Searchlight requested entry at my door early the next orn. Ravage was still recharging, but he came online as I got up to go open the door.

"Ready?" Searchlight asked.

I nodded. Ravage climbed up onto my shoulders.

We left the room and the door closed quietly behind us. The school was pretty empty. I usually liked it here on holidays because I could hole up in my room and have my processor to myself for a whole orn.

It was early enough that the crowds in the streets weren't bad either. Searchlight talked about his creators as we walked. They worked at a symbiot shelter and his mech creator did some computer programming on the side.

"…They'll probably have a few symbiots around the house. Keepsake always insists on bringing some of them home when there's a holiday and they don't have to go to work. I hope Ravage is ok with other symbiots."

"He-e'd better be," I said.

Ravage caught my warning tone and rolled his optics. I'll be fine. Don't worry. I won't kill any of them.

"Ok," Searchlight said.

We got to the mass transit station and I let Searchlight lead the way. Whenever I had gone anywhere with Crescent, we'd taken a private ship, or ridden in a really big jet transport. Never a ground transport of any kind, much less a non-sentient one that ran on tracks.

Unlike the still-peaceful streets, the station was very crowded, and the line at the ticket office was long, but Searchlight knew what he was doing so I just followed him.

"Ever been on a mass transit before?" Searchlight asked as we got to the back of the ticket line. I shook my helm. Well, guess there's a first time for everything...

The crowd was dense enough that I was already feeling a little overwhelmed. It didn't seem like the line was moving particularly slowly, but it was long.

Soundwave are you going to be all right with this many mecha around?

I shrugged. It would be fine for a while. If we had to stand here for a joor, I'd have problems.

Could try to cut in line… nah…

Fortunately, the line moved faster than I expected it to. Searchlight got two tickets for his home sector of Iacon, which was a large, sprawling suburb at the very edge of the city-state.

"I-I could pay fo-or that," I said. I didn't have very much money. Crescent rarely gave me any to spend. But I never used it for anything, so it had accumulated over the vorns. Definitely enough for a ground transport ticket.

He handed me the small, round disc that was my ticket. "Nah, it's fine." Thanks for offering, though.

We walked through the station to a reasonably empty platform. The benches by the wall were full, but Searchlight walked toward the tracks, and I followed him.

"Whenever my creators and I travel, they bug me about standing so close to the tracks. My femme creator especially," Searchlight said. "But I love it when the mass transit comes in and it's going past you so fast… I mean it's not that fast, but it's pretty fast. I like the way the atmosphere kind of pulls you toward the transit. Kind of weird, I know."

I heard weirder things on a regular basis. Most weird things didn't make it all the way to mecha's voice boxes, though.

We had twenty-five breems before the mass transit was going to come.

I wish he talked more, Searchlight thought.

"I-I would if i-it weren't so ha-a-ard."

Searchlight ducked a little. "Oops. I didn't really mean that." And you shouldn't answer my thoughts in a public place. Someone could notice.

If anyone nearby was paying attention to our conversation, I would probably know it.

"So, have you ever left Kalis?"

I nodded. "I-I've been to a lo-o-ot of places." Crescent liked to travel and when I had been too young to leave at home, she'd taken me. She hadn't wanted to leave me with anyone else because she'd been scared of what would happen if they found out about what I could do.

Now that I thought about it, I wasn't sure what she'd been so scared about. I had told Ratchet and Searchlight and they hadn't seemed too upset about it. Well, Ratchet had been a little frightened, but he'd gotten over it.

"I've just been to Kalis and Tagon Heights and different parts of Iacon." Searchlight said. "And I haven't even been to central Iacon, just the sectors near mine."

I nodded. I'd been all the way on the other side of Cybertron before, to Simfur and Tarn, and even to Vos once. Vos had been like a different world. It had been amazing, though, and I could almost understand why the seekers thought they were better than the rest of us.

"How far have you been?" Searchlight asked.

I didn't really feel like talking, but then again, I never felt like talking. I told him briefly in my broken voice about some of the cities I'd been to, about the different styles of buildings and frames and the parties Crescent had gone to. My voice box got really tired after a few breems, though, and I had to stop. We waited in relative silence after that, until the ground transport came in.

We could hear it before it came around the corner, and feel it too. It made a deep rumbling sound and the ground trembled beneath our pedes as it came into view. The wind as the front of it passed us was strong enough that Ravage dug his claws into my paint and flattened his armor, worried he'd get blown off of my shoulders.

Searchlight had his optics shuttered and his hands loose at his sides. He liked the feelin of almost being blown away. It made me think of the orn I'd met him when he'd attacked Motormaster to give me time to get away.

Completely crazy.

We boarded the mass transit. I might have tried to just walk on, but I could hear that the ticketing agent wanted to scan my ticket so I handed it to him.

Being able to read minds was useful sometimes.

The mass transit ride took a few joors. The tracks dipped and we went down several stories until a glimpse of the sky was only an occasional thing. There were tall pillars and broad passages underneath Cybertron's surface. It was mesmerizing to watch—the way all the light and shadow patterned the inner planet's workings. The occasional shaft of sun came down and reflected off of walls and spires to throw mazes of light back and forth across the caverns. For the first joor all I could do was stare out the window at the beauty of it.

Then I started to get nervous. Searchlight's creators seemed very nice from what I'd heard about them, but that would only make it worse if they thought I was creepy. What Crescent had said replayed in my processor again and again. The thing was, she was wrong that I couldn't have friends, but right that most mecha thought I was creepy. They didn't like me, even if they felt sorry for me. It wasn't just my screen, though. My stutter also bothered mecha, and my frame was kind of an unusual shape. Even those who weren't secretly afraid of me were curious. Why doesn't that youngling have a faceplate? Why is he so quiet? What's wrong with his voice box?

Crescent's friends were the worst. The femmes were openly frightened of me. The mechs put on indifferent masks and were disgusted on the inside. Crescent had sometimes pretended that she took me everywhere with her because she felt sorry for me and because she missed my femme creator, who she'd been close to. I had met quite a few of her friends—the rich, the powerful, even a few Iacon nobles. She'd wanted me to help her determine which of them were plotting to socially stab her in the back. She'd stopped, though, because she'd decided she couldn't trust me either.

Searchlight's creators wouldn't be like Crescent's friends. But if they thought I was some sort of freak, it would be even worse. I knew I shouldn't worry about it so much, but by the time the mass transit came to a stop, I felt sick. Ravage could tell there was something wrong, somewhere in the back of his processor, but he was too excited about being in a new place to care. We stepped off the transit and walked away in the crowd. Ravage was about to leap off of my shoulders, but I put a hand up and grabbed his front pede to stop him. As soon as I wasn't worried about him getting lost or hurt in the crowd, I'd let him stretch his legs.

We walked out of the transit station and onto crowded streets. I let Ravage jump down. He stretched and yawned, then walked beside me.

"So," Searchlight said. "That was actually the first time I'd gone on the mass transit without an adult."

I looked at him.

"And you… you said you'd never been on it before. What did you think?"

I shrugged. It had been kind of fun, actually, despite how long it had taken. I'd liked looking out the window and seeing the inside of the planet. Crescent wasn't one for staring out the window at the scenery.

"So your caretaker's got to be pretty rich, huh?"

I nodded.

"She could get your faceplate fixed, couldn't she? If she wanted to?"

I shrugged.

"I bet she could. I mean, I know you have to get a donor, because you can't make faceplates, but it's doable, just expensive."

"I-I'm not wo-orth that much to-o-o her."

Who approved her being your caretaker?

I shrugged.

I don't think I'd like this femme very much… "So, it's about a fifteen breem walk, uh…" Searchlight said. It's not the biggest house, or the nicest. In fact, it's pretty much a dump—or it would be if Keepsake didn't keep it so clean.

Now he was nervous about this too. Nervous that I would think his house was somehow not good enough.

"Se-earchlight," I said. He could live in an actual, literal scrapyard and have rat symbiots for creators and I wouldn't mind. He was the only friend I'd ever had besides Ravage.

He seemed to understand from my tone of voice—at least that I didn't care about his house.

The mass transit had been pretty crowded, but mulling over plans for the orn while staring at the scene out the window, like most of the mechs and femmes on the train had been doing, wasn't very loud, and my processor was still ok.

A little of my tension had ebbed away as we'd started walking, but now it snuck back in as we neared Searchlight's house. They would wonder about my screen at the very least. I had to be expecting that. They'd probably think it was strange. They'd probably think I was creepy, but everyone did once in a while except maybe Ravage because he was a symbiot and didn't care, and Searchlight, because I didn't think there was anything that frightened him.

We walked down a long flight of stairs, and stopped at a small, run-down apartment complex. "Here," Searchlight said, stopping in front of the second door in he row. We were down on the second level of the city, below a shopping center. Ravage followed us up to the door, then decided he needed to be on my shoulders. He backed up and leaped. The impact sent me stumbling into Searchlight.

"So-orry."

Searchlight shrugged. Ravage's fault, not yours.

"We-ell, he so-ometi-imes fo-orge-e-ets to apolo-ogize."

You ok?

I nodded. Just nervous.

"Who forgets to apologize?" Ravage asked.

Searchlight keyed the door open on a rusty-looking panel attached to the side. The door stuck a little as it slid open, and he shoved it open he rest of the way and walked in.

"Hey, I'm home," he called. This place feels so different after I've been at the school for so long...

I could hear his creators perk up.

'Hey, I'm home…' well, that's Searchlight all right. A femme came into view at the end of the hallway.

"Searchlight," she said with a smile. It's been so quiet and lonely around here…

Searchlight turned around and beckoned me in. "Keepsake, this is my friend Soundwave."

"Oh, good," Keepsake said, smiling at me. You mentioned him once or twice in your letters to us. She looked at my screen. I knew she'd noticed it. But she didn't think much about it, and studied Ravage instead.

That's a large symbiot… he looks built to fight. Let's see… bright optics, clean, very relaxed and tame-looking… Soundwave takes very good care of you.

Her sudden approval surprised me. She smiled. "Don't be shy, I promise I don't bite. Can't say so much for some of the symbiots I have here this orn, but if one of them bites you let me know and I'll make them sit on the porch. Come in."

Ravage leaped down off my shoulders before I could stop him, and padded over to her. I took half a step forward, but Keepsake smiled. "Oh, don't worry. He's fine." She knelt to be optic level with him. "Nice to meet you. I'm Keepsake."

"I'm Ravage."

She tilted her helm to the side. "Are you as fierce as your designation suggests?"

Ravage grinned. "I can be."

He also seems very intelligent. "Well, make yourself at home here," Keepsake said. "Both of you." She stood up and Ravage walked off to explore the house. He seemed very calm and comfortable, which was helping me relax a little.

I followed them into the front room. It was small, but cozy. There was a bench along the wall for a couch, and a holovid projector. On a table by the bench sat a small, sleepy-looking symbiot with floppy ears.

Searchlight's mech creator was sitting on the bench, fixing something one of the other symbiots—one I hadn't seen yet—had broken, and grumbling about it in his processor.

He looked up when we came into the room. And yes, he did bring a friend… Huh, interesting. I wonder what the visor's for.

"Cam," Searchlight said, "This is Soundwave."

Cam put down the device he was working on. "Nice to meet you." Hope he doesn't mind symbiots running all over. Where are those little terrors Keepsake brought home for the orn? It's too quiet… she should have left them in the shelter in their cage where there's nothing to break. "Sit down."

We all sat on the bench.

"So," Keepsake said. "How is school going?" Does he like it? Is it challenging enough? Obviously he made at least one friend. We haven't heard about him getting into any serious trouble, just mouthing off to a teacher and getting in detention, but that's not as bad as last term...

Searchlight started talking about school, classes, and the teachers and students he knew. He left out everything about Verdict and his friends, though.

Ravage came back from exploring the house. He considered jumping back up to my shoulders, but Keepsake beckoned him over, and to be polite he went and sat by her. He was being very well-behaved. I wondered how long that was going to last. Keepsake absentmindedly stroked the plating behind his audios and Ravage's engine purred happily.

When Searchlight was done talking, Keepsake turned to me. "Where did you get Ravage, Soundwave?"

Want me to say something? Searchlight wondered.

"Just a-at a sy-ymbiot shop," I said. "Though I think so-omeone had bro-ought hi-i-im in off the-e streets. They sho-ould have taken hi-i-im to a she-elter."

Good thing they didn't. Keepsake thought. I really think he's meant to be a fighting cat. He's just so big. They don't give the really dangerous ones a chance at shelters. Most of them are crazy anyway. "Maybe. How long have you had him?" He's very tame, though.

"I-I got hi-im when I was a vo-orn old."

"Oh." He must have been significantly larger than you back then. "Well, he's very well-mannered. I think he's built for fighting, though." Powerful claws… that armor looks like he could flare it up and be about twice as large. Tail spikes… I wonder if anymech put him in symbiot fights before Soundwave got him. Probably not. He's too tame for that.

"I am built for fighting," Ravage said. "And hunting."

Keepsake nodded. "I thought so."

"I don't much, anymore," Ravage said. He almost sounded wistful. "Soundwave will get in trouble if I attack anyone."

Keepsake raised an optic ridge. "That's very considerate of you to think of the consequences like that." A lot of self-control too, and very loyal. "So, why did Soundwave pick you, out of all the symbiots in that shelter." It says a lot about a mech, how he picks a symbiot.

Ravage shrugged. It was because of how scared I was. How scared the shopkeeper was of me. I remember that. They were going to kill me.

"I-I felt like I unde-erstood him," I said. "A-and he wa-as smart." I had been lonely. I'd needed a friend, not just a pet. And there had been something about him that reminded me of myself. No one had understood that he'd been just as afraid of them as they were of him.

Ravage decided he was done with the conversation and wandered off. He was bored, which was probably not a good sign, but I didn't want to call him back. I could hear the minds of several other symbiots in the house. Symbiots thought things more quietly so I wasn't sure where they were exactly. There were three, other than the sleepy-looking one on the table. One was terrified and hiding. It hadn't even seen us, but it didn't like new mecha. The other two were doing something in another room—playing some sort of game. I wasn't sure exactly what it involved, but they seemed to think Keepsake wouldn't approve, and were trying to be quiet about it.

Cam finished working with the broken device he'd been fixing. "So," he said. "Searchlight, what do you want to do for the rest of the orn?" We could go watch a parade, but frankly, I hate crowds…

"Well," Searchlight said. "You still owe me a rematch at Stealth."

"Ah, yes," Cam said.

"That board game can take joors," Keepsake said. "They probably want to go watch a parade." That's what normal mechs do on Memorial orn.

"I-I don't re-e-eally like crowds," I put in.

"Neither do I," Cam said. "Do you like Stealth?"

I shrugged. "I have-en't played before." I realized that I didn't feel self-conscious about my stutter. Maybe it was because Keepsake and Cam didn't care. They noticed it, but Keepsake considered it unimportant and Cam was honestly just curious about it.

"He'll learn quickly," Searchlight said. "Trust me."

There was a sudden spike of emotions in the room at the end of the hall, and a dull thump. We'd all just looked up when Ravage came in, carrying a struggling symbiot in his mouth.

"Put me down! I'll rip you to pieces you rusty piece of scrap!"

Oh, great. Ravage had found a miniature Ratchet to play with.

"Rumble, please watch your words."

"What!" the symbiot protested. "This thing is going to eat me and you tell me to…"

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Another symbiot came careening around the corner and jumped on Ravage. Ravage dropped the first one and batted the second one off of his back, while the first one got up and lunged at Ravage's pede. They were both mech-shaped but both definitely symbiots.

It quickly turned into a wild, playful struggle in the middle of the room, which all three of them were enjoying immensely. Eventually, Ravage managed to pin both of them to the ground at once.

He let them up graciously, and they thanked him by jumping on him again. The game didn't end until one of them kicked Ravage in the optic, and he growled and flared his armor.

The two smaller symbiots backed away. Ravage relaxed again.

"Soundwave," Keepsake said. "This is Rumble and Frenzy. You two, this is Soundwave. He's here with us for Memorial Orn. So is Ravage, there."

"Ravage, huh?" Rumble said, looking back at my symbiot. Ravage nodded.

"Should have been called fat-aft rusty-tail."

I wondered if Ravage would be offended, but he just sat back. "You're just jealous I'm bigger than you."

"Why don't you have a face?" Frenzy asked me.

"Ha!" Rumble said. "That the best comeback, you got?"

"No," Ravage said. But I'm not going to make Soundwave look bad by being rude.

"Rumble, mind your words or you'll go sit on the porch. Frenzy, it's not nice to ask personal questions like that," Keepsake said. Then she turned to me. "I'm so sorry, Soundwave. They're not normally…"

"Yes they are," Cam said. "They just came in off the streets a decaorn ago, and they're ill-mannered little monsters."

"Oh, yeah?" Rumble said. "Well you're an old rust-bucket."

"Rumble, this is your last warning," Keepsake said.

"What happened to your face?" Frenzy asked again.

"There wa-a-as an a-accident," I told him. "When I wa-as as sparkling."

"Why?" The word was out of his mouth before I had even finished talking. And I wasn't sure exactly what he meant by the question either.

"Uh…"

"Frenzy," Keepsake said, "Drop it."

"Why?"

"Can you two behave for one orn?" Cam said.

"Don't see the point."

"Why?"

"Shut up!" Rumble rounded on Frenzy.

"Why?"

"Because you're fragging annoying."

"You shut up."

"You shut up!"

Frenzy leaped at Rumble and knocked him to the ground. "Why!"

Rumble growled and they rolled on the ground, fighting, until Keepsake got up and pulled them apart.

"He bit me!" Frenzy complained.

"You jumped on him," Cam said flatly.

Searchlight grinned. I kind of like them.

"I think you two need to calm down," Keepsake said. "Rumble, since you bit your brother, and were being rude, I'd like you to go sit on the front porch. Frenzy, stay here and apologize to Soundwave for being insensitive."

Rumble came up with a suitably nasty comeback for that, but he didn't say it out loud and when Keepsake set him down he obediently stomped away, muttering under his breath.

Frenzy watched him go, feeling suddenly lost. He took a step after Rumble, but Keepsake stopped hm. "Frenzy, remember what I asked you to do?"

"No. What?"

"Apologize to Soundwave."

He looked at me. What did I do? "But I didn't do anything to him."

You may have hurt his feelings. Now this is awkward, I don't want to try to explain to you about hurting mecha's feelings right now.

"He-e's fine," I said.

"See, he's fine," Frenzy said. "I mean, he said I'm fine… that don't make sense."

"Doesn't."

"Why?"

"Why what, Frenzy?"

Frenzy cocked his helm to the side. "I don't know… I mean, I doesn't know."

"That one's don't," Cam remarked.

"Oh," Frenzy said. I'm confused. I wish Rumble'd come back. "How long does Rumble have to be on the porch?"

"Twenty breems," Keepsake said.

"Aw," Frenzy whined. "That's not fair." Twenty breems? That's a long time.

"It is fair. He needs to learn he has to be polite," Keepsake said.

Frenzy sighed. "But that's a long time."

Keepsake smiled, softening a little. "Don't worry. If you're very well-behaved for the next ten breems I'll let you go out there and keep him company."

Cam turned a way to hide a smirk. Somehow, I don't think hat will help Rumble calm down...

"Ok," Frenzy perked up. "What do you want me to do? I could tidy the room…"

"No, that's all right. Just stand their quietly or go over and make friends with Ravage."

"All right," Frenzy said, then he shuttered his optics, and stood perfectly still. Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet.

"What are you doing?" Keepsake asked. Silly, silly Frenzy…

Frenzy cracked an optic open and shot Keepsake a suspicious look. Don't think you can trick me like that. I'm not saying anything.

Cam sighed. "Well, at least it shut him up."

"Cam!" Keepsake said. "That was unkind."

Frenzy let out a little huffy vent. "Maybe you should make him go sit on the porch."

"Maybe I should," Keepsake said.

"I owe you that board game," Cam said suddenly. "Come on, Searchlight, Soundwave." He stood, and led the way out of the room.

"Oh no," Frenzy said. "I talked. Can I try again, Keepsake?"

Keepsake smiled. "I didn't say you weren't allowed to talk. You can talk, so long as you do it nicely."

"Oh," Frenzy said, then tried to figure out what constituted nicely.

I followed Cam and Searchlight out of the room. "All right," Cam said, leading the way to the kitchen. "Searchlight, clear off the table and I'll go get the game."

The table was mostly clear already with one empty cube of energon sitting on it and an intricately wrought centerpiece that looked like it was partially made of living crystal.

Searchlight moved it to the counter and sat at the table. Cam came back with a thick cylinder, which he set down on the flat surface. It shifted, unfolding and transforming into a miniature landscape covered with colored markers.

"Oh," Cam said, "Looks like we had a game in progress." Looks like I was winning too.

"We can start over," Searchlight said.

"You only say that because you were losing horribly."

"Well, Soundwave wants to play too."

"I-I could re-ead the rules whi-ile you fini-ished."

"There's an idea," Cam said. He tapped the side of the board and a little datapad slipped out of the center. Cam handed it to me. "The rules are on there. We might need to consult them once or twice, though.

I nodded and started reading. The object of the game was to get all of your pieces to a pre-determined location. In theory, it was a pretty straightforward strategy game. But I could see how it could get very complicated, especially if you had enough players. A rule came into question when Searchlight made a move Cam thought was illegal. The board let you disobey the rules, though it would answer questions about them. It only did that, though, if the gameplay files were in the board, which they weren't. I was reading them.

I skimmed through and found the rule in question.

By the time the game was done, I knew everything well enough that I thought I could play. They reset the board. Ravage came into the kitchen and leaped up onto my shoulders to watch, feeling a little bored.

We'll have to go easy on him since it's his first time, Cam thought.

Soundwave, you're going to devastate him. We should work together. I haven't won this game since… well, actually I don't think I've ever beat Cam when he wasn't letting me.

We started the game. Neither of them really had a chance. I could hear their strategies—the reasons behind every turn. It helped teach me the rules and gameplay, and before the game was a fourth of the way through, I'd developed a strategy of my own. I pretended I was helping Searchlight block Cam, while all the time sneaking my pieces closer to their goal.

Cam figured it out after a while, and decided going easy on me had been the wrong course of action.

"I see what you're doing there."

I shrugged.

"What?" Searchlight asked, looking down at the board. "Who's doing what?"

"Don't trust him, Searchlight, he's going to turn on you."

"'Course he is…" Searchlight said, still trying to figure out what it was I was doing.

It was my turn. I moved a piece forward into formation with the others, making it clear what my intentions were.

After that the game changed, and the two of them teamed up and tried to block me. I had an advantage in that I knew what they were going to do before they did it, but even so with both of them working together it was difficult for me to stay ahead.

In the end, I did win.

"Good job," Cam said, looking down at the board. "You sure you haven't played this before?" I haven't been beaten in a long time.

I nodded.

"I told you he'd be great," Searchlight said It's not fair, really.

Frenzy came running into the room. At some point during the game, Ravage had left and gone to talk to Keepsake. Now, he and the other symbiots were playing hide and seek. At least, he and Rumble and Frenzy were. The other two—the floppy-eared one and the shy one—had opted not to participate.

Frenzy climbed up onto the counter and hid behind a tall, decorative-looking jar.

"Frenzy," Cam said. What is he doing?

"Shhhh!" Frenzy hissed.

"But…"

"Hush!"

Ravage padded quietly into the room, alert and hunting. He seemed to think Rumble was in here somewhere. He walked by Frenzy's hiding place.

"Sneak attack!" Frenzy shouted, jumping off the counter to land on Ravage.

Ravage hissed and batted him away, then pounced on him, pinning him to the ground. "The point of the game," he growled, "Is to hide. And I'll come find you."

Frenzy snickered.

"You just lost," Ravage informed him. Now I have to go find Rumble. He turned and walked away.

Frenzy got up and followed him out of the room.

"What was that?" Cam said.

"Hide and se-eek," I said. "I think."

Searchlight and Cam glanced at each other, then burst out laughing.

Keepsake came in. "Is your game done? What's so funny?"

"That…" Cam gasped. "That symbiot…"

"Which one?"

"Frenzy."

Searchlight was still too helpless with laughter to say anything.

Keepsake rolled her optics and sat at the table. "What did he do?"

They explained what had happened, and Keepsake smiled and shook her helm, and then Cam insisted on a rematch, which he was determined to win. Searchlight opted out of the game, but stayed to watch. Keepsake left and came back with the timid symbiot. She was also cat-shaped, but very small, and she was terrified of everything in general.

"Poor thing," Keepsake said. "She's been sick, so I brought her here to recover, but Rumble and Frenzy terrified her last off-cycle, and I think she's still feeling a little traumatized."

That really didn't surprise me.

Cam and I played again. It was a long, hard battle that ended in a draw. Part of why it took so long was that there was a lot of talking in between turns. Even I put in a few words here and there. By the end of the game, my stutter was starting to get pretty bad, but I didn't care.

We had to leave early in the evening to catch the train so we could get back to school before lights out. Ravage was sad to leave Rumble and Frenzy. Despite finding them kind of annoying, he enjoyed playing with them. He also enjoyed feeling like he was the smartest in the group.

The walk to the transit station and the ride were hard on my processor because of the crowds. Searchlight noticed that and tried to get us back to the school quickly.

Once there, things were quieter. Most of the students and teachers were out in the city, waiting for the traditional fireworks to start.

"You ok?" Searchlight asked as we walked through the empty hallways. "You've got a processor ache, don't you?"

I shrugged. "I-It's no-ot that bad."

"For real, or are you just saying that."

I shrugged. It could definitely be worse.

"That was fun," Ravage said. "I like your creators, Searchlight."

"Thanks," Searchlight said. "I like them too."

"I hope we go back there sometime," Ravage said.

We got to Searchlight's room. Strangely, the door was open, but the lights were off. And it was empty. Where was Ratchet?

Searchlight frowned as he walked in and turned on the lights, then froze. Ratchet's chair was on its side, and there was a datapad with a cracked screen lying on the floor next to it. What the...?

"Where's Ratchet?" Ravage asked.

My spark sank.

"Scrap," Searchlight said. The bullies.

Notes:

1. If you want to know more about when Soundwave got Ravage, go read chapter 2 of Spare Parts :)

2. In my headcanon, there are certain systems Cybertronians have that you can't really repair. Faceplates are one of them. Not only is the mechanism they use for expressions very complex, but the metal itself is irreplaceable. If you've seen TFP, you know there's no way their faces are made of normal metal. In order to move the way they do, the metal has to be a particular alloy that is nearly impossible to make or find (except on dead people, but that's just wrong) and if you did manage to get some, it wouldn't do you any good because if it's not connected to a living Cybertronian it stiffens after a short period of time and won't re-connect. When you're sparked, the protoform that becomes your frame makes a faceplate for you, and you have to keep that faceplate your whole life. If it gets damaged, your self-repair systems will do their best to fix it, but if they can't then there's not much else you can do. Unless, of course, you can find another living Cybertronian who is willing to sell you their faceplate. It's not that common, but there's always people who are really desperate for money.