Hello everyone! Look who's back with the next chapter!

Anyways, there's something I would like to say. Plot-wise, the route I'm taking is…unusual, but I'm sure I can make it work. I've already got a lot of things planned out, but if it ever gets too ridiculous, I can always pull the plug and start fresh.

When you think about it, the idea of fanfiction is basically conveying one's ideas and imagination to others, writing their own stories where anything goes and everything is possible. As long as I can make some sense in these stories, I'm sure it won't wind up as one big WTF, because trust me, I've seen some awful stories.

With that explained, enjoy the chapter! I actually put a lot of logic and guesswork into this chapter, but I think it works fine. PS. It's a long chapter. Like, really long in my opinion

"I don't know Ratchet!"

Raf, Miko, and Jack all looked up as their Autobot guardians parked, letting them get out. Optimus, Ratchet, and Laura seemed to be having some sort of argument and a picture was widened on the largest of the many computer monitors. It was a picture of Laura that Miko had taken days before she had gotten into yesterday's accident, though how they got it off of her phone she didn't know.

"How could you have been wearing a dark Energon shard around your neck and not even know?" The medic pressed, motioning to the deep black crystal on the screen. The brunette's expression grew irritated, her eyes narrowing. "How would I know what it was? My mother gave it to me. It's not like I can ask her where I got it, can I?"

Laura immediately regretted that comment the moment it came out of her mouth. Her gaze drifted to the floor, her arms crossing. "My father was a geologist." She muttered under her breath, barely loud enough for them to hear. "He used to dig for samples all the time, so I never saw him much. It's possible he found it on a dig and gave it to my mother, who in turn passed it on to me."

"How can you be sure?" Optimus interjected, watching as the three humans kept their distance, realizing it was a personal matter.

"Because….because I got it on my 10th birthday. My father was gone that day."

The Autobot leader raised an optic plate. "You said you didn't remember when you got it."

"When I was looking for it yesterday, I found a few photo albums, and I decided to take a trip down Memory Lane. There was a picture of my tenth birthday, where I was wearing the necklace and my father was gone. I checked around, and it wasn't in any pictures before that, so I think I got it then." She looked up to Optimus. "In fact, I'm almost positive I got it that day."

Ratchet seemed to be concentrating hard before he spoke again. "Why would he give to you then? Surely he must have sensed something wrong with it!"

"Why is it so bad?"

"Are you seriously asking why dark Energon is bad? There are hundreds of reasons!"

"Then why do I feel better when it's around?"

Ratchet and Optimus both stopped at that comment. "You mean happier? It's probably because it was a gift."

"No, I mean better period. I feel more at ease, I feel stronger, calmer, more alert than when I'm without it." Laura sat down on the stairs to the Bridge Dock. "I guess I never realized how…empty I feel alone." Her gaze drifted downwards, her expression growing sad.

"Optimus, may I speak with you for a moment?"

The leader looked over to Ratchet, giving a curt nod and following the medic as they stepped out of the Bridge room into a nearby hallway. "What do you make of this?" Optimus asked the moment they were out of earshot. "I honestly don't know. From what I've gathered, Megatron still has problems controlling it."

"That may be true, but he inserted the dark Energon directly into his spark chamber. Laura has just been wearing it as a necklace, nothing internal."

"Well, apparently Laura's piece is much stronger than his, so why hasn't it affected her?"

Optimus thought hard for a moment, thinking of all the times his nemesis had grown violent out of the blue, his spontaneous thirsts for bloodshed.

"Her mood swings; the times when she gets angry at the smallest things."

"Hmm….I guess that would be a side effect, considering how violent Unicron is."

"And just who is Unicron?"

Both Autobots looked down to see Laura leaning against a wall, her hands in her pockets as she looked up at them. "This is about me. I have the right to know, don't I?"

Raf looked over towards the hall the three were talking in. He was sitting in front of the TV with his two friends, but he kept finding himself concerned about what they were talking about; dark Energon was dangerous business.

"Sounds serious, doesn't it?" Miko said aloud, looking away from the TV and seeing where her friend was staring off to. "Yeah…I hope something isn't wrong." Raf replied, adjusting his glasses. "Well, whatever it is, let's help her out. She's been a good friend to all of us." Jack interjected, earning a smile of approval from Arcee, who was vaguely listening from afar.

Quite a few heads turned as the three walked back into the room, Laura's expression blank and unmoving as she followed the two Autobots over towards a table Ratchet used to treat injuries and the like. "I'm sure I don't have any regular needles, so we'll have to find some other way to extract a sample." The medic said aloud as the brunette sat down on the low table, her feet hanging just above the floor. "Extract a sample of what?" Miko asked curiously as she turned away from the TV. "I'm getting my blood drawn. For science and stuff. Oh, and doc…" The oldest human looked back to Ratchet as she pulled her switchblade back out of her shoe, which was where she usually hid weapons besides in her pockets. "I wouldn't let you use a needle anyway."

Many of them gasped as she lightly ran the serrated blade over the crook of her elbow. "Well? Aren't you going to get the slide?" She said casually as she looked up at Ratchet, acting as if nothing had happened. The Autobot remained silent, somewhat disturbed and shocked, as he let a few droplets land on the microscope slide for examination. Her blood was red, which was always a good sign. But even so, it was still a dark red color, darker than what he thought was normal for human standards.

"Doesn't that hurt?" Raf asked quietly, looking down as Tenebrae gave a concerned whine as he caught the metallic scent in the air, getting off the couch and going up to his owner. "Not a bit. All the injections from way back when sort of… how should I put this…numbed the area? Yeah, that works. I can't feel a thing around the bend of my elbows. Don't ask me how though; I was never much of a scientist."

"It's still kinda messed up." Miko said honestly with a small frown as the young woman began wrapping her arm up with a bandage her dog had brought her. "Well Miko, I would rather do this than have a needle stuck in my arm. Besides, how else were we going to get a sample? " Laura briefly looked at the blood seeping through the bandages before shivering. "Doesn't help I have hemaphobia, though."

"What's that?"

"Fancy word for 'fear of blood."

"Oh." Jack stated aloud, realizing that a few certain events probably caused it. "I also hate airplanes. God, I haven't been on one of those in-"

"Well stop my beating spark."

Laura's gaze immediately drifted to Ratchet, who had accidently spoken aloud as he examined her blood through the microscope, several other machines analyzing it. "So what's the verdict, Ratch?" The adolescent asked, mentally crossing her fingers. "Well…I can't say it's good news." The medic glanced over at her, then to Optimus, giving the leader a sort of 'look'. The leader merely nodded before turning to the group. He had only just opened his mouth to speak when Arcee interrupted.

"No need to talk; I'd know that look anywhere." The femme turned back to her two comrades and the three children. "Come on guys. They need some privacy."

Miko gave an 'aw' in disappointment, but the six of them left without another word. "So what'd you find, Docbot?" Laura said once they were out of earshot. "Well…I don't know why, but the genetic makeup of your blood is strikingly similar to a dark Energon sample we got off of Arcee."

"In English please?"

"It means I don't know what's wrong with you."

Laura went silent for a moment, the gears of her mind cranking as she thought of what was wrong with her. "Ratchet, indulge me for a moment." The brunette hopped off of the table, beginning to pace. "What if, after being exposed to it for so long, I've grown immune? What if I not only am immune to most of its effects, but my body has found a way to draw energy from it? I mean, this is just a theory, but doesn't it make some sense?"

Ratchet looked at her skeptically while Optimus remained quiet, trying to come up with his own solution. "Laura, that's still just a theory. We need proof to confirm something that bold."

"But we have proof, don't we?" Laura twirled the switchblade in between her fingers as she spoke, a way of distracting herself from how serious and potentially dangerous the topic was. "My blood, my mood swings, my powers. Isn't that proof enough?" Ratchet shook his head in response. "Laura, we are talking about something infused with the very essence of someone with the same stature as a god. Do you realize how impossible it is that a power like that can simply be ignored and harnessed by a mere human?"

"Oh, so I'm just a mere human to you? Well you're just a machine! What makes you think-"

"Enough, the both of you."

The two of them turned to look at the one who had finally spoken; Optimus. "Oh, so you can interrupt me but not him? Didn't know you were one to play favorites." Laura snapped back, her arms crossing while her eyes narrowed. The leader simply ignored her comment as he looked over to the medic. "Ratchet, her opinion is every bit as important as your own, theory or not." The brunette smirked, which was stopped as Optimus looked over to her. "And Laura…" His optics narrowed a bit as he spoke her name. "We are more than 'just machines', as you already know and should respect."

Laura's anger gave way, guilt filling the void; she had obviously offended him. "I know…" She muttered under her breath with a sigh. "Sorry guys..."

Optimus gave an understanding nod before speaking again. "Laura, please continue with your idea." The brunette gave him a nod in response before taking a deep breath. "I don't know if this means anything, but it seems logical enough to me. " The adolescent began pacing again unconsciously. "Let's say, theoretically speaking, that my powers are a way of harnessing the dark Energon's power and expelling it through myself, much like a lightning rod can redistribute electricity. This would most likely explain why I can move things; I'd be sending waves of pure energy outwards. The things that can't withstand a high concentration of that energy projected through them, such as glass, would simply break from the overload, wouldn't it?" She turned back to them, her eyes seeking some form of approval.

"Actually, that does make some sense…" Ratchet admitted aloud, which really got Optimus thinking. "Go on, Laura. This might actually take us somewhere." The doctor coaxed, leaning slightly against the wall behind him. "Well, that was most of it, but… there is one thing that still bugs me." Tired of pacing, she sat down on the silo floor with her legs crossed. "If I was simply drawing energy from the same shard, why have I been able to use this power for years? Why hasn't the energy just, you know, ran out?" Her blue eyes closed as she tried to concentrate hard.

"I'm not much for guesswork, but I have a theory of my own." Laura looked over to Ratchet, patiently waiting to hear his own idea. In a sense, Optimus felt like a bit of a third wheel, not really knowing what to say about the whole situation. He had simply accepted the situation from the beginning, but now he found himself questioning why. He cut himself off from the negative thought as the medic began to speak again. "If the Energon has fused with you to such an extent that it affected your very genetic build, your own blood and attitude, there might be a chance that you now create your own energy, the shard merely starting up this process, much like how a generator is completely powerless without some electricity to start it."

Laura understood what he was getting at right away. "Oh, I get it! Listen Doc, I don't know how much you know about human anatomy, but let me educate you here for a moment. I think this will help."

She ran around Ratchet and up the steps of the Bridge Dock over to Raf's laptop that was still connected to the main terminal. The two Autobots looked up as a video popped up onto the screen, things that looked like clusters of green rods. "These are germ cells, something that causes humans to get sick. Often times when people get a cold or a fever, we take something called antibiotics to kill these germs and make our body healthy again." A brief video of chemicals from an antibiotic killing off the parasites shown on the screen before going blank again.

"Laura, as educational as this is, I fail to see the point." Ratchet cut in, impatience in his voice. "Hang on, I'm getting there! This will help explain a lot, I promise!" With a sigh, the medic got quiet again, leaving the brunette to finish her lesson.

"Anyways, sometimes germ cells survive the chemicals, becoming immune to the medicine. Afterwards, they separate and multiply until eventually your entire body is pumped full of cells that are unaffected by the medicine that was used against them." The screen went back to its normal state as she got off the laptop, leaning against the railing of the Bridge Dock and looking over at the two. "Do you get what I'm trying to say?"

"You're saying that you're body has become immune to dark Energon because of a process similar to this one?" Optimus asked the human, finally beginning to understand just how this could be possible. "Yes. Though I don't know why my body accepted this, at least we have a theory on how." Laura's gaze turned to the floor, the brunette obviously thinking hard. "But you know what? Instead of feeling better….I feel like some sort of monster."

Both Autobots said nothing in response; they didn't know what to say. "And there's another thing." Laura looked back up to the two of them, her expression serious. "What if my necklace flew off when I was with Knock Out? That means he has it now, and that means the Decepticons have it."

"Oh, that's just wonderful…" Ratchet muttered under his breath, bringing his hand to his face. "Hey, don't look so down, you two! The Dcepticreeps have nothing on us! You guys'll be fine!" Laura reassured with a smile, leaning over and giving the medic a pat on the shoulder.

"And what about you, Laura? You can't find them like we can." Optimus interjected, his face showing concern. The brunette merely smiled deviously at his comment.

"Trust me, Opt; I've got my ways."