"How is it that you guys are now so much taller… everything seems taller than I remember"
"Um Cee… the only thing that's changed is you" Bulkhead stated seemingly just as confused as Arcee
"That's crazy; you must have a glitch in your circuits Bulkhead!" Arcee said accusingly
"See for yourself," Bulkhead replied grabbing a piece of reflective metal and placing it in front of Arcee like a full length mirror and the horror that crossed Arcee's face was unmistakable. She couldn't believe it, she was human! Where she once had blue armor she had pale skin and was clothed in dark jeans and a white shirt with a cobalt open jacket. Her hair was black with small pink stripes in the front, for a human she'd probably be seen as attractive, but at the moment she couldn't get over the shock factor of realizing she had changed race!
Optimus couldn't form any words to say, he just lifted her and turned on his com
"Ratchet we need a ground bridge!" he said
Ratchet activated the bridge to the same co-ordinance that he had earlier and was stunned when he realized a certain two-wheeler wasn't present. At the look on the Medic's face Optimus revealed the human he was carrying
"Another human, Optimus, really…?"
"Ratchet, this… this is a circumstance that even I am at a loss for an explanation" Optimus said
"Ratchet, it's me… Arcee"
"Okay… Arcee… if that's really you tell me what the last gift Tailgate gave you"
"My arm-blades, you installed them" she said dismissively in a way knowing why Ratchet posed this question, a human posing as her wouldn't even know who Tailgate was.
"By the Allspark, Arcee, how did this happen?" Ratchet asked taking Arcee from Optimus and starting towards Med bay
"If I knew I'd tell you" Arcee sighed and looked to the floor over the edge of Ratchet's hand, that made her feel even smaller so she settled in a different position so she wasn't looking down "you know I'm perfectly capable of walking"
"I know… this is just quicker"
Ratchet ran several scans and shook his head not liking the results
"What have you found, old friend?" Optimus asked as he entered the room with Ratchet
"What on the surface looked to be a complete change of race, it… she's still Cybertronian she just looks human and I am at a complete loss for an explanation as to how this happened and she has complete amnesia for the events that left her in this condition. The last thing she remembers is sending up the distress call." Ratchet sighed "She still gives off a weak locater beacon so it isn't a good idea for her to go out alone, honestly I'd say she shouldn't leave at all."
Bulkhead looked to Bumblebee
"Looks like you're getting Jack; you know they don't like to ride with Miko when she blares the music" Bulkhead shrugged
Bumblebee let out a string of chirps and clicks that Arcee was horrified to discover she could barely understand. She would run that past Ratchet once Bumblebee was out of the base so as not to frighten or alienate the young scout any more than he already felt at times when he couldn't communicate with their human allies.
"What is Jo doing?"
"She's in the school play" Jazz stated indifferently
"At least they don't have to worry about her forgetting her lines" Arcee commented
Jack sighed as he exited the school and didn't see Arcee
"Bee says there's something wrong with Arcee" Rafael said
Jack felt a sense of dread in the pit of his stomach as he got into the car with his brother. What had happened to Arcee; was she going to be okay?
They got to base and noticed a strange woman on the couch and were all completely baffled. She had her back turned so all they could really see was her slim figure and pink striped hair. She turned to them and Jack felt a sense of familiarity looking at that face. It was as if he knew her
"Arcee…?"
"Yes"
"How is that possible, how do we know you're really Arcee" Miko asked
"Let's see, you are Miko Nakadai, you just got your driver's license, but Bulkhead still won't let you drive his alt mode. Rafael your full name is now Rafael Esquivel Darby, June adopted you last year" she said as she stood and came to the edge of the platform
"Okay, you're Arcee" Miko said
"No… wait, any human could open up a few files and find out just about all of that" Jack cut in "and the part about Bulkhead not letting Miko drive, with her record that would be a reasonable assumption anyone could come to"
"He's right, then if you don't see that as proof of my identity Jack, you ask me the question… any question"
"What exactly happened to strand Arachnid on Earth?"
"You used your survival kit to light a piece of wood on fire and threw it into the Energon tank that was ripped open when her ship crash landed causing the entire ship to blow up, and if it hadn't been for her hearing you striking that flint you would have been successful in your attempt to destroy her" Arcee said shifting her weight to one foot "There isn't a human alive that knows the whole story of what happened on that mountain"
"He did what?" Ratchet bellowed in shock
"The only thing that saved that pit spawned spider was that her audio receptors are extra sensitive" Arcee seethed
Arcee hadn't been at all surprised by Jack's attempting to rid the galaxy of Arachnid, but she had been surprised at how very close he had come to being successful. She was grateful that he was so willing to fight for her even with the odds stacked against him proving himself a true friend and a good partner, even if, in that moment, a bit shortsighted.
She sighed, inwardly wondering exactly how short she was. She had no way to tell but she could tell she was short.
"I wonder… how much have I actually shrank"
The three teens joined her on the platform and she realized, much to her irritation, that her 'junior partner' was now taller than her. Miko was maybe an inch or two taller and Rafael was just a bare few inches shorter than her leading her to believe she was indeed quite short
"Best way to tell is to measure, I know I'm almost 5ft 11inches" Jack stated he had had an unusually late growth spurt that accounted for him being taller than his mother but not by much. She could seem to remember June saying that Rafael was around four foot seven inches tall. Arcee had attempted to estimate the difference using the known heights of Rafael and Jack but that still left her confused so she had to admit that Jack was right
"5 feet even" Jack read off the measuring tape once he had finished measuring
Ratchet knew that, by human standards, that was considered to be rather short for a full grown woman and the barely noticeable height difference between her and Miko, who wasn't quite finished growing, proved that.
"So no matter what, I'm still short, perfect" Arcee muttered and went back to sit on the couch
Meanwhile Charles was learning that Mystique had taken interest in Rafael, too much interest for his tastes. He gathered five of his students, four of whom were planning on moving out anyway and asked them if they would be willing to move to Jasper, if only temporarily to keep an eye on Rafael and protect him from Mystique and Magneto. They jumped at the chance, but it was planned that one of them would return once the immediate danger from the two terrorists had passed.
Jack was still trying to digest Arcee being human, or appearing human anyway. Ratchet had explained that she wasn't organic, she just looked like she was, but it was still a lot to take in on top of everything else he had learned that day.
"Jack"
He looked back to see Arcee standing behind him
"You okay …?" it was obvious that she was genuinely concerned about him even with what she was going through
"Yeah, I'm fine; I've just got a lot on my mind" Jack sighed as she joined him by the edge of the platform
"Want to tell me?"
"I… I asked Sierra out on date today, and… and she told me she had a boyfriend, always did. She was just flirting with me because she wanted to make her actual boyfriend jealous so he'd pay attention to her!" Jack hit the railing with his palm in anger and Arcee winced she hadn't seen him like this before
She sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder
"I'm sorry, Jack" Arcee sighed gently "You didn't deserve to be treated that way"
"She was using me Arcee!"
"I know, Jack, and you deserve so much better and if Sierra can't see how good you are she doesn't deserve you. There is a girl out there for you, Jack. You just haven't found her yet"
"Thanks, Arcee" he replied as he hugged her
In town Yessenia, Taylor, Charlie, Kathy and Li-Na were moving into the house that Taylor had purchased for them. Her family was wealthy due to the fact that they bred. Trained and sold rodeo horses, not to mention the fact that she and her father rode in them and she had recently ridden her way to a championship buckle in barrel racing.
"Li-Na, where is Charlie, she told me she was going to help with this?" Kathy asked as she carried a box from the moving van
"She's coming" Li-Na replied "She's just confirming her position at the KO Diner and getting her schedule"
"Li-Na, take this" Taylor said handing the Korean-American a box from the truck "Yessenia we have heavy and I believe metal, so that's your specialty"
"On it" Yessenia said and used her magnetic powers to move the metal object into the garage and then into the house. They had the back end of the truck practically pulled into the garage so they could safely use mutant powers without alerting the neighbors to their gifts
"What about this?" Kathy said indicating something rather large object
"Hold off on that, Jack is bringing Rafael to see Yessenia later, maybe we can talk him into helping"
"Taylor you can lift that easy… you put it in here!" Kathy protested not liking the idea of using their guest. "If you won't move it I will"
Kathy put her hands to her temples and the object floated inches off the floor and then levitated its way into the house to be unpacked. She did that due to the fact that she knew she didn't have the arm strength of her rodeo rider friend.
It was about an hour later when a yellow and black muscle car pulled into the driveway
"Hi Jack, Rafael… how are you doing today?" Kathy asked with a smile
"We're good Kathy, where is Yessenia?" Jack asked
"She's inside" Kathy said
"Do you need any help?" Jack asked
"No, we've got things under control here" Kathy replied with a smile "Thanks for asking
Yessenia came outside at hearing Jack's voice and immediately went to hug her brother who returned it with a tired looking smile. This instantly sent up a red flag in Yessenia's mind, the last few times she spent time with Rafael he easily had energy enough to outlast her and Jack but that didn't seem the case today. Either he had a harder day than Jack or something was very wrong. She also noticed that he kept sipping on his beverage as they entered the house, he didn't think too much of it at the moment, thirst was thirst, that was nothing to really mull over too much, but in combination with the exhaustion she wondered if it was a sign of something bigger than what they could see. She suggested that they play a video game; it was one that he had wanted to play since it came out but today not even that struck his interests and drew even more concerned.
The boys left a few hours later saying that they needed to be home before curfew and once they were gone Yessenia grabbed her cell phone and called June.
"Ms. Darby, its Yessenia. I… I don't want to panic you in any way but I think you might want to keep an eye on Rafael, he didn't seem right to me. He came over with a medium drink from the KO diner that Jack told me they just got refilled before they came and within an hour he an emptied it. It was like he couldn't get enough to drink, he didn't want to ask me for anything else to drink but I could tell he was still thirsty." She paused "he also seemed extremely tired, I have a stack of games that I bought specifically for him… so we could have something to do together but… even when I asked him to play one of them with me he wasn't interested and he had told me personally that he had wanted to play that game since it came out. He wasn't interested he… he didn't seem to feel well."
"Yessenia, thank you for bringing this to my attention, I'll look into this and keep you up to date with what I find out.
"Thank you, Ms. Darby… you don't know how much it means to me that you are so willing to keep me in the loop on my brother's condition"
"No problem, like you said, he's your brother you deserve to be kept up to date with his condition.
To Be Continued…
