Arisen

13

" Initializing Solus simulation. "

The first thing Pax sees upon waking up is the completely destroyed city of Iacon.

Worse, when he turns around, he sees the archive building reduced to nothing but rubble.

But none of that matters when Pax sees Alpha Trion, making him gasp.

The two share a smile, but that's immediately dashed when Alpha Trion immediately becomes surrounded by Quintessons.

Pax starts running, even as the Quintessons begin dragging Alpha Trion away, towards a Quintesson ship in the distance.

When they climb a wall, Pax launches himself onto one of the bigger bugs and hangs on for dear life, but it's not enough as both him and the Quintesson fall.

Pax digs his digits into the wall, looking for anything he can grip onto, and is rewarded a moment later, immediately slowing down his descent.

It doesn't do much else to stop his face getting slammed into the wall though.

In the real world, Sentinel and the rest watch Pax's body writhe and jerk in the glass chamber.

"Pulse is rising."

"Don't pull him." Sentinel orders, while Dion keeps watching silently.

When Pax finally reaches a ledge, the moment he steps on it, it crumbles underneath him, making him fall flat on his face.

But he quickly recovers and stands back up, running in the direction of where he saw the Quintessons disappear.

"I'm on my way!" Pax shouts as he keeps running.

When he sees the bugs again, he doesn't think, just launches himself at them, stomping on any stupid enough to get crushed underneath him.

But he's so distracted by this, he almost misses seeing Alpha Trion once again be dragged away.

"Hang on!" Pax calls, and makes quick work of running right through the rest of the Quintessons.

In the real world, coolant leaks out of one of Dion's optics.

Finally, Pax lunges for Alpha Trion, succeeding in both pulling him away and knocking him down, right into a pit.

For a second, Pax thinks he failed, but when he feels a servo grab his shoulder, he looks down, only to realize he's now in the archives, like nothing happened.

"Orion Pax." Alpha Trion greets.

"Solus simulation complete. Initializing Zeta simulation."

Pax immediately kneels, helm bowed, but Alpha Trion keeps his servo on his shoulder, pulling him back up to his pedes.

"I need your guidance more than ever, Alpha Trion." Pax says heavily.

"I've done all I can." Alpha Trion replies. "But my knowledge didn't die with me."

A tear leaks out of Pax's optics, but he just wipes it away.

"You can't give up now." Alpha Trion says. "You must fight for Cybertron. For the Cybertron that is yet to come."

"That's all I've ever done." Pax says brokenly.

"You have what it takes. I've known since you were entrusted into my care." Alpha Trion says. "Even now, you still have hope."