Prologue
Bumblebee was dying. He felt himself overheating from the sheer pressure on his cyclers and coolant lines, circuits burning from the emotions coursing through his spark. Eventually, he couldn't take it anymore and his knees doubled over, leaving him on his stomach, pounding at the dirt in fits. As he tried pathetically to cool his cyclers, he looked up at the face of his furry tormentor.
"It's not funny 'bee!"
He stopped laughing.
For all of five seconds.
"Pfffft!"
The young technorganic could only sigh at the antics of her best friend, who seemed to be at serious risk of losing control of his waste valve.
The two had taken the two hour drive to the mountains to their normal camping grounds to commemorate the three-year anniversary of Prowl's death and Megatron's defeat. Unfortunately, Bumblebee was very much an indoors kind of bot, and had quickly grown bored by the scenery. As a result, the two had begun a game of truth or dare by the second day. Sari had eventually chosen dare after answering a very embarrassing question about her search history (which she was blaming her human hormones on), and a red fox had coincidentally come out of the woods at the same time.
Bringing us to her current predicament.
"I TOLD you it was a bad idea!" she yelled at the laughing bot, "Were you actually expecting me to turn into a fox!?"
Her nose twitched, causing Bumblebee to pause.
"DEM WHISKE-EH-ERS!"
And so the laughter continued.
As one might have guessed, Bumblebee had dared Sari to try her scanner on the fox. Her scanning system, however, had been modified by her father's DNA to allow her to take the form of other humans for a short period of time, and was ill suited for the DNA of other animals.
The end result involved whiskers, large ears, lots of fur, and a very fluffy tail.
"I look like a Disney character!" she hissed as her fur stood on end.
"Are-are you gonna sing?" asked her friend, before collapsing under the weight of his own laughter.
Sari deadpanned with crossed arms and flat ears at her friend's amusement. Eventually she decided that enough was enough and kicked him as hard as she could, flipping him unto his back.
"Knock it off you motorhead, we should call Ratchet for a ground bridge."
"I thought we were staying till tomorrow?" He asked as he rubbed his skid plate.
"We were, but I want to make sure this isn't permanent."
"Why not? It's not a bad look for you," he smirked, "just make sure to brush twice a day."
He dodged an energy orb and went to pack the tent away.
"Well, I don't know what to tell you kid," said Ratchet as he unplugged a wire out of her t-cog, "it doesn't seem to be permanent, but what were you thinking? Your t-cog can't handle non-human DNA."
"Well we know that now," she replied as her chest closed back up and her skin resealed, shooting a glare at Bumblebee in the process, "my scans last around an hour when I use them on humans, but it's been three since I scanned the fox. How long do you think I'll stay like this?"
"Hard to say," admitted Ratchet, "judging by the rate that you're purging the DNA out of your system, I'd give it a month or two."
"A MONTH!? Are you CRAZY!? I can't stay furry for a month! Do you have any idea how much transforming will hurt with fur!?"
"The fur's already thinning," he pointed out, "that won't stay for more than a week. The ears and the tail are what worry me. The ears will stay longer and will retain fur because they're on your head. You tail will also retain fur since humans don't have tails to begin with, so you t-cog doesn't know how to process it."
"And how do I lose them?"
"Well, cutting them off is not an option," he noted, "your ears might not grow back if we do that and there's no telling what might happen to your tailbone. I recommend that we just wait it out. We might have to postpone the launch."
"That's not an option Ratchet," she replied, "We're cutting it close as it is."
She leapt off the table and stomped out of the medbay, eliciting a giggle from Arcee when she passed her on her way to visit Ratchet.
The medibot could only watch sadly as his charge walked away, all too aware of what was at stake.
"Hey Sari!" said Bulkhead absentmindedly as she walked onto the roof, "How's it- uhhh. Did you do something with your hair?"
"Aw, you noticed?" she asked sarcastically, striking a pose and bobbing her new ears, "I scanned a fox on a dare. Happy?"
"Uhh no? Why would you-?"
"Let's just get to work," she growled as she walked to her terminal to work on the latest set of calculations for the ship.
The door opened again as Sari sat down, revealing a large stack of drives held by a portly man.
"Sari, could you help me with-WHOA!" he dropped the drives, "Sari? What-?"
"Scanner accident," she growled over the lead ingot in her mouth, "'Bee's fault."
"I see," he winced as she took a bite out her metallic snack. He just couldn't get used to her dietary changes.
"How long will it last?" asked Bulkhead.
"Ratchet said they should last about a month, maybe more, maybe less. But the DNA's already being purged, so the only thing the doc's sure of is that it isn't permanent."
"I'm not sure I like the sound of that," said Isaac as he plugged in the new data, "perhaps we should postpone-."
"No," cut in his daughter, "we can't postpone it. I don't like it either, but I'm not about to mess with it and risk ending up a permanent furry."
"You remind me of a character from an antique Disney cartoon," mused the professor, "a princess I think from sometime in the 60's."
"I wouldn't call the 60's antique," snorted Sari as she reached for another snack. A vanilla wafer with iron shavings to be exact.
"The nineteen 60's."
"I look like a two hundred year old character?"
"A hundred and fifty, but yes," confirmed the professor, "I just can't remember which movie it was."
"Dad, just let it go and don't you dare sing Let It Go. The last time you got hung up on something like this, we ended up watching the whole Matrix, Alien, Predator, and Resident Evil sagas and the remakes. I still get nightmares about the 2086 version of Alien versus Predator."
"That scary?" asked Bulkhead.
"That bad," snorted the technorganic, "the CGI looked worse than in the original and the lead actress was a former porn star with gazongas the size of my head who could not keep her shirt on if it killed her."
"Gazongas?" asked the giant robot.
"Boobs," she replied, only to confuse Bulkhead further, "breasts? Tits? Mammary glands?"
More confusion.
Sari just sighed and pointed at her chest with both index fingers.
"Oh! The little lumps on your chest!"
"The "little" part was uncalled for." She grumbled as she turned back to her work.
"Well, they're pretty small," he said, "especially from this angle."
"Bulky, old boy, not helping," she replied before turning back to her dad, "why do you keep watching those old shows anyways? CSI, Game of Thrones, Grimm, and Walking Dead were all over and done with before you were even born."
"My grandfather was a long-time fan of movies and television shows," he explained, "he grew up with those shows and wanted me to enjoy them."
"Hmm," pondered Bulkhead, "well, this is all well and good, but how about we finish this before the mob gets up here to lynch us?"
Sari sighed silently as she took a peek outside the window. A large protest stood right outside the force field with large banners of "KILL THE DEVIL CHILD", "NO CYBORG CITIZENS", "ET GO HOME", "BOTS ARE NOT PEOPLE," and other poorly written hateful messages, often with poorly-edited images of herself with red devil horns.
Shortly after returning from Cybertron, Sari had pushed a request to allow her to experiment with human and cybertronian genetics in order to make more of her species dubbed Pretenders or techno hominis as some scientists had taken to call her. Other variations included techno homo sapiens, homo sapiens artifici, and techno sapiens, depending on whether they considered her a separate species or a subspecies of human.
The proposal had opened a can of worms the size of which even Perceptor could not have predicted. Some scientists, philosophers, religious leaders, and legal experts questioned whether she had the right to request such a thing. Others debated whether she was sapient or even sentient enough to understand what she was requesting. Scientists and citizens of Cybertron and Earth alike questioned whether she could be classified as a living creature, and far too many were disgusted by her very existence, requesting her immediate destruction.
It had eventually gotten to the point that the force field had to be kept up 24/7 while they worked on the permanent solution.
This wouldn't have been necessary, were it not for the fact that Sari was in serious trouble with the law thanks to Powell. The shrewd businessman had let it slip that not only had she began her experiments on Cybertron long before requesting permission, something she'd only done after Isaac had advised it, but that these had borne fruit.
She already had a batch of experimental technorganic protomatter stem cells built "Off The Books" with help from the Autobot Science Guild, the Quintesson's Department of Science, and even Primacron himself. Since genetic experiments on humans were still illegal, Sari now faced jail time, forcing her to go into hiding until the whole mess could blow over.
The small group of scientists was currently working on a self-sustaining ship that ran on an experimental radiation-to-energon refiner. Energon crystals are like plants that grow on any form of radiation they can catch. The RtE refiner created synthetic energon out of cosmic radiation gathered by the ship's force shields, skipping the crystal stage. Synthetic energon is not suitable for cybertronian consumption due to its addictively high kryptonite content, hence the need for a small energon farm that was placed in cargo hold A. Cargo hold B contained a small organic farm that ran off water, minerals, and nutrients that were recycled from the waste tanks after being refined, alongside stem-cell meat growths. Cargo hold C had been turned into a laboratory, and cargo hold D was used for storage. Even when the crash vault and had been fitted in under the cockpit, the arrangement had still left multiple spare quarters for up to five hundred passengers.
Despite the fact that it was not its official name, the ship itself had earned the moniker Frankenstein thanks to its mix mash of parts. Although Isaac, Sari, Wheeljack and Bulkead had originally meant to simply repurpose the last Lugnut Supreme, it hadn't taken the four scientists long to realize that it was far too damaged to be of immediate use. They'd eventually used the Supreme's main body, installed a pair of Nebulan multidirectional disk turbines onto the winglets, swapped out the original energon fusion thrusters for a pair of virtual particle engines from a Quintesson ship (chosen for their fuel-efficiency and lack of an energy signature, even if they weren't as fast), popped in the life support systems from a scrapped Chinese space ferry, and a series of concealed laser turrets fitted onto the top and undercarriage to fend off pirates.
Other than the disk-like Nebulan turbines on the unusually wide winglets, the 150 meter long ship didn't look too different from Omega Supreme. Due to the fact that it was essentially a rush-job, they never even found the time to alter the paintjob beyond removing the Decepticon decals. The titanic ship was manned by an Ai and several hundred Autodrones. The Cadmus and its precious cargo was the last chance that Sari's creations would ever have of thriving.
"I still don't understand," said the girl to herself, "why would they block me off like that?"
"Humans run mostly off instinct," explained Isaac, "despite what we like to think, we are still little more than clever apes. Our first instinct is to fear what we don't understand. Unfortunately, we also have the habit of destroying the sources of our fears."
Sari just frowned, trying to process the information.
"You'll understand when you're older," he sighed, "you might look eighteen, but in the end you're still a child."
"I'm twelve!" she retorted, "and a quar… ter."
Sari hardly ever saw her father angry. It wasn't too unusual to see him upset, but the last time she'd seen him angry was when he found out that Powell had kicked her out of the tower. Now, however, she saw his face scrunch in barely contained rage that promised suffering for the one who caused it.
"This should not be the only answer," he growled, "I promise you my Sari. I will do whatever it takes to make sure you can return safely."
The young girl smiled.
"Thanks daddy."
"Well, that's everything," noted Isaac as he put away his check list.
"Yeah, I guess it is," confirmed Sari.
"At least the fur's gone," he commented.
"Ears and tail aren't."
It was launch day. The original launch date had been delayed further by three days thanks to a blown transformer that'd fried half the fuse box. That'd meant that they'd had to sneak in more fuses and several circuits from Cybertron. Optimus had "persuaded" as many bots as he could to turn a blind eye on the issues that would become apparent in the record books. They wanted to keep this a secret from Sentinel Minor due to his interest in shooting her out of the sky.
The problem was that the tower's tokamak reactor didn't have enough energy to maintain the shield much longer, making the launch site unsafe.
"Hey kid," said Commissioner Fanzone, "have a good flight."
"Thanks Carmine," she replied as she gave him a hug.
"You're not so bad," he smarted, "for a machine."
She turned to Mr. Edzel and his aide, who had decided to keep working for him even after he lost the reelection.
"Mr. Edzel-." Started Ms. Adrias.
"I would like to thank you," he cut in with a grave voice, startling the group, everyone had assumed the man was mute, "you and all of the Autobots. I only wish it didn't have to be this way."
"They'll come around," she assured him.
"We can only hope."
"Have a good trip," said Ms. Adrias, "we all hope to see you again soon."
She hugged them both before going up to the Autobots.
"It's not goodbye kid," said Ratchet as he picked her up to let him hug his head, "we just gotta fix a few things before you can come home."
"I know Ratch'. Thanks."
"See you later little buddy," choked Bulkhead as he held her to his chest, he'd probably be crying if he had tear ducts, "I left you a present in the cargo hold."
"See you soon."
He set her down in front of her teacher.
"We've still got trainin' to do," said Jazz, "so make sure you stay in one piece."
"Yes Master," she replied with a bow before hugging his servo, "thanks for everything."
"Be safe lil´ lady."
He passed her to Arcee.
"I can never thank you enough for what you and Ratchet did for me," she told her, "I hope your protoforms live long and prosper."
"That makes two of us," replied Sari before lowering her volume to a whisper, "but speaking of Ratchet, you might wanna make your move before someone else does. I saw Red Alert eyeing him on Iacon."
"Wha-! What makes you think that-!?"
"Arcee, I have eyes," she cut in, "not to mention a functioning field detector. The only one that doesn't know is him. But don't worry, I'm sure he'll respond… favorably."
Arcee smile before holding her one last time.
"Goodbye little one."
"Goodbye 'Cee. Make sure Bulkhead catches onto Glyph's hints."
She turned to the screen to face the one mech who couldn't be there.
"Optimus," she said with a salute.
"At ease," he chuckled, "I'm sorry I couldn't be there. I'm still trying to convince Cybertron to vote you back planetside."
"It's okay;" she replied sadly, "Sentinel did a lot of damage. I guess it'll take a while to fix it."
"I suppose it will," he affirmed before a pensive look overtook his faceplate, "You know, technically you need to be at least a Minor to pilot an Autobot ship."
"So? It's not like we're gonna start sticking to the rules now."
Optimus just smiled at her, "Ratchet? If you could?"
The medibot smiled back and pulled out a small case out of a compartment on his back.
"Do you remember the Oath?" he asked her as he opened the case.
Sari's eyes widened before she stumbled into a kneeling position.
"Begin." Instructed Optimus Magnus.
"I pledge my undying service to the reigning Magnus, the Autobot Council, and the Autobot Commonwealth.
I shall devote my spark to achieving our goal of galactic peace, even if my spark is the price to be paid.
I will defend the weak and the helpless.
And remove any threats to liberty from whichever planet we reside in.
For freedom is the undeniable right of all sentient beings.
Til All Are One."
"Til All Are One." Recited the gathered Autobots.
"Sari Sumdac has kneeled," declared Optimus Magnus, "Rise, Lumina Minor. Guiding light of the Pretenders, leader of the Androbots."
Ratchet took the two grey badges shaped like elongated hexagons within his electromagnetic hold and lifted them to level with the young Minor's shoulders. She transformed her upper body to allow access to her screws. She felt her shoulder armor loosen up as Ratchet unscrewed them. Once removed, he placed the screws through the loops that the badges were propped onto. He tightly screwed them back up and stood back as the grey metal regained its yellow color, proudly displaying a perfectly symmetrical symbol made of an Autobot insignia in front of a double helix.
"The new Androbot sub-faction symbol," Optimus told her, "for when you return with your brood."
She transformed back, only to frown at the sleeves that covered her prized symbol. With little effort, she commanded the cybertanium fabric to divide into a sleeveless undershirt and a set of long gloves, exposing the red armband tattoos that wrapped around her upper arms.
"Thank you," she said with a smile, "but why Lumina?"
"It was Bumblebee's idea," said Ratchet with a grin.
The aforementioned bot blushed slightly.
"It's short for Luminary," he admitted, "It means guide and I thought you'd like it. Optimus was gonna go with Precursor but that sounded like a guy's name. I mean you can change it if you want -."
"I love it," she cut in, "thanks 'Bee."
"Is the name change normal?" asked Isaac with perplexed concern in his voice.
"Only when joining the military," replied Optimus, "I used to be named Orion Pax myself. She can still use her old designation when she's in a civilian setting, but in formal affairs she'll be referred to as Lumina Minor."
They turned to notice Bumblebee and Sari looking awkwardly away from each other.
"Bumblebee," said Optimus with an authoritative tone, "why don't you escort Lumina to her ship?"
He looked to the right. "But it's right there?"
"Do I have to make it an order Bumblebee?"
The minibot finally caught on, "Thanks bossbot."
The two left for the privacy of the ship.
"You know, Sari used to have a crush on Bumblebee," said Isaac.
"Really?" quipped Arcee, "What changed?"
"She realized that a brother and a lover are two different things."
The two yellow machines had a hard time meeting each other's eyes. It was difficult to say goodbye, particularly when so much uncertainty hung in the air. As the two finally sat down on the frontal airlock, Sari could take no more.
"Bumble-."
"You'll come back right?" cut in Bumblebee.
Sari was startled for a moment, but took little time to answer. "Of course I will."
"Good. Bulkhead's terrible at Ninja Gladiator."
The two smirked.
"Why don't you just ask Licky to play you?"
"Splits? She's good but-."
"No buts," she cut in, "she's been pinning for you ever since you met and you know it."
"It's hard to ignore those fields," he admitted, "and I have to admit she's quite… you know!"
"Of course I know," she snorted, "you won't shut up about it. So! When you get back to Cybertron, you'll walk up to Lickety-Split and ask her out on a date."
"But what about-?"
"Don't 'Bee," said Sari with a wistful smile, "we gave it a shot, it didn't work out."
"Yeah, I'll admit it felt weird," he said bashfully, "like-."
"Please don't say "like kissing your sister"."
"I wasn't going to bring up kissing."
Sari just blushed and turned to stare out the door, watching the mob that called for her destruction.
"Do you regret it?" asked Bumblebee after a minute of staring at the mob.
"Of course not," she scoffed, cupping her chin in her hands, "if anything I'm glad. You're the person I trust most."
"Yeah, me too. It was one hell of a night, you gotta admit."
"We were so overloaded," she smirked, "We couldn't even tell up from down!"
"You should've seen your face the next morning!"
"Me? Who's the one that had my underwear tangled up in his horns!?"
"Neon blue panties!"
The two had a good laugh before they wound down.
"We weren't drunk the second time," noted Sari.
"No we were not," affirmed Bumblebee, "We were sober the third time too."
"And the fourth, and the fifth," remembered the young girl, "not so much on the eight."
"Meh, it was our two week anniversary."
The two shared a laugh.
"Then we broke up."
"Then we broke up," affirmed Sari.
"You got another boyfriend."
"Followed by a girlfriend."
"And another two boyfriends, then another girlfriend."
"It's hard to date when you're in my position," she said with a sigh, "every time I saw them I kept seeing them grow and age while I- well, while I didn't."
Bumblebee sighed after arriving at that subject again.
"Why did we break up again?"
"I can't say I remember," admitted the minibot, "It was about something brown."
"Ugh, this is gonna eat at me all-."
"PEANUTS!"
She blinked. "Oh yeah! Peanuts!" She scowled at him, "That was a jerk move of you."
"With all due respect, geese do look better without feathers," he snorted.
"That doesn't just mean you should throw them at the power lines."
"Good frag that night though," smirked the mech, "you were my first time too you know?"
"Really?" she replied, honestly surprised, before standing to give an exaggerated bow, "Well sir, I am honored to be your first fuck."
"I am honored as well. Or I would be if I knew what a fuck was."
"Something I rarely give."
They chuckled for a moment before the silence returned. The sun was going down.
"Make sure to come back," he said, "get a boyfriend or a girlfriend, build one if you have to. And keep the ears and tail. They look good on you."
"No promises on the ears, but just remember to ask Lickety-Split out," she told him, "we weren't gonna work out. Like fragging your brother, as you said."
"My Sari! Such language!"
"Aw mute it you motormouth!"
The two looked at each other one last time before Sari jumped and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"I'll miss you Sari."
"I'll miss you too big guy."
"I'm not that big."
"You'll always be huge to me, big brother."
As Sari cried freely into his shoulder, Bumblebee found himself wishing he could do the same, if only so that she could see how much their separation meant to him.
As the ship slowly levitated off the makeshift dock atop Sumdac Tower, Isaac couldn't help but think back to the last time he'd said goodbye to someone. The two had spent many years together, in sickness and in health until death forced them apart.
"This is the second Sari I lose," he said to himself, "I do hope that this one comes back."
He pulled out his personal agenda and opened it to the rear cover to reveal a small picture of himself, decades younger, next to a young woman with black hair.
"You would have loved our daughter, Sari."
It was as he reminisced of days past and loves lost that the shield finally failed.
The old man was forced to watch as a smart bomb was shot out of the mob and impacted against the side of the Cadmus right as the transwarp sequence started. The EMP bomb managed to damage the anti-gravity circuits, ensuring the Cadmus's downfall.
As the ship slowly went down, Isaac caught sight of his daughter desperately trying to steer the ship away from the mob at the base of the tower.
He saw her hurriedly pressing buttons with all twenty fingers as she rushed the transwarp sequence.
The ship sank out of view as the electromagnetic levitators failed.
Gravity took over as the blue field surrounded the giant spacecraft.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds were all it took for the transwarp drive to finish its sequence, taking Sari and her crippled ship to parts unknown.
Over the next several months, the residual radiation would kill nearly a hundred of the protesters, including the man with the illegal smart bomb launcher. Those that were too close were torn apart at the molecular level by the electromagnetic fields.
Six months later, they'd find out that Sari's proposal was granted thanks to a speech given by former President Malcolm Wilkinson, reminding them of unity and that progress came at a price in the past.
Not long afterwards, Optimus Magnus would convince Cybertron that technorganics deserved the same rights as any regular cybertronian, allowing Waspinator, Blackarachnia and their newly minted Predacons to return home, although a certain spider bot had some crimes to answer for herself.
Eventually, it would be found that the smart bomb launcher had been modified with cybertronian technology.
Eventually, Sentinel Minor would be revealed to be the instigator of the attack and supplier of the modified launcher.
Eventually, Sentinel Minor would be charged guilty, stripped of his military designation, and would face life in the stockades for his crimes as Zeta.
But for now, Isaac could only stare in shock at the empty space where his daughter's hopes and dreams disappeared.
He could feel his heart break as his arm went numb.
"Sari?"
The world ceased to be.