AN: Wanted to update and I have to be at school in less than 20 mins! Haha, so no reviews, sorry! But thanks to everyone who did so, especially the new people! Here's the update!
Miles was tired, leaning back against the rock wall. He stared dully at the metal bars in front of him. Completely and utterly plain, definitely not meant to deter even a Sparkling like Orion, but for a human, it was enough. He counted them to give himself something to do, coming up with exactly 28. He was stuck in a cell, a small one when he considered Sam should be there too. In a cave, with an unpleasant floor, unpleasant lighting, and well… it was definitely not a five star hotel.
He was tired, and he was certain he'd probably go insane. Starscream had taken Sam first, though to where, Miles had no idea. All he knew was his fellow teen was taken, and that was that. He couldn't hear anything, anyone, and all he had to go by was the light drifting in from the outside of the cave. Eventually that faded away, and he could only see because of the faint moonlight shining in. Having no phone and no watch, he could only guess at how many hours it had been.
He tried to keep up with anything new happening, and make sure he knew his surroundings, but that wasn't hard at all. There was nothing new happening. He hadn't heard anything besides the wind, the occasional animal, and maybe the trees rustling. As for his surroundings, well, there wasn't much. He could just about stand up at the cave ceiling's highest point with a small tilt to either side with his head, and at the lowest he had to drop his neck down a bit. The actual cave itself could barely be called that. The cell was put in just far enough that he couldn't see outside, but besides that there was nothing other than the bars to keep the prisoners in a certain place. And even then he could remember that trying to escape would most likely be a suicide mission. He was no mountain climber.
To make matters worse, he was actually afraid. Shockwave was there, and he knew what that particular mech was capable of. He was more scared for Sam at the moment, but he wasn't certain how long that would last.
It's not like he wasn't man enough to admit that Shockwave was probably the only Decepticon he was actually scared of. Yet, anyway. He hadn't been introduced to many. Barricade, Soundwave, and the cassetticons didn't seem to help with that, either. They had no problem with telling stories of some of the stupider things that had happened in Decepticon downtime.
Miles couldn't even reach anyone. He had tried, but he could only go so far, and that was ignoring the ones that were in range. Only one of them felt okay, and he didn't know who, but he wasn't taking the chance. The last thing he needed was to pop on to a comm channel with Starscream, or even worse, Shockwave, and be too scared to terminate the connection.
And then there was Skyfire. The mech seemed nice, polite, and not like he wanted to fight at all. He didn't seem to fit in with the Decepticons, and had even yelled at Starscream when he had flicked Sam over after they arrived. But he wasn't on Miles' side, and the teen wasn't sure if he could trust him or not. This wasn't the same as Barricade, even though that had been a shot in the dark. It probably hadn't been one of his brightest ideas to try to befriend a talking and growling vehicle, but hey, he was happy he had now. He couldn't even imagine his life without the ex-con now, or even the others.
All the teen had to do was think, because he wasn't ready to start talking to himself just yet, so he did that. He thought. This led to him dozing off, and he only woke up when he heard the heavy thud of a Cybertronian's footsteps. Two sets of them. Standing up, stretching awkwardly, he stood at attention, squinting into the darkness. He was relieved when it was Skyfire who appeared, sticking a servo in with his holoform and Sam on it. This mech was bigger than Optimus Prime, and the cave was smaller than Bumblebee. Miles didn't want to think about him getting stuck.
"Put the boy in there, Skyfire. Rattle the other one a bit, if you want. Come meet me after." Starscream said, spitting out the word boy with as much hate as possible. His voice drifted in to Miles, causing him to frown.
He couldn't help but be relieved when the Seeker turned and walked away. Skyfire waited until he was sure that Starscream was gone before bothering to move.
His holoform picked up Sam as if he was as light as a bag of feathers, which he probably was to the holoform. That was when Miles finally noticed Sam wasn't awake, and he went to the front of his cell immediately.
"What's wrong with him?" He asked worriedly, "Why's he not awake?"
Skyfire's holoform looked at him sadly, "I apologize, I do not know. When Starscream and Shockwave tried to capture the Allspark energy contained inside of him they came close to drawing it out, but then he offlined. He has been unresponsive to anything since."
He opened up the cell door, and put Sam inside gently, letting Miles look over his friend. Miles did just that, trying to get a response from his friend in the process. He couldn't even garner a groan after pinching his arm.
Miles looked up, opening his mouth to say something, but the holoform had already disappeared, and the large servo was withdrawing.
He closed it again, suddenly doubting once more. Could Skyfire be trusted? The only one he knew for a fact he could trust was Sam, and the teen was out. And he had a feeling that he wouldn't be waking up for awhile. He wasn't hurt, or at least Miles didn't think so. He had a feeling. He didn't know how or why, but all he could do was hope that it was right. A feeling that said he wasn't hurt, just asleep so that the energy couldn't be accessed through him. That was the only thing he could bring himself to believe. With Skyfire, be he friend or foe, all he could do was hope.
The entire drive back to base had been enough for Fig to hate on himself. He had lost both Sam and Miles, two of the most important members of the NEST organics. They weren't soldiers, but they definitely belonged there. The two teens had taken on the roles of moral supporters, able to bring anyone amusement. Even Barricade, though that was mostly Miles' jurisdiction.
The boys had went missing near nightfall on Tuesday. Mikaela had blabbed on the whereabouts of the shard late afternoon of Wednesday, and now it was nearly Wednesday night.
Fig was afraid, and he had good reason to be. On top of the two teens just being fragging awesome, they were the Charge's of two Cybertronians. Bumblebee and Barricade. He didn't want to even imagine what they would say to him, or wouldn't say. He had let them down. He had let everyone down.
As he got out of his non-sentient car, he noticed the base was oddly silent. No booms coming from the lab, or the firing range. No loud music, laughter, or any such thing coming from the cafeteria or either rec-rooms. It was quiet and subdued on base, and almost everyone was inside at the time.
Resigning himself to whatever his fate may be, he entered a building, heading to the meeting room. He took a deep breath just before entering, and then opened the door. All optics and eyes immediately locked on him like lasers guarding a prized diamond. Optimus, Ratchet, Ironhide, Jazz, Bumblebee, Barricade, Soundwave, Ravage, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, and Trailbreaker. Will, Epps, and Graham.
"Hi." He muttered, feeling as if he ought to say something in the quiet.
Trent had been sleeping when his phone rang, and he reached to grab it from his night stand, knocking it to the floor instead. Groaning, he slipped out of bed and retrieved it, knowing it might be at least a little important. Miles and Sam had went missing early Tuesday night. It was now officially Thursday.
He knew Miles and Sam had gone missing, and figured just maybe they had been found by now. He did hold the opinion that they were targeted entirely too much, but then again he didn't have that weird Allspark energy thing going on. On top of that, he hadn't been around the Cybertronians nearly as long.
"What?" He greeted roughly, not bothering with a hello.
"Dude, you'll never believe this! There was just a huge military jet right over the lake! Like legit, dude!"
Trent rubbed at one of his eyes, glancing at the time on the screen. "Jared, it's fucking 2 a.m. Are you high again? What the hell would a military jet be doing in Tranquility?"
"Check the news! It like, suctioned shit out of the water. Remember that football we lost in there? Up it went!"
Trent muttered a 'hold on', going to check the news and watching the footage. A military jet in Tranquility, hovering over a lake and sucking things out of the water. That was definitely not normal. He didn't need to see the Decepticon symbol on the wing to be able to guess who it was. He had heard the 'bots talking about him before.
Starscream was right there, on the news. But why? What had he been after?
"Jar-" He cut himself off, hearing a beep. The sign of another call, and he read the name. Mikaela. "I'll call you back later, I got another call." He hung up on Jared, answering Mikaela's call instead.
"Trent? I didn't wake you, did I?"
"No, Jared did that. Is this about Starscream being on the news?" He asked, cutting to the chase. No need for formalities, it was 2 a.m. and he doubted this was just a chatting call.
"He was getting the Allspark shard. I had… well… I screwed up, Trent. Now they have the shard, Miles, and Sam."
Trent could barely pick up on the tiniest of quivers in her voice.
"You're not about to cry are you?" No answer, and that was the surest sign that she was about to. It was time to man up, "Bunny, you know they'll be okay. Maybe a bit banged up, but honestly, I think those glitches will take one look at Mama Bee and Mama Bear and go running with their tails in between their legs. I know Barricade can do shit. He got my car towed for giving Miles that black eye, before I even knew about them. Slagger would still probably do it if I messed with Miles."
A small snort came from the other end of the line. "It's just… what if they aren't okay?"
"No if's when it comes to those two, Bunny. They're too annoying to die."
Trent and Mikaela arrived at the NEST base after breakfast that day, heading immediately to the meeting room. It seemed that the room had been getting almost constant use since the kidnapping, and talk of the shard being taken had to have made it's way back to them by now.
They stepped in together to see the usual faces. Optimus, Ratchet, Ironhide, Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Wheeljack, Bumblebee, Barricade, and Soundwave. Fig, Epps, Will, and Graham. Epps and Will were sitting closer together on the table than usual, both looking a bit forlorn. They were barely able to sit down before Bumblebee had turned on the two soldiers.
"Spill." He demanded, and everyone looked at the two as well. They had been the ones to call this meeting.
Epps and Will looked between each other, neither wanting to be the one to say anything.
"We can't feel Sam anymore." Will said softly, avoiding looking at Bumblebee. "It's just... empty where he was. It's not like we can feel emotions, or how close, or how far they are. Just that they are there, the connection's still there. Miles is there, but Sam isn't."
"Do you know what that means?" Optimus asked, even though everyone around the table could take a guess.
"Only an assumption, it's not like we're experts at this whole thing." Epps said, looking straight at Bumblebee. But the Scout was already wilting.
Miles felt sick to his stomach from the gruesome scene he had just watched, and taken part in. He looked at the floor, which just moments ago had appeared to be covered in blood. He ignored both the holoforms in the small cave with him.
"Good, very good." Starscream practically purred, "Now we can send them this tape. The Autobots will never know any better. Your invention was wonderful, Skyfire."
"Thank you, Starscream." Skyfire replied, out of pure politeness. He didn't like how it had been used.
Starscream walked into the cell, reaching down to touch a still slumbering Sam. His hand was knocked away by Miles, and he smirked. "You did good, boy. He'll be allowed to live, for now. Megatron would want to be the one to kill him anyway."
It was one of those rare moments where Miles chose to say nothing. It was safer.
"Mark my words, though. We will go over that tape, and if you did anything funny to alert them, I will not hesitate to hurt him."
And with that Starscream's holoform disappeared, Skyfire's following suit.
Miles sat down, feeling horrible. Everyone, everymech, at base was going to see the video. Bumblebee was going to see the video. The Scout would be devastated, especially since Miles played along. But what else could he have done? Starscream had threatened to kill Sam if he didn't. He had to protect his friend.
He cursed Skyfire's invention. Making holoforms so much more realistic. They could bleed, they could have broken bones, muscles, tissue, all of that showing. At one point even Miles had almost been convinced it was real, but Sam was still beside him. Still breathing.
They were all going to think Sam was dead. He knew Will and Epps probably thought that. If he couldn't feel Sam from right beside him, he knew they couldn't either.
They watched the video when it came in, all of them. Mikaela, Trent, Epps, Will, Fig, and Graham had stayed in the room, too.
Sam had been tore apart in front of their eyes by Starscream and some mech called Skyfire, with a screaming Miles in the back ground. The video had ended just after Sam died, and no one said anything.
Mikaela had broken down into tears, and everyone else looked sick. Bumblebee got up and left the room.