Blindsided by Optimus.

That was always good.

Ha! Arcee even had the grill marks to prove it, so there wasn't any arguing with her. But seriously, Optimus? Nightstalker couldn't believe it.

And, oh hell, look, he's driving in. So everyone tiptoed up. Except Nightstalker of course. She was a coward, they all knew it. She knew it. So she cowered behind the humans. Like a coward. Jack stood with squared shoulders and even Miko did, Raf stood taller than she did. She was all hunched over herself.

Optimus transformed up, and Nightstalker winced. It wasn't like he was attacking! He was Optimus! There was no way—Well, obviously there had to be a way. But she didn't know what it was but could only believe Optimus had a good reason. Maybe there was an incoming missile. Maybe he secretly saved Arcee's life. After all, she'd only seen the sweetest and most compassionate from Optimus, even when he was punishing her. Well, he got mean when he was punishing, but hey, he always did what was best for her—

His blue optics swept over them all once. "Is something wrong?"

Oh, you deduced that in one look? Kinda obvious, since we're all on edge! Nightstalker's sarcastic thoughts were getting on her own nerves. He probably wanted them to tell him what was wrong. But how can you tell him he just blindsided Arcee earlier that night? Wouldn't he know, lying glitch he was? Optimus Prime and lie—ha! They didn't belong in the same sentence!

"We were just—" Arcee started to offer before she choked off; she looked helplessly to Bulkhead before managing, "—wondering where you've been."

Bulkhead added warily, "We haven't been able to reach you."

Optimus blinked at them, assessing the tension carefully. "I have been outside of our communications range," he started to say, and he reached behind him.

Everyone reacted at once. Weapons were drawn; Nightstalker dropped both arms in front of the kids and pulled them all close, ready to protect them with her body.

Optimus froze, holding up a hand to hold them off before he continued, "In a subterranean energon deposit." He showed them the chunk of raw energon he had pulled from his subspace as evidence of the fact.

The tension crackled. Jack pushed out of Nightstalker's arms. "C'mon, it's our guy! Can't you tell?"

A long, strained beat of silence. Nightstalker let go of the kids and straightened up, seeing Optimus's worried optics—assertive, judging if he was going to get blasted by his own teammates, but mostly that slightly caved-in chest body language with the hunched shoulders, making himself look smaller and less threatening, and his spread hands in the front and in plain sight, showing that he wasn't going to pull anything funny.

Finally, they dropped their weapons.

It was easily deduced as M.E.C.H. being the ones behind the Nemesis Prime. And even if they had duplicated Optimus, they still couldn't ground bridge, so they were within driving distance of the incident of Arcee and incident of an attack on a military base. And so the gang headed out—Cliffjumper yipping and gung-ho, of course. When Nightstalker was left behind this time, he just winked at her and poked out his glossia as he sauntered out.

Cocked up Autobot.

"If I can isolate the control frequency of the remote link that Silas is employing," Ratchet was saying, "I should be able to pinpoint his exact position."

Ah, that certainly made better sense. After all—as Miko so generously demonstrated—one punch from Bulkhead and he was sure to have his head ringing.

"Aha!" Nightstalker jumped at Ratchet's sudden epiphany. "Frequency isolated!"

Fowler stepped forward. "Then reopen that bridge."

"Agent Fowler. Did you not hear Optimus's advisement against your involvement? It's for your own safety."

"Look, Doc," Fowler said. "I don't plan on dancing with any bots. But there's a human element in play here. And in case you haven't noticed I happen to be a highly trained, government grade HUMAN."

"Yeah!" Miko chimed in. "Plus Silas tried to run him off the road. It's personal."

When Ratchet narrowed his optics, Nightstalker felt empowered to add, "Look, if you're that worried about him, I can be his bodyguard."

Ratchet looked at her. Fowler whirled. "I don't need a bodyguard!" he protested.

Ratchet nodded. "Done. Nightstalker, you will watch over Agent Fowler."

At the look Fowler gave her, she had obviously hurt his man pride.

So Nightstalker hopped through the ground bridge with Agent Fowler into the dead of night, and she looked down on the human that was up to her thigh as he put a hand over his mouth.

"I think I'm gonna toss the breakfast I ate back in flight school."

The first thing they heard was a loud crash, and Nightstalker's head jerked up to see Optimus slam into a wall with a heavy grunt.

Well scrap. That sounded just perfect. Or was that the imposter?

Nightstalker didn't know. Fowler answered his cell phone to Ratchet, calmly listening to the instructions while Nightstalker fell into a panic-attack mode on the inside as she watched two Optimus Prime's duking it out.

"Copy that."

She jumped and followed Agent Fowler to the base due north, glancing back at Optimus fighting himself quite frequently as they traipsed on over to where they were supposed to go. Nightstalker backhanded a M.E.C.H. unit here and there, but mostly left it up to Fowler as the man seemed quite invigorated every time he punched and knocked someone out. However, when they got to the top of the center of M.E.C.H.'s base, Nightstalker looked down woefully on the human sized hole. There was no way she was fitting in there.

"Guess you're on your own from here," she said quietly to Fowler. Even if she folded her wings down as tight as they could go, it would still be a painful squeeze with chipping and scraping paint on metal.

"You go back up the big guy," Fowler said, and he began the descent into M.E.C.H.'s base. Nightstalker blinked at him and looked over her shoulder to where both Optimus's were climbing up one of the large cylinder-like rooms in the base. Her? Help HIM? She was like . . . half his size! What the frag was she supposed to do?

Transforming up, Nightstalker took to the skies and flew high above, contemplating what to do as she circled above them. First off, which was the real one? She couldn't tell. Second, what was she supposed to DO to a mech that size? What could she do? Fly down and swat at him? He'd knock her away like a fly! She flew a little lower as they pulled out their blades, and she waffled between which Optimus was the real Optimus when she heard Silas's voice talking, taunting the real one.

There. That was the imposter. Good job, Silas! Thanks for the tip on who the real Optimus was!

And then she could only watch as the Nemesis Prime slipped past Optimus's defenses and-HOLY PIT! Optimus cried out when the Nemesis Prime jabbed his blade into his chest, and Nightstalker felt her spark sputter to a stop. According to a human, that would have been a killing blow because the heart was centered slightly to the left. In a Cybertronian, the spark was directly center in the chest.

"But the key difference between you and me?" she heard Silas's voice faintly below. "My body can't feel PAIN!" He twisted the sword deeper, and Optimus cried out again, optics dilating tight as his hands gripped at the balde in his chest. Bright blue energon poured from the wound.

When SIlas yanked the blade from Optimus's chest, Optimus pitched to his knees, shaking hands clutching at his wound. "This is only the beginning," Sila said. "Imagine an army of transforming robots."

When he raised his arm for the killing blow, that was when Nightstalker realized she was being a complete and utter stupid aft that was just sitting there gawking as Optimus was about to die. Changing her course, Nightstalker drove down at top speed, spark pounding a mile a minute in her chassis.

"No one will stand against the newly rebooted M.E.C.H."

Transforming with a rather shrill cry, more afraid than actually boosted with confidence, Nightstalker whipped out her electrical whips and slammed them down across the Nemesis Prime's back. Optimus looked up with astonished optics to see her there, but Nightstalker was more focused on her foe that for some reason wasn't moving-which was perfectly fine with her. Slinging out both whips again, she caught the Nemesis around the neck and around his leading arm. When he still failed to have a response, she grew bolder and latched both whips around his leading arm, and she pulled with all her might to hold back his attacking arm.

By the time Silas made it back to his seat, it was too late. The electric shocks coursed through the machine's body, for the most part shorting out most of the circuits. Its response time lagged, but he still managed to bring his sword down to block a hit from Optimus as the Prime rose to his peds to help Nightstalker battle. Nightstalker gasped, yanked forward easily by the strength of the machine, and she lashed both whips out again on its back, shorting out more important circuits as Optimus lambasted into the front of his double with powerful punches. Double teamed, the Nemesis was easily taken down. Nightstalker leapt out of the way as Optimus brought down a mighty two handed strike. The ceiling they stood upon creaked and groaned, and Nightstalker yelped as the floor crumbled beneath them. Optimus's strides were longer, so he easily picked her up and jumped them both to the edge to safety.

Nightstalker gaped as the Nemesis fell on top of Silas. Well, good riddance. Agent Fowler stood to the side, gawking as well until Optimus asked, "Agent Fowler?"

Something wet was seeping against Nightstalker's side. Actually, drenching her. Oh scrap! Optimus's wound! She whirled in his arms.

"That would be our boys. I would adivse you get back to base, Prime. I'll handle Uncle Sam."

When Optimus started to get up, Nightstalker gripped his shoulder and pulled him back down. "Hey," was all she said as she pulled a couple spare clamps from her subspace. Even though the helicopters were getting closer, she had to make sure he didn't go bleeding himself dry on the way back to base. Optimus tensed and sucked in a breath when her fingers slipped inside the wound to put the clamps on the massively bleeding lines, but otherwise remained silent and did not give any other indication of the pain.

"Where's everyone else?" she asked. Optimus blinked, looking out vaguely over the M.E.C.H. base, and Nightstalker waved her hands. "Never mind. You get Ratchet to bridge you back to base, and I'll find the rest of them."

"Nightstalker," Optimus interrupted, "I don't think-"

"You're hurt," she said strictly, "and Ratchet would have a cow if you stayed out here. Besides that, you're big and easily spotted. I'm tiny and black and I'll blend right in. All right? I'll be careful, I promise." He blinked at her, and he finally nodded, taking her logic into consideration. She nodded back. "Can you get down?"

Then a small smile made it to his face. "I can manage," he told her.

So, they split up. Optimus bridged back to base while Nightstalker went collecting the others, waking up Bulkhead and Arcee and Bumblebee and Cliffjumper scaring the slag out of her when he woke up and jumped all over her with fingers tickling her and making her squeal and the humans rerouting their paths to them.

Needless to say, they high tailed it out of there really quick so the feds wouldn't find them.

After losing contact with Bulkhead for quite some time, the bots began to get worried. They couldn't get in contact with him, couldn't confirm anything on his whereabouts. But, the only lead they had was a signal coming from where they had last encountered Megatron, Airachind, and her Insecticon.

So, Nightstalker bridged out with Optimus, Bumblebee, Arcee, and Cliffjumper to go find out what they could.

What they hadn't bargained on was seeing a SWARM of Insecticons flying out and completely ignoring them. And, considering Airachnid's last encounter with Megatron, Optimus deduced this:

"We are in all likelihood witness the launch of a mission to terminate Megatron." Which, while it was kinda jumping to conclusions, it made sense. She tried to kill him with one Insecticon last time, so now she had somehow found and woke up a swarm. Nightstalker found herself agreeing with Optimus, but where was Airachnid?

"I can't think of a reason to stop that," Arcee said. "Even if we could."

Optimus stepped forward and glanced over the side. "But we can stop Airachnid."

Nightstalker gaped at the Insecticons disappearing into the distance as the Autobots pulled their weapons on Airachnid. This was it. Nightstalker knew of the assault coming Megatron's way, and she could warn him! She could save him! That would get her debt free from Kaon, right?

Nightstalker shrieked when the rear guard of Airachind's cronies flew about and open fired on them. Without a second thought, Nightstalker jumped up and transformed, shooting off in the direction of the Insecticons. Cliffjumper shouted below her, but she didn't heed him.

Nightstalker left behind the Autobots, gunning her little jet engines as fast as she could in the direction the Insecticons had gone. She might be small, but she was FAST. That was something even Megatron had complimented her on. Still, the Insecticons had gotten a head start on her, and they were far ahead. The NEMESIS drew into sight with a hoard of Insecticons attacking, open firing the moment they were in range.

Scrap.

The pandemonium that erupted was loud, destructive, and collossal. The NEMESIS itself held up fine, but the stupid little Vehicon drones? Nah, they were scrap beneath the might of the Insecticons. Nightstalker coasted around the ship, wondering what in Pit she should do to help when if one of the Insecticons saw her they would crush her in an instant, but that was when she saw a silvery glint against a gray hull.

Megatron.

Nightstalker turned to him, watching him shoot down several Insecticons with unparalleled accuracy. She zoomed down towards him, intending to help him as well as she could, but the Insecticons were too many. They fell around him, caging him in, and Nightstalker felt her spark leap to her throat when one lifted its claws to attack. With a cry, Nightstalker threw herself down between the Insecticon and Megatron. Claws raked against her front, and everything went black.

"Forgive us, our one true Lord and Master."

Megatron surveyed the scene that had changed suddenly again. He smirked. "This day has certainly had its fair share of thwarted intentions."

And, it's fair share of surprises. Megatron turned, looking back down on the ground where Nightstalker lied, energon seeping from the grooves in her chest. Her again. She never failed to confuse him. First she's ever faithful to him, then she betrays him for Autobots, then she almost kills Optimus, then she shows her loyalty to the Decepticons again. She was a fickle and mysterious one, that was for sure. He could never quite tell what her intentions were.

Instead, Megatron decided yet again that she deserved her chance with the Decepticons. He picked her up and slung her unconscious body over his shoulder and headed inside the ship, pleased with the turn of events. He got the pleasure of killing Starscream multiple times over, he gained a massive and powerful new army, and he now had the one he was grooming to be his queen back in his grasp.

And then, the entire ship rocked and shuddered beneath his peds. Megatron staggered, and he whipped his head around to see smoke billowing up from the rear of his ship.

"NOW WHAT?"

Megatron stumbled his way inside with Nightstalker thrown over his shoulder, and he felt the NEMESIS tip into a steep dive. What in the pits of Kaon was going on?

He staggered to the front of the ship and glared at the Vehicons there. "My liege!" the first reported. "Our power cord has been compromised."

The engines. He should have known. What had caused it though?

His grip on Nightstalker tightened. "Prepare for landing."

Author's Note:

Um... Uh-oh? :O