TRANSFORMERS:

The Next Generation

Chapter One: Prologue

Misinterpretations

Planet: Junkion

Time: 70 Earth Years Previous

Team: Ultra Magnus, Mirage, Two Tone, Blurr, Chromia and Arcee

"Mirage, report," chimed Ultra Magnus' voice from Mirage's internal communicative systems. Mirage let out a vent of air before turning towards Two Tone and Blurr. They were investigating the strange building they had just found.

"Mirage here, Ultra Magnus. We found something. It seems sort of like a Decepticon housing unit. Should we continue investigating it?" Mirage reported, and then asked. He felt an air of a fourth presence among the three of them.

Two Tone, a silvery pink and green Autobot Femme looked at Mirage worriedly before looking at the wall she had just been translating. She spoke many different languages besides their own.

"Negative, Mirage. We all know we don't have a medic to look after you if you get your aft handed to you. Head straight back to the regroup area, and wait for us there. Me and the Femmes will meet up with you shortly," Ultra Magnus ordered.

Blurr shot up before Mirage excitedly. "Well,-what-are-we-waiting-for? Ultra-Magnus-says-let's-go,-then-let's-go!"

Mirage chuckled at Blurr's enthusiasm to leave the Decepticon building fast - he could relate. The three left the building before gathering their things, and headed for the regroup area.

"Boy, do I hate Junkion!" Two Tone exclaimed. "It's so vile and unsanitary."

Mirage growled before replying. "Deal with it, Two Tone. We'll be leaving shortly."

But, it was not meant that way. A Decepticon sniper, sprawled across a very tall junk heap, his crosshairs centred on Blurr, was watching them from a distance. He fired, only to have missed when Blurr knelt down to look at a shiny object on the ground, and shot Two Tone in the shoulder plating. Her scream alerted the other two Autobots, and the two mechs began looking around, trying to find their attacker.

It was Blurr who finally did. He pointed his laser gun at the attacker, and fired. The Decepticon fell over with a scream. But, the scream alerted all Decepticons in the vicinity. It also alerted Ultra Magnus, Chromia, and Arcee.

"Mirage, Blurr and Two Tone! They must be under attack!" Exclaimed Arcee, her pink armour glinting a little in the weak light.

The light green-blue of Chromia walked towards the area from whence the scream came. "We better hurry, then! Wouldn't want to be running around without Two Tone, now would we?"

"You have got to be kidding me," Arcee said, with a hint of displeasure in her voice, as the three began running towards their comrades, determined to save them. "Two Tone is practically frightened of her own shadow!"

"Stop it, you two!" Ultra Magnus scolded.

They arrived too late. By the time they appeared, all that was left was a severely wounded Blurr, lying on the ground in a pool of energon. Ultra Magnus knelt down before him, and lifted his head up. The two Femmes began looking for the remains of Mirage and Two Tone, if there were any.

"What happened here, Blurr?" demanded Ultra Magnus.

Blurr coughed up energon, and wearily opened his bright blue optics at Ultra Magnus. The optics were weakly lit. "-cough-We... we were sniped... Decepticon... shot Two Tone first... Don't... don't know what happened... to... Mi-... Mirage..."

"Ultra Magnus! We found something!" shouted Chromia from behind a junk pile. Ultra Magnus lifted Blurr into his arms, and rushed over the pile, keeping a close optic on Blurr while doing so. When he reached the other end, the Femmes moved out of the way, to show a mangled body on the ground. The colours were simple. They were purple, and the Decepticon symbol was clear on the shoulder.

"Holy... Primus...," Ultra Magnus breathed. "Who... Who did this!"

Arcee looked at Ultra Magnus with a straight face. "The tracks tell it all. This Decepticon had no idea where his attacker was standing during the battle. That means, Mirage did this."

Ultra Magnus nearly fell over, both from shock, the other from Blurr's weight on his arms as the weary bot recharged peacefully. "That's impossible! Mirage would never do something like this."

"Exactly," Chromia confirmed. "Arcee and I suspect a Cerebral Shell." That meant that slagger of an Insecticon Bombshell was still alive and kicking.

Ultra Magnus shifted Blurr's weight as he weighed the options in his head. Go Find Mirage and Two Tone, or Get Blurr To Safety First, Then Find Mirage and Two Tone. Blurr comes first, in his head. The young Autobot could offline permanently otherwise. "Well, let's get Blurr to the ship first and see what we can do for him there. Then, we'll track down Mirage and Two Tone. I am not leaving a soldier behind."

"Right," both Femmes said at once.

It took them a full seven Earth hours to stabilize Blurr. Then, leaving him under the watchful eye of Arcee, Chromia and Ultra Magnus rushed to where the battle scene took place to find Mirage and Two Tone right away. They searched, and searched, and searched...

... But the bodies of the two snipers were never found.

- 20 Earth Years Previous -

Ship: Interceptor

Captain: Ravager

Faction: Ally/Autobot

---

"Aw, blast it!" exclaimed an annoyed voice from the back of the ship. Ravager, annoyed that his peace had been disrupted, wheeled his chair around to reveal Digit, the ship's scientist. He chuckled a little as he noticed her cursing under her breath, obviously failing at an attempt to not have him notice. The yellow and white mech got up and walked over to the pure black femme. The scientist looked up with a shocked look in her green optics.

"Digit, how many times are you going to attempt this?" he asked, as he looked upon the strange spherical object on the table before the femme.

"Ravager, this thing is the key to finding Raj's race! Prototype doesn't even know her own tongue because of him... And besides... I'm not rather fond of the guy myself," Digit confessed. She turned back to her strange device and returned to tinkering with it. "We've all gotten so used to speaking Cybertronian... I don't think it's fair to Prototype."

Ravager resisted the urge to grab the femme by the neck brace and strangle her. If he did, his brother, Nitrous, would never let him hear the end of it. Instead, he grabbed the nearby chair, and sat down beside the scientist. He smiled kindly at her - a thing he rarely did - and placed his hands on the table before them. She sharply turned to him."Digit... we saved Raj from sheer offlinement and energon starvation. He's very grateful to us, and is helping us in defeating the Rebels and the Decepticons. Right now, he's the strongest mech in our force."

Digit scoffed. "What's left of it."

"Right. So, right now, I think the smartest and most logical thing to do is to keep Raj with us. One of these days, we will find a way to get him home," Ravager concluded. He looked away momentarily, expecting Digit to continue their argument, but she didn't. She just went straight back to working on the strange spherical object she had been working on before her random outburst of both Cybertronian, and Paraitronian (their race) swear words.

-----

Having no memory of your past life was hard on thing to deal with. Such was the life of the blue and white mech, Raj. Now, he was sure that wasn't even his full name; he was certain there was a larger form of it. He just didn't remember it. Ah... what it must be to remember oneself so complete!

That must of been why he loved Prototype so much. She was so innocent and young... just a Sparkling. Raj remembered bits and pieces of his life here and there through the days, and then, whenever Digit or Reviver weren't available (which seemed to be a lot), he'd go and pour out his spark on Prototype. She'd listen with wide optics and open audio receptors, hearing and storing every word he said to her. She remembered every detail of every story.

There was one drawback. Reviver - the ship's medic - was completely against these actions. She claimed that once Prototype was older, she'd depend on those stories to fall asleep (because, eventually, that's what happened while listening). So, Raj stopped, and only babbled to her when she was wide awake.

Right now, he was Sparkling-Sitting. He and her were sitting in the rather small Rec-Room of the Interceptor and were all alone. Prototype was chittering away at her stuffed toy while Raj watched her from a distance, letting her have her space. That was, until the little Sparkling crawled up to him, and looked up at him with her bright green optics, into Raj's own blue ones.

It was how she identified him. Raj was the only one on the entire ship that didn't have green optics; his were blue. "Blue-optics" meant "Raj." "Raj" meant "free story."

"Story, Raji?" she asked, innocently. She lifted her arms up high, hoping to be held by her best friend.

Raj smiled at her, lifted her up, and thought hard. There had been a recent memory that he had remembered the day before. He looked at her as he got her ready for recharge.

"Well, long ago, Raj used to travel with five friends, and one day, we landed on a planet called Junkion..." he began, as the memory began to resurface.

"Mirage, behind-you, behind-you!" exclaimed Blurr, pointing his gun behind Mirage, and firing. Two Tone was knocked out, on the ground, split eagle. Mirage and Blurr were fighting for their lives as they fired at all angles, rushing in on enemies, disappearing at the last minute, and knocking them unconscious with lucky blows.

It was Mirage who noticed that Decepticons were dragging Two Tone away. "Hey, you come back with her!" Wanting to save his fellow sniper, he chased after them.

And that was the last that Blurr had ever seen of Mirage, for after that, he had gotten knocked on the head with the butt end of a Decepticon machine gun.