Chapter 1: Better Off Without Me
The missions were complete failures. What started as simple harmless energon scouting trips, ended up as fights for survival. Bumblebee and Rafael were in Montana and Bee decided to show off a cool move to his human friend when he made a simple miscalculation that almost allowed the 'cons to scrap them both. Bulkhead and Miko were in Miami and Miko convinced her guardian to ambush a small Decepticons mine. It ended badly. Arcee and Jack were in North Dakota were they ran into Airachnid. No details are necessary.
After both Optimus Prime and Ratchet chewed them out, Ratchet livid and yelling and Optimus calm and disappointed, they ended their lecture with threats and seriously considering to stop guarding the humans since they were in often in more in danger than not. At this point, June came in and took the kids home.
All three kids felt terrible. Each felt guilty and responsible for getting their guardians and friends in trouble. To them, it seemed to be what they've been doing for a while and they blamed themselves. It looked that this was the last straw. It seemed that the kids might be able to see their friends one more day and then no more. Raf, Miko and Jack all thought on how to deal with their guilt. Then an idea hit.
After a little begging, June allowed Raf and Miko to stay over for a little bit. They all went upstairs into Jack's room and shut themselves in. It was so quiet that June began to worry slightly. She hoped the young ones didn't decide to do something rash. After a few hours of no word from upstairs, Miko and Raf came down and asked for June to take them home. They asked her to pick them up the next day and take them to the Autobot base as they had a final thing to say to their friends. Both of their eyes were red-rimmed from stress and crying. June, though worried, agreed and trusted them to do the right thing. She wondered what had conspired that night, but at one look at her son's face, she didn't ask. It wasn't until the next day that she wished she had.