Author's Note: Thank you to all of my readers for your feedback. To answer your question, Gromia, no, Ultra Rodimus doesn't stay human. If you want to know how he gets back to his own shape, you'll have to read and find out!

Disclaimer: See previous chapters.

Burning Skies

Chapter 8: Answers

It had been a week since Ultra Rodimus had been brought back to Metroplex, and he was feeling better. Not great, but better. He wasn't allowed to get up and walk yet, but he could sit up, and he could feed himself. Because he'd had plenty of experience at being human or humanoid, he was used to it. He didn't like it, but it was necessary.

First Aid had finally decided that Ultra Rodimus was well enough to answer questions, and had had him moved to a room large enough to accommodate Autobots. He was sitting up in bed, propped up by a large pile of pillows, glaring at the casts immobilizing his legs. Half a dozen Autobots were sitting around him.

"What happened that day?" Jazz asked.

Ultra Rodimus frowned thoughtfully. "I was on my way back from meeting with the general at the base. Roughly halfway from there to here, the road under me exploded. Some kind of mine is my guess. I was thrown off the road by the force of the blast. In mid-throw I transformed. That's when the shooting started."

"Who was shooting at you?"

"Humans. There were about a dozen of them, maybe more. They carried strange weapons, weapons of a make I've never seen before. They were firing stun bolts at me. Most of the shots were bouncing off my armor. Then one got me in the eye. My vision is still fuzzy on that side. I was hit there more than once, judging from what little I remember. Finally, I'd been hit enough times in the eye to put me out cold. I don't remember anything else until I woke up in what looked like a lab."

"And what happened in there?" Kup pressed. The cop next to him flipped open a notebook, and the rest of them leaned forward.

Ultra Rodimus's eyes turned cold and hard. In a flat, emotionless voice, he related everything that had been done to him, even giving them the names of some of the drugs that had been used on him. Several times during the recitation, one or more of the cops had to excuse themselves to go and be sick. The ones who didn't leave were more than a little green around the gills before he was halfway through. He included any names he could remember, and matched them to faces wherever possible.

It took him more than four hours to tell the entire tale, from his capture to his escape. The listening cops and most of the Autobots had to admit that they would never have made it that far if it had been them in his place. They doubted they would have survived even a single night under that kind of torture.

"You're a lot stronger than any of us, even in this form," one of the cops told him. "Any normal person, or any normal Autobot, would not have survived an hour. You lasted almost two weeks."

Ultra Rodimus growled. "How soon will I be back in my own body?" He looked expectantly at Perceptor.

The scientist shook his head. "The devices Lightspeed brought back were sabotaged, and ruined beyond repair. I cannot even begin to try and decipher them. They are a complete mystery to me. I am sorry."

The young Prime groaned and leaned back against the pillows. "In other words, I'm stuck like this."

"For the moment."

"This reeks!" Ultra Rodimus snarled, letting his age show through for one of his rare outbursts. "I'm not a human! I'm an Autobot! I don't want to be stuck like this!"

The other Autobots watched in silence. He deserved to have temper outbreaks after all that he had gone through, and finding out that he had no way of getting back into his real form. They didn't blame him for being in a bad mood.

Ultra Rodimus leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes blazing with impotent anger. He wanted to be doing something, or getting back into his own body. He didn't want to be human. He wasn't human. Ignoring everyone else in the room, he wished silently to be back as himself.

A sudden spike of pain shot through his chest, and his body blurred abruptly. For a long moment, his skin was smoke-grey, patterned with stripes, and clearly metallic. Then it returned to being normal human skin, and the sudden pain faded away.

"What in Primus's name was that?" he yelped.

Perceptor leaned over. "Fascinating. It appeared as if your body was beginning to morph back into your real form. Perhaps if you concentrate hard on being Cybertronian, you will change back."

Ultra Rodimus chewed his lip thoughtfully. "First Aid?"

"I don't recommend that you try it in this condition," the medic said instantly. "We don't know what might happen."

"I'm going to try anyway. Have a painkiller ready."

Reluctantly, First Aid pulled out a hypospray. He held it at the ready while Ultra Rodimus closed his eyes and concentrated.

The change began immediately. Unfortunately, so did the pain. Ultra Rodimus gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore it. He felt his skin become metal, felt his bones stretch. His body expanded outward, flesh becoming complex circuitry, thin skin becoming a hard armor shell. He could hear his own skeletal structure creaking. His heartbeats seemed to double as his two "hearts", necessary to provide fuel to all parts of someone his size, reformed and began to work.

The change was over with fairly quickly. Ultra Rodimus doubled over, holding his midsection, panting in pain. First Aid's arm shot out, pressing the hypo against his neck. There was a faint his as the painkiller entered his system, and then the pain began to fade.

First Aid pulled out his scanner and ran it slowly over the trembling Prime's body. All of his injuries were still there. But now First Aid could repair them.

Perceptor looked excited. "I theorize that because of the many times you've shifted back and forth between forms during the courses of several dimensional jumps..."

"His body got sick of the change being forced onto it and decided to do it on its own," Magnus interrupted from the doorway. "I'll bet that the change goes both ways. He can probably shift back and forth to human at will. But we'll test that once he's back at one hundred percent."

"And not before," Ultra Rodimus agreed. "That hurt like hell. And I think I'm gonna sleep for a week.."

First Aid called for one of the antigrav units used for moving patients. Medic Alert brought it and helped lift the tall youth onto it.

"Just one moment," Chief O'Connor called before the medics could take Ultra Rodimus away. "Ultra Rodimus, you described a young woman as being the brains behind your capture. Did you catch her name? Did she say why she was torturing you?"

"Her name was Jennifer," Ultra Rodimus said slowly. "Jennifer Murdoch. She was doing it for revenge. Her family was caught in the crossfire during a battle about twenty or more years ago. Her immediate family died instantly. Her boyfriend lasted three days in hospital. She vowed to get revenge for her murdered family, and she would use her machines on every robot of both factions she could catch."

The police chief wrote down the name. "We'll start a search for her as soon as we get back to the station."

"Somehow I doubt you'll catch her. She's smart. Smart enough to have planned this for years. You won't find her. But she'll find us. We haven't seen the last of her," Ultra Rodimus warned.

"We'll see about that."

Jennifer Murdoch was furious. She was standing in the middle of the command center of her secondary base. Already she was planning to regain control of the Autobot leader, and this time he wouldn't escape.

"My lady, we are almost ready," one of her employees told her.

"Good." Her smile would have frozen space if space hadn't been already frozen. The man crept away, radiating fear.

Her cruel eyes fixed on one of the spy photos she'd acquired from various sources. Those pictures had allowed her to plan her first strike. The one she was currently studying was of Sparkplug, Spike, Carly, and their baby, Daniel.

Her cold smile widened. The Autobots would be on guard now. But she had a new plan. She would use something the young Prime cared for to force his hand. He would surrender to her... or he would suffer the consequences.

To be continued...

Don't worry, it doesn't end here! I'm intending to write this one so that there won't be a sequel; I have barely enough ideas for this one. So it will go right to the end. If you want to read the whole thing, keep sending me reviews and I'll get the chapters out as soon as I get them typed. And now, some reviewer responses:

Rose: Don't worry, she gets what's coming to her, just not in the way you might think. You know hot bloody-minded I can be, so I bet you can guess what's coming. But no more hints! If you want to know how it ends, keep on reading!

Gromia: Does this answer your question? He's back to normal without the device. Keep reading and reviewing to find out how this story ends!