AN: So, no Megatron related stuff in here either but there's no lack of me trying to give you something different.

They headed off in a different direction from the train, drawing their enemies along. Optimus fought the thoughts of doubt about leaving a Forger alone with a highly volatile piece of human technology but held firm. He had to trust the Makers if they were to trust him as a leader.

While the cars chasing them had given up pursuit Silas had not, keeping them in his line of sight from the helicopter when they had come out of the tunnel. Definitely not civilian drivers and with a sizeable amount of firepower to collapse the train entrance he wondered why had they not taken their shot at them. If they really belonged to the military they would have permission to use deadly force in order to protect the device and beyond the motorcycle likely having killed his soldiers none of the others had made any casualties.

Not long after the Autobots separated from the train six purple jets appeared, startling both them and Silas.

"Air support? Ours or theirs?" Fowler wondered as he stared out the window. "Don´t tell me it´s neither. Those sneaky Cons trying to get in on it too?"

The Vehicons took their opportunity and opened fire on the convoy, four missiles capable of blowing them apart deployed straight at the Autobots. They turned sharply to avoid the incoming enemy fire but the trailer shook loose, already having been damaged earlier, and was left behind to get hit, exploding with no chance of remaining intact.

Silas and the piloting soldier held their breaths, bracing for an impact force they could not run from but when nothing beyond what the missiles caused took place their hearts calmed down. The device they were after was capable of untold destruction if caught in an explosion of any kind, so why were they still up in the air and not blown apart?

"Sir, I´m not reading any radiation. The Dingus didn´t meltdown." The pilot sounded both relieved and confused at his own words.

"No, it did not." The leader of MECH became suspicious. It seemed there had been more to the convoy than merely transporting from point A to B and he could guess what had went down away from their gazes.

Not much further ahead the Autobots found themselves trapped between a cliff and Vehicons that had transformed to their bipedal modes, falling from the sky, and not giving them a way out beyond doing the same and fighting for their sparks. The team was at an impasse, waiting on their leader´s orders weather to take their chances with the cliff or the Vehicons.

"Agent Fowler, I´m afraid that if you and we are to survive it has become absolutely necessary to drop our cover." Optimus informed the man and proceeded to transform, along with the rest of the Autobots, and set him on top of a nearby plateau. "Remain here."

Fowler felt like throwing up, both the bumpy ride and the transformation process having taken a toll on his stomach. "Will do." The man could only steady himself after and observe from that point on, his small stature and insufficiently armed body belonging nowhere near the titan-sized battle.

"After a long road trip it feels good to get out of the card, stretch my legs and kick some tailpipe." Bulkhead was the first to move in, deploying his wrecking ball and taking off in a run at the Decepticons, prompting his teammates to do the same as well as their enemies.

Optimus brought a hand to his comm and ordered in their secret element. "Airachnid, NOW!" He punched down one of the Vehicons in his momentum. "Cover is no longer needed!"

The spider-femme had been following them from the start, but not in her helicopter mode like she´d expected after having been told her help would be needed in their mission. Her role was to be the element of surprise, the one that took the most unlikely route in their convoy- underground support. She emerged in her ´drill-mode´, startling the nearby Vehicon and launched herself at him with no hesitation.

"Finally! I was starting to think you didn´t want to look at my ugly frame!" Airachnid clawed at her opponent relentlessly, eager to let out her frustrations on the faceless Decepticon until he was no more than a pile of metal at her pedes.

The helicopter circled the scene, observing the metal giants they´d been unknowingly chasing fight with the newly-arrived jets that proved to be just the same.

"So, the rumors are true. Living technology stands before us." There had been talk in some corners of the internet, mainly thought to be conspiracy theories and general fiction, along with the occasional blurry photo of something and an aftermath of destruction but to witness it in person was all the most satisfying. "Though perhaps not for very long."

"Sir, if the Dingus wasn´t in the truck…" The pilot voiced his concerns. They´d been duped.

"Yes, that." Silas contacted the man down below. "Special Agent Fowler you live a charmed life walking among titans."

Fowler picked up his walkie-talkie and looked up at the helicopter hovering above them. "Come on down, I´ll introduce you." Maybe he´d even get in a few punches, just for the heck of it.

"In good time, but at the moment I´m too busy wondering how the Dingus might have vanished in thin air without a trace." If the trailer hadn´t blown up they may have never caught on to the switch but now that they knew… "If you´ll excuse me, I have a train to catch."

The helicopter turned around and went back to chasing after its initial target. The living technology could way a while longer, their primary concern was securing the Dingus before it was delivered to the government and out of their reach.

With a nerve-wrecking realization the man switched channels to talk to the Autobot leader. "Prime, Silas got wise to phase two!" They´d need to hurry up with the Cons and get to the Dingus before MECH got to it first. Even with Doomsday guarding it there was no knowing what other weapons the organization was packing.

"I understand!" Optimus looked at the government agent but, unfortunately, that distraction cost him greatly with immediate consequences. The Vehicon with who he´d been dealing with somehow got a hold of a tree trunk and the Autobot got it right to the helm, and he was roughly pushed down the cliff, startling the man he´d been talking with.

"Prime!"

Airachnid had just knocked her opponent down and was going for the killing blow when she saw the whole ordeal. She attempted to launch a web to catch the Prime but, for a reason, nothing happened and the mech ended up hitting the rocks down below hard enough to send him into temporary stasis.

She was going to owe Solarflare an explanation for that one, no question about it, but, for now, her focus was to offline the Vehicon that had gotten up by taking advantage of her momentary distraction.

Back at the base they all realized what happened to the Autobot and immediately fear set in their sparks. The plan had derailed considerably and another element could need to be added to the mix but with a nuclear device in the mix they could do more harm than good.

"Oh no! Not good, not good, not good! Optimus is down!" Mayhem was the first to panic, leaning over the console and almost shoving Ratchet out of the way before he pushed her back.

Silverbot kept his cool but inside he was like his sister was on the outside, a nervous wreck. "MECH´s gonna try and make a grab for the Dingus if we can´t stop them."

"Mom´s with it, she can take them on." Radical had since long discarded the holopad and joined in to keep up with the convoy, especially when their primary enemies turned out not to be Decepticons. He had faith that his Carrier would know what to do in case Silas got too close, she may have lacked an alt-mode but her fighting skills were sharp, especially when dealing with humans.

"Erm… hello. I have a problem." The Forger´s strained voice came through their communications system. Had MECH already caught up to her?!

"Doomsday, what happened?" Asked Solarflare, worried about her longtime friend. "We know MECH is on their way!"

"Yes, that too." It was time to reveal her improvised phase to the plan. "I forgot one of my tools on Ratchet´s bench and without it I´m afraid I´ll make the Dingus blow up if my servos aren´t steady enough. I´m pretty sure they´ll be trying to land any time soon and I´m not sure I can trust myself disarm only."

That had gotten Ratchet to go from worried to angry in record time. HE KNEW IT! "You are messing with the same equipment that you know very well could cause a devastating explosion?! Inside a moving vehicle?! What are you thinking?!"

"I´m thinking ´what if it´s not that sensitive to bumps in the road´ and judging by the looks of it I was right if the Cons are on the mix. Now, I need that tool ASAP, there´s no turning back on this!"

Radical made up his mind and went over to the medbot. "Ratchet, open a bridge to the train, I´m the only small enough to fit in there with her."

"Absolutely not!" Crazy, both Carrier and sparkling!

Mayhem had to restrain herself not to grab Ratchet´s shoulders and shake the mech until he agreed. "Hello, the United States of Meltdown?! Lives are at stake. Mainly ours! Just let him do it!"

"I will not bridge a sparkling into a confined space, traveling at ninety miles per hour. I can´t even imagine the number of ways that can go wrong! Mass displacement, trauma, twisted limbs, metal-burn…!"

"Would it help if we had access to the train´s coordinates?" The sparkling held up the previously discarded holopad and pulled out a cable from his subspace, using it to connect the device to the console, and locked onto the moving vehicle with a few keystrokes. The train´s position was displayed on one of the screens up above and Radical took a closer inspection. "And looks like there´s also a fork up ahead, let´s just change that too if they´re trying to land. So, bridge me?" He was getting impatient by the second, his Carrier´s spark was on the line and he would not budge until she was safe.

"Well… no, no, forget it!" Ratchet was almost persuaded before he remembered the tormenting images of offlined sparklings during the war. "I will not endanger a sparkling. We will find another way to-"

"SHUT UP!" If there was a definition for anger, Radical would take home the medal at that moment. He was tired of being treated like he was helpless by the medbot and it would stop NOW. "Listen to me, you half-clocked tinfoil-turkey, you will open that bridge and I am going to be next to my Carrier in less than a minute or else something bad is going to happen… to you. Do I make myself clear?"

Solarflare knew what was coming and attempted to intervene between the small mech and his blind anger before he said something he couldn´t take back. "Radical, maybe you should calm down."

"No! What I need is to help mom. She saved my life, now it´s my turn to return the favor." He never once took his optics off the medic. "Bridge me. Now."

Ratchet was taken back by the display of raw anger but chose to only shake his helm and held firm to his choice. "As I said before, I will not endanger a sparkling´s life."

At that moment something snapped inside Radical. All his life he was burdened with something that was not his fault and yet at almost every turn it prevented him from being like everyone else. He couldn´t fly or fight, anything remotely dangerous to a normal Cybertronian was to be forever out of his reach and no matter how much he attempted to take his processor off his ´condition´ it always came back to taunt him at how helpless he really was.

"THAT´S IT! I HAVE HAD IT! I´VE FRAGGING HAD IT, I´M ALMOST MAYHEM´S AGE FOR SOLUS´ SAKE!"

"What?" That was not what Ratchet had expected.

"Oh no…" Solarflare brought her servo to her helm and attempted to calm her cooling fans. The Autobots would have a field day on that one and it would mean Doomsday being demanded explanations.

Mayhem´s wings dropped and her optics softened. It was so unfair the way he´d been treated but to think he´d go so far as to reveal the secret… She´d guessed it was only a matter of time before it happened but not so soon. "Rad, what… why did you tell him? You know you didn´t have to."

"You heard the mech, bridge Rad to Doomsday. Now." The triple-changer towered over the Autobot medic and narrowed his optics menacingly. He did not like using his stature to intimidate allies but every rule had its exception.

"I…I´m…. yes. But after I need to-" Ratchet was cut off by Radical once again.

"CNA coding error, just do it already!"

The helicopter hovered above the train, their prize just below in their reach. All they had to do was take care of any potential military personnel riding along with the Dingus and then collect their well-earned reward with what they expected was minimal effort, since the original convoy found itself busy at the moment.

"Immobilize them." Silas gave the order to one of the soldiers riding on the back.

One of the goons picked up a gun and shot a large metal dart that locked itself onto the train and imbedded onto one of the carriages. A sudden round of electric pulses racked throughout the moving target and knocked out all soldiers aboard the train with a powerful shock. They all fell down, unresponsive to their enemies above and unable to defend their cargo, leaving only one conscious.

"Ahhhhh!" Doomsday felt the current pass through her but what left her vocals was not a pained scream or even anything close to that. The femme was left breathless for a few brief seconds, working out what might have happened and thankful she hadn't been working on the device when it happened. "Oh, dearest Solus, I haven´t felt like that in a long time. I gotta get myself one of whatever they have."

A groundbridge opened behind her and it was with great relief Doomsday saw her son come through. She smiled at the sparkling at her pedes carrying her missing tool and could not be more relieved. The project she´d conjured up could finally be completed and they could say goodbye to a potential meltdown in both the short and long run.

"I did something stupid." Those were the first words the young mech uttered after the green vortex disappeared.

"Who cares, so have I! Thank you so much for this, hand it over, please." Doomsday reached back with her open servo and took the tool handed to her.

"Wait!" He suddenly remembered the upcoming fork in the tracks and held onto one of is Carrier´s legs. "Brace yourself!"

The train switched directions, causing the two bots inside to press themselves against the metal floor, and they heard helicopter miss the landing. Radical´s hacking skills had proven useful once again and that was something he´d always be proud of. His size did not matter when he was behind a screen, all he needed was the skills to pull of whatever he planned on doing and nothing else mattered during those moments.

The older Maker sighed and smiled at her son. "Thanks, I did not want to be handling this bomb when that happened."

"That´s not a bomb- wait, what are you doing?" All he saw were discarded metal parts and wires decorating the floor at the front of the carriage and, even though he had full confidence in his Carrier´s skills, being at ground-zero during an explosion was not something he´d wished to repeat.

"I´m making this thing safer. Hopefully."

They head a thud from above and it did not take more than three seconds for metal sparks to spring from where the noise had come from. The helicopter had landed successfully that time and they had started cutting through the carriage roof with not a moment to waste.

"Scrap. I bought us what, ten seconds?! I´m sorry."

"No worries, sweetspark, ten seconds can be plenty of time in a situation like this." Doomsday commed the base and did not waste any time. "Hey, Ratchet, how´s about you bridge him out of here?"

"I can´t, I lost access to the train data!" The response the Forget got was far from what she´d expected. "They must have noticed there was a hacker and shut us down, the holopad got fried!"

Mayhem could be heard in the background lamenting over her lost pictures. "My memories!" She sobbed.

"Scrap!" She shut off the call and raked her processor for another way out. "You know what, from now I say frag the high and mighty leader´s orders, if they come in point and shoot!" The Maker had not saved him just to see her sweet mech offlined at the hands of mere humans with fancy gadgets.

Searching though his limited subspace Radical came up with nothing useful. "I don´t have any weapons on me!"

Doomsday reached in her own subspace, faced with a little difficulty from the crammed space, and threw a grenade at her son. "Pull the pin and throw, just like I taught you. It´s a warning grenade, it shouldn´t damage the carriage too much." Immediately the femme went back to working on her project. A little pull here, some welding there, maybe that part could be useful…

"We´re right next to a highly sensitive bomb!" Crazy… both of them.

"Not anymore!" She´d done it. Now all they had to do was hop out… somehow.

The ceiling opened at last and three soldiers looked though it see another large robot along with a smaller one with a round object in hand ready to throw it. Looks of surprise crossed their masked faces but no weapons were pointed, they did not know how dangerous these two were.

"Wanna know what an alien grenade feels like?!" Radical did not want to throw it and test his Carrier´s theory but he´d learned that, in order to survive strained situations, you had to make strained decisions.

The fight continued on, they were holding their ground just barely, the Vehicons seemed more well-trained and organized. Starscream at least had done something to improve either training or morale and it showed in the way those Decepticons handled themselves in the battlefield but it hadn´t been enough for a win.

The Autobots and the Maker were almost finished in dispatching the faceless bots when Optimus regained consciousness. He shook his helm and attempted at gathering his last thoughts when he the train pass down below with the MECH helicopter perched right on top of the carried that contained both the Dingus and Doomsday.

He ran down as fast as possible and turned into his alt-mode to gain some ground on the train. He would not let such a dangerous device fall in the hands of humans who planned to use it to rule the Earth and all humans living on it. He´d see what happened on Cybertron and no other planets deserved to suffer the same fate.

"Retreat!" When Silas looked out the window to see a familiar speeding truck he issued his order. With their current weaponry they had no chance in beating that class of enemy but maybe, in time, the scales would shift.

The three soldiers obeyed their leader and went back into the helicopter with no complaints and took off. They were ready to leave but not before making sure they left an impression of their meeting.

"First rule of combat, never leave the enemy with the spoils."

Back inside the train carriage both Makers let out sighs of relief at the sight of the MECH soldiers taking off. There would be no reprimands for them, at least more than those they´d already set themselves up for.

Radical put away the grenade, glad for no longer being in a position where he´d be forced to use it. "Huh, I can´t believe that worked."

"Good, because I think I gave you the wrong grenade." Doomsday looked back at her son with a forced smile. Yep, definitely the wrong one.

An explosion was heard up ahead and, once again, their sparks began beating faster.

"Rad, what was that?!"

The sparkling opened the door and looked outside to see the tracks up ahead were blown up, most likely at the hands of the men they´d prepared to face.

"We have to jump, they blew up the tracks!"

"Just our luck, if they can´t have it they might as well just cause a meltdown, real mature!" Doomsday scooted over to the door and grabbed onto the outside carriage roof, propping herself up on top of it and extending her servo to Radical. "Gab on!"

He saw the crate back intact with his Carrier´s tools still on the floor and panicked. "What about the Dingus?"

"Don´t worry, let´s just get out of here." When the Forger saw Optimus come up close to them she laughed. "Right on time!" With sift motions she picked up her son and jumped on top of the truck.

"Hold on!" The Autobot leader accelerated to the front of the train, transformed to bipedal mode and, while Doomsday and Radical held on, grabbed onto the front and used all his strength to slow it down, his pedes sinking into the ground bellow.

"The Dingus is safe, you don´t need to do this!"

"Human lives are at stake!" He reminded her of the human military still aboard the vehicle.

He did not give up, gathering all his strength, both physical and his will, he poured all he had into prospecting the lives of innocents. They had come this far to fail at the critical stage.

The train stopped just at the edge of the blown up tracks. A relief for everyone.

"Well played, visitors, but MECH still has own field advantage and we´ll find a way to level that playing field, even if we have to open you up to see what makes you tick." A display of the bigger robot showed up on a screen in front of Silas. Their species was clearly made from males and females capable of reproduction, given the differences between the three in front of him, but they had no time to lean that part of their biology.

The helicopter flew away under the gaze of the three Cybertronians. They knew that meeting was to be the first of many to come.

Doomsday climbed down and at set Radical on the floor, glad to no longer be moving at ninety miles per hour with a dangerous energy source that doubled as a bomb. She reached in her subspace and retrieved what looked like a reinforced crate, the size barely bigger than that of a potable cooler. "Tell Fowler his Dingus is ten percent more effective, not meltdown-prone and comes in smaller packaging." She looked smugly at the, should she say impressed or angry, Autobot.

"Optimus, are you and the Makers… intact?" Ratchet commed, unsure of the answer he'd be getting.

"Intact, Ratchet, crisis averted, but the world in which we live in is a different one than previously imagined. One which has spawn its own Decepticons." Could it be another Megatron was on the horizon as well?

The others arrived in their alt-modes shortly after and ran up to see if their leader was alright, glad their mission was a, somewhat, success.

Airachnid landed nearby and Doomsday want up to meet her while Rad asked Bumblebee what happened in their fight. That Forger was to be the death of them, she humorously though.

Optimus looked at the femmes talking animatedly and though back to his fall. He´d never expected to have seen so much hate in her optics directed at him.

AN: Anyone ask for a flashback chapter? Because that's what you're getting in maybe 2 or 3 days. Until then read and review!