Perceptor muttered quietly his thoughts to himself as he worked to adapt the local technology to something that he and his companion could utilize. The language barrier was second to the size of the components in the terms of problems he was facing, but their human allies that has rescued them were doing their best to be helpful. While fortunate to have been found by a seemingly peaceful group of the planet's natives, he still had to hold out hope that he and Blurr were not the only survivors from the crash. For their own safety, the group that had found them were keeping them secured in a military facility. While it currently only contained the two Autobots, there were plenty of humans in their uniforms working on different projects in the area.

Blurr had been zipping around the compound, doing his best to find something to keep his interest, or at least him active longer than the few moments it took him to complete any given task. He annoyed Perceptor enough to have the scientist set him to the task of learning the local language. While not ideal to the race car, it did hold his attention.

There was a human that would drop by once in a while, a man that the others held in high regards in his authority, so the Autobots made sure to do the same when the man was around. He was a four star Army General that the men only refereed to as General. With his brown hair kept short, his face also decorated with a patch of the brown under his nose as well, the man carried the air of authority well. He had Earth English script on his uniform, like all of the others, and Perceptor was sure as soon as one of them figured out the language they would at know what names to call them by aside from the nicknames that they seemed to have. Well, far be it for an Autobot to complain about someone's chosen name. He knew quite a few odd ones himself from old companions.

The General had decided to make a visit to the base, actually walking up to the scientist. Hearing the man approach, Perceptor set down the chip boards he was attempting to piece together and gave the man his full attention.

"It's good to see you again, General," he greeted.

"It's good to see you, too, Perceptor. I had come to check on you and Blurr, and also with my men to make sure that things were going well."

"As well as to be expected, sir. As to what could be causing your concern, might I ask?"

"Ah, you see, we've had a few of our R and D bases attacked by a rouge group that have been trying to steal the technology we have been developing in them the past few months. I was concerned about your and Blurr's safety, so I decided to check on you myself."

"How very thoughtful of you." Perceptor motioned behind him towards the blue based Autobot that was quickly moving between six different screens as he worked. "I've managed to find something to keep my hyperactive compatriot occupied, so his need to do something outside of the grounds has been culled down substantially."

"Wonderful. There was something else I had wished to ask you, though."

Perceptor turned back towards the man, his head titled a bit to the side as one of his optics adjusted to zoom in closer on the man, his analysis programming again taking in all the details of the human out of habit. "I'm not sure of what assistance I can provide, but I'll be more than happy to help."

"Good, good. Some of my men had found some strange crystals while on recon. Our scientists can't make heads or tails out of them, saying that they seem almost alien in their natural properties. I was wondering if you would be interested in taking a look see at them."

"Ah, sounds quite intriguing. I shall be more than happy to take a look then."

"Great. I'll order a shipment of them sent over as soon as I'm able to. Thank you."

With nothing more to be said, the General waved and walked away, leaving Perceptor to focus back down at the components once more. But his processor was on the idea of examining the crystals. The humans were already bringing in shipments of Energon crystals that the Autobots were utilizing, since the humans had claimed that they had found traces of the precious recourse in their forms during their repairs. If these crystals weren't Energon, and not seeming to be of Earthen origin, then Perceptor had no idea what to truly expect to examine, and he was excited for that prospect alone.

The next few raids that Elita and her team ran only ended with dead ends. The buildings had been abandoned, quickly, but thoroughly cleaned out of anything. The rail systems that ran underneath every single one of them had been closed off as well. M.E.C.H. was either getting ahead of them all or closing in on themselves. Neither option bode well.

Agent Fowler walked into her little corner, finding Elita sitting on the very back of her bike form, staring at the maps on her wall as she rubbed her temples. She also had a large table with paper's strewn all over it, her usual organization lost at the moment. He stepped up beside her, resting one hand on the tire-well beside him.

"General Bryce is wanting an update about missions as soon as we can get them ready."

"He's going to have to wait," Elita muttered, still focused on the maps. "Things are full FUBAR right now."

"That bad?"

"Worse actually." Elita sighed deeply. "They're being tipped off. I think my little mind trip with Ratchet gave me some insight, but I had suspicions before hand that might have fed it, too."

"It could also be your gut telling you something."

"I'd like to think so, but," Elita shrugged off the rest of what she might have said. "Sounds like the guys are closing shop for the night."

"Yeah, I was on my way out myself and decided to stop in to check on you. We haven't seen you as often as we used to."

"What do you mean? I'm as active as I've been before," Elita blinked in confusion, but when she looked over at Fowler she noted the smirk on his face and blushed a bit. "Oh, well... not like I'm needed here much at night and it's not like no one can get a hold of us."

"Speaking of, he's been here a while."

Again, Elita was puzzled. Why had he not come in to see her? Maybe he had and she had been so preoccupied with her thoughts that he left her to it. "I hope he's been at least calm."

Fowler chuckled a bit. "He's been talking with Slash the whole time."

"Oh... boy."

Those two together? Yes, they somewhat got along in the dreamscape, but are the two medics doing so in reality?

Twisting around to climb down onto her bike form, Elita motioned to Fowler to hop on so he could get a ride to his car. Once she dropped him off she headed over to the medical wing. She indeed found him waiting there. Ratchet, in his alternate form, was pulled back against the large access doors for his vehicular type and appeared to be just sitting there. She parked herself beside him and slipped through the small space between his back end and the doorway. John and Ratchet's holographic image were sitting in the opening of the ambulance, the doors opened wide.

"You two look cozy," she greeted with a smile.

"The three of us were just having a nice chat. You just missed Spike," John said as he stood up.

"I see," she muttered a bit. She was used to John and Spike talking, but Ratchet interacting with them as well? That didn't seem to be like him. Well, it wasn't until after they started talking to one another again the past month. Looking back over at Ratchet, she caught his smile, and instinctively returned it. He looked calm and relaxed, even happy. Elita didn't realize that she was staring at him until John cleared his throat to cover up a laugh.

"Well, I best not keep you two. We all have an early day tomorrow." The human medic waved as he saw himself out the smaller door, shutting the light off.

Ratchet moved himself forward so Elita could pull her smaller form into the back compartment, his holographic form appearing in the driver's seat in the process. With her larger form secured, Elita climbed into the passenger seat, securing herself in place.

"So what are we going to eat tonight?" the Autobot medic asked.

Elita couldn't help but giggle a bit at the excited tone he had to his voice as he asked. While he wasn't able to physically eat the food, the pair had been utilizing a little trick so he was able to share in at least how it tasted.

"Let's head into town and see what we haven't had yet," she offered.

Ratchet drove them out of the building, letting the night guards at the door and gate secure them outside of the base. It was almost like old times, but but better.

With a large fruit smoothie in hand, the pair headed out into the surrounding area to enjoy the quiet. The stars above the couple were vast, twinkling in the moonless night as Elita shared her sensory perception of the drink with the medic. Ratchet was surprised by how cold it was, but it seemed to enhance the flavor more than he had expected. What bothered him, though, was how quite his companion was as she absentmindedly sipped the drink.

"Elita? Are you alright?"

Startled out of her thoughts, Elita did her best to smile over at the hologram in the driver's seat. "Oh. Yeah. Mind was wondering, that's all. How was your day? Any progress on your Synth-En formula?"

"Still incomplete. I'm hoping for a breakthrough soon, though. What about your day?" The deep sigh she gave didn't help ease his worry.

"They're somehow getting a head of us since right before we gained Tracks and his group. I hate to say it, but they were doing more of an impact when they were Decepticons."

"Considering that they were outside of known actions taken by your counter M.E.C.H. group, so any intel that they were utilizing would have been outside of your authoritative figures scope and away from anyone that would transfer the data to M.E.C.H. themselves. Given what we had run into, their ability to have continued to run rogue under Megatron was at an end by the time we caught up with them."

"All true," she said with a sigh. "Ready to head back to the base and continue giving me a tour of Cybertron?"

Ratchet smiled, but was still concerned. "Are you sure you don't need to eat something else?"

Elita just winked as she finished off the last of the drink. "You promised to show me Iacon tonight." She even smiled and batted her eyes at him, which he didn't know what its function was meant to accomplish, but he felt more compelled into giving in.

"Alright, alright. The noise at that Jazz, Bulkhead, and Miko were making should be at an end by now."

"Oh, I forgot. It's the weekend. We could always park at my place."

"It would give us a break from Tracks. He says that you make noise in your sleep."

"And why have you not told me this before? Nope... never mind, I don't think anyone wants to be told they snore."

"To your place, then?" Ratchet asked, already rolling back towards the human base of operations.

"Sounds like it's the only place that we'll have any sort of peace."

Author's Note: I don't own the show.

Thank you for your reads, views, and reviews.

I'm hoping to start hitting a lot of the M.E.C.H. plot holes in the story that I think exist in the show itself. Like, how was Bishop able to operate with what he had and stay under the military radar for so long.