AN: A new chapter so soon? Why yes :p Anyway,still accepting suggestions for pairings and if anyone want an OC to have a cameo appearance I may have a few spots open in future chapters. As usual, hit me up with a review or PM to tell me what your thoughts are bout the story so far.

Bulkhead was not the brightest bot around but he could tell you a few things. First, any Deception sighting was bad news. Second, if that Con turned out to be Breakdown it was even worse news. Third, always have backup at hand in case something goes wrong.

Why hadn't he listened to his own advice?

Engaging the enemy solo had seemed like a good idea, he had previous experience dealing with that bucket of bolts and knew his repertoire of moves. Everything he'd done then he'd done many times before every time their paths happened to cross, only difference being a certain someone he'd grown attached to… and Breakdown knew it.

"Where's your pet? How about when I finish with you I pay her a visit?" Breakdown had a malicious grin on his faceplate when talking about Mayhem.

The wrecker knew the heavy-duty seeker could more than take care of herself, and even had her brother to back her up, but hearing those words just made him see red. He'd gotten angry, careless, and threw his punches with less precision. That had gotten him a hammer straight to the chestplates that knocked the wind right out of him, making his processor spin with confusion.

He remembered Breakdown standing over him, that wrenched hammer ready to smash into his processor, and then... nothing. Bulkhead had blacked out before his opponent could inflict the final blow and never expected to wake up after that but when he did and there was no Breakdown to speak of anywhere near him, that almost scared him more than his unending demise.

An uncertain amount of time had passed before Bulkhead came to with Mayhem yelling in his comm about where he was and his early promise to go on patrol together. Quickly standing up he found himself all alone in the deserted city, no Cons around to speak of, especially not the one he'd been fighting, only a persisting processor ache and the knowledge something was definitely wrong.

"Hold still."

"I am." Bulkhead fidgeted once more.

"You are not." Solarflare warned as she maneuvered the welder over the wrecker's wounds. "Seriously, one would think you'd never been on the mend in your life."

Upon requesting a groundbridge back to base the wrecker had been immediately greeted with medical care by both Ratchet and Solarflare. They had him sit down on a crate large enough to support his size and gotten right to work on patching up any bumps and bruises presented by the large mech. The medical attention was accompanied, as usual, by complaints about the shape he'd allowed to get himself in without asking for backup and the threat of more injuries if he didn't hold still.

"Yikes, Bulk, what happened to you?" Mayhem came up from behind and put her servos on Bulkhead's shoulders, looking down on with a reassuring smile. "Looks like you fought with a giant blender. And the blender won."

"Engaging the enemy on your own was foolish, Bulkhead." Optimus chastised his team member.

"Oh…" The purple and white femme understood what must have happened and slowly backed up. At least there wasn't any traces of her on that train wreck. Considering her track record it wouldn't have been a plus on her books.

"Breakdown jumped me. I knew I could take him- Ouch! Ratchet!" Bulkhead turned to the medbot with a frown. Hadn't he already suffered enough?

"Solarflare did tell you to hold still." Ratchet had a deadpan look on his faceplate and went back to patching up his teammate.

"Aww, you got in a fight? I really wanted to watch you beat the scrap out of Breakdown." Mayhem pouted but quickly regained her cheerful mood. Stepping around her Carrier, she knelt down to face the wrecker with a grin. "On the plus side, the other side came out looking worse, right?"

"Yeah… about that…" He really wasn't sure what to tell the others, not when his mind was a blank on the actual events.

"You didn't torch him?"

"Not exactly. I figured you all did. When I came to, Breakdown was just… gone. I remember hearing a copter, maybe it was Agent Fowler."

"Not me." Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Although in their case the human wasn't so much of a devil as he was there for support. "But I have an idea who. Show me where this Con-napping occurred."

Leaving Solarflare to finish up on the wrecker's patch job, Ratchet went up to the main console and pulled up the groundbridge coordinates they'd used to rescue Bulkhead. It was a few ways stray from the green mech had originally landed while tracking an energon trail but he'd gone silent after a while, prompting the others to wonder what he'd been doing. When they were reunited at last they figured out why, he'd been fighting and refused to call for backup, hence his sorry state.

"This is where we picked up Bulkhead." Ratchet pointed to a mass of land on the far east of Russia.

"Kamchatka Peninsula in Eastern Russia, most of it was abandoned twenty years ago when its volcano first erupted." The human man nodded at the map. He'd already feared that would have been the figurative scene of the crime but now he was sure of what likely had occurred. "My intel reported M.E.C.H. activity in the earlier today."

"M.E.C.H.? You mean those techie humans?" Mayhem approached their liaison and stared alongside him at the map displayed on the main screen.

"The very ones who know of our existence on this planet." The medbot soon began to realize the seriousness of the situation.

Since their last encounter the interference by the human organization had been a dreaded occurrence. The Cybertronians knew the knowledge of their existence was now possessed by a dangerous gathering of people that had likely shifted their attentions onto alien technology or, more precisely, living alien technology.

"They must have tracked one of us there." Bulkhead voiced the concerns present on everyone's mind.

"But what would they want with Breakdown?" Asked the purple and white seeker. If they'd taken him why not also Bulkhead?

"What's it matter? They can have him." Arcee shrugged off the issue. They ran into Cons so often it would be good for their enemies to take a loss in their ranks.

"You won't hear me complaining from me about it either." Surprisingly, Solarflare had to agree with the two-wheeler. "If M.E.C.H. hadn't taken him Bulkhead wouldn't even be here." She'd patched him up and knew he was one well-placed hit away from becoming scrap metal. To her, Decepticons were the enemy and that meant prioritizing their own team over the opposing one.

Bumblebee agreed with the femmes. Who could have guessed one of the big bad Cons would be taken down by humans and if it gave them an advantage over the Decepticons it was only a plus on his books.

"Yeah, dragged off by humans. Guess I softened him of for them." Bulkhead palmed his fist and looked at Mayhem who, surprisingly, averted her gaze.

Now, that was odd. The femme loved a good fight and there was no love lost between her and Breakdown, especially since their first meeting, so why was she reacting the way she did?

"Ratchet, reactivate the previous groundbridge coordinates. We will rescue Breakdown." Optimus nodded to the medbot.

"What?!" Both Ratchet and Solarflare exclaimed. The Prime really want to attempt a rescue mission for an enemy, could he?

Arcee resisted the urge to scoff at her leader. "Optimus, you can't be serious." It sounded like a really bad idea that could blow up on their faceplates and likely would. They'd faced Decepticons for so long it was obvious none were really deserving of a rescue party, least of all Breakdown.

Bumblebee couldn't help it and expressed his feelings of unease at the thought of risking their tailpipes to rescue an enemy. Breakdown would more than likely turn on them the moment they saved him from the clutches of the humans, not to mention his well-known wild temperament wasn't going to allow for easy cooperation.

"M.E.C.H. can melt him down for all I care, let the Cons rescue their own." Bulkhead attempted to get the Autobot leader to reconsider the idea of rescuing the Decepticon by leaving his rescue to his own side.

"It's hard to do his, but I agree with the others." Solarflare gestured to the Autobots that were against the Prime's plan. While she agreed on the intrinsic values of life she also believed on careful consideration one life versus several. Especially if said life belonged to an active war criminal. "We'll be putting ourselves on the line to rescue an enemy that can and very likely will turn on us as soon as we're done. Not to mention we also face the threat of charging right into a trap, and then who will rescue us?"

"It is unlikely Megatron would bother with an errand of mercy." Optimus explained his reasoning. The war had already take its toll on both sides, there was no need for any more unnecessary shedding of energon.

Arcee still wasn't convinced. "Okay… but this is Breakdown we're talking about."

"Sometimes we must rise above ourselves for the greater good."

"Aww, what's that supposed to mean?" Bulkhead didn't know how much more he could take. The leader he looked up to for so long wanted to rescue one of the worst Decepticons there ever existed and the whole team was just supposed to take it? "Breakdown's gonna be grateful, go all soft and join the cause?!"

"While it is unlikely any Decepticon would choose the path of good, even they possess the potential to change."

"I knew where this was headed!"

"By greater good, I meant human-kind. M.E.C.H. presents a clear and present danger."

"Prime's right, two-ton." Fowler approached the edge of the platform he was standing in to be face-to-face with Bulkhead. "We know M.E.C.H. is obsessed with obtaining ground-breaking technology."

"Which means we cannot allow Cybertronian technology into their servos."

Ratchet took his cue and entered the coordinates into the console, opening up a groundbridge to the site where they'd picked up Bulkhead. It was true, Breakdown was one of their worst enemies but having Cybertronian technology fall into the hands of a dangerous human militia would mean another side to keep their optics on.

"Solarflare…"

"Sorry, but you can count me out. While I agree with you I have a moral dilemma about helping bots who tried to offline members of our team. I can man the groundbridge but don't expect me to patch up any Decepticons." Solarflare raised her servos in a surrendering motion and lightly shook her helm in refusal. "At least with their pain receptors off." She whispered to herself as she walked away to the main console.

"I'll go with." Mayhem approached the rescue party.

"Mayhem!"

"Don't Mayhem me!" The heavy-duty seeker talked back to her Carrier, her expression steeled into one of resolve. "You heard Optimus, the big bad Con himself won't even bother, so you can't stop me from going. Silver's taking Rad out on patrol, who knows where Airachnid and Doomsday are off arguing to, and you won't help. I wanna pull my weight around here, you can't keep me cooped up in her much longer!"

The femme carefully considered her daughter's words before letting out a resigned sigh. It was one of those things she really had no control over. What would she rather have, her daughter going out with a team on a sanctioned mission or off to who knows where gallivanting on her own? "Fine. But at the first sight of Megatron you're out of there."

"Sweet! C'mon, Bulk, it's jailbreak time!"

"No way! Don't wanna." The wrecker crossed his arms and huffed. Why couldn't they all see their rescue would be for nothing?! In the end there would be just another Con to fight against.

"Bulkhead-" The Prime attempted but was interrupted by the green mech.

"Optimus, I'm sorry, I just can't do it!"

"I support your choice."

"What?!" Both bulkhead and Mayhem exclaimed. That was one they hadn't seen coming.

"Given your history with Breakdown, your judgement may be clouded, and thus jeopardize the mission. Besides, the Decepticon may need a medic than another warrior."

"Locked and loaded, Optimus." Ratchet approached the team, ready with a tracker to help locate where Breakdown could have been taken to by M.E.C.H. and hopeful his expertise wouldn't be in high demand. Just like Solarflare, the idea of patching up a Decepticon wasn't very appealing.

"Autobots, roll out!" Optimus gestured to the groundbridge before transforming, entering the green vortex with his team right behind.

"Hello, Maker here!" Mayhem shouted with a little indignation as she chased the others though the groundbridge.

Left alone with Solarflare and Agent Fowler, Bulkhead could only watch as the portal disappeared into the usual greying metal parts. Was it that hard to understand that Decepticon scum was not worth even as much as the smallest dust grain in the whole planet Earth? What would they get from a rescue, his eternal love and gratitude? Please, that Slag heap wouldn't know gratitude if it hit him over the helm and left a mark.

"…Fine, happy hunting." The wrecker pouted (although he'd vehemently deny it.).

"Hey." Solarflare, seeing the state Bulkhead was in, had an idea to try and take his mind off the mission he refused to partake in. "I know how you feel. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to take part on the rescue of someone you hate for a number of good reasons."

"Thanks, I guess."

"As longs as you're here, could you try to find Airachnid and Doomsday? None of them are answering their comms and I can't be too sure they aren't at each other's neck cables." That was if energon hadn't already been spilled.

Had the Makers been granted the mercy of continuing the production of high-grade it would have been a matter of getting those two intoxicated enough to 'kiss and make up', but dried up as they were tensions could run high. The only thing worse than an angry Maker was an angry and sober one. It was one of the many reasons infighting in the district was kept to a minimum, everyone forgot their troubles and spats by drinking until they were nothing but a dream.

"Sure. Guess I have to do something to pass the time." Bulkhead nodded and headed off to find the two femmes, wondering if he'd be granted the mercy of not getting caught between them.

Breakdown felt like his processor was floating in some sort of container. When he tried opening his optics all the images seemed blurred and weirdly hard to come into focus. He couldn't remember much after his fight with the wrecker, the last thing on his memory being him about to finish the annoying mech off before feeling a high-voltage current go through his frame and he fell down, his consciousness drifting away.

As the seconds went by the picture of where he was became clearer. All sorts of machinery that seemed to be fit for torture surrounded him and his first thought was that he'd been brought back to the medbay on the Nemesis, Knock Out having quite an impressive collection of those instruments. Then he tried to step off the supposed medical berth he was supposed to be lying on but found himself unable to move. That definitely woke him up.

"Wha-what!" He groaned.

Breakdown struggled against his restraints, but found them to be quite resistant to his attempt at escape, and finally realized he wasn't where he thought he was in the first place. The color scheme was all wrong and he felt some sort of raised objects poking at his back, so he definitely wasn't in friendly hands. And those torture instruments would likely be used on him.

Spotting a platform up above he was able to recognize heavily armed masked humans, with three of them gazing at a display of his interior workings. It was obvious he'd been kidnapped by some sort of military group but for what he had no idea, although he couldn't care less, because his main objective was to get free and squish each and every one of them like the vermin they were.

"Filthy fleshlings, who do think you are?!"

One of the humans, apparently their leader, turned around, hands on his hips as to display his superiority over the captured Cybertronian.

"We are M.E.C.H. and I am Silas." Spoke the human male with little to no emotion on his voice.

"Release me now and I will let you live!"

"I'm afraid you are too valuable to us."

Breakdown laughed at the thought of being held captive by inferior beings, they had no idea of who they were dealing with. "Megatron will never pay a ransom."

"Oh, you misunderstand. We don't want a ransom, we want only you. All of you." Silas said with a smug undertone on his voice, making the captured giant struggle once more against his restraints, having realized his fate. "Full disclosure, we intend to pull you apart, break you down if you will, and we will utilize whatever we discover to develop a new generation of weaponry."

Silas snapped his fingers and immediately a differently-clothed masked human climbed up on the chassis of the Cybertronian, the instruments surrounding him coming closer and standing right above his frame.

For the first time in eons, Breakdown felt a type of fear that he'd almost forgotten about. Fear for when his spark was about to be extinguished and he was powerless to stop it. He felt himself freeze up at the thought of being pulled apart, like one of Knock Out's 'experiments', and he knew no subject ever survived vivisection.

M.E.C.H.'s leader came down the stairs, almost strolling as he descended to the level of the prisoner, hands folded behind his back and a smirk on his face. "I'm afraid that you won't survive the process, so thank you in advance for your sacrifice, M.E.C.H. is very much in your debt."

"You are making a very big mistake. When I'm finished with you they'll have to scrape you off the floor." The Decepticon attempted to put on a brave face with his threats, but knew that in his state escape would be near impossible.

"Since you evidently aren't squeamish, I'll allow you to watch. Are his pains receptors disabled?" Silas asked the scientist standing atop of the Cybertronian, and got a nod in response. "Good, then he won't make as much noise. Open him up."

At those words one of the drills descended and the scientist took it onto himself to guide it and make the first incision… right on the Decepticon's optic. The extraction would surely have hurt, had the pain receptors been online, but the worst part of all was the feeling of a foreign object being forced into the mech's helm.

Breakdown's faceplates contorted into one of open fear but he refused to scream, to let them know he was very much fearful for his future. That couldn't be how his spark would fade away, captured and pulled apart by a bunch of lowlife organics… He wouldn't dare to give them the satisfaction.

Team Prime, plus a Maker, arrived at the site of Bulkhead's rescue just as the sun was setting and darkness began to spread throughout the sky.

As soon as the Autobots stepped onto the abandoned city they drew their weapons and stood on high alert for any sign of enemies, while Mayhem took her sweet time looking around, her hammer still safely put away.

"No signs of life, human or Cybertronian." Optimus took on a calmer stance and put away his weapons.

"Seriously, you guys expected a welcoming committee as soon as we came here? They're all techie and stuff but I doubt they can predict the future." The purple and white seeker calmly spoke as she too in the sight of their deserted surroundings. Some paint here and there could really cheer up the place, it all looked so gloomy…

Bumblebee called the attention of the entire team and pointed at a set of tracks heading off away from the site. They'd likely been left by the machinery used to transport Breakdown's body from there to another location.

"Forget the tracks, Bumblebee, I'm picking up a faint energon signal three kliks north by northwest." Ratchet discarded the scout's idea and pointed in the opposite direction of the tracks.

Optimus knew what that signal meant. "Breakdown."

Arcee did too. "But we shouldn't be getting a reading unless-"

"His energon's been spilled." Ratchet finished the two-wheeler's sentence.

It was a probability their mission could turn out to be a body retrieval rather than a hostage rescue one, but spilled energon could mean just a minor leak… hopefully. Most didn't mind if Breakdown offlined at the hands of the humans but they couldn't allow M.E.C.H. o come in possession of Cybertronian technology or ways to replicate it.

"You guys follow the signal, I'm checking out the tracks." Mayhem pointed with her thumb at the markings left on the dirt. An energon signal was good but it didn't always mean there was a body nearby and Bulkhead had been trailing a reading nearby for the stuff…

"Mayhem…" Optimus trailed off in a warning. He didn't want to discard all possibilities but letting her go out on her own could be a risk.

"I know, I know. Be careful and all that jazz. Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. Besides, I've seen enough human movies to know the tracks are always a good lead."

"Please, be careful. Your Carrier worries deeply for you."

"Yeah…" She trailed off, her mood suddenly having dropped, a thousand yard stare in her optics. "Sometimes I do too."

Bulkhead had been wandering around the base for a while. He'd forgotten how big it actually was, some hallways seemed to go on forever and before you knew it you were back at the starting position. When team Prime had originally settled in the old missile silo he'd they'd actually gotten lost a few time trying to find their way around the maze-like structure and sometimes to this day they still enjoyed having a good laugh over it.

Letting go of the old memories, the wrecker wondered what had it been that had managed to drive a rift between the two femmes. Airachnid and Doomsday behaved like sisters to a certain point, always laughing and supporting each other no matter what. Even Solarflare sometimes was outnumbered by the two when it came to their more carefree attitudes towards life. The more down-to-earth Maker leader wanted to play it safe while the other two wanted to take risks and enjoy the small things in life.

"I'm sorry I brought up your past to win an argument where I shouldn't even have had a word in." Came Doomsday's voice from one of the storage rooms down the hallway. "You were, are, right. I've been raising a sparkling who's pretty much the same age as Mayhem but the way I act sometimes is a little irresponsible."

"Sometimes?" Airachnid didn't sound convinced by the Forger's apology, her voice carrying a sharp edge of disbelief and hurt.

Bulkhead quietly (or as quietly as he could) approached the closed door and dared to take a peek inside through the edge of the glass part. The room was mostly barren, save for the copious amount of webbing that crisscrossed from one wall to the other and all the way up to the ceiling. If he didn't find the spider-femme a little scare he might've marveled at the beauty of the silken threads.

From the looks of it they were unaware of the third party snooping in on their talk and Bulkhead hoped it would remain like that. He could outwardly admit to fearing Airachnid but Doomsday… He couldn't bring himself to fully trust someone who could be so cheerful most of the time and, at the flip of a switch, scramble her emotions worse than a mangled radio signal.

Inside, Doomsday attempted to take a step forward to meet Airachnid, who had her back turned. The purple femme's back was ramrod straight and arms crossed in a show that indicated she was still very much upset, but from what Bulkhead could see of her optics, they showed a great amount of sadness.

"Most of the times." Doomsday finally caved in and admitted to one of her fatal flaws she never deemed important to address. "I can't help it, I just…I want him to like me as much as I like him. I'm afraid that, one day, he'll actually grow up and just fly away."

"That's really emotional and all but it doesn't forgive those words. You knew I didn't like talking about my past and you had to bright it up in front of everyone!" Airachnid pointed an accusatory digit at the Forger.

Her past was supposed to be just that, past, gone, erased from history like any another unfortunate accident perpetrated by reckless cadets who couldn't keep still. Those memories sometimes came back to haunt her, nothing enough high-grade couldn't solve, but now with her dry spell they didn't leave and insisted on staying, each day creeping a little closer to the front of her processor. Airachnid just wanted everything to go back to the way it was before the war, it wasn't perfect, but she felt like she belonged.

"I know... I will always be sorry for what I did and you don't even have to forgive me. I just… I don't want to lose one of my best friends." The orange femme didn't know what else to say. Asking for forgiveness was easy, anyone could do it, but regret came with a harsher edge that metaphorically cut at the insides of a person.

"Best friends don't do what you did!" With a yell the spider-femme closed up on Doomsday and grabbed her by the shoulders, restraining herself not to sink her digits and draw energon "You knew how much I hate what happened back on Archa Seven! How much I hate them for leaving me behind…" The tears began welling up in her optics and she couldn't stop them from pouring out, her voice weakening to a whisper. "How much I sometimes hate myself for looking like this…"

Doomsday really hadn't prepared for this. She'd expected yelling, acid and webbing to be thrown at her along with some insults for good measure, but the crying part had caught her completely off-guard. Airachnid was renowned for her short temper and resolve, what she wanted she got and no questions were asked, anyone caught in her path simply brushed aside, most of the times without even realizing it.

The Forger was out of her element so she limited herself to acting according to her instincts… by hugging her friend. "You should hate them, for what they did to you, but don't hate yourself. You're beautiful, smart, a really good worker and you care so much for the ones who took you in to the point where you reinvented yourself just to fit in with us." She reassured Airachnid and felt relief when the tears began to dry out. "I could only hope I was ever so selfless as you because, as you know, I drank so much I can't even remember who my Carrier and Sire were. And I kept drinking just because afterwards."

"I hate you so much… You make me want to forgive you, even when you hurt me."

"Don't. Please, forgive me only if you want to, not because of an obligation to do so. I just want to be your friend."

"I don't know if I can do that. Not yet." Airachnid stepped away from Doomsday and lightly shook her helm before using her digits to remove whatever traces of energon her tears had left.

Nodding, the Forger accepted her fate. "It's alright. Take your time and, if even if you don't forgive me, it's alright. The damage is done and the guilt is only mine."

"It will take time, but I think I can."

"Thank you."

The two femmes remained in silence for a few seconds, letting their conversation settle in. Both of them were glad not to have the rift that had opened between them be so wide anymore, but also knew a bridge would have to be built over time. The damage was done and the gap could never be filled, merely crossed with an effort from both sides.

"I… Think you were right too. For, you know, calling me out because I'm barely around most of the time." Airachnid was the first to break the silence, also accepting her shortcomings. Doomsday wasn't the one with unattended over due issues. "I like to put up this front of being the scary lone wolf, but it's not who I am. I just enjoy being alone and, in my mind, pretend I'm still back home with everyone else, drinking and getting anything I want with a wink to the right mech…"

The glamour, the cushy lifestyle supported by the shanix of love-struck mechs, the unending amount of high-grade passed around between friends during conversations or games… Their sparks had never truly left Cybertron, even with a place on planet Earth to call home.

"Not just that. I think… I think I might actually l-"

Bulkhead had stopped listening as quietly backed down the hallway. He had the feeling that what he was witnessing had turned into a very private moment and if those two found him out there would be a steep price to pay.

Silently retreating to the main room to reassure Solarflare that she didn't have to worry about her friends tearing each other's sparks out, a question gnawed at his processor and refused to go away. He knew something about it, he was sure of it, but couldn't quite put a tie or place on it.

Where had he heard the name Archa Seven before?