AN: This chapter is on the smaller side but I decide to keep it as it is as the next part would feel out of place here.

When Arcee got to the top she immediately spotted Silverbot. He was sitting on the edge, leaning back supported on his servos with his legs dangling over the cliff. She could tell he wasn´t interested in her visit since he was still concentrated in the sunset and didn´t spare her a glance.

"What do you want?" There was a lazy undertone to the mech´s question. He really wasn´t interested in having a conversation at the moment.

The two-wheeler exhaled a little too forcefully and approached the Maker, decided in getting the introductions over with the fastest as possible so she could go recharge in peace. "Look, I´m only here because Optimus assigned each one of us to a different Maker and I got stuck with you. I lost Cliffjumper for the second time today, I´m not exactly in a talking mood, you know?"

Silverbot finally looked back at the Autobot and raised an optic ridge. "What, the red bot Rad said though it was a good idea to open fire near energon?"

That tone had gotten under the femme´s armor and she raised her servos in a quitting gesture. "You know, I´m trying to be civil but clearly it´s not working." She turned and started walking back to the base entrance. She´d just wasted her time on someone clearly not worth it.

"Please, wait." Those words made the femme stop on her tracks but she still didn´t look back. Silverbot knew they were all expected to be civil around the Autobots but there was a part of him that struggled to accept reality. "Will you please sit down?"

"Why? So we can insult each other?"

"Solus, you are so stubborn. I´m trying to say I´m really sorry for your loss."

Arcee turned around swiftly at the apology. How dare he?! "What could you possibly know about loss?"

"Please, as if you´re the only one with problems."

"I fought in a war while you hid away from Cybertron."

At the mention of the still ongoing war the triple-changer stood up and slowly walked over to the smaller femme. "A war where the side that claimed to fight for justice wanted to keep the caste system in place as an end goal."

"No they didn´t! Optimus became a Prime, he wouldn´t have stood for it." He´d just insulted the side she was ready to be offline for. The one Cliffjumper was offlined for.

Silverbot almost anted to laugh at her naivety. He may have been bigger in every sense of the word but she as still older than him and, unfortunately, less knowledgeable of how Cybertron had really worked back in the day. "Can you really believe that? That if the Autobots had won the war back in the day the Council wouldn't have proclaimed that the caste system was in place for a reason and tightened it even further? I guarantee you if Optimus had fought it he´d have ended up like my Sire: a shot to the back by a cowardly Council puppet."

Arcee was taken back at the admittance of the theory she´d had since he stormed out after mentioning of the famous Maker gladiator. "So I was right, you are Victory´s son."

The mech huffed and crossed his arms. "Haven´t made much of an effort to hide it my whole life to begin with." He looked away to the side, not focusing on anything. Why had he steered the conversation towards his Sire? He´d always hated thinking about him as offline, preferring to focus on the small window of time that he spent as a sparkling with the only other triple-changer he´d ever met.

"From what I heard he was an amazing gladiator." The blue femme awkwardly told him, having had the wind taken out of her sails. She´d accused him of not understanding loss just moment ago, what else could she say?

"He had incredible language skills too, you know? Only Makers remember him outside the arena." Silverbot took a softer tone with the new information he was telling her. "That´s the problem with triple-changers, you get the least bit violent, just raising your voice will do the trick, and that will be all everyone stores in their processor. We´re not allowed the luxury of getting frustrated or annoyed without being perceived as a threat."

"I can´t imagine what´s it like no being allowed to get angry. Mainly because every time I did no one would take me seriously and just think I was cute." Arcee though back to her younger days as a recruit. Her superiors barely paid mind to her or any suggestion she may have had, dismissing her smaller frame in lieu of her bigger, stronger teammates.

"I´m sorry. You know. For my first impression."

"No, it´s… it´s alright. To be honest I came up here expecting you to still be angry at being forced to move and maybe get into a fight."

"We´re all not exactly thrilled at the prospect of sharing a base with Autobots but a good Maker will adapt to any new situation. I acted without thinking before."

The two bots stayed in a somewhat comfortable silence before Silverbot sat down cross-legged to better face the Autobot who´d be in charge of him. She was small but he knew never to underestimate someone despite their size, Radical came to mind for confirmation on that.

Arcee thought back to something she´d been told before going up to meet with the mech. "By the way: hi, I´m Arcee. We´ll be seeing each other a lot more often so I´d like to get along." Silverbot looked confused before she elaborated. "Your sister told me to use that."

The triple-changer shook his helm and chuckled in amusement. "I believe you. Word of advice from someone who´s known Mayhem her whole life: she may be a bit annoying but knows more than she lets on."

Arcee had figured as much when the seeker could barely stand still the whole time. Flyers were supposed to be calmer and more focused than grounders "Noted. How do you resist her more, erm, annoying moments?"

"You don´t." Silverbot laughed at Arcee´s comical distressed face at his revelation. "She either finds something else to focus on and leaves you alone or you two end up sparring until she gets tired enough."

"I trust you speak from experience?" She would have to choose her moments around Mayhem, her tolerance for fooling around was not exactly on par with the seeker.

"She´s knocked me down a good amount of times but I also get a few good shots in too."

Arcee felt relieved when being told her team wouldn´t be working from the ground up in order to get the Makers out on the field to fight against the Decepticons. "I think the Autobots can rest easier knowing you all have some sort of combat experience."

"Some sort? Just until you see Airachnid and Doomsday double-team an opponent and then tell me they weren´t born to kick aft." He remembered fighting against the older femmes when he first began his combat training. They were fast and deadly when put together and he thanked Solus he´d never been in a real fight against them. Triple-changer or not they´d hand his aft to him in a sparkbeat.

"What´s the deal with Airachnid anyway?" Asked the two-wheeler at the mention of the more eccentric looking Maker. "I´ve seen a few bots with more ´out there´ frame modifications but she took it to the next level. Did Doomsday do that?" It had become clear the femme with long dreads was a Forger when closely examined. She´d been told stories as a sparking of Cybertronians with an innate skill to create anything deemed impossible and were speculated to have descended from Solus herself or even created by her.

"She secretly wishes that had been her handiwork to this day." Silverbot though back to when his Carrier told him he´d first met Airachnid. He´d been a young sparkling back then and apparently had taken a long time for him to stop crying. "No, Airachnid had an unfortunate accident when she was younger and came out looking like that."

Now she was curious. An accident could leave a bot with a lot of patchwork on their frame, not add extra limbs and completely remodel everything. "What sort of accident can do that to a bot´s frame?"

"Don´t ask me. She never talked about it and neither Doomsday or mom let anything slip. Not that I´d tell you even if I knew something, to be honest." He may have become more comfortable at living with the Autobots but he wouldn´t go spilling around Maker secrets left and right. "They´ve been friends since forever, you know?"

"Mom? How long have you all been on this planet?"

"Long enough to assimilate a few cultural customs but she doesn´t mind if I call her that instead of Carrier. I think she even likes it better." Silverbot got his train of thought interrupted with a comm call. "Mayhem. Yes, she´s fine. No, we didn´t try to fight it out, that´s your department." He nodded along the conversation and smiled at Arcee. "You did? Well I figured as much. Sure, go ahead." He cut the call and started to get up, towering over the femme once again. "I have to go, there´s still some things we need to get ready before moving in tomorrow and I could use a good recharge as well. I enjoyed this talk. " A green portal appeared behind Silverbot just as he extended his servo.

Reaching out Arcee placed her much smaller servo on his and grabbed a single digit before shaking as a goodbye. "We´ll have to go for a drive one of these days."

The mech smiled. "I´d like that."

Arcee let go of his digit and watched him walk away into the groundbridge. When the green portal faded from existence she gazed at the place where it had been for a few more seconds before deciding it was time to get some recharge as well.

When she went back in Ratchet was the only one left, hard at work trying to fire out what she´d brought back with her from the mines. Arcee wanted badly to tell him to get some rest but he looked ready to give up at any moment to do just that. Quietly she past behind him and went to her quarters. There was a probability that in the morning she´d have a promise to go for a drive to keep.

Sill focused solely on the screen Ratchet hadn´t noticed the two-wheeler disappear into the hallway, the components of the mysterious substance puzzling him. Looking away from his microscope one final time he decided to call it a day.

The computer let out a few beeps as more information was displayed but the results remain inconclusive throughout. "The base elements of this goo are like nothing I´ve ever encountered. Must be extremely concentrated to have affected Arcee so rapidly." Ratchet picked up a pair of tongs and carefully extracted his sample for safekeeping. "Unfortunately complete results are slow coming without the use of proper diagnostic tools. Thank you very much Bulkhead." And also unfortunately he failed to notice when the smallest of drops fell from the metal slide onto the claw of the equipment he was thinking about, the purple substance absorbing quickly into it.

After the medbot turned away the claw began to twitch uncontrollably before gaining a nightmarish-looking spider-like ´body´ and yet he still heard nothing when it stood on its own. The now living little critter looked at its surroundings before scuttling away into hiding before being spotted. The hunt would begin soon.