A/N: I know, I know, I realise it's been a few months since the last update. It wasn't my intention to take so long, so y'all deserve an explanation. The first version of this chapter got off on a wrong start and made the plot go absolutely nowhere, so it was only late last month I scrapped that 6000 plus word chapter and re-wrote a new one in just two weeks. That's honestly it, I haven't given up on this story or anything. With that said, I won't delay any longer – I hope this chapter is to your liking. Enjoy :)
Chapter Four:
Rules get bent – but just this once.
/\/\/\/\/\
Two solar cycles passed without another word about Starscream, and perhaps, Arcee thought, it was better off that way, even if it was only really prolonging the inevitable. And without further news (though they were certain he was still alive), the hype and disturbance caused by his arrival eventually died down to the point of non-existence. That wasn't to say the whole thing didn't linger as a small, nagging thought in the back of their processors, and it was evident as well in the faces of their three human charges who, despite trying to hide their curiosity, often implied an interest in the status of their 'guest'.
Too bad for them they didn't budge an inch – but really, what could they tell them that they didn't already know?
And Ratchet, what could they say about Ratchet, really? He was practically a ghost, sometimes seen collecting his energon rations (and more, on occasion), or flitting about through the corridors as if he was on a mission, but not once did they believe he had left the premises of his repair bay for anything else, not even for a break, if he was taking any. Though they were sure Ratchet would never admit it to them, they figured that some part of him, however small, was helplessly enjoying the work he was given.
Not that any of them would question Ratchet's importance to the team or anything, but they knew Ratchet well enough to know he liked to be useful, no matter what the situation – like helping the kids out with their projects (though to be honest it really was more like 'commandeering' their projects). Even though this particular situation involved using resources up rather than creating more for use, it still kept him occupied, and to an extent probably even content with the fact he was making the most of his medical expertise.
Apart from that, the usual duties that'd been performed on a day-to-day basis were still being completed as if nothing was wrong, which was comforting to say the least to Arcee. She much preferred to spend her hours away from the base performing external duties, and unsurprisingly Bumblebee had taken the same lead, though perhaps with less spirit. Bulkhead seemed to be the least fazed and had even volunteered to undertake internal duties, which had initially caused some suspicion amongst them due to his initial anger towards Starscream, but upon further investigation they realised it was merely to keep a closer optic on Miko lest she decide to sneak off.
And if Optimus had picked up on their collective disappearances (which Arcee was sure he had, as nothing had escaped his attention in the past), he didn't mention it at all. They were grateful for that, seeking solace with the fact that Optimus understood their need for space or time to settle things, even though nothing much had really happened or changed of late since Starscream arrived – it was just their own way of dealing with it without causing any trouble.
It was the middle of the third solar cycle since then, and she and Bulkhead had just returned from their respective scouting rounds with no luck. Unlike her, Bulkhead had to go prepare for another trip with Optimus while she had to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening minding the ground bridge and watching over the kids. Which wasn't to say her day had been lacking in external duties, not with her entire morning being filled with those, but despite the fact that she (most of the time) enjoyed the company of the human children – Jack especially – she still felt that unquenchable need to be anywhere but their base.
'But everyone has to do this sooner or later,' she reasoned with herself, referring to in-base duties. Ratchet would've normally been the one to do it while the rest went out, but of course, that couldn't be possible at that moment. She naturally had to wonder when he would be done so they could focus solely on their energon problem instead – intel or no intel, they weren't going to defeat the Decepticons with an empty fuel tank.
Jack and Raf were leaning on the railings up on the upper level of their headquarters where they spent their time playing games, looking down at the lower level while Miko was with Bulkhead, who was taking her time to say her farewells; Bumblebee was, at that moment, away from the base in the middle of his own rounds.
"Now don't cause any trouble, ya hear?" Bulkhead could be heard saying.
"Don't worry Bulk, you can count on me!" she replied happily, as Bulkhead removed her from his shoulder and placed her on the ground.
From one of the corridors, Optimus appeared, heading over to Arcee after briefly surveying the scene.
"Optimus," she greeted as she leaned back on the ground bridge's control console, "So, where to?"
He entered some coordinates into the console and the corresponding map zoomed in on the location.
"A mountainous range, located in a place humans call 'Canada'" he replied, downloading the data for reference.
"Looks cold," Arcee commented, noting the snow covering the tops of the mountains.
"It would seem that way," he said, "But it's nothing compared to the Arctic's conditions at the present moment."
"Better for us," Bulkhead stated as he joined in the conversation. "At least we won't have to worry about freezing our tailpipes off."
"Agreed, this way at least we can cover more ground."
"So, when can I expect to bridge you guys back?" Arcee asked, pressing a few buttons on the console before reaching for the lever.
"It may take some time, depending on the circumstances. I expect it should be no longer than three earth hours, but we will keep you updated as we move along," Optimus said, both he and Bulkhead moving towards the large tunnel where the portal would appear.
She pulled the lever down, and the usual resounding hum of the ground bridge echoed throughout the room.
"I'll be here," she replied casually, watching them pass through the portal safely before manually pulling the lever back up. By that time, Miko had walked up and joined Jack and Raf on the upper level, pulling out her drawing book and starting a sketch – of what, Arcee couldn't see.
"So," Jack started once the base was quiet again, "What have we got planned for today?"
"Nothing much," Arcee replied, tapping away at some keys. "I've got things to do, and you three have to stay put."
She knew it wasn't the answer he was hoping for – it had been a while since they got to spend some time together like they used to, and she could see the disappointment on his features every time she had to shut him down. She'd promised him a few solar cycles ago, before the whole Starscream dilemma, that she would take him out for their usual drive around the area. Unfortunately, things had become busy since then, so she'd had to postpone it until a more suitable time arrived. It was just too bad that it didn't look as if things would let up any time soon, but she was grateful that Jack seemed to understand that and didn't insist on anything she didn't have time for.
Jack shrugged, "I guess it's video games and snacks again, Raf."
The shorter kid adjusted his glasses, "I'm not complaining."
Out of the corner of her vision, Arcee saw the boys set up their video game while she opened up one of many reports on-screen and had a quick browse of its contents.
'Dated back to three weeks ago...energon mine, recently cleared..no signs or readings indicating leftover scraps,' she noted as she flicked through the outline. 'Tell me something I don't know.'
She jumped through a few more reports until she randomly chose a more recent one to open, dating to roughly a week ago. Not surprisingly, it outlined the exact same thing. She closed the file, refusing to browse through them any more when she knew they all had the exact same thing to say. It was frustrating to say the least, and it hardly helped keep up whatever of their morale was left.
"Hey, Arcee?" Jack hesitantly called out.
She looked to him and saw that all three of the humans were staring at her quizzically.
"Are you..feeling okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" she replied, suddenly curious.
"It's just.." he looked to Raf and Miko, the latter who shrugged at him, "Well, you seem a bit..tense."
"Tense?" she repeated, crossing her arms across her chest.
"Yeah – I mean, you're quiet, I guess. More than you usually are," he said, somewhat losing what initial confidence he had. "Are you sure you can't take a break? You know, relax a bit?"
"It can't hurt to try?" Raf helped out with a small smile.
"And no one else has to know, promise," Miko assured unexpectedly.
"I won't get into trouble for taking one if I need to," Arcee explained.
"Then what's stopping you?" Miko asked curiously. "It's not like there's anything important you really really have to do right now, right?"
"Miko, it hasn't even been 30 minutes into my shift. I'm not taking a break now," she insisted – she wasn't going to break her routine on a request (albeit a very prospective request).
"Well, if you change your mind, we'll be right here," Raf said, and Jack gave her a lopsided smile before they all returned to their previous activities.
Arcee stared past a point on the monitor, trying to place the conversation behind her. That was definitely the last thing she needed at that moment to keep her focused on her own tasks. Luckily for her, she managed to put it past her long enough to get through several minor maintenance issues, as well as a stock-check for their energon, and making sure that all reports for their missions and Decepticon encounters were all accounted for in the database – she still had to go through a week's worth of scouting logs however to make sure all those reports had been uploaded onto the database.
Two and a half hours passed, and by then she'd received two updates on Optimus' and Bulkhead's scouting round. The first detailed that they'd discovered nothing out of the ordinary while surveying the area, but that they would have to take extra caution not to disturb the natural environment, to which she could've sworn Bulkhead said something about bumping into trees. The second proved to be somewhat more interesting, though its vagueness made it that less appealing than what she'd initially thought – they'd discovered a small anomaly, a short way off their intended course, and had gone astray to check it out. Since then, there had been no further news, but she hadn't received that update too long ago, and so she anticipated the next update to be later rather than sooner.
Bumblebee had also contacted the base once, if only to say that he'd had no luck and would contact her in about 30 minutes for a bridge. She could wait until then, she thought, before she took a well earned break.
'At least then Bumblebee could cover for me,' she thought, closing the report she'd had on screen to clench and relax her stiff fingers. She turned her head for what seemed like the first time in a long time to take a brief glance at the children, who were all accounted for and heavily absorbed with the game on screen. Miko was sitting in the middle of the couch, slumped back against the cushions while the boys on either side of her were leaning forward, busy mashing the tiny buttons on their controllers and enthusiastically (if not ridiculously) waving them about.
Unlike Bumblebee, she didn't have much interest for actively participating in the humans' forms of entertainment. Admittedly, though her team-mate looked like he enjoyed most of their leisure activities and undertook them whenever possible for his own enjoyment, Arcee much preferred to 'keep her head in the game', so to speak. She couldn't truly relax when there was still a war to win, especially when they were on the disadvantaged side – well, there was that one time she indulged in one race against that human..Vince, she remembered Jack saying? But that wasn't so much as 'fun' as it was a personal sense of victory.
Besides, it wasn't really her thing, she convinced herself, even as she found herself struggling to remove her attention from the small screen.
'Alright, enough with the distractions. Back to work,' she told herself, drawing her eyes back to the main computer, her fingers automatically moving to press the keys in a familiar rhythm.
She pulled up the remaining reports from the previous week, checking through the data for each day to make sure it had uploaded correctly – that was always the trouble with using modified human technology, unfortunately.
She'd come to Wednesday and monotonously started flicking through the reports.
'Bulkhead, check. Me, check. Bumblebee, check. Optimus and Me, check. Bulkhead...' she trailed off, as she came across the blank file. Curiously, she flicked to the next one and found the same problem, and the next one, and the next, all the way to the end of Wednesday's rounds. Thursday's were logged just fine, however, and so were the rest following Thursday.
'Scrap, must've been some sort of glitch in the system,' she thought, keeping a mental note to mention it to Optimus. She reckoned she may as well place her own data back into the system while she had the time to do so, but that meant having to leave her post – and consequently the kids – while she left to grab her scanner from her quarters on which the original data was stored.
But she could trust them to stay put, couldn't she? They hadn't caused any trouble or any particular fuss while she was working. Miko was certainly in one of her more level-headed moods, and Jack and Raf had always been complacent and reasonable enough since she'd met them – there was no question of their behaviour.
With that in mind, she stepped back from the console and approached the kids.
Jack noticed her first, as Miko and Raf were playing against each other.
"Hey, finally deciding to join us?" he asked, standing up and moving to the rails to meet her.
"Sorry Jack," she crossed her arms, motioning with her head to one of the corridors. "Have to go and pick up something first. Think you can handle yourself for a few?"
He took a second to process what she was saying.
"Sure," he started, somewhat befuddled. "Are you sure you can do that?"
"Why not?" she replied. "Just don't do anything you know you're not supposed to – or else the both of us will have to answer to Optimus."
"Point taken."
"Miko, Raf, that goes the same for you too," she called out.
"Yeah, yeah-", "Got it!-" Miko and Raf said simultaneously without taking their eyes off their game.
With that, she stepped back and transformed into her vehicle mode, speeding off down the right-hand corridor that led to where most of the team members' quarters were located.
Her quarters, as well as Bumblebee's, were located close to each others', at least in comparison to where Bulkhead's in particular was. Bulkhead could be a loud recharger sometimes, but even if it wasn't for that, it was his sheer size that forced him to find his personal accommodations that far from his fellow teammates'; Optimus' was further along their corridor, while Ratchet preferred to keep to his repair bay.
She arrived at her door, sliding it open and walking towards the makeshift bench she had situated along the back-right corner of the small, square-shaped room. On it lay most of her personal effects – the items she would usually take with her on any sort of mission. Opposite of that bench along the back-left corner of the room was her recharge berth, as well as a bedside storage container for any personal items she would rather not have in plain sight nor carry with her on the field. Most of the items she'd always kept on her when she'd been fighting on Cybertron had been placed in there, items that were of no consequence or sentimentality to anyone but her.
Items, data, recordings, and holographic image projectors containing still images of people and places on Cybertron, her home, close acquaintances and the friends she'd had, everything preserved from an era before the war had started – but she was getting off track, she realised.
Her attention returned to the items before her, picking up her scanner and activating it to double-check if the data was indeed still stored on it. Satisfied that it was, she quickly took the same route back towards the control room, not truly at peace until she saw that the main console was still operating and intact, that nothing had exploded or was on fire, and that Jack and Raf were still there, exactly as she had left them-
'Wait a minute,' she thought, her processor almost freezing with sudden realisation.
'Miko. Where the hell is Miko?,' she slowly looked around the room, in case her optics were playing a trick on her and she'd missed the girl the first time.
When she saw Jack nervously stand up however, her fears were confirmed.
"Jack.." she started with unconcealed reprehension.
"Arcee, it's not what it looks like," he tried to assure, placing his hands up defensively. If he had any idea of what she was thinking at that moment..but no, she forced herself to remain calm. They wouldn't just let Miko run off like that, not after her infamous reputation for causing trouble wherever she ended up.
She vented out warm air, "Alright, I'm listening, but you better talk fast."
Raf walked up from behind Jack to join them, leaning against the rails.
"She said she needed to use the bathroom," the smaller kid shrugged.
"The bathroom?" Arcee repeated sceptically, "And you believed her?"
Jack and Raf gave each other uneasy looks.
"Well.." Raf started, looking towards Jack who completed the sentence for him.
"She said it was..'girl problems'," he explained. "What were we supposed to do?"
Arcee sighed heavily, placing a hand to her head at the sudden processor ache.
"Okay, fine. It's not your fault," she finally admitted, "But bathroom or not, I need to find her."
"We can help," Raf suggested. "It's..kind of our fault too – we could've told her to wait until you got back."
"No, I need the both of you to stay here in case anyone tries to contact the base – or on the off chance Miko happens to come back."
She stepped back from the rails, transforming into her vehicle mode before speeding down the left-hand corridor.
"Besides, I think I know just where to look."
/\/\/\/\/\
Optimus was in the lead, scaling up several upturned rocks along a lowly ascending slope while Bulkhead followed closely behind at a similar pace. The size of their frames, where once a disadvantage in the thick dense forest they'd been traversing through moments ago, was definitely advantageous in the cleared area they were in now.
The landscape was haggard and destroyed: uprooted trees lay along the border of the forest the Decepticons had not cleared while some remaining roots stuck up from the ground; the soil was loose and soft under their heavy feet, with grasses and plants crushed and mixed within the particles; large rocks still had chunks of earth clinging to their base and were haphazardly organised in the visible area.
"How long to go?" Bulkhead asked from behind him, carefully attempting to find his footing on the unstable ground.
Optimus looked up ahead, seeing a well-sized clearing before the mountainside.
"Just a bit further," he replied, finally stepping up on a horizontal surface, turning only to help Bulkhead up the last few steps.
"Woah," Bulkhead vocalised, noting the large cave dug out from the mountainside, "The 'Cons have been busy."
"It would seem so."
They both approached the cave, taking care to step cautiously and make as little sound as possible – on their scanners, a faint signal pinged from somewhere within the cave. Whatever it was that had lead them there was still there.
With their arms transformed into their respective ranged weapons, they expertly surveyed the area before deeming it clear. Upon closer investigation though, they noticed several distinctive shapes printed along the surface of the ground.
Bulkhead motioned towards a spot by his feet.
"Look here: footprints, and plenty of 'em."
Optimus took note of their pattern.
"Miners, Decepticon workers. But why are they so clustered?"
"Who knows? - Hey, check it out," Bulkhead said, pointing over to a spot by the entrance of the cave. "Those prints sure look like energon containers."
Optimus nodded.
"There is no doubt this area was excavated for the purpose of energon extraction."
Bulkhead looked around further, confused about something.
"I don't get it though: How come there aren't many prints like those over there? For a mine this size, there had to be more than that."
The signal flared once again on their scanners.
"I believe our answer may lie within that cave."
Dark and ominous, the cave's entrance loomed over them as they passed through it. They'd only just taken ten steps into it before it became too dim to see with their normal vision – luckily for them, they were both equipped with a night-vision setting.
They looked at the walls, the ground, the shape of the cave itself. It was definitely carved out by the Decepticons – there was no way it was a natural formation – but it was strange; unusual. It wasn't the way they normally handled their mining operations – despite their brutality on the battleground, they still kept a semblance of coordination when it came to digging and drilling out energon locations.
But here..here it was messy. The cave walls were jagged with large extrusions covering their surface. Rock chunks littered the floor in various shapes and sizes, making it difficult to step on the ground without crushing several pieces under their feet.
"I don't like the looks of this," Bulkhead mumbled, though his voice seemed to rumble through the cave.
"Stay alert: we're almost at the signal's source."
As they neared it, the rocks beneath their feet started to feel larger, until they had to resort to pushing them away with their feet as they moved closer and closer.
And then they stopped.
"What the..?"
Optimus looked to each corner in front of him, shaking his head.
"It appears we now know why the Decepticons were so quick to leave this place".
Before them both were rocks and giant boulders, crushed against each other so that they completely obscured the passageway. By the looks of it, it was completely immoveable, locked in such a way that if anyone removed a piece from the puzzle, the whole thing would surely come down like a crushing wave.
"The whole ceiling collapsed," Bulkhead noted, observing the large cracks above where the wall was. "Whatever was here when that happened never stood a chance."
Optimus looked towards his scanner, checking once more for the source of the signal, which was faintly pinging at their exact location.
"The source of the signal is coming from below us," he said, inspecting the ground at their feet.
"What, you mean we'll have to risk moving these rocks to get to it?" he asked incredulously.
Optimus nudged the rocks by his feet.
"The rocks here are only loosely settled. So long as we do not disturb the ones over there," he gestured, "We should remain unharmed."
Bulkhead looked directly up at the ceiling above them - "Watch your head, too. Any wrong move and we risk those smaller cracks opening up and collapsing over us."
With the hazards pointed out, they quickly crouched and started pushing and lifting rocks away from the spot between their feet. While Optimus lifted from the top, Bulkhead worked on pushing away the smaller rocks from the side, causing some of the rocks stockpiled on top to naturally roll down.
A moment passed where none of them spoke a word before, finally, Bulkhead uncovered something.
"Uh, Optimus?" he anxiously said, catching his attention. He lifted up a half-buried object from the ground. "Decepticon miner."
It was only an arm from the elbow joint down, to be specific, but-
"It's still intact," Optimus observed. "The body must still be buried under the remaining rubble."
"And still online," Bulkhead commented.
Optimus nodded.
"We should hurry," he said, quickly working to remove the remaining rocks.
Before long, the body finally appeared through the rubble, and then the head – the legs however were still partially buried underneath the rocks. It didn't escape their notice that there was a solid slab of rock lodged in his chest, with energon slowly but surely trickling out from around the edges of the wound.
The distinctive red visor of the Decepticon flickered for a second before stabilising. He was still alive, but it didn't look like he had very long to go.
"Easy, Bulkhead," Optimus said quietly, while Bulkhead tried to keep the worker from moving about.
The Decepticon was venting air in and out of his systems raggedly, and was struggling to speak.
"U..ugh...Autobots..should've known," he coughed out.
"Be still," Optimus said, "We mean you no harm."
"Harm?" he laughed. "W-what more..can you possibly..do to me? I'm..already dead."
Optimus shared a grim look with Bulkhead. He changed the subject.
"What happened here?"
The miner remained quiet.
Bulkhead started to put pressure on the Decepticon's body where his hands were supporting him, but Optimus stopped him.
"Bulkhead, no," he said calmly. His attention returned to the worker. "Whatever loyalties you had with the Decepticons were misplaced; they haven't returned for any that may have fallen here."
"Wouldn't be the first time.." Bulkhead mumbled under his breath.
The worker turned his head to the side, avoiding the Autobot leader's gaze.
"I can help you, but I need to know what happened here."
A brief moment passed, and the miner shook his head, clearing his vocaliser.
"Go rust in the pit."
It took all of Bulkhead's willpower not to crush the 'Con right there and then, but Optimus didn't look fazed by it. Instead, he picked up on the miner's not-so-subtle glances towards the block of wall ahead, and started to piece things together.
"From my understanding, you lost your unit in the collapse" he stated
The miner's visor momentarily dulled before flickering back to life, but still he didn't speak.
"The structural instability of the cave was obvious when you first started excavating, but the warning signs were left unheeded."
"So you lost your team members because you failed to follow your standard procedures," Bulkhead finished. "Crack; crashed and crushed, just like that-"
"We were following orders!" the worker shouted over the accusations with all his strength, but immediately started venting heavily afterwards at the exertion. Still, he didn't stop talking even as the precious final seconds of his existence started ticking away.
"We..we noticed the cracks...C-Commander..di-didn't listen..told us..t-to..keep..worki-i-ing..override..."
"Rewind for a second: who was your Commander?" Bulkhead asked.
"Told us t-to override...command..over-erride..couldn't..s-stop.."
Bulkhead shook his head, looking up at Optimus.
"He's completely gone into relapse and his vocaliser's failing; we're not getting anything out of him."
Optimus held up a hand.
"Just wait; listen."
"..Collapsed..unit..offline..di-did tell..sh—did...she..listen..sh—online..esca—cap—scaped..critical error.."
Without further struggle, the Decepticon's visor dulled to a lifeless red-black shade, and his body became limp in Bulkhead's grasp.
There was silence between them. It was never easy watching anything go – not like that at least. Still, what the worker had said left them momentarily confused, and the both of them looked to each other to see if they had indeed heard the same thing.
"You did hear what I heard, right? A 'she', with the Decepticons?" Bulkhead said.
Optimus looked away pensively, "Before now, we knew of no female officer within the Decepticon ranks here on Earth."
Bulkhead shook his head, mumbling more to himself than anything, "Since when did the 'Cons get a new team member?"
And then the realisation hit Bulkhead like a tonne of bricks, as he remembered an occurrence from the past few weeks.
"Oh, scrap."
/\/\/\/\/\
Arcee transformed into her bipedal mode as she approached the door to the repair bay with the full intention of giving that human girl a piece of her mind. It was one thing to cross her when she'd specifically ordered Jack, Raf and Miko not to go anywhere (and she doubted Miko's 'girl problems', whatever that meant, were so in urgent need of attention she couldn't wait a handful of minutes to sort them out), but to cross Optimus as well after he'd warned the kids in particular to stay away from the repair bay? That she couldn't stand for.
And as for Arcee herself, well, technically she'd been given no instruction to enter the repair bay, but she figured if her primary task as a guardian was to protect the kids from harm, even if it was only a potential one, then she had every reason to do what she had to do; even if it meant bending a rule or two.
Without further hesitation, she slid open the doors to the repair bay and only just restrained herself from storming inside, keeping a lookout for Ratchet whom she was sure had to have seen Miko run into the room.
But strangely enough, he was nowhere to be seen, not him nor Miko.
'Odd..I could easily say Miko was hiding around here somewhere – it is darker than usual, but for Ratchet not to be in here? Maybe he's out the back recharging?' she thought, moving to the back-right corner of the room which led to a small (by their standards) alcove where Ratchet often created and conducted experiments and tests on various items of his creation, or otherwise.
"Ratchet," she called out as she neared the entrance. "Are you there?"
A quiet, groggy groan came from the far left of the room, followed by a disgruntled voice.
"Is it truly too much to ask for a little peace and—you!"
Startled, Arcee spun around quickly whilst transforming her arms into her blasters defensively, pointing them at the equally as startled figure lying up on the repair berth.
"Starscream?" she exclaimed incredulously, wondering how she failed to spot him when she first entered the repair bay. He must've been recharging at first, she reasoned, and woken him up when she'd called out for Ratchet. That at least explained why the repair bay's lights were so dimmed down; lest they prevent the seeker from resting soundly.
She definitely hadn't expected to see him relatively functional, let alone online three days into his repair. She didn't know what to think – either that Ratchet was that good, or that they'd overestimated the extent of the seeker's injuries. Still, a blast to the chest couldn't have healed that fast even with Ratchet's medical expertise.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, struggling to prop himself up on his elbows, while his legs still lay on the berth. Arcee could see that even that small movement caused him to grimace slightly with pain – he definitely wasn't going to get up and walk anytime soon, she reckoned.
"What's it to you?" she retorted, finally lowering her weapons but remaining alert should he make any sudden movement. She knew Ratchet had disabled his weapon systems back out on the field before bringing him into the base, but she could never be too careful.
"I was told I would remain here to rest undisturbed while the rest of you Autobots flitted about minding your own business. Clearly that isn't the case," he complained.
Arcee scoffed.
"Does it look like I'm here to snoop around after your business?"
"What else would you be here for?"
"I'm looking for someone," she stated, turning her head to the floor as if to make certain Miko hadn't been there all along.
"Oh?" he said, with a pensive expression on his face. "Well, it's obvious your medic isn't present at the moment, so you can leave now."
Arcee blinked twice.
'So I can leave now?' she thought disbelievingly. 'Arrogant slagger, who does he think he is?'
But she refused to get herself riled up in front of him, that was only what he wanted to see.
Taking a deep breath, she returned to the subject at hand.
Starscream had been there all along, hadn't he? If Ratchet wasn't there, then she figured he could've seen Miko run into the room. Maybe that would explain why she could be hiding, especially if she didn't want him to know what she was doing.
'Could be worth a shot,' she sighed.
"Did you see anyone run in here? A human?" Arcee asked, taking a few steps towards him to see if Miko had managed to sneak off to that side of the room before she'd arrived.
He froze as she approached.
"A human – one of your vermin, here?" he scowled with disgust, suddenly more alert.
"Yes, or no?" she asked assertively.
"No," he replied curtly, his vocal tone turning dark. "And if you value the lives of your little human pets, you would do well to keep them away."
'Believe me, I know,' she refrained herself from saying.
"Fine. That's all I needed to know," she said, before turning around to leave.
"Wait," he began, causing her to turn her body to the side to look at him. "You mean to say that you came here for no other purpose at all than to ask for the whereabouts of a human?"
"Yes," she replied, puzzled, unsure of what he wanted to hear. "What did you expect?"
It was more a rhetorical question than anything, but it only made him look more wary of her, for whatever reason she didn't know. Well, they were still enemies technically...and in hindsight after all the bad history between them, she couldn't find it in herself to blame him for that.
A short moment passed.
He finally brushed her off, pretending as if he hadn't heard her – or perhaps as if he'd never asked her anything to begin with?
"Never mind," he said, ultimately choosing to lie back down against the berth on his left side facing away from the wall, laying his good wing flat behind him while what was left of his right wing remained tucked closely to his back. "Go on, leave. You've pestered me for long enough."
It wasn't like Arcee to just let someone talk to her like that without getting defensive about it, but frankly she just wanted to get out of there and never speak of it again. Not that it was 'top secret' information or anything, but the fact was that no one needed to know of it.
'I got what I came for, and no one got hurt. Period.'
And with that she left without a second look, not wanting to spend any longer than necessary in there with a very irritable seeker – 'Primus help us if we ever have to spend more than five minutes with him'.
Well, all things considered, it could've been much worse, though her own pride had been wounded after finding that Miko was not there – and as a bitter afterthought, all she needed now was for Starscream to run his mouth and out goes the cat from the bag. But surely, he had no reason to do so, after all he wouldn't gain anything out of it (apart from the satisfaction of causing her a bit of misery) – 'Bad history, remember?' she reminded herself, shaking her head.
But she didn't dwell on it, it didn't matter to her. All she knew was that she'd wasted her time on a fruitless chase, and that she still needed to find Miko.
End Chapter Four:
Well, that's that for that chapter. As always, thanks to those who've reviewed so far, your input is appreciated :) Constructive criticism is welcome. Also, Starscream's clones are adorable. That is all.