Part 1: The Fall of Angel

Angel sat, in robot mode, on the railing of the balcony of her apartment, legs swinging to and fro. The breeze tugged at her feathers. Good, she thought, I'm going to need a breeze. They were coming, so she would have to fly. She knew they were coming ever since she got home from the Seer yesterday.

The dream was horrible last night. She had actually jumped awake, yowling, panting hard. She couldn't go back to sleep after it.

She'd told Spirit what she thought, about the Seer and the Vok coming, and Spirit remained calm and cool. She said that Angel was just getting all worked up, and this would all blow over. Good old Spirit; she made Angel feel better for a little while. But Spirit wasn't here right now. Spirit was at work, and Angel was all alone, waiting.

Time passed. It was almost time for Spirit to get home.

Angel started laughing. It was funny! Here she was, ready to flee from something that wasn't coming. If it were coming, it'd be here by now. She picked up her bow from where it'd been sitting within arm's reach and put into subspace. Soon Spirit would be here, and they'd both laugh at Angel's paranoia.

The wind shifted. Not enough for most people to notice, but to someone used to feeling the wind, it was a bad sign. Something was wrong...

Angel jumped to her feet as a golden object streaked out of the sky and into the heart of Cybertropolis. Angel watched, stock still, as a gold-colored pod-like thing rose up over the city, its nose pointed right... at... her.

Angel shook off the awful feeling that accompanies something of the Vok's manufacture, jumped off the railing, and started flying in Cheetor's direction. Spirit would be impossible to find if she was somewhere between the apartment and the lab, but Cheetor would've gotten home by now.

Cheetor sat in his apartment, thinking about how he still hadn't managed to find a nice girlfriend. He wondered what he was doing wrong...

"Cheetorcheetorcheetorcheetor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Angel was at his window, eyes wide, looking very scared. She kept glancing over her shoulder as he opened the window to let her in.

"What is it?" he asked calmly.

"They're coming for me! They're here, and they want to get me!"

"Slow down! Who're here?"

She looked at him like he was dumb. "The Vok! They sent a ship, and it's going to get me!"

Cheetor didn't believe her. If the Vok had taken this long to get her, they probably weren't going to do it. And they'd be going pretty far out of their way.

"Angel, calm down. They're not-" He stopped in mid-sentence as he saw the golden pod heading over the rooftops, right in their direction. "Primus..."

Angel saw the pod, and before Cheetor could stop her, she flew away, trying to escape. Knowing there was no way to stop her, he pulled out his blades and waited for the pod to go by. He jumped and tried to sink the blades into it.

The blades didn't penetrate the pod's gold surface, and Cheetor slipped off. Seeing this, Angel turned around, forgetting about the pod. Now she was concentrating on saving Cheetor from falling to his death.

Cheetor thought the end was upon him as he plummeted, only to be spared moments before he hit. Angel set him down and started flying away, the pod right (and I mean RIGHT) behind her. She and the pod were evenly matched in speed. However, the pod didn't tire and slow down like Angel did.

Angel glanced back at it. It was opening up, and mechanical tentacles were coming out... this was a bad time to have a tail. One tendril looped itself around her tail and pulled, sending Angel backwards. More tentacles caught her arms, legs, wings, and torso, and pulled Angel, struggling, into the pod, which then started closing. Darkness took over everything she saw, and no matter how she tried, she couldn't move. She felt something prick the back of her neck, and went unconscious.

Cheetor watched helplessly as the pod disappeared off into space while the busy people of Cybertropolis walked by, grumbling about the bot standing in their way.

Angel slowly blinked to, dreading what she would see. She still couldn't move. She was still confined in the pod. It looked like a stasis pod from the inside. She felt like she was wearing something. She could see out of the pod. She wished she couldn't. She saw what looked like floating techno-skulls. She knew who they were. She knew what they were doing.

She heard them talking:

"Are the preparations complete?"

"Nearly."

This is it, she told herself. She always figured she'd go out all alone and scared. All the bad things seemed to happen when she was alone. But maybe there was a way. Maybe she didn't have to die.

Her mind raced with possibilities. Most consisted of jumping out of the pod and attacking the Vok, but since she couldn't move, there wasn't much of a point in that.

They were going to load the Destroyer program into her, which would delete the Angel program. But maybe if the Angel program weren't deleted... She remembered what'd happened last time. The two fought for control for the same body. If she managed to avoid deletion, it would happen again. But this time would be different. Angel had been lucky the first time, but she couldn't count on it this time.

What to do?

A Vok looked straight at her. It didn't seem to care she was awake, or it couldn't tell. Angel stared back at it, wide-eyed with fear. All her nightmares had been leading up to this... why did it feel like she was wearing something?

An old saying popped up in her head: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." But she didn't want to be Vok, and she didn't want to be deleted. But, maybe there was something else to "joining". Angel didn't know much about computers, and most of it she picked up in the last few months, but maybe her newly hatched plan would work. She was older than last time, more experienced. With that advantage, and her plan... If it worked, she wouldn't die... sort of. She'd still exist, in a way... IF it worked, she reminded herself.

It might. One way to find out.

"Preparations are complete."

"Begin loading the program."

Angel was ready.

Spirit was beside herself. She didn't listen to Angel when she had the chance, and now it was too late. Cheetor felt bad, too. All the Maximals were feeling the loss of Angel.

The worst part probably was there was nothing they could do about it. The universe was too big to look for just one bot and a few Vok, and they didn't know where to begin. They doubted they'd see Angel again, and if they did, it'd probably be in the form of Destroyer. But they figured the Vok would use Destroyer for other purposes.

Spirit tried communicating with Angel through her Spark, but came up with nothing. She'd worked herself up a migraine, and Cheetor finally had to tell her when to quit. She increasingly took trips outside of the city, in the field that surrounded Cybertropolis.

On one such trip, she found herself sitting, looking up at the sky. She heard footsteps behind her.

"Still looking for her?" Cheetor asked.

Spirit sighed and looked down at the ground, saying, "Yeah, I know. I keep telling myself to stop, but sometimes I all of a sudden find myself-" Her head snapped back up, once again looking at the sky. She was getting a feeling...

"What is it? Do you see something?"

"I think something's coming." Spirit and Cheetor looked the sky over expectantly for a few moments. "Well, maybe I'm just going crazy."

Cheetor laughed a little. "Maybe you are."

"Hey, aren't you supposed to disagree-" her voice trailed off as a bright flash of gold streaked across the sky and crashed in the field, not too far from them.

"What on Earth?" Spirit, despite being on Cybertron, still kept to Earth sayings. No one seemed to care.

The ground rumbled as a shockwave passed Cheetor and Spirit by. Without saying anything, Spirit stood up and started running towards the crash site. Cheetor, now positive the little white cat was crazy, ran after her.

The impact crater wasn't huge, but it definitely wasn't small. And, in the middle of the crater, was a golden pod that looked exactly like the one that took Angel. Spirit and Cheetor warily walked, almost tiptoed, towards it, and stopped at what they thought was a safe distance.

The pod opened in the same manner as a stasis pod, and a white figure slowly sat up, and awkwardly tried climbing out. It eventually tumbled out of the pod and onto the ground, where it dazedly stood up, clutching its head.

It was built lot like Angel, except it was clad in pure white armor, with sharp points everywhere- the fingers, the feet, the tail ended in a blade, the outermost feather on its wings was a very long blade... it bore a stunning resemblance to Angel, if it weren't for the armor. Its eyes were red, and it didn't have many facial features.

It began to stagger over to Spirit and Cheetor in a manner that practically cried out for help, but it collapsed halfway there and seemed to go unconscious. After a moment, there was a quiet hissing sound, and its armor showed seams where the it was put together.

"Um..." Cheetor was at a loss for words.

"Yeah..." Spirit was, too.

"I think it needs help."

"I was getting that impression. Should we?"

"Okay?" Cheetor walked over to it and tentatively picked an arm up. “This thing feels weird, like there’s something more solid inside it...”

“Check this out.” Spirit pointed out a few wires protruding from the back of its head, where the head met the neck.

“Something’s funny...” Cheetor tried lifting it up by its arm, so he could carry it, but the forearm slipped off... revealing a black arm and hand beneath.

“Cheetor, do you think-”

“Yeah.”

“Get the helmet off!”

Cheetor grabbed its head, tugged, and the helmet came off. It really WAS armor, with none other then Angel underneath.

“Primus! Do you think it’s Angel, or could it be Destroyer?”

“She’s unconscious. There’s no telling. C’mon, we need to get her out of here before others show up. If they find her, they might want to dissect her or something.”

“Okay.” Cheetor picked Angel/Destroyer up, and he and Spirit headed for Spirit’s apartment.

If it was Angel, the Vok had definitely done something to her. Wires were sticking out of the back of her head, near the nape of her neck. Spirit pulled them out, hoping she wasn't doing anything wrong.

It took awhile to get all the armor off, but they found a weird symbol in white on her left shoulder. The Maximal insignia was still on her right shoulder, so there was no telling who she was. As soon as they got the last piece of armor off, Angel/Destroyer automatically went to beast mode, still offline.

"What are we going to do if she wakes up as Destroyer?" Spirit asked Cheetor.

"She'll probably be groggy, so we'll have the advantage."

"And I'll stay here and tell you if something happens."

"Right." Cheetor and Spirit sat down, watching Angel/Destroyer, wondering about what would happen when she woke up.

End Part 1.