Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, its characters, or its content. I am making no money off this story or its chapters, and I do not intend to.

A/N: Thanks so much for all the awesome reviews! I'm glad I've gotten some more time to work on this as of late and will try my best to continue updating as regularly as possible!

Chapter 8: Misunderstandings

Elaine fulfilled her promise of making dinner for all three of them; Serah was thankful for this, as no one else would have to suffer her idea of cooking, which was healthy, but disgusting. After they had managed to get a decent meal, Alexis took Titan down to the barn for his bath, Serah following close behind with the shotgun. The landowner cleaned up the kitchen, threw the dishes in the dishwasher, and met them down there shortly after, only to discover Serah already arguing with Skywarp.

"I wasn't going to hurt her! I was just saying hi!" The mech whined.

"Just keep your freakish hands to yourself! You don't need to pick her up to say hello!" The redhead growled, pointing the shotgun at Skywarp in a very threatening manner.

Elaine intervened before any seekers lost an optic.

"Serah, knock it off. Skywarp isn't going to hurt Alexis; he's the most friendly out of all three of them."

"How can you be so sure they mean well? You've only known them for a couple of days."

"Well, if you'd stop being such a cockwaffle and give them a chance, maybe I could get to know them even better and give you a definitive answer as to what they're here for."

"I'm...being a what? What the hell does that even mean?" Serah looked confused.

Alexis joined the conversation.

"Miss Elaine, what's a cockwaffle?"

Both women cringed.

"Nothing!" Elaine backpedaled. "That's not a very nice word and I shouldn't have said it. And neither should you, but it's not your fault because you didn't know any better!"

"I too am curious as to what a cockwaffle is." Thundercracker said from the corner of the building with a smirk on his face.

"You stay out of this!" Serah yelled. "Alexis doesn't need to be taught words like that!"

Skywarp was laughing at the entire situation. Starscream shook his head and returned to his work, refusing to even get involved in the silliness.

Titan nudged Alexis, who rinsed off the dog so he could go about his business. He shook off, spraying the girl with water and making her shriek, and ran out of the barn towards the house. He didn't want to be late for his perimeter check again tonight and he needed to check up on everything. The large dog wouldn't be caught slacking off when it came to everyone's safety, especially with a child thrown into the mix. As wary as the doberman was of the seekers, he could sense that they meant no harm. The most malevolent out of the three, Starscream, had even seemed to calm down and acquire a different air about him since Alexis had come to the farm. Something had changed and though the inquisitive dog wasn't sure as to what, he knew it was alright to trust the safety of his humans in the hands of all three metal giants.

After everything settled down, Elaine began work on the tractor she had been neglecting while Serah decided to assist her with it. The gun was leaned up against the machine and the woman was keeping a close eye on the seeker trine and her new charge. She still felt quite unsettled about having to take care of a child, but it was the right thing to do and she supposed she'd get used to it as time passed. She had always wanted one of her own, though she'd never even tell her closest friend that. The woman was rough around the edges and most of the problem was finding someone she could tolerate and also someone who could tolerate her. So far, Elaine was the only one that had managed to weasel her way past the redhead's attitude and into her life without being scared off or ridiculously offended.

Alexis, having nothing else to do, wandered over to Starscream. Thundercracker sat beside his trine leader and observed his work quietly, keeping an optic on Skywarp as well, who was attempting to help Elaine, much to Serah's discomfort.

"Mr. Starscream, what are you doing?" Came the little voice from beside his leg.

"I'm working, youngling. Perhaps Thundercracker will take some time to entertain you. I cannot right now. Maybe later when I'm not so busy."

Thundercracker looked down at the child and smiled. Little did everyone else know, he was great with sparklings and younglings.

"Okay...Mr. Thundercracker, what are you? Did Miss Elaine build you guys 'cuz she was lonely?"

Thundercracker laughed.

"No, sweetspark. We're from a planet called Cybertron. It's very, very far away from here. A bad mech tried to hurt us, so Elaine let us stay here for a little while."

He continued to tell Alexis about Cybertron, mostly telling her stories from Vos concerning seekers and fliers and what life was like before the war had started. The blue seeker patiently answered every question she asked. Starscream, though immersed in his work, was pleased that she showed such an interest in his kind when most of her species had been quick to label them monsters. Maybe there was hope for a future alliance between humans and mechs after all...

Elaine cursed as she sliced her arm open on a bit of jagged metal. It wasn't deep, but it still hurt like hell and was bound to bleed everywhere for a couple of minutes.

"Serah, grab me that rag over there, will you?"

Her friend handed the item over and she made quick work of wrapping up her arm.

"There's oil and grease all over that thing. It's gonna get infected and nasty if you keep it wrapped with that."

"Elaine, that looks pretty bad. I can get Starscream and maybe he could patch it for you…" Skywarp cringed when he saw her arm. When it came to organics, he was pretty squeamish.

"Oh, can it. It's fine. I'll clean it later. I'm not having Starscream come over to fix my arm. That's ridiculous. Can I have that wrench, Serah? Nope, the other one...Yep, that one. Thanks."

The purple flier was a huge help when it came to moving the tractor about while the humans were working on it. He seemed to take great pride in the fact that he wasn't causing any trouble and was doing some good, for once. He sighed as he felt a light breeze blow across his wings. Thankfully, it had been a bit windy. He was itching to fly, as were his trine brothers, but knew they were grounded for the time being. It was a sensitive situation; one wrong move and either of the factions would learn of their whereabouts. He hoped Starscream's plan was going to work. If it didn't, they were slagged.

Sunstreaker grunted, brushing a branch away from his face.

"Sideswipe, tell me again why we have to trek through a fragging forest?"

"We can't get caught. If we drive up the road, they'll notice. There's only one house on this road, so it has to belong to that other woman. If the seekers are there, we don't want them to know we're out here."

Fate seemed to have other plans though, as a rust colored quadruped made his way to the source of the noise. As soon as he saw the two mechs, he let out a snarl and began barking at them.

"Frag!" Sunstreaker hissed, aiming his gun at the dog.

"Sunny, don't! You can't shoot organics!"

"It's going to get us spotted!"

It was too late though, as the red doberman ran back through the woods toward the farm, barking and growling the entire time.

Elaine and Serah snapped up from their work and Skywarp turned his head toward the source of the noise. Thundercracker and Starscream ceased their activity as well to try to figure out what was going on. Starscream scooped up Alexis and held her close to his cockpit with one hand.

"Elaine, what is that fleabag's problem?" He rasped.

"I don't know, but I'll check. He's never like this unless something's wrong." The young woman grabbed her shotgun and headed quickly in Titan's direction.

"Wait!" Skywarp yelled. "What if it's dangerous?"

"Then she'll shoot it, like she always does when she finds something dangerous." Serah replied. She glanced at Starscream. "What did I tell you fuckers about picking up the kid?"

"Quit your whining, fleshbag. I won't drop her. I'm keeping her safe from whatever that nasty dog found. And watch your filthy language."

Serah growled, but did nothing. As much as it pained her to admit it, he was right; Alexis was safer in his arms right now. No one in their right mind would try to forcefully pry anything out of Starscream's hands, as far as she could tell. When she had watched certain clips of the Decepticons, she had seen what those weapons on his arms could do and the end result wasn't pretty.

The five remaining in the barn suddenly heard loud shouting, followed by three shots going off. The shouting continued. Skywarp and Thundercracker took off in that direction, followed by Serah. Starscream was behind them, Alexis held securely against him.

"Starscream, what's going on?" She looked up at him, fear in her green eyes.

"I don't know, but I will keep you safe." He responded. For some reason that he couldn't even begin to fathom, he knew he would.

Elaine was still screaming at the red and yellow mechs walking toward her, firing shots at them as she retreated.

"Ow! Lady, knock it off! We're not going to hurt you!" Sideswipe yelled, trying to protect his face from the small shotgun shells.

"Fuck you! Get off my farm! You're not welcome here!"

Sunstreaker growled and kicked aside another small tree in his way. Sides could speak for himself. There were several small holes in the yellow mech's frame and they were not going to be fun to fix and repaint.

"We just want to talk!"

"I don't want to talk! I want you to leave!" Elaine screamed back. "You are trespassing! I don't give a damn if you're Autobots or not! I don't want you here! Go away!"

By the time she was done running from them, the twins had already come out of the woods and stepped onto the property, only to be met with two seekers and a raging red headed woman, who was now brandishing a weapon of her own in the form of a tire iron. Behind the angry looking trio was the Air Commander himself, glaring at them and clutching a child to his chest, as if to protect her from the aggressive frontliners.

Before anyone could speak, Sunstreaker lunged at Thundercracker and the two were locked in combat. Skywarp in turn attacked the red twin. Elaine ran up to Serah and grabbed her by the arm.

"Where's Alexis?!"

"With that homicidal red maniac that you call your friend!"

"Good! She's safe with him!" Elaine replied, brushing off her friend's paranoia. "We need to break this up before it gets ugly!"

"It's already ugly, you dumbass! Look around!"

Thundercracker snarled at Sunstreaker as he roughly shoved him into the ground. His seeker protocols were active and he would fight to the death to protect his trine leader and the child he was holding. Skywarp was doing the same thing and soon the two seekers had the twins standing side by side a few feet away. All four mechs were snarling at each other. The seeker's wings were high on their back and they looked ready to tear the two grounders apart. Elaine shuddered. She had never seen Skywarp look so fierce, nor had she ever witnessed Thundercracker's face twisted into such a hostile expression. She supposed that this was how they got their fearsome reputation. Serah held Elaine close to her side, the tire iron out in front of her, making a last line of defense between the mechs and her friend. These Autobots were a lot less friendly than she thought they would be and she was slowly rethinking her view on the seekers as they fought to protect Alexis.

"Hand over the human hostages!" Sunstreaker growled.

"Frag off, afthole!" Skywarp yelled, energon dripping down his faceplates. Sideswipe had given him a nasty scratch at the top of his helm.

"What is wrong with you? I thought it'd be pretty damn obvious that we're not hostages!" Serah yelled. "You guys are the ones that started this shit, not them!"

Alexis was nearly crying as she watched her winged friends stand against the two unknown mechs. Starscream was holding her close to his chest in one hand while the other was aiming his null ray toward the twins, the last line of defense between the human youngling and a couple of supposedly human-friendly Autobots who were acting like the real monsters. She screamed at the two offending frontliners.

"Stop hurting TC and Skywarp! They didn't do anything to you!" The small voice sounded over the battleground, snapping everyone's attention toward the little girl in Starscream's palm.

"What did you say?" Sideswipe asked, incredulous. "These guys are the bad guys! They hate humans! Why are you defending them? They'll kill you!"

"No! You're bad too!" Alexis cried. "You hurt the fliers and burned Vos! You took Skywarp's family away! You're all bad! The whole war is bad! Stop fighting! It's wrong!"

Everyone stopped what they were doing to ponder over the child's words. Starscream chose that precise moment to address the Autobot twins.

"This is going to sound highly unusual to you glitch-heads, but I mean you no harm and neither do my trine brothers. We are defending our human allies. We seek amnesty among the Autobots. If going back to your base as prisoners is preferable to you, we will do so, but only if we are guaranteed safety. You will not offline or attempt to offline us." He spoke as diplomatically as he could, though his tone was biting. "And leave the two women and the youngling out of this. They have offered us shelter and we will protect them at all costs. They are not to blame for any of this. You have invaded their private land when you had no right to."

Sunstreaker turned to Sideswipe.

:: You don't believe a word of this, do you? ::

:: I don't really know what to think...It's pretty out of character for Screamer. We need to comm Optimus and get him down here so he can figure out what to do with them. I wouldn't put it past Starscream to use these humans in some sort of trap. ::

"We'll comm Optimus and see what he decides. Until then, nobody moves an inch." Sunstreaker replied.

Sideswipe began relaying the information he had just been given to Optimus Prime, who was surprised by the recent events and told him to hold his position until he could arrive there.

"Prime is on his way." Sideswipe told Starscream.

Starscream nodded. It wasn't the mech he wanted to speak to, but it was better than talking to the twins of terror. He hoped that they could come to some sort of agreement. He looked down at Alexis, who was holding tightly to his servo and shaking, tears in her eyes. Another innocent life that should have never been involved in this pointless war…

Optimus had one hell of a processor-ache. Between dealing with Red Alert's paranoia for the majority of the day, checking over Prowl's meticulously accurate reports, and being hit in the helm with a wrench by an infuriated Ratchet, it had been a rough day for the large mech. Was it his fault that he missed his routine check-up? Nope, not really. He was the Prime after all, and was generally a tad bit fricken' preoccupied. Maybe someone should have reminded him. That would have been wonderful.

Now, due to some Primus-forsaken glitch putting Sunstreaker and Sideswipe on patrol in just the right spot, he had another mess to deal with. Or...was he the glitch who had ordered them there? He didn't remember. Why? Because he was a busy, busy mech and right now, he was very, very exhausted.

Walking through the corridors, he thought of which mechs to bring with him to address the situation. It was an illogical, out of character one, so he automatically took Prowl off the list to avoid the processor freezes said mech was prone to. Besides, someone responsible to some extent would have to watch the base. When he had received the information via commlink, he was told that there were some minor injuries, so he would obviously have to bring Ratchet along, as pissed off as he was at the medic at the moment. There was one other mech he deemed necessary to have with him and he commed him the relevant information and location.

The situation was unique and odd. Starscream had never before shown any inclination toward peace or cooperation. It was very out of character for the mech. Many suspected it was a trap, but one couldn't be sure without looking into it. The trine leader had evidently tampered with their signals, making all three seekers appear offline. His reasoning for that was a mystery, but it seemed that he was attempting to hide them. If there were nothing else out of place, Optimus would have labeled it an elaborate ruse, but he had other confidential information to couple this entire mess with.

Jazz had found the offlined forms of the other seeker trine in a scrapyard. He had tracked residual energon readings there and reported and took snapshots of the mangled, torn mess the fliers had been reduced to. No Autobot, no matter how strongly they felt about the Decepticons, would do the unspeakable things that had been inflicted upon those mechs. Sunstreaker, as violent as he was, wouldn't have committed those atrocities. What was most telling about the situation though, was that the Decepticon insignias on every inch of their form, had been forcibly gouged off. Ratchet said he would have to analyze the bodies himself, but it appeared from the pictures Jazz had took that all three seekers had been tortured, then offlined. Jazz himself reported that the frames appeared to be very brittle, likely from energon deprivation over time. Dirge had been the most damaged out of all three, his torso ripped open, wings ripped off, and optics broken inward. No one could imagine what sort of horror he had gone through before he lay there and offlined.

Added to everything was the bizarre leaked information to Blaster from someone on the Nemesis a few days after the trine had been brutally murdered. It contained sensitive information about Megatron's next sites to strike, access codes to certain hideaways where advanced weaponry had been found, and information about certain Decepticons themselves, Megatron included. There was a plea among the messages sent; leave the cassettes out of the conflict. Do not injure them. Information will be released in return for their safety and much needed energon.

Blaster had finally caved and reported to Prime that he had been in frequent contact with Soundwave. The two had been close friends before the war and Blaster still spoke fondly of the other mech. Soundwave had started to see the irrational thought processes of his leader and now that his cassettes were being denied the energon they needed to survive due to shortages, and had been put in harms way far too often, he took the action he deemed necessary to end the conflict. Having the Decepticon Third display such a desire to end the war was downright disturbing to most and Optimus knew that something was terribly wrong on the Nemesis. It took him a lot of painstaking effort, however, to calm Red Alert down and keep Blaster out of the brig for having contact with the enemy.

With the genuine information that the Autobots had been given, they were able to save countless human lives and prevent several disasters. It was possible that Megatron labeled Starscream a traitor due to the leaked information and attempted to offline his trine as well. The gray leader would never suspect Soundwave, his supposedly most loyal soldier.

The Autobot leader would give Starscream a chance, but only provided that the mech and his two trine mates cooperated with the Autobots and didn't cause any trouble. He looked to the entrance of the base and saw the large white shuttle looking at him in confusion.

"Is it true, Optimus?"

"As far as I can tell, Skyfire. We have to see for ourselves though."

"Is Starscream...okay? Is he hurt?"

Skyfire's concern for his old partner had never wavered. It was one of the reasons he remained a neutral, working in the labs with Wheeljack and never getting involved in battle. The gentle mech could never fire on his friend and he still held onto the hope that Starscream would see reason and leave the Decepticon army. It looked as if that day had finally come. The old Starscream, the mech he knew so long ago and cared about, was still there, just hidden.

"Starscream was reported the least injured of the three. Sideswipe claimed he was cradling a human youngling when they arrived in an attempt to keep her out of harm's way." The leader replied. "Let's roll out, Autobots."

The party of three prepared themselves for what they might encounter when they arrived.