Chapter 3


Present time...

Autobot HQ.

Team Prime had just came back from their mission stopping the Arctic meltdown courtesy of Decepticon. Big things happened at that day. Starscream's plan to melt down the Arctic ice to reach the Energon deposit was outstanding. But the bigger revelation came after that, Megatron was back in the Decepticon rank. Nevertheless the mission wore the team out. Optimus was exposed to Starscream's melting device and thrown off the Nemesis. Arcee and Bulkhead were pretty battered after the rumble with Breakdown. Bumblebee, thanks to Megatron, was exposed to the deadly Dark Energon. Yet, the scout insisted he was fine and went for a drive with Raf instead.

Ratchet could only groan in frustration as Bumblebee drove off, "I wish he could just stay so I won't be worried about further complication."

"Don't worry, Ratch. Bee's going to be fine," Bulkhead reassured.

"Still I can't believe Megatron was inside his mind after our trip to his warship," Arcee recounted.

"Yeah, pretty scary if you think about it. He got all the chance to scrap us while he was here," Bulkhead quipped.

"The only thing preventing him from doing that was Bumblebee's consciousness," stated Ratchet, "If only I was aware of that much earlier, I wouldn't put Bumblebee into induced stasis. And Megatron would've never had the chance to restore himself..."

"Megatron's recovery is all but your doing, old friend," comforted Optimus, "Were it not for your effort, our young scout could be in more imminent danger."

"Optimus is right, Ratchet. Can you imagine if Megatron stayed even longer in Bee's head? I don't need a degree in psychology to know it won't be good for him," stated Arcee.

"Hey, look at the time," Bulkhead called, "It's time to pick up Miko from her detention...again."

"And Jack from his work shift," Arcee added.

The rest of the day went in a blur and the evening came. All Autobots and the children were doing their thing, when Ratchet noted that Agent Fowler was paying them a visit. The said man strolled inside the base in his car.

"Prime, sorry for the sudden drop," Fowler apologized as he got out of his car in hurry.

"Not a problem, Agent Fowler. What can I do for you?" asked Optimus politely.

"I have an emergency that I think you should take a look," Fowler stated as he hurriedly climbed up the platform, "Have you heard the recent activity of IRIS?"

"The terrorist group who blew up Manhattan hotel a week ago?" Raf asked.

Bumblebee beeped a question to Raf.

"According to the news, the CEO of a big company was having a meeting in the hotel. Few days before the CEO received a threat from IRIS, demanding him to pay them money or they would kill him," Raf explained.

"Let me guess, the big boss refused?" asked Arcee.

"Yes, and he called the FBI for extra protection. As such, the hotel where the meeting took place was heavily guarded," Fowler explained, "But they still got him. And then the killer blew up the entire hotel, presumably to cover their tracks."

"All those life lost, just because they were there..." Jack lamented.

"They started as a small extremist group at first, but they grew increasingly dangerous in the past two years. Their system of operation is, I hate to say it, impossible to crack. No matter how tight the security was, they could sneak an assassin in. They too managed to hack into the security cameras, rendering all of them useless. What's worse, they left no survivor or witness behind," Fowler gave the horror detail, "For two years we have worked all our brains off figuring out how they did it."

"And why are you telling us this?" Ratchet interrupted in gruff tone.

"I'm getting there. We finally have a clue about the perpetrator. This is a detail that we kept secret from the media," Fowler said as he retrieved a plastic case containing a charred metal pipe, "This is a charred remain from the hotel. When the forensic examined the chemical in the blast, they found something that shouldn't be there. They found a trace of Energon."

"Energon?!" Ratchet exclaimed in surprise, "Agent Fowler, let me conduct my own test."

Receiving the sample from Fowler, Ratchet immediately went to work. The entire Team Prime waited nervously for the Autobot medic to announce the result. After a while, Ratchet finally got a result.

"It would seem that your forensic was right," Ratchet announced in a disbelief tone, "There is a trace of Energon in this sample, suggesting a damage caused by an Energon-based weapon. Only Cybertronian can possess such thing."

"But it wasn't any of us!" Bumblebee beeped loudly.

"Bee's right, it can't be us. Optimus will have our heads if we kill humans," Bulkhead pointed out.

"Agent Fowler, I can safely assure you that the Autobots are not to blame for the incident," Optimus finally concluded.

"If it wasn't us..." Arcee began.

"Must be the 'Cons, obvs," said Miko.

"The Cons are targeting humans now?" Raf gasped in horror.

"The 'Cons may be the bad guys, but that doesn't make any sense," Jack said.

"Indeed Jack. I doubt it was the work of Decepticons either," Optimus decreed, "Megatron will never make such a move in the open without good reason."

"Both Autobots and Decepticons are cleared of suspicion anyway," Fowler revealed, "The culprit started the attack from inside the hotel. I doubt somebody would miss a Bot or a Con walking into the hotel lobby. Based on the situation, IRIS is the most obvious culprit. I think we have a reason to believe that the terrorists are working with a Cybertronian."

"Or they may just have a Cybertronian technology?" Jack hinted.

"Even that sounds impossible. Hold on, let me take a closer look," Ratchet said as he went back to his equipment, "Hmm, it seems that this Energon trace is mixed with carbon suggesting a carbon-based creature."

"This is getting nowhere," Arcee commented.

"I think my head is pounding," Bulkhead whined as he was unable to process all the information.

"Ratchet, can you determine the mysterious Cybertronian's identity with the biological trace from the Energon?" Prime asked.

"Yes, all I need to do is extract the CNA and look for a match in the files. Hopefully our database has a clue to this mystery," Ratchet replied, "But this will take some time, because the limited equipment in here."

"I have to go back now," Fowler said as he headed to his car, "Give me a call when you find something, will you?"

Agent Fowler left the base and Team Prime resumed their tasks. It was getting rather late, but the children refused to go home before Ratchet made a discovery. After two hours of waiting, Ratchet seemed to make a discovery. But instead of announcing it, he was frozen in front of his screen.

"Ratchet? What's wrong?" Arcee finally asked.

Miko, who was about to fall asleep on the couch, perked up, "What? You finally have something, docbot?"

"It is..." Ratchet stuttered as he still kept his back facing the others, "Yes, I got the result. Which, I absolutely had not expected."

"Good, then tell us," Bulkhead demanded.

Ratchet hesitated for a moment, especially when he made an eye contact with Optimus. But he knew he had to tell it sooner or later.

"I will cut straight to the point. There's a match from our database to the CNA I extracted from the Energon sample," said Ratchet.

"Okay, then who is it? Someone we know?" Bumblebee asked with anticipation.

"It is...somebody not all of us know," Ratchet said.

The medic decided to show the image on his computer. It was the image of a young Autobot femme youngling. Optimus' spark skipped a beat at that sight.

"Wow, a Cybertronian kid?" asked Miko.

"Arianna?" Bulkhead read the name aloud, "Never heard of that name. How about you guys?"

Both Arcee and Bumblebee shook their head.

"I know this little one," Optimus suddenly spoke, "She is my daughter."

The room became silent at once. Everybody could hear their jaws dropping on the floor from the shocking revelation. Arcee was the first to collect back her wits.

"Y-you have a daughter...?!" stuttered the motorcycle.

"Whoa-wha-wait-what?!" stammered Bulkhead in shock, "Seriously?!"

"Optimus, you have a kid?" Jack repeated in disbelief.

"You guys aren't new here anymore. Why is this the first time we heard of this?" Miko questioned in disappointed tone.

"It is our first time too!" Bumblebee said.

"Nobody had a single idea of this until now!" Bulkhead exclaimed.

Everyone waited for Optimus to answer, but the Prime just kept gazing to the monitor forlornly.

"Optimus, I think they have the right to know," Ratchet advised.

The Prime knew he had to come clean, "Arianna was born some time during the waning age of Cybertron. Both my sparkmate Elita-One and I knew if Megatron became aware of our daughter's existence, he undoubtedly would use her for his advantage," Optimus recalled the events in pained tone, "As such we made tremendous effort to hide her. We decided that it would be the best if no one knew about us having a sparkling."

The usually stoic Prime didn't bother to hide his emotion from everyone else.

"Elita-One sacrificed herself to keep Arianna safe. And I...only could keep her in secret for so long. Megatron eventually discovered her in the Autobot refugee site," Optimus' voice began to crack as he continued, "I tried to get there as fast as I could, but Megatron had preceded me."

"Megatron took your daughter...?" Arcee asked.

Optimus closed his eyes, "And I could do nothing. By the time I got there, Arianna was gone. Megatron brought her with him to Earth, and wasted no time on giving me the threat. But when I finally arrived on Earth, she was nowhere to be found. Megatron stated that she escaped from him."

"You believed him?" Miko asked, "He could be lying."

"Megatron would have no reason to make such a lie," Optimus reasoned, "I tried not to give up hope, but since that day only the AllSpark knew where she was...or if she was still alive. As time passed, it soon became clear that the chance of her survival was...slim."

"Arianna disappeared on this planet roughly three years ago," Ratchet mentioned, "It was almost impossible for a young one like her to survive that long without access to Energon. The rescue operation...was likely to become a recovery operation."

Optimus turned around to hide his pained expression from his subordinates. Since long ago, he had become aware of what Arianna's fate would be, if she was left stranded on Earth. His beloved daughter would've suffered a slow, painful death of starvation, scared and alone. The thought was too excruciating for a father to think, and would always haunt his weary spark.

"I knew that I had to find her, no matter what," Optimus gravely spoke, with his back still facing the others, "But I'm afraid...I will never be prepared to accept the outcome."

The entire Team Prime had never expected to see the other side of their leader. After all, he was the one who always told them never to give up hope. But they knew what a loss of a family could do to a person.

"So...how could Arianna's Energon be in the hotel incident?" Jack asked, breaking the silence.

Optimus and everyone else's mind finally snapped back to the topic on hand. The Autobot leader silently hoped in his spark that he was wrong about Arianna's demise.

"If an Energon-based weapon was the one being used in the massacre, I can only come up with one conclusion," Ratchet said reluctantly, "That Arianna...was somehow involved."

"That's absurd, Ratchet! Optimus' daughter killing innocent humans?" Arcee protested.

"Our time together was brief, which I regretted the most. But, one thing for sure," Optimus said, "I know Arianna's spark. She was born not to harm others."

"I do not want to say something offensive about her, but she had very little to none fighting capabilities," Ratchet added, "In fact, she was one of the few trainees who got disqualified on the first day of new recruit training."

"Sorry to ask this, but was she that bad?" Bulkhead asked, as he didn't understand why the Prime's daughter could be kicked out of training.

"I heard this from the training instructor, that she couldn't even use a firearm properly," Ratchet informed.

"Even based on the fact that Arianna was not capable of causing harm, we still have a mystery to solve," Optimus decreed, "I will contact Agent Fowler to inform him about our finding."

"Wow, you're going to tell him that?" Bumblebee interrupted.

"Are you sure? Fowler's going to make your girl a suspect," Bulkhead added.

"In this case, hiding the truth will not do any good for all of us," Optimus stated firmly, "Regardless of whoever the perpetrator's identity might be, if my daughter is still alive, I will find her this time."

Yes, he would find her for sure. For so long Optimus had believed that Arianna was dead. A clue from the current incident had shed him some light of hope. But, during his time as a warrior, he had seen so many good hopes turned out to be merely expectations. Deep inside his spark, Optimus prayed hard that this one wouldn't turn out like that.


I hope my practice has a result. Review please :D