Disclaimer: I only own my OCs.

Megatron: Authoress, should you be doing anything right now?

Authoress: *coughs* I am bored out of my mind and that means you get an update.

Megatron: *raises optic ridge* That does not answer the question.

Authoress: *shrugs*

Chapter 45: Possibility

Miko's 1st P.O.V.

I felt like the room was seconds away from exploding. Next to me, Paul was focused and I could see that he was nervous. Of course, I knew why. Pandimala had constantly refused to talk to us ever since we found out who she was. And then, out of the blue, she decides to talk without any hesitation. Didn't even try to ask to bring anybot or anyone with her. Just her. Plus, from what Paul told me, the two of them didn't exactly leave each other on good terms back when she was still human, even if that was under duress.

Then, across from us was Pandimala's soliform. I could even see the tension that was coming from her. I couldn't tell if she was more angry or nervous about what was going on. While she was the one who picked me to help Paul since she wasn't going to anymore, she was still acting hostile to Paul before this talk.

"Do you believe me now Lizzie?" Paul started to speak, finally. "Now that the Decepticons killed your human body and turned you into this?"

Pandimala's soliform's eyebrow twitched slightly before her eyes narrowed. "The Decepticons were not responsible for what happened to me Paul, despite what you may believe. If it wasn't for them, I would not be online right now even." She then moved her hands to her hips. "And that's how you want to start this talk with me? An attempt at an 'I told you so'? I thought you were a god, not a five-year-old."

It was Paul's turn to look irritated before he frowned. "The Autobots weren't ever near you. Otherwise, they would have rescued you from them sooner."

"I didn't need rescued Paul," Pandimala's voice came out with a hiss behind it. "And can you vouch on where every single Autobot on this planet had been on the solar that I was attacked?"

"Can you with the Decepticons?" He shot right back at her.

A shiver traveled down my spine when she smirked at that. "Yes. Lord Megatron, after the battle in the mine, immediately launched an investigation into the locations of every single Decepticon on the Nemesis, with memory footage to back it up, as to every Decepticon's location when I was attacked. So again, can you vouch for every single Autobot Paul?"

"They have sworn to follow the Autobot ideals and Autobots don't go against those ideals. They wouldn't have attacked you." I frowned at that. We both knew that Pitch, Sentinel, and Flamewar were almost the opposite of those ideals. But, he was their god. He would know better than I would about them.

"You didn't answer my question Paul," Pandimala shot back, the smirk gone from her face.

"He's their...your god. He would know better than you about each bot." I jumped in. Paul was a god. And gods knew their creations better than anyone. If Paul felt that even Flamewar, Sentinel, and Pitch wouldn't have hurt Pandimala back when she was Lizzie, then they wouldn't.

I jumped when Pandimala let out a bark-like laugh. "Ha! First off, Paul is not my god. I may be a Cybertronian now, but he was not my creator. As you said, gods know their creations better than anyone, yet he didn't even know who I was until I was on the brink of losing my mind and Wheeljack pointed it out to everyone, including him. Secondly, Paul is not the entirety of Primus and thus isn't infallible. Even he can make mistakes."

"You just don't want to admit that you were wrong Lizzie," Paul responded, though I noticed that he flinched at her comment about him not knowing who she was. Paul regretted not knowing who she was, he had talked to me about it a lot.

"Yeah, and Paul feels bad about not knowing who you were," I added in.

Pandimala turned to me and I felt tense as she stared at me. "Oh, he felt bad once he knew it was me. However, when I was supposedly just one of his children who chose to support the Decepticons, I didn't see any of that care. Both of you sought me out to purposefully put me down, though I made my choices. Even when I was in processor shock and a mess on the floor, there was no concern. There wasn't any kindness for me from the god of Order. Instead, at the least, he looked indifferent. At most I would call his care for me burgeoning on the line of cruel. Like I deserved to go through that!" She then paused and took a deep breath. "My apologies for getting worked up. Is there anything else you want to 'discuss'? If not, I'm leaving."

She then turned to leave. Well, that didn't go nearly as well as I thought it was going to. However, it was strange that, when she reached the door, she couldn't open it. After a few minutes of her just standing at the door, she turned and I flinched at the angered look in her optics.

"We are not done talking Lizzie," Paul said in response to her look.

Wait...did Paul use some of his mojo to lock her in here? This didn't seem right. But, he was the god of Order. He had to know what he was doing...right?

"Why am I not surprised that you stooped to this Paul? Things aren't going exactly how you want and this is how you act? Throwing a temper tantrum. And you wondered why I didn't want to talk to you until now?" Pandimala then grabbed a chair from a corner and pulled it in front of the door before she motioned to him. "Well, it looks like you want to say more. What is it, Paul? I have nowhere else to go."

Paul narrowed his eyes and I suddenly felt very awkward in here. I knew I was included because I was helping Paul with his goals and I needed to know what was going on. But, from how this was going, I was getting the feeling that Lizzie had been more serious about cutting ties with Paul than he wanted to believe. What could they have fought about before to get Lizzie, who had before trusted the god enough to bring her to this world, to cut ties with the last link to her world?

"The other organic on the ship. Tell me about them. We need to know what sort of beings have allied with the Decepticons. It might change the entirety of the fight here on Earth." Paul demanded.

"I can't."

"Can't, or won't Lizzie? The entire future of this dimension is at stake. You can't keep information back because you are upset with me." Paul responded.

Pandimala didn't seem to back down. "It is both Paul. We Decepticons don't put all of our information out to everybot to have and I do not have any information on the other organic on the ship. Even if I did though, I wouldn't share it with you. I am a loyal Decepticon and I will not give away any information that could damage our goals moving forward."

"You're going to doom this dimension Lizzie," Paul growled as Pandimala stood up.

I watched as she picked up the chair she had been sitting in before turning to look at us. "No, I am working toward peace Paul, something that you brought me here to do. I want you to think about something. You wanted to change the death of Cliffjumper. That much is obvious since you haven't tried to orchestrate his death to correct the timeline to what you might want. How many Decepticons were you planning to save from their original offlining? Skyquake? Breakdown? Dreadwing? Any of them?" There was silence after she asked that. "That's what I thought." She then turned around and moved toward the door, the chair still in hand.

"What are you doing with that?" I asked her.

Her voice sounded emotionless as she answered. "Since this peaceful god has blocked my other means of leaving, I need to get somebot's attention to open this door. Don't worry. I won't tell the Autobots you locked me in here. But, this is the last conversation that we have alone Paul, Miko. I hope you said your peace." She then threw the chair against the door.

It wasn't long before the door opened, jerking in resistance slightly before Wheeljack's soliform was seen. "Everything alright Pandimala? Optimus told me about the meeting you were having with Paul and Miko." He then looked between the three of us.

It was almost scary how easy Pandimala smiled at him like she hadn't just been arguing with the god of Order. "Yeah, I'm good. The door got jammed up a little and we couldn't get it to budge from this side. Must have been looser on the other side. Thanks for coming to our rescue." She then stepped out of the room before saying. "I'm going back to my chassis and taking a nap for a bit. Can you or one of the others watch my door?"

Wheeljack nodded. "Yeah, we got you femme. Go rest up a bit."

Pandimala looked back toward us one more time, and I shivered at the cold and steady look she sent us. I knew she made up her mind and, manipulated or not, I could tell that Pandimala was not going to have her mind changed, even by Primus himself.

Springer's 1st P.O.V.

I was impressed. It wasn't easy to impress me, especially when it came to sparring, but Pandimala was doing that. We weren't sure what the Decepticons all did to her up there, but from how she was moving, they put her through training. But, that still normally wouldn't be enough to impress me. No, this femme wouldn't have impressed me if she was fighting like bots her frame type normally fought. No, while I did see some moves in her style from bigger frame types, like a few punches that reminded me of how Blitzwing would swing them, the way she moved her pedes under her was most certainly not how larger bots normally moved.

No, it was very reminiscent of the way I had seen Starscream and his seekers move. She covered the distance between her and her opponents, Ironhide and Jazz. She had asked if I wanted to join in, but I didn't want to stress her so I figured we could see how she dealt with two opponents. I honestly thought that she would have been overwhelmed by now. While I had a feeling she could deal with Ironhide if she focused on her fighting, I had been sure that Jazz was going to be able to throw her off and show us what we might need to work on.

Instead, Pandimala was keeping Jazz and Ironhide on their pedes and the two looked they were the ones being forced to move. Just what sort of training did they put her through up there where a previous human, who was only the age of a sparkling in actual stellars, could keep up with being outnumbered by two mechs who were not only online as Cybertronians but had been online for longer than her species had even existed?

Finally, after what seemed like cycles, though was only ten clicks, the timer we set finally went off, and the three combatants back off of each other. All were cycling their intakes quickly, but Pandimala didn't seem as tired as Ironhide and Jazz were. "That was a lot of fun, thanks mechs." Pandimala smiled as she stood straight, servos on her hips.

Jazz seemed to recover next as he nodded. "I think you gave us more of a workout than you got."

"Frag femme how can you fight like that?" Ironhide asked, still cycling intakes. Pandimala had focused a lot on him, though she did keep an optic on Jazz I noticed, and so it made sense for him to take longer to recover.

She smiled at that. "A few places. Humans usually have options for young children to learn different self-defense techniques. When I was younger, after...well, when it was just me and mom, she signed me up for a few to help me stay focused on the future." Her sire must not have been present when this happened. Maybe his absence caused it? Once I got to know her better, I would ask her about it. "Then, the mechs on the Nemesis would take turns giving me lessons both before and after the accident." Her wings suddenly twitched and I noticed that she looked worried.

"'The accident?' What happened?" Jazz asked.

If I had to guess, it was what happened to take away her humanity. She still hadn't said much on that. "I'm not sure honestly. I remember looking for something, and then I got enveloped by a beam before I lost consciousness. The next thing I know, I wake up like this. An investigation was launched to see what caused it, but none of the Decepticons were near me when it happened."

I'm sure the others caught how vague she was being with her answer. She didn't tell us where she was before the beam hit her and she would have remembered at least that much. But, she had the right to her secrets. We all had ours and I, for one, wasn't about to go spilling mine for every bot who asked for them. "Oh. So, who did you train with mostly?"

She smiled and I noticed her send a small nod in my direction, probably thanks for changing the subject but who knew with her before she answered me. "Oh. Well before the accident, I worked a lot on combat training with Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker, Vox, Breakdown, and even Blitzwing. When this happened," She motioned to her chassis at that before continuing. "I mainly worked with Breakdown, Starscream, and Blitzwing. When I was human, Blitzwing especially worked with me in soliform."

Ironhide raised an optic ridge at that. "Why would he want to work with you in soliform?"

Pandimala smirked. "I could work against multiple opponents at once. It was a lot of fun and sometimes, the other soliforms would join us, and then it would be a challenge."

She laughed at that but, from the looks on the other faceplates around me, we all realized why she gave both Ironhide and Jazz a challenge. Having training learning to fight against multiple opponents gave Pandimala an advantage we didn't even realize that she had. Outside of her animosities with Paul, Miko, Pitch, Sentinel, and Flamewar; the femme seemed like a very calm and relaxed personality. I would have never suspected that she had the sort of training that she was implying that she had.

"Well, it shows. Good job femme." Jazz smiled and said that before he held out his servo.

"Yeah femme, let me know if you want to do any more sparring. I could use the practice by the looks of it." Ironhide added, extending his servo.

Pandimala smiled back at them before shaking each of their servos. "Thanks, and I'll make sure to do that Ironhide." After she let go of their servos, she seemed to pause. "Would you mechs mind answering a question for me?"

Well, after everything that she had gone through, some here at our base, it was the least we could do for now. "Sure femme. What is it?"

"If the Decepticons offered the chance for a peaceful and fair resolution between the two factions this solar, would you be willing to go along with it?"

She...she was serious? Was she that naive? While I was studying her, however, my optics fell on her Decepticon insignia. The Decepticons wouldn't allow her to be that naive to join their ranks. Was there an option of peace?

"Peace? Sure would be nice. Can't remember what it was like not fighting." Jazz answered with a thoughtful look.

"Don't see it happening anytime soon though. I don't see Buckethead dropping everything for peace." Ironhide answered though I could see hope in his optics as well.

Well, guess that left me. "And it's not like the Autobots are in any place for peace. Just here on Earth, we seem to be divided on a lot of things. If Megatron offered a peaceful and fair end to the war, I'm not sure we would be wholly ready as a faction to work with him." I watched her for her reaction and I noticed that she seemed to be thinking deeply about it. Were the Decepticons thinking on peace? If they were, then we Autobots had to get our acts together and be ready for that. I knew that the negotiations would be half the battle, and we were nowhere near battle-ready for that.

"Ah, I see." That was it? She asked that deep of a question and that was the only response we were getting? Before I could ask anything about that, she looked around before speaking. "Speaking of you lot, I noticed that there weren't as many bots around as there normally is. Where did everybot go?"

The three of us looked between each other at that. That was one of the reasons we had asked her to come to do some training with us. "We had picked up a signal from one of the relics here on Earth, and right now a good portion of us are out getting it. The only ones not on the retrieval team are the three of us, Ratchet, and Sentinel." The way her optics widened at the shortlist told me that she knew just how important getting the relics was for us. I doubted that they told her everything about the relic hunt when she was with them, but it seems that the Decepticons told Pandimala just enough so she knew why we were sending so many troops.

I was going to say more when Ironhide suddenly seemed to tense. Must be getting a message from somebot. "Let's head back to the main room. The others are about to come back."

"I think I'll just go to my room," Really? Why would Pandimala not come with us and see what was going on? "It's liable to be tense depending on how the mission went and while more of you seem to get along with me now, I'd rather not make it worse by being there." She then walked out of the room.

The three of us stared after her until she was gone. "I still can't figure that femme out," Ironhide spoke up as the rest of us started to make our way to the central hub.

"Same here," Jazz spoke up, "but I'd still trust her more than some bots here." He then made a motion forward, "And from how she was talking, the Decepticons are at least tossing around the idea of peace. We need to figure out the problems in our faction and quick."

I knew that, but I also knew that it was going to be difficult. We were very divided as a faction right now. It would take a lot of work to get our acts together. But, if the Decepticons could get everybot on their side working together, then I saw no reason why we couldn't do the same.

Pandimala's 1st P.O.V.

"So, they got the Star Saber?" I asked the soliforms in front of me as we sat in Neutrality. As soon as I heard how many bots were going on that retrieval mission, I also knew I needed to check in with Lord Megatron and the others as soon as I could. While they had been keeping me appraised about the missions before this, I had a feeling that this was either the Star Saber or one of the Omega Keys. While I knew that Lord Megatron knew of their existence and importance to the timeline, I did not know if he had plans on what to do with those relics.

If Lord Megatron had decided to withhold the Star Saber from the Autobots, then I needed to be ready for a lot of tension back in the base once I returned to my chassis. I needed to be aware of that before any confrontation could happen, and not after. It was the reason I decided to come here right away instead of seeing how the Autobots fared in this confrontation.

Lord Megatron's soliform nodded before saying, "Precisely. It would do me little good to hold onto the weapon and, while it would cause the Autobots some discomfort for us to have it, I know that Prime is aware that only he can currently utilize the sword. Given recent events you have reported from their base, having them have this victory will make your mission go much smoother."

"Thank you, my Lord." I appreciated the fact that Lord Megatron decided to make my mission easier.

"Also, with tensions hopefully going down with the Autobots, you should be able to work with more of them to head towards peace," Starscream added with a knowing look. What? I would rather see everybot happy after everything that has happened. But, between Pitch, Sentinel, Flamewar, Paul, and Miko, that wasn't going to be easy.

"Speaking on working on tensions, I spoke with Paul and Miko alone earlier." They all focused on me while I continued. "He seemed angry at me for choosing sides still. Seems convinced that you all caused my transformation." I then shook my helm. "He wouldn't even consider the fact that the Autobots may have been responsible. Also, he has Miko firmly in his corner. Even though I doubt he told her all about the argument, she seemed ready to defend him at every point." I then felt my optic ridge twitch when I remembered what he did. "Then the aft had the gal to lock me both physically and in my soliform in the room with them. Luckily he didn't do anything else directly against me."

"Why did he prevent you from leaving?" Shockwave, the third and final soliform, asked me.

"The idiot asked me information on the other organic that is working with us. I told him that I didn't have access to that information and that, even if I did, I wouldn't tell him. I then threw my chair against the door to get the Autobot's attention before leaving. Every Autobot in the base now knows that I will no longer be talking to Paul and Miko alone."

"Paul seems to be growing desperate for your support again," Lord Megatron spoke with a concerned look on his face. "While he might not be fully Primus, he still is entirely made up of the creator Pandimala. Be careful around him."

"Yes, my Lord," I responded with a nod.

My Lord then looked at us sitting here. "With the recovery of the Star Sabre by the Autobots, it is only a matter of time before the Omega Lock Keys start coming into play. If we can prevent the Autobots from gaining all of them, then we should not have to worry about destroying the Omega Lock. That should give Cybertron more hope for revival in the future." He then glanced at each of us. "As to revealing our knowledge of their current location, I believe we need to wait until, at the very least, all of the omega keys are in play. At that point, we will revisit the need to reveal our servos at their location."

"That sounds like our best strategy my Lord," Shockwave answered with a nod. Starscream and I simply nodded in agreement. There was no point in wasting time just verbally agreeing at a small meeting like this.

Between my talk with the Autobots this solar along with this meeting, peace felt like it could be a very viable option. Honestly, while it was my goal, I didn't expect it to move this quickly. But, from the pace that everything seemed to be moving at, we could...in theory, have peace between the Autobots and the Decepticons before the third season ended. While that seemed somewhat far out, I had thought that I would have to wait until the end of the movie before getting peace moving. But this...this was a miracle like I had never seen before.

"Pandimala, stay back. I wish to speak with you for a click," Lord Megatron addressed me as Starscream and Shockwave took that as their opportunity to leave. Once they were gone, and it was just my Lord's soliform along with my own, he looked toward me. "Pandimala, while plans are going smoothly on all of our fronts, you are the closest to the front lines in all of these endeavors. One misstep from any of us and you will be there, fully exposed to the Autobots. You have the right to object to any plans, while you are with the Autobots if you feel like your position could be compromised in any way."

"My Lord, I live to serve. Regardless of my position with the Autobots currently, my spark is yours to do with as you see fit. I will never risk our plans simply because I may face some discomfort. I am a proud Decepticon, and if having some discomfort placed upon me helps move your goals forward, my Lord, then I am ready to endure." I was very uncomfortable with the amount of freedom my Lord was showing me in this situation. Objecting to my Lord's plans? I shuddered in disgust just thinking about it.

However, it seemed my Lord had a different view. "While you do serve me loyally, and I treasure your loyalty Pandimala, you are the only optics we have inside the Autobot base. While I may have plans that I create, you will have an insight that will solely show evidence against the validity of those plans."

Oh, I got it now. "Of course my Lord. Forgive my impertinence from before." He was saying that, since I was the only one with first-servo knowledge of the Autobots at most times now, I might have information that could endanger his plans.

"You are forgiven this time, Pandimala." He responded to me, though I could tell that Lord Megatron seemed slightly tense now. He then motioned away. "Now, return to the Autobots and keep studying them while working on your own goals. Hopefully, all of our goals will be able to work with each other."

"Yes, my Lord," I responded with a bow of my head before standing up and deactivating my soliform.

Authoress: *coughs* *sighs* I am better than I have been in a while.

Starscream: So, you got infected with a disease that has been active for over a stellar now.

Authoress: *nods*

Knockout: *sighs* Why are there so many diseases that you humans can be infected with at any given time?

Authoress: Luck of the draw.

AN: And here is the next chapter everybot! Yes, as you can probably pull from above, I do have covid right now. But, I am past the worse part of it so I am now only coughing every so often with only a slightly upset stomach. That means that I am bored right now without much to do. So, I finally have enough energy to get some typing done. Hopefully, I can keep the energy focused on typing.

Now, for the next chapters!

Chapter 46: The Right Steps

Chapter 47: First Date

Chapter 48:... (find out next time!)

And that is all for now. Drop a review, either to review or say hi. I do appreciate them. Also, if you haven't voted on the poll on my page, please take a chance to do so. Two of the choices are close enough where a few votes could make a big difference. Well, until next time, TTYL! *thinking about some soup*