Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.

Pretend it's still Sunday.

Chapter 40

Ironhide had blinked back at him for probably a moment too long for it to be good so Outrider figured he had better finish that little statement before the purring bundle of protoform on his chest was disturbed by his sire trying to kill his cushion whether or not they had just more or less worked out another huge thing standing between them.

"And not in the way that you think." He rushed.

"Talk was put in there first." Smokescreen put in, seeming to sense what was going on in the two other bots' processors as well. The narrowing of their dark optics was a pretty good give away too.

"Then start talking and stop threatening, mechlings." Chromia's low warning was more than enough push for them.

"It's not a threat, Mia." Rider sank down a little more in his chair letting his cobalt optics settled on the slightly twitching doorwings and winglets on the youngling's back. "It's just a fact."

"You're not hauling him anywhere." Ironhide was obviously trying not to growl, but with a sigh that seemed to shake his whole frame Smokescreen leaned forward against the table, caught the creators optics, his wings pitching high to match the seriousness in his voice as he spoke.

"You don't get it. You're not thinking about the bigger picture here. All you're looking at is us, but there are a whole lot of hunters out there a whole pit of a lot more scary then us. Ones that won't give a damn whether or not he's a mechling or what he means to all of you. All they are going to see in the ridiculously huge amount of credits on his head. That's all the incentive they're going to need. And all of you, Autobot army or not, you won't be able to out fox 'em all. Not every time. I think I get what War was thinking now." He cast a glance over his shoulder to Outrider who was nodding along with him.

Yes.

Yes, suddenly it all made a sad kind of sense.

They knew why they were here now. It flashed before their optics like a smack over the back of their heads. The kind of smack War so often gave.

It was why he sent them here.

Because they wouldn't be able to do. Because they wouldn't be able to look at a mechling that belonged to those that had been their family and take him away from them. Because they weren't capable of bringing him in.

Because he knew eventually it would hit them.

Hit them that that was just it.

That they had to do it. That they had to bring him in for that very reason. At least, bring him in, in the aspect of bringing him to Wardrums. Because the old bastard had a plan. They knew that much. He always had a plan. It was the only reason he was still alive after all this damn time.

Hauling him in . . . it was the only way to get every other bounty hunter on the planet and probably off of it from chasing after the cash in on his spark. Hauling him in was likely the only thing that was going to keep him alive.

The hard part was going to be convincing all these over protective caretakers of that.

"And what was this glitch Wardrums thinking?"

"That the only way to stop them hunting him is if the bounty is collected. If they think there is nothing left to hunt. We have to bring him in, it's the only way to save him. Why Wardrums cares about a mechling he's never even met I haven't the faintest clue, but I do know War as always been . . . well . . . War. He's different about it, but he does care. And somehow he has a connection in all this to Bumblebee."

"Otherwise he wouldn't care." Rider agreed. "War had never cared about anything unless he invest time in it, so somehow that rolls over to your mechling."

"Though how a mechling smaller than your palm falls into War's lesson of never caring about anything that can be taking away from you, I have no idea." Smokescreen's doorwings twitched. "That kind of goes against everything he ever said."

"That's the part that still throws me." Rider admitted.

"What are you two babbling about?!" Hide growled, glancing wildly between the two of them. He was still very much unhappy and it didn't appear to be getting any better as the two of them had this sort of one sided conversation that the two creators had no way of fragging keeping up with. It was staring to wear on his nerves a little bit.

Hating the topic to the very core probably didn't help either.

For there were parts of what they were saying he was able to keep up with. The whole lot about until the bounty was cashed in bots would still be chasing after it. That much he got.

Did he like it?

No he did not, but he also had to admit that they had a valid point.

Jazz had had enough.

No.

Strike that.

He'd had enough three and a half orns ago when he walked into Prowl's berthroom after he didn't show up for shift and the glitch was crying.

Crying!

Now?

Now Jazz was to the point his visor turned black and he was out for energon. This had gone on long enough. Too long in fact and it was well past time he did something about it.

So doing something about it was just what had the short silver mech snarling as he stalked down the halls of the ship heading for Hide's room. And no damn lock code was going to stop him. He wasn't the damn silent killer of the Autobots for nothing.

It almost wasn't a real effort, sliding his long claws behind the panel on the wall, popping it off with a flick of his wrist and then shoving his claws into the mess of wires. Finding the one he was looking for without even looking down from his glare at the blue door he yanked it from its place making the door before him slide away with a sick sounding hiss.

The reaction on the other side was just as he figured it would be. There was only three bots on this whole ship that could open doors they were locked out of and only two of them had the actual codes to do it. Prowl and Optimus had the override code. Jazz just used his nature.

Ironhide turned and looked along with Mia, Outrider, and Smokey who were all sitting around the desk seeming to be in the middle of talking about something. Jazz didn't really care to find out. His optics darted out of instinct to the little yellow bundle, his spark wanting to know where the mechling who he had been cut off from was. When he found him curled up purring softly on Outrider's chest he nodded to himself. Then he strolled across the room, ignoring Ironhide's low growl, latched hold of a certain young Praxian by his long chevron, yanked him out of his chair, ignoring as well his yelp of pain and protest, and then began dragging him out of the berthroom behind him all while he growled low and deep in his chest.

He hadn't even realized he was growling.

Not really.

Not until he spoke and it came out in a mess of sounds anchored in the angry vibrations in his chest.

"Ya, ya little idiot mechlin', ya are comin' with meh." He also hadn't thought it was gonna come out in some much of his accent, but apparently he really had had enough.

It was showing too.

Which was why he keep dragging the mechling he helped raise down the halls of the battleship by his very sensitive chevron not at all caring about his yelping cries as he did.

"Oww!" Smokey had squawked before they even made it out of Hide's room. "Jazz that hurts!" He whined as he tripped along behind the saboteur not even trying to get out of the grip to the tip of his chevron knowing very well that Jazz was to the point where he'd rip the damn thing off before he let him go now. "Jazz!" He pleaded again, wondering in the back of his mind why Rider wasn't helping him only to realize that Rider had made the same decision he had just a few klicks ago.

That they had to help.

That they were going to have to talk to make that happen.

So Rider had probably decided that this was as good a way as anything else to make Smokescreen face his fears.

The damn bastard.

Traitor. He muttered to himself before another harsh tug to his chevron around another corner brought his focus back to the here and now and Jazz's ever tightening grip.

"All these fraggin' vorns." And Jazz is now muttering out loud to himself.

Smokescreen figured right about then that its best to stop complaining like some half grown youngling and just let the mech that is quite capable of killing probably everybot on this entire ship and the two on either sides of it do what he wants. Because Jazz was fraggin' scary when he was mad.

And right now.

Jazz was mad.

"Fraggin' pest! Ah helped raise ya, ungrateful—"

"I'm not ungrateful." Smokescreen muttered as they rounded another hall, but Jazz wasn't listening.

"—spoiled mechlin'! Ya know damn well all the slag that mech done for ya! Ya know damn well!"

Okay.

So.

Yeah.

He did. That didn't make it any easier though. Being replaced wasn't a nice feeling. It was worse than being forgotten. Which was saying something.

"Where ya get off actin' like this? Huh?" Another harsh tug to his chevron as they turned around another hall. "Whatcha got in that dumb head of ya's? Ya think this is funny? That somebot is laughin'?! He ain't laughin' ya little bastard, he's fraggin' cryin' and ya gonna do somethin' about it or so fraggin' help me ah'll kill ya both!"

Then, before Smokescreen knew what was happening he got thrown through a doorway that came out of nowhere—at least to his stumbling frame and processor—and landed square on his faceplate in a yelping undignified pile only to hear said magically appeared door slam and lock behind him.

For a moment he simply lay there.

His chevron pounding pain down into his processor and down his backstrut. If he thought about it for a nano he'd wonder if Jazz dented the damn thing, but honestly he didn't want to touch it in order to find out. So it was with a very slow motion he pulled his arms under him and pushed himself up only to freeze when he found himself looking up to the form of his black and white brother curled up on his berth reading a datapad.

Oh slag.

A handful of klicks passed slow and heavy almost drugged in the air as the two sets of blue optics stared at each other until Smokescreen pulled his optics away with a yank Prowl felt in his chest and scrambled to his feet. He was backed to the door before he knew he'd done it, wings low, plating tight, but he knew better then to try the way out. Jazz most surly locked them in and it would only be Jazz that was going to let him out.

He could call Rider.

The thought drifted to the forefront of his processor.

Spark or comm, Rider would come. No door would stop him. If Smokey couldn't take it Rider would come and get him. Because they protected each other. It was what they did.

Smokescreen was not a coward though. He had not survived the Rings by backing down from a challenge. He had lived through every pit he'd found himself in and this one would be no different. He would survive, and he would come out stronger on the other side. That or he'd die. That was just the way things were.

So with a hard swallow he stood his retreated ground and watched the elder mech sit there on the berth and stare at him with strange optics.

He said the first thing that came to his processor knowing it probably made him an aft, but honestly he was so torn up in his chest about this being an aft didn't seem like such a bad thing. At least it was an act he could keep to. Something to hold himself up with.

"Never known you to pout."

Which turned out to be the worst possible thing he could have come up with. Because the datapad Prowl had been holding bouncing off his already aching chevron. The next thing he knew after he yelped and hit the ground again was that he was being yanked up by his chest armor and shaken around like a rag doll.

"Pouting!? Did you just say I'm pouting!?"

Well.

That was never a good tone for his brother to use.

"YOU THINK I'M FRAGGIN' POUTING!?"

No.

No really.

He just hadn't know what else to say.

"No!" Smokescreen hissed back slamming and arm up to shove the other mech away from him. Prowl wasn't very steady on his feet it seemed, that or Smokey really did shove him that hard because he stumbled back almost halfway across the simple berthroom. It ended up with the two of them standing there glaring at each other again as their vents cycled hard until Smokescreen finally snorted and looked away.

He couldn't look into those optics.

He didn't like what he found.

"No . . . I don't think that."

Prowl sucked in a hard breath that made it sound like he was about to start yelling only for the sound to come out of his throat to be a horse whisper. "Then why did you say it?"

"Because I'm an aft." It rolled off his tongue easy as energon and it ended in making him letting out a laugh. A harsh sound that sounded more bitter than anything else. "And because I don't know what else to say."

That had the other mech blinking back at him a few times before sighing. "You could start with 'hi'. You could call me Prowler. You could say anything you damn well want to just stop making it sound like I don't care, Smokescreen. I can't take it. Please."

The last part came out in almost a whine and it was then, right then, that Smokey finally saw it. Saw what he probably should have been looking at since they got here because he could see it in Mia and Hide. In Hammer. In Fire.

However, it accrued to him right then that he hadn't been looking for it in his brother. That moment in the hallway when the grey mech caught Prowl, Smokescreen had thought it was over before it even started. So in typical Smokescreen fashion he refused.

He simply refused.

It was easier to hurt because he made himself hurt—and pit didn't that sound way too much like Rider and his bad habit, damn—then to admit to letting others hurt him. It made him feel less weak. Like he had more control over a life that had long ago slipped like sand through his fingers.

It also seemed very, very stupid now. Now that he was looking and he could see it.

Prowl . . . missed him.

Not only did he missed him though, he . . . he wanted him back!

Smokey found his head tilted to the side, optics wide and confused as his wings raised slightly behind him. Flexing a sort of motion, a motion he had almost forgotten how to use. A short, half flex half wave, a motion that almost by instinct Prowl mimicked only his was accompanied by a cut off sob that he seemed to smoother in his throat before it could fully make its way free.

For some reason that was what did it. That motion of a youngling calling to a guardian and the sound it brought out of the mech that he'd let himself forget had lived his entire life trying to make his better. Smokescreen was across the room without knowing he moved. Then he was buried in a warm white chest grasping hold and crying his optics out as strong arms wrapped around him so tightly plating was creaking and denting.

He didn't care.

He just about climbed up into the middle of his brother as they sank to the floor both of them holding to each other. Both of them crying as they held on even tighter.

That's how Jazz found them what has to be at least a joor later, though somewhere in there that Smokescreen can't remember Prowl took them both to his berth and wrapped a blanket around Smokescreen's trembling wings. Prowl had stopped crying a long time ago, Smokey was starting to wonder if he'd every really been at all because it might have all just been him, but his grip had yet to let up. He clung to Smokey's frame even if he was no longer a youngling and no longer really fit in his brother's lap. Truthfully, he was still smaller then Prowl but not by a lot.

None of that seemed to matter to Prowl though. He sat there against the wall on his berth just holding onto him as he hid in his chest and cried about . . .everything.

Everything he didn't know how to say.

Rider had picked up on his emotions and pulsed at him more than once to make sure he was okay, but when Smokey hadn't started calling him for help the larger mech left him to deal with his emotions on his own. He seemed to sense somewhere in what he could feel between their strong link that Smokey needed to do this on his own. He'd probably known for a while, longer then Smokescreen did, that he really just needed to let himself cry.

Smokey couldn't remember the door to Prowl's room finally opening. He wasn't sure if Prowl called the silver mech or if Jazz was going to come back at this time anyway, but he did realize the spy was there when the berth dipped and Jazz pulled himself up to rest against the wall beside Prowl while he pulled cubes of energon out of his subspace.

He didn't really feel like pulling himself up out of his brother's chest though so Smokescreen stayed curled there hiding from the world, everything he'd said, and done. The truth was he probably really needed Dust. Dust and his ever glowing red optics, that easy smile he wore, and his calm deep voice that could pull not only Rider back but Smokey as well when they fell too far into the darkness of everything they survived. The old medic looked after them more than he ever had any cause too, and the same could be said for War in his own way. Sure there was no softness to War, no warmth or understanding, but there was still caring. Caring the only way Wardrums knew how. With War there was only get up, get it together, and get the pit back into the fight.

But sometimes that was just what was needed. A hard kick to the aft to serve as a reminder that getting back up was possible. That it could be done. That they hadn't been broken so many times there was no way they could ever be okay again. Those two mechs were not anything he ever thought they would be the night he woke up on Dustoff's med table. He never thought he'd find a sort of family down there in that pit. He most certainly never thought they'd bring Rider to him in some weird twist of fate.

Smokescreen was no fool though.

He knew there was a lot War and Dust didn't say, didn't do, whether because they couldn't or wouldn't. From huge things to smaller things. It was true they were doing all they knew how to do to care and keep them alive in that pit, but freeing them was never on that list. If it was because they couldn't or if it was because War wouldn't let the go because he needed them Smokescreen had never known. He'd also never asked. He'd learned long ago sometimes it was better to just not ask War. That if he didn't tell then there was a reason for it.

Even if there were one or two questions he probably should have answered. Probably should have given that Smokey felt he and Rider had a right to know. Like the fact that Dust had saved the femmes that raised them and Mirage. That he had somehow managed to free them—and not free the two hunters.

Or a much more simpler one.

Like how and why did Mercy die?

An energon cube clicking against his arm while Prowl's hand pulled his blanket down enough for him to be forced to look up at the world pulled him from his mind. Some of darkness and pain that had resided in those dark optics now shown down at him with something that looked suspiciously like hope instead of those colder things. Smokescreen is suddenly desperately afraid of shattering it.

"Drink." Prowl told him gruffly, the scratchiness of his voice proving that he had been crying just as much as his stupid little brother had. Smokescreen say no point in arguing with him though, he was hungry anyway, so he sat up and shifts trying to pull himself out of Prowl's lap only to have the larger Praxian's arm below his wings tighten to keep him in place. Smokey looks up at him, slightly confused for a moment before the determination he finds there makes him sigh and settle in as he takes the offered cube. Sipping quietly at the tingly fuel his processor doesn't catch it at first. He's actually on about his four mouthful before suddenly his optics widen and he pulls back looking down at the purple cube like it's some foreign substance.

Nickel.

Carbonate.

A pinch of caffeine.

And far too much paraxanthine to probably be healthy.

He hadn't had energon mixed like that in over . . . well a damn long time. Since the last time Jazz or Prowl mixed up his energon. When he was a mechling . . . .

He was sort of afraid he was gonna start crying again, but instead he swallowed it down as he did the sweet energon as he went back to sipping quietly. He pretended Jazz wasn't smirking proudly at Prowl and that the black and white mech wasn't smiling fondly back at him. He really didn't need to feel more like an aft for not having seen this before.

Which was why he lowered his optics into his energon and just sipped while he watched his reflection in the warm liquid. That didn't last too long however, because seated there across his brother's lap made it really hard to hide the flexing in his energy field as well as disguise somewhat the nervous twitching of his wings. The hand that Prowl had wrapped around his back tightened momentarily and then loosed again drawing his attention up.

"Will you talk to me now?" Prowl asked him quietly, optics searching his faceplate for something Smokey was very afraid he would find.

Taking a deep breath he lowered the cube to his thigh letting a wing twitch nervously just once as he let that breath back out again. "I guess. What do you want to talk about?"

"Why you think I could replace you, why you think I would."

Smokey shrugged. "I don't know. When I saw him catch you, when I saw how you reacted. I, uh . . . I know how Praxus falling hit me. I know I held on tighter then I should have to what I could get. I guess I figured that with you it would have made sense to fill the gap so you wouldn't have to feel it anymore."

"I love Bluestreak, Smokey." Prowl's deep gaze prickled his plating, but still the tri colored hunter refused to lift his head. "I taught him. I took care of him. I helped put him back together as much as he helped put me back together after Praxus fell. Yes, he has become more then an apprentice, yes he is like a little brother to me, but no. No he never replaced you. He had never wanted to replace you. He knows everything about you. Besides Jazz and every once and while Hide he is the only one I have ever felt I could really talk about you with. Mainly because he never knew you. I . . . enjoyed telling him about you. About all the good about you, and not having to remember the one stupid choice you made that took you away from me every time a conversation about you would come up."

"I didn't mean to leave you know." As soon as it came out he snapped his jaw back closed and cringed.

Prowl didn't shove him to the floor like he thought he would with such a stupid comment though. If anything the mech's grip tightened momentarily with a sigh.

"I know that, Smokescreen, but that didn't make it hurt any less."

Sitting up Smokey huffed. "Didn't hurt any less when I got blow to pit either. It wasn't a plan. I was gonna come home. I wanted to come home. I didn't mean to get caught up in the start of a stupid war. I didn't mean to get sold into the rings as a toy. I didn't mean to wake up on Dustoff's table. I didn't mean to end up belonging to War or getting on Oblivion's bad side."

"I know." Prowl whispered. "What I don't know is why you'd think I'd think that."

Smokescreen shrugged, motioning toward his head. "It's weird in here."

"I don't really think—"

"Don't pretend to get it, Prowl." Smokescreen's voice lowered, and the use of his real name was not an accident. "You don't get it. You can't get it. It's not a logical thing that can be explained or rationed out. I shouldn't have survived. None of it. Dust and War shouldn't have gave a damn about some little sold berth toy." Prowl went ridged and Jazz choked on his energon. "War shouldn't have stolen me from Oblivion; Dust shouldn't have put me back together. I'm not built like the bots they tried to save. None of it was logical, none of it was fair, it just happened and I survived. There is nothing more to it than that. It's all real simple actually."

He was answered by silence. A very long and tense stretch of silence.

Smokescreen didn't cave to it though. He knew he needed to talk, he knew he had too, but that didn't mean he was going to make it kind. His life wasn't kind. It was hard and it was factual, his brother really should have been able to get that. After all, he'd take a page out of the elder mech's book when he became this way.

However, it seemed his big brother was a bit hung up. Not that Smokey could really say he blamed him all that much. He had just kinda thrown it in there like it was nothing, and technically—to him—it was. It was as he had told Mia and Hide. He didn't do it anymore. He had choices now. Bots that were fraggin' stupid enough to touch him without his consent now ended up dead in very painful ways.

Wardrums had saved him and Dustoff had helped him deal with his shame and his pain. Then neither of them stopped him when he took up a habit to lean on. They hadn't liked it and War smacked him more than a few times, but it was allowed as the massive Knight trained him to fight—to survive—in the Rings so he could make a good enough name for himself that he would be allowed to become a hunter for War. Because stolen or not War couldn't just put him to work as a hunter. Oblivion would have had him killed before War could stop it, at least in the Ring fights War had had some manner of control over what happened to him.

Then Rider had ended up there and War just had a hay day.

It worked out in the end. He was still sitting breathing, which in and of itself was remarkable if he did say so himself. Yes, technically he did sort of hate his whole life and every nano he was breathing while he did it, but hey he was still alive.

So.

There was an upside.

Sort of.

But then he actually looked at the way Jazz's visor turned as black as death again and Prowl was staring at him with his jaw clamped so tight it was trembling and he suddenly thought maybe being dead wouldn't be such a bad thing.

"What. Did. Ya. Just. Say?" The bit words rolling out of Jazz's mouth sort of surprised him, and maybe they shouldn't have but they did.

No matter that Jazz had pretty much raised him right alongside Prowler. Considering Prowl brought Jazz home just about the same time their creators died and they moved to Iacon. Smokey honestly didn't have many memories when Jazz wasn't there. He became as much a brother to him as Prowl was. As much of a guardian. He'd lived with them for a long time while Prowl had been helping him get a job and enough credits to get his own place. Then when he had had a place of his own Jazz was almost always with them. Helping take care of Smokey, and Rider, and Hammer, and all of the rest of their weird little family as well.

Smokescreen was suddenly unsure of why he hadn't been just as scared of what Jazz thought as he had been Prowl. Then he was wondering why he'd been scared in the first place.

He had other things to be worried about at the moment though so right now he put it down and straightened his back trying to look as steady as one could look when they were perched sideways in their big brother's lap.

"You heard me, Jazz." He let his doorwings rise stiffly behind him. "That's what I was sold as when those bastards pulled me out of the ruble. They sold me to a Ring to be a pretty toy, and I was for a pit of a long time that I'm not going to tell you about. But I'm not anymore. No bot touches me unless I allow it now. War and Dust saved me. Why? Haven't really got a clue, but they did. Now can we drop it?"

Prowl's grip tighten behind his back, a low and angry snarl working its way through his chest that had Smokey leaning away only to be pulled back as Prowl let the sound go as quickly as he had allowed it to come to life. Then he yanked Smokey forward drawing out a yelp and buried him in his chest like he was trying to hide him from the world or something stupid like that. Yet the tri colored hunter couldn't make himself pull away and instead he let out a sigh leaning there against his brother while Jazz's dangerous claws crept forward to rub at the chevron he'd been yanking on earlier.

There was nothing much else to say about it, not in Smokescreen opinion and sense he was pretty much done with the conversation it meant it was over. For now at least.

The three of them sat there for a long time after that. Just sat there. Breathing, being, feeling because apparently it something that Smokescreen needed as much as Prowl did. It was only when the silence had stretched on for a long, long time did Prowl finally speak up again.

"I love you." He muttered softly against Smokescreen's forehead. Chevron resting against chevron in a old gesture that Smokescreen hadn't used in so long he'd almost forgotten his breed did it. "You know that don't you?"

A soft snort rattled out of the hunter's vents before he sighed. "It's kinda nice to hear it again."

"I don't care what you did, Smokescreen. I'm just happy you're alive. I love you. I missed you. I want my little brother back."

"I'm not that mech anymore, Prowler." He whispered back, hiding away in the strength of his brother's chest. "I can't find him."

"You're wrong."

"I'm really not."

"Will you let me try and show you that I'm not?"

Pulling back slightly his blue optics settled up upon his brother's and with a sad smile he sighed. "You really do want me to stay don't you? Even if I am . . . this."

"You're Smokescreen." Prowl's optics and voice hardened as he stared down at him fiercely. "And that's all you need to be."

Smile warming a few degrees the hunter nodded as he looked to the berthroom door. "I guess it's about time we talked to Optimus."

Gathering the command staff into the largest meeting room they had wasn't a big affair. They'd all been on edge waiting since the hunters got here so when the call went out it took hardly longer than a few klicks for them to gather. And gather they did, the entire command staff. Including Magnus, Roddy, Optimus, Elita, Jumpwire, First Aid, Quickfire, Hammerdown, Ratchet, Arcee, Ironhide, Chromia, Jolt, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Jazz, Prowl, Silverbolt, Grimlock, Wheeljack, and Bluestreak. A representation of pretty much the entire core unit of not only this faction but this family as well not to mention all the different heads of the faction.

It all of it as well was a very much in recharge little mechling curled up in Grimlock's claws as the massive ancient mech sat in a corner of the room. His massive frame tucked up as much as he could make it, ignoring the rather shocked looks on the hunter's faceplate's at the sight of him as he kept the purring little bundle not only safe but calm against his old chest. The mechling's pups had been left resting on the guardians' berth since it was easier to not have to deal with Scout's attitude that was too big for his frame and would do nothing to help what was already going to be a very tense conversation.

There were questions among the air that were demanding be answered and the givers of those answers were already walking the fine line of what they were capable of discussing. Perched on the back of a swivel chair with his swords hanging down from his sides Smokescreen might be the very picture of chill with his cool optics and his relaxed wings, but more than one in this room knew not a joor ago he was shriving in a ball in his brother's lap. Just as Rider could lean back in his chair all he wanted and play with a cube of energon, but they weren't fooling anybot, and for the first time sense they go here they weren't actively trying either.

It was strange, but at the same time it wasn't.

When the shock of the ancient and the crowd seemed to wear off of the hunters they turned their focus to the towering commander of the Autobot's that looked down at them with calm but nervous bright blue orbs. There was so much to be had in this conversation, so much riding on it, but Optimus had never been a cruel mech. He did not push even when he could have.

Which was why Rider opened his mouth.

"Wardrums sent us here for him." A nod in the direction of the resting mechling.

"Wardrums?" The name rolling off the golden twin's tongue burned like acid and it drew the attention of the two hunters. For only some mech that knew the last Knight of Cybertron could say his name like that.

"Yes." Smokescreen drew out the word, head tilting and doorwings rising behind his back.

"You know him." And that wasn't a question as it rolled out of Rider's chest. He knew the look in those golden optics well enough to know that asking was foolish. He also knew from what Hide had told him just who these two were.

The only success stories War and Dust had ever told. The twins; Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. The only mechs they ever managed to save. At least the only ones they ever talked about. Dust had never told the two hunters about the femmes. It made him wonder what else they hadn't been told about, but now was not the time for that.

"You could say that." Sideswipe muttered, dark optics watching and uneasy.

"He told us about you." Outrider went on. "Didn't bother to tell us where you were Autobots or that you were both still alive, but then again there is a lot War and Dust deem unimportant information."

"Wardrums doesn't take strays." Sunstreaker growled from the other side of the table.

"No." Smokescreen shook another wing. "No he does not, but we were more Dust's decision then his. He mostly just put up with us. For some reason."

"Why?" Sideswipe huffed.

"Probably for the same reason he did it with you." Smokescreen shrugged.

And didn't that make the two of them snap their jaws shut rather fast and glare across the table at the hunters. Ratchet's warning rumble kept them quiet though as Optimus finally spoke up.

"And why did he send you to take Bumblebee?" The question roused a few low growls from around the room mostly in the form of Grimlock, but for the most part the rest of the audience was quiet as Outrider crossed his arms.

"I honestly can't tell you what or why Wardrums does anything for sure. He's . . . War." Rider shifted uneasily. "But what we've been thinking is it's probably because he knew we wouldn't do it. That we couldn't do it. Knowing him he knew we'd get here and choke. Which we did. And then we're guessing he was sure we'd figure out the only way to save your little mechling over there is to haul him in to War."

"And why is that?" It was Magnus that rumbled it. The huge, towering tri colored commander staring down at him with a calculating look. "He is safe here."

"Only until somebot slips though your security again. Just like we did. Just like those other two glitches did." Smokescreen countered. "You're all really damn intimidating, don't get me wrong, but you should also be aware that you are fighting a war and that's enough of a distraction to cost you his life."

"The hunters won't stop with us, Optimus." Rider went on. "They will keep coming, and there are plenty of them a whole lot scarier than we are. Ones that will take the 'or dead' on that bounty far more seriously then they will the 'alive' part. He's worth just as much either way. Oblivion just wants him. He doesn't care what way. And there is nothing to stop all of them from destroying anything and everything that gets in their way."

"No bounty hunter is afraid of you or your war, Optimus." Smokescreen took it up. "There is a reason none of them belong to a faction. Because they fear the Ring Emperor more then they fear either you or Megatron. With good reason. They also know he and his Ring Masters pay a whole lot better than either of you. They will chase what they are told to chase. They won't stop either."

"Then we kill them all." Hot Rod crossed his arms back at the pair of hunters, glaring hard. "They can't be anything we can't handle."

"They almost were in those tunnels." It was with a quiet voice with which Quickfire spoke up, drawing all optics to the brightly painted femme. She sat on the arm of Hammer's chair staring across the table with him at the pair of mechs who they had lived their whole younglinghoods with. She did not doubt the truth of their words. So she pressed one. "Remember? That pack of hounds and that warper that nearly killed the terror twins?"

Both Sideswipe and Sunstreaker looked away.

"That set a trap that only Grimlock was able to stop by sheer luck."

The King of the Dinobots growled out an agreement, but it was a quiet one for the recharging little ball on his chest had most of his focus.

"We weren't prepared for that. Neither we were prepared for these two. Or the two that came after them. Pretending that we will always be ready is stupid and trivial, we can except that we will not with Megatron how is an illegal organization we all thought no longer existence but is still very much thriving any different? These bots are not following anything but greed and they will do whatever they have to get what they want. We cannot assume we will always see it coming."

"She's right." First Aid nodded when a tense silence followed Fire's words, filled with the annoyance of a roomful of powerful bots that didn't want to admit they might not be enough to protect their last hope. "And you all know it."

"I knew there was a reason I missed you." Rider's grinned across the room making both the femme medic and the huge blue warrior beside her smile while Smokescreen winked back at them. Ironhide's deep baritone drew them all back.

"Getting rid of the threat does seem the only way."

"You're agreeing with this!?" Silverbolt leaned around Jumpwire at the end of the table with huge optics, but Jolt shoved him back into his seat.

"He's right." The young blue mech put in.

"I'm not agreeing." Ironhide growled back at the flyer. "I don't liked it, but Fire has a point and so do they. Besides. I want to burn down the pit hole that is the cause of all this anyway."

"I would totally be onboard with that." Sideswipe piped up. "Got a few bots I'd like to say 'hi' to again before I stab them through the spark."

"Careful there, Sides." Sunstreaker grinned dangerously. "You're channeling me a little too much."

"I don't have a problem with that."

"Enough, both of you." Arcee scolded them lightly. "You're not helping."

Optimus' low huff of his engine shut them all up as the towering commander stood there across the table with his femme leaning in the chair beside him. His bright optics narrow and his processor matching his rolling spark. Contemplating, he watched the two mechs he watched grow, live, and at one time die. Yet here they sat again not as the angry hunters they had come here as, but as two bots trying desperately to help the only way they knew how even if maybe they didn't know it yet.

There was also the side of all this that Hide was right about. It was time they ended these Rings. They had been ignored long enough and with all Mirage had learned and told them about things none of them even wanted to think about he thought they might know enough to at least land a blow that would cripple the pit holes for good. With Outrider and Smokescreen's help he was almost positive they could. By the look in Prowl's optics he was sure the SIC was thinking all this as well.

So it was with that low rumble that the Prime spoke. "This Wardrums. This mech that has somehow set this all up. That saved not only Sides and Sunstreaker vorns ago, but our mates, Mirage, and you two as well. That is doing all this for some reason more than just you two. Why do you think he is doing it? Why do you really think he is doing it?"

Rider and Smokey blinked at him for a moment, glanced at each other, and then Smokescreen lifted his chin.

"Because there is only one bot in this whole universe that Wardrums hates and can't best, and that is the Ring Emperor. Somehow, this little mechling is connected to all that. War was too adamant that we find him and bring him back to him before some other hunter did. He's not just mad at Oblivion again for doing the Emperor's dirty work. He's not just trying to piss of the mech that won't kill him and he can't kill back. There is something more to all this. We just don't know what it is."

A look went around the other side of that table, between the knowing optics of the Prime, Elita, Chromia, Arcee, Ratchet, Ironhide, Magnus, Jazz, Prowl, and Roddy. The ones that knew the information Mirage had brought home. The ones that knew what he had said.

That this Ring Emperor was Bumblebee's biological sire.

It all settled sickly in their tanks as they shared that cold look. Somehow this was all tying back together. The twisted threads of fate tightening and narrowing to point in one very bad direction.

West.

To the Rings.

Slowly, Optimus pressed on. "Mirage found up something while he was spying there. He says he learned it from the mech that showed him where our mates were. Based on what he knows and what the femmes know that was this Dustoff you're talking about."

The hunters each lifted a brow.

"Alright, what did he find out that Dust would have let slipped?" Rider asked.

"Because Dust wouldn't have told him much of anything that didn't matter. Not if he was using him as a way to free them." Smokey nodded his head toward the sisters.

Optimus cast a glance to the deeply resting mechling, then lifted his optics to the King's dark visor. Grimlock stiffed slightly as the look. His own head tilting in question before he seemed to understand the look that shown in those bright optics and he tightened his claws around Bumblebee until he made a closed in box of claws and thick armor. There would be no sound filtering through that dense plating. Just in case that bright little spark and processor were paying more attention than the youngling was seeming too.

"He told him that this Ring Emperor is the mechling's biological sire."

Something seemed to freeze in the air across that short expanse of table. The two hunters stared back at him with optics steadily widening and jaws going slack as their whole frames, sparks and processor, all of them seemed to lock up on that statement.

They stared.

Unblinking and without breathing to the point where the medics started getting a little antsy about it before they both swung their optics to the hidden youngling and just about choked out at the same time.

"What?"

That stalled even the powerful Prime, but the hunters weren't done.

Rider had pushed himself to his feet staring over at the mechling he couldn't see as Smokescreen sat there on the back of the chair with his jaw hanging open.

"No." Rider shook his head. "No. No it can't be!"

It wasn't possible. There was no way.

There just wasn't.

A familiar faceplate flashed through both their sparks, an image shared through their memories. Pale yellow plating. Impossibly blue optics.

They both shook their heads hard again.

No. No it wasn't possible. She'd never . . . they hadn't known . . . Dust would have told them.

Wouldn't he?

Then again, he wouldn't even tell them how she died. Didn't even bother to tell them that she had until they came back and she was gone.

But . . . . It wasn't possible.

It . . .couldn't be.

Only it could.

It really could.

It seriously really could and they were fraggin' idiots to have not seen it before. To not have recognized it before. To not have known why it was they were here.

HOW THE PIT HAD THEY NOT RECOGNIZED THOSE OPTICS!?

A tiny yellow mechling with those impossibly big blue optics.

They were . . . they were Mercy's optics.

"Oh slag." Smokescreen whispered, because right then they both got it.

Why War wanted the mechling, why he even gave a damn, and why neither of them every told them how Mercy died.

"He's hers . . . he's Mercy's." Rider breathed, hardly a sound. Barely a whisper, but it rocked everybot on the other side of that room into a cold kind of focus. "That is fraggin' Mercy's sparkling. Wardrums sent us here to take back Mercy's sparkling."

Smokescreen snarled. "I'm gonna fraggin' kill that old bastard."

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Soundwave looked up from his keyboard, but not because of the sound of the ever present drip two feet away. That leak had been there since he'd built this lab, the air circulation condensing the thick air in the dark room until it formed that steady stream of liquid against a few of the pipes. It did not bother him. Though Rumble and Frenzy hated it, Ravage played with it, and Laserbeak more often than not was washing himself in it.

All in all, it was lived with.

No, the drip didn't pull his attention. What drew his cool red gaze was the forms that had appeared in his doorway that the raised silver head and single optic of his creation drew his focus to. Two powerful forms took up his doorway. One so towering in fact that just his hunched over shoulders and covered faceplate of mask and visor were the only things visible of him.

Sometimes it was still a shock of how big that mech was. Even to Soundwave. Because he was almost one of a kind these orns. There were mechs—few and far between—still left on this world that made even Megatron look like an average sized mech, but only a handful resided in either army.

Mainly because most had left far too many vorns ago since they could fly away on their own. For most bots of that size were shuttles and while mass displacement was a powerful thing it could only do so much when one owned an alt mode as huge as a space shuttle.

Blastoff was the only one left on Cybertron that Soundwave was aware of, and considering he prided himself in being aware of almost everything he possibly could and shouldn't know that was saying a lot.

The mech that leaned in the doorway slid between it and the mass of the kneeling giant looking all kinds of smug made the SIC have to keep himself from rolling his optics at the second visor and facemask that was pulled away to show the smirk that Vortex always wore. Even when it couldn't be seen.

"Hi ya, Soundwave." Vortex chuckled.

Soundwave arched an optic ridge, but otherwise said nothing.

The copter's smug smile did not fade though. His own big frame took up pretty much the whole door that Blastoff wasn't peaking into. Soundwave wasn't apparently going to have to worry about dealing with him this orn though because Blastoff growled low at him. A sound that shook the whole room and sent Rumble and Frenzy running under the desk across the room and Laserbeak shifting around on his perch.

"Be quiet, 'Tex."

The helicopter growled back, but kept his red visor covered gaze on Soundwave instead of looking up to the powerful mech that could probably break him in half if he wanted. Only he wouldn't.

Soundwave knew that very well.

The two could hide from most, even their own commander, but they could not hide from the hidden optics of the Decepticons.

It was all information he filed away, facts he kept tucked away, things he would use should the need arise. Considering they had already lost two thirds of the command trine and their best medics Soundwave was even more careful these orns.

"You called for us, Sir?" Blastoff's deep voice vibrated the very floor they stood on.

"I am sending you two on a mission." Soundwave turned back to the data he was decoding.

"What mission?" Vortex snickered making his relaxed copter blades vibrate behind his back. "Are we gonna go kill somebot? Oh please can we kill somebot? I'm so tired of desk work! I wanna break somebot!"

"Be quiet, Vortex." Blastoff hissed.

"I was just being honest." The purple mech huffed.

"Yes, I know."

"Do you want out of your punishment or don't you?" Soundwave questioned lowly over his shoulder. Both the 'Cons straightened. "I'm willing to let you out of the complex if you do this for me. Onslaught will be ever so pleased. But you must do exactly as I say. Otherwise Onslaught will be less then pleased when he learns you two have slipped confinement again."

"But we didn't slip anything, you called us here!" Vortex snarled.

Soundwave turned just enough to glare back at them. "Is that so?"

The two mechs stared back at him both with equal amounts of rising anger before finally they nodded and Blastoff sighed.

"What do you want us to do?"

Ah! Blastoff and Vortex! How long have I waited for you two to show up? I'm so excited!

And Smokey and Rider knew Mercy, who saw that coming? They also just sort spilled War's and Dust's most well kept secret. And they don't even know it. That's really gonna please the old glitches.

Smokey and Prowl finally got somewhere too. It's about time.

I really enjoyed this chapter. It's so cool to finally get to this point. I hope you guys enjoyed it too, and don't mind too much that its a day late because this weekend was odd. Anyway, thank you all again for your wonderful reviews. Can't wait to see what you have to say about this one.

-Jaycee