Chromia opened her optics to find herself on a strange planet where her and her team had once battled the Decepticons. It was made entirely of moving cogs and gears, which had made it extremely difficult to battle on.

"Chromia…" A voice coughed and Chromia looked down at her peds to see him. He had fallen between the gears and was slowly being crushed. "Help me…" He pleaded, his too blue optics scared.

"Hold on, I'll get you out!" She cried, taking his servo and struggling to pull him, to no avail.

"Chromia, we've gotta go!" An unknown force began pushing her away from him.

"Please don't leave me." He begged, "Don't let me die. You let me die!"

"No!" Chromia gasped, tears streaming down her faceplates as he was crushed to death by the gears, "No! No! I'm so sorry…."

BANG! BANG! BANG!

She jolted awake to someone banging on her door.

"Chromia." 'Hide said angrily, "Open up."

She shook herself and quickly wiped the tears away before getting up and sliding the door open.

"What?" She asked, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice.

"I'll tell ya what." He said furiously, barging his way into her quarters, the door sliding shut behind him, "You've been pretendin' ya don' like me long enough. I have proof that ya like me and-" He broke off suddenly, noticing the look on her faceplates for the first time, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Chromia laughed shakily, "Just nightmares. You know how those can be." She cleared her throat and glanced down at the floor, "Anyways, you were yelling about something?"

He sighed, "Are ya sure yer alright?"

"Yeah. Fine."

"Good." His optics narrowed, " 'Cuz I'm still pissed." He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms, "Seems like you've been havin' some interestin' dreams lately."

"What do you-" Her optics widened, "No."

"Yes." He glared at her, "I know all about yer little rendezvous with me."

"Which one told you?" Chromia said dangerously

"What?"

"Who. Told. You."

"I'm not tellin' ya, crazy femme." Ironhide rolled his optics, "Knowin' you, you'd probably offline the poor femme. I should tell ya she only told me 'cuz she was tryin' to cheer me up, though." He scowled at her, "As ya can see, it didn't work. What I don't get," He pointed an angry digit in her faceplates, "Is why ya go on with this stupid charade, pretendin' ya don' like me and pushin' me away."

"Because I don't like you!" Chromia seethed

"Bullshit!" Ironhide yelled, "Ya had a fraggin' interface dream about me!"

"Actually, I didn't." Chromia glared at him, "We never even interfaced."

"Really?" Ironhide grinned, "So that means that Firestar and Strongarm could hear ya moanin' all the way in their rooms, just from the foreplay? Damn," he mused, "Dream-me is pretty good."

"Shut up." She flushed a little, "The point is that I'm not even slightly attracted to you. It was just my processor glitching or something."

"You're not attracted to me?" He placed his servos on either side of her, trapping her against the wall

"No, I'm not." She glared up at him defiantly

"Such a liar." He sighed and stared at her mischievously, "So, if yer not attracted to me, I wonder what happens if I do this?"

He leaned forward and gave her a scorching kiss. She almost managed to pull away, but he ran a digit up her spinal strut and she lost all of her senses for a moment.

He had her pinned against the wall and was kissing her fiercely, biting her bottom lip. It was so searingly hot that she had to kiss back, twining her digits behind his helm.

" 'Hide." She moaned into his mouth, and in response he ran a servo across her aft to the back of her leg, hooking it around his waist.

"So," He panted, grinning mockingly at her, "Not attracted to me, huh?"

"What?" Her chassis was heaving and her optics were dazed. Suddenly she snapped into focus and shoved him off her, "You afthole! I'm going to fragging murder you!"

"Hahaha." He chuckled, ducking as she grabbed a pillow from the berth and chucked it at him, "I almost had ya, Chro-mo."

"You know what?!" She seethed, flinging the other pillow.

He grinned evilly, "What?"

"It doesn't matter!" She shouted, "It doesn't matter if I'm attracted to you. I still don't want to be in a relationship with you! Nothing has changed, afthole, except the fact that I am EXTREMELY pissed now!"

"Why?" He yelled back, "Why in Pit doncha wanna be in a relationship with me?"

"Oh, like you're such a swell guy." She said sarcastically, "Pull your helm outta your aft, Ironhide, You're not the greatest mech on the fragging planet."

"I wasn't sayin' I was!" He was beginning to turn blue with rage, "Why cantcha just tell me? Then maybe I'll finally be able to getcha outta my fraggin' processor!"

"I don't have to tell you anything." She said icily, "Get out of my room."

"Chromia…."

"Get. Out."

"Fine." He stormed out angrily, slamming the sliding door closed behind him.

Chromia slid down the wall to the floor and rested her helm on her knees, trying to just vent normally and hold in the tears.

Strongarm and Firestar had been pressed up against the wall in Firestar's room, listening. When they felt the wall quake with the force of Ironhide slamming the door, they glanced at each other.

"Well." Firestar sighed, "That seemed to go well."

"Yeah…."

OoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

Chromia had a mission the next day, and between the nightmare and Ironhide, she'd gotten absolutely no recharge for it.

She wearily headed to Prowl's office so he could debrief her before she left. Instead of Prowl, however, she found Optimus and Jazz waiting for her.

"Hey Prime." She said confusedly, "I thought Prowl was gonna debrief us?"

"Me too." Jazz grinned, "And no offense Prime, but he was the sexier option."

As with most inappropriate things Jazz said, Optimus chose to ignore this statement and said, "This mission is highly important, which is why I myself am debriefing you, and why there is only two of you. A few days ago, we located a strong energy signal coming from the mountains just outside of Kaon. We believe it may be a fragment of pure energon, which, if you did not know, can be used to restart the spark of a deceased Cybertronian."

"No way." Jazz's optics grew larger, "Smokescreen…"

"Yes." Prime nodded, "Now, there are only a few of these pure energon shards in existence, but until one is recovered, I would like you to keep this information to yourselves. We do not want to get anyone's hopes up, especially Ironhide's."

Chromia and Jazz nodded, and Optimus smiled tiredly at them, "Good. Hopefully, if this goes as planned, we will have our young bot back."

He instructed them to take Ultra Magnus' old ship to the mountains and begin searching all of the caverns and caves there.

"Ya know, I don' know if Prime knows this," Jazz said as he sat down at the controls of the ship, "But I've never flown a ship before."

"I have." Chromia sighed, "Move over."

Surprised, Jazz relinquished the controls to her, and she soon had the craft flying through the air.

When they arrived at the mountains nearly two hours later, and Chromia had landed the ship, Jazz gazed up at the mountains and whistled.

" 'Mia, how many caverns and caves do ya think are in those things?"

She sighed, "This could take a while."

Nearly eight hours after they began combing the caves, Chromia finally found something hidden behind a large rock.

She struggled to push the rock out of the way and reached in to grab the rod shaped stone wedged behind it. It was a grey, mottled color, but once she brushed all the dust and mold off of it, she realized what it was.

"Ya find anything yet, 'Mia?" Jazz called from around the corner.

There was a pause and then, "Nope, nothing yet." as Chromia slipped the shard quietly into her subspace.