"So needless to say I'm odds and ends but that's me stumbling away. Slowly learning that life is OK."

A-ha

"I guess there's just a part of me that likes to bring you down, just to keep you around 'cuz the day you realize how amazing you are you're gonna leave me...You're the only one who drags me kicking and screaming through fast dreams. You're the only one who knows exactly what I mean."

Maria Mena

Perceptor leaned over the inert figure below him, steady hands pulling the cerebroshell out of Nightbird's skull. "Fascinating! Skyfire, you must peruse this!"

"Amazing." They still had a lot of work to do. Skyfire reluctantly placed the shell away for safekeeping. They were almost finished when something clunked down next to him. A mug of energon. Nightbird was coming online while the other two eagerly guzzled their snack. Skyfire looked over to the blue femme. Not the same dark indigo color she once was, Lyra painted herself a shade closer to her original paint job. It made her resemble her brother more.

"Thank you, Lee." He smiled at her. Her inclination to carry things to and from an area had been satisfied again.

"You do not have to perform that task," Perceptor reminded her.

"I know," she smiled back at her friends. "I felt like it."

Nightbird sat up from the table and looked around. Autobots; some she had battled before. She racked her processor to devise escape, until she saw the blue one who had helped her out of that box. She looked a lot less like a corpse.

"How are you feeling?" The red one with a cylinder on his shoulder asked sweetly. Nightbird had no idea how to convey an answer. Her head ached slightly, and she was low on power. How would she tell them this?

"Too bad she still doesn't want to talk." Lyra gestured to their extension of Teletraan-1, which asked her in Japanese characters the same question Perceptor had queried. Nightbird cautiously approached to keyboard and carefully typed a two-word response in the same dialect.

"Hmm. 'Hungry.' 'Headache.' She and Omega Supreme will get along nicely." Perceptor chuckled at his own joke. Skyfire greeted a newcomer at the door.

"You guys sent for me?" A black robot with a face mask lingered at the door.

"I did," Lyra replied. Now that Optimus had commissioned her to be head of the Cybertronian space bridge unit, with Skyfire in charge of construction, Lyra had some pull in this faction. It was kind of nice. She was glad she learned so much from the pits, even more relieved she had talked to Jazz and Prowl and Chromia for advice. "Nightbird, this is Code Red. He's a...communicator of sorts. I want him to find a way for you to speak to us."

Nightbird shook her head, frantically typing a response. Perceptor grinned.

"She says 'No.' 'Rather type.'"

"I get that from girls all the time." Code Red shrugged. "Got any more energon around here?" They shook their heads. Perceptor asked for his professional opinion regarding the cerebroshell. "Pretty high-tech for an Insecticon. You want help with that, I can do it." He walked over to Teletraan-1's extension. He removed a plug from his chestplate, one of many. Nightbird watched suspiciously as he inserted the extension into the computer. "Teletraan thinks the cerebroshell can be configured to re-route circuitry, but no permanent damage to anyone's CPU. So your ninja's pretty much non-Decepticon, personality-wise." He nodded towards the gray female, who still regarded him cautiously. "OK. Lyra, I know you're the person to see about this, and you want to talk to each person yourself, but he's still in med bay. Mirage wants to volunteer to be on your team." He made his way to the door, claiming he had to find Arcee before Hot Rod did or he was in trouble.

"Thanks. I'll see you later." Lyra turned to Perceptor, still lost in Bombshell's creation. "Percy, unless you need me for something else I'm going to see Mirage. Do you?" He shook his head. Lyra started to walk out when she felt she was being shadowed. She turned to see Nightbird next to her, looking a little uneasy.

"You need to stay here and recharge." The ninja's optics widened in surprise and fear. She knew no one, and did not trust any male. "Perceptor's a nice guy, he'll help you out. If you need anything, bang on the wall like this-"

"Hey!" The scientist frowned at her. "You'll knock a shelf over!"

"Nightbird, I will be back as soon as I can. I promise." Nightbird looked doubtful. Lyra hurried out before something else happened.

Sunstreaker was waiting by the main hallway, arms folded as he leaned against the wall like a model in a cologne ad. Lyra nodded to him politely, hoping he was posing for someone else. He walked next to her, saying nothing. Lyra decided the best diffuser was a quip.

"When they were pounding me into spare parts I splashed a little energon on Nova. So technically, I followed your order."

He said nothing. 'Well, I tried.' She thought. Optimus Prime passed them, responding to their greeting.

"How goes your volunteer team assembly?" he inquired.

"Skyfire and I have three personal volunteers; Elita-1's offer of the use of the female Autobots, and Perceptor's coming for short amount of time to get us started."

"Very good. Who are the three?"

"Code Red, Huffer, and I'm going to talk to Mirage."

Optimus nodded. "Would you be willing to solicit another Autobot?"

"Certainly."

"Good. Bluestreak is in med bay, with Mirage."

Now Sunstreaker broke his reticence. "Why Bluestreak?"

"This team is mostly scientists. They need a warrior. Bluestreak needs a change of pace."

"I could go." What! The last thing Lyra needed was this sullen troublemaker. She stared at him.

"Negative. I need you here." Sunstreaker nodded without comment. "Will you be at the party later?" They responded in the positive. "I will see you both there, then." He walked away.

Lyra walked ahead, slightly faster. She ignored the yellow mech until she reached med bay, where she motioned for him to proceed her through the door.

"No thanks." He walked away, causing her to chase him down.

"What was THAT all about?" she demanded.

"I wanted to see if I still hated you." He smiled thinly. "I do. But whatever it was that made you so slaggin' annoying is gone."

'Yeah,' she mentally snorted, 'Nova.' Lyra decided not to say anything unpleasant to this nasty brute. Instead she headed back to med bay to see her brother.

Nightbird was wiggling frantically on the floor as Perceptor and Code Red watched her, giggling. To Lyra this did not look like a laughing matter. She was scratching at the wall, trembling in agony.

"What are you doing to her?" she cried, running to free the prisoner. She was plugged into an adapter, attached to an extension cord which was plugged in the wall. Lyra reached to end her torture. Nightbird stopped her. Perceptor intervened.

"She finally allowed Code Red to communicate with her," he explained. "She requires electricity to recharge. Sparkplug brought the cord and adapter over, and she's recharging." Lyra impatiently waited for him to get to the point.

"And why does that hurt her to the point of entertainment?"

Both mech's optics widened. They interrupted each other. "No! Wait! That's not it!"

"Bombshell re-formatted some of her circuitry!"

"He also has a mean sense of humor-"

"We told her we could fix it, but she doesn't trust us-"

"I tried to explain it, but nooo."

Lyra turned to the victim in question. "Does it hurt?"

Nightbird turned to the computer and typed in a character or two.

"It tickles."

Lyra found her new partner in his room, watching earth television. It was drawn television, moving art. He scowled at it.

"Look out, Rick!" one character squeaked.

"I'll be fine, Min Mei!" the other gallantly replied.

"Hi," she said. Skyfire turned it off, looking at her expectantly. "Are you going to the bonfire tonight?"

He shrugged. "I suppose."

"Good. You can help me pry Percy out of the lab. He needs to relax." Especially after someone cut the door in half this morning, surprising him.

"He has fun working. Leave him be." He glimpsed a flash of gray by the door. "What was that?"

"Nightbird likes to stalk me. She doesn't know anybody else she's comfortable enough to practice her skills on." Lyra shrugged. "I don't mind. I used to do the same thing to other people." Like Skyfire's ex-friend.

"He's been sending me a message for you." There was no need to ask who. Both of them had him on their minds constantly.

"I need to get a comm link." She shook her head. That earned a snicker.

"He says he's coming."

"Tell him I'm not in the mood to sit around waiting for him to show up. I did that already. No wait, don't tell him anything." She put a hand to her optics. "I'll deal with it later."

"Later..." Skyfire turned his cartoon back on. "Where everything unpleasant goes to haunt."