*The Work Begins*

*

It was dawn about a week later when Prowl and his team of Autobots along with Armstrong and his team came to the Ark.

They had all been discussing the best place to start with the reconstruction.

During the week, Bryan, Raymond and Jackson had flown down to an area to the south east of Portland, Oregon, near Mt Hood. This was where they had abandoned the Ark and left it in the care of the human's who had a military base close by.

They had found it all in relatively good condition as the US military had extended their base to surround it and had kept out fans and others who would have otherwise come in and explored the Autobots old base or taken things from it, not that they would have gotten anything useful.

The Autobots had already gutted their old base of every scrap of material they thought was valuable and removed everything else that was still intact that the Decepticons couldn't get their digits on. Including their old computer Teletraan One.

The Old Computer had only been partially damaged in the explosion that had been rigged by Brawn and Ratchet to stop a Decepticon invasion of the base. Teletraan One was relocated into storage as a new system had already been built for them on Cybertron and transported to Earth for Autobot City. Teletraan One had been taken out of storage to reinstall back to its old point of duty here at the Ark for the reconstruction.

At the time of the destruction, they drove the enemy off but they found that the rest of the base was too badly damaged to even inhabit as a secondary base of operations anymore and so Rodimus, the leader at the time, moved all the Autobots to the already constructed second base at Autobot City.

It had been several hours for all of them going through the blueprints, but Prowl had managed to get them organised and Steelwind had been completely unloaded and sent back to Dragon Valley to bring back more supplies.

Adam had decided to take some time off from his own project to see how the humans and mech's were faring at rebuilding their old base.

"Getting everyone organised I see Peter?" asked Adam. Although Adam had been aware of Peter's true identity the whole time he had been human and was coming to terms with who he really was, he was also a friend and preferred to keep their interaction casual rather than formal.

"Yes, quite." Peter responded while looking over some parts of the blueprint copy he was holding and looking at the supplies he had piled around him. "It seems like a homecoming being here again though."

"I suppose being human after your last death at the Decepticon's hands has been good for you. You always had trouble expressing yourself emotionally before. But now, well…" Adam trailed off

Peter smiled, amused, "Yes it was a good thing. I'm a little less stiff, as it is usually put, and emotionless as I was before and Vanessa has helped greatly."

Adam laughed, "Well I guess being married to someone who, as a mecha used to date your best friend, what was his name, Jazz?" Peter nodded, "Must be a bit strange for you?"

Now Peter was laughing, "Yes Jazz thought so too and told me that first night we talked after my transition back to what I once was. But it's not as strange as Vanessa is herself. She is a dedicated officer but she's the strangest and most emotionally complex individual I've ever met, and I can understand fully now why she and Jazz used to be together. I thought it quite amusing though that before she went out with him, and she confided this in me, that she was interested in both of us but went with Jazz because he asked her out first!"

Peter stops momentarily. Now that he had his mecha capabilities back, he pretty much had most to all of his memories back also and remembered back to the days when he, Jazz and Vanguard used to hang out together, all the good and the bad times.

Adam speaks, "Well I'm going to go in and see how everything is going inside."

Peter calls out, "You had better watch out, when last I heard Ratchet and Brawn were arguing over something and Ray had begun to throw some of the supplies around."

Adam took note of what Peter had said and then soon realised what he was talking about.

Ray and Bryan were indeed arguing and poor Jackson was standing by the wayside with his tools installing Teletraan One on his own.

"Need a hand?" Asks Adam of Jackson.

"Sure, why not, you'd be a much better help than those two right now!" Jackson indicates to the other two who were just about to get into a full blown brawl until Henry walked in and stopped them both.

"Knock it off ya crazy jackasses and git back ta work already!" Henry yelled as he walked past carrying tonnes of equipment on his shoulders.

All Adam did was smile to himself and continued helping Jackson with the computer.

*

Also during that week there was a situation that led to the breakout of Dragon Valley Base's Decepticon prisoner Soundwave.

Ravage had managed to get out and surveyed parts of the base for his master, completely undetected.

It had been discovered that it was done during the time Ella had been away with some of her team elsewhere and so were not on the base to know what had gone on.

When she had returned from Britain with the those who had been with her, Ravage, Soundwave and all the rest of his minicons were gone, and a few had been injured trying to stop him leaving the base, and were now in medical recovering..

Ella had all the people concerned, who were supposed to be in duty monitoring the base in her office and she was questioning them, including some members of the Roughnecks who had stayed behind.

"So is someone going to tell me why of all times, when I was gone with the others and there was already a skeleton crew left here, you lot decided to have a party and leave your posts unattended and allow a Decepticon soldier to escape, possibly with vital information on this base that he will inevitably report to Galvetron?"

There were only a dozen of them involved in all of this, and even though Sound Track was in the room, she was watching them along with Ella but didn't say a word until was necessary.

The mecha involved all hung their heads and Ella responded, "I didn't think I would get a response." She turns to Sound Track and starts speaking, "You deal with the rest of the team, the others, are restricted to base until all the damage that was caused in Soundwave's breakout is cleared up and fixed."

Ella then leaves her own office shaking her head and goes out for drive to wash her hands of the situation, leaving Sound Track to deal with the remainder.

Sound Track is relaxed in her chair lounging, "Ok ya'll now where should tha punishment start?"

The ones who knew they were in deep trouble grimaced when Ella left them all, not just the Roughnecks members but also the individuals in Sound Track's care to the blue femmes punishment, as they knew she wouldn't be nice or lenient.

*

Upon returning to Charr, Soundwave relayed his escape story to Galvetron on the basic layout of Ella's base on Earth from the information he had received from Ravage.

Galvetron had of course not wasted any time in asking his faithful soldier what other information he had been able to gather while being incarcerated.

Soundwave also relayed visual and audio information of his own experiences on the base to his leader. The Commander did however grimace in disgust at visual images of two of his former soldiers whom he thought long dead in human forms, both Skywarp and Thundercracker, when Soundwave had revealed who they really were.

"These former soldiers of mine who now align themselves with our enemy and these disgusting little humans as well as wear their pathetic appearances are no longer worth my attention." He states to Soundwave. "If in the course of our battles, we come across them relay the order they are to be treated as traitors and shot on site. Report to Shockwave's location on the Dominion planet and ensure he follows the orders he has been given. I do not want any signs of betrayal rearing its ugly head. And considering his track record, he must be watched while he is watching them."

Galvetron gets up from his seat and wanders over to the window overlooking his new citadel on Chaar, facing away from Soundwave and the door out of his chambers.

"As you wish Lord Galvetron." Comes the monotonous voice of this mechanoid as he excuses himself, just as Decellion opens the door and walks in.

She of course had heard that Soundwave had returned, but at the time she had been called by Galvetron, she had been with the hidden Matrices and was trying to decipher a way to open them or at least draw any power out of them.

"Well?" Asks the tall purple mech without even turning in her direction.

"Nothing yet." She said disappointed.

Galvetron was annoyed that nothing had yet come of the Power Matrices and their usefulness as weapons to him, which was why he had agreed to leave the project to Decellion, unaware of her true intentions still with these devices. Although she also knew she was being watched by Scourge and Cyclonus and so had to watch her step and be careful with her plans.

She still needed to manoeuvre Galvetron to where she wanted him to be. Use him for the takeover of the Dominion and then do away with him and then continue her plans.

"And what about the Dominion?" He asked.

She had by then come up behind him and put her arms around him and showed some deftly placed affection he was enjoying. She was also well aware of his plans to take over the Dominion now. In a moment of distraction by her he had let slip his plans for the takeover and eventual integration of their armies into his own.

She however had not really reacted all that much to it initially and agreed to his idea. It had perplexed him at first as she was a long lived personage of their own empire whom he knew wanted all that power and control for herself. And so he had become suspicious finally of her loyalty, but he would deal with it when it became a problem he could no longer handle, for now she was very useful to him. Once he had the Dominion Army he could dispose of her and move on with his plans.

"Well, Galvetron. They are yet still unaware of your plans for takeover. It was a very good idea to send your servant Shockwave to them as an undercover agent to uncover secrets about them and relay all that information back to us!" She grinned at him coyly, trying to be submissive.

When Soundwave arrived on the Dominion planet under construction, he didn't seem at all too pleased at the appearance of a fellow Decepticon, if he was able to show any emotion at all that was, Shockwave knew at once Soundwave had been sent to spy on him and to ensure Galvetron's orders were followed.

But what Soundwave and also Galvetron didn't know was that the Dominion elders had already gotten to Shockwave, offering him unlimited scientific resources and room to experiment on whatever and whoever he wanted if he worked for them undercover while still appearing to work for Galvetron, so they could keep an eye on the Decepticon Commander and his other soldiers.

He had agreed as it was logical for him to have any and all available resources at his disposal for his work that he wanted to conduct, and the Dominion would let him do it without any inhibitions.

*

After hearing about some of the problems the three students were having at the local High School from other students, the Roughnecks members, Joyride and Flashdance had decided to come into the school after the day's classes and see what was really going on.

They had just finished doing the week of punishments their elder sister had given them and needed a time out from the base anyhow, so any excuse would've done.

Both had been good friends with Laura for some time, since the young female human was a child.

Laura knew as a child that it was Decepticons that had attacked the facility where her mother and Aunt Gaile had worked as scientists, wanting the cyberisation technology. The plan was engineered by Megatron and his soldiers nearly 15 years ago now for them to take the technology and make use of it however which way they could for their own battlefront against the Autobots.

Laura wasn't any closer to getting over the death of her mother which was so long ago, as she had loved her mother dearly, but she and her father did lean on each other heavily when times were bad for them both.

She herself had been saved by the intervention of three Autobots, Jazz, Sideswipe and her self confessed hero, Bumblebee. She had as much favour for him as her cousin did for Cliffjumper. Although she had not yet been able to thank them for saving her life all those years ago. She remained hopeful she would still be able to sometime, as she had yet to work up the gumption to get Bumblebee alone to ask about that day.

Today though she was sitting out on the lawns of the high school, studying with her friends when she spotted Joyride, in her Biomode sitting in the front seat of her elder sister's vehicle mode, pull up in the carpark.

Felicia exited her vehicle mode with her holographic avatar that had occupied the driver's seat and walked it over to where they were.

Ryan and Christine had their backs to Felicia and Casey's approach, so neither heard nor saw them until Felicia spoke.

It startled them to no end though.

"So ah hear ya'll 'r havin' troubles with tha local wahldlife!" Jokes Felicia.

Casey snickers at her sister's smart-mouthed comment.

Some of the problematic students in question were seated nearby and heard what Felicia had said.

One individual, a young adult male who had been one of the ones Felicia had let her animecha chase off before was there. "So you guys are that pathetic you can't even fight your own fight now, you have to bring in these old ladies to help you. I don't know what's more pathetic, you or them!" He laughs to himself, getting the attention of several of his friends who laughed along with him and gave him high fives for his insult.

His supposed friend, a fellow music student, was elbowing him and pointing to the two visitors, "Dude, that's like, CJ Rider and Flick' Danzig!"

He answers back "…And I would know who they are because?"

His friend talks again "But they're like the keyboardist and guitarists for that old band called Sound House back in the 70s and 80s. They're like rock and roll legends dude!"

This arrogant youth named Ian snaps back at the youth, "Who cares, they're old, they don't make music anymore, nobody knows who they are and nobody wants to know! I suppose you're going to ask for their autographs?"

The youth, annoyed by his treatment leaves Ian and the others and says, "Sure I will, no harm in it is there?" He walks over to Felicia and Casey and does exactly that, leaving Ian and his friends to complain and whine.

"So whaht's yoah name, kid?" Asks Felicia.

"Trevor." He says nervously, "Trevor James." Felicia and Casey smile at him and he smiles nervously back

"Ya don' be havin' good taste in frien's aroun' here ya know?" Says Casey.

Trevor nods agreeably, "I just realised that. He's not my friend anymore, not now. Besides I can always make new friends!" He smiles as he looks at the two musicians and the surrounding students with them. "So are you ladies friends with this group?" He asks.

Felicia smiles and then looks in Ian's direction, "Hey Mistah 'Ah got tha sun shinin' outta mah rear', Trevor's hangin' 'round with us now ya'll so don' go an' bothah him no more, 'kay!" Ian does nothing but scowl and turns around to talk to the rest of his so called clique, not even caring that Trevor has left their group.

Trevor decides he made a good choice to come and talk to the band members and asks the three others, "So you guys know the band members of Sound House, man! They were like my parents, fave' band of all time and raised me on it too. If it wasn't for the sweet sounds of the drummer then I never would have become a drummer myself."

Felicia and Casey chuckle to themselves, "Bet ya'll'd lahke ta meet Vanessa then?"

"Vanessa? You mean Vanessa Gordon?! Sure I would!" Trevor squeals.

Laura chuckled quietly to herself, "They're actually my friends, but anytime you want to talk to the band members, just let me know and I can arrange something ok." Laura winks at the two femmes and they wink back. She knew that they had other work now and couldn't afford to have that uncovered and made public just yet, as Laura would act as a go between for them and the younger fans just like she always did.

"Sweet!" Was the welcoming reply from Trevor, "Say could you talented ladies sign this for me too?" He said to Felicia and Casey as he took his guitar from around his neck and shoulders.

They gladly signed it for him. Even though Trevor had already explained the situation, Felicia wanted to know more about why Trevor was with the others' group. "So what are ya'll doin' wastin' ya time with a prick lahke that anyway?"

"I suppose its 'cause I don't know anyone else. I'm new here and I'm that laid back and non fussed that I just went with it but he was becoming rather annoying anyway. I'm glad ya came along when ya did; I didn't know how to get away from him and his group to be honest without getting a thumping from 'em!" Trevor replies.

Felicia comments, "Cool, now kid if ya'll want tha rest of tha band's signatures on that guitar o'yours, or your parents want somethin' sahgned, ask Laura an' we can arrange somethin' ok." Trevor nods and Felicia winks at him.

Seeing that the coast is fairly clear, Felicia lets her hologram fade out.

Casey slaps her forehead, Laura sighs, her two friends laugh and Trevor almost faints, "What the...?" was his response.

"Dammit, Flick we is s'posed ta bein' undercover!" Chides Joyride. Hopeful that no one else just saw her sister's audacious stunt, also hopeful that the group they were with, encircled by a glade of trees, blocked out most of the view from others around them.

Laura didn't know what else to do but just go with it after she saw the furious look on Casey's face, "Ah Trev'?" Laura pauses as they all see a red Porsche in the car park transform into a red robot, "I'd like you to meet the real Felicia Danzig. This is Flashdance."

Flashdance kneels down to Trevor's level, he is rather nervous as he's never met a real transformer before, "Whoah, pure wickedness dudes!" He exclaims, "But can't everyone see ya?" He asks.

Laura moves around in front of Flashdance and then gets Trevor's attention back to her eye level again, to make it look like Trevor is talking to her and Flashdance replies, "Nah, ah can make holograms an' stuff, see?" She points over to the car park where her vehicle chassis once was and there it is still, but as a hologram, "Complete with touchin' capabilities, go ahead, go an' check it out!"

While she watches the three of the young adults go over and check out the hologram of her vehicle mode, Laura and Casey stay behind.

"Now why ya be doin' dat for?" Asks her younger sister still in her Biomode.

Flash' shrugs her shoulder's and says, "He seems lahke a good kid, so whah not?"

Casey looks up at her sister angrily and points, "Ya be too trustin', ya nut case! We already bein' in enough trouble dis week cause'o someone's ideas hmm? Ella goin'ta be annoyed wit' ya, again!" She says as she put her hands on her hips.

Flash' just smiles and watches the others around the hologram, "Look who's callin' ya'll a nut case!"

She ushers them out of the way of the hologram so she can transform into the car space over the hologram and allows the three to get in.

"Heh, tha more tha merriah ah say, we need all tha friends we can get!" Flash' says.

Casey gets Flashdance to make a cover hologram for her and she transforms into her robot mode and then into her vehicle mode with Laura getting into her front seat.
"She…She's one too!" Stammers an astounded Trevor.

"Yep." says Laura, "Their whole family is." She asks the others, "So let's go for a drive guys, seeing as how none of us have any more classes today, eh?"

Trevor can't help but sit in the car with them and asks many questions as he could muster. And as he does, they drive off into town for the afternoon.

*

Elsewhere in the Alliance territories, Nova and the Dinosaur teams had just returned from their first foray. Many of them were dented and scratched as they had come across Dominion Necromancers who were also in the middle of retrieving a Power Matrice from a planet within the Alliance.

As there was not many of the Necromancers, and as they had not wanted to be found out being in Alliance territory, they had come along here to the planet in the Avian system, amongst a species called the Aquila and tried to relieve them of a Matrice that was hidden there.

But it was not as hidden as they thought, the device was on the person of an Alliance warrior called Airbourne.

She had been in the area of these planets on patrol as it was her home system and had gotten caught in the middle of the fire fight between the Dominion specialist faction, the Alliance airforce faction and the Saurian ground factions.

Between her valiantly fighting with her own team in the skies, as well as the dinosaur transformers all participating on the ground, they managed to drive most of the invaders off. But not before one of the Necromancers got smart and detected the Power Matrice within Airbourne.

At one stage they had downed her and gotten the best of her by singling her out and overwhelming her. She had been downed away from the main fighting force of the dinosaur teams and had her chest struts ripped opened in a haphazard fashion and the Matrice torn out.

Their fight had ended with Airbourne's team coming to the rescue and finding their leader close to death. But she was still holding on. She had lost a lot of fluid due to severed fuel lines and having her sparkcase cracked and scratched, so the Necromancer who did the job, could get at the Matrice she was in possession of.

She was found injured and almost dead, and immediately transported to the closest medical unit. While the rest of her team were ordered to continue scouting for and taking care of any Necromancers that were still in the area and take them out if they found any.

But of the teams, it was the Dinobots who were enjoying themselves the most. Even working with the Autobots they had not seen as much fighting since being reawakened on Earth and were now enjoying the intensity of the battle once again, and the Necromancers were certainly providing them with a challenge. They were glad that Jazz had sent them on this little assignment.

But all in all so far they had lost another Matrice to the Necromancers, and would have to pick up their pace if they were going to get any for them selves to keep from them, and stop them handing them over to Decellion and Galvetron, if that's what they were indeed doing.

*

The next day at the base Ella was making preparations for her own technological contributions to the local fair that was coming up in Seattle next week.

She, for many years had been living under the guise of an employee/inventor for the Drake Corporation under her son's ownership and control of the company in public since the 1970's, helping him along with funds every now and again to keep the company going.

She had had to hide the fact she was as old as she was, so every once in a while, she and her son, or one of her other children would switch around control of their business ventures to make it look like they were all different people, and did well to hide their true identities from both the general public and also the US Government.

She didn't like to design military weapons for the US military and their space faring section, but that is what she did. Adam quite often helped design all manner of spaceships and other technological devices as did her other sons, Akira and Lucas. They often did so from their respective Drake Corp companies in England and Japan.

Ella had just finished going over the final touches of her contributions that would be shipped out to the fair under sponsorship by Adam for Drake Corp.

She cleaned up and went downstairs to the biosphere to relax and get away from the hectic nature of the base that it had been for a while.

Sound Track had been running all the responsible parties for the recent mishap through the grinder and there were a fair few disgruntled mecha around the base, and ones that were avoiding Ella now due to her having gotten tired of telling them that Sound Track's punishments would stick despite their pleading to her constantly.

One of the lowest chambers was set up by the base residents a long time ago for relaxation. It was a biosphere that was a tropical representation of Earth and allowed for the mecha and human residents who could not blend in to the Earth environment, time to rest and relax and unwind if they so wanted. Ella quite often found herself here when she wanted to be alone, away from all the other base residents.

One mecha who had a strong part in the creation and design of this place, was Ranger, she was one of the 'Roughnecks' teams older members, having served on the team with Ella's birth mother, Nova, on the original team roster when the Roughnecks team was first sent to Earth to build and establish a defence outpost there, millions of years ago.

It was not long before Ella had settled that she was interrupted. She sighed, having forgotten to leave her comms. unit outside with the biosphere's computer.

It kept beeping till she answered it.

It was Bonecrusher on the long range comms.

Bonecrusher regaled her with a full report of what had happened with their next attempt of trying to get hold of a Matrice. They had failed to get the other unit also.

Ella had sighed again to herself. She was the one who had told Bones' to give her full reports of all that was happening with their mission.

It gave Ella an indication of what the Dominion were up to and how far ahead they were at getting all twelve of the Matrice units. So far Ella only knew they had four, Decellion's own, Sound Tracks, as well as two others that Nova and her two groups. She knew she had Freefall's and Bones' units, her own unit, as well as knowing that Optimus on Cybertron still had his. She however did not know where the other four were, if indeed there were only another four to be found.

After their last battle, millions of years ago, before her mission on Cybertron, she had then hidden from Decellion all over the galaxy, so they could turn up anywhere, inside or outside the Alliance.

But she had surmised that Decellion had given something to her Necromancers that would allow them to find the Matrices easily, much quicker than she would.

She conveyed her thoughts to Bonecrusher whom she knew would in turn give the information to Nova.

Once the conversation was over Ella had almost an hour of peace before a local call was automatically relayed through to her comms. by the Base's computer.

This time the disturbance was Laura.

Laura explained the events of the day before and the fun she had with a new member of the group, named Trevor James.

Ella had been advised about what had happened by Joyride, hoping to get her older sister in trouble yet again, but Ella had ignored it after Flashdance had explained her feelings about this Trevor, they had made friends with now and whom knew about the transformer femmes that Laura and her group knew about.

"Say you wouldn't happen to want to come up to the State Technology Fair in a few days in Seattle would you?" Asked Ella. She thought it might be a good way for Laura's friends to become accustomed to more mecha technology.

"Fair?" Laura says curiously.

"Yes, a Fair. A bunch of humans in one place showing off the things they can make!" Ella replies amused, trying to make a joke to the young teen.

"Sure I'll be in, it's on the weekend so I'll make time for it. I'll pass the word around to everyone and see who can make it and who can't and let you know ok."

"Alright." Was Ella's response.

"Sorry to disturb you and all Ella, I tried ringing my aunt's but their phone's aren't answering and the call got redirected to you like it sometimes does."

"That's fine; I'll talk to you later then."

Laura said her goodbyes and hung up, leaving Ella alone again to enjoy her solitude.

*

In Washington DC, the joint chiefs of staff were discussing with the President about their little project in Port Angeles on the other side of the country.

They had decided to leave the testing of the mecha units and also of the pilots who would be selected for these units at this facility under the command of the newly appointed base commander.

Recently, a Marissa Fairborn had contacted them with an urgent request to be included in this project when she had found out about it and seen the test results.

The staff had discussed it with each other for some time before coming to a decision that she would be beneficial to have around on the project considering her history with mecha in particular. The decision was relayed to her personally and she was beside herself, that she and her unit would be transferred to the Port Angeles Military Base for this project.

The other problem that they would need to discuss was Adam Drake and Drake Corp. The military did indeed want the plans for these mecha combat units for themselves. But there was also the fact that Drake Corp was their biggest contributor and they did not want to lose their biggest source of funds.

However, Adam Drake, creator of the mechanoid systems had his own plans. He knew that the US Government would attempt to subvert his original idea of paying back the Autobots for years of protection by creating a defence system whereas the humans could learn to defend themselves. He had added his own student picks into the mix and wanted to let them learn to defend their own planet, just as they do in the Alliance, both civilians and military personnel.

Adam's idea however was not known to the local residents of that area.

All of the construction had been done in a secret underground facility beneath the university that was also linked to the base at Dragon Mountain by a rail system, and even though he had to complete it on his own, it was almost done.

The US Government also had no idea of the secret base under that mountain in Dragon Valley, which had been under their noses for years.

The Dragon Valley Base was a cover for scientific and technological testing and manufacturing area. Not all knew this, some knew the truth but it was generally a secret.

A secret that had come out into the open lately. Ella was aware of this and was preparing herself for the inevitable if the Base's existence ever became public knowledge; she knew her team couldn't remain hidden forever, not with what has been going on around her lately.

Inside the base, all the mech civilians with secret lives came and went through the place for supplies in secret, using their alternate modes or their Biomodes that had been fashioned for them by Ella. This is the way it had been for a very long time.

Ella would prefer it stay that way, but who knew how much longer that would last.

*