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.

36. Journeys

Before I get to the author's notes, I would like to ask any who pray to add the people of the Philippines to their list of prayers. The typhoon that hit them recently is perhaps the worst one in hundreds of years, and many people have lost their lives to it. Please, keep the people of the Philippines in your thoughts and prayers. And to the few people who read this story in the Philippines *The site tells me what countries I have hits from* I am praying for you everyday, and hope help arrives to your you fellow countrymen in time.

Okay, to the chapter.

This one kicked my BUTT. I wrote some things one way, and I felt like they were rushed, I wrote them another, and they seemed cheap. It was a frustrating chapter, especially with how long it took me to write it all out. But at the same time, it was hard NOT to take so long. This one is almost ten thousand words longer than my last one. That's like another CHAPTER longer. And to put into perspective just how long these last two have been, the combined total of these chapters is about 60k, right? Well, the first Harry Potter novel, and I looked this up, is 66k words. In total. Basically, in terms of length, I've given you all the first Harry Potter novel in these last two. So to get to the point, I would recommend reading this in parts, as there will be clear places where you can stop to take a break. But, you can also just read it in full.

As always, I thank each and every person who reviewed, followed, or favorited this story since I last said this. It means a lot to see people wanting to know what my next update will contain. :)

Guest (Now known as SunnySides) - Yeah, took him a while, didn't it? Lol.

As I said, I take all my feedback seriously, and I try to treat others like I want to be treated. I do not always succeed in that goal, but it is always what I shoot for.

All three Lord of the Rings in two days? Holy crap. Those things are quite dense. It would be great to write at the pace you read. Think of all the updates you could write!

*Looks at date* Didn't do so good in updating quickly, did I? Oh, well. At least I didn't go away for a lot longer. :)

DaLintyMan - True, but there were other references in the last chapter that were a lot more subtle. You might see them if you go back and look.

Guest - Well then stop shaking, for the chapter is here! ... Finally... Took more than a month and a half to finish this one.

dragonbookaddict - Thank you for thinking so highly of this story, and apparently me. I try to keep myself humble, and simply enjoy writing. But, it is always a great thing to see your work be enjoyed as well. I hope you like this chapter as much as my other ones. :)

John Primus - Well, there's a lot of things I have planned for this story, and at times it's going to go well away from the plot line of Prime. In fact, there aren't too many episodes I plan on having be chapters, and what ones I do plan on are going to be quite different than the show, as I have made a number of changes to the universe as a whole. I honestly do not know when my next episode-based chapter will be, but I will probably have a few more.

James92046 - There many stories I have come across that have held my interest at that level. I am honored that you currently see Fate Calls as that. Hopefully, you will keep finding it interesting and entertaining. As for the last bit of your review, no comment.

Thanks go to Crystal Prime for beta reading.

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

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(Human calendar) July 1, 2013 7:37 P.M (UTC-6:00 Mountain Standard Time)

(Cybertronian Date) 1103432 (Centi-vorns since Golden Age)

Star system R136a1, Path Kethona galaxy (Know as the Large Magellanic Cloud to humans)

"So, let me see if I understand you correctly," Delta, the captain of the Apex Sentinel, who I had met roughly ten klicks ago, said. "You want me, someone who you not only have just met, but also someone who lost almost an entire squad of bots barely a breem ago, to not only give you passage on my ship, go two-hundred thousand light-years out of our way to bring you back to your planet, a place where dozens of us offlined in a battle against Decepticons. Not only that, but you are asking us to potentially fight those Decepticon forces just to reach aforementioned world, then also use up all that time, effort, and resources, and not see them replaced?" The golden femme leaned against the bridge's holotable, which displayed an image of the system the ship was in. "All to get back to some femme you've been serving with. Is that about right?"

My left optic twitched slightly at how Delta referred to Arcee as 'Some femme,' like she wasn't important. But, that was my own fault. I didn't do a very good job of really explaining who, and what, Arcee was to me while asking the captain to give me a ride to Earth. Didn't even mention her name, come to think of it, on account of wanting to speed through the process of requesting passage so I could get moving to Earth, and giving only the barest of explanations to Delta. Going to have to do a better job of keeping my emotions from affecting how I speak, even if those emotions are literally the happiest I have ever felt.

I took a breath to regain control of myself. "It seems that I did not explain myself very well. May I clarify?"

Delta inclined her helm for me to continue.

"I am not asking you to use this ship to travel to Earth. It is the size of a large asteroid, and, as a result, must be teratons in weight. Using it to travel such a distance would use vast amounts of your energon reserves. What I request is passage on the Collected if, that is, it is still in your possession. It is minuscule in comparison to the Apex Sentinel, and would use the least amount of energon possible during the journey," I explained.

"This vessel, and everyone onboard it, has massive energon requirements that have to be met." The captain looked at the holotable, focusing it on the planet I could see out of the ship's view port. "To meet them, we must mine precious metals and sell them to organic races, whose planets are home to great deposits of refined energon. Even with this relatively easy method of acquiring energon, we still burn through it very quickly. Everything we do has the goal of giving us energon. If I give you what you ask, we will use more energon than we can gain, and we will fall into a shortage. And that is something we have not had in a vorn." She glanced at me, yellow optics appearing cool to the average bot, but I saw the kind look in them. "I can't let that happen again."

A pang of sadness and disappointment entered me, but I pushed them aside. "Then how about letting me take an escape pod? Program it to bring me to Earth?" I asked. The escape pods of Autobot ships could be directed to head for coordinates entered into their basic computers, and since this ship had both Autobots and Decepticons calling it home, Autobot engineers might have given the escape pods of this ship that feature. It wouldn't be comfortable for a mech my size, and it might only take me to the Sol system, not Earth itself, but I had to get back. And as long as Arcee was there when I returned, it would be worth any wait.

"We don't have the luxury of giving our escape pods computers," Flightstorm, who was standing next to me, answered instead of Delta, optics carrying a knowing, sympathetic look. "They are very basic. The most high-tech feature they have is a tracking beacon we can use to locate other escape pods. That is the sole reason we were able to track Wildwing's pod last orbital-cycle."

The sad feeling came back, and I couldn't keep it out this time. There was nothing that could get me back to Earth. The Apex Sentinel, the Collected, even an escape pod, all unable to bring me home. I couldn't get back. I couldn't reunite with her.

"I know you want to return," Delta said, evidently seeing my change of mood. "But we must put the needs of this vessel ahead of yours, even if you want to reunite with the courted you have been apart from for some time."

"We aren't courteds," I corrected mildly, beginning to pace next to the holotable, trying to think of other ways I could get to Earth. "But that doesn't mean we're not more than that."

The captain raised one optic ridge. "And how would that be?"

"We have Imprinted on each other," I said, still thinking of alternative methods of getting to Earth. "I learned of my own Imprint just before I was captured, and only found out of how Imprints are a two-way phenomenon during my conversation with your XO."

Delta's optics widened slightly at that, and glanced at Flightstorm, who nodded in confirmation. She turned back at me, optics now containing an apologetic look. "I am very sorry, but we can't do as you ask," she said. "All I am able to offer you is an invitation to join our crew, and the promise that we will eventually return to that general area of space."

"That won't be enough," I said. "It could be a centi-vorn before you make your way back."

"It might," the golden femme acknowledged, tone neutral, yet sympathetic. "But there does not seem to be another option. We can't afford to travel all the way out to Earth without replenishing the energon we would lose."

Delta's statement caused me to realize something, something that I could not believe I hadn't realized earlier. We had my carrier's Forge. Optimus could just make the energon they needed. Although, that would take several cycles of constant work, given how much energon Delta and her bots would require. But perhaps there was another way.

With an idea beginning to form, I asked, "Tell me, earlier you said that you were mining precious metals you could trade with organics in exchange for energon, what are they?"

The captain blinked at my completely off-topic question, and she and Flightstorm gave each other a confused look before they looked back at me. "It depends on the species. Some only trade for Silver, others for Platinum, Osmium, or Iridium, but the vast majority trade their energon for Gold."

Hmm. Sounds like the lust for Gold my former race possesses is universal among other races. Wonder if that's some type of genetic trait shared in all sentient organic races. "What is the exchange rate between Gold and energon?"

Delta continued looking at me in puzzlement, as if trying to figure out where I was taking this. "It is nearly consistent between all races we trade with. For every ton of Gold we trade, we receive seventy-thousand barrels of processed energon, enough to fill ten-thousand storage containers."

Huh. That was well under a fourth the Gold to Oil Ratio. Either energon wasn't as common on the planets Delta and her bots traded, or the organics they dealt with were taking advantage of how they couldn't live without access to their resources. And assuming greed was universal, I would bet on it being the latter. "And how much Gold is typically involved in one of your trades?"

"Anywhere from a hundred, all the way to two-thousand tons. It depends on how long we have to mine," Delta answered. "Why?"

"Because I am wondering how large our payment will need to be," I said, halting in my pacing to look at the captain seriously. "What if I told you we could provide twice the amount of Gold than your largest trade?"

"I would say that you're full of… Stuff," Delta said, likely keeping her language to a minimum due to the fact there were a few sparklings within hearing distance, watching their carriers or sires working at their stations on the bridge.

Flightstorm seemed to share her scepticism, since he asked, "And the Autobots at Earth just happen to have four kilotons of Gold just lying around your base? Do you become miners in your spare time?"

I ignored the former Decepticon's sarcasm. "No, but we do have my carrier's Forge."

The grey and red seeker rose both of his optic ridges in surprise, while Delta just looked confused, not knowing that I was related to Solus. "You didn't mention that during our conversation."

"It wasn't relevant at the time," I said with a small smile, repeating one of my statements from our discussion.

"What are you both talking about?" Delta asked, glancing between her XO and I for an answer.

I looked back at the captain. "I am the son of Solus Prime," I said, then tapped the mark on the side of my helm. "This mark identifies me as her direct descendant." And possibly more, I wanted to add, but didn't. I had no clue why I had seen the symbol on the building on Ventqura Munitum, whether it meant that the mark on my helm held more meaning than I was aware of. And I likely wouldn't know until I actually got clear and honest answers out of the Primes when I saw them next. But, going by how they acted in my last visit, as well as how they didn't even mention the second Delphic, that wasn't going to happen.

I hate not being able to get answers.

A look of surprise crossed the golden femme's faceplate, before she mastered herself. "You are the son of Solus Prime? The first inventor and scientist of our race? That Solus Prime?"

"Yes," I replied simply, hiding my amusement at how she was reacting to this news. Flightstorm had taken it with a lot less surprise, or at least outward surprise. Delta must be an admirer of Solus'.

"And you have her Forge? The relic that is said to be able to turn anything into anything?" Delta asked.

"I've seen Optimus Prime use it firsthand," I said.

Delta seemed taken aback by this confirmation, but she kept it out of how she behaved. "And Optimus Prime, he would be willing to use the Forge to create that amount of Gold for us?"

"After I have informed him of your constant search for energon, I believe he would do it in a micro-klick," I responded. "He is the type of mech who will go well out of his way to help others."

"Then why not just give us energon in return for taking you to Earth?" Delta asked. "It would be more simple than taking you nearly two-hundred thousand light-years, only to come back and get our energon from organics."

"Two reasons," I said. "The first is that this vessel is more than large enough for humans to see without the aid of technology. Humanity is largely unaware of our existence. If a ship this size were to sudden appear above or near it, it would send them into a mass panic. The other reason is tied to this fact. If you were to use the Collected to transport your energon to the Apex Sentinel, it would only be able to carry a very small amount in comparison to this ship, and it would take a very long time for Optimus to create that much energon. Time that you would lead you to use the energon he had already created, leaving us in a never-ending loop of loading up the Collected with energon again and again, only to not make any progress in filling the storage hangers on the Apex Sentinel." I folded my servos behind my backplates, resuming my pacing. "But, since you seem to have regular dealings with at least one organic race, I believe they are far more prepared to transport large quantities of energon to this ship in a short period of time. Am I right?"

"You are," the captain said. "Nearly all races we trade with have built facilities exclusively for our use. Some have constructed ground-based fueling stations that we must hover over in order for them to attach pipes that pump energon directly into our storage hangers. Most, however, have built space elevators we can dock with and have our energon brought aboard efficiently. A few even have cargo ships that are able to dock with us and transfer our energon in mere klicks." She seemed to think for a moment, likely about what I had said and she had confirmed, then nodded. "I see your point. So Gold in exchange for passage it is, then."

I came to a halt at those words and looked at Delta cautiously. "Does that mean you've changed your CPU and agreed to take me to Earth?" I asked. It certainly sounded like that was what she said, but I had to be absolutely sure with this. I couldn't let myself go back to being as happy as I was before until I knew exactly what she meant.

Flightstorm chuckled at my tone, and Delta smiled. "Yes, it does."

There have been very few moments in my life where I have wanted to jump in the air while pumping my fist in the air and crying, 'YES!' The micro-klick following Delta's statement was one of them. But I kept my reaction inward, and focused on more important things. "I am glad you've decided to help me."

"It will be best for both of our bots." Delta smiled again, then asked, "Now, did you have a plan for getting you to Earth beyond the use of the Collected?"

"Honestly?" I asked in turn. "No. I didn't think that far ahead."

Delta chuckled like Flightstorm had. "Then let's start making one." She looked at a femme who was working at a nearby terminal. "Can you bring up the scans the Collected took during its trip to the Sol system?"

The unnamed femme nodded. "Of course." She began typing at her terminal, and soon the image of the solar system we currently were in was replaced by a holographic representation of the system I had called home for my entire life, both as a human and a Cybertronian.

The three of us turned our attention to the holotable. "What level of Decepticon presence is there in the system? Same as when we were there last?" Flightstorm asked.

"No," I said. "Things have changed since you were there. There's at least two Decepticon ships in the system. The class leader of the Nemesis-class, and an Adversary-class called the Dark Matter. And the only reason the Nemesis didn't intercept you last orbital-cycle was because Starscream was in command. That isn't the case anymore. And there's also a chance Megatron has called for more ships to enter the system."

Flightstorm's helm snapped up to look at me. "You said he was offline when we were there. That he was right next to a space bridge as it collapsed."

"We thought so, too," I said. "But he survived… Somehow. We don't really know exactly how he wasn't destroyed by the bridge. But that really doesn't matter, does it? He's back, and in command of the Decepticons once again. Had been for jours when I was captured."

A look of anger crossed Flightstorm's faceplate, and his optics dimmed slightly, though far less than they would have if he had been using a comm-link. Either he was contacting Cyberfrost through their bond, or she was contacting him. After a moment, he seemed to relax and the angry look left his faceplate.

"You alright?" Delta asked, concern hidden in her voice.

"Fine," Flightstorm answered, a little curtly. He refocused on the holotable. "So a direct approach is still possible, but very ill-advised," He said, focusing the image on Earth and adding two red dots to represent the Nemesis and the Dark Matter.

He clearly wasn't fine, but I chose not to comment. There were some things that needed to be dealt with personally. And Flightstorm's hatred of Megatron was something personal. "Unless you've upgraded the Collected with stealth systems and better armaments, no, I wouldn't advise going straight to Earth. Now that the Dark Matter is on Earth, it can focus on the ground operations while the Nemesis can concentrate on other parts of the system, if Megatron desires. It would tear us apart before we were able to even get close to Earth's moon."

"We've repaired and upgraded it since then, but it still doesn't have proper stealth systems," Delta said, drumming her digits against the holotable in thought. "What about a localized jump?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

The captain zoomed the image out from Earth, and back to the Sol system as a whole. "First, we jump to the outskirts of the system, like here, for instance." She highlighted an area of space far beyond Pluto, a little further out than even Eris, I believe. "Then we jump again, this time to a very specific point. Like somewhere within Earth's atmosphere. It will fool the majority of sensors. They're only pointed up to the stars, not to the ground."

"It might fool the long-range scanners, but the energy discharge from a ship jumping into atmosphere would trigger the sensors meant to detect energon signals, both on the ground and in orbit," Flightstorm pointed out. "If we jumped into the planet's atmosphere, we would light up Decepticon scanners even more than we would have by just jumping into an orbit above Earth."

"Which might not be a bad thing," I mused, thinking outloud. Jumping into atmosphere might trigger Decepticon, and Autobot, sensors, but that didn't necessarily mean we would give the Decepticons our exact location. The energy released from the jump would spread outward like ripples in water, and would cover thousands of square kilometers in mere micro-klicks. Granted, it also would be a literal shockwave, and cause extreme winds in the affected area, while also frying any electronics within its damaging limits. But it would also hide the Collected from scanners while the energy was still in the air. And that was what was important.

Both the captain and the XO looked at me. "How so?" Delta asked.

"If we jumped into atmosphere, our position would be revealed, yes, but not our exact position," I replied. "The energy the jump would release would cloud scanners, keep our exact location hidden from the Decepticons."

"Maybe, but it would do nothing to keep us from being visually seen by anyone who looks up," Flightstorm said. "And if we were going to jump into atmosphere, we'd have to do it in a remote area, away from human civilization. The Collected would stand out in an environment like that."

"True," I conceided. "But that's only if we stayed in that area."

Delta seemed to piece my idea together. "You think making multiple jumps in atmosphere will keep the true location of the ship hidden."

"Not only that, but also disguise the energy we would create from jumping in atmosphere again," I said.

"But no matter how many times we jumped to a different location, the Decepticons could still track us," Flightstorm argued. "All they would have to do is watch for the energy from our latest jump, and then jump right on top of us when their sensors detect us."

I went silent when I realized the logic behind the former Decepticon's words, but then another idea formed in my processor, and I said, "Only if we jump to a place they can track us."

Flightstorm blinked puzzlement and shared a brief, confused look with Delta, then looked back at me. "Now you've lost us."

"If we just jump around in Earth's atmosphere, they will track us, like you mentioned," I said, directing my statement at Flightstorm. "But if we modify my earlier suggestion, and instead immediately jump to a location protected by a cloaking field after our initial arrival, we can completely disappear from Decepticon scanners. They'll investigate, of course, but they can't track what they can't see."

The two commanding officers were quiet as they thought about what I said, before Flightstorm refocused on me. "It may just work, but we would need to have a cloaked location prepared for us ahead of time, and be far enough above the planet to see the protected location, which could be a problem. Not only that, but we do not have any cloaking devices on the Apex Sentinel or the Collected."

"We can worry about the location we jump when we know where the cloaked area is going to be. An as for the cloaking device itself, well, you don't one, but our base is cloaked, and my fellow Autobots have the capability to build a portable device on short notice with Optimus having the Forge," I said.

"But they aren't aware we're coming," Delta pointed out. "And unless they have foresight, we would have to communicate with them directly in order for your comrades to build a cloaking device and prepare an area for the ship to jump to. Not to mention the fact the Collected will have to find a place to hide while you are in contact with your base and informing your fellow Autobots of what we need."

"Then jumping to the edge of the system isn't an option. Without stealth systems, the Decepticons could track any communications we have with your base and attack us," Flightstorm said, getting rid of the highlight at the outskirts of the holographic Sol system and looking at the map thoughtfully. "We'll need to jump further in the system, maybe use another planet to hide our readings."

"Or, we could jump into a gas giant," Delta proposed, creating a blue dot in the gas clouds of Jupiter. "It would act like cover, hide our readings from all sensors. The Collected would only show up as a solid object in that atmosphere."

"That could work. It also would disguise our communications," I said, focusing the holotable on Jupiter and positioning the blue dot a bit deeper into the atmosphere. We would have to make sure we were deep enough to be hidden. "That gas giant, called Jupiter by humans, is a very weak radio pulsar. It would overwhelm Decepticon sensors by the time they got close enough to scan us. But it also would make it impossible to lock onto us with the space bridge we have at our base, and scramble the Collected's communications system. That would need to be fixed before I tried contac-"

"Wait," Delta interrupted. "You have a space bridge at your base? Why are we even planning to use the Collected?"

I looked up from the holotable. "Do you have access to secure, long-range, Autobot comm channels?"

The golden femme shook her helm. "No."

"Neither do I," I said. "I'm a front-liner. It wasn't something I ever had to learn. Besides, space bridges work differently than normal FTL. It's far more precise. Any coordinates we could send to Earth would be useless for operating a space-bridge effectively. They could end up opening a space bridge inside the engines, or appear a million kilometers away."

"Alright, I see your point," Delta said. "But, it would be possible to use it while the Collected was in the system. It wouldn't even have to land, if your team used your space bridge to reach the ship."

Flightstorm shook his helm. "Not really. We would have to leave the atmosphere of Jupiter in order for a space bridge to work, like Shadowstreaker said. And the moment we left, the Decepticons could track us."

Delta sighed quietly. "So, jumping into Jupiter's atmosphere and contacting the Autobot base from there is our only option."

"The safest one, yes. And from what I can see, we have completed our plan," I said. We had the ship we were going to take, the location we would travel first, the plan to get around the lack of stealth systems, and a way for bots who followed Delta and Flightstorm to not only replenish, but gain more energon than they would use getting me to Earth. What else did we have to go over?

Delta returned the image on the holotable to the overview of the entire Sol system. She and Flightstorm examined the map for several micro-klicks, and then nodded. "You're right, we do," the captain agreed.

"So, when do we leave?" I asked, perhaps a bit too quickly. I was letting my excitement affect me again.

Flightstorm smiled. "Eager to get back, are we?"

I checked to make sure there were no sparklings within hearing range, but didn't seem like there were. Good, didn't want them to hear this. "You bet your aft I am."

Delta laughed. "It will take a few solar-cycles to gather a crew and supplies for the journey, and also get word around to the crew that this is an opportunity for some to join Optimus Prime on Earth with you."

"You'd do that?" I asked curiously. She clearly cared for everyone on this ship. Sending members of her crew away to join another probably wasn't easy for her. But I wasn't complaining. We needed all the help we could get on Earth.

"Of course," the golden femme answered. "We travel constantly, and bots will come and go, and then sometimes come back."

That made sense. Jetfire and Springer had said when they first arrived they had accompanied Flightstorm and Cyberfrost on their search for Wildwing primarily to look for Optimus, and that decision ended up leading them right to him. "Okay, so after gathering a crew and supplies, how long will it get to Earth?" I hoped it would be quickly, but since it took nearly two mega-cycles for the Collected to get to Earth the first time, that wasn't going to be the case.

Flightstorm gave a small shrug. "Depends on how far we push the ship. We replaced its old FTL drive for a more up-to-date version since we last saw you, but it's not up to Autobot or Decepticon standards," he said. "Best guess? A mega-cycle, plus a few solar-cycles."

Well, that wasn't as bad as I expected. Not as fast as I wanted, but it would have to do. "That's more than acceptable. Less time than I thought it would be, in fact."

"Glad to see you're not disappointed," Delta said. She dismissed the image on the holotable and brought up a crew roster, from what I could tell. They were starting to plan the journey already. "Now, why don't you go explore the Sentinel, Shadowstreaker? You already said you've been captive for a long time. Exploring will do you good."

I shook my helm. "I don't think so. I can help with planning the trip."

"She's not saying you can't," Flightstorm said, looking up from the crew roster. "What she's saying is that you should relax. And I agree with her on that sentiment." He gestured toward the door with his helm. "Go explore, unwind from your captivity, take some time to relax." He gave me a knowing look. "Believe me, I can tell you need it."

I wanted to argue that I was fine, but I knew I wasn't. Not really. My sessions with Scalpel were still fresh in my processor, and I hadn't forgotten how I was inadvertently responsible for probably more than a thousand bots losing their lives. Then again, no one would forget that.

"Alright," I finally said. "But tell me as soon there's something I can help with."

"We will," Flightstorm affirmed as he went back to looking over the list with Delta.

I turned and started walking toward the bridge, now a mixture of emotions. So many were gone because of what I did. And there was no getting around that fact. They were gone because of me. Because I activated my Protocol knowing exactly what would happen when it became active.

'You did not know everything, young one,' a voice said, sounding like it came from all around me, filling the air. It sounded like countless voices forming a single, great voice filled with so much wisdom that nothing could compare to it. I had definitely heard it before.

It was one of the voices I heard after visiting the station.

I whipped my helm around, searching for the voice's source. But there was nothing out of place, just bots working at their terminals, some giving me an odd look for my nearly frantic movements.

What?

'You did not know the full effect your actions would cause, even when you were warned through dreams. You acted without thinking,' the ancient voice said, again sounding like it came from all around me. 'It was foolish of you.'

'Are… You in my helm?' I thought, directing the question at an unseen being as I looked around the room again, searching for the source of the voice and not finding it. Where else could it be coming from? And what was it saying about me being warned through dreams? Was it meaning the repeating dream I had before I was taken?

The voice ignored my question. 'Your actions are not fitting the role you are to take.'

'What are you talking about?' I asked.

It ignored me again. 'The power within you cannot be unlocked until you are proven to be worthy of attempting to master it.'

What the flying scrap? 'Who are you?!'

As quickly as the voice arrived, it vanished, and I felt a pressure in my helm that I wasn't aware of release.

I was left standing on the bridge with one thought.

What the hell?

---

July 3, 2013 1:51 A.M

Somewhere in Motuo county China

Arcee hung completely motionless from a pipe in a hidden 'Con base, dangling above two Decepticon drones who were unaware of her presence.

Jazz was off to her left, hanging from another pipe, sword already out and at the ready as he waited to land on the Decepticon wielding a Thermo Missile Cannon.

They were both waiting on Prowl's command, who was with Jetfire and the twins, trying to stay out of the sight of a large Decepticon patrol that was passing the containers they were using for cover.

"Steady," the stoic mech ordered through a universal channel, keeping a servo raised while he carefully watched the patrol passing by.

None of the Autobots moved or made a sound, they just waited, and watched.

The patrol passed by the containers Arcee's fellow Autobots were hiding behind, but they were still in hearing distance. Prowl held off on giving the order to take out the 'Cons near them, likely so the patrol could get further away and not hear their comrades offline. But Arcee knew she and Jazz could offline all three without making a sound, and she knew that Prowl was aware of this fact. He was making sure they weren't discovered.

As the patrol continued moving away, Prowl said, "Get ready. Wait for my mark."

Wordlessly, Arcee and Jazz let go of the pipe, letting themselves hang precariously by just their crossed pedes. But they both had been enough recon missions to learn a few tricks. They wouldn't fall.

Arcee slowly and quietly deployed her servo-blades, their edges gleaming even in the shadows. She positioned her servos over the Decepticons below her, one for each drone, aiming for their necks. If she executed her move correctly, they would be offline before their processors registered a threat. And that was what any great scout wanted to accomplish during any encounter with the enemy.

Eventually, the sounds of the patrol moving faded away, and Prowl closed his servo into a fist. "Mark."

Simultaneously, Jazz and Arcee uncrossed their pedes and fell toward the 'Cons beneath them.

The Decepticon below Jazz was stabbed through the spark with the saboteur's sword, ending his life before he detected movement above him.

Arcee took her targets down just as silently, using her servo-blades to nearly decapitate both Decepticons when her weapons entered their necks and she pulled them toward her frame, severing all his vital cables.

"Quick an' quiet, just da way Ah like it," Jazz said as he pulled his sword out of the Decepticon he offlined and returned his servo to normal. He looked over at Arcee. "Nice takedown, by da way."

The blue and pink femme didn't pay attention to the compliment and faced Prowl and the others as they stepped out from behind their cover and moved toward she and Jazz. "We have about fifteen klicks until that patrol makes another round."

"Fourteen klicks and thirty-eight micro-klicks, to be precise," Prowl stated. He looked down hallways that went in opposite directions, yet both led to computers that might contain valuable intelligence, from what their scans told them. "We will not have enough time to cover both locations and plant the charges. We need to split up." He gestured Arcee toward the twins. "Arcee, take the twins and go down the Southern hallway. Jazz, you will accompany Jetfire and I down the North passage."

"Got ya, Prowler," the saboteur said as he went to join the seeker and Prowl, while the twins traded places with Jazz.

"Understood," Arcee acknowledged as the twins took up spots behind her. "Plan for evac?"

"Same as it was when we entered the base," the stoic mech replied. "Access the computers if we can, then plant the demolition charges and make our way out of the base. If we are unable to accomplish either objective, call Ratchet for a space bridge. Do not attempt to hold your location for long, if you come under attack. We are outnumbered a hundred to one in here."

Arcee nodded once. "Roger," she said, then deployed her Photon Burst Rifles and moved into the Southern hallway, with the twins taking out their swords and following after her as Prowl and the others started down the opposite hallway.

They went through the hallway without encountering any Decepticons, and reached the computer room, a multi-leveled area filled with server farms.

"Keep your helms moving, stay alert," the blue and pink femme ordered. "Plenty of ambush points in here."

"Yeah, yeah," Sideswipe said dismissively as he focused his attention to their left. "Already on it."

"Only after she told us to look out for Decepticons," Sunstreaker pointed out.

The red twin huffed. "Details."

"Just saying that you're lying," Sunstreaker said.

Sideswipe used his shoulder-joint to shove his brother, almost causing the older twin to crash into one of the many rows of servers. "Shut up, Sunny."

Sunstreaker shoved Sideswipe back as he returned to his proper position, though only enough to make him stumble for one or two steps. "Well, someone's touchy this cycle."

"Can you blame me?" The younger mech asked rhetorically. "We haven't pranked anyone in ages! Not since-"

"Uhem," Sunstreaker interrupted by clearing his throat, giving his brother a meaningful look and subtly gesturing toward the femme who was leading them.

Sideswipe got the message and stopped talking, hoping that his near-slip up had gone unnoticed by Arcee.

It had not. But Arcee was grateful the twins were making an effort from mentioning Shadowstreaker while she was present. All the Autobots were doing that recently, in fact, but the twins had to make much more conscious effort than the others, mostly because of their mischievous nature. It did nothing to sooth the emptiness in her spark, but at least they were trying to help her by not adding onto it.

Roughly a klick after the twins fell silent, the trio found a clearing in the servers. It had four entrances, one for each direction, and in the middle was a terminal connected to a computer below it, beneath a duraglass floor.

The computer itself was larger than the one they had at base, but not by much. It also didn't seem to have a lot of processors, only hard drives. It seemed to Arcee that it was made to store information, not process it. Which was good for them. Hacking into a computer built to analyze information was more difficult than accessing one made for information storage.

"Cover me, I'm going to start the hack," Arcee said, returning her servos to normal so she could interact with the computer, and starting to type at the terminal, beginning her work by working on getting past the login screen.

The twins made no verbal acknowledgement, but they moved into positions on either side of Arcee, optics already shifting between one of two entrances they silently agreed to guard, watching for signs of Decepticons.

The blue and pink femme bypassed the login screen just as the two brothers moved to guard the entrances, and she examined the system she was dealing with. Redundant password, using letters and characters from multiple alien languages. Perpetual passkey-changing software, popular for fighting hackers. And an alarm set to trigger when even a single character in the password was entered incorrectly. Basic security.

Arcee opened her sub-space and took out a S.P.I.K.E, a highly-advanced infiltration tool used by scouts to help them hack into computer systems and store data. It worked by flooding a targeted computer's system with sextillions of zettabyes of junk data every micro-klick, slowing both its operating speed and security response by simply bombarding its system with many times the data it was designed to process.

She attached the S.P.I.K.E to the side of the computer, and within moments, she had bypassed the computer's security, partly because she had taken the time to install some extra software into this particular S.P.I.K.E, which she had been using since she was given one of the first seven prototypes near the end of the war.

"I'm in," Arcee reported when she bypassed the security on the terminal, already combing through the computer's system for files that might be of interest.

"Good, then we can get out of here soon," Sunstreaker said, idly spinning one of the swords in his servos.

The sound of many pedes running across the floor suddenly reached the audio receptors of the Autobot trio, and a shouted command carried through the air, "Spread out, find the Autobots!"

Sideswipe looked at Arcee. "Um, could you hurry up a bit? We're gonna have company soon."

"Going as fast as I can," the blue and pink femme said cooly, copying files and transferring them to the S.P.I.K.E as fast as she could type. "Keep them distracted when they arrive. I only need a few klicks to copy everything."

The twins shared an eager look. "Distractions are our speciality," they said in unison, then changed the way they held their swords so that one was held normally, and one in a reverse grip. Then they crouched, as if in waiting to spring, and they spread their pedes in the familiar stance of Triev'nasor, a popular and incredibly difficult martial art the twins practiced. It had five tiers of escalating difficulty, and they were masters of in all of them.

The movements and shouted commands of the Decepticons got louder and louder, until finally a squad of drones appeared at the two entrances Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were standing in front of.

Before the leaders of the squads could open their mouths to order the Autobots to surrender, the twins were on them, swords just flashes of light as they slashed their way through their opponents.

A Decepticon near the rear of the squad raised an EMP Shotgun at Sunstreaker and fired, but the elder twin avoided the shot by jumping up onto one of the nearby rows of servers and dropping down on the offending Decepticon, offlining him by running one sword through his tank and the other through his helm.

Sideswipe ducked under the swinging servo of an axe-wielding Decepticon, then offlined him by stabbing him through the chestplates and slicing upward, effectively cutting his upper frame in two. "You done back there?"

"Nearly," Arcee replied. She sensed movement from behind her and whipped around, deploying a Photon Burst Rifle and shooting a Decepticon through his optic without taking the time to aim. "Contacts six o'clock. Make a wall."

"On it," the twins said at the same time, then backed up to take defensive positions around Arcee. They started to spin their swords in a circular motion, creating a makeshift shield around the three of them.

The Decepticons continued firing at the Autobot trio, but the spinning swords of the twins caused many of their shots to ricochet, with some even hitting the same Decepticons that fired them.

Soon, the Decepticons stopped firing, and the battle became a stalemate, with the Decepticons unable to harm the Autobots with the twins' swords protecting them, and the Autobots unable to move from their position without being shot by multiple weapons.

"Can we call for that space bridge, now?" Sideswipe asked through a communications channel, watching the Decepticons around them warily.

Arcee, knowing they were out of time, stopped scrolling through the files and quickly examined the last three on her screen. One was labeled as 'Resource requirements by unit,' one was what appeared to be a roster of Decepticons on Earth, and the last was titled, 'Cyberium.' She chose to download the last file into her S.P.I.K.E, and then detached it from the side of the terminal. "Arcee to base, we need a space bridge," she said through another channel that Ratchet would hear.

"Opening now," Ratchet said, before closing the channel from his end.

The space bridge appeared in front of Arcee and the twins, between them and one of the squads of Decepticons.

As soon as the bridge opened, Arcee sprinted forward, with the twins right behind her.

The Decepticons opened fire again, well aware that their enemies were making their escape, and determined to prevent them from getting away.

Arcee stopped next to the space bridge and deployed her weapons to provide covering fire for her fellow Autobots. She took down a pair of Decepticons just before they could shoot Sunstreaker, dodged a shot meant for her helm, and allowed another shot to graze her shoulder-joint. The pain was something she had felt many times before, and since Shadow' was gone, her feeling of pain and touch had dulled. She didn't even feel it this time.

The blue and pink femme continued firing until both twins made it through the space bridge, then she returned one servo to normal, opened her sub-space, and pulled out a Trident Charge.

The Trident was a new weapon Optimus had made after the ambush that took Shadow', her Shadow', away from her. It was a simple black and red sphere, not much larger than a grenade, and could be planted on almost any surface. The explosive inside the Trident, however, was far different than a grenade. Its charge was two milligrams of antimatter, set for a timed detonation. It would explode with the force of approximately eighty-six point four tons of TNT, enough to incinerate everything in a thirty meter radius, and level any structure within a hundred meters of the explosion.

Arcee set the timer and tossed the Trident toward the Decepticons, then retreated into the space bridge, the green portal quickly closing behind her.

After Arcee made her escape, the Decepticons stopped firing, and the one remaining squad leader walked toward the Trident and stared down at it, uncertain of what it was. He hadn't seen any grenade that looked like it, so he ruled out the possibility that was what it was. But it was also too small for a demolition charge. He concluded that it was an EMP charge, which would damage the computer systems around he and his fellow Decepticons.

That would not make the higher-ups happy.

The squad leader picked the Trident up off the floor and went to throw it toward the ceiling, where its damaging effects might be lessened by distance. But just before he could throw it in the air, the timer inside its casing hit zero.

And everything within its blast radius was turned to ash in an instant.

---

July 2, 2013 2:12 P.M

Autobot base, outside Jasper, Nevada

The first thing Arcee noticed when she exited the space bridge was Prowl standing at the bridge's entrance, servos behind his backplates, with the other Autobots that had been on the mission with her standing further in the room, along with Ratchet and Moonracer.

"We failed to obtain useful information. Was your recovery successful?" Prowl asked.

"Yes," Arcee stated simply. She pulled the S.P.I.K.E out from her sub-space, and tossed it to Ratchet just as she was entering the ops center, who caught it deftly and gave her a mild glare before beginning to connect it to the workstation, likely disapproving of how she handled the high-tech device. But she didn't care about his opinion. She got it to him. That was what mattered.

Moonracer brought up the data contained in the S.P.I.K.E the moment Ratchet established a connection. "Looks like most of the information was logistics. The number of shuttles filled with replacement soldiers arrive every jour. The locations of hidden energon mines, and how much they're producing. Lists of every weapons cache they've found in the last six jours." She opened the last file Arcee managed to copy. "Now this is interesting. The composition of the alloy in this file is identical to the armor fragment that Sh- we recovered with the Delphic," she caught herself before she could mention Shadowstreaker, but Arcee knew whose name she was going to say.

"Even explains how to recreate the alloy in detail," Ratchet said, continuing where Moonracer left off. "How much of each metal needs to be used, what temperature is needed to fuse them together properly. We could use this data to create sheets of our own alloy and test the effects different types of weapons have on it."

"Didn't we already have that?" Sunstreaker asked.

"No, we had a fragment, and that isn't a solid source of data," Moonracer answered. "We were only able to determine what metals were used to create it, but not how it was made or how much metal was needed to create different amounts of it. We also couldn't test our weapons on just a single fragment, could we?"

"Point taken," the yellow mech said.

Prowl cut into the conversation, "How long will it take to create sheets of armor for testing?"

Ratchet gave a small shrug. "Don't know. It depends on when Optimus returns from his recon mission with Ironhide and Bulkhead, and he can use the Forge to build what we need, after we explain the process needed for its creation. The Forge is limited by what its wielder knows, after all."

"And the other information recovered?" Asked the SIC.

"It will take us a few breems to go over all the data, and at least a few solar-cycles of work to locate everything listed there. But overall, it seems like solid intelligence," Moonracer replied.

"Dat' not somethin' we get a lot," Jazz said, optics shining behind his visor. "It' nice ta hav' a good cycle."

Internally, Arcee agreed with Jazz, but she didn't share his happiness. It was hard to be happy at all, in fact. And it would be some time before she started to really recover from losing Shadow', her Shadow'. "Am I required for anything else?" She asked Prowl emotionlessly.

The stoic mech looked at her, optics carrying an understanding few saw. "You are not."

"Then I will take my leave. I'll be down in the Safe. Bring my S.P.I.K.E there whenever you're finished with it," the blue and pink femme said, turning on her heel and walking toward the hallway.

No one followed her.

The walk down the hallway was uneventful, and she reached the elevator quickly and pressed the button to begin her descent.

Visiting the Safe had become part of her routine after a mission. It would help her get out of her battle mentality, relax. But she was finding it hard to do so lately. Her CPU kept focusing on the burning hole in her spark, the void Shadow's loss had created. As well as the knowledge that he had loved her like she loved him.

Arcee locked down the emotions that pushed against her walls at the thought of her partner. He was gone, her opportunity to tell him what he meant to her was gone. Nothing was changing that. She couldn't let herself focus on all the chances she had to tell him in the past. All they would do is add more to the emptiness she felt.

The elevator reached the Safe, and the blue and pink femme stepped out, moving to the shooting range.

She deployed one of her Photon Burst Rifles and started shooting at targets, CPU still focused on the subject of her deceased partner, despite her best efforts.

He had been so close to confessing how he felt, if she was correct in what he was going to say before the mission that took his life. It hurt, knowing that. Arcee suspected it would never stop hurting. She would recover, yes, but she didn't want to let the hole in her spark be filled. That was Shadow', her Shadow's place. And it would remain empty until she was Home, and she had a chance of being with him there.

Arcee took a bit of comfort in that thought, and continued shooting targets.

---

(Human calendar) July 5, 2013 10:09 A.M (UTC-6:00 Mountain Standard Time)

(Cybertronian Date) 1103432 (Centi-vorns since Golden Age)

Star system L251c7, Path Kethona galaxy (Know as the Large Magellanic Cloud to humans)

I watched as bots started loading the last of the supply crates into the Collected's cargohold, stepping directly into the hold by using a lift the crew of the Apex Sentinel had added since the smaller ship was last on Earth.

The ship had been given several other upgrades and modifications since I first saw it, not including its new lift and FTL drive. More armor plating had been added to its hull, making it even more block-like than it was an orbital-cycle ago. An energy shield was now protecting it, though it was only strong enough to withstand a few dozen kilotons of damage before it broke. Anti-missile lasers had been installed as well, along with a pair of Ion cannons on top of the vessel, and ship-to-ship missiles.

In all, it was a much more formidable opponent than it had been when it was on Earth, but it still probably wouldn't be able to fight any Autobot or Decepticon ship larger than a frigate. Hopefully, we wouldn't encounter Decepticons when we got to the Sol system.

'When I get back home,' I thought with a small smile. I was beyond eager to get underway. I had been gone for far too long, and I wanted to get back, see the others again… Arcee especially. We were in need of a very long and serious discussion about, well, everything. How I got captured, my time on the Hammer, how we felt about each other… How I escaped from the Paraions.

My mood dropped at that thought, and I looked at the bots who were loading supplies onto the Collected, a few of which had been on the Hammer like I had. I had been visiting the infirmary the bots from the Hammer had taken up, talking with as many as I could. The reactions they had to finding out I inadvertently got all of them out, but also caused many more to offline, were… Mixed, to say the least. Some thanked me profusely for helping to get them out of the living hell that was being a captive of Scalpel, others hated me and tried attacking me for leaving them the only living member of squads that had been captured together. Those that reacted with thanks made my guilt less noticeable, and those that reacted with anger multiplied it. They canceled each other out, and left me well aware of how I hadn't known, or honestly cared at the time, what the effects of my actions would be, like the voice had said.

I forced myself to think about something else. The ancient voice was something I had no idea how to react to, or be able to figure out who it was without speaking with Optimus when I got back. Until then, I should keep it off my CPU, I won't get an answer by just continuing to think about how little I knew of the voice over and over again, as if some hidden piece of information would become clear to me. I believe doing that qualified as the definition of insanity.

My thoughts were put on hold when I felt little servos grab at the edges of my armor, followed by the sensation of something small climbing up my backplates and up on my helm.

Wildwing's happy, upside-down faceplate appeared in my vision. "Hello!"

I smiled without a thought. "Hello again, Wildwing," I greeted. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" I hadn't seen Wildwing since I onlined on the Apex Sentinel, mostly because I was either wandering around the immense vessel, or helping to prepare for the Collected's journey to Earth. He had classes with his carrier and another femme, from what Flightstorm said, so I hadn't actively gone in search of the mechling. But, I was happy he had found me instead. It was hard not to be happy when he was around.

"But now you're here!" The seekerlet said happily. He produced what seemed like a drawing from his sub-space, but he had it turned around the wrong way. He didn't appear to notice. "Here! I want you to have this!"

I chuckled and put a servo up next to my helm to let Wildwing climb off. He did, and I saw that he hadn't changed much in the last orbital-cycle. But, I wasn't surprised by that. Sparklings grew at an incredibly slow rate compared to humans, to account for the fact Cybertronians didn't offline from old age. Ironically, Wildwing was probably about fifteen times as old as I was, considering the Apex Sentinel had only been under the control of the neutrals for three vorns, and a femme's carrying cycle typically lasted only about six jours. "That's very nice of you to give me a blank sheet, Wildwing. I shall cherish it always."

Wildwing tilted his helm in confusion at my deadpanned joke, and he looked at the paper in his tiny servo. "Oh! Opps!" He said, then flipped the paper around so he could see it, nodded his helm in satisfaction, and turned it back toward me.

It was a picture of everyone at the base at the time Wildwing left, standing near the lone tree and looking up at the stars, with the tiny figure of Wildwing sitting on my helm while the teens sat on Optimus' shoulder-joint. The detail of each part of the picture was impressive, even more so than when he was on Earth. He must have been practicing a lot since then.

"Now, that is a great picture," I said, carefully taking the small sheet from Wildwing so it wouldn't rip. "And it was very nice of you to give it to me. Thank you."

"You're welcome!" The seekerlet said happily, then pulled a literal stack of more sheets of paper out of his sub-space. "Want to look at more?"

I smiled again. "Of course."

"Yay!" Wildwing cried. He then picked one of the pieces of paper out from the others and held it up for me to see, this time making it face the correct way the first time. Only Arcee and I were in this picture, and we were next to each other on a hill. "I finished this one when sire brought you here and you were recharging."

My first instinct, due to not speaking with sparklings often, was to correct him and say I had actually been dangerously low on energon, not recharging. But I pushed that aside since a mechling his age shouldn't know that. "Well, you did a great job on it. It's very nicely detailed."

"Thank you!" The seekerlet said, putting the drawing back into the stack and taking out another picture. This one was of him watching TV with Jack, Miko, and Raf, tilting his helm curiously at the screen while the three human teens smiled at his antics. "I made this one after carrier and sire came to Earth to find me."

"It's accurate to what would happen," I said.

"I think so, too!" Wildwing returned the drawing to the stack, then pulled out another. He looked at it, then very quickly put it back into the stack with a mildly displeased look on his faceplate. Unusual for him.

"What's making you upset?" I asked.

The mechling gave a very quiet huff, something else that was unusual for him. "Nothing," he said, very obviously lying.

"That is not the truth," I stated factually, looking at where Wildwing had placed the drawing back in the stack. "Why do you not like that one drawing?"

"Because I can't finish it," Wildwing answered, crossing his tiny servos over his chestplates in what was very close to a pout.

"Just because you can't finish it doesn't mean it should be something you don't like," I said calmly. He was legitimately upset about not being able to finish his drawing, and that didn't suit him at all. "Let me see."

"But it isn't done!" The seekerlet protested, as if he didn't want me to even think about it until it was finished.

"But it will be," I said. "And if I see it before it's done, I can see how much you improved it."

Wildwing seemed to be trying to come up with an excuse not to show me his picture, but then he dropped his optics in defeat. "Okay," he said slowly, as if he had punished. "But you can't laugh at it!"

"Wildwing, I don't laugh at the things you do unless you want those around you to laugh," I said. "I will not laugh at an unfinished drawing."

"Promise?" The mechling asked, looking up at me searchingly with his innocent fuchsia optics.

I raised the servo that Wildwing wasn't sitting in. "I promise to not, in any way, shape, or form, laugh at your incomplete picture," I said. "Now, show me it."

My words caused Wildwing to go right back to his usual, enthusiastic self. "Alright!" He turned the page, and I blinked several times in surprise.

It was a picture of Arcee and I, like the second drawing I had seen was, but in this one we were kissing, rather passionately, I noted. My servos were wrapped around her and resting on her backplates, while her servos were around my neck. Our optics were closed, as far as I could tell, like we wanted nothing to do with anything else for that brief moment. It made me want to get back to Earth all the more, but also made me incredibly confused. How did Wildwing know how I felt about Arcee?

"Wildwing, why did you draw a picture of Arcee and I like that?" I asked, not looking away from the picture as I continued analyzing its details. It didn't seem to be as incomplete as the mechling made it sound. There were parts of Arcee and I that were not even drawn at all, along with the background, but it was detailed enough to still be looked at without even having to think about what it was.

"Because I saw it in my helm," the seekerlet said, as if that was blatantly obvious.

"But why did you see it, and picture this image in your helm?" I asked. It was possible that Flightstorm had told him I was more than a little attracted to her, since that mech knew how I felt after just one visit, but he didn't seem to be the type to tell the secrets of others, even to family. And Wildwing was too young to really understand the significance of romance. Had he just seen his creators kissing, and wondered what Arcee and I would have looked like if we did the same?

Wildwing gave a little shrug. "I don't know. I just did. I make pictures from things that I see, and I kept seeing that in my helm, so I made it a picture."

Well, that gave no answers. "If you kept seeing it in your helm, why haven't you been able to finish it?"

The mechling's wings drooped slightly. "Because I lost it."

"You lost it?" I asked, optic ridges lowering in confusion. "How did you lose an image you kept seeing?"

"I don't know," Wildwing said, sounding a little upset at how he hadn't finished the picture. "I just lost it, and I can't find it again."

"You forgot the image?" I inquired. That was… Unheard of for a Cybertronian. Our CPUs were the largest and most complex storage devices in the known universe. We never forgot anything, no matter how brief or unimportant. The only way to forget something was for the information to be corrupted or deleted from our processors. That was nearly as unheard of as just forgetting something. And something was telling me it wasn't as simple as that.

Wildwing shook his helm. "No, I remember the picture. I just can't make it appear again."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I can't see what the picture in my helm looks like anymore," the seekerlet answered. "It won't come back when I think about it. Same with the feeling that I should draw it."

That was a new piece of information. "What feeling?"

The mechling blinked at me. "I just said what it was."

"Yes, yes you did," I said. "But where did it come from?"

"I don't know," Wildwing said. "But it wanted me to draw my picture exactly like it wanted to." He held the drawing up a little higher. "It wanted it to be this."

That sounded… Odd. "So, you didn't know I care about Arcee the way your sire cares about your carrier?"

The mechling tilted his helm curiously and looked at the incomplete picture with new-found interest. "Is that why you and her are doing the thing carrier and sire sometimes do with their mouths? Do you do that?"

Now, this is just getting awkward. "No, no, no. We haven't done that. Well, not that I don't want to. It's just that we haven't."

Wildwing's helm tilted further. "Then how can you care about her like sire cares about carrier?"

Okay, time to get back on topic. "Wildwing, this… Feeling you got, when did you first get it?"

The seekerlet looked up slightly, as if trying to think more clearly. He seemed to find his answer, and he focused on me again. "Right after I got the feeling that said you were floating in the ship outside, the one the thingies on the bridge couldn't find."

Wait, what?

Before I had a chance to ask Wildwing to clarify what he meant, he looked at the bots that were loading crates onto the Collected, and his faceplate lit up. "Ooo, this will make a good picture!" His excited faceplate looked up at me. "Let me down, please."

I was too confused to refuse his request, and I crouched to let Wildwing get an angle for beginning his drawing. If what he said was true, he knew I was on what remained of the Hammer before the sensors of the Apex Sentinel even knew it was there, let alone that bots were onboard. That shouldn't have been possible. We didn't share any type of bond, and he didn't have any scanners on his frame. Was this feeling he had really the reason the Hammer was found? And if so, was it random? Or did it come from something, someone?

"He has had a lot of those lately," the voice of Cyberfrost said, and the small femme appeared at my side.

"A lot of what? Knowledge of things he shouldn't?" I asked.

Flightstorm appeared on my other side and answered in the place of his mate, "No, strange feelings he can't place or understand."

"Yeah, I'd say so," I said, watching as Wildwing began to sketch outlines of the bots loading crates onto the Collected. I looked fully at the seeker. "He drew the start of a picture of Arcee and I kissing because he felt he should, but he can't anymore."

"We know," Cyberfrost said, her voiced laden with maternal worry. "He's been drawing pictures of things he's never seen before."

"Or of places we've never even told him about," Flightstorm added.

"Such as?" I prompted.

The former Decepticon looked at me flatly. "Like Megatron's fortress of Darkmount, the inside of Trypticon Station, the ruins of Tarn. Places we decided not to inform him of until he was older."

That was… Disturbing. For a sparkling to draw places like Darkmount, where countless bots, femmes especially, went through unimaginable emotional and physical pain and suffering, wasn't something they should have any knowledge of at all, let alone enough to draw a depiction of it. And for him to draw Trypticon Station, where Megatron experimented on his own soldiers with Dark Energon, was almost as alarming, same with drawing the ruins of Tarn. He shouldn't have knowledge of any of those places until he was much older, yet he already did.

"How long has he been drawing pictures of places he shouldn't even know about?" I asked.

"According to him, since you showed up on a destroyed ship, floating in front of us," Flightstorm answered. "He says the first feeling he couldn't describe appeared when you arrived."

"Yeah, he said that. Also said, in his own way, that he knew I was on the Hammer before your sensors did," I said as Wildwing began to fill in the outlines he had drawn. "Is that true?"

Flightstorm nodded. "It is. He and I were on the bridge when it happened. One moment he was drawing, the next he was running through the bridge and looking out the view port like a comet just went by."

So, my arrival was the first time Wildwing experienced something he couldn't place. But why? And where had the feeling come from? I heard stories of human children having almost a sixth sense at times, something that faded with age and tended to not be taken note of. It wasn't a stretch for sparklings to have the same ability, but with Wildwing, I got the feeling it was more than that. There was no way he got that feeling on his own, knew what it meant, and that it involved someone he knew. No, something or someone sent him that feeling and told him what it meant. But who and why?

"What did he describe the feeling as?" I questioned.

"Like something was guiding him, telling him that it was important to stop drawing and look out the view port," Cyberfrost said. "Like-"

"An unseen bot was speaking to him," I interrupted. What she was describing was very familiar. It sounded like Wildwing had contact with the voice that spoke to me after Megatron sent me into stasis, then again just a few solar-cycles ago, and perhaps even showed its presence when I refused to help Extremis. But then again, maybe he hadn't. The voice showed it was perfectly capable of communicating with me verbally, at least in my helm, why wouldn't it actually speak to Wildwing instead of just sending feelings, or talk to me when I didn't help Extremis? Was that really the voice I felt something akin to approval from? Or was it something else entirely?

I saw Cyberfrost look at me in my peripheral vision. "How did you know that?"

"I've had an experience similar to what he described," I said. "But instead of getting a feeling I couldn't explain, a voice spoke in my helm."

"That definitely didn't make you sound like a schizophrenic," Flightstorm quipped, earning him a look from his sparkmate.

"Yes, yes, very funny," I said. "Doesn't make my answer false."

"Wasn't saying that it did," the former Decepticon said. "Just wanted to point out the fact it made you sound more than a little crazy."

I shook my helm. "With everything that's been happening to me lately, that was a very sane statement in comparison."

"Somehow, I don't doubt that." Flightstorm looked back at Wildwing, who was nearly finished filling in the outline of the Collected. "That's why 'Frost and Wildwing are coming with us to Earth, to see Optimus Prime."

I understood their reasoning. "Since you've never encountered something like this before, you are hoping Optimus will be able to tell you how and why Wildwing is getting these feelings."

"More condensed than the explanation I would have given, but yes," Cyberfrost said. "We feel that he is having these unexplained feelings for a reason, but that reason is beyond us. Hopefully Optimus Prime can see what we can't."

"The Prime has the habit of doing exactly that," a femme's voice said from behind the three of us.

The three of us turned around, and I saw two Autobot seekers of Jetfire's height, one red, white, black, and gold in color, while the other was only silver and black, being led by an admittedly attractive red femme with yellow accents. Couldn't touch Arcee from where I stood, though.

She was very tall for a femme, only six feet shorter than I was. Her chassis was of a very slim build, almost to the point of making her look fragile and vulnerable to even non-lethal weapons, but I suspected that wouldn't be the case in battle. A curved sword was attached to her backplates, and twin missile launchers were built into her servos. Her orange optics carried the firm and calm look of an experienced commander, but I saw a trace of genuine kindness and caring hidden in them.

The femme reminded me of little of Elita-One, although she lacked that certain... Something that Elita had in how she carried herself, and this femme didn't. But I had no clue what that something was. It was one of those things you couldn't place, yet knew what it was as soon as you saw it.

Flightstorm nodded at the two seekers, who I recognized from War for Cybertron as Silverbolt and Air Raid, the other Autobot seekers from that part of the game. "Air Raid, Silverbolt, we were expecting you here half a breem ago," he said.

"We were delayed," Silverbolt said in a voice that carried authority.

"By?" The former Decepticon asked.

Silverbolt looked at Air Raid, who had a smile that had yet to leave his faceplate. "By Air Raid's habit of making things more complicated than they should be."

"Oh, come on!" Air Raid protested. "You know you loved taking the scenic route."

"'Scenic,' isn't what I would describe the fighter-launch bays," the silver and black seeker said.

Air Raid scoffed. "That's because you have no desire to have fun."

"Did you break anything?" Flightstorm cut in, then continued when Air Raid shook his helm, "Good, then it wasn't a repeat of last time. Get onboard, we're leaving as soon as the workers are done loading supplies." He looked at the femme as the two Autobots walked toward the Collected. "I was expecting to see those two, but not you, Override."

'Override? Is this the same Override the crew of the Ark encountered on Velocitron way back during the end of the war?' I thought, thinking about the entry I had seen in one of the historical data pads I read during my training. I kept my thought to myself.

"Most things in life aren't expected," Override said in a voice that matched the look in her optics. "But that doesn't mean they're all bad."

Flightstorm raised one optic ridge at her answer. "I didn't know you were a philosopher. I assume you mean you're here for a good reason?"

"I am," Override replied. "I wish to join you in your journey."

"Why?" The grey and red seeker asked. He didn't sound hostile or suspicious, just merely curious.

"I am hoping to become a part of Optimus Prime's team," the red femme said.

Flightstorm and Cyberfrost seemed surprised by this, and I was as well, but I declined from speaking. "What about your Velocitronians?" Cyberfrost asked.

Override looked at white and navy blue femme. "Blurr is a competent leader, willing to look out for those who aren't under his command as well as those that are. And… My presence isn't required for my Velocironians to survive. They're safe here, under Delta and Flightstorm's command. I would be of more use if I was where the war still rages."

"Can't deny that you would be," Flightstorm said. "But are you sure want to leave? You would be missed here, and Delta's probably going to want to know of your departure ahead of time."

"I have already informed her of my decision. And as for those who I leave behind, there will come a time when I will return. I am certain of my choice," the red femme answered, then turned her attention to me. "You are called 'Shadowstreaker,' correct?"

I nodded. "That would be my name."

"And you are a part of Optimus Prime's team?" She asked.

"I am," I replied.

Override offered a servo, and I shook it. "Then allow me to formally introduce myself, even if the formality doesn't hold as much meaning when you have already heard my name. I am called Override. It is a pleasure to meet you, Shadowstreaker. If Optimus allows me to join your team, I look forward to working with you." She released my servo, bid the three of us a short farewell, then walked toward the Collected without another word.

I watched her go, confused at her behavior. "Is she always so… Formal?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Flightstorm said.

"But she's really a nice femme," Cyberfrost added, the smile that had been painted on her faceplate when I saw her last finally appearing. "She just has trouble relaxing, mostly because she never had a chance to before she and her Veloctronians joined us."

"Then hopefully she will learn how to," I said. "But then again, I've yet to see Optimus relax."

"That seems to be a theme in leaders," Cyberfrost said, giving her sparkmate a meaningful look.

The former Decepticon blinked at her in surprise. "What are you looking at me for? I relax."

"Taking inventory isn't relaxing," the white and blue femme said. "Doing things like painting or sitting are relaxing."

"To you they are," Flightstorm pointed out. "And to me, taking inventory is relaxing."

"Still wouldn't hurt for you to just sit down once in a while," Cyberfrost informed.

I put the sparkmated pair's banter at the back of my CPU, since I noticed Duststorm was one of the bots loading supplies onto the Collected, along with her trinemates. I hadn't seen her since I coldly informed her of how the Decepticons really were. And to be honest with myself, I really shouldn't have done that. Of course I hadn't been my usual self at that time, but my behavior was still unacceptable. I should have been more civil and understanding in that conversation. She and her trinemates had been following the Decepticons for so long, and I just completely shut down her attempts to argue with me. And learning that the ones responsible for the worst crimes of the war are actually the bots you believed were the most noble and just group since the Golden Age would be a great shock, one that I should have told her gently, instead of being uncaring and blunt. Apologizing would be a good idea.

I glanced at Flightstorm and Cyberfrost. "Excuse me, I need to go make something right." I walked toward Duststorm and her trine without waiting for an answer, smiling down as I past Wildwing on my way to the three seekers. When I was within about fifty meters of the femme seeker, I came to a stop. "Duststorm."

The black and purple femme seeker looked up at me, then went back to loading crates. The two mechs didn't even react to my presence or statement.

I wasn't surprised by that response, in fact I deserved it for how I acted, being my usual self or not. "I just wanted to apologize for how I acted, how I told you all the things I did. I wasn't myself at that time, but that isn't an excuse for being as cold toward you as I was. So… I am sorry."

The trine made no indication that they heard me, or even that they were listening to my words. They just kept loading supplies.

I sighed quietly and turned to leave. I couldn't blame them for ignoring me, I really hadn't gone through that conversation well, and now they refused to even listen to my apology. It felt wrong to just walk away without hearing a response from them, like I hadn't meant my words, but I had. And if they wanted to ignore me, I couldn't stop them.

"Do you honestly mean that?" I heard Duststorm suddenly ask.

I came to a halt and turned around. The femme seeker had stopped loading supplies onto the ship, and was looking at me intently, while her two trinemates watched from behind her.

"I do," I answered.

"Then why act like that?" Duststorm asked, tone wary yet firm.

"I thought someone I love more than anything was offline," I responded. "I felt nothing at that point, and cold logic was all I was running on. And when you stepped in my path, treating me as you did, I felt like you needed to be shown the truth. I stand by that principle, but not the method I used to show you. I should have been respectful of you and your trinemates, not the indifferent mech I was when I spoke to you last. To make it worse for me, I found out the one I thought was gone was actually online the whole time, making my reasons void. But even if my reasons hadn't been false, I was still wrong for talking to all three of you in the way I did. And for that I am sorry."

The femme seeker seemed to take note of my sincerity, but didn't comment on it. "I accept your apology, and I hope you accept mine."

"Yours?" I asked, raising an optic ridge. She had said nothing about apologizing herself, and she didn't need to. I had been the one at fault, after all.

"We… Fact-checked everything you said," Duststorm answered in a quiet voice, wings twitching uncomfortably. "There wasn't anything firm to support most of your claims, but the changes in political power shifted in the ways you said it did. Checked some sensor readings from the assault of Hydrax Plateau as well. All Autobot forces were either offlined or driven away, and all civilians were accounted for as online, then once the 'Bots were gone, weapons fire was detected inside the spaceport, at the same time Decepticons 'Reported' Autobots firing on unarmed bots." She looked away from me, optics looking disturbed. "Some of our other findings were more disturbing. Like Uraya, the Core... Vos…"

"The truth can hurt. A lot," I said. "Especially when the truth is so far from the lie you were fed for so long. I should have taken that into account when I spoke to you and your trine."

"Yes, you should have," Duststorm readily agreed, and the wings of all three trinemates bristled for a brief moment before relaxing. "But at the same time, it was in our best interest to hear it."

I shrugged. "Maybe it was, but that doesn't excuse my behavior."

"It doesn't, but we also pushed you too far without realizing it," the femme seeker said. "And that, in turn, isn't what we should have done. So, I am sorry for treating you in the manner that we did."

"I have double-layered armor, there's nothing to forgive," I said.

"Good. But this doesn't mean I like Autobots now," Duststorm said without any humor, a serious look set on her faceplate. "Your motives are still too suspicious from where I stand."

That… Didn't make sense, but I was also an Autobot, she wasn't. And any well-organized faction who claims to have only the goal to provide complete and total freedom for all, and started from the remains of many higher-level groups in a caste system, will look suspect to those that believe everyone has a hidden agenda. So I suppose her distrust was understandable. "There's no rule that says you have to like us."

"I wouldn't follow it even if there was," the femme seeker said in a voice that was a trace less serious, though it was hard to tell whether that was because she felt she had made her point already, or if she was deadpanning.

"I don't doubt that," I said. I saw movement out of my peripheral vision, and when I looked, I saw Flightstorm standing at the top of the loading ramp on the Collected, gesturing for me to join him. It was time to go. I looked back at the trine. "Seems I'm out of time."

Duststorm and her trinemates looked around, and noticed the other bots had finished loading supplies onto the ship. "Looks like you are," the femme said, then looked up at me. "Guess you should be going."

"I should," I agreed. "But, I wish you well, Duststorm."

The femme seeker didn't seem to know how to react to my statement. "Um… You, too?"

I chuckled. "That'll work." I looked at the other two members of the trine, who hadn't spoken at all, and had remained nameless since I first saw them. "What are your names?"

The two mechs shared a glance, and one of them said, "I'm Longflight, and he's Steadyburn."

I nodded at both of them. "I hope you both stay safe as well." I left the trine with that and made my way to the Collected, secretly excited almost beyond measure. I was going home.

After I reached the ship and walked to the top of the ramp, Flightstorm asked, "Were you planning on missing the trip to Earth you convinced us to take?"

"No, I was just making sure I didn't leave bitter bots behind," I said, not paying attention to his sarcasm.

The former Decepticon smiled. "I know, and it was good of you to show that Autobots tend to own up to their mistakes, unlike how Decepticons portray them."

We left the exchange at that and went into the ship, passing a number of rooms, using several elevators, until we reached the bridge, where a crew of unfamiliar bots were operating their stations, while Override, Silverbolt, Air Raid, Cyberfrost, and Wildwing were just waiting to get underway.

"We have everything, Trailshock?" Flightstorm asked an earth-colored mech with a ground-based alternate form, taking a seat at a terminal near the door that seemed to serve as the captain's chair, only less formal.

"We're fueled up and ready to go," Trailshock replied. "I'm just waiting for your go."

"Well, then go," the grey and red seeker said. "We have a planet to get to."

Trailshock gave a mock salute. "Sir, yes sir," he said, then pressed a button on his terminal that was separate from everything else.

I felt the Collected shake beneath my pedes, and outside the view port I saw the ship detach from its docking cradle and fall away from the Apex Sentinel, the enormous vessel appear to be the size of an entire world from this distance.

The navigator activated the Collected's engines and we moved even further away from the Apex Sentinel, to get to a safe distance before jumping to FTL, since jumping close to another ship can seriously damage both vessels.

After moving to a safe range, the navigator activated the FTL drive, turning the dots of distant stars into long, deformed lines, and the blackness of space into a never-ending source of light.

And my journey home began.

---

July 5, 2013 11:23 P.M

Autobot base, outside Jasper, Nevada

Optimus stared down at the stack of data pads in front of him. They contained all the reports he was obliged to fill out. Some of them were to go to the United States government, others to Russia, the United Kingdom, or Israel. There were also several that were progress reports written by Prowl, holding results from various tests or experiments conducted by Ratchet and Moonracer, or mission debriefings.

These were all things he knew he had to do. But for a reason that escaped him, he could not find the will to pick up the first data pad, even after he had been trying to force himself to do so since he sat down exactly fifty-three klicks ago. Perhaps it was because he was worn out from the skirmish he and Smokescreen had with the Decepticons had earlier in the cycle. Or maybe his CPU had been jostled by the Brute who hit him with his hammer before Optimus had offlined him with the Star Saber.

It also might have just been because he didn't want to work at that very moment. But it also didn't matter what he wanted. He was Prime, he was required to do the things others could not. He had learned and accepted this fact long ago. And working nearly at all times was one of his many duties.

With a light sigh, the Prime forced himself to pick up the data pad on top of the stack. It was a message from Director Theodore Galloway, forwarded from Agent Fowler with the title, 'Tell this dumbass to step off already.'

The message was, another, formal request for the Autobots become a unit in the United States military. It was the usual one the Director of National Intelligence sent, saying it would be in the best interest of not only the Autobots and the United States, but also the world, if they joined as an official, highly-classified military unit. He brought up multiple threats he said that could be totally stopped with their cooperation. Human terrorists that had evaded capture, several ongoing wars, unstable governments with access to nuclear weapons. All of them, he claimed, were greater threats than the Decepticons posed. As was typical of his requests, he left a space at the bottom for Optimus to write his response.

'That man is extremely ignorant,' Optimus thought. The Director was foolish if he truly believed the latest human conflicts were more dangerous than the Decepticons. Only the humans' two World Wars were comparable to the war for Cybertron, and even those were a fraction of the size. For all the violence in their short history, the humans had yet to experience true, total chaos across their entire world. Cybertronians had.

And even with the cause of that chaos above and on their planet, Director Galloway still believed human matters were of greater concern. Optimus wondered how the man would react to knowing the only reason the Decepticons hadn't openly invaded was because Megatron wanted to enslave them instead of outright destroying them, and that the Autobots were the only remaining obstacle standing in their path to completing that goal. The Director probably would not believe what he was told.

The Prime signed a large, two-letter reply, 'No.' Then he placed the data pad to the side, and picked up the next one in the stack. It contained the summary of all the data Arcee and the twins had recovered from the Decepticon computer system, including results from the tests Moonracer and Ratchet had conducted on the armor they had him create three solar-cycles ago with Solus' Forge. They were already making progress in finding a possible weakness in the Decepticons' upgraded armor, which would return the playing field to its previous state, or perhaps leave his Autobots at an advantage, considering they had an armory full of advanced weapons, the Star Saber, the Omni Saber, and the Forge of Solus Prime. But Optimus did not focus on that one piece of information. His attention was drawn to two different ones.

One was that, finally, Ratchet had finished his examination of the remains of the drones and bots that took one of his Autobots, and almost took another. And after exhausting all sources of data, the medic had reached a conclusion about the origins of the offlined bots and drones.

They had never stepped onto the surface of Cybertron, like Autobots and Decepticons. They had been members of an unknown faction.

He was not surprised by Ratchet's findings. The technology they wielded was beyond anything the Autobots had, and was rivaled only by the artifacts of the Thirteen. If the Decepticons had access to that technology, they would be using it. And since they were not, the only remaining possibility was for the bots to have been part of a group of Cybertronians he was not aware of. It did not sit well with him to not know who was responsible for taking the life of one of his soldiers, and almost another and his own, but at the same time he could not do anything about them at this time. All he could do was wait for a lead.

The second, and perhaps even more distressing, piece of information that caught his attention was unusual activity in Decepticon logistics. At least three times a jour, the massive amounts of energon and raw materials gathered on Earth were loaded into the cargohold of the Nemesis, transported to freighters waiting near Pluto, transferred, and then taken to an unknown destination.

The act of transporting resources to other solar systems was not uncommon for the Autobots and Decepticons, especially among the latter. But the quantity of resources being taken out of the system was very strange. More than fifty-thousand storage containers filled with processed energon, three-hundred kilotons of common metals and elements, and nine kilotons of rare elements were being transported to another location every jour. Just one of those shipments could last Decepticons in the system for orbital-cycles, yet Megatron was sending it all away. Why? What was his former brother up to?

Former brother. There was a title Optimus once never believed he would give to Megatron. But how long had it been since he thought of him as 'Brother'? The battle for the Core near the end of the war? After the assault of Hydrax Plateau? The destruction of Tarn and the bombing of Vos? The invasion of Uraya? Or had it been after Megatron's assassination of Halogen, not one klick after the High Council declared him Prime, and not Megatron? Optimus was no longer sure.

And now look at them, two former brothers literally waging war against one another. Planning, gathering intelligence, sending bots into battle, fighting over the fate of entire species. Their creators would be both proud and ashamed, though Optimus doubted Megatron thought about them like he did anymore. All he did was plot. And now the Prime was clueless as to what his latest scheme was. What was his plan? And what was he willing to destroy to accomplish it?

Knowing that sitting in his quarters and wondering would not bring him answers, Optimus set the data pad aside and picked up another. This one didn't contain alarming information, but it was still important.

It was Shadowstreaker's official file, or as official as it could be when they were off the main database, and it was in need of updating. Optimus had yet to add OIA, or 'Offlined In Action,' to the document, despite the fact it had been more than a jour since the battle that he did not walk away from. Before that cycle, the Matrix had given him a feeling about the young mech, like he had an important part to play in coming events. It had given him the same feeling about several other bots he had met, including Arcee, Bumblebee, and Elita, though he had told no one of what the Matrix said. But had it been wrong about Shadowstreaker? About Bumblebee? And about Elita and Arcee?

No, it hadn't been wrong. He felt in his spark that Bumblebee completed his role at the First Battle of Tyger Pax, where he saved many lives that otherwise would have been lost. That proved the Matrix didn't make mistakes, it was always correct. But at the same time, how could it be right in this case? Shadowstreaker was offline, he was a soldier Optimus failed to bring home, yet another friend he had lost. His story was over. All that was left to do was close his file. He would officially be registered as OIA, and his name would be added to the long list of names Optimus intended to honor properly at the end of the war.

So then why was the Matrix still telling him Shadowstreaker had a part he had yet to play? And that he should keep his file as it was?

The Prime heard his door open, and he looked up to see Elita-One stepping into his quarters. He didn't outwardly react to how he felt his mood improve at the sight of her.

"Optimus," the femme greeted after she walked inside, coming to stand in front of his desk.

"Elita," Optimus greeted in turn, placing Shadowstreaker's file down and off to the side, giving the rose red femme his full attention. "What brings you here at this breem?"

"Personal issue," Elita replied.

That surprised Optimus. He had known Elita since Arcee was still considered a femmeling and not a femme, and very rarely did she have an issue, be it personal or related to her duties. "And what issue is that, Elita?"

"I am… Concerned for someone," she answered, momentarily pausing to come up with the word she wished to use.

"Very well. Who are you concerned for?" Optimus asked.

The rose red femme hesitated for a micro-klick, then said, "I am concerned about you."

Optimus blinked in moderate confusion. She concerned about him? Why? He was not doing anything reckless, as far as he was aware. "Why are you concerned about me?"

"I feel that you are letting yourself be taken up completely by your duties," Elita informed.

Now the Prime was fully confused. "My duties have always taken the vast proportion of my time."

"But never this much of it, and it is beginning to worry me," Elita said. "When was the last time you sat down just to sit? Or made time to seek out your soldiers just to talk?"

Optimus had to think for a moment. It had been longer than a jour, he knew that much, but it also hadn't been two jours. It was in between. After another micro-klick of going through his memory files, Optimus found the answer. It had been a mega-cycle before Shadowstreaker's Quriomus Protocol activated, and he destroyed MECH and offlined Airachind. "The 19th of the human jour of May."

"That doesn't seem unusual to you?" Asked the femme commander. "It isn't like you to focus only on your duties. You also seek to learn the thoughts of others, to see how they are dealing with recent events, or what they think about different situations." She looked at him with worry clear in her optics. "That is part of what drew me t-" She cut herself off.

The Prime didn't need Elita to finish to know what she was talking about. She cared deeply for him, and he for her. But despite the teasing of the few others who knew about their feelings, they were both leaders, with Elita officially in charge of every femme soldier, and he in charge of everyone since he was Prime. They couldn't afford to give into their desire to be together, couldn't let their feelings blossom into love, as much as they wanted to. "I have not had little to no spare time recently. Multiple human nations are always trying to get something from us, whether it be as little as economic advice, or military aid. This last jour and a half has been particularly trying. Shadowstreaker's offlining has been difficult for all of us, and there are some human leaders who are having a hard time believing our lives can be ended just as suddenly as theirs."

The rose red femme looked at Optimus for a moment, then stepped around his desk and started going through the stack of data pads next to him. After going through all the data pads in the stack, she looked at the three the Prime had already gone through, and picked up Shadowstreaker's file and slid it in front of him. "Convincing them would be easier if you updated his file, wouldn't it?"

Optimus had no answer for that. Not one he could make sense to someone who didn't bear the Matrix, at least. "It would."

"Then why haven't you updated it?" Elita asked.

"It is not something I can properly explain," Optimus replied.

"Let me try, then. You feel guilty for his offlining," the femme said.

It actually hadn't been guilt, but now that she brought up the topic, he was furious at himself for leaving a soldier behind in combat, even if it was to save another. Perhaps failing to bring Shadowstreaker home really was part of why he had not been very social recently. "My failings as a leader have piled up since the war began. Being unable to prevent Shadowstreaker from offlining is far from my biggest, although I believe Arcee would disagree with me in that."

Elita's optics softened, and she looked away. The entire base was highly aware of Arcee's condition since they lost Shadowstreaker. She was colder and more detached than she ever had been before, even to the point of blocking her siblings when her emotions started to surface. And Optimus knew how much it pained them to see her so… Empty. He hated being unable to do anything for her, as well.

"She… Wouldn't agree, no," the rose red femme admitted. "But that is her grief speaking. She knows nothing else could have been done to save him."

"I could have had more Autobots accompany us," Optimus said.

"How many different scenarios can you create with that logic?" Elita asked, tone clearly indicating her question was rhetorical. "Arcee was fading, you were injured, and you were under attack from an unknown number of hostiles. You had very few options."

"And I chose to leave Shadowstreaker behind," the Prime stated.

Elita shook her helm. "No, you chose to save my youngest sister, and come back for Shadowstreaker once she was in the right servos. That is exactly what you should have done." She placed a servo on his. "My sister and her mate agree with me on that. And if he was here, Shadowstreaker would, too. He was the one who wanted you to leave in the first place."

Optimus looked at the servo on top of his, and resisted the urge to turn his servo and hold hers. He settled for just looking into her optics. "I know."

Elita held his gaze for a moment, then broke away and removed her servo from his. "I should let you get back to work. I need to get some recharge," she said, then walked toward the door.

"Rest well, Elita," Optimus said, and despite his discipline, he could not help but admire her for the briefest moment as she walked out the door, before he forced himself to look down at his data pads.

After she left, the Prime sighed and leaned back against his chair, thinking about how long it had been since they realized they cared for each other, and why they couldn't be together.

Sometimes, he hated being Prime.

---

(Human calendar) July 6, 2013 3:38 A.M (UTC-6:00 Mountain Standard Time)

(Cybertronian Date) 1103432 (Centi-vorns since Golden Age)

Unknown location

Megatron marched through the unfinished halls of Project:Overlord, with Starscream and Soundwave silently following behind him.

The seeker was twitching, and he was clearly nervous at how close he was to Megatron, likely because of how much of the warmonger's wrath he had endured since he was revived. Soundwave, however, was totally emotionless as he always was.

Megatron and his two officers had arrived at the unfinished Project:Overlord a few breems ago, after passing through multiple space bridges, and a three mega-cycle journey by standard FTL. The warmonger had ordered the Nemesis to travel to the Project unannounced, as he intended, to conduct a surprise inspection of Overlord, and receive a tour of it, which the commander of the construction crew, the Constructicons' leader Scrapper, was giving them.

"As you can see, Lord Megatron, we've restored most of Overlord to its state before your apparent demise," Scrapper said, able to speak without using a comm-link due to atmosphere being present inside the Project. "Wasn't easy, though. Had to work every crew overtime to replace the lost teratons of material."

Megatron gave Starscream a fierce, pointed look, at Scrapper's statement, and the seeker shied even further away from him. "All that matters is whether the Project is back on schedule. So, is it?"

"Yes," the Constructicon leader replied. "The construction itself is back on track."

The warmonger smiled, crimson optics filled with twisted excitement. "When will it be ready?"

"Depends on whether you want it finished quickly or with quality," said Scrapper.

Megatron's only response was to just glare at the mech.

Scrapper shifted tensely and cleared his throat. "Ahem, right. We'll put our best effort into every square inch of Overlord, Lord Megatron."

"Good," Megatron said. "Now, with that clear, when. Will. It. Be. Ready?" He asked, placing a dangerous amount of emphasis on each word of his repeated question. He never liked repeating himself. It infuriated him whenever he had to do so. Other bots should listen the first time he speaks, not the second.

The Constructicon leader wisely took a subtle step away from the warmonger. "With a project of this magnitude and scale, I'd say at least twenty-five orbital-cycles."

Megatron let his breath out in an irritated growl. "That won't do. I want Overlord ready for deployment in no more than a tenth of that time."

Scrapper nearly scoffed like he usually would at being told to build a project quicker, but he caught himself just he was about to open his mouth. "With all due respect, my Lord Megatron, but that's not possible," he said carefully, obviously not wanting to anger the leader of the Decepticons.

His tone had no affect on the warmonger, and Megatron came to a halt in the middle of the hallway, directly in front of Scrapper. "Did you just question me?"

Scrapper's optics widened, and he held his servos up in a placating gesture as he took a step back. "No, no, no. Of course not, Lord Megatron. I would never question your commands."

"Are you certain about that?" The leader of the Decepticons asked, stepping closer to Scrapper, backing the Constructicon up further. "Because it sounded like you said you weren't going to carry out my orders."

"Of course I would!" Scrapper defended himself, continuing to back up until he backed into the wall of the hallway, while Megatron kept on slowly advancing. "It's just that this particular command is a very tall order, and is impossible t-"

Megatron cut the Constructicon leader off by grabbing him by the neck and pinning him against the wall. "Speak again, and you will find out firsthand that nothing I command is impossible," he snarled assuredly, as if there was no chance he was incorrect.

'Yes, because obviously you can never, ever he wrong,' said the deep, sarcastic third voice Megatron began hearing in his helm, who he had named The Gladiator. 'You're infraggingfailable.'

'Begone,' the warmonger thought at the voice, still glaring Scrapper.

The Gladiator went silent.

"Um, Lord Megatron?" Starscream quietly asked, very carefully taking one step toward the leader of the Decepticons. "May I offer a sug-"

"Speak quickly, Starscream," growled the warmonger, turning his gaze away from Scrapper just enough to glower at his SIC, at the same time tightening his grip on the Constructicon leader's neck.

The seeker flinched at his leader's tone, but offered his input despite his fear, "Before you consider punishment, perhaps it would be best to give Sub-Commander Scrapper a warning? This is his first offence to you, and he is a good construction worker. You wouldn't want to waste his worst, would you… Master…?"

Megatron stared at Starscream long enough to make the seeker laugh nervously and step back, then he glanced at Soundwave, to see what the silent intelligence officer thought of the SIC's suggestion.

The silent mech's helm lowered a fraction of an inch.

The warmonger dropped Scrapper to the floor, his servo immediately going to rub his neck. "For- Forgive me, Lord Megatron," he said, struggling to get the words out from his wounded throat.

"Save your breath," the leader of the Decepticons said, turning and walking in the direction they had been going before he grabbed Scrapper, leaving the Constructicon leader on the floor. "Show me what is still unrepaired."

Scrapper picked himself up off the floor as Starscream and Soundwave began following Megatron. "M- Maybe you'd like to see its overall progress, instead of just what still needs to be done," he suggested, still running his neck.

Megatron glanced down at Scrapper. "Then don't tell me. Show me."

The Constructicon wordlessly followed Megatron's command by moving a little further down the hallway and pressing a button on a control panel, which then began opening a window built into the wall to Megatron's left.

The warmonger waited several micro-klicks for the window to finish opening, then he smiled at what was on the other side.

Overlord had indeed been mostly restored to its former status, but it was still far from finished. Even at this great distance, Megatron could see that entire portions of the Project were nothing more than skeletal structure, or had yet to even have that basic construction process.

Still, Overlord would be glorious when it was completed, of that he had no doubt.

'It looks fasinating!' The Scientist cried in his helm, as if he wanted to take Overlord apart piece by piece.

'Be silent,' the leader of the Decepticons thought at The Scientist.

'He makes a valid point, Megatron,' a new voice said, sounding smoother and calmer than The Gladiator, but deeper than The Scientist, like a being driven by logic.

'Go. Away,' Megatron growled at the new voice, the fourth that entered his helm since he was revived.

Mercifully, the voices went silent, and the warmonger let himself feel relief. He hated those voices.

But he hated the one who spoke next even more, 'Release me...'

Megatron sighed. He never would be free of these voices.

---

(Human calendar) July 7, 2013 12:37 A.M (UTC-6:00 Mountain Standard Time)

(Cybertronian Date) 1103432 (Centi-vorns since Golden Age)

Faster-Than-Light travel, entering edge of Milky Way galaxy

"So, the humans don't have armor?" Asked Air Raid.

I was lying on my berth in the mechs' general quarters. Normally, a ship this size would have individual berthrooms or four-bot dorms, but the Collected was crewed by a much larger number of Cybertronians than normal, and it resulted in there being only two quarters in the entire ship besides the Captain's cabin. One of the rooms was for the mechs, the other for the femmes. Very simple.

A moment ago, I had been answering a question one of the Collected's crew members asked me about humans, since Flightstorm was in the Captain's cabin with his family. But then the seeker had cut in with his own question before I could finish my explanation. He tended to do that when he wanted something clarified, as I had discovered since we began our journey.

"No, humans don't have armor," I answered. "They're organics, they have to make their armor from scratch."

"That sounds inconvenient," Air Raid said. "Means even a little fall will break 'em."

"That's one of the most common way they injure themselves," I informed.

Air Raid seemed surprised by this fact. "Really? Just by falling down?"

"Well, only the elderly humans, or ones who have a sickness that weakens their structural strength," I said.

"Wait, does that mean they have an organic version of Cosmic Rust?" Questioned the bot who originally asked me about humans, an indigo mech called Freefire, who hadn't been off the Apex Sentinel before we left.

This was getting harder to explain. "No, those with a condition like the one I mentioned appear normal, it is only their internal framework that is effected. Cosmic Rust effects our armor and our internal frames."

"So, they are disabled by these unique conditions," Silverbolt concluded from where he was lying on a berth above Air Raid's.

"Yes, in some ways, but as long as they are careful, and in many cases assisted by equipment and other humans, they can live happily," I said.

"I think this is a bit off-topic from my initial question," Freefire said.

I nodded. "It is, but I had to answer another along the way." I gave Air Raid a pointed look with that.

The seeker raised his servos in defence. "Hey, I can't stop my curiosity. It's how I am!"

I shook my helm and got back to what Freefire had asked, "Distracting questions aside, humanity is a very odd race. They are small, very physically weak in comparison to even many of the animals they keep as pets, can't fly naturally or survive underwater indefinitely, are v-"

"They can't even fly?" Air Raid interrupted, sounding very much like Wildwing when he was first told humans didn't have wings.

"Air Raid, shut up and stop interrupting Shadowstreaker," Silverbolt said, apparently trying to recharge since his optics were now closed.

Air Raid huffed something under his breath, but didn't speak again.

"Anyway," I started again. "Humans can also very easily be killed by a large number of gases in their atmosphere, at least when those gases are concentrated. They typically live for a single vorn, perhaps a bit longer at most. And they are very violent, even for a young race. Wars plague their planet constantly, and have since as long as they can remember. Yet, they are also capable of incredible kindness and humility."

"Small, short-lived, physically weak, can't fly or live underwater, can be killed by gases, are war-like, yet can also be peaceful," another mech, whose name I didn't know, summarized. "I have a question for you now, Shadowstreaker. How the pit did they become the dominant species on their planet?"

I considered that question for a moment. There were a lot of things about humanity that made it seem like they shouldn't even be alive, yet they kept on going, expanding, advancing, adapting, but somehow still staying the same. They were walking contradictions, my former race. "I would say through stubbornness, maybe with some luck and craftiness mixed in there somewhere."

"Sounds about what I expected you'd say," the unnamed mech said, then went silent and laid down fully on his berth, clearly intending to join Silverbolt in trying to recharge.

"What about their culture?" Freefire asked curiously as soon as the unnamed mech was satisfied with my response.

I went through human culture in my helm, compared it to Cybertronian culture, and decided it was the closest match to my former race, with a number of obvious differences. "They're not unlike how we were before the war, but there are still many habits unique to the humans, and how we were."

"Like?" Air Raid inquired.

"Like economics, they can't agree on how best to approach them," I said. "The planet is divided into separate nations, and almost every single one of them has a different economic policy, and most of them believe their system works better than everyone else's."

"That's counterproductive," Freefire said, adjusting his position in his berth so he was more comfortable. "When you have conflicting views on economics, one side will always believe they were ripped off by the other."

"Pretty sure that's universal with all economics policies," Air Raid joked, inadvertently stating a partial truth.

I shrugged. "Some races make systems like that work, others don't. Humans are one of the ones that make that system work."

"Still counterproductive," Freefire pointed out.

"I don't think they care whether it's counterproductive or not," I said. "It's how they've been doing their business for generations."

Freefire shook his helm. "They don't make any sense to me."

I chuckled. "You could live on their planet for vorns, think you've figured out everything about humans, then find one little piece of information that changes everything you thought you knew. As I said, they're a very odd race."

"I'd say that's an accurate statement." Air Raid laid down fully on his berth. After he got himself comfortable, he went silent for a moment, then said, "Still can't believe they don't have wings."

I rolled my optics. Why did he find it so unbelievable that some organics didn't have wings? "If that's all you wanted to know, I am going to get some recharge," I said, looking at Freeride to see if he was still looking to continue the conversation, but he was lying down as well.

"My curiosity is satisfied for now," Freeride said, raising a servo to show he was checking out as well.

"Same with mine," Air Raid added, folding his servos behind his helm in an exaggerated motion. "I'm out."

With no reason to stay up, I laid down fully on the berth to try and get some recharge like the other mechs in the room. My berth was a little small for a mech my size, and it was far less comfortable than the one I had at base, but it would do. Thinking of how I was another solar-cycle closer to seeing Arcee and others again also helped me relax.

After lying there for a few klicks, optics closed and focusing on Arcee, I fell into a deep recharge.

But it wasn't as peaceful as I would have liked.

---

As soon as I fell into recharge, I found myself in a… Primordial-feeling desert. It was at night, and a sandstorm was raging all around me.

I was barely able to see more than fifty meters ahead of me, partly because of the grains of white sand whipping around me in all directions, and partly because of how there was still enough light that I couldn't properly adjust my optics, provided by bright lights far above me that could only have been stars.

Giant, black cubes made of water-like metal were at the limits of my vision, surrounding me, and suspended in the air by nothing. Green symbols and runes, written in a language I had never seen, appeared on their surfaces, pulsing multiple times before fading away, only to reappear several micro-klicks later.

I looked closer at the cubes, straining my optics to make out details in the dark, clouded environment. They looked, felt, old and significant, and the runes and glyphs covering them amplified their… Aura, if it could be called that.

Out of my peripheral vision, I saw a symbol on one of the cubes appear, brighten to the point it outshone the runes on the cube, and remain there, even long after it should have disappeared.

I turned my helm to the cube, and saw the symbol being displayed on it was a green version of the one that was on the sides of my helm. But it was inverted, making the symbol appear to be something else entirely at first glance.

Before I could think on why the symbol was inverted, it morphed, breaking apart and forming into a tendril of transparent green light. It moved toward me almost like a snake or long-necked creature, and stopped only feet in front of my faceplate, floating in the air like it was analyzing me.

Driven by a curiosity and urge I didn't understand, I slowly reached out toward the tendril.

The light 'Looked' at my servo as I reached for it, and another, smaller tendril split from the original and moved to cover the remaining distance between it and my servo.

This second tendril paused inches from my servo for a moment, then brushed against one of my digits.

With that brief, partial contact, the world exploded.

The wind increased three-fold, throwing so much sand into the air that the finely divided mineral became a virtual wall.

Clouds formed an instant, blocking out the light from the stars and splitting the sky with golden lightning that seemed to turn the air both hot and freezing.

Symbols and images flashed before me at a speed I couldn't even estimate.

Information flooded my CPU, overwhelming any and all thoughts simply because it was too much for my processor to handle.

Everything slowed, astro-klicks felt like orbital-cycles, nano-klicks like centi-vorns, micro-klicks like eternities, until finally the information slowly retracted from my CPU, as if to keep me from harm.

I felt myself fall straight back after the information left my processor, landing flat on my backplates. I couldn't see, not immediately, imprints of the blur of images were seared in my optics. When my vision returned, it was completely wrong. Things were made of glyphs and runes, numbers and equations. And everything was like this. My servos, my digits, the flashes of lightning, the cubes, especially the cubes. Even the very sand seemed to be made of symbols, down to the very last grain.

Eventually, the visions faded enough for me to see things that were actually around me, and not just symbols and runes. Although, there were still lingering flashes and visions and that far more intense than the ones I would get after a session with a Cortical psychic patch, and it seemed like I was still covered in runes and glyphs.

What the frag is this slag?

"You should not be here," the ancient, many-toned voice that spoke to me for the second time several solar-cycles ago said, coming from the opposite direction I had been facing when I arrived in this… Place.

I looked at where the ancient voice came from, and saw a vaguely humanoid being standing there. It shared features with both humans and Cybertronians, but it had many that were its own. No mouth was visible, yet it had no battlemask. Its… Frame, body? One of those two, was made of energy and light, at least I think it was. Kinda hard to tell. It appeared to be armored, but it was also cloaked in robes that shined with more light than they should have. It towered over any being I had met faceplate to… Face. Even Prima would have come up well short of its chest. But its most defining mark were its eyes. They were a purer and brighter white than I had ever seen, and transparent blue smoke poured from them, and disappeared soon after.

So this was the being who spoke to me. It had to be. "That statement would make more sense if I didn't show up here when I was just trying to recharge."

The being just stared at me, eyes piercing my soul without effort. "You are not meant to be here. Not yet," it said, its many voices not even mildly distorted by the wind and sand.

"And yet, here I am," I said, or at least I think I said that. Hard to hear in this storm.

The being took three giant steps toward me, robes fluttering, but not because of the wind. It was when it moved that I noticed it was stepping across a very fine line between the dark I was in, and out of the light of five suns. One red, one white, one green, one blue, and one yellow, creating a strange, almost evening-like light outside of the dark. We were in both night and dusk?

Its penetrating gaze shifted to the cube I touched for no more than a nano-klick, then focused on me. "You are unable interact with just a single Un'Okiv. Your processor cannot even properly comprehend this place. Your time to be here has not yet come. You must leave."

Instantly, the wind became even more intense, and I could feel myself both in this place and the berth I was lying on. How was the being doing this? It speaks and wind intensifies? The frag is that?

I looked up at the being, its form mostly hidden by the sand blowing around me. "Who. Are. You?!"

The being's eyes flashed, and the two white orbs looked through the cloud of sand as if it wasn't there. "You have asked that question before. It was not answered. And the passage of time between then and now will not change the response. The better question would be, 'What are we.'"

With that, I was gone.

---

My optics snapped open, and I shot upright. I was back in the berth of my bunk, and the others were recharging peacefully, not even roused by my sudden movement.

I raised my servos up and looked at them. The runes and symbols were gone, same with the numbers and glyphs. Although, green light still flashed before me, taking shapes I couldn't make out before they disappeared. But those flashes stopped completely after a little more than half a klick, leaving me sitting there, with even more burning questions I couldn't find the answers to.

Why can't I seem to ever recharge normally?

---

July 9, 2013 6:37 A.M

Istanbul, Turkey

Inside a small, cramped, indoor coffee shop, a man sat a table in the corner, carefully drinking the boiling Turkish coffee he bought moments ago.

The man's skin was fair, though that was not uncommon in Istanbul, where nearly twelve-million people visited every year. His hair was blonde, and his eyes were chocolate brown. They contained a look that many mistook for warmth, but in reality, they were cool, calculating, and hardened by war. And at an even six feet in height, he was only a few inches taller than the average local man. This, too, was not uncommon in Istanbul, especially when he was only a visitor.

His name was Ned Booth, formerly the CIA's best intelligence field operative, before he pissed off someone up the chain of command by refusing to kill more than a dozen people, innocent and otherwise, by intentionally blowing up an ammo depot, and he was arrested on the grounds that he was consorting with the enemy and threatened with treason. Those charges were only dropped when a no-nonsense Army general by the name of Shepherd marched into the interrogation room he was being held in, sat down in the chair across from him, and offered him a chance to join what he called, 'The Special Tasks Force of the 141st Division.' A real mouthful, and the general shorted it to S.T.F 141.

Booth joined the S.T.F without hesitating. But, he hated it at first. He had not been allowed to take part in field missions, what he was trained to do, because of lingering animosity between the CIA and the S.T.F, mostly because their fall guy was expunged. And the only reason he could even join the 141 was because he was smart, with an IQ of 147, and he used this intelligence to run covert operations smoothly and with virtually zero collateral damage. But he slowly began to love the new position.

Until he reached Clearance Level 8.

After running his fourteenth flawless operation, General Shepherd had pulled him aside, and revealed where the vast majority of the organization's funding was sent. He showed him weapons, vehicles, equipment, and materials he could have only dreamed of an hour before. Technology that was decades ahead of its time, and a surprising amount of clean energy sources that wouldn't be given to the public for another twenty years. Eventually, Booth had asked how and why so much money was being spent on researching technology.

Looking back, he now wished he hadn't.

General Shepherd had first made him sign a non-disclosure agreement, highly unusual, even by covert standards, then he showed him what really happened to the Al Udied Air Base in 2009.

Robots. Sentient, alien robots. It was like something out of a bad science-fiction movie, but he had seen the photos, the video, and they were as real as he and the General were. Shepherd had said the Decepticons and the Autobots, the 'Bad' and 'Good' factions of the Cybertronians, as they were called, had been fighting each other since long before humans could do more than grunt and bash things with clubs. And they were both still very much alive and present on Earth.

It was enough to make Booth feel faint. Aliens were living on Earth, a race so advanced they didn't die of old age, and had technology that made everything they had look primitive in comparison. And General Shepherd, the man he at first believed to be a great and rational leader, voiced his personal desire to form an alliance with the Autobots just before he informed him of his new level of clearance and placed a Level 8 access card into his hand, then dismissed him.

Ned firmly believed that it was impossible to achieve an alliance with the Autobots, at least a real one. How could it be? They had been killing themselves for an uncountable number of years, why would they treat humanity different when their war finally ended? Besides, allies shared information, technology, resources, personnel, pretty much anything that would strengthen both parties. But with the Cybertronians, that couldn't happen. They were titans, usually standing five times taller than a human, perhaps much taller, and they needed different resources than humans. And not to mention the fact their technology was so advanced the S.T.F's best scientists had been studying the weapons and bodies of the Decepticons that the Autobots killed, and they still couldn't even offer theories on how their most simplistic of technology worked.

Oh, yes, they were studying Decepticon weapons and technology. Had been since the Al Udied Air Base was destroyed. Booth knew about Shepherd's trips to the Autobot base, and what he told them. He hadn't technically said they were studying Decepticon technology, but the fact he said they were making weapons that were more effective against the Decepticons left a clear implication. Not that it mattered if they knew or not, the Cybertronian technology only gave scientists ideas on how to develop more human technology, and new ways to treat metal alloys, nothing based on alien tech.

Combine that fact with the logistical issues, and you had an illogical and one-sided alliance. And Booth wasn't the only one who thought so.

Lieutenant Arkeville viewed an alliance with the Cybertronians as an impossible goal as well. Ned quickly saw the advantages of siding with Clancy would bring, and they made preparations. Booth supplied Arkeville and his men with weapons and vehicles, and the former lieutenant gave him valuable, firsthand information about how the Cybertronians behaved in the field. But their alliance was tense, at least on his end. Clancy was far too… Extreme in him his ambitions.

Booth felt a shiver go down his spine despite his coffee and the hot weather. All Ned wanted was the Cybertronians to leave so they weren't a threat to humanity, but the lieutenant wanted to know everything about them. What their insides looked like, how much pain they felt, how to make their own versions of them, whether they had sexes. Everything. The man had really had something wrong with him. And Booth was a little glad he was dead.

Ned finished off his coffee and walked out the door, out into the hot, humid climate of Istanbul. He stepped across the narrow street and got into the little two-seat car he had bought with cash from a man outside the city. Clancy had taken the wrong approach to the Cybertronian problem. You didn't fight a technologically superior foe head-on, you annoyed them, frustrated them, made them want to leave. Made everyone want them to leave.

Ned started the car and began moving through the busy streets of the city. He couldn't accomplish the task he had set up for himself, not yet. He still had information to gather, people to convince, equipment to find. But eventually, he would be ready.

He just hoped it wouldn't be too late for humanity by the time he was, and that he could stay ahead of the people sent after him.

---

(Human calendar) July 15, 2013 1:27 P.M (UTC-6:00 Mountain Standard Time)

(Cybertronian Date) 1103432 (Centi-vorns since Golden Age)

Faster-Than-Light travel, fifty-three light-years from Sol system

I paced back and forth across the bridge floor, too anxious to keep still for more than one or two micro-klicks.

It had been just over a mega-cycle since my… Dream? Visit? Hallucination? I didn't know what it was. And I hadn't been able to make more sense of it than when I first had it. For that reason, I hadn't discussed it with any of the bots onboard. It wasn't that I didn't trust any of them, it just didn't have a place in any of our conversations. Optimus had a better chance of interpreting it, although he probably was going to be just as confused as I was. Seems like nothing normal ever happens to me anymore.

But that really wasn't relevant at the time. We were only a few klicks out from the Sol system, virtually moments away from putting what was essentially my plan into motion. And I was nervous as hell.

How couldn't I be? I had been gone for more than a jour at the least, and I didn't know how long it took to get from Earth, to Ventqura Munitum, then to the system the Apex Sentinel had been in. That was a lot of time to be away without any contact. And many things may have changed since I was last there. My fellow Autobots could have had to move to a new base, or we were now known to the public. They could have formed a permanent alliance with the S.T.F, or some other human faction. The war could have ended, and we just hadn't been tuned into the right channels. Or, one of my fellow Autobots had been offlined.

That one… Was uncomfortably possible. We were always fighting a larger force than our own, and we almost always received injuries. And since I only knew for sure that Optimus and Arcee were still online, I had no way of knowing the fate of anyone else until I was in contact. It was entirely possible a brother or sister-in-arms had perished since I was last on Earth.

Had I lost a friend while I was away?

"We're a few klicks out from the Sol system," Flightstorm said, causing me to put my thoughts to the side for the moment as I listened to what he said. He glanced at how I was pacing, then looked back at his terminal. "You planning on wearing out the floor?"

"No," I answered without pausing in my strides. "I'm just trying to keep myself relaxed, think."

"Normally I'd say you're doing right thing, then. But you should probably find another way of thinking," suggested the former Decepticon. "Because you seem more nervous than when you first started pacing."

"I agree with the Commander in that regard," Override said from where she stood near with bridge door, with Silverbolt and Air Raid on the side opposite of her. "Instead of clarifying your thoughts, your pacing is making you more agitated."

I wanted to argue their point, but I saw the truth in their words. I was more tense than when I first started pacing, thinking and worrying about things I had no control of. It was the exact opposite of what I wanted to do.

I stopped pacing and at sat an empty terminal, which belonged to the communications officer of the Collected, a blue and silver femme called Drift. She had already set it up for me to use when we got into the system, but I would still need to tune into the communications channel of the base when we dropped out of FTL, after she adjusted the comm system to the interference Jupiter would cause. "Can you blame me for being anxious?"

Flightstorm and Override shook their helms simultaneously, and the grey and red seeker said, "No, can't say I can. 'Frost and I were the same when we were separated from Wildwing, even though we could feel that he was unharmed. You are in a situation that, in some ways, is similar to the one we were in, only you're eager to unite with Arcee."

"Wait, how can being away from Arcee compare to being separated from family?" Air Raid asked, confusion written on his faceplate.

"She and I have Imprinted on each other," I answered, looking back at the seeker.

Understanding dawned on Air Raid, and he blinked several times in surprise. "Well that's… Really unexpected. Don't get me wrong, she's great, but she's also been turning down advances for so long that most mechs just stopped trying. I honestly thought she'd never settle down." He smiled and stepped forward to lightly punched me in the shoulder-joint, though I barely felt it because of my armor. "Congratulations on getting yourself a great femme."

I didn't think he quite understood what Imprinting was, but that wasn't surprising, since I had no knowledge of it before the cycle my Protocol activated for the first time. "We weren't together when I was there last, and I didn't 'Get' her in any way."

Air Raid shrugged. "Eh, close enough," he said, then walked back to his spot next to Silverbolt.

I shook my helm a bit at Air Raid, and looked at Flightstorm. "How much longer until we arrive?"

The former Decepticon looked at a reading on his terminal, then grinned and looked up at me. "Right now." He looked at Trailshock. "Bring us out of FTL."

"Yes, sir," the navigator said, then began the process of deactivating the FTL drive.

After a few moments, Trailshock finished typing the commands to deactivate the FTL drive, and the warped view of FTL slowly returned to normal.

The deformed stars and light faded, and the view port outside the bridge became filled with the sight of a dim, reddish-brown cover of clouds that went on indefinitely, with lightning occasionally flashing. We were in the system.

I was just a short jump from home.

"Location?" Flightstorm asked the navigator.

"We're in the atmosphere of… Jutar? It's called Jutar, right?" Trailshock asked me, then continued when I shook my helm negatively, "Well, we're in the atmosphere of the planet we were shooting for. Right in the center of the storm Shadowstreaker said would be our best option for remaining hidden." He was referring to Jupiter's vorns-long storm, the Great Red Spot.

"Just going with the obvious choice," I said. The Great Red Spot's constant wind, along with Jupiter's atmospheric pressure, radiation, and radio pulses, made this the perfect location for staying invisible.

"Doesn't change the fact you were the one who suggested this particular place," Flightstorm said, before looking at where Drift sat at the secondary comm officer's terminal. "You working on modifying the comms?"

The blue and silver femme looked away from the terminal she was using and raised an optic ridge at Flightstorm. "You seriously asked that? Commander, I'm offended. I thought I was past being looked at as the rookie operator."

"Well, you are looking away from the terminal," the former Decepticon pointed out.

"Details," Drift huffed in mock offence, then resumed her work. After a micro-klick, she finished typing and looked back at her commander "Comm systems have been modified. We're set to send and receive messages for as long as we stay in the gas giant's atmosphere."

The grey and red seeker turned his gaze away from the communications officer and focused on me, optics smiling. "You're up, Shadowstreaker."

I wordlessly acknowledged Flightstorm's words and prepared to enter the comm frequency for base, but I stopped as my CPU focused on what was about to happen.

I had been gone for more than a jour with no word, and now I was only moments away from contacting a group of friends, brothers and sisters, and potentially a lover, all of which likely had no idea where I had gone or what happened to me. Hell, they probably thought I had been offlined. It usually was obvious when a prisoner was captured, but with how I was taken, a mixture of lethal and non-lethal methods, that painted a pretty bleak picture, especially when they began to use lethal force after I had last been seen. If I was in their position, I would have written myself off as offline the cycle I disappeared.

So what was I supposed to say in my initial hail? Pretty sure saying, 'Hey, what's happening?' Wouldn't be the best thing to say, and would discredit my claim of being who I was. I could say my name and request a response from whoever was at the workstation, but voice prints could be easily faked, and that also would discredit my claim. I could just send my official service number, which Optimus had given me when I was still in my training, but that would raise suspicions, since I was only sending a number and not actually speaking. Perhaps a combination of both? State my official service number, send a common hail, and say my name? That seems like my best option.

With what I was going to say decided, I entered the frequency of the base's communications channel into the computer I was sitting at, took a breath to help me maintain my composure and control my excitement, and said in English, "Base, this is Shadowstreaker, service number AAF-EE-R-0717-061-003835, please respond."

---

July 15, 2013 1:33 P.M

Autobot base, outside Jasper, Nevada

Arcee and her fellow Autobots had just returned from a lengthy engagement with the Decepticons, the focus of which was over the remains of the ancient wreck of the Nemesis-class war cruiser, Endless Slaughter. It had gone missing just before the war ended, along with its cargo of tank-mounted weaponry, and turned out to be on a remote island near Antarctica, buried beneath the glacier that covered nearly all of the small land mass.

They had lost the battle to the Decepticons, despite Optimus using the Star Saber multiple times. They also had suffered some injuries, albeit mostly minor ones. Pierced armor, mild EMP damage, broken gears. All easily repaired. She and Optimus had taken the least amount of damage, just some scorched paint and aching joints. Nothing rest and auto-repair systems wouldn't fix. But Smokescreen was going to be out of action for a few solar-cycles, since he had taken a missile to one of his pedes and ruptured an energon vein.

With no reason to visit the med-bay, and more reasons for her to stay out of Moonracer and Ratchet's way so they could treat Smokescreen, Arcee went to begin her post-mission routine of visiting the Safe.

Then the workstation, with its channels still set to broadcast its communications for the benefit of the base's human visitors, played a message sent to them from off the planet, spoken by the voice of a mech believed to be offline.

Everyone came to a grinding halt, and all organic eyes and mechanical optics turned to the workstation. No one moved or spoke.

The game the children had turned on after confirming their titanic friends, in some cases role models, continued without any of them playing it, and the characters Miko and Raf were playing as were killed by the AI soldiers they had been fighting.

Agent Fowler, who was at the base to take human-sized copies of the reports Optimus filed, looked at the main screen as if he'd seen a ghost.

Ratchet and Moonracer stopped mid-step and stared at the workstation, along with the white and blue mech they had been helping toward the med-bay. And the other Autobots were in a similar state.

All except Arcee.

For a moment, the blue and pink femme stood motionless, then she turned around and stormed to the workstation. Someone, somewhere, was using Shadow', her Shadow's, voice. It may have been Decepticon like Makeshift, but even if it was, using her Shadow's voice was unacceptable. And if they didn't stop, even if they weren't Decepticons, she would make them regret mocking her with her partner's likeness.

She reached the workstation, quickly entered the command that would allow her to speak to the bot on the other end, and spoke in a cold, controlled, yet blank voice that had anger below the surface, "Who is this?"

---

My spark soared at the sound of Arcee's voice, but my feeling of happiness waned moderately at the tone she used. She sounded like she was running on autopilot, numb to everything around her. Like I had been when I thought she was offline. So my suspicion that I was believed to be offline was correct. She must have locked down her emotions, placed her emotional walls around her. Getting through those was going to be… Difficult.

Arcee very obviously doesn't believe I am me, and sounds pissed off by the sound of my voice. She probably thinks I am some kind of sick bot who's tormenting her. How do I prove to her that I'm real?

"Answer me," Arcee said again through the link, tone carrying a deadly edge to it.

It had been a while since I was on this side of that tone. Likely best to keep talking, and hope to come up with something to convince her as I go. "I'm not a fake or imposter, Arcee. I am very real."

---

Arcee resisted the urge to punch a hole in the wall. She was expecting this unknown bot to hear the unspoken threat in both her statements, but they were still trying to convince her, and the others, that they were Shadow', her Shadow'. She was not fooled, not matter how accurate they were recreating Shadow's voice.

The blue and pink femme narrowed her optics, as if to melt the bot on the other end of the channel. "Listen carefully. Do. Not. Keep. Lying."

---

Yikes. I've never heard that tone from her, let alone have it directed toward me. This is not going well.

"She sounds pleased," Flightstorm said sardonically.

"Thank you for pointing that out to me, I'd have never known if you hadn't," I said, voice so quiet I barely even heard myself. I really had to at least get Arcee's interest, if I was going to have a chance of convincing her I wasn't lying. I needed to come up with something that only I would know, something that wasn't in any reports or database, and wouldn't be considered an important memory to go through with a Cortical psychic patch, but I also needed time to find something that only we would know. I was going to have to buy myself a little time to go through my memories.

I sighed lightly, just quiet enough to not be heard by the mic, and tried proving my identity again, "I'm not lying to you. Let me ask you something. If I wasn't who I am, why wouldn't I land on Earth before contacting you?"

---

'Because you're afraid of what I'd do to you if you on the planet,' was what Arcee wanted to reply with, but didn't. The bot on the other end of the channel had a logical point. If they were an infiltrator, they would get as close to their targeted location before trying to fool the group they were infiltrating. That is what Makeshift had done when he'd taken Wheeljack's place. Not following that plan wasn't the behavior of a spy.

But then again, if she was trying to pass herself off as a Decepticon, she'd go against typical infiltrator tactics, since that were well-known to those familiar to black ops. And if the bot on the other end of the channel was good enough, they would do the same thing.

"For the same reason it would be questionable for an offline mech to just appear on the surface of a planet. You are trying to create a story that is as unsuspicious as possible," the blue and pink femme replied, ignoring the pang of sadness her spark sent her at the thought of her partner.

---

Okay, I admit, that was something a good saboteur would do. But, an infiltrator also wouldn't try to fool the group they were trying to get into by impersonating someone they knew well, believed to be offline, and contact them through suspicious means.

Wait, am I trying to build a case for me or against me?

I pushed that thought aside. I didn't have time to consider every angle as I kept talking. Although, it would be nice to find a memory only Arcee and I had. "But if I was an infiltrator, why would I try to impersonate someone who was believed to be offline? Why wouldn't I try to pass myself off as someone who was online?"

---

"He… Makes a rational point," Fowler said softly, breaking the silence that had fallen on everyone besides Arcee, the reports he was supposed to collect forgotten where he placed them on the human-sized computers.

"I agree with the fleshy," Sunstreaker added, his own stupor broken by the human government official, who glared at the elder twin for the demeaning name.

Prowl's processor whirled audibly, having been analyzing the situation in every manner he was aware of since it began. "That does not mean he is truthful."

"Now that I agree with," said Springer, cradling one of his servos, which had taken a few hits from rifle fire at close range. "We never found a sign Shadowstreaker survived."

"But we also don't know if he didn't survive," Ratchet pointed out calmly, a thoughtful look on his faceplate. "We found his energon, yes, but we never found a chassis to go with it."

Arcee silently listened to the opinions of her fellow Autobots as she went over what the bot on the other end had said. It would be more logical to impersonate an Autobot who they knew was online, instead of one who'd been offline for well over a jour. It wasn't something that fit with the operations playbook of either a good or bad infiltrator. Even a bot with no experience in infiltrating would know that. Why would this bot do that?

For the briefest moment, Arcee considered the possibility the Cybertronian on the other end of the channel really was Shadow', her Shadow', but she closed her walls around that thought and kicked it out of her CPU. She couldn't let her emotions, her wants, to affect her. They weren't going to happen.

"Maybe you're just incompetent, didn't know the mech you're trying to impersonate is offline. And now you're trying to cover your tracks," she answered the bot on the other side of the channel, keeping the hard edge in her voice.

---

"She's tearing you apart," Flightstorm said.

I pressed the button to mute my end of the channel and looked at the grey and red seeker. "Are you trying to encourage me? Because you're doing the opposite."

"Just stating a fact," the former Decepticon said with a smile, before leaning in his chair and going silent.

I stared at Flightstorm for another moment, then turned back to the terminal and unmuting my end of the channel. Arcee's statement gave me an opportunity to reply with something I had said during our mission to find the ship that her siblings, the twins, Jazz, and Smokescreen had been on, and I recreated the exact tone I used when I first said it. "Now you're just trying to make fun of me."

---

Arcee stiffened. Shadowstreaker had said those exact words back in November, just before they spotted the first gunship they saw during the rescue mission of her siblings and the others. They sounded so much like Shadow', her Shadow', that is was eerie.

But, it was also infuriating. They were not only using his voice to taunt her, but even the same sentences he said. It took what they were doing to another level of arrogance and insult.

Her Shadow' had hated arrogance.

The blue and pink femme resisted the urge to snarl in rage. "I would stop talking while you still have your helm. You don't have the right to utter one word he said."

---

This was going well. Now she thinks I'm mocking her, and is threatening to offline me. Perfect.

"I don't need to speak the human language to know she's rather… Annoyed," Silverbolt said.

I didn't pay attention to the silver seeker's statement, since I was too focused on coming up with something else to say. Instead of attracting her interest, I was making her angry. I needed to come up with that something only I would know soon. Very soon.

In that moment, I finally found what only Arcee and I knew, and wasn't something that an infiltrator would deem important enough to look through the memory of.

When I gave her birthday present to her.

"If I don't have a right to say what he said, can I at least ask if you're taking care of the musket I gave you?" I asked in a moderately light tone, hoping, praying, that she would believe me. It already hurt to see her think I wasn't really me…

---

Arcee froze. She didn't move, she didn't hear, she didn't think. She went completely numb to everything around her.

It… That… That wasn't possible. He couldn't be online. He couldn't be. They found so much energon that belonged to him, so many signs of him being injured severely. And he had been offline for nearly two jours. Arcee had said goodbye, even though it pained her, and still did. He was gone. This bot couldn't be him.

… And yet, not even her sisters and Ironhide knew what Shadow' had given her for her creation day. She had mentioned it to no one. Only she and Shadow' knew he gave her that musket. And since the memory file was such a strategically unimportant one, it would be marked as noncritical by a potential infiltrator, who would want to simply look and play the part of the Cybertronian they posed as, and complete their mission as quickly as possible.

But… It couldn't be him. There was no way this could be her Shadow'. He was gone.

Against the protests and efforts of her CPU, her walls lowered just slightly, and her spark took over her mouth. "S-Shadow'?" She asked in a voice that was hardly loud enough to be caught by the workstation's mic, unable to form any other word.

---

I had to hold back my relieved sigh. I had gotten through. She knew it was me. "Hey, partner… You know, you sound better than when I last saw you."

---

One corner of Arcee's mouth twitched, struggling against the emptiness that had driven her for the nearly two jours. This was him, her Shadow'. He was online. Shadow' was still here.

She didn't have to wait until she was Home to see him again.

"It's him. It's really him," she said, and her fellow Autobots shared looks, of surprise, unexpected happiness, confusion, and others, but she ignored them and replied to Shadow', her Shadow', "And you sound… Here."

---

I smiled. It was clear by what 'Here' she was referring to, the fact I was online. "Well, I didn't want to break a promise I made to you right before our last mission."

---

Arcee's emotions bashed against her walls, but they didn't break. Although she also didn't do anything to reinforce them. He was talking about what she strongly believed was his attempt at a confession of his feelings, and that alone made her want to talk about it right then and there. But she felt like it wasn't the time.

Not yet.

"That raises the question of how you managed to not break that promise," she said, placing her desire for talk to the side, even though her spark was flooding her with feelings.

---

She raises a good point, which is going to take a while to explain. "Arcee, the answer to that question is the definition of a long story. And no offence to those on the ship I got a ride on, but I really want to get there. And for that to happen, I need to tell you how I got back here. Is everyone else there?"

"Yes," Arcee answered quickly, tone no different than her usual one, but still obviously a little impatient.

She wanted me to get down there, too. Pretty sure that was a good sign. "Hello, everyone. Been a while," I said, directing my words to the bots I couldn't see or hear. I went back to focusing on passing our plan along without waiting for an acknowledgement from someone besides Arcee. "Alright, let me get started..."

---

Several klicks of explaining what our plan was, and why we needed to come up with it, I finished speaking and went silent, waiting for a response from someone on the other end of the channel.

"It is a feasible plan, if a little unusual," Optimus said after a moment, not letting the silence go on for long. "But it relies heavily on my abilities, and whether the Collected can make two jumps rapidly enough to avoid the Decepticons. Are you certain this is our only option?"

"The comm officer had to modify the communications of the ship just so we could talk to you. You won't be able to lock onto our location with a space bridge," I replied. "And if we move, the Decepticons will be able to pinpoint our exact location, and then we'll be in serious trouble. This is the only way we'll be able to remain undetected."

Sideswipe, who sounded much further away than Optimus, asked, "Then why can't you just jump into range of the cloaking field the first time? Why make two jumps?"

"We don't know the hacking abilities of the Decepticons," Arcee said, sounding only slightly more like herself and less like a machine. "And our long-range communications don't have the firewalls of our short-range channels. They could be compromised, which would lead the Decepticons right to us if we said where we were setting up the cloak. Not to mention the fact they're going to have trouble making a precision jump with all the interference they're dealing with."

"Goin' by dat logic," Jazz said. "We need ta find a way ta tell each other where ta go without actually sayin' it." He was silent a moment, then added, "Oh, an welcome back , Shadowster'. But can Ah ask ya to give us a three mega-cycle notice dat you were comin' back? Ah am unprepared for a welcome home party."

I smiled. Jazz had the ability to make even a serious situation humorous. "As long as I get down there, I'll be fine. Please don't try and actually throw a party."

"Ah make no promises," the saboteur replied with a tone that made it obvious he was smiling, then went quiet.

"Humor aside, Jazz brings up a relevant issue," Optimus said, returning the conversation back on topic. "After I have constructed it, where do we take and activate the cloaking device?"

I thought about that question for a moment. I couldn't give them set of Latitude and Longitude coordinates, since that was literally giving any Decepticon that might be listening a map leading right to us. I needed to talk about a place only someone in the Autobots would know about, or at least not give a name to the location I refer. And it would also have to be remote enough to hide a ship a kilometer in length. That wasn't an easy task, but possible.

And I quickly thought of two potential locations. One was where we found the Apex Armor piece in Australia, and the other was the location in the Sahara Desert, ironically the same place the Collected was when it was first on Earth. And since we found the piece of the Apex Armor in a Decepticon mine, the Sahara would be the best option.

"Take the cloaking device to the place where a ship carrying concerned creators landed, before leaving again with a small passenger, " I said, making my statement cryptic, but understandable to those who had been present at the battle last orbital-cycle.

"Understood," the Prime acknowledged quickly, his highly-intelligent processor having likely figured out what I was going to say before I finished speaking. "I will begin the preparations necessary for your arrival, as well as the... Payment you promised in return for your passage."

I knew Optimus' subtle tone of disapproval when he used it, and he just did. And he had a right to. I made an arrangement with Delta without knowing for sure if I would be able to come through on my end. I relied on Optimus being willing to build what they needed. But that in itself probably wasn't the problem he had with my agreement, it was the fact I couldn't back it up myself that he didn't approve of.

"I'm sorry I made a promise I am not able to keep on my own, Optimus, but I didn't have a lot of options," I said.

"He already walked away," Arcee reported.

That probably meant he was going to bring it up later, in person. "Then I guess he wants me to get down there so he can lecture me faceplate-to-faceplate."

"He's not the only one who wants you to get down here, Shadow'," the femme I loved with all my being said. "But some of us also have... Other motivations for wanting you down here."

I blinked at that. There was something in her voice that I couldn't quite place. It… Almost sounded like an acknowledgement of something shared, but unspoken.

She continued before I could think about it more, "I'm going to go grab some things before you arrive. When you get down here, Shadow', you and I are going to talk… About many things we've both been ignoring." She went silent and didn't speak again.

But I didn't mind being left alone, not after what she said. She figured out how I felt for her, like I realized how she felt about me. And she wanted to talk about it, but only when we were both down on the surface.

That realization caused my tank to tighten, and my nerves to skyrocket. I didn't know how to say the things I wanted to tell her. I had been gone for more than a jour, two mega-cycles of which I had plenty of time to think, and I still didn't know what to say. And the fact Arcee was willing to talk about it made no difference to my nerves and sudden anxiety. Just made it worse, in fact, pressured me to come up with something. But how do you condense more than an orbital-cycle of feelings into one conversation? Or express how much you relied on someone who wasn't there to get through a horrible situation?

… Or how that someone had been used against you, and a lot of bots had lost their lives as a result of that.

The memory of being led to my cell on the Hammer flashed before me, and I saw all the faceplates in cells with security, watching me with pity or interest, before they were forced back into their own torment when I went beyond their field of vision.

I blinked the memory away, though I couldn't stop myself from dwelling on it. Almost all of those bots were gone now, taken when my actions led to the Paraions deciding to fire on their own vessel. How many would still be alive if I hadn't willingly activated my Protocol? The answer was probably most, but all would still be living in endless agony at the servos of interrogators, Scalpel among them. They wouldn't want to continue living in that hell.

But how does that excuse being responsible for causing most of them to offline, anyway?

"They're ready for you," Raf's voice said through the computer, likely operating the space bridge while my fellow Autobots went to the Sahara.

I must have been thinking for longer than it seemed like. "We'll get ready on our end."

"Good," said the youngest human who knew the existence of Cybertronians. "And, Shadowstreaker? It's good to see you back."

The corner of my mouth twitched in a smile, distracting me from my thoughts. Raf was a rare type of person, one who cared about everything he knew, and stood by friends. I had a feeling I was going to need some friendships like that. "Technically, you haven't seen me yet," I said. "But it's good to be back. I'll meet you and the others when I return to base."

"See you then," Raf said, before he closed the channel I'd established with the base from his end.

After the link was cut, I turned to Flightstorm and switched back to the language of Cybertron so the others could understand me. "So, do you know where our hideout is going to be?"

The former Decepticon nodded. "I do. It's where we battled the Decepticon stealth frigate when we came in search of Wildwing. Lost a lot of good soldiers that cycle…" A faraway look entered his optics, then it vanished and he refocused on me. "Do you have any suggestions for where we should try and initially jump?"

"I do. Middle of the southern part of the planet's largest ocean, the Pacific," I replied. There weren't a lot of areas on land where we could jump without causing damage to human electrical systems, at least when we were outside of a cloaking field. The oceans, however, were virtually aquatic wastelands, in terms of constant presence. And the South Pacific had areas that were more remote than any other on the planet, even remote enough to allow no human technology to be destroyed when the energy from our jump spread out in a far wider area than it normally would at surface level. It was a perfect target for us.

"Going for a really remote location? Good move. It'll keep the humans unaware of what's going on above them," Flightstorm said, looking at Trailshock. "Navigator, set the computer for a short-range jump with the targeted destination being ten-thousand kilometers above the surface of Earth, over the area Shadowstreaker has suggested."

"On it," Trailshock said, already working at his terminal. After he finished working, he reported, "Ready to go on your order, Commander. I even took the liberty of pre-loading the coordinates of where you landed on this world last orbital-cycle."

The grey and red seeker smiled. "Thinking ahead. That's why I keep you around, Trailshock."

"I thought it was because I'm the only certified navigator who doesn't work on the bridge of the Sentinel?" The navigator asked, feining confusion.

"That's what you think," Flightstorm joked. "Now get us to Earth before I consider replacing you."

"Yes, sir, right away, sir." Trailshock turned to his terminal, typed a command, then activated the FTL drive.

But unlike when the FTL drive activated for our journey to the system, the light outside didn't warp, and nothing was distorted. One moment, we were surrounded by the reddish-brown clouds of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, and in a time that would seem instantaneous if I had still been human, we were above Earth, at roughly the same orbital distance as many navigation, communications, and scientific satellites. Hopefully, there weren't any within range of the pulse the ship just released.

"FTL drive disengaged, preparing for second jump in approximately thirty micro-klicks," Trailshock reported as soon as we appeared above Earth.

No one acknowledged him, or no one that I heard. But that might have been because I was focusing on the fact that I technically was going to be back on Earth in less than a klick. I was anxious to step on its surface again, and see Arcee.

"Five micro-klicks to second jump," the navigator said, pulling me from my thoughts. He counted down the remaining numbers, then at one, activated the FTL drive for the second time in less than forty micro-klicks.

Again, our surroundings changed so quickly it was difficult to tell time past, we essentially appeared above the Sahara Desert.

"Earth is a… Peculiar planet," Override said, likely referring to how we had just been over vast ocean, and now were above a desert that took up almost a third of an entire continent.

Flightstorm either didn't pay attention to her, or was focused on more pressing matters. "Are we at the right place?" He asked.

"Yes," Trailshock replied. "I double checked the coordinates while we waited for the FTL drive to cool. We're where we need to be."

"And the sensors are detecting the energy released from our jump ricocheting around in the walls of a cloaking field about two kilometers away on all sides," Drift said, having taken over the duties of the sensor operator. "Trailshock's answer is right. They probably aren't liking the the windstorm our jump just created, but the Autobots are definitely here."

This confirmed news made me relax, as if dropping a burden I had been carrying since I was taken by the Paraions. I was back. There was nothing I had to plan, nothing to wonder how it would be completed, nothing left to do. Well, there was one thing…

"Alright, then. Find us a suitable place to land, Trailshock," Flightstorm said. "And to those of you in this room that are disembarking, get down to the cargo bay. I will meet you there once Wildwing and Cyberfrost are ready to go."

Everyone on the bridge obeyed the former Decepticon's order wordlessly, and Override, Sliverbolt, and Air Raid opened the door to the bridge and stepped out into the hallway.

'Guess I'm going to have to come up with something to say to Arcee on my way down,' I thought, before standing up from what was usually Drift's terminal and following the two Autobots and one Velocitrionian into the hallway.

---

Five klicks later, I was standing in the cargo bay with Flightstorm, his family, Override, and the two Autobot seekers, waiting for Trailshock to land the ship.

It had apparently taken the navigator some time to find a landing zone for the Collected, probably because of how blocky and heavy the ship was. Nonetheless, he had found a site open enough to set down. And, knowing Optimus, that was probably exactly where he had set up the cloaking device. So, we probably weren't going to have to go searching for my fellow Autobots, which was going to give me even less time to come up with a way to talk to Arcee. Great.

I put a halt to my brief musings when I felt the Collected shake beneath my pedes before going still. We had landed.

Air Raid looked at me after the ship landed, while at the same time Flightstorm went over to activate the control for the cargo bay door. "Time for you to go see your femme."

He doesn't listen well, does he? "Not my femme."

"Not yet," Air Raid said, then fell silent as Flightstorm activated the door control, and the large hatch opened slowly to reveal the Sahara Desert beyond.

The air was calm now, after the sandstorm our arrival created had ceased. The usually golden-yellow sand of the Sahara was reddish-orange from the light of the setting sun, also creating more defined shadows between sand dunes and rock formations. It was an appealing setting.

But I didn't pay very much attention to it, because I focused on my fellow Autobots.

They were lined up at the base of a sand dune a few hundred meters away, with a small metal box lying on the ground near them that could only be the cloaking device. All of them were there, even Ratchet and Moonracer, and they were looking in our direction, not talking or looking anywhere else around, just focusing entirely on us, or at least the entrance to the cargo bay. Although, Smokescreen was more focused on trying to use the crutches he had. Wonder why he needed those?

I easily picked out Arcee from the line of Autobots. She was standing in front of two metal objects, but all I could tell about them was that they were large. She also seemed tense, anxious, just like I was. And she looked like her normal self, beautiful and deadly, as if she had never taken a shot that nearly offlined her. Her armor even seemed to glow in the light of the setting sun.

"This is pretty," Wildwing said from where Cyberfrost held him, curious optics taking in the sight of the end of Earth's solar-cycle.

"I am pretty sure Shadowstreaker is finding something else pretty," Silverbolt said, surprising me with a joke at my expense. He usually didn't poke fun at others. I must have been quite obvious in staring at Arcee.

Ah, well. It wasn't like I was trying to hide my feelings anymore.

Flightstorm stepped forward and out of the cargo bay with Cyberfrost, and the rest of us followed them, though I quickly let myself lag behind as I felt the real warmth from Sol hit me, accompanied by real air, and a real light breeze.

Soon, I took my first step onto real ground for who knew how long, and I felt something other than metal under my pedes. The sand was warm, not hot, and in a couple breems it would be cold, but it was still a nice change. It was strange, I never would have taken note of so many little things before I was taken. Guess it's true that you never realize what you really have until it's taken away.

My fellow Autobots began moving toward us as we walked forward, or in Smokescreen's case hobbled. Optimus led them, his servo looking repaired and the Star Saber slung across his backplates, while Arcee paused for a moment to pick the objects behind her, which I now realized were my Ion Displacer and Nucleon Shock Cannon, before following the others.

We all met in what I assumed was the halfway point between the ship and the cloaking device, and we stopped about fifty meters away from each other.

Optimus took two more steps forward, then looked down at Flightstorm, his mate, and Wildwing, who looked at the Prime with joy and wonder in his optics, common looks when he had been near Optimus in the past. "Flightstorm, Cyberfrost, and young Wildwing, it is a privilege to see you again."

"Hello, Prime, sir!" Wildwing said, waving his tiny servo up at Optimus, fuschia optics shining happily.

Cyberfrost smiled down at her son. "And it is our privilege to be able to see you again, Optimus Prime."

"I second that," Flightstorm said. "But we likely wouldn't have seen any of you again unless there weren't some certain 'Bots who found themselves misplaced."

"I can see," said Optimus, looking away from Flightstorm and at Air Raid and Silverbolt, who were to my left. "Silverbolt, Air Raid, it is good to have you among us again."

"Sorry we're late to the party," Air Raid said, looking at where Jetfire stood next to Bulkhead. "Looks like the junker beat us here, Silverbolt."

The undoubtedly older seeker raised an optic ridge at Air Raid. "I see you still have a lot to learn on the topic of respect, youngling."

"Believe me, Jetfire, I've been trying to keep him in line," Silverbolt said, glancing at the seeker he traveled with. "But he's incredibly stubborn."

"You just need to loosen up a bit, have some fun once in a while," Air Raid defended himself, smiling in amusement as he moved to stand near Jetfire, with the seeker he was speaking to following him. "You'll know what I'm talking about when you actually enjoy yourself for once."

Optimus seemed to purposely ignore the banter of the three seekers, and he looked at Override, a rare amount of surprise in his optics. "It has been a very long time since we met last, Override."

"It has," the red and yellow femme said. "Well over eight-thousand centi-vorns, in fact."

"Why are you not on Velocitron?" Optimus asked.

"My Velocitronians have been a part of the Apex Sentinel's crew for the last two vorns," answered Override. "We had no choice. The planet was a wasteland after our... Conflict." She added the last part sadly, as if recalling a memory that had an affect on her. Seemed like there was a painful story behind that.

Pity entered the Prime's optics. "The war spread to the farthest reaches of space, and has touched us all in some way," he said. "Why are you here and not with your Velocitronians, Override?"

Override didn't hesitate in her answer, "I have been on the sidelines of this war for too long. I wish to join your unit."

Optimus, for his part, didn't look the least bit surprised by this. "Considering the request, I will need to meet with my lieutenants before I grant it. However, I do not believe it will take long for us to reach a decision. For now, you may return with us to our base."

Override lowered her helm. "I find this to be more than courteous of you, Prime. I thank you for considering to allow me to join you." She raised her helm back up and walked to the line of Autobots, taking a place apart from them at the end.

After Override walked away, Optimus focused on me, and his faceplate brightened so slightly that it may have been a trick of the evening light. "Your reappearance in this life comes as a great surprise, Shadowstreaker."

"Life has a way of surprising us, sometimes in positive ways, and sometimes negative. I would hope my survival is a positive one," I said.

"It is," the Prime said, and his optics looked to his left, toward where Arcee stood. "Your survival also brings great happiness… Particularly to a femme who has missed your presence."

I glanced at Arcee out of my peripheral vision when Optimus said that. She was staring at me intently, optics containing a look I hadn't seen before, which was both unreadable and meaningful. Not sure how that worked. "And she brings me happiness just by standing there," I said, more quietly than the softest human whisper, mostly meaning the words to myself.

The faintest of smiles appeared on Optimus' faceplate. "Then I would suggest speaking with her as soon as possible," he said nearly as quietly as me. "Your reunion with the others can wait for a moment."

"Besides, we're going to need to speak to Optimus for a few klicks," Flightstorm said, taking his son from the servos of his mate when she held him out to him. "This would be a good time to do that."

The Prime turned his attention to Cyberfrost, her sparkmate, and Wildwing. "Then let us speak elsewhere. Shadowstreaker likely does not want even more of an audience than he already has," he said, sending me a knowing look, before walking off to the side and gesturing for the small family to follow him, which they did.

Once they had taken a few steps away, Arcee picked up my heavy weapons, which she had placed on the ground, and walked over to me, then placed them on the ground again, near my pedes. She then straightened out and stared at me, optics still holding that meaningful, yet unreadable look.

I found myself unsure of what to say to her. And what could I say? She was my partner, my friend, the one who accepted my Imprint, she was my everything, it had almost physically hurt to be apart from her, and it must have hurt her just as much. We may have spoken on the comm channel, but this was different. We were standing in front of one another, with nothing between us. It honestly was taking all my strength not to crush her in a hug, but I wanted to actually speak to her before doing that.

After our silence continued for a few micro-klicks, I looked down at the weapons near my pedes, and decided that the only way to break the ice covering up conversation was to just act normally. "Did you repair those correctly? You didn't use any cheap, buy-one-get-a-hundred-free-parts in their reconstruction, right?"

The blue and pink femme's faceplate didn't even twitch at my statement, and she crossed her servos over her chestplates. "That's it?"

Why do I feel like that might not have been the right thing to say? "Um… Yes?"

Arcee blinked at me. Once. Twice. "Really? That's the first thing you say to me in person? Asking me if I repaired your weapons correctly?" A bit of humor entered her optics. "Of course I did. What did you think, I'm some kind of amateur?"

So she was joking. Good. That looked bad for a moment. "Of course not," I said. "I was just making sure they were properly taking care of. Those are some good weapons."

"You mean they were good weapons. Now that I've been taking care of them, they're great weapons," said my everything.

"Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't," I continued our banter. "Did you make sure you clean them with good oil? The bad stuff leaves gunk behind, clogs up the barrels."

"Really? You're concerned about something as basic as that?" Arcee asked, as if in exasperation. "It's like you think I've lost all my skill in the last two jours, Shadow'."

And just like that, our banter ceased, our humour evaporated, and silence fell on us again, with Arcee's faceplate going blank again. Things were bad if we couldn't even keep our banter going. Really bad. How much had my apparent offlining affected her? And how much of that hurt could have been prevented if my battle with the Paraion troops and drones hadn't ended with me being captured?

In any way I looked at it, though, I owed her an explanation, and a serious apology for causing her pain, even when it wasn't my fault.

I took a mental breath. "Arcee, I'm sorry for how everything went that cycle. Th-"

The fist impacted the left side of my jaw. It wasn't hard enough to cause any real damage, but it stung, and it was more than enough to shut me up and whip my helm to the right. It also caused a few of my fellow Autobots to wince, from what I could see out of my peripheral vision.

Damn, femme's right hook is even quicker than it used to be.

I turned my helm back to Arcee, and she gave me a look so serious it bordered on anger. "Do not ever do that to me again, Shadow'. You got that? Do not ever let me believe you're gone. Don't. Do it. Again."

As she spoke, she leaned toward me, pointing a digit at me for emphasis. And it was then, at that odd moment, that I decided I wanted to tell her how I felt. It didn't matter that everyone else was watching, I just wanted to tell her. I had put it off long enough. But how do I say it? There was so much that had to be said, and I didn't have all cycle. Do I suggest it? Is that a weird way to confess? Does the fact she hasn't said it mean I shouldn't say it? Isn't that some sort of rule? Or was that just a rule Sam Witwicky made up in Revenge of the Fallen? Should I g-

Oh, to hell with this.

Before Arcee could return to her normal position, I leaned down slightly and captured her lips with my own. A feeling not unlike electricity started at my lips and spread throughout all my frame. But this electric-like feeling wasn't painful, annoying, or crippling, it was pleasant, enjoyable. It was like nothing else I had experienced before.

And it intensified when Arcee began kissing back, wrapping her servo around my neck and tilting her helm to deepen our embrace, and I found myself pulling her toward me. I felt as if my very being was brushing against hers.

We stayed like that for a long moment before we finally parted, looking into each other's optics. And it was only then that I realized my spark was pulsing happily, and that the unreadable look in Arcee's optics, something I had seen several times before, was in fact love, all along.

"I love you… More than I thought was possible for someone to," I said at a volume only Arcee would hear.

She smiled and touched her forehelm against mine. "I know. And I you."

"I know, too, figured that out before we left the Apex Sentinel to come here. Also realized that you knew while we spoke through the channel. I just wanted to finish what I had been in the middle of saying two jours ago," I said.

"Cheater. You had a head start," Arcee joked.

"Not an intentional one," I joked back.

Our moment was interrupted by the sound of clanging metal. We both looked over and saw that everyone was staring at us, some in mild surprise, others in amusement. Bulkhead, however, had his mouth hanging open in shock, which likely had caused the sound that interrupted us.

"Well, dat conflict seems ta have been resolved quickly," Jazz stated humorously, voicing the look that was on everyone's faceplate. "Ah wasn' expectin' da two of ya to do dat until we were back at base."

Bulkhead closed his mouth and looked at Jazz in surprise. "You were expecting them to do that?"

"Yeah," the saboteur confirmed.

"Why did you expect it?" The green Wrecker asked.

"'Cause Ah' been tryin' ta get them together since Ah arrived on Earth, on account of how they clearly were too afraid ta do it themselves," replied Jazz.

Bulkhead continued looking at Jazz surprise, then seemed to realize no one else was reacting like he was, and he looked at the others. "Who else knew?"

"We knew after talking to them for just a few breems," Flightstorm said, gesturing at Cyberfrost.

"I trapped the youngling and convinced him to tell me," Jetfire added.

"I figured it out before Shadowsteaker beat…" Springer started to say, then paused and looked at the sparkling within hearing distance. "Some sense into me by sitting me down for a nice talk and some energon."

"We've known, too," Moonracer said, raising her servo and giving her mate a pointed look when he didn't do the same immediately.

"I tried to convince Shadowstreaker into telling her," said Bumblebee, leaving out the fact he had actually tried to blackmail me until I blackmailed him back. Pretty sure our agreement was void, now that I had confessed to Arcee.

"I just threatened him not to hurt her," Ironhide said, mostly to the yellow and black scout.

"We've been teasing Arcee about it since shortly after we got here," Chromia confirmed to Bulkhead, pointing a thumb digit at Elita as she spoke.

"Even I was aware of their mutual affection," Prowl stated in his usual tone.

Sideswipe nodded. "Yeah, we knew too." He looked at his twin. "And now it seems that another femme's off the market. We need to step our game up, Sunny."

The yellow twin glared at Sideswipe. "Don't call me that!" He was silent for a brief moment, then added, "... And yes we do."

Almost unnoticably, Bumblebee moved just a little closer to Flareup, who was standing next to him, as if to keep her from the twins' sight.

Real subtle, Bumblebee.

Bulkhead looked around again, focusing mostly on Flareup and Smokscreen. "Am I the only one who didn't know about this?!"

Flareup tentatively shrugged. "Bumblebee told me."

"I suspected, didn't know," Smokescreen said, barring from taking his servos off his crutches.

The green Wrecker took note of how he hadn't found a supporter, and looked at Optimus hopefully, since he hadn't spoken yet.

The Prime shook his helm once. "I knew," I answered simply.

Bulkhead looked like he didn't know how to react to this news.

"Ah, cheer up, Bulkhead," said Ironhide, slapping the smaller mech across the backplates, knocking Bulkhead forward a few feet due to his 'Light' slap. "Being clueless to a friend's budding romance is nothing to be embarrassed about. Now, the second time..."

We all shared a light laugh at that, and even Bulkhead couldn't keep a smile off his faceplate, despite being the topic of the humor.

I looked down at the femme that I still held close to me as Bulkhead started to defend himself, and she looked up. There was so much in her gaze I hadn't noticed before we kissed, so much that couldn't be put into words. That included a curiosity that I could easily identify and understand. She wanted to know what happened to me.

That was going to be a long talk, simply because there were so many things that I was going to have to cover. How I was captured, the planet I was taken to, buildings and the sphere there, Extremis, the Paraions, my… Interrogations… And my escape.

But they could wait until after we were back at base, and I properly united with everyone else I had been apart from. Right now…

I leaned down like I had before and made my lips connect with Arcee's again, and she kissed me back as the electric feeling spread through my frame again.

… Right now, I was going to enjoy being home at last.

---

(Human calendar) July 15, 2013 1:47 P.M (UTC-6:00 Mountain Standard Time)

(Cybertronian Date) 1103432 (Centi-vorns since Golden Age)

Ventqura Munitum, unknown star system in the NGC 3109 galaxy (Unofficially named)

Extremis stood at the window of his sanctuary, sipping his cube of high-grade, waiting for Praxis to bring him a report he had been waiting on for far too long.

The Xel'Tor had escaped three mega-cycles ago, leading to the Hammer being destroyed. And yet, his analyst teams had taken this amount of time to formulate an answer as to what exactly happened. It was an inefficient investigation. He would need to speak to the leader of it after he was given the report.

The quiet beep identifying someone requesting entrance to the room sounded. Praxis had arrived.

"Enter," Extremis said to the empty air, turning around and slowly walking toward his gravity chair. He was not going to sit in it, but he was in need to checking his data feed from a project.

The door opened, and Praxis stepped through it, his right servo holding a data pad.

"What are the findings of the investigation?" The Paraions' leader asked, impossibly deep and mechanical voice unchanged, yet also making it clear the fact the report was more than anything else at the moment.

Praxis turned the report around, and presented the proper end to his leader once he reached him. "The Hard-Light Projector left very little behind, but there was enough evidence from what was found, and from the outer cameras of the refueling station, to reach a conclusion."

Extremis took the report from his first lieutenant, and read through it in a mere micro-klick. So, the ship had been crippled by Hard-Light entering its systems, as he had suspected from the beginning. That would make the sub-space rupture the Hammer opened an unstable one. Unfortunate. "They could not find the Hammer's sub-space stream."

"No, they couldn't," said Praxis, folding his servos behind his backplates and spreading his pedes out to shoulder-joint width. "It could be anywhere within almost thirteen-million light-years of space."

The Paraions' leader was aware of this fact, as he had created the sub-space drive. But Praxis was only following protocol. No need to rebuke the dark grey and red mech over informing him of things he already knew. "Or, the vessel has not yet completed its journey," he stated. "There is also the possibility that its jump led it to its doom."

His first lieutenant was quiet for a time, certainly thinking, going over the information they had. "Do you believe what was left of the Hammer was destroyed?"

"I do not," Extremis answered without a nano-klick of hesitation. "We are both aware of who was on that ship. All Paraions are."

"So, then the Xel'Tor is still online," Praxis concluded.

"Yes," Extremis said, giving the data pad back to his lieutenant before turning around and returning to his previous spot in front of the window. "And I believe he is the reason the ship moved at all."

The dark grey and red mech folded his servos behind his backplates again after being given the data pad. "Should we begin a search for him?"

"No. The Xel'Tor may be online, but that does not mean we can find him," stated the leader of the Paraions. "There are too many systems to search, too many planets and moons where the Hammer may have been taken to, for us to search for him."

"Then what do we do?" His first lieutenant asked. "The Xel'Tor is a critical part of your plans. We cannot complete them without him."

Extremis did not bother to correct Praxis. The mech did not know how many failsafes and fallbacks he had. "The information in his helm is not complete. Without it, he is of far less use than I believed." He glanced at Praxis. "We will leave him to whatever fate has led him to. He is of little importance at the present. If he becomes a critical component again, we will move galaxies to find him. But now, we do not have the spare time and resources needed for a search of such scale. We must press forward."

Praxis straightened his posture out even more than usual. "What are you commands?"

The Paraions' leader turned back to the window, and drank a little of his high-grade. "Inform the shipyards and the harvester crews that Project:Reform is to begin early. And contact Stormblast, tell him he is to be given all the resources he needs to unlock as many technologies as he can, and to analyze the partial information from the Xel'Tor's processor."

"As you wish, Extremis," the dark grey and red mech said, turning on his heel and beginning to walk to the door.

"I was not finished, Praxis," Extremis stated tonelessly.

Praxis came to a halt and turned back to his leader.

"Also contact Lancer," Extremis said when his lieutenant had stopped. "Tell him that he and his units are to start hatching the eggs."

The dark grey and red mech ceased all thought, and he felt the faintest trace of uncertainty for the first time in many vorns, when they attempted the very thing Extremis had just ordered. "Extremis, with all due respect, I do not believe that is wise. They have already proven to be exceedingly difficult to control for any amount of time."

"Your opinion on the matter, has been noted, Praxis," Extremis said blankly, still looking out of his window.

Praxis knew he had just been excused, and he turned and walked out of the room, still wondering if this was the best course of action.

After his first lieutenant left his sanctuary, Extremis took another drink from his cube and walked back to his chair. He understood Praxis' uncertainty about hatching the eggs. Their first and only attempt to hatch them previously left several soldiers offline or in an infirmary, including Praxis himself. But they had advanced since then, improved, and learned from past mistakes. And their potential value far surpassed their initial risk. They would save countless lives, when controlled properly, and destroy even the worst enemies. He only wished he had the chance to have soldiers like that long ago… At different battles than the ones they would face.

Extremis attempted to crush his unwanted thoughts, but he found that he couldn't. Again. He had been having trouble keeping his processor of the past since he had first seen the Xel'Tor. And that… That was for obvious reasons.

The pure white mech looked at the far right wall of his sanctuary, where a hidden door known only to him was located. The room he stood in was merely his workplace, the room beyond the concealed door was his real sanctuary.

And it had been a long time since he had let himself step into it.

"Vigilance," Extremis said to the air, to his personal AI that only he knew existed. "Seal the main door and send a message with my identification that my duties will demand my full attention for the rest of the cycle. Handle any situation that comes up as your matrix deems I would."

"As you command, sir," Vigilance answered, its deep voice echoing off the walls, before returning to its usual silence.

The leader of the Paraions finished his cube of high-grade, set it down on the arm of his gravity chair, then walked to the hidden door.

He reached it in moments. Then he placed his servo against the wall, where he knew a disguised servo scanner was located, and also looked at a particular point on the wall that contained an optic scanner.

After a moment, the two scanners confirmed Extremis' identity, and the hidden door slid into the floor, revealing a room of surprising size on the other side.

The room was filled with objects that Extremis once carried in his sub-space. To anyone else, they would seem meaningless, but to him, each of them held a thousand memories of a past time. A past life.

Slowly, and without his usual, measured and precise pace, Extremis stepped into the room, letting himself take in every object he saw, remember every memory he normally kept buried in the depths of his CPU.

He sat down in the only chair in the room, located directly in the middle of every object, and he looked at each and every one of them, recalling every memory each object was associated with.

Extremis sat there for breems, remembering each battle of the past, every event he had been through, every disaster he hadn't been able to prevent… And all those he had failed… So very long ago...

---

And so, Arcee and Shadowstreaker have gotten together, at long last.

You know, I first revealed that Shadow' liked Arcee way back in February of 2012. I know this partially because I remember the general time of year I post my chapters, and also because that was the first chapter Crystal Prime beta read for me. Now look at this story. Two full years since I began writing it *Woo-hoo!*, a number of new followers, and some who've been here since the start, a vast improvement in the quality of updates *I've looked back at my early work... The horror*, many, many characters, sub-plots, and main plots, and roughly 335,000 words since that particular update.

I have one thing to say about that. Holy mother of crap. That's... That's about 55,000 more words than are in Inheritance. JUST SINCE THAT CHAPTER. With the chapters before added on, this is over 400,000 words long. Am I the only one who looks at that and thinks, "Really?" It's crazy to me. It's INSANE.

... And yet, I want to go bigger, better. I have a book series that I have mentioned that I want to write. It would be well beyond the length of this, I believe. But I've been neglecting it, and only have the prologue written of the first novel. And THAT'S not even to be a rough draft, it will be a rough, rough draft.

So this is what I am saying. I need to work on my original books more than I have been, so I can actually get progress done on them, so that maybe someone, somewhere will go to a bookstore, pick up that novel, read it and realize, "THIS PERSON WROTE FANFICTION!" So I am not entirely sure how quickly I will be able to update.

Don't get me wrong, I am not going to neglect this story like I have been with my books. I love this too much to NOT work on it. But I also am going to be making a real effort to work on my novels at the same time. And I also have another idea for a reboot of my Lord of the Rings story, set in a different fandom. But that one is going to be a while off. Still, though, I am going to start working on multiple projects, so updates will probably not be as fast. With any luck, I will still update at my current rate, or maybe a bit faster, but I can't make any guarantees.

Now, as for the ending of this chapter... No comment. :P

This chapter's credit song is "Skillet - Good To Be Alive" To me, this song fits with the entire theme I had set for the confession/fluffiness that is THE scene of the chapter. At least, the first part does. The second part, however, is a totally different song, an that fits with very end... But not for reasons you might think. I leave you with that.

Please take a little time to leave some feedback on this chapter, since I did a lot of experimenting with how I wrote it, and how I presented certain things. Any feedback you decide to leave is greatly appreciated and loved by me. Each one makes me think of how to improve. And thank you, each and every one of you, for taking the time out of your day or night or read this chapter, which is even MORE ridiculously long than my last. :)

See you soon.