Colors jolted above him, slaps of light and harsh voices. Something rough dragged across his feet, or he was being dragged; he didn’t know. Something shook him, slapped him again, laughed, and then there was darkness.

A long time the Black Sun lay crumpled on his side, his hood half-drawn across his face, the chill of the floor bleeding through his frame as he shivered and stared at nothing. The stench of what they’d done to him still hung thick in the air, and he made a soft, retching noise in the back of his throat. But he was too weak to be sick, and could only lie like some discarded thing on the ground, lifeless but for the bare glow of his optics.

He waited. A thin, desperate moan rose like pale smoke from within him, and he shuddered. He waited for them to return. Like a malevolent tide, his own terror began to creep up around him, suffocating him, and he knew eventually that he would scream, because this was the worst. It was the waiting. It was the wondering when they would come again, and how, that threatened to break him, and eventually he knew that he would begin to scream. He couldn’t control it. It was like a living thing, this terror, crawling all through him and slithering into the uttermost parts of his soul, making him shriek until his vocalizer was too damaged to emit more than a garbled hiss. That was the very worst then. That was when he would begin to fling himself against the corners of his cell, scrabbling and clawing as though he could somehow dig through the bulkhead, because needing desperately to scream, and being unable to, was like being buried alive in his own body.

And still, they wouldn’t come. Still, they would wait, maybe hours, maybe days, and in that time he would dig and claw and scrape until the tips of his fingers were mangled to shreds and oozing fluids, and he was too exhausted to move anymore. He would slump at last, then, in a corner, where he would rock himself and shake, too steeped in terror to have the sense to nurse his own wounds. Then they would come. Then they would find him huddled, all but senseless, his vocalizer repaired enough only to emit the barest of whines, and he would nearly cry with relief at the sight of them. Because then, oh merciful Primus, then the waiting was over. And he would beg at their feet, and promise them anything, if only they would swear to him that they would never leave him again. So they would ask him, one more time, for the name of the traitor.

And he couldn’t tell them.

He’d tried. He’d resolved himself so many times to telling. One word was all he had to say, and it would be over, all of it. But he couldn’t say it. He would look up into the faces of his captors, mouth open, fingers scrabbling at their knees as he groveled, ready to give them whatever they wanted and more. But just as he would open his mouth, a flash of coldness would seize him. It would rock him like a wave, and he would sink back on his heels, arms dangling useless at his sides as he fell silent and still.

And then the cycle would begin anew.

They would take him, they would hurt him, and he would scream. But even in the worst of it, he would not say that name. He couldn’t. And he did not know why.

They re-energized him just before they began. It was always this way. They would force a tube down his throat, and the sour, crudely-made energon would fire his systems to life, bringing to him the throb of his mangled fingers, the reeling stab of how it feels to be poorly and fully fed, even the ache of what they’d done to him last time, and what they were about to do again. And they would ask him, as they brought their tools humming online, for the name of the traitor.

But he couldn’t tell them.

So they would work. And as they worked, they would pause to finger his cloak, even to slide their hands up his sleeves and down into the hollow of his throat, always threatening to strip him bare. And though they had not yet followed through on their threats, his terror had grown each time they did this, until he found himself obsessing about the black cloak as though it were as precious as his own life. He hadn’t been touched in so very long, and there was something so terribly wrong about the fingers that probed him now.

“His name,” Prowl’s voice slid through the cold, and Sunstreaker felt the other Autobot’s finger creep along the underside of his chin. Other fingers were peeling back his cloak, and though Sunstreaker’s body was stiffened with pain, it was the feel of those intrusively curious fingers that made him want to howl.

But though he cried out, Sunstreaker never said that name.

Why could he not say it? What was his worth anyway, that anyone should care whether he spent himself out as a traitor? He was no one of cosmic importance and – here, he coughed out a ragged laugh – certainly no paragon of morality. He was an Autobot and a monster - a monster that even the other monsters feared. He choked in the dark, a strangled, laughing whine that caught painfully in his vocalizer. No one cared if a monster fell even further into his own filth, did they?

“What makes a monster?” Sunstreaker heard his own voice, though his lips didn’t move.

“I dunno,” Sideswipe shrugged over breakfast. “Bad programming?” He pointed a finger in Sunstreaker’s direction as he swallowed the last of his drink. “You know, I heard that thing doesn’t even have a spark.”

But Sunstreaker was riveted to the vid screen, where breaking news coverage showed the Iacon Killer being taken into custody. For a run of nearly sixteen weeks, the mangled and dissected bodies of Transformers – mostly female – had shown up all over the city, and the murder count tallied over a hundred before the Iaconian law enforcement finally apprehended the killer. Sunstreaker stared, breakfast forgotten, at the flickering images. “What do you mean, he doesn’t have a spark?”

“You know,” he heard Sideswipe’s voice, “like its creator just didn’t have the resources to download one. So it’s not even alive, really.”

Sunstreaker felt a twinge of unease. “Do you know that for certain?”

“Well, no,” Sideswipe helped himself to another glass of energon. “But that’s what I heard. Look, why are you getting’ so frothed up about it? They caught the thing; they’ll put it down…what’s more to worry?”

“I’m not.“

“You afraid it’s gonna get you?” Sideswipe asked with a bit of a sly grin. “Is that it?”

Sunstreaker tuned and offered his brother a flat, ugly stare. “Oh yes, please, hold me now. Save me.”

“Well, what -? Wait.” Sideswipe narrowed his optics, a shrewd look clouding over his face. “Streaker, bro…you’re not feeling sorry for that thing, are you?”

“Sorry?” Sunstreaker snorted. “Why would I feel sorry? All I said was I wondered what made him that way.”

“Wondered?” Sideswipe came back with a disdainful look. “You’re like the sun in the sky, or some slag like that. People line up to kiss your feet. Why are you bothering about some sparkless little sewer-trash? Besides,” he flipped off the vid-screen, “you have more important things to think about. Bodywork in five, and interview in an hour. Let’s go. Come on – get up.”

“Get up,” Sunstreaker heard another voice, and all the colors faded to black as he opened his optics to slits. “Get up, move, come on,” the voice prodded in deep, hushed tones. Something poked at his side, and he groaned. “Get up!” the voice hissed.

“Sideswipe?” Sunstreaker mumbled, opening his optics a little wider as an irrational thread of hope pricked through him.

“Sideswipe?” the voice uttered a soft, mean cackle. “You think Sideswipe would dirty his finish down here? Heh…that’s funny…a-heh…heh…”

At once reality set in, and as his hope disappeared like a cold mist, Sunstreaker turned his face to the ground. It was them. Not Sideswipe…them. But before he could begin to despair, he felt an unfamiliar scrabbling at his side.

“Up!” the voice hissed again, and slowly Sunstreaker pieced together that this thing beside him was something that should not be there. Fear sprang through him, and he thrashed, weakly, his cloak catching and tangling at his legs as he propelled himself toward the wall.

“Get – away,” he grated, and hauled himself up on one elbow, hood fallen askew over one optic as he glared into the dark. “Get back!”

But again the thing was at him, snatching at his elbow, fingers twisting themselves into the fabric of his cowl. “Stupid, a-heh,” it uttered a whirling, tottering laugh. “Stupid, up, now, up, up!” It gave another yank, and pulled Sunstreaker savagely to his knees.

The Black Sun would have cried out, but he found his head wrenched back instead, and he gagged as liquid was forced into his systems. Sensory arrays flared, equilibrium returned, and the room brightened as his optical range was brought back online, but still he saw nothing. “Don’t touch me,” he spat into thin air, and gave a backswipe with one arm, only to find it wrenched painfully behind his back.

“Up, up now, nasty, heh,” the voice nattered in his audios as it propelled him up from the ground. “Up, that’s a good mech, up. Now hurry.”

As though in a dream, Sunstreaker felt his body stumble into a painful shuffle, encouraged onward by an occasional, malicious yank on his arm. Twice he tried to twist away, but a sharp blow to his head almost sent him to his knees, which only brought on another wrench to his arm. “Whu-?” he tried to breathe out, but that only earned him yet another rap to the side of the head, and after that he resigned himself, and marched onward into the dark.

For hours, they walked. The narrow halls of the detention ward quickly gave way to even smaller passageways, which at first scraped at Sunstreaker’s shoulders, and soon grew so small that he had to bend himself nearly in half. It was miserable going, since the energon in his systems had brought to life every ache his body carried, and he would have dropped to the ground in exhaustion early on if it hadn’t been for the nagging, arm-wrenching voice at his back.

“Faster, move, go, go,” it prodded when he would stumble, and inflicted pain when he would slow. “That’s it, good boy, run along, heh.”

“Who are--?” Another crack against his head sent Sunstreaker reeling against the wall, but before he could pause for a moment’s rest, he was hauled against to his feet and catapulted forward into a stumbling half-run.

“Shut up,” the voice snapped, pressing now at his back like some angry wind. “Shut your mouth and do as you’re told, now move, move…”

On and on the low voice rumbled at his back, prodding him, snarling at him, pushing him always faster. The tunnels now gave way to a black maze, which Sunstreaker recognized as the lower bowels of the Ark. The thrum of unidentifiable machinery pressed in around him, and several times he felt the skitter of swift, cold legs crawling over his feet before disappearing into the dark. Voices floated up from distant passageways, some of which his captor ignored, and some of which made the voice at his back pause and crouch, pulling Sunstreaker painfully down with him. Frozen, they would wait until the voices drifted away, and though Sunstreaker recognized none of them, the overwhelming scent of terror told him that his captor did. But like a rabbit who knows and lives every moment with terror, his captor would merely spring up again, Sunstreaker in tow, and dart down the next corridor, and the next, turning corners that Sunstreaker didn’t even know were there.

Once, he tried to turn on the voice at his back, but it did no good. Before he could complete his spin, he found himself pinned to the ground, head wrenched back to expose his throat. Inwardly cursing, he struggled against his captor’s hold, but he was too weak, and found he wanted only to lay still and not move.

“You think I’d feed you enough that you could fight? Heh,” the voice aimed a savage kick at his side, and Sunstreaker gasped. “Get up. Stupid. You were always stupid. Always. Up.”

Drained, confused, he tried to comply, but it was only after several more kicks that he managed to get his legs under him and lurch onward into the dark. He could feel himself fading already, feel his mind begin to cloud again. Now long patches of time went by without him even realizing that he was running, and it seemed he dozed and woke intermittently on his feet. Sometimes the pain in his arm would startle him to, and he would look about him at a surreal scape of dirt and hanging crystal, before dulling back into a thoughtless, stumbling half-run. Once he even felt the splash of water around him, cold and oily against his metal skin, and when he came out again, the sopping cling of his cloak only made him all the more miserable.

At last, they seemed to slow. The voice behind him made him duck, and he heard the tiny creak of a rusting hinge before he was given a final, decisive shove. Stumbling forward, he came up hard against some rock, and jolted onto one knee. “Lay down,” the voice commanded, and without a thought, Sunstreaker complied. Pitiful, came a small voice from somewhere in his mind. But he didn’t care, and welcomed the press of dirt against his face, while the small clink of a turning key followed him into his dreams.

Wakey,” came that voice, and Sunstreaker drifted online. “Heh…rise and shine. A-heh….heh, heh, heh…heh, heh…”

The voice cackled on for a long minute, irritating Sunstreaker out of his daze. Painfully, he rolled over onto his side, and stared through a wall of crooked bars and out into a small cavern, where an energon lantern lit the walls to dusky orange.

“Eat,” came the voice again, and abruptly a rod of compressed energon landed with a soft thud in the dust. Eagerly, though hardly able to move for stiffness and weariness in his limbs, Sunstreaker snatched the rod, and consumed it without thinking.

“Now sleep,” the voice commanded, and Sunstreaker blinked, trying to understand his surroundings as his systems came more fully online.

“I told you to sleep,” the voice snapped, and Sunstreaker barely had time to realize that a door was opening in the bars, before he felt a sharp crack against his head, and all went black again.

The next time he woke, another rod of energon already rested in the dust near the opening to his hood, and he reached for it immediately. Moving was easier now, and though he was still in pain, he was able to sit up and look around him while he ate. The cavern was still lit by a single energy lantern, and by its light, he could see the haphazard bars of a cage around him. It was crudely built, as though put together by someone both absent-minded and terribly focused, and it seemed that the bars had been placed less with an intent to keep a prisoner in, and more with an intent toward some kind of deranged pattern. Without knowing why, Sunstreaker pulled his lip back in a silent snarl as he mused that his cage would be better described as a piece of truly unfortunate modern art.

Fitting end, he thought irritably, that my dead body should be displayed as someone’s disturbed idea of art. But he didn’t laugh; he was too bothered for that, really.

Slowly, and struggling a bit as his mind wanted to haze over again from pain, he followed the walls of his cage, and found that it only really had three sides, and was bolted to the cave wall. He studied the bolts, weighing his current level of strength against how deeply they seemed embedded in the rock, and he was just thinking that with a little more energon, he might be able to pry them out, when he heard the voice again behind him.

“You’ve eaten already. Good. That puts your next feeding at…yes, zero-thirty. Perfect. What a good beast.”

“Beast?” Sunstreaker growled, gathering himself against another blow. He swept his gaze along all the sides of his cage, but he could see no one. Pulling his legs underneath him, he balled himself into an unsteady crouch. “Who are you?”

“Who am I?” the voice laughed, a rich, melodious baritone. “Who am I? Well, fame is fickle after all, little sprite. We have met, after all.”

Growl deepening, Sunstreaker ran a quick diagnostic on his optical sensors, to see if they were deceiving him, but he found nothing amiss. “Who are you?” he demanded again, this time louder.

But all he got in return was an elaborate sigh. “Of course you don’t remember. Even I, member of the richest house in Iacon, would have escaped your notice. And it was only a brief encounter – we were so pleased you had made an appearance at one of our parties. How could I expect you to remember my face?”

“Show me your face and I’ll tell you if I know you,” Sunstreaker goaded.

“But,” the voice laughed, “you’re looking right at me, sprite.”

Which was when Sunstreaker finally understood. “Mirage,” he spat, incensed.

“So you do remember me!” the voice crowed, “And here I thought you were being rude.”

“Mirage,” Sunstreaker boggled, running over all the ridiculous angles of his situation, “what in the name of Primus are you doing? Let me out of here.”

“Let you out? No, heh, that wouldn’t do, would it? Let’s see,” the voice started to travel, as though Mirage were pacing, and Sunstreaker almost thought he could make out the faintest of footprints in the dusty floor. “The way I see it, you owe me for snubbing me at that party, at the very least…”

“Party?” Sunstreaker screwed up his face and shifted, stiff and uncomfortable. “What are you talking about?”

“You really don’t remember?” the voice asked, and paused to stand still. “And we went to all that trouble with the iced energy crystals…”

Sunstreaker stared blearily through the bars, and tried to ignore the ache in his legs. “You’re full of slag, Mirage. You were never at any party.”

“And how would you know?” came the irritatingly smooth reply.

“Because you’re street trash from Newsted,” Sunstreaker grumbled, optics skimming the room for signs of the other mech. “Everyone knows that.” But if his words hit home with Mirage, the other mech didn’t show it, and the silence that dragged out all but reeked of the invisible mech’s smug little grin. Frustrated and miserably sore, Sunstreaker offered a silent snarl. “Let me out of here, Mirage.”

“And why would I do that?” the voice came closer. “Why would I release you, if you’re going to continue to so rudely insist that you cannot remember this face? I adored you then! Everyone did! You were like this great, golden gem, a shard stolen from the heart of the sun, and all I asked in return for adoring you was one brief, friendly nod in my direction - one moment of camaraderie.”

“You’re out of your processor.”

“Am I?” the voice paused, as if to consider. “Heh. I am. Great Cybertron, but you’re astonishingly keen. Perhaps now I can finally connect with my broken, inner spark, and begin the tough-yet-rewarding process of healing my shattered psyche.” Again, Mirage chuckled, sending chills of warning down Sunstreaker’s spine. “Oh, you are a magnificent thing.”

Another long moment passed while Sunstreaker regarded the air before him. Motionless, he peered out from beneath the hood of his cloak, and wondered if it were truly possible that Mirage could have somehow met him all those years ago, before Sunstreaker had become…what he was now. Could Mirage – weak, small Mirage – have truly seen him in those days before he’d disappeared into this cloak? Sunstreaker’s mind whirled with images of himself: grinning, devious images of gold, oblivious to all the laughter behind its back. Had Mirage seen him then – a strutting clown preening beneath the lights, unaware of his own monstrosity, and truly believing that he was loved for his beauty? Had Mirage – cowering, skulking, slithering Mirage – seen what he had been? He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound, and at that moment, he knew that whatever Prowl had done to him, it was Mirage who he would have to kill first. Because Mirage had laughed at him. And no one laughed at the Black Sun.

“Something funny, sprite?” the voice cut through his thoughts, and Sunstreaker looked up in time to see a curious flicker. Narrowing his optics, he scanned the room, but didn’t see it again. “I asked you a question.”

Instantly, Sunstreaker snarled, and rose into a fighter’s crouch.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the voice chortled. “I’d forgotten. You’ve probably heard that line too many times over the last few weeks. Hmm…how to rephrase…ah. How about this? Whatever I say, you do. Or I let you die. That should be simple enough for something like you to understand.”

“What is it you want?” Sunstreaker snapped in spite of himself, seething. If he were only a bit more energized, he might be able to break these bars…

“But you’re not,” Mirage noted, as though reading his thoughts. “Not strong enough,” the voice added in explanation. “So really, you’ll have to content yourself with doing as I say. That is, if you want to eat again.” Sunstreaker all but thought he could hear the voice smile. “Now power down and sleep.”

Sunstreaker glared.

“And don’t think I can’t see your unfriendly little stare from inside that hood. Now sleep, or I will put you to sleep.”

“Why?” Sunstreaker snarled as he swept his gaze about the dirt floor, straining for footprints, but he saw them too late. The door had already opened, and just as he realized that he should be looking up and not down, he felt a searing crack to the back of his head, and fell forward into the black.

The next time he woke, his head hurt terribly, but only because the rest of his body was starting to hurt somewhat less. He lay very still a long time, taking a cautious sort of pleasure in the fact that he did not have to move. For the first time in what felt like weeks, his head was clear, and though he was troubled and confused, he felt like he was able to think for the first time in a long while. A roaring had disappeared from his audios, and it was only now that he was confronted with silence that he was even aware that the roaring had been there in the first place.

In the distance, he heard a soft, musical drip, and slowly, he became conscious of the damp, mineral smell of the ground beneath him. He could smell his cloak, worn and crusted with dried sand, and beneath that, he could smell himself: burnt, and frightened, and still oozing sour fluids. He had not smelled himself in so long, having been overwhelmed with the stench of acids and smelting metal, and he found to his quiet surprise that it was almost a welcome

scent.“Sunshine,” a voice softly sang from the other side of the bars, breaking his concentration. Slowly, Sunstreaker unshuttered his optics, and as he did, he felt the throbbing in his head grow worse. “You’ll miss your feeding time. Wake up now.”

Gradually, painfully, Sunstreaker pulled himself up onto his arms, and then rocked himself back on his knees, where he swayed a moment while the world righted itself. As if on their own, his fingers trailed through the dust until they found the energy rod, and then brought it to his mouth. For the first time, he realized how flat and sour the energon was, but still he ate, and then offered a nearly inaudible sigh as he felt his systems fire to life again.

“You should do as I say next time,” the voice prattled on, almost petulant despite its soothing baritone. “I don’t think you’ll heal very quickly if I have to keep putting you to sleep.”

Sunstreaker stared out from beneath his cloak, for the moment so happy to not have to move, he forgot to be angry. “Why did you save me?” he asked, his voice a soft, echoing tenor.

“Save you?” the voice chortled, and Sunstreaker thought he saw a shift somewhere to the left of his cage. “I didn’t save you. I stole you.”

“Why?” Sunstreaker asked, surprising himself with the calm in his own voice. Perhaps it was his state of not being tortured, or perhaps he was simply too tired to fight, but he could not bring himself to be angry. It was as though his sense of fight or flight was no longer necessary, now that he was ‘safe’ in his cage, and it left him momentarily paralyzed by a weary sense of peace. It was ridiculous, he knew, and dangerous, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Again, there came a bluish flicker beyond the bars, and this time Sunstreaker was sure it wasn’t his imagination. “To think I would save you, heh,” the voice offered in response. “I wouldn’t go out of my way to save you any more than Sideswipe would, and that’s saying something.”

At that, the voice indulged in a long, unpleasant laugh, and Sunstreaker felt something inside of himself twist a little. He opened his mouth, wishing desperately for some scathing retort, but he could think of nothing except to admit that what Mirage had said was true. It made him think of Bluestreak, and how if Bluestreak were down here, caged, Sideswipe would be spending all of his energy and time tracking him down to save him. Calmly, he thought of how he hated Bluestreak, and how he would one day have to kill Sideswipe. Except this time he wouldn’t make the mistake of trying to hand his brother over to Prowl or even Optimus, because he’d proven to himself that he could not do that. No, he would have to kill him with his own hands, and watch, solemnly, while the life drained out of his brother’s optics and into the earth below.

“And then I will be the only,” he heard himself softly say, and he wondered anew what it would be like.

“Only what?” the voice cut through his thoughts, making him raise his optics to look around him. It paused, as if watching him, and then it let out its familiar, irritating laugh. “A-heh…heh, heh, heh heh heh heh…” At once the flicker showed itself again, and resolved momentarily into a vision of a dingy blue and white mech, bent over double with his hands on his knees, laughing while his optics whirled electric blue. He pointed, head tilted crazily as he peered in at Sunstreaker, mouth a gaping grin, “I almost forgot…you’re as crazy as I am. A loon!” He laughed and laughed, the whole of his light frame shuddering as though he might knock himself off of his own feet. “A loon!” he howled, his deep voice resonating through the cave. “A lune, even! Oh, the picture that would make – we two sprites, dancing ‘round the foxfire ring, while the moon stood watch in the sky.” He stood up at that, suddenly sober, his optics gone flat as slate. “As though an Autobot could ever dance.”

Here, Mirage trailed off, and Sunstreaker watched, brow furrowed beneath his hood, as the other mech flickered once more, and was gone. A long moment passed, so long that Sunstreaker began to wonder if Mirage had somehow slipped away, but at length, the voice rose up again, though this time from the other side of the room.

“Have you ever seen a foxfire ring?” the voice asked, echoing as if from the bottom of a well.

Sunstreaker shifted his gaze, wary. His head still throbbed, and though he could think clearly, every part of him felt stiff and slow. He needed to lie down again.

“There’s a place in the Beryllium Spires,” Mirage continued, “just north of the Iacon plains, where gas fires skim over the ground. You’ve heard of it. Not many people have, but I know you have.”

Tiring by the moment, Sunstreaker simply did not have the resources with which to search his memory banks. He sank down on one elbow to stare out into the cave.

“I know you have,” the voice came closer, insistent. “Very few have ever seen the fires, but you have, haven’t you?”

Sunstreaker laid his head on his arm.

“No one knows where they come from – no one with a spark, anyway.” Now the voice was very close, as though Mirage crouched just on the other side of the bars. “They’re little gaseous lights that sail over the ground like tiny bits of foxfire. Very few have ever seen them, and they say that if the fires surround you in a ring, you disappear forever into the phantom world. Some say it’s paradise; some say it’s a bleak world. Others say it’s eternal torment. For me, I always thought it was a combination of the three.”

Again the voice stopped, as if waiting for something, and Sunstreaker found himself beginning to drift toward unconsciousness. Dimly, he felt the uncomfortable chill of the ground seeping up through his frame, but he was too tired to care, and he felt his systems begin to shut themselves down, as if of their own accord.

Now Mirage spoke up again, and though Sunstreaker was nearly asleep, he still heard the other’s voice sliding through his mind, as though it were a part of his own dreams. “Of course,” the voice said, “the ring works both ways, and all kinds of monsters and sprites and specters and shades come crawling into our world. They come to enchant us, to make us pine for what we cannot have, to steal from us, to…consume us.” He uttered a short, deep laugh. “I always thought it was just a shadow-tale.

“Shadow-tale,” Sunstreaker mumbled hazily into the sleeve of his cloak.

“Is it, though?” came the voice, soft and low. A short silence followed, during which Sunstreaker could all but feel the piercing stare of the other mech, even as he drifted half-asleep. “Is it a shadow, Black Sun?” The voice leaned closer, snaking through the bars like some dark, low cloud. “Or is the sun really black in the world you come from?”

It was disconcerting to Sunstreaker how often he dreamed of late. He was not a mech who dreamed, and for years he had shut down with nothing but the blackness behind his own optics to keep him company. He’d been happy that way, not thinking, not feeling, his mind floating always just above the rest of him where it could watch from the comfortable vantage point of the vast, numbing cold.

But then there came a cold, bleary day, when the rain had fallen in sheets of endless silver, and he had seen his brother in the wood with Bluestreak, giving him the keys to life. A piece of him had awakened then and seen.

He wished now that he’d never seen. Now, that he knew the cost of actually living in one’s own skin, he wished to go back to that world where there was nothing but the cold, and the numb, and the sure knowledge that there was not a soul in the world who remembered the sight of his face.

But now…now the dreams came. Now that he’d seen his brother in the rain that day, he couldn’t get the image out of his mind, until it seemed as though the scene had been etched there in deep, indelible lines of ink, and it had brought a whole universe of images to life. Songs and faces and bleak pain all intermingled in a parade of scenes long forgotten. He’d forgotten the sound of his own laugh, forgotten the feel of hot water against his skin, forgotten the smell of new paint. He had forgotten all of the things that had existed in the sunlight, and it was as if those things rose up now like a virus, spreading themselves like a plague through his systems until he could no longer hide away in comfortable, senseless peace. Order had been stripped away, and in its place, there had bloomed these unnerving dreams, which shocked him, and made him both hate and ache more intensely than he had in longer than he could remember.

And he did not like it. It was as though what Mirage had said were true, that horrible things really did creep out of some dark crevice at night, dark things that stole into one’s processor while he slept, where it could curl up like a knot in the back of his mind, and pick and wheedle and torment him until he finally gave up and died.

Of course, death would have been a relief. What utter peace it would be, to finally lay his head down and shut his optics for the last time. He’d thought about it, was nearly tantalized by the thought of dying while he’d been in Prowl’s watchful care. What a relief that would have been, to die. But no. No, even when the pain was at its worst could he make himself want to die. Not that he didn’t wish it, and if he’d just been able to sidestep himself, if only for a moment, he could have found a way to do it. But he couldn’t. No matter how he tried, his self was there, flashing like foxfire in his dreams, and making him want to live. He hated himself, and hated his dreams for what they did to him, but no matter how hard he tried to deny it, there was now that part of him that wanted to taste and feel and smell all the things that he’d forgotten so many years ago, and he could not make that part go away. It was as though a part of him had been made mortal, and it hurt. It hurt.

In his sleep, Sunstreaker kicked and moaned. Everything hurt, his burned and battered fingers, his scoured energy conduits, his over-extended suspensory cables, everything. It shouldn’t have, not like this. He should have been able to block out most of his pain, as he’d done for so many years. It was part of what had made him so terrifying, to seem impervious to pain, and to feel such pain now made him feel as though a piece of his power had slipped away. Because there were things that shouldn’t have hurt, things inside of him that made both no sense and too much sense at once. It was like a stiffness deep within his chest, a kind of ache that had to do with his dreams, and with his brother, and with himself.

And he hated it. He hated it because it made him mortal. It made him touchable. And it proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was no creature from beyond the foxfire ring, but a creature of the sunlight, breakable, and small.

He dreamed that night of what Mirage had said. He dreamed that he stood without his cloak beneath the stars. Exposed and shivering, he flinched away from the wind, face averted, but it salved him everywhere it touched him, and after a time he began to understand that it was talking to him.

Look, it skirled softly about him, turning his attention outward, and he raised his chin to see a pale green flame bloom out of the earth. It twisted and chivvied in the wind, growing as it took air, and as it did, it was joined by another, and then another. Slowly at first, and then more quickly, the flames leaped up, knee-high, to surround the Black Sun in a flickering, cackling wreath. He thought at first that they were laughing at him, but as he stared closer, he saw the faces in the flame, sharp and mercurial, and possessed of no warmth. He looked and saw that they were like him, having beauty without loveliness, affection without love.

But even as he drifted toward the flame, the wind held him back and said, You have to go home.

“But I am home,” he protested, staring. The foxfire was leaping faster around him now, the faces keener, the flames higher. “I’m standing in the ring.”

Yes, the wind replied. You are standing in the ring, because you have finally come back, and now you have to go the rest of the way.

“The rest of the way where?” Sunstreaker’s voice rose as the flames grew up around him, both exciting and terrifying him. “I am where I belong.”

But you were born out there, the wind pointed, and the flames winced down away from the air, showing the dying trees beyond. Scorched earth and moss swirled against Sunstreaker’s senses, making him stagger not back, but forward, toward the smell. You were born of things that die, the wind pressed him, holding the scents to his face, and you must go back.

“But I’ll die, too,” Sunstreaker shouted, his voice barely audible over the roar of the flame and the wind. “I’ll die!”

But you have already died, the wind returned. Life is death, and death is life to those who live under a black sun.

“What does that mean?” Sunstreaker demanded of the night, the wind snatching his words away even as he spoke. “I don’t understand!”

But the wind only said, Go back. Go now, before the fire dies. Go, or it will be harder next time, and the time after will be your last.

Then with a snap it all vanished, the wind, the pale foxfire, the Earthen smells, and Sunstreaker awoke with a gasp.

“Eat,” came the voice, and Sunstreaker shuddered, thinking for a moment that it was the wind, before he remembered himself. Just beyond the cage came the telltale shift of dust, and he stared out between the bars, trying to catch the barest glimpse of Mirage.

“I told you to eat,” the voice repeated, irritation coloring its tone, and contrasting sharply with the gentler voice of the wind. For a moment, Sunstreaker sat, propped up on his arms and shaking his head, while he tried to clear the dream from his mind. It had not been the wind that had frightened him, but the flames, and the faces within, and though he still didn’t understand, the dream still clung to him enough to make him shiver. Slowly, methodically, he extracted himself from his thoughts, and after a time, he was finally able to reach for the rod of energon in the dirt. Shaking, he held it in front of his face, as though unsure what to do with it.

“You eat it,” came the sounds of exasperation. “Open mouth, put energon in. Really, even for you it can’t be that hard.”

At last Sunstreaker seemed to come online, and he was able to shake off the last of his dream. With a snort, he pushed himself painfully to his knees, where he stared out from beneath his hood while he ate.

“That’s my good savage killer,” Mirage patted the bars, and though Sunstreaker couldn’t see him, he could see the stirring of dust off the side of his cage. “We don’t have much more time, and I’m getting tired of spending all of this energy on you, so you’ll have to go to work soon. How are you functioning?”

At first Sunstreaker didn’t answer, but simply stared around the cave, trying to catch any sign of where Mirage might be standing. In truth, he was feeling a bit better, and though he still ached terribly, he was beginning to have the feel of his old reflexes again. Twitching as if of their own accord, his fingers itched to find Mirage’s throat.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” came the smooth baritone of the other mech’s voice. “Did I not put that question in words small enough for you to understand? Or are you just being nasty again? Because I can’t have you being nasty.” Something softly clinked, as though Mirage had touched the door of the cage. “It would be a shame to take longer in getting you sufficiently functional again, but the truth is that I would rather have you well-trained than have you feeling as though you can be belligerent with me.”

“You’re afraid of me,” Sunstreaker said, without really knowing why.

But Mirage only laughed, a loud, throaty sound. “Afraid of you? Me? Of course I am! Most every mech and femme on this repugnant little world is afraid of you, which only means you’re perfect for the job. Not,” he added, “that it means you can’t learn nice manners. Now are you going to be nice and give me a diagnostic, or do we have to go through with more training?”

“What is it you want?” Sunstreaker spat, and felt a little bit better now that his familiar venom was coming back. He hurt, but he also knew he could move with some amount of speed now, and he found himself wanting the little invisible mech to open that door.

“What I want,” Mirage replied, a scraping sound suggesting that he was leaning against the bars, “is for you to simply do what you do. I want you to kill someone for me like a good boy, and what I want right now is for you to describe to me exactly how capable you feel of doing just that. Can I make myself more clear?”

Narrowing his optics, Sunstreaker pulled his lip back in a snarl. “Why don’t you come in here and find out?”

A quiet chuckle resounded pleasantly off of the cave walls. “Well, I suppose that tells me what I need to know. You are feeling better, though perhaps not well enough yet.”

Shifting his legs under him, Sunstreaker brought himself up into a crouch, where he poised himself, testing. There was something wrong still, something that slowed him a little, and pained him pretty badly, but at least he could move. He probably needed a real medic after what Prowl had done to him, and there was a chance that even if his internal repairs did have enough time to complete their job, he might never be the same again. But he felt at least some of his old lightness returning, and he knew if he could just get his hands on Mirage…

In one slow, graceful motion, he rose to his feet, where he stood with his cloak swaying gently around him. With a shake, he loosed some of the dust and sand from himself, and then stepped fluidly to the front of the cage, where he tested the bars. Finding them still too strong, he swept his gaze about the cavern floor. “Let me out of here, Mirage.”

“Oh, I will,” the voice piped up somewhere to Sunstreaker’s left, just out of reach. “You’ll come with me when you’re strong enough, and we’ll take you up to the lab, where you’ll do your job, and I’ll watch and cheer, and then there will be rejoicing in the land, et cetera, et cetera. It’s a simple plan, really, one even you can’t foul up.”

“The lab?” Sunstreaker frowned, legs already starting to shake a little from the exertion of standing.

“Perceptor,” Mirage hissed, and came close to the bars, where he flickered as if in triumph. “You are going to kill Perceptor.”

“What?” Sunstreaker snapped. “I can’t go up there. I’m not going back to Prowl.”

“And you won’t,” Mirage replied curtly. “Mindless creature, I know a way in and out of the upper halls of the Ark. You think I didn’t plan for that?” A derisive snort sounded out of the air, and Sunstreaker watched the dust swirl lightly as Mirage began to pace. “Stupid as you are vicious. Is that how you’re able to perform such despicable acts? You have no sense of self, and therefore no sense beyond your own instinctual lust for killing, which really does make one wonder if you even have a soul.”

To Sunstreaker’s surprise, the barest hint of guilt touched through him, and he shook his head, so startled his legs nearly buckled. Instantly he braced himself against the bars, reeling. The Black Sun did not feel guilt. The Black Sun did not feel. He shook his head again, trying to rid himself of the sudden image of Sideswipe, handing the power packs to Bluestreak for the hundred thousandth time…”What…what have you done to me?”

“What did I do?” came the voice, perfectly calm, and sounding unreal against the backdrop of Sunstreaker’s confusion. “I’ve done nothing but rescue and feed you, two acts for which you should be exceedingly grateful, unless I am mistaken.”

“No,” Sunstreaker protested, fingers wrapped around the bars, head down between his shoulders. “You did something. You…did something.”

But Mirage only sneered, “I did nothing but treat you like the thing you are, and that’s a true act of chivalry, because we both know you deserve to be where you were, screaming under the knives and torches, and paying for all you’ve done.” The last he accented with a slam against the bars, and Sunstreaker jumped as the whole cage rattled around him.

“What do you want?” Sunstreaker asked again, his head beginning to spin dangerously.

“I want,” the voice repeated itself, as though to a slow-witted pet, “for you to be what you are. No more. You should have spent years paying, but instead I’ve freed you. I, who know you for what you really are, have freed you to kill again, and in return, you are going to kill for me. You are going to kill, and you are going to be grateful, because I own you now.”

Like dead weights, Sunstreaker’s hands dropped away from the bars. “You’re crazy,” he muttered, and stumbled back.

“Crazy, am I?” Mirage’s voice stepped forward, and Sunstreaker thought he saw the shimmer of blue fingers around the bars. “Well, I might be. But how could anything both so beautiful and so hideous as you be just a mech?”

The words, just a mech, echoed and re-echoed softly off of the cavern walls, where they hung in the air for a moment before fading away. Something of Sunstreaker’s dream swirled faintly through his mind, but it was hazy and unclear, and it disappeared before he could grab on to what it was. He wanted to protest, wanted to shatter the eerie still that hung over them both now, but he could only stand stupidly and stare.

“Oh,” came the voice softly, “oh, I see. You really thought you were a mech. Hasn’t anyone ever told you? You’re nothing but a thing that crawled up out of the dark one night, and have been crawling about this world ever since.”

“Crazy,” Sunstreaker protested weakly, but Mirage’s voice overrode his.

“You feed off of us,” it said. “You fed off of our frustrated desires when we could not have the beautiful part of you, and now that you are repulsive, you feed off of our desperate, squalling attempts to continue living. You revel in the frustration of one who burns for what he cannot have, and the more intense the desire, the more you love to watch us scream and kick. And what,” he added, “ could a being desire more than his own life? That’s why you don’t kill quickly,” the voice accused. “You like to watch us suffer; you like to suck in our pain. Which is why you are the perfect choice.”

“Perfect choice?” Sunstreaker knitted his brow, feeling as though Mirage’s words contradicted drastically with the tug of his dream, and not knowing which he should listen to.

“For killing Perceptor,” Mirage affirmed, as off-handedly as if he were discussing the weather.

“And why,” Sunstreaker asked, feeling some of ire return to him, “would I do that for you?”

“Well, because of your gratitude, for one,” Mirage replied. “And because afterward, I’ll show you the way out of here.”

“Why don’t you just kill—“ Slow realization dawned on Sunstreaker, and he looked toward Mirage anew. “He made it so you couldn’t, didn’t he? You can’t kill him.”

“No,” Mirage answered, a slight hint of frustration in his voice. “But there’s nothing stopping me from killing your brother.”

Softly, the last word echoed along the cavern walls, and Sunstreaker felt an unfamiliar pang work its way through his internal systems. “Oh, that’s right,” the voice chortled. “You hadn’t thought of that. Of course you hadn’t. Everyone knows the Black Sun doesn’t even realize his brother exists, much less cares about him. Except,” and here he paused for what Sunstreaker supposed was dramatic effect, “I do wonder who in the world you could be protecting against Prowl’s little inquisition. Hm…here you are, this unholy thing of a creature, without a concern in the world for anyone beside yourself, yet you last for weeks against the interrogators. Why? Well,” he gave off a gentile little laugh, “let me tell you why. You, of all creatures, have a brother. And you actually do care about him, so much so that you’ve endured weeks of torture rather than handing him over to Prowl. I mean, really, who else could you be protecting?” He tsk’d at that, and Sunstreaker could all but hear him smile. “And here you’ve fooled us for all these years. As it turns out, even freaks can love. How…sweet.”

At that Mirage laughed, as though so thoroughly pleased with his deduction he simply could not contain himself. There even came a flickering image of a lean blue-and-white mech, optics bright with mirth as he wrapped his arms around himself and laughed, and Sunstreaker would have been frozen with rage, had he not caught on to one, single word. “Freak,” he repeated, so softly that he did not think the Mirage could hear.

Mid-laugh, the other mech halted and stared, optics startled, before he vanished once more. From the other side of the room, as though he’d scurried away, his voice spoke up. “What did you say?”

“Freak,” Sunstreaker repeated, quietly seething. He took a step toward the bars and touched them lightly with one hand, while his optics gently smoldered. “I called you a freak.”

“What?” came the hissing whisper, incredulous. “How dare you? How dare you?”

“How do I dare?” Sunstreaker returned, a slow anger boiling as his optics roved after the sound of the voice. “I remember now, that’s how. I remember you on the dais all those years ago. A freak.”

Mirage snorted, and Sunstreaker glimpsed the quick image of flashing optics and a snarl of hate before the blue-and-white mech disappeared again. “I’m no freak –“

“Not a freak? Oh, yes you are.” Sunstreaker pressed closer to the bars, his legs warming with new strength. He felt it coming back to him, his malice, his hate, his clear desire to wrap his fingers around Mirage’s throat, and rip out his main conduit. “I remember it. I remember you standing there on the platform, crying about how scared you were, how ashamed you are of being small, how useless you feel.”

The other mech snarled, livid. “I never said anything of the sort. It’s you who was always so pathetically depressed, sulking about when you weren’t busy feeding off of some poor wretch.”

“Oh, but you did say those things, Mirage,” Sunstreaker softened his voice, edging it with false pity as he sent it sliding forth between the bars on its ugly mission. “You did say those things. How many times, Mirage? How many times did you stand on the dais and cry, like some pitiful little neutral weakling?”

“You shut your mouth,” Mirage shot back, but there was a quaver to his tone now, and Sunstreaker knew he’d hit home. He remembered the Autobot tradition of purging one’s weakness through humiliation. He remembered how often Mirage had stood on that dais, admitting his faults, enduring the jeers.

“And why should I shut my mouth?” Sunstreaker asked. “I never stood on that platform. I never had to.”

“Because you’re a monster,” Mirage jittered, his voice sounding as though he shook his head. “You’re – you’re a thing, a mean, soulless thing…”

“Maybe,” Sunstreaker returned, “but at least I’m not weak like you.”

Spumes of dust betrayed Mirage’s furious footsteps, and Sunstreaker stepped back just as the other mech’s hand slammed against the cage. “You shut your mouth!” he bellowed. “I’m not weak. I have power, power enough to steal you from Prowl, power enough to kill you if I wanted. Power enough to kill Sideswipe, if you say another word.”

“No you don’t,” Sunstreaker replied in a low, spiteful voice. “You have no power beyond the bars of this cage, and the gimmick that Perceptor gave you. Without those, what good are you?”

“No more good than you are without your own cloak,” the other spat.

But Sunstreaker merely offered an unpleasant smile. “Trade you.”

At that Mirage fell silent for a stretch, as though calculating, and at length Sunstreaker wondered if he’d gone again. But at last he spoke up, and though he’d regained some sense of calm, his voice was without its rich, mocking tones. “Rest,” it said.

“You’ll kill Perceptor tomorrow.”

“Not if I kill you first,” Sunstreaker replied evenly.

“But you won’t,” the other sneered. “Even you can’t catch me.”

“Can’t I?” Sunstreaker asked, and felt the other’s optics boring through him, testing him, unsure. He felt his strength returning to him now, and though his dreams still nagged at the back of his mind, Sunstreaker squashed them firmly down, and took strength instead from years of practiced cruelty. With a shrug, and making full use of an actor’s lifetime, he turned his back on the little mech and, in airy tones, declared, “We always knew there was something wrong with you.”

“What—“ the word came out more like a whuff of anger. “Don’t you turn your back –“

“On you?” Sunstreaker finished for him, enjoying himself now. “How can I turn my back on someone who’s not even there? That’s how it’s always been with you, first with your pitiful little attempt at being an Autobot, and now with this –“ he gestured vaguely behind himself, “—freak show you have going.”

“You’re the freak—“

“Excuse me?” Sunstreaker half-turned his hooded head, his hatred of Mirage roiling and mixing with his enjoyment in tormenting him. “I’m the freak?” He turned more fully around now, casually, arms crossed over his chest. “You spend all of this time detailing how I’m the freak, when you can’t see that it hasn’t been me you’ve been blathering about, but yourself.”

“You’re full of slag, you…you thing.”

“A thing, am I?” Sunstreaker asked, his voice even and low. “A shadow, a wraith? Am I all these things, or are you?” Here he sauntered to the front of his cage, arms still crossed, optics glittering from beneath the folds of his cowl. “Am I one of those creatures that lurks in the dark like a little coward, and hides behind a cloak when I’m scared? Do I live by feeding off of the weak, like some kind of horrific little bottom-dweller, skulking about the dark hallways of the Ark?”

“You do,” Mirage accused, voice shaking. “You always have.”

;“Have I?” Sunstreaker returned, his own voice almost pleasant by contrast. “Have I made other beings suffer, just so I can suffer less? Am I vicious then?”

“You are.”

“Am I stupid?”

“Yes!” the voice hissed.

“Am I, this cloaked mech, so utterly devoid of self?”

“Completely!” Mirage growled, and grabbed hold of the door of the cage.

“Well,” Sunstreaker brought his face down low, so close to Mirage’s own that he could feel the burning of the other mech’s optics, “at least I’m not invisible.”

With a roar and a flash of metal, Mirage flung open the door of the cage, and Sunstreaker smiled, even as he smelled the scent-change from fury to fear. Too late, the other mech realized he’d been baited, and before Mirage could so much as take a step back, Sunstreaker found his throat, and propelled him back out the door, across the cavern floor, and up against the rocky wall.

“Please,” the lean mech squirmed in his grasp, invisible hands scrabbling at Sunstreaker’s grip, feet kicking against the

wall.“Please?” Sunstreaker repeated, his own optics gone flat, as they always did before a kill. The familiar, icy nothing was crawling over him now, bolstering him, filling him with cold, pale flame as he curled his fingers around the thrum of Mirage’s main conduit. “They always say please.”

“But,” the other mech choked out, his resistance growing weaker, “I rescued you.”

“Rescued me?” Sunsreaker leaned in, his fingers closing more tightly as he did, but whatever he was about to say was drowned out by another voice.

I rescued you, it said, so soft that Sunstreaker nearly thought it was his imagination, and he almost dropped Mirage in surprise. Without warning, the images of his dreams suddenly swarmed up around him, all colors and noise so loud they nearly drowned out the waking world.

“Stop,” he breathed, not understanding, his hands beginning to shake as the cold drained away. Warmth began to seep through him, making his limbs weak, taking his strength. “Stop,” he demanded, feeling the crawling chill of someone who knows he’s unexpectedly and completely out of control. He shook his head, optics wide and spooked as he watched the images closing in.

Mirage must have sensed it. Sunstreaker felt the other mech stiffen in his grip as Mirage drew himself back as far as he could against the wall. “Don’t kill me,” he begged, sounding even more frightened now if it were possible. “Don’t kill me, don’t.”

Sunstreaker wanted to kill him. He desperately wanted to close his fingers and feel the release that always came with yet another kill. But for reasons he did not understand, he pulled Mirage back, and merely slammed the invisible mech’s head against the wall.

With a snap, his dreams left him again, and Mirage’s body went slack as Sunstreaker lowered him to the ground. Feeling his aches more sharply now, Sunstreaker knelt next to the other mech, one hand on Mirage’s throat, where he felt the constant thrum of the invisible mech’s pulse. He could kill him now, he knew. It would have taken only a quick wrench of his fingers, and the lean, elegant mech would have lain invisible under the Ark for the rest of time.

But he couldn’t do it. He did not understand why. He only knew it had something to do with the weariness that lay so heavy on his shoulders now. Trembling, one hand still on Mirage’s throat, he bowed his head and listened. There was nothing to hear but the distant bubbling of some kind of river, and the soft, shushing whistle of a faraway wind. He did not understand. He did not understand his dreams, or why his strength had left him, or why he was without his utter resolve. He felt broken somehow, as though some vital part of his life force had been taken away from him, never to be returned.

It is life, not death, he heard, plain as the air around him.

But still, he did not understand. He only knew that he was confused, weak, lost and alone. And he was hungry.

Beneath his fingers, he could still feel the energy throbbing through Mirage’s conduits. He had to go, now, before someone tracked him, but he knew he couldn’t make it far without energy. Turning the idea slowly around in his mind, he looked down at the solid air beneath his hand. He had never done it before, not for food, and there was a part of him – the weak part – that was repulsed at the thought. But the more he held his fingers over the other mech’s throat, the more he knew he could not walk away without taking some with him. Besides, it wasn’t like he would take it all. He would leave him some.

A quick search of Mirage’s unconscious body found an energy blade tucked away in a side pocket. Cautiously, Sunstreaker drew the blade across the invisible throat, taking care that he did not slice too wide, and then with a shudder he closed his mouth over the wound and drank deep.

That night he ran. He followed fresh air out of the Ark, and under the cover of rain, made his way quickly into the northwest. He did not know why he ran that way, or by what luck he’d come out into the downpour, but he did not care, and, powered for a while by half-processed energon, he sailed northward like a gale. He even forgot his pain, and knew only the feel of his own feet against the earth, churning through the soggy grass and mud in a mesmerizing rhythm. He was free. He was out of the cage, out of Prowl’s hands, free. He was free, and for that space of time, he knew only that he should run, and felt only the wind against his face.

In time, terror and hate would catch him again, but for just these few hours he ran one step ahead of them, feeling nothing but the wind, and the fresh slap of the rain. In time they all would find him, but for now, he ran, and ran, and it was the closest he’d come in all these years to feeling peace.