So sorry for the delay. Computers kept breaking and then school got hectic. Here's the next chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Transformers. I just play with them. I only own my OC's.

Units of time:

See Prelude

Seeker genders/family members:

See Prelude

Communication:

:: comm. link ::

- Bondmates/sparkmates -

~: creator/creation bond :~

: sibling bond :

Thoughts/memories/flashbacks/dreams

[symbiot/symbiot carrier]

Seeker Cant

= Cybertronian language = except in memories

Bumblebee talk

There was a lot of chatter as I walked behind Optimus into the main room. I could pick out three sparkling sized organic beings with their respective guardians. Just as I cleared the hallway, I heard Moonracer cry out my name and tried to latch onto my waist. I managed to elude her grasp, but scrapped a wing on the rocky wall of the base. I looked up to find the optics of the other Autobots on me. My EM field condensed closer to my frame. Did I mention before how much I hated being in the spotlight?

The female organic trotted up to me. Her thin, wire-like black hair bounced with every move she made. "Are you Wing Saber?"

"Yes …"

"I'm Miko. Did you really grow up with dragons? Didyourideone? Didyouliveinacastle? HaveyoutrashedanyDecepticons?"

I raised an optic ridge and blinked at her. It took a klik for my processor to catch up with her questions. "What's a dragon?"

She pulled out a small communication device and flipped it open. She pressed some buttons and showed me the image on it. The animal looked very similar to Predicons.

"Predicons are similar to dragons, but no. I never have seen a living Predicon, nor have I riden one. I've never taken a Decepticon spark and I guess you could call my home a castle."

"Wing Saber," I look toward the area that the humans were at. The young male with brown hair and red optic lenses looked at me over the back of a human-sized couch. "Did Megatron … really kill your family?" he asked.

I walked over to him. "Not Megatron personally, just some of those under his command. I don't want to go into it."

"Ok, I understand. I'm Raf."

The black haired male put a hand behind his neck, "Name's Jack."

I nodded. I looked between the three. If this was what the native life forms on this planet looked like, I could see why they needed protection from the Decepticons. No outer armor meant that they were gonna be easy to squish.

Optimus began to address the Autobots. "Megatron has barely emerged from stasis, and it seems that he's already making up for lost time."

I left the humans and joined the other Autobots who have gathered around him. Bladestream and the twins entered the main hanger through one of the other halls.

"Bulkhead, Bumblebee, Bladestream, Ratchet. Prepare to rollout." With that he began to head for the groudbridge.

"Me?!" Ratchet asked. Guess he preferred to stay behind.

"If we are dealing with Dark Energon, I may require your expertise. Arcee,"

"Bridge operator. Got it." She said, smiling. The twins looked at each other.

"Override, prepare the medbay for potential injuries."

Hard Wire spoke up, protesting to being left out. "Wait, Optimus, what about the rest of us?"

"While each of you have had field experience, I am reluctant to put you in battle without letting your frames adjust to the planetary cycles first."

"Go get 'em, Bulkhead! Bring the hurt!" Miko shouted, focused on her drawing. Bulkhead slammed his fists together. Jack stared at her and muttered, "That's so not like Miko to not wanna go."

"She's definitely up to something." Raf said.

"Hmm?" I asked, gazing at the boys.

Jack looked at me as Arcee powered up the bridge. "She always has to go with them when the 'Bots go on a mission. If she doesn't get permission, she'll sneak out."

Miko dropped her drawing and raced down the steps towards the open groundbridge.

"Make it or break!" Jack said and ran after her. The children entered the bridge and grabbing her by the wrist. I couldn't hear what they were saying over the hum of the still online bridge, but think Miko got any cause they didn't come back out.

My spark quickened with concern. I glanced around the hanger. The twins disappeared and Moonracer was nowhere to be seen. Override was in the medbay and Arcee's sole focus was on the monitors. I looked back at the groundbridge. Something was telling me to go after the children, but I hesitated. Should I follow or tell Arcee. At the last minute, I decided to go through. Maybe I could catch Miko and bring her back into the base. The moment I was through though, I realized that this probably was not the wisest decision.

I heard Starscream shout for "Skyquake to rise". I sensed the same presence that Megatron had. My wings dipped in apprehension. What in the world had I just walked into? I looked around for the kids and found them perched on a rock that came up to my waist. Miko radiated excitement.

"Let's see the fight of the living dead already!"

"Miko!" Jack scolded. "What were you thinking?!"

"She wasn't." replied Raf. I cocked my helm. I guess Miko needed to see action and a lot of it. But why she would choose to put herself in harm's way when she could just patch into someone's visual feed was beyond me.

"Hey, I totally missed out last time! This could be my only time to take some snaps!" She reached into the back pockets of her clothing only to find her communication device was missing.

"My cell phone!" So that's what it's called. "I must have dropped it back at base!"

I went over to the rock. Optimus approached Starscream and onlined his blaster, telling him to stand down.

"You stand down!" Starscream shot a rocket at the Autobots, causing them to scatter and find cover.

"You cannot harm me while Dark Energon flows through my veins!"

So Dark Energon was what I sensed around Megatron. Whatever he did, Starscream is copying him.

Optimus shot Starscream's arm off. Starscream ran off, grabbing his arm and ducked behind a wall of rocks. Bulkhead announced that Optimus had clipped his wing. Starscream would not be able to fly. As the Autobots advanced, Miko let out a growl and shouted at the top of her voice, "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU MADE ME LOOSE MY PHONE!" I covered my audios. Humans femmes are just as high pitched as Cybertronian ones. And it hurts.

"How is this my fault?!"

"Wing Saber! Can you take pics?"

I uncovered my audios, but a ground bridge opened up before I could answer. A second ground bridge opened up not long after the first one. Starscream must have called one, too.

"Two?" Ratchet said, glancing between them both. "You three! Into our ground bridge! Now!"

The children scampered down the rocks and ran into it. I stood there and watched. "Wing Saber! You too!" I nodded and headed for it, but stopped when a tube-like tunnel formed between the bridges.

"Ratchet, what is happening?" Optimus asked.

"The dueling ground bridges portals must be feeding back on each other!"

Bulkhead's optics widened. "Miko! We gotta get the kids outta there!" He ran passed me and to our ground bridge as the ground bridges began to cause the ground to shake and their hum became a higher pitched roar. But he never made inside as the ground bridges exploded, sending both us and the others flying into the canyon wall and I blacked out from the force of the impact.

I onlined my optics with a groan. Bulkhead asked, "Wha, what just happened?"

Ratchet groaned as he and the rest of us stood. "I can't be certain, but if two ground bridges sent to the same coordinates cross streams, the feedback could have triggered a system overload."

"The kids made it through, right?" Bulkhead asked.

I looked at Bladestream then back at Ratchet. Optimus contacted base, "Arcee, did the children make it safely back to base?"

:: Negative. You don't see them? ::

"No, sign." Ratchet answered.

I became concerned. If the kids weren't here or at base, where were they?

As we headed toward the Skyquake's grave, Optimus turned to Ratchet.

"Ratchet, could the children have been transported onto the Nemesis instead?"

Ratchet shook his helm. "Not likely. If Starscream didn't arrive at our base, the most likely explanation is a dislocation. The children must have been bridged to an unintended destination."

My wings picked up movement. I stopped and looked behind me. But there was no one there. I took a few steps into the canyon and began to scan it with a critical optic. I flared my wings and extended my field to its widest, feeling for anything the breaths.

"Look, Skyquake's tomb is empty."

I looked back at the group. Skyquake was missing too?

"How did we miss Skyquake rising and shining?" Bulkhead said with frustration.

"It would seem Starscream got what he came for."

"Another matter for another time," Optimus said. "Our priority right now is locating Jack, Miko, and Rafael. Arcee, bridge us back to base."

When the ground bridge opened up, I had a feeling I needed to go back. When I turned, again I found nothing, but I could sense that someone was trying to warn us of danger.

"Wing Saber, what is it?" Bladestream asked.

I continued to scan the canyon. "I don't know. I just sense … someone, or something, was trying to warn us."

Optimus came and stood be me. "Of what?"

"I don't know … it's gone. Sorry." I said, looking at the ground. He placed a gentle servo on my shoulder strut. "We will find the children. Let's get back to base."

I followed him through the ground bridge. Back inside Ratchet went straight to the controls. Everyone else had by now gathered to the main hanger.

"Ratchet, if the children were misdirected to another location, is it possible to get a fis on their location?"

"If they were lost Miko would've called me by now!"

"What 'bout calling them?" Bee asked.

"Call them! Yes!" Bulkhead shouted. He contacted Miko's cell phone, but then we heard music. We began looking for its source and I saw a tiny pink rectangular device on the floor just inside the ground bridge tunnel. Bulkhead sighed. "That's why Miko hasn't phoned."

"Let me try Jack." Arcee offered. "Jack, can you hear me? Nothing."

My wings drooped. Ratchet turned back to the monitors.

"We're dealing with fluctuating energy profiles inside a wide distortion field, but it might be possible to back trace their coordinates."

I turned and saw something flash out of the corner of my optic. Apparently Bulkhead saw it, too. "Miko's phone! It wasn't blinking before! It's a message. 'Trapped in alternate dimension with zombie. Help.'"

Arcee looked at Ratchet in disbelief. "That … doesn't sound possible."

"Ratchet, can we triangulate the geographical location of the cell phone signal?" Optimus asked.

"In a parallel dimensional plane?! Let's find out."

Ratchet set to work, typing away at the keys. Bladestream looked at me. Slight confusion in his optics. "What made you go through the ground bridge after the kids?"

I looked at the floor. Why did I do it? "I … I just, for some reason I felt that I needed to make sure they stayed safe. And that meant bringing them back. I was going to tell Arcee, but at the last minutes decided against it."

"I'm not mad, Wing Saber. I'm just trying to understand why you did it. Now I know."

I looked into his optics. Gentle ones filled with understanding gazed back.

"Now calculating for time delays and ionosphereic distortions, the signal originated from the exact location as the original ground bridge coordinates."

"But we already looked for them there!" Bulkhead protested.

"Perhaps, but not in the correct dimensional phase as their message stated. But, if I can recreate the feedback loop, I might be able to generate a rescue portal, allowing passage from their dimension …"

"Back to base?" Bulkhead finished excitedly.

"Wha-du,ph, no! We're talking about interdimensional travel here, Bulkhead! Attempting to redirect the vortex trajectory would be far too risky!"

"Everyone knows that." Arcee said.

"If the coordinates aren't precisely the same, who knows where the humans could wind up!"

Ratchet plugged in the altered coordinates and onlined the ground bridge. We stared at the screen for what felt like forever before the children's life signals popped up on the radar. Right next to Starscream's. I cocked my helm. Since when did he get here?

Ratchet reentered the original coordinates and reopened the portal. Optimus took Arcee and Bulkhead through the ground bridge and when they returned, they had the children with them. I sighed in relief. Once the ground bridge powered down, Optimus gave the kids a stern look. After a klik, Miko spoke up, "Look, if you're gonna anybody, blame me."

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that, like, a couple dozen times?" Miko merely glared at Jack.

"Miko," Optimus said. "What you endured has been lesson enough. We are just glad you are all safe." Optimus smiled a little. The Prime didn't show emotion very often, but I got a lot of his feelings via his optics. He was very relieved right now.

Bulkhead knelt down at Miko and gave her back her phone. "Guess it was a good thing you dropped this. Too bad you didn't get any pictures, though."

"Nah, that's ok. I think after today, I pretty much have "zombie close-up" seared into my brain."

I smiled. Miko is definitely one interesting character. Maybe we can go flying sometime.

Ok that's that. Let me know what you think.