*Part 25*
It had been sometime since the Autobots had decided to let the little femme stay with them, instead of sending her somewhere else like they had with the other youths, she had ended up staying on the Autobot base.
But the little femme wasn't so little anymore.
As Sunstreaker no doubt discovered.
He was still in the process of starting up most of his systems again from a recharge and was still not paying full attention. He had come out into the entry area of the shared room with his brother, where there was a somewhat Earth style lounge with a full entertainment unit.
But he had to readjust his optics when he looked at the lounge. For a moment he had thought he had seen a black foot sitting up on top of the couch and when he went to have a closer look, there was something there that was even more of a surprise.
Shadow was groggy herself. She was beginning to recollect recent events that had happened while she was away and also process her own memories at the same time and it was giving her a nasty headache from the information overload. Sometime the night before she had powered down as her smaller, silver and gold self and now she had awoken as her adult black armoured self. Whatever damage her body had been suffering for the last few months, had finally rectified itself and she was now coming around.
She wasn't expecting to come online and see another persons face. She freaked out even more when she realised she was somewhere she didn't really remember being and called out, then fell onto the floor when she tried to get away from this person.
Sideswipe was just wiping his faceplate down after getting off his recharge cot and heard the noise. Without thinking first, he took his photon rifle out of subspace and ran out into the entry area looking for trouble.
What he saw confused him. He wasn't expecting the black femme.
"Meridian?" He asked confused, putting his gun away again.
The black femme got herself up off the floor, looked at him and scoffed, "Don't call me that." She turned to Sunstreaker, "And get this thing away from me. I have more pleasant things to think about than wake up looking at that!" She shoved him aside as she went past him to the door of the quarters to get out.
Sideswipe snickered for a moment, but then went to deter the femme from leaving.
"Speak for yourself." Sunstreaker said back to her in a surly tone.
She spoke, "Then I guess we're both ugly as the pit." She retorted in an attempt to get under his chassis.
"Look who's calling who ugly." Sunstreaker spat.
The comment did rile the yellow mech up and Sideswipe had to step between the two. She glared right back at Sunstreaker while Sideswipe talked him down.
"C'mon bro' don't worry about it!" He said as he tried to calm him.
"Lucky for you, I have to go and start my patrol shift." Sunstreaker snarled as he left.
Sideswipe vented out, "You know you really shouldn't rile him up like that, he can get a bit…nasty." The red mech emphasised the last word.
"Do I look like I even care?" Shadow responded.
"Well you look like something…" Sideswipe noted shaking his head casing, "But, I don't know what to make of this." He gestured to her.
She crossed her arms and huffed to herself. "Just don't go calling me Meridian." And she all but confirmed for Sideswipe that she was the silver and gold femme.
Sideswipe indicated first a shorter size then a larger size, "How did you get from this to this?"
"Nanotechnology." Was all she would say. She then went and turned towards the door. "I'm leaving."
Sideswipe followed her out the door trying to get her to stay, "You don't want to stick around?"
Shadow stopped and vented out. She didn't like to try being nice to or open with others but with all her memories coming in now, she had recalled Sideswipe watching out for her while she was smaller. "Thanks." She said to him, and then she disappeared into a shadowed wall.
"For what?"
Sideswipe felt at a loss to her disappearance. He was very fond of the little silver and gold femme. Her company had been a lot more fun than his brother. And while he had no real explanation as to how she had changed into the surly black femme, she had somewhat admitted to it being her. But…now Sideswipe wanted her back again, he didn't care what she looked like now.
"Lose somethin' red?" Jazz asked as he passed him in the hall.
It was enough to break him out of his reverie, "Oh hey Jazz."
"Y'good red, y'look like y'just lost somethin' real important?"
Sideswipe told him what had happened.
"…So yeah that about sums it up." Sideswipe finished.
"She kinda grows on ya, don' she!" Jazz mused, thinking about his own time with Shadow when they had first met her.
"I guess she does!" The red Lamborghini lamented.
Jazz would have spent more time talking to Sideswipe about what had just happened but he had somewhere to be and someone to visit and he left the red mech to his thoughts.
"Took ya long enough, it's been months?" Wynona commented upon seeing who had just walked into her farmhouse kitchen.
Aurora said nothing as she went past down to the music room at the end of the hall so she could be alone.
Wynona followed her and leaned against the door frame.
"What?" She questioned the older female.
"Di'n say nothin' kid?" She replied.
"But I know you will." Aurora murmured to herself.
"Yes!" Wynona sat down next the younger female, crossed one leg over the other and leant back with her arms behind her head in the plush armchair. "So you gon' tell me who it is y'like or do 'ave t'tickle it outta ya!"
Aurora got up quickly and moved away from Wynona when she made a move towards her. "Like slag you will."
Wynona burst out laughing. Aurora growled at her.
"Look if y'that worried 'bout it, then distract y'self with the red one. It is the red one you like ain't it? He looks like th'casual type anyway." Wynona mused. Aurora didn't even need to tell her anything about her conflicted emotions because of the bond they shared through Wynona's black orb. They had no secrets from each other, the orb wouldn't let them. It liked both and let them share that connection even when they did not want to. But both had over time learnt to block each other out on occasion and Wynona often asked things just to get them out in the open for the sake of it. "It's been too long since y'had some fun out there, as least as long as it's been since y'lost Sky Strike. An' just 'cause sunshine looks exactly like him don' mean y'can't still be around 'em..."
"That's not what I'm worried about." Aurora interrupted.
"Well then, move on, stop mullin' over it. Y'been sayin' f'years you don' blame y'self for his death, time t'start beleivin' it and get over it."
"Oh that's great stuff comin' from the Queen of all hang ons?"
"My issue is different." Wynona snapped.
"How can having a thing for ol' bucket head be different?" Aurora argued.
"Coz' we're tryin t'kill each other." Wynona smirked.
"Shame he hasn't succeeded." Aurora murmured to herself, which got her a clip across the back of the head by Wynona.
Aurora was momentarily distracted by her phone vibrating in her pocket. Jazz had sent her a message. 'Sideswipe said ya made an appearance, nice to see ya back Shades!'
Aurora looked from her phone to Wynona and sighed.
Wynona snickered to herself. "Won' matter how many times y'change th'codin' on y'phone, he will find a way past it."
"Then you should stop helping him." Aurora accused her elder. "I know you've been spending a lot of time with him. You're no better than what the human's call their older femmes, what was it? A cougar?" Aurora knew the particular coding to protect her device was unique to her ingenuity and intelligence and the only other one who could even hope to get past it was Wynona. And being that she knew what Wynona had been doing lately, it was openly suspect she had been helping Jazz to keep in contact with the younger femme.
"Well we all need t'socialise. An' since they know 'bout us now, there's no 'arm in a little fun now is there eh?"
"You're as bad as Rusty." Aurora said flatly as she put her music gear away and left. "Worse even."
Wynona followed her out and silently murmured, "'T'least I've got some taste."
She noticed Aurora had taken the keys to her silver Corvette Stingray instead of her black Reventon for once. All of Aurora's cars, bar her Reventon, were technologically keyed to be able to drive themselves under Aurora's control and the silver Corvette stopped and opened a door for Aurora when it arrived in front of the house after exiting from the showroom down the road.
Aurora gave Wynona a last gruff look before she left and said, "I'm going out."
Wynona waited as she drove off, almost running a white Porsche off the driveway in her haste.
"She in a mood or somethin'?" Jazz asked after transforming outside the farmhouse porch.
"No more'n usual." Wynona coughed choking on the dust being riled up in the air. "Oh an' she knows 'bout a few things too."
Jazz put two and two together and shrugged, shifting into his Pretender shell and stepping up to the porch next to Wynona and put his arm around her as she turned to go inside.
"It ain't like we're tryin' t'hide anything anyway, we all have needs don' we?"
Wynona smiled back at the saboteur as she closed the front door behind her.
Weeks later, Autobot base.
Rusty and Violet had now started to settle into their new roles as recruits at Mt St Hilary at Autobot Headquarters on Earth.
While today, Violet was out on a training exercise with the Aerialbots, Rusty was working with some others on the base to unload Skylynx and greet some new visitors from Cybertron.
Ultra Magnus had come for some face to face business to discuss with Optimus Prime. He also had four others with him, Hot Rod, Blurr, Drift and Chromia.
"Hey Hot Rod," Drift warned, "You better watch out!"
The white mech could only wince as his friend was too busy talking to Blurr and didn't see a tall red femme step in front of him and he slammed right into her and fell with a thud to the floor.
Hot Rod was disoriented as he was lifted with two hands from the floor onto his peds again.
"Sorry. Wasn't paying attention," He mused to himself before his optics readjusted and saw who lifted him up. "Uh, hello!"
"Hello yourself handsome!" Rusty flickered a single optic at him before she turned to get back to her work.
Ultra Magnus had stopped to watch what was going on and noticed Brawn and Huffer off to one side sitting on a box, "Should you two not be helping also?" He queried.
Both of the mini-bots had slowed down their work and gradually let Rusty take on a lot of the heavier materials. Brawn was loathe to admit that the femme was stronger than he was but she never complained about the work and often volunteered to do work for him. Not that he was a slacker by any means, he just liked watching her work, as did many of the other mechs on the base.
Both the min-bots cleared their vocalisers and a "Yes Sir" was heard before they rejoined the tall femme.
Optimus Prime and Prowl had joined them and Optimus greeted the visitors.
"Is there any more like her?" Hot Rod questioned.
"I don't think that is an appropriate enquiry Hot Rod." Ultra Magnus answered him.
Prowl interjected, "The other femme is on a training patrol with the Aerialbots. She isn't as…sociable, as this one."
It was the most polite word he could come up with considering some of the activities Rusty had been engaged in of late. He was not going to judge her, but he still had issues with the morality of her actions, among other things that had also occured.
Ultra Magnus' entourage moved off downstairs into the Autobots Earth Base with Prowl to get acquainted while Ultra Magnus himself stayed behind to talk to Optimus. Both continued to watch Rusty.
"I was concerned when you gave me the report about this one and the other…Violet, I think her name was?" Ultra Magnus had trouble pronouncing the word as it was unusual, not something from the Cybetronian language he felt, more the Earthen language.
"There are others but these two are the only recruits," Optimus began, "But as luck would have it, the uh…leader of the rest of them is here today with other visitors."
"Oh and who might that be?" The tall Cybertronian asked.
"The one you took such a dislike to on Cybertron some time ago."
"Lone Star?" Ultra Magnus' optics widened in surprise, "This is where she is hiding? After she disappeared from that room on Cybertron, I wasted resources looking for her on the planet but she was not to be found!"
"If it makes you feel any better, she has never been on this base unescorted. Red Alert is of the same mind of your reports about the femme and will not leave her alone anywhere. But she has never set ped out of place while here."
"Why is she here?"
"There was an issue with some sort of drone that has been keeping Skydive's company since he returned from his jaunt. Lone Star, or Steelwind as we know her and one of her associates has knowledge of old Cybertronian language and technology and is attempting to either communicate with the drone or get it functional again out of a favour to Skydive." Optimus explained. He did not know the full storybut as he was waiting for the full report from Ratchet and Wheeljack, he could only explain as best he could for the time being.
Elsewhere in the Medical bay.
"Dial down the scrolling speed, I can't keep up with the dialogue on the screen?"
Heartbeat had come in response to a request from Shadow and Steelwind to help with this project. She was way out of her league here technologically but it was still a learning experience for her and an opportunity she would not ordinarily get.
"You see what I'm seeing right?" Shadow questioned.
Heartbeat gave her a sideways look. "Do I not have optics, of course I can see that, but do I understand it? No. I do not speak ancient Cybertronian nor can I understand these lines of code?"
Ratchet and Wheeljack could only step back and watch. While they were both knowledgeable in various forms of both medical and technological engineering relating to Cybertronians and their physiology, what these femmes were doing here in front of them was way beyond anything they'd ever seen before.
"It all looks like a bunch of Hocus Pocus if you ask me." Ratchet scowled.
Wheeljack knew he was still sore for being told to get out of the way and let the femmes do their thing. And they had told him off in his own Medical bay of all places too, which made him even more sour than usual.
"Well at least we get to watch and learn." Wheeljack tried to cheer his friend up. Ratchet scoffed at the whole ordeal and retreated back into his office.
But just as he was about to enter, a clanging noise was heard behind him.
"Somethin' jus' fell out'f its subspace pocket?" Steelwind cautioned them. She didn't even know why she had been dragged into this mess and was sitting off to the side bored, but took notice when some small metal ring fell and began to roll towards Ratchet. But neither of the other two femmes had heard her and were too entrenched in what they were doing to hear or see anything else.
The metal ring rolled right up to Ratchet and stopped when it hit the outside edge of his left ped. He stopped before entering his office and turned around to pick it up.
Wheeljack would not forget the look on his friends face when he began to read an inscription on the inside of the metal ring. He watched intently as his friend dropped the ring and put one hand on the doorframe and the other over his face and was barely able to reach him before Ratchet collapsed onto his knee guards.
"Wha's 'happened t'him?" Steelwind asked.
"I have no idea actually?" Wheeljack struggled with his heavier friends frame, "I saw him read something from the ring and then down he went?"
Shadow and Heartbeat were still so caught up in what they were doing that they didn't even bat an optic at what was now happening behind them.
Once Steelwind helped Wheeljack with Ratchet onto his office chair, she went and retrieved the ring Ratchet had dropped. It was a nicely made and intricately woven piece of jewellery, like the sort of thing a female human would wear if married to another, but it was Cybertronian sized. Made out of Electrum, platinum and some other metal Steelwind did not recognize. On the bottom part of the ring where all the metals were melded together seemlessly was a simple message in Cybetronian that read "For my Sweet Spark."
"Y'know what this is, don'ya Wheeljack?" Steelwind passed the item to him.
"It looks like some sort of bonding ring?" Wheeljack was unsure, "Isn't it?"
Ratchet found the strength to respond, albeit rather quietly, "I made it for Sunburst for our bonding ceremony. I…" Then he abruptly stopped as if sinking into a deeper state of shock and slumped further into his chair.
Wheeljack had never seen his friend this bad when talking of his dearly departed bondmate. "Is it even possible?" He looked at the drones body. It had been badly damaged during the last fight with the Decepticons. Skydive had taken it along as extra security and it had proved it usefulness till something had happened and it had been hit during the battle itself and it was now in this state.
Ratchet and Wheeljack had done the best they could to fix it for Skydive but had wrestled with somewhat older programming than they knew of and had not been able to get it online again and so it had sat in the Medical bay, until one day when they were working on it, Shadow had commented on recognizing the code streams of its mind and offered to help fix it along with some help.
Steelwind left the CMO's office and pushed Heartbeat aside to access a screen and began typing an interaction algorithm to communicate with the drones memories directly.
"Hey what was that for?" Heartbeat angrily prostrated.
"I think I know who it is." Steelwind typed away.
"Are you sure?" Shadow added, "Is it anyone we know?"
"I don' know 'er person'lly, but I believe y'do?" Steelwind answered.
Shadow watched as Steelwind typed away in what appeared to be ancient Cybetronian words and then asked one question, 'Identify?'
The answer on the screen was one name, 'Sunburst'.
Later.
"Is he back online yet?" Shadow asked Wheeljack.
"No." The scientist answered, "It seems he is still in a state of shock about the ring. I haven't even told him about the drone being who it seems to be yet."
Shadow had not even mentioned her connection to the femme with that name yet. She wasn't even sure if Wheeljack knew about her connection to Ratchet either. The Medic suspected her identity, but when she was reverted to her sparkling self she did not recall ever conversing with Ratchet about anything from the past. When she had woken up as her adult self again her memories had shifted and opened up more.
She had fragments of memory from an early time during the war when she was in the company of two other, Ratchet and Sunburst, both medics, who had adopted and looked after her for a while before tragedy separated her from them and that's all she could remember.
While she had been thinking to herself, Wheeljack had wandered off and started talking to Optimus who came in to talk to Ratchet after being called by the Scientist. Optimus and Ratchet had been friends a very long time and he knew the femme to which the name belonged and he also knew the story behind Ratchets past.
He immediately went into the Medic's office to talk with him. Wheeljack remained outside.
Shadow had stopped and sat for a moment. When she had remembered the name of the person inside the drone body she had almost collapsed herself. But she retained her composure long enough to bark some instructions at Heartbeat.
The younger femme didn't like being talked to that way, but she understood some raw memories had just been opened and Shadow was not herself. She complied with the other femme's wishes by returning to Shadows workshop in Cyberia for the things she had asked for.
Shadow had tried to save time by asking Heartbeat to fetch the only complete femme body she had in storage that she thought would be compatible for the idea she had in mind.
When Heartbeat returned she asked Shadow, "Why this one? It's a warriors body. Didn't you say this lost femme was a scientist or a medic?"
"I…don't know, it's just that, something is pulling at me to use that one. I think it will be appropriate."
Heartbeat saw a rare honest smile on the femme's face and she didn't argue. She had known the femme for most to all of her own life and knew she did not have much to smile about given her past, the parts she did know of anyway.
So she didn't say anything as she helped Shadow set the new body up for a transfer.
CMO's Office.
Ratchet had finally come around and was sitting quietly talking to Optimus.
Steelwind was leaning quietly on the door frame not saying a word but listening. She was also watching what Shadow was doing and watched as Heartbeat helped her set up everything.
She turned her helm where she could just see Optimus and Ratchet out of the corner of her optics. Ratceht had gotten over his shock and had commented he watned to help any way he could from this point.
Steelwind spoke to them. "Well if you wanna 'elp then y'better get y'aft out there an' do it, 'cause she's getting' started."
Steelwind knew exactly who the femme was that everyone was pining over. She had not known her personally but knew she was the one who had helped Reignfire and Nightfall, her own offspring, which was where Shadow had come in.
She had not been on Cybertron at the time but before she could come back deal with what had happened and thank the femme for her help, she had gone missing. This had all happened not long before her commissioned flight that had led to the crash on Earth on the ship, the Genesis.
Ratchet was out of the office like a shot. He quickly glanced at the clock on the wall and noted how long he had been lamenting in his office for and shifted out of his reverie quicker than anyone had ever seen him move. He looked at what the femmes were trying to set up and grabbed other items to help assist them. He didn't say a word and nor did the other, they just all seemed to instinctively know what to do.
Hours later, a small company had accrued at the entrance to the Medical bay.
"What's goin' on?" Rusty asked, passing by. She had just come back from the wash racks and found a few of the mechs gathered here.
"Oh hey you're that femme I met earlier right?"
Rusty noticed it was the youthful mech with the flame paint job and nodded. "Uh, Hot Rod? That's what your friends said your name was right?" She replied. "I'm Rusty, I don't have a fancy name, just…Rusty."
Hot nodded and explained that something was going on. Someone else had told him that some sort of drone had turned out to be an Autobot soldier or medic or something and they were doing a transfer to a new body.
"Weird huh?"
"Hmmm." Rusty just didn't seem interested in what was going on and wandered off. She had other things on her mind. She had just discovered her Aunt Eleanor, the same Aunt with the Scottish accent who had been looking after her all these years while she was growing up in Texas had turned out to be a Cybertronian in disguise and now she questioned whether she was really her Aunt at all or whether she was even human herself. And on top of that, her real parents had just been revealed to her and she couldn't take it. She argued with Eleanor, who was apparently called Supernova and then took off for the wash racks before heading for her quarters.
Hot Rod had noticed her wandering off and began to follow. "You seem bothered by something?"
Rusty opened the door to her quarters and looked back at the shorter mech, "Thanks for tryin' to care and keep that handsome face intact eh?" She smiled weakly at him as she pressed a button to slide the door closed behind her.
Hot Rod had heard from Drift who had read something in Ultra Magnus' reports about what had been happening here on Earth but he hadn't believed it till he saw it and it was weird, even to him and he shook his helm trying to get that weirdness out and go back to what was happening at the Medical bay.
Inside Rusty's room.
While it was a room they had fixed up for her and had a separate room for whenever her human friends visited, she was altogether glad they were here today, waiting for her to finish her duties.
"What's going on out there?" Laura asked.
Casey and Christine looked up at Rusty when Laura asked, hoping for some news.
"Something 'bout an Autobot bein' transferred to a new body I think?"
Casey had known Rusty long enough to know she wasn't her usual happy self and something else was going on. "Something else is bothering you isn't it?" She poked at the tall femmes leg casing.
Rusty sat down next to her human friends, still in her mecha form and crossed her legs in front her, grabbing at her peds.
She didn't know how to start.
Laura began for her. "Can I hazard a guess that you have just discovered something about yourself or your past that is something of a shock?"
Rusty looked right at her. "Somethin' like that."
Laura agreed. "I am not sure about Casey's situation but mine was inherently strange to some. I knew from a young age I was not human, despite the best efforts of my human foster parents to help me fit in. But in doing so I just became more human in my outlook on life, it never changed who I was on the inside."
Rusty sighed, "Well, seems my Aunt's a real Cybetronian and she's here on the base right now. I was introduced to my real parents or creators or whatever, who're here too. Eleanor, or Supernova, whatever her name is, well we talked after Id finished work unloading stuff but we had a fight and I stormed off to the wash racks to cool down then came right here."
The other three looked at each other.
"I don't even know what's real and what isn't anymore?" Casey lamented. I don't know what to think about myself now knowing what I am. My friends are about the only real family I've got right now."
. "I know just how ya feel." Rusty smiled down at Casey, she knew she was just trying to cheer her up. She was raised to think she was human for most of her life and found out she had been a sophisticated machine underneath the whole time.
"My life now beats what I was stuck in before at least!" Christine replied and some of the others agree with her.
Christine was born human, but had a really bad life, the worst any female could have she had guessed at the time. Beaten by a drunken father constantly, not cared for by a mother who was always on drugs. She was actually happy when Aurora had found her and taken her away from it, but it hadn't taken her rage away. Aurora had turned her into the human shaped mecha she was now.
"I still value what I have." Laura added. Both of Laura's parents were scientists at the Deane Corporation and still worked there and she still lived with them.
"Sooooo…" Christine started, "Who's your uh parents? Anyone we know?"
"Apprently," Rusty answered, "It's that big red blockhead Ironhide and some sky blue femme from Cybertron that just came here today. And my real name is Burnout."
"Well?" Laura asked "At least you can get to know them as one of their own."
Rusty sighed and laid herself out on the floor carefully so she wouldn't disrupt where her human sized friends were sitting.
Casey mumbled to herself, "How do machines even have kids? I mean they're machines? How is species propagation even possible?"
Laura answered Casey. "Casey my dear it is not physical, it is energetic. It is all about their sparks." Laura wasn't going to explain the whole process despite knowing it. Her parents had explained it to her when she was young. When she had asked them how they knew, they had said Aurora had told them.
"Isn't that the glowy ball thingy they have in their chest cavity?" Christine asked an she looked at where her heart would be, "I wonder if that's what I have now instead of this fuel pump heart thing."
"The spark is their soul." Laura continued, "And can be conjoined during certain processes to make new sparks which then leads to offspring and then those sparks can be pout into sparkling bodies."
Rusty clutched herself, "Ya think that's what we all are, I mean what you guys are now? I mean look what happened to Violet, she went through some sort of change and well, is an adult or whatever now. Like I'm some sort of full sized transformer or adult form now right?"
No one was able to answer her question as the door to Rusty's quarters opened. She swore to herself for not locking it but got up to face the visitor now standing there.
It was her Aunt, or whoever this femme Supernova was.
"Though' I migh' find the wee bairn tucked away in her new safe place." The femme stated thoughtfully.
"Slag off, I don't want to talk to you!" Rusty stormed off to another room and locked the door.
"Such language an' no' even wantin' tae come out an' meet yuir creators either!" Supernova mused. Two others walked in behind Supernova on her cue before Rusty had even seen them.
Casey got up to try and get her to come out, while the other two females just stood aside and minded their own business.
"I'm beginning to think if this trip was worthwhile coming." The blue visitor stated. "I'm not particularly impressed right now."
"You trah livin' with 'er!" The red one complained.
Both of them look at Supernova, and the dark orange coloured femme just shrugs back at them and smiles plaintively.