[Location: Darmount and the surrounding area]

Elita barely got the word out before the Terracon rushed her, making her have to dive out of the way. Rocks, sand, and roadway flew up behind her where Dreadwing's blow struck the ground, but he didn't slow down as he continued after his prey. The Autobot had to scramble to stay one step ahead of her attacker, but even she knew that wouldn't be enough. She was already weak, so her tired frame was struggling to stay out of his grasp.

Inside the citadel, Megatron watched the live feed from Laserbeak as it flew overhead, Soundwave and Starscream standing beside him. The tyrant watched with glee as his Dark Energon infused soldier stalked and toyed with the tiny Autobot, even going so far as to grab the husk of Optimus Prime from the broken straps of the trailer and slam it down over where she had been standing before, only to sweep it to the side into Elita, sending her flying into one of the buttes. The crash sent shards of rock and dust flying into the air around the crater her form created.

Elita coughed as she struggled to her feet, her left hand holding her abdominal area as she felt her smaller form taking damage from the blow. She managed to look up in time to see the broken form of Nemesis slam down into her, but she only managed to dodge enough for it to land on her legs. The force of the blow still knocked the sight from her optics for a moment, but when she looked up she saw not only the damaged, stalking form of Dreadwing but a remorseful looking Dreadwing standing slightly behind and off to the side, as if he were watching and unable to do anything.

"What the-" she began to ask, but being distracted by the sight she failed to realize the Terrorcon grab a hold of her by her right arm and yank her out of the broken pile of parts she had become trapped under. With its other hand he grabbed a hold of one of her legs and began to pull, causing the Autobot to scream out in pain as she struggled to keep herself together. With her free hand she grabbed his arm that had a hold of hers and tried to pry it off of. In her messed up vision she even saw the other Dreadwing try to grasp his old body, but he simply went through that other form. Looking down at the hole that had been blown through Dreadwing's torso she could see the shard of Dark Energon that had been jammed in there. Giving up on trying to loosen the grip on her arm, Elita reached out to try to pull the shard out.

Megatron was smiling as he watched the Autobot struggle to be kept from being torn apart, a dark pleasure over coming him at seeing this little upstart get what she deserved. He would savor the death of at least two Autobots today and with the knowledge that Optimus was now a pile of scrap he was free to conquer any world he wished.

"What is she doing?" Starscream asked, his tone darkly inquisitive.

It was enough to pull Megatron out of his thoughts of universal conquest, frowning at the warping of the purple glow from his minion.

Elita was imagining the crystal flying into her hand or her hand grabbing a hold of it and pulling it free, anything she could to give herself that extra push to get the task done as she heard the squeal of straining metal that coincided with painful tearing of her joints the was experiencing. With a shout, she reached out more desperately.

The cold fire that burned up her hand made her optics open wide in shock and pain. Her fingers were curved as if she were grasping, but she could see dark energon swirl from the crystal, around her hand, and feel it going into her form. The more she pulled away from the Terrorcon the less and less he glowed. Slowly his animated form began to ease the pull on her form as it slumped to its knees, dropping her unceremoniously onto the ground. With her hand still outstretched towards Dreadwing's body she climbed up to her feet, even as she had to hold her wrist against the pain that was burning through her left hand and arm as she pulled the Dark Energon into herself. As soon as the last of the energy from the crystal in his torso pulled away, the dark husk began to fall apart before her and crumpled into dust for the wind to scatter. Her optics moved over to the ghostly figure that remained. Dreadwing just smiled as he gave her a deep bow before vanishing.

Still holding her wrist she looked up at the sky to see Laserbeak overhead, knowing that Megatron had been using him to watch her. With a firm frown she aimed her left hand up at the spy and let the Dark Energon loose at him.

Megatron growled darkly as the blast knocked the feed offline. Turning away from the computer, he began to walk away knowing that the Vehicon jets would retrieve Laserbeak for Soundwave so that he could be repaired. This little Autobot imposter was beginning to annoy him, but at least Optimus was gone.

"Keep searching for the others," the tyrant ordered as he turned to exit out of the room.

[Location: Ten miles outside Darkmount]

Crumpling to her knees, Elita cradled her left arm close to herself as her whole body shook violently from the pain. As she waited for it to ease she thought back on the battle, or attempted to wrap her head around what just happened, but the more she thought about it the more confused she became. With a grunt she got back up on her feet, fetched the trailer, which managed to somehow keep all its tires intact, and gathered the pieces of Nemesis she could find before she called for a ground bridge portal. If Megatron was watching her then she didn't want to lead him to her other team if she could help it. With a deep, pained sigh she began to walk through the iridescent doorway, dragging the trailer behind her.

[Location: The Dauntless]

Jazz greeted her on the other side of the ground bridge, taking over pulling the trailer for her as soon as she stepped through. "You look like slag."

"You should've seen the other guy," she replied softly. "Kup ever get back?"

"A couple of hours ago," he answered as they walked towards the repair bay. "Ratchet got to work right away."

"Good, hopefully these parts aren't too badly damaged so he could use them," she muttered.

"I thought you were bringing something to possibly move him into," the white bot said as he glanced back at the shattered parts behind him.

They had walked into the repair bay by that time so just about everyone present was looking their way, since they had heard their voices before they made it to the doorway. At first everyone looked relived that she made it back, but it quickly turned to shock as they saw not only the parts on the trailer, but her damaged, limping form. Arcee was at her side to help Elita move to a place to rest as the blue femme privately grumbled about how she hated being right. The only open place there had been to sit their damaged friend was right next to the Forge of Solus Prime, which gave Elita an open view from the foot of the repair berth.

"What happened?" Kup asked, having looked over at them from the opposite side that Ratchet was working on, since he was there to help hold Optimus down when the pain overcame him and he began to thrash. Right now the Prime was relaxed.

"Megatron sent me a welcome home present," Elita replied as she tried to look up at him. "He apparently killed Dreadwing and shoved a shard of Dark Energon into his corpse, the thing tried to rip me apart after it beat me with the body of Nemesis."

At that Ratchet looked up from his task, his jaw dropping at seeing all the damage on her form and how she was cradling her arm. He could see the damage done to her right shoulder apparatus, so the damage done to her left arm must have been worse. Then he noticed Jazz setting the trailer with the parts at the foot of the repair berth, his look of distain over the condition of the parts obvious on his face as he looked them over. "I can't do a thing with those … inferior parts."

"It's good to know that I almost met my maker for nothing," she growled.

Ratchet made a dramatic wave of his arm towards the parts, "They're not even made with Cybertronian alloys."

"If you have to be technical, everything on earth is made of Cybertronian materials because Unicron is our planet's core," Elita reminded him coldly.

Their friends were looking between the two of them, never having heard the two ever speak to each other the way they were, though she seemed to look away from Ratchet as she thought on her own words as she looked down at her left hand. While their friends were confused, Jazz and Kup were just shaking their heads at the exchange, both having known about Ratchet's rough bedside manner so they weren't surprised about Elita's sharp words for the medic.

"And here I thought she liked you," Kup chuckled as he looked back over at Ratchet.

Ratchet only had a moment to glare at his old friend before things turned on its ear. The handle of the Star Saber began to glow brilliantly as his spark chamber opened up. Ratchet panicked at what it meant. "We're losing him!"

The medic struggled to keep Optimus with them once more, but Elita knew that Optimus was not going to last much longer. Not thinking, she grabbed the Forge as she leapt up, everyone hearing the start of some music as she swung the brilliantly glowing hammer down. [If you can find it, the song I'm using is Hero by Skillet – the Lame-O Dubstep Remix] The hammer never struck, but suddenly halted right above the handle of the Star Saber. A bubble of energy began to form around the pair, lifting both of them up into the air and uprighted the Forge to hover between them as the song progressed, but pushed Ratchet and Kup away in the process. Everyone else backed up as the energy began to creep over the room and the parts on the trailer, not knowing what was going on.

When the lyrics began Elita began to move as if she was either building something or conducting the movement of the parts as she danced, but they watched as she removed damaged pieces from Optimus only to use them to either build or rebuild new parts to replace them, all the while everything she was controlling continuing to glow as brilliantly as the Forge. Not only was she using the parts from the trailer, but she was taking bits of the ship around her that was within the boundaries of the bubble. Even the handle of the Star Saber was utilized; it now melded into his spark chamber.

Ratchet stared at her, his jaw slack at what she was doing. Her optics weren't focused on anything and she was mouthing the words of the song as he worked, but she seemed oblivious to everything not inside her field. She replaced armor, arms, legs, bulking him up with the resources that were at her disposal almost as if it were clay for her to work into a masterpiece. Raphael even recognized the symbol she drew with one finger on his torso, her call sign online from when she patrolled the internet like himself to do what she could then to make the world a safer place in her old life. Her signature.

As the song died Elita's form relaxed, leaving both herself and Optimus floating in her field for a brief moment of silence before they both slowly lowered to their feet, the Forge resting on its end as well, but it fell over to one side as soon as the bubble faded away. Elita's began to crumple forward, but Optimus, now twice his original height, caught her in his arms since he was the closest to her now.

The others rushed over, Ratchet scanning both of them to find out exactly what had happened. Elita lifted her head up to look up at Optimus as she rested in his arms and gently patted his cheek before her head lolled into his torso. Her vibrant red color had faded to a dark pink now, the shine a bit faded from her paint. Ratchet began to order prepared Energon to be pumped into her form, her bodies barely functioning with absolutely no reading of the fuel in her system, from either form.

Optimus gently lay her down on the berth he had just been on and stepped back to let the medic work. Bending over to retrieve the Forge of Solus Prime from the ground, he gave a thoughtful frown as it remained dark despite his touch. Elita had expended not only her own energy into repairing and upgrading him, but the energy from the Forge as well. It was only when Ratchet had told them all that she was recovering her energy thanks to the two containers of Energon that was attached to her form that he set the Forge down, hammer top against the ground and the handle resting against the wall.

"What happened?" Jack asked. He, Miko, and Raphael had been placed up on a shelf to keep from being harmed during any rushes to help aid Optimus.

"Elita utilized her Matrix of Creation to repair me," Prime told all in the room.

"Her what?" Miko asked, trying to wrap her head around the information.

"Time enough for that later," Kup interrupted as he walked up beside Optimus, adjusting the detonator in his mouth. "Right now we've gotta plan on how we're going to knock Megatron off his high horse."

Ratchet worked on Elita as he listened to the others talking around them. It worried him the amount of damaged that she had sustained to both forms and made him regret the fight that made her leave the base in the first place. After a couple of hours of planning they all paused as Elita began to wake up. First she silently stared up at Ratchet, but then rolled away from him to sit up on the repair berth so that she could look at the others. There were so many questions that they wanted to ask her and probably more that she wanted to ask them, but she had heard bits and pieces of their conversation as she came in and out of consciousness that she knew that questions would be asked later.

"We need to take out the Damocles weapon on Megatron's ship. It's too powerful to leave in his hands," she stated.

"How do you know it's Damocles?" Ratchet asked behind her.

Elita only half turned to look at him, but even then just tossed a glance over her shoulder. "Because I know my designs. The shape was what I had originally envisioned in my head while I was creating it."

"What can we do to dismantle it?" Kup asked.

"Making it eat itself would be the easiest way to deal with it, but dismantling it alone won't work." Elita looked up at her old guardian. "They still apparently have the schematics to make a new one."

"What about Dionysius?" Raphael asked as he and the other two kids walked up to her, since Bulkhead had set them on the berth next to her.

"Doable, but I would like to add a punch. Too bad I don't have my vault, got some nasties in there that would work magic for us." It was that sudden reminder that made Bumblebee transform and open his trunk. Kup, seeing what was inside, pulled out the filing cabinet and looked it over. Upon seeing it Elita perked up. "You grabbed it?"

"We didn't know what was going to happen so I thought it best to grab it just in case," the young man blushed behind his glasses.

"Great thinking! Extra cookies for you when I can get a kitchen again and I'll think of something special for you, too, Bee," Elita said as she opened up her compartment to let her smaller form out. Rushing over as quickly as the pain would let her to where Kup set the cabinet down, Elita quickly opened it up and began to dig through the programming to see what she had on hand. "Oh that would work nicely, but so would that. Who would have thought that some of the bad some humans could do would be so appealing to use?"

Kup smirked over at Ratchet as the medic stepped up beside him. "Isn't she cute when she's focused on something?" When Ratchet only shot him a glare, Kup chuckled as he adjusted his detonator in his mouth. "Yeah, keep that up and you'll end up regretting it."

As Elita worked on merging and converting the virus into Cybertronian code, Optimus, herself, and the others finalized their attack plan. Like Kup said, it was time to knock Megatron of his high horse.


Author's Notes: I do not own the show. Thanks for reading!

Yes, the song is specific for the upgrade and repair of Optimus. I had planned it out in my head using that specific song and had imagined the scene for over a year now while I waited to get back onto the keyboard.