"Buddy you're a young man, hard man shouting in the street gonna take on the world someday you got mud on yo' face, a big disgrace waving your banner all over the place."

Queen

"Peace, love and understanding, tell me, is there no place for them today? They say we must fight to keep our freedom, but Lord knows there's got to be a better way!"

Starr Edwin

Teletran-1 showed the images of every single Decepticon, led by Megatron, soaring in the air with intent to destroy on their faces. Lyra felt a panic attack encroaching as she scanned her former teammates. There he is. Optimus barked orders in a voice Chaos would have obeyed.

"Battle stations! Female Autobots, I need you to stay here with Red Alert and Inferno. Wheeljack, Hoist, Andromeda, Perceptor, Ratchet! Prepare for repair duty!" The Autobots scrambled to defend their home. Elita-1 demanded to accompany him. "Negative. He's after you and your company. Stay here! Radio Omega Supreme!" Prime ran out of the room, leaving his beloved with her fists balled in frustration. She turned to Nova at Teletraan's controls.

"What do you see?" she asked Nova

"They've split into two groups!" Nova was hysterical. "There's a faction heading for the entrance through the volcano, and the other-" she ran for her gun with Moonracer in pursuit. Chromia took over, telling Firestar to get a team ready. Andromeda was to alert the medics. Omega Supreme was on his way.

Elita-1 commandeered Teletraan, watching Blitzwing take a group to the other side of the cliff and Megatron fly into the top of the volcano. "The other group is planning to attack from behind. We need to protect the interior of the base. Hoist! Come in!" He was not answering, so the pink leader tried Optimus. He thought for a moment and called for her to assemble the Dinobots for the front entrance.

Lyra followed Firestar and a few others to the entrance to meet up with the medics. Wheeljack was releasing Grimlock and his friends while Ratchet asked who needed a blaster. All five Dinobots burst forward like water out of an exploded balloon. Confusion ruled until Firestar blew into her fingers a loud whistle. All activity ceased.

"Dinobots! You're needed up front! Medics, get back! Everyone else, take cover NOW!"

Everyone moved. Lyra gripped her gun as she ducked behind a column. Firestar was next to her, their backs touching as they peered around either side. Lyra considered becoming invisible until she realized that Nova and company might accuse her of retreating. The room, upon a cursory glance, was empty, the others hidden in various places. The few Lyra saw looked as petrified as she felt. Red Alert was already shaking, scowling to himself. The silence was deafening.

There was only one entrance to the base from the top of the volcano, and it emptied into the vestibule they crouched in. The Autobots locked the door, placing a heavy metal object to block it. Footsteps clicked once as the Decepticons landed behind the door. Lyra could see it rattle slightly. On the Autobot side, no one moved. Muted voices mumbled on the other side of it. The door shook even harder. Suddenly it blew open, pieces of the heavy metal object flying. Firestar began blasting. The dust barely cleared as Decepticons raced in and, seeing they were under fire, retaliated. Shouting and laser fire reigned. Pinned down with no place to hide and retreat not yet in the warriors' minds, the fighting continued. The villains either fell or drew back behind the door for cover-except for one.

Megatron was impervious to the firepower, blasts ricocheting off of him. He rapidly searched their faces until Lyra felt the horror of his gaze upon her. Involuntarily she disappeared as he reached for her. Shoving Firestar out of his encroaching grasp Lyra screamed for everyone to regroup. Firestar, not seeing Lyra, heard only an authoritative voice speak and automatically rounded people up, dashing behind the heavy metal object with a few others. Nova dragged Moonracer, wounded, to safety. All ducked low. Who's missing? Megatron stood nearby, still not finding what he's looking for.

"I know you're here!" he snarled. "Show yourself, traitor!"

Traitor? Who? There was no time to speculate. At Firestar's signal, the Autobots leapt up and opened fire on the Decepticons. Megatron had moved farther inside.

To lure him away from her teammates Lyra ran into another room and reappeared, motioning for Megatron to come and get her. He strode over to her quickly. When he was close enough she whipped her blaster out of subspace and opened fire.
"Stop!" There were no Decepticons left. Firestar picked up a low noise, like a scuffle. She broke into a run, others at her heels.

Framed by the larger doorway Megatron had Lyra by the throat, feet off the ground, yelling unintelligible things at her as he jarred her. She turned visible and invisible with each hard shake. Shots meant nothing to him, bouncing off him and hitting her. Her head was lolling like a rag doll's. Firestar was frustrated. Why wasn't he being hit?

A long, lone, potent blast forced Megatron's hand open. He released a petrified Lyra to the floor with deep dents in her fragile neck, gasping in shock. She curled into the fetal position as the intimidating robot turned to glare at his sworn enemy. Optimus Prime cocked his blaster in Megatron's face,

"Whatever parts of your metal that were not covered by that blast-proof chemical will be discovered, if I have to tear you apart manually," Optimus growled as his enemy perused the area. "Your army is gone."

"As am I, Prime!" He dashed out, tripping over his last victim, getting up and flying away amidst the firepower. Optimus turned to his loyal crew.

"Is everyone all right?" He looked at the few wounded around him, spotting Lyra. "Lyra?"

She was still quivering on the floor. "He would have snapped my head off..." she gasped. "Thank you."

"Forget it." Optimus called Andromeda over to check her out. As she examined her for problems, a movement in the rubble caused distraction. Blasters readily aimed at him, an abandoned Decepticon arose to discover he was alone and imprisoned.

"Elita-1? Optimus Prime?" Andromeda hated to interrupt the private time Optimus had with Elita-1, but she couldn't wait any longer, she HAD to share this with one of them. She was unsure of whom to confer with.

"Could it wait, Andromeda?" Optimus demanded impatiently through a closed door.

"It might-"

"Please?"

"-But it's very strange. It might be important." She heard the Autobot leaders sigh. A few moments later he opened the door, faceplate missing. Andromeda, to her chagrin, realized what she had interrupted. She led Optimus through the orange hallways to the sickbay, where Lyra lay, offline, chestplate open. Hoist was gawking at the patient. Hastily dashing away guiltily, Hoist noticed Prime's appearance and was glad no one could see his smile. Embarrassed, Andromeda got down to business.

"I was giving her an overhaul." She started pointing to things Optimus had never seen before. "And I am very confused with her layout. This is different from your average upgrade. I noticed that some of her Autobot makeup has been tampered with Decepticon parts. I didn't think much of it, since I know that when we run out of spare pieces the female Autobots pick them off of Decepticon junk heaps..." Andromeda held back a shudder. "...until I saw THESE. These parts of hers are an alloy not seen on Cybertron. They're hand-constructed, completely different from ANY mechanical layout."

"They don't make 'em like they used to," Ratchet flippantly, finishing his job of sorting tools.

Andromeda glared. "They didn't EVER make them like this!" she snapped. "She's an amalgam of Autobot, Decepticon, and Primus-knows-what!"

"Skyfire," Hoist supplied from his datapad. No one heard. Andromeda addressed Optimus. "I thought I should ask one of you for input."

Prime had no idea what to think, and thanks to his missing faceplate, it showed. After an uncomfortable silence Optimus told Andromeda to finish however she could, allow the others to observe, and when the patient came back online, he would like to confer with Lyra himself. He sternly warned all there to remain silent on this situation until he had a rational explanation. They uneasily nodded in acquiescence, knowing full well that even if they were as silent as deep space that word would spread quickly.

Skyfire leaned over as Hoist pointed out Lyra's inconsistencies. "You are right, Hoist. Those ARE my parts. Where did she get them?" Her life force was a different color, too. Skyfire guessed that was unimportant. He, a neutral scientist, had not studied these things as thoroughly as Hoist. Both shrugged.

"Thanks for the confirmation." Hoist wrote it on her charts, hoping Andromeda would figure it out sooner or later. It didn't seem to matter to anybody BUT Andromeda where the newest parts came from. Most speculation was uneasy wonder over her Decepticon makeup. Why wouldn't she tell anybody about her past by merely clearing her name with an explanation, instead of scaring every one with her silence? Hoist had thought to ask Mirage, who denied knowledge. Powerglide, Trailbreaker, Ironhide, Gears, Jazz, Brawn, Hound, Red Alert, and anyone else who might have answered their questions had been sent to South America to aid some earthquake victims, leaving any Autobot with a rank below Ratchet to gossip.

Lyra awoke to see Wheeljack's face looming over her, causing her to jump. She answered his inquiry over how the repairs went with a 'pretty good.' There wasn't much internally to repair.

"Optimus Prime would like to speak to you."

"Now?" She hadn't the chance to see Mirage since she arrived. He had to be waiting for her. She crawled off the table.

"Yes, now." Wheeljack was contacting Prime over Teletraan. "Go to conference room 6-B."

The room was small and out of the way from everyone else. Optimus rose to greet her, and some weird wave of contempt rolled over her. Where did that come from? She ignored it and unconsciously gave the Decepticon salute. Embarrassed, she tried to sit down before he could comment. He stared.

"You were with the Decepticons for a long time," he began. "Some things must have been different." She nodded, waiting. "There are many issues left unsolved, such as your refusal to address your past to your cohorts." He waited for an answer. She provided none. "Another is the cornucopia of parts you hold inside of you. How are these going to influence the way you behave?"

Silence. "How could mere metal parts and circuits do that?" she finally asked.

"No one knows," he replied. "Somehow foreign objects have a persuading power we can't pinpoint. This happens with Bombshell's cerebroshells, for example. Ratchet's archives have catalogued this phenomenon, if you feel like reading medical journals. Those who knew you before your capture have already noticed a difference; one we have concluded arises from your different composition."

"We? Including you?" He nodded. "I find this to be irrational and unfounded. No part of me has changed. As for newer parts...before I came back as an Autobot, there was an…accident. A kind-hearted individual repaired me the only way he knew how, with earth-materials."

He wanted to ask who, but had a conversational momentum going. "The Decepticons, as well as this benevolent mech, may be influencing you in ways we don't yet know about. If you have no stable functioning process, I cannot use you in the spy missions, no matter what your knowledge." He rose from his chair, signaling the end of the meeting. "I recall what you told me the day I asked you to return to the Autobots: how no one would trust you, and that no matter where you went, you would be an outcast. On that warning alone I have complied with your request, and not talked about your prior life, in spite of my misgivings." Perhaps someday she would tell them herself. "Until then, I have to keep you from any spy missions until Wheeljack gives you a clean bill of processing." This would not happen unless she cooperated with a CPU scan. The idea was too humiliating.

"Am I completely useless?" she asked.

"Not completely." His voice suggested lightness. Lyra hoped so. "We have a Decepticon prisoner who will not tell us anything. Our first method of interrogation is to get his former friends to convince him it's a good idea to talk. Since you might have known him, I am assigning you first-shift guard duty over him, in hopes that he will reveal something to you in his conversations."

"I might not have known him. Only four Decepticons knew of my presence."

"Really?"

"Who did we capture?"

Skyfire regarded the Decepticon with suspicion. Although he was sitting quietly, legs folded cross-legged while absently tracing his fingers through the dust on the floor of the seldom-used cell, he was still dangerous.

'What do you want?' His lips did not move, but Skyfire heard the voice all the same. This ancient link was still valid.

'I believe I should be the one asking this.' He responded to his captive the same way, through a mental transference process gleaned from the relationship their mentor (Skyfire's creator) had built for them.

There was a chuckle. 'You will not postulate because you know the answer.'

Skyfire knew the answer indeed. This mech before him always had an agenda to pursue. One that obviously did not involve him because the first thing the Decepticon prisoner had demanded to know was which female Autobots were here on earth. A cruel question from the one Skyfire had once loved so intensely.

'What do you want?' Skyfire had given him enough time to process the contempt the white mech was projecting onto him. 'Have you come here to make sure you do not miss this time?'

This produced an audible laugh. 'Skyfire, you fool! You and your histrionics have once again gotten you into trouble. Had you given me enough time to explain the Decepticon method of discipline is shooting your underlings, instead of pitching yourself headlong into defecting to the enemy, all of this could have been easily avoided.'

'What kind of army would use such corporal punishment on its own soldiers?' Skyfire responded with hostility. 'Especially a new recruit.' Especially me, he mentally added, outside of the transference.

'A good one,' the prisoner responded.

'No, it is not.'

'Your thoughts betray you, my friend-'

"NEVER call me that!" Skyfire was backing away from this horrible being, as close to yelling as he came. "Friends do not shoot each other! Friends do not abandon the other in ice for eternity! Friends do not leave their friends to decompose in an Autobot encampment and then demand to know where the FEMMES are the moment they arrive!"

'You forget another cardinal rule: friends do not emotionally blackmail each other to produce false affection.'

Skyfire glared, but had nothing to say. Nothing to think. His former best friend, the unrequited love of his life, leaned back against the wall of the cell, smirking.

'It would seem we have reached an impasse.'

'It would appear so.' Skyfire's large white hands trembled as he fiddled with the power level on his blaster.

'Do you wish to return to what we once were?'

'No.' Skyfire looked at the crackling energon bars that held his best friend and wished for support. 'I hate you.'

Here the prisoner chuckled out loud again, his scarlet optics dwelling into the azure of Skyfire's. 'A relief. I would hesitate to take back more than what I deserve.' He turned away, arms crossed, ignoring all of Skyfire's further probes. His mind was closed, and would remain so for the duration of the Autobot's presence.