"Primus has forsaken this ship," Flywheels said, making the gesture of the Guiding Hand, staring up at the ceiling. It certainly gave that impression, Fulcrum thought, you know, all the brain modules stuck to the surface. Something had forsaken this ship. His guess was sanity. At least good taste.

"Just brains," Krok said, shrugging. "Can't fraggin' hurt you."

"Technically, if one fell," Crankcase muttered, "from that height, it could probably do some damage." He seemed delighted by the prospect. Well, delighted for Crankcase.

Uh. Yeah. Fulcrum took a step back. Just a small one, all right? Precautionary.

"I think this is totally a bad idea," Misfire said. "Just, you know, registering my objection."

"We're scavengers," Krok said, blandly. "We scavenge."

"I don't think we can scavenge much out of those," Flywheels said. "Unless we can bottle eldritch horror or something."

"Brains," Spinister announced, excitedly, pointing at the ceiling.

"Yeah," Krok said, "Brains."

"Hey, maybe he's never seen one!" Misfire cracked. The joke went flat, in a long stretch of silence.

"Right!" Fulcrum said. "Let's continue, shall we?"

"Right," Misfire echoed. "Because, you know, I haven't hurled my tanks yet."

"Just you wait," Krok said, sagely, "Wasn't Fulcrum saying something about bleeding walls?"

[***]

/YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE/

The message blinked at them from the monitor, just as the lights cut. They all startled, staring for a moment at each other in the dim green light of the screen.

"Well!" Fulcrum said, the cheer definitely feeling a bit forced. "That's true of everyone, really." N-not just Fulcrum. Right?

"Maybe it's, you know, a bit of P-6 humor," Misfire said. "You know, like K-class jokes."

Fulcrum shot him a look. "You mean as in, not funny?" Because, wow. He knew all the bomb jokes and none of them were funny.

"Yeah, Misfire. They're known for the whole no-fear thing. Not for their humor," Flywheels said, shuffling, staring at the screen.

"Finite number of fuse puns, anyway," Crankcase said. "Get boring fast."

Yeah….boring. Fulcrum would just let it go with that. It was uncomfortable enough agreeing with Crankcase.

"Let's talk about bad jokes later," Krok said. "Now, we gotta figure out what happened to the lights." He peered over his shoulder. "Spinister! That you?"

"Huh?" The other mech's voice echoed from the hallway. "Hey, what happened to the lights?"

/YOU WILL ALL DIE./ The screen's letters colored red this time, and a bass boom vibrated from the shipwide comm.

"Yeah, yeah," Krok muttered. "Tell me something I don't already know."

/WHERE IS YOUR UNIT, KROK?/ A flicker of lights, like hope, before plunging into inky blackness, taking even the emergency lighting.

"Up your afterburner," Crankcase muttered, reaching over Fulcrum's chassis for the monitor's power switch.

/CRANKCASE./

"Get slagged." Crankcase flicked the power switch, and even the ambient light from the letters faded.

"H-how did it know your names?" Flywheels asked, his optics, two red glows, zipping around, nervously.

"SPIES," Spinister said, brandishing his gun at the room's corners, an aiming laser slicing arcs through the darkness. "Spies. Everywhere."

"Uh, I don't think there's a spy up there," Misfire said.

"But someone's watching us," Krok said, firmly. "We should split up and check."

"Sure!" Misfire said, finding some courage. "I pick Fulcrum."

Fulcrum blinked. Why would anyone want to—oh, right. K-class. No fear and all that. Right. "Sure." Anything had to be a bit of a break from Spinister, who'd cornered him in the skin-hallway, staring at his Decepticon insignia, muttering something about 'you lookin' at me?'

"Krok!" Flywheels called out, urgently.

"Great," Crankcase said, sourly. "I guess I get Shooty Mc Stupidhands."

"Spies!" Spinister said, swinging the gun around in both hands, covering every angle of the room. Crankcase gave a resigned sigh, as Misfire's hand grabbed Fulcrum by his upper arm.

"Come on, Fulcrum. Maybe we can find something non-terrifying."

"That's a good start." And it would put some distance between him and the wildly waving gun barrel. Another good step, he could really get down with.

"Hey!" Krok yelled over their shoulders. "Try finding the light source first!"

[***]

"I'm just saying," Fulcrum said, "We can make our own decisions now. The war's over. And there's all this stuff to explore." Really, it felt like a weight had been lifted, and he didn't mean the explosive charges in his chassis.

"Hey, I'm down with exploring," Misfire said. "Just, you know, could do with a bit less macabre." He swept a torch down the corridor. "So, where do we start?"

"I think," Fulcrum said, "Worldsweepers had sectored power cores. So our first task is to find this sector's engineering pod." Which would be…this way. He turned inboard.

The darkness was intense, almost having weight and form, crowding around them, cut by the halogen of Misfire's flashlight. "Kinda wish I had a headlamp alt," Misfire muttered. "Car, or tank or something. You know, useful."

Fulcrum nodded, realized Misfire couldn't see it, and then gave a grunted sort of 'yeah'.

"Uh," Misfire added, hastily, "Not that your alt isn't useful or anything."

"It's not," Fulcrum said, a bit glumly. There was no way being a tactical smart bomb was a good alt. None.

"Well it is, under certain circumstances," Misfire said, uncertainly.

Right. Let's not talk about those circumstances, Fulcrum thought. Change of subject time. Fast. "So. How long have you been with the others?" That was a safer topic, right? A little bonding, a little not-talking-about-dying….

"I hooked up with Kro—did you hear that?" Misfire's optics shuttled from side to side, the flashlight's beam pingponging across the corridor.

"Hear what?" Fulcrum blinked.

"That! Frag. Frag. What is that?"

"I only hear you!"

"Then stop talking!"

"You stop first!"

Silence, the two of the ratcheting up their audio feeds. And the Fulcrum heard it: a soft, wet shuffling sound, ahead of them. But the flashlight showed the corridor clean and blank. A regular corridor, no skin, no creepy brains on the ceiling.

"It's got to be an echo, or something," Fulcrum said, partly to convince himself. He'd been a cyberformer, before, uh, the Incident. Not a lot of time in ships, especially not Worldsweepers.

"Yeah," Misfire said, about as dubiously. "An echo. Old ship. Weird noises. Settling or something."

Another long moment as they listened intently again. Nothing.

They looked at each other in the darkness, orange optics meeting yellow, nodded, and started moving, footsteps slow and careful. By the time they reached the corridor's end, they were standing straighter, fuel pumps slowing. Just an echo. Of course.

They each gave a sheepish, nervous laugh, as though trying to dust off the whole episode.

The corridor jinked off to the left. They followed it until it debouched into a T-intersection. "Which way?" Fulcrum asked. He'd just been heading farther inside, in the idea that cores would be protected, not something you want as a handy target on a ship's surface for the enemy to look at.

"This way," Misfire said, grabbing his arm. "It's like the W.A.P. Engineering stuff. See the orange hashed stripe?" He played the flashlight's beam over the far wall, before setting off down the turn.

They walked in silence, which seemed to grow darker and heavier, as though they were pushing through some dense black fog. "Hey," Misfire said, his voice hushed and almost muffled in the darkness. "You getting a sort of creepy vibe?"

"It's just the lights," Fulcrum said. "Once they're back on it'll be a lot less creepy."

"Probably right," Misfire said. "You know, really, this is kinda fun."

"Really?"

"Yeah, well, I mean, it's spooky and all but it's not, you know, anything dangerous, right?"

Fulcrum nodded. "That's the spirit. Just gross and icky."

"Besides," Misfire said. "We're Decepticons. Scourge of the galaxies. Dangerous mechs. Anything in here? Should be afraid of us."

"Right," Fulcrum agreed.

A click, and then the corridor was suddenly awash in blinding white light. They both jumped. So much for brave scourges of the galaxies, Fulcrum thought.

"Krok must've fixed it," Misfire said with a nervous chuckle, clicking off his flashlight.

"Good news," Fulcrum said, taking a few extra steps down the corridor. "But we're halfway there already, couldn't hurt to just, you know, check on stuff."

"Sure thing." Misfire grinned. "You know, you're all right, pinhead." He tromped down the corridor to catch up. "And you were right. Totally less creepy."

…misfire….

"What?"

Fulcrum blinked. "What what?"

"You called my name."

"No, I didn't."

Misfire gave him a weird look. "Yeah okay."

…misfire…..

"What?" Misfire, distinctly annoyed.

Wait. Didn't they just do this? "I didn't say anything!" Fulcrum said.

"You know, it's really not funny. I mean, maybe for a k-class or something, but you know. Not the rest of us."

"I wasn't—I'm not trying to be funny." Or k-class for that matter. Really not trying to be that.

The red optics narrowed. "Okay, but seriously. One more time and I'm going to get a little unhappy."

"But—" I haven't done anything, Fulcrum thought. Now he was beginning to get a little edgy. Which was kind of dangerous for a bomb.

….fulcrum….

The word sent a chill down his spinal struts. "M-Misfire?"

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU?!" Misfire rounded on him, shining the flashlight in his face. It was blinding, even in the already lit corridor.

"Okay! That time it was me! But I…did you say my name?"

"No." A frown. "This isn't cool."

"Agreed."

"It's just some echo thing. Right? Or a glitch."

"That…probably isn't it," Fulcrum said, as much as he wanted to believe it.

…fulcrum….

"Look!" Fulcrum said, turning around, speaking to the air. "What do you want?"

"Hey!"

"I meant the voice. The thing that's saying our names."

"Oh." Misfire subsided, optics darting suspiciously around the corridor. Which suddenly went black again, the light filaments fading into orange and nothing.

"Just a coincidence." Fulcrum said.

"Yeah," Misfire said, sweeping the flashlight around. "Maybe Spinister shot something important. He does that, you know."

"Comforting." It made him wonder how much damage Spinister did. Wow. They must really like him to put up with him if he was so destructive.

….misfire….fulcrum….

"Is Krok trying to get a hold of us?" That could be it. "Maybe the shipwide comm was a little glitchy." Like everything else around here, he thought, present company included.

"That's gotta be it," Misfire said. "Hey. Krok. ….Krok. Krok. Krok." A pause. "I don't think he can hear me. I mean, over comm."

Well, that wasn't very reassuring. Also weird.

"Hey," Misfire said, suddenly. "The computer thing seemed to know Krok and Crankcase."

"Maybe they'd served on P-6's before? Maybe it's a personnel thing?"

"Yeah, but I haven't."

Neither had Fulcrum. "Uh, let's just keep going. We've got to be almost to engineering by now."

"Good point. And then we can at least report, you know, something to Krok other than that there's some creepy slag going on here."

"Which…I think we already knew." The wooden robot thing was probably the pinnacle of creepy slag. Though bleeding walls? It was hard to pick.

…..this way…..The same voice, cold and like metal on plascrete, off to their left.

"Uh."

"We probably should."

"Are you crazy? Seriously, Fulcrum. I think maybe you can take this k-class thing too far."

"Well, what do you think we should do?"

"I say," Misfire said, confidently, "Run away screaming. And hope the screams scare everything away."

"Spoken like a true Decepticon."

"Damn straight," Misfire said. "Retrograde advance is a legitimate strategy."

….what? Why hadn't anyone mentioned that at his trial? "Well, I say we have to check it out. If it is something bad, we need to know that, too." Fulcrum headed to the left.

"For the record," Misfire said, "I'm not sure about this."

"Ambivalence noted. Come on. It can't be far."

"You know, if it weren't for that chin…."

They moved down the hallway in darkness, the flashlight slicing through the darkness. "What's that?" A smudge, a series of smudges, on the floor. They approached.

"Footprints," Fulcrum said. Energon-leaking footprints. "And they're heading this way."

"Then I propose," Misfire said, "we head this other way."

Fulcrum squatted down, poking the footprint. "It's fresh, Misfire. Someone needs our help."

"S-since when have leaky footprints ever meant someone needed help?"

"Well, who else's energon is it going to be? Someone's injured." He rose, following the footprints. "Come on, this way."

Misfire gave an unhappy sound, but followed. The corridor, and the footprints, ended with a door, an energon-smear at hand-height. "You're going to make us go in there," Misfire said.

"You can stay out here, if you want," Fulcrum said, "But give me the flashlight."

"No. Way." Misfire clutched at the light, as Fulcrum opened the door. They stepped in, the flashlight taking in a chaotic jumble of shapes, piled haphazardly in the room, almost as if flung there.

A sudden gust—blast, really—of ice-cold air, from the doorway behind them. They both whirled, just in time to see the door whoosh shut. Fulcrum gave a slightly-embarrassing squeak, which was only made less embarrassing by the screaming flail of Misfire. The flashlight clattered to the floor, light swinging wildly before going out, followed by a loud crashing sound.

Then a muffled 'oof.'

"Misfire?" Fulcrum dropped to his knees, scrabbling on the floor for the flashlight. "Talk to me!" Because Misfire not-talking was the creepiest thing so far. "You all right?"

"Oh, I'm fine, Fulcrum." A throaty laugh. "I'm more than fine."

Well that was a change of perspective. Not a bad one, really. Fulcrum found the flashlight, flicking it back on. "That's, uh, that's good to hear." He swung the light over, where Misfire stood, hunched weirdly, as though he'd just drunk some rancid fuel. There was a circle of…something on the floor around him, some sort of dust or powder, with one big smear where Misfire had probably crashed on the floor. "You sure you're all right?"

"Oh," the red optics swung up. "I am. But you won't be." Misfire gave a smile, not his usual one, but kind of creepy, predatory.

"I won't?" Fulcrum took a step back.

"You won't." Misfire said, and his optics went black. "Because you're going to die."

Another step back, a little faster, because, yeah, not the friendly banter he was used to. Fulcrum forced a laugh. "Funny! Really. You had me going there." Because this had to be a joke, right? Just a really-really really not funny one.

"It's not a joke, Fulcrum." Misfire stepped closer, foot dragging through the powdered whatever with a scraping sound. Misfire looked down, then back up, the grin growing even broader, more malevolent. "You're going to die. Because I'm going to kill you."

Wow. Yeah, okay, straight up panic time, Fulcrum thought, as Misfire's hand moved, pulling a gun from his storage, leveling it at Fulcrum's chassis.

"Hey. Uh, that's a really bad idea, for the record." Fulcrum raised his hands between them—as if that could stop anything, right? "You know, bomb? Enclosed space? Believe me, you don't want to do this." Fulcrum definitely didn't want to do this.

"Oh, but I do," Misfire said, giving a wet sort of chuckle. He gestured with the gun over to his right. Fulcrum flashed the light over, and spotted…welp. There was the source of the leaky footprints, what was left of him. Old and dessicated, grey and brittle. "Ask him," Misfire said.

But…how?

Right. Mystery stuff later. If there was a later. Panicking time, now. Sometimes multitasking wasn't an option.

Fulcrum shined the light back toward Misfire. "This is, if you don't mind me saying, really unnecessary. We can work something out, I'm sure. Just, you know, be open about your needs, uh…whoever you are."

"You won't trick me so easily," Misfire said, but it wasn't his voice, this time, but the creepy, chalky whisper from the hallway.

"Trick? I wasn't trying to trick you into anything. Other than not killing me. Which was more of a request, really." Ardent request. Sparkfelt request.

"Silence!"

"Right!" Fulcrum backed up another step, optics flicking to the right, trying to find the door. Maybe, if he moved really fast—you know, with that infamous k-class speed….right. Who was he kidding? He inched back, until his leg whanged against something solid behind him: a table, scattered with rows of bottles and jars that he was probably glad he couldn't see into. Frag.

"You ready to die, Fulcrum?" Misfire stepped closer, the barrel of the gun unwavering on his chassis.

"Now, really," Fulcrum said. "That's a little unfair, don't you think? Order me to silence and then ask a question?" Honestly. Like this wasn't terrifying enough without the etiquette conundrums.

The blackened optics narrowed, and the mouth curled, baring dentae. "Good enough for your last words, Fulcrum," Misfire said, and pulled the trigger.

Everything happened at once: the round sailed harmlessly over Fulcrum's shoulder, as he ducked down—hey he was not averse to dying on his knees, really—and broke the leg of a rack behind him. It seemed the whole world fell on him: the table's contents, the table itself, about a dozen data slugs. The flashlight fell from his hands, landing pointing vaguely at Misfire's feet.

Fulcrum snatched something, whatever came to his hand, and flung it. Misfire was a terrible shot, but Fulcrum, well, threw like a girl—the thing shattered, winging off Misfire's gun to spatter on his shoulder and arm. Great. Just Fulcrum's luck to come to a gunfight armed with…water.

He expected more of that creepy laugh, or another shot, but Misfire stared down at the liquid, then started screaming, an unholy howl that sounded like the Devastator Winds, clawing desperately at his arm, gun clattering to the ground.

Well, that was unexpected. Fulcrum snatched another tube—rounded and cool just like the first—flinging it, to watch it shatter again, this time square on the chassis.

"You DARE?! YOU DARE?!?" The thing seemed furious, too torn on trying to wipe off the wetness to even grab for the gun again.

Fulcrum wasn't really 'daring' much, except badly throwing archaic lab equipment at someone. Not really the stuff of heroism.

"Whatever you are, go away!" Yeah. That was really…awesome. If he had any place he could have run, he would be bolting there, but Misfire was waving his arms, standing in the way. He grabbed another vial, flinging it with all his might, hitting Misfire square in the face. Misfire's hands came up, clawing at his face, staggering backward with a shriek that set Fulcrum's endoskeletal frame shaking. Misfire stumbled back, his wing panels colliding with another mound of junk, which crashed down on him with a roar of falling metal and glass.

[***]

The lights flared on, suddenly. Fulcrum squeaked, blinking as his optics, irised wide for lowlight, rushed to contract. Everything was too white, too bright, and the only thing he could see, other than a pile of stacked furniture, now fallen in a jumbled pile, was a black dust, like smoke, rising from the mass.

"You all right?" Krok, kneeling in front of him, his face unreadable behind his mask.

"Misfire," Fulcrum croaked. "There's something wrong with him."

"Something wrong with all of us," Crankcase muttered, lifting a fallen flask rack off Fulcrum's legs. "Especially Misfire."

"Philosophy hour can wait," Krok said, "First we assess the situation."

"How did you find me?" Fulcrum sat up, grimacing. Well, not one of his more graceful positions to be flopped in.

"Followed the sounds of the girlish screaming," Crankcase muttered.

Oh, well…that was something.

"I found him!" Spinister squeaked, tugging at a hand jutting from the pile of furniture and lab equipment.

"Misfire!" Fulcrum pushed unsteadily to his feet. "Is he all right?"

"Mmph." Misfire dislodged himself from the junk, optics blinking in the bright light. Orange red optics, Fulcrum saw with some relief.

"Something's wrong with Misfire!" Spinister blurted. "He can't talk!"

"Give him a minute, will ya?" Crankcase shuffled over to where Flywheels was digging through the stuff.

"Misfire," Fulcrum said, semi-cringing. It was hard to feel all right about what had happened. Should he apologize? For what? Sorry I threw water on you? "How are you feeling?"

"I feel like an entire laboratory of arcane equipment fell on me. Then vomited on me."

"Not far from the truth," Flywheels spoke up. "I thought some of this looked familiar." He looked up from the datapad he was examining, pointing to the ring of white on the floor. "Sodium chloride. And these," he held up one of the vials like Fulcrum had thrown at Misfire. "Irradiated water with colloidal silver."

"So?" Crankcase frowned. "Some kind of explosive?"

"No," Flywheels said. "Demons. Apparently among the other horrors they were studying on this ship, they were also attempting to harness the forces of darkness."

"Forces of…what? Is that why the lights were out?" Spinister blinked.

"…kind of?" Flywheels frowned. "Thing is, it got free and into Misfire and I guess it's gone now." He seemed uncertain.

"Yeah, well," Krok said, planting his hands on his hips. "Nothing can survive being in Misfire's head for too long."

"Hey, pinhead," Misfire said, stretching out a hand, wet with the silver water. "No hard feelings about all that 'I'm gonna kill you' stuff, all right? Bygones are bygones and all that."

"S-sure," Fulcrum said. It had all worked out, right? Nobody had gotten hurt, least of all Fulcrum. "Just, next time, maybe we should take your advice."

"Are you kidding?" Misfire bounced on his heels. "Where's your sense of adventure?"