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.

40. Clearing the Air

Welp, seems I can't reverse how long it takes me to write a chapter. At least I am having a lot of fun with each one, though.

Sorry for taking a long time with this one *again*. I really have no excuse besides my muse being a bugger. Really not nice.

Thank you, all my reviewers, followers and... Favoriters? *doesn't think that's a word* Fate Calls is continuing to grow in terms of readers and favorites, and it's obviously all thanks to you. Thank you all. :)

guest - Wow. Favorite person on Earth? I feel like that's extreme - I'm just a guy who loves writing. :)

And I TRY to work on three at once, but only this one seems to progress regularly. Not sure why.

Thank you for reviewing and I hope you enjoy this update!

greatitsthatguy - It's totally fine; sometimes what we say comes across in a way we don't mean.

Hope this update is worth the wait like the last one, in your own words!

Guest (Chapter 37) - The Insecticons in general. I meant for that line to be the "reveal" of the scene, and it was easy to use since they had it in Fall of Cybertron.

Thank you for reviewing.

Guest (Chapter 9) - 1: You are reading chapters that were written more than two years ago; they are far from good or consistent. And 2: I actually watch whatever episode my chapters are based on, and rewatch it multiple times. Chapters of this story are not meant to be a perfect retelling of Prime (If it was, why wouldn't I just watch the show?). I change events to fit my own story. Sometimes these changes are minor, and sometimes they are major, as you can probably see by now if you are still reading.

Thank you for reviewing, and I hope this clarifies a few things for you.

Guest (Chapter 10) - I am aware. Everything up to chapter 20 needs to be rewritten, in my book. My ealry work has too many errors and too much sloppy work for it to represent what I write now.

Thanks for reviewing.

Guest (Chapter 11) - I have mostly phased out "responded" from my current work; it just doesn't flow very well.

Thanks for leaving feedback.

Guest (Chapter 12) - Thank you, both for the statement and the review.

Guest (Chapter 34) - Indeed. It is... Problematic.

Thanks for the review.

Guest (Chapter 35) - Actually, that is not correct. SMGs in the Transformers universe has no set name or function - the only examples of SMGs I can think of off the top of my head are Subsonic Repeater as you mentioned already. However, those only exist in War for Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron, and Rise of the Dark Spark. They do not exist anywhere else in the Transformers franchise. Their existence also does not mean they are the only SMGs Cybertronians ever created. Secura's SMGs are not Subsonic Repeaters, otherwise I would have just called them so. I invent weapons when I desire something new, and I decided to add something new for Secura.

Thanks for leaving a review.

Guest (Chapter 26) - I never saw the movie because of what I heard said about it. Everyone I talked to found it a big disappointment, and the ending a huge letdown that went against the canon they had already set up. I had no desire to see it after that. However, I bet that line itself was hilarious to hear. Haha.

Thank you for the review.

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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July 28, 2013 1:41 P.M

Autobot base, outside Jasper, Nevada

Nearly two mega-cycles has past since Ultra Magnus, Broadside, and the Dinobots joined our ranks. And they had been quite busy.

Optimus—despite protests from Ratchet, Moonracer, and pretty much everyone else—had forced himself to repair all the damage done to the base by the seawater, no matter how minor the damage was. Within breems of his return to base, the Prime created a temporary communications system, a one-use ground bridge for Wildwing and his creators to get back to the Collected, and replaced half a dozen systems that had been fried by the water; I assisted in the repairs when I could. His progress was halted when we received a message in Morse Code from General Shepherd, asking what we knew about a US Navy ship—the USS Michael Murphy—that was lost near Shockwave's base. After sending a reply to the S.T.F's leader, Optimus finally listened to our advice to retire to the med-bay; however, he only did so after Elita said he would be more effective at repairing the base if he was rested. While that was a logical argument, the Prime ignored me when I suggested the same thing. I found that to be amusing.

As soon as Optimus onlined the following cycle, he went right back to repairing the base, and a pattern in his schedule formed: he onlined for the solar-cycled, worked almost without pause, and reluctantly recharged after he had worn himself into the ground. It was hard to watch him push himself so hard, but the results of his efforts clearly showed everywhere you looked.

The Safe, space bridge, and hallways of the base were now scaled to the Dinobots—Grimlock, specifically—and they now had their own washracks and quarters.

All the systems damaged or destroyed by the seawater were repaired or replaced—the space bridge had even been rebuilt two solar-cycles faster than its initial construction.

The electrical systems of the ops center were now waterproofed, and a drain had been installed around the space bridge, allowing it to remain open underwater for a klick before the ops center started to flood.

The ruined entertainment center for Jack, Raf, and Miko—rendered useless by the water—had also been replaced, improved, and placed a raised platform for their enjoyment. Whenever they were on base, they usually could be found there.

Despite Optimus' success in returning the base to full functionality, we still were not able to patrol as large an area as before, or go out on as many missions as we should have been. Many of my fellow Autobots, Optimus included, were still injured from Shockwave's ambush on the ocean floor, and they could barely sit up, let alone fight. Arcee, Jazz, Optimus, the twins, and Bulkhead were in good enough condition to move around for limited periods of time—even if Optimus decided limited meant unlimited for him—but most were still recovering.

Most being the keyword of that statement.

Baring Grimlock, the Dinobots had been invaluable in keeping the Decepticons from taking advantage of our injuries. They were incredibly effective at offlining Decepticons, and five times already, they—on their own—won skirmishes we normally would have given up on. Their teamwork was more than impressive.

Broadside, too, had been a valuable asset in the time since he was cleared for duty by the still-wounded Ratchet. He carried an insane amount of firepower on his chassis: two Heavy Neutron Cannons; twelve Thermo Missile pods with eight missiles each; a Photon Grenade Rifle built into side of each shoulder-joint; two triple-barreled Scatter-Blasters; two plasma-coated flails he could deploy from his servos; a belt of D-9 Frag Grenades; one Razer Heavy Pistol he kept as a backup; one Plasma Artillery Gun and four anti-air Combustion Flak Cannons he had to be in one of his two ground-based alt modes in order to use; and one custom rotary cannon he had to pull from his backplates, which was essentially a large turret shell containing the parts of four X-18 Scrapmakers fused into one, monstrous weapon he called, 'The Decimator.' Needless to say, Broadside had replaced me as the heavy weapons specialist on the team.

… For now.

The massive Wrecker was a tremendous help to the Dinobots, being by far the most heavily armed of all of us. While the Dinobots tended to be brawlers, Broadside provided the heavy ordinance and, if necessary, artillery strikes from afar. He still got up in close combat—if the marks I almost constantly saw on his armor said anything—but his primary role was simply to shoot as much as possible. And he had been doing it very well since he and the Dinobots started carrying out the majority of our missions.

At least, that is what I had been told; secondhand accounts was all I had to go on, since I hadn't actually seen Broadside or any of the Dinobots fight in person.

My suspension had not been reversed, despite the fact I was one of the few uninjured, non-Seconds on base—I had found out Broadside himself was a Second, and had been since his first frame was almost entirely destroyed during the Sack of Crystal City. It was frustrating, being forced to the sidelines while I sent other Autobots out into the field. But, even though I was annoyed at not being able to go out on missions, I did genuinely enjoy the time I got to spend with Arcee as she continued to recover from her wounds.

Still, the time I had with her would be better if I didn't have to operate the space bridge so much, like I was doing now.

"I still don't get it," Fowler said as he paced the catwalk next to me, shaking his head. "You're telling me that your spark—your heart, basically—chose Arcee as the woman you needed to be in a relationship with? By itself?"

I chuckled shortly, internally smiling at Fowler's struggles to understand the terms and unusual aspects of Cybertronians. But, I suppose it was understandable; even I wouldn't have believed most concepts involving Cybertronians back when I was still a human. And I had been giving him a lot of information to process during our conversation; this was the first time he and I had a chance to speak since most of my fellow Autobots had been injured—Fowler's schedule had been occupied by dealing with the fallout of the USS Michael Murphy being sunk.

"Basic way of saying it, but yes," I answered, watching the life signals of Broadside, Swoop, Sludge, Snarl, and Slug as they battled the Decepticons over a smuggler's cache we detected deep underground in a remote area of the Canadian subdivision of Nunavut. It probably was filled with now-worthless goods and chits of Shanix, what I learned had been Cybertron's official currency before the war. But it was better to investigate every signal and find nothing, then ignore one reading and miss recovering a WMD.

"And you don't find it at all unnerving that a part of your body makes life-changing decisions for you, whether you know about them or not?"

"Surprised, not unnerved. Sparks are strange, even to Cybertronians. At times, they seem to be more aware of what we need or what is best for us long before we do; however, Chromia and Ironhide would be better bots to talk to about that habit of sparks—they have much more experience in that department. Most of us don't listen to what our sparks tell us, as they tend to be far ahead of our processors. The fact my spark and Arcee's have Imprinted on each other is a great example of that."

Fowler shook his head, a bemused smile on his face. "Do you ever stop and think about how strange some of the things you say sound to us humans?"

My response was to give Fowler a flat look, blinking once with an audible click.

The government agent paused at my look, then appeared to understand why I was giving it to him. "And you weren't always Cybertronian. I knew that. Sometimes it's easy to forget you were a human when I first met you."

"No apology is necessary, Fowler—I understand. You spent all of a few hours with me while I was a human, the vast majority of which you were recovering from being interrogated by Starscream. Ever since then, you've seen me as a Cybertronian. That has resulted in your mind to subconsciously consider me a Cybertronian even before I changed, due to how little time we interacted before my transformation," I said.

"True enough," said the government agent. He crossed his arms, looking down at my pedes before focusing on my faceplate again. "Guess it's hard for my brain to picture you as a six and a half foot teen, and not a forty-five foot tall walking death machine."

In an instant, my mood fell, and I put a blank look on my faceplate. Memories of my actions on the Hammer rushed me, flooding my vision with waking images of the optics of each bot I saw on that ship.

Every mech and femme I offlined without hesitation.

Fowler quickly realized what he said. "That didn't come out the way I wanted it to. What I meant was, it's getting harder to remember you haven't always been an Autobot."

I pushed my memories aside at Fowler's clarification. "I know."

We were both quiet for a while after that. Fowler just stood on the catwalk, while I watched the life signals of the Autobots in the field. One signal, Slug's, flickered for a nano-klick before returning to a level just below it had been before. If I had to guess, he probably was just shot several times before he offlined his attackers.

"Do you always react that way when you're reminded of your Protocol?" Fowler asked, his voice cautious.

I understood why he was uncertain. During the course of our conversation, I had been explaining to Fowler everything that happened to me while I was away—the Hammer, Quriomus Protocol, Imprinting, and the Pulling being discussed points. But up until now, he hadn't asked me how I felt about the Protocol, or my actions. He clearly didn't know how to to approach the topic.

"Only after what I did on the Hammer," I said. "Before, when it only activated for me to destroy MECH and Airachnid, I found the Protocol… Acceptable. What the Protocol did was ugly and brutal, for sure, but it also saved Arcee from being dissected and stopped Airachnid and MECH from ever harming someone else again. It did some good, back then."

"And when you activated it on the Hammer?"

I didn't answer that.

Fowler seemed to spend a few micro-klicks gathering his thoughts, then asked, "Have you thought about taking a break for a while? Sorting yourself out? Because I can tell you haven't done that yet."

An electrified sword flashed before my optics, slicing through my tank and exiting through my backplates with ease. It took everything I had not to cry out in agony.

Mad laughter and a twisted joke from an equally twisted mech echoed around the room, then a plasma torch cut through my optics.

I shook my helm, clearing my processor of my memories for the second time in only five to six klicks. I was going to have to keep a better lockdown on my CPU. "I'm fine, William," I said, making it look like I was tapping the symbol on the side of my helm as I brought a digit over my right optic to reassure myself that I could see out of it; that injury had been particularly painful and hard to take without breaking. "Everything up here is intact."

Fowler crossed his arms. "Then why'd you use my first name? You never do that."

"I decided to change things up."

The government agent gave me an unbelieving look, but his phone—modified like Jack, Miko, and Raf's to work through the shielding on our base—rang before he could state an opinion, if he had been planning to. He pulled the phone from his belt and answered it. "Special Agent Fowler." He paused, and my audio receptors picked up the garbled words of a woman on the other end—I couldn't understand what she was saying.

Fowler frowned and started walking toward the human elevator. "What do you mean you lost the train?" He asked incredulously as he opened the elevator doors. He stepped into the lift and pressed the button for the helicopter pad, then disappeared as the doors closed and the elevator started to move toward the top of the base.

"Nice talking to you, too," I said sarcastically, making note of how quickly Fowler had left. Whatever that train he mentioned was carrying, it must have been very important to leave without a word to me.

But in truth, it was relieving that Fowler had left. I didn't like talking about the Hammer or my time as the Paraions' captive—it made me uncomfortable and made me think about things I should keep off my processor. It was… Better, not thinking about what I went through… Or those I offlined on that ship.

"Is it common for you to speak to yourself?"

I turned my helm to the hallway leading further into the base and saw Override standing there, a confused look on her faceplate. When did she get here? I didn't even hear her steps echoing in the hallway. "Not out loud, no. How long have you been in the room?"

"Less than one klick," the femme Velocitronian answered as she walked further into the ops center, her steps creating almost no noise even when I was listening.

I looked down at her pedes briefly before returning my optics to her faceplate. "How are you walking so quietly? The only bot I've seen make less noise is Arcee when she's on a stealth mission."

"A Velocitronian is much lighter than a Cybertronian. This is true especially for femmes such as I, even when we are far taller than our Cybertronian counterparts. Naturally, we have developed the habit of walking light on our pedes." Override stepped up to a secondary screen of the other part of the workstation and started to clear some non-essential programs I was running on that section. "That, and your courted has given me some advice on stealth while she has been recovering."

"That sounds like her. Always giving tips on how to sneak up on other bots. Also sounds like how she acts on a regular basis."

"How is her behavior similar?" Asked Override as she finished clearing the programs from the workstation she was using and opened a new program that contained detailed diagrams of all of Earth's vehicles for the purpose of providing us potential alt modes. She had yet to choose an alt mode, despite searching for one on three occasions so far—she obviously was starting attempt number four. "From what I have seen of her, she is not one to sneak about."

"I gave the wrong impression, then. Sorry. What I am talking about is the way she carries herself, her unconscious habits. She typically walks in an ordered, guarded manner, prepared for action—and is always quieter than she needs to be. When standing in a room with multiple bots she does not know well or trust, her training unconsciously kicks in and she positions herself where either her backplates are to the wall, or she can view everyone in the room with minimal effort. And if she is in her quarters, she usually angles her chair so she can be at her desk, working, while keeping an optic on the door through her peripheral vision. She makes everything look natural and unnoteworthy, but I notice."

Override paused in her reviewing of potential alt modes—most of which I couldn't see from my angle, due to her using a secondary screen—to look at me, confusion in her optics. "How do you know all of that?"

I shrugged. "I'm perceptive, and she's never denied at times unconsciously reacting as she was trained to when faced with certain situations. But she hasn't been doing it as much since I returned. She seems to be letting herself act less like a soldier and more like a bot more often than before I was taken." I paused, a thought coming to me. "Or she's just gotten better at hiding her reactions from me; she was very good at hiding it even before I was gone." Now that I thought about it, her improving her ability to hide her actions was more likely than allowing herself to relax more. With the amount of missions she went on the level of training she received, she couldn't just stop. Not that it was a bad move on her part, of course—it was good to be alert even while you spent free time with friends and fellow soldiers.

So what did that say about me?

Override nodded, movement stiff like she had to appear firm to soldiers under her command. That was instinctive behavior on her part, I had learned. "Your skills in observation are advanced, in that case. That is useful, on and off the battlefield."

"You really don't let yourself relax in the slightest, do you?" I asked, taking note of how she ignored my humor yet again—I had yet to see her laugh or smile. Maybe Velocitronians tended to be more serious because Velocitron had always been so scarce on resources. Made sense, since we used to worry about where we would get the resources we needed to survive before we recovered my carrier's Forge.

"No," replied the red and yellow femme, changing the screen in front of her to show the next page of potential alt modes. "Command does not allow one to relax, no matter where they are."

"You aren't in command."

"That may be, but being in command for a prolonged period of time affects you, changes your outlook. It is not a thought process that can be turned off, or properly explained to another bot who has not taken up a command of their own." She glanced at me. "I do not mean that as an insult to your ability to understand other thought processes."

"I didn't take it as one," I said, analyzing her response for signs there was another reason she didn't relax. To have the proper thought process of a commander—immoveable, calm, and emotionally solid as Primax—so your soldiers had someone to look up to was exactly as a leader should do. But to continue keeping that thought process, even after no longer being a leader in your unit, only brought harm to yourself. If you did not relax at all, the stress of being a soldier could become too much; and if a bot became too stressed, they could become a danger in combat and off the battlefield. From an outside perspective, her justification for never letting herself relax were illogical—even stupid.

But then again, Override was right in the fact I had never been in command. The closest I had come to being in charge of something was after the Dinobots, Ultra Magnus, and Broadside arrived— and that didn't count as command, since all I had to do was tell everyone else which bot's injuries should be treated first, and where to put them in the med-bay. Without having experience at real command, I couldn't say whether or not Override's reasons were sound or not. Maybe command really did change you.

"Good." She turned back to the side of the workstation she was standing at and returned to her search for an alt mode. After a moment, she let out a slightly irritated huff. "This planet lacks stylish or aerodynamic land vehicles."

I watched as Broadside's life signal flickered for half a micro-klick before returning to full strength, then walked over to stand behind Override and look at her screen to see what vehicles she was judging for a potential alt mode

She was looking at muscle cars at the moment, ranging from classics from the 1960's, 70's and 80's, to modern Dodge Challengers and Chargers, Ford Mustangs, Chevy Camaros, and the Cadillac STS family.

Ah. Now I understand why she thinks Earth doesn't make aerodynamic cars. Muscle cars—while looking and sounding good—were far from efficient. They were fast in a straight line, but they were too heavy, too sluggish in the corners to be truly effective at racing. One of the only exceptions to this was the STS, but that was because it was closer to a sports car than a muscle car.

"You're looking at the wrong type of vehicles for someone like you—they aren't designed primarily for racing or taking corners quickly," I said, walking back to my part of the workstation. "Most of the options on that page are cars that are mostly built for their blunt looks and ability to go fast in a straight line, or just make a lot of noise."

Override looked at me, blinked, and looked back at the alt mode options in front of her. "What is the point of creating a vehicle when it is not meant for racing?"

"Practicality. Cybertronians and Velocitronians have the luxury of being able to chose what kind of land-base or aerial vehicle we use for travel. If we don't like our alt mode—or alt modes, in my case—we can just upgrade ourselves by picking one that better fits our personal preferences. But humans don't have that ability. They need to build the vehicles they use to travel across this planet. And without them, they will be confined to a limited area. As a result, most of their vehicles must be designed for common use: getting to their places of work; traveling for vacations; seeing family; going to social events; and a number of other uses. They still make racing vehicles, of course, but they are designed to be used only on racing circuits, and would make you stand out in public places almost as much as Broadside would."

"Humans are boring, then."

"I thought you didn't let yourself relax?"

"There is a difference between relaxing and making sure I can chase a target to the best of my abilities," said Override, backtracking smoothly and without so much as a hint that she had slipped up and said she enjoyed driving.

I stared at the red and yellow femme for a moment, but let her earlier comment slide and looked back at the life signals of Broadside and the Dinobots. "Then I would recommend searching for an alt mode in a different class of vehicles. A sports car is probably what you're looking for; they handle corners better than muscle cars and are considered more stylish."

Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Override type at her end of the workstation for a moment, step to the side, then look at me. "Are these 'Sports' cars?"

I glanced away from my screen and looked at Override's. The file for an Alfo Romeo 4C was on the screen, but I could faintly see files of other sports cars beyond the image of the 4C. "Yes, you're in the right place."

"Good. Then I did not make a mistake."

Override went back to her search after that, and I went back to waiting for the Dinobots and Broadside to call for the space bridge. They had been gone for a while, but that was to be expected, given how deep below the surface the smuggler's cache was located—it was more than three miles down.

The Velocitronian femme and I stood in silence—me watching life signals of fellow Autobots, and she looking for her alt mode—until she asked, "Are these truly the best options for alt modes I have available?"

I looked at her screen again, and was met by the sight of an image of the 2014 SRT Viper. I raised an optic ridge. "What is wrong with with the Viper? It is considered a very good sports car; some consider it a supercar."

"Its hood is too long, its wheel-wells are too open, too prone to drag; it does not offer much in terms of downforce, and it is too tall," Override listed off quickly, then took interest in the last thing I said. "What is a supercar?"

"Supercars are best-performing civilian vehicles on Earth." I walked over and opened up the supercar category of the program, an image of a white Zenvo ST1 appearing in place of the Viper. "They are faster, handle better, and are generally much more aerodynamic than the rest of Earth's land vehicles. However, they also tend to attract far more attention than normal cars, which could be a problem if you were trying to remain undetected."

I looked at Override, and from the look in her optics, I could tell she didn't care about whether she would attract attention or not—she wanted a supercar as her alt mode. "Show me another."

Taking the fact she didn't want to touch the keyboard as a sign she was now much more serious about getting an alt mode, I didn't protest and went to the next supercar in line. It was a Lamborghini Aventador, just like the twins' alt modes.

"That one is too similar to the alt modes of Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. Please go to the next one."

"I think that's a good idea," I said, changing the image on the screen. "I've walked in on twins hitting on you enough. If you took the same alt mode as them, they'd take that as a sign to hit on you even more."

Override looked me, her optics and faceplate showing pure confusion. "What are you saying? They have never struck me, nor seemed to have the intention of doing so. Why would they want to attack me for having the same alt mode they have chosen?"

I paused, stopping myself from typing before I could bring up the next picture, and looked fully at Override incredulously to see if she was joking. Her optics were curious, her optic ridges were lowered in puzzlement, she was looking at me expectantly, and her frame was not raking from poorly masked laughter.

She genuinely didn't know the term 'Hitting on' was commonly used when someone was talking about flirting. And she really was completely oblivious to the fact the twins hit on her every time she encountered them, or at least every time I saw them together; the twins tended to avoid me as much as possible.

And here I thought I was an oblivious bot.

"Nevermind." I brought up the next car on the list. It was a Gumpert Apollo, a supercar famous for its handling. "What do you think of that?"

"Its style does not fit with my own. But, it is at least built for superior handling. Next."

Sighing at her pickiness, I brought up the next supercar. It was a SSC Ultimate Aero, a previous record holder for Earth's fastest production car.

"It is focused too much on going in a straight line. Next."

I brought up the next image, the last one I would do before returning to my end of the workstation—I had spent enough time helping her. The car was a Koenigsegg One:1, a supercar that—according to the notice that appeared on the top of the screen—was not scheduled to be revealed to the public until an auto show next March; our program included prototype civilian vehicles, due to a standing agreement with multiple nations to allow us access to the best alt modes available in exchange for advancements in combustion engines that, in one way or another, were partially responsible for the creation of some features and technologies used in their creation.

Override's optics widened a quarter of an inch. "That one."

"You want that one as your alt mode?"

"Yes."

I looked at the One:1's specifications: estimated top speed of two-hundred and eighty miles per hour; acceleration so great it was able to achieve nearly two-hundred and fifty miles per hour in just twenty micro-klicks; excellent breaking; a good amount of downforce at any speed; price of about two-million US Dollars; and production limited to six, uniquely developed vehicles.

That could be a problem.

"Are you sure this is the only one you want as your alt mode?" I asked. "By next orbital-cycle, this will be known as one of the most expensive vehicles on Earth, and it's production is extremely limited in numbers. You're going to attract even more attention to yourself than the twins do, and that's saying a lot."

"Its height is low enough for my tastes, it has visual appeal, it is designed for the track, and it is admittedly fast for a vehicle produced by a Tier 4 race—it is a perfect model for me to use to my full abilities," Override said. She gestured for me to move away from the screen. "Please, allow me to finally take my first Earth alt mode."

I wordlessly stepped out of her way, knowing from her reaction that she was not going to chose another car.

Override stepped directly in front of the screen, and her faceplate went completely blank, her optics staring ahead, unseeing and as wide open as they could go. While it was easier to be physically close to a vehicle when we scanned and chose it as our alternate form, Cybertronians could scan a vehicle just by looking at its blueprints. This method of scanning a vehicle took far longer than seeing a working version with our own optics—anywhere from five klicks to two breems, depending on the quality of the blueprints—but it also allowed us to take a very wide range of alt modes without having to leave a secure location with the disadvantage of having no alternate form, and even modify them according to our liking; it was how I had gotten my own alt modes.

After about ten klicks, Override's faceplate and optics returned to normal. Her armor started changing shape, thousands of her parts shifting and rearranging to create sections that were perfect impersonations of the human supercar she had taken as her alternate form. Once her armor had finished taking its new look, she transformed in the equally complex way all Cybertronians—whether they were from Cybertron or not—did, and changed into her Earth alt mode for the first time.

She had made a few modifications to her Koenigsegg form. It was a little shorter than the official specifications indicated, and also about two feet longer. Her vehicle form was much thinner than the production One:1 would be. Two additional vents were now at the back of her alt mode, clearly added to create greater downforce. The front and rear spoilers were also modified to provide the maximum amount of downforce and additional traction. The modifications made her Koenigsegg look much sleeker and refined than the one in the blueprints—that was saying something.

"Please, open the front door," Override said, voice more disembodied since she was in vehicle form. "I want to test this vehicle to determine whether it will hamper my mobility."

"Just don't allow any humans to see you," I said, and walked over to my own station and typed in the command to open the front door.

"They will not." The Velocitronian femme revved her engine once, the sound louder than most car engines yet also high-pitched; it sounded like a turbo-charged, motorcycle-sports car hybrid. Then she sped down the entrance tunnel at speeds that quickly surpassed what I was capable of on the ground. The sound of her engine echoed down the tunnel even after her life signal appeared on my workstation screen.

She was already moving at two-hundred and twenty miles an hour when she left the tunnel, but accelerated when she was in the open and soared up to three-hundred and seventy-seven miles an hour and moved toward a a section of roads so far out of the way and remote, they had fallen into disrepair. She slowed down when she reached the unkept roads, but still was moving at a faster pace than any human production car could achieve. After a moment, she went off the main road and onto a dirt one without decelerating—she accelerated again, in fact. She reached a sharp turn in the dirt road, but instead of slowing down to take the bend smoothly, she entered the turn at almost full speed and turned almost ninety degrees to her right, her momentum carrying her all the way through the bend and perfectly into the next straight. She had drifted around the corner.

I chuckled at Override's actions and finally closed the front door. Making sure it didn't hamper her mobility, my aft; she was taking her Koenigsegg form out for a joyride, plain and simple. Not that she would admit that, to herself or others. That would mean she did something for the fun of it, the enjoyment it brought her—and that was a form of relaxation. She did not relax. That wasn't something a commander could do, in her own words. And yet, that was exactly what she was doing right now, judging by what I could see on the screen.

Wonder if Arcee would want to race with her when she recovered. My courted might be able to get Override to relax more openly, if they raced regularly.

An unknown energy reading abruptly appeared on the screen, in the same area as Broadside and the Dinobots. It was small at first, but expanded rapidly in size until it was threatening to engulf the life signals of my fellow Autobots. And—according to the readings on the screen—the unknown signal was hot. Very hot. And getting hotter as it expanded in size.

That couldn't be good.

"Broadside to base—we need a space bridge! Now, preferably!" Broadside's voice came through a communications channel even as I went to open one with him. "Come on. You hear me, Shadowstreaker? We need a bridge!"

"I'm working on it," I said, locking onto Broadside and the Dinobots' exact location as quickly as I could; the fact they were miles beneath Earth's surface made it a bit more difficult than normal.

"Time is of the essence, here!"

After another micro-klick, I locked onto their location and opened the space bridge right in front of them.

Broadside came tumbling through the green portal less than half a micro-klick after it opened, his armor bearing at least a score of scorch marks from explosives or weapons fire.

After he came through, Swoop sprinted into the space bridge tunnel after Broadside. Slug, Snarl, and Sludge exited the space bridge right after Swoop. All of them had visible signs of battle on their armor, though not as many as Broadside. And all of them looked panicked, and it was easy to see why.

Behind them, visible even in the space bridge itself, was a wall of blue fire from what had to be an energon explosion.

"Close the space bridge! NOW!" Broadside roared urgently.

I had already been moving by the time Broadside shouted, and closed the space bridge. But, even though I acted quickly, a wave of fire still got inside the base. The flames were hot, blinding, came in a rush of air so fast, I was knocked back as step; if Fowler or any other human had still been here, they would have been crushed against the ops center wall by the shockwave, or outright incinerated where they stood.

Then, as quickly as they arrived, the flames dissipated, leaving only a cloud of thick, black smoke that blocked my view of the Dinobots and Broadside.

I checked myself over once the fire died out. My paint was singed by the short-lived flames, losing its inky quality, but I was left unharmed. Undoubtedly hot to the touch, but unharmed. But I hadn't been close to source of the fire, like Broadside and the Dinobots had been. And I couldn't hear any movement from that area of the ops center.

"Is anyone hurt?!" I called out into the smoke, stepping forward quickly and purposefully, ready to treat any injury the mechs inside the cloud may have sustained.

An amused, rumbling laugh that echoed around the room like a cannon blast answered my question.

Yeah. They were fine.

"Did you see how big that explosion was?!" Broadside, the one who was laughing, asked the Dinobots, who I still could not see through the thick smoke. "It was my ex-courted when she was pissed off at me!" He punctuated his statement with another booming laugh.

Sludge, Slug, and Snarl quietly—for them—walked out of the ops center without acknowledging Broadside's words.

I watched the three go, blinking once as they made their way out of the room with only one or two quick glances in my direction; they probably wanted to know if I was going to follow them. If it was, I didn't take offence. From what I had seen, the Dinobots besides Swoop were antisocial with everyone besides a fellow Dinobot. They probably felt uncomfortable in the presence of bots who didn't go through the same treatment they endured in Shockwave's captivity.

Swoop stayed in the ops center, and as his fellow Dinobots left, he asked Broadside, "How femmes related to big boom?"

I let out a short laugh at Swoop's question, while Broadside just looked down at the Dinobot flier flatly. "Nevermind. Don't worry about how they connect. Just go… Hang out with your teammates."

Swoop continued looking at Broadside curiously, but followed his advice and left the ops center to follow after the other Dinobots who went on the mission.

After Swoop left, I looked at Broadside. "What happened in that cave? Or, to be specific, what did you do?"

Broadside threw his servos in the air. "Why is it my fault when a smuggler's cache explodes?"

I crossed my servos, looking up at the larger mech expectantly.

The huge Wrecker huffed. "Fine. The caches was located on a smuggler's ship, as you'd expect. But it was a Central-class luxury cruiser. Built solidly, given lots of high-tech defense systems and reactive shielding, and decorated richly on the inside. I'm thinking it belonged to a high-end smuggler, probably one of Swindle's vessels—Lockdown had a bigger organization, but his group always built their ships for mercenary work, bounty hunting, not to look nice. Anyway, the cache was mostly what we expected to find in a shipment of black market items: artwork and artifacts from the Golden Age; two armories filled with civilian-grade weaponry with military-grade weapons mods; almost two-hundred thousand Shanix in various chits stashed in a hidden compartment in the cockpit; multiple crates of medical supplies; disassembled mining equipment and demolition charges; personal entertainment devices ranging from data pads and holo-recorders, to game systems and betting cards; and a whole section of the ship dedicated to storing and brewing stims. Everything a smuggler needs to earn the sparks of potential customers. Ship even had a small stache of Red Energon for the most daring stim junkies."

Wow. That wasn't easy to come by. Red Energon was energon's rarest form—even more so than Dark Energon—and was more than a hundred times as potent and flammable as high-grade; however, it didn't effect a Cybertronian's chassis like high-grade did. Instead, Red Energon overclocked a bot's systems, made them faster, stronger, and think a dozen times as quickly as they normally did—almost like a crude version of my Protocol, without being controlled by anger. But, Red Energon had one very bad side effect: if someone consumed even a milliliter more than one standard cube of Red Energon in the span of a jour, the bot's systems would become overloaded, and the Cybertronian would be offlined almost instantly. That was why Red Energon's uses had been restricted to certain types of power generation and being a catalyst in scientific experiments, and had been since the Golden Age.

Of course, that never stopped Cybertronians looking for a thrill to purchase Red Energon illegally and drink as much as they dared, or use its overclocking abilities to commit crimes. Cybertronians such as that created a black market for Red Energon, and even up to the end of the war, both sides had to deal with the odd Red Energon user in their ranks.

"Nasty stuff," I said. "Explosive stuff, too. I'm guessing the room it was with the other stimulants?"

"It was. That in itself wouldn't have been bad, but it turns out that last section was filled with some very flammable fumes—fumes that can be ignited by something as small as a spark created when your armor scrapes against the wall."

"You blew up the ship, didn't you?"

"It was an accident! I bumped into the doorway! And don't laugh at that! Those doors were so small, even you would have had trouble getting through them!"

"You say that like I'm a small mech."

A half snort escaped Broadside's mouth. "You're pretty big for not being a Second, but you're not the biggest mech I've seen who's managed to stay in their original chassis. It's arrogant of a designer, building a ship too small for bigger mechs to move around in. Least, that's what I think."

"Seconds probably weren't as common, back when the ship was designed. You also said it was a Central-class—each unit of that class were customly built to the requested specifications of the bots who could afford to spend half a billion Shanix for the asking price. Can you really blame them for not thinking of accommodating massive mechs like you, when they likely had no reason to think their ship would be used for anything other than the buyers?"

Broadside waved his servo dismissively. "Bah! You just don't understand the hardships of a Second! We're always having to duck through hallways and slip through doors. If you had to do that every cycle, you'd side with me on my dislike of that ship's interior!" He paused for a moment, a thoughtful look appearing on his faceplate. He then smiled, and gave another of his great laughs and smiles. "Oh, now that would be a sight to see!"

"What? Me being a Second?" I asked. That… Did not sound appealing. I was large enough as I was; being taller and broader would only make it harder for me to hide if I needed to.

"Yes! Think about it, a Triple-Changer even more built for war! Heavy armor, outfitted like an army, can duel with a seeker one moment, and battle a heavily armed, large tank the next!"

"I can already do those things."

"Ah, but not on the level of a Second. You'd be a good sixty, sixty-five feet tall, if you added as much height as I did. Then add that height with an arsenal twice as large as your own and scaled to your new size, put on some thicker armor, and you'd be one intimidating mech on the battlefield, with you being a Triple-Changer and a Second. At least, if you can fight well—I haven't seen you do that yet. But, I can already hear what the Decepticons would call you off the field: the One who blends into the Night, and brings the Shadows to the Light... Solus' Son, Shadowstreaker the Destroyer!" His laugh echoed around the ops center again.

I put a blank look on my faceplate at his words, hiding my sudden feeling of apprehension, but not of his mention of my carrier; I had told he, Magnus, and the Dinobots who my carrier and sire were. But his jovial tone and laughter when talking about turning into something like a feared symbol to the Decepticons, a terror to stand against, was… Frightening to me. I didn't want to be feared, not like that. That made me sound like a monster who slaughtered his way through the battlefield, making no distinction between friend and foe. I wasn't like that.

… I hoped I wasn't, at least.

"No thanks," I said, turning and walking back to the workstation. "I'm a soldier, not a piece of propaganda. And I'm already nearly twice as tall as my courted; if I was made any taller, things between us would be far more difficult."

A sound of metal shifting against metal came from behind me. Broadside had shrugged. "Eh. You're probably right. And I think I went a bit too dark with that description, too… Dramatic. Wheeljack always said I was too into data pads about the rulers of the Golden Age and all their titles, awards, political leagues, and general holier-than-thou habits." He was silent for a micro-klick, then his thundering steps sounded from behind me, vibrating the floor just enough for a Cybertronian to notice. He appeared in my peripheral vision, and leaned against the catwalks next to me. "Speaking of Wheeljack, I heard from Bulkhead that little loner was here on Earth a while back. Bulk' didn't have much to say on his visit, can you add anything?"

"Probably not," I said, watching the life signals of Silverbolt and Air Raid as they patrolled southern Mexico, near where we detected some Decepticon activity. "He was here, he was captured by Decepticons and they sent an imposter to us, he broke free of captivity, he offlined the imposter, then he left again. All in one solar-cycle."

Broadside laughed yet again, and it seemed to me like he was always doing that. Always laughing, always making a joke—even if at times they were crude—always trying to make everyone smile. He had struck me as a long-lost, bigger brother of Jazz—both always lively in a conversation and never taking insults or seeming to take most situations seriously, unless you knew what to look for. They were both good mechs, and even better soldiers.

"That sounds just like Wheeljack, always running off somewhere else," Broadside finally said when his laughter had died down. "Next time I see him, I might sit on him, to keep him from running off in his little ship. It's been too long since I've seen that mech."

"You'd crush him. That would be counterproductive for your desire to see him for a prolonged period of time," I deadpanned.

The huge Wrecker's laugher was revived for a moment. "Guess that's true. Maybe I could weld him to a wall instead, or magnetize the floor under his pedes. Or, I could just blow up his ship—that's the simple solution."

"Also the one that probably causes Wheeljack to attack you for destroying his ship."

"Also true."

After Broadside spoke, two things happened at once.

The first was a rapid beeping that came from the workstation, just like the sound it made when we received the fake message from the Paraions before the mission that led to my capture.

The second was the base's proximity sensor went off, drowning out the beeping and signaling that a land vehicle was approaching the base.

I ignored the beep for the moment and brought up footage of one of the cameras covering the entrance tunnel, while Broadside shifted to get a better view of the main screen.

The video the screen showed June Darby's car approaching the entrance, with Jack sitting in the front seat, and Miko and Raf in the back.

"Our resident humans?" Asked Broadside.

"Yes. Jack's mother is dropping them off here since we need to keep the space bridge open, and they have no other means of transportation with their guardians injured." I opened the entrance as June's car got within a hundred yards of it, allowing the small vehicle passage before closing the door behind it.

"Humans are weird, don't even have their own alt modes."

I didn't acknowledge Broadside's statement, since June's car arrived in the ops center at that moment. Three of its doors opened, and Jack stepped out with Miko and Raf.

The trunk popped open, and the three human teens retreated to the back of the car, where they started taking out what seemed to be parts of several expensive, remote-controlled cars, long pieces of Aluminum, rocks of different sizes, and canisters of compressed air. It seemed to me they were working on a project for their own entertainment; however, I had no idea what it was.

As Miko, Raf, and Jack kept taking things out of the trunk, the driver's door opened, and June stepped out. She turned immediately and started walking toward me.

Oh, crap. This could prove to be a complicated conversation—she had no idea I used to be human and once stayed in her home, as far as I knew. I never had a chance to speak to her after my Protocol activated for the first time, and I had always been in another part of the base when she dropped Jack, Raf, and Miko off at the base.

She might get a shock, if she recognizes my voice.

"You. You're the one who saved my son and I from that… Thing, aren't you?" June asked me, coming to a stop about fifty feet away from me.

"From Airachnid, yes, I am," I answered simply.

A confused look appeared on June's face, as if I were suddenly a puzzle to be solved. She shook her head slightly, apparently discarding her confusion, then said, "I came over to say… Thank you, for saving the lives of my son and I. I would have thanked you before, but I didn't have a chance to before you appeared to have been killed."

"An apology is unnecessary."

"I thought you deserved one. You saved us, and I didn't try to find and thank you for that."

I shrugged. "You were recovering from both mental and physical trauma. There is nothing wrong with taking care of yourself. You should know—you're a nurse."

June's eyes narrowed, and her look reappeared for a moment before she again pushed her curiosity aside with a visible effort. "A true statement. But nonetheless, thank you." She turned around and walked toward her car, but paused. She turned her head back to me with that confused look on her face again. "I'm still not sure about your kind, but most humans have imperfect memories, and you sound very familiar to me. Do you know why that would be?"

"I do."

June turned fully toward me. "We've met before, haven't we? While you were… Away, Arcee told me about how you can use a hologram to interact with smaller species, without appearing or acting out of place; she had even used it on me, before I knew who she really was. Did we meet like that, while you were using one of those holograms?"

I considered her words for a moment. It would be easy to say she was right, that Arcee and I had been ordered to watch Jack that first night, but it would be a pointless lie—Jack could very simply tell June that I had been lying to her.

Even as I looked down at June, I could see the younger Darby was watching me intently for my answer, silently testing my character. The look in his eyes told me everything I needed to know; one way or another, June was going to find out I used to be a human. All Jack was doing was waiting to see if I was going to tell her myself.

"No, Miss Darby, we did not meet while I was using my holoform," I said. "We met and spoke just like we are doing right now."

June's eyebrows came together and lowered, making her look even more confused than before. "That can't be. There's no way I would just forget meeting someone like you in person—you Autobots aren't something we humans would forget meeting unless they had an illness that affected their memory."

"Who said I was an Autobot when we met?"

Jack's mother froze, and a dumbfounded look appeared on her face while something else entered her eyes—something that had been missing throughout our conversation: familiarity. "Zechariah?" Her voice was quiet and uncertain, as if she couldn't believe her own words.

"I go by Shadowstreaker now, Miss Darby; being a Cybertronian as tall as a building and still having a human name would be… Out of place."

"Ah, wait—timeout," Broadside said, holding up a servo to me before letting it fall. He looked down into my optics, blinking twice rapidly. "Did you just say you used to be a human?"

"Yes."

"And you realize how impossible that sounds?"

"Yes."

"And how you're making yourself look completely insane for doing so with a straight faceplate?"

"Yes. Facts are facts, no matter your personal opinion on them. And the fact is, I used to be a human."

The huge Wrecker stared at me few several micro-klicks, then abruptly burst into one of his big, booming laughs that echoed around the ops center loud enough that the humans needed to cover their ears. "A human turned into a Cybertronian! HA! That's like something out of a bad vid! How many times did you have to practice that line before you could keep yourself from laughing?"

I merely raised an optic ridge, folding my servos behind my backplates.

Broadside sobered when he saw I wasn't laughing with him. "Are you being serious right now? You were actually a human?"

"I was," I confirmed easily.

Broadside looked down me up and down once, then looked back at my optics. "Aftoix slag," he said, referring to a six-legged, organic plant eater native to one of Cybertron's moons.

June, who had yet to wipe the dumbfounded look off her face, ignored Broadside and asked, "But… How? How could you have been a human back then?"

"That's a complicated answer. In short, I was near death and fading quickly. Human medicine probably wouldn't have saved me, but Cybertronian nanites had a chance of doing so. Nanites run through our veins, acting as our immune and repair systems, and are very good at their job. This is what led my carrier—my mother, in human terms—to donate to my still-human body some of her nanites to heal my injuries. They healed me, but they also viewed my organic body as something that needed to be repaired, and began to change it into a Cybertronian's chassis. I was transformed within two days, I changed and became the mech standing before you now."

Horror crossed June's face. "You mean it only takes a few of your… Nanites—things that run through your veins!—getting into our bloodstream to turn one of us normal human beings into one of you within days?! That could happen to any one of them just by touching a vial of your energon!" She said heatedly, gesturing to the three teens still near the trunk of her car. The sound of her distraught voice caused Jack to look at his mother in concern, along with Miko and Raf.

"Not necessarily," I said calmly, choosing my words carefully. "Cybertronian nanites are programmed to self-destruct when they leave our frames, to prevent them from causing damage to our technology or joining with another Cybertronian—their own nanites would see the newcomers as a threat. My carrier had to work around this, although I've never asked her how she managed to. She had to account for the fact her nanites would be toxic to my human body and constantly attacked by my immune system—something else I haven't asked for details on. Also, my transformation was accelerated when I had accidental contact with energon, fueling the nanites' efforts. Finally and most importantly, my transformation was planned, not an accident; I've seen too much since I became a Cybertronian to believe it truly was. The odds all of those things happening just as they did to me—and happening merely by accidentally touching a vial of energon, it in itself a simple container that has no nanites on its surface—are the same as being struck seventy-seven times by lightning, winning the lottery in every US state, getting a hole in one on every hole in a full game of golf, and winning seven straight hands of Texas Hold 'Em with a royal flush against nine opponents, all in the same day. Simply put, it's not going to happen."

"And if we touch energon when it isn't in a vial or container?"

"The chances of an accidental transformation occurring would barely be effected."

"How do you know that?"

"Because energon is normally toxic to organics, kills them within moments of contact—I only survived because I already had nanites inside me. If one of you had direct contact with energon, you are far more likely to die than turn into a Cybertronian yourselves," I answered, being brutally honest. Given her medical knowledge, it would be better to be honest about how toxic energon was to organics than only give a partial truth.

June could only stare at me, eyes widened and blank, face alarmed. Silently and slowly, she backed away from me until she reached her car. She stopped there and leaned against the hood of her car, staring ahead with unseeing eyes, the weight of our conversation seeming to come down on her all at once.

Jack stopped helping Miko and Raf unload objects from the trunk and joined his mother at the front of the vehicle, concern in his eyes. "Are you okay, Mom?"

Faintly, I heard June whisper, "We can be killed just by touching their blood, and you've been with them for more than a year…"

I tuned June out after that, not wanting to listen in on the conversation she was going to have with her son. It was obvious that June was having difficulties adjusting her life to Cybertronians, even if she usually did not show it. I couldn't blame her for that; as a single mother and nurse, her life must have been stressful enough as it was. Now that she knew of our existence, and discovered her son and two other teenagers had been keeping our presence as secret from her for more than an orbital-cycle, the amount of stress she was under must have increased dramatically. And the bombshell of my origins and the danger of coming into contact with energon—something Jack, Miko, and Raf saw every cycle—definitely didn't help her.

But, June was a strong woman. In time, she would adjust and be as comfortable around us as the teens were.

At least I hoped she would.

I turned to the workstation as June and Jack's conversation continued, cleared out the feed of the security camera outside the entrance tunnel, and investigated the first sound that came from the workstation before the proximity alert—the incoming message, if the rapid beeping was anything to go by.

The message was, oddly, in Russian. After a cursory observation, I found that the words inside the message were nonsense and out of place, meaningless. Clearly, the message was coded, but why would we be getting a coded message from Russia?

"What's with the Russian on screen?" Asked Broadside.

"I don't know," I answered, trying to mentally unscramble the code in front of us.

"Well, you were a human. Doesn't that mean you're supposed to know slag like this?" The massive mech asked sarcastically, a wide smile on his faceplate.

"I was a human, Broadside," I said, knowing he was scoffing at the idea and making a joke out of it.

"Sure. And I'm actually a tree. A big, wide, metal tree."

"You do have the personality of one," I noted in deadpan, as if I was serious. "But if you don't believe me, ask Arcee, see how she reacts to you not believing her, either."

The amusement on Broadside's faceplate disappeared in an instant, and he suddenly looked very nervous.

"Didn't think so." I looked fully back to the main screen. It was not a complex code, if the presence of full words were any indication—the majority of codes were random numbers or letters in many different languages. This was just one language, and had entire words present in the message itself. Sure, they were meaningless, but it also meant the person who encoded the message was not a cryptographer. Did that mean I was simply searching too hard? Was the code just easy to see?

With that idea in my CPU, I looked at the first letter of each word, seeing if it formed any meaningful words. When that didn't work, I tried looking at the last letter of each word. That also didn't work, either. After that, I tried another technique: looking at the first letter of the first word, the second letter of the second word, the third letter of the third word and so on until the word was too short to continue, then restarted the process.

A recognizable pattern soon formed, unraveling the nonsense of the initial message and slowly revealing the true information. I smiled as I finished decoding the message.

It read: See you in two jours.

From, Flightstorm.

So, they had returned to the Apex Sentinel, proposed Optimus' offer to Delta, and gotten approval from the captain. Looked like we would be seeing more of Flightstorm and his family, especially Wildwing. The fact Flightstorm decided to send the message in Russian, however, was strange. Didn't even know he downloaded Russian.

No matter the oddity of Flightstorm's chosen language for the message, Optimus was going to want to know about it.

"Broadside, can you take over the space bridge for me?" I asked. "I need to speak to Optimus about this message—it's from one of the neutrals who was here when you first arrived."

Broadside shrugged. "Eh. Why not? Go talk to Prime, I'll take your shift."

"Thanks." I stepped away from the workstation, allowing Broadside to stand in front of it. "Oh, and by the way, Override finally chose an alt mode and is out testing it. Watch out for her to return."

The massive mech's optics lit up with mischief. "Now I have to keep an optic out for beautiful femmes, too? This is the best posting ever. Well, besides being a guard at a femme armoring station, but only other femmes would get that position. So you can't count that one."

I rolled my optics, causing Broadside let out a short laugh. His comments were like milder versions of how Springer used to be—crude and vocal in his admiration of the femme form. But at least he meant for most of his comments to be jokes, and was still respectful when facing a femme in person. "Just operate the space bridge when you need to, alright?"

"Yes, sir, commander, sir." Broadside gave me a mock salute, smiling at the look I gave him.

I refrained from commenting further and started walking toward the med-bay, the sounds of Jack and June's conversation picking back up behind me; it had been paused when Broadside's thunderous laughter drowned out their words.

I entered the hallway a moment after walking away from Broadside. At two-hundred and fifty feet, the ceiling was more than tall enough for even Grimlock to walk through without any trouble. It was also much wider, and each doorway had separate door controls higher off the ground so Broadside and the Dinobots didn't have to bend down just to open a room. The changes made any human who walked the halls look even more pathetically small, along with most non-Seconds like me.

After continuing down the hallway, I reached the med-bay. The door automatically opened for me as I approached.

Like the hallway, the med-bay was much larger than it had been two mega-cycles ago, scaled differently. It was longer, and had larger berths at the back that would be big enough for Grimlock to lay down on. If he ever came into the med-bay, that is—he still hadn't sought out treatment for his extensive injuries. In fact, I didn't even know where he was; turns out, trying to find Grimlock when he wanted to be alone was surprisingly difficult.

Jetfire, Flareup, and Bumblebee were sitting up in their medical berths to the left of the door, quietly talking.

Chromia, Elita, and Ironhide were trying to stand from their berths further into the room with Bulkhead's assistance, although none of them were having any success.

Ratchet and Moonracer were lying down on their berths, studying medical scans on the computers next to them; medics never took breaks.

The rest of the Autobots in the med-bay—besides Prowl and Ultra Magnus, who both just laid on their berths and stared at the ceiling, obviously not sure what to do with themselves when they were injured—appeared to be forcing themselves to recharge to pass their time in the med-bay. The Delphic floated near the door, as it had since most of my fellow Autobots had been wounded.

To the right, away from his soldiers, Optimus was sitting on his own medical berth, looking at a data pad in his servo with interest. Slung over his backplates, the Omni Saber took up the space the Star Saber had just two mega-cycles ago. The black blade didn't seem to fit someone like Optimus.

The Prime looked at me when I entered the med-bay. He nodded in greeting. "Shadowstreaker."

"Optimus," I greeted in kind as I walked toward him. "Flightstorm just sent an answer to the offer you extended to he and his family."

Optimus lowered the data pad in his servo. "And what was their response?"

"It seems they agreed—Flightstorm says they'll see us in two jours."

"That is what I had hoped they would do," said Optimus, looking back down at his data pad. "If they had decided to reject my offer, it would would have been difficult for us to monitor the development of Wildwing's abilities as a Seer."

"I'm glad they accepted the proposal, too, but are you saying it would have actually been possible to keep track of Wildwing without his creators agreeing?" I asked.

"Yes."

"How?"

The Prime typed something into the data pad in his servo, then turned it around and showed me what was now on its small screen.

It was a simulated image of the Milky Way Galaxy and its satellites. Each satellite galaxy slowly rotated around the Milky Way, although I knew the speed they were moving was just a representation—it took hundreds or thousands of centi-vorns for a satellite galaxy to finish one rotation around the Milky Way. There was a small, blue circle in one of the satellite galaxies, about a third of the way from its core.

I looked at the circle and found there were small words and numbers beneath it, blending into the satellite at first glance, making them very difficult to read

After focusing my optics in further in on the words and numbers, I managed to separate them from the galaxy they were mixed in with.

Subject designation: Collected, neutral vessel.

Class: Unknown alien battleship.

Length: 1,011 meters.

Height: 480 meters.

Width: 676 meters.

Weight: 115 kilotons.

Shields: Full.

Speed: Point nine light speed.

Status: Docked.

I widened my optics at the information and looked at Optimus in shock. We shouldn't have had any way to have information like that, and on such a detailed level. There was only one way Optimus could have that data, only one answer that made any sense.

He placed a bug on the Collected.

"Did you hide a tracking chip on their ship, Optimus?" I asked, getting over my shock. Spying on others was completely unlike Optimus, it didn't sit well with me.

Still, I was surprised Optimus had made the decision to place a tracker and hadn't even mentioned it until now.

"I did," Optimus answered, tone neutral as always as he looked at me. "I had to make sure the Collected returned to the Apex Sentinel safely—the Matrix demanded I keep watch over Wildwing."

I set my jaw, the only sign I was debating how I felt about Optimus' spying on bots who had no part in the war. Spying on enemies or potential enemies I had no problem with—we needed to look out for attacks from anyone. But, it was very clear the neutrals of the Apex Sentinel just wanted to live in peace, and would only fight if attacked first. Spying on them was pointless, invasive, and something Megatron would do in a sparkbeat. Such actions were dishonest and underhanded, and very surprising—especially from someone like Optimus. The Prime always had this noble thought process, this aura of trust, wisdom, and kindness that flowed from him just by standing in a room. Putting a tracker on a ship that had no enemies onboard and only one potential asset seemed like a misuse of resources and betrayal of trust.

But, would I have done the same, if I was in Optimus' position?

Yes. Yes I would have.

A tracker did not cause harm, did not gather personal information; it just sent constant updates on the location of the object it was attached to. Placing a tracking device on the Collected when it carried Wildwing—a mechling whose abilities as a Seer could lead to great things in the future, and whose life was valuable to everyone on base since he first became stranded on Earth—was what I would have done, at least to keep an optic on them and make sure they safely passed through potentially dangerous sectors of space. Tracking chips only required a small amount of material to create, and needed no power sources—they syphoned off the little power from the vehicle or ship they were attached to, if that was the object they tracked. They were a simple, reliable way of watching out for a ship without following it. And, they would let you know if the ship had been damaged, destroyed, or simply disappeared, albeit on a delay.

If I was honest with myself, I would have done more to keep an optic on the Collected. And Primus knew what I would do if Arcee and I were forced apart and I had the resources to watch over her. I'd need a whole room just for the computer monitors.

… I feel like that's creepy.

"Well, I suppose it was the logical choice on your part," I admitted as Bulkhead slowly made his way past me and out of the med-bay door for his breem of limited recess out of the med-bay. "Wildwing is important to all of us who were here when he landed on Earth alone; now with his new status as a Seer, he could make him strategically valuable. Basic trackers aren't really spying tools at such a great distance, either. And there's the fact the Matrix is involved."

"And a request from the Matrix is not something you ignore," Optimus said, turning the data pad back to him and working on it for a moment, likely to dismiss the tracking data. "It sees Wildwing as too important, too rare a sparkling to completely entrust the safety of to others—and I agree with it. That is why when the Collected returns to Earth again—and with Flightstorm's permission—I will make further modifications to the vessel."

"You already did that before it left."

"No, I gave the Collected what it needed to leave the system safely, not what it should have. Better weapons, shields, and armor are not requirements to travel at back to the Apex Sentinel. I would have upgraded those systems, but Flightstorm also refused to let me do anything more than create the ship'stealth drive, on account of my injuries."

"So, the Matrix had you place a tracker in the stealth drive, instead?"

"It did," confirmed Optimus.

"Hmm. It might have been the only thing you could do, but it seems pretty limited in how useful it is, honestly—any tracking data you're getting is at least a mega-cycle old. By the time you receive data saying the Collected was attacked or in trouble, anything could have happened to the ship. Not only that, but we'd be of little use against aything more than a light frigate; we only have the capability to fight other Cybertronians, not starships."

Optimus was silent for several micro-klicks, and it seemed to me that he was thinking seriously. "I have been considering how to solve that problem as of late," he finally said. "It is an issue that has plagued us since we arrived on Earth more than four orbital-cycles ago, and I believe it is time to bring an end to it."

I crossed my servos, looking at the Prime in a questioning manner. "And what solutions have you come up with?"

Optimus looked me in the optics. "We build our own starship, along with a hanger."

I raised both optic ridges in surprise. The thought of creating our own ship had passed through my processor before, but I hadn't seriously considered it for two reasons: one, while we had my carrier's Forge, the undertaking of building a ship was beyond enormous and would take several jours—possibly orbital-cycles—to complete; a starship was far more complex than a space bridge, and each part would need to be placed by servo after being built by Optimus; and two, we lacked the required area to build a starship inside. We definitely couldn't build a starship outside the base and keep it hidden from the humans, let alone the Decepticons.

Of course, we could reformate the Safe, but that would leave us without training grounds and only an area large enough for a heavy frigate to be constructed. A reformate like that would be more of a hassle than a single heavy frigate was worth when we had the Forge to create whatever we needed down here.

If we were to build our own ship, it would have to be at least the size of a cruiser, be heavily armored and armed, stealthed, recover enough energon and raw materials to give Optimus a break from using the Forge all the time, and able to travel at the fastest FTL speeds. All of that, plus a hanger large enough to allow the ship to dock without difficulty or drawing unwanted attention.

"I admit, having our own ship is fun to imagine and would open up immense opportunities for us in other areas of the Sol system and beyond, but it's nigh on impossible to make a valuable ship in our present situation—we don't have the room for a large ship and hanger in the base," I said.

"You are correct, we do not have large enough facilities for a starship and its hanger; however, we could build them in an extension of the base," said the Prime.

"Another one? The S.T.F gave our base an expansion when they first installed the turrets up top, we've modified it several times, and you've pretty much given it another expansion already with its rescaling."

"A further reason to construct a new area for a ship hanger—I am already in the process of modifying the base. Our numbers have grown rapidly in the last orbital-cycle, and are poised to potentially grow further still, with Flightstorm and his family soon to be making regular visits to Earth. But despite our new numbers, we lack the capability of effectively combating the two Decepticon ships in the system. A spacecraft of our own could provide us with the firepower we need to begin breaking the grip the Decepticons hold over Earth's energon reserves and this system's Cybertronian metal deposits. We would still not be able to battle them on an equal level, but we are at war—we need to keep the scales of the battlefield as favorable to our side as possible. A starship of our own would be the start of a rebalancing the scales on Earth."

I was silent for a moment, thinking on the points he made. Having our own ship could potentially rebalance the power between us and the Decepticons here on Earth, provided our ship had a lot of firepower. But, if we built such a vessel, humanity might see us as another enemy instead of an ally. Building a ship could prove to be a delicate task.

"You're right, as always. It is the logical thing to do, countering the Decepticons' ships with one of our own," I said. "But my former race likely wouldn't be happy with us if we did. From the perspective of many world leaders, we would be another threat they had to face. Such a mentality could be spread very easily, and the fact we're hiding inside the borders of Earth's dominant superpower wouldn't help us."

"A sad notion, but nonetheless not a stretch of the truth," said Optimus, returning his gaze to his data pad. "But, the benefits of our own spacecraft are too great to simply discard due to politics. When I am able, I will share my thoughts on the matter with the others to get a general consensus." He shifted on his medical berth, but the Omni Saber on his backplates did not clang against him like the Star Saber would have. He glanced over his shoulder-joint at the lack of sound, and then looked at the data pad.

Ignoring how Optimus' words suggested he had yet to share his idea of creating a ship with anyone other than me, I took note of his reaction. "Having trouble readjusting to a smaller sword?"

"It is most certainly not the Star Saber." The Prime's words were neutral as they always were, but I detected a hint of frustration in his optics—frustration directed at himself.

"It's not your fault we lost the Star Saber, Optimus," I said, knowing he was blaming himself for losing this reality's version of the legendary sword, as he often had since he had been injured.

"If I had noticed we were being surrounded, the ambush would have not taken place, and I would not have been separated from the Star saber."

"You were at the bottom of the ocean, had limited visibility, and gunships around you were running dark. How could you have seen the ambush?"

"I am the Prime; it is my duty to notice threats others cannot see."

I went quiet at his words. He was wrong—obviously—but I knew when Optimus was unyielding in his opinions. This was something he would not shrug off, would not allow logical excuses. He would place the blame of the ambush solely on his shoulder-joints, along with numerous other weights of leadership. He would vow to do better, and probably would end up doing so. He tended to make good on his vows, even if they hadn't been spoken.

Sensing our conversation had run its course, I asked, "Arcee using her time out of the med-bay?" It was an obvious question since she was not in the room, but I felt I should end my discussion with Optimus on a different note than it would have.

"She is. She left a few klicks before you arrived," answered Optimus.

"Do you know where she went?"

An amused look entered Optimus' optics. "She informed me she was going to spend her allotted breem in the rec room."

"I'll be heading there, then." I turned and walked toward the door. "See you later, Optimus."

The Prime bid me farewell, then I entered the hallway and started making my way to the rec room.

On my way to seeing my courted—that still sounded strange to me—I came along an odd sight on the side of the hallway.

It was Sludge, standing on the tips of his pedes, looking along the top of the particularly large door of the Dinobots' shared quarters—they had refused Optimus' offer of individual quarters, probably because they were more comfortable living among those they considered brothers than in privacy. He was holding a strange device up to the top of the doorway, moving it slowly from the left side of the doorway to the right. He was engrossed in his task, he didn't appear to notice me standing there.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

Sludge paused, turned his helm toward me, blinked, then went back to moving the device across the doorway. "Me searching for listening bugs."

"Why? We're Autobots, not Decepticons—we don't plant bugs in or near each other's quarters."

"Listening bugs can be anywhere," Sludge said, ignoring the second part of my statement and continuing with his task.

I narrowed my optics at his answer. There was something in the way Sludge spoke, the tone that briefly entered is voice, that was very unusual. However, it was very difficult to place or identify. Fear? Regret? Anger? Paranoia? I couldn't tell.

To try and keep the conversation going—and perhaps get a chance to hear the tone Sludge used again, and identify what it was—I asked, "Do you want any help?"

Sludge's helm turned half way toward me, optics conflicted. He was still for a micro-klick, then he started to shake his helm vigorously. "No, no. Me Sludge need no help." His optics became distant and he opened the door in front of him, where I could see Swoop lying on a berth built into the wall close to the ceiling.

"But—"

"No help!" Sludge stepped into the other room and closed the door behind him. A moment later, the light next to the door turned red, signifying it was locked.

I frowned at Sludge's reaction. While I hadn't spoken to the Dinobots very much, behavior like that was definitely not normal. He had been acting strange before I had even said a word to him, and then almost seemed fearful when I asked him if he wanted any help. What was scary about that?

I decided I wasn't going to find an answer to Sludge's unusual behavior by standing in the hallway, and continued on toward the rec room. Wondering about Sludge could wait; I wanted to see my courted.

A short time later, I arrived at the rec room door. Like the med-bay's, the rec room's door opened for me as I came within range of the motion sensor above the doorway.

The rec room had seen a makeover like the rest of the base, but mostly in the form of a heightened ceiling, larger area, additional tables, chairs, lobbing balls, and energon dispensers. There were, however, some noticeable improvements.

One was the bar in the far left corner, where special types of oils could be added to all grades of energon for an added… Kick.

Another were the shelves of data pads in the far right corner, all of which were copies Optimus had me make of the ones in his quarters. Many human novels, biographies and nonfiction had also been converted into data pads and placed on the shelves as well.

The final big change to the rec room was the new screen directly ahead from the door. It was nearly twice the size it used to be, had surround sound, and—if we wanted to—could be used as a screen where the game systems of the teens could be plugged in. New bot-sized couches and chairs were placed in front of the screen, and there were five chairs that would large enough for even Grimlock to use.

Arcee was sitting in one of the new chairs, one pede crossed over the other as she held a cube of energon in one of her servos. Judging by its darker color, the energon in her cube was mixed with a mild painkiller—her repairing injuries must have been bothering her this cycle.

In front of her chair, Raf, Miko, and Jack were reloading appeared to be a homemade, remote-controlled trebuchet. It was about seven feet long when its arm was pulled back, had ten wheels from the remote-controlled car parts, a large counterweight, and had the canisters of compressed air were powering a motor that pulled the trebuchet's arm back. The rocks I had seen the teens take out of June's car earlier were being used as ammo.

On the opposite side of the teens, sitting in his own chair, was Bulkhead. He had his own cube of energon in his servo, and was watching the teens like Arcee was. He looked excited to see the trebuchet fire.

When I entered the room, everyone looked up at me.

Bulkhead's faceplate became noticeably more restrained; the teens looked torn between smiling and just being neutral; and Arcee gave me an affectionate look and a little smile around the edge of her cube. And that drowned out the looks of Bulkhead and the teens.

Silence reigned in the rec room for several micro-klicks when I entered. Then I saw Arcee giving me a meaningful look, silently telling me to break the ice with Bulkhead and the teens.

I returned the look she gave me, looked down at the trebuchet, then focused on the teens. "Well, you going to fire?"

Their eyes brightened. "Of course," Raf said, beating his fellow humans at responding. "We're just about to finish reloading it."

"Hop to it, then; I want to see it fire."

The teens smiled and went back finishing their reload of the trebuchet; Arcee, Bulkhead, and I watched intently. Although, Bulkhead didn't seem as excited as he did before.

Once the trebuchet was reloaded, the teens stepped away from it. Jack picked up a remote control they evidently were using as the trebuchet release. "Thr—"

"Hold on," Miko interrupted Jack before he could even start counting down. "You fired it last time. No going two times in a row! It's my turn to fire it!"

"It went like twenty feet last time. You can't count that one!" Protested Jack, smiling down at his girlfriend.

"I can't help it if you suck at firing our trebuchet! Hand it over, Jackie!" Miko held her hand out expectantly, smiling smugly.

"It shouldn't count!" Jack kept going, switching the control to the hand on the opposite side Miko stood.

The Japanese girl narrowed her eyes, humor leaving her face. She suddenly lunged for the control, laughing as she did.

Soon, Jack and Miko were playfully fighting over the control, throwing fake taunts flirts toward each other. Their actions caused Raf to make a gagging motion, Bulkhead to frown in irritation, and Arcee to just roll her optics and then share a brief look with me.

"Dis is boring and nauseatin'! Fire da dang thing already!" Jazz's voice suddenly called over Jack and Miko.

I started slightly at how abruptly Jazz's voice appeared, and looked to where it came from.

The saboteur was lying on a hammock hanging from the corner of the doorway and an air vent that kept the room's temperature moderate. Just like Arcee and Bulkhead, he had a cube of energon in his servo that—going by how full it was—he just started to drink.

Jazz raised his cube in greeting. "Shadowster'! Nice of ya ta join us."

I stared at Jazz for half a micro-klick. "How long have you been there?"

"Longer than Ah should be, an' less time than Ah'd hoped," said Jazz as he sipped from his cube.

I looked from him, down to the floor, up to the corner of the door and the vent, back to Jazz. He was at least two-hundred feet in the air, and there was nothing on the door he could have used as a ladder to get up. "How…?"

The saboteur's visor flashed. "Ah've learned since da failure of Operation:Mistletoe. But a saboteur never shares his secrets."

I kept looking at Jazz for a moment, then just chuckled and looked back at Jack and Miko, who continued to 'Fight' over the control.

After it became obvious they had not listened to Jazz, Raf took out a smaller control from his pocket—clearly a backup for the controller Jack and Miko fighting over—and pressed one of the new controller's buttons.

The trebuchet's arm shot upward as the counterweight pulled it down. When the arm was about to reach the apex of its swing, the sling released the rock it contained, sending the stone flying threw the air. The rock tumbled as it flew, then landed about one-hundred meters from where the teens stood; the trebuchet's arm continued to move even after the stone landed, the counterweight jerking the arm as it swung back and forth and slowly started to become still.

"Good distance, for something that size," I commented.

"Ya might be able ta get more outta it if ya straighten it' arm a little—it' kinda bent," added Jazz.

Jack and Miko ignored my and Jazz's comments, and looked at Raf in surprise. "You had another controller?" Miko asked.

"Yup," said Raf.

"Why?" Asked Jack.

Raf just looked at the other two teens, eyebrows raised expectantly, as if waiting for them to put it together themselves.

Miko and Jack shared a confused look, then blushed simultaneously in embarrassment. "Right," they both said.

"Now you understand," said Raf, walking over to the trebuchet and starting to examine its arm. "Seriously, how do you two not realize how you act sometimes?"

Miko and Jack shared a shy look. Jack rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at his girlfriend, and Miko played with her braid, face slightly pink from embarrassment.

Arcee and Jazz laughed at the reactions of the two teens; Jazz's show of amusement was loud, and Arcee's was quiet.

Bulkhead didn't laugh or smile, unlike Jazz and Arcee—he just stared at me with a blank look on his faceplate. "What are you doing here, Shadowstreaker?"

The mood in the rec room fell when Bulkhead uttered those words with that tone. Jazz's laughter died out, the teens seemed to be uncertain of what to do, and Arcee's optics narrowed at the Wrecker in a subtle warning. At least I had one person who was definitely on my side.

"I came here to spend time with Arcee," I answered truthfully. "Is there are something wrong with that?"

"No. Just wondering why you aren't operating the space bridge." The tone in Bulkhead's voice told me otherwise.

I chose to not to call Bulkhead out on the lie. "Broadside took over for me," I said, walking over to an energon dispenser and starting to fill a cube of energon for myself.

"So, you're going to enjoy a cube of energon while a mech who has been going on multiple missions every cycle covers for you?" Bulkhead asked, accusation in his voice and cold anger in his optics.

I decided his tone of voice wasn't worth commenting on, either; after what I did on the Hammer, anyone who wanted to use a certain tone of voice with me were welcome to do so. "He's not 'Covering' for me. I intend on going back after my time here, or having Override take over for Broadside when she returns to base—she's out driving."

The green Wrecker grunted. "So you'll let two other bots cover for you instead of just one. Very unbecoming behavior."

That I found worthy of answering, but Arcee beat me to it, "Watch it, Bulkhead." There was a cool tone in her voice, as if she was warning him against continuing this line of statements.

"I'm just saying it's dangerous," Bulkhead defended himself with no anger in his voice. He was still lying, though. "Broadside's always out on missions, and those will take a lot out of you. Having a tired bot operating a space bridge can get bots offlined, because the drained operator's reaction time might not be very good. And getting another bot—one fully alert and combat ready, but inexperienced with using the space bridge—to cover your duties can leave teams short on good fighters. That's all I'm saying."

"No it's not," I pointed out calmly, taking my cube out from under the dispenser and taking a sip.

"How would you know?" Asked Bulkhead, and I knew just from the way he spoke that he was sending a minor glare in my direction. That wasn't like him.

"One, you assumed I was being lazy and neglecting my duties when I am going to be returning to them in due order. Two, you think I am compromising our security by not operating the space bridge, when everyone else who is not injured is just as capable of operating the bridge as I am. And three, the tone of anger you have been using toward me stems from something not related to space bridges and base duty—your comment about believing my behavior is unbecoming proves that," I said as I turned and started walked back from the dispenser, ignoring the look Bulkhead was indeed giving me as I sat down next to Arcee. "The real reason for your anger toward me is—going by your own behavior the last two mega-cycles—because of my actions on the Hammer."

Bulkhead let out a slow breath as he gave me a hard look; the teens seemed even more uncertain than before. "Yup."

Wow, didn't even try to deny it. "Then don't be coy, say what you want. Lying doesn't suit you, Bulkhead."

"You want me to be blunt? Fine. Here it is: I think you may as well have shot the Autobots on that ship yourself, sent them to Primus a big sooner than they were; I think you didn't even care they had offlined until you realized Arcee wasn't offline herself; I think you were a machine for not putting your fellow Autobots before yourself; and I think you are more of a Decepticon than an Autobot now, for acting as if it didn't happen and being able to sit and laugh after the slag you did."

Bulkhead's first sentence hurt like a punch to the faceplate. My actions had caused the Autobots on the Hammer to offline, but I hadn't meant for that to happen. I didn't want them to be hurt. Their offlinings were inadvertent. That was not like shooting them myself. It wasn't… Right?

His second and third sentences hurt even more than his first. He was right in that—I didn't really care what happened to me when I activated my Protocol, and hadn't felt anything until Flightstorm presented the evidence of Arcee's survival to me. I had barely given the bots who perished on the Hammer a thought, or wondered if I could have done something differently to save them and still fight the Paraions. I had been emotionless, uncaring. I had been a machine.

… Or was I still a machine?

By the end of Bulkhead's fourth sentence, I felt cold and numb. There were hundreds—possibly thousands—of offline bots because of me, and they all would still be alive if I hadn't activated my Quriomus Protocol. Yet here I was, sitting next to my courted, drinking energon, and feeling alright up until now. How could I remain the same person after that? How could I even retain the capability of being happy after having so much energon on my servos? What separated me from the Decepticons? The answer was nothing, because I had slaughtered bots just like they did.

I felt nothing for others.

I only cared about myself.

I was a monster.

A strange feeling started to spread through me, starting from my servo. It was not cold or stabbing, and it wasn't uncomfortable. It was the opposite: warmth and comfort.

Slowly, as if I had been encased in ice, I looked down at my servo. Arcee's was touching mine, but she wasn't gripping or leaving hers on top of mine—she just brushed her servo over my own.

In that moment—feeling numb to everything and, as if I was being weighed down, heavier than a hundred suns—the touch of Arcee's servo felt like the greatest thing in the universe to me. And with that short contact I had with her, I regained feeling throughout my frame, and everything that had been strange to me a moment before was back to being normal.

Was that what it feels like to be crippled by an emotion?

After touching my servo, Arcee gave Bulkhead a glare that should have ignited the energon running through his veins. "You went well beyond the line, Bulkhead." The level of cold fury in her voice made it seem like the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees.

Bulkhead—for his part—looked a little nervous at being at the center of Arcee's anger, since he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Even the teens were intimidated by my courted. Hell I was; she had that affect on people when she was angry with them.

"I was within my rights to an opinion," Bulkhead said, sounding a little weak.

"And you took it too far when you compared him to a Decepticon."

"I stand by that statement. His actions weren't at all Autobot-like, so that makes them fitting of a Decepticon. And that calls his status as an Autobot into question."

"Do you think I'd be his courted if I was worried about his character? Or are you going to question my character, too?" Asked Arcee, a dangerous tone in her voice as she narrowed her optics at Bulkhead in challenge.

Bulkhead immediately broke optic contact with her and took a long sip from his cube. "Autobots look out for each other first and foremost, never leaving another 'Bot's backplates vulnerable, and always keeping an optic out for trouble. But Shadowstreaker didn't do that, didn't watch out for anyone besides himself. No bot should remain a 'Bot if they do that. That bot wouldn't be worthy of being one."

A long, loud, humorless laugh erupted out of Jazz at that, gaining the attention of everyone in the room. And I was grateful for the interruption—it was getting hard to not let Bulkhead's statements affect me. "By dat logic, ya would need ta join Shadowster' in bein' dishonorably discharged, Bulk'," the saboteur said, sitting up and letting his pedes dangle over the side of his hammock.

Bulkhead's faceplate went blank, but Miko looked at Jazz in confusion; her look echoed how I felt, too. "What are you talking about?" She asked.

The saboteur's visor flashed darkly. "You haven't told her?" He asked Bulkhead without his usual accent.

The Wrecker's optics became shameful, and he shook his helm.

It was at that moment when I saw something appear on Jazz's faceplate that I never thought I'd see directed at another Autobot: cold fury. "You haven't told your own charge what you did during the First Battles of Loktas, and yet you have the nerve to judge another Autobot for actions he told all of us at the same time?" His visor flashed again, and he took a sip from his cube like Bulkhead had earlier. "You fragging hypocrite."

Something very serious just happened, and I have no idea what it was. I have never heard Jazz say anything like that, let alone to another Autobot. What the hell did Bulkhead do back then to make Jazz so angry?

"Uh… What happened during the First Battles of Loktas?" Raf asked, voicing my thoughts.

Jazz's angry visor glanced at Raf before locking onto Bulkhead again, seemingly drilling through the Wrecker's armor. "Are you going to tell them, or should I?"

The look on Bulkhead's faceplate mirrored what I saw in his optics, and he said quietly, "Just tell them."

My courted frowned at Bulkhead disapprovingly and shook her helm, but her optics carried sympathy. She knew, too?

Jazz hummed at Bulkhead's refusal and sipped his cube. "Alright. I'll do it. It was early on in the war, while civilians could still walk beyond the limits of city-states and not get shelled. Bulkhead here had been an Autobot for about twelve orbital-cycles, and just graduated from Wrecker training. Breakdown was one of his fellow graduates."

"Wait, back up," Miko said, and looked at Bulkhead in surprise. "Breakdown was a Wrecker? As in One-eye-beat-you-until-you're-a-pulp hulk guy? That Breakdown?"

"Bulkhead and Breakdown used to be inseparable, always where the other was," Arcee said. "They were in the same caste, the Laborers. They built buildings together. They destroyed buildings together. They whistled at femmes together. And when the war broke out, they joined the Autobots together, and later the Wreckers together. Isn't that right?"

"... Yeah," was all Bulkhead said.

"It was around this time that the Decepticons started to look at Cybertron's moons as potential resources," Jazz continued. "First they went after Triax, then Daarn—"

"The same moon I had my rescue mission," Arcee quickly cut in through a comm-link, referring to the story she had told me one of the underwater rescue mission she had been on besides the one recently here on Earth. It had been a quick and simple mission of saving some scientists from a native invertebrate that decided the scientists' equipment and research station was too close to its nest, but still an entertaining story.

"—Then the Decepticons went to Loktas," Jazz went on, continuing to not use his accent. "They cleared out hundreds of camps in the moon's jungles and started mining energon immediately. They were getting so much energon from Loktas, Optimus decided we needed to relieve them of their energon mines. He sent two stealth frigates to scout where the Decepticons were most vulnerable, and each stealth frigate came with a team of Wreckers. Bulkhead and Breakdown were part of one of them."

The saboteur took another sip from his cube. "After the frigates arrived on Loktas, they split up to cover more ground. Bulkhead and Breakdown's group set up a base of operations in a cave, and the other group made their own base deep into the jungle. After helping set up their base, Bulkhead was told to get some recharge and Breakdown was made one of the first watchers of the night. Bulkhead was woken up by Breakdown about two breems later, and told by Breakdown that the two of them were to go out on a scouting mission immediately. Didn't explain why, only that the captain wanted them to scout the area around the base and offline any Decepticons that might be nearby. They left, and about twenty klicks later came upon a group of mechs moving through the jungle with only four armed. Now, Loktas is a very dark world at night, darker than any night of Earth; it's incredibly difficult to see more than thirty feet ahead of you at that time, and what you can see you can't see clearly, even when we adjust our optics to the darkness. Bulkhead wanted to wait for the group to pass by, but Breakdown wanted to take them all on. In the end, Breakdown won out and he and Bulkhead attacked. Bulkhead took one of outer guards down before he knew what happened, and Breakdown took out the other three in the same amount of time. Bulkhead was going to attack a second, but then he realized the mech in front of him wasn't a Decepticon."

I froze at the implication. Bulkhead didn't…

The Wrecker himself let his helm fall, hanging in a clear sign of regret.

"You mean…?" Jack asked, leaving the question hanging.

Jazz nodded. "The group Bulkhead and Breakdown attacked weren't made up of Decepticons—they were Autobots. They had been engineers that came along with the second group of Wreckers, and were in the process of searching for a good place to set up artillery units when Bulkhead and Breakdown attacked. When Bulkhead realized this, he yelled at Breakdown to stand down, since they were attacking friendlies… But Breakdown didn't. He slaughtered the whole group until it was just the mech Bulkhead hadn't attacked was left. He was a small mech by the name of Scud—good engineer, but had a big mouth, according to his record. Breakdown advanced on him, and when Bulkhead tried stopping him, Breakdown smacked him aside; this was when Bulkhead was a rookie, and Breakdown had been top of the class in melee. After disposing of Bulkhead, Breakdown told Scud that he should have chosen a different career path, and smashed his helm in with his hammer with an amused laugh. Then Breakdown left Bulkhead there and ran into the jungle, where he joined up with a Decepticon patrol a few miles away. We found out later that Breakdown had been feeding the Decepticons information since he was selected by the Wreckers, and had been ordered to eliminate the engineers of the second group of Wreckers, to prevent the Autobots from having firesupport. He slipped out of his sentry duties, brought Bulkhead along to make the job easier, then left to join his real comrades."

The room was as silent as a grave after Jazz finished speaking. Jack, Miko, and Raf looked stunned by the revelation, and I was with them.

Bulkhead was always such a friendly mech, always trying to take everything in stride. He had perhaps been the quickest to accept me into the Autobots while and after I was training, and never once did I think he carried around something like what Jazz just told us; he just didn't look like the sort who hid such a terrible thing.

Did that mean I looked like I was hiding a lot?

Miko walked over to Bulkhead—who was still sitting with his helm hung in shame—and hugged his pede. I could tell by the look in his optics that he appreciated the gesture, but remained motionless. "W… What happened after Breakdown left Bulkhead, Jazz?" She asked, her voice sad and quiet.

The saboteur took another sip from his cube, which was now nearly empty. "He went into shock, somehow managed to wander his way back to the group he arrived with, and babbled out everything he had done and how Breakdown had taken off. He was restricted to the base the group had made in the cave and relieved of his weapons, and a date was set for his trial for treason against the Autobot cause. On the grounds that he had been manipulated into attacking the group by Breakdown—and stopped attacking fellow Autobots upon realizing their identity, and attempting to stop Breakdown—Bulkhead was found not guilty."

"How did they reach that conclusion?" I asked, speaking out of logic. "All they had to go on was Bulkhead's testimony, and the offlined engineers. Breakdown was missing, yes, but he could have been taken out by a local predator—Loktas had massive organic carnivores."

Jazz's visor flashed in amusement, and a smile broke out on his faceplate. "Ah wasn' always a saboteur."

"Jazz was an investigator at the time of the First Battles of Loktas," said my courted. "He conducted the investigation of Bulkhead's case, found the evidence that supported Bulkhead's testimony."

"How did you do that?" Raf asked Jazz.

"It wasn' easy," said Jazz. "No witnesses, no motive on Breakdown' part, and nothing ta say Bulkhead hadn' offlined everyone himself—he an' Breakdown use similar weapons. Ah went through all da offline bots' belongin's 'til Ah found somethin' dat stood out. Just before he left, da Wrecker Bulk' attacked downloaded a program on his data pad dat made it double as a camera. It recorded da the whole thing from da ground, proved Bulk' was tellin' da truth. Da committee in charge of da case dropped da charges, an' Bulk' went back ta da Wreckers. Took a long time da regain their full trust, though."

I looked back at Bulkhead, feeling I had a greater understanding of both his anger toward me and his own guilt over Autobots on Loktas. The Autobot you offlined ended up saving your own life."

The Wrecker nodded, his faceplate solem and subdued. "His name was Gridbreaker. He was a big mech, about your height and build. He had been an Enforcer before the war broke out, and joined the Autobots as soon as it did. During the ending of the Siege of Nudin, he earned the Star of Valor for single-handedly holding back Decepticon forces attempting to storm an evacuation point—more than five-hundred Decepticons fell to his rifle and axe, that cycle; and during the Burning of Fort Cyrain, he earned the Plate of Heroism for saving nineteen fellow Autobots stationed at Fort Cyrain by carrying them through burning debris to get them to the sole surviving troop transport. He got promoted for that, and eventually reached the rank of Captain. He was one of the original Wreckers, perhaps their best warrior… And I hit him in the back of the helm while he was checking over his soldiers. I offlined a war hero without even realizing it, and even then he still managed to save my own life. Even if he didn't realize it, he was watching out for me, a fellow Autobot… And I didn't look out for him."

It was… Shocking to hear the level of shame Bulkhead had in his voice. He had been hiding so much pain under the surface, so much regret and self-loathing, that it made it seem like what I was going through wasn't anywhere close to what he was.

What did that say about the kind of person I was?

"And, in a way, my actions are drawing a lot of parallels with what you went through and what Breakdown did," I concluded, not voicing my thought.

"In a way, yeah," Bulkhead confirmed.

"And it brought up that anger at Breakdown."

The Wrecker's servo clinched for a moment, then relaxed. "Yeah."

"But you ignored your own actions in your anger," Arcee pointed out.

Bulkhead sighed, and Miko hugged his pede tighter, looking up at him with a small smile. "I did."

"Not a smart move, Bulk'," said Jazz. "Ya don' wanna end up like da Doc Bot, do ya? All dat anger and throwin' of wrenches… Ya just don' have da accuracy to match him in dat."

All of us—including Bulkhead—shared a laugh at Jazz's statement. It wasn't the laughter usually associated with amusement: it was softer, longer, and it seemed to have a touch of a darker tone to it that eventually gave way to joy. It was a laugh uttered at the end of an emotionally-charged moment. It was the first sign that a conversation was returning to normal, that the mood could brighten again.

Saboteur always knew when to crack a joke, it seemed.

"So, where does all this leave you and I, Bulkhead?" I asked after our laughter died, giving the Wrecker a serious look as I sipped from my cube. "Are we friends again, or must I re-earn the right to call you that?"

Bulkhead was silent for a long time, gazing into his cube like it was a mystery from the Golden Age that could only be solved if he stared at it long enough. "We're not like we were before you were taken," he finally said, tearing his optics from his cube to look up at me. "But it's a start."

I considered his words for a micro-klick, found them fair, and raised my cube up a few inches in a toast. "I'll take that."

Bulkhead returned my gesture, but gave his cube a disappointed look when he noticed it was empty. "One moment. I need to fix this situation," he said, and stood up and carefully walked himself over to the nearest dispenser.

While Bulkhead went to the dispenser, I looked down at the teens. "And what about you three? You walked out of the war room, too."

The humans shared looks with each other, then Jack looked up at me. "We can all see you regret what you did, and that it brings you pain… But it's complicated."

"Hormones always are," Arcee said factually.

Jack blinked in surprise, but nodded. "Well, they're a factor. But, there's a little more to it."

"And what would that be?" I asked.

"Your protocol-thingy," Miko answered.

Ah. That's definitely a valid reason. "What particular part of it?"

"The fact it's… Terrifying," Raf said. "It turns into something else, something that isn't… You. You knew that, and you still encouraged it to activate when you were on the Hammer."

"Yeah… Yeah I did," I said.

"What we want to know is: why?" Jack asked, regaining his role as the speaker for the three teens. "Why would you search out for something like that?"

"Because I was weak, and I couldn't take the pain I was going through at that moment," I answered without hesitating—that was the only answer that I found fit with my actions.

The teens looked surprised by how blunt and self-demoralizing my answer was, and it caused Arcee to give me a mild glare.

"What pain are you talking about?" Jack asked.

"The bad kind," I said, not wanting to say more about this than I had to—even the memory of that moment hurt. "And like I said, I was too weak to go through it."

Arcee glared at me again. "You weren't weak, Shadow'. I should know, out of all bots."

"The bots that had been on the Hammer would say you're wrong about that."

"This conversation is starting to sound very much like the ones we had just after you returned to Earth."

I just grunted, hiding any words that may have come out of my mouth on their own accord by sipping from my cube.

"Um, what are you two talking about?" Asked Raf.

Arcee looked down at the youngest of the teens as Bulkhead returned from refilling his cube. "The pain he is referring to is him being told Optimus was offline, along with… Me."

"So, you couldn't stand the thought of Optimus and Arcee not being around?" Raf asked me.

I sighed quietly, resigning myself to the fact I wasn't going to just remain vague about this topic. "Mostly Arcee, as bad as that sounds. I love Arcee more than I thought possible, and what I felt when I was lied to about her fate is… Not something I can explain properly."

Arcee smirked at me, shaking her helm. "You're such a sap."

"Only with you."

Raf looked puzzled, clearly uncomprehending of the concept of loving someone the way I loved Arcee; however, Jack and Miko were sharing a look, and I could tell they were trying to determine how much the death of the other would affect them to try placing themselves in the position I had been in.

"I… Think I get it," Raf said after a moment, tone suggesting he didn't.

"It's okay if you don't," I said.

"Then I don't. Sorry."

Arcee shrugged. "No matter what species you are, Imprinting is not something that can really be understood by someone who's not in the same position."

Jack and Miko broke away from each other's gaze, looking up at Arcee and I. "We don't get it, either… But we at least have some idea," said Miko.

"It must have been… I can't even word it right," added Jack.

Yeah. Pretty much, Jack. "Neither can I," I said.

"If that was what caused you to do what you did, I don't think we should have acted in the way we did," Jack said. "You said you had been interrogated for a long time before you… Did what you did. You were sent beyond your limit, and felt as if everything you cared about was gone."

"And you still feel bad about it," Raf said, going with what Jack said. "You aren't standing by your actions or trying to get away from them—you believe they were wrong, and aren't trying to make it seem like they were minor. Personally, I shows me what your true character looks like."

"Same here," Miko and Jack agreed at the same time, causing them to give each other a humored look.

Did it? I wasn't sure. "What's your official opinion of me, then?" I asked, eager to continue on from this topic.

The teens thought for several micro-klicks, then Raf said, "Marred, but mostly the same."

Miko nodded. "I agree with that."

"Same," said Jack.

"Hmm… Seems dat my plans for a party migh' be startin' ta be get back on course…" Jazz suddenly re-entered in the conversation, tone mysterious.

The others chuckled at Jazz, but I found it difficult to do so after talking about my actions for so long. "Please, no parties, Jazz—all of our previous attempts have been a disaster. And that is the universal opinion."

Arcee looked at me, seeing right through my words, and not pushing me on it. "You haven't been to a party Jazz has planned."

"It can't be much better than the ones that ended in failure."

"Dat hurts, Shadowster'!"

"You'd be surprised," Arcee went on, ignoring Jazz and continuing to try lifting me from my mood.

"I wouldn't bet on it," I said.

"There's high-grade cocktails, music—lots of music—lights, all the best stuff."

"Doesn't sound much better."

"If you agreed to it, you'd see how wrong you are."

"I'm not going to agree to it."

"That so?"

"Yup."

"But we haven't even danced since we started courting!"

"I don't dance."

"I bet you'd enjoy it."

"Probably wouldn't."

"Not with that attitude. It would just take agreeing to one of Jazz's parties to change your processor."

"No."

"No to changing your processor, or no to having Jazz throw a party?"

"Both."

"Please?"

"No."

"Not even a little one?"

"Okay, yes."

"Really?"

"No."

"Are you sure? Because as I recall, Jazz pretty much sets a standard for his parties. Everyone needs to drink any kind of energon they want—so long as they enjoy it—laugh, have fun, and look their best. This would mean I would I have to find some polish… Would that interest you?"

"... Maybe."

Arcee smirked victoriously, leaned forward, kissed me quickly, then leaned against my side as the leftover feeling of electricity from our kisses faded away from my frame. "Now that's more like it. Much more like the Shadow' I know."

Jack and Miko looked at Raf, blinking rapidly. "I think we understand how you feel around us, now," Jack said.

Raf shook his head, suddenly looking deathly serious. "No… No you don't."

Everyone in the room laughed again, and—despite how difficult it was for me at the moment—I joined them.

---

Breems later, I was walking down the hallway to my quarters to call it a cycle.

I had spent the rest of Bulkhead, Jazz, and Arcee's recess from the med-bay in the rec room with them and the teens. We talked, laughed, shot the teens' trebuchet, and in general had a good time. After their time was up, I escorted them to the med-bay, then returned to my duties until the teens were picked up when June's shift ended and she picked them up. In all, I would say this solar-cycle had been a good one.

But, despite that, I never could completely get rid myself of the mood I had fallen in during the course of my conversations with Bulkhead and the teens. I still had fun with them all—and especially enjoyed Arcee's company—but not totally. I couldn't escape the mood even as I walked down the hallway. It was following me around, like a small cloud that floated over my helm.

No matter what I did, what I thought, my CPU always went back to one thing that stood out in my conversation: what was my true character?

Had I been in my true character since I returned to Earth, or was I pretending to be as I was before I was taken? Was my character before I was the Paraions' captive really my true character, or did I show my colors when I searched myself and activated my Protocol willingly?

Shaking my helm to rid me of the thought for a moment, I reached the door to my quarters and started entering the password.

The fact was, what I did on the Hammer changed me, and not for the better. I was carrying something around that I wouldn't have even been able to imagine two orbital-cycles ago, and it wasn't something I could just ignore. I had really slaughtered those Paraions', like they had meant nothing more than Goats. But the circumstances behind my actions hadn't been normal, and I hoped no one else would have to go through themselves. Had I shown my true character on the Hammer, or was someone's character determined by how they acted after they did something horrible?

I didn't know, and I lik—

A force rammed into my side, ripping me away from the door panel and pinning me against the wall, my helm breaking stone as it was slammed into the wall by a cold, CPU-numbing servo. I felt another cold servo trapping my left servo against the wall, but I couldn't see it due to the angle my faceplate and the servo on my helm.

My instinct and reflexes for battle kicked in, and I threw a blind punch at my attacker's tank.

My fist connected with a loud clang, but my attacker was not fazed; his armor was cold to the touch.

I struggled against the servos trapping me, using all of my strength to force my attacker back; the arrival of the Dinobots, Broadside, and Ultra Magnus may have repositioned me in our rankings of physically strongest bots, but I was still very strong and powerful.

The mech—for my attacker could only be a mech—who had slammed me into the wall didn't budge. His grip was like Primax, firm, powerful, and unyielding.

A chilling, twisted, distorted laugh came from my attacker. "I know what defines someone's true colors…"

I froze, even without the cold of my attacker's servos. That voice… It was twisted and distorted, but I could plainly hear its qualities underneath: it was deep, clear, and resonant. In a conversation, it was instantly recognizable and apparent; and in the field, it could have been used as a good battlefield voice, with practice.

It sounded like me.

"It was fun offlining all those bots, wasn't it? How many of them do you think screamed for mercy as you ripped off their helms? One? Five? Ten? Too many to count… So many murders in so short a time. And you just kept going, kept offlining them all. You didn't even spare the ones who were no threat. That is the showing of someone's true colors. That is your true colors. The colors of a murderer... How delightful."

As quickly as he appeared, the mech let go of me. And by the time I turned my helm, he was but gone—I only saw a flash of crimson optics and dark, shineless black armor surrounded by black steam.

The chilling and distorted laughter echoed down the hallway, sounding as if it came from everywhere at once. Then it cut out.

My spark was pulsing at a mile a micro-klick, my cooling fans activated loudly to cool my heated systems. I unconsciously backed up against the wall—briefly noting how the rock was no longer broken—and rapidly checked both sides of the hallway, feeling like a very small, and very scared sparkling.

What the frag was that?

---

You know what I said last chapter, about not adding new plot elements? I didn't go against that; this is plot PROGRESSION. There's a difference... Don't look at me like that.

Well, my Hard Month did not pan out for me as planned - I only wrote 10,000 words on my novel. Normally, I would not see that as a failure, but I do at this point since I was wanting to write several times that number. Also didn't get anything done on the first chapter of Last of the Wyrms.

*Shrugs* Oh, well. There's always tomorrow, or whenever inspiration strikes me.

This chapter's credit song is "Three Days Grace - Animal I have Become" I am aware of this song's true meaning, but the way it flows seems just right with this chapter, and the ending I wrote. The central themes of the song and the chapter are also there. I think it fits just right.

Well, that's it. Please take a moment to leave some feedback, and feel free to send a message to me if you have a very particular question or are just shy about reviewing.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you all have a great day/night. :)

See you soon.