"So let me get this straight...you need our help?" Cris sounded like she really couldn't believe what she just heard. Wasn't sure I could either.

"Indeed." Prime answered calmly, studying us. "Yours and the help of," He looked at the two men a moment "others."

"You gettin' the feeling they are leaving us out of something?" Epps asked Lennox.

"Yup."

I began to rub my face in frustrated thought, quietly sending a thought out. The quickly returning answer was pretty much what I expected, but I had to make sure.

By now Ironhide had pulled closer to join us. Cris had walked behind the vehicle and dropped the tailgate and hopped up to sit on it. Ironhide's holo popped back out and he glared at her for a moment. "Not going to leak your insides all over me again are you?"

Cris bust out laughing and even I couldn't hold back a chuckle on that one. "Relax big guy, I'm thinking this might take a while and I just wanted to sit down."

"Not a bad idea." I agreed but I at least had the decency to wait for his approving nod before I hopped up next to her. I leaned my back against the side of the bed and let a leg dangle down as I looked over the men thoughtfully. "How much do they know?" I then bluntly asked the Autobots.

"Nothing." Came Ironhide's reply.

"That might complicate matters a little." Marina noted.

"Just a bit." I agreed, then sighed as I looked at Prime. "I'm assuming we are going to have to deal with these two, otherwise you wouldn't have brought them along."

He just nodded in agreement.

"And I'm also assuming Ironhide told you everything."

Again just a nod.

"I told you he was keeping secrets." Epps griped, Lennox just grunted, but did look a little hurt towards the black bot.

"Don't be mad at him." I told them. "He didn't say anything by my request."

"Must be a big secret then."

I sighed, once again seeking advice from above on how to handle this. Cris and Marina just waited patiently, they knew what I was doing.

"Ok, what is going on first of all. Let's start with that and we'll work our way from there."

So we listened as the story of the missing bus became more clear. Turns out it didn't just disappear, the Cons had snatched it. The autobots couldn't get to it, and more than likely neither could the soldiers. They were good, but apparently not that good. The problem being that the Con base had been tracked to a fairly easy location to find, but hard to sneak up on. Since the Cons could detect the Autobots, and their human allies, they were pretty much nailed to the floor. Someone had to go in, but none of them could. So, Hide though about us, jeez...thanks a lot buddy. Wasn't quite sure if we were getting thrown under the bus here or not.

"How about sending the navy seals in or something." Cris asked. "Gotta be some kind of military unit than can go in."

"Couple problems with that theory." Lennox spoke up. "One, they don't have the equipment, or the training, to take on Cons. Take out human terrorists yes, but these guys are way overmatched to deal with this. Two, they are not officially a part of N.E.S.T. so they don't even know the Cons are here."

"And you'd like to keep it that way." Marina asked and Lennox nodded.

"Bishop?" Cris asked and I just turned my head to stare at her. Was she fucking crazy? "What? It would make sense. I mean he does have all of the gadgets and gizmos. And his agency supposedly is supposed to deal with this kinda shit."

"But you forget to mention the fact he's a crazy ass maniac who would just as quickly turn on the Autobots as soon as the Cons were taken care of. I honestly think he uses his agency to cover his own experiments more than out of any real desire to be helpful."

"Involving Bishop would indeed complicate matters." Prime agreed.

"You've had the unfortunate pleasure to meet him I'm assuming."

"Dude is whacko." Lennox muttered.

"You have no idea." I muttered back. "So basically there is no government agency that can be relied upon to go in without raising all kinds of alarm bells." I just got confirmation nods from them. "So you need someone...outside the government." Again with the nods.

"Oh boy." Cris sighed. "I think I know where this is going."

"I do see a road trip in our future." I agreed.

"And what on earth makes you think you three are going to be able to do anything?" Epps burst out.

I just gave him a level look, even as I sensed movement in the darkness. "Epps, what on earth makes you think we are going in alone?"

He blinked at me in surprise. "Well, I just thought..."

"That the three of us were the only ones who showed up and that we would be the only ones going in?"

"Pretty much."

I made eye contact with both Hide and Prime, and they gave me reassuring nods, obviously aware of what was going through my mind. Another nudge hit me and I knew it was time to lay the cards on the table.

"Ok, so I guess we come down to the nitty gritty." I said as I looked at the two men. Cris and Marina also became more serious now. All of us knew this had to be said, or it all stops right here. "We will help, but we have certain...conditions I guess you could say that need to be agreed upon."

Epp's eyes narrowed as he looked back at me. "Like what?" He asked suspiciously.

"First off, no one is to know about us unless they absolutely have too to make this work. Nothing gets told about us. And especially not to any other agency, or politicians or anyone else who might ask questions that could bring us harm."

"Seems fair enough."

"One of us will need to work closely with whoever is monitoring the situation, I'm assuming that would be Jazz, right?"

Lennox and Epps blinked a little. "How did you...nevermind." Lennox mumbled.

I sighed, now came the whopper request. "We will need lodging close to the command center, but away from prying eyes for eight adults, and seven children."

"What! Are you kidding me! This isn't a damn kindergarden!" Epps exploded, but I held firm, keeping my steady gaze on him.

"I knew this was going to happen." Cris mumbled, and I just nodded in agreement.

"I don't think they will understand the last request until they know why we are asking." Marina said calmly.

"Should we just go ahead and tell them?" Cris asked. "I mean they are going to find out sooner or later."

"Tell them?" I replied "You think they will believe that?"

"Why not, they walk around with giant robots."

I just shook my head. "Not the same, Cris."

"Just curious guys." Cris asked with a grin. "How is your medical situation?"

"What?" Lennox asked, more than a little confused now.

"Just making sure you're not prone to heart attacks, fainting spells, random bouts of shootings, things like that."

"Why?"

"Because humans tend to get a little upset at our appearance." Leo calmly replied as he led his brothers finally out of the shadows.

Both men jumped at the sudden voice behind them and spun around. Lennox did this funny hop, back peddle almost fall on his ass thing. "Whoa! What the fuck are you!"

Epp's response was a bit more direct as his pistol whipped out. "Holy mother of shit! Tell me I can shoot it! Please tell me I can shoot it!

Leo just crossed his arms and looked calmly back at him. "It wouldn't do you any good."

"But you're welcome to try." Raph grinned at him, cracking his knuckles.

Epp's eyes were wide as he still held his pistol aimed at them, until Ironhide forced the arm down, and took his toy away. "Aww fuck naw man! I ain't gettin paid enough for this shit! First giant ass robots tryin' to blow my ass up, now these Shrek lookin' motherfuckers..."

"Turtles, bro." Mikey told him. "Tur-tles. Not Shrek lookin' motherfuckers. Tho he does have a lot in common with Raph."

Raph knocked his little brother upside the head. "Will you shut up?"

"Both of you knock it off." Leo said over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off of the two men in front of them.

Lennox had by now recovered enough to walk back up to them again. "Well, I guess this explains the secrecy." He said and Leo nodded.

Epps, still looking a little wide eyed, walked over towards where Cris and I were still sitting on the back of Hide's vehicle form. "Move over, I need to sit down." Trying real hard to laugh at the poor man, Cris and I complied and made room for him and he sat down with a heavy plop. "Not what I was expecting when I signed up." I heard him mutter and smiled.

Lennox turned to me again. "Ok, so these guys of yours, you actually think they can help?"

"I think we need to clear something up right now." I told him. "They are not 'my guys'. If anything, it's the other way around."

"What do you mean?"

"Smart one isn't he?" Cris said sarcastically.

"Hush you." Raph told her, and she rolled her eyes.

"I mean, Major, they don't take orders from us, we take them from him." And I pointed at Leo. "I was just the first contact point."

"Oh great...leave a bus full of people in the care of walking talking turtles." Epps muttered again.

Now I was starting to get pissed with him. Why do folks always think anything majorly different than them is, well, not good enough. On his other side I could see Cris' eyes flash. But it was Ironhide who spoke, breaking the long Autobot silence. I'm assuming they had remained quiet to give the two men the time needed to take this all in, but now the black bot was probably losing his patience. "I assure you, they are very capable." he snapped "Their methods are...different, but effective."

Lennox sighed. "All right, Hide. You win. You trust them so much, there has to be a reason." He turned towards Leo. "Sorry about all this. We pretty much thought we saw it all when we ran into these guys."

"It's cool, dude." Mikey grinned. "This much awesomeness is hard to take in."

Lennox actually managed a grin himself on that one.

"Before we fully commit to this, there is still one issue that needs to be cleared up." Leo said firmly.

"Which is?"

"The children will be coming with us. I refuse to leave them behind for an extended amount of time unprotected."

"Oh come on!" Epps exploded. "They are kids! Who would want to hurt them?" This didn't go over well with the four fathers, especially Leo and Raph.

"You assume that they are human younglings." Ironhide growled at him. "They would be in danger if we take their parents from them."

Epps just stared at him, then at the turtles, then at us women, then he facepalmed.

"The kids go, or we stay." Raph growled bluntly.

Finally Prime himself spoke. "We can not expect them to come to our aid and leave their own families in danger. We offer your families protection, it would be selfish of us not to extend them the same courtesy."

Lennox sighed again, then nodded. "Agreed." He told Leo.

"Good, now that we got that all settled." Donnie pushed his way forward and walked up to Prime. "I understand that you guys have weapons and tech that you really don't want to share with us little earthlings."

"Indeed."

"You're not getting any of their toys Donnie." Leo told him firmly.

"Wasn't going to ask that. Well, maybe-"

"Nevermind." Leo said.

"Fine...anyway, I will have to work closely with one of your own, as Vicky said earlier, to determine the most effective way we can help. This requires that I know things that you maybe have not shared with your human allies. If I promise to delete everything I get from you, and never use any of the things I remember again, would this be acceptable? I'll even have one of your own do it if it would make you feel better."

"You just want to see what makes them tick." Mikey told him with a grin.

"Well, yeah, I do, but that's not what I'm getting at. All I want is access to anything that might help, supervised of course. Anything I use will be solely for the purpose of this mission, nothing else."

"I believe that can be arranged." Prime agreed.

"How come he gets to play with the bot's stuff and we don't?" Epps asked.

"Because they have no intention of turning it against others." Ironhide answered him. "They don't need our weapons."

"They would just get in our way." Leo confirmed. "But this situation is a bit different, if we are going to do this we need to know as much about these Cons as we can, or the whole thing will fail before we even start."

"Just out of curiosity, what exactly are you going to do?" Lennox asked.

"I don't know yet, depends on how the situation is when we get to your base."

"Then let us delay no longer." Prime said. "Ironhide will accompany you, gather what you need and he will escort you to where we will be departing from."

"I still can't believe this shit." Epps said shaking his head. By the time he looked back up again, the guys were gone. "What the hell? Where did they go? What the fuck are they? Ghosts?"

"Close enough." I said as Cris chuckled. "They are ninjas."

.

.

"So, Hide, who all are we dealing with here?" I asked the black truck as we drove along the early morning streets, talking quietly to avoid waking the sleeping children in the vehicle. I had my four, strapped in securely with Ironhide's seatbelts, and the other children were in the van following behind. Both vehicles had gear we would need, both weapons and kids stuff, loaded in them. That was actually a little funny I had thought as I placed Ari's diapers next to Cris' arrows, shurikan and kunai. Looked like a bunch of kids were going to war.

Donnie had shut down the portal after I explained to my family that we would be gone for awhile, and avoiding telling them where we were going. Dealing with Turtle stuff was hard enough for them, I don't think they needed to know we were graduating to giant mean robots. He also rigged the whole place up to...let's just say deter anyone who stumbled into the empty lair. Honestly, I would have left the kids with my parents if I could have, but that wasn't going to happen. No way my folks could handle all of them, not with the portal being shut down and April and Casey not being avilable to them for help.

"Us or them?" He asked through his radio.

"Both, I guess. But I'm curious on which bots we might run into on base."

"You will find out soon enough." He replied in an amused voice as he navigated the streets.

We drove along quietly for a bit, the steady quiet hum of his engine was actually a kind of soothing sound. I was wondering if he made the ride so smooth on purpose, to lure little sleepy kids back to sleep. Didn't seem like a bad idea either I thought as I yawned.

"How much further." I tiredly asked.

"Not much." He replied "The turnoff is just ahead."

I just nodded and laid my head back against the headrest and watched as he drove us into a large airfield, then led the way to a waiting cargo plane. "I'm assuming that's our ride?"

"Yes. You will all remain in the vehicles for the duration of the flight, to avoid unnecessary contact."

"Makes sense." 'Leo.' I reached out.

'Yes, dear one?'

'Hide wants us to stay put inside the vehicles so we don't bump into someone who doesn't need to know.'

'Got it.'

The truck bumped a little as Hide moved up the ramp, but not enough to wake the sleeping passengers. It was pretty obvious that Prime was already there and strapped in, couldn't miss the big red and blue semi.

Hide pulled farther in and the van came up right behind, both vehicles coming to a stop where Lennox and Epps told them too, then a tarp was thrown over the van before the flight crew was allowed in to strap them down. Hide had the foresight to darken his windshield, so my little twins would remain undetected, as the airmen started strapping him in. I smiled at the sound of his grumpy mumbling as the net and straps tightened around him.

"What's the matter?" I finally asked the grumbling transformer.

"The restraints are...annoying."

"Not a big fan of flying, are you?"

"Not really."

I just smiled and laid my head back again as the plane started to taxi to the runway. He had some good insulation in his vehicle form, usually these military planes were loud as fuck, but barely any noise made it inside the cab. This might be an enjoyable flight after all, I just wished I could look out a window. I loved to look out windows when on planes, always thought the view was wonderful from so high up.

With a lurch, the large lumbering machine began to pick up speed and soon after the tilt hit and we were in the air. And soon after that the noise I was dreading to hear happened as Lavinia was starting to whine a little in her sleep. "Shit." I mumbled as I unbuckled myself to reach back to get her.

"Is there a problem?"

"Her ears hurt. The pressure is getting to her."

"Leave her to rest, I'll take care of it." And before I could respond my own ear popping eased up, and Lavi settled back into a deep sleep again.

"Y'know, you are very useful to have around. How did you do that?"

"Autobot secret." He told me, with amusement in his voice.

"Oh, jeez..." I rolled my eyes. "Your almost as bad as Leo is."

"Are you comparing me to the reptile?"

"No, I'm comparing two males." I grinned at him as I settled back down and buckled up and he just snorted in reply. "How long does the flight last." I asked as I was pulling the blanket back over Dennis who was sleeping in the passenger seat next to me. I was grateful for my stealthy ninja. Leo had managed to load them all up without waking a single child. Otherwise this would prove to be a noisy flight. He was now ten, and Amy nine, but if they had been awake they would be pestering the hell out of Hide, I mean, they did know who he was afterall. Just never got the chance to meet him. All hell was going to break loose when they woke up though.

"A few earth hours. Plenty of time for you to rest."

"Yeah, I suppose." I said as I still watched my son sleep. Thoughts and doubts were running through my head. Wasn't sure I could sleep.

"What's bothering you?"

"Ok, seriously, first Leo does this shit to me, now you. How did you know something was?"

"You think Ratchet is the only one who can monitor life signs? He is better equipped for it but we all have the ability."

I sighed and leaned my head against the headrest again. "I don't know. Maybe I'm a little scared about this whole mess."

He remained quiet, really wasn't much he could say I suppose. I turned my head to look out the window, not that I could see anything besides the inside of the plane. "Hide, you ever regret some of the choices you've made?"

"Sometimes." He replied. "Are you regretting the current decision?"

"Yes and no. I mean, I want to help, I really do but I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing."

"Doesn't change the fact that the choices need to be made, and only you can decide what is right. Now rest. Ratchet will have my aft if you arrive not fully functional."

"Fine," I smiled "I guess we really don't want to piss the Hatchet...I mean Ratchet, off." He had to turn his radio off to keep from laughing and waking the kids, but the truck did bounce a little with his laughter.

It took me some time to settle down, but I finally did let my eyes slip closed and sleep overtake me. Tomorrow was going to be very interesting to say the least.