"Why do you need our help?" Lili asked with her brow raised upwards and Cliffjumper began to explain with a glitchy voice that not only was Alexa was in danger but the concerning rates of civilian deaths had drastically increased over night becoming from 700 deaths to 3,000 deaths by the Decepticons and humans dying because they couldn't get medical care in time or some were alive but severely wounded and they had died the next day. There was also a special file they needed to get, it was one of the codes to Shockwave's computer, so they could figure out what he has been doing in the meantime while everything else was getting destroyed. "I seee you make a point but can we trust you?" Zera asked with caution in her voice, since she was a detective, she wasn't too trustworthy of people. "For now just trust us, human." Ultra Mangus said firmly as Zera had her hand near her chin looking thoughtfully. They didn't have much to go on and Samuel said to Zera "I think, we probably should go with them." Zera turned and told something him before both agreed. Kirin, Lili and Harold were discussing something nearby "Can we even trust them?" Harold asked as Lili replied "We can probably! We are technically stuck in the dumps anyways." That was true. They were basically going off scarps at this point in time and they needed to find Alexa urgently. "You make a point Lili, we wouldn't get much if we won't go with them." Kirin inquired before turning to Cliffjumper and Ultra Magnus and he nodded showing that they all decided to go with them. Cliffjumper had an slight smile on his face while Ultra Magnus looked way less tense as they both transformed and told them to hop on as they got on. They started to drive off as Lili saw a broken playground nearby and immediately got reminded of Arthur which made her look away from the playground. She felt like most playgrounds gave her bad memories at this point.
Optimus woke up after a whole day when his team was completely separated as felt himself weirdly numbed and he felt most of his limbs hurting as he began to go on his knees, most of his height being around 38ft tall was larger than most of the trees but felt as if his once heroic pride was completely stripped away from him temporarily. Instead he felt like his being was filled with suppressed hatred, feelings of hurt and the desire to harm those close to himself. His weapon which was a bright glowing orange axe now felt like it was used nothing more for destruction and the cruelty of spilling energon like it was a job. He looked upwards, his light red optics flickering as he leaned downwards "Why... This isn't me, I'm not suppose feel this way." Optimus said to himself as he felt his regret going through him. Straight away without any expectations, a pain like no other was felt in his optics which made him for once yell out in absolute agony. The aching and constant scratching mixed with what felt like itching and fingers pressing tightly against his optics made him nearly fall backwards as his hand caught himself from falling on the ground. He fell some sort of liquid going down from his optics and tightened around his axe like strings on a harp. It was a thick black liquid which had no smell but burned against his own metal as he noticed things had become blurry. His arm, it was burning as well and he felt like his spark was just barely attached to his own frame. His windows on his frames felt larger but they felt like they were about to break inside of himself and injure him even more. The back of his arms had thin, long wounds. He noticed a mirror and went to go check on what he looked like.
He looked shocked seeing himself as his optics were fully pitched black with a thick black liquid falling downward from his optics to the rest of his faceplate, half of his left arm was blackened and both arms had wounds. His chest cavity was completely open with his spark barely attached to his frame and his insides were completely hallow. His windows were in fact larger but were completely cracked. One of the black liquids that fell like thick tears had stringed around the axe he was holding. His axe turned from orange to black and some parts had completely broken off from it, making the cybertronic axe look completely jagged. Then all of a sudden his reflection changed, revealing a very familiar but also different face. Starscream who looked somewhat like his past self before the events that had happened. But his back looked to be open with energon coming out of it, his armour around his arms had thickened to the point where it covered half of his null rays, his wings looked more smaller and sharper and more insect-like instead of bat-like wings his present self had. He still had the rictus grin and his fingers had long, thin but sharp metallic claws attached on top. His chassis had a propeller blade in the middle however it looked completely faulty. His back had two more wings as well smaller and one of them had an jet blaster to it. The shoulders which surprisingly instead had exhausts of a truck and the side of his legs had truck wheels surprisingly. Immediately Starscream's hand came out of the reflection and grabbed Optimus by his throat which Optimus choked. "You and I are much more similar are we not?" Starscream asked with obvious intent of what he meant as he pulled Optimus in. Optimus' face crashed against the mirror and he fell backwards, fell shards of glass piercing his faceplate. He groaned holding his head as Starscream disappeared.
He got up seeing the reflection disappearing and the area became very glitchy. His optics changed colours as the the panels mashed, stretched and twisted together in incomprehensible geometry as mixed data of human python and java coding with cybertronic letters appeared on his interface where everything became a dull pink mixed with red and grey static mixed with yellow sparks was all over the area. Some of the ground went into non-existential angles, with some going upwards, a few acres of ground went downwards and grass completely broke off from the dirt. What looks to be a large hole full of darkness appeared in the air where animal blood was coming out of the sky. And started to fall down on the mirror as Optimus backed off while the air went through his own chest cavity which was cool and sore. A thousand burning pixels went through his skin and he scream out loud in complete pain. Oh primus, it hurt worse than his optics leaking down black liquid. Four times as worse and his optics already had hurt a lot. His body couldn't keep up with this uncomfortable feeling of... Mitosis. But why? He wasn't a human and Cybertronians did not go through most biological processes like humans did. Then again, he shouldn't be going through most of this. He fell on his back and the feeling of actual bugs made in digital way started to crawl up his legs. Soon, he woke up panting and in absolute cold sweat, "whatever was that?" he wondered to himself as he saw he was actually okay and Hoist was nearby him looking completely worried.
"Optimus! You are awake." Hoist said with worry as Optimus sat upwards feeling dazed as his optics wavered and were light red before they changed to his regular dull blue colour. "What happened?" Optimus asked with worry while Hoist responded with his observation in mind "I never seen such signals that are hostile before, usually most signals end up not activating when a Cybertronain is offline but it seems like they very intense to the point where they almost reach minus numbers." Optimus was trying to focus on what his friend was saying as his mind was reeling from what just happened to him. He questioned "Where is everyone else, Hoist?" Hoist replied to Optimus afterwards "They had completely spilt up from us. I don't have the answer to why they did, I apologise." Optimus got upwards as he felt like his spark was torn apart in two as his head moved up. Hoist meanwhile looked downwards at the amount of energon cubes that they had, "Considering our team is completely spilt up, our resources are very little. Where do you think we will go next, dear Optimus?" Hoist inquired with confusion and doubt on his face. "We can't afford our team to spilt up anymore. Last thing we need is for the Decepticons to get us." Optimus replied his question with determined expression which Hoist completely understood. It was way too risky and with them finding out the nukes had hit several countries, they know that they should be careful of anymore complete world-destruction events. Hoist transformed first and Optimus transformed into his semi-truck mode as both drove in an search to find their allies quick with one of Optimus' optics in his vehicle mode disappearing for an moment.