Despite adding two new members to their group, it still took two weeks to scavenge everything that they could from their old base, Darkmount, and the Harbinger. With both the Dauntless and the Logikrator as new bases of operation, they were able to easily store their bounties and make the repairs that they needed to both ships. Between bouts of runs for Energon and working on the ships, Elita would make almost daily runs to Alden Military Base. She began to dig through the interviews of the M.E.C.H. agents that they had in custody and had a few more chats with Joel. Slowly she was beginning to get the pieces that she needed to help her and Jazz find the rest of his companions. John had used these visits to check on her healing progress. It was also with Agent Fowler's help that he was able to arrange a meeting with a friend from their past.
Elita rubbed the back of her neck with her left hand as she walked through the halls carrying her laptop in her right arm. She was heading back to her larger form, since it was waiting for her in the hanger bay area nearby as she once again was speaking to Joel. He began to be a bit more cooperative since her first visit, but she had been asked by Fowler, since he had been asked by one of the MPs, that she please leave the table in place since it was a pain in the butt to have to dig out and re-pour the bolts that held it in place. She promised, with a bit of humor to her smile, that she would do her best not to rip the table up.
"Now, I'm not so sure about keeping it in it's current shape," she told Fowler with a wink.
It was as she was placing her laptop in her side compartment that she heard a voice call out to her from behind. Giving a half turn, Elita smiled brightly as the pair of men came walking swiftly towards her. One was Slash, the medic, the other was a dear friend from so long ago.
"Spike Witwicky," she turned and hugged him as soon as he was close enough to do so. "It's been ages!"
"And you're apparently back from the dead," he greeted back, giving a squeeze with his own hug before letting her go. Holding her out at arm's length, he looked her over. "John told me what had happened when I got here, and from what he said I understood the need to not get into details over the phone. Man, it's good to see you, E."
"Between you and me, it's good to be seen and alive to do so. So what brings you out here? Surely you didn't make the trip just to see me."
"Of course I did," he admonished her. "Your mom had the whole group of us surrounding her at your funeral. I've never seen a whole town just stop for something like that," then he winced, "except it happened twice when your mother passed. We made sure we were there, too."
Elita smiled sadly up at him, since he still stood a head taller than she. "Thanks for that. I'm glad you guys were there for her."
"When does Optimus expect you back?" John asked when the pair were silent from the somber moment.
"No idea," she replied with a shrug. "He had said that they had gotten a coded message this afternoon about another possible Autobot landing here to help so they were taking care of that. Why?"
"Spike and I got to brainstorming and we think that we've come up with something that you and Jazz might like to hear. Agent Folwer said that he's got a fresh pot of coffee started in his office and had ordered supper for the four of us to discuss over."
Elita winced a bit at the thought of the coffee waiting for them. She adored William, she really did, but the man, despite how much of it he drank, couldn't make coffee. For some reason it always came out so strong it tasted burnt. "Really, he knows he should wait for me to make it or buy a Cup-by-Cup machine."
The trio made their way to Agent Fowler's office, greeting the Autobot liaison as they entered the room. Spike gave a surprised laugh at the small mountain of pizza boxes that filled the coffee table. "There's enough to feed a small army here."
"Or at least a small Autobot," Agent Fowler said. He was standing beside the coffee pot station he had set up in his office, stirring the drink in his mug around with the spoon on hand. With a couple of taps on the rim of his mug, he set the spoon down on a napkin on the small table and took a sip. Wincing, he looked into his mug. "When will I learn to wait for you to make it, Ellan?"
That got another round of laughter from the trio as they closed the door behind them. Elita promptly took the mug and the pot of coffee from Fowler and headed to the bathroom to rinse them out to begin a fresh pot. In the meantime the men got their food, because she had warned him that it would be gone before they left most likely. After passing around the mugs of black gold Elita grabbed one of the nearby boxes and smiled down at the treasure it contained.
"So, what's this idea that's worth so much food?" she asked after savoring a few slices.
Spike sat up a bit to look at her. "I've put in a request for a transfer here."
Elita blinked a bit at him. "O...kay. I'm sure Carly and Daniel would just love it out here in the middle of nowhere, but why?"
"General Bryce thinks that we need to add some of the human factor to help take down M.E.C.H.," Fowler replied. "It'll add to the numbers that we really need to help find and retrieve your missing Autobots."
Elita sat back in Fowler's office chair, that he let her sit in, and frowned thoughtfully. There was so much more that a human could do in the situation that an Autobot couldn't. Vetting out candidates would be the trickiest part. "We know that Prime doesn't like the idea of getting humans truly involved in the fight between Cybertronian factions, but even he understands that they're a threat to both humans and Cybertonians alike. Alright. Let's get this all ironed out so I have everything that I need in place before talking to Optimus."
Plan in hand, so to speak, Elita made sure her new helmet was secured before pulling out of the hanger. It was late, the sun long gone, when she finally began the drive home. Or at least to an open part of the roadway where she would call for a Ground Bridge eventually. It had been a while since she had been out alone and she was planning on enjoying it. She would have escaped, she at least thought of it as such with a giggle, sooner but both forms still hurt from everything that happened for a long time past the initial healing. Tonight seemed to be perfect for it. The sky was clear, full of stars and a brightly shinning moon behind her. The chill to the air, aside from the wind chill from her driving, was exhilarating. Fall was finally settling into the lower part of the lower 48. It also reminded her that she needed to buy more clothes since her wardrobe didn't survive the destruction of the old base. That thought brought another one that filled her with sadness. Only a handful of her past life that she packed, all of the belongings that were hers and her parents and grandparents before her, was left.
Tuning down a junctioning roadway, she drove further into the night. She had no real destination in mind, just a feeling that she had to head this way. For hours she followed the pull, long ago driving off of the paved road into the surrounding desert. The directional urge eventually led her to a cavern area. Sliding off of her bike form, Elita pulled her helmet off of her head and looked into the dark abyss below. The rising sun began to slowly illuminate the gloom, but she didn't need it to see the faint, swirling trail of purple light. It ran in one huge circle in the cavern below, the source slowly forever following itself as it moved through its private course.
With the sun fully ascended from the horizon, Elita looked beside her as a huge Cybertronian figure faded into existance beside her. He looked like his brother, Dreadwing, save that he was in tones of green to his brother's blue. The figure looked disheartened as he watched the shadowy figure below slowly make the circuit again, pause to pick up the lone arm on the ground, attempt to place it where its missing appendage would have gone, despite it being too small, throw it back on the ground, and begin to walk again.
She recalled the boys filling her in about the Shadow-verse after she returned from her own inter-dimensional adventure. They had told her about how they had chased Miko through the Ground Bridge and the feedback of the Autobot and Descepticon Ground Bridges ended up trapping them with the Terrorcon Skyquake. Skyquake looked down at her, a longing in his optics. He apparently could not rest after his passing because of the Dark Energon that was now fueling his form. Much akin to his twin, his spark was not able to find peace because of it.
Elita looked back down into the cavern below, trying to ignore the pleading look the ghost next to her was giving, but her giving nature won out. "Alright, alright. I'll see what I can do," she told Skyquake as she climbed back onto her larger form. Falling in as she transformed, Elita gave her systems a moment to sync before she activated her optics. "Thought I have a feeling this is going to hurt."
With the coding from the Forge of Solus Prime now added to her own, Elita looked down at the figure below once more to calculate what she needed to do to open up the world that the lonesome creature was trapped in. Reaching out her right hand, she activated the Ground Bridge remote control piece she had grabbed during her fight with Megatron, having kept it as a sort of momento, and used it to open a portal before the shambling creature. It roared at it and rushed towards it, as if it had been given a renewed purpose for existing, and soon was stepping out the other side into the physical realm that it had inhabited when it was alive. Closing the portal, Elita began to leap from small outcropping of rocks that jutted out of the side of the cavern to eventually land several hundred feet in front of the Terrorcon.
Skyquake roared at seeing her, arching its back to cry out to the sky, before it charged at her. Elita calmly stood her ground and reached out towards him as he rushed towards her. Her hand began to glow brilliantly as she pulled the Dark Energon from him as he quickly closed the distance. He began to slow, stumbling to a halt as he reached out to grab a hold of her, close enough for her hand to touch his torso plating. His form slowly began to crumble, bits falling to the rocky ground as the energy that was once holding him together left.
Elita roughly sat down on the ground as the last bits of Skyquake fell. Looking up at the space before her that he had once occupied, she saw the ghost of the Cybertronian that she had just aided in finding peace. He was smiling down at her now and soon faded from view after giving her a grateful bow. She just sat there, now looking at the broken parts before her, feeling nauseated as her body shook from the dark energy she just absorbed. Reaching out to the pieces that had once made up Skyquake, she began to focus the energy around them. She watched as they shifted in the purple bubble that she had formed around the pieces, and slowly they began to take shape. When she had finished, there were two small statues, one of Skyquake and the other of Dreadwing, standing on top of a block with scrip written in Cybertronian saying 'Gave their all for the sake of Honor.'
Pulling herself off of the ground, Elita opened her communicator to the Autobot base to call for a Ground Bridge home. With the brilliant portal opening before her, she walked through it and soon it closed behind her, leaving the scene of what was once someone's endless torture quite and peaceful.
Kup greeted her as she walked through the other end of the portal. "Wasn't sure you were going to come home anytime soon, kid. What took you so long? Get into a fight?"
She replied as she rubbed the back of her neck, "Not really. Just … gave someone some closure. How did it go with the new guy?" When Kup shook his head with a roll of his optics she smirked, "That good, eh?"
"I was just hoping to never see his sorry crank-case again," the Wrecker founder answered. With a sweep of his arm, he began to escort her down the hall to the command center. "Optimus has been waiting to introduce you, so I'll let him have all the fun with that."
She followed silently as they made their way to the bridge. Really, all she wanted to do right now was get some rest, but it was her fault she was so tired. Everyone that was in the command center paused their conversation and watched the pair enter. Optimus, Jazz, and Ratchet were all surrounding the new comer, who stood at least head and shoulders above the Medic.
"Where have you been?" Ratchet demanded almost instantly as she and Kup came to a stop beside them.
Elita rolled her optics at both his tone and his almost habitual scan-her-upon-encounter action that he had been developing lately. "Stop mother-hening me."
"Ultra Magnus," Optimus spoke up before Ratchet had a chance to retort, "this is Elita-One. Elita, this is Ultra Magnus. He was one of the commanders for the Elite Guard and had taken over the Wrecker unit as well during the waning days of the war on Cybertron."
Well, now she knew part of the reason that Kup wasn't too thrilled. "Charmed," she forced a smile. Looking over at Optimus she asked, with a bit of humor in her voice, "Did you successfully explain about me to this one or do I have to show him, too?"
"I am aware of your non-original Cybertronian form, yes," Mangus replied, making her look back at him.
"Good. One less thing I have to worry about." She then focused back on Optimus. "When you get a moment, I would like to discuss something that a few of us came up with to deal with M.E.C.H.."
Prime nodded towards her before looking at the group he had been speaking with. "Excuse us."
Ultra Magnus frowned as he watched Optimus and Elita walk out of the command center. "Such blatant disrespect for her commanding officers. Hardly a tolerable trait in a good soldier."
Kup scoffed. "Just because she has backbone not to quake in fear before you and your authority doesn't mean she's disrespectful. She just doesn't take slag from anyone. Not anymore."
"Yeah, you missed it when she threatened to rip Ratchet's arm off and beat him with it if he didn't leave her alone," Jazz added.
Ratchet rolled his optics with a scoff. "Pu-leeze. She was in dire need of repair and refused to allow me to work on her."
"She just needed more help that you could give her," Kup informed their companion before he turned to leave.
Magnus just eyed Kup as the scarred bot walked out of the command center to go back to his assigned task on the ship. Turning he looked at Ratchet as he and Jazz walked over to the scanning station, since he overheard Jazz mentioning that he had some hope in Elita's plan on how to go about dealing with M.E.C.H.. The Medic, he noticed, didn't look as thrilled about the conversation as the bot speaking to him was. As Prime's second-in-command, he would have to do something about the attitude of the pretender, since she was causing a wave of discourse through the ranks.
Author's Note:
I don't own the show. Thanks for reading.
Onto the next story!