Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Koji waited in the park for Freespirit to arrive, he looked at his watch she was now fifteen minutes late.
This isn't like Spirit at all he thought maybe she's on a mission… but she normally calls and tells me when she can't make it or if she's going to be late. I hope she's okay. He decided to wait a few more minutes before calling her. The minutes tickled by and still no Freespirit or even Topaz, he was starting to get really worried. He tried contacting her but received no reply, he was now extremely worried. What if she's been caught by the Predacons again.
"Prowl this is Koji." Thinking the police car might be the only one who knew where she was.

"What can I do for you, Koji?" Prowl asked as his face appeared on Koji's phone.

"Is Spirit okay? Have you seen her? Is she with you?" he would have asked more questions but Prowl interrupted.

"She's fine, Koji." He replied, "She's back at base."

"Base?" surprised at the police car's answer, he was expecting something like 'she's on a mission and unreachable' "Then why doesn't she answer when I try and contact her?"

Prowl became worried at what Koji had said. Spirit wasn't answering her communications?
"I'm not sure, Koji. Let me try contacting her and I'll get back to you." Closing communication.

Koji didn't have to wait long as Prowl's face reappeared a minute later.

"I can't seem to reach her." His voice now having a slight tone of worry in it. "I'm heading to base, I'll pick you up on the way. Where are you?"

"In the park."

Prowl gave a nod and closed communication. Koji sighed and closed his phone letting it falling back around his neck. They could just be overreacting and Freespirit was in her human form, but if she was at base like Prowl had said why would she be in human form?

--

Raincloud sat in the recreation room looking down at her energon, she sighed. She hadn't touched it since she walked in, just sat and stared at it, sighing every so often. She heard the door open and close but didn't look to see who it was.

"Something wrong, Rain?" a voice asked.

She looked up ignoring the stiffness she felt in her neck joints from looking down for so long and saw Mirage. She took a quick look around and saw all the other Spychangers. She smiled as she looked back at him.
"Nope. Everything's fine, Mirage. Thanks for asking though."

"Are you sure?"

She gave another nod.

"Then how come you looked so upset when we all walked in." Ironhide said coming up beside Mirage.

Raincloud looked at him slightly surprised. She hadn't looked that bad, had she?

"Are you going to tell us what's bothering you?" Hot Shot asked joining in.

She looked at him, folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in the chair then said slightly humorous "What is this, pick on a femme day?"

The Spychangers chuckled.

"Had you not looked so upset, we probably wouldn't have said anything." REV replied.

Raincloud raised an optic ridge at REV's answer.
"You guys aren't going to leave me alone until you find out, are you."

"We only want to help." Crosswise said.

"If we can." WARS added.

Raincloud sighed in defeat and looked back down at her untouched energon. "Okay fine." As she heard them all sit down she added "But none of you tell anyone." She looked over at Crosswise and pointed a finger at him. "Especially you, Crosswise. I don't want Spirit knowing about this."

The blue spychanger was surprise for a moment then gave a nod in agreement.

"So what's got you so upset, Rain?" Mirage asked.

Raincloud placed her arms on the table and once again looked down at her energon, she didn't speak for a while then asked. "Do you think I'm just getting in the way here, that I'm a nuisance on the battlefield?"

The Spychangers looked at each other in both shock and confusion.
"Why would you ask that?" WARS finally asked.

"We went to stop the Decepticons at the nuclear power plant…" she began "And met… Ultra Magnus."

It all became clear to each spychanger, Ultra Magnus had obviously said something that upset the MG greatly.

"I wouldn't listen to anything Ultra Magnus has to say." Ironhide said.

"Ironhide's right." Mirage said, "That guy has his own agenda."

--

Topaz walked around the city not really paying attention to where she was going, she just wanted to take a walk. She wasn't really in the mood to fly or drive, and this way she wouldn't be bothered by any Decepticons or Predacons, to them she was just another worthless human. She continued to walk stopping occasionally to look in a store window. She sighed as she thought of how Magnus' comment had affected Raincloud, although the MG wouldn't admit that it had affected her, Topaz could tell it did. That was probably the reason she just stood there in the battle. He probably said something to her that surprised or upset her. Unlike her, Raincloud was… easy to upset though she was slow to anger. Most of the time she let things just slide but there were a few that really did 'damage' and Magnus' comment was one of them.
Topaz looked around to get her bearings on where she was, she found that she'd walked to her old apartment and gave a slight chuckle. As she looked up at the building to look at the window she knew to be her old place a slight pang of guilt ran through her at what she had almost done back then. She decided to walk on.

--

Upon arriving at base Prowl said, "TAI, is Spirit still here?" while letting Koji out and transforming.

The hologram looked at him slightly confused. "As far as I know, Prowl."

"She was suppose to meet me forty-five minutes ago." Koji explained "And when I tried contacting her she wouldn't respond."

TAI looked surprised by Koji's explanation and tried to locate Freespirit, with no success.
"I can't seem to find her." She said, "She's no longer in the base and I can't find any trace of her outside."

"This is all Magnus' fault." Prowl said slightly annoyed.

"Magnus?" Koji asked surprised.

Prowl gave a nod, "He said that both Spirit and Rain didn't belong on the battlefield and that they should leave."

"Magnus said that?" Prowl nodded again and Koji thought for a moment. "Hmmm… TAI, can you track Spirit when she's Topaz?"

The hologram shook her head. "You think she's turned into Topaz?"

"It might explain why we can't contact her."

"Which means we'd have to go and look for her." Prowl said.

"Mm hm." Koji replied with a nod.

"While the two of you search, I'll check up on Raincloud." TAI said.

--

"You fail me yet again, Scourge." Megatron said.

"Had it not been for Ultra Magnus we would have succeeded." Scourge said bitterly.

"Luckily for you I have found a new source of energy while probing Onishi's mind." Megatron said turning to the screen. An image of an old temple appeared. "It appears this building has vast amounts of energy within it. I want you and the rest of the Decepticons to retrieve it."

"And if the Autobots try and stop us?" Mega-Octane said.

The Predacon leader looked over at them and gave a crooked evil smile, "I wouldn't worry about them. They'll have their hands full. Now go and bring back that energy." After the Decepticons had left Megatron turned back to the screen. It now showed a young girl with medium length dark blonde hair and tan skin. She wore a light green t-shirt, stone coloured cargos, and trainers.

--

Koji searched everywhere he could think of and still couldn't find Topaz. He sighed Topaz, where are you? He wondered. He'd already checked the train station in case she went to talk to Rapid Run but Rail Spike said that none of them had seen Topaz but that they would keep a look out for her. He continued to look for her. Turning the corner and onto a street with a row of shops, he looked up and down the street hoping that he might be able to spot her. In the distance he saw a girl that matched Topaz's description she was walking down the street and just going round a corner as he saw her, quickly he started running to try and catch up with her.
"Topaz!" he called out as he ran. "Topaz wait!"

He virtually skidded round the corner only to see the girl leaning on the side of the building, her arms crossed over her chest. It was definitely Topaz, he put one hand against the building and leaned slightly on it while he got his breath back.

"What's up, Koji?" Topaz asked.

"Don't…. don't you remember that we were suppose to meet up today?" he said.

A slight tinge of red graced Topaz's cheeks. "Sorry Koji. I forgot. Guess I was too busy thinking about how to help Rain."

"There's something wrong with Raincloud?" Koji asked curiously.

"Well…. Not exactly… I mean, she doesn't say that there is, but... there's something that not quite right with her. I can sense it."

Koji blinked in slight confusion. "Why didn't you tell anyone where you were going? You had Prowl and I worried." He said slightly changing the subject.

It was Topaz's turn to blink in confusion.
"Prowl? What's Prowl got to do with anything?" she asked.

"Well… when you didn't turn up and I couldn't reach you, I called him and asked if you were okay, where you were and…"

"He told you I was back at base, to which you asked why you couldn't contact me. He tried, got the same as you then took you back to base only to find that I was no longer there." She finished for him.

"Uh… yeah." He said slightly surprised that she knew how things went. "You really need to get a phone or something so that we can contact you when you're in this form."

Topaz shrugged, "I'm hardly ever in this form so I never saw the need, and besides, how would I pay for it?"

"The same way you paid for your apartment?" Koji offered.

Topaz shook her head, "That was…'given' to me by Crystal so I could… continue with my… life as it were." She then added "So who else is looking for me beside you and Prowl?"

"Only the two of us. I saw Rail Spike and the others at the station and they said they'd keep a look out." He replied.

"Then don't you think you oughta tell everyone that you've found me?"

Koji was about to pick up his phone and call Prowl when a voice said, "Why spoil the surprise."

Both humans looked over and saw Megatron land a few feet from them.

"What do you want Megacreep?" Topaz asked. Koji gave a slight chuckle.

Megatron growled, "You're lucky I need you for my plan Human, or I'd destroy you right now."

"Uh yeah right." Topaz said unfazed by the threat. "Why don't you go bother someone who cares, because I don't." she turned back to Koji "Are you going to call Prowl or not?"

"He's not going to call anybody." Megatron said, transforming into his bat mode and hitting the boy with his sonic pain wave and knocking him out.

Topaz growled at the Predacon leader.
"What do you want, Megatron?" she asked again anger now in her voice.

"Surely a clever Autobot like you can figure that out." He replied.

"Auto…." She began to say slightly confused then realised that he knew her 'secret'.

"Yes. I know you can change your form from Transformer to Human. I also know that while in this form you are far more vulnerable than you are in your true form."

"I may be human, Megatron. But I'm far from vulnerable." She retaliated.