CHAPTER ONE

Preparations

***

I sat there, staring at the wall, as the communication faltered and died out. Everyone else was staring at Chromia, who had broadcasted the communication through MP3 Player speakers, and was now resuming her holoform.

Absentmindedly, I played with Saphira's ears, tweaking them back and forth with my left hand. Saphira was being very patient about this. My right hand held an empty mug.

"Well," Glyph broke the silence. "What are we going to do?"

I looked at her. "Do?" I repeated. "Well, we're going to go and rescue Bee, of course!" Just saying it filled me with more strength then the cup of coffee I'd just consumed did. Bee was in danger, and we had to save him.

Absolutely.

Optimus shook his head. "El, for all we know, this could be a trap…"

"Of course it's a trap!" I exclaimed. "The Decepticons are after the All-Spark – and they're using Bee as bait to lure me in!"

Bulkhead gave me an odd look. "But…we can't just give the Decepticons what they want…can we?" I could tell he missed Bee as well, after all, they are best friends. I knew I could get Bulkhead on my side, if I just wheedled hard enough.

Prowl said: "Of course we can't – El and the All-Spark are under our protection. We cannot afford to forget our mission; we can't fail here. The future of Cybertron depends on it!" It was the longest speech I'd ever heard him say.

Apparently, he'd always been a bot of few words, because the others were looking at him in surprise.

And I remembered then how Prowl had failed to protect the protoforms from Lockdown…which he also didn't know about the latter…

Hmm.

"Prowl," I said carefully. "You won't have failed me, anymore then what you failed him." Prowl tensed. The others regarded me curiously. "And, anyway, I'm not planning on dying anytime soon, so you won't have to worry, since you're coming, and therefore can be there to protect me." I did my best to send him a Look that said 'I know about your past', and I think he understood because he nodded after awhile.

"Chromia," I said, turning to face her now. "Can you trace the signal from that transmission?" She nodded. "Good, well then…"

"Hold on!" Optimus interrupted me. "I haven't given my permission yet! Have we stopped to think about what would happen to El if we did go there?"

"I will not let them lay their servos on her," Prowl promised, speaking very clearly.

"I'm looking forward to offlining Sideways this time!" Sides' said, and his twin brother grinned.

"I just wanna rescue Bumblebee." Bulkhead admitted.

"Me too, buddy," I told him. "Not to mention Karr…" My hand came up to touch the star necklace that was now secured around my neck. What had Primus' meant by what he'd said?

"Nobody will be rescuing anybody until Ella's injuries have healed," Ratchet suddenly said gruffly, and we all turned to look at him.

"And when will that be, doc?" I asked him.

"In about two days, I should think." Ratchet responded, nodding to himself. "And try not to move so much until then." He added.

"Yes sir!" I saluted. Ratchet glowered at me.

"But, El?" Glyph spoke up. "What about school?"

"Yeah, and Fran, and the terror twins?" Flare-Up added.

I smiled. "Already got that sorted out. Our school just began a two-week break to prepare for term two. Yesterday was just sort of a 'party' day. And guess what my step-family does for the two week break?"

"What?" Everyone but Rosanna asked, because she already knew.

"They go to Europe."

"Europe!?" The others exclaimed.

Rosanna nodded. "El usually invited Karr around for those two weeks, they went shopping with Jass, and she spoke to Josh on the phone."

"Who?" Prowl asked, but Optimus cut him off. "I suppose we could go and rescue Bumblebee, and still make it back…I'll see if I can contact Cybertron and call for reinforcements…"

"What?" I asked him, my eyes wide. "You mean Sentinel Prime?"

Optimus didn't look too happy either, but he said: "Yes, El, that's what I had in mind."

"I suppose if Jazz and Ultra Magnus were with him too…what about Blurr..?" I thought of the lightning fast blue Autobot, and then it came crashing toward me.

Blurr gets killed in the TV series.

So does Prowl.

And Starscream.

I looked at Prowl, and he was looking at me. I felt light-headed just thinking about the nature-loving bot not being there.

To distract myself, I asked Chromia where the transmission had come from.

"Just let me work on it," She said. "There's a code in here I need to break, but it's nothing I can't handle." She promised. "Don't worry El-Bell, just get better."

I nodded.

I wondered where we would be going.

***

Optimus Prime's P.O.V:

"Uh-oh…" I said. I was back at the base, with Chromia and Glyph, and I'd just discovered something that was going to put a spanner in our plans for sure.

"What?" The two fems asked in unison.

I stared at the crackling, blurry screen, and said: "The communications network is down – I can't contact anyone who isn't on earth…"

"Oh slag…" Glyph muttered.

***

Unknown P.O.V:

I had been searching for the Decepticon base for some time now. I had been hunting, gathering information.

And I'd just picked up a transmission from them, which would allow me to find them if I could break the code.

Nothing I couldn't do, I'd have it done faster than lightning.

***

Another Unknown P.O.V:

I didn't know who I was, or where I was, or even what I was supposed to be doing.

I'd been born out of the blue light, and so here I was.

But where was here?

"Excuse me miss…" I began.

The small, female creature stared up at me, and then screamed. She turned and ran away as fast as she could, running around the corner and out of sight.

I stared sadly after her. I had just wanted to know who I was.

Sighing, I transformed, and drove off in the other direction, in search of someone who could tell me who I was.