A/N: I'll keep the a/n's short. Apologies for the delay, I got side tracked with other things, including 2 new fics: 'A Tale of First Contact' and 'Remnant's First Huntsmen'.

Anyway, let's get to the reason on why you're here.

Edit: Chapter was beta'ed and corrected.

Here's chapter 10 of The Autobot and the Arc. Enjoy :)


The bell rang and Arcee could hear the excitement of the younger humans, teenagers if she recalled the term correctly, as they left the building. Arcee shared some of their enthusiasm. Over the past five days, she has been Jaune's personal transport to and from his school. The long hours of waiting weren't as boring as one would think.

She was chained on a bike rack right next to a classroom window, so she was able to peek in and listen to what was being taught. So far she was able to eavesdrop on various history and geography classes, and one class about different types of local Grimm and how to avoid them. She was surprisingly glad about learning about Remnant. Jaune was also happy to help further explain anything she didn't understand or missed. In addition, he also helped explain some social cues, phrases, and other things she overheard the students say, and do.

Well… most of them anyway. Some of the things would make his face turn red and he would refuse to talk about it. She figured that there was a reason and didn't pursue further.

But anyway, today was a 'half day' due to a teacher conference. This meant Jaune got out before noon. He said that after they make a quick stop in town to get something, they can spend the rest of the day to head to her ship.

Heading to the ship was something she could have done on her own, but she currently didn't know how long the trip would take and where the most direct route was. Jaune said he'd help by looking at maps to find the most direct route, if he could tag along. She wanted to say no, but part of her felt that he'd be more cooperative with her if he had a better idea of what he was helping with.

Plus, to keep the disguise up she would have to be out when he was out and in the shed when he was home. His motorcycle being gone while he was home would raise questions and cause complications neither of them wanted.

The students started coming out and getting their bikes off of the racks. Arcee wouldn't admit it, but she was enjoying the few jealous glares some of them sent her way. Jaune came out a few minutes later when the racks were clear of people and most of the other bikes were gone.

"Hey Arcee, sorry I'm late," Jaune said quietly as he unchained her wheel.

"It's ok, she whispered back. "Are we still able to head to the ship today?"

"We just need to get a few vegetables and drop them off home for mom. I told my mom I would be with friends afterward, so she won't be suspicious of anything."

"Excellent."

It took only a few minutes to get to the food market and a few more to get back to Jaune's home. Arcee was a little fascinated by human food. She and other cybertronians could only really get their energy from a single source, yet the humans can get theirs from so many different things. Though they had to consume much more of it than they did energon, the fact that most of their food was from plant life was convenient. She wondered if they had different flavors like some energon did.

They quickly arrived back home. Jaune went in and soon came back out with a backpack of food and school materials to pass the time. He also brought up a map on his scroll. Rorke's Drift was marked and the adjacent coastline was circled. Arcee saw three possible areas where her ship could be, and they soon took off for the closest one.

They didn't take any of the main or back roads, they made for the straightest route possible through the forest. This was a little more dangerous because it increased the possibility of running into Grimm, but both were confident that they could easily outrun, and avoid them entirely.

But in the end, Primus must have been watching her today. Not only did they not encounter any Grimm along the way, but the first location was in fact the correct one. Jaune checked his scroll as soon as they stopped. "The trip took just under two hours. I thought it would have been longer."

"Well, we didn't have to take it slow due to your injuries, and we had a straight path to take instead of those side and main roads," Arcee explained.

"Good point," Jaune said as he got off of her. "Are you sure this is the right place? Where's the ship?"

"It crashed along the cliffside, by the water," Arcee said as she transformed and took a knee. "We have to climb. Hope on and I'll carry you." Jaune hesitated before accepting the offer and climbing up. He wrapped his arms around her neck and legs around her body.

Arcee walked over to the cliff and started climbing along the side. She was careful with her movements, not wanting to make Jaune feel uncomfortable or accidentally pinch him. It was slow, but they made it to the ship in no time.

Once in, Arcee let Jaune down and took a moment to look around. The shuttle was still a wreck, and with the angle of the sun, Arcee was noticing a lot more tears, dents, and warped metal all along the walls and ceiling. It was an absolute mess. How the shuttle was still in one piece was a miracle on its own.

"THIS IS AWESOME!" She looked down to Jaune, who had a huge smile on his face as he looked around, seemingly ready to start jumping in the air. "Oh my god I'm actually on a spaceship! An alien spaceship! Holy crap this is awesome!"

Arcee couldn't help but chuckle at his display. He was just like a young excited little sparkling. "Just be careful and don't touch anything glowing or sharp. And no buttons."

"Ok ok, I'll be careful," Jaune said as he put his backpack down and started looking around. There wasn't much space to go, the shuttle wasn't that big. But with Jaune's size compared to hers and his fascination, Arcee was sure it was more than enough for him.

While Jaune explored and marveled at everything in the ship, Arcee decided to do another inventory check on the off chance she'd find something she'd miss the first time. She didn't find anymore energon than previously, but she concluded that she had enough to sustain herself for at least five of Remnant's years, more so if she rationed it out.

"Hey Arcee, what's the glowing stuff in those crates?" Jaune asked.

"This is energon," Arcee pulled out a cube out and held it near the floor. This is what I need to sustain myself and keep me powered up. Think of it like food for me."

"Wow," Jaune's eyes sparkled with astonishment as he stared at the cube. "I-is it safe for me to touch?"

"It's refined and processed, so it should be, yes," Arcee replied. Energon was toxic in its raw form but was safe once refined. It didn't even occur to her that it could harm him because he was organic. But when it did, Jaune already had his hand on it for a few seconds and everything seemed to be ok.

"It feels a little… tingly. Weird." Jaune retracted his hand moments later and rubbed it. "Thank you for showing me." Arcee smiled as she put the energon cube away. Her optics then caught the terminal interface by the pilot's seat. She initially overlooked it thinking everything was offline and there was no source of power for it.

But now she had a hunch that said otherwise. She walked up to it and wiped away the rubble and dust. She flipped a few switches and the small screen emitted a small glow. Arcee smirked, at least the shuttle's onboard computer was still functioning. She had the computer do a system's check. Only the onboard diagnostic/pilot systems and the ramp control appeared to be online. Everything else was marked as offline or unresponsive.

It was expected, but she hoped it wouldn't be this bad. Doubt started to creep into her mind, but she shook it away. She couldn't afford to think like that right now. She went through more of the systems. She went through the systems and found an option for a hidden storage locker. Curious, she activated it and heard a quick hiss behind her.

"I didn't do it!" Jaune shouted in a panic with his hands up, standing next to a now open compartment. "I swear I didn't touch anything!"

"It's ok, that was me. Sorry," Arcee apologized as she walked to and peered inside the locker. There were two shelves. On top, there were a few energon rations that Arcee immediately took and put in her internal storage for later. The bottom shelf contained some kind of rectangular object the length of her forearm with a slit at the top. She swore she saw something similar before, but couldn't recall where. She noticed to the left of it was a datapad. She picked it up and started to read through it.

After reading for a minute, she found out that the rectangle was actually a folded up neutron assault rifle. It was a common weapon she saw used among Autobot and Decepticons alike. She preferred using her own blasters and arm blades, but having the extra option wouldn't hurt.

She put her hand in the slit and the box attached itself to her before folding into her without any physical differences to her body. She stood up and tested summoning it, transforming her arm into the weapon: twin tri-barrel machine guns. Not the most accurate from what she's seen, but good for close combat and for laying down suppressive fire. Everything seemed ok and she couldn't help but smile.

"Wow." Arcee turned her head around. She actually forgot Jaune was here for a moment. His eyes were locked on the new weapon. "What is that?"

"It's a weapon I just found in the locker," she explained and turned her arm back to normal.

"That was a really big gun," Jaune commented slowly.

"Pretty normal from where I'm from," she responded nonchalantly as she walked back to the console.

"Are you a soldier?" Jaune asked after a few moments.

"Yes, I am." Arcee paused for a moment before turning back to him. "I never really told you anything about me, have I?"

"Not really, no," Jaune shrugged.

"Huh, I didn't even realize..." Arcee took a moment to think. "Tell you what, when we get back later, I'll tell you all about myself and my home. It's only fair since you did it for me after all."

"Ok, thank you," Jaune smile. Arcee returned it and went back through the console to see if there was anything she missed. After a minute of searching, she found something else that she overlooked.

She found an option to activate a radar/homing beacon. Arcee figured that it could activate a distress beacon or at least scan the surrounding planet and stars to tell her where exactly she is in relation to Cybertron. She tried to activate it but a no signal error appeared. "Slag…. wait a moment..." She then recalled that Jaune mentioned that scrolls could wirelessly connect across the whole planet. "Hey Jaune, can you come here for a moment and let me borrow your scroll, please?"

"Uh, sure," Jaune jogged over and handed it to the larger bot. "What do you need it for?"

"I want to test something, I'll only be a moment." With gentle care, she took the small device and placed it down. Just like before in Rorke's Drift, she put one finger up shifted it into the plug and inserted it into the scroll. She then transformed her other finger and inserted it into one of the console ports. To her surprise, a pop up on the console showed that it seemed to be working, and soon the 'beacon active' sign appeared. Arcee's joy was short lived as the screen flickered into an error message. 'Beacon malfunction: unknown error.'

"Oh well, it was worth a shot," Arcee sighed. But right before she pulled her finger out of the scroll, she got a curious thought and started to scan through the scroll. She avoided the pictures and personal messages for Jaune's privacy. After a few moments of scanning the functions, she found one that would be useful and copied it.

"Hey Jaune, do me a favor and tell me your scroll number," she asked as she handed the scroll back to him.

"Ok, but why?" Jaune asked after he did so. Arcee smiled and held two figures to her audio receptors. Jaune scroll rang a moment later and he answered it.

"Can you hear me?" Arcee's voice echoed through the scroll instead of her mouth.

"Wow!" Jaune's head alternated between Arcee and his scroll. "You can call me by yourself now?!"

"Voice only, but we now have a way to contact each other," Arcee matched his smile and ended the call. "That should make communicating a little easier now." It wasn't anything Arcee planned to do, but it was something.


The next few hours flew by rather quickly. Arcee managed to get through the rest of the ship, answering whatever questions she could whenever Jaune brought them up. Arcee managed to determine that despite the damage, the hull integrity was just strong enough to escape atmosphere and two out of the four side engines, one on each side, were still mostly in one piece. It didn't look like much, but personal experience told her that it would be enough.

She wasn't able to study the engines to see how to repair them, but she could do that next time. She didn't get done much of what she wanted, but it was better than nothing. As much as she wanted to stay, she had to keep her cover and Jaune's cover.

"You ready Jaune?" she asked.

"Yep," he replied as he zipped his backpack up. "All ready to go."

"Alright. Hope o-" There was a soft sound of an explosion outside. Not even in an eye blink, Arcee had both arm blasters aimed at the entrance and was crouched in a firing stance, ready for combat.

"-cee? Arcee?" Arcee zoned back in and looked down to Jaune. "Are you alright?" he asked. She couldn't help but notice that he looked more concerned for her. Did he not hear the- She flinched when she heard another soft explosion. This time she confirmed that it was of something breaking the sound barrier, like the Decepticon seekers.

"It's ok Arcee, you can put the guns away It's only thunder," Jaune said softly as he moved his hands in a calming motion.

"Thunder?" She asked as she put her weapons away.

"Yeah, sounds like a rainstorm is coming."

"Rainstorm?"

"Yeah it's-... wait, we should go outside and check to see how bad it looks."

Arcee just nodded and let Jaune climb up on her and scaled along the cliffs. She felt a little unease. She didn't know what rain was, but she had an idea it was bad since it was a storm. Cybertron unfortunately had its areas that were plagued by rust storms. Getting caught in one was a death sentence and a guarantee to a slow, decaying death.

Her worries weren't calmed when they reached the grassland and saw that the inland sky was covered in dark gray and black clouds, ever so slowly creeping towards them as bright white arcs of electricity flashed violently and were almost immediately followed by the booms she heard earlier. Not even approaching rust storms, which Autobot and Decepticon alike feared, looked as menacing as this did.

"Oh crap," Jaune said, sounding more inconvenienced than anything else. That was her only indication that it wasn't as bad as it looked. "I really should have looked at a weather report before we left, dang it."

"I'm assuming we can't travel in this?" Arcee asked hypothetically.

"Well, I'm sure you could with no problem, but not me. Just the rain alone would be enough to ruin my stuff and give me a cold," Jaune said.

"The rain would make you feel cold?" She asked with a raised optic.

"Uh, no. Cold as in a little sick," he explained. He looked at the storm again and pulled out his scroll. "And I got no signal now. Great."

"Storm's causing interference," Arcee stated the obvious. "How bad do these storms get?"

"You don't want to get caught outside, that's for sure. We'll be fine if we stay in the ship, I'm just worried about how long it will take. If it lasts for the rest of the night then my mom will know I lied about where I was today."

Arcee instantly saw the problem with that. His mom figuring out he lied about where they were could cause trust issues and complications that could delay her opportunities to travel back to the ship. She could still leave on her own, but it would just raise questions if she was missing when Jaune was still home.

"We'll figure something out," Arcee said, managing to comfort Jaune a little before a close and loud boom of thunder echoed through the air. "Let's get back to the ship now."


The sun set a while ago and it was still and thundering pretty bad outside. Jaune eventually fell asleep, using his backpack as a pillow. Arcee sat next to his body, gazing outside the ship. Jaune explained to her about the 'water cycle', precipitation, and how it affects the natural life on Remnant and how it creates different habitats. It was all fascinating to Arcee and she found it fun and interesting to learn how the alien planet functioned.

Another flash of lightning lit up the sky, allowing Arcee to see the hundreds of rain droplets in the air for a slight moment. Curious, she got up and stuck her hand outside, taking note of the raindrops falling on her hand and how it felt.

She got a curious idea and saw no harm in doing so. She scaled the cliff again, it was a little harder this time since the rocks were slippery, and walked out to an open area before holding her arms out, optics closed with her head tilted up.

All over her body, she could feel the raindrops impacting against and bathing her, slowly running down her metallic form. She was covered in liquid energon before, but the rainwater felt so much different. It felt comfortably cold, clean, smooth, and light, much like the river she found earlier. It felt pleasant and relaxing. She opened her eyes and several bolts of lightning lit the sky, allowing her to see the small details of the clouds above as well as the thousands if not millions of tiny water droplets descending from the sky. Arcee may have thought the storm was menacing looking before, but now she couldn't help but see beauty in it. It was wonderful.

Arcee stayed like that for a while, wanting to savor the memory before she went back inside the ship.


The cybertronian patrolled the ship's corridors one last time out of boredom. Not like there was anything else to do. It then decided that it was time to power down for now to conserve energon. It went around shutting off the ship's systems, but when it got to the main control room, it stopped. One of the monitors was blinking. It picked up a signal.

A cybertronian beacon.

The transformer immediately rushed to the terminal, but the monitor then displayed that the signal was lost. The cybertronian cursed and smashed its fist against the wall. It typed some commands in the terminal for learn more. It couldn't get much, only two pieces of information:

While it couldn't get the exact location, it was able to determine that the beacon came from within a 500 km radius from one of the planet's main settlements. The signal was also an Autobot one.

That fact alone made the cybertronian type the command to deploy several probes to scout the area. The transformer decided to make his stasis short, just in case they found something quickly.


A/N: T-pose to assert your dominance over nature Arcee XD, that was my favorite scene to visualize.

So yeah, Arcee and Jaune have been bonding, she has a new gun and a new fascination for rain, and another cybertronian is entering the fray. But is it a friend or foe? Hopefully you'll find out soon.

Also big shout out to Cyberleader2000 for my go-to for TF facts and lore and to Cylon One for Betaing.

Thank you for reading, have a great day :)