A/N~ So… I redid this chapter… for the third time. I know it was a lot and it took me forever to upload it last time. Not to mention that it's been well over a year since I uploaded the last version of the chapter. However, I have good reason! Or at least, I feel like I do. I only had a sorta idea of what I was gonna be writing but since I've been really working with my lovely beta, I have a much more concrete plot and direction for this story! I have a lot of cool things in line for this story and I can't wait to get to show you all them!

Give a big awesome thanks to my amazing beta, Sumi-Sprite! She deserves all the love and thanks for making this story possible and putting up with my indecisions about plots and numerous rewrites!

Edit: This chapter has been severally reworked from the last version and I highly encourage everyone to reread it as I have added and taken out quite a bit from it.

Edit 2: I decided to change the title to go along with the new and improved chapters. My lovely sister, was the one that came up with the title!

To all readers new and old, welcome to TFP: A Bug's Life!

Transformers: Prime

Character(s): Female Oc (main), various Decepticons

Pairing(s): Megatron/Soundwave, mentions of Knockout/Breakdown and family-like relations between Oc and various Decepticons.

~Decepticons~Decepticons~Decepticons~

Chapter 1: I Found a Cat

Hours before dawn finds a teenage girl hiking the mountains of Japan for her morning exercise. All seems well until the girl sees something falling from the sky. The birds startle and flee from the area in a cloud of feathers. The girl watches as the object crashes through numerous trees, leaving a smoking trail behind it. She's startled as she feels the ground shake from the impact of the object hitting the ground. Throwing caution to the wind, she follows the smoke to the mysterious object. She weaves her way through broken trees and upturned rocks and dirt. She vaguely notes that bits of the flora and dirt are smoldering in places with embers from the object's crash-landing. She curses to herself as she loses her footing and slides down the decline. She tries to grab at branches, roots, anything she could get her hands on to slow her tumble.

She groans as she lands roughly on the ground with a roll. "Okay…that hurt," she takes a moment to collect herself off the forest floor and back onto her feet. She grumbles under her breath about being clumsy as she dusts her clothes off. Pulling twigs out of her hair, she fixes her ratty hair band back into place.

Looking around she sees flashes of blue light close to the ground a few yards from her. Knowing that she only has her pocket knife, pepper spray, and cell phone, she cautiously steps towards the crash site. As she moves closer, she hears snarls and metal on metal. The growls remind her of a large feline. A large feline that had probably gotten caught in the path of whatever fell from the sky. The disconcerting sounds put her on edge, but curiosity getting the better of her, she continues towards the crash site. She creeps to a nearby tree, crouching low against it in the hopes of not being noticed. Taking a deep breath, she peeks out from around the tree to see what had crashed. What she sees has her frozen in amazement, fear, and awe all at the same time.

There in the middle of the clearing is something that she has never seen before. She doubts that any other person has seen something like this before now. In front of her is a giant, mechanical feline. It looks to be larger than a Bengal tiger and as tall as a draft horse. It's a purple and blue streamlined feline with sleek lines and sharp points. The teenage girl is trying hard to not fangirl over the wonderful build that is the mysterious mechanical cat. Her inner tinkerer and mechanic is just itching to learn more about it. As she looks closer, she notices that various parts of it are dented with exposed wires sparking. Other places have a strange glowing blue fluid leaking from it, forming a small puddle under it.

"This is amazing!" The teen doesn't realize that she said this aloud until the metal cat whips its head towards her, purple eyes narrowing as it snarls in warning.

She curses under her breath as she gains it's full, undivided attention. Her eyes widen in dread as she slowly starts backing away from the cat. She makes sure to keep her eyes on it always, not wanting it to lunge at her while her back is turned away from it. Right as she takes a step back, her foot snaps a twig. The metal cat springs up from the ground and pounces on the girl, knocking her to the ground with a thump. The girl whimpers feeling the heat of the cat as it hovers over her curled form.

"Please, don't eat me! It you don't, I might be able to fix you up some!" Call her crazy, but for some reason she thought that it would be an awesome idea reasoning with the mechanical cat. The crazier thing is that it seems to understand her. It stops from attacking her and growls down at her in an angry snarl. She takes a chance to peek up through her arms at the beast. It narrows its eyes at her with a look clearly saying, 'Explain before I eat and or kill you,' as it moves off her.

"I know my way around tools and can at least do some patches so you don't keep... uh... leaking everywhere. I have them at this cabin I'm staying in, I can repair you there in the work shed." She says with a shaky voice.

What is she doing, offering to help this thing? She tinkers and fixes cars, not giant metal cats that can eat her! She doesn't even know what kind of alloys this cat is made of. Definitely not something she's seen before. This is it, she's doomed to die a horrible death at the claws and teeth of this wicked looking creature. At least she gets to see a truly beautiful work of art before she dies.

The girl is pretty sure that the mechanical cat is intelligent, or at least able to understand what she is saying. In any case, it moves away and lets her get up off the ground. Keeping her eyes on it, she makes a point to avoid sudden movements that might trigger the thing again. She searches the underbrush for her pocket knife, as it had fallen when she tumbled to the ground the first time around. Finding it, she slips it into her back pocket.

As the girl leads the way back to where she lives, the feline stays close enough to her in her peripheral vision. She feels bad for the thing; she can see it limping with that strange glowing fluid dripping from cracks and tears in the metal. She had never worked on something this complex before. Not to mention she was used to working on non-living machines. This was completely different. Already she could tell that it is extremely advanced for any human to create. Not to mention that it was apparently sentient in a way that far surpassed AI programs. From the way it would hiss or growl if it moved wrong, it could feel pain as well. That alone made her immensely nervous about trying to patch it up. She didn't want to hurt it more than it already was.

With her thoughts on how to even begin repairing her strange…patient? It didn't take long for her to reach the house that she was staying at. It wasn't hers per-say but the man that owned it allowed her to stay there in exchange of the upkeep when he wasn't using it. He hadn't been back there in years, though the bills were still getting paid somehow. Off to the side of the house is a large work shed that the owner had added after he discovered how much the girl loved tinkering with mechanics. Ignoring the house for now, she walks towards the shed and unlocks it with the key stuffed between some rocks next to the door and flips on the lights.

The building has the main room with a small bathroom divided by a door. In one corner of the room is a small, single sized bed that she uses more than the one in the main house when working late on projects. She didn't see a point in going to the main house just to come back to her work shed first thing in the morning, anyway. Most of the room is lined with shelves and cabinets overflowing with tools and other materials she could need for her projects. She hits a red button under the light switch as the garage-style door lifts from the opposite side of the door she came through.

The girl unfolds a heavy blue tarp and lays it down onto the floor, taping the edges down with duct tape she had lying around. She pulls her tools closer to the center of the room along with a welding torch and her protective gear. The feline moves sluggishly into the room with her closing the door behind it. She redoes her hair into a ponytail to keep out of the way. She really hopes that she will be able to repair the thing.

It just might be the last thing she does.

A sleek, four-winged purple drone known as Laserbeak circles around the crash site of where the distress signal came from. She recognizes the signal was from an all too familiar signature and immediately heads back to the Nemesis with this new information. Thankfully, it's a quick flight back to the Decepticon war ship on that darkening night. Laserbeak flies in through one of the open hatches some drones were flying into. The drones duck and move out of the way as the smaller Spybot zooms in past them, heading for the command room where she knows her host is located. As she moves down the halls of the ship, she comes to the door of the command room, going through as it opens upon her approach. She zips into the command room and straight to her host. She takes notice that the warlord is nowhere to be found as she circles around her host. She knows from the bond she shares with Soundwave that Megatron was in the ship still.

Soundwave turns from the computer screen he's typing away on to watch Laserbeak as she hovers in front of him. She hums and trills her message back to her host about her findings. Unseen to everyone except Laserbeak, Soundwave stiffens as she recounts the signal and who she believes it's from. Of course, the only way that Laserbeak can tell that Soundwave's disposition has changed at all is from the bond and the many years she has spent with him. The only other ones that can tell Soundwave's slight changes are the currently missing (and possibly found) symbiotes and his Bondmate. Once Laserbeak relays her findings, she retreats to her place on Soundwave's chest plates above his spark chamber.

Silent as always, Soundwave leaves his post in the command room in search of Megatron. As he walks, he reaches through the familiar bond to pinpoint his mate. He turns a corner into a different hallway, going deeper into the ship where the officers' quarters are located. He feels slight annoyance from being woken with curiosity from the other end of the bond. It seems he had woken the warlord from his recharge. Reaching the warlord's room the door slides open automatically, allowing Soundwave entrance. Soundwave steps into the room with the door sliding shut behind him. Inside the room Megatron is already online and waiting for his Bondmate.

"Soundwave, what has caused you to wake me from recharge?" Megatron's voice was, for once, devoid of the harsh demanding tone and replaced with plain interest. Surely Soundwave would not have woken him from recharge for just anything.

Soundwave sends all of the information he has on the distress signal in a data burst to Megatron. Laserbeak at the same time ejects from her spot on Soundwave's chest to project what she had seen first hand into the room for Megatron's viewing. Megatron looks over the data thoroughly, taking in all of the details and possibilities for a moment or two before turning to his silent companion.

"Do you believe this truly can be Ravage?" Soundwave gives a resolute nod, having no doubt at all that the distress signal was from his missing symbiote.

"Very well, then. You may go and investigate.

The teenager pulls on some latex gloves before grabbing a bucket and old rag. "Just stay right there while I get some water to clean you off some. I'll be able to see how bad the damage is once you're cleaned up." She says, taking the bucket with her to the sink and filling it with warm water.

She comes back to the center of the room and places the bucket on the floor next to the feline. Sit sits on a small stool she had pulled over and dips the rag into the water. She wrings it out and moves over to one of the larger openings in the metal. She starts to carefully rub at the dirt and blue gunk that had crusted around it. As she works, the feline takes to resting its head on its front paws the best it could while still keeping an eye on her. Scraping at the dirt, she's able to finally get to the injury, only to have some of the dirt unclog it, causing some of the fresh, glowing blue liquid to seep out. The liquid splashes onto her gloved hand. A moment later, she drops the rag and retracts her hand in pain as the small drops of the unknown liquid eats through the latex glove and begins to gnaw away at her hand underneath.

"Ow! Oh shit!" She jumps up and rips the rest of the glove off and rushes to the sink to rinse her hand off. "Frickin' A, that hurt. Note to self: glowing blue liquid is acid and dangerous to my health." She mutters sarcastically to herself as she examines her hand after keeping it under water for several minutes. Turning off the water and gently dabbing it dry, she sees that she has some small chemical burns.

She's thankful for always keeping a fully stocked first aid kit in the cabinet under the sink for things like this. It wasn't uncommon for her to accidently hurt herself like this after all when tinkering with things. She pulls out the first aid kit and wraps her hand up before pulling on her thick welding gear to continue the job.

"Hopefully these will be a bit more protective of whatever the heck that liquid is," she says to herself as she goes back to her spot on the stool. She's unaware of the feline observing her with intrigue as she goes back to examine the now clean injury.

The teenage girl goes to examine the opening between two metal plates. She notes the acid doesn't eat through her welding gloves like it did with the flimsy latex as she gingerly pokes around inside the opening. Leaning down, she sees that one of the small tubes making up the feline's internals was roughly cut all the way through to the other side. It didn't look too serious, but enough to keep leaking that strange blue liquid. She would need to reattach the two ends of the tube together and then weld the seam. The girl works tirelessly on her feline companion, welding tubes shut and reconnecting wires where she could. She would repeat the process in each time she finished up an area. Clean, reconnect wires, weld tubes, patch area, repeat. This process went long into the day, the girl never leaving more than a few minutes for water and the restroom before she was back to work.

The mechanical cat on the other hand, patiently sits through all of his repairs as he watches the girl do her work. He has to admit for an organic, it did well with the tools it was provided and made repairs that won't tear too easily. Maybe he could ask his Carrier if he could keep the little fleshling.

~Decepticons~Decepticons~Decepticons~

A/N:Alright! That wraps up this chapter!

The unnamed girl meets her first Cybertronian and it's not even a canon character from the Prime-verse! I loved Ravage from the original series and the Bay-verse that I just had to add him to the story. I also feel that Laserbeak is female in this story, regardless of the fact Laserbeak is always portrayed as male.

In this story I am having Megatron and Soundwave be a couple. For those that don't like that sort of thing, the story won't be revolving around that, so don't worry. There will be moments and scenes -some minor, some major- that will appear throughout the story. If you are offended by that, I'm sorry.

For those of you that have read the story before, I took out the part with my OC being able to do archery. I felt that it didn't really fit in with the rest of the story. So instead, I just kept it where she's more of a mechanic/tinkerer than anything.

I really hope that y'all like the changes that I did. If you did or didn't, please give me feedback! I love to hear your thoughts on my stories.

See y'all in the next chapter!

~Nixie