This is a new fic based off of my interest in Mirage and his past! I hope you enjoy it! Constructive criticism is very welcome, because I've never written G1 before.

Warnings for the story: Violence, angst, and possible eventual OC/I'm-not-telling (not Mirage).

Warnings for this chapter: Mild violence.

Peripheral Vision

A Transformers Generation 1 fanfiction

A building crashes down just a few meters from the two younglings, sending rubble flying toward them. The mech instinctively pushes the smaller femme behind him, yelping as a shard of metal scrapes through his blue and white paint. The femme screams as another explosion rocks the ground, and another tower starts to topple toward them.

"Run, Tika!" The mech grabs his sister's arm, pulling her away from the falling building. "We have to get out of here!"

Tika whimpers, clutching at her brother. "What about our creators? Where are they? And Windrazor?"

The mech winces. How does he tell her what he saw? The crushed frames of their creators, pinned under the rubble…the pink remnants of their sister, shattered by a bomb…

"Raj?" Tika's hands are trembling uncontrollably and she lets out a wail as the images transfer across their shared spark. "No!"

"It'll be okay…" Raj struggles to comfort his sister, as she buries her face in his shoulder. "We've still got each other... "

Tika pulls away, starting back toward what had once been their home. "They've got to be okay! They have to be!"

"NO!" Raj grabs at her, hearing another Seeker thundering overhead, but he misses, as the bomb thunders down toward them. "Tika! WAIT!" But it is already too late…the explosion smashes into the ground between them…a scream tears through the air and is drowned out by the explosion…pain shoots through his spark chamber…

"TIKA!..."

Mirage's optics snapped open as he sat bolt upright, vents working frantically to cool his systems. The pain echoed through his spark chamber, just a shadow of what it had been once, but still present, as always.

"Mirage! Hey, you okay?"

The blue and white spy spun around, already braced for an attack, but relaxed when he saw it was Jazz. The Special Ops commander was looking at him with a mixture of concern and sympathy.

"Another nightmare?"

"Yeah." Mirage lay back down, staring at the ceiling. "That's all it was. Just a bad dream."

But his processor wouldn't let him believe it.

I haven't dreamed about her in solar cycles. I thought I had moved on from losing my twin. No one even knows about her.

Why now?

The small yellow Volkswagen Bug made its way down a narrow dirt road, apparently driving itself. The only human inside was sitting in the passenger's seat, and chattering away.

"..So I called and told Carly that we could still hang out, but we'd have to do it at the base because of the increased Decepticon activity. She's fine with that, you know how much she likes the Autobots, and…what's wrong, Bumblebee?"

"Look ahead, Spike. It's Starscream!" Bumblebee skidded to a halt. "And I think he saw us!"

Spike hopped out of the opened door. "What should we do?"

Bumblebee transformed, looking up at the red and blue jet speeding back their way. "You'd better call Optimus Prime and the others. I'll try to distract him."

Starscream transformed in mid-air and landed in front of them with an earth-shaking thud. "Well, if it isn't an Autobot and one of their human pets."

"Spike, run!" Bumblebee sprinted toward Starscream, only to be caught in mid-attack and hurled to the side. The Seeker ignored the small Autobot, stalking toward the human.

"Autobot base, we need backup!" Spike frantically tried to back away from the Decepticon. "Hurry!"

Just before Starscream could grab the human, he stumbled and whirled around, swatting at something behind his legs. "What the slag?"

"Go Mirage!" Spike cheered, as Starscream staggered backward under the invisible attack. "Bumblebee, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Bumblebee picked himself up and watched Starscream take off. "Thanks, Mirage!"

At the lack of response, he stared toward the footprints. "Hey, you can turn it off now!"

The sound of an engine rumbled in the distance, and Bumblebee shrugged. "That's weird. Guess he didn't feel like talking."

Hound and Trailbreaker skidded to a halt beside them. "Hey, where's Starscream?"

"He's gone." Spike grinned. "Mirage showed up and chased him off."

The two scouts exchanged looks before Trailbreaker spoke. "Um, guys? Mirage is confined to base. It's medical check-up day and Ratchet didn't want to lose him."

"What?" Bumblebee blinked in confusion. "But we just saw him. Well, no, we didn't, actually, but who else has a cloaking generator?"

Hound shook his head. "Can't be. I saw him just before we got the call for backup. Either he's the fastest mech in existence, or you were mistaken."

Review please!