Disclaimer: Trabsformers belongs to Hasbro, Paramount, an many other people much richer than the author.

Warnings: Some violence, intense themes, mild bad language

Authors Notes: It's been a while, hasn't it? Writing lately is like pulling hen's teeth, I just couldn't make it sound good, no matter what I did. It took me a long time to work everything out. I'll get a little more prompt in updating now, that's going to be one of my goals. Sorry for the wait, people. This happens a lot with me, I know. I guess it's just hard for me to keep consistent. Thanks to anyone who stuck around. Hope you like it, I knew I shouldn't wait long to post it.

Please, read and review.

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Chapter Three: High Speed Collision

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Lennox felt his head hit the headrest as Ironhide suddenly accelerated, and swerved around, taking an entirely new road at high speeds. The few night time cars on the roads flashed by in blurs of glinting lights, there and gone in mere instants.

"What's up, big guy?" Lennox looked at the speedometer, but gave it up as a useless exercise. Ironhide could go a lot faster. "Aren't we heading for the attack site?"

Over the speakers, he heard Simmons let out a squeaky howl as Optimus copied Ironhide's action, and then a stream a virulent curses.

"Starscream has reappeared twenty miles from this location. Whatever he did before, we can be of little help there now," Optimus drowned out the agents voice over the speakers.

"Look here you psychotic alien tin can of scum," Simmons squawked. "I am here on federal authority and I am ordering you to cease and wait for instruction from our people. You are not allowed to just tear around our planet without governmental authority!"

Ironhide revved. "Optimus, please, I'm begging you - just launch him out of your cab."

Optimus waited a moment before responding. "Let's just focus on tracking Starscream." At another round of vitriol from Simmons, he added"For now."

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Maggie stared at the school. There was just nothing left. Nothing.

Epps was tight lipped. "We may need some help here."

"Some help?" Glen squawked. "We need an armada!"

"Is that non-friendly still here?" Epps demanded, shooting a quick recon gaze at the sky.

"Oh, that's very nice, I like that," Glen's fingers rattled out on the keyboard like a machine gun. "Non friendly. Like they keep a Doberman and park their cars in front of others driveways. Non friendly," he repeated sarcastically. He pounded a random machine packed somewhere in the back. "According to this? No. He's up in a sky and past our sensor range, at least down here. The techs at the tank are working on satellite tracking, but it'll take time to synchronise."

"A simple 'no' would have been fine," Epps sighed. "It's here and it's hostile. We'll need back up before we go any further."

"I know someone who might be able to help," Maggie broke in, still staring at the school.

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All hail Megatron.

Barricade woke from his stasis.

It had been a long couple of weeks of the Decepticon scout. More suited to espionage that front line combat, he had escaped the carnage of Mission City with semi-minor damage and did then what he did best – blend in. He sat in a disused corner of a junkyard, and went dormant, hoping to escape being tracked by the Autobots, who were no doubt keeping their antennas open for any sign of…well, him, and others like him.

Starscream, apparently, was alive. Barricade revved his internals irritably. You couldn't win them all.

All hail Megatron, though? Why transmit that across an open frequency? Barricade opened his communications log and scanned. Orders from Megatron's personal matrix? A single code, ordering all agents to fall back and conceal.

Barricade was suspicious. It looked like they were being filtered through Starscream's systems, which wasn't unusual per se, but it caught Barricade's attention. If orders were coming from Megatron, that meant Megatron was alive, didn't it?

Starscream certainly seemed to think so. His tab was showing a mission status. Barricade tried to track his location, but his tracker signal was firewalled. Interesting. If Megatron was alive – Barricade could neither confirm nor deny it, no one had direct access to the evil mech's systems – then maybe Starscream was simply currying favour to anyone in earshot.

Barricade accessed every frequency in his range, looking for some sign of his leader. Human news and codes filtered in like a soft rain. Barricade read reports about the obliteration of the school, and saw Starscream's subtle touch on it. He wondered what the idiotic scrap heap was up to now.

The Autobots might have better information. They often did. And Barricade knew where at least one of them should be. Weighing the risk, Barricade made his way to the Witwicky household.

There were already police cars there, which helped Barricade saunter in close, unnoticed. The humans were chattering and moving about, but their actions were of no interest to Barricade. Scanning only extremely lightly, Barricade knew the young yellow minibot, Bumblebee, was nowhere in the vicinity. Slag.

There was a faint energy trace in the air, something tingly and almost familiar, that gave Barricade pause. He settled in to wait and watch, careful not to announce himself, dampening his signals. The yellow baby-bot would be back sooner or later, he was practically welded to the puny human boy. Barricade was too cautious to act without proper information, and the Autobots would definitely know if there was any hint of Megatron in the air. That tingly signal was bothering him too. It almost felt like…

A boy on a two wheeled contraption rolled up to the house. He never even noticed Barricade.

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Mikaela walked around the lake arms crossed in a tense shield across her chest. She was in turmoil. She knew what she had to do.

The call from Sam's friend Miles had sent her into a tailspin. Panic welled in her chest, worse than Mission City, worse than dropping through the air under that damn bridge, worse than anything she had ever imagined.

Sam was in trouble, she knew it, she felt it. Mikaela needed to help him, she needed to contact the 'Bots, she had to find him. Right now, though, she had to find a way to explain this to her Dad. He wouldn't just let her run off in the middle of the night without some sort of explanation. A damn good explanation, because this whole week was about them, together, reconnecting.

There had never been any lies between Mikaela and her Dad. He may have been a thief, but he had been honest about that. He had never pretended it was the right thing to do. Mikaela couldn't pretend that nothing was happening to her, not in the face of that.

Sam's friend's message had been confusing. Shooting lightning? That just didn't sound right. Unless it was a Decepticon and that was what scared Mikaela most. It could have been. Miles couldn't understand everything he was seeing. Oh god, what if he was…

"Mikaela?"

Mikaela spun around, shocked. Standing near the lake shore was Sam, shiny with sweat and panting like he'd run a race. His hands were curled in the shadows near his stomach, his posture was hunched and hurting.

"Sam!" Mikaela raced towards him, relief making her physically shake. "Sam, thank God, Miles; Miles called and he said the school had blown up and I was so worried it was a Decepticon attack and..." Mikaela jerked to a stop mid-babble and mid step and Sam shot out defensive hands in front him, backing away like a nervy colt.

"No! No, you can't," he choked out. "Please, you can't come near me."

Mikaela's mouth opened in horror. "Oh my God, Sam! Your hands! God, the wire…why…?" She took a step forward, but stopped at Sam jerked back.

"Something…something happened to me. I started…my hands…they…I threw electricity all over the place and I…Bumblebee…I killed him and I blew up the school…I killed, him, oh God, Mikaela, I'm so sorry and I killed him…" Sam's whole body shook with half formed sobs.

Mikaela stared. "Hang on, just…just calm down, okay? You shot lighting? I don't understand. Just…just tell me what's happening. How could you have killed Bee? He's a giant robot, Sam, our worst rocket launchers couldn't hurt him!"

Sam haltingly explained as best he could. "…the wires to ground the shocks. I had to do something, I nearly zapped some people."

Mikaela was nearly in tears. Sam wouldn't let her any closer, and she just wanted to touch him and reassure herself that he was okay. She had to convince him that it was all going to be okay. "Sam," she wept. "Please, we'll just…we can fix this. Okay? We can fix this. We'll call the Autobots, we'll call the army guys. We can fix this, Sam."

"Bee's dead! I killed him! It's not like a car, or something. He was…alive, and now he's…" he waved a wire wrapped hand in despair. "I just…I wanted to say goodbye. That's all. I love you and I wanted to say goodbye."

Mikaela stared at him, bereft of words. "Sam…"

"Just…call the 'Bots. Call them and…." He paused, frowning.

"What is it?" Mikaela stepped forward, and was encouraged when Sam was too distracted to back away. "Sam?"

"It's….It feels weird…" he frowned and looked around. "Is there anyone here besides us?"

"Mikaela? You alright honey?"

Mikaela turned to face her Dad coming down the lake path, nearly wincing. Oh, this was not going to go over well. "Dad….uh…this is Sam…" and what now, Mickey? She thought to herself.

Especially since Sam was looking at the sky, and didn't even seem to realise that a third person had arrived. His hands were slowly curling around the wire in a way that made Mikaela wince. "Mikaela…get inside."

"What?"

"Get inside. Right now. Move!"

"Who the hell are you, son?" her Dad was coming closer. He was a big man, her Dad, dark haired and blue eyed, just like her.

"I'm Sam. I'm dating your daughter. Now you really need to get inside," Sam persisted, his voice tight with tension.

Skittering across the wires, fat blue sparks jumped and danced, arcing across his shaking, bleeding hands.

"Sam!" Mikaela shrieked in horror, darting forward. She was stopped by a shovel-like hand as her Dad, wisely, yanked her back.

"Run!" Sam bellowed, and the sky was full of noise. Lights scythed through the light cloud cover, and a dark, jagged shape dropped through them, the clouds sent scattering under the burning force of it's jets. Even the sound was an attack, a hideous wailing shriek right at the point of pain.

Mikaela's throat went dry in instant panic. Starscream. As the burning lights came down, Mikaela flinched, fully expecting it to be some sort of attack. They passed over her and her Dad dragged her against him protectively. They passed over….Sam wasn't there any more. He took of down the lake edge, waters in the usually calm body now kicking and rippling in the downdraft. The light circled and followed, and Starscream re-angled himself, shooting away in a sonic boom, following the teenager's desperate sprint.

Mikaela struggled free of her father's grip, and took off after Sam, but she was dressed in light sandals and was nowhere near the runner he was. Overhead, she heard the rattling wash of echoes that was the multi-tonne transformation of the alien evil.

It landed, half in the lake, and Mikaela thought in irrational panic that Starscream had paid extra for waterproofing. It wasn't a central thought, just a few brain cells on the periphery, screaming in disbelief.

"Sam!" she screamed at the still sprinting team, willing her burning legs to push harder and faster. Helplessness washed over Mikaela. Against something like that, what could you do? What the hell could you do? Even a gun was useless. Sam was a distant shape, zigging and zagging towards the forest as Starscream rose out of the water, launching toward the teen like a hungry predator.

Headlights lit up behind Mikaela, and she darted sideways, suddenly frightened that Starscream had not come alone. A truck rolled up beside her.

"Mickey, get in!" he father bellowed from inside. Passenger door swung open as the truck pulled level, and Mikaela didn't wait for it to slow. She jumped in as it rolled past, slamming the door shut.

"Go! After them!" she yelled desperately.

"Mickey," he Dad was aghast. "What is that thing?"

"I don't have time. We really don't have time," Mikaela grabbed one of him arms. "You trust me, don't you? Please, Dad!"

Her Dad stepped on the accelerator. "I don't know about the thing, but we might be able to grab the kid."

The truck was old and ponderous, but it roared toward the edge of the forest, and Sam. Starscream tried to grab him like an escaping rat, but Sam managed to swerve out of his snatching appendages. Why isn't he trying to fire? Mikala thought as the truck bounced on the uneven ground. It would be the easiest thing in the world for Starscream to obliterate the frail human.

Sam had hit the edge of the trees, but they didn't provide any cover. Starscream's massive hands ripped out the old trees like they were carrots, Mikaela yelped and her Dad cursed colourfully as a massive trunk whirled past they car, leaves and branches flying off like shrapnel. The truck squealed around another one that flew straight by like a missile. As the truck was yanked back on course, Mikaeala screamed as she saw Starscream pluck something out of the gloom between the trees. Her heart shuddered – he'd grabbed Sam up like a miniature action figure. A thousand outcomes flashed in front of her mind – Sam being crushed like a grape, slammed into the ground like a toy, flung through the air like a paper plane, all the things that evil metal could do to the frail flesh and bone. Mikaela let out a painful noise that didn't belong in a human mouth, a keening, anaemic, breathless scream.

But before she even had time to think, Starscream tossed the thick, old tree that he held in his free hand away as he held up his prize, and it spun towards the truck, faster than a blink, faster than it took to react.

It swatted the truck like a buzzing fly, and knocked it clear into the lake.

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The SUV slowed outside the Witwicky house.

"Maggie! Mags!"

"Glen, we are not stopping for doughnuts."

"Mags. I'm getting a signal! Close!"

"How close?"

"Look out your window. But don't look at him, or he'll know you're there."

"What?"

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Miles kept pushing at his pedals, pushing the bike as far and as fast as it would go. Frantically he wished for a better means of transport, a motor bike, a car, something better than this old clunker of a bike.

He wasn't just worried now, he was scared. He'd gone to Sam's house, but the elder Witwicky's weren't there. They cars were gone, and Miles would lay bets that they were scouring the streets, looking for their son. Miles had known the Witwicky's since preschool and as painfully (for Sam) quirky as they were, they never just sat a waiting for things to happen. Sam got a lot of his energy from them.

It was Mojo who had drawn his attention Sam's note, left in the doghouse. There were blue drops of melted plastic splattered across it, but that wasn't the worst thing. The worst thing was the words.

I love you all. Goodbye.

That wasn't what was on the note – there was a lot of rambling stuff about Sam killing someone called Bumblebee and that he was dangerous and a lot of other stuff Miles couldn't understand – but that was the whole message at the core of it, written into the heartfelt words in the shaken, half smudged letters. Miles had it in his pocket now, along with the warped pen used to write it, which looked like someone had stuck it in a furnace.

Something was very, very wrong here. Sam could shoot lightning, he thought he had killed someone, and he thought he was going to die.

Well, that wasn't going to happen, was it? Because Sam was his friend and that just wasn't going to happen while Miles was around. And Miles was going to find Mikaela, because she was the only one who knew where Sam had been for the past few weeks and damn if she wasn't hiding something. The cabin was on the second lake outside town somewhere close to the national park. He'd been up there before, hiking with Sam. He could find it. Sam had even told him that it was next to one of their favourite trails. He wished his mother was home, but she had late shift tonight, so there went his only option for a ride.

He pushed his bike harder, passing a broken down bus in a blur.

He hadn't seen the police car follow him from the house. After reading the note, his world had narrowed in focus – find Mikaela, find Sam.

He wasn't concerned when headlights lit up behind him. He merely made sure he was far off to the side of the highway, and was prepared to let the car pass.

The car wasn't. The car swerved up onto the shoulder and screeched for him, and even before Miles had time to react before the police car proclaiming 'to punish and enslave' knocked the back wheel of his bike. Jolted, Miles balance failed, the bike's dented wheel dragging the bike sideways. Miles fell backwards, and ended up hitting the bonnet of the police cruiser, hard.

The car had scooped him up, crushing his bike under it's wheels as it sped up, and Miles didn't even have time to panic as he flipped in midair, and saw the windscreen coming at him like a shiny wall. A moment of pure mortal shock came and went, because the windscreen flipped down, and Miles went through the hole, whacking his shins but otherwise unharmed.

He landed in the back seat. The front seats had folded neatly into the floor, and snapped back up again, along with the windscreen. He was trapped.

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"This was a bad idea. This was a bad idea," Maggie mumbled as Epps stepped on the accelerator. "This was a very bad idea!"

"Holy Kidnap, Batman," Glen hissed. "Did you see that? It just snapped him up like a venus fly trap."

"I saw," Epps said grimly, stepping hard on the accelerator. The kid had never noticed the Decepticon, but with any luck, the alien hadn't noticed them yet either. He kept the sinister red tail lights in his sights.

"We need help," Maggie felt her heart jump and twitch. "We need help, Rob. We can't do anything against him. We need Bumblebee. We should have waited and found him first."

"Maggie," Epps said slowly. "I know this is a little freaky ass bad, but I need you to just take a breath, okay? Yeah, maybe we should have, and maybe we should have back up and maybe we aren't prepared. But we can't do anything about that right now. This is how things are. That alien just snatched a kid. I don't know why, and I don't care but it means we've got two options; we follow, or we let the thing take him. And as far as I'm concerned, the latter is not an option. Right?"

Maggie bit her lip. "Right."

"Yeah, right," Glen cut in from the back. "But not to poke holes in the plan, what can we do about this?"

"I'll let you know when I think of it. In the meantime – aren't you the signallers? Get us some help. Any help!"

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"Bumblebee, stay down or I will deactivate you!" Ratchet pinned his comrade to the ground, ignoring the indignant clicks and whines. "I have to fix your chest plate before you go anywhere, or your spark is going to be open to the wind and it'll turn into the world largest bug zapper. I am not planning to zoom around picking up all the pieces you leave behind you on the road until you cough up your own engine. Stay!"

He shoved Bee down again, and threatened him with a spinning cutter until he settled.

Ratchet sighed and got back to work. Bumblebee only looked lucid and awake. His systems were still sparking and jolting all over the place.

They were mostly alone in the clearing now. The feds that Simmons had bought with him had no experience with the Autobots, and had immediately given the two mech's a wide perimeter. There was something about the way Ratchet wielded his varied and painful looking tools that just didn't make them eager to interrupt his work.

What a mess. But, thankfully, Ratchet could patch him up here. He was a long way from the full med bay back on the ship. "How do you get yourself into these things, little one?"

Bumblebee let loose a frustrated whistle, and brought one hand up and formed an interface spike. He clicked and whined insistently.

"Hardware before soft…" Ratchet tried to grip the appendage. Bumblebee swiped him across one auditory receptor in frustration. "Little one, if you don't calm down and lie still I will…" another thump. "Fine, I'll interface, but if you're still giving me trouble after that, you won't like to downgrade I'll give you for it, understand?"

Ratchet fiddled with some wires, and locked his own systems to the younger 'Bots. Bereft to the sound bytes he usually used, this was the best way for Bumblebee to communicate.

Ratchet winced as the influx of information from Bumblebee's systems flooded his. His sensors were still half overloaded so Ratchet was aware to the cloud cover thickening overhead in the low pressure system, the fact that they were ringed by one hundred and fourteen separate trees, the life sign readings from twenty eight agents who had formed a perimeter around them, about four dozen different radio broadcasts, sights, sounds, sensations, weird, disjointed scraps of memory, streams and streams of code….Ratchet used his own systems to stem the flood, remotely shutting down the unnecessary protocols sparked to life by the mass power injection. What a mess, what a mess….

Sam was shooting lightning from his hands.

Mental repair work screeching to a halt, Ratchet turned around to access that memory more closely. It could just be layering – more than one memory replaying at the same time, which is as close to hallucinating as Autobots got. But as he looked closer…

This was real? Sam had actually hit Bumblebee with a surger? Humans, Ratchet knew, didn't have the level of technology. But as he examined the few scant seconds before the strike shorted out Bumblebee's short term memory, it almost looked like the surge was coming from Sam.

Which was insane. Ratchet had absorbed enough about human physiology to know humans could not take that amount of raw energy running through their bodies. Sam would have dead long before he could produce enough power to incapacitate Bumblebee, whose body was designed to be run on and absorb large amounts of it.

Cube energy….

The mere thought sparked Bumblebee's still interfaced systems, and pulled a memory out.

Ratchet saw….a picture of Sam legs dangling over the edge of the gully near the old tree. He realised, as with all the memories, he was seeing from Bumblebee's perspective. He was on mech mode, and looking down on Sam as he too dangled his enormous legs over pit.

"I was really freaking out, Bee," Sam had said sheepishly. "I know you think I'm brave, but I was lubricating myself, trust me. The worst part was when I fell and the Allspark sparked in my hands, and suddenly there's this killer vending machine on the street and I realised 'oh God, I'm holding a bomb!' I felt it zap me. I thought it would end right there…"

Ratchet yanked himself out of the memory, and out of the interface in shock. The Cube had discharged in Sam's unprotected hands? Sam should be dead. It should have zapped him like a bug. Humans didn't have a body designed for that kind of surge. The humans who had kept the Cube at the damn had only approached it with protective gear.

Primus, this was amazing.

"That's it? That's what you wanted to show me?" Ratchet demanded of the clicking Bumblebee. "You already deduced this, didn't you?"

Bumblebee was feeling a bit more cognitive after Ratchet's interface. He accessed a radio wave. "It's alive. It's alive! The Creature is alive!"
"Alive….do you mean the Allspark?" Ratchet sat back on his haunches over the prone 'Bot.

Ratchet's diagnostic screen lit up as Bumblebee sent messages through it. ///---When I touched it, it answered me---///

"Answered you?"

///---Yes. Hard to describe. Did not react like machine. It answered. It connected. Like we do. Living things---///

Ratchet considered that. Well, he thought, why not? The Allspark was far older than anything they had encountered, and no one knew very much about it, did they? Even the Autobots had only a vague idea of how it worked, and no idea how it came to be.

It makes life. Only other living things can make life, so it follows that the Allspark could be alive. Not like the 'Bots were alive, not like humans were alive, but alive in it's own way. A lot of Cybertronian scholars had studied the mysterious thing before the Great War, and many of them had theorised it was possible, but improvable. After the war had started, no one took the time to really examine it again.

Ratchet followed the thought logically. It's impossible to prove it was alive. Assume that it was. The Cube was in danger, what do living things do when in danger? They find a way to save themselves. Was that it? Had the Allspark found a way to continue?

Through a human?

The buzz of the direct signal made him jump upright, shocked out of his thoughts. Ratchet answered while still patching up Bumblebee, hands a blur. One thing Ratchet was sure of – if this had actually happened, then none of them had much time.

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Starscream had never been the brightest mech ever conceived. Not the fastest, not the strongest, not the greatest fighter ever built and certainly not a mastermind, a strategist or a specialist to make up for any other shortcomings. However, he did have a talent which was almost marketable, that couldn't be taught, learned or stolen. Starscream was a survivor. He always managed, somehow, to worm, snitch, beg and ingratiate himself slightly beneath the top, out of the line of fire or into the position of safety. It was an art close to genius.

He'd had time to organise his thoughts after escaping from the disaster in Mission City. So far he had come to realise thusly;

One, that Megatron, both his shield and the doom hanging over his head, was out of the picture.

Two, that Megatron was probably egoistic enough to transmit the battle to any and all Decepticons in the galaxy that could pick it up so they could witness his greatest triumph – and therefore they probably knew something had gone terribly wrong instead, which lead to…

Three, that Starscream was going to be about as popular as insta-rust when and if his fellow Decepticons tracked him down.

Starscream wasn't that much of a fool. His survival strategy had earned him enemies on both sides of the line. Megatron had protected him because everyone needs someone like Starscream; one who always knew where the exit doors were. He hadn't been a safe element, but as long as Starscream was useful, Megatron didn't let the others do anything more than superficial damage. Without Megatron he, Starscream, was a mech alone and surrounded by beings who would happily melt him down if given even a tenth of a chance, especially after Mission City and Starscream's vanishing act.

That was the annoying thing about the whole affair. Megatron, no more dishonest, evil, and treacherous than Starscream himself, had inspired a perverse loyalty in his troops. They'd feared him, of course, and had known that he wouldn't hesitate for an instant to throw them into oblivion to get what he wanted. However….he and Prime had been brothers. The same charisma and leadership that made Optimus Prime such a respected and worshipped commander was within Megatron too – except more or less in reverse. They may hate him, but they would follow him. Not even a toaster would follow Starscream. The mech had a long time to think about this while he licked his wounds, and suddenly, by Primus, opportunity landed.

Sam awoke. He couldn't move. His head pounded and his chest felt like a dull spike had been pushed through it.

He was riveted to a flat metal panel on the ground, completely immobilized. He turned his head, and saw….wasn't this the make out point? Had he bought Mikaeala here? Where was she? Blearily, he tried to remember what had happened.

Wait, he remembered Mikaela had been crying. Oh God, he'd made her cry. And then…

Starscream bent into his live of sight, and Sam let out a yell at the evil eyes suddenly boring into him.

"Puny human," he growled. "You are going to help me resurrect Megatron."

What? "What?" Sam croaked, his dry, raw throat barely able to produce the sound.

Starscream gave a barking laugh. "You, boy. You are going to help me resurrect Megatron. By the end of the day, I will be commanding the Decepticons. I don't see any point in being subtle. I'm going to blast your planet into rubble, so hard that nothing will ever grow on it again," one giant finger prodded Sam, making his breath blast out in a whoosh. "But not you. I'm going to need you. And your dead friend."

Dear frie…Sam turned his head, and drew in enough breath to scream. "You bastard! What have you done? You goddamn bastard!" while Starscream laughed.

It…He lay there, covered in dust and mud. They wouldn't let him share the fate of the other wrecks, not a friend, not a comrade. They'd buried him, following an Earth tradition instead.

And Starscream had dug him up. He'd dug him up. He'd dug Jazz out of the ground.

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