Chapter 1: Crash Landing

Cramped into a dark and screeching escape pod was truly awful. None of them could have prepared for the fear of careening through the air with no idea of where they were going or how hard they would land. Most likely crash land at their speed. The pod was beginning to heat up with air friction, the outer hull was beginning to burn and by the sound of it, tear away from the outside.

"Please tell me we're going to hit water!" Sideswipe screamed from wherever he was crammed in the lightless pod.

"I'd tell you if we had a cockpit to see or steer from!" Strongarm answered from somewhere else.

"Bad news everyone!" Fixit cried from yet another corner of the pod next to a small porthole, caught all of their attention, "ALL I SEE IS DES-DES-DES," clank, "DESERT!"

"And we're about to meet it pretty quickly if we don't get that door open!" Windblade shouted.

In truth, they would stand a better chance at tucking and rolling on impact than all of them crashing at once and risking the pod exploding on impact at this speed. It was riskier and severe injuries where all but guaranteed. Windblade would be fine, jumping was the only option they had if they wanted a better chance to survive. There was some scrambling as they all felt around in the dark for the handle, they only had a few moments before impact. Luckily, Drift found it and immediately alerted the others,

"I have the door, on your orders Lieutenant!" He called,

There was no answer.

"Bumblebee?" Jazz called.

Again, no answer. The collective metaphorical gasp hit them like a freight train.

"I was the one of the last in, I don't think he got on!" Grimlock answered from another corner of the pod.

"No, he-" Slipstream didn't get a chance to finish his sentence, they didn't have a lot of time.

"Minicons! Grab ahold of whoever is next to you and don't let go of them! On the count of three I'm opening the door! Regroup at the pod's landing sight!" Drift shouted from the door. There was more dashing from the three minis as they grabbed ahold of the first bots they could find.

"One... Two... Three!" And with a yank the door was open, light poured in as they were all blown out. Breaking into the midday light they scattered apart, thankfully slowing down as the pod landed somewhere a few miles away in a deafening crash.

Windblade caught the wind and effortlessly twisted and transformed into her Arieal vehicle mode with surprising grace. She sought out the closest Autobot to her and dove for him. It was Drift with a tight grip on a poor screaming Fixit clutched to his forearm. He heard her coming and single handedly caught her wing mid-dive. The weight of him sent her into a wobbling decent, but between the two of them they landed alright. Drift had to land running and Windblade had to make a sharp bank to avoid a pillar of rocks, but they probably landed better than anyone else did.

"We didn't smash into a thousand bits?" Fixit asked, rather surprised.

"Thank you Windblade. I apologize for the rough catch, but your assistance was greatly needed." Drift thanked her setting Fixit down.

"Don't worry about it Drift, wasn't my worst landing." She dropped down into her protoform to join him and Fixit on the ground.

"Drift to Sideswipe, come in Sideswipe." The samurai-bot called over the coms to see if he could reach the red muscle car.

There was nothing, just static.

"Come in Strongarm, this is Windblade. Can anybot hear me? Please respond." Windblade tried to call them, she was also answered by static.

Fixit pulled out his info pad and began testing the area for anomalies. He got an answer pretty quickly, but it wasn't a great one.

"I'm not getting much of a signal at all. Could be our jump through the bridge may have scrambled our frequencies, or their audio receptors are damaged, or the ship is emanating a combating signal, or-"

"We landed near a signal disruptor." Drift concluded a little more ominously.

"... Or that..." The minicon agreed reluctantly.

"Do we even know where we are? Shockwave's ground bridge seemed to behave a bit... unconventionally." Windblade asked.

The female Autobot wasn't wrong, everyone had noticed his space bridge looked to be a heavily tampered with. When it was activated, it bent and twisted rather aggressively for a space bridge. No one had even seen where the coordinates where set to before they were forced to retreat through it. With that in mind, who had even set the coordinates?

"All I see is desert, but it seems to be Earth." Drift observed, noting their landing place. They stood at the entrance to a canyon that appeared to stretch on for several miles branching in several places among scattered boulders. The ground was sun baked and what little plant life was around was dry and sparce complete with a lot of small cacti. The sky was smudged with thin white clouds and the sun was already beginning to heat their armor plating in the late afternoon glare.

"Think you could fly us to the escape pod from here?" Fixit asked.

"Not easily, we were the first bots out and we're the farthest from the pod's landing sight. Sorry Fixit, but it would be too much weight for me to carry that far." She apologized, looking up at the smoke trail the pod had left in the sky.

"We need not worry about making up the distance. We are between 25 to 30 miles at most from the crash site. Windblade, if you would take to the air and scout for the others or any human first responders, Fixit and I will follow close behind. We can reach the pod within an hour or two depending on the terrain." Drift suggested.

"Sounds like a pretty good plan." She agreed, transforming again and taking off, "I'll scout ahead for the best route to take, just keep me in sight." She alerted him.

Drift transformed behind her and popped his doors for the minicon. Taking off down the canyon Fixit seemed unable to hold back a burning question. He asked hesitantly, not wanting to either pester Drift or receive a distressing answer.

"Did you see how many of us where actually in the escape pod?"

"I... Cannot confirm if we were all in attendance. The power was cut as we were ejected into the space bridge." He responded sadly.

"Oh." His tone edged on distress.

"I did see most of our team in and I heard a lot of their voices within the pod." He tried to reassure him.

"Did you see Lieutenant Bumblebee?" Fixit asked, pleading that he had an answer.

"I cannot confirm." Drift repeated, unable to hide his shadowed tone.

Strongarm clutched Slipstream to her chest as she slammed into the hard packed earth and bounced. She hit so hard she lost her grip on him and resorted to attempting to dig her heals and elbows into the ground to stop rolling too far from him. Bashing into solid ground repeatedly she gradually began so slow and start sliding. By that point she hurt so bad she couldn't move and was starting to feel herself slide off a steep drop. A pair of tiny hands grasped her arm as one of her legs began to tip off the edge of a cliff. Slipstream had caught up to her and was trying to pull her away from the cliff edge despite being only one sixth her size. She managed to grip the edge with her other hand as her other leg precariously slipped off the edge of the cliff.

Finding nothing to grab ahold of, Strongarm kept slipping off the rocky precipice. Despite Slipstream's attempts at digging his feet were into the dirt, he too was edging closer and closer to the edge himself.

"Slipstream let go!" She ordered, not wanting to drag him with her.

"No, Cadet Strongarm! I will not let you fall!" He protested, pulling harder.

She didn't get the chance to tell him again before they both slipped off the cliffside. Her peds scraped against the rocks as they dropped several hundred feet before catching them on a dead tree and flipping her to fall flat on her back at the cliff's base. Her audio receptors rang on impact alerting her immediately to not only the several scrapes and other damages she sustained, now her com receptors where damaged. After finally being able to stop moving, Strongarm just lay still and recollected herself.

"Strongarm! Are you alright?"

Opening her eyes, looming over her was a very dusty Slipstream complete with a few tufts of desert grass stuck in his helmet.

"I feel like I just went fist to fist with Grimlock for five rounds of sparring and lost... every single time." She admitted, struggling to sit up.

"You just got launched from an escape pod from several thousand feet actually." He corrected her politely.

"I... Know that." She didn't have the energy to explain the exaggeration, "Are you injured?"

"No, I hit a thick sand dune upon landing. And I landed on you when we went over the ledge." He explained pulling the grass from his helmet.

"Are your coms still operational?" She asked, looking herself over for any open bleeding injuries as her optics recalibrated.

"Master Drift, Jetstorm, do either of you copy?" He called over the coms, his silent pause followed by a shrug. "I'm sorry Strongarm, I can't hear anyone. It sounds like the signal is getting scrambled."

"Great. Do you still see the smoke trail?"

"Can you not?!" Slipstream sounded like he was bordering on panic now.

"At the moment no, that last fall really busted my headcase up. Give me a minute to stop seeing sparks." She asked.

"We can't wait too long, you're leaking energon too." He advised.

He was right. Her right knee was busted and leaking a great deal, as she moved to look at it better, she found her left elbow was also bashed pretty badly. Transforming was not a very good idea right now, the extra shifting could jar her injuries more, if she was even able to make the shift to her vehicle form.

"Alright, I'm still calibrating. Slipstream you're going to have to lead for a while because I can't see the trail very straight. And well, these injuries won't fix themselves, maybe the first aid kit is still in the pod." Strongarm started easing herself up into a sitting position, Slipstream pushed along her back to help her sit up.

"Are you sure you're ready to move already? You can't push yourself too hard with that amount of damage." The minicon pressed.

"No, but we can't wait for the Lieutenant or the others right now. I'm leaking too much energon and I just can't sit and wait if the coms are dead."

"But Strong-"

"It's not ideal but if we take it slow, I'll be fine."

"Strongarm!" Slipstream's tone was starting to rise in both anger and worry, "Lieutenant Bumblebee stayed behind!"

Now it was the trainee's turn to panic, she had hoped the silence on the pod was just because maybe he just didn't know what to do. But if Slipstream was right...?

"What do you mean he stayed behind?!" She almost screamed, their leader wouldn't just send them off without a backup plan. But he didn't say anything at all to anyone. What did they do now?

"I'm sorry Cadet, I fell amidst the commotion and Bumblebee fell back to retrieve me. When we got to the pod, he pushed me in behind Master Drift and shut the door! He looked in the back window once but then..." Slipstream had to take a moment to slow down and collect his emotions, "I think he stayed behind to buy us time to escape! I believe he sent us here, wherever here is." He concluded.

"Slipstream this is very important," She tried to get a grip and calm herself down a little more before she spoke again, "Are you absolutely sure Bumblebee didn't board in the pod with us?"

"Yes, I'm certain he didn't."

"Absolutely sure?"

"Yes."

Slipstream was adamant and really, there was no reason to doubt his account of the events. But even on the odd occasion when Bee was out of commission, such as the one day he was stuck in the shadow zone, he was still there and watching over them trying to assist in any way he could. Now, her hero was left behind and she had no clue what to do without him. Even when they regrouped, what then? Where would they go? How far where they from the Junkyard? Was it even safe to go there now?

They couldn't leave him back on Cybertron at Shockwave's mercy, but how would they return and back him up?

"I am so sorry..." Slipstream's eyes were locked on the ground in shame.

"Hey Slipstream, as humans say, 'chin up'," She lightly rested her fingers on his small shoulder, "Lieutenant Bumblebee is a tough bot. He can hold his own and he knows we won't let him down. For now, we start with getting patched up. Then we regroup and get back home. Alright?" She tried to comfort him. He raised his optics to hers, sorrow clear on his face, but she knew there would be a time and place to address it further. They were loosing daylight, she was losing energon and they had a lot of ground to cover.

"Very well." He agreed as she pulled herself unsteadily to her feet.

"Lead the way." She prompted.

Slipstream looked up to the sky and quickly sought out the smoke trail. He began leading her down the canyon in the direction of the pod. As Strongarm began limping after him, he looked over his shoulder to make sure she was able to walk enough to follow behind him.

"There seems to be some luck on our side," He observed. "This canyon follows the direction we need to go, and it seems to be a good cover should we need it."

"Good, I don't think I'd be able to climb back up there if we needed to." She agreed.

Of all the places to land, a farm wasn't where Sideswipe and Jazz expected to land. However, they were lucky enough to make a straight shot into the upper level of a barn... But they careened through it and out the back door of the hay mow. The elder white, red, and blue Autobot caught himself on the back door and just dangled momentarily. The younger red sports car had flown from the hay mow and made a perfectly unfortunate landing through the barn and into a windmill fed pond. In a flurry of hay and mud, spooking every cow and chicken within a ten-mile radius, the two bots nailed the rather messy landing.

"No! Not the paint! Denny just got me detailed!" Sideswipe complained dragging himself out of the pond and tugging moss out of his grill.

"Any injuries?" Jazz asked dropping from the second story barn door and shaking dried alfalfa sticks from himself,

"No, not really, I guess." He answered dejectedly.

"Good, because we need to move." Jazz transformed to his vehicle mode and immediately took off. The younger bot sensing something wrong but trusting his comrade, he followed without any further complaint. As they charged from the barn on wheels, the farmer ran from his house with a shot gun and began firing. He fragged Jazz's driver side door and Sideswipe's front fender with shotgun pellets as they peeled out down the driveway, cursing at them with some very colorful language. Once they hit the gravel road, they put the metal to the petal and burned rubber after the distant smoke trail seeping from the pod.

"How did you know he was coming after us?" Sideswipe asked.

"Human farmers tend to keep weapons close at hand in case other animals go after their livestock. Or intruders." He explained.

"Do you think he saw a pair of robots fall out of the sky?"

"I don't think so. If he did, I doubt he would have thought a gun would do a lot of damage." He explained.

"So... we were just some human teenagers out joy riding?"

"Yep! Just joy riding." Jazz agreed.

"Any idea of how far we are from the pod?" Sideswipe asked.

"Depends, we can probably pick up the speed until we hit pavement, or the farmer calls the cops. I can guess about fifteen minutes. Once we get closer, we should go off road. You sure you're alright back there?"

"I'm in need of another wash and maybe some alignment but nothing too bad. You alright Jazz?"

"I'll be picking dried foliage out of my fenders for the next month and my door needs a buff now but I'm good."

They were silent as they drove for a bit, Sideswipe decidedly ignored the swamp grime and hay carnage to just get a feel from going from an enclosed darkened pod rocketing through a sketchy space bridge, to feeling blessed sunbaked gravel against his tires again. If they weren't in a hurry, he might have just kissed the ground he was treading on, but that would mean stopping and he sure as Primus wasn't doing that. Seventy-five miles per hour felt far too good to cut short, but he had to break the silence.

"Think the others landed, okay?"

Jazz seemed to think for a moment before he responded.

"They probably didn't land as nice as we did, but we were pretty low when Drift opened the door. Not to mention Windblade can fly, she probably caught one or two of us on the way down. Some of us might have some scars after today but..." He let his reply hang in the air optimistically.

Sideswipe turned up his coms and listened, surely the others had landed by now, why wernt they calling?

"Sideswipe to Strongarm, got your coms on?"

Nothing but white noise answered him.

"Hey Windblade, its Slick. What's your twenty?"

More white noise and static.

"My coms aren't picking up anything." He told Jazz ahead of him.

"Probably not, Shockwave probably built the pod with a scrambler to keep it hidden wherever it landed. Until the back-up battery dies, it looks like we're all in a radio dead zone for a good fifty-mile radius."

"Great, no radio either." Sideswipe's humor was forced, but Jazz couldn't really blame him for trying to lighten his own mood.

It didn't take them long to reach pavement, a nearly deserted highway stretching along nothing but dust and desert for miles. On the bright side, the arid heat quickly dried Sideswipe's finish but left a layer of grit and pond grime behind. As uncomfortable as he was, he refrained from saying anything, he wasn't going to complain further to his 'role model' as Strongarm called him. He was going to just have to steel up a bit and just think about something else. As they continued, they approached a green road sign.

Jasper 15 Miles

"Sideswipe, did Bumblebee set our coordinates?" Jazz asked.

"Um, I'm not sure." He answered, "Why?"

"If this is Jasper Nevada, the Autobots used to have a base out here. Bee may have sent us to his old base."

"But I've been to that base, there's nothing left after the Decepticons attacked it." Sideswipe answered.

"Then it may have been the first place he thought of. Better an empty base than lead any cons to the scrap yard with Denny and Russel."

Sideswipe seemed to consider the logic for a moment before he seemed to realize something.

"Jazz... was the front console the only place you can set the space bridge coordinates?"

Jazz's silence spoke volumes. He knew Sideswipe wasn't going to like the answer, but he knew he had to know the truth.

"For the bridge yes, not the pod."

"Do we know where the pod was programed to go?"

"It wasn't." Jazz explained, "The pod was incomplete, it didn't have a real power source for propulsion, at most it has a backup battery for the scrambler and maybe medical tools. Thats why there weren't any lights or shields upon entering the atmosphere. It was little more than a lob ball with us inside it. The only thing that propelled us here was gravity and the bridge. We wound up here because that's where the coordinates where designated to." Sideswipe listened quietly, but his fear was still evident in that silence.

"Coordinates... That only Bumblebee knew?" He asked.

"No, like you said, the Decepticons attacked this place once. But it wouldn't have much value to them now."

"What exactly does that mean?" he asked cautiously.

"Between the Lieutenant and the Decepticons... Bumblebee would be more likely to return, it was his home for a while. And like you said, you've been to that base, I'm willing to bet even if it's in shambles now it would serve as a good place to rendezvous for pick up." Sideswipe wasn't dumb, he didn't need Jazz to tell him in so many words that Bee was maybe a bit sentimental about his old base or earth in general. Nor did he need the older bot to explain that Bumblebee would try to send them to a place he felt was safe, even if it meant...

"So... Bee didn't come with us." It wasn't a question.

"I don't think we can confirm it, but..." He chose his next words carefully, "It's not out of the realm of possibilities for him to stay behind and fight to ensure our escape."

All Grimlock was able to do was ball up and become the biggest wreaking ball the planet had ever seen. He bounced and rolled for an indiscernible amount of time before he simply couldn't keep himself together anymore. He bounced one more time and unfolded his legs to just slide on his side until they came to a complete stop. Luckily, he could feel the small rolled up form on his minicon charge death gripping his arm. He hurt and would be picking cacti from his backside for about a week, but at least he could tell what was up or down this time, not like his first run in with Thunderhoof. After he pulled himself into a sitting position, he located the line of smoke leading to their former escape pod, well what was left smoldering of it. It was perhaps only a mile or two away.

"Well, at least we don't have to go too far to meet the others." Grimlock said rather positively to the minicon rolled up in his hands.

"I think I lost my fuel tank." Jetstorm managed behind something of a gag.

"Don't worry fella, you just sort yourself out and I'll do the walking." Grimlock shifted to his alternate Cybertronian protoform to make for smoother walking and propped the minicon on his left shoulder. He found he must have twisted his right shoulder in the roll, his mobility was limited and rather painful in his arm but hopefully it wasn't too serious.

"Do you think the others landed okay?" Jetstorm asked.

"I'm sure the're fine. Windblade did some fancy flight things like the sky ninja she is, Jazz has no doubt had to jump from a ship before, Drift is pretty light on his feet..." He was running on and on, but it didn't seem to be helping the little con's mood much. He was only half listening as he scanned the area for signs of life besides themselves.

"Yes, Master Drift is quite exemplary in stressful scenarios." He agreed, "I just hope Slipstream is with him."

"Well, whoever he's with, I'm sure he's alright." He tried to reassure him.

Grimlock wasn't too worried about the others, they were a tough crew capable of getting up after some tough bouts. Worst comes to worst; they only had a span of about fifty miles to track down anyone who didn't make the rendezvous.

Okay, that sounded a lot scarier now that he thought about it.

But they would be okay. They would get together and make a new plan of how to get back home and take down Shockwave. Windblade probably had a cache somewhere they could get supplies and make their way back to the Junkyard and bridge back. The drive would probably be super long given the change in terrain, hundreds of miles if he had to guess. Maybe Windblade would fly Fixit back to the junk yard and just bridge everyone once they got there. He voiced these ideas to Jetstorm as they slowly closed the distance between them and the crash site, more to kill time than anything.

"I might be thinking too much... or not enough." He was sure he was annoying the poor bot, but better to have an annoyed minicon than an anxious minicon.

"No, actually I think it's a much faster idea to have Windblade and Fixit fly ahead to bridge us home." He reassured the dinobot.

"I hope we can do that; I don't think Strongarm would like to haul me all the way back." Grimlock added with light humor, but it worked seeing Jetstorm smile.

"I think my internal mechanics have settled enough for me to walk now." He prompted, Grimlock winced as he used both arms to comfortably set Jetstorm on the ground in front of him. The motion didn't go unnoticed.

"Grimlock, you're injured!"

"Nothing too serious, I think my shoulders just jammed or something." He told him, "Besides we're over half-way there."

They only had a few more minutes of walking distance until they got to the still smoking pod. By now they had followed the smoke through their canyon and to a wide basin, smoke was rising a few kilometers away at the base of a mesa set apart from the rest of the rocky outcrops. The pod had luckily collided with the mesa and fell to the ground, much like a bug flying into a windshield. It was left leaning on the mesa creating a lean-to against the rocky wall face. Several miles past the lone mesa was a sliver of concrete highway, totally deserted currently. Anyone on the road would need binoculars to pay any notice of the two bots making their way onto the dusty plain in the fading day light.

Feeling a little more urgent they began to sprint a bit more upon seeing the flames. Once they got to the ship, they resorted to pulling the unsalvageable parts from the wreckage and let it burn outside to keep the smoke trail going as long as they had daylight. The only thing they needed to worry about was to keep the flames low to not draw any attention from human authorities, however unlikely it was given how isolated the site was. With the only decent light being outside the ship by the firelight it was the best place to look at Grimlock's shoulder, per Jetstorm's insistence.

"I believe your assumptions to be correct. I do not have the medical knowledge to fix it myself but at least you are not leaking." Jetstorm optimistically observed his twisted shoulder.

"I like good news. Any sign of the others yet?"

"No, doesn't seem so."

Their observations were cut short by the glare of a pair of headlights appearing out of the corner of their optics. The deceivingly small orbs of light were turning off the main road and headed right for their mesa.

"Grimlock, do you think anyone landed that far north of us?" Jetstorm asked.

"I don't think so. They would have beaten us here if they had landed that close." Grimlock responded with concern.

Instinctively they stood and began backing around the opposet side of the pod trying to keep out of sight. Jetstorm pulled his knunchuck and held it at the ready. Grimlock motioned for them to move into the shadow of the pod and stay out of sight. Much as he wanted to charge in fists flying, he was already down one arm, and he had no idea who or how many were coming at them. He was willing to bet, this wasn't a social visit. Behind the pod they watched the headlights begin making their way closer towards them.

As the car got closer the lights went out as the vehicle approached with more caution. Grim and Jetstorm ducked closer behind the pod as the engine died, replaced by the sound careful metal peds approaching. A Cybertronian, Autobot or Decepticon they couldn't tell. Jetstorm looked up to Grimlock, seemingly pleading for some sort of plan. Grim could only shrug and give him a 'hold up and wait' motion with his hands.

The steps crept up around the lean-to of the pod and seeming to have no other option, they kept backing up, circling the wreck and keep the distance between them. As they backed towards the open back of the pod, the footsteps slowed and stopped.

Then the sound of an energon gun powering up.

The visitor knew they were there and was ready for a fight.

Jetstorm and Grimlock looked at each other with even more worry, neither of them had guns and even at two against one they didn't have that much on their side. Grimlock decided he would just have to try and stall, he gently pushed Jetstorm behind him and gave him a 'hold back' signal.

"One of us has to be here and wait for the others. You can hide better than I can, I'll keep him busy." The dinobot instructed quietly.

"But Grimlock, I can't just... leave you."

"You arent leaving me, you're... tactically observing the... events to relay to the rest of the team." He explained.

Jetstorm seemed to understand, but his worry was clear. Grim would shield him while the minicon relocated and waited for the others. No doubt he would much rather fight alongside him and Grimlock would much rather have him by his side in combat in his current state, but someone had to relay these events to the rest of the team. The footsteps continued with a lot more hesitation, creeping closer to them as they huddled around the corner. Grimlock gently picked up Jetstorm and passed him up into the exposed support beams running along the roof of the pod, an easier place to hide. He looked down with a pleading look. The steps halted on the outside of the pod... the guest was ready to round the corner, gun first.

Grimlock lowered himself down and waited.

The unknown bot popped around the edge and Grim launched upwards, shoving the gun arm up and away from him, firing into the sky. Grimlock shoved, taking the bot off his feet and pitching him backwards using his bad arm with a jarring pain. The bot rolled through the dirt, righting himself and taking a fighting stance. Grimlock stood at the ready for the bot's next move.

He drew a second gun and raised both of them at the much larger bot, no further warnings. He had the distance advantage with projectile weapons and they both knew it. They were stuck at a standstill and it gave them both a moment to see each other clearly.

Despite being several meters taller than this new bot, the new comer showed absolutely no fear of Grim. The smaller bot had large blue expressive eyes and a paler coloring that glowed in the warmer firelight behind him. He wielded twin guns on each arm, built for smaller concentrated blasts, effectively less energon usage at a higher velocity. A good weapon for a soldier.

"Alright Decepticon," Grimlock addressed him aggressively, "You have one chance and one chance only to turn around and walk away with all of your limbs intact. So go crawl back into whatever rusty hole you crawled out of!"

The bot tipped his head sideways narrowing one eye, seemingly confused.

"Hnnn?"

"What?" Grimlock was taken aback by the response. The bot didn't answer with a word exactly but he was hardly understandable with such a rusty voice.

"Mmm-mm hnbzzz." He shook his head, straightening a up a little and put away one of his guns, holding his hand up in a 'peace' gesture. His broken tone sounded like something along the lines of 'I'm not a con'. But Grim could certainly have heard him wrong. He then gestured to Grimlock's shoulder where his insignia was.

Hesitantly he quartered towards the bot to show him more the newly acquired Autobot logo applied by Fixit back at the Junkyard. The bot stood straight and put away his second gun, seemingly much more relaxed. He shifted a little to reveal an identical logo shadowed under one of his chest plates. He was a fellow Autobot.

"Oh!" Grimlock felt some immediate relief but remained guarded, "I'm sorry, I didn't know there were other Autobots here with an active space bridge! My boss didn't mention anyone else being here."

"Hm?!"

"Yeah, my leader that sent us here."

"BZZ?!"

"Um... Yeah...? Us."

The bot seemed to almost leap out of his armor and practically started vibrating with excitement. He couldn't be much older than Sideswipe and Strongarm, but his excitement made him seem so much younger. Maybe he was younger than them, he still had very round features and slender fitting armor, indicative of a bot that hadn't lived enough life to develop the more angular forms that come with age. Grim was confused, given his light knowledge of weaponry taught to him by Strongarm, the readiness of this bot to use his weaponry wasn't normal for a bot in his teen years. Who was this kid?

"Bzzz-hmm?" He asked, stepping a little closer feeling much more comfortable around the dinobot, but he kept his hands away from himself trying to be considerate of Grim's concern.

"Uh... My name's Grimlock. What's yours?" Grimlock asked, still a little suspicious.

"Bzz-mm."

No

He couldn't have heard that right... the bot's voice pipes where so damaged there was no way he heard that name right.

"I-I'm sorry, one more time?" He asked again.

"Bz-m." The bot was now just close enough for him to notice further details. The ridge on his head casing, the doors perched up on his shoulders, Russel once called them wings dispite them being nowhere near capible of flight. He had dark stripes accenting his unusual light colored armor Grim could now see wasnt shaded by the firelight at all, but was a truely radiant yellow.

"Nice to meet you, Bumblebee." Grim responded hesitantly.

CRASH

Grimlock jumped at the sound of something falling off to his right within the pod and Bumblebee immediately drew his guns again and readied them where the object had fallen.

Not an object, Jetstorm.

The minicon immediately stood up with his appendages in the air in immediate surrender having heard Grim and Bee's steadily progressive growing conversation. By the look on his face, he was just as surprised to find a much younger, trigger happy, and hardly audible Bumblebee.

"Aaannd this is Jetstorm, he's a friend." Grimlock introduced him as simply as he could without jump scaring anyone further.

Bee looked at him a little confused for a moment, before putting the guns away. Jetstorm looked incredibly worried about this 'new' Bumblebee. Grimlock wanted to believe this was a 'New Generation' Autobot from Cybertron who had named himself after Lieutenant Bumblebee, but he was just too similar to the Lieutenant to NOT be him. The armor structure was the same, yet more youthful. The silver details too shiny, the shoulders too smooth, but it was him. And it was far to coincidental that Lieutenant Bumblebee mentioned losing his voice before, only to meet this nearly identical Bee with a busted voice box.

"Hm-nn bzzznn?" Bee asked now seemingly in awe at Jetstorm.

"Uh, yes. I am a minicon. My master and twin where on the pod with us, before..." Jetstorm held off further explaining, possibly out of distrust or unsure of how to explain.

"Bzzzp-mmm zzz?" Bee kneeled down closer to Jetstorm's level, knowing him it was an act of respect to look the minicon more on his level.

"We were at a few thousand feet before our master opened the door and ejected us. He waited until we were at a low enough elevation to ensure a better survival rate upon immediate deployment of the pod." He explained simply.

Younger Bee placed a hand to his audio receptor and made a call to... somewhere. Informing them of his current findings, but he looked a bit confused and shrugged his shoulders.

"No coms either, huh?" Grim observed.

"Maybe the pod has a scrambler on board?" Jetstorm suggested.

"Bzp-nnrrr hm." Bee piped up pointing at the pod's interior.

"Disable it? I mean we can try but I'm not very good with tech stuff." Grimlock answered honestly.

"Blp blp blp." Bee answered walking up to the control panel in the pod, "Zzzzp wrrrr?"

"We have... no idea where to start looking." Jetstorm responded a little guiltily, "Actually we stowed away in this ship. It's not ours."

Bumblebee gave them both a look of concern, but to their surprise he just shrugged it off nonchalantly and set to work on the control panel. Grimlock and Jetstorm shared a confused glance.

This was undeniably THEIR Bumblebee... sort of.

But he could hardly speak, he wasn't visibly concerned about the fact they had stolen something, it wasn't like him. As if it couldn't get much worse, Bumblebee had no idea who they were. He didn't recognize them, AT ALL.

Where were they exactly? And what had happened to their Lieutenant?