"What did you do?" Jack demanded shocked as the tremors died down.
"Proved that your Prime isn't the last, there's never only 1 left. That's-that's just not right!" Mitzi replied with a cry.
"You said 'They are coming.' Who's coming Mitzi?" Raph asked gently.
"My guardians, they can fix everything. Well, here at least. It's gonna be blood and scrap getting Miko back." Mitzi mused thoughtfully.
"Whatever she's summoned, Ratchet pull up the defenses. With that kind of power in a child's hands we should expect the worst." Optimus decided quickly, and Mitzi rolled her eyes with a laugh.
"Pulling up the defenses." Ratchet repeated obediently, and the base's defensive program began immediately. Barriers were pulled up, the doors, hatches, and windows were shut down, and Arcee, Bumblebee, and Bulkhead readied their weapons just in case.
"You honestly expect my guardians to be evil? Please." Mitzi snorted. "They're gentle kittens, well large, metal, robotic kittens, but they wouldn't hurt you guys! And don't try to kill them, they don't take that to well."
"Who doesn't take what to well?" A new voice asked curiously. "And did someone call us evil? Sheesh, I know I was underwater for a while, but evil? Come on." The group turned with weapons drawn to find two new robots standing by the ground bridge. One, a femme, was tall and slim like Arcee, only this bot had pure white plates and didn't have a spike on her face mask. Bright blue optics stared at the group curiously, and a smile was on her robotic face. Standing with a hand on her hip, she turned toward the second intruder beside her. "I don't think they like us, do you?" The femme asked with a laugh, and the second bot stood stoically silent. Taller than the femme, broad shoulder with a stiffness the whole base could see, and dark black purple eyes was the second intruder. He was all black, a striking characteristic against his companion's white. He stood as immovable as Optimus, and had a grimace perpetually on his face.
"We just met them." Was the dark bot's reply.
"May! Crit!" Mitzi exclaimed joyfully and ran toward the newcomers.
"Mitzi my dear!" The white bot exclaimed, and reached her long arm down so the human could climb up and hug the bot around her neck. "My young one! How have you been? I am so sorry for leaving you here, but you were safe, I could trust those of my race. Oh, how you've grown! My little Mitzi." The white bot murmured, cooing affectionately over the little human. The black bot gave a cough, and with a laugh Mitzi released the white bot and jumped into the black transformer's outstretched hand.
"Ah, Z. It's been awhile, hasn't it?" The black bot laughed, and his grimace turned into an affectionate smile.
"Only a few months!" Mitzi laughed with a sarcastic snap.
"You managed perfectly fine, I told you so before we left." The black bot replied with a chuckle.
"How do you think I felt having to stay here all alone? You made sure the bots wouldn't find me, and May told me to stay out of sight anyway. I was bored."
"I do not mean to be blunt, but who are you?" Optimus asked, cutting into the reunion effectively.
"I'm not, who are you? How'd you get in here?" Ratchet demanded, barreling into the conversation. "I had this place on lock down, it was impossible for anyone to get in or out!"
"I told you he'd be difficult." Mitzi sighed with a knowing smirk.
"Hello Ratchet. Please excuse our abruptness, we didn't mean to be so offensive. We haven't even been properly introduced either, have we?" The white bot began with a hospitable smile.
"No, we haven't." Ratchet grumbled, still miffed that these two huge Cybertronians before him had been able to sneak into his base and leave a human child undetected, and not once now, but twice.
"Apologies, I am Aramayus (Air ah may us) and this is my companion Critius." She smiled, gesturing to the black bot beside her. "You have met our dear little one Mitzi, our ward and daughter for all intensive purposes. I am sorry for leaving her here, but the timing was unfortunate and we had no one else to rely upon, knowing or not. But, now is not the time to worry about that. Mitzi called us back because Middia is back I presume?"
"That can wait." Arcee snapped.
"No it can't, we have to get Miko back!" Bulkhead demanded.
"I doubt the human is being tortured brother." Aramayus said gently. "I would like to hear her question."
"How do you leave a human child inside an Autobot base, and no one notices? I have my senses checked every month, I would have noticed her! She kinda obvious, human in a base controlled by Autobots. I should've seen her once!" Arcee exploded angrily, and Critius allowed a tiny smug smile to come upon his features.
"That was the fun part." He said simply, and Aramayus whacked his arm.
"Crit, you rewired their circuits, be proud for once!" She laughed.
"He rewired our circuits? Impossible!" Ratchet replied shocked. "I would have known that when I checked their spark readings, their vitals, that is simply impossible!"
"Crit's done a lot of things harder than a simple rewire." Aramayus said proudly.
"Aramayus, how did he do it? I am not made a fool more than once." Ratchet implored curiously.
"Oh, just call me May. Or Ara, my little Mitzi calls me May but Crit here always calls me Ara for some dumb reason." Aramayus replied brushing off the question.
"Um, Ara, how is it possible? I would have noticed something was off if my comrades circuits were rewired." Ratchet asked in confusion.
"You'd have to ask Crit, he's the genius in the family." Ara replied breezily, and reached out to take Mitzi off her companion's shoulder and slowly lower her to the ground. Ratchet eagerly turned to Critius to find out the answers alluding him.
"I waited until the Autobot was in stasis." Critius finally replied slowly. "I went in, rewired, and then created a blind spot. I did this to each in turn, but I allowed the spot to be temporary in case Z was ever in need of help."
"Blind spot?" Bulkhead asked confused. He had a blind spot? Since when? He could still see everything clearly right? How did a Cybertronian as big as Critius get in and rewire his circuits undetected?
"I simply created a void where Z was concerned. It isn't as hard as you think, a simple rewiring job. How do I explain this phenomena? It would be like switching colors in your mind, red is suddenly blue or green white. But instead of switching already understood ideas, I created a void. It is still unnatural in many ideas of the term, but I made it so that Z couldn't be seen by any of you Autobots. You could hear her if you listened hard enough, but Z can be quite discrete where many things are concerned. The real trick was keeping your humans from finding her." Critius rumbled, smiling in remembrance of the complicated procedure.
"It's not possible." Arcee finally decided.
"And yet Mitzi was undetected for such a long time. Right under your nose this whole time, doesn't that make you angry?" Ara laughed lightly, smiling at the other femme.
"Quite." The blue bot replied tight lipped.
"How could you keep us from seeing her? You can't rewire our brains." Raph asked stepping toward the black bot carefully.
"That was her doing." Critius replied slowly gesturing to the white bot at his side.
"I hit them over the head." She laughed.
"You did what?" The Autobots exploded.
"You could have fractured their heads! Their skulls aren't as durable as ours, you have to be careful with them!" Ratchet yelled.
"You could have killed my partner you idiot!" Arcee shouted in rage.
"What were you thinking?" Bulkhead demanded.
"I will not stand for this." Optimus rumbled angrily, and Bumblebee let loose a series of beeps and Raph turned to him shocked.
"Bee, that's mean!" He told his Autobot shocked.
"Geez Arcee, can you try to be subtle?" Jack asked quietly.
"No, Jack. I am not having some idiotic, thinks she's somebody, low life Cybertronian hurting you! Not her, not nobody." Arcee replied hotly.
"I didn't know you cared that much." Jack smiled, secretly glad his partner truly cared about him more than he had known. Jack was pretty sure he was almost on the same level as Cliff Jumper and Tailgate had been.
"I lived with a human her whole life long, I do know the appropriate amount of energy to fuel a tap of a mortal cranium you know." Ara huffed, and on the ground Mitzi rolled her eyes. "I gave enough to knock your human friends out, and then I controlled them through their subconscious. Such a fickle art, I ended up just using the Star to make them not notice."
"You hit them for nothing?" Arcee demanded, and Jack was pretty sure his partner was going to start a fight soon.
"Hey Arcee, remember how we were working on your anger issues?" He asked quickly.
"What?" Arcee broke off confused, facing her human with a look of exasperation.
"So, that explains how you got us all to ignore the obvious human in the room, but how did you gain access to the base? Defenses are always up, and I am always monitoring the screens and security feeds." Ratchet asked, bringing back the obvious issue of his incompetence in regards to the break in.
"Usual way, scrambled the feed, used the Apex of Control to get you into stasis, and basically walked right in." Ara laughed, and noticed Mitzi let out a yawn. "Oh my Mitzi, it's time to go to bed now. Off to bed, I know you stashed your bedroom somewhere around here."
"But I wanna-"
"No buts dearest, let the adults talk now. Jack, Raph, make sure Mitzi gets in bed? Thanks." Ara smiled, and waved her ward off to bed, wherever the hidden room was.
"Night Z." Critius murmured, gently calling out to his ward.
"Night Crit, see ya in the morning." She yawned. "Where did the time go? I was sure it was afternoon a minute ago."
"The Apex, Z. We sped up the day, just like we used to do before your birthday." Crit replied, and Mitzi laughed tiredly.
"Oh yeah, pretty powerful thing. Night." She called out, and the two confused boys followed after the drifting girl.
"What did you mean by the Apex or the Star?" Optimus asked, coming to stand in front of the two new comers.
"As a Prime, you were gifted with the Matrix." Ara began.
"The Matrix of Leadership." Bulkhead murmured quietly.
"Not just Leadership, the Matrix also is of Wisdom, but most have forgotten that part of the Matrix's power. I was presented with the Apex of Control, my comrade the Star of Power. Not exactly the best idea, but I believe that is why we were graced with Mitzi to hold his lust for power in check."
"What are you getting at?" Ratchet asked suspiciously.
"I am Aramayus Prime." The white bot began boldly with a small smile.
"I am Critius Dark Prime." The black finished quietly.
"What?" The Autobots exploded.
"Told you they wouldn't believe us." Ara shrugged.