(3rd Person POV)
How many years had it been? She didn't know- she knew her parents cared, but she did not care at all herself. Sabertron liked living with her father and mother- and the rest of the Decepticons. She had been told of the horrors of the War for Cybertron, and then eventually the War for Earth.
And she was glad she hadn't been born earlier.
She didn't like to fight, to be honest. She enjoyed art, and music, having accessed the humans' Internetnmultiple times, and simply explored, finding out many things. She didn't hate the Autobots- since she had been born after the end of the Wars, not a single fight had occurred beteen the two factions. Well, not life and death battles, anyway.
And that was the way Sabertron liked it- her father and mother were always with her, unless her father was at a meeting, and she had even spoken to her uncle, Optimus Prime, and some of the other Autobots. However, the conversation had been brief, since her mother kept it a secret from Megatron.
Megatron had agreed to stop fighting- but only because he didn't have an army big enough to attack anything.
So, neither side admitting defeat, a truce had been made, and the War ended. However, the Decepticons and the Autobots still disliked each other for the most part, so they couldn't be near each other. That led to having a ship built, so that the Decepticons would stay off of Earth.
It somehat worked, since the Autobots never bothered the Decepticons, but sometimes the Decepticons would try to start uprisings against Lightning, disagreeing with her decision to leave Earth alone- which completely explained the situation that Sabertron was currently in.
"Soundwave! Take Saber and go, now!" Lightning as shouting. Megatron was trying, along with an army of Decepticons, get into the small, cramped room. Soundwave was trying to pull Lightning back, but if he said anything at all, he couldn't be heard over the sounds of cannons firing.
Lightning left the doorway of the room for an instant kissing her not-so-tiny-anymore sparkling on the forehead, and then pushing Soundwave into the escape pod, along with Sabertron, safe in his arms. "You are her guardian, and because of that, you first line of duty is to keep her safe! So take Saber, get in the pod, and find Optimus Prime! Protect her where I failed!"
And with that, she closed the pod doors, and pressed the large button next to the controls- effectively detaching the escape pod from the ship.
The last thing Sabertron or Knockout saw was Lightning being blasted into oblivion by the Decepticons.
(10 minutes later)
-NEST Headquarters, Diego Garcia-
"Optimus, you might want to see this," Lennox shouted. Epps was by his side, shocked at the image displayed on the monitors. Optimus didn't need to be told what was happening- it was already being displayed on the larger monitors built for the Autobots.
And what he saw was shocking.
A small section of the Decepticon ship had exploded, and several extremely large pieces of debris were crashing down towards Earth. Right over the Sahara Desert, to NEST's convenience. Things would be much easier to hide from the public if the Autobots got there first.
"Optimus, we need to go ahead and get out there, to scout out the crash zone," Lennox said. "Agreed," Ratchet replied, "Besides, I might be able to scavenge some parts to use for repairs." Optimus couldn't argue against it- they did need more parts for the Autobots' needs at the base.
Optimus considered a plan for a moment, the said, "Groundbridge us there."
Ratchet immediately activated the groundbridge, ready to go, and one of the NEST operatives commed them, "Let me know when you're ready to come back, and I'll open it up."
Optimus looked at the Autobots currently in the hangar, and said, "Sideswipe, Ironhide, Ratchet and Drift, you're all with me." They all nodded, and got ready to leave. The Groundbridge opened, and they stepped through- only to discover that the debris had entirely destroyed the crash zone.
Fire was burning in some areas, other parts of the ship reduced to only ashes. Nothing was intact, all of it burned away when it entered the atmosphere. The only thing that even looked like it was in one piece was the small escape pod that had landed with the rest of the crashed metal.
Wait, escape pod?
They hadn't seen it come down with the rest of the ship's section, but there it was, right in front of them. No one exited it, but there were cries coming from inside of it. The were cries of fear and pain, but they didn't sound like they were coming from an adult. Then it hit them- it was a survivor, and since the war had ended, the Autobots were compelled to get the survivor out.
Even if it was from a Decepticon ship.
Optimus pried the door of the pod off, but even he did not expect what they found inside. A sparkling. A living, breathing, crying sparkling. "-find Optimus Prime! Protect her where I failed!" a voice suddenly said. It was then that they noticed a severely wounded Soundwave holding the sparkling.
He held the sparkling out to Optimus, and, not knowing why, Optimus took the sparkling fom Soundwave's hands. As soon as the sparkling left his arms, Soundwave dropped his arms, and they realized that the voice that had come frrom him hadn't been his own.
It had been a femme's voice. A very familiar femme's voice, at that. "Primus," Ratchet said, "What could possibly make them use an escape pod to get a sparkling off of the ship?" Soundwave, for the first time, spoke with his own voice, managing to stay alive just long enough to say, "Second... war," and he offlined. Right then and there.
"Optimus? You wouldn't happen to know if she's his sparkling, would you?" Ironhide asked. "She is," Ratchet replied, "I remember her mother contacting us at one point." Drift didn't seem at all surprised to see the sparkling. In fact, as he spoke, he seemed to be familiar with speaking of her, "So, should we bring her back? Megatron will hunt for her until he finds her, and I'm pretty sure he'll know we found her."
"We'll take her back to base, and allow her to decide what she wants to do," Optimus said. Ironhide was shocked at Optimus's words, "But Optimus! She's a Decepticon!" Drift immediately came to Sabertron's defense, "I used to be a Deecepticon, too! And I turned out just fine."
Optimus commed NEST, "We're ready to come back, open the groundbridge." An excited "Roger" sounded off at the other end of the comms, and the groundbridge opened up just a few feet away.
"Let's go," Optimus said, and his tone was so grave that Ratchet didn't even question it. Everyone went through, except for Drift, who paused and looked at the wreckage around him, just before walking through.
(Maria's POV)
"Hey, wasn't Jewlz supposed to get here at around five?" I asked. Hailey gave me a questioning look, "Maria, she's flying in from Canada. The flight probably takes more than an hour." I knew she as right- I just wished that our friend would get here sooner.
Hailey started to try and make conversation, "So, do I get to see the bat cave when Jewlz gets here?" I couldn't help but bust out laughing- ever since I had told her that I liked to hang out in the underground tunnels of the city, she had started to call it the bat cave. I chuckled and replied, "You know there aren't bats down there, right?"
Hailey shrugged, and I dropped it- if she wanted to call it the bat cave, I would let her. "She'll be here soon, I hope, but if it gets too dark, we'll have to wait until the morning to go," I said. Hailey pouted- she was always much harder to say no to when she did that. So I just covered my eyes, "You can't get me with that trick if I'm not looking!"
"Hello? Are you guys Maria and Hailey?" I removed my hands from my face quickly, so I could see this new person. She was tall, just a little over my height, and had short, light brown hair that reached her shoulders. She was weearing rather simple clothes- a plain peach colored T-shirt, blue jeans, and normal black converse.
I eyes this stranger suspiciously, "That depends on who's asking." Hailey pulled a picture out of nowhere, and said, "Julia! Great, you're finally here!" She jumped up and hugged our friend- she always hugged people, she'd been doing it since the eighth grade.
I decided to answer Julia's question, "Well, since you asked, yeah, I'm Maria and this is Hailey." Julia finally managed to escape Hailey's hug of death and said, "I can't believe I'm actually here, in America! And I heard Hailey mention a cave?"
I sighed- now I was going to have to show them the tunnels, no matter how late it got. Otherwise, I'd be up all night trying to calm Hailey down. "I looked back and forth between the two of them- they both had such hopeful looks in their eyes. "Alright, I'll take you guys," I muttered in defeat.
Hailey began jumping up and down in place and clasped her hands together, making Jewlz give her a funny look of amusement, "Well, someone's excited." Hailey nodded, and grabbed Julia's and my hands, dragging us through the airport. "Let's go let's go let's go!" She happily chirped.
I couldn't help but smile- it was impossible to be uhappy in her presence. Jewlz was starting to laugh as well, as she had been caught off guard when Hailey grabbed us. Somehow, we made it out of the airport eithout getting lost, and found my car- in all of it's old and rickety glory.
Julia was fascinated with it, however, "I love your car! I've always wanted a Volkswagen Bug!" I was surprised, "Really?" Julia nodded eagerly, so I said, "Do you want to drive?" Julia looked at me like I had grown a horn on my head, "Seriously!? You'd let me drive it?" I smiled, "Of course, I trust you enough not to get in an accident! Besides, I've got a GPS and I know some of the backroad shortcuts."
Julia beamed with delight, "Thank you!" It was then that noticed that Hailey had been very silent for a while. And, as I turned around, I expected to see her right next to my car, or at least next to me- but as fate would have it, she had somehow managed to get to a police car that was ten parking spaces over from my car.
"Maria," she said, sounding oddly concerned about something, come here..." Julia and I alked over to her, and asked in perfect unison, "What is it?" I glanced at the side of the police car, and stopped. Hailey took my words right out of my mouth, "Why does it say 'To Punish and Enslave' on the side?"
Julia was beyond confused at this point, "Wait, what is it supposed to say?" I was slightly disturbed by this car- something about it didn't feel quite right. But still, I answered the question, "It should say 'To Serve and Protect'. That's what they write on all police cars."
Hailey seemed put off by the car as well, so I started to walk away and said, "Come on, we won't make it to the tunnels if we don't leave now." Hailey nodded grimly, and Julia remained silent. We walked back to my car, quickly getting in and driving out of the parking lot.
But, we didn't notice a certain police car start up and follow us out.
