Author's Note: For this chapter I made it a bunch of short snippets to show how many things were going on at the same time. It's kind of a like a montage (without the cool music). Anyway, thank you all for supporting my latest fanfic. Hope everyone is having a great day :)


Chapter 9

Dead or Alive?

Jazz hated to admit it to himself, but he had a weird hunch about Bumblebee's mother. He couldn't quite put his servo on it, but something about her just didn't add up. Her behavior was very calm and controlled, and she even seemed friendly. Still, a pretty smile and gentle voice didn't always equal innocence. Jazz knew that better than anybody.

He decided to start small with a scan of her records in Iacon. If she didn't have a criminal record or military history then his worries would likely be for nothing. No way did Jazz want to develop a reputation like Red Alert, so he wouldn't dig too deep if he didn't have to. He hoped he was wrong about her, however. That was Bumblebee's mother. If something was amiss Jazz didn't know how he would tell his favorite yellow scout.

It took several minutes for the search to complete. Fortunately Ophidelle was such an archaic name that it was unlikely any other transformer would have it. When the search came back, however, Jazz was floored!

No record of a Femme named Ophidelle living in Iacon for the past 300,000 vorns. She wasn't there!

Jazz slowly nodded to himself as he leaned back in his chair. He had a feeling she wouldn't report her whereabouts in Iacon. He would have to do a full sweeping search of Cybertron. This search would take several hours. He wondered if it was even worth it. Still, something was off about her. It almost seemed like she was trying to tell him something...Was she in trouble? Was she an Autobot spy come to help them? Was she a Decepticon in disguise? Jazz had to find out the truth!


Around that same time, Skywarp was flying over Autobot Headquarters on a mission of his own. Ever since he found out about Leodox, Skywarp had wanted nothing more than to rip the spark from that mech's chest and crush it in his fist! This time he would not let that monster get away from him! The spilled energon of Skywarp's family was on that Autobot's hands!

He didn't have a working knowledge of the Ark, but he knew the other side of the front door had a hallway, so he teleported just inside the door. He would have to navigate the rest of the ship without teleportation, however, since he didn't know where he was going and didn't want to end up inside a wall.

He tried to be as sneaky as possible as he searched for either Leodox or Bumblebee. He had two plans (both of which could change at a moment's notice). The first plan was to find Leodox, teleport him outside, and then slowly rip away at his vitals while he screamed in agony! Plan two was to find Bumblebee, take him back to the Nemesis, and record his execution for Leodox to view from the safety of the Ark.

He would have his revenge either way…


Ophidelle, meanwhile, did not feel like recharging for the night. Instead she decided to have some fun while she was awake. She found a phone and started dialing a random restaurant she found in the phone book.

"Hello, this is Pasquale's Pizzeria. How can I help you?" An Italian voice said on the other end of the phone.

"Yes sir, my name is Fire Blossom and I am a health inspector," Ophidelle intoned in her most official sounding voice, "I do not mean to bother you, but I have had several complaints about patrons finding parasites crawling around in their food. As well as the standard rodent droppings, of course."

Ophidelle smiled to herself as the man on the other end of the phone switched his voice from indignant to pleading every few seconds. She silently chuckled to herself as he switched from English to Italian and back again.

It had been so long since the Triple Changer had found time for fun and games. Between the war, her family, and her boss's constant demands of her time she found that childish pranks fell by the wayside. Getting even with Sunstreaker had awakened a yearning inside of her that she had completely forgotten about.

Ugh! Her boss! She just remembered that she was supposed to report half an orn ago! He was so punctual and so unforgiving! Sometimes she wished she could wipe that...whatever expression that was, right off of his...whatever he had.

Scrap. Ophidelle thought dryly. I've worked with that mech for over 50,000 vorns and I've only just now realized he doesn't have a face! And to think I was hired for my observation skills…

Her so-called observation skills kicked into gear when she heard a loud crash in the hallway leading to Bumblebee's quarters! She could hear a mech hopping up and down on one pede (indicating he tripped on something and stubbed his other pede). She also heard the mech cursing in Cybertronian; his voice was very familiar.

Oh, joy… Ophidelle sighed as she thought. I get to deal with this now! So much for Operation: Unity.


Jazz diverted as much power as he could to make the scans run faster. Why he felt this couldn't wait even he wasn't sure, but Jazz had learned from experience to trust his gut feelings on matters.

Finally, after waiting for what felt like an eternity, the files for all known Ophidelles for the past 100,000 vorns was downloaded onto his computer.

Jazz looked at the (admittedly short) list for clues. There was one Ophidelle listed. He pulled up the files, and noticed all of them predates Bumblebee's birth by at least a million years. He noticed something else that made his energon run cold...A death certificate.

According to the report, a Decepticon named Lt. Ophidelle was caught in a firefight with an Autobot and engaged him in a one-on-one dogfight in the air. The Autobot shot her out of the sky, and she went down in flames! Jazz searched for details, and sure enough, this Ophidelle had been a Triple Changer with a Sigma ability. There was no picture of the deceased Femme, so Jazz didn't know if it was a case of a fake death or a stolen identity. Either way, Ophidelle the Decepticon had been reported dead 7 million years ago, and either way Bumblebee's mother was guilty of some kind of crime. It was either identity theft or war crimes.

He needed to know more, so he scanned a still image he had of her face and ran it through the system. If she was living with multiple aliases then this would be the best way to determine what she had been up to recently.

This scan didn't take as long (thank goodness), and Jazz soon found himself scanning old photographs, licenses, and intelligence reports for anything on Ophidelle. Most of the information was too old to be useful, but one news article from Megatron's Decepticon propaganda networks caught his optic…

SHOCKWAVE RECEIVES WORD FROM MEGATRON the headline read. That had been published a mere four years ago when the Autobots and Decepticons awoke on earth. Jazz scanned the picture to see why the computer felt the need to show this to him. It was a still photo of Shockwave standing on stage addressing a Decepticon fleet with two guards standing on either side of him.

That was when Jazz noticed it...The guards! One of the guards was a Femme with a hooded vent surrounding her head! It was Ophidelle! Jazz read the bottom of the photo to see what he could gather from it.

The fine print read 'Shockwave stands with Street Stalker and Silver Tongue at the first meeting of Decepticon forces since the revival of Lord Megatron'.

"Street Stalker and Silver Tongue?" Jazz muttered out loud, "So she is using an alias...Aw, Pit! She's Silver Tongue!"

This wasn't just any Decepticon they were dealing with. Jazz knew the name Silver Tongue, though he had never met the spy in person before. This 'Con was known to be crafty, elusive, and extremely dangerous. The most common method for Silver Tongue to use to dispose of potential 'leaks' was by melting them with acid! A truly gruesome death for any mech. Jazz never realized that Silver Tongue was a Femme. Another dark thought also creeped into his processor in that moment…

"Poor Bee...His mother's a Decepticon…"


Skywarp hovered over the recharging body of Bumblebee; his black wings creating foreboding shadows over the berth of the peacefully recharging Minibot. It would be so easy to kill the sleeping mech right then and there, and yet he hesitated. He wondered if he should bother taking the yellow nuisance back to the base at all. Handing him over to be tortured wasn't quite the same as inflicting the blows himself. He wanted Leodox to feel the same thing he felt when that Autobot took his last surviving relative away from him!

Megatron often told his soldiers that forming attachments only made you weak. The Seeker normally agreed with everything his master said, but in this case he felt the warlord was wrong. His attachment to Thundercracker, his best friend, made them a better team. In just the same way, the sparkache of a broken attachment would give him the strength to bring an unholy fury upon the Autobots!

Skywarp could just picture what his baby sister must've looked like as that Leodox fired on her without hesitation and extinguished her spark! He imagined a pained contorted faceplate and fire surrounding her as she screamed in agony! Skywarp's creator died only a few short vorns after his sister was created. He practically raised the young Femme alone! Leodox would not know peace for the rest of his short lifespan! Skywarp would make sure of that!

These thoughts swirled through his head like the sweetest high grade energon as he approached the unsuspecting (and unconscious) form of Bumblebee. Just as he was about to grab the mech, however, a smooth lilting voice called out "Hello, Skywarp."

Skywarp whipped his head around so quickly his wings wobbled! No, that voice...It couldn't be! It wasn't!

It was! Skywarp was staring at an apparition! The harbingers of the Pit had come to take his spark from him, and they sent a representative they knew he couldn't refuse. This was it...He was either dying or dead.

"Ophidelle…" Skywarp breathed the name as if saying it too loudly would cause the phantom Femme to lunge at him and take his spark, "Why...How…?"

"Can we talk about this outside?" Ophidelle requested in a drab voice that sounded very tired, "Bumblebee is sleeping."

Skywarp turned around to look at the Autobot like he'd never seen him. In his panic, Skywarp had completely forgotten about the Minibot.

Skywarp didn't know what to say, and as Ophidelle walked closer to him he instinctually backed away; still fearing it was a ghost. She slowly reached her hand out to him, and the throbbing in his spark grew stronger.

Oh, so that's what that was… Skywarp thought numbly as he stared at her with wide red optics. My spark felt my baby sister. Wait, if my spark feels her, then she's really there! It's not an illusion or a Pit Spawn! It's really her!

Without stopping to think or speak Skywarp fiercely grabbed Ophidelle and pulled her into a bear hug! Ophidelle didn't flinch when he grabbed her, and merely sighed when they began to teleport.