It was sudden, abrupt, and instant.

When she walked through the spacebridge, to return to her new home, it was as if she had walked into something sharp and pointy, impaling herself the moment the unfamiliar constellations came into her view. Her spark fluxed and pulsed, shaking in its casing, and she cried out, optics snapping shut, but not before everything blurred, and the night sky of Cybertron blended into a starry mess.

He reached out in terror, catching his mate before she hit the metal ground, but he was anything but calm as he yelled her designation repeatedly, clutching onto her frame and feeling useless in the wake of pain that fell upon her. But all she could hear was his voice, and her name, though everything was fading into a audible and visual blur, and before her optics blinked into darkness, she had already faded from consciousness.

-----

The femme cried out in agony, screaming as her spark fluxed painfully, and the much smaller spark was removed from her chamber, placed in the new frame awaiting nearby. The mech standing beside her gently stroked the femme's faceplate as she vented heavily, carbon cycling her systems and calming her rampart spark.

The wails of a newly-sparked youngling overpowered her heavy venting, and Drag's optics widened as he smiled at his bondmate. "Delta... look." He said, shifting the thermal blanket so that their sparkling's cooing faceplate could be seen. He giggled joyfully, reaching out for his carrier's faceplate in fascination, and raspberried playfully.

Both of them laughed, but they were so absorbed in the creation that they now possessed, that they missed the looks the medics gave one another as they looked at the sparkling's downloaded coding.

He had a glitch.

Many Vorns Later...

"Delta, I'm sorry. But he is no longer welcome here."

"How could you say such a thing, Drag? He is our sparkling, our little creation, our youngling!"

"He is defective, Delta! You know what the council would do to my career if they discovered our glitched sparkling." Drag snarled, oblivious to the little mechling standing behind him with optics wide, and tears falling. Why didn't his sire love him? All of his other friends' sires loved them, so why was he so different?

"We could hide him, reprogram his glitch with a subprogram! They would never know!" She protested, clasping her bondmate's servo as tears fell, for she too, was oblivious to Drift's presence. "Please, I'm begging you, Drag! Don't do this to him! It isn't his fault, and you know it! The medical center wasn't in Crystal City, Iacon, or even Vos! They messed up; it had nothing to do with him!"

Delta shook and trembled, tears falling as the mech tore himself away from her and sighed, pressing both servos to his temple. "It would only be until we can take him back, Delta. This research is revolutionary, and we would be wealthier than any other Cybertronians online." He tried to reason with her, but a choked sob from behind him, high pitched and small made the mech freeze, and whirl around in horror.

Drift was trembling, as tears fell down his faceplate and splattered to the flooring of the housing unit, and he sniffled, whimpering when Drag moved to pick up the little sparkling. "Drift, I didn't know that you-"

"NO!" He cried, backing away and sobbing hysterically. "Tansō was right..." he choked out, shivering as he continued to back away from the approaching mech. "You don't love me. You never did!"

Delta rushed forwards, certain that he would listen, but instead he shoved her arms away, refusing her hug. "NO!" He cried once more, stumbling backwards and falling before he fled, terrified, out of the housing unit, and into the rain of energon, his tears blending with the unpurified liquid as he ran, fleeing the only home he'd ever known, and setting out on his own, not caring where he ended up.

Anywhere, and any life would have been better than the one he had just abandoned. He would find love and adoration, this, he promised himself.

He would find himself a princess, and he would cherish her no matter what.