Fate Calls

by Sci-Fifan95

In life, the only certain thing that applies to us is death. We cannot escape it. We cannot outrun it. It is a fate that finds us all. However, He plays chess. And you don't find out until too late that He's been playing with two queens all along.

16. The Battle

And so I have at last finished this chapter :) It would have been posted sooner, but I had writer's block for almost a whole week -.- I have written most of this chapter in the last five days or so. Sorry that you had to wait for another two weeks to find out what happens after I left the last chapter on a cliffhanger lol. In other news, I got WFC and have been playing co-op, a bit of multiplayer and Escalation with Crystal Prime :) The Cons never stood a chance lol.

Thanks go to Crystal Prime for beta reading.

jayna prime - I did that because it's fun *Smiles evilly* Just kidding lol... But seriously it is fun :D.

Akira Alvina - *Fights off mimes* That isn't very nice, and yes, yes I am ^.^ And don't worry, Shadow will get his aft in gear... Eventually lol. I promise no more sheer drop cliff hangers... This chapter hehe.

Sailor Shinzo - No I did not. Did you read chapter 14 'The Dream and The General'? I explain where Silas came from, what his real name is *In this story* and how he started MECH in that chapter... And how he took the name Silas as an alias after he started MECH. :|

TheBlackRose - Yes, seriously a cliffy lol. But don't worry there won't be another cliffy for a while :)

KayleeChiara - You will have to read to find out won't you? :) And I like sharing ^.^

The-Darkest-Hour-2311 - I don't know if you are reading this as you reviewed chapters 2 and 5 *Thank you btw :)* But I am responding anyway. Review for chapter 2: Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Lol. Review for chapter 5: I would have been happy if you said that I wrote that episode simply as well as the cartoon, but for you to say you liked it 11 times better is very nice of you :) Thanks.

Devil-O-Angel - I don't know if you are reading this either, but I am responding to this as well :) I don't know, I once wanted that to happen when I first started Fate Calls, but now I think I wouldn't be able to make it work :/ It would funny though if Sam Witwicky Met Shadowstreaker in person lol.

Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro. I only take credit for this story and my OCs.

Oh! And before I forget, I highly recommend you listen to "Epic Score - They Hit Without Warning" When you read the whole battle scenes :) You may have to repeat it a few times though, there is a lot of battle in this chapter.

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July 6, 2012 10:31 A.M

Somewhere in the Sahara Desert.

After we all exited the ground bridge and I pulled up to avoid the ground, I immediately become aware of two things. The first thing I noticed was the intense heat of the Sahara. Jasper may have been warm, but this place was like a massive oven filled with nothing except sand, rocks and the occasional piece of desert foliage.

The second thing I noticed were the two large ships rapidly descending to Earth's surface, with the large one being chased by the far smaller vessel.

The smaller ship was about two hundred and fifty meters long and was dark greym almost black in color with sharp needle-like protrusions that gave the ship an intimidating spiked appearance. A group of turrets located on the bow of the ship, that was obviously the Decepticon frigate, would occasionally launch a salvo of missiles at the larger vessel it was pursuing. Each missile that hit the larger vessel would cause noticeable damage on impact. It was clear that the ship being pursued didn't have shields or very high quality armor, which was unusual for a Cybertronian vessel.

The larger ship that I knew must have been The Collected was also grey in color, but a much lighter tone of grey. The vessel was distinctly designed for efficiency and nothing else, aesthetics were virtually nonexistent. Comparing the ship to a massive streamlined shoe box fitted with multiple engines would not be an inaccurate statement. The Collected was evidently a heavily armed ship, I counted no less than three dozen turrets the side of the ship that was facing us, and I expect that there were just as many turrets on the other side.

After the Decepticon frigate sent another salvo of missiles at The Collected, I saw a large number of seeker-framed Cybertronians appear on top of the larger vessel. A moment after they appeared on top of The Collected, they transformed and started flying towards the Decepticon frigate. Since Wildwing said I had wings like his sire, and from how the seekerlet's sire seemed to be a commanding officer on The Collected from our short conversation, I suspected the mech was leading the seekers against the Cons.

Optimus comm-linked me. "Shadowstreaker, go and provide what support you can to those seekers," he ordered.

"Understood," was my simple reply before I closed the channel. I started towards the seekers and the Decepticon frigate in a near-vertical climb, leaving the sound barrier far behind in a sonic-boom as I started my ascent.

As I continued my ascent and the seekers from The Collected flew towards the Decepticon frigate, I saw the just as many seekers fly out from the frigate to meet those from The Collected. This battle was going to get ugly.

The ranks of seekers from the two ships unleashed a barrage of missiles at the opposing side before they all met at the mid-way point between the frigate and The Collected. I saw some seekers transform into their true forms while still in midair and physically collide with another seeker on the opposite side that had done the same thing. The seekers that did this would proceed to engage in combat with servos and melee weapons. Other seekers would stay in their jet forms as they engaged in dogfights against each other. The remaining seekers would fight with a mix of both techniques, engaging in a brief dogfight before changing into their true form to slice or shoot the opposing seekers.

I had to dodge the falling chassis' of a few Cybertronians that were offlined in the initial barrage of missiles. Seeing I was about to join the fray, I opened the doors to my gun ports and missile bays as I scanned the ranks of seekers for targets. Many of the Neutrals had similar color schemes as the Decepticons, so separating them from the Cons took me a few micro-klicks. But after I identified who was a Decepticon and who was not, I found a target in my line of fire. My target was a Con hovering in his true form as he celebrated the offlining of a neutral he had just defeated, but he wasn't going to live long enough to truly enjoy his victory.

I fired two shots from my Nucleon at the Con as he hovered in place, he never saw either of the shots. One shot hit him in the upper part of his pede, completely vaporizing the lower half of his chassis. My second shot hit him in the chestplates a sparkbeat later, vaporizing what was left of his chassis.

Another Decepticon in his jet form was passing the Con I just offlined saw what happened to his ally and transformed so he could search for who was responsible, a fatal mistake on his part.

As I was about to fly to past the Con, I transformed into my true form and let my inertia carry me towards the Decepticon while I deployed one of my swords. I swung towards the Con's tank area just as my inertia carried me up to the same level of the Decepticon. If the Con had seen me coming he would have tried to put up some kind of defense, but he never saw me. The armor plates of the Decepticon's chassis was the only resistance that met my sword. He was sliced into two separate halves at his tank.

I didn't watch the now offline Decepticon as he fell towards the ground. Instead, I changed back into my jet form and started flying just above the battle to get a better view of possible targets.

It was a few micro-klicks after I changed back into my jet form that I detected someone trying to get a missile lock on me. My rather explosive arrival had apparently gained the attention of other Decepticons, and now they were chasing me down.

After several moments of my pursuers trying to get a lock on me, and failing because of how my paintjob made me invisible to all types of sensors, they fired a half dozen of missiles past me in an attempt to hit me. I was now in a situation I had never been in outside of a training simulator, a dogfight.

I banked sharply to the left and accelerated to throw off the aim of the Cons chasing me, and not a moment too soon as I barely avoided four more missiles they sent in my direction. I caught a brief look of the Decepticons tailing me as I was in my turn. I was only being chased by two Cons, but they looked to be larger and more heavily armed than the majority of Decepticons I fought.

Each Con had four missile pods on under both of their wings, as well as two very large chainguns on either side of their jet forms. It seemed to me like my pursuers were the seeker version of Brutes.

The Brute Seekers opened fire with their chainguns, each of the massive rounds of energy they were firing was delivering enough power to put dents in the outer layer of my armor. It was at this moment that I chose to do something I hoped the Brute Seekers weren't expecting.

Instead of trying to avoid the fire from the chainguns, I transformed into my true form and started turning toward the two Brute Seekers as my forward momentum kept me in the air, what happened next seemed to be in slow-motion for me.

As I turned to the Brute Seekers, I pulled my Nucleon off my backplates and fired four shots at the Cons in rapid succession. The first shot hit one of the Brutes in the base of the wing blowing off his wing and severely damaging that side of his jet form. The second shot hit the same Brute squarely in his fuselage, which offlined him almost immediately. My third shot missed its intended target, but my forth had an unexpected result.

The shot hit one of the missile pods under the wing of the second Con, detonating the missiles still in that pod and the pod next to it. The rest of the Brute Seeker's missile pods detonated at once, incinerating the Brute in a massive fire ball.

Looking at the explosion for just a brief moment, I transformed back into my jet form and I noticed another battle was already heading my way. Three normal Decepticon seekers were flying straight towards me in a very loose V-formation.

The new group of seekers launched two missiles apiece at me and quickly followed the missiles with machine gun fire. Unlike the chainguns of Brute Seeker's, the smaller machine guns of these seekers wasn't enough to cause damage, barely enough to scratch my paint in fact. But the missiles they launched my way had me concerned.

I pulled an aileron roll just as the missiles went passed me, but I felt two missiles scrape against the underside of my wing as I went into the roll. When I came out of the roll, I fired one micro-klick burst from my Ion Displacer at the seeker in the middle of the formation. His fuselage was shredded by the short burst and his chassis started falling out of the sky. Reverting back to my true form, I deployed a sword and swung upward in a vertical arc as one of the other Cons was about to fly passed me. My sword cut into the Decepticon at the center of his fuselage, slashing him into two nearly identical halves. The third seeker was offlined by a quick burst from my Plasma Chaingun. When The Cons were offline, I changed back into my jet form and surveyed the battle around me.

It seemed the neutrals were doing very well overall, I saw that the Decepticon ranks had been reduced to only about half they were at the beginning of the battle. But the Cons weren't going quietly as the neutrals had still taken quite a few casualties as well, I estimated that a quarter if their numbers had been offlined so far.

A green Cybertronian helicopter and a white and red Cybertronian jet started flying next to me as I surveyed the battle. I saw that both of them had a red Autobot insignia on the side of their alt modes.

The helicopter had a chaingun mounted under his alt mode and I saw that he also was equipped with two missile pods.

The Autobot seeker had no visible weapons, but I could tell he was far from unarmed and I had a feeling he was a very deadly warrior. Surprisingly, I recognized the seeker.

"Those were a few pretty sweet moves you pulled back there, but I could have done something better." The unnamed Autobot helicopter said in a cocky tone, obviously full of himself when it came to his fighting skills. The Autobot was speaking English, he must have downloaded Earth's languages.

The white and red Autobot jet gave an irritated sigh at the words of the helicopter. "For Primus' sake Springer, tone your ego down a notch will you?" He asked in an exasperated tone. This Autobot was speaking English as well and his voice also had a faint British accent.

"What? It's true!" The helicopter now identified as Springer protested, making me wonder if this was the same Springer Bulkhead mentioned when he was telling me about how the Wreckers convinced Ironhide to ask Chromia out.

The Autobot jet spoke again. "We can talk about your incredible combat prowess later Springer," he said sarcastically. "A battlefield isn't the place to boast."

"It's the perfect place to bo-" Springer began arguing before getting cut off by the jet.

"Enough youngling!" The jet yelled, clearly fed up with Springer's arrogance.

I heard Springer huff as he continued flying next to me and said something like 'Fragging old mech' under his breath.

After not saying anything for several micro-klicks, likely to see if Springer was going to say anything else, the Autobot jet spoke again.

"I've never seen you among the neutrals, and you've been fighting the Decepticons since you arrived, so you must be one of the Autobots stationed on this planet. My name's Jetfire, and the arrogant helicopter to your right is Springer. What's your name seeker?" He asked me.

I knew what his name was before he introduced himself, but this probably wasn't the time to tell these two about my origins. "Triple-Changer actually, and my name's Shadowstreaker," I said. "I'm the heavy weapons specialist for the Autobots on Earth."

"Well Shadowstreaker, want to help us take down that Decepticon frigate?" Springer asked in a completely serious tone.

"And how are we supposed to do that?" I asked the green helicopter. If I was in my true form, I would have been giving Springer an incredulous look as I spoke.

Jetfire answered my question instead. "I have a plan for that. I saw a weak point in the armor of the frigate that we might be able to blast through if we hit it with enough firepower. Once we get through the armor and get inside the ship, we can fight our way to the main reactor and overload it." He explained.

"Sounds like sparkling's play," Springer said, dropping the serious tone in his voice in favor of an arrogant one.

"What did I say about toning your ego down Springer?" Jetfire asked the helicopter with a frustrated tone in his voice.

"I can't help being an awesome warrior old mech," Springer said, obviously enjoying getting on Jetfire's nerves.

Jetfire ignored Springer's words and spoke again. "We need to try and get on the frigate soon, I don't know how much longer The Collected can keep this fight up." He said with a bit of urgency in his voice.

I searched the skies around us to see what shape The Collected was in. But it took me a micro-klick to find the ship as it was now flying about three thousand feet above the ground.

The Collected was now parallel with the Decepticon frigate, and flying so close to the other vessel that a football field couldn't fit between the two ships. There were several large gaping holes in the hull of The Collected that were spitting out fire. One of the engines at the stern of the vessel was badly damaged, the engine was leaving behind a cloud of black smoke where ever the ship went. The neutral ship was in very bad shape, but it wasn't going down without a fight.

I saw that once every few micro-klicks, the turrets on the side of The Collected were launching what appeared to be some kind of blue plasma in the shape of a torpedo at the frigate. The torpedoes were obviously very powerful, even a glancing blow would partially melt the metal it came into contact with. Most of the torpedoes were stopped by the frigate's shield, but a few would get through the 'Cracks' in the shield and cause devastating damage.

Cybertronian shielding was near the apex of shield technology. Instead of one giant field covering a ship at all times, a Cybertronian shield was separated into 'Panels' that would only activate when a threat to a vessel was detected or they were activated manually. Since a ship's reactor was only powering the area of the shield under attack, this allowed the shield to be far more effective against all types of damage, kinetic, directed energy like plasma and radioactive. But smaller warships -such as frigates- didn't have large enough reactors to properly power shields. As a result, their shields had 'Cracks' in beween the shield panels that were large enough for a lucky shot from an enemy ship to get through and damage the vessel the shield was protecting. This was the reason the Decepticon frigate was being hit even though their shield was up.

The Collected and the frigate were in a stalemate, with the Decepticon ship having an advantage with their shielding and superior armor. But The Collected had leveled the playing field with the sheer amount of firepower they were unloading into the frigate, the neutral vessel may have been crippled, but this battle was far from over.

I replied to what Jetfire said. "Let's get on that frigate then," I reopened the doors to my gun ports for emphasis.

Jetfire didn't acknowledge my words, instead, he banked left and started flying toward the Decepticon frigate far below.

I followed Jetfire's example and started flying toward the Decepticon frigate with Springer following close behind, we quickly caught up with Jetfire and continued toward the frigate.

As the three of us flew toward the Decepticon ship, I saw that there was a hanger built into the top of the ship, but its doors were closed. There was a large area in front of the hanger doors that was completely flat except for two massive anti-ship turrets that were likely only used when a ship was flying above the frigate. Looking at hanger doors for a moment, I suspected that was the point Jetfire had spoken of earlier.

"Is the hanger door going to be our entry point?" I asked Jetfire, wanting to confirm my suspicion.

"Yes, our combined firepower should be enough to blast it open, but it seems that we need to get to take care of the welcoming committee first." Jetfire said, as I saw the hanger doors open as we got closer to the frigate.

A half dozen Brute Seekers flew out of the hanger doors just as they opened and were soon followed by at least three times as many ground soldiers before the hanger doors closed again. I saw that two of the ground soldiers were far taller than the others and were both carrying a much larger version of a normal three barreled Ion Displacer. The Decepticon ground soldiers were being led by a pair of Heavy Soldiers, those two could be a problem. But I knew we would deal with the Heavy Soldiers when we needed to, so I shifted my attention back to the incoming Brute Seekers.

The Decepticons opened fire with their chainguns the moment we were in range. I don't know how many times Jetfire and Springer were hit by the chainguns, but I took enough hits that the first layer of my armor was breached and my second layer of armor started taking hits, those chainguns packed a hell of a punch.

I took aim at one of the Brutes and returned fire with a long five micro-klick burst from my Ion Displacer. Not a single round I fired went wide, but the armor on the Brute Seeker was very resistant to my Ion Displacer and it took the entire five micro-klick burst to send the Con offline. Seeing that my Ion Displacer wasn't effective against these Cons, I switched to my Nucleon and fired two shots at another Brute Seeker. Both shots hit the Brute in the fuselage, offlining him instantly.

I looked at Springer as he launched a pair of missiles at another Con. The missiles he launched hit the Brute on opposite sides of his fuselage and caused significant damage, Springer finished the Con off with a sustained burst from his own chaingun.

My earlier feeling that Jetfire was a deadly warrior was accurate. The white and red seeker bombarded two Brute Seekers with dozens of very small, but very effective missiles that left a lingering flame where they hit the Con's armor. The two Brutes Jetfire was focusing on didn't last long under his barrage before they both offlined and fell out of the sky. The final Brute Seeker fired his chaingun at Jetfire as he flew straight at the other seeker, the Con looked like he was going to ram the white and red Autobot.

I was about to shift my flight path to help Jetfire when he hadn't made any effort to get out of the far larger seeker's path, but it was at that moment that Jetfire made his move.

With the same normalcy and casualness of taking a sip of energon from a cube, Jetfire transformed into his true form, dodged the Decepticon's attempt to ram him, pulled a cylinder-shaped object off his hip, stuck it to the Cons wing and reverted to his alt mode. A few micro-klicks after Jetfire changed back into his jet form, there was a large explosion from behind us. Jetfire had planted a grenade on the Con's wing.

After the noise of the explosion subsided, we landed between the two anti-ship turrets. The Decepticon ground soldiers immediately opened fire at us, which caused the three of us to take cover behind bases of the anti-ship turrets. I took cover behind the turret to our left, while Jetfire and Springer took cover behind the one to our right.

I briefly looked around the turret I was using as cover to see what weapons the Decepticons were using. Other than the two Heavy Soldiers, the majority of the Cons were using servo-blasters, but I saw two using Scrapmakers, one with a Thermo Missile Launcher and one using an EMP Shotgun.

I pulled my helm back into cover when a shot hit the side of the turret right in front of my optics. "I think the only real threats are the two Heavy Soldiers." I yelled over to Springer and Jetfire, trying to make sure I could be heard over the gun fire.

"Agreed, but the moment one of us walks out into the open to get a clear shot at either of those Heavy Soldiers, their Ion Displacers will tear us apart." Jetfire yelled back. He started to look around the turret he and Springer were using for cover, but quickly ducked back when one of the Heavy Soldiers started firing his Ion Displacer in his direction.

I deployed my Scatter-Blaster and blindly fired around the turret, I was surprised when I heard a Decepticon cry out in pain after one of my shots. I looked around the turret again and saw that a Decepticon grabbing at his chestplates as he fell to the ground and lay completely still. I had somehow hit the Con directly in the chestplates while I was firing blindly.

I ducked back behind the turret when one of the Heavy Soldiers turned his Ion Displacer towards me. "Got any ideas for how we can take these Cons out quickly?" I hollered over to Jetfire, I backed a bit further away from the corner of the turret as the Heavy Soldier started using my cover as target practice.

"No, I got nothing." Jetfire yelled in reply. "What about you?"

I looked around for a route we could take to possibly flank the Decepticons, but every option that involved leaving the cover of the turrets would likely end with getting mangled by the Ion Displacers of the Heavy Soldiers. Looking up, I searched for a way that we could attack the Cons from above, but this also wouldn't be possible as there wouldn't be anything stopping the Decepticons from tearing us apart when we left our cover. We were stuck behind the only available cover on top of the entire ship, we likely would be offline it wasn't for these turrets.

'The turrets,' I suddenly realized. We were hiding behind two anti-ship weapons. The turrets were more than likely automated or controlled from inside the ship, but all systems could be overwritten if you knew where to look. If we could find a way to control the turrets, we could at the very least blow open the hanger doors, and take out the Cons if we were lucky. I looked along the base of the turret I was using as cover, searching for any type of control panel or circuit switch that we might be able to exploit and gain control of the turret. But after completely searching of my side of the turret -the only side I could search without getting shot- I found nothing.

"Jetfire!" I yelled, gaining the seeker's attention. "Do you see anything over there we can use to take control of the turret you and Springer are using as cover?" I asked, blindly firing several more shots from my Scatter-Blaster.

Jetfire looked at me curiously for a brief moment before he and Springer looked along the base of their turret. Jetfire responded after he and Springer searched the side of the turret for a few micro-klicks. "No, I don't see anything. The control panel is probably located on the bridge."

"But," Springer said. "I've seen turrets like this one before, and I know there's an emergency control panel hidden somewhere on this side." He put his audio receptor close to the side of the turret and tapped his servo several times against the base of the anti-ship weapon. "Haha!" He exclaimed a micro-klick later. "Only I could have found this control panel on the first try," he boasted with a smug grin on his faceplate.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah you're amazing Springer. Can you open the hidden panel now?" I heard Jetfire ask when the Decepticons paused in their shooting for a few micro-klicks.

Springer froze. "Open it?" He asked in a confused tone, as if he had never heard someone request such a thing.

I face-palmed. "Are you fragging kidding me Springer? You know where to find a hidden control panel on this type of turret, but you don't know how to open it?" I asked with an incredulous tone and a look on my faceplate that mirrored my tone.

The Cons started shooting again before Springer responded to my words. "Hey, don't blame me!" He yelled over. "I only would find the control panels, it was Wheeljack's job to find a way to access them."

I sighed loudly and shook my helm as I started looking around again for a possible way for us to take out the Cons easily. Springer's words confirmed my suspicion that he was a Wrecker along with Bulkhead, but I was too focused on trying to formulate another plan to care that much. After I had kept thinking about ways to get past the Cons, I gave up trying to come up with a plan. If we wanted to get inside the frigate, then our only option was to step out of cover rush toward the hanger doors with our guns blazing. But those Heavy Soldiers would ensure we wouldn't live long enough to reach the doors, let alone open them and get inside the frigate.

I looked over at Jetfire to ask him what he thought we should do, try rushing the Decepticons, or retreat. I didn't have time to open my mouth before something very unexpected happened.

The entire time we had been pinned by the Cons, The Collected and the Decepticon frigate were still exchanging fire. The Collected fired a barrage of plasma torpedoes at its opponent at the same moment I looked over to Jetfire, four of these torpedoes were heading straight towards the hanger doors while the others headed for other parts of the frigate. Of the four plasma torpedoes that were on track to hit the hanger doors, three were stopped by the frigate's shields while the forth slipped in between the shield panels and continued on its journey. The torpedo impacted less than a micro-klick after it passed the shield, and unlike the other torpedoes I had seen glance off the frigate, this was a direct hit.

The resulting explosion from the plasma torpedo was so powerful that my fellow Autobots and I were knocked off our pedes as the frigate was literally thrown off course. The frigate flew sideways for several micro-klicks before righting its flight path, but the ship seemed to be limping along as it was listing slightly to the left. The plasma torpedo must have done significant damage to the ship's engines as well.

I was the first one to get back on my pedes after we were all knocked down, I that saw smoke colored in unusual blue hue was already billowing far above out helms. I also didn't hear any gunfire from the Decepticons, so I cautiously looked around the turret as I deployed my Scatter-Blaster. I wasn't going to need it.

The plasma torpedo had turned most of the area in front of the hanger doors into molten metal that was glowing the same shade of blue as the smoke. There was no doubt in my CPU that the Decepticons had been turned into ash the moment the plasma torpedo hit, the only reason we didn't join them in oblivion were the turrets we had been using as cover, and they too were melted on the opposite side we took cover behind.

"Holy slag," Springer said as he stepped up next to me, looking around at the aftermath of the plasma torpedo with surprise written on his faceplate.

Now that I wasn't preoccupied with trying to find a way to get passed the Decepticons, I took note of what Springer actually looked like instead of what his helicopter form looked like. His optics -of course- were blue like all Autobots. He was tall, about three feet taller than Bulkhead and also much leaner. But for some reason I wouldn't doubt it if was stronger than Bulkhead. The rotors on his helicopter form had folded themselves together on his backplates, giving Springer a sword he could pull of his backplates. The missile pods I had seen him use earlier were now located on his shoulder-joints, unlike my missile launchers, however, they didn't seem to be able to fold into his shoulder-joints. His chaingun was also now fitted to the side of his servo. The last thing I noticed was the fact Springer had wheels on his pedes similar to my own, he was a Triple-Changer like I was.

I was brought out of my thoughts by Jetfire as he came over and stood next to me as well.

"We should get moving, we still need to get to the main reactor and overload it." He started walking toward the destroyed hanger doors after he spoke.

"What will our escape plan be after we overload the main reactor?" I asked while stepping around a patch of molten metal in my path.

"The same way we're going in, the hanger. We won't have enough time to find another escape route before the reactor detonates and destroys the ship." Jetfire said calmly, sounding unconcerned by the possibility of still being on the ship when the reactor blew.

I suspected Jetfire was going to say something like that, so I didn't reply as we got closer to the hanger.

The hanger itself was about twice my height and about the same length as a football field, what had once been the hanger doors were now puddles of molten metal spread across the inside of the hanger. I could see an elevator on the far side of the hanger that was more than likely going to be our way inside the frigate.

Springer responded to Jetfire's words. "That's reassuring. It would be a tragedy if I was offlined because I couldn't find my way off a ship," the green Triple-Changer joked in a dry tone as we entered the hanger.

"And it would be more of a tragedy if The Collected was destroyed and all those neutrals were offlined." I said, as we approached the elevator at the far end of the hanger.

"Way to make my joke not funny Shadowstreaker." Springer huffed, and leaned against the wall as we stepped into the elevator.

I saw Jetfire roll his optics at Springer's words as he walked over to the elevator's control panel. "That joke wasn't funny in the first place Springer," he said and pressed a button on the control panel that started the elevator.

"Neither of you are any fun," Springer said with a sigh of boredom.

We rode the elevator in silence until Jetfire spoke. "The Decepticons will be prepared for us, I'd get your weapons ready." He said, transforming his servo into a type of machine gun I had never seen before that looked like it fired tiny missiles, it was the weapon Jetfire used against the Brute Seekers.

Springer pulled his sword off his backplates and held it in the servo that didn't have his chaingun attached to it. The missile pods on his shoulder-joints moved slightly as he prepared for battle.

I got ready by deploying my Ion Displacer and the sword on my left servo. I spun up the barrels of my Ion Displacer as the lift continued taking us down, ready to unload over seven thousand rounds a klick into any Decepticons that might be waiting to ambush us.

Springer looked at my Ion Displacer for a moment, then he looked at the chaingun attached to his servo, and then back between the two weapons again before he looked at my Ion Displacer with trace of envy in his optics. "Show off," he mumbled at me, and started glaring accusingly at his chaingun like it was the weapon's fault I had an Ion Displacer and he didn't.

"I am the Autobot's heavy weapons specialist, it's my job to carry the artillery into battle," I said to Springer, I didn't like being called a show off when I tried to be as humble as possible.

"Yeah, yeah you have a real reason for carrying around an Ion Displacer and that Nucleon Shock Cannon we saw you use against those Cons," Springer said as he looked up at me . "Still isn't fair how you have an Ion Displacer and I don't," he huffed, and looked back at the elevator doors as began to slow in our descent.

The elevator took a few micro-klicks to completely stop and open the doors, we were immediately greeted by a half dozen Decepticons pointing their weapons at us, they never stood a chance.

The battle lasted just one and half micro-klicks. In that time my Ion Displacer had fired one hundred and eighty times, and few shots missed since we were so close to the Decepticons. Four Cons were turned into little more than piles of scrap metal as I mowed them down with my favorite weapon. The other two Decepticons were offlined by Springer's chaingun and Jetfire's missiles.

"Come on," Jetfire said. "Let's find the main reactor." He stepped over the offlined Decepticons and started walking down the hallway that our elevator led to.

Seeing that the hallway wasn't very wide, I returned my Ion Displacer to my backplates and deployed my Scatter-Blaster. I kept my sword out as we were now in close quarters and I preferred my sword in confined spaces over my Plasma Chaingun.

"Attention all Decepticons!" A voice blared over a loudspeaker. "We have intruders aboard the ship, you are ordered to intercept and turn them into scrap!" The voice yelled furiously and then went silent.

"This should be fun," Springer said, almost sounding eager for the Decepticons to attack us.

"Your definition of 'Fun' is very different than mine is Springer," I said, as we almost ran straight into a group of three Decepticons when we rounded a corner.

The Cons were quickly offlined by a double tap from my Scatter-Blaster, a slice from Springer's sword and a few missiles from Jetfire's fully automatic missile launcher. We continued before their chassis' had finish hitting the floor.

"Or you just don't like having fun," Springer said to me, laughing slightly at his own joke.

I sighed at Springer, but didn't reply as we continued running down the hallway in search of the main reactor.

We had a few more firefights with the Decepticons as we searched for the reactor, but they didn't slow us down for more than a few klicks at each encounter. After one particular fight with the Cons, we came to a very large and heavily built circular door that could only be the door leading to the reactor.

"Looks like we found the reactor, but they've locked it down from the bridge." Jetfire said, pointing a digit at a control panel next to the door that looked like it wasn't receiving power.

"So how are we gonna get in then?" Springer asked.

"We don't have the firepower, I doubt even that Nucleon Shadowstreaker is carrying could get through this door." Jetfire said, looking up at the massive door with a thoughtful look on his faceplate, likely trying to come up with a plan for getting the door open.

I looked at the seeker. "My Nucleon can fire a charged shot," my words caused Springer and Jetfire to gaze at me curiously. "I won't be able to fire the Nucleon for several klicks afterward, and I have never used a charged shot outside a shooting range, but it might be able to blast through the door." I wasn't entirely certain if my charged up shot would get through the door. Sure I had completely incinerated a building the first time I had used it, but that was human material and I had no idea how much damage it would do to Cybertronian alloys.

"By all means Shadowstreaker," Jetfire said, gesturing to the door. "Fire away."

"Let's back up a bit then, I've never fired a charged shot in a confined space," I said, and started walking down the hallway to get to a safe distance.

Springer and Jetfire followed me down the hallway and when we had moved as far away from the door as we could go, I deployed my Nucleon and immediately started charging a shot.

Both Springer and Jetfire took a step away from me when they heard the almost terrifying hum my Nucleon was making as I let the Shock Cannon charge a shot.

After my Shock Cannon had charged for three micro-klicks, I braced myself for the recoil and fired the Nucleon.

The charged shot from the Shock Cannon hit directly in the center of the door, the following explosion was thunderous and far too bright for me to see anything, but after a few micro-klicks I could see the aftermath just fine. The door to the reactor was quite simply gone, along with the surrounding bulkheads and a small part of the reactor itself... And also one side of the ship.

The Decepticon frigate now had massive hole in the hull that was caused by my Nucleon. I could now look outside the hole in the frigate's hull and see an unobstructed view of the Sahara. I would have been enjoying the view if it wasn't for the fact we were in grave danger of being vaporized by the reactor. There were alarms echoing throughout the frigate that were saying things like 'Imminent reactor detonation' and 'Evacuate immediately' it was nice to know the ship was about to explode.

"Well at least we don't have to go back to the elevator." Springer said, he ran towards the hole in the hull and jumped out of the ship, I saw his helicopter form flying away from the frigate a moment later.

I returned the Nucleon to my backplates as Jetfire followed after Springer and jumped out of the ship and flew away. I was about to follow as well when I was suddenly hit in the wing by a missile. Before I could cry out from the pain of getting shot in the wing, I was tackled to the floor by a Decepticon.

The Decepticon pinned me to the floor for a brief moment before I kicked him off me and got back to my pedes, ignoring the searing pain in my left wing. My opponent was heavily built and stood only five feet shorter than I did. His chassis was blue and grey in color, and his yellow optics were a very unusual color for a Cybertronian.

"Oh, look at this," the unnamed Con said smugly. "An Autobot Triple-Changer, I've always wanted to offline one of you." Without another word, he transformed his right servo into a large warhammer and charged at me.

I didn't deploy my swords as since they would probably break if they got hit by the Con's hammer. The Decepticon swung at my helm, which caused me to duck.

I threw a punch at the Decepticon's tank, expecting the Con to at least grunt in pain, but he didn't even react to my blow and swung his hammer at me again. I dodged his attack again and threw another punch, aiming at his helm this time.

The Decepticon looked stunned by my punch for a moment before he shook his helm and threw a punch of his own, but this was a mistake as I could block a punch far better than a hammer.

I blocked his punch with my right servo and countered with a left cross and then a hard jap to the tank and finally an uppercut, which sent the Decepticon onto his backplates in a daze. I didn't have the time to continue this fight, so I started walking to the hole in the hull, but was stopped dead in my tracks when something touched my neck and a blindingly painful electric current went through my frame. I was quickly sent faceplate down on the floor, struggling to stay online.

"That was easy," the voice of a new Decepticon said arrogantly. The new Con spoke to the one I had been fighting. "What was that about you offlining him in a micro-klick Breakdown?" He mocked, sounding like he was moving over to the other Decepticon as I heard his voice get further away.

I shook my helm and quickly recovered from whatever the Con hit me with. I started getting back up on my pedes slowly and quietly, trying to avoid being seen by the two Decepticons and turned toward their voices.

A Decepticon I hadn't seen before was kneeling next to the one I had fought. He was about Ratchet's height from what I could tell. Appropriate since the Con had the same two colors for his frame's paint, but instead of white and red like Ratchet, this Con had the opposite scheme, red and white. In his servos was an Energon Staff that was arcing with some kind of electricity, it was the weapon the Con hit me with. I also caught a quick look at the second Decepticon's optics, they were fire engine red and filled arrogance, but also amusement as he watched his comrade try and get up from the floor on his own and fail every time.

"The... Frag Knockout?... I was just... About to take him out," the Decepticon I now knew was called Breakdown said slowly, obviously still dazed from when I sent him to the floor. He tried getting up from the floor again and fell back down to the floor before he could even get into a sitting position.

The second Decepticon whose name was Knockout put his Energon Staff down on the floor and put one of Breakdown's servos around his shoulder-joints to help him up from the floor.

While Knockout was focused on helping Breakdown get up, I reached down and picked up the Energon Staff he left on the floor. Once I picked up the Staff, I waited for Knockout and Breakdown to notice me standing there.

Knockout finally got Breakdown up from the floor, with the much larger Breakdown leaning heavily on the smaller mech. Knockout spoke Breakdown. "Now let's offline this Autobot and get off the... Ship..." Knockout trailed off when he saw me standing with his Energon Staff in my servo.

I stabbed Knockout's shoulder-joint with the Staff the moment after he spoke, his frame to became a conduit for the electricity from the Energon Staff, and Breakdown was electrocuted along with Knockout.

I dropped the Staff on the floor and walked over to the hole in the hull as both Cons fell on their backplates. They were immobilized for the moment, but that would change, and I needed to get off the frigate. Unfortunately, my options for getting off the frigate were very limited. Flying was not a possibility, I could tell just from the amount of pain I was in that the missile Breakdown shot me with had blown a hole in my wing, making flying out impossible. I only had one option, jumping out of a ship nearly a kilometer in the air.

"This is going to hurt," I said to myself just before I jumped out of the frigate.

Ten micro-klicks of free falling later, I hit a large sand dune at an angle and rolled until I eventually came to rest faceplate down in the sand. Surprisingly, the fall hadn't injured me any further than I had already been, my wing still hurt like hell which wasn't a surprise. But no new injuries other than my wing.

Being careful not to move my wing to much, I picked myself up off the ground and spit sand out of my mouth that I had almost swallowed when I hit the sand dune. I was slightly irritated to find that my armor was covered in sand, so much sand in fact that my armor was almost yellow instead of its usual jet black. I dusted off my armor and soon returned my armor to its usual color, but I knew the sand had likely gotten beneath my armor, meaning the sand was going to be very annoying to clean out when I visited the washracks.

Hearing an explosion from above me, I stopped dusting myself off and looked back up at the frigate.

The damaged reactor on the Decepticon ship had finally overloaded, and now the ship was being rocked by a series of small explosions, but were gradually becoming larger and more violent. I saw an escape pod launch from the frigate while The Collected flew away from the other ship as the explosions started increasing in their intensity. The Decepticon frigate was suddenly consumed in a blinding light that blazed like a second sun as it detonated in a colossal explosion that made all the explosions before it look like a fire cracker. When the light faded, the frigate was reduced to small burning sections of metal that were falling from the sky.

As what remained of the frigate fell from the sky, I heard the sounds of several types of engines approaching my position from behind me. The engine noises ranged from the deep roar of Optimus' engine, to the high-pitched whine I knew belonged to Arcee's motorcycle form.

I turned around in time to see a few of my fellow Autobots drive over another sand dune and head towards me with Arcee leading the way. I saw Bulkhead was driving with the other Autobots, Ratchet must have ground bridged him here when he got to base. Oddly, I didn't see Optimus, Bumblebee or Prowl among the Autobots approaching me.

Arcee was the first one to reach me and she gracefully changed into her true form and stopped directly in front of me. "Your handiwork I presume?" She asked, putting a servo on her hip as she looked up at the last falling pieces of the frigate.

"Yes, but not intentionally though," I said meekly, wanting to avoid a possible compliment, even if the compliment was from the femme I had a crush on.

Arcee looked at my wing, apparently just noticing there was a hole in it. "What hit your wing?" She asked. Arcee gave me a sympathetic look as she spoke, knowing my damaged wing was causing me great discomfort.

I winced as the pain in my wing spiked for a moment. "A Decepticon shot it with a missile." I responded once the pain had subsided. I saw that the other Autobots had changed into their true forms and were now walking towards Arcee and I.

"That would explain why we saw you jump out of the frigate. That was some stunt you pulled kid," Bulkhead said with a laugh.

"I would have flown out, but Breakdown didn't give me a-" I started to say before Bulkhead cut me off.

"Wait, Breakdown is here?" Bulkhead asked me, visibly upset by the mention of the Con's name.

"Yes," I said. "He was the one who shot my wing," the pain in my wing spiked again immediately after I spoke, making me grind my dentas and suck in a pained breath.

Moonracer pulled a small medical kit out of her sub-space and started walking over to me. "Try not to move too much, it will just cause you more pain," she instructed, and started treating my injured wing.

I hissed in pain as Moonracer started treating my injury, but I ignored the pain and tried not to move as I looked back at Bulkhead. "You and Breakdown have a history I take it?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, we have quite the history," Bulkhead said bitterly. He was starting to pace in the sand, and I saw something in Bulkhead's optics I had never seen before, fury. Bulkhead's history with Breakdown must be really ugly if the green Wrecker was this pissed out that he was on Earth.

I didn't have time to ask Bulkhead another question before I heard a jet's engine and a helicopter's rotors cutting through the air, I suspected Springer and Jetfire were approaching.

My suspicion was confirmed when I saw Springer and Jetfire fly over a different sand dune than the others had arrived from and transformed a couple hundred yards away from us.

Bulkhead's mood changed as soon as he saw his fellow Wrecker. "Springer!" He said happily, as he ran over and practically crushed Springer in a brotherly hug.

"Oh no," I heard Arcee say under her breath so quietly that I doubt anyone else heard her speak.

I looked at Arcee curiously as she watched Bulkhead and Springer greet each other. She was looking right at Springer with nothing but contempt in her optics, which made me wonder why she clearly disliked Springer. From what I had seen of Springer he was arrogant and made bad jokes, but not so much that I disliked him anywhere close to how much Arcee did judging by the look in her optics. Unfortunately, I was about to find out why Arcee disliked Springer so much.

"Come on Springer, you gotta meet this kid over here." Bulkhead said as he lead Jetfire and Springer over towards us.

"We've already met Bulkhead," I said. "Jetfire, Springer," I greeted the two other Autobots as they stepped in front of me.

Jetfire acknowledged my greeting with a polite nod, but Springer ignored me as he was looking at Arcee, or leering at her would be a better term.

"Hello Springer," Arcee said to the green Triple-Changer an even voice, but I could tell she was barely containing her anger as Springer leered at her.

"Hey gorgeous," Springer greeted Arcee in a devious tone. "Still rocking those hips I see..." his optics looked Arcee's chassis up and down twice as he rudely ogled at Arcee. "And everything else as well," He finished with a wink, making Arcee's optics smolder with anger as he continued leering at her.

I felt my own anger well up within me the instant Springer first started leering at Arcee and I got the sudden and almost overwhelming urge to hit Springer in his faceplate as hard as I could. But unlike Arcee, I gave no indication I was angry at Springer, but just simply disapproved of the way he was speaking and looking at her. I could not, however, stop my left optic from twitching slightly, which was a clear indication I more than a little pissed at how Springer was looking at Arcee.

My optic twitch went unnoticed by all expect Jetfire, who gave me a brief curious look before turning to Arcee as she spoke.

"Springer," Arcee said as she folded her servos over her chestplates. "How many times will I have to tell you that I am not, and never will be, interested in you? Do yourself a favor and back off," Arcee warned dangerously and started walking away in the direction she and the others had arrived in a furious manner.

Springer's optics wandered unsubtly as Arcee walked away. "I like how she's so feisty," he said, letting his optics wander lower as he spoke.

I decided that I didn't like Springer at that moment. His arrogance I could stand, not everyone was humble. The bad jokes I could stand as well, but leering at a femme was something I couldn't stand. The fact it was Arcee that he had been ogling had something to do with my decision not to like Springer judging by how my spark was reacting, but I still wouldn't like Springer if he had been leering at a different femme.

Jetfire smacked Springer in the back of the helm in a very Gibbs-like fashion after Arcee walked away. "Control your fragged up CPU youngling," he scolded.

"What? It's not like I was actually doing anything," Springer said. "I was just admiring the view, and what a nice view it was." He finished with a laugh that made him sound like a sleazy jock, which didn't seem like too much of a stretch considering how he behaved towards Arcee.

Moonracer finished repairing my wing and walked around from my backplates. "I have done what I can, but you will need to visit the med-bay to finish your repairs, especially the damage to your armor." She said as she pointed to the section of my armor that was breached. Moonracer didn't say anything else to me and started walking in the same direction Arcee had, but she stopped for a moment and gave Springer a peeved look. "I have a feeling that someday soon you will regret having that mouth of yours Springer," she continued walking away without another word.

"What was that supposed to mean?" Springer asked Bulkhead as Moonracer walked away.

"I believe she just called you a dumbaft, that or a piece of slag, take your pick." I said as flexed my wing experimentally, pleased to find that no more pain was spiking in my wing.

Springer huffed, but didn't say anything else.

"We should probably get back to Optimus, he sent us to find you after we saw you fall from the frigate Shadowstreaker." Bulkhead said, starting to walk in the same direction as Arcee and Moonracer as he gestured for us to follow him.

"Why?" I asked, as Jetfire, Springer and I followed Bulkhead.

"We encountered Wildwing's creators earlier, they wanted to meet the temporary care-takers of their sparkling before being reunited with Wildwing." Bulkhead explained, which caused Jetfire and Springer to get confused looks on their faceplates.

"You are one of the temporary care-takers of a sparkling?" Jetfire asked me while Bulkhead answered a similar question from Springer.

I nodded. "Yes, Wildwing had been in an escape pod for two solar-cycles before he crash landed on the top of our base. Arcee and I were the first to speak with him, so he picked us as his temporary care-takers." I said as we started walking up the sand dune Bulkhead, Moonracer and Arcee had driven over earlier.

"Poor mechling," Jetfire said. "How long have you and Arcee been his temporary care-takers?" The seeker asked.

I briefly looked at Springer and Bulkhead as they both gave a short laugh, they were likely swapping war stories. "Arcee and I have been Wildwing's temporary care-takers for almost two mega-cycles." I answered as we started walking down the opposite side of the sand dune.

Jetfire and I continued walking in silence while Bulkhead and Springer traded war stories. The four of us eventually found ourselves among the offlined of chassis of Decepticons and a few neutrals. The battle had been waged on the ground as well as in the air.

Neutrals were carrying the offlined Cybertronians away from where they fell and were burying them in graves dug into the sand to let them rest in peace away from the prying eyes of humans.

I saw that The Collected had landed on the ground a couple kilometers away. The neutral vessel was heavily damaged, several of its decks were exposed and I could see neutrals were hard at work repairing the ship as best as they could.

I looked away from The Collected and saw Optimus, Prowl, Moonracer and Arcee standing and speaking with a mech and femme about fifty yards in front of us. The mech and femme were presumably Wildwing's creators. But I still didn't see Bumblebee anywhere, strange.

Optimus looked over at us when he noticed our arrival. "Autobots, this is Flightstom and Cyberfrost. They are Wildwing's carrier and sire." The Prime said, gesturing to the mech and femme I hadn't seen before.

Flightstorm was roughly Bulkhead's height, perhaps slightly taller and he had wings on his backplates. He was mostly grey in color with red trim along his wings, shoulder-joints and servos. The mech's optics were red, but they held no malice or anger. Instead, his optics were calm and peaceful, which led me to believe he was once a Decepticon and left their ranks before the war got ugly. The handle of a sword was on his backplates and I saw a pistol attached to his hip, he clearly preferred to battle in close quarters.

Cyberfrost was very short, I estimated her height at about eight feet shorter than Arcee and Moonracer's height, which put Cyberfrost at roughly seventeen feet tall. She was white in color and had navy blue accents on every limb. A few of these accents flowed into artistic designs that I believe she painted herself, meaning she is, or at least was, an artist. Cyberfrost's optics were silver in color, which was a very uncommon color for Cybertronians. I saw no visible weapons, but that didn't mean she didn't have any.

Cyberfrost was the first to speak after Optimus did. "You must be Shadowstreaker," she said in English, giving me a sweet smile as she spoke. I got the impression that she smiled a lot.

"I am," I replied as I folded my servos behind my backplates, while Bulkhead walked away with Springer and Jetfire.

Flightstorm then spoke. "We cannot fully express our gratitude to you and Arcee for taking care of our son." He said honestly.

"It was our pleasure, it is impossible not to enjoy having Wildwing around with his personality." Arcee said with a smile.

"I agree with that. His penchant for heights was an issue at times, but not very often, and his legitimate curiosity about anything he hadn't seen before made him fun to be around." I said with a smile of my own.

Cyberfrost laughed at the mention of Wildwing's love of heights. "He loves heights just like his sire," she said with a smile, and patted her sparkmate on the servo affectionately.

"He's a seekerlet, I would be concerned if he didn't like heights," Flightstorm said with a slight laugh.

Flightstorm spoke again. "I do not want to seem rude, but can we continue our conversation at your base? I want to see my son again." She said anxiously as Flightstorm put a comforting servo on her shoulder-joint.

"I am surprised that you did not ask sooner, it is perfectly fine with me," I said with a shrug.

"It's fine with me as well, you two have waited more than long enough to see your son again." Arcee said, sounding slightly surprised Cyberfrost was asking if it was okay to continue our conversation back at base.

Cyberfrost smiled in relief and looked up at Optimus. "Can my sparkmate and I please be reunited with our son?" She asked the Prime, Cyberfrost looked slightly comical as she looked up at Optimus since she was barely a third of his height.

Optimus didn't say anything to her, but instead opened a communications channel to base. "Optimus to base, requesting ground bridge." That was all Optimus said before closing the channel and looking back down at Cyberfrost. "It is our honor to reunite you with your sparkling." A ground bridge appeared behind Optimus as he spoke. The Prime stepped off to the side so Cyberfrost and Flightstorm had a clear path to the ground bridge.

Cyberfrost gave Optimus a grateful look before half walking and half running through the ground bridge. Her sparkmate followed after her in a much more calm and ordered manner, but was still walking with excitement in his step.

"Autobots, return to base, we will need to find alt modes for our new arrivals." Optimus said, waving Bulkhead, Jetfire and Springer over to where we were standing.

I looked around to see if Bumblebee was nearby since we were returning to base and he wasn't here, but he was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Bumblebee?" I asked Arcee.

"He had to be medevaced after catching the full force of a Brute's hammer," she said with a grimace, clearly feeling sorry for the yellow and black scout.

"That hurts, and I say that from experience." I said, recalling when I got hit by the Brute in the Amazon.

After Jetfire, Bulkhead and Springer walked over to us, we all stepped through the ground bridge.

---

July 6, 2012 6:22 A.M

Autobot base, outside Jasper, Nevada

One of the first things I saw when we returned to base was Cyberfrost giving Wildwing a tight hug while tears of joy were streaking down her faceplate.

Flightstorm was standing next to Cyberfrost while he hugged both his sparkling and his sparkmate with his much larger servos.

"Oh my Little 'Wing," Cyberfrost said joyfully. "I missed you so much," she hugged Wildwing a little tighter and kissed the top of his helm.

"I missed you and sire too carrier," Wildwing replied happily, wrapping his tiny servos around his carrier's neck as he returned her hug as best he could.

"Life's precious moments." I said to Arcee as we all stepped around the reunited family so we wouldn't interrupt their reunion.

"Indeed," Arcee responded, watching the reunion between Wildwing and his creators with a fond smile on her faceplate.

I saw Prowl lead Jetfire and Springer out of the ops center to another part of the base while Optimus and Moonracer went to the med-bay to check on Bumblebee and speak with Ratchet. Bulkhead, Arcee and I stayed in the ops center with the reunited family.

We stood in silence for several klicks before Flightstorm spoke to us. "I believe we were going to continue our earlier conversation?" He asked, as he continued hugging his family.

That was what started our conversation again. The six of us talked about various things for more than three breems, including the histories of Wildwing's creators. We found out that Flightstorm had indeed been a Decepticon like I guessed. He left the Con ranks when Megatron declared war and from the look in his optics when we spoke of Megatron, he despised Megatron for all the destruction his hunger for power had caused. Flightstorm was relieved to find out that Megatron was offline.

I had guessed Cyberfrost's past correctly as well. She had been a neutral artist before the war and was on one of the first of many evac ships when the masses started evacuating Cybertron. Cyberfrost had met Flightstorm on the same evac ship and the rest was history.

At some point, Bumblebee, Ratchet and Moonracer joined our conversation as well. How Bumblebee convinced Ratchet to let him out of the med-bay I do not know.

The origin of the neutral's ship, The Collected, was brought up at one point in our very long conversation, turns out it is a long story.

Three vorns ago, Flightstorm and a -at the time- carrying Cyberfrost and a hundred other neutrals aboard an old Cybertronian freighter happened across a massive number of destroyed ships orbiting a mostly devastated garden world. The system they found the ships was in a system located in what the humans called the Scutum-Centaurus Arm of this galaxy. After searching the planets surrounding the field of destroyed ships, they discovered the historical files of the species the destroyed ships had once belonged to. An organic race called the Calvori.

From the description Flightstorm and Cyberfrost gave. The Calvori are an unusually long-lived reptilian race, with the average lifespan of a Calvorian being around fifty vorns, which is unheard of for an organic race. Calvorian society is warrior-based, respect and wealth is earned from defeating worthy enemies and certain accomplishments preformed in battle. But surprisingly, Calvori have a relatively peaceful history with few full blown wars and just numerous battles. Calvorians are very large for organics. Calvori males average nearly fifteen feet in height and two tons in weight with long almost crocodile-like snouts and a large powerful spiked tail that they usually drag on the ground. Calvori females were very different from males, usually only standing about eight feet in height and well under a quarter of that weight. But unlike males, Calvori females had no snouts or tails, and were very human like in appearance. Unlike almost every other organic society, Calvori females were just as respected, if not more so, as Calvori males from very early in their history.

But something the Calvori were not very gifted in was development of technology, they would often go a dozens of generations before making a noticeable improvement in technology. As a result of their slow technological advancement and their long lives, it took Calvorians nearly five hundred centi-vorns to achieve space flight after they started using nuclear power, and fifty centi-vorns before they started going into space themselves. Due to their warrior culture, Calvorians had several thousand warships in their possession by the time they started their colonization of their home system and the surrounding star cluster.

As it turned out, Cybertronians had stored a large amount of energon on a planet in the Calvorian's star cluster and the Calvori discovered it in their travels, but this discovery would lead to their destruction.

Megatron detected the energon being unearthed by the Calvori and redirected the entire Decepticon fleet in the Milky Way galaxy to Calvori space, where the Decepticon fleet obliterated the Calvorian ships and recovered the energon. But Megatron didn't stop at the destruction of just a fleet of Calvorian ships, he started the complete genocide of the Calvorian race itself.

For an orbital cycle, the Calvorians fought off the Decepticon onslaught above their colonized worlds, but the outcome always ended with the Calvorian ships getting slaughtered by the Decepticon fleet and then the world the Calvori died defending was turned to glass and made completely uninhabitable. The last battle had been fought over the Calvorian homeworld, and it too was made uninhabitable by the Decepticons. But the Calvorian homeworld wasn't completely destroyed, and a small population of Calvori are still surviving and rebuilding at a rate that is slow even to them. When the neutrals had arrived at the homeworld of the Calvori three vorns ago, it had been eight thousand centi-vorns since the Calvori were attacked by the Decepticons. But they were only their second bronze age, and at the rate they progressed with technology, it would be countless vorns before they were back to flying among the stars.

So the answer to The Collected's origin was that the neutrals salvaged a long destroyed Calvorian frigate and reformatted it for our physiology, and so The Collected was born. But apparently the neutrals usually only used The Collected for reconnaissance.

The neutrals had also salvaged what they guessed had once been the capital warship of the entire Calvorian navy and reformatted it for our physiology as well. The result after the reformat was the Apex Sentinel, a ship of gargantuan size and tremendous power that the neutrals used as a warship, repair station and liveship. Flightstorm was the executive officer of the Apex Sentinel, and The Collected would start its journey back to the other ship at his order, which seemed to come too soon.

"We need to start our trip back to the Apex," Flightstorm said. "The journey will likely take at least another two mega-cycles now that The Collected is in need of repairs."

Wildwing looked up at his sire from where he was still being held by Cyberfrost. "We're leaving this cycle? But I wanted to show you all the interesting things on this planet." He said in a disappointed voice.

Flightstorm sighed lightly. "I am afraid so my son," he said regretfully.

"Aww," Wildwing whined in a depressed voice as he set his helm and his carrier's shoulder-joint, clearly wanting to stay on Earth for a while longer.

Cyberfrost frowned sadly at her sparkling. "Just because we are leaving now does not mean we will not come back sometime." She said sweetly, trying to comfort he saddened sparkling.

Wildwing seemed to get a bit of his usual cheer. "Really?" He asked hopefully.

"It's possible, now that we know we have friends here we might visit at some point." Flightstorm said, smiling at how his sparkling changed moods so quickly.

"Yay!" Wildwing exclaimed happily. "But are we going now?" He asked a bit uncertainly.

"Unfortunately yes," Flightstorm said, causing Wildwing's wings to droop slightly in sadness. "But we will say our goodbyes before we do." Flightstom added when he saw Wildwing's disappointment.

Cyberfrost set Wildwing down on the floor and the seekerlet ran over to where Bumblebee was being supported by Cybertronian sized metal crutches.

"I can tell he will miss you two a lot," Cyberfrost said to Arcee and I.

I nodded. "And we all will miss him," I said, smiling slightly as Wildwing hugged Bumblebee's pede.

"Flight' and I cannot thank you two enough for taking care of Wildwing." Cyberfrost said with a thankful smile on her faceplate. Wildwing's carrier stretched her servos out and looked at Arcee. "Do you mind if I give you a hug? I want to give you something for what you've done, and a hug is all I can offer at the moment." She laughed.

Arcee laughed as well. "Of course," she said, and stretched out her servos as well.

Cyberfrost pulled Arcee into a friendly hug without another word. I saw that Cyberfrost whispered something into Arcee's audio reseptor, but I couldn't hear what she said. Whatever Cyberfrost had whispered caused Arcee to give her a strange look, like she was confused by what the other femme had whispered to her.

I didn't have any time to guess what Cyberfrost had said to Arcee before Flightstorm stepped directly in front of me.

"You and Arcee forever have my thanks Shadowstreaker." The former Decepticon held a servo out for me to shake, which I did firmly. "Wildwing could not have had better care-takers while he was on Earth, and for that I thank you for taking care of him." He said gratefully.

"It was a pleasure having him here," I said honestly.

Flightstorm leaned a next to my audio receptor in a similar manner that Cyberfrost leaned next to Arcee's. "You're very, very good at hiding your emotions, but I am better at reading them. The way you feel towards Arcee is understandable, and good luck keeping yourself fooled kid." He whispered, and stepped away without another word.

I didn't give any indication that I was affected in any way by what Flightstorm had just whispered, but I was surprised that the former Decepticon knew about my crush on Arcee after just a few breems of talking with him. I was going to have to do a better job of keeping myself from giving a hint I had a crush on Arcee to prevent anyone else from finding out.

I was brought out of my brief thoughts when I saw that Wildwing had finished saying goodbye to Moonracer and was walking over to Arcee and I. We both crouched down so we were on his level.

Wildwing wrapped his servos around Arcee's neck in a tight hug. "This is for telling me stories before I recharged," he said.

Arcee laughed lightly. "Haha, you're welcome Wildwing." She said, giving Wildwing a hug back as she spoke.

Wildwing let go of Arcee's neck and climbed up onto my helm, much to the amusement of his creators. "This is for giving me a great place to climb all the time," he said with a happy smile.

I offered him a servo down. "Anytime Wildwing," I said with a smile of my own as I set him back on the floor.

Instead of going back over to his creators like I expected he would, Wildwing ran over to the stairway leading up to the catwalks and pulled two square-shaped objects out from beneath the stairs. Both of the objects were covered with a cloth on one side and the other side looked to be made out of canvas, both of them were almost Wildwing's height and just as wide as they were tall.

"And these," Wildwing said as he reached Arcee and I and set one object in front of each of us. "Are for taking care of me. Pick up the cloth!" He said cheerfully, while his carrier picked him up again.

Arcee and I shared a curious look before obliging Wildwing's request and removed the cloths covering the objects he placed in front of us. What was under the cloth surprised me.

The objects Wildwing had placed in front of us were pictures that looked like that had been created using nothing more than a pencil.

My picture was Wildwing sitting up on my helm while I stood on top of the base and looked out into the surrounding canyon. He had gotten every detail incredibly accurate, he somehow even got the silver mark on the side of my helm, and his fuchsia optics correct. The fact that Wildwing had obviously drawn this from scratch since he was in the picture too made it all the more impressive.

The picture that was in front of Arcee was of her gesturing with her servos while Wildwing laughed as he layed on a berth. I guessed that the picture was Arcee telling Wildwing a story. It also looked like it was drawn from a pencil, but he had different colored pencils so he got Arcee's colors just right.

"These are incredible Wildwing, thank you." I said, as I stood up to my full height with the picture in my servo.

"I second that Wildwing," Arcee said, also picking up her picture and standing back up.

"Oh it was nothing," Wildwing dismissed, sounding embarrassed that we were speaking so highly of the pictures he drew.

"Your carrier is proud of you for making such great pictures my Little 'Wing," Cyberfrost said affectionately, giving Wildwing kiss on the top of his helm.

Wildwing looked more embarrassed that his carrier was speaking highly of his pictures as well, but didn't say anything.

"I believe it is time that we left," Flightstorm said, causing Ratchet to walk over to the ground bridge controls and activate the bridge.

"I hope we all meet again," I said as Wildwing and his creators turned to leave.

"So do we," Cyberfrost said over her shoulder-joint as she walked toward the green portal.

"Bye!" Wildwing called back to us with a happy smile and farewell wave as looked over his carrier's shoulder-joint.

With Wildwing's words and last wave, the newly reunited neutral family was gone.

I looked at where they had walked through the ground bridge even when Ratchet had deactivated it. I was going to miss Wildwing, and despite what we told him about visiting Earth sometime it was unlikely.

'But not impossible,' I thought with a slight smile on my faceplate as I looked down at the incredibly detailed picture Wildwing drew for me. I sub-spaced the picture with a mental note to put it up on my shelf later.

It was just after I sub-spaced the picture that a wrench hit me in the helm. "Get your aft to the med-bay," Ratchet ordered in a harsh tone.

"Typical Ratchet," I said to Arcee. "The innocent audio receptors having even been gone a klick and he's already back to cursing." I sighed as I turned away from the ground bridge and started walking over to Ratchet as he led Bumblebee to the med-bay.

"Good luck," Arcee said to me in a tone that suggested she was smiling.

"Thanks, I am going to need that good luck." I replied and stepped out of the ops center as I followed Ratchet and Bumblebee to the med-bay.

If I had still been in the ops center, I would have seen the very confused and pondering look on Arcee's faceplate as she looked at the spot where she had last seen me.

---

(Human calendar) July 6, 2012 9:44 P.M

(Cybertronian date) 1103432 (Centi-vorns since the end of the Golden Age)

Decepticon War Cruiser Nemesis, geosynchronous orbit above Beijing, China

Starscream threw the data pad he had been reading against the wall of his quarters in frustration. The data pad contained the official report of what happened in what humans called the Sahara Desert. The Decepticon stealth frigate he had summoned to Earth, the Dagger, had been utterly destroyed along with all except five of its crew, and every single one of them were in sick-bay with injuries.

The Dagger's captain had been a fool and attacked a neutral vessel while on his approach to Earth. The neutrals had won the resulting battle with help from the Autobots according to Breakdown, the only survivor from the Dagger that seemed capable of speech it seemed. But he was hard to understand, always mumbling something about a 'Pit spawned Triple-Changer' and 'Knockout's stupid fragging Energon Staff' that second one had made sense.

Knockout had been stabbed in the shoulder-joint and his internal components suffered extensive damage due to a concentrated EMP burst, the exact same EMP signature his own Energon Staff used.

'What a fool,' Starscream thought to himself. Knockout had somehow lost his own weapon to an Autobot and said Autobot had used it against him and Breakdown. Starscream found irony of Knockout's own weapon being used against him to be humorous, but finding out that the two things Breakdown kept mumbling were connected could be a problem.

The rather brute-like Decepticon said that he had fought with an Autobot Triple-Changer while the reactor on the Dagger was starting to overload. The Triple-Changer had defeated Breakdown fairly quickly despite the fact Breakdown had blown a hole in the Triple-Changer's wing with a missile, something that made Starscream flinch lightly as he imagined the pain. The Triple-Changer was about to leave when Knockout hit the Autobot with his Staff, seeming to incapacitate the Triple-Changer. But the Autobot was far from it and took Knockout's Energon Staff when he turned his backplates to the Triple-Changer, using it against Breakdown and his partner. The only reason either of the two Decepticons were even in the sick-bay was that the other survivors found them when they were evacuating the Dagger and pulled them into the escape pod with them.

Starscream had given Soundwave Breakdown's description of the Triple-Changer he had fought, but Soundwave had found no known Autobots that fit the Triple-Changer's description. That meant one of three things.

One was that Breakdown had given an inaccurate description, but that was unlikely, Starscream had worked with Breakdown before and the brute-like Decepticon was more perceptive than he let on. Another possiblity was that Soundwave had made a mistake in his search of the records, that was far more unlikely that Breakdown given an inaccurate description. In all the vorns Starscream had known Soundwave, the intelligence officer had not made a mistake... Ever. The third, and most likely, possibility was that the Autobots had onlined some sort of black operations soldier that had been in stasis on this planet. The Decepticons had left soldiers on Earth to guard energon stores, why wouldn't the Autobots do the same?

Starscream shook his helm, wondering where this Triple-Changer came from wasn't going to solve anything.

The current leader of the Decepticons picked up another data pad this one was an overview of a project Megatron had started several orbital-cycles ago dubbed, Project:Overlord. But Starscream had only discovered its existence this mega-cycle

'What a fool you were... Are Megatron' Starscream thought, looking in the direction he knew where Megatron's near-lifeless chassis was located.

The amount of resources Megatron had been pouring into Project:Overlord was obscene. The largest project Starscream had ever led was the space bridge, and the amount of resources he got for the construction of the bridge over the three orbital-cycles it took to build were a tiny fraction of the resources Megatron had been putting into Project:Overlord every few jours. But Starscream didn't understand why Megatron had foolishly poured so many resources into Project:Overlord as he read the overview of the project, its cost was immense and its final goal was incredibly common, to a Cybertronian anyway.

"I could start my own projects with those resources," Starscream mused to himself, the numerous schemes that he could only dream of a few jours ago were now a reality since he was leader of the Decepticons.

With a twisted smile on his faceplate, Starscream typed out the order to halt all work on Project:Overlord and redirect its resources to a new project, Project:Harbinger Starscream called it. The new leader of the Decepticons didn't know what Project:Harbinger would be at the time, but he didn't care at the moment, he had all the former resources of Project:Overlord at his digits. What more could Lord Starscream ask for?

"A cube of high-grade," Starscream answered his own theoretical question, and proceeded to comm-link Soundwave and ordered him to send some high-grade to his quarters.

After he had ordered Soundwave to send the high-grade, Starscream sat down in a chair behind his desk. "It is good to be the Lord of Decepticons," he said to himself and leaned back in his chair, only to fall straight on his backplates while cursing Megatron's name for his failure.

Starscream quickly stood back on his pedes and went over to grab another data pad, fuming at himself his own humorous accident while he waited for his high-grade to arrive.

---

So Jetfire and Springer have joined the Autobots on Earth, Springer is a HUGE aft T.T And has Agent Simmons moments at times lol. And Wildwing is gone :'( I loved writing Wildwing's character... But I had no choice except to send him away *Sigh*Believe me when I say that no one would have liked the alternative.

I know that at least Breakdown was already on Earth when Arcee arrived in the Prime Comic, but I wanted to have him and Knockout arrive in a different way, so *in Fate Calls anyway* they were on the Dagger before it blew up.

I couldn't resist making Starscream looking like an idiot at the end lol. I was going to end it at him leaning back at his desk... But it was just too perfect not to end it there hehe.

So my next few chapters will be based off the actual episodes, but they won't be exactly like the cartoon ;)

And btw. With this 15k word chapter, I have gone over the 100k word mark for the story as a whole 0.0... That is how long I wanted this story to be in the first place... In total. Man I'm I glad I didn't continue writing this story in short chapters like I was at the beginning lol.

This chapter's credit song is "30 Seconds To Mars - I'll Attack" Crystal helped pick it out since I couldn't find a good credit song for this chapter. It does suit how I ended this chapter very well :)

So, please be sure to leave a review and thanks for reading. I'll see you soon.