First of all, I want to apologize that this chapter far shorter than I originally intended, though it's still a good length.

There is an explanation at the end of the chapter as to why.

I can't show you yet, for fear of spoiling the chapter.

Also, the Shockwave part of this story was actually painful to write.

For some reason it was just hard and I couldn't get myself to concentrate on it.

I hope it doesn't sound too forced!

I do not own Transformers, Hasbro and those other companies do!

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Needless to say, Shockwave had done his research on the planet. As he was designed, he was always one to look before he leapt. Due to this, he wasn't surprised in the least when he encountered the strange signal, called the internet, not long after he entered the planet's atmosphere.

He'd learned prior to coming that the humans had created this useful tool, but he didn't know the exact details of it. From Cybertron, he was able to pick out the signal, but he wasn't able to access it.

Instead he was a bit annoyed. He learned quickly that while there was a great deal of information on the internet, there were also many blocks. Things like passwords and codes were needed to bypass certain areas to access some more interesting information. One of such web sites was the United States military data base. Although accessible from the web, you needed an endless number of codes to dig into the depths of it. Unfortunately, Shockwave quickly learned that information would be of great use to him.

It seemed as if the country was greatly advanced in Flight Warfare. Not to say any of the other countries weren't just as advanced, but the United States seemed to have a number of unnecessary hidden agendas pertaining to it. Then there were the ones that weren't hidden.

Within his research, Shockwave discovered the perfect vehicle match for him in size and capability. Unfortunately, he could not access one of the vehicles to scan it, which annoyed him slightly. The plane that he wanted to scan was located only within the United States borders and there were very few even within their borders. He had neither the time nor ability now to change coarse to land anywhere near one of the planes.

The non-metaphorical gears in Shockwave's processor turned as he searched for a way around this dilemma. It didn't take long to work out the solution.

While the U.S. Air Force data base did have a strong defense grid, Shockwave was sure that it held the exact specifications and details of the plane. If he could access that information, he would have everything he needed to continue on his mission.

Shockwave was never brash about anything, always planning ahead throughly before doing anything. So before actually attempting to hack into that system, he prodded around it's edges. He discovered weaknesses in the system that his superior programing could easily override. He had found a backdoor, so to speak. This backdoor was actually a small glitch in the security system that pertained to a military project almost 40 years old. By worming his way through that, he gained easier access through to more recent programs. Each file he managed to break into brought him closer to the blueprints he needed.

There. He copied the file into his systems as soon as he found the right file. Of course his foreign signal alerted the computer that something was wrong. It was one thing to slid through files undetected, but it was another to take something.

With his prize safely tucked into his processor, Shockwave pulled himself out of the Data Base before the system had any chance to backlash on him.

Shockwave checked his sensors again to find out his exact position of decent into the his satisfaction, he discovered he was at a near perfect cruising altitude for a plane, although he was descending fast. Without any further hesitation, he used the information to force the change on his body.

While still a falling chunk of metal, Shockwave's form began to twist and shift. At first he just managed to force a spin on his body as pieces of metal twisted and jutted out, but soon recognizable parts began to show. Sleek black wings emerged as jet engines assembled themselves on the rear end of the body. Once fully transformed, the B-2 Spirit Bomber disappeared off of every radar in the area.

Shockwave's choice in aircraft was mostly for the plane's superior stealth capabilities. Like this, no one would notice his disappearance into the Himalayas. Not even the Autobots.

Kicking his engines into gear, the thin plane steadied himself at the perfect flying altitude, locking his sensors on that faint energon signal on the distant horizon.

Blurr found it hard to believe that Dena could sleep at this point. The girl certainly had a hard head, since every few minutes, her entire body would jump up off of the seat and her head would slam into his window. Off-roading in a car meant for a flat open road was sure to mean bumps and that wasn't including the fact that they were in the largest mountain range on this planet.

This was their third day of traveling off the road. They hadn't managed to go very far, which wasn't surprising, but they were getting closer. They only had one more mountain to go around, but there was bad news. It seemed that the dirt path they were on, covered mostly in snow as of now and probably used only by very daring hikers, was slowly disappearing underneath them. He knew that in the next few minutes he'd have to transform and find a new path or they'd just walk the rest of the way. Luckily, they'd stopped to get Dena the supplies necessary to keep her frail human system online in the harsh climate.

After finding Optimus's empty spark chamber, which was in the front seat next to Dena, he'd radioed Jetfire. They agreed to meet up at the last signal, which was located in the Himalayan mountains. Blurr had kept his newly discovered knowledge to himself for now though. This was something that he needed to tell Jetfire in person. Besides, they still needed to recover Optimus's body and probably bring back Megatron's body if they could.

With Blurr's head-start and Jetfire's alternate mode, they were set to meet up fairly soon. Jetfire was currently just entering into the mountain range, so if the weather held, he'd be there in about an hour. By that time of course, Blurr would be walking.

After a few more minutes of scrapping the bottom of his chassis across the rocky, slopping, human sized path, he pulled to a stop.

"Dena-wake-up." Blurr said, shaking her seat a little. Not long after his discovery of the spark chamber, he'd regained his fast talking ways. Like any good soldier, he mourned, but he had to bounce back quickly. He was one of those bots who had accepted early on that Optimus was probably gone for good, but had retained hope anyway. The discovery had hurt him, but he was mostly back to himself. Of course, he'd sobered up a bit and hadn't been as happy as normal. It was all business now. Jetfire, on the other hand, had never lost his hope. Optimus hadn't only been his leader, but also his good friend. It had hurt on a more personal level for the Aerial bot and with the solid knowledge of his death, Jetfire would be sure to be hurt even worse.

Dena batted a hand in the air, clenching her eyes shut a bit. Blurr suspected that this was some futile tactic to ward him off from waking her up.

Blurr tried again, this time dropped her seat all the way back so she was jolted awake. She sat up in shock and looked around for the offending party that had knocked her awake. "What was that for?!"

"You-wouldn't-wake-up." Blurr stated, pulling the chair back up.

Dena groaned softly and ran a hand through her short hair. It was a futile attempt at smoothing it, as her constant bouncing in the seat had mused it up to a point where only a hot shower could straighten it. "Why do I need to wake up?" the girl muttered crossly, even as she studied the area around them, only now realizing they were stopped.

"We-have-to-walk-until-we-find-a-new-path." Blurr explained. "Which-is-unlikely-anyway."

Dena sighed lightly, but nodded. She'd known this was coming and was the kind of person who knew complaining wouldn't do any good. Straightening up, she tightened the laces on her boots and yanked her pants legs down over them. Then she zipped her jacket up to her chin and snagged her backpack off of the floor by her feet. When Blurr opened his passenger side door for her, she swung her legs out and stood up in the shallow snow.

Blurr transformed then, spinning his wheels to shake the crusted snow off of them. "Ready-Dena?"

The human female gave a short nod, tightened the straps on her backpack, and then walked on ahead of the blue Autobot.

"I HATE it when you do that!" Gabriel groaned, letting himself dangle limply in Jetfire's hand. Once again, the B-1 plane had thrown him out, transformed, and caught him. Something he'd expressly asked him NOT to do.

"It's not like I can land normally here!" Jetfire growled back, eyeing the slightly green looking human in his hand.

Gabriel just gave him as fierce a glare as he could manage, which was fairly pathetic. He was to busy trying to control his racing heart to do any better.

Jetfire mumbled something about untrusting organics as he brought his hand down and gently slid Gabriel off of his palm and into the snow.

The cool snow felt good to him in this state, but he knew he shouldn't stay laying down like that. Hypothermia was a real danger now, as was the lack of oxygen this far up, which he was beginning to notice through a few experimental gulps of air.

"So... Where are they?" Gabriel asked, panting. Jetfire was giving him funny looks, probably because of how he was reacting.

"Just down that ridge. If we yelled to them, they could probably hear us." Jetfire replied, checking the signals.

"Don't." Gabriel pressed quickly. When Jetfire gave him a quizzical look, he explained. "Avalanches can be caused by sound. Let's not risk it." He knew, of course, it took quite a bit of sound to cause an avalanche of any measure, but with a giant alien robot with him, he refused to take the chance. "Besides, they'll be here soon enough."

Jetfire shook his head slightly and sighed, a very human gesture in nature. The large bot then planted himself against a rather large rock, sitting down in wait for the last two members of their makeshift group.

Gabriel was excited to be able to see Dena again. They hadn't spoken since high-school, not counting the phone call a few days ago, let alone visited. She was probably the same person she had been back then, but he still had a slight worry that they might not be as close as before. He shook off the feeling quickly, knowing that soon enough, he'd find out for himself.

"And here we go..." Jetfire mumbled from his perch on the rock, arms folded over each other. A quick check to the downward slope next to where they were revealed the top of another bot could be seen approaching.

Gabriel had been warned of Blurr's fast-talking, hyper active, and annoying tendencies, so he immediately got Jetfire's mumbled phrase.

Slowly, more of the blue face came into view, a glass visor covering the bot's blue optics. As the mouth can into view, Gabriel saw that it wasn't pulled up in a grin, as he'd expected from Jetfire's description of the Autobot,

Jetfire seemed puzzled by this as well, but said nothing. The two just stared at each other with mutually serious looks, looking almost like they could read each other's minds.

"Gabriel!"

Looking toward the sound of the voice, Gabriel saw Dena jogging up the slope toward him, a grin plastered to her face as she waved an arm at him. He returned the grin and stood up from his place on the ground.

Without any hesitation on her part, she came up and latched onto him in a hug. He was almost surprised by the forward gesture, but then remembered it was Dena, and he returned the hug. It was merely a gesture of friendship and she was a fairly forward person.

"How was the drive?" He asked her, releasing her from the hug and grinning.

She made a face. "Bumpy."

"Not-my-fault." Blurr interjected. Dena stuck her tongue out at him.

Gabriel turned his attention to the blue bot that stood behind Dena. He was pretty small for what he'd known Transformer's to be. He was only about half of Jetfire's height and width.

"Well it certainly wasn't my fault." Dena quipped.

Blurr looked ready to respond, but Jetfire cut him off. "There is work to be done."

The smaller bot nodded shortly and looked down at Dena. When she looked up at him, both of there faces fell a bit as someone passed silently between them.

"What?" Jetfire pressed, seemly uneasy being out of what ever they were silently communicating.

"What-did-you-find-in-that-park?" Blurr asked, evading the subject. Both Gabriel and Jetfire noticed the shift, but ignored it.

"Optimus's communication processor. It looks like it was ripped out." The Aerial Autobot replied simply. "What did you find?" His optics narrowed slightly as he looked down at the small bot.

Gabriel noticed Dena pat Blurr's leg gently and him looking down at her in a look of gratitude. Something was strange here.

"We found..." Blurr began, his voice a normal pace now as he considered his words. "We found Optimus's spark chamber."

The wings on Jetfire's back whirred as they extended nearly straight up. "His spark?! Is it...?!"

"It's gone. I'm sorry. There's nothing left. He's dead, Jetfire." Blurr explained slowly.

Gabriel's eyes widened slightly. His spark.... Gone... And Optimus dead? How could that be though? Jetfire had been searching the universe for five centuries! It couldn't have been for nothing!

"PRIMUS!" BOOM.

The vibrations under Gabriel's feet nearly knocked him on his backside. It felt like dynamite had gone off next to him. At first that seemed the only logical explanation.

BOOM.

Jetfire again fired off one of his arm cannons, straight into the cliff face, effectively shattering a layer of rock.

"HE CAN'T BE DEAD!"BOOM.

"JETFIRE-CALM-DOWN!" Blurr shouted at him. It didn't do anything.

BOOM. This time it was a snow covered tree that shattered into a thousand pieces.

Jetfire re-aimed his cannon, this time at a peak far above them. The grief-stricken bot had no idea of the danger that lay in that, he'd only been aiming his cannon at random in a desperate attempt to ward off his unstable emotions.

BOOM.

"GABRIEL!" Dena's scream.

He turned to look at her and maybe see why her voice sounded so scared. Instead, all he saw was a blue flash. In an instant, that blue flash covered Gabriel, knocking him backward. He was not being crushed, but Blurr's blue chassis now hovered above him, the bot's blue arms stretched out around him to provide more cover.

"BLURR!" Again Dena, this time more muffled.

Gabriel clearly heard a series of pained grunts from over him coupled with the sound of rocks scraping across a metal surface.

Jetfire had blasted rocks loose above them, causing an avalanche of solid rock to fall down on him. He would be dead if Blurr hadn't acted in time.

"Blurr?" Protected in the darkness by Blurr's chest plates, Gabriel couldn't tell if he was okay.

"I'm-okay." Blurr replied quickly. "Just-scratched-up-a-bit." Slowly the bot sat up, causing some of the rocks to slide off of his back into a pile around him. As he said, the bot seemed to be okay aside from a few dents that Gabriel could see from here.

"Oh my god..." Dena gasped from behind Blurr. She looked pale with fear, probably because two of her friends had nearly been crushed to death in front of her. "You're okay right...? Both of you?"

Gabriel nodded at her and gave her a small reassuring smile, as did Blurr. "Yeah... Thanks to Blurr."

"I-was-just-doing-what-was-right." Blurr said, brushing it off. The bot's gaze came up from Gabriel to peer behind him.

As he did the same thing, he saw his point of interest. Jetfire. The stricken Autobot was staring at the two of them in horror. "I'm sorry....I didn't mean...."

"It's okay." Gabriel pressed. "You didn't mean to. You were upset."

"That's no reason to endanger my comrades... My online comrades." Jetfire sighed heavily. The pain was obvious on his face and for Gabriel, it was painful to watch.

"You-shouldn't-beat-yourself-up-like-it's-your-fault."

Jetfire just stared blankly at the smaller Autobot. "No, but I can grieve like it was my fault."

"Grieve-later." Blurr said. Suddenly, his expression turned serious, rather than consoling. "I-understand-how-you-feel-but-right-now-we-still-have-our-orders. Dead-or-alive-we-must-retrieve-his-body."

Jetfire's fists clenched, causing a soft metal-on-metal squeal. "Fine."

"Even if you need to grieve, your duty comes first." Dena added, her tone soft, but her face taking on a serious set.

"I get it." Jetfire grunted. "Let's just go. I don't like being lectured by sparklings."

Gabriel held back a small smile. At least a small part of Jetfire could move past this. As harsh as it did sound, Dena and Blurr were right. Grieving emotionally was something that couldn't be stopped, but being able to control it when it was needed was important.

"Let's-go-then." Blurr said, walking toward Jetfire, patting the back of his shoulder roughly with a palm and he walked past him, Gabriel and Dena following behind him.

The trio started their hike up the side of the mountain, Jetfire walking behind the humans and Blurr in the lead. The walk was quiet, not because of the slight tension that hung in the air, but because no one could really find anything appropriate to say at the time.

When they climbed up the last slope, the ridge above them being the location of the signal, someone finally spoke.

"This is it." Jetfire grunted half-heartedly.

Blurr nodded silently in response, his eyes fixed on the ridge they were ascending.

Upon seeing the scene over the ridge, Gabriel's heart jolted a bit, the beginnings of adrenaline trickling into his bloodstream.

The side of the mountain was almost bowl shaped or like a thumb indentation pressed into the rock. It was covered with mostly untouched snow. At the very end of the indentation though, the snow had been moved. Someone had been digging and very recently.

"I see you Autobots have finally managed to locate the source of the energon signal."

A robot stepped out from behind a rock near the dug up snow, cannon-arms warmed up and ready. One red eye stared back at them.

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Here's the reason why this chapter shorter than intended: I made a mistake.

When I design my characters, I actually write out a profile for them, starting first with their alternate mode.

When I made Shockwave, I decided on the B-2 bomber because it fits him perfectly with the stealth and such.

So I made him and I wanted to have him drop onto a military base, scan one, destroy the base simply because he could, and then leave.

Then I realized he needed to land near the Himalayas, so I thought I'd have him destroy the Manas Air Force Base, where Dena was stationed.

The night before I started writing this, I remembered a problem: B-2's are only used in America, and thus he could NOT land anywhere near where he needed to be and scan one.

Although I did discover that they have been used in Iraq and Afghanistan to drop bombs, but I don't think they land anywhere near those areas.

So the reason this is short is because I had to take out the scene of Shockwave destroying a base.

Also: I enjoyed Jetfire's hissy fit. It was awesome to write.

Hopefully the next chapter will be out early, but no guarantees!

Reviews are always loved and thanks for reading!