By: Neferharitime

"It wasn't supposed to end like that.

"I didn't mean to kill him; I really didn't. It just turned out that way. I was just angry! I-I... He was supposed to stop me, not just stand there!

"I really didn't think it would hurt him - well, maybe just a little, but just a scrape; nothing serious. Certainly not fatal! I would've never done it if I had known...

"I mean, I'm not a monster. It was an accident, just a stupid mistake, and the whole thing got out of hand. I didn't mean for it to happen!"

The clear voice silenced, leaving the echoes to fade gradually. The femme kept her pleading look, her chained hands folded.

The judge lifted an optic ridge and motioned for the inquisitor to speak. The lithe blue mech cleared his throat. "A mistake... I can then assume you were shocked and commed for help right away?"

She nodded, clasping her hands close to her chest.

He sighed. "And yet, you found it necessary to decapitate the victim - someone everyone but you claim to be a stranger to you - and display the head on a trophy sword, spreading his innards around his entire domicile. Was that shock, miss Gold Dawn?"

A murmur spread through the hall, silenced quickly, less by the judge's stern look than the expectance for Gold Dawn's answer.

She looked down. "I can't remember what... What happened after I commed th-the peacekeepers."

The inquisitor smiled without humour. "Then that shouldn't be a problem, since five separate experts have declared that you carried these deeds out before getting hold of the authorities."

Again, the shocked murmur rippled through the hall.

Her hands tightened their grips around themselves and she bit her lip, optics narrowing at the floor. "Maybe I did it before I commed; it's so unclear--"

"It didn't seem so unclear in your interrogation, where you quite clearly stated - quote, unquote 'without doubt' - that you commed right away, only to black out when you saw the body again." He lowered his datapad and glanced coldly at the lone femme. "Make this easy for all of us; tell the truth."

In the end, she'd never had a chance. She had no rational explanation, could give no proper alibi for what she had done. She had fully expected the sentence for life she'd been given, yet hoped for less. It was all she could've done to keep from jumping at that inquisitor...

Gold Dawn shook her head firmly. No! What's the matter with me?

But she knew, of course... He mind was not well; hadn't been for quite a while. She had thought she could keep it secret, controlling it with the firm hand of a scientist, but no. The mangled body of her victim was sufficient proof.

Yet... despite this, they had given her a chance to live again. A doctor had examined her and reported his findings to the official that had visited her. "Let us clear your mind," she'd told Gold Dawn. "Delete the... dangerous elements, the memories, both of this and of the life that could have led up to it. Your basic personality will remain, but it will be sane. You can start a new life elsewhere, being of service to Cybertron."

Service, yes. She was to be reverted to protoform status and put in a pod aboard an exploration ship. It was a rare procedure, and in all likelihood, she'd be the only protoform on that ship with a past, not that she'd know it, since so few - so very few - developed Transformers were willing to delete everything but their most basic character and start anew elsewhere. But she had nothing left to lose; only her mind...

"Think about it," the official had told her, standing. "I'll be back tomorrow; think about it well."

Yes, she could start another life, far away, free of all this. Free of the memories and the madness. Yet...

Your basic personality will remain... She tried to shake the horrible feeling that it was there the madness resided.

She would accept, she knew. It was all she really could do. And she would welcome the freedom of complete ignorance to her past with open arms.

The whine of engines mingled with the shouting voices of workers and the subsonic humm of hoverboards. The Axalon stood darkly against the sky, just outside the hangar, as pod after pod was loaded aboard. Gold Dawn meekly went along, herded by a guard, heading for the temporary office the doctor had set up. They didn't dare erasing her memory in the prison and cart her pod here; the public had demanded justice and there was every reason to leave them in their belief that it had been done.

A sudden bout of shouting and roaring caught her attention. Workers milled frightened around two figures trying to hold down a... Primus, all mighty... A giant of ancestral proportions who was throwing them to and fro, trying to get free of the chains holding him tightly. Pure, undiluted anger radiated from the creature as it swiveled...

Gold Dawn gaped at the poisonous green optics glaring into her own, freezing. So much hate, pain, loneliness. So much sympathy it elicited in her.

"Move it," the guard demanded gruffly, prodding her along. Gold Dawn lowered her gaze and hurried on, the roar of the monster following her out.

The doctor looked up, eyeing her warily. "Hm, sit here." She complied, and he fastened a device to her input ports. "Sit still, please, or things'll not turn out right." He flipped a switch.

Gold Dawn watched silently as a bar of light rose to the setting of 'activated'. It hit the final light and the world blurred and everything disappeared and they demanded so much of her and she cried and she was angry and her head hurt and she couldn't stop herself and she thought of hate and she thought of remorse and the light was so bright yet it was so dark and it hurt her and burned through her wires and everything slipped away and she couldn't remember where she was or who she was and who these people around her were and why there was so much noise or why they looked at her so oddly and it was so cold and terrifying and there was screaming and crying and fire and laughter and green optics filled with hate...

Stars... There had been stars and then darkness, and a crying laughter beneath it all like a soundtrack to madness. The stars were gone now, though, but she wished they weren't. The light was too bright; it stung her. And the creatures around her, noisy and hurtful with such odd, odd thoughts. She didn't like their being noisy and she told them; thankfully, it made them quiet. Then there was a spot of calm. It had been there all along, but it had been lost in all the noise.

A monstrous figure sending her calming thoughts and gentleness in those green, green optics. She understood so little of what it tried to tell her, but she tried. The creature was nice to her, soft-spoken and helpful and lonely... Like her. It was odd. It spoke a word and watched her expectantly. Was that her name it had said? It must have been; she couldn't remember it herself. How strange.

Noisy creatures popped up again and once again she was asked something. Her name, she hoped, for she tried to articulate that word the creature had told her. She waited. Suddenly her friend fell to its knees - and there was pain; she could feel the pain - and one of the noisy creatures were angry at her. They started off, and for some reason, they kept one of the noisy ones with them when they headed off. She wanted to ask why, but she wasn't sure how to.

It kept speaking to her and she started understanding, thankfully. It spoke of freedom and friendship and how they would be together without the noisy ones. She liked the idea. Her friend was nice, but the noisy ones bothered her.

Then there was another calm. She remembered this one as nice as well, but... There was dislike, hate... And then there was sudden anger and a blurr and she was flying with the other calm in her arms because she was asked to; she wasn't sure where her darker friend was. But her good friend was hurt. Somehow this mattered to her.

Then there were the noisy ones again. They feared her, despised her, because they didn't understand her. She could feel their befuddlement, even as her good friend pleaded angrily for their tolerance. She couldn't stay here. They'd hurt her like... like...

Like who?

A presence filtered through her disorderly mind and she brightened and flew through the night to find it, her dark friend, and it radiated joy and she answered in kind, but her good friend was frightened when it appeared. She couldn't understand why, for they were both so kind to her that they should surely be kind to each other. They fell and she followed - they were hurting each other, and she could stop those hurtful things.

PAIN. She couldn't understand. It hurt so much, she felt like she was unraveling. Green optics, familiar on so many levels, so many memories... She tried to say her goodbyes; she didn't know if she had succeeded.

The Maximals had departed hours ago, the ape practically dragging Silverbolt away. The wind howled forlornly through the chasms, and the sun crept slowly over the horizon, attempting to penetrate into the dark canyon. Not until the light hit him did Rampage stir from his stupour. He looked up from the head cradled against his chest and squinted at the light.

It hurt him more than usual. He rose stiffly, gyros protesting shrilly, still holding the remainder of the Transmutate.

How he hated existence, now more than ever. How he hated everyone else on this forsaken dirtball. If the only creature he could ever call his were not to be allowed to live, no one else were either.

One day he'd be free and he'd make sure of that.