Chapter 8

Bumblebee was… confused. In less than twenty decacycles his life had been turned around, spun, left upside down, dropkicked into a garbage chute, and crushed and stretched into a ten year old girl's piñata, ready to be beaten some more.

And it wasn't even lunchtime yet.

He and Lickety-Split had arrived at the hospital, only to be shaken off their pedes by a massive wave of bots. A passing doctor mentioned something about the morgue being somewhere in that general direction and the two had transformed down to get there as fast as possible, much to the chagrin of the janitorial staff that would have to clean the tire marks.

He nearly snapped his doors off when he saw a massive, four legged mech with a set of smoking barrels jutting from his back and over his shoulders aimed at a crater in the wall.

"What the Pit happened here?" asked Lickety from behind him.

The large mech simply raised the cannons upwards and telescoped them to a third of their original length, fitting them into a set of groves on his back that made them look like a pair of storage tanks.

"Still got it," he muttered as he shifted to his bipedal mode, "Glyph, you online?"

"WHAT!?" shouted a femme with a body-type similar to Bumblebee's, though it seemed to be a few stellar cycles newer. She was snapping her servos around her audio receptors to test her newly impaired hearing.

"Good, now-."

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR PIT-SPAWNED MIND!?" Shouted Ratchet's familiar voice as he shook rubble off himself, "Are you trying to kill us!?"

"Oh don't be so dramatic, kid," snapped Vector, "it was the lowest blast setting."

"WHAT!?"

"That's the lowest setting!? Are you trying to get yourself killed!?"

"WHAT!?"

"I happen to know how to use these in a perfectly safe manner!"

"WHAT!?"

"Is that thing even legal!?"

"WHA-!?"

"Oh for Pit's sake, come here!"

The medic wrestled the small femme into a choke hold and began to dismantle her audio receptors.

"WHA- OWOWOWOWOWOWOW!"

"Stop squirming!" he snapped as he fired a set of narrow lasers into the mike canal before opening the cover to take out the mechanism, "I need to replace the piezoelectric conductors. Are you happy now? You left your intern deaf!"

"Ah, she'll be fine!"

"That's not the point!" snapped Ratchet as he popped in the new part with pure servo memory, a habit he'd gotten into thanks to Bumblebee's refusal to turn down his music.

"What the frag is going on here!?" cried out the aforementioned bot, "I though you said Sari-!"

"You've been spreading that sludge around!?" yelled Ratchet as he slammed Glyph's audio shut, ignoring her cries of protest, and began working on the other one, "Bring the youngbot's hopes up by telling them the kid's alive!?"

"If I know Perceptor, then this was no accident," snapped Vector, "come with me and you'll see."

"I hope that you are aware that it's illegal to carry weapons in public buildings," said Ultra Magnus once Jazz and Alpha Trion finally managed to right him up.

"You can arrest me later, just let me get my cellmate," grumbled the older mech back as he walked over the metallic rubble, "Perceptor! Scalpel down, now!"

"You are interrupting my work, Vector Prime," stated Perceptor as he came into view, "I may have to take defensive measures if my safety is threatened."

Everyone stopped when they noticed Perceptor over a morgue gurney in a blue, transparent dome with his shoulder cannon aimed at Vector Prime.

"Put the minicon back together Perceptor," he growled, "or I'll have to take offensive measures."

"The autopsy is not yet complete," he stated, "I have only managed to remove the primary chest plating and her weapons."

"We both know what she is Percy," snarled Vector, "don't make me hurt you."

"It's over Perceptor!" yelled Alpha Trion as he stumbled over the remains of the door with a standard issue pistol trained on the smaller mech, "put the Key's Keeper down."

Perceptor looked almost, but not quite, surprised at Alpha Trion's statement. He had known it was a Key Keeper, what he hadn't know was that Alpha Trion knew about them as well.

The photovolt was out of the burrow it seemed. "As you can see, the technorganic is offline. It would be meaningless to attempt a resurrection at this point."

"Keepers have free reign of the Well," noted Alpha Trion, "especially the Keeper of the Second Key."

"Keys?" asked Bumblebee, "like Sari's key?"

"Of course not," snorted Ratchet, "you mean the Key to the Vector Sigma Module and the Key to the Well of All Sparks, right?"

"Both of which were destroyed during the war," said Ultra Magnus, "you speak of the impossible Vector."

"The Allspark was on the child's home planet," noted Alpha Trion, "it is not unthinkable for either of the Keys to have been recreated."

"But it does not explain how the technorganic would be a Keeper," said Perceptor.

"She's not," snorted Vector, "she's a Key."

"That is not possible," replied the scientist replied after a momentary stunned silence.

"I can't prove it without the Matrix," admitted the Prime, "but you can't tell me that you don't recognize the symbol on her chest."

He noticed that Perceptor looked almost, but not quite, surprised at the new revelation.

"The Matrix?" asked Bumbleebee, "what do you need it for?"

"Exposure to the Matrix of Leadership would force her back into her shell," explained Alpha, "otherwise she could stay like this for the rest of the stellar cycle. Which reminds me…" he turned back to Ultra Magnus, "Ultra, if you don't mind."

"Ultra Magnus, I would not advise-."

"Take that shield down and reassemble the technorganic, Perceptor," interrupted the reigning Magnus as rummaged through his subspace's holographic inventory, "that is an order."

"As you wish," replied the monotone mech as he dissolved the shield and put the shield generators back into Sari's arms.

He turned and began work on painstakingly reassembling the tiny femme, pocketing the t-cog into a chamber in his right leg.

"Let me see," said Ratchet as he ambled forward, "if you're right, then I better make sure everything's in the right place."

The veteran medic used his electromagnets to maneuver the small pieces quickly and precisely.

"Hold up," he snapped, looking around, "where's the t-cog?"

"The what?" asked Lickety Split.

"The part that allows us to transform," responded Glyph, "without it she'll get stuck in robot mode."

"Ultra Magnus," said Perceptor, "I have sent you a data package."

He watched the mech stiffen in response of the new information.

"You assured me that they had been destroyed."

"It appears that I was mistaken," admitted the other mech as everyone else looked on with bemused expressions on their faceplates.

"I see," said Ultra Magnus, "give Ratchet the T-cog."

Perceptor tried and failed to process the Magnus' words.

"Excuse me?"

"Give Ratchet the technorganic's t-cog."

"You must not be aware of the implications of your order," said the red mech, "the only other mech to work on project Pretender besides me-."

"I know," stated Ultra coldly, "but we don't have the right to refuse her of a basic ability simply because of our errors. Hand over the part."

Perceptor seemed to hesitate for a second before opening a storage compartment on his leg and extracting the unusual t-cog.

Ratchet gingerly took the part, scanned it to ensure it was Sari's, and inserted it back into its housing before sealing the girl's chest plates back on.

"Now what?" he asked.

"Now we need the Matrix," said Vector, "but since we don't have it-."

"Actually, we do," said Alpha as Ultra Magnus finally found what he was looking for in his subspace.

"What are you-?" Ultra pulled out the object he needed, revealing the artifact he'd sought for a billion stellar cycles, "No. You did NOT!"

"Calm yourself Vector," said Ultra Magnus, "Perceptor concealed the existence of the Matrix from the council. I was not aware of its existence until recently."

Vector rounded on Perceptor.

"It was a necessary measure-."

"I'll show you a necessary measure!" snapped the older mech as he deployed his cannons.

"Vector Prime I know you are upset," snapped Ultra as his shoulder panels opened to reveal a set of micro-missile launchers, "however, it will not be possible to excuse such an action. Lower your weapons. Now."

Vector grudgingly complied before glaring at Perceptor before pinning him against the wall with his front legs.

"You wasted a billion stellar cycles of my time when you sent me off to search for the Matrix after Logos died," he growled, "time I spent fighting only rust and scraplets, time in which those I held closest to my spark were slaughtered and tortured, while I was not there to help. I will collect, Perceptor. You can count on that."

The Matrix of Leadership opened to douse the technorganic in a soft blue light.

"Do you understand?" asked Prowl.

Sari could only shudder in response.

"I should have known this wasn't over."

"None of us could have known," noted the cyclebot, "but this time we'll be ready. The Earth will be ready."

"And I have to do the prep work," said Sari, "but why me? What about the others?"

"I fear fate may draw them away from you," he responded, "but you won't be alone."

"What do you mean?"

"That is more than I can say I'm afraid. You, however, need to be trained."

Sari's head perked up at that.

"I will load the basic moves into your processor," he stated, "but it will not be enough. Without training, you won't build the servo-memory required. Jazz will train you while I assist. You'll probably look like quite the prodigy."

The Well shook.

"It seems our time is up," growled the ninja, "Sari, when you awaken, make sure to find a mech called Vector Prime. Show him your key and make sure you two are alone."

"My key? But its'-."

"Trust me."

Another quake shook the Well.

"Wait, Prowl," said Sari as Prowl faded out of view, "is this real? Or am I dreaming?"

"Well you are most certainly dreaming," confessed the mech, "but why would that mean this is not real?"

The light surged.