The smell in the backseat was terrible, but this cabbie followed the instructions given to him anyway. The kid had stumbled down the street in the middle of downtown, and spotting him driving by, hailed him, the bloody rags that had probably once been a shirt flapping in the wind. When asked where to go, the boy has simply gasped, "Water tower. Drive."

There was always a point in the books he'd read, where the hero undergoes some tragedy and the world is rocked because of it.

The cabbie had a sudden sense of foreboding and found himself hoping that this boy was no hero.

Kessler allowed himself a mirthless smile as he downed a tumbler of scotch, allowing the ice chips the disintegrate on his tongue.

Everything was coming in place. He had the mother now, and Jack was coming to him. Granted Gregory's departure had been unexpected, but it was of no consequence. It had to have taken the boy either months of planning or a lucky break and wretched fear for him to flee as he had, and Kessler was in too good a mood to be annoyed.

He set glass down gently, and left the office with its high windows. The halls were deserted, as the all staff had been ordered to take the day off. Even the skyscraper's maintenance crews were gone, and the halls seemed ghoulish in the echoing silence. It was even more pronounced in the stairwell and it seemed strange without the usual thunder of slamming doors.

The office was only a few floors down from the roof, but even if it had been twenty floors down, the climb would not have bothered him.

The roof had an impressive view, and he gazed out over the hundreds of people walking along without a care in the world. The sky, was the color of steel and the wind began to blow. A storm was coming.

"The storm is coming," the words of a god whispered in his head as they had done for longer than he could remember. "The skies will rain with blood and fire, and only the strong will survive. The Gift-bearer will seed the Catalyst, and the world will be torn asunder."

Yes, the storm was coming-but who would board the Ark?

The door to the Watertower was heavy, but well-oiled and swung forward with ease. The tower turned mall rumbled with the distant sound of fans. There was not a soul to be seen.

Jack took the stairs two at a time to the nearest service lift. The key-coded lift was unlocked, the keypads inner workings exposed.

He stepped through the already gaping door, the massive slab of metal closing the moment he did.

The lift began to rise, and on cue, Kessler's voice rose with it.

"This is it, my boy. The end of our first showdown. How exciting!"

"What will it take to convince you to release my mother?" Jack responded roughly.

"Only a world, a few billion lives."

Jack's fist slammed into wall, and the lift creaked ominously. "Why are you doing this!?" he screamed. "What did I do to you!?"

When Kessler spoke, he seemed almost genuinely regretful. "I was given a task, by one far greater than us. Doom will fall on Earth, unless I can stop it. "

"The Autobots are fighting to save it, too! Join them! Why all this pain, this death?!"

"They are part of the problem and will soon be eradicated."

The door opened and Jack nearly tripped rushing down the hall to the staircase that proclaimed Rooftop Maintenance.

"She really loves you, Jackson, and I'm sorry to take that away. But some deeds require sacrifice, and you must be prepared for your role. For I am the Gift-bearer-"

He slammed into the door, fell forward as blades pierced his flesh, the paralyzing enzymes taking hold in mere moments, and lay on the cold gravel surface of the roof, the gentle patter of rain silenced as he gazed at the laptop in front of him, his mother wide-eyed and terrified on the screen, her teeth biting into the gag in her mouth even as the ropes that tied her to her seat bit into her arms.

The world stopped.

And then the gun next to June Darby's head jerked as a small explosion took place inside of its barrel, and the woman that was his mother fell to the side as a part of her head exploded and red splattered the walls.

He wasn't sure it was one second or thousand before the laptop was picked up, but the red stain on the wall on the screen continued to burn behind his eyes. Tears fell from his lashes as the cold wind and rain battered his prone form, but they were not caused by grief. He felt as numb as ever, inside and out.

"If there had been another way, I would have taken it." Black shoes and pants appeared before him; Jack had no doubt that the monster they belonged to was gazing at him in pity. "But she was a distraction, Jackson, and your role cannot allow you distractions. The prophecy-"

"Prophecy?" Jack choked. It took all his effort to speak; whatever poison he'd been given had not paralyzed him completely but it was an incredible effort to move what little he could. "All this... for a prophecy?" Deep within his soul, the constrained emotions that he'd struggled to restrain all day began to roil, and the numbness began to be replaced by something chaotic and hot.

"A prophecy that foretold the fate of the world itself," Kessler responded in a scolding tone. "I am old, Jackson, far older than you think, far older than I remember. Long ago I was given a gift, to save the earth. A prophecy was told and I was given the title of Gift-bearer.

Perhaps you long to know why you were chosen. But...you have to earn that honor." Kessler rose and water rebounded off his suit onto Jack's head. The rain had morphed into a storm and raindrops the size of nails turned the entire roof into a puddle. Every breath Jack took sent water up his nose. Kessler laughed, high and loud, his voice rising above the wind. "And guess what, Jack? You're not earning!"

Rage.

Heat seared through his body, obliterating the poison within. His muscles unlocked, and suddenly he was launching himself at the murderer, a scream of utter pain and despair rising above even Kessler's terrible laugh.

HOW DARE HE?!

How dare this stranger ruin his life, no decimate his life, and the not judge him worthy of knowing why?

He didn't realize he was screaming the words until his breath was knocked out of him as he collided with the rooftop entrance door. The force behind Kessler's retaliation ripped the door from its hinges and sent it clattering down the hall.

With reflexes unknown, Jack seized the doorframe as he went through, and used his arms to pull himself forward to launch himself back at his enemy.

Jack was still too slow. Kessler moved out of trajectory range and seized the teen out of midair, choke-slamming him into the dirt.

"Better boy, much better. Well I'll be nice now and let you in on one little secret."

Jack struggled and Kessler lifted him and slammed him back down.

"It was said that the seed of the Gift-bearer would be either a great tyrant or a great hero. They would defend this planet - or aid in its destruction."

Jack choked, "But...why...me?"

"I am techno-organic, boy. All he strength of a Cybertronian with all the adaptability of a human. For example..."

The man's features shifted and melted, before reforming this time with plump lips, large breasts and cascading blond hair.

"Anyone's or anything's form I scan," murmured Kessler in a feminine, sultry voice that reminded Jack of Airachnid. Nails from Kessler's smaller but no less weaker hand dug into his skin, drawing beads of blood. Jack didn't care. He wanted answers and to kill the bastard in front of him, not a biology lesson.

Kessler, sensing this, shone dazzling teeth and threw him back into the doorframe. "You know what you have to do." The man leaned back, his body shifting back into a male. Eyes gleamed in anticipation.

Jack spat out a clump of his own wet hair, hardly noticing the chills that racked his body. "No."

Kessler started. "What?"

"You've taken everything I ever loved away from me. And I'm not strong enough to defeat you."

The teen stood, staring into the surprised eyes of his tormenter. "I will find you and I will kill you - but not today."

Using the doorframe as support, Jack turned to go back to the elevator.

Before he knew it he was back on the cold ground, icy pebbles digging into his skin.

"You've clenched the job, Jackie." The smile Kessler gave was truly terrifying. "And you're right - you need to be stronger to defeat me. Much stronger."

There was a spasm of pain in his back, and a sickening crunch, and Jack couldn't feel his legs.

"With every blow I inflict, you will come out stronger..."

Agony signaled more pain this time in his arms. They hung raggedly by strips of skin, the bones snapped and crushed.

"... or you will join your mother."

The lower part of his rib cage was ground into powder, but he was to weak to scream. And in his painful haze, his fading mind seemed suddenly clearer than ever.

He remembered, so long ago, sitting in kitchen in Jasper, a cup of warm milk in his hands, as his mother told him how his father disappeared seemingly off the face of the earth for two days only to return, more charming than ever, a wedding ring in hand. How foolish she had felt when he skipped town but a month after he was conceived, despite how excited he'd seemed at the prospect of having a child.

Kessler's word echoed in his head: Anyone's or anything's form I scan.

I am the Gift-bearer.

The seed of the Gift-bearer...

"No."

"Yes," was the responding purr.

He was vaguely aware that he was being held aloft, his blood turning pink in the rain.

"You say I have taken everything from you...my son. You have yet to realize that I have given you everything: power, strength, freedom...truth.

"When you are strong enough to face me, you must. Find me, son. Find me. Fight me. Kill me."

The last thing Jack heard as he was thrown from the tower into the air to plummet to the ground so far below, over the sirens and the alarmed screams, the flapping of pigeons and the splatter of rain against his skin, were the whispered words of Kessler:

"Happy birthday, Jackson."

I am kind of ashamed on how this chapter turned out. The cooler, more intense version was on my other tablet...which was stolen. Yeah, after the depression, I found out how hard it is to type with solely your thumbs. And so this is the next to last chapter of this story that you readers will have to endure. Review Please!