Friendship is a funny thing. All of her life, Pixie thought she didn't want it, didn't need it; but now that she had it, she never wanted to let it go. She had, for the first time in forever, a femme she could talk to about anything and not be criticized for it. She didn't think she was weird or creepy. Even better, Rhea actually liked her! Pixie thought it was too good to be true, but then Rhea's friend started hanging out with them too. At first, Pixie thought Radio was going to be hard to handle and just irritate her...but Radio's best friend was Helios. And when Radio came over to be with them at lunch, Helios followed.

"Hey everyone. How's it going?" Radio said as he plopped down next Rhea at the small table in the back corner of the refueling hall. Pixie was very aware of Helios sitting next to her, of how close he was. Pixie's wings trembled without her consent.

Rhea glanced across the table at her, a knowing look in her optics as she rapidly talked to Radioactive about her morning.

"What did you do on this fine day?" Helios asked easily, sipping his cube. Pixie looked at him.

"Oh, well, just ah few uneventful classahs. What 'bout cha?"

To Pixie's great surprise, talking to Helios wasn't as hard as she thought it would be. Yes they'd talked before, but that was just "Where's this? Over there? Thanks." Not actual conservation.

Pixie was happy. She didn't know she could be happy, but she was; and she liked it. She liked being here in the refueling hall with her friends. Everything was getting better.

"Can I tell you something...?" The tone of Rhea's voice unnerved Pixie.

They sat in Pixie's room, in her giant lounging chair. Rhea looked very nervous.

"Everythin' okah?" Pixie prodded gently.

"I'm not supposed to tell, but, you of all people would understand," Rhea babbled softly. What was going on?

"Yer not suppose tah tell what?" Pixie asked, visor dimming in the fading light. They'd been friends for the past few months. Pixie loved everything about Rhea, but sometimes, being around her made Pixie edgy, worried, and more alert than usual. During those times, Rhea smelled...different.

"I'm not...Cybertronian. Not completely, anyway." Rhea voice was hardly more than a whisper. Behind Pixie's visor, her optics widened. A question flooded Pixie's mind instantly. Was there someone else like me out there? Am I not the only monster?

"Den what are ya?"

"I'm...a werewolf," she said in her quietest voice yet. Pixie cringed.

"Yer-yer serious...?" Pixie whispered back. Her spark was slamming hard into its chamber at this point. Rhea nodded.

"My sire...he's full, I'm half. My carrier, she gave me a medical condition that makes it really hard to control my frame temp..." Rhea couldn't look at Pixie. The fear of utter rejection was too great for that. "I already know I'm a monster. You don't need to waste your breath telling me that."

"Ay wasn't gonna," Pixie replied matter-of-factly. "'Cause...Ay'm ah monstah too." Rhea finally looked at her, anger flaring in her optics.

"No, you're not," she growled. "You don't understand what that word really means."

"Yes, Ay do, 'cause Ay'm ah vampire," she responded, just as angry. It was Rhea's turn to be shocked.

"You-you're serious?" she asked in a low voice. Pixie nodded.

"Yer serious?" Rhea nodded back. At the exact same time, they said,

"Our sires are gonna kill us."

The fact that she wasn't the only abnormal being on Cybertron-excluding her Sire - did two things for Pixie: it made her want to leap in joy from the moons and back, and it made her wonder what her Sire did for the majority of the night. She hated secrets for a sole reason: she knew everything. Being kept in the dark was unnerving.

Rhea's secret tumbled around in her processor for the remainder of the orn; Pixie was so grateful that her Sire wasn't in the direct vicinity or Primus knew what would have happened to Rhea. The femme remembered, when she was barely out of sparklinghood, her Sire had come home once looking like he had gone through a shredder. She was instantly ushered away by her Carrier, preventing her from seeing her Sire's damage. Unfortunately, her sharp audios heard him mutter something along the lines of 'Damn dog'. That was the only hint she had to other monsters living on Cybertron and as time had passed, that hint slowly became nonexistent in her processor.

They met the next orn, early in the morning in the school library to aid each other in their language classes. Pixie expected it to be awkward, knowing that she was a rival monster to Rhea, but was surprised to see it be quite irrelevant. Perhaps it was because of the amount of time they had spent together and the high levels of animosity amongst each other. As the library became livelier, Pixie and Rhea left in search of their mech friends. Much to their surprise, they only found Radioactive who looked rather distressed.

"What's wrong?" Rhea asked, concern washing over her as she made way to his side.

Radioactive bit his lip, looking at Pixie. "Helios is in the hospital."

Pixie felt the energon in her fuel lines drop to her peds, her visor blanching. "What happened?"

"Some bots attacked his house, slaughtered his family. Helios was barely alive when the Enforcers found him. And to make it worse, no one knows who those bots were." The mech further explained.

Pixie didn't need any other motive. She turned on heel to the nearest exit, fleeing from school grounds and leaving her friends behind her. Her alt mode took over and she sped to the medical facility. Pixie didn't need to ask where Helios' room was when she arrived; she followed her olfactory sensors to his ICU. She saw him battered and broken; IVs, wires, tubing, and so much more was strewn across his frame. In an instant, Pixie remembered her first friend who was laid out in a similar manner and her spark clenched itself. The femme couldn't help, but think it was all her fault when in reality; she had nothing to do with it. Emotions resurfaced and Pixie began to cry, coolant pouring from her hidden optics and streaking her cheeks. She feared Helios was not going to live, that he would slip away from her grasp. At the very thought of him dying made her dizzy and she gripped the side railing of the med berth, denting it with her unnatural strength. Pixie felt herself become unsteady, her processor swirling.

"Pixie!" She faintly recognized her Sire's voice calling.

Out of all things, Pixie was the last bot Jazz expected to see in the mech's ICU. He rushed forward, catching her in his arms. "What are ya doin' in here?"

Pixie sobbed. "Sire...! He-He can-can't die...! He can't!"

Jazz grimaced, cradling his daughter as he looked at Helios. The vampire growled softly. "He has tah."

"No!" She wailed. "He's-He's tha mech... Ay told ya 'bout...!"

"Pixie. He's tha creation ova vampire huntah."