Hello! Back again with a new chapter. It's something of a filler, but there are other things involved, too. Just a little thing between major events that'll play something important in later stories.

Chapter 10

"Wildfire, it is time," Alpha Trion stated, opening the door and peering in. He found the warrior femme still reading the datapad he had given her, a look of interest and concentration on her face.

Wildfire looked at the datapad for a moment longer before shutting off the screen and looking up at Alpha Trion. "Arial's here to take me back?"

"Not quite." Seeing the femme frown in confusion, the Head Archivist explained, "Orion and Jazz sent her to pick up another friend. They are waiting for you in my office."

Wildfire frowned, blinking as she tried to think of a reason why the pair of mechs would be waiting for her. After a moment of coming up with nothing, she let out a sigh and got off the berth. "All right." She stated to hand the datapad back to the old mech, but he held up a servo and stopped her.

"Keep it," he stated. "Consider it a gift for providing me with some insight into what sort of bots still wander onto the planet's surface from time to time."

Wildfire gave him a cautious look, then nodded slightly and slipped the datapad into her subspace. "Thanks. I'm actually surprised I had my optics glued to it for so long."

Alpha Trion smiled slightly. "It is good to see a member of the younger generation interested in our history, even if most of it is so far back it's almost mythical." He turned and slipped out through the doorway before Wildfire could say anything more.

Wildfire raised an optic ridge, looking after the Head Archivist with a curious expression before shaking her helm. A moment later, she walked over to the door and slipped out, taking note with surprise that Jazz and Orion were standing side by side in the Archivist's office. The former had a large grin on his face, while the latter was much more calm and collected, but a smaller smile still was on his face.

"Hey, Wildfire," Jazz greeted, grinning.

Wildfire instantly noticed that there was something off with his voice - some sort of accent that was definitely not in other Cybertronians' voices.

"Did someone do something to your vocoder?" the warrior femme asked, frowning. "It sounded funny in the Oil House, as well."

"Bots' have been askin' me dat for a while, now," Jazz responded, smirking. "And na, dere's nothin' wrong wit' it."

"When Jazz initially brought you here, one of my fellow data clerks had come across a transmission of sorts from another world," Orion explained. "The planet seems to be home to organics, but we are unfortunately unable to locate it on the historical star maps we have here in the Hall of Records. The transmission appeared to be some sort of music clip."

"And man, do those organics know how to rock!" Jazz declared, grinning hugely. "If we ever get the Space Bridges runnin' again, I'm gonna try and find dat place!"

"I do not believe you will be able to do so at this point in time," Alpha Trion noted. "There are many things that are to be done before we might reach out for the stars again."

"The castes being a big issue," Wildfire voiced, a hard look coming over her face.

"Well, we have two Mega-Cycles before we can bring that forward to the High Council," Orion Pax stated. "Perhaps, when this is over, the scientists of Crystal City will be able to go and repair the Space Bridges. Until then, Jazz and I have something planned for a few of us to do."

Wildfire frowned slightly. "Oh? And what might that be?"

"It's a surprise," Jazz responded, smirking. "You'll only get ta know what it is when we tell ya." He started to jump around a little, looking ready to move. "Can we get goin', OP? We kinda don't have much time, remember?"

"I am aware of that, Jazz," Orion Pax replied calmly. He started for the door, a jumpy Jazz and a curious Wildfire followed close behind.

"What's got you all worked up?" Wildfire asked Jazz, giving the cultural investigator a curious look as they walked passed the desks in the Hall of Records. "You look like you had just discovered a secret cache of Energon or something."

Jazz shot Wildfire a large grin. "Oh, this is just about as good as dat, but dat isn't it." He started to pick up his pace, getting into step with the librarian. "OP, if we don't move it, we'll miss it!"

"I am aware of that," Orion responded, shooting Jazz a slightly annoyed expression. "As you are most likely aware that it will take time to get to the spot we had marked."

"It'll take less time if we move faster!"

"The crowds are going to restrict our movement, you know that."

The cultural investigator frowned and shot Orion a look, which after a moment broke into a wide grin. "You know that we could-"

"No." Orion gave Jazz a deadpan expression. "We are not going to take another one of your shortcuts."

"Come on! Dat las' one wasn' so bad!"

" 'Last time' could have gotten the both of us in trouble - and we arrived at our destination late." Orion turned to face ahead of the group, continuing to lead them through the crowd. "You are going to be following me this time."

Jazz's shoulders sagged as they left the building. "You're no fun."

Wildfire looked at the spectacle between the two mechs and couldn't help but let out a short laugh. Upon realizing that she had done so, the warrior femme clapped her servos over her mouth, optics wide, while Orion and Jazz looked back at her in surprise.

"Well, wouldja look at dat," Jazz stated, a grin coming across his face again. "We got da little femme ta laugh!"

"And she appears to be uncomfortable with the notion," Orion noted in response. "Perhaps we should keep moving. Our destination is not far from here."

"If ya say so," Jazz muttered, a grumpy look reappearing on his face.
Wildfire allotted herself a smirk and did her best to keep her humor there and not allow it to escalate to laughter again.

Time Break

Wildfire, Jazz, and Orion arrived at the intended destination outside of the city, not too far from where the Observatory was located. Taking great care in avoiding that specific hill (most likely in case there was a gladiator match going on there), Orion led the other two to a nearby hill that wasn't quite as tall, but still allowed for a good view of the starways above the planet.

"What are we doing out here?" Wildfire asked, looking around. "There really isn't anything to do."

"Is dat what ya really think?" Jazz asked snidely. "Just cause there isn't nothin' doesn't mean there's nothin' to do."

"According to some of the historical records, at a certain time in an Orbital-Cycle, an event takes place in the heavens," Orion explained. "The conditions are perfect for the event to occur here and now - and I have managed to procure for ourselves the perfect spot to watch it." A slight smile made its way onto the librarian's face.

Wildfire raised an optic ridge. "Event? What do you mean?"

Orion motioned to the stars. "It is a rare sight: pieces of strange stones made of ores from other corners of the universe travel through the stars at high speeds, frozen by the coldness that takes over the space beyond our word." He looked over at Wildfire, who had a bored expression on her face. "To put it simply, we are going to see a meteor shower."

"Meteor shower?" Wildfire repeated, raising an optic ridge. The warrior femme started to look around again. "If this is something that's so rare, why're we the only ones out here?" She returned her gaze to the two mechs, who put on rather neutral, guarded expressions. The gladiator soon gained a deadpan expression. "Oh. Right."

The librarian nodded. "The higher castes make a big show of it and gather in Six Lasers to watch with a celebration of their own. A few of the lower castes manage to get in, but many are left in the dark about the event, and have been for some time. I brought it up to Alpha Trion some time ago, and he explained that the best place to watch it would be out here, as far away from the city lights as possible. It seems he is old enough to have seen that before the castes, at least."

Wildfire nodded slightly, then recalled what the old mech had said before she had started reading the datapad he had given her. The femme quickly shook the thought out of her mind and started to look around, frowning as she did so.

"You said there were others coming," Wildfire stated. "Where are they?"

Jazz looked over at Wildfire. "OP figured dat it'd be best if we snuck out in small groups. Dey'll be here soon."

" 'Groups'?" Wildfire frowned. "I thought it would only be us, Arial, and some other bot. Who else is coming?"

Orion let out a sigh and shot Jazz an annoyed look, causing the cultural investigator to hold up his servos in a defensive stance. The librarian then shook his helm.

"I had been hoping to surprise you," he stated calmly. "And Jazz, the new nickname is starting to get on my nerves."

Jazz chuckled. "Dat's wat ya said when I started just callin' ya Pax. It'll grow on ya."

Wildfire looked between the two of them, frowning. "Who else is coming?" she asked, getting the feeling that she might already know the answer.

"Well, Arial didn't seem ta want ta pass this up, an' -"

"Let's leave it at that," Orion Pax stated, cutting Jazz off. "You've ruined enough of it already."

Wildfire blinked at the sudden statement from the librarian, but upon taking note that Jazz mentioned the warrior femme's roommate, allotted herself a smirk. "I'm pretty sure I can figure out at least one other bot. Ratchet's coming, right?"

"What makes ya think dat?" Jazz asked, turning to look at the gladiator.

Wildfire shrugged her left shoulder. "He was with you last time. I doubt he's going to pass this up."

"Ratchet had a shift tonight," Orion Pax responded. "He said that while he himself would be unable to come, he would be sending an acquaintance to record the meteor shower and share it with him later."

Wildfire's optic ridges shot up. "An acquaintance? Who?"

"Ah ah ah," Jazz responded, shaking a digit. "Dat's a surprise." He turned and looked out towards the city, only to start jumping up and down, waving his servos in the air high above his helm. "Hey! We're over here!"

Within a few kliks, a pair of red and yellow blurs barreled into the white mech, sending him sprawling on the hillside, laughing loudly.

Wildfire jumped back as the three Cybertronians started to wrestle, then her optics narrowed when the scuffle slowed enough to allow her to get a better look at the two newcomers.

"Hey...I recognize you two," she finally stated, placing her servos on her hips. "You were with Jazz the night Hydrau was the only survivor of a Mini-Con swarm."

The three mechs stopped wrestling, looking up at Wildfire in surprise.

"You were there?" the red mech asked in surprise. The warrior femme took note that the red mech looked near-identical to the yellow one, whose paint job appeared to be a bit more shiny - it practically glowed in the starlight like he was a small star himself.

"Yeah," Wildfire responded with a shrug. "I went there after I met up with Orion at the Hall of Records." She didn't bother to mention that Orion Pax and Megatron were there, as well, but the warrior femme figured that the librarian might have preferred it that way. "Who are you two, anyway?"

"Name's Sideswipe!" the red mech responded, disengaging himself from the tangle that was, Jazz, him, and the other mech. "The yellow bot's Sunstreaker, but you can call him -"

"No, she can't," Sunstreaker cut in shortly, getting up himself. He looked Wildfire over with a scrutinizing optic, making the femme feel like she might have been under a scientist's microscope. The gladiator wondered if she would have to attack him in order to get him to stop.

"Pretty decent paint job," the mech finally stated. "I think you'd probably look better with flames rather than the usual 'this armorpart is that color' template, though."

Wildfire blinked in surprise. "What?"

Sideswipe chuckled. "Sunny's a painter - he buffs people and gets rid of scratches for a living."

Sunstreaker turned sharply to glare at the red mech. "I thought I told you not to call me that!" He soon returned his attention to Wildfire, and the mech explained, "I make it a point to try and bring out the best in bots physically - which means I keep them looking as good as they possibly can be."

"Ah," Wildfire stated, nodding. "I get it." She looked over at Sideswipe. "So what do you do?"

"Me?" Sideswipe pointed at himself in surprise. "Well...I help my twin out."

"You do not!" Sunstreaker snapped, glaring at his twin. "Your little pranks make my work a lot more tedious!"

"But they're still fun, aren't they?" Sideswipe prompted, grinning.

"Twin?" Wildfire's optics widened upon hearing this. "You don't mean-"

"Sides' and Sunny are from a split Spark," Jazz confirmed, nodding.

"Split Spark?" Orion looked over at Jazz in surprise. "You didn't tell me about this."

"Because we didn't want him to," Sunstreaker replied pointedly, giving Jazz a sour look.

Wildfire frowned slightly. "Split Sparks are near-unheard of," she noted carefully. "Most of the ones that do live have some sort of connection with each other..." The warrior femme shot a look at the twins, who looked at each other. "But they're only supposed to be myths."

"Your little fire ability is supposed to be a myth," Sideswipe pointed out, bringing Wildfire's mind back to the datapad in her subspace. "I don't see why we can't exist." He looked a little hurt. "Besides, if we didn't exist, then who'd be able to prank every single bot in Iacon?"

"Wasn't your goal the whole planet of Cybertron?" Sunstreaker asked pointedly.

"Gotta start small, bro," Sideswipe responded, grinning. He looked over at Wildfire. "So, what's a femme like you doing in a place like this? You probably haven't been able to see anything interesting with these two."

"Hey!" Jazz looked hurt.

"Kidding!" Sideswipe laughed. "Seriously, though, you can't have been able to do anything much over the past few cycles."

Wildfire rolled her optics. "Let's just say that I've been kept in an apartment a cycle too long."

Sunstreaker was about to say something in response to this when laughter started to ring out over the hills, specifically from the base of the hill they were sitting on. A pair of figures soon started to come over the top of the hill, conversing like old friends.

Wildfire's circuits went cold as soon as she spotted one of the figures. "First Aid?"

The mentioned femme medic turned her gaze from her companion - who happened to be Arial - and looked at Wildfire, her optics widening in shock. "Wildfire?"

A nanoklik later, First Aid had tackled the warrior femme in a hug, watered-down Energon tears streaming from her optics. "Wildfire! I've been worried sick about you!"

Orion Pax and the other members of the group looked at the two femmes in surprise.

"First Aid?" Arial asked. "You know Wildfire? How?"

The femme medic slipped away from Wildfire - who was too shocked to move after she had been hugged - and explained, "I used to work in Kaon, as a medic for some of the gladiators to keep an optic on their wounds and make sure they had recovered enough to get back into the ring whenever they wanted to."

First Aid looked away - out over the landscape towards the city and Six Lasers, which looked like some sort of celebration was going on. "When the attacks started, I started to have less and less to do, as the pits started to shut down all over Kaon and the Badlands. But then things started to pick up pace when gladiators started coming in from all over, and their training started to become more intense. Although another medic did join Megatron's cause, I was starting to not feel so comfortable with my position."

"Knock Out isn't being much of a help, isn't he?" Wildfire noted dryly.

First Aid shuddered. "It's bad enough that the new medic is as Energon-thirsty as the other gladiators - it's even worse that he has an ex-construction worker named Breakdown assisting him." First Aid concentrated her gaze on Wildfire. "When you disappeared, I thought the worst had happened to you."

"Well, as you can see, I'm fine," Wildfire stated, sounding a little annoyed. "How'd you get away from there, anyway? It was hard enough for me to sneak out of there."

First Aid looked around at the group, the nervous look in her optics more than enough to show that she didn't completely trust the group. "I'm not sure that I should say it here."

"I trust Orion Pax and Jazz," Wildfire stated. "The others, though..."

"Hey!" Sideswipe and Sunstreaker exclaimed together, looking hurt.

"The matter is not that you trust them, it's whether I can trust them," First Aid responded, a concerned look on her face. "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you."

"The only reason you would be acting like this is if you hadn't left with Megatron's permission," Orion Pax noted, drawing the twins' attention. "I suppose you might have left in the same manner as Wildfire?"

First Aid stiffened a little at this, while Sideswipe and Sunstreaker looked at each other, curiosity plain on their faces.

The femme shook her helm quietly. "I won't tell you. Not here."

Something flashed across the dark sky, catching a certain white mech's attention.

"Hey! It's starting!" Jazz called out, pointing up at the sky as white streaks started to pass across the night sky.

First Aid looked up, then quickly grabbed a small device from her subspace and pointed its lens upwards, pressing a button that caused a small red light to start blinking in one corner of the device as it started to record the sight.

Wildfire looked up, watching as the white streaks passed by occasionally. "This doesn't look like much," she stated, looking bored.

"Just wait," Orion Pax replied. "There has been the occasion in which the comets have something more to -" He was cut off by a high-sounding note as a bright blue comet passed over their heads, causing their surroundings to gain a tinted hue to it.

"Whoa!" Sideswipe exclaimed, looking up at the comet. "That's awesome! Do they only come in that color?"

The librarian shook his head. "No. According to the records, they can come in every color of the spectrum, depending on what sort of ores make up the rock." He looked up as another note - sounding lower than the first - resounded as a red light went over their helms. "You see?"

"That's got lithium in it," Sideswipe identified, looking at the comet with a analytical eye. This got him looks from the other Cybertronians present. "What?"

"Were you supposed to be a part of the scientist caste or something?" Jazz asked, frowning.

"Wha, me?" Sideswipe smirked. "Nah. I just have to know my elements in order to make fireworks properly."

"Fireworks?" Wildfire repeated, frowning.

"One of his pranks," Sunstreaker explained, a grim look on his face. "Since I won't let him use them outside of the shop, he sets them off every once in a while when he thinks I'm not looking." The yellow mech sent a glare at Sideswipe, who gave his twin a sheepish grin and shrugged helplessly.

The different colored comets were starting to pass by more frequently, now, each setting off different notes that created some sort of strange, other-worldly melody that, in Wildfire's opinion, actually sounded pretty catchy. It wasn't long before the warrior femme actually found herself humming along.

The sound from the multitude of comets was soon interrupted, however, by a giant green comet that moved across the sky slowly, seeming to suddenly appear almost out of nowhere before it covered the rest of the comets, bathing the entire landscape in green hues.

Wildfire stopped her humming, taking note of the odd coloring of the comet. It was a rarity to see anything of that vibrant a color - except when the higher castes had access to art galleries that they could walk into every single cycle in a Mega-Cycle. The warrior femme was quick to note that Orion Pax was looking at the comet with the same sort of admiration that might be reserved for something that a bot really thought deserved to be looked at - like when the gladiator had seen Megatron for the first time. Or when Orion had been looking at Arial when the pink-red femme had offered to house Wildfire.

"What's with you?" Wildfire asked, catching the librarian's attention. "You look like you might have found the jackpot of all history entries or something."

"Huh?" Orion Pax looked confused for a moment, before he realized what Wildfire was referring to. "Oh." The mech looked back at the comet for a moment before stating, "I came across something a few Orbital-Cycles ago that almost sounded as mythical as the existence of the Thirteen."

The librarian let out a sigh. "The entry detailed the existence of a group of sentient beings that exist across the universe. They were chosen from their own races in order to join a special group that was known to be capable of doing incredible things by only relying on what abilities they had that set then apart. They called themselves...Planet Hoppers, or something similar."

"Planet Hoppers?" Wildfire repeated, raising an optic ridge. "Never heard of them."

"Not surprising. The entry was buried so deep in the archives that I only came across it recently. Still, the stories that it spoke of...invigorated something within me." Orion Pax looked up at the sky, watching as the colorful trails that had been left behind from the comets started to fade. "If we ever manage to reach out for the stars again, I would like to meet a member of that group."

The group stood in silence for a moment, watching as the last few meteors shot across the sky, then disappeared out of sight.

When they were long since gone, Sideswipe let out a yawn and stretched. "Well, while that was cool, it's still not as cool as what I can do with fireworks."

"I don't believe dat," Jazz responded, crossing his arms over his chest. "Can ya recreate da music dat made?" He motioned with his helm back up at the sky, where the last chord seemed to echo faintly.

Sideswipe opened his mouth to answer, but then he considered the question and his answer for a moment before finally shaking his helm.

"Thought so," Jazz stated proudly.

"That was...incredible," First Aid stated, the awe still in her optics. "I'm going to get this to Ratchet and see if we might be able to recreate the music that was created tonight. That performance..."

"It was as though Primus knew we were out here," Arial finished softly. "And he wanted to give us something to remember."

Wildfire blinked in surprise, and looked over at the pink-red femme curiously. Sunstreaker took notice.

"What's with you?" he asked, looking the gladiator over.

Wildfire glanced at the yellow mech. "I didn't expect you Iaconians to be...religious."

"Most of us aren't, but there are the few who still look through copies of the Covenant occasionally," Orion Pax explained. "We know Primus exists, and watches over us."

"It's just dat some of us are so wrapped up in deir work dat dey can't get a good look at what's really goin' on," Jazz stated pointedly, sending a look at Sunstreaker.

"Hey! Every coat's gotta be perfect!" the yellow mech retorted, placing his servos on his hips. "Sideswipe's even worse - he works on his gadgets for pranking every single cycle!"

"At least I thank Primus every single time I finish a project that I'm actually able to do that!" Sideswipe responded. The two mechs were soon fighting each other again, the other mechs simply watching while Wildfire and First Aid exchanged confused glances.

"Does this happen all the time?" First Aid asked, motioning to the fight while she gave Jazz a curious look.

Jazz nodded. "Yeah. De live in de same buildin', so dey have ta deal wit' each other every cycle. It's a wonder dey haven't gone mad yet." He shook his helm, a smirk appearing on his face.

Wildfire watched the fight intently, her optics scanning the two mechs as they fought, taking note of their movements and skill set. Eventually, and much to the onlookers' shock, she dove into the fight and separated the two with general ease, a neutral expression on her face.

"You two watch gladiator fights, right?" she asked, looking between the two mechs.

The twins looked at each other with curious, cautious expressions, then nodded slowly.

Wildfire relaxed the stance she had been using in order to keep the two of them separate. "You have pretty decent fighting styles for Iaconians, but they can be improved on." The femme warrior smirked. "If you even tried to come close to trying to fight me, I can guarantee that you would be on the ground within a klik. If, that is, you managed to improve on what you already know."

Sideswipe's optics widened. "A-are you offering to train us? Like we were actual gladiators?"

Wildfire raised an optic ridge at the red mech's statement. "And what if I would?"

The twins exchanged glances, the cautious looks quickly changing to exchanged frowns, then an eager grin from Sideswipe while Sunstreaker looked like he had just signed off on something that he would most likely regret later.

"We accept!" Sideswipe declared, turning his grinning face to Wildfire. "I'm ready whenever you are!"

There was a loud, resounding CLANG, and the red mech soon found himself lying on his back on the metal hillside.

"Consider that your initiation," Wildfire stated dryly, walking away as Sideswipe started to get up. "We'll start working on your reaction time the next cycle."

There! We meet two more Cybertronians! And it looks like Wildfire's going to have a little trouble keeping an eye on them, if she's going to start training them.

As for the meteor shower...yes, it is a song that belongs in the Transformers universe. I know what it is, but I want you guys to try and think of what it is. Send in your guesses, and I'll let you know if you're right!