief.

The stone-head continued to keep quiet, lips permanently sealed, and in her dying hopes. She leaned back and steadily pressed her knees up to her chassis, crossing over her arms and glared to the rock before averting her gaze as she softened her voice, spitting out bitter words that hold no better heat than to a firecracker, "... And to think you had the audacity to lie to me, and promise me that it would be okay..." She scoffed, "... Was this your definition of it being 'okay' then?..."

...

Still, silence filled the air in place of his reply.

Her expression turned sour and she pursed her lips, faceplate scrunching up, "... You gave me a purpose here, a job, and somehow you ripped it away from me without having to do--anythin'. Now, the people of Iacon can't even look at me, because they think I'm just like you and... Airachnid--that I knew from the very beginning that you both were knee-deep in all this slaggin' mess... and don't even get me started on what they've got on with Airachnid now," She said, rolling her optics to the thought before glowering again.

Her gaze fell right back onto to the decapitated helm of Sentinel. She gripped her fists around air again and settled back into an uncomfortably bunched state, huffing as her wings drooped and she hid back behind the wall of her crossed arm to glare like a petulant child, the gaze giving away to a look of weariness, a flame in her eyes that should've been put out long ago,

"... I should feel lucky. In fact, I think you would've probably told me that I was lucky. Somehow or some other with that cocky, arrogance of yours somewhere." She said, "But I don't. I don't feel lucky. Between the three of us? And all that happened? ... I'm starting... To feel like you... You were the luckiest out of all three of us, Sentinel,"

She gripped her arms a little harder, bitter to the thought, "you got the easiest way out possible, while me and that bodyguard of yours had to suffer the collateral, and some of us--me, especially, and so many others, are now pickin' up after you, was this all really worth it?... Did all of this live up to your intended dreams caked in gold and all the finer things in life?!..." She near-shouted, before forcing herself to quell her anger by a smidgen, cutting off her volume first when she had heard pedes off in the distance down the alley walking by.

Her eyes widened, tucking herself further near to the tombstone close to the wall and kept quiet, silent and watchful until the silhouettes passed, keenly listening to the sounds of their steps

... Until silence became restored and she sat back with a relieved sigh, now solemnly glaring at the rock nearest to her lap before looking away when she had once again picked it up and carefully placed it into her folded legs,

"... Maybe she had already known this would happen, but me? I was the damned fool who knew nothin' of this..." She said, before something bit into her throat at the thought--the idea of being innocent and a victim--left a more burning flavor of disgust on her glossa than any of Cybertron's worse below-grade Energon could ever do, rephrasing,

"... No, I wasn't the damned fool who knew nothing... I knew something and felt too complacent to even think of sniffing around any further to see what kind of slag you were hidin' from me... From all of Iacon, from the world..." She rested a servo over his helm, and reluctantly dragged it to tilt his lifeless eyes up to her, by the chin.

"... If Primus had written your fate to be like... This? Then, by the Allspark, do I have some slaggin' criticism for his work," She said, trying to find something bitter to say but, all there was left in her internal storage now was just... Memories, both good and bad that she wanted to get off her chassis. The idea of something so sweet between brittle and sharp thorns of her mind was... Almost repulsive.

She reached back, and forced them out--like throwing out tchotchkes and toys she no longer needed or wanted, only to look back and wonder whether they still deserved to stay or to go

"... For a moment, and during the nights, I can't help but think... They were too easy on you, too merciful," She started up, outright blunt honesty as he would've expected from her, "... I sometimes think you should've been brought to justice, imprisoned, stripped of your wings, your power, somethin' more that I know would've hurt you more than what you got in the end... And sometimes, I can't believe I think that way now... Say things like that. It's like I'm right back to where I was the first few times I knew you... So hateful, and... Full of resentment," She crossed her arms over the top of his helm, bringing the rock close to her chassis, looking over it.

"Sometimes I wonder if I was even the first bot to have ever hated you when I came... What a privilege that would've been, hm? Someone original out of every copy here who said they 'loved' you,"

She sighed, "And now look at me." Sunblitz tilted the stone-head to face to her as she gently cupped the side of its face, the cold material leaving her to shudder as she narrowed her optics and lowered her helm.

Passing the weight out of her servos and back onto the ground, she stood up once more with a hardened expression, what softness lied now became suffocated, "... You are... One of the most downright, worst bots, I could have ever gotten the privilege to know... in this life cycle, and I..." She trailed, her servo wandering just short of the storage compartment to her forearm, taking out the extra company she brought with her in the form of a bottle of cheap high-grade, "...Honestly do not know... Or whether I ever truly knew... Whether I hated you or if I ever genuinely did... like you," She whispered the last half out, and sighed deeply.

Her index and thumb seized to the cork, twisting.

"... This one's for you, Sentinel,"

"pop!" went the plug, and out went the dark blue liquid. She took to a short sip of the bottle of processor-poison first, choking on the taste as she spilt the rest out over the rubble and mess that she called Sentinel's grave, sharing the awful drink out to her unresponsive partner. Her yellow optics dimmed to the lowest setting they'd been in since... Ever, watching as it spilled over and stained every part before becoming a pool on the ground that surrounded his helm like blood. Sunblitz watched until all of the contents slowly left the bottle and onto the crudely arranged headstone and for a moment. She observed to the waste.

It almost looks like his color, she thought, with pursed lips and a strain in her throat. Sunblitz cleared her vocalizer for the moment, trying to rid the bitter taste that lingered, looking to the headstone once more with a conflicted look that slowly gave away.

"... I hope you're happy with yourself from up there," She whispered, huffing as the bottle ran dry, before allowing it to slip from her fingers. It clattered onto the cold rubble where she knelt once more to come at eye-level to the stone, tracing her digits gingerly onto the engraved moniker, and her spark began to ache once more and twist itself painfully.

Blame it on the high-grade, she thought, blame it on the high-grade.

Before Sunblitz knew it, she held to the sides of the obelisk, and leaned her helm to it, a ragged sigh escaped and she breathed,

"I hate you..." She airily said, before allowing herself the moment of silence to pour out one last thing, suspecting that the poor high-grade pool beneath could use to a coolant finisher, as she softly breathed and wept against the monument in silence.

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