"I expected this kind of failure out of Starscream, but you Knockout…" mused Megatron, staring down the medic bot with sharp eyes. "You let the Autobots take the Dark Energon…with little of a fight. Explain to me, why did you let a shard so easily slip away?"

The Decepticon leader was harsh, Knockout knew that. He saw too many times the Commander punished for both legitimate failures and small gripes. So he quickly fumbled for an answer.

"Lord Megatron, it was a human girl who had the Dark Energon shard," he began. "The Autobots surely picked up the signal as she fled into the forest."

This seemed to raise the old gladiator bot's interest, only slightly. "A human girl, you say…Was it one of the Autobots' human pets?"

Knockout shook his head, "No, my liege. It was not, though she seemed of similar age as the others."

Megatron turned, clasping his hands behind his back. "And what makes you assume she had the shard, Knockout?"

"The signal moved when she moved, my leige…"

Megatron just hummed to himself now. "…You are dismissed."

Knockout left the room, leaving the old gladiator to himself and his musings. He knew how deadly Dark Energon was, especially to humans; he saw how quickly it withered that young boy that the young Autobot Bumblebee called a friend, and that was only second-hand contact. How the girl was able to hold a shard directly, much less be near it for an extended period of time, was a mystery. He was also curious as to how she had hidden it for so long. And, as of late, he noticed the Dark Energon in his spark chamber was pulsing every now and again, though he could tell it wasn't a spark chamber beat. It was quicker, shorter. Something wasn't adding up to the Decepticon leader, and he was determined to know why. How was this human girl connected in all this?

~*~

Neira woke the next morning with a crick in her neck and a pain in her side. She never liked sleeping on a couch. It left her sore and achy all over. Neira sat up and stretched, sighing softly as her back popped several times. She then yawned and glanced around. She saw Optimus at a terminal typing out something, while Ratchet was fixing something. Neira decided to let them be, instead sitting back and playing a game on her phone. She then gasped and doubled over as the tightening chest pain from when she was being chased in the forest resurfaced. It was more intense and painful this time, enough that it caused her to fall off the couch onto her hands and knees. She was gasping for air, which gained the attention of Optimus and Ratchet. One of them said something to her, but Neira couldn't hear as her ears rang from the intensity of the spasms. This lasted for about a minute before it stopped entirely and suddenly, making her collapse from fatigue.

"Are you okay, Neira?" Ratchet asked her in a firm voice.

"Yeah…I…I don't know what just happened…"

She tried to lift herself up, but her body felt weak. She closed her eyes and tried again. Neira was now clearly embarrassed, her cheeks flushed as she managed to sit up against the couch. The two bots were looking on in worry, with Optimus walking away from the terminal to near her.

"Is this a common occurrence?" he asked.

She shook her head. "It started up two days ago, I think…when I was being chased. This is the second time…"

Optimus nodded slowly, a pondering expression crossing his face. Ratchet seemed to have a similar look on his face, which made Neira feel out of the loop. She didn't get time to ask, as the three bots returned with their human companions. Neira mustered up the strength and pulled herself onto the couch before the kids saw. She didn't want them to worry about her. They were only kids, after all. Neira knew too well what it was like to grow up too fast. At sixteen Neira learned of her Gramma's cancer, how it would take her away in as little as two years. She did all she could to make it easier; she became her Gramma's caretaker alongside the hospice nurse. Neira fought with the hospital when the first woman was mistreating her. She remembered the late nights of chemo with Gramma, the overnight stays…

She shook her head. Neira didn't need the kids to worry about her. But she couldn't help that she was pallid in the face and shaky.

"You good, Neira?" Jack asked her.

"Yeah...I just need some water," Neira responded.

"What you need is the Dark Energon removed," Ratchet interjected, "if it's causing you to collapse and have chest spasms."

Well, so much for keeping the kids out of the loop, Neira thought as the kids all gave her a worried look.

"Listen, I'm okay now," Neira told the kids.

They seemed skeptical, with Miko crossing her arms and looking especially unamused.

"No offense, Neira, but you're a terrible liar," she remarked.

The sandy-haired woman sighed, "You kids don't need to be worrying about me. You've got your own stuff."

Jack took her subtle hint and nodded silently. beeping sound then started, ringing about the room. It made Neira's head spin.

"Agent Fowler's here," Ratchet said, "possibly to give us any information about the humans mining for Energon."

Out of the nearby elevator stepped an African-American man in a dark navy blue, three-piece suit and tie over a white button up. He glanced over to where the kids were before double-taking at the sight of Neira.

"Another kid, Prime? You runnin' a daycare center now?" the man commented with his fists on his hips.

"Pardon me?" Neira said, and the two made eye-contact. "I'm an adult, sir. And they saved my life."

"Hmm," was all he said before turning to Optimus. "I asked around about it, but I wasn't able to get much more than some leasing companies thought to be tied to some black market groups buying up land for development."

"Hmm..." Optimus mused. "If you are able to get any more information on these possible groups, it may enable us to prevent human casualties in the event of a Deception search party."

The man nodded before looking to Neira. "Now what about her?"

"She was caught in the crossfire while on a scouting mission," Optimus replied. "Most troubling is that she has Dark Energon fused to her genetic coding. This alone makes her a target to the Decepticons."

"How is that possible?" Fowler asked, perplexed, "That stuff is extremely dangerous to humans, ain't it?"

"Yes, which is why her apparent good health–aside from the recent chest pains–is especially interesting," Ratchet said now. "I did a scan of her when she was brought in and found that she was teaming with the stuff, but was otherwise healthy."

Neira met eyes with Fowler, who looked baffled.

"And what sparked this? If she is teaming with the stuff, as you said, how has she been hidden until now?" he asked.

"That I am uncertain of," Optimus said.

It was as if a lightbulb lit up in Neira's head. Her eyes widened as she connected the dots, thinking of the small charm on her necklace. The night it broke she was persued.

"The pendant…!" she exclaimed, earning a look from everyone. "My Gramma gave me a necklace when I was little, maybe two or three. She had one like it. She told me to only take it off if absolutely necessary. The night you guys found me the chain snagged on a branch while I was hiking and it broke. Maybe…it had something to do with that."

"If this necklace did indeed hide you, as you say, then perhaps we can recreate it," Ratchet replied, "or find a replacement. Do you have it with you?"

She nodded, "I think I slipped it into my bag before I left."

She went to her bag and pulled the pentant out. She could see the small fracture in the welding where the item inside fell out. Neira brought it up for Ratchet to see. He stared for a moment before blinking.

"Optimus…maybe my optics are getting weary, but this appears to be Cybertronian."

Optimus now peered in to look, eyeing it for a moment.

"It is indeed Cybertronian, though in a written dialect I have yet to see before."

"I always thought it was a form of Old Germanic writing," Neira said. "My mother and grandmother were from there, after all. She said it was a family heirloom, ages old."

"And the plot thickens," Miko remarked. "So our girl Neira was apparently being hidden by Cyber-tech."

The kids and Fowler looked over and eyed the necklace as well.

"So how are we gonna replicate this?" Fowler said.

"…I think I've seen this before," Raf now said. "In a museum. We went on vacation for my older brother's senior trip and went to a history museum in Germany."

He pulled out his laptop and began typing it in. After a minute he found a picture of a very similar necklace on display.

"Wow, nice find," Miko quipped. "What are the odds of that?"

"So all we have to do is get it, yeah?" Jack said.

"It may not be that easy," Fowler said, "it's in Germany, therefore out of my jurisdiction."

"Then what? Are we gonna pull another heist?" Jack asked.

"While I do not want to break human laws," Optimus began, "this may be one of these incidents where the security of our human companions is more important."

"Listen, Prime. I know you mean well, but we can't just waltz into a German museum and steal from it," Fowler said.

"I am aware, Agent Fowler," the Autobot leader replied, "but I am afraid we may be left with no choice."

"Unless I can find some way to cure her," Ratchet added. "With how tightly the Energon is woven into her genetic code, however, I cannot see this being an easy fix. It will do more harm than good if we try to rush this. Our best course of action is to either try to repair the necklace, or replace it with the one in the museum."

"I'll see if I can pull any strings, but I can't promise anything," Fowler responded as he went to leave. "Don't do anything rash, Prime."

With that, the special agent left them to ponder how they were going to pull this one off. They all looked amongst one another, not sure what to do. Neira paced in thought before stopping. She remembered that her Grandmother gave her pendant to her brother. While Neira had existing relatives, Neira was the one who received most of the items on the will, including the house and the majority of the inheritance. Others of her family recieved smaller things, such as her car.

"Maybe…my great uncle Elias still has my Gramma's pendant. But how to get it from him is gonna be hard…he became sour with me after Gramma, his sister, passed and I got more out of the will than he did."

"Where does your uncle Elias live?" Optimus asked.

"Uh... Oregon? Portland, I think," Neira replied.

"Finding a way to get it to her will be tough, as she'll no doubt have to meet him in person," Ratchet said.

Neira nodded. "Right...I'm sure I could do most of it over the phone with him, though. And maybe...as much as it sucks, if I pay him, he'd be more likely to hand it over."

"Man, sounds like your family sucks," Miko quipped.

"No kidding," Neira replied, "I'll call him in a bit and see what we can do."