Chapter 1

friends

It had started out like any other patrol. Just a drive around the city, though the horns on his hood were more country style. Normally Arcee would accompany him, but she was busy driving Jack to school that morning.

Cliffjumper wasn't a fan of city traffic, that was for sure. Ratchet had decided to bridge him to Phoenix, Arizona. It was just as hot and dusty as Jasper but more populated. Having to stop at a red light every couple of blocks was starting to get annoying, and he was stopped at a red light when a peculiar signal unexpectedly brushed against his scanners. The red light turned green during his confusion, and the signal disappeared quickly.

What was that? It had felt like a weak spark signature, but if it was another Cybertronian, they had left scanner range by now. Damn.

"Find anything?" Ratchet asked, more out of habit than the belief that Cliffjumper would find anything in the completely random location. Cliffjumper transformed against the backdrop of a powering down groundbridge after rolling into base, green reflected in red armor.

"Actually...I thought I detected a spark signature, but it went out of range too quickly for me to follow up on." Arcee, from her position at the terminal nearby, asked, "Possible 'Con?"

"I'm not sure." Cliffjumper admitted. "Too weak to tell."

"We will patrol the area a few more times, make certain." Prime said, having walked in on the discussion. And that's how Cliffjumper ended up being stuck in traffic yet again two days later. Joy.

He was cruising down a side street when the signal came back. The slag?, Cliffjumper thought. Guess It's not a fluke. Slowing down, Cliffjumper crept along the street as his scanners attempted to locate the source. The signal seemed strongest in front of a Starbucks, of all places. Maybe Decepticons liked coffee? Once he pulled into the parking lot he knew he was close; the signal strength was increasing enough for him to get a better read. It was definitely a spark signature.

So, which one of you isn't a car? He wondered dryly as he circled around the parking lot. He was close enough to the mech, whoever he was, to feel an EM field. Which was weird. EM fields were never used anymore - it was a dead giveaway of a soldier's position. Besides that, EM fields used to be a way of transmitting emotions; by now the war had raged on for so long that nobody really liked to talk about their emotions, let alone with their emotions. It had been a long time since he'd felt one.

Whoever this guy was, his EM field was unshielded and all over the place, a rookie mistake for anyone to make. It felt light and happy, bubbly almost, and...young? Cliffjumper slammed on his breaks, the effect not as dramatic as he would have liked considering he'd only been perusing the parking lot at a measly 5/mph. WHAT.

This...this was the EM field of a child. A sparkling. Cliffjumper didn't have nearly as much experience with kids as someone like Ratchet or Arcee might have, but he knew what a sparkling EM field felt like. How was- Where- What-

-ARCEE!-

From the inside the base, the motorcycle stopped her conversation with Bulkhead mid-sentence to answer the frenzied comm.

"What?!" Couldn't that moron go ten minutes without conversation?

-I found a-it's a- there's-sparkling!-

"What?"

-I'm in a Starbuck's parking lot. There's a sparkling EM field and spark signature, bridge over here and help me find it!-

Arcee rolled her optics. "This isn't funny 'Cliff."

-Great, 'cause I'm not joking.- Cliffjumper said. Arcee frowned.

"You seriously think you found a sparkling?" This was just plain ridiculous, even for him.

Wordlessly Cliffjumper sent her his scanner readings along with an irritated ping.

"...On my way."

Cliffjumper didn't know what Arcee told Ratchet, but a few minutes later she and Bumblebee were pulling into the Starbucks parking lot behind him.

"Yeah, this feels...similar." Arcee admitted. Cliffjumper flashed his blinkers at them.

"It's strongest around where I'm parked, but I can't tell if that means it's coming from this black truck, grey car, or inside the building itself."

"We'll just have to wait and see." Arcee muttered, parking a row away from Cliffjumper and ordering Bumblebee to likewise look inconspicuous. They didn't have to wait long. It was getting late, and the humans inside the coffee shop would either claim whichever vehicle produced the signal or leave them alone with it. A middle aged man walked out, got in the black truck, and drove off. The signal remained. A few minutes later a blonde teenager came out and hopped in the grey Honda, and this time the signal moved. The grey Honda had to be the Cybertronian.

"Cliffjumper, your alt mode's the most average, stay behind him."

"Thanks?" Cliffjumper supplied, following suit. Bumblebee and Arcee stayed further back. They followed the car to an apartment complex, and the guy got out and went inside with his stuff, the signal somehow following him. Yet the human couldn't have been the source. What was this?

Arcee leaned forward I on her kickstand. "Did you guys get that?"

"If by 'that' you mean the signal somehow following the human?"

"Bwirrr-weep." Bumblebee Acknowledged

It was decided that Cliffjumper would do recon (aka stay up late as frag while the others got to go back to base) and Arcee would switch out with him come morning.

"You better not be late." He grumbled at the two-wheeler as she and Bumblebee drove off.

"Wake up! Ryan! You're gonna make us late to school!"
"Wmmm-ooo-thr"
"Whirr-click?"
"What are you, my mother?" Ryan clarified, flopping over in bed without the least intention of getting up.

But the sparkling was undeterred. "We'll be late to school!"
"You don't even go to school."
"I sorta do."
"Hiding in my backpack doesn't count."
"But I'm learning too." The small mech whined. And it was true; while Ryan didn't much like his AP calculus class (which his parents had all but forced him to take), Ditto enjoyed the subject far more than any child, robot or not, should.

When trying to pull off the blankets didn't evoke a response, Ditto finally asked,
"Why aren't we going to school?"
"Because," Ryan answered while pulling his covers back up, "it's senior skip day."
Ditto cocked his head adorably, though Ryan had his eyes closed to feign sleep so he didn't see it. "Wait, so you were told to not go to school?"
"Something like that. Go back to sleep."
"But I'm not tired! Can't you take me for a walk since we don't have school today?" By 'walk' he meant 'ride in Ryan's backpack'.

Ryan groaned. "If you leave me to sleep in another hour I will."

"Okay!" The mechlet said brightly before zipping out the door. A few minutes later the sound of clanging dishes emanated from the direction of the kitchen, but Ryan was enjoying laying in bed an extra hour too much to care.

An hour later, when he finally did get up, the high schooler made his way to the kitchen to grab some breakfast. He only made it a step inside before he realized the huge mess the room had been reduced to.

"DITTO!"

"What?!" His friend yelled from somewhere else upfront. Ryan kicked an overturned pan.

"Why are all the dishes on the floor?"

"..."

Ugh. Why did alien robots have to be so destructive? Kneeling down, Ryan was grateful that both of his parents went to work early in the morning. If they saw his robot - no, if they saw even half the messes the troublesome alien made - there would be a lot of explaining to do. Shoving the last of the pots and pans back into their correct cabinet, Ryan nabbed a poptart from the pantry and went in search of said alien. He found it sitting on the couch. Ditto twisted to look up at him, pausing the colorful cartoon displayed on his mother's ipad which was in his lap.

"Can we go now? I'm bored."

Swallowing the bite he had just taken, Ryan said "Sure. But then I have to get some homework done."

"Yay!" Ditto ran to "their" room ahead of him and came out dragging his backpack. "Make sure not to zip it all the way, I wanna see!"

"Yeah yeah" Ryan muttered, holding it open so the miniature Cybertronian could hop inside. The size of a cat when in root mode, the sparkling sat criss-crossed-apple-sauced (a position Ryan had taught him) in the largest flap, a portion left unzipped so that he could peek through and see the world around him. Luckily he wasn't that heavy.

Ryan lightly swung the backpack over his shoulders and headed to the elevator. Once on the ground floor and then outside, he decided to go right at random. Maybe he'd swing by the park (and Micah's) house.

It was a surprisingly pleasant afternoon. Sunny and not too hot. Yeah, Ryan thought, I can procrastinate on my homework a little bit. He failed to notice the motorcycle trailing him, maybe because Arcee was forced to go around the park when he cut through it. People weren't supposed to drive their motor vehicles down the sidewalk. She was behind him once again as he exited the park, turning onto Micah's street.

Micah answered the door with the second set of knocks. Ryan figured he would be home, despite not being a senior - Micah skipped school more times than he could count.

"Hey man." He said. "You got Ditto in there?"

Hearing his name, the little sparkling poked his eyes above the backpack flap as if suspicious and giggled.

"Hi Micah!"

Micah grinned. "Hi yourself." He focused on Ryan again. "Any chance you guys want to hang out at the dog park with us?"

Shuffling ensued inside the backpack, and Ryan didn't have a chance to close it before Ditto came shooting out in his RC helicopter mode with a "Yay! Park!"

Navy blue like his root mode, his vehicle was one of the larger toy models.

"Hey!" Ryan yelled, doing a quick check behind him to make sure none of the neighbors had seen what Ditto just did. Nobody was in sight. "Get back here!"

Ditto swooped back to a hover by Ryan's side, from which Micah had disappeared back into his house. A minute later the dark haired boy, a freshman while Ryan was a senior, stepped out with a green RC car on his heels and his family's german shepherd on a leash. He handed Ryan one of the two remote controls in his hands for looks. Couldn't have toy vehicles driving themselves. That would look weird.

"Hey Wheelie!" Ditto crowed happily as he made a pass by the toy truck's hood. They couldn't yell at each other, but could talk when right next to each other so as not to be overheard by nearby pedestrians. That, and they could never move out of sight of the guys when allowed to roam. The two teenagers walked side by side towards the dog park as their respective robots drove clumsily a few yards in front of them.

Whenever their group (which Lauren had jokingly called 'robot fight club', a name that was immediately shot down) wanted to get together, they used the excuse of taking their respective dogs to the dog park near Micah's house. Lauren's dad had an annoying pomeranian - a yappy ball of orange fluff - and Caleb's family owned a retriever. Everyone else used the excuse of playing with their friends' dogs and hanging out. Or reconnecting when the college kids were in town. Really, the dog park they used was exactly what they needed - behind a row of apartment buildings and a short walk away from the larger park, and rarely if at all used by the actual residents.

"I was watching the news," BUMP , "and there was this-this lady," THUMP, "and she had green hair! Did you know humans had hair that," BUMP, "color?" The concrete sidewalk leading to the park proved fairly uneven, and the green sparkling was having trouble keeping up with his flying companion and talking at the same time. Ditto made another pass over the truck's roof, almost touching him and quickly blurting-

"No, I wasn't watching the news last night. Ryan's parents came home early and I couldn't change back into my robot mode to change the channel. I don't remember what they were watching, 'cause it was booooooooring!"

Wheelie and Ditto stopped by the fence to the currently abandoned dog park, waiting for the humans to catch up. Ryan unlatched the gate while Micah patted his dog beforehand ore letting it off the leash, inciting Spike to bound away in search of a stick for Micah to throw. Wheelie rolled inside only to ramm into Ryan's leg. Closing the gate, Ryan looked down,

"What?"

"Tag! You're it!" And the green truck took off. So be it, Ryan thought, and the chase began.

The sparkling was fast but Ryan was big. He quickly caught up and tapped the toy's roof.

"Gotcha."

Immediately Wheelie threw it in reverse, and the tables turned. Thinking it a game involving him (or maybe thinking he was it, you never knew with dogs), Spike briefly joined in the chase. Somehow Ditto ended up being it.

"No fair, you can fly!" Ryan cried as he dove behind a bench to avoid his flying menace. Ditto made as if to do another pas, but Ryan suddenly sprang up onto his cover and batted the helicopter down, who had made the mistake of flying too close.

"Nooooooo!" Ditto shrilled at being tagged, flipping into his root mode to land on his peds and put his hands on his hips in an angry (yet cute) glare.

"That's against the rules!"

"Ditto!" Ryan gasped. "Change back!"

"But you broke the rules! You can't tag the tagger, and not like that!"

Ryan smirked and crossed his arms. "Nuh-uh."

"Uh-huh."

"Nuh-uh."

"Uh-huh."

Micah smiled at his friend actually arguing over the legalities of tag. Turning around to see where Spike had gotten to, he saw the dog standing by the fence, staring down something beyond it. He whistled, "Spike!"

But the german shepherd merely looked at him before resuming his guarded stance. Micah walked up to him and waved a stick. "Come on boy." Scratching behind the dog's ears he looked past the fence. Huh. He didn't remember seeing so many vehicles parked here when they came in. A sweet camaro, a bulky green truck a darker shade than Wheelie, a red car, and a blue motorcycle were all parked in front of the park. Micah held his gaze with the odd assembly of vehicles for a moment, then looked back at where Ryan was playing 'monkey in the middle' with the robots and his shoe, then back at the vehicles. Something didn't feel right. He stood up and walked over to the trio.

"Hey man," He interrupted. "I think we should go."

"Why?" Ryan asked while Wheelie cried "No!" and Ditto said "Awww."

"There's some cars out front, don't know where the drivers are. I don't think they were parked when we got here. Kinda got tinted windows. I got a bad feeling." Micah jerked a shoulder at the offending vehicles, and Ryan glanced in the direction he motioned. He didn't remember seeing them before either, but otherwise they didn't seem suspicious. Whatever, he had a math test to study for.

"Okay guys, time to go." Wheelie and Ditto looked at each other, sad the day's fun was obviously over. "...Okay."

"Race you to the gate!" Wheelie yelled suddenly, squating on all fours and shifting into his truck form. Ditto followed suit and the pair had one last race, again waiting by the gate for Ryan and Micah to catch up. Spike tugged on his leash and growled as they left, and Micah gave the somehow creepy vehicles (even though no one was there and they were just parked) one last glance over his shoulder.

I'd love to get reviews or suggestions, as I have no idea where I'm going with this story!