This story is a continuation of my post-predacons rising series. The other two works in that are Zero Tolerance and Staying the Course and are also uploaded here.

This particular story is about Miko and one of my recurring Vehicon OCs, Wendy. Also Tracks. That's all, enjoy!

Thoughts and criticisms are encouraged and appreciated!

Saying goodbye to the Autobots had been hard. This was a good thing for them because they were going home to their own planet to rebuild, so she should have been happy. But Miko wasn't used to losing friends, so the next few months had been rough. Jack and Raf had been there for her, and at least Ratchet had remained with them. He did go for awhile there after the first week, but he ended up coming back a few days later. He was quieter when he came back. She didn't find out why for a while later, and decided not to bring it up with him.

She did ask why he could come back but Bulkhead couldn't, and she'd gotten a long explanation about the instability of their current situation on Cybertron and the Autobots needing to stick together. All she'd gleaned from it was that apparently Bulkhead was now overseeing some important construction and too busy for his friend.

She'd asked if she could go visit him instead too, but Cybertron was still too dangerous according to Ratchet. Soon, when their relations with the Decepticons had improved, perhaps. Until then she would just have to be patient.

Miko was not a patient person by any means, but she also didn't want to make things harder for Bulkhead. So she decided to play by Ratchet's rules and wait.

The months came and went but no word on when they would see the Autobots again. And she had asked. A lot. Until finally it was too late. That dreaded day had come at last: the day her foreign exchange program ended. She had cried and begged for her parents to please not bring her back. Wasn't there any way for her to stay longer? She would do anything to stay longer!

But no. She'd had to say goodbye yet again, this time to her friends Jack and Raf. Ratchet went so far as to promise her he would contact her once they were clear to visit, but she was starting to lose hope that would ever happen.

So she went back to Japan. Her parents made her color the pink out of her hair and it was chopped short again for school. Her boots were exchanged for saddle shoes, her leggings and tank top for a boring grey skirt and blouse uniform and life went back to normal. Back to being smothered and over protected and treated like a mindless-drone daughter there to obey rules and not have any individuality… Just as it had been before Jasper and before the Autobots. She hated it.

After a few weeks of the same boring routine over and over again (morning exercise, school, piano lessons, tutoring, homework, bed, repeat) and just as she was thinking she'd never escape this pit of monotony or have any friends ever again, it finally happened.

Miko was sitting upstairs and staring down at her blank writing assignment homework, slowly but surely losing her mind with boredom. She tore her eyes away from the lined paper in front of her and looked back over her shoulder into her room. Tucked carefully under her keyboard was the case for her electric guitar. It was empty of course. Her parents took it away until she finished her homework. That was what they always said. Then by the time she finished it was "too late to play, you'll wake the neighbors with that racket!"

Turning back around, she dropped her head onto the desk with a thud. This was torture. She felt like she was in prison.

As she was contemplating the best type of spoon to dig through plaster walls, she suddenly heard a new voice downstairs.

"Konee-chawa. Wetesha wa Miko o saga-shita-mass…?"

Despite him speaking some god-awful japanese, Miko immediately recognized that voice. She bolted out of her room, knocking over the chair she's been sitting on, and sprinted down the stairs. She couldn't even help herself from screamingin excitement as she leapt into the arms of Agent Fowler as he greeted her.

Both her parents had been shocked of course, but with some quick thinking she was able to convince them that he was the parent of one of her friends from America. They were visiting, you see, and so it would be so very rude of her not to show them around Tokyo. Though still skeptical, her parents had agreed to let her go after some helpful lies spun by by Fowler. She just had to promise to be home at a reasonable hour.

Yeah, Miko had thought, reasonable by Jasper time maybe.

As she expected, that was exactly where they went. After she ran upstairs to change out of her school skirt and into some jeans, and also paused a moment to tie up her hair into her signature double buns, though they were smaller with her short hair now. She thanked her parents one last time as she ran past them, she and Fowler set off down the street. The next block down, they ducked into a side street and through the waiting groundbridge. Miko rushed forward into the portal to greet Jack and Raf in Hangar E on the other side. The excitement of seeing them was pretty quickly overshadowed by Ratchet stepping up to her, a big smile on his face.

"Welcome back, Miko," he had said, "you'll be pleased to know, you've all been cleared for a visit to Cybertron! Bulkhead is very excited for you to-"

His announcement was cut off by her own excited screaming. She spent the next ten minutes bouncing around the base as Ratchet made preparations and tried to lay down a few ground rules. She was only half paying attention, of course. She did hear him explain their new technology to keep the humans safe in space. Rather than wearing bulky suits, they had engineered some sort of doo-hickey that attached to their shirt collars and would create a bubble of breathable air around their heads. When Raf had asked who made them Ratchet didn't know their name, but they were working with Wheeljack as an engineer. Miko didn't care, she just wanted to go already.

The three kids got their own air clips and, once they were seen to be in working order, Ratchet stepped over to the groundbridge and set the coordinates for Cybertron.

"Now," he said, looking down at the three with his hand on the activation lever, "Ultra Magnus is waiting for you at the other groundbridge. He's going to have… erm… a few more rules for you to follow concerning some of the Decepticons you'll meet. Make sure you listen to him, he's got a better idea of their current situation than I do I'm sure, so-"

"Uuuuuurghh!" Miko slouched forward dramatically, "I'm dying, Ratchet! I'm literally dying please please PLEASE just let us go!"

With an annoyed huff that was only half-hearted, Ratchet finally pulled the lever and the groundbridge sprung to life. "Try to take this seriously, Miko. The situation on Cybertron is still-"

She didn't hear the rest of it. She was already sprinting through the portal.

Once on the other side, she slowed down considerably to take in her surroundings. She was in a massive chamber, the walls were a uniform deep grey metal, and a few consoles lined the wall. She spun around to look back and saw the groundbridge she'd come through was not just a standalone portal like it usually was. The portal was connected to the massive machine taking up the wall behind her and was still swirling green but with a hint of blue in it as well: the Decepticons' spacebridge.

"Welcome to Cybertron, Miko."

Turning around again, she looked up at Ultra Magnus as he approached her.

She threw up a pair of finger guns at the 'Bot in greeting, "What's shakin', Mags?"

With a heavy sigh, he shook his head slightly and added, "It is still Ultra Magnus. You may be a guest on our planet, but that does not entitle you to nicknames."

As he said this, Miko thought she heard someone snickering. Leaning a bit to the right, she spotted a group of three Vehicons standing behind Ultra Magnus, each of them at their own respective console station.

"Yo!" She shouted, pointing at them, "There's 'Cons operating the groundbridge! Are they allowed to do that?"

They all quickly stopped their giggling and stared over at her like she'd just said something rude.

"Miko, you should have listened to Ratchet," This voice came from behind her this time. She looked around and saw Jack and Raf had finally followed her through the portal and were approaching her. Raf, who had spoken, continued, "He said the Vehicons were working for the Autobots now."

"That is a rather simplified version of it and not entirely accurate." Ultra Magnus interjected, "Our team and the Vehicons are certainly working together, but they do not work for us. It is a cooperative effort." He looked back around and gestured to each of the three Vehicons. "These are some of the spacebridge engineers: XS-01, XS-04, and XS-05."

"Uh, actually," XS-04 raised a servo as he spoke, "I go by Xerxes now."

"Ah yes, Xerxes. My apologies." Ultra Magnus corrected himself.

XS-05, who was closest to Xerxes, jabbed him lightly with their elbow, snickering again. "You gearhead, that doesn't even have an X in it!"

"What would you know? You don't know how to spell in human either!"

Ultra Magnus ignored them as they continued to argue and turned back to look at the humans. "Some of the Vehicons have adopted new designations. Some are based on human names, others are Cybertronian in origin. I don't expect you to interact much with them during your visit, of course, but keep it in mind should any introduce themselves."

Miko glanced over at the Vehicons again just in time to see XS-01 step over and smack the other two on the top of their helms and tell them to stop screwing around in front of Magnus. When she had turned her back, they both made what must have been some kind of obscene Cybertronian gesture at her. It was strange to see the Vehicons acting so… normal. They always seemed like faceless drones whenever she saw them back on Earth, so she had kind of assumed they were. Watching them goof off with each other like this, even only briefly, was super weird.

"Now then," Ultra Magnus continued, "I had intended to have the Vehicon commander here as hey wanted to personally give you some more in-depth rules to follow when interacting with the Vehicons, but they appear to be running late yet again. So I will just leave it to your guardians to instruct you on proper etiquette. Please be sure to follow their leads."

With that, he turned to look to the wall on the right. The metal door slid open just as their Autobot partners came through. Jack and Raf ran forward excitedly to meet Arcee and Bumblebee, and as Miko took a few steps forward she suddenly stopped. Bulkhead wasn't there.

She looked back up at Ultra Magnus expectantly, "Where's Bulk?"

"Oh Miko, he got delayed." Arcee spoke up from behind her, "He's really sorry, but there was a problem at one of his construction sites, so he's not gonna be over for another hour or so."

"Noooooooooo." Miko sunk to the ground, laying flat on the hard, black metal with her arms splayed out. "There's no possible way this could get any worse." She moaned.

"Not to worry." Ultra Magnus leaned over, taking ahold of Miko's wrist and carefully pulling her to her feet. "You can accompany me on my rounds until Bulkhead has finished his duties."

"Oh my GOD, why did I jinx myself?!"

—

Hanging out with Ultra Magnus turned out to be just as fun as Miko expected it to be: none at all. She sat clinging to the commander's shoulder as he met with a group of Vehicon miners about broken equipment, then they met with a team of scouts about the safety of their perimeter, and then with a few silver Eradicons to ask about their investigation of some irregular signals coming from the south. That last one had seemed interesting but they insisted they hadn't found anything, so it turned out to be just as dull as the last two.

The whole time, she kept seeing the Vehicons shoot glances up at her curiously, but none of them spoke to her or asked about her presence. Maybe they didn't want to seem rude. Did the Vehicons have a sense of what rudeness was? Probably. She didn't actually know anything about how they acted, and being around Ultra Magnus was probably stifling their usual behavior. It was definitely stifling hers.

On their way to Magnus' next appointment, and just as Miko was considering throwing away her air clip and letting herself just die, Ultra Magnus stopped and held a digit to his helm as he received a comm message. She couldn't hear the exact contents of it, but he looked annoyed.

"Understood. I'm on my way." He finally said, lowering his servo. "Change of plans. We're heading to the medbay to meet Smokescreen."

"Smokey! Is he okay?"

"He claims both he and one of his warrior trainees were injured during practice, and he's requesting my assistance." He explained, "His concern is understandable. Knockout has been temperamental recently."

"You let Doc Knock be you guys' doctor?" Miko asked in surprise, "Bad call! That guy hasn't got a gentle bone in his whole body."

Ultra Magnus turned down a new hallway and didn't reply for a moment, "The doctor is certainly…" he was obviously choosing his words carefully, "harsh at times. However, he has been shown to handle some severe injuries with skill, and for the lesser issues we have his staff of five Vehicon nurses. Or actually, I believe it may still be four."

"Yeah well… I don't like the guy." Miko grumbled, not quite loud enough for Magnus to hear.

Just as she did, Magnus turned down a second hallway and they heard shouting up ahead. A door down the hall opened and a Vehicon rushed out, pursued by none other than the red medic himself.

Knockout reached forward, grabbing ahold of the Vehicon as they tried to leave, and he reached forward with his other servo, pointing a single claw threateningly at their face.

"I haven't finished with you, yet!" He growled, "What makes you think you can just skip out on your duties like you're so much better than the rest of us, hmm?!"

"I'm not skipping out," The Vehicon's vocalizer was quiet and they looked a bit nervous, "my job is to be with Tracks."

"That's nonsense! Your job is to work here in the medical bay," Knockout insisted, "stop using her as an excuse to not do your work. She doesn't need you!"

Suddenly the. Vehicon slapped Knockout's servo away from their face. "You're wrong! She does need me!" He insisted, his voice was louder but still wavered a bit, "And what would you even know? When was the last time you even saw her? You haven't been there for her since Breakdown died!"

Even though he wasn't looking in their direction, Miko and Magnus could see Knockout's optics flash bright with anger at the Vehicon's words. The servo that had been slapped away drew back with his claws extended, as if he was going to strike them. Miko had to hold tighter to his shoulder as Ultra Magnus rushed forward to try to intervene.

"Knockout, don't-!"

Before Magnus could even finish his command, a third figure stepped out of the medical bay doors and grabbed ahold of Knockout's arm, stopping him.

"Whoa, whoa, hold on there!" Smokescreen had a confident smile as he pulled Knockout away from the Vehicon, "Take it easy, doc. Why don't you head back into the med bay and grab yourself a chill pill?"

Knockout glared up at the Autobot and from the fierce look in his optics, he seemed about ready to fight him too. Then he glanced over and noticed Ultra Magnus approaching, and that look in his optics faded a bit. Tearing his arm out of Smokescreen's grip, he growled something about his finish and then pushed past him as he stormed back into the med bay.

Once he passed by, Smokescreen turned back to the Vehicon, still with that winning smile on his face. "Hey, sorry about that! I wouldn't have called the doc out of his office if I knew he was looking for ya."

The Vehicon didn't respond, he just stood there staring uneasily at Smokescreen with his servos folded together against his chassis, right over where his spark chamber was. He looked more nervous now than he had with Knockout. When Ultra Magnus took the last few steps and stopped to stand outside the door with them, he shrank back even more and tilted his helm down just slightly so as not to make eye contact. As he did, Miko noticed there was a slight crack on his right side just where the grey transitioned to black.

"If Knockout was looking for you, then you must be WY-05." Ultra Magnus said, giving a short nod, "AA-00 has been meaning to speak with you as well. I'm sure they will be much easier to reason with than Knockout. If you would-"

"No. No, I…" the Vehicon, WY-05, spoke up finally. "I'm gonna go." With that, he turned and hurried away down the hall, his helm still lowered and keeping one of his servos pressed against his chassis.

Just as he turned the corner out of sight, a second Vehicon came out of the med bay and looked down the hall where he'd disappeared. This Vehicon seemed different than all the others. Every ground Vehicon Miko had seen so far had been the same purple muscle car frame, but this one, just from the vehicle kibble on his shoulders and legs, appeared to be a completely new car model.

"Aw scrap…" he mumbled, when he saw WY-05 had run off. Then he turned to Smokescreen, "Hey, I'm gonna go make sure he's okay. I'll see you in the bar later, okay?"

"Yeah, no problem, Steve." Smokescreen gave a thumbs up. "Good work today. Y'know, besides the dislocated gears and all."

"Ha ha! Thanks, sarge. I'll see you!" This was called back over his shoulder as Steve was already rushing off.

With the Vehicons finally gone, Ultra Magnus stepped closer to Smokescreen and, with a quick glance back into the med bay to be sure Knockout had gone back into his office, he spoke. "Good work handling that, soldier. Have your injuries been tended?"

"Yeah, WY-03 already fixed up me and Steve while Knockout was yelling at-" Smokescreen cut himself off as his optics finally landed on Miko. "Oh what?! The visit is today? I totally forgot! What's up, Miko?"

"Good t'see ya, Smokey!" Miko gave a quick salute, "Or should I say Sargent Smokey?"

Ultra Magnus looked a bit put off for a moment, probably annoyed that he hadn't gotten a salute earlier, not realizing it had been sarcastic. He didn't say anything about it, though.

On the other hand, Smokescreen's door wings lifted proudly as she said his title, "Heh, yeah. I got a bit of a promotion. I'm in charge of training some of the Vehicons. It's pretty cool."

"You must be going hard on 'em if they land in the med bay like this."

Smokescreen let out a quiet laugh and waved her comment away, "No no, this isn't a regular thing. We just ended a session early because my guy there, Steve, got tripped up by his sparring partner and got knocked into me."

"Well, if everything is settled here," Ultra Magnus interrupted their conversation and began to turn away, "I still have appointments to see to. Please excuse us."

"Wait, you're taking Miko on your meeting runs?" Smokescreen stepped over, blocking Magnus' exit. "She's probably not having any fun with that. Why don't you let me take her? I finished my class today, so I'm free!"

Miko gasped, leaning over to press her hands to the side of Ultra Magnus' helm. "Yes! Yes, please let me go with him!" She begged, "I promise I'll be good! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!"

"There's no need to grovel." Ultra Magnus nodded and reached his servo up for Miko to step in. She leapt excitedly from his shoulder and he handed her off to Smokescreen. "Be sure to stay with each other. I will have Bulkhead come find you when he has finished his work."

"No problem, sir!" Smokescreen nodded and turned away, hurrying off down the hall with Miko in his servo. Once they were out of sight, he spoke up again. "Heh, sorry you had to pal around with Mags. I figured you could use rescuing."

"Yes! Thank you!" Miko said, clasping her hands together in front of her, "You're totally my savior."

"So hey, I was just gonna meet with some of my students. The Vehicons set up a bar in the auxiliary base. You wanna check that out?"

"Yeah, dude, that sounds amazing! These Vehicons aren't at all what I expected. It'd be cool to see more of 'em."

"Yeah, for the most part they're pretty agreeable," Smokescreen nodded, "but some of them are a little sketchy… like that scared-looking one back at the med bay,"

"Yeah, what was his deal? He didn't even thank you for saving him from Doctor Crazy-Claws."

"Heh, well… some of them haven't quite warmed up to us Autobots yet… don't worry, though. You probably won't run into him again."