Woo! New chapter! Not much to say other than I hope you all enjoy!


Starscream's temper was practically at its end.

Barricade could see it from a klik away as the seeker fumed.

The target of that ire responded to the obvious aggression was a smirk so proud of itself he had the good sense to punch the mech responsible for it.

"Chill padre, if anythin' the kid not havin' tha glasses jus' prooves mah point." Fernando spoke up, wings folded across his chassis and draping down to the concrete floor as he reclined along a pile of abandoned rolls of carpet.

Starscream's seething features seemed to only turn more heated as the seeker ground his denta, causing them to screech against one another. "And what? …. Pray tell is that?"

"Tha' Kia an her perras. Ah here, and fuckin' up tha plot."

Starscreams scowl somehow managed to intensify.

Fernando huffed. "They have th' glasses. No' tha' we need them, cause you know, I know where the Cube is."

Barricade put his two sense in with a growl, Frenzy was perched on his shoulder plating, rubbing still at his itchy servo.

The minicon had lamented them with his harrowing experience on the human governments plane, and confirmed the fact that 'Fernando' wasn't the only one of his weird kind on the planet.

Apparently the minicon had come out of the experience more than a little lucky if the feathered mech was to be believed, touting, 'Better the Irish nut-job than the British banshees.'

Whatever that had meant.

Regardless of the feathered mechs claims of Frenzy being lucky, the minicon was still worse for wear, his servo alone was causing him to develop a bit of a tick in his optic that matched each of the limbs twitchings.

Fernando had offered to just slice the limb off at the shoulder joint, 'just amputate it, humans do it to their pets all the time'.

Frenzy had promptly chosen to hide in Barricade's subspace for a good hour after that.

Now the minicon was back out, and glaring death at this mech who'd just waltzed in on everything, claiming some of the highest fragging tales like they were facts.

It was all an aggravating mess, yet somehow the mech had managed to piss Starscream off enough with what seemed to be a type of reverse-psychology, he'd managed to get Starscream to call in all other Cons on this planets continent, including Blackout, who had apparently only just reached the state of Florida from his failed mission in Qatar.

Apparently Fernando also thought that was Ira. 'She once flipped off the Pope, in his face, she wouldn't hesitate to flip off an alien she'd bested'.

His train of thought was finally brought back to the present due to the sudden rush of motion in front of them, Starscream had taken a swipe at Fernando, only to have the feathered mech to vault backwards and out of the way of the seekers swipe like it had belonged to some frail human.

"Ha! Padre! With a swing like that, Kia alone could have yah head on ah silver platter before you knew they were in this state!" The mech called, now perched at the top of the pile of rolled up carpets, joints beant so that he could rest his wings against them,

Barricade scowled. "You certainly have quite an opinion of her."

Fernando huffed, waving the mech off and looking off to the side like he was posing for some dramatic picture, he hated mechs like this honestly, waste of space and resources.

"Of course! All little brothers hate their big sisters! I just have the added bonus of the fact that stupid fucking perra killed dad in cold blood!"

Okay, that was new, he went to make a remark on that but he was cut off by Fernando as he performed a dramatic false faint and long, agonised sigh.

"All because those fucking European perras put ideas in her head! Told her she shouldn't let dad marry her off to that third cousin! Gah those fucking perras… fucking up everything… I was supposed to inherit the family business! Once she was married and out of the way it all would of been mine! But no! She had to go and get one of our best firing squads to take him out in his favourite cherry red lambo!"

Something in the back of Barricade's helm twitched, he knew that… cherry red lambo… cherry… lambo... where had he heard it before?

His internal translator gave him the Cybertronian equivalent… and something in his processor seized.

It… couldn't be...

The avian mech continued to rant, ignorant to the sudden shift in the former Kaonian enforcer.

Frenzy was sending him a look as well, but the minicons features were hard to discern since he took that new alt mode, the stereo, apparently he hasn't found anything he's liked better yet, which would give him a decent face.

Even with all that, Frenzy seemed to have come to a similar conclusion, and was in a similar state of disbelief.

Old memories flickered trying to come back to the forefront of his consciousness , but out of reflex he pushed them all back.

He focused his attention on Frenzy, who's shaking had suddenly expanded beyond his servo, but this was not the virus that afflicted him, and so, carefully he offered a digit for the minicon to cling to.

Frenzy took the offered digit like a lifeline, clinging tight to it, Barricade could only watch, the little minicon had never properly learned how to push back memories without the help of his fellow cassettes, so for now, he'd have to weather through.

Some day, they'd find Soundwave and reunite the minicon with his real guardian.

For now though, the minicon was stuck with him. And if that meant anything to the cruiser, it meant never letting this mad avian mech near the minicon again, Frenzy was in enough trouble already, what with that virus wrecking havoc of his servos motor control, and now, this.

Starscream decided to cut the mech off again his voice as shrill as it was, cutting Barricade out of his internal musings. "Well then! Where is the Cube?!"

Fernando rolled his helm. "I'll tell you when all yah padres get here, wouldn't want you freaks to be outgunned, would we?"

Either this mech had some processor left, or he was getting a serious rise out of getting under all of their armour.

He had a feeling it was actually both.

Realising he was better off taking Frenzy on a pointless patrol of the area, over staying here with these two, Barricade rose back up, nudging Frenzy enough for the minicon to let go and move away long enough to Transform and let Frenzy back into his passenger seat, if Barricade's seat belt over the minicon was slightly tighter than usual, neither of them mentioned it.

They had a day or so to wait until Bonecrusher and the others arrived, and he was not risking losing his own still rising temper around this mech any more than he had to.

Frenzy seemed to have a similar position as the former enforcer, sinking as far into the leather upholstery as possible with a rattling vent.

It didn't stop Fernando noticing their departure. "Hey! Bring me back a snack would yah! That sheep wasn't worth shit and I'm hungry!"

Barricade chose to ignore the demand as he sped away.

Once out of audio range, he muttered to himself. "What a disgusting creature."

Frenzy just nodded in agreement, optics lost in a thousand klik stare out of the tinted front window.


Las Vegas

Mikaela looked up from the magazine she'd had thrown at her by Ira about half an hour ago, she'd quickly accepted the form of entertainment whilst the rest of the group discussed amoung themselves things she'd honestly rather stay out of, a heist on a Government Facility, no matter how the Harpy's spun their plan, remained something she didn't want any more part in.

She'd also needed the distraction, the knowledge that so many people were suddenly dead… it was weighing heavy on her conscience.

She'd looked up upon realising the room had fallen strangely quiet, and found that her hosts were all no longer present once again, and the Aliens were all looking at her.

Not the un-interested looks she'd received by them at passing glance over the last few hours save Bumblebee after they returned from their second bit of fresh air.

No, now they were all just staring at her from the kitchen table, deathly silent.

Going to speak, she found her voice caught in her throat, so instead, tried to be as subtle as possible in clearing it, it seemed to have a preferable affect anyway, as it seemed to snap the group out of their staring and back to reality.

The holoform she'd guessed was the leader of the group, what with how he held himself, pushed off the table and stepped towards her.

Mikaela found herself frozen to her spot on the sofa until he was directly in front of her, kneeling, and offering his hand out palm up.

Now in the sun's rays from the windows, she found the mans black hair to hold the faintest blue hue, only noticeable when you're looking directly at it.

It suited him, along the the heavy faded red leather jacket, greying white plain shirt underneat and the torn, well worn blue jeans and black combat boots.

"Optimus Prime."

Blinking out of her quick observation along with an equally quick shake of the head, she finally managed to get a word out.

"Huh?"

"My designation, it is Optimus Prime, I do not believe we have been formerly introduced yet."

"Oh." He certainly had a unique voice, deep with a light reverberation, it reminded her of Aria and Wren oddly, well more Aria with that odd ringing quality her half of their voices had, Wren's was too… monotone, like a broken bell trying to chime, hollow.

The holoform nodded, tilting his head along with his still offered hand. "And you?"

Realising what he wanted out of this situation she accepted his hand, and felt only the lightest charged feeling, making the fine hairs on her hand stand up slightly, the projection other than that, felt so life like, it even had an artificial pulse! She wasn't sure whether to consider it a marvel of science, or insanely creepy."Um, Mikaela, Mikaela Barnes."

Bright blue eyes wrinkled at the edges with the mans… Optimus' smile. "A pleasure to meet you Miss Barnes. Permit me to introduce the rest of my unit?"

Well that was incredibly formal of him.

"Um, you… may?" She replied, waving her free hand as he let go of her other, moving to stand again and move to the side to allow the other four to step over.

The first to step forward was a holoform with a significantly darker skin tone, wearing a sleek white jacket with a blue and red stripe running down either side of the zip, which was open to reveal a skin tight sports shirt underneath made up of a semi-transparent net material, like really conservative fishnets… the ensemble look was added to by the black dress pants and silver converse.

His hair, was equally diverse from the others, the mass of dreadlocks were pulled backwards and fastened by a thick silver band at the back of the head, with the fringe being made up of stray loose curls that framed the bright blue, aviator sunglasses he wore.

Then the man bowed, with an over exaggerated wave right out of one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

"Well ain' you tha prettiest li'l femme on this whole rock? Names Jazz, First Lieutenant to Optimus Prime."

She doubted she could stop the light flush of her cheeks as she took to offered hand. "Nice to… meet you too… um Jazz?"

"Yes?"

"Are you trying to be Louisianan, or Jamaican?"

The holoform was apparently caught up short by that as he turned to Optimus and promptly hissed out. "I didn't know there was a difference!"

She snorted out a laugh behind her clenched fist at that one, he was an Alien, who'd only arrived yesterday, she couldn't blame him for not knowing the different origins in the accent and as a result, getting them mashed together in his attempt to come of as human as possible.

The holoform deflated for a moment before shaking it off and giving her a bright smile. "Well anyway! How are yah feeling? All of this must be weighing pretty heavy on your li'l helm righ'?"

She frowned slightly, glancing down at her lap before sighing. "If I can be honest?" She glanced up to see all of them nod, urging her on. "I'm scared… confused… I have this weight in my gut and a whisper in my ear that I've done something horribly wrong… Sam, and all his family and neighbours… they're all dead because I bought the glasses… I don't blame the Harpy's… they were trying to help you guys… they had no idea that someone else might of known that Sam owned the glasses… but I was the one who led Bumblebee away… leaving him vulnerable…" She stopped when a weight came down on her shoulder.

Looking to the source she found that Bumblebee had sat down next to her, his wide, expressive eyes filled with a guilty sorrow all his own.

She couldn't help herself, she turned and pulled him into a tight hug.

She felt him freeze, arms hovering above her back and shoulder, uncertain of what he had to do.

After a few moments though, the hug was returned.

They broke apart almost as quickly as the hug began, Bumblebee's hand returning to its place on her shoulder as he glanced at one of the other men who'd yet to be introduced, becoming the scowling man forwards.

After an incredibly over-exaggerated eye roll the man stepped forwards.

The man honestly looked like he was more well built than a tank with all the muscles she spotted rippling with the two steps he took to stand before her. The black leather biker jacket and crimson red low neck shirt underneath seemed to strain to contain the man's musculature, and it was a similar story for the torn jeans that looked like just trying to get them on had shredded them.

She was hesitant to take the hand he offered her, but after a nudge from Bumblebee she accepted the man's hand.

"Ironhide." He announced, his gruff voice seemed to have a faint hint of an accent, but she couldn't place it.

She just numbly nodded, surprised to find that he didn't crush her hand with his grip like she'd been half expecting.

Apparently Ironhide found some humour in this and patted her on the shoulder with his other hand. "So long as you're not a con, you don't have to fear about me crushing your skull like a scraplet."

She decided to not ask what one of those was, just nodding and watching as the last of the group, who honestly looked like he'd had very little sleep whatsoever recently shoved at Ironhide's side.

It got the other man to step aside.

Then the man, with the salt and pepper hair was offering his hand, he didn't look old persee, just, stressed, and that stressed had made him look a bit like a mad scientist.

And now that image wasn't getting out of her head.

She took the offered hand as he introduced himself.

"Ratchet, chief medical officer."

So a doctor, explained in an odd way the colour scheme of his attire, white shirt, the cuffs and other details all an ominous blood red. Large murse slung over his shoulder that seemed to weigh a good tone with how sagged the fabric was.

"Ratchet, nice to meet you." The handshake was promptly ended and she suddenly found herself being scowled at by the holoform.

"How much do you know about these… femmes?"

"Err, not much… they just had me bring the glasses… and I fainted when I saw Kia... you know, her actual form… just after Ira knocked out Bumblebee, so I don't even know what the other three look like. Winston's the guy I've spent the most time with, he's nice." She replied. "Aria and Wren were the ones who approached me, well, more sent a formal invitation for me to come all the way here to Vegas to meet them… I don't have much to say about any of them to be honest." She admitted, twiddling her thumbs together.

As if sensing the lull in conversation, the elevator pinged.

All attention went to the corridor that led to the elevator as Kia came strutting into view, wearing an entirely new ensemble, still staying to the cream with rouge highlights colour scheme, only now the dress she wore was a single piece, cream with a stunning embroidery of a collection of blood red roses just before the eyebrow raising slit that only ended at the top of her left thigh, the upper half only held in place by the fabric wrapped around her neck. Mikaela swore if the woman bent over everything would be on display.

There was also the fact that there wasn't a back to the dress until after her shoulder blades, something that Mikaela only noticed as Kia came into view for a few moments before the woman turned to face them, pushing up the wide brim black lace and velvet sun hat she was wearing so her bright gold eyes could regard them.

"Mikaela, you're father is being picked up by my boys as we speak. Once he has been brought here, we want the both of you to go down into the bunker, you'll be safe down there, probably. The rest of you. Do whatever you need to get ready. Due to the attack in Tranquility we've brought forwards the raid to the next night shift where we have our boys and girls inside. That's in fourteen hours. It takes fifty minutes to get from here to the dam by road. But if we want to be fully set up whilst taking time to make sure we're not detected. We will have to leave here with an extra two hours in advance at the least. Understood? Ira has already sent Keeley ahead to locate and enter the vent so that she can access the isolated internal systems and transmit them directly to Ira. Ira will be setting up in the bunker as well so we advise you don't disrupt her. Myself, Aria and Wren, will go with you under the cover of darkness so that we're not spotted in the air once Ira's dampened their radar capabilities. Am I clear?"

There was a heavy pause, Ironhide huffed and muttered something that she couldn't catch but felt like it was unsavoury.

Thankfully Optimus quickly silenced him with a look before turning back to Kia. "Thank you. For all of your aid in this, I and my mechs will get ready to depart… Bumblebee?" Optimus had turned back to looked towards her and her guardian, who still sat next to her on the sofa.

She felt his holoform's grip tighten on her shoulder, glancing over she found his expression conflicted, bright blue eyes flicking between her, Optimus and Kia.

She reached up and patted the hand on her shoulder. "Go, I'll be safe here. You've probably seen how fortified they've made this place. Go with them."

Bumblebee seemed to take a moment more to convince himself of something, before shaking his head, reaching into his pocket and pulling out her notebook and pen, scribbling down his answer.

'Staying here.'

A look of surprise went through all of the adult holoforms, Kia including, who raised an eyebrow before shrugging and gaining the faintest of smiles. "Alright. Hold the fort for us then." Kia then looked to the other four. "You have a few hours to do as you wish before we move out, so don't stay cooped up in here." With that, she was walking away, heading to where Mikaela had figured her room was, pausing long enough to pet the helm of Nibbler, who'd raised his head from where he and Hera had been sleeping, having apparently taken up the other sofa with their combined feathery bulk whilst she and Bumblebee had been having their second breather.

The two mechanical birds weren't really doing anything, save Nibbler's head lift, so she'd mostly ignored them and let them be.

Though right after that thought went through her mind Nibbler's head suddenly shot out, beak wide.

It bit down on thin air not a moment after Kia's hand left the spot.

"Ah, ah, ah. You've already had your lunch." Kia chastised, before continuing on her path and out of sight.

It was only when the sound of a door closing came from out of sight that Optimus spoke, regarding Bumblebee. "You are certain of this?"

Bumblebee nodded, scribbling something else down.

'I can't fail in protecting my charge again.'

She'd had a feeling that was why.

"Very well Bumblebee, but be alert, we may need backup." Optimus spoke, giving the yellow and black themed holoform a nod, and an oddly proud smile, if a bit melancholic in its delivery.

That seemed to be the final word on the matter, as the four standing holoforms all just… vanished, flickering out of existence as their physical projections faded away to nothingness, leaving only empty air in their wake.

Spinning her gaze back to Bumblebee she turned enough to sit cross legged on the sofa.

"You didn't have to do that." She pushed, placing the palms of her hands down inside the gap between her crossed legs and hips.

Bumblebee shrugged, causing those oddly gravity defying locks of blonde and black to bounce, looked like they weren't quite obeying the laws of physics.

He was scribbling something else into the notebook now.

'I don't trust them with your prolonged safety.'

"Really?"

'Yes.'

"Really?"

'Please don't continue to repeat yourself. We're talking about a group that included one that knocked me unconscious.'

"Okay, fair enough, but at least give them a chance? Winston puts his faith in them, and he's nice enough?"

'The guy with the laptop?'

"Yes the guy with the laptop."

'He was the one who picked you up at the lake.'

"Yes he was. He's one of Kia's employees. Winston said as much when she joined us for the flight to Vegas."

'I still don't trust them. Don't know enough about them. Want to find out more.'

"Like, spy on them?"

'I'm a scout, it's what I do.'

"You know, it's wrong to go rifling through your hosts privacy."

'I know. But this is war.'

"Not with them, they don't want to fight, haven't you noticed that? They're taking the path of least conflict from where I'm seeing this."

'Fine, stop giving me that look, but come on! Tell me this all isn't setting off a few alarms in your helm?!'

Something told Mikaela this was going to go on for a while. But really, she had to agree with him on that one.


And that's all for now! Hope you all enjoyed! And see you all next time!

Moon