Chapter 1: The End of One Life

"RUN! QUICKLY EVERYONE RUN! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"

"HURRY, WE NEED TO PUT OUT THE FIRES!"

"AQUASHOCK! WHERE ARE YOU? AQUASHOCK! PLEASE, HAS ANYONE SEEN MY DAUGHTER? SHE'S ONLY 5! AQUASHOCK!"

"HELP ME! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME! M-MY FRIEND...HE'S DEAD!"

"MY HOUSE, IT'S DESTROYED!"

"EVERYTHING'S ON FIRE! OH PRIMUS! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?"

"MOMMY! WHERE ARE YOU MOMMY? I'M SCARED, WHERE ARE YOU!"

"LOOK! OVER THERE! IT'S ANOTHER BOMB!"

"GET DOWN!"

BOOM!

Everyone dived to the ground as the distant bomb landed, the shock waves shaking the ground and causing shrapnel and clumps of rubble to fly across the landscape. Several cries of pain were heard as bots were impaled and crushed, some killed instantly, and some lay in pain with metal sticking out of their frame.

The tremors subsided, and gasps and cries of anguish come from the crowd as over as a huge mushroom shaped cloud rose from over the buildings.

One young femme looking in horror with the rest, the bomb must have killed thousands of civilians like them. Quickly, panic struck once more and everyone rushed around, trying to find shelter.

The femme stumbled to her feet and ran as fast as she could in the direction of her home.
Just that morning, she had set off to her school like every other day, but it had become quickly apparent that something was wrong.
Alarms had soon gone off and the teachers had ushered everyone into classrooms, telling them to hide under their tables until told to leave. No one had no idea what was going on.

That was...until the first bomb dropped.

The femme's pedes were beginning to hurt from the hot ground, and her sensitive wings were sore from the heat, but she didn't notice. All she could focus on was the shattered remains of her home city. Buildings were falling apart and everyone was screaming in terror, trying to escape the explosions.

Praxus had always been her home, and her family were very comfortable there. They knew all the neighbours, her creators had well paying jobs, she had lots of friends and she was excelling in all her classes. Her family were very proud of her computer skills as her father was an excellent hacker, and he was teaching her everything he knew. She stunned her I.T teacher with her talent of creating viruses, and she had a little medal in her room for it.

But now her school was gone, blown up just as they had got outside, and what really brought her out of her unbelieving daze was the fact that one of the sparkling classes on the top floor hadn't made it out in time.

Shaking her head free of those thoughts, she ran through the streets on a route she knew so well, only now the surroundings were unrecognisable. Houses were nothing but rubble, and fires were everywhere while the normally grey sky was orange and cloudy and soot was falling like snow.

She kept running.

With no familiar surroundings, she had to rely on her memory to find her way home, but she thought she was getting close as she had reached the residential area of town. She turned a corner but a blazing inferno was blocking her way, so she quickly turned back to find a new path.
She tried to ignore the image of the body melting in the fire.

Finally, after 5 cycles of running and dodging pellets of sharp metal she found her street, and ran down it to find her house.
Her sprint slowed to a jog as she passed the other houses. Every one of them was nothing but rubble, yet she kept hope in her mind that maybe her house was still intact.

It wasn't.

xxx

She stopped to look at the pile of smoking debris. There was nothing different between this house and all the others on the street. In fact, every house in a 5 mile radius was the same smoking pile of remains.
There was nothing she could salvage, it had all been destroyed, and there was no way that anyone could still be in there alive. Her parents were most likely dead, crushed as the house collapsed.

Up until that point, everything had been going in fast forward. She had no time to think or reflect on anything, she had just been running. All she had been trying to do was find her home, and ignoring everything around her as much as she could.

Now everything had crashed down on her and all the memories she had suppressed had come to mind. She fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands, tears running down her face and her vents hiccoughing loudly. The sounds around her were blurred, as if through a muffler, and everything seemed slowed down, but she could still make out the whistle of bombs in the far distance and the sound of peoples screams.

Her creators had always said the Great War would never reach Praxus, but it seems they were wrong. Everyone was wrong. And now everything she once knew was gone.

"Why? Why has this happened? I was gonna have a normal life! I was gonna be hacker like my dad." She sobbed. "Dad! You didn't tell me anything about the war because you said it would never involve me! Well now what! What do I do now! I don't even know who did this, or why they did this!" She felt tired and woozy, and she was on the verge of collapsing. "I'm gonna miss you mummy...daddy...I love you." She whispered, and her eyes began to flicker.

She must have fallen asleep because the next time she opened her eyes, she was lying on the ground and the sky was dark. The bombs had stopped now but smoke was rising everywhere she looked, and even though there were no street lights anymore, the city was illuminated by fires.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes, but immediately doubled over, violently coughing soot out her vents. Her throat was sore and her wings felt like they had been drilled into and rubbed raw with sand paper. It was probably small bits of rubble landing on them that caused that feeling and sometimes the young femme wished they weren't so sensitive, but it was something that came with being a seeker. It was a trait she inherited from her mother, who was a seeker herself while her sparkmate was a ground vehicle.

A shout caught her attention and she leaned her head back to see what was going on. In her upside-down view she spotted a small group of mechs running past, calling for other 'Vehicons', whatever they were.

She slowly managed to stand up, and went very lightheaded and dizzy, but she held her forehead and began to run after the group. After all, there was nothing left for her at home but grief.
She soon caught up to them as she was pretty fast, and she began to call for there attention, waving her hand above her head.
The group noticed her panicked shouts and stopped, and that's when she realised something very strange.

They all looked the same.

Every one of them was purple and black, with a silver face mask and a red visor. Her father never liked bots who wore visors, saying they must have something to hide and weren't trustworthy, but her mother always said that he was just prejudice and that there were plenty of bots with visors who were perfectly nice.

The leader of the group walked up to her with an air of authority and she suddenly felt very intimidated and shrunk back. Maybe her father was right, she should be wary of mechs with visors. He stopped in front of her and stared down at her. She couldn't tell what he was thinking as he could show no emotions, but she felt like he was sizing her up and she took a step back in fright. However, seeing her fear the mech crouched down to be at eye level with her.
"Hi there, I'm drone D7-4K3, but you can call me Drake" He spoke in a kind voice which surprised the young seeker, but she scolded herself for being so stupid and judging the mech before she had met him.

"Hia" She said nervously and she held out her hand for him to shake. As he shook it, the other mechs gathered closer to them and nodded in greeting.
"What are you doing all alone? And why did you call for us?" One other questioned and her lip began to quiver.

"I called for you because I thought you might be searching for survivors." She croaked, looking down and fiddled with her hands. "And I don't really know what to do now. Everything I know is in flames...literally." She looked up with a pleading face as she tried to hold in tears. "Please let me come with you! I don't know what to do!" Her voice broke at the end and the leader stood back up, wrapping her up in a tight hug. She couldn't help but silently sob into his chest plates.

"You don't need to worry, you can come with us. We got stuck out here after a crash land but we've got a plan." He rubbed her back in comforting circles and her hitching vents slowly returned to normal. She sniffed and looked up at him, and his visor glowed brighter in what she assumed was a smile.

The group began to walk away and Drake let go of her, turning away to follow, but he stopped, noticing she wasn't coming. He held out a hand for her to grab and grinning, she jogged forwards to grab it, glad to have a group to make her feel secure. The group was joined by other identical mechs who Drake had told her were called Vehicons or Eradicons, and they all began wandering the ruins of Praxus, looking for shelter. The band of mechs were all very interested in the seeker, and they all kept asking about what her school was like and how it felt to be able to do what ever she liked. She was rather confused by these questions, but after she asked a little about them, she found out that the majority of Cybertron were ruled by a very unjust system. A system that meant that those higher up got all the power and anyone below that were treated as vermin. Amazed by the new information, she discovered that the group she was with were part of a group called Decepticons, who had been inspired by a gladiator called Megatron.

She remembered that she and her dad once watched the gladiator battles on the T.V, and they had a brief conversation on Megatron's views and ideas. If she remembered correctly, Megatron was aiming for a society where everyone was treated as equals. The Vehicons agreed with her when she asked, and soon they had gone into a passionate discussion on what Cybertron should be like and how they were going to help the great Megatron achieve this dream.

She didn't even stop to think that the bombing, the Great War and Megatron were connected. She didn't know that much about it anyway, only the small things her dad had told her to stop her from being too curious, yet keeping her in the dark from the horrible truth.

After a while, a mech who happened to be called Gavin had been talking so long about Megatron, everyone had got rather bored and irritated, and he wasn't showing any signs of shutting up. Another bot; Dill, got so irritated that he pulled a piece of fabric from his subspace and shoved it into his mouth slit so he couldn't speak anymore. The rest of the bots cheered, and the femme giggled as Gavin took the fabric out and sulked. She was enthusiastically telling the group that she was the only bot in her school that could create viruses from scratch when one of them asked.

"How come you remember our names? We all look identical yet you remember which of us is which." The rest of the group murmured in approval of the question. No one else they had met was able to tell them apart.

"Oh! Well I didn't at first, but then I realised I could recognise each of you by your energy signatures. Each one is different, so I just logged your names in instead of the code that comes up."

They were quite surprised that the femme had realised she could do that, as no one else had bothered to care. Then Drake, who had been silent for most of the trip turned around.

"I just realised, we haven't asked your name yet."

"Oh, you don't know yet? My name's Nightshade." She grinned.

Well, I hope you are liking this so far. I will probably be updating this rather soon so see you at the next chapter. Remember to review as those always make my day!

And also, the first person to give me the answer to this question can give me a funny idea for a character to do. E.G. Dreadwing is terrified of needles and he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the medbay to get a shot.

The question is... What is the the universal greeting?

Write the answer and the idea down in the review section. :)