Alright, I have a few things to say before you can start reading this chapter. First: I'm sorry that I took so long to update this story (again). My life has been so hairy-carry that I haven't been able to update any of my stories. At all. I'm so sorry.

Second: I've been thinking about it, but I just realized that I unconsciously gave Mikaela/Wavelength a theme song (*blushes*) for the story up until now. It's "Bad Apple" by Christina Vee. It kind of explains her kind heart fighting against what she had to do for the Decepticons as everything becomes a little grey to her. For the time that she's on Cybertron, when I was planning this back at the beginning, her theme will be "Unbreakable" by Fireflight. I'm such a geek! XD

And finally third: I'm tying my story Forcefully Undercover into this universe I've created around Mikaela/Wavelength. I thought it would be really cool having Mirage join the gang. AND I'm planning to write a spin-off story that has something to do with Smokescreen… *wink wink* So what do you think? (I'm going to have to figure out how Tyger Pax and the Towers district of Iacon fit together...because I accidentally said Mirage was from Tyger Pax in FoUnd).

I hope you enjoy this chapter!

14 – Battle Cry – 14

After getting to my feet…pedes…I cast my gaze around before I looked at the robotic dinosaur. I cocked my head slightly when I saw that he was looking around, with an almost lost look on his Iguanodon-esque face. After some thought, I remembered something about his kind. His "kind", sheesh, it was going to take a while to get rid of the Decepticon-like thoughts that still bounced around in my head…helm.

The Cybertronian that stood before me was a Dinobot. His blue optics, the red Autobot symbol on the forehead of his alt, his dinosaur alternate form…

He was the by-product of one of Shockwave's many twisted experiments. I shuttered at the thought of it. Many Autobots and Decepticons disappeared and came back mutated. Most of the Decepticons that came back alive were either destroyed by Megatron because they lost control or they offlined because their systems couldn't handle the changes. Airachnid was an example of one of the experiments Shockwave had done. She was a normal helicopter-former. She disappeared, and then came back megacycles later as a triple-changer that could still transform into a helicopter, but then could also transform into a half spider, half femme.

I hoped he didn't recognise me.

Carefully, I walked up to him and gently cleared my voicebox. The Dinobot whirled around to face me, causing me to jump in surprise. I quickly pulled myself together and hesitantly waved. "Hi there…"

The Dinobot, Scrap, walked up to me before he transformed up into mech mode. He easily towered over me because of how large his alt had been. As soon as he was fully in robot form, a powder-blue blush appeared on his cheekplates and he stumbled back a few paces from me. This confused me. Why did he look embarrassed?

"Are you…okay?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow. I made sure I was talking in Cybertronian. There was no way this guy would know any English, though…I wondered where he got the dinosaur alt. Dinosaurs were from Earth, weren't they?

The bot hesitated for a second before the blush disappeared, and he cleared his own throat. "Me—I mean—I am fine, thank you."

I crossed my arms and cocked an eyebrow behind my visor. "Okay…" I said slowly. "So, how long were you there, staring at me…while I was out?" I asked. Now that I thought about it, it felt kind of creepy that someone had been…watching…me while Alpha Trion's repairs had set in. Involuntarily, I shuttered, causing my armor to rattle. Scrap looked at me with a cocked eyebrow, and I said quickly in defense, "It's just a bit chilly!"

"I just found you," Scrap replied.

With that in mind, I quickly began to think. I had to get things in motion. I had to join up with the Autobots before I came across Decepticons that would recognise me. I did doubt that there were still a few—like the Bruticus combiner gesalt, if they were still online.

Hesitantly, I asked, "Scrap…I—we need to get out of the open. I need to see your leader; do you think you could take me to them?" I fixed him with a serious look.

Jack and Arcee raced down a long stretch of highway. Arcee made sure that she wasn't speeding in order to keep from sticking out in case a Decepticon was nearby. After the Autobots' base had been blown sky high by the Nemesis, and they had been forced to scatter, they had constantly been driving. They hadn't spoken much during the duration of their current travels, but Jack wanted to talk to Arcee. He wanted to talk about Mikaela, or Wavelength since that was who the Autobots knew her by.

"Uh…Arcee?" Jack began, knowing the microphone imbedded in his helmet was picking up his voice and transmitting it to the motorcycle-former beneath him.

There was a sigh. "What is it, Jack?" the femme asked, her voice filtering in through the speakers in his helmet.

Biting his bottom lip, he slowly began to say what he wanted to say. "I've…been thinking about the femme that…Megatron threw away on Cybertron."

Arcee was quiet. "…You mean Wavelength?" she finally voiced.

"Yeah, her," the young man confirmed.

"What were you thinking about? There's not much to think about, you didn't know her."

Jack gripped the handlebars tightly. "But I did, Arcee," he said firmly. "I knew her as a human girl named Mikaela. She was the girl who was shot by the Vehicon! Somehow she became a Cybertronian, and after all this time, Megatron got into her head and found out about who she used to be." He let out a sharp breath. "And now she's gone…"

"Losing friends happens in war, Jack," Arcee said with no emotion in her voice. "I…lost both Tailgate and Cliffjumper. I guess you've now experienced what it's like to lose someone you care about, even if she was never your partner."

The raven haired youth said nothing, a little bit awed that Arcee would share anything so personal with him. The silence that settled was broken when Arcee chuckled dryly. "So, what was Wave—Mikaela to you, Jack?" she asked.

Jack looked off towards the horizon and quickly worked to form a response. "Well…" he croaked. He cleared his throat in order to sound not so…upset. "She was a good friend. When she moved to Jasper, Nevada a few years ago, she was friendless and vulnerable to the ways of the halls of my school. Vince tried to hit on her a couple times and she rejected him—and got her point across when she pranked him one day. We became good friends, and she often leaned on me for support when she got a bad grade in school. When she died…I mean, when we thought she died, I was devastated, Mom was devastated—you saw how many tears she spilled. But her parents and her little brother were devastated too."

"Did you ever tell Mikaela's family about her still being alive after you found out she was?" Arcee asked.

Jack shook his head, not really having the heart to say 'no'. "I figured the Witness Protection Program would want to keep her presence under wraps, and I knew how her family would love to spread the news of her returning to the land of living."

"But the whole Witness Protection Program story turned out to be a lie, didn't it?"

"…Yeah…" Jack licked his lips nervously. "She was scared to tell me the truth."

Arcee didn't say anything, so he continued. "It's…understandable that she would be scared. She was a Decepticon! She didn't want to be a Decepticon! Megatron forced her into the ranks when he needed medics!"

He felt Arcee's frame tense under him before they turned down onto an off-ramp. He didn't know what his guardian was thinking, but he had a feeling it had something to do with Mikaela.

Scrap lead me across planes of wide open spaces, often dashing from one form of cover to the next when he sensed Decepticon signals nearby. I would follow right behind him to the best of my ability, and for the most part, we didn't run into any Decepticons. From time to time, a seeker or two would fly overhead. Most of them were Decepticons, but occasionally, the seekers would be neutral.

We were three-quarters of the way to our destination (according to Scrap) when we finally ran into trouble. We were walking through a wide canyon several miles from Iacon when we abruptly came upon a Decepticon camp hidden in a nook in the canyon wall. It was a small party, made up of about seven mechs. But that was seven to two. Not good.

Scrap and I scampered behind and outcropping of metal big enough to hide Scrap's much larger frame.

"What are we going to do?" I whispered to him.

"We can't go around them or over them or under them," Scrap said, pointing out the obvious. "So we'll just have to fight them."

"Are you crazy?!" I hissed.

He smirked smugly at me. "You obviously haven't heard of the Dinobots' reputation then."

I let out a short growl laced with static, showing how uncomfortable I was with this situation. I couldn't rely on my fighting skills to help me get out of this. "I have heard of your group's reputation, Scrap, but you're only one Dinobot!"

"Do you have a plan, then? We can't double-back."

I sighed in defeat, my jet engine making a weird coughing noise. "Fine."

He chuckled softly before pulling out duel pistols from his subspace. I cocked an eyebrow before I transformed my right servo into my sonic blaster. Psyching myself up in order to ready myself for rushing into battle (which I hadn't done for a while), I began to count down. "Three… two…" I took a deep breath "…one!" and we dashed out from behind the outcropping.

I raced towards the mech that looked like he was the leader of the group. As soon as he sensed my approach, he turned to look at me. "Hey!" he exclaimed. My spark stalled when I saw who the mech was. Onslaught. My gaze swept over the others, and I recognised Brawl, Vortex, Swindle, and Blast Off amongst two unfamiliar mechs. Time seemed to slow when I realized we had just come rushing out of safety and into a fight involving the Bruticus gesalt. I shouldn't have thought about them earlier. I had just jinxed my chance of becoming an Autobot and getting off this planet alive!

It was too late to stop and pretend to be innocent now. I was not going to become a Decepticon again. I was going to be free of that miserable existence!

Narrowing my optics behind my visor, I charged Onslaught. I was not going to allow this gesalt to combine. I was going to distract its head.

Once I was close enough to get an accurate aim, I pointed my blaster at Onslaught and fired. He dodged the shot and came at me. He wants close combat, I figured. In a flash, I swapped my blaster for my wrist blades. This was going to be hard, since I only came up to his hip.

Onslaught swung down, but I caught his arm with my left wristblade. My pedes screeched across the metal ground as he pushed me down with his superior strength. I tried to fight it, but he was so strong…

When I thought my arm would give out and he would force me to the ground, I dropped down and firmly kicked my pedes into the side of his right pede. As I had hoped, I knocked him off balance with the help of his weight being thrown forward, and he tumbled to the ground with a crash.

I got up and brought out my blaster, but then was hit from behind with a plasma-round. I flew forwards with a cry of pain and slammed to the ground a couple of meters from Scrap.

At the moment, Scrap had subspaced his pistols and was now doing hand-to-hand combat with Vortex and Swindle. He slammed his fist into Swindle's faceplates and then swung around and drove his elbow into the side of Vortex's helm.

I looked up at Onslaught and the one whom had shot me in the back. Brawl. They were advancing towards me slowly, thinking I was down, no doubt. They knew me. Since I was a medic, I would work on one of them from time to time when they came back from the battlefield damaged.

Gritting my denta, I rose to my pedes, cutting off the sensors around my new wound in order to dull the pain. I wasn't going to allow them to take me down. Sorry, Alpha Trion. I guess I'm going to ruin your hard work, I thought, knowing I was going to get quite damaged from this fight. I'm up against a gesalt here.

A cry from my left drew my attention to Scrap, who was now taking heavy damage from Vortex, Swindle, and the two mystery mechs. It wasn't fair that he had to go against four opponents.

"Why did you do it?" I looked back up at Onslaught, his voice catching my attention. "Why did you switch sides, Wavelength?"

I straightened my posture a bit. "Why are you asking me that, Onslaught?" I demanded. "I was only a medic to you, one you never looked twice at, so why do you care?" Keep talking to him, I told myself. Keep him occupied, give yourself a little time. I needed a plan. I was no tactician, but I could think up some pretty interesting ideas. Those ideas often allowed me to survive several of the war games I had played in the past. But none of the ideas I had used then would work now.

"I care enough to find out why you changed sides before I alert the DJD of your traitorous acts," Onslaught growled. That spiked a bit of fear in me as images of what happened to Decepticons at the hands of the Decepticon Justice Division whirled around my mind. A mech that can convince your spark to snuff itself out? I shuttered at the thought.

"The DJD disappeared a long time ago, so they won't be coming after me any time soon," I retorted. Think of something quick, Mikaela. An idea popped into my head. I had to get violent. I had to shrug off my kind attitude and get a grasp on the Decepticon training that had been drilled into me but I had been pretending to follow along with. I had to get angry and violent and completely and utterly unpredictable in order to get out of this situation alive.

"All it would take is one message sent out into space in order to bring them back," Brawl noted.

I let the right corner of my mouth tip upward some and lowered myself into a battle-ready stance as I spread my wings apart in order to make myself look bigger.

"I won't let you send that message then!" and with that, I ignited my thrusters and threw myself forward. Onslaught shouted in surprise when I was suddenly kicking off of his chest. I back-flipped and shot at his helm. The shot landed this time and he stumbled back as his systems were scrambled.

I used my thrusters to guide me over to Brawl where I landed on his shoulders and brought my wristblades down on the top of his helm. It left two grooves, that was the worst of the damage, but I was not going to allow my morals to get in the way this time. I was going to kill. I wanted to be an Autobot.

Swinging my left arm to my left and my right arm to my right at the same time with the same ferocity, I slashed at Brawl's double cannons sticking up from his back. That attack left deep gouges in the cannons, but did not chop the ends off.

Suddenly, a large servo came up and grabbed me from behind. I was then thrown hard and far. Luckily, I thought quickly and transformed into my flight-capable alt. I shot back towards them, but then was shot down by one of the Decepticons I didn't recognise.

I hit the ground hard and transformed instinctively. I cried out as I rolled several times, gravity making sure I was hurt every time I hit the ground.

Once I came to a stop, I laid there as my altimeter spun around and around. For a sickening moment, I thought I was going to purge as my systems tried to figure out what was up or down, left or right.

But that all stopped when I heard Onslaught exclaim, "Combaticons! Merge into Bruticus!"

Don't worry guys, Wavelength will be okay! Hopefully… *hears a crash and scream echo in the background* Eheheh… anyway, also the DJD are only mentioned as a threat towards Wavelength since, y'know, becoming a neutral/Autobot never really come without a price. But really, nothing but this battle and others' prejudice is keeping her from being accepted and welcomed as an Autobot.

And I loved writing the interactions between Wavelength and Scrap. I found them funny XD

Dragonmaster789: Thanks :)

markzilla6895: Yep, and this is what happens when she is free.

KeepingThemAtBay: I know, the feels XD Those Dinobots just appeared. Yep.

Taboo22: Thanks!

Riley: Thank you very much. Don't worry that's coming :)

Anonymous Femme: It's definitely not over yet!