The noises were back.
The noises coming straight from beneath, down the mountain slide and echoing from the crystal trees of Old.
She hisses loudly, not moving even the fraction of an inch, but all her 8 optics were focused on the edge of the forest at the foot of the mountain. Her back itches, her claws pressing against the sealings on her pedes.
She wants to move, wants to go, and fly free so badly, but she canât.
She cannot fly off now. Not now.
Not until the reason she was hunkered in the innards of a mountain were ready to depart as well.
But the song is back, drifting on the winds, accompanied by the sweet and musky smell of shed life energon and the mech she was fleeing from.
She called him VoiceTempter, Sweetsinger, Deceiver, CloudChainer.
His voice was all she ever wanted; all she could think about anymore. It went into your processor, nestling into every little nook and thought, invading every process, every memory. Trying to lure her in, like he had others, tried to get her to leave, to join him.
But she was stronger. Had to be stronger than ever for she was not alone.
The long and deadly spikes along her tail glinted in the dual suns as she twitched at a deep note reaching her audials and not for the first time she wished for the ability to clamp her audial receptors shut. But she needs them, to listen to the sounds coming from the small pocket of heat and glowing stones in the mountain she was wrapped around.
The movement was enough though, to get her noticed, her camouflage on the mountain side now unnecessary.
Like insects approaching a prey carcass they streamed from the in between the trees, breaking the precious crystallized flora and stepping on it in their haste to follow the commands of the WrongSoother. Their battle cries telling her enough to know about what they wanted.
If he could not have her now, he would just take from her what she wished to protect, for what she stood strong and defiant.
Screeching in fury she comes to her pedes, the folded wings on her back stretching out and darkening the sky, maroon spirals and cobalt eyes glowing in the armor covering her wings, a warning to keep away, to back off.
But they are still running on, small balls of plasma withering away as they meet her armor, not even denting or scratching her.
She wants to preen about her protective plates, but she had seen others rely on it and the swarm of insects, prey and inferior predators had worn them down, covering them all over, ripping away at plates and cabling, rendering them into nothing more than mere parts to be used to lure others out.
She would not end like this!
Bellowing her defiance into the winds blew away the first handful of insects, but also the tempting and soothing whispers that reached for her spark.
Shaking her immense frame she allowed her claws to slide out, destroying the stones she was resting on, sending more than a few stones tumbling down the mountain side, crushing one or two insects.
Her tail though was securely wrapped around the mountain top still.
She was towering above them, her maw as tall as some of those inferior ones!
She would bite them in two! She would stomp them into the ground! She would rip them apart, piece by piece for daring to interrupt her!
Roaring loudly, she can feel the clicks inside herself, where a few chemical chambers connected now, opening pathways around her vents to feed the chemical mixture into her mouth, igniting it with a snirk of her fangs and venting out.
A torrent of green-bluish fire rolled from her maw, engulfing the oncoming mechs and leaving behind puddles of melted metal running down again to pool at the Deceivers pedes. She was sad to see her flames would not reach him.
Stomping on another insect to crush it, she closes her maw, the chemicals eating away at the soft inner lining of it.
The bigger mech at the edge of the forest is just watching her, an amused glint in his optics that infuriates her further, stoking the rage burning deep inside her chassis, sending her tanks rumbling to produce more of the chemicals she could use.
He is playing with her, thinking she could not smell the Juggernauts and Behemoths he has laying low inside the forest groves. But she cannot go away, cannot take flight now.
Not when she can hear the soft sounds of breaking shell underneath the stomping pedes, soft whimpers, and scratching of claws. Her first egg had broken, her first eggling breaking free. Not long now and she would be able to go!
Roaring again, her tail grip tightens. She wished to send croons to her small ones, calm them down and tell them to hunker down, but she cannot without giving away everything.
The CloudChainer changes his tones, his willing puppets prostrating themselves for a second, even if she takes a bite to break a few of them, before they all start crawling over her tail, the only part of her that was still and not fighting back.
Screeching in fury her tail curls abruptly, spearing a few puppets on her spikes to throw them into their fellows.
Over her bellows and screams, she can hear another egg layer breaking, another whimper joining the first.
But also, pede steps.
Her processor freezes for the fraction of a moment, two of her optics refocusing on the small entrance to her impromptu nest.
There!
A small purple prey-predator was making its way inside, hungry claws reaching for-
Her jaws engulf not only the mech, but also the stone around, crunching through everything, compacting it until the screams of the prey died in between her fangs. Her tail swishing once over the mountain side, hoping to dislodge the waves of insects crawling up her hind legs now, poking daggers and sharp teeth into the seams between her plates.
But she can only focus on her small ones now, the nest open, one egg broken and squished, but two formidable and full small protoforms huddling close to the last egg, still unbroken and unblemished.
She cannot wait anymore. They know.
She screeches at her small ones, pressing her open maw to the opening in stone, her two small ones darting on shaky pede inside her mouth and into the small caverns for holding her protoform safe.
The egg she scoops up with her glossa, carefully maneuvering it inside.
Her wings scratched and with more holes than she would like to admit, open and flap, making her huge frame jump from the mountain side.
Huge balls of plasma erupt along her sides painfully, shaking her in the air as she takes flight, heading straight up to breach the atmosphere between planet and space.
Another lucky shot to the side of her snout has her screeching, her egg free and falling now.
She tries to reach for it, curl her serpentine frame to snatch it back up, but the burn of plasma along her side is enough to keep her distracted. She misses the egg.
Loudly trumpeting her loss, she shoots upwards and away on shaky wings, crooning to the two small ones in her caverns.
Two lost, two living.
But for now, she must escape the WrongSoother, his voice already reaching for her and her cubs again.
