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The Ugly Truth

Part III

 

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So, this is what being dead felt like. Funny, it felt exactly like being alive, except you feel small and insignificant and are huddled up in a corner with your eyes shut tight and your wings curled around you so you appear as a strange feathery ball.

Angel WAS dead, right?

Well, opening an eye couldn't hurt. Angel opened an eye a tiny bit, and saw nothing. Wait, she could make out feathers. She was surrounded by feathers.

Duh.

Carefully, very carefully, she shifted a wing until she could just see out.

WHERE WAS SHE? Maybe she was dead, after all. Everything was black, and every so often a green bunch of ones and zeros zipped along on the walls.

Her initial fear forgotten, she folded both wings onto her back and let go of her knees. She looked down at her hand and flexed it. It wasn't transparent, like she expected it to be. It looked normal.

Angel stood up and instantly realized she wasn't alone. There was another her, standing in the middle of the room. At least, it looked kind of like her. The body was the same, but the colors were different. White was replaced with black, light gray was now dark gray, gold was now silver, and (Angel thought this was really disturbing) the eyes that should've been blue were blood red. The figure was standing still, not doing anything.

"Who are you?" Angel called out to it. It didn't answer. It didn't even acknowledge her existence. Okay. Angel could live with that. At least IT (as she officially named it) wasn't attacking her. She quietly tried to figure out what to do.

 

"Ah, the Maximal base. I've been waiting for this moment for a long time, yessssss." Megatron allowed himself a good chuckle. Ahem. Angel, attack the base," he casually ordered, as if it weren't any big thing.

Angel (the reprogrammed one), raised her black hands, put them palm to palm, and let one huge, blood red beam fly.

 

"Primus! She just took out one quarter of the shields!" Rhinox exclaimed as the base shook.

"Arm yourselves! It looks like we're going to have to go head to head her with pretty soon," Optimus ordered. This was going to be a long day.

 

"This place stinks!" Angel complained loudly, and kicked a wall to punctuate her annoyance.

The IT's eye twitched.

Curious, Angel hit the wall, paying careful attention to her other self. Once again, IT's eye twitched. Was that pain?

One way to find out! Angel drove her clawed fingers into the wall. IT flinched.

Hmmm....

 

"The shields are down!" Rhinox reported.

"All right, Maximals, try to incapacitate her, but don't- I repeat- DO NOT kill her." Optimus took a deep breath. "Let's move out!"

"Right, we can't kill HER," Rattrap muttered. "But SHE can kill US, no problem."

 

Angel was proud of herself. She'd formed a plan.

"Three..." She got into a crouch.

"Two..." IT must be really busy to not see this coming.

"One..." Last chance to turn back...

"GO!" Angel launched herself at her other self, ready to give an all-out assault, since she didn't really have anything to lose.

 

What used to be Angel immediately took notice of the Maximals exiting the base.

"Take out Cheetor first," Megatron told her. Angel robotically turned to face Cheetor, put her hands together in preparation for firing the massive beam... shrieked, and clutched at her head, as if there was a battle going on inside it.

Cheetor nearly fainted from relief.

 

A black, clawed hand struck at Angel's face. Uh-oh. This wasn't part of the plan. IT was fighting back now. Let IT fight back now. Angel could beat IT... right?

 

"What are you doing?" Megatron bellowed. "Attack the Maximals!"

Angel was still acting as if there were something in her head.

Angel wasn't very good at hand-to-hand, she realized. IT still seemed a little distracted, though. Time to change tactics.

Angel pulled out her spear and stuck it into the dark floor as hard and far as it would go. IT wailed in pain. Angel socked IT in ITs face, and everything changed.

Instead of seeing IT and the dark room she was in, she saw brown dirt, and feet. Megatron's feet? She heard Megatron's voice shouting orders, and possibly Optimus' voice as well...

She decided she HAD to get out of there, wherever there was. She mentally ordered her now pitch-black feet to move. Still facing the ground, she ran away from Megatron's voice...

And was back in her head. IT seemed distant again. The small remaining bit of rationality Angel had left figured out exactly what was going on.

They were fighting for control of Angel's body.

The Maximals stared after the fleeing former-Angel.

"Oooookay....," Cheetor said, breaking the silence.

"Where does she think she's going?!?" Megatron roared. All Maximals pointed their weapons at him.

Now, Megatron was a proud fellow, but he knew the values of a timely retreat as much as the next guy, so he promptly turned tail and ran.

 

The battle for control in Angel's head raged on. Whoever had control of her at the moment couldn't fight very well, so the other had the advantage. Angel didn't know what IT did when IT had control, but whenever she took possession, she ran.

She wasn't in control now, so she (forgetting she was in robot mode) bit IT on the arm, hard, and clawed at ITs face. IT managed to shake Angel off, but Angel drove a fist into ITs midsection. IT doubled over, and unsuccessfully tried to stand. IT fell on its face, and slowly faded away.

Angel would've stared at this with her eyes bugging out of her head, but as soon as IT faded, Angel found herself back in control, sitting in a canyon of sorts. The black was slowly fading from her hide. She went to beast mode, since she felt more at ease as a cat.

The next thing Angel did was the only logical thing one would do when one has just finished a battle in one's mind and was left with a splitting headache: she collapsed, exhausted.

 

Something prodded her back incessantly.

"Go 'way. I'm dead." She'd decided she was dead.

The prodding continued.

"Leave me alone!"

"Meow."

"I'M DEAD!"

"Meow."

"Yes, I am!!!"

"Meow."

Angered, Angel sprang to her feet and glared into the blue eyes of her small, meowy tormentor.

"Spirit!" The little white cat dipped her head in affirmation. Angel groaned. The headache had come back, full strength. Maybe being dead would be better.

Spirit circled around Angel, looking the bigger cat over carefully. She meowed.

"No, I'm not hurt. At least, not on the outside. But in my head..." Images of recent events surged in her memory. She closed her eyes, trying to shut them out, but it didn't stop them. She put her head down and covered it with her paws. She managed to shift her thoughts elsewhere.

"I'm tired. I'm going to sleep now." She curled up right where she sat, closed her eyes, and let her mind drift.

"Dinobot to Optimus. I've found her."

"Stay with her. I'm on my way."

Great. She'd been found.

"I'm dead. Go away." She remained curled up, with her back to him.

"Hmmm. I don't believe the dead can speak."

"This one does. She commands you to let her rest in peace."

"I do not take orders from a dead body." In truth, this amused Dinobot slightly.

Optimus flew in.

"She says she is dead," the raptor reported.

"Does she, now."

"Go away. I'm dead."

"Dinobot, why don't you go home. I'll take care of things here." Dinobot nodded and left.

"I'm sorry," Optimus said.

Angel's tail flicked.

"Sorry for what?"

"I should've told you earlier. If I had, then all this might not have happened."

"Shoulda, coulda, woulda, didn't," Angel replied, not sure what she meant by that. "'Sides, I'm the one who should be sorry. I ran off, and got caught... and attacked the base..."

"We all know that wasn't you attacking the base."

"You do?"

"Of course. We would forgive you, but there's nothing to forgive."

"Optimus?"

"What?"

Angel looked up so Optimus could just barely see her head.

"Can we go home?"

"Sure."

"Can Spirit come, too?" The little white cat, who had been sitting close by, meowed the same question.

Optimus sighed.

"Fine. But she's your responsibility."

Angel sat up and saluted.

"Understood! Let's go!"

"Right."

Optimus, Angel, and Spirit walked home, glad that it was over.

 

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE PROGRAM?!?" Megatron bellowed at Blackarachnia, who looked astonished that something had gone wrong.

"What do you mean? I had to delete a few things to make room for the new command protocol, but that shouldn't have affected her performance."

"We'll recapture her! Try again!"

"Oh..."

"WHAT?"

"It seems the stasis pod had an unfortunate accident," the she-spider said in innocent tones, "and we hadn't gotten around to making any backup files." In the back of her mind, she was laughing and taunting the tyrant. Angel wouldn't be a threat anymore. She'd altered the program so Angel wouldn't be deleted, and she'd made it so the program would delete itself if its power fell below a certain point.

Megatron could rant and rave all he wanted, but never again would he control Angel.

THE END

'Till next time!