A baby. If people ever found out enough to ask, he'd tell them they'd met when she was a baby.

His human didn't remember it of course, though not because she was stupid like the others.

Humans, in general, had shitty early memory.

But that would change, along with a lot of other things Sunstorm would be the last to notice. The golden seeker was young. He had been the youngest among the Seekers actually, almost all deactivated now save for the few pardoned Decepticons like himself. But that didn't mean he was stupid.

What was stupid was that he missed the rush of flying with his Wingmates, over battles, dodging bullets and rockets and Primus knows what else to complete their objective. Accordingly, he ended the silly daydreams whenever he caught them, crushing the line of code that blew the phantom touch of remembered wind over his wings with a sort of indignant vengeance.

Silly to imagine such things. They had lost.

What would be doubly stupid was pretending like people forget that little fact. The war to end all wars would probably never be forgotten, Sunstorm mused, even among non-Cybertronians. It was kind of a defining characteristic of their race at this point. Sunstorm cocked his helm to pear at his desk, where Crystal was sleeping. Her tiny organic chest plates rose and fell gently in rhythm and he snorted softly to himself;

Non-Cybertronians indeed.

The Autobots had won. They rebuilt/were currently rebuilding their world and her colonies, now boasting a quarter of a billion mecha thanks to the recovered allspark and the neutrals that had "sat out" the war.

Substorm scowled. The cowards. In his opinion it was worse to have been a neutral through the whole bloody thing than a Decepticon. At least he had been doing something, rather than standing by as everything fell apart, even if he had been a youngling at the time the fighting started. But no, to everyone else he was the disgrace.

They acted like it didn't matter. Had to give credits where credits were due. But seriously, those afts and their self-righteous posing could go suck an exhaust pipe.

Certainly it was by accident that Sunstorm's paperwork always got mixed up.

Definitely, a mistake that all the good jobs, jobs he was fragging qualified for damnit, went to the newsparks that had less than a 100th his experience. Even the semi-decent paying fields were...timid at the idea of accepting a "reformed" Decepticon, and a Seeker at that. One look at him in an interview and he knew the employer had dismissed him before it even began. The Decepticon sigil boldly emblazoned on his chassis certainly didn't help; damn Prime, for making it illegal to remove them. If that didn't reveal their lies about "peace" and "unity" Sunstorm didn't know what did.

And surely it was a mishap that his apartment unit got routinely vandalized. Okay actually Sunstorm didn't really believe that that part was endorsed at large. Probably some newspark punks, thinking it was so cool and edgy to fuck with a Decepticon Seeker and live to laugh about it later with their friends.

But still, such incidents only fueled his rage at feeling like a second class citizen, prompting Sunstorm to do the one thing on Cybertron not suspicious.

Leave the planet.

Just kidding - not really. At least, not for good. He actually left the planet quite frequently, but came back when shipping orders demanded, sometimes disembarking at one of the docks for a brief time to help his subordinates with the load. As it turns out, cargo hauling was one of those professions that didn't care who did it, as long as it got done. All you needed was a ship big enough, some contracts, and a crew.

And apparently, one small human.

He had gotten her as an infant, on one of those away trips to Cybertron's surface. The "rehoming" of humans away from the Central Human Facility in Iacon (really, a glorified monument to one of Prime's biggest failures) was already starting to become a thing. Someone, somewhere, Sunstorm liked to imagine, had left his rehomed human(s) with a little too much down time, and they had done what dumb animals do naturally and procreated. He'd looked it up later, and apparently that was a big no-no on the Committee of Human Affairs' list - there was a big fat fine attached to the unauthorized breeding of humans.

And so the unlucky owner had thrown away the result.

Sunstorm had been tempted to simply crush the helpless thing when he found it, or leave it and let the trash compactor eventually do it for him. But even he wasn't that much of an aft. That would be like kicking a turbo puppy when it was down - decent people just didn't do that.

Upon carefully picking the crying creature up (at that point she was, like, less than the size of his hand) she had shut up to stare at him with those innocent optics of hers. It had been kind of cute.

He couldn't turn it in (because then people would think he was somehow responsible for her existence, and he'd had his fill of petty Decepticon-related bullshit for the day), and the more he held it, the more he couldn't bring himself to kill it. Which left him with one option.

Maybe...he could keep it?

He'd have to work at keeping his radiation powers to a minimum, and he'd probably get tons of flak from Drivetrain and the jet Twins about going soft.

But the more he considered the stupid idea, the more he somehow liked it.

"Sunstooooorm! Your human won't shut uuuuuuuupppp!"

Substorm sighed and stood up, taking a second to work the kinks out of his neck. Yeah, he'd been expecting something like that. Those two had to be the worst pet sitters in the universe.

He poked his head out of the loading shuttle. Currently, he and Blade were in the hanger, having finally gotten around to sorting the packages they had picked up from Tamoran a few orns ago. The female's cries reached his audios before the flyers entered; she was being cradled by the orange nuisance.

"Ughhh, What did you do?"

"Nothing! She won't stop making loud noise." Jetfire declared. Beside him his brother nodded.

"We try everything!"

"Here, give her to me." Sunstorm said, annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of what scant work cargo haulers actually did. Seriously, aside from the poor pay, flying one of these trillion ton tubs was the easiest job this side of the galaxy. He held out his servos, and amazingly, the little thing visibly calmed down a little when she was placed in them.

The jet Twins did a double take.

"What!" Jetstorm yelped. "How? No fair!"

"Aww, looks like the little guy missed you."

"Shut up, Blade," Sunstorm snapped. The black and purple femme sniggered before turning back to the boxes stacked in the shuttle, the motion briefly reflecting the light over the purple emblem on her chest.

"Aye aye, Captain."

Sunstorm ignored her, focusing on his pet. She was still crying, damnit. In fact the exchange only seemed to make her more upset. What? What did it want? The young organic had been with him almost a vorn (about two earth years), and had been throwing tantrums more and more these last few weeks, to the point of driving them to deactivation.

She wasn't defective, was she?

"Sun!"

Sunstorm froze, his jawplates going slack.

The Twins gasped.

"Did that little turd just say what I think it said?" Blade's voice simpered. She leaned out of the shuttle to look over Sunstorm's shoulder, a clawed hand grasping the roof for balance.

They all stared at the being in the yellow Seeker's palm, who, upon seeing all the attention now focused solely on her, hiccuped and pointed to her holder's face determinedly. "Sun!"

"VectorSigma, it fragging DID!" Blade crowed, jumping backwards into the shuttle so hard she landed on her aft.

Jetstorm laughed, "It knows your name!" While hugging Jetfire in mock terror. "It is possessed!"

"Say Blade. blaaaaaaaadddde". Blade cooed, having recovered from her fall to materialize by Sunstorm's side again. Recovering from his own initial shock, the golden mech swatted her away.

"Blay." The diminutive creature giggled happily. It was a clear attempt at imitation. It looked past her to the jet Twins and cried, "Fah! Stoh!", wiggling its arms at them.

"Awww, looks like she just wanted attention." Blade said, elbowing the shell shocked Sunstorm with a grin. "Congratulations, you're a…" she paused, optics briefly going dim as she looked up the extinct language, "-Dad!"

He should have hauled ass to Iacon and given her to the Committee of Human Affairs right then and there. He should have...except, when you think about it, it wouldn't have done anyone any good. In fact, the more Sunstorm had thought about it, the more he was sure it would do have done more harm than good.

See, his owning a human was technically illegal; he hadn't been vetted or trained on how to best care for one or completed the necessary paperwork, as were the Prime's own stipulations, and the Committee only rehomed to affluent, upstanding citizens. Which, as a relatively poor previous Decepticon, he most certainly was not.

And what about her? Honestly, the Human Facility might be better equipped to deal with her physical needs. But she would be surrounded by those mindless animals, and possibly treated like one too. He knew they were currently looking for a way to reverse the effects of the Surge; what might they do to her, the only sentient example, in the process of looking for the cure? If one was even possible.

That was no way for a person to live.

Sunstorm had made up his mind and kept her. His crew had no objections - Blade said that she was just too cute, and Drivetrain and the jet Twins didn't exactly want to draw attention to themselves (albeit for different reasons). None of them did, really. That was the great thing about working cargo - nobody gave a slag about you.

They'd had to pick a name for her. It must have been a human thing, wanting your caretakers to christen you - Cybertronians picked their own designations. They came to realize the child was throwing tantrums because she was upset that she couldn't understand and communicate with the people around her, which was understandable. In learning Cybertronian, she leaned all their designations first. Then she had pointed to herself. A question.

Crystal seemed safe enough. The crew of the Lucky Bullet had taken a poll, and that was the tamest. 'Cause seriously, Sparky? What kind of idiotic name was that for a person? At least 'Crystal' was semi-decent. It was actually Drivetrain who had suggested it; the green medic had a fondness for Praxian crystals, a fondness that was quickly getting competition from the sweet little girl who had somehow wormed her way into all of their sparks.

At first, she wasn't very good at it. Whether that stemmed from being ignored in her infancy for so long or the complexity of Cyber-standard compared to most organic languages, Sunstorm didn't know. But she did learn. About half a billion butchered words and ten years later. In order to communicate in the meantime, Blade taught her Heclix, a Pandoran language. Sunstorm and crew did a lot of contracts between the blue, humanoid aliens and some of the Cybertronian colonies, hauling goods and traders to and from either. It made good credits, and Crystal knew better than to come out of her special "hiding room" when there were other Cybertronians aboard. When it was just the Pandorans she mingled, soaking up all the socialization with fellow organics she could. They were a similar enough species, and she made friends. She was shorter than their younglings her age by a good 3 or 4 feet, but they didn't seem to mind.

All too soon she was fourteen now, a beautiful, healthy young human that knew nothing of her kind. Nothing from experience, anyway. She had pestered the crew when she was little about why she was so different from her metal family, why she'd never met anyone specifically like her, etc. Sunstorm hadn't wanted to tell her, but Drivetrain and Blade convinced him that she needed to know, regardless of whether or not she loved him afterword.

It had nearly broken her heart. The girl had cried for orns, and Sunstorm had never felt the weight of his Decepticon badge more than he had then, not even when he was pardoned by the Prime. He was ashamed that she knew. Ashamed of what the 'Cons had done, even if he specifically hadn't had a hand in it. Because the destruction of the humans was terrible. He'd wondered if she'd want to leave them after knowing her planet's fate - as a fellow sentient, it wasn't like they would force her to stay.

But she'd come around. She'd understood he wasn't personally at fault. After a period of a few months where she was really depressed (which had had them all worried sick), she got over it. It was good, she had told them, that she knew. In hindsight, she was glad they had not told her until she was ready.

Crystal tugged at her tunic, drawing it closer to conserve more heat. It was chilly out. Not processor-numbingly cold like on Vednar-lll, but still unpleasant. The metal bands around her arms certainly weren't helping, as they merely absorbed the slight chill from the atmosphere as if to mock her attempts.

"Ooh, that looks cool!" Krax said, pointing to a stall that had lots of different colored cloth on display. The Pandoran took off through the market's milling crowd, careful to keep his tail curled close around his waist so it wouldn't get yanked or snagged on anything, and Crystal followed suit.

When she caught up to the Pandoran he smiled. "Look at these!"

He was holding and motioning to what looked like scarves. Except they were glowing. Even though there was no way in Pit she was going to buy one (what can she say, Sunstorm had installed a healthy sense of thriftiness in her), she picked one up to examine it. It was soft. Like, really soft, and she ran her hand down it a few times. It shimmered faintly, fluorescent streaks showing where her hands had rubbed it.

"Interesting material," Crystal agreed. The seller was watching the pair of respective teenagers like a hawk though, and she grabbed her friend's shoulder to steer him away. "But I don't think we can afford that."

"Aww." Krax grumbled.

They were looking for a hotel - not like that, but because the crew of the Lucky Bullet were busy getting parts/hired help to repair their ship, which had been the unfortunate victim of an asteroid belt. She didn't want to get underfoot. Not that she didn't know how to fix a ship - the Lucky Bullet probably classified more as ten ships by now (there was a reason it was called lucky) - but Sunstorm hadn't wanted her and Krax to stay. Something about organics and the pierced engine hull and radiation.

The Dancing Grass, a sign above the black and green lodging read. In Cybertronian that also translated to Wind-blades'. It seemed respectable enough, certainly crowded enough, given the multitude of aliens mashing and milling in the warm main room when they entered. More than 3 languages Crystal recognized flowed among the chatter. Foreign but not overly obnoxious music was emanating from somewhere, adding to the lively atmosphere.

Crystal subconsciously brushed closer to Krax; relatively speaking, the blue Pandoran was formidably tall, whereas she was definitely among the weaker of the represented species.

"Hi...uh, can we get a room?" She asked in Heclix, a common language even away from Pandora due to the resource rich planet's mass exporting.

The Hygryl'inti manning the front desk gave her and Krax an appraising look. "Single or double." It chittered.

"Double-definitely-I mean-"

"Yes. Uh, yes, double. Yes."

They babbled at the same time. The Hygryl'inti rolled all six of its optics and held out its webbed, 4-fingered servo. "12.68 flurbos."

Crystal and Krax shared a look. Krax unshouldered his backpack to rifle through it while Crystal glided her fingers across the still cool metal band on her right arm, accessing her subspace. They were a gift from Sunstorm, given to her on her 13th birthday because she had proved "mature enough to handle them". Tiny subspace pockets were built into each thin ring-shaped device, holding some of her few belongings, food, water, scaled down Cybertronian grade weapons (via Blade), and her allowance; after all, she was a part of the crew and contributed, little as she could.

"Here." She said, slapping a wad of cash on the counter that amounted to 6.50. Krax put down his half of the cost, and received a metal key. Lodgings like these liked to keep locks simple; not everyone was literally a computer and could hack an electronic lock in less than a nanosecond.

Best for business to keep things simple.

"Second floor, third down and to the left."

"Thank you." Crystal said. Krax nodded in agreement, and the two turned away to shuffle through the crowd of aliens. Crystal spotted a Klogon playing a stringed instrument similar to Earthen guitars in the corner; so that's where the music was coming from.

"Do you want to stay in here a little while?" Krax leaned down to suggest, having noticed the musician too. Crystal nodded.

"Yeah."

All of the tables already had occupants, so they joined a table nearish the Klogon already seating 5 people, two of which were also Pandorans. The two greeted Krax warmly. Introductions were made. The group were apparently scientists, just stopping by before heading to Klinto as cultural investigators. They were very interested in Krax's companion.

"What is your name?" J'har, the woman Pandoran, asked.

"Crystal." Crystal said, bowing her head minutely in traditional greeting. J'har's mate flicked his tail sheepishly before saying,

"Forgive me, but I'm not familiar with your species. Where are you from?"

Crystal assured him it was fine - she got that a lot.

"I was born on Cybertron, and have been traveling for as long as I can remember." She laughed. "So kind of everywhere and nowhere."

Instantly the group got a look in their eyes at the mention of Cybertron.

"That's interesting," Bolank said, meeting his wife's gaze."

Krax's ears pricked up. "Why's that?"

"Not too many organics allowed there, from what I know." Another of their party, a Delorean named Gra, commented. "Small universe. Ya know, we're traveling with a Cybertronian. 'Course he's late, as usual." He muttered darkly.

But J'har perked up. "Oh wait, here he comes now."

Shit, both Krax and Crystal thought. They turned as horrified one to see a red and blue mech carefully picking his way through the crowd towards them. Minibot, Crystal identified, noting the scope on his shoulder. He was about Krax's height, but with his playing he was much bulkier, as were Cybertronians' nature.

"My apologies everyone, I was somewhat postponed at the market." The mech greeted when he reached them. Gra scooter over to make room for him, and the scientist lowered himself into the bench. Only then did he notice the extra people at the table.

"Where are my manners," he scoffed at himself, lowering his helm slightly in Pandoran greeting to Krax. "My designation is Perceptor."

"Krax." Krax said stiffly. He shifted slightly closer to Crystal, but regardless of his height it wasn't like he could hide her from the equally tall Perceptor. Perceptor looked at Crystal like he was about to offer sort of the same, but frowned when he actually got a good look of her.

"Uh, Krax? I beg your pardon, but is that human yours?" He inquired, curiosity and...something else in his tone.

"She's with me," Krax growled, standing up. "Excuse me, but we have to go now."

Faster than Krax could blink, Perceptor had snatched his arm, metal hand wrapping snugly around the appendage. Everyone at the table was equally stupefied for a second.

"Perceptor!" Gra hissed, appalled. J'har and Bolank flattened their ears backward at the sudden move, yellow cat-like eyes wide. What was wrong?

"Your companion is a human." Perceptor reiterated, eerily calm. "Please, sit down."

"Let go of my fucking arm, man!" Krax snarled, trying to wrench it free.

"Perceptor, what's going on?" J'har asked. "You know of her people?"

"Humans are kept safe on my planet." Perceptor replied, hard optics never leaving Krax's face. "There is only one other place this man could have obtained one. What I want to know is where you got this."

He closed his hand a little tighter over Krax's arm, and the Pandoran cried out in pain. Not enough to break it (he was no Decepticon), but the grip wasn't exactly comfortable. Perceptor had to know.

When Krax just glared at him, Perceptor asked, "Perhaps you would be more willing to talk to Enforcers?"

"Wait, stop! Let go of him!" Crystal blurted in Cybertronian. She'd had enough. Krax hissed at her - he knew she wasn't supposed to reveal herself to Cybertronians - and Perceptor froze, slack-jawed. He released the Pandoran.

"You…," he breathed, optics going huge. No one at their table said anything for a somber minute, in contrast to the merrymaking going on around them.

Bolank broke the silence. "Perceptor. Explain yourself, now. That was highly unprofessional."

Perceptor looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "I d-didn't know...you…-"

"-can talk, yes. I know." Crystal sighed in Heclix. Here we go. "I'm not like, his pet or anything. Which is more than can be said of you."

The scientist wilted at the accusation. To be honest, that was kind of mean of her; Crystal had no idea whether he'd adopted a human or not, but it was more than likely given his apparent interest in foreign culture and that scientists were, by nature, viewed as upstanding citizens. Just a guess. Alarmed by where this conversation was going, Gra poked him with a tentacle. "What is she talking about?"

"Yeah, why don't you tell them how you guys screwed over my entire species." Crystal hissed. Okay, now she was being really mean. Jerk deserved it for hurting Krax, who was still rubbing his arm and glaring at the mech distrustfully.

J'har squinted. "Huh?"

They were all looking at Perceptor expectantly. It wasn't a very well known fact, what the Autobots had inadvertently done. That kind of thing didn't tend to make them look good.

"Very well. If you must have them know, during the course of our war the fighting came to the humans' - her - planet." Perceptor explained. "While we were on the planet the Decepticons released a subatomic pulse wave that was amplified to reach around the entire planet, effectively eradicating certain brain waves. Billions of sentients were destroyed in an instant, and no matter how hard we have strived, we haven't been able to reverse the effect, even two-hundred and seventy-eight generations later. That is why we Cybertronians have such a strict Prime Directive now."

Everyone at the table looked horrified, except Crystal and Krax, who just looked bored. They already knew the story.

Perceptor fixed Crystal with an intense look. "It was a mistake, a huge mistake, that the Autobots failed to stop from happening. Your anger is understandable."

"That's horrible." J'har breathed. Bolank wrapped his tail around her waist comfortingly. Perceptor waited for someone else to say something, and when they didn't, blurted, "How is it that you survived? Are there other humans like you, that can think?"

Damn, but he sounded so hopeful. Crystal shook her head. "I have never met another human like me. For all I know, I am the last."

"The last of your species." Gra repeated in awe. To say that she would be considered rare on the black market should that little fact become widely known would be an understatement. A being like that would easily fetch over a billion units! Not that he was the type to do that to another person. It was just a thought.

Crystal absently twirled a strand of brown hair between her fingers. "Are you going to tell the others?" She finally asked. "They'll come for me. You know that."

Perceptor tapped his fingers against the table. After a long pause, he opened his mouth to say something, but hesitated, seeming to rethink it. He said, "Perhaps we can...talk in private?"

Krax immediately growled at that, putting an arm over Crystal's shoulders in a display of protectiveness. Bolank and J'har gave each other a curious look. Perceptor held up his servos.

"We can sit at the empty table over there if you like, it's not like I want to try anything! I was an Autobot, not a Decepticon!"

Krax's hand on her shoulder tightened minutely. You don't have to hear what he has to say, his eyes said. But Crystal resolutely brushed him off.

"Alright."

Inspired by Prime's pet. I thought it was a really good plot idea and well written, but sadly he never continued it. Kudos to you man. Maybe I'll write more, if enough people like it. Leave a review and let me know what you think!

P.S. If anyone gets the R&M reference, I'll find a way to have your pen name in the (maybe) next chapter.