"If you want my heart, you'll have to unlock my chest with your trust."

★★★★★★★★★

In the four years following the arrival of an alien race, a lot has changed. Especially after the events in Egypt. The number of governments that signed onto NEST has almost doubled. However, the public's opinion of the Autobots is no longer at the height it was during Egypt.

Toby Hills works increasingly harder to gain the media's favour of the cybertronian presence. But as a young woman of only twenty-three years, her input is questioned and ignored. Such ignorance only encourages her to put more effort into improving relations, pulling in what few favours she has from those she knows. Yet, it has only brought a title of fame to her name; the fame of an outsider and freak.

Since the publication of Seymour Simmons' book, she has hidden away in NEST bases, leaving only on rare occasions. If the world refuses to listen, she'll let someone else do the talking for her. Not that she sees anything wrong with the arrangement; she gets more time working with the Autobots.

It also allows her to spend her days off with her son — although he very rarely leaves her side. At most, she leaves young Aquarius with one of her close friends during an emergency or medical issue. But that has only happened twice.

It is only in times such as this, that she ever leaves him entirely.

In the years Toby has known Ratchet, she has never felt that his cab was stuffy, uncomfortable, or confining. But as of now, she feels all of those things.

Never has she seen a landscape so grey, so void of life. When she was assigned this mission, she had been excited, thrilled even. Yet, now all she experiences is a sense of dread, sorrow, and uncertainty.

"You don't have to continue," a familiar voice says, breaking her from her daze. The tone is full of concern — the kind she expresses when Aquarius injures himself. "You are permitted to return to base."

She chuckles softly, a small smile on her scarred lips as she shakes her head. "Don't mind me, Piston. I was just thinking."

"You're never just thinking when you make that expression," Ratchet gently reminds her.

Toby hums absently, returning her vacant gaze to the vacant landscape. She had already known about the effects of the reactor explosion, but seeing Chernobyl first hand is another thing altogether.

Simmons owes her fifty bucks.

"Toby," she hums in acknowledgement, "we're here."

She blinks, and finds that he is right. They have stopped on the outskirts of the power station's reach. The very source of all the destruction and grief can be seen just over the tops of the buildings.

Once upon a time, the square they have stopped in might have been a fairground, a broken and rusted carousel beside Ratchet and a fallen ferris wheel across the cracked pavement. It is a barren and dusty place, ash sweeping into the air as soldiers climb out of their vehicles, swirling and dancing like leaves on an autumn day. Melancholy is constant, the peaceful existence of Chernobyl a sorrowful sight for what was once bright and cheery.

"All right!" Lennox, her commanding officer, shouts out to his NEST team. "Gear up! We have sixty minutes on the ground, watch your radiation levels!"

Toby only hears a muffle after that, as she pulls on her mask and ear-piece. While the other members of her group bear heavy equipment and gear, she wears only a basic set of gloves and boots. She had unfortunately only been permitted to accompany the mission if she wore some kind of safety equipment.

"Hills!" She jerks her head up at the sound of Lennox's voice. "Where the hell is all of your gear?"

Jumping out of Ratchet's cab, she straightens her filtration piece and pauses momentarily as he transforms into his standard self. Once the process is complete, she steps away toward the Colonel and the rest of the team. "Don't need it, sir. Radiation has very little effect on me."

Lennox frowns at her, briefly glancing over her shoulder at her towering guardian. Seeing that the medic is not fretting himself to an early grave over her wellbeing, he turns his attention elsewhere.

"Watch yourself." Ratchet swaps out a servo for his short-range blaster.

"Likewise, Piston." Toby offers him a two-fingered salute before pulling her gun over her head and setting it comfortably in her hands.

Their intel brushes alongside Lennox and leads him toward a ramshackle building that is just as grey as its surroundings. "Through the school," he says, a small tremor in his voice.

Toby shares a look with Lennox; she isn't thick — she recognizes how the man is behaving as though he is to be shot at any given moment. It puts them both on high alert and adds an air of grim caution.

"What've we got for energon signatures?" she calls out suddenly, scanning her gaze over the soldiers as she awaits an answer.

"Two full and a dull; all of our own," one man informs her, giving a short nod of understanding.

She starts forward, trailing Lennox with notable caution as the group travels the halls of the collapsing university. While not a primary school, the place reminds her far too much of Silent Hill for comfort, and she forces against a shudder at the realization. She makes a mental note to stop playing horror games.

"Where is your protective gear?"

Toby looks up at her superior as he speaks, her confusion cleared by the sight of the alarmingly underdressed intel. He is wearing the exact same suit and trench coat that he had worn during the woman's first encounter with him. He doesn't have a single piece of protective gear on his person, and it seems unlikely that there's anything in his pockets.

"It would not matter." Voshkod shakes his head. "For me, it's only a matter of time. This way."

The young woman rolls her right shoulder as she frowns at the man, wincing every time her muscle stiffens. For some reason, she doubts that he speaks of the radiation. It is as though he has just been lined up for the firing squad.

Tapping the nearest soldier's arm, Toby silently motions for them to keep an eye on Voshkod and his surroundings. It's not that she distrusts him — no, he just lacks her trust — but there's a possibility that somebody is watching him. She doesn't like loose ends, and needs someone to keep him wrapped up for her. She has work to do. She cannot waste a moment.

"Hey, Piston, you online?" She tests her comm piece, wincing at a burst of static that fills her eardrums. "Do you copy, Ratchet?"

A radio whine deafens her for a few moments before it clears into the tenor voice of her guardian. "-oby. I copy."

Toby breathes a quiet sigh of relief. "Good. For a moment there, I was worried that my comm piece wouldn't like the excess radiation."

"Toby," his voice is warning, a reminder that they aren't there to chat.

"Well, my apologies, then," Toby exclaims in sarcasm, dismissing herself from the connection. There goes her only distraction from her haunted surroundings.

A loose pipe hisses beside her, causing the young woman to jolt away from what-is-likely radioactive steam. Just because she's resilient to radiation in general doesn't mean she can handle concentrated amounts.

One of the soldiers next to her shakes his head with an almost-chuckle, earning a subtle nudge from the medic. She has just seen how many hiding places there are in the building — which, after going through several too-open doorways, opens up into a very in-depth facility — and she does not want to take chances. It is too dark for her liking, and bad things have a nasty habit of lurking in dark corners.

"Yuri will take you below," Voshkod gestures to one of the NEST team before quickly pulling Lennox aside. That isn't to say nobody is listening in. "And one other thing, Colonel. In private... there were some military experiments-"

Just as the man starts growing somewhat frantic, he looks at Lennox — or rather, something past Lennox. Toby inadvertently draws her gaze to the lingering shadows, where something glints just out of sight. But whatever it is, it silences the Ukranian man immediately, and he scurries off in mute terror.

As smoothly as a woman with metal limbs can manage, Toby slides up to Lennox, taking great care to look inconspicuous to what--whoever is watching. Carefully, she nudges him and the moment she has his attention, she subtly jabs the butt of her gun at the empty darkness, where someone once perched.

Lennox looks at her oddly before sliding his gaze over to the vacant pipe. A tense breath of air slips from his lips and he meets her eyes once more. He understands what she's indicating. They aren't as alone as they had thought.

They separate again, and Toby moves ahead of him and the rest of the team, short of the man named Yuri. Her hands shift their hold on her gun, tightening to the point that her knuckles must be as white as a sheet. Toby swallows thickly.

She's not necessarily afraid, but more alarmed by the unknown presence. The unknown presence that doesn't appear on the energeon detectors.

"Keep moving," someone says as they walk across a platform above what could possibly be some sort of generator. "Stay tight."

"Hold it," Toby calls, grasping the suit of one of her teammates and stopping them from going farther out on the platform. "Look, that section's unstable. Might fall with additional weight. Watch your step."

The soldier nods, and she releases them, continuing on at the very front. As the only not-quite-human on the team, she finds that she prefers having herself between them and what possible dangers lie ahead. She's still very unnerved by the ghost-like presence beyond the shadows.

"Over here."

Toby looks up at the strange structure down a path to her left. It is strange to most people; metal structures curled around itself to form a partial circle as something sits between a gap in the structure. But Toby can make out the sense, make out the mechanical mess for what it is. This is an energy converter. And a poor one at that.

"Optimus, we have a visual," Lennox speaks into his mic, approaching the object with curiosity. "Looks like the object's clamped in some kind of a metal harness."

"Negative," Toby interrupts, glancing at the Colonel. "It's been placed into an energy converter of some kind, but it's very clearly not designed correctly for the advanced nature of the device. It has to be an engine piece."

She takes a position beside Lennox, choosing to study the steel boxes around the converter. The layer of dust on everything is sickening, and it takes a few swipes of her hand to clear the muck from a symbol on top. Toby frowns deeply, brows furrowing as she stares at the symbol in confusion and mild shock.

"Why does it have Soviet space program markings on it?" she murmurs, repeating her question when Lennox gives her a look.

"Sputnik?"

Toby nods slowly.

"Sir?" a soldier Toby is unfamiliar with orders the attention of the Colonel. "We've got an energeon signature incoming. It's strong... below us. It's coming fast."

Toby's head snaps up at the jarring sound of grating metal, and jumps to her feet. Her servo reaches out and clasps around the engine part. It's an instinct; she doesn't even think about possible radiation leakage. A small part of her mind reminds her that Cybertronian engines are known for things like that.

The thing she least expects is a roar that sounds like a wounded Tyrannosaurus from Jurassic Park. That and a massive worm-looking thing to burst through the concrete walls.

It screams like it's in agony, huge saws tearing apart everything that gets in its way. Tendrils twist between soldiers, cutting the team off from one another to leave them defenseless.

"Contact, contact! Oof-" a cry for help is cut off as the soldier is thrown across the building by a swinging tendril. Something cracks.

Toby, having ducked down beside the converter, glances up at the occurring chaos. The screams ring in her ears, doubling and tripling with every memory they uncover. She pays no mind to them, however, choosing to assess the issue of the crimson optic above her hiding spot as it studies her.

"Scrap," she curses.

The large tendril lunges at her, forcing her to roll out of the way. It smashes the converter to shreds, ripping it apart in its mission to grab the engine part. To its credit, the hunk of junk doesn't hinder it in the slightest, and it dives at the woman's servo as she scrambles to her feet.

Toby swears colourfully as her servo is sharply yanked backwards, and snatches the tactical knife from her belt. She swings it at the tendril, slashing whatever vulnerable wires she can see with the sharpened blade. Her ferocity doesn't go unrecognized either, and instead sends the creature's 'limb' back with a short screech.

"Damn," she groans, clutching her probably dislocated shoulder with a grimace. "That's gonna leave a—!"

A shrill yelp escapes her as she's suddenly dragged back again, something firmly gripping the engine piece that she is so unwilling to let go of. It's only by the strength of Toby's servo and her immense stubbornness that keeps her clutching to the alien tech, even when it costs her the feeling of the ground beneath her boots.

She's pretty sure she hears someone calling her name in panic, but it doesn't quite sink in. The distance between her and the earth grows and she doesn't quite seem aware of how severe the situation is. Only colliding with a loose pipe brings about her acknowledgement of how tight she should really be holding on to the piece of scrap metal.

It's the bizarre nature of her predicament that catches her typically quick mind. The bizarre nature and sudden, overwhelming adrenaline rush that burst through her system in a split second.

So, Toby comes to decide that being dragged along for a particularly bumpy ride through the walls and roof of a former Soviet building provides the perfect opportunity to reflect on one's life choices. Sure, the situation at hand requires the tight grip of both of her own, but she simply finds no amount of terror can keep her mind from wandering through the past few years of her life. Boring, boring, near death experience, designated Autobot, ruthless training, bit of a bore, claimed a child, near death experience, death experience, miserable suffering — she lists, pondering how she's survived this far — actual NEST training, oh wait! ANOTHER near death experience. Toby muses to herself, 'That's a lot of near death experiences.'

The world chooses this moment to return to her dazed thoughts, holding no sympathy for the woman who suddenly finds herself flying a hundred feet in the air. A terrified scream peels from Toby's lungs, voicing her very negative opinion of her situation.

"HOLY FRAGGING SCRAP—!" she shrieks, legs kicking in the empty air. "Help!"

She yelps in pain as the Decepticon creature rams into the building wall, leaving her breathless and scrambling for her grip on the engine part. If her head weren't already spinning up a storm, she might have just watched the world turn into a spinning-top from that blow.

Wood chips — more like chunks — pierce through the suit she wears, adding further reason for her screaming. The glass visor of her mask shatters early on during the ride, the shards leaving purple incisions in Toby's cheeks. The addition of extreme vertigo is just the cherry-on-top of an entirely horrible experience.

"Hills!" Lennox's voice barely reaches her ears through the screaming of gears. "Hold on!"

"What the hell do you think I'm doing?!" she screams at him, voice cracking at the high octave.

The ground below is a complete and total blur to the poor woman, and for the first time in a really long time, she's incredibly thankful for her bionic arm. It is only through her own force of will that she remains latched on to the Decepticon creature, and only just about with the strength of her non-organic limb.

Briefly, she considers actually letting go, before that thought is thrown from her mind with another glance at the ground — or is that the sky? Toby does not want to die again. Especially at the tendrils of some worm-ish thing.

Now, there are times in a person's life when they want nothing more than to cry out for the help of someone they love more dear than anyone else in the world. This is one such time. However, Toby is more than well enough informed to know who has the better weaponry, and that is just enough in this event to make a person call out for another.

"Optimus!"

A glint of blue paint in the dull sunlight tells her enough to provide an essence of comfort. Sadly, it does not last long.

The creature dives back into the building, smashing wood and concrete like snow, completely uncaring of the small being clinging to its outer armour in sheer terror. Crumbling chunks of concrete fly into the air, showering the troop of soldiers below with small stones and forcing them to jump out of the way to avoid bigger clumps.

It threads through the building, up and down, up and down, repeating the pattern as it traverses forward. Alongside, on the dirt road, Optimus follows, sights solely locked on the woman dangling from the creature's side, his fear for her pressing him onwards. Close behind trails the bright chartreuse alt that Ratchet chooses to wear, his processor spinning at several miles a minute, panic over Toby's wellbeing making it turn just that much faster.

The medic mutters to himself, desperately praying to Primus that his charge doesn't get herself killed. He's gone through too much for her life to just terminate on a whim. He cannot stand by and do nothing.

Suddenly, the worm-thing turns onto the road, cutting off the two Autobots and sending Optimus flying back with his trailer. The Prime transforms mid-air with a yell of surprise, the trailer doing just the same before landing on the ground. Ratchet swerves, shifting quickly to avoid an inevitable crash, and regroups with his leader, taking on a defensive stance.

Optimus takes an energon sword from the armoury, or what had been his trailer, and tosses a blaster to Ratchet before taking a shield for himself. His battle mask slides over his face-plates, optics narrowing on the being as it strikes out against the human team on the ground.

Multiple soldiers scream as its many tendrils lash out at them, striking the ground in the areas that they had been only moments before. Dirt sprays them, showering the air alongside chunks of stone and metal. Their suits are torn by rotating blades on each tentacle, ripping long lines in gear meant to protect against the Chernobyl radiation.

Toby shrieks as she suddenly nears the ground, the tendril that holds the engine piece having decided to take a nose-dive. Surely, there was intent to shake her off — probably kill her, if she bothers to consider — in the decision. But, having lived through several years of what many would consider hell, she already knows what she's going to do.

With the ground approaching far too quickly to make anything but a rash decision, she swings her body out into the open. Her fingers slip from the scrap piece, sending her flying into the air, spinning and screaming as she sails over the worst of the fight. Up is down and down is up; an all too familiar feeling.

Air rushes from her lungs on impact, her yelp of pain abandoned as its source is eradicated. It becomes a wheeze, hindered by her position belly-down. A wave of nausea overtakes her, and without the ability to suck in a breath beforehand and get to her knees, she does her best to fight it, despite how the world is spinning around her head.

Within the midst of the scuffle, the two Autobots stand back-to-back, weapons held with practiced grips in front of them, parrying and firing against the creature that threatens their allies and friends. Their goal target has yet to appear — the tendril with what Toby had described as an 'engine piece', the very same that she had latched on to.

"Optimus!" Ratchet calls suddenly, gesturing at a far-less active cable than the rest. "There it is!"

The Prime nods, leaving his friend's back undefended as he pursues the object. "I have it, old friend!"

At that moment in time, he did not, in fact, 'have it'. 'It' was several yards — about thirty yards, to be more precise — away, and disappearing into the mess of coils that made up the creature.

A determined yell leaves his derma as he strains himself, sword raised high as he approaches. The cable wouldn't have had the time to dart away even if it had sensed the beginning of his sprint.

The engine part falls from its captor's hold, slipping away from the dead metal to the beaten dirt. It lands unscathed, otherwise undamaged by the course of the battle for its remains. Beside it, a streak of dirt clouds as the slain limb hits the ground.

Optimus' helm snaps up upon the tempting of an instinct, optics locked on the loosening coils of the creature. Two blue meet one red, and he resists an expression of shock at his recognition. "Shockwave."

Behind him, Ratchet nearly falters, his own surprise catching him off guard. For a millenia, they had thought the scientist to have been terminated on Cybertron during the Last Great Battle. Along with all of their experiments, super-soldier and reanimated clones. Their laboratory was destroyed to rubble in the last assault.

A single, inaudible word is all it takes for the Creature to retreat, retracting from the group of soldiers almost reluctantly as it takes its creator with it. It disappears into the ground, leaving nothing but a ruined shamble of the building, and an unsettling silence across the field.

"What was that?" Lennox asks the question on everybody's mind as he stumbles forward, chest heaving for air.

"That," Optimus impales his energon blade into the ground, "is Shockwave."

"Why," Lennox breathes, regaining his composure. "Why were they after this?" He gestures toward the motionless object that caused all of this trouble.

Ratchet glances at it briefly, only to immediately drag his gaze back to it. "But that is impossible." He shares a look with his leader. "Toby was right. It is an engine piece. But..."

"The ship it belongs to was lost on Cybertron during the war," Optimus finishes his sentence with mild hesitance. "It should not be on Earth."

"Speaking of Toby." Ratchet straightens, looking around for any sign of his charge. "Where is she?"

Somewhere in the dusty battlefield, Toby coughs, gagging at the copper taste of blood in her mouth. A low and pain-filled groan wheezes from her chest as she squirms against the ground. Breathing is difficult, and focusing on anything beside that brings a heavy wave of nausea and motion sickness. Her head swims like it's submerged in thick sludge, and her eyes cross, bringing her to rest her head on the ground.

Weakly, slowly, yet with total stubbornness, she chuckles. It's a low, and quiet kind of laughter, full of pain and regret, but she laughs nonetheless. Her humour has not dissipated, and the ride she has just endured is enough to make her see the amusement in it.

Then one of her joints cracks, and she groans again, the pain overwhelming the humour.

Oh, yeah. Simmons so owes her fifty bucks.

★★★★★★★★★

Huzzah! At long last, this is up! Apologies for the long wait! I'm still experiencing difficulties with motivation and inspiration.

Hope you enjoyed and continue to do so!