Chapter Ten

Shadow followed Sunstorm to wherever it was they were going. She was carrying the recharging Downpour while Sunstorm kept the lead. Downpour really was adorable. She knew now wasn't a good time for a sparkling, but that was just the way it was. It broke her spark to remember that Downpour may never see his creators. If the Autobots had offlined her creators, what was to stop them from doing the same to Dawn and Acid Storm?

No, she couldn't think like that. Her brothers were still online, after all. Well, that was what Forward had told her. Then again, the Autobots had caught Dawn and Acid Storm working with Sunstorm, who was a Decepticon. They were more guilty than Cloud and Glyde were. They may even have it worse than her creators.

Downpour stirred in his recharge. Shadow smiled, and just this once, retracted her battle mask. She adored the sparkling, and she wanted the others to know it. She hoped his life would be better than hers, but it hadn't started out that good.

"We're almost there," Sunstorm warned her. She nodded, even though he couldn't see her. She held Downpour closer, protectively. She vowed right there to help make his life as easy and as normal as she could. She knew that wouldn't be easy to do. Sunstorm had told her that they were going to return to the other Seekers. It wouldn't be returning to her, but to Sunstorm it would.

"Does anyone know how to take care of a sparkling?" Shadow asked him. It had been bothering her ever since Dawn was captured. Actually, it had been bothering her ever since she woke up from stasis and found out that Dawn was gone.

"Of course someone does," Sunstorm promised her. "The others are smart enough to know that. Even I picked up some stuff from your creators."

She looked up from the sparkling to stare at the back of Sunstorm's helm. "You knew my creators personally?" She knew that he would know them, but how close they were was still a mystery to her.

"Why yes, I did in fact know them. I visited them often to see how they were doing, but I needn't worry. They were wonderful when it came to raising you and your brothers."

"I never saw you when you visited." She was sure she would have remembered seeing another Seeker when she only lived around ground-bots.

"I made sure to keep my existence from you and your brothers a secret. You were supposed to live a normal life up until a certain point, but the clever Autobots picked up on our plan early on and stopped part of it. I can't say they knew all of our plan, but they did figure out about Jetstream and Streaker easily."

She already liked Sunstorm, and even had a small bit of admiration for him. At first she had found him and the others to be a little annoying, but now she liked to be around them. They were the only family she had until her brothers were rescued or let out, but it was more likely the former would happen.

"Do you think Downpour will remember who his true creators are?" Shadow asked after a moment of silence passed between them.

"It is very unfortunate that Downpour never even got to meet Acid Storm. As for if he remembers his other creator, your guess is as good as mine, maybe even better as you are clever little Seeker."

Being called a Seeker made Shadow feel weird. She didn't know why, but she felt like the term seeker didn't apply to her as well as it did to the others. Maybe it was because she looked different. She was starting to hate her look. She told herself that when she became a full grown Seeker, she would revert back to the original model for a Seeker. She knew that she only looked different because her creators had wanted to try and protect her from the Autobots, but she was tired of hiding now. She wanted the Autobots to know full well that she was as much a Seeker as the others. The only thing she wanted to keep the same was her helm. She liked the way it covered her left optic.

"We're almost there," Sunstorm informed her after a couple more breems of walking. It would have been faster to fly there, but with the sparkling being, well, a sparkling, they couldn't do that. It would also be easier for anyone looking for them to spot them in the sky.

"Good, I'm getting tired," Shadow admitted. It was true, she was in need of a recharge. She wanted to wait until she was sure Downpour would be alright before she fell into one though.

She thought about how her life was going to be different after this orbital cycle. She was going to leave Cybertron for the first time. She wasn't sure how long it would take for her to get to wherever it was they were going, but this could very well be the climax of her life. She knew the point of their journey, but she didn't know how far away the destination was.

Another thought scared her. What if it turned out to be a long journey that leaves them in need of energon? Downpour might not survive if he doesn't get enough energon and other needs. No, there wasn't any might about it. He won't survive without the accepted amount of energon for a sparkling. And call her crazy, but Shadow was sure there was a special kind of energon just for sparklings that they would need.

Shadow took note of her surroundings. They were maneuvering through one of the abandoned underground tunnels. The ship, which she had realized they were headed to, must be well hidden. Apparently, no Autobots had discovered it yet. That was a good thing if it was their only way off of the planet.

Eventually, the entered an old hangar, one that was probably used long ago but for some reason had failed to be remembered. A small ship lay in it. It looked old, unused, broken. Well, that was probably what happened when you leave a ship alone underground for stellar cycles on end. Maybe not Stellar cycles, but at least one. She wasn't sure exactly how long Dawn and Acid Storm had been here, but Sunstorm hadn't left once they were here. The ship had stayed there for a long time, but the exact time wasn't known to her.

Sunstorm opened the door and they entered the forgotten cargo ship. It was dark inside until Sunstorm proceeded to turn the lights on. They flickered for a moment, having been off for a long time. The orange Seeker showed her the equivalent of a personal room on a cargo ship for her and the sparkling to share. It wasn't a big ship, and she was happy to be with Downpour. It unnerved her to think of him alone in his own room.

That's when she remembered her earlier thoughts on the sparkling. "Sunstorm?" She called out to the retreating Seeker, who was headed for the control room to make sure the ship was ready for take off.

"Is there something you need?" He turned back to her, flashing his denta.

"Two things," she had just thought of another question. "First, how are we going to get out of here with a roof, and also not be spotted by the Autobots?" She waited for an answer before moving on to the other question.

"Brilliant observation, Shadow. The ground above us is fake and will move out of the way when it is time. Acid Storm, a genius with technology, installed a cloaking device that will cloak our signatures as well. No one will spot us."

"Good. Second, what about energon?" She was pleased with the first answer, and hoped to get a good answer for the second one as well.

"This time it was the Autobots who were clever enough to devise such a marvellous plan on how to tackle that one. All cargo ships have a built in solar energy converter and many cubes just waiting to be filled. When flying near a star, the converter will take enough energy to fill the cubes at whatever setting you choose, but it doesn't take enough to damage the star in any way."

"So, the sparkling?"

"Once again, your clever processor has thought of everything. He will get just the right kind of energon. You needn't worry about anything. Soon enough, we will be with the other Seekers and continue with our plan. The sooner we get there, the sooner your brothers, Dawn, and Acid Storm will be freed." She liked the sound of that.

Having nothing else to ask, she entered her makeshift room. There was one berth that she'd share with Downpour, but that was alright with her. They were both small enough to fit on it comfortably.

She continued to cradle Downpour in her arms, sitting down on the berth. There was nothing else in the room. This was most likely just a place for the bots running the ship to recharge, unless they actually had passengers with them. Really, it didn't matter what the room had previously been used for, as it was now functioning as Downpour's and Shadow's shared room.

The trip was shorter than expected. Sure, it did take many orbital cycles to get there, but once they found a working space bridge, they entered the coordinates and were off to the crashed site of the Nemesis. Apparently the Autobots that worked the space bridge were all drinking high grade at the time and didn't check to see who was on board the cargo ship. Instead, they just figured it was the usual Autobots piloting it, and let them through once they were given the destination. After going through the space bridge, the cloaking remained off. There wasn't much point to it; not many Autobots travelled near this area. Before she knew it, Shadow found herself and her two comrades landing on a small moon orbiting a large planet. The planet seemed to be larger than Cybertron, but it wasn't important to her, so she ignored it most of the time.

"Allow me to introduce you to everyone," Sunstorm suggested as they walked off, Shadow carrying the rather excited Downpour. He was chirping happily for some reason, though no one could figure out why. They whole trip he had been depressed about being so far from his creators. Shadow mused that there was probably some way he could sense who his creators were, if he had barely even seen Dawn.

The Nemesis was much larger than the cargo ship, but still a complete wreck. Before they entered through a whole in the ship, however, a purple and black seeker appeared out of nowhere in front of them.

"What was that?" Shadow asked, completely unaware that she might hurt the Seekers feelings by her rude tone.

The Seeker looked down. "I didn't mean to startle you. I'm Skywarp." He had the same voice as Sunstorm, leading Shadow to believe he was also a clone of Starscream. Though, he did sound a little bit different.

"What a pleasure it is to see you again, Skywarp," Sunstorm greeted. Another Seeker walked out, this one all different shades of blue. "And you as well, Thundercracker."

Thundercracker looked at Shadow with a disgusted frown. "I have to team myself up with not only you, but a mere youngling and sparkling? I deserve much better than this."

So far Shadow didn't like Thundercracker. "Hey, I've done a lot to get here!" Actually, she hadn't done much, but she didn't let him know that. All she had really done was avoid Autobots for who knows how long and help with the small battle at the house they had just left.

Skywarp disappeared again, leaving behind a short cracking sound. Only a moment later, he returned the same way Thundercracker had, with him a bunch of other Seekers.

The only femme walked forward, and Shadow recognized her as Slipstream. "You're much smaller in person," she commented.

Shadow frowned under her battle mask. None of the others so far seemed as nice as Sunstorm, Dawn, and Acid Storm had been.

"Still. Welcome to the team, Shadow. And this would be my clones sparkling." She eyed the tiny blue Seeker.

"Downpour," Shadow stated. So this was the one who cloned herself to create Jetstream and Dawn. She did remind her of Dawn somewhat, but nothing like Jetstream.

"He's such an ugly little thing," Ramjet said with disgust.

Shadow, not realizing the effects of cloning, shot him a glare that he couldn't see. "Why you! How could you say that?"

"Calm down, he was lying," Slipstream informed her. "Has Sunstorm not told you about what cloning does to the clones?" A shake of her cranial unit and Slipstream sighed. "Each clone represents one aspect of the original. Skywarp, that one, is a coward. Thundercracker, him, is an egomaniac, Ramjet, the one who just lied to you, is a liar, and Sunstorm is a suck-up. Oh yes, and Dirge, the other blue one, is greedy. We are Starscream's clones."

"I am not Starscream's clone," Ramjet concurred.

"What about the others?" Shadow asked, eyeing the remaining two Seekers.

"Thrust, the red one, I haven't quite figured out yet. He's Ramjet's clone, and I'm guessing he's an agressive side to Ramjet. Jet, the last one, is Dirge's clone, and represents Dirge's need to have everything perfect. In other words, nothing's good enough in his optics."

"What about you?"

She smirked. "That's better left unsaid."

Shadow wasn't satisfied, but she didn't press the matter any further. She instead thought about the personalities that had been introduced to her. So far, she didn't think she would like Thundercracker, Dirge, or Jet. Maybe not Ramjet either. She briefly wondered how hard it would be to lie about everything you say, but maybe it just came naturally to him.

"Who's clone was Streaker?" She asked.

"Mine," Skywarp answered her. Shadow mulled that over. If Skywarp was a coward and clones acted somewhat like their original, than that would explain why Streaker was startled easily. Well, Shadow was glad it was Skywarp's clone and not the others', because so far she like him more.

"Who was the third clone the Autobots mentioned being here at the beginning?" Shadow already knew that one was Slipstream and one was Skywarp.

"Thundercracker," Slipstream answered. Shadow looked again at him, then remembered when Sunstorm told her the story about Starscream's clones and how they all came to be. She remembered now that he had mentioned Slipstream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker being the three that rescued Ramjet and Sunstorm from the stockade.

"Why didn't you free Megatron?" Shadow asked, continuing her interrogation.

"Why would we need him?" Thundercracker asked. "He's useless as long as I'm on the team."

Slipstream appeared to have ignored him when she answered. "I honestly don't care much for Megatron. Besides, he was already offline by the time we got there." Shadow also then remembered when Sunstorm had told her that.

"What about the other Decepticons? What happened to them?"

"I think Lugnut went on a rage after he found out that Megatron had been offlined and somehow broke out of the stockade, where the Autobots were forced to either offline him or put his personality component in the detention center. I'm not sure which happened. As for Blitzwing and Shockwave, I have no idea. Many Autobots were demanding Shockwave be offlined for what he did to the Autobots, but I haven't the faintest idea if that ever happened."

Shadow turned to look at the planet they orbited. "What's that?"

"Earth, a planet filled with organics. It's a dreadful planet, one that I wish to never return to. I already torture myself with its image every time I look at the thing." She gave it a disgusted look, then returned to Shadow, this time looking at the cheerful sparkling she was cradling. "May I see him?"

Shadow complied, handing over Downpour to Slipstream. She was sure she could trust the Seeker to treat it well. After all, it was her clone's sparkling.

Slipstream held him in her servos looking down at him with a blank expression. He leaned into her the same way he did to Sunstorm. Shadow guessed that maybe it was because he sensed a part of his creators in their sparks. He had never acted that way to Shadow. She guessed that because of this, the two of them would be the primary caretakers of Downpour, that is if they had the spark for it. Sunstorm seemed happy enough to take care of him, but she barely knew Slipstream.

"Let me explain the rules around here," Slipstream began, looking down at Shadow, still cradling Downpour. "Each Seeker shares a room with another. It we had the full Nemesis, then this wouldn't be a problem. However, given the circumstances, it's all we can do. There is only one berth in the each room, so you can take turns recharging however you choose. You and I can share one. Sunstorm, we have only one more free room. You can take that one with Downpour.

"Second, try your best not to fight with the others, though that gets very hard at times." Her optics moved to stare at Thundercracker and Dirge, but she didn't say anything to them or about them. "You will also get a ration of energon every orbital cycle, but now that we have our cargo ship back we can use it to make energon instead of stealing it. This is a privilege we haven't had in a long time."

"This doesn't seem like a very good place to raise a sparkling," Shadow commented. She expected someone to get mad at her, but they all stayed quiet.

Except for Ramjet. "It's the perfect place to raise a sparkling."

He went ignored. "No, it isn't a good place. That was the whole point in having him live on Cybertron with a family, but that didn't work out as planned."

Shadow understood, and after a few more exchanges, she was led inside and given a small tour by Sunstorm. She tried to talk to the others, trying to figure them out. Yes, it was easy for her to figure them out. Skywarp didn't trust her, hiding whenever he saw her and seemed determined to keep doing that until he knew her more. Thundercracker didn't care to even acknowledge her, and Jet just complained about her taking up necessary space. Ramjet, who she wasn't as used to as the others were, needed a decoder in her opinion. After everything he said, she had to play it back to herself and figure out the true meaning behind his words. She figured she'd get better at it, but it would definitely take time. Dirge acted like a combination of Thundercracker and Jet, which didn't make matters any better for her. It was apparent that Slipstream had decided to take charge, and rule number two wasn't even attempted to be followed. Someone was always at odds with another, whether it was verbally, silently, or physically.

In the end, Shadow had wandered back outside of the destroyed remains and onto the moon. She stared at the planet before her for a long time, thinking forward to the future. She hoped to see and talk to her brothers again in a positive way, but she didn't think that being in a different galaxy than them helped much. It was depressing as she thought of her past, how wonderful and horrible it was at the same time. She had ignored the Autobots that looked down on her family, on her kind. That made life easier, but the Autobots were still there. They fuelled her hatred towards them, the words they said. When Sentinel Prime and a few other Autobots showed up and demanded the twins for experiments, Shadow didn't know what to think. She immediately hated the big-chinned Autobot, but still believed that it was indeed for experiments that they were being taken away. She really had believed that she would see them within the stellar cycle.

What a fool she had been.

And then her creators were taken as well. She had already come to the conclusion that her brothers were offlined, and depression claimed her when she realized that they would be as well. The only reason she hadn't been taken as well was because her sire had hidden her very well within the home they lived in. The hiding place was similar to the one that Dawn had put her in, but at the time she hadn't known why she was hiding. After a few megacycles of staying put, she grew afraid and exited the hiding place herself, finding no one around she knew. No one at all. She was completely alone, but she didn't like the self-pity she was giving herself. She eventually grew out of it, strengthened by her need for revenge.

And revenge she was going to get.

Ten! Whew, and my new longest. Just a fact in case anyone's curious, in an episode of G1, Cybertron was brought into Earth's orbit by the Decepticons and it was smaller than Earth, much smaller. So that's where I got that scale from. Also, this story has three parts, although the third part is only going to be one or two chapters. This chapter ends the first part, which I titled The Reason. The next part starts with eleven and is called The Reaction. I'm not saying what the third is, not until I get there. The chapters will still be posted on this story.

Prowls-little-angel: I feel stupid for asking, but what does PO stand for? I don't know for sure what Slipstream is, and everywhere I look there isn't an answer. The ones I put last chapter I found a bunch of different places, and I came up with one or two. I agreed with some of them. Yeah, I thought the may and might thing was interesting when I read the article about it. Can't wait to see, it'll be fun to watch.

Thanks for reads and reviews! Part two will have a lot more characters, but most of them are G1 characters that I decided to bring in. Next chapter will take place after a large time span, so they'll be older.