Disclaimer: Hiya everybot! It feels like it's been a little while since I last saw you…*glances to calendar* Just a little. Anyways, it's great to be back and diving into the craziness that we have planned for you all. Hope you all enjoy what is to come. *ominous laugh*

Thundercracker's 1st P.O.V.

The Decepticons were sitting on a theoretical grenade. And if we didn't pull ourselves off of it, then everything that we fought for…everything that we had sacrificed, was going to be for nothing. Every drop of energon shed by our comrades…every click that we had fought side by side would have been for nothing. Unlike my idiot middle brother, I was loyal to the Decepticons. How Starscream climbed his way to the second-in-command position I would never know. He certainly didn't deserve it.

Frag, even that femme still in med bay deserved it more.

When Skywarp and I had arrived on this planet, I had been surprised that the first order our Lord had given was not to join him on the Nemesis. Instead, he had sent us to check on a mission that was being carried out nearby. It seemed strange. Any Decepticon worth their metal, especially with an Insecticon present, would have been able to easily finish the mission. Including the presence of tox-en meant that they just needed to trade it between the two of them so their systems would take minimal damage. When we were halfway to our destination, Lord Megatron relayed the information that caused me to increase my speed.

The femme was carrying the tox-en by herself.

From the distance that she would have had to travel, well, I didn't even expect her to make it. I expected to have to locate her chassis halfway up the mountain that she was climbing. Instead, when Skywarp and I arrived at the scene, I found a very different scene. I had watched as the femme, who had been laying on the ground, found the energy to drop the tox-en into the magma beside her. How she found the strength to do so was amazing. And then the bug attacked the femme with what looked like an intent to offline her. I wouldn't allow that. Especially not with how hard the femme had worked to follow our Lord's orders. So, using my shockwave mods, I forced the bug off of the injured femme before Skywarp and I transformed. We made sure to place ourselves between the bug and the femme.

Of course, the bug was not happy and I made sure he knew that he was in trouble and not the femme. He thought he was in the right when he started to disobey Lord Megatron's orders from the start of his mission? And worse yet he didn't even report in as the femme had. Instead, he thought he knew best and had placed the entire mission in jeopardy.

And then our second issue made his presence known. While it would have been simple to take out the Autobot at that click, that wasn't our mission. There was no need for a spark to be extinguished unnecessarily. So, I gave the Wrecker a choice to leave in one piece, or to fight despite the odds being against him. Surprisingly, he chose the smarter option. Odd, I didn't think Wreckers possessed that processing capability.

While I had been speaking to the Autobot, Skywarp had checked on the femme's condition. Honestly, I was surprised that the femme was even able to respond to my brother at all. Even more, she stayed in a somewhat conscious state during the entire extraction back to the Nemesis, the thorough beating that Hardshell received for his multiple grievances during their mission, and our optics had locked when I was leaving the med bay from checking up on the femme.

I needed more information on this femme. One would think that I would have heard of a triple-changer femme being with the command on Earth, or anywhere in this solar system. Femmes were rare as it was, and for one with such a large build to have flown under everybot's radar was strange. There had to be something more. So, I made my way toward the rec room to see just who I could ask.

Once the doors opened to said room, I immediately took in my surroundings. There were a few drones in here but they weren't who I focused on. Instead, my optics led me to focus on the only other officer in the room. "Dreadwing."

The large flier glanced up from the datapad he was reading and leveled a studying glance at me. "Thundercracker. Any reason you are here?"

I resisted the urge to roll my optics at him. While that brother of mine is the biggest traitor I ever knew, Skywarp and I were nothing like him. "If you are wondering if I was looking for you in particular; no. However, I'm not complaining that I ran into you. Since you have been here longer than my brother and myself, however, I would like to ask you some questions. Of course, you have every right to refuse if you want to."

"I have the right to refuse?" He echoed back to me. "Are you sure you are related to the traitor?"

"Unfortunately," I huffed. It was always difficult meeting a new bot when most Decepticons were familiar with that scraplet of a brother we had. "And yes, you have the right to refuse. Even if I was like that disgrace of a brother of mine, forced information isn't always the most detailed or accurate. And on this topic, I would rather have accuracy."

He raised an optic ridge at me. "And just what topic would that be about?"

The two of us sat down across from each other before I started to speak. "That would be about the triple changer currently in the med bay right now."

"Ah, Pandimala. She is an unusual case, from what little I know." Dreadwing admitted. "So, what is it that you wish to know?"

"Well, you already answered my first question. I hadn't known the femme's designation and if I needed to approach her directly for this information, I at least wanted to be prepared with her designation. No use getting off on the wrong pede with the femme if I didn't have to." I answered the mech at first.

He gave a nod at that. "Logical, given the femme's unusual background."

"And what can you tell me about that?" I pushed on. While the mech said that he only knew a little about the femme, that statement right there told me that he knew something that might be important with my future interactions with the femme. I wanted to be prepared. Was I going to make my own decision about the femme? Of course. However, having some information for when I went into that talk would be useful. "There was no word about a femme in our ranks on Earth, let alone a triple-changer one. It seems strange that the information we had was that off."

Dreadwing nodded at that. "Up until a servo-full of solars ago, we didn't. The femme, from what I understand, was a neutral who was taking refuge with the Autobots. Sometime before my arrival, our Lord discovered the presence of the femme working along the Autobots and it was deduced that she was one of their ranks. That was believed until reports say our Lord was able to, during a crisis that arose involving Unicron that forced our two factions to temporarily work together, speak with the femme in private. Through the talks that they briefly had, the femme's neutrality was discovered and our Lord recognized the possible supporter the Decepticons could have in the femme."

While this made sense so far, there was something that seemed strange. "The femme was in residence with the Autobots?"

"Yes," Dreadwing confirmed. "She was even witnessed assisting them on their missions. We have recorded a few altercations between the femme and our forces. One, from the records I was able to find, included a conflict where the femme was under the influence of an experimental energon that the Autobots were working on. While she had attacked our Lord during that, it was clear from the reports that she was sorely under-trained."

"And we are sure that she is not going to betray us?" This femme was sounding more and more suspicious the more I heard about her.

"While it is never completely certain if new recruits are going to stay loyal, I am fairly certain from what I have seen from the femme that she will remain loyal to our Lord." His response left me thoughtful. While what he had told me about the femme seemed to make me compare her to my wayward brother. "It seems like, outside of a few incidents when she was first encountered, the femme seemed to only fight us when she didn't have another choice. Living with the Autobots as a neutral meant that she would have had to earn her keep at times. Even the one time we met as enemies was out of that need to survive. I had challenged the Autobot Wheeljack to come and fight me and the femme was the only one to come with him. If she had left the mech to come by himself, that would have put her under major strain at their base. It was unfortunate that she was there, however, she accepted the consequences that brought her in being my bait to lure the Autobots out. However, she was clear in telling me that her loyalties did not lie with the Autobots themselves."

I processed everything that the mech had just laid out for me. While the femme definitely had some questionable aspects of her file, it was clear to see that, for now, she should be placed as a low flight-risk against the Decepticons. She had not pledged herself to the Autobots, and that showed the few times she had been in battle against us. Her time among us had shown that, since she had declared herself as a Decepticon, she was willing to put in the extra effort to make sure that the Decepticons remained victorious.

Even to the point that she was still in deep recovery in the med bay. Knockout wasn't even sure when she would regain a consistent consciousness. During the past solar, she had come in and out of consciousness for clicks at a time before falling back into a stasis-lock like state. She had pushed through every warning her chassis had to have been giving her to obey our Lord's order.

And that order, surprisingly, gave me hope that the Decepticons could pull ourselves out of the trouble we still found ourselves in; that theoretical grenade that we were standing on. With betrayals more common than loyalty mixed in with insubordination and a strained command, then we were very close to imploding as a faction. Honestly, I was surprised that our Lord had decided to destroy the tox-en. While there hadn't been much there, tox-en could be a dangerous compound even in small doses. However, using it was cowardly and disgraceful. However, with the dissension that has been infecting our ranks, and not just our ranks on Earth, it was the kind of path that I expected our Lord to take.

The fact that he ordered it destroyed, and that Pandimala was able to succeed in that order despite the resistance that she faced, showed that the Decepticons could return to their former glory, instead of the wretched decaying husks that we now were. There was a chance, and I would work as hard as I could to make sure that we didn't allow ourselves to become reinfected again. I would be loyal and support Lord Megatron while making sure that we continued on this new path away from our destruction.

"Thank you for the information, Dreadwing," I thanked the mech before standing.

Our current second in command stood as well. "If the Decepticons are going to keep moving forward, then we need this sort of communication between ourselves. However, there is a favor I would like to ask of you and your brother."

A favor? Just what sort of favor? I knew of Dreadwing's reputation as an honorable mech as well as a loyal one. However, that didn't mean that the mech couldn't turn a situation in his favor. That was especially given that his twin had offlined here on Earth. Until more trust could be built between the Decepticons currently on the Nemesis, then I need to stay cautious. Open. But cautious. "What sort of favor?"

"Nothing trying," The mech seemed to reassure me before he continued. "However, I have been charged by our Lord to supplement the femme's flight lessons. He noticed during his previous encounters with her before her arrival on this ship that her maneuverability was sorely lacking. However, the femme's aerial form, despite her size, is built for more agility than I am able to coach well. Given yours and Skywarps' propensity for aerial maneuverability, I wish to ask for your aid in this endeavor."

That wouldn't be a bad idea. Not only would this training allow Skywarp and me to gain more confidence in Dreadwing as an ally, but this would allow all of us to study Pandimala and see if she would continue to turn into the loyal Decepticon that we already saw from her, or if this was just a facade. "I don't see a problem with that. Give us times when you wish to train her and, as long as we are not charged with any other orders from our Lord we will assist you." Of course, now that he mentioned her training, I was curious about something. "And what of the femme's combat training? Given the fact that she had only been seen sparingly on the battlefield when she was our enemy and even less so since she joined our ranks, I assume that she is being given training in that as well."

Dreadwing motioned for me to follow him, and so I did. Once we left the rec room and made our way toward the direction of the med bay, the mech finally answered me. "At first, Soundwave was in charge of training the femme. However, the femme improved in her training against him to the point where she almost seriously hurt Soundwave. Given Soundwave's importance to the Decepticons, Lord Megatron pulled him from the assignment so the mech could focus on other missions that wouldn't put him at risk like training Pandimala did."

Frag. While I hadn't seen the femme in action, given the circumstances we arrived in, if she was able to put Soundwave in a difficult spot she was more skilled than I gave her credit for. Soundwave was a legendary gladiator in the pits, though not quite to the same degree as Lord Megatron had been, and was a force to be reckoned with. For her to even get close to him meant that she had a lot of hidden potential. However, if the mech was not going to be training her anymore, then who would be able to do so…unless… "Lord Megatron will be training her?" I asked in surprise. I had to be figuring something incorrectly. Lord Megatron didn't train anybot. There were others to do so for him. Even working with Soundwave some more, or shifting the focus of her training seemed more likely.

He just didn't take on bots to train.

However, Dreadwing's nodding seemed to speak differently. "Yes. Our Lord informed her of this shortly before recent events. However, due to recent events, the femme has been unable to partake in any training. Given the amount of damage she is recovering from, it may take some time for her to be worked with."

Before we could say anything more, we arrived at the med bay and walked inside. I wasn't sure why Dreadwing was here, however, I wanted to check on the femme. That was especially now that we were going to be working with her. And while I expected to see Knockout in here and Breakdown since he was Knockout's assistant, a bot I was not expecting to see in here was Soundwave. With these Iaconian relics in play, why was he in here and not working on them? Also, my brother was surprisingly in here as well. He almost seemed to be waiting for the femme to magically wake up for some reason.

A huff coming from Knockout caused me to focus on him instead of the femme currently on support systems. "You know, with all of the officers currently in the med bay, we could just meet with Lord Megatron here." He then motioned us out the way we came. "Soundwave here was just retrieving us to meet with our leader on the bridge. Seems like the bug has been returned from that make-up mission he went on."

What did Knockout mean? As we exited med bay and all made our way to the bridge, I let my processor fire away at what the medic had said. Hardshell had been returned to the Nemesis. Not returned under his own power. As much as I thought the insecticon deserved whatever was handed to him, damaging one of their kind was not as easy as one would think. Their armor was incredibly thick and they trained to be warriors as soon as they were onlined. Just what sort of condition was Hardshell in where he couldn't return to the ship under his own power?

And why didn't Lord Megatron just message the officers to arrive as he normally did? This entire situation felt strange. There had to be more at play if our leader was wanting us all to arrive on the bridge at roughly the same time. Perhaps he wanted to gauge our reactions to something that Hardshell brought back from his mission, or perhaps he wanted us all to arrive at the same time to shake the Insecticon up slightly if he had failed this mission of his. Whatever the case, I knew that it was going to be important.

When we all arrived at the bridge, I felt my optics widen when the doors opened to reveal the reason for this meeting. There, lying on the floor in front of our leader, was Hardshell's offline chassis. With a large hole blasted into his chestplate. Just what happened? Last I heard, the bug was supposed to fight the Autobots who had been attacking the mines since he failed to offline the Wrecker that he swore he offlined during his last make-up mission. As I thought before, Insecticons were not easy to damage. Just who did this?

"The Autobots did this?" Lord Megatron demanded of the four insecticons who must have been chosen to return with Hardshell's chassis and give the report.

The bug to our Lord's left responded immediately. "No my Lord," What was that? The Autobots hadn't done this to the Insecticon? If it wasn't them, then who the frag was it? "It was a human girl."

To say that Lord Megatron was surprised by this statement would be greatly underselling the visible reaction that he had at this news. Of course, I was sure that we officers were not far behind in our own reactions. A human had done this sort of damage to an insecticon? And not just that, but from how the bug described the human it was still a youngling femme at that. If humans held this sort of capabilities when they were humans…I found myself thankful that they were limited to their fleshy bodies.

I found myself curious when our Lord's expression turned from surprised to thoughtful as he stared at the offline chassis on the ground. "Dispose of your fallen," Lord Megatron ordered the bugs. The four in the room picked up their fallen spokesbot before they made their way out of the room. When it was just us officers left, the room stayed silent only for a few more clicks before Lord Megatron spoke again. "Going forward, I want all officers involved in training our newest recruit. As Hardshell has shown with his offlining, without unity, even the weaker beings involved with the Autobots can cause us serious setbacks. I will not allow the Autobots to succeed in this war. No more traitors, no more insubordination. My orders are absolute and if they are not followed, I will not hesitate in removing the offender personally. Pandimala needs to be brought up in her training to a level that will allow her to work with any one of you should I decide she would be key to a mission."

"Of course, my Lord," Knockout spoke up. "As to the femme in question, though, the damage she took from the tox-en, combined with the damage she was recovering from before, will see her out of the field for quite some time."

"I did not ask for excuses, Knockout," Lord Megatron snapped at the medic. "It is your job to make sure that she is recovering as rapidly as possible. The Autobots will not sit back and wait while there are many powerful relics still out there for the taking. We must be ready for whatever they might bring, or you risk the same fate as Hardshell." He then glanced at all of us. "Until the femme is able to move about again, each of you will prepare for the fights to come. You are dismissed."

I waited until we all left and Skywarp joined me as the two of us made to return to our quarters before I frowned. What was that about? Why were we even waiting for the femme to recover? There were plenty of officers on the ship, given the number of Autobots currently on this planet, where we could continue to push against the Autobots without the femme in question. Yet, our Lord was wanting Knockout to make his main focus for the time being the femme. It was too soon to tell if there was more to that order than what was obvious.

"So, have you talked to the femme yet?" Skywarp asked in his usual hyperactive way.

No, I had not, between her injuries and my own duties, I had not spoken to her yet. "No. I am assuming you have, given how you are asking me." It was a slight gamble to assume that he talked to her. However, I knew my youngest brother well. If he was bringing up the subject, then he most likely had done so and was just seeing what my reaction to her had been.

"Of course I did!" As I thought. "Ended up in med bay alone with her when Knockout had to make a supply run. Surprised the frag out of me when the femme spoke. Well, it sounded really raspy but given how we met her that is kinda expected. She asked who I was and, once I told her, she said that she was excited to get to know me better later. Of course, she fell back into recharge after that but she seemed really cool!"

"Well, you will be getting to know her better once she starts to recover more. I agreed to a request made by Dreadwing to assist him in teaching the femme to fly better. I guess her training in the past has been rather lackluster." While my brother reacted to that as I expected him to, I thought more about what my brother said about his meeting with the femme. She hadn't known who he was. Even if it was due to Starscream, almost any bot with a working processor knew who Skywarp and I were. It was impossible for us to go somewhere and a bot did not know who we were.

There was something about the femme that I wasn't seeing. Combining this with the way that Lord Megatron was acting on the bridge earlier, something told me that there was more to the femme than we knew. While that could be dangerous, there was only one way that I was going to find out for sure. We would work with the femme, as Lord Megatron ordered. I was sure that I would find out something once we worked with the femme.

Until then, we needed to keep an open audio…especially around the Autobots. Since they were the first ones to house the femme, before she settled her allegiance, they would know more about her than us. Add in the fact that she would have, in their optics, betrayed them, and the Autobots should be a little looser with their glossas when speaking about what they knew of the femme.

"So," My brother spoke in a hesitant way, which drew my attention back to him. "Can I go and visit Rumble and Frenzy?"

My faceplate fell as he asked that. "No." That was the last thing we needed right now. While I had no doubt that the three mechs would meet up sooner rather than later, I would like to delay them as long as I possibly could.

"Please?"

"No."

"Why do you have to be so mean 'Cracker?"

"No means no, Skywarp."

"Aw come on! You're no fun!" He pouted as we arrived at our quarters, which were next to each other with an adjoining door.

I shook my helm. "I'm serious 'Warp. No. Not until things improve around the ship. Now, go get some recharge. We are probably going to have a long solar coming up and I want us to be as ready as we can be."

"Meanie," I heard my brother whisper before he walked into his room. I waited until I heard his lock click into place before I entered my own room and prepared for recharge.

As I was getting ready, however, my thoughts went to everything that I learned this solar. The femme, while she came out of seemingly nowhere, had acted as she should for the most part. When she was a neutral, she acted out of a need to keep herself safe while she resided with the Autobots. However, when she took Lord Megatron up on his offer and became a Decepticon, she left little room for questions about where her allegiance lay.

If Dreadwing, who was a Decepticon known for his loyalty, felt like the femme could be trusted, then I would get to know her as well. I would hold off on completely supporting the femme until I got to talk to her personally, and maybe take a mission or two with her. That would tell me, for certain, if she was a Decepticon I could support. Once I laid down, and my systems started to send me to recharge, I had a horrible thought pass through my processor.

If she was anything like Skywarp and those twins, then we were all doomed if they met.

And here is the next exciting installment! We hope you all are enjoying this as much as we are writing it! I will say, writing this chapter from Thundercracker's point of view was not easy. However, I will say that I have gotten a good feel for him. He was skeptical of Pandimala in the beginning and now, Pandimala may just have another ally in her end of getting peace. She will need every ally she can get with future events coming up.

*glances ahead* And boy will it be fun! Next chapter will be by the lovely Shadow and it should prove fun. Until then though…

Shadow and I: Don't forget to Favorite, Follow, and Review this and our other stories! Thank you for sticking with us through all of this time! *both of us sending well wishes to everyone*