Elita was worried, Ava was sleeping in the passenger seat; her head was against the window. From what IronHide told her, they had seen the aftereffect of the blast when it tore through the open groundbridge. She knew how close the teen was to Optimus, as a child little Ava would run up to him with the biggest smile, now she looks up to him. Elita knew that she must have been taking his death hard. How she wished she was at his side.
When they stopped for a break she cried out in pain, causing Ava to jolt awake and fall out of the car when Hide opened it for Chromia to get their charge. (It was a joke around the base in D.C that Ava was IronHide and Chromia sparkling. She might be Sam and Carly's child but she was their sparkling. Sam and Carly never really minded with that joke, the bots were family after all.) When Ava got off the ground she looked over at the pinkish purple bot.
"Elita!" She yelled running up to her she added "Are you alright?"
"Yeah...Yes, I think so." she gasp with a hand on her spark.
"You sure."
The second in command looked up at her sister "... yeah" she whispered
"Elita?"
"Ava, I'm fine!" She snapped, and when she looked at Ava she was surprised that she was not tearing up, or looking at her in surprise. Instead she was glaring up at her, almost like she did not believe a word she said.
"Then why don't I believe you?" Ava asked with a raised eyebrow, and her arms crossed. "Please, tell us what's wrong?"
"That's just it. I don't know." She replied as she leaned against the twins for support.
####
Raf was jumping across the computer of the Decepticon ship The Harbinger. He and Bee had been trying to activate it, with little success. When the power went on both boys were happy, unfortunately their bliss was short lived, the power shut back off.
"Ep Ep, your calibrations are off." A voice said making them both jump and Bee aiming his weapons at the voice. He quickly lowered them when he saw that it was just their medic.
"Ratchet! You changed your mind!" Raf cried with joy.
"Of course I did." the medic replied "Now move so I can get some work done." sounding a bit grumpy but a ghost smile appeared, as he typed away.
####
Miko was resting on Bulk's leg and the former wrecker was trying not to fall asleep.. He was keeping watch. Checking the clock he rationalized that he would give Miko another hour before waking her up, and continuing in their way. Hearing a noze he stood up and his hands transformed into his weapons, moving his legs to get into position to attack and waking Miko in the process.
"Miko take cover." he commanded and was glad his charge did what he said without complaint.
The noise grew louder and louder, and it drew nearer to them. Narrowing his optics Bulk let out a gasp and let his weapons change back to being his hands. "I know that sound anywhere." He told
Miko and the two saw WheelJack enter the clearing.
"Ah haa, Jackie!" Bulk cried and embraced the wrecker when he transformed.
"WheelJack!" Miko cried "You're alive!"
"Yep. the cons wanted information on where Prime sent you all." the sword wielding bot explained
"When we saw your ship blow up we thought you were a gonner. Ava almost bursted into tears when she saw the wreckage of the JackHammer." Bulkhead explained
"Yeah, but she will be thrilled to know your alive." Miko added
WheelJack smiled "Can't wait to see her either. But first we have to deal with something." he held up a tracking device and attached it to a small raft and sat it in the stream. "Found it after I escaped, figured I should look for any tricks. Seemed too easy for me to exit Buckethead's fortress."
Sitting on a cliff the three of them waited for the Decepticons to take the bait, when they did WheelJack activated the explosions he hidden along with the tracker. "Now time to get noticed by the others" Jackie added "Come on the cons have an Energon cave near by. I saw it on my way here."
Moving along the cliff, they shortly came acrossed the energon mine, creeping slowly WheelJack, and Bulkhead placed grenades around the mine. When they were back at the mouth of the cave, where Miko waited hidden behind some rocks. The explosion caused by the explosives mixed with energon was massive and caught the site of a passing by ship. When it landed and the door lowered to reveal Jack, Miko ran forward and threw her arms around Jack. She was fallowed by the two wreckers, who smile at the site of them hugging.
####
The phone rang in Agent Fowler's office again making the human man grumble. "What is it this time Megatron?" he asked with venom in his voice.
"Fowler, it is Ratchet, I'm using Decepticon a frequency, hopefully they are not watching theirs as heavily as they are human and Autobot. I'm taking a tremendous deadly risk in contacting you."
"Ratchet, is everyone alright?" Nurse Darby asked
"I am sending our coordinates" the medic replied quickly almost like he was ignoring her question
"Ratchet, are the children safe." Carly questioned in a demanding tone.
Before the red and white bot could answer both of the worried mothers' questions Bee ran in.
*"Ratchet, we have a ship incoming."* Bee buzzed
"What." was the last thing the humans heard before the autobot medic hung up.
After a few minutes of trying to get in tough with Ratchet Fowler ran for his jet, followed by the two working mothers.
####
Ratchet and BumbleBee, ran out to see defend their temporary base, when Bee noticed that Raf was following them he lowered his hand as a silent way of telling him to stay put, glad that Raf stopped before running into his hand.
When the ship got closer Ratchet let out a sigh of relief "It is one of ours."
The door lowered and they saw half of their team standing there "Raf" Miko screamed and ran forward followed by Jack.
Raf ran towards his friends and was quickly embraced by Miko who picked him up. Once sat down on the ground Jack and Rafael hugged. Ratchet let out cry of relief that they were alive.
"Nice paint job Bee" Bulk complemented
"Lucky for you that your colors work together no mater what. If I'd inverse my colors I'd be pink and blue. Elita is the only one that can pull the color pink off." Arcee said
Looking around WheelJack searched for the familiar face of his charge. "Where's Ava guys?" he asked
*"She's is not here."* Bee said sadly
"Well his tracking must be broken because we are all he could find." the wrecker added and looked down with a frown. "We're seem to be all that's left, ..."
"Relax buddy. I'm sure they just turned off their signatures. Besides Ava was with IronHide. He will keep her safe." Bulk said trying to cheer him up. Even though he was unsure himself.
When they saw a plane heading toward them Ultra Magnus aimed his weapons at it, only to be stopped by the other Autobots.
"No, that's Agent Fowler." Arcee said
The plane landed and they saw the agent and then Carly and June get helped out of the jet. The first thing June did was run to her son and embrace him, after a minute Jack pushed forward, Miko and Raf who embraced her as well. Miko and Raf then hugged Mrs. Witwicky, who accepted the embrace from the two children.
"Your families are safe, Agent Fowler managed to evacuate Jasper in time." the nurse said.
"Where's Ava?" Carly questioned looking for her daughter.
No one dared to answer the blonde, they were worried that she would be upset, that no one had seen her child since they left the base and that was almost a week ago.
Finally Arcee decided to answer her "We don't know yet. We are also missing half of our team so that could be an indication that she is with them, or at least one of them, more and likely IronHide."
Carly nodded her head and surprising the others she asked "So, what's the plan now?"
"We can't just wait around for Optimus to show up, or the others. With or with out them we will go after Megatron." Ultra Magnus said
###
The plan was simple use Jack and Miko to lure cons in two different directions, then have Jack send a fake distress signal, from an energon mine through the harbinger. While Agent Fowler waited for Ultra Magnus' signal for air support. Understandably Arcee and Bulkhead were uneasy about sending their charges out alone like that, but with a working groundbridge thy were for the most part ok about it.
##
When Megatron saw that his army was scattered around America he was enraged.
"Starscream, tell me why my forces are scattered around." he demanded
Scared out of his mind the seeker replied "Attempting to put an end to the Autobots, apparently they found a way to trick us. Can't understand why with out..."
Soundwave interrupted the seeker with a picture of the Harbinger showing that it was fully operational.
"You left the Harbinger fully operational, to fall into Autobot hands!" he yelled causing him to whimper in fear
"Allow me to fix that error." he said and summoned his air armada. "This will make quick work of the ship and destroy it. Along with the Autobots using it."
Megatron only growled at the second in command.
When the fortress started to shake Soundwave pointed to a screen depicting the fortress and showed that it was being attacked.
"Perhaps instead of targeting the Harbinger your armoda should protect the fortress!" Megatron scold and Starscream thought that he was going to be hit.
Sending out his armada to meet the Autobots.
####
Tossing another grenade WheelJack and Bulkhead ran toward the building, While the cons were distracted Bee and Arcee decided to jump in from behind some catching the attention of one of them Bee punched him out cold. All the while Ultra Magnus was piloting his ship knowing full well that they would send the predacon after thm. While the Predacon followed Magnius he was watching to make sure, calling Ratchet to open a bridge he go out of the way and the dragon like cybertronian went through,sending it to the Arctic where it would freeze.
After a while of flying Ultra Magnus took his opening to destroy the fusion power source. Unfortunately ran into Shockwave. During the fight he was spotted Megatron. With Starscream and Shockwave assisting the war lord, Ultra Magnus was soon defeated in the throne room that was at the top of Megatron's structure.
Their plan to keep the Decepticons separated did not work for so long, once the others got back the tide of the fight turned into decepticon favor. They were soon defeated and captured.
####
"That's weird it's an Autobot signal, but it's airborn." Ratchet said with surprise. "No, Autobot on Earth can fly without access to a ship."
No one noticed a small group of Autobots entering the Harbinger.
####
"I know that color scheme anywhere." Starscream said "Lord Megatron."
Megatron growled at the incoming Autobot, preparing to fight.
The flying Autobot got closer and closer to the fight and tackled Megatron sending him crashing into his own throne, and took on all three of the Decepticons that defeated Magnus.
With a smile he comes "Optimus is alive. Optimus has returned" he repeated it three times. When the Autobots on the ground heard this they started fighting the distracted Vehicons that were looking in the sky.
Looking at the bot that spoke Optimus was confused as to why he was there, but that was a question that could be answered later. Right now they had more pressing matters to attend to first.
###
The three humans and Ratchet heard this and started to cheer, when they heard cheering behind them they jumped. When they turned around they were surprised to find bots behind them, and Ava standing on IronHide's shoulder looking completely different since the last time they had seen her. In the light they saw Ava had on a red tank-top on dark blue jeans and a camo jacket tied around her waist, her long brown hair was tied in a braid, and a hat rested on top. She had on a necklace on that had a grenade charm (symbolizing WheelJack), a gun charm (for IronHide) and a bee charm for (BumbleBee). Her bag was slung across her back, over one of her shoulders. Instead of her tennis shoes she had on boots.
"Ava" the other children called and she smile and jumped off of IronHide's hand when it was close to the ground, running toward them and enveloping all three of them in an embrace.
"You all need to go out there and help out." Ratchet said and opened a groundbridge for the other Autobots.
The group Ava came with ran through the bridge and disappeared. The others turned to the female brunette, so many questions rang through the children's heads and did not know how to asked them.
The medic looked at the Witwicky child and asked "How did you know we were here?"
####
As soon as Optimus showed up the tides had returned to Autobot favor. but the Predacon had returned forcing the others to make a retreat back to the Harbinger. When the Prediction was bridged to that location they were just getting the humans aboard and the humans that Agent Fowler lead had helped to keep the predacon distracted long enough for team Prime to got on the ship.
####
After their plan to destroyed Megatron's fortress and take back Jasper some what failed the they made their way to building E that would serve as their home and Base for the time being.
When Carly and Ava were reunited they hugged each other, Ava hugged her mother tightly, though when she caught a glimpse of WheelJack her smile broadened. Letting go of her mom she ran to him and slammed into the hand he offered her. Most of them there expected to hear her burst out into tears, but was surprised to hear her calmly say "Your alive, but your ship exploded...how."
"I'm tougher than I look" WheelJack replied with a laugh. "What's with the outfit change?"
"When we were on our way here we got into a little trouble with some decepticons, during the fight a con went to grab me but missed and when the battle was over my clothes were all tattered, I had to buy new cloths from a store." Ava replied with a little less details than what actually happened, she did not know how to say her old clothes were more burned up than tattered, without making them go into a panic. How do you say a hundred foot metallic dragon attacked you.
Ava questioned "What now? Don't the Decepticons have all of the relics that were at the base, or at least most of the relics. What are we going to do now?" Then added "Not to mention they have the cybertronian equivalent to a dragon."
"We continue the fight to them." A new bot said making Ava turn to see a bot she did not recognize.
"Who are you?" she asked in surprise. She had a vague memory of most of the bots on Team Prime and was introduced to the ones she did not know. Like Smokescreen and WheelJack.
"I am Ultra Magnus." the bot said "I see another human that disrespects authority" glaring at the bot, Ava got the feeling that the new bot did not really like either her or her species that well.
"Names Ava?" she said with a small smile that the other bot just blew off. Rolling her eyes she walked away
"Try using the word Sir, at the end." Jack whispered "He responds better to that."
"Thanks for the tip," she replied with a smile. "But Optimus never had us the word. We could just address him with his name."
"Prowl is less rule tight then he is." Skids whispered adding on to what Ava said
Mudflap just nodded in agreement. "And less strict about titles."
A few hours later Ava getting ready to talk to General Brice. The general had already talked to Raf and Miko about what happened and was now talking to Jack. Before any of them met up with the general in charge of the sector, Fowler had thanked all the ones that helped out in the fight.
Miko made a comet about how Optimus looked amazing and joked about what the forge could do for Ratchet. The medic knew that it was a joke and let it go though he did roll his eyes. After a brief talk with Smokescreen about his instinces being good, mostly because he made a good call.
Ava whispered to IronHide "Isn't this like the second time Optimus practically died?"
To which the black bot nodded his head, to the girl who was standing by WheelJack, Chromia and him. After a few more minutes Fowler came back and looked at the brunette girl.
"Ava, General Brice wishes to speak to you now." Agent Fowler said after a few minutes.
Nodding her head Ava followed Fowler to where the general was located.
As she left she caught a glimpse of Optimus and Elita who stood off to the side away from everyone else and she caught Elita attempting to wrap her arms around Optimus' new form, when the prime looked up he saw that Ava had seen them. Just by putting her finger against her lips told the Prime that she would not tell anyone about what she saw. Though Optimus had a feeling that she already knew what his relationship with Elita really was.