The Darkness Shall Not Quench

An MV fanfic by Princess Artemis

In a dark land well isolated from the cities, in a dwelling set far off the only road to go through the desolation between Iacon and Polyhex, the Teacher lived. Although he lived in a place far from any sort of civilization, the Teacher knew many things and trafficked in information. Never information that would cause any to hunt him down—mainly his information came in the form of contacts. A Cybertronian in search of the many shadowed entrances into the underground market could often find the Teacher’s knowledge helpful. So could one simply seeking out the best club in Polyhex. The trouble often came in finding him: the Teacher kept to himself and few knew he existed.

Nevertheless, he was known, known by those he would rather have kept in darkness.

It was not for no reason that he was called the Teacher. That was not his real name. His true name was unknown, or so he thought. He was called the Teacher for he had built himself a Student, and the Student called him Teacher, knowing no other name for him. He had built her to help him gather information, more and deeper than he already had. So he built her for stealth; though her flyer’s body was white and pale gray, she could streak across the black Cybertronian sky spotted by only the most astute observers. So also he built her for the gathering of information; her senses were sharp, every one, and she possessed senses few others could claim.

Indeed, she possessed a sense even the Teacher was unaware of for many centuries.

The Student was to be an information gatherer, a white shadow to spy on others. And if it came to it, she was also to be a skilled interrogator, as skilled as the Teacher could make her. The Teacher’s methods of ensuring his Student would learn the best ways of interrogation was unorthodox, however. He taught by example. Specifically, he taught by using the methods and techniques on the Student.

In his mind, the best way to know how effective a particular instrument would be for inducing pain was to experience it first hand. A cruel way to teach the arts of cruelty.

There came a point where the Student found herself at a crossroads in the oppressive shifting dun world. At that moment, the Teacher was leading her to the instruction room so that he might demonstrate for her, on her, some new manner of torture he had discovered. The Student tensed, for a rare moment shifting her saffron gaze to the sapphire dark form of the Teacher. She was afraid of him, terribly afraid, and hardly dared look at him. She stopped in the hallway, her white and gray wings folded all the way back behind her, the twin stabilizers on each leg shivering. She didn’t want to upset the Teacher, but she could not follow him today. She couldn’t face any more teaching.

The Teacher turned to her, his own yellow optics glinting. The twin metal capes on his back flared out slightly. "Follow me, student." His tone menaced. The slithering dimness that characterized the world shifted slightly, frightening the Student more.

But she didn’t move, for fear paralyzed her.

The Teacher hissed and transformed, becoming in form like a razor-wasp, but far larger. "I don’t want to force the issue. You never learn as well that way."

Again, the Student did not move. She became aware, faintly, of a movement inside her mind, and then the cessation. She became still and cold. The Teacher leapt at her, clinging to her with insect legs, prepared to sting.

Surprised at her own lack of reaction to him, she looked him squarely in the optics even as his stinger stabbed her through the chest, shattering her canopy. There was no pain. She felt the stinger impale her, but it caused her no pain.

The Teacher stared at her, wondering why she had not fallen; she had hardly reacted at all. A normal razor-wasp sting hurt; he was ten times the size of a natural razor-wasp. He flew back and returned to his bipedal form. Confused and angry, he grabbed the Student’s arm and started dragging her to the instruction room.

She followed easily this time. Narrowing her optics and no longer held back from looking at the Teacher, she said, "I have no fear and I feel no pain." It didn’t feel like an escape or a madness; she had simply lost those sensations.

The Teacher snapped his head back and glared heatedly. His optics held a promise: You will.

But she didn’t. Nothing he did induced any fear, or any pain. No technique he had learned in his days worked. When he finally gave up in frustration, he wrung his hands and growled, "It doesn’t matter. You can still learn. You can still learn."

He repaired her, took her back to her room, and locked the door.

After a great deal of thought, the Student decided to make use of her odd fearlessness. She began then the covert creation of tunnels. Long years would have them snaking out and around the entire small subsurface building, leading in secrecy to every room. She built them almost instinctively; she used them to escape to the surface, but never to escape the Teacher.

In those long years the Teacher continued his instruction, and the Student came to the conclusion that she had died that day, died paradoxically so that she could survive.

One day, the Student sat idling in the reception area. The Teacher was expecting a visitor, and he wished to test his student’s skills. Not publicly, not the darker skills, but simply her observations.

Shortly, the Student heard the light footfalls of the visitor along with the Teacher’s heavier tread. She sought to exclude the Teacher’s sounds; it was not difficult, for she knew those sounds well and could ignore them at will. Now training her hearing on the visitor’s sounds, she simply took them in. She would have to see the visitor to make up her mind as to what the sounds meant, since in all her life she had only known the Teacher, and so had nothing with which to compare the sounds. She had a thought that the light footfalls betrayed a heavier form.

She narrowed her optics. Something felt different. The air was less thick, less dun...as if a wind had wafted through the space and taken away some of the heaviness that always surrounded her. But she felt no wind. This was, strictly speaking, the first time she was aware of the sense of place. She wondered at that, wondered why she had never noticed before. Then she nodded to herself. It was easily deciphered: she had never felt any difference before.

Just then, the Teacher opened the door to the reception area. "Student, this is Catilla. Please make your acquaintance with him while I fetch the information he seeks." The one with the light footfalls entered the room, and the Student made a quick appraisal. A mech, mostly formed of gold and silver, impeccably clean. The parts of him that were gold shined brightly, while the silver parts glowed with a burnished sheen. An insignia of red stood out plainly on his chest plate; it resembles a frowning face. She had been right; his footfalls were lighter than they should have been, for he was solidly built, if not particularly bulky. The Student judged that he had an animal alt-mode; she could see the golden head of a sabercat on his chest and powerful paws graced with sharp claws folded back on his wrists. His gold fingers tapered to elegant points.

"How do you do?" Catilla asked, bowing slightly. The gray mists of place lightened further.

"I am well," the Student replied. "And you?"

"Quite well myself," he replied. His voice was deep, rumbling. It sounded as if it came from the center of his being, rather than from his vocalizers, which the Student noted were located in his head.

The Student stood and said, "Have a seat, sir," extending a hand to a nearby bench.

"Thank you," Catilla replied, smiling. The Student found Catilla’s smile lovely; the Teacher’s smile was never pleasant. Since the Student had never met another of her kind, she was not surprised to find that Catilla had four sharp, silver teeth in his mouth; they were tiny, but visible when he smiled. He walked to the bench, and the Student observed. His movements were economized yet graceful, his touch upon everything light.

The Student sat down again, near Catilla. She frowned slightly, while Catilla glanced around, taking in every aspect of the room with azure optics. He was very observant, she thought, very aware of his surroundings. She frowned because the longer Catilla sat in the room, the lighter everything became. She knew it was not truly becoming brighter in the room, but the lightening was almost visible.

"What is your name?" Catilla asked, his deep voice kind.

Taken aback more from the tone in his voice than the question, the Student stammered, "I am called Student."

Catilla smiled again, and the Student stared at his mouth. "An interesting name," he replied.

The Student turned her gaze toward his blue optics. All the lightness she felt in the room suddenly coalesced to a point, blazing in intensity. At the same time, the somber grayness retreated from her surroundings as if it had not existed. She suddenly realized the grayness and the light had not been a sense of place, but a sense of people. Confused, she examined the light she felt, touching it lightly with imaginary hands. The light jumped out at her, into her mind, and she gasped.

Catilla flinched as if struck.

Her mouth agape, the Student wondered at the golden brightness in her mind, knowing it to be foreign. She felt it tentatively. Then she speared Catilla with a sharp, yet awed expression. "You are beautiful!"

Having recovered from his flinch, he smiled again, in vanity. "Thank you, Student." He set the back of one of his hands to his mouth and pulled it across his helmet in a gesture quite outside the Student’s reckoning.

With no little wonder, some directed at herself for this new sense, but most for the mech with the golden light, the Student said, "You are welcome, Catilla. You light the world with your beauty."

Catilla’s smile widened, and this time the Student could hear a pleasant thrumming rumble emanating from his chest.

The Teacher entered then, beckoning to Catilla. "I’ve gathered the information you requested. It shouldn’t be at all difficult for a hunter of your skills to use this to your advantage."

Catilla stood gracefully and accepted the small chit containing the information. "Thank you kindly. Should I inform you when I’ve finished my game?"

"Certainly, if you like," the Teacher answered, his capes fluttering slightly. "Perhaps I can find for you another mark, a more challenging one?"

The gold and silver gray mech smiled, showing his tiny teeth. "That would be wonderful, if you can manage it." Then Catilla pulled out some currency and handed it to the Teacher. "I trust this will be sufficient?"

The teacher took the payment and counted it out. "Yes, this will do fine," he said with a bow, accepting the currency. "I hope to do business with you again soon."

Catilla nodded, then turned to the Student. "It was good to meet you, Student. Perhaps we shall meet again sometime." With that, he bowed cordially and turned to walk out of the room.

Without warning, the light the Student felt glowing about her and yet still held in her hands snapped off, failed as quickly as if a cloud had covered the stars. Dun shadows filled her world again...and Catilla stumbled, for the first time losing his graceful movements. One golden hand reached out to grab hold of a door jamb, steadying himself. After a moment, he glanced back at the Student with narrowed azure optics. Then he shook his head, as if he were imagining things, turned the corners of his mouth up in a slight smile, and walked out of the room. He gait had become steady again.

After a while, when both the Student and the Teacher were certain Catilla had left, the Teacher turned to his Student and asked, "So, what did you observe about him?"

For a moment, the Student was loath to answer. For now, she decided, she would not discuss the brilliant light she had felt in the mech’s presence. Instead, she asked, "What was that red sign on his chest? I have not seen anything like it."

The Teacher frowned but waved a hand dismissively. "It simply means he’s an Autobot. An unpleasant faction of Cybertronians, but so far they have not caused much trouble." The Student could hear the lie in the Teacher’s voice; she did not, however, know the extent of the lie and therefore remained silent on that point.

"I also observed that he is careful and confident; his steps are lighter than his form would suggest, and he is very observant. He took stock of his surroundings, and he spoke gently."

The Teacher nodded, and held out a hand, indicating for the Student to go on.

"He had strange mannerisms; I did not understand the significance of this movement." At that, the Student mimicked Catilla, putting her hand to her mouth and swiping it across the top of her helmet. She found the move difficult due to the antennae on either side of her helmet, but her motion was close enough to accurate for her satisfaction.

The Teacher laughed and said, "Catilla’s alt-mode is a sabercat. That motion is very feline; in a natural sabercat, it would be used to clean their heads and ears. Odd that he should make that motion at all. No matter. Keep it in mind, however; mannerisms are very important in learning to understand another person and it would do you well to remember them."

After a moment, the Student added, "I also felt something. I...sensed...a brilliant light in him; I know it was coming from him, for as soon as this brightness entered my mind where I could examine it, he flinched, and when the brightness left my hands, he stumbled. It was very unlike him to stumble."

The Teacher narrowed his optics in confusion. "You sensed light from him? I don’t think I quite understand."

"It is difficult to explain. It was as if I had pulled something out of his mind, and held it in my hands, or rather, felt it in my mind so that I could examine it. He was beautiful. Before this I had always felt gray shadows, but I had surmised this was a normal state of affairs. I do not feel this is true any longer. I know it was a sense of him...and that the shadows I felt before are actually a projection of you."

The Teacher snapped his arms up as if to ward off a blow. Then, slowly, he lowered his arms and asked, "Could you repeat this...drawing out...that you managed with Catilla? You say you are certain this...sense of shadows is from me; how can you be so sure if you have never done anything like that before?"

The Student lowered her head, then asked, "If you would permit me, I will attempt to...draw you, to confirm that it is true."

The Teacher crossed his arms in front of him. Then he nodded, frowning.

So the Student made herself still, concentrating her senses on the dun swirling about her. She looked into the Teacher’s optics, and attempted to recreate the sensation she had felt with Catilla. Feeling the shadows with imaginary hands, she gently prodded at them, and again, just as suddenly, the shadows were in her mind.

The Teacher didn’t so much as move a hydraulic. But he did see the change in his Student’s expression. "I feel nothing, but you have succeeded in your attempt, haven’t you."

The Student nodded absently, paying more attention to the shadow she had pulled, drawn, from the Teacher. Unlike Catilla, the Teacher was not beautiful. He was dusty, ragged, reminding her of a room that had not been used in millennia; that was the source of the dun. He was a collector of things, often things meaningless to all but a select few, and it felt like choking dust in her mind. He felt old, and he felt cruel. She did not fear what she found, but she understood now why he had taught her the dark arts of interrogation the way he had; it was the way he had been taught, and he knew no other. The Teacher was a bitter, twisted old creature, but not truly old. He had aged before his time, and she felt his resentment as a darkness that curled and writhed underneath the shadows. She felt his inherent sense of uselessness, the deep-seated feeling that had driven him out into the waste places of Cybertron. This uselessness had also driven him to build her, to be used by him to find information...for information was all he felt he had to offer anymore.

Disgusted, she shoved the darkness away, and it fled her mind. However, she was still aware of it, for the Teacher was always near and this was his home, his sense of purpose and feeling entrenched in it. She glanced at the Teacher. "You did not feel it?"

"No, I did not. How much information can you gather in that manner?" The Teacher sounded excited, and the Student didn’t wonder at it at all; he had just discovered his tool for gathering information was far more talented than he had previously realized. He just did not yet know the extent of that talent.

Understanding this, the Student described this new faculty for drawing with as much precision as she could. "I can feel your motivations. I know why you built me. I understand why you do certain things in the manner you do them. I could not read your thoughts, just the motivations, and a general sense of who and what you are. I gathered that you are bitter, you feel useless to do anything but provide information. It was as if I looked in on a room full of unused devices and ancient computers, covered in dust. Beneath it all is the overpowering sense of shadows. With Catilla...I was so unused to his brightness and light that I could not read it as well. Should I meet him again, perhaps I should be able to understand more of what I pulled from him, more of his motivations."

The Teacher smiled broadly. He knew himself well enough to see how accurate was her new talent, and the Student could see how proud he was to have invented, entirely on accident, her ability. "Tomorrow, we will travel to Polyhex. You must train this talent I have somehow created. You must be silent, and you must observe. Learn to draw out these motivations and learn to couple this new sense with your other senses. Surely if you can manage that, you will be a formidable interrogator. Reading body language, tone of voice, words behind the words, and to feel the inner motivations of others? I will never want for information again!" With that, the Teacher stalked out of the room, his capes flared in excitement.

The Student was unsure if she liked this new development, but she was unafraid. Fear had died with her.

In the city of Polyhex, a great many people gathered. The Teacher, in razor-wasp form, clung to walls, to shadows, while the Student walked as silently as possible down a dim alleyway. They were to practice drawing, and the city was a perfect spot to find targets, if the Student were able to filter out everything that is. She found that the sense of life here was dull, but not dun, not shadowed, but coming under shadow. The Student did her best to hide herself as she neared an open street. It was not easy considering her coloring, but neither was it impossible.

A vehicle passed slowly, and the Teacher hissed, "That one. Try that one."

The Student nodded and made an attempt to draw the vehicle. It seemed she was successful, and that the vehicle had felt the draw—it, or rather she—transformed just before crashing into a wall from the distraction. The Student went to swiftly examine the sense of person that she had pulled from the femme. There was nothing extreme about her, the Student thought; she was a dull creature, full of half-forgotten dreams and blunted desires. The femme managed to gather herself up, inspecting herself. She was truly dull. Not a brilliant like Catilla, nor the shadowed ancient gray of the Teacher. She was like unto metal, once glowing with a fine sheen that had been filled with so many fine scratches that the shine disappeared.

"Teacher, she is not old, but she is tired. She is dull. She wishes nothing from life but to exist another day and find what little pleasure she can." The Student gently ceased drawing, hoping not to startle the unknown femme. Fortunately she was able to accomplish this, and the femme transformed again, driving off.

The Teacher smiled, an unpleasant expression on his insectile face. "Very good, very good. I could see myself that she was nothing of note. Go, find another target."

The Student nodded, seeking out with her senses for a target that would not be able to see them. She found a mech across the way, and when she drew him, he did not react. This one was bright, but not as Catilla. This one did not hold in him the desperate dullness of the femme, but he had his own sort of desperation. He sought something, something he felt little hope in finding. Something he cared about. There was pain in him, but not despair. For him, little hope was not the same as hopeless.

The Student reported her findings to the Teacher, who nodded. "Yes, he will come to me one day; my contacts have informed me of this. You are correct. Continue."

She continued in this fashion for a span of time, honing her skill. The Teacher beamed with pride, the Student felt. Apparently, she was quite capable with this skill, although on a number of occasions the Teacher corrected her interpretation. This the Student accepted, as she had not the experience with others to know for sure.

When it was time to depart, the Teacher was well pleased. "This drawing skill of yours shall be of great use to me."

The Student carefully followed the Teacher to the city limits, where she transformed and flew behind him. Perhaps it would be useful to him, but it confused her. She did not understand why there was not a beautiful creature like Catilla there, nor why the city had an overall oppressive sense of desperation. That was all she could think of—every person she had drawn had desperation of some kind in them, except for the few that were nothing but hollow shells.

Some time later, a great deal of time during which the Students ‘studies’ progressed in both the dark arts and the lighter, the Student overheard the Teacher discussing something with Catilla. She recognized his voice. The communication shut down, and the Teacher turned to his Student and smiled. "Catilla has, after a mighty hunt, tracked his prey. He has invited us to witness the event. It should prove interesting; Catilla is a unique hunter who never allows his prey to know they have been caught. I have witnessed many conclusions to his hunts, and it is always a pleasure. I enjoy it anyway...I suppose I get a vicarious thrill from it. Come, let us go watch."

The Student obediently followed the Teacher to a remote location, where a small gathering of persons came together. Catilla was at the center, and below them was an underground walkway. Catilla smiled at the small gathering, optics alighting on each invitee. The Student could not help but notice that his gaze was far different than before...still acute, but cold. The brilliant light that she had felt from him before did not shine now. She wondered if it were because of the others in the area, and she glanced about to see if there were any who could stifle that blaze of glory she remembered as Catilla’s beauty. The Teacher could, perhaps...

Catilla put a hand to his mouth and wiped it across his helmet. "Now is the time," he whispered as he transformed into a sabercat and pounced on the mech below him. His timing was perfect, his aim true; the mech fell without a sound, saber-teeth deep in his neck, severing the link between spark and body instantly. The Teacher quirked an optic, surprised, while the rest cheered. The Student, startled and shocked, involuntarily drew Catilla as he began systematically and neatly lapping up spilled energon while calmly tearing off strips of metal and eating them.

The draw startled Catilla, who felt it immediately but did not see where it came from, though he looked. Dismissing it, he continued his meal.

The Student, meanwhile, gathered the draw into her hands and cried in her mind for the destruction of beauty. The light was still there, but marred, marred darkly, twisted into a shape of ugliness. Where once was beauty the Student only found revulsion. It was still the shape of Catilla, but now it was wild and cruel. She felt the hunter in him, realized that it had always been there, but that part of his original brilliance was his lack of desire to harm. Now he wished harm, he hunted his prey not for the sport, no longer just for the satisfaction of knowing he had succeeded though the hunted knew it not, but for the feast. For the feast of metal and fuel, the feast of an animal.

Darkness had twisted Catilla, and the Student mourned the loss of his beauty. She wished never to discover what had done such a terrible thing to him, although she suspected why—the draw was still there, and she recalled his strange hand movements. Perhaps he was always an animal. Perhaps the tendency was there and exploited. The Student quickly severed the draw, not caring if Catilla noticed.

Her wings twitched. She had seen it but had not paid it mind before: except for herself and the Teacher, all of the people watching Catilla devour one of his own kind wore prominent red symbols with unfriendly faces. Autobots, gloating and cheering for Catilla’s kill.

* * *

She heard footsteps from the front room. She listened at the door to her quarters for a moment.

There were three visitors. Two had a heavy tread: soldiers, guards perhaps. The third walked with a lighter footfall, but one possessing unmistakable confidence. Then the Teacher’s familiar movements entered the room. At first his walk sounded curious, but swiftly shifted to fearful, his tread irregular.

"Greetings good sirs," the Teacher said with a faint shaking in his voice. He was afraid, very afraid. She heard his hands come together; she could almost see him twisting his fingers.

"It has come to our attention that your training of a certain stealth interrogator has nearly come to completion," spoke one of the visitors. It must have been the mech with the lighter footfalls, for his voice was also light and confident. A pleasant voice but unremarkable in sound, taken just as sound, but there was a threat in it, masked yet unmistakable.

The Teacher answered, "Ah, well, yes, yes, my student’s training is nearly complete." He cowered; she could hear it. "She isn’t very good, I fear. I didn’t teach her as well as I would have liked."

The Student frowned and flicked a wing. That was an outright lie; she knew she was very well trained in her vocation. She listened with greater care.

"Even so," the light-voiced mech said as he stepped toward the Teacher, "we would be quite interested in...buying her."

She couldn’t be completely certain, having only heard his footfalls and his voice, but she thought it very likely that he, too, was lying. And who were ‘we’? She started for one of the exits from her quarters she had made, still listening to the conversation in the front room.

"B-buying her?" The Teacher’s voice cracked.

"Yes. We would like to ascertain her level of training, of course. Where is she? I want to see her." This was no request but a demand.

She knew to the center of her spark that she did not want to be seen, not by that mech. She hadn’t attempted to draw the visiting mech, but the threat in his voice had grown and the Teacher’s fear was palpable. Fleeing silently through one of the many secret exits, she just escaped as the footfalls of all four reached the door.

She didn’t stop to listen, but her curiosity was piqued. She wanted to know who they were that sought her, so she turned down one of the tunnel corridors to enter a dark alcove above the training room. There was a good chance they would soon go there to locate her when they didn’t find her where they expected. Soon enough the four entered that room, and she watched them all carefully. The Teacher’s fear had turned to outright panic. He knew the light-voiced mech, or knew of him. The Teacher was terrified. The Student examined the two heavier mechs—they were rather unremarkable, certainly guards. Both bore a red mark, a stylized face with a deep frown; that was the answer to her question. ‘We’ were Autobots. That in itself was reason enough to put the Teacher on edge. She didn’t draw them; both appeared too shallow to give her a reason to do so. They, too, were afraid of the smaller mech that led them. They made no attempt to hide it, but stood back in silence. She could see by the way both stood that they were either fairly dumb or they were single-minded. She wondered if either really wanted to be where they were or if fear compelled them. Their blue optics were studiously blank. Maybe she would draw them after she examined the light-voiced mech.

To him she turned her gaze last. There was no immediate reason she could see that would command such terror; he was well armed if she guessed right about the red cylinder on his shoulder, but the two guards both carried heavy weapons of their own. She judged that the guards could, with some effort, kill the smaller, red mech, but they were so frightened of him that they dare not. He must have a reputation.

"Where is she, Didachus? You didn’t lie to me, did you?"

"No! I don’t know where she is! She was in her quarters!" the Teacher cried.

"And yet, we all saw that she wasn’t. Where is she?" the red one demanded, advancing on the Teacher with an elegant grace. Seeing him walk only confirmed for her how extremely confident he was. He was in control of the situation and knew it. The Student risked drawing him.

The red mech’s stride faltered slightly. She stepped back, deeper into the shadows. He had felt the draw. However, he either wasn’t as sensitive to drawing as Catilla had been, or he was too focused on other things to attempt to locate the source of the draw. For whatever reason, she was glad he continued what he was doing.

She turned her attention to what she had drawn. It suddenly became very clear why he was so feared. Now that she had attuned herself to it, she saw black terror go before him and flow behind him like a living thing. He didn’t need a reputation. The very blackness that formed him would ensure fear in all that knew fear.

And he was black. Black untainted by the slimmest glimmer of light...black unadulterated. She hadn’t thought it possible that there could walk upon the face of Cybertron any creature made of such unalloyed evil. He made the sabercat’s darkness seem bright enough to blind in comparison. This was the demarcation line: all she had met before were angels now that she had drawn the spark of a devil.

The Teacher’s voice pitched higher. "I told you I don’t know! I wouldn’t lie to you!"

The devil cast about the room, apparently using both his optics and the cylinder on his shoulder, gathering easily the purpose of the place. He motioned to the guards and they moved toward the Teacher. "I would prefer my own tools, but yours appear adequate to the task. Staying here should make it easier to find her when you tell me where she is. You will tell me where she is."

As the guards grabbed the Teacher, he shrieked, "I don’t know where she is! What sort of fool would lie to you, Perceptor?"

Although the Student hadn’t seen the devil’s face, she could hear the smile in his deceptively light voice. "I often wonder that myself. And yet I find they do, constantly." The Teacher thrashed about, attempting to escape the clutches of the guards, but he wasn’t strong enough. He shortly found himself clamped down on the very table that he had taught his Student all she knew of the ways of physical interrogation. "I certainly hope," Perceptor continued, "that your folly is short lived. Nevertheless, if that doesn’t prove to be the way events unfold, it will be interesting to find out how long a teacher of this particular art lasts as the subject of it." He picked up one of the Teacher’s tools and proceeded to torture him in a most methodical, grotesquely aesthetic manner.

The Student narrowed her yellow optics. She hadn’t stopped drawing the devil, wondering what sort of things motivated the utter dark. She was somewhat surprised to find that even the black held a particular shape that could be discerned. It saddened her for it meant that there were other devils. This one was so self-satisfied in his darkness, needing nothing but to perfect his evil, wanting nothing but to amuse his black spark.

A darkness of her own awoke in response. Her optics narrowed further, and in her own shadows, she wondered if there were ways to teach the devil fear. To make him feel his own horror and to drive him mad with it. The Teacher’s cries of agony she imagined as the devil’s. She imagined what she could do to him, what her knowledge of the dark arts might teach him. Names meant something; this devil was called Perceptor...a seer. She instinctively moved her hands to mimic her imaginings. She could use an acid to etch his optics without destroying them...leave him partially blind...and she could shatter that thing on his shoulder if he really did use it to see. He had called torture an art and claimed to prefer his own tools...he thought himself an artist, no mean interrogator but a virtuoso. She could take his hands and flay the metal from them...break them slowly, joint by joint... Her wings moved forward and her lips curled into a cruel grin.

The Student gasped silently, suddenly disgusted at her own imaginings and hating the darkness she felt in herself. Her wings snapped all the way back; in most fliers, it would be a painful position. She had been subject to such horrors all her life; they had first mutilated and then killed her. How could she ever wish them on another, no matter if he was wholly evil or not? It would take her down the path to the land of shadows, and then on to the throne of devils. For the first time since she died, she knew fear, and it was fear of nothing less than herself. She vowed then never to use the knowledge she had been taught, vowed to fight her darkness...to fight all darkness.

Realizing she was still drawing the devil, she violently cut off the draw, wanting to know no more of the ways of black. Again, Perceptor faltered, and the Student knew he had felt it that time. He paused in his work and glanced up toward the wall where her secret alcove sat. But he was deeply involved with other things, trying to perform his own manner of draw on the Teacher...to find her, the one he had looked toward and not seen.

But she had seen him. She had seen his face, his innocent face, his very form and expression a deception of such magnitude that it could only be called deeply, absolutely wrong. The terror that went about him like a cloak didn’t reach his face.

Maybe she had drawn him too long. Maybe it was because she couldn’t process the discontinuity of such an evil creature possessing such an innocent face. Maybe it was the discovery of her own darkness. Maybe it was all of that and more. Whatever the cause, however, for a time the Student lost her mind. She silently ran away, covering her optics with her hands, following blindly a trail through the tunnels.

After a long time running, she found herself outside on the surface of Cybertron. She uncovered her optics and looked at the desolation around her. She had run so far without thought that she couldn’t see her way back. All she could see were the ancient spires of the metal world she lived on, and in her madness, she tried to draw them. All she found was decay and death, emptiness. She spun around, wildly looking for something alive in this wasteland. But she didn’t find life. Only death. Death delayed, but death nonetheless. Even looking at her own pale gray hands she saw nothing but death. Everything everywhere was dead.

She screamed loud and long, and her voice echoed on the dark planes. No other voice answered.

Gaining back some of her sanity, the Student realized she could not go on this way. She would not risk another flight of such madness. She would never again look on the face of a devil. She realized that at least with Perceptor, the reason his face was so innocent lay in the fact that he was so profane as to be beyond profanity. To say he was evil lessened the reality. She would not risk seeing anything like that again, and she couldn’t bear to see nothing but death where ever she went.

So she shattered her optics with the heels of her hands. Her fingers scraped off every bit of yellow glass and then she used one of her subspaced laser scalpels to carve out the rest of her optics and burn every connection so they could not be repaired. To ensure further her future lack of sight, she felt the contours of her helmet and face, fashioned a plate to cover her empty optic sockets, and welded it on. Satisfied that she would never see again, she stood and brought her other senses to bear. Cybertron was ideally suited to echolocation and radar. She began to walk aimlessly forward.

It pricked her spark to know that the Teacher was most likely dead by now. He had been telling the truth, so he had to die. He had never been anything more than indifferent toward her, even the pride he had felt when he found out his student could draw out the motivations of others had been for himself and his accomplishments, not for her. But he was the only ‘family’ she had known, such as it was, so she felt a twinge of sadness for him.

It also meant she was not the Student any more. She needed a name.

She continued to walk, knowing by polar magnetism that she was at least moving away from her old dwelling. She wanted to fly, but she didn’t want to take the chance of being seen, even if she could fly with all stealth. She had no idea if her body would finally die, following her spark out in the empty plane, but it was a risk worth taking. Her vow to fight the darkness had not been an empty one. Should she ever again meet a devil, she would kill it as quickly and painlessly as she could manage. Should she meet a fallen angel, she would try to lessen the darkness in them, although she wasn’t certain how she would go about that.

She walked alone in that desolation a long time. When her sharp audio receptors caught an unfamiliar sound, she scanned around for a place to hide. There was an outcropping of what she assumed were torn up plates; the topography indicated them as tall and very ragged. She made her way toward them as the unfamiliar sound closed in. She inched around to the other side of the outcropping, but much to her surprise, one of the stabilizers on her leg caught on an undetected scrap and she tripped. Stifling a startled yelp, she put her arms out to catch herself. One hand hit the outcropping while the other touched naught but air. She spun down, wrenching her trapped stabilizer and landing on her wings with a loud clang.

There was nothing stealthy about that, she thought bitterly. Certainly whatever was making that odd noise would find her. She sat up, and as she did, she heard another sound equally unfamiliar.

Someone was laughing. She had heard laughter before, but never like this. This laugh was honest and delighted, without any hint of malice. She smiled with it. It was perhaps the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.

A calm, medium voice, a mech’s, sounded. "Viewfinder, stop it. Don’t laugh at a hurt femme."

Another voice, nearly identical to the first, said through stifled giggles, "But we can’t help it! We’ve never seen someone trip with such style!"

"Viewfinder!" the first voice warned.

The former Student said, "I know not who you are, but please, don’t stop laughing. I’ve never heard a voice so full of joy, and if I am to die here, I would that I could die hearing such beauty."

The two stopped suddenly, and she heard three sets of feet touch down. The unfamiliar sound she had heard must have been their flight. A third voice spoke; again, it was nearly identical to the other two. "We are sorry to hear it. We never thought Viewfinder laughing would be such a delight to anyone," here she heard the sound of one mech nudging the speaker sharply, and he laughed. "But certainly you aren’t going to die here. Why would you?"

The former Student turned all her senses on the three mechs. Scans suggested they were very much the same in surface contour, except for some minor differences. It was likely that they were identical triplets or something of that nature. She liked their voices and the sound of their movement. Although almost identical in tone, she had heard enough to make a preliminary guess at their personality. Viewfinder she thought was easily amused and happy, the owner of the first voice caring and perhaps stern, while the third sounded as though he had a sense of humor and a quiet confidence. Perhaps she would risk drawing them when she had spoken with them longer. "Sir, I do not know that my body will not die here. There is nothing here, and no one to which I should go. The Teacher is dead, I am already dead, and I don’t see why my body would not follow."

"Oh, no, friend, I won’t let you die here." That time the voice was different, a fourth voice, but in reality a near perfect mix of the first three. She was curious about that.

"We should tell you who we are at least. We are Spyglass. That perpetual goof is Viewfinder, and he is Spectro," spoke the first voice.

The third voice, the one that must belong to Spectro, chided Spyglass. "That wasn’t very nice. Isn’t it obvious she can’t see you?"

Spyglass replied, "We know. But we saw that she has many other senses and followed our voice to each of us. See? She has her head pointed at us right now."

Spectro paused. "You can tell me apart?"

The former Student said, "It is as you say. Your voices are different and so is your bearing."

"She’s looking at you, Spectro. Or her best equivalent."

Viewfinder started giggling again. From what the former Student could hear, he had turned a cartwheel. "Spectro doesn’t see as well as we can!"

"And Viewfinder couldn’t see a red petro-rabbit in a sea of white ones," Spyglass huffed.

"And Spyglass couldn’t see a sea of petro-rabbits! He’d be too busy counting them!" Viewfinder flew up in the air and began flipping around, judging by the sound he made. The sound of their odd flight started, and the former Student heard Spyglass start chasing Viewfinder in the air.

"Well," Spectro said, a smile in his voice, "while those two attempt to send themselves to the repair bay, why don’t you tell us your name?"

"I don’t have a name. I desire one; I am no longer a Student."

"No name?" Spectro asked, taken aback. "We feel for you. What should your name be?"

"I know your names have meaning," she said solemnly. "I would like mine to have meaning as well."

She heard Spectro step closer and sit down next to her. "A meaningful name...it’s not easy coming up with something like that without knowing you better. We often have names related to our talents or purposes. What is your purpose?"

The former Student turned her head down, holding open her hands. "Once my purpose was to spy and interrogate. That was why I was made, and I am talented in both, well trained in vile arts. I want no part in that."

Viewfinder and Spyglass stopped harassing one another and alit. Spyglass asked, with some horror, "We had forgotten you were injured! Forgive us, we haven’t even tried to help you!"

The former Student smiled. "It matters not. I had forgotten myself."

"Oh," Viewfinder said with a hint of surprise. "Doesn’t that hurt? It looks painful." She sensed he was pointing at her torn stabilizer.

"No, it doesn’t hurt. I can repair it easily enough, once I untangle it from the wretched plates of this dead world." She frowned, not knowing how she would manage that.

"We’ll help!" Viewfinder cried happily, and the three set to it. In short order, they had her free.

"Thank you," she said. "That was very kind of you."

"You are most welcome, friend," the fourth voice said.

Behind the mask, what was once her optics narrowed. Instead of asking about the fourth voice, she decided to draw it. She was surprised when she found she couldn’t; she ended up with nothing more than an impression of something in constant flux. "Who are you?"

"We told you already," Spyglass said.

"No, we haven’t," Spectro disagreed. "I have told her my names, that is all."

"Spectro," she said, "you have told me more than you realize. I...if you would permit me, may I draw you?"

"Draw us?" Spectro asked, confused.

"We don’t see any materials," Viewfinder added.

"It isn’t like that. I don’t know quite how to explain it. It helps me to know the inner qualities and motivations of different people...it isn’t quite psychic, and as far as I am aware, it doesn’t hurt, but some people feel it."

The three paused for a moment. Finally, Spectro said, "Yes, you may draw us."

The former Student nodded, and carefully drew Spectro. Recent events might have made her wary, but somehow she already knew she wouldn’t find any blackness in any of them. She gasped at what she did find. Long ago, when she had first realized this talent by drawing Catilla, she thought she might indeed have drawn the primal glory and never expected to draw anyone to rival him. And although that impression was not diminished, she realized there was error in it. Catilla had been beautiful, but Spectro had a nobility about him that she frankly had never considered possible, a thing greater than beauty. Noble, bright, and calming as the sky’s silent stars. She wondered if it were possible to softly drown in Spectro’s quelling spark.

A clink sounded; apparently, Viewfinder had nudged Spectro. "We think you like it," he said to Spectro, amusement blatant in his voice. For his part, Spectro said nothing.

"My apologies. I hadn’t thought that drawing would embarrass you."

"None needed," Spectro said quietly. "We didn’t expect you to react that way."

"Hmm? How did I react?" she asked.

Viewfinder spoke up, "You were smiling. We thought it was pretty...and we think Spectro likes that he made you smile like that!"

"Ah! Yes, well, Spectro is wonderful. Is it your turn now?" These three had definitely improved her mood, and somehow in drawing Spectro she had picked up an echo of Viewfinder that rubbed off on her a bit.

"Oh! Uh, we don’t know...," Viewfinder sputtered.

"Now that’s unusual. Caution from you, Viewfinder?" Spyglass needled.

"Fine, we’ll let her, but only if you do, too."

"We have no problem with it."

Viewfinder hesitated. "Oh, oh...all right."

Reluctantly, she ceased drawing Spectro and drew Viewfinder. He made her smile too, but not in quite the wistful manner as had Spectro. Viewfinder overflowed with courage and love, but most of all, the sort of light in which one would play filled him. He had his own nobility, but it was the nobility of the innocent. She laughed, and it felt good to laugh with Viewfinder’s freedom. "You are a wonder of your own, Viewfinder." She felt Viewfinder smile through her draw. She also felt some of Spectro in Viewfinder, enough to make her very curious. Now that she had drawn the two, she sensed a strong bond there.

Spyglass said, "We wonder ourselves. Aren’t we ordinary?" He sounded genuinely confused.

The former Student let go her draw of Viewfinder. "I don’t know what is ordinary." She drew Spyglass then, curious what he was like. She found in him a quiet, serious spark, a certain gravity, and a strong sense of justice. Again, he was a noble creature, but as with Viewfinder, it was not as brilliant as Spectro’s. Yet it was there. So was the bond she felt in Spectro and Viewfinder. It was a three-way bond, and she realized hints of the other two were present in any one of them. She smiled at Spyglass. "I don’t know what is ordinary, but I think you are not it." She let go of her draw. "There is something special about you all; are you brothers?"

"Not exactly," Spectro said. "We are...well...I am all of me. We don’t find it easy to explain, but I am Reflector." As he spoke, his voice shifted to the fourth when he stopped using the royal we.

"Reflector," she said. She drew Reflector, and inhaled sharply. He was indeed all of him. Viewfinder, Spyglass, and Spectro were all there as part of a whole greater than they were separate. All of their strengths were present in some form or fashion, and she could feel them all moving about filling in where they were needed and acting to make Reflector a seemingly indivisible whole. She guessed that this was what she had sensed before, the constant flux. Mainly, she felt Spectro’s nobility, Viewfinder’s courage, and Spyglass’ gravity. But Reflector had a sadness about him that none of the others had alone; to be Reflector the three had to become one, and they had to let go of their individuality to do it. "Reflector, do you dislike what you are?"

"No, I don’t. I am what I am, I suppose. But you will find that I don’t often show myself; Spectro, Spyglass, and Viewfinder enjoy themselves too much to fully merge unless they have to, or occasionally when they have a strong desire to. It’s usually a serious situation that requires me to function this way. Sometimes I will emerge spontaneously, though, when I am in total agreement with myself."

"I heard that, when you called me friend."

She heard Reflector’s smile in his words. "Yes. So, friend, we haven’t found a name for you yet. I see you have a great talent; do you have a purpose in life, one of your own?"

She thought about that for a while. "I had some faint hope that, should my body live long enough, that I would fight the darkness where ever I find it."

"You sound like the truest Decepticon."

"Decepticon? What is that?"

"We could certainly be characterized as fighters against the darkness. I think I have a name for you. How does ‘White Draw’ sound?"

The former Student weighed the name in her mind. It had a meaning that she found appealing, but she felt unworthy of it. The blackness was too close at hand for her to ever think of herself as its opposite. "It...does not sound quite right for me."

"I think it does, no matter what shadows you. I might not be able to read people as well as you, but I think ‘white’ is correct. It stands in opposition to ‘black’, the darkness. It’s the stand against the darkness that counts, not that you aren’t pure light. No one is. Besides, your body is nearly all white."

"You honor me. I will take the name. I am not the Student any longer, from now on I will be White Draw."

"You honor me, friend." There was a short pause, and White Draw felt Reflector flicker away. She lost the draw, like liquid slipping through her fingers.

"Now, we would like it if you would come with us," Spectro said. Viewfinder snickered quietly to himself. "We meant so she could get proper repairs."

"Of course," Viewfinder said gleefully. "It has nothing to do with how much you like her."

"You like her too, Viewfinder," Spectro answered, but not without some discomfort.

"Of course we do! But you know what we mean."

Spyglass just shook his head, a small smile on his face. There were no secrets between the three; Spectro could deny it until the day he went offline if he liked, but they knew he had developed a rather sudden and strong fondness for White Draw.

White Draw answered, "I think I will. I don’t care for the alternative, and I think I would like to meet some more Decepticons."

"We think you would like it, too," Spyglass replied. "We think you would fit right in."

"Then I shall go with you." White Draw stood, carefully scanning so she didn’t catch her stabilizers on any other outcroppings.

"Can you transform?" Spectro asked. "You look a lot like a Seeker, so we’re guessing you can fly. We weren’t sure if you could fly like we can."

"I can float for a certain amount of time, but I can’t fly in this form. I am a flyer, though."

"Maybe we could rebuild her to fly like us?" Viewfinder asked.

"Maybe," Spyglass answered. "But can you transform? We’ll carry you if we have to."

White Draw transformed easily, although her damaged stabilizer made her flight erratic. She returned to bipedal form and set down carefully. "Let me repair my stabilizer, then I think I shall be able to follow you where ever you lead."

All three Decepticons smiled broadly at White Draw, and she felt it and smiled with them.

Perceptor idly carved intricate designs into one of Didachus’ inert arms. Not my best work, but of course this was not the ideal circumstance, he thought to himself. Didachus had been telling the truth. A pity, that. He snaked his arm under the Teacher’s dead form and stabbed at the joint where his cape-like wings met his torso. Even in death the wings twitched. With a slight smile, Perceptor filed away a new bit of knowledge for the perfecting of his own art. Nevertheless, it was not a useless exercise. Those with insect forms must have especially sensitive wings.

The two guards stood back in the shadows of Didachus’ training hall, silent, still as statues. After a last moment, Perceptor set down the carving tool and turned to the guards. "Search the rest of this structure. Report back when you have discovered her escape route."

The two guards nodded as one, quickly turning away and marching out the door. They had no need to hear any underlining threat that might have been present in the red mech’s words: both had witnessed first hand what would surely be their fate should they fail to do precisely as Perceptor ordered.

When the guards had left, Perceptor walked out of Didachus’ home. Outside, Catilla, in sabercat form, sat on his haunches, an impatient glare in his azure optics. After taking a moment to scan the area with his own powerful sight, Perceptor gestured to Catilla.

"What is it?" Catilla rumbled softly.

"There is a femme I wish you to find for me. Reports indicate that she had no name other than ‘Student’. You are acquainted with her, am I correct?"

Catilla nodded, baring his dagger-like teeth in a ferocious grin. "Indeed I am. I’ll find her. I promise you that."

Perceptor turned his head and looked at Catilla. "You do that," he said, his innocent face graced by the faintest of smiles.

His smile was not a pleasantry. It was not a kindness. It was a promise.

Snarling, Catilla stood and stalked off, immediately searching for his target, knowing exactly what sort of promises Perceptor gave and kept.

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