"And I know, I know they've all been talking about me. I can hear them whisper, and it makes me think there must be something wrong with me. Out of all the hours thinking: somehow I've lost my mind. But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell, I know right now you can't tell. But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see a different side of me. I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired. I know right now you don't care but soon enough you're gonna think of me, and how I used to be."

Matchbox 20

"...if you think I'ma admit wrong. I cripple any hypocritic critic I'm sic'd on and this song is for any kid who gets picked on. A sick song to retaliate to, and...It's Fight Music!"

Eminem/D-12

Autobots do not have the luxury of sleeping and lounging about; someone must always be on guard for Decepticon activity. At six o'clock in the morning, the larger day shift staggered to randomly assorted community tables and drank non-spiked energon from mugs. It was their only time to completely come online, as well as socialize. Nova came into the commissary still reflecting upon Starscream. She almost ran into Sunstreaker.

"Hi!" she greeted him. He leaned over and kissed her cheek as thoughtlessly as one would scratch a dog's forehead while on the way to perform a more assiduous task.

"Hi." He seemed out of sorts. His handsome face scowled slightly.

"Problem?"

"I've been on a dozen recon missions and we've come up with nothing! I'm sick of chasing a slaggin' shadow. When is that interrogator going to come up with something?" Mornings were not Sunstreaker's favorite time of day. Unless he was getting dragged off of his recharge plate to fight, there was no decent reason to be up this early.

"She can't, she got reassigned to the lab." Nova waved her arm over to the blue femme accumulating energon for her co-workers. She wasn't supposed to take it out of the commissary, but nobody said anything. Swoop had quit the lab after being their energon carrier for almost six months, according Powerglide. Sunstreaker leered as they joined the line for energon of their own.

"Did they say why she moved?"

"Chromia said Prowl found out she wasn't doing her job right."

"It had to be more than that. Bluestreak was babbling something about her losing it to Powerglide." Andromeda joined them with Sideswipe in tow, cutting in front of Gears. Gears protested, Sunstreaker told him to shut up, starting an argument. Mercuria, who was ahead in line, offered to let Gears cut in front of her. Glaring, the red Autobot accepted. Mercuria waved to Mirage at the biggest table at the other end of the cafeteria, saving it for the rest of them. When his sister passed him on the way to the door he called her over.

"He is not," objected Nova. The others turned to see the overburdened blue female hesitate. Mirage smiled broader. They could not hear the exchange over the noise, but they saw her pocket the drinks into subspace and sit down with one mug in Mercuria's seat.

"He did." Andromeda shrugged. "It's his sister, so why not?"

"He sees so little of her as it is," Mercuria added, moving forward in the line. She seemed unaffected by the annexation of her place next to Mirage.

"Whatever," Sideswipe spoke up, for the first time that morning. He knew that he would be the one scrounging up a chair for the overflowing table. "How was your last patrol, Sunny?"

Sunstreaker glowered. His twin was the only one who would get away with calling him that. "Nothing but a wild petro-rabbit chase. We have nothing to go on. Whatever the 'Cons are up to they're hiding it pretty well."

"So that tip in the South Pacific led nowhere?"

"Powerglide handled that. He said it was a total dud."

"So what are they DOING out there? I doubt they're catching up on 'As the Kitchen Sinks'." They were sitting around the table, settling in for a pleasant morning of lazy conversation.

"They don't have TV reception down there," Nova interjected.

Sunstreaker looked up from his search for Sideswipe's chair to stare. "How do you know that?"

"I've been talking to him while I watch him. You know, get him talking, free association leading to slips...basic psychology."

"Is that how you got that worthless inside information?" Lyra asked, taking the bait perfectly. Starscream was right. Nova wondered if the other pointers he gave her would work. It never occurred to ask her why Starscream knew Lyra so well. Well, it had, but she wanted to irritate her rival more than truly question the background of those two.

"At least I got something out of him," she retorted.

Mirage glared at the green-and-yellow female. Nova withdrew and allowed him to change the subject to the Dinobots' shooting Teletraan-1.

"Wheeljack got it in his head to teach them martial arts. While Teletraan showed them the video of fighters, Snarl got excited and incinerated the keyboard." Chuckles. "When Wheeljack got it working, it only spoke Spanish."

"Japanese," Lyra corrected. She was only half-listening. She was staring at Sunstreaker.

"Right," the attractive yellow mech chimed in. "It went from Japanese to Spanish to Arabic to English."

"Optimus doesn't know Arabic, does he?" Andromeda asked.

"No." They laughed.

"Who does?" Mercuria asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Mirage chuckled to himself as he thought about it.

"Yes, I would."

"C'mon, spill it!" Sideswipe hadn't heard this story yet.

"Omega Supreme."

"What!" The table erupted.

"He had a job guarding Saudi Arabian oil fields during the Gulf War and he picked up the language."

Sunstreaker still couldn't believe it. "Does he speak it in two-word sentences?"

"I have NO idea. They dragged him from wherever he was hiding and he stood outside the ark, radioing what to type to Wheeljack. When it was back to English Optimus hid in his room for the rest of the day. He said he had a headache, and to send the Dinobots to work cleaning energon mugs as punishment."

"Hope we have more on back order." Sideswipe watched Andromeda gather theirs up for refills. "I'll do that, sweetie."

"Thank you, honey." She kissed him. Nova followed suit for Sunstreaker. Mercuria looked across the table at her boyfriend and kissed the air. Lyra looked into her mug and did nothing. She really hadn't said much. She smiled when they laughed, nodded at the parts that were familiar. Other than that, she was the statue in a garden of flowers. A statue focused on one particular yellow blossom. Nova hated her.

"Poor Prime," she sighed. "He's under a lot of stress lately."

"He's always under a lot of stress," Mirage replied. "It goes with the territory."

"So he usually has crazy Dinobots, a plethora of guests, a missing megalomaniac, and an unstable Decepticon in his prison?" Andromeda asked, amused.

"You don't have to believe me, but yes, it's usually like this." Mirage accepted the mug Sideswipe returned.

"We've never had Starscream for this long," the red mech interpolated. "Why hasn't he left yet?"

Nobody said anything. Nova looked at Lyra, who scowled into her empty mug, wishing she'd asked for a refill with the others. Using the other mugs she'd stored never entered her mind.

"Whatever it is, he's definitely keeping himself entertained." Nova put her mug down and reached into subspace. It was in here somewhere. "He's really funny, when you spend some time with him."

"I have," growled Mirage, remembering a very unpleasant incident or two. "He wasn't funny."

Nova ignored him, withdrawing an object out of thin air. "He gave me this."

Lyra pretended to drink her nonexistent energon to keep from grinding her jaw off in animosity. Nova purposely did not meet her eye, although she wanted to more than anything.

"Where did you get THAT?"

"Did he peel it off himself?"

Nova held the insidious purple sigil in her hand protectively, allowing herself a glance at Lyra, who was holding the piece of mug she'd bitten off between her thumb and forefinger. She was giving it her utmost attention. "It's not his." Time for the kill. "He said it belongs to Mishap."

The others exchanged glances. "I've never heard that name before," Sideswipe, nonplussed. "Have you guys?" They shook their heads, except for Nova and Lyra. "Who is he?"

"Not he. She. Starscream found out one day that someone had hired a mercenary spy to follow him around and sabotage everything he tried to do. The fool fell in love with him...started protecting him by shooting any Autobot who stood in his way. She was helping him take over the Decepticons, which you know would have been chaos, until she got caught by Megatron. He killed her...or so he thought. Starscream took pity on her and repaired her on the condition she left him alone. He put her on the space bridge and sent her to Cybertron...about the time we found YOU, Lyra."

Now all attention was on her. She was gone.

"Lyra?" Mirage still sensed her there.

"Yes?" she squeaked. She cleared her voice box.

"You're invisible."

"Am I? Sorry," the voice replied coolly. "This thing must have malfunctioned. I'll go to Ratchet and get him to look at it." No one got the joke. Lyra let it be. "Nice seeing you guys again." Mirage turned to the others. Nova had the symbol still in her clutches.

"Nice." Mirage needed to do damage control carefully. "Starscream put together a cute story for you."

"He didn't make it up." This was not how she expected Mirage to react.

"You've fought Starscream how many times?" His voice was rising as he spoke.

"Once. No wait, twice."

"Have you ever been captured by him?" She shook her head. "Fought hand-to-hand combat with him?" Another shake. "Been tortured by him?" She started looking uncomfortable. She shook her head again. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were watching, with different expressions. The red mech was nodding with Mirage at the verbal attack, but Sunstreaker had defiance as he glared at Lyra's brother. "Yet, in a few earth months, you've become close enough to him to get him to tell you a deep secret about one of his never-ending parade of girlfriends. One you not-so-subtly assume is my sister. Oasis, who took the brunt of a bomb to protect me, Powerglide, Sunstreaker, Gears..."

"Bumblebee," filled in Sideswipe.

"Bumblebee, thanks. Did you know she rescued me from a Decepticon raid when they were burning our home down? That she had to shoot our creator's best friends when they attacked us? Robots we'd grown up with." He gestured to the Lamborghini brothers, who'd nodded, keeping their faces the same as before to make the nod conflicting in its definition. "Did you know she was the one who found the Autobots base and begged them to take me in, so that I wouldn't die from my wounds? That she offered her own parts and circuits because they were so hard up at the time?"

"I'd forgotten that," Sunstreaker muttered.

"You had run away by then," Mirage responded, optics still burning into Nova's downturned face.

"You told us about that when we came back," Sideswipe said.

"Wow. I did not know that about Lyra either." Mercuria tried to sidetrack them. Nova wasn't allowing that.

"Why isn't she Oasis NOW?" She demanded. "This whole time she's kept her new name, one we had to give her when she wouldn't tell us who she was."

"Maybe she doesn't want to insult us," Mercuria suggested.

"I would not be insulted if she wanted to reclaim her birthright," Nova began. "But she hasn't. This makes me think she lied about being Oasis, and that she's a Decepticon plant and Starscream's story is partially true."

"Yes, but which part?" Andromeda mused. She was ignoring the volcanic rage Mirage barely contained. He was well-bred but like Lyra, not much of an actor.

"Are you, NOVA, suggesting I don't know my own sister?"

"We didn't know a Prime clone from the real Prime," Sunstreaker responded, unwilling to let go of his old grudge and grateful for a logical explanation to reinforce his dislike. "She's changed a lot, Mirage. Ask anyone around here. Changed enough to make me think she's not enough of the same person we knew."

"I can't accept this rationale." Mirage was trying hard to not yell. Jazz eyed him from the next table. "That is my sister. She's been through something none of us can comprehend, and not taking it well. I'm sorry she can't be as sweet as the rest of you."

"All of us have pity stories, Mirage. She's not unique." Nova was winning! Unbelievable! "I still think she's not on the level with us. I'll prove it soon enough."

Mirage excused himself to keep from hitting her. After he stormed out Mercuria rose and graciously explained she would go talk to him. Sideswipe and Andromeda, satiated with the drama that laid out in front of them, left with a cheerful enough good-bye.

Sunstreaker turned to his female, one whom he'd never really given a serious thought until now. She was stronger than he thought. He had assumed she was another admirer, someone who adored him as much as he adored himself, and up until the moment he saw her stand up to Mirage with a theory that made a great deal of sense, he assumed she was merely decoration. Not now. As of this moment, she was a worthy partner. He leaned over to her, eager to assist her in her endeavors. "I'll help."