The Children Chapter 15

New Limits

Penny felt her insides freeze up as she heard the voice, automated defense systems? That meant they were going to get shot at didn't it? She thought to herself. Suddenly all around her the ground came to life, large metallic guns surfaced bringing plants and tree roots with them. Some were so overgrown they made loud creaking noises as they tried to push through the over growth.

"Penny, run" Ratchet said tugging on her shirt to get her attention.

"Uh, yeah, right" She responded eyes wide with shock. She spun around and took off in the direction of Sparkplugs car just as she heard the sound of laser fire. All of the mechanical guns had decided she was a big enough threat to destroy, how no one else had come upon this before her she didn't know. A bright red light flashed at her side hitting the ground inches from her feet, the impact sent her flying into a near by tree the air entirely gone from her lungs and pain shot up her shoulder. She gasped for air as she fell to the ground Ratchet slipping from her arms.

"Penny!" He yelled in alarm scrambling to his feet.

"You need to get up, you need to keep moving" He tugged at her arm. For Penny however the entire world seemed blurry, everything Ratchet said sounded like she was on the other side of a thick glass window. She coughed and reality slowly flooded back to her.

"Ratchet" She wheezed, a large gun had just broken free of the ground behind him.

"Behind you" She pulled herself to a sitting position and pointed at the double barrels that were not looking directly at them. Ratchet turned around and just stared.

"Penny, I'm sorry," He said turning off his optics as he heard the guns internal mechanisms starting up. There was no way they could escape the guns blast radius from this distance and he knew it. Was this the end of them? Death via old autobot defense systems? Suddenly a pale blue car sped out of the forest and crashed right into the gun breaking the arm holding it in place. The shot initially intended for them harmlessly went skyward, and the car backed up so it was level again. The passenger side door flung open Sky Lynx jumped out and grabbed Ratchet in his mouth. He jumped back into the car and scrambled into the backseat.

"GET IN" Sparkplug yelled from the drivers seat. Penny scrambled to her feet and jumped into the car slamming the door behind her just as another gun destroyed the trunk of the tree she was previously leaning against sending it toppling to the ground not far from the car. Sparkplug backed the car up and spun it around so he could drive back through the hole his car made entering the forest. Another shot was fired glancing off the back of the car leaving a large scorch mark in the metal.

"Hold on" He said as he pushed the pedal to the floor and the car revved into action shooting out of the forest and onto the road making a terrible screeching sound as the tires skidded along the pavement. The laser fire quieted down and stopped, as they sat in the car breathing heavily, the road seemed to be the safest place for them right now.

"So, I'm guessing this means you didn't get the energon" Sky Lynx said breaking the silence. He was in the back seat attempting not to squish the other three bots that had been jostled around during their escape.

"Ratchet, what does this mean?" Penny asked. She was sitting in the garage watching her little medic putting the hood she banged the dent out of on Hound. She had offered to help him but all he let her do was put it on the frame. They had managed to get a couple of the parts onto him but were still missing a good chunk, Ratchet had insisted on putting the hood on to cover up his friends spark chamber.

"What does what mean?" He asked focusing too intensely on the hood of the car. Not long after they had gotten back from the failed energon trip Sideswipe slipped into stasis lock. Penny had placed each of the downed autobots inside the house on the couch side by side, a blanket spread across all three of them. She didn't know whether they got cold or not but she didn't feel right not putting the blanket on them.

"Without the energon what are we going to do?" She finished pulling her knees up to her chin and hugging them. Her sandy brown hair fell to the sides draping like curtains over her arms and she stared at Ratchet green eyes filled with concern. Ratchet sighed heavily and turned his attention away from Hound.

" I'm going to fix Hound as quickly as I can," he started

"We can only hope that the Arc will recognize him due to his larger size" He said his optics flashed slightly and he shook his head a bit as if to stop it.

"But what if you fall into stasis lock next? I don't know how to repair a transformer, and what if the Arc doesn't recognize Hound?" She said placing her forehead on her knees and staring down at her legs. Things were starting to get more complicated and she was starting to feel the emotions building up.

"Don't worry Penny," A soft voice boomed from within the metal mess Ratchet was working away on.

"The Arc recognizes autobots in their vehicular form, it'll see me coming and open the welcome mat" Hound continued. Maybe he was right Penny thought to herself but she didn't say anything. There was a quiet scraping noise and the garage door opened slightly just enough room for Sunstreaker to squeeze under it. He looked up at Penny optics fading in and out then fell to his knees.

"Sunstreaker!" She said shooting up from her self-pity position and kneeling beside him. She knew he didn't like being picked up so she just helped him to his feet holding his weight with one hand.

"I don't think you need to worry about Ratchet being the next one to go" He said weakly, looking up at Penny. They hadn't gotten along right away but she still didn't want him to go, she didn't want any of them to. Ratchet jumped down from Hound and headed over to the brightly colored twin.

"Maybe you should enter stasis lock to preserve your energy…" Ratchet said trailing off.

"I'm starting to think you all should, at least then if I go Penny can still activate one of you for protection" He scanned Sunstreaker over and just shook his head, he knew sooner or later they would all be like this. Also they seemed to mostly be going in the order they came to life in, they exception being Grimlock with his greater energon usage, which meant… it was either him or Ironhide who was next.

"I wanted to watch over my brother" Sunstreaker continued, but his optics went dark and his body went limp in Penny's hand. She scooped him up and cradled him in her arms, his venting had slowed he looked like the others. She looked at him and gently ran her finger along the vents at the side of his head, something he would never of let her do if he was online.

"Ratchet, there has to be something I can do," She said looking over at him and holding Sunstreaker closer to her. She felt so helpless watching each and every one of her friends fall. Ratchet just shook his head.

"Penny I can't risk you injuring yourself again, go inside, do your school work or something" He said waving her off, she stood up and left the garage closing the door behind her.

Penny felt dejected and useless; she went inside and placed Sunstreaker on the couch beside his brother then went back outside. Staring at the piles of reject car parts on the lawn she sat down on the steps. Sparkplug had went back out with the trailer to see if he could find some more parts for Hound, and of course took Sky Lynx with him. They didn't seem to have compatible personalities but Sparkplug needed Sky Lynx to lug the parts back to the trailer. She felt a small tap on her arm and turned to see Ironhide standing there, she hadn't had a lot of time with him in the last little while and was honestly surprised to see him.

"Oh hi" She mumbled focusing on his optics to make sure they weren't starting to flash, the glowed a strong blue color. So this meant he would be around for a little while longer.

"I hadn't checked on ya in a bit, was jus makin sure you were alright" He said shifting his weight uncomfortably under her stare.

"Ratchet is saying he wants to shut you all down, in case something happens and we cant repair Hound in time" Penny responded leaning back on her arms and returning her gaze to the metallic piles of junk on her lawn. She expected to neighbors to start getting curious with all of the ruckus that had been going on the last few days. Laser fire, the mini robots that could be seen walking around her property and now trailers full of car bits being dropped off at her house.

"Awh dun you worry bout Ratch, he can be a grouch sometimez. I'm not taken myself offline unless I hafta" He put both of his hands on his waist and smiled at her. She smiled slightly and then reached out to him, pulling him onto her lap and cuddling him close.

"Now yer jus embarassin me" He said wiggling a little in her grasp, it just made her hug him tighter and laugh a little. He was trying to be so strong for her and everyone it was cute. Relaxing her tension she let him sit comfortably on her lap.

"I just feel useless that's all" She said sighing heavily.

"Thas the one thing you aren't, lady, useless. Without you we'd all be trapped as little boys playthings thas for sure." He shuddered slightly in her arms at that thought.

"I'm sure there's sumthin you can do while Ratch patches Hound up" Him saying that got Penny thinking if there was anything she could do in the meantime, she didn't feel like doing her homework. She doubted she could focus on it is she tried. That's when her mind drifted back to Mike, he was probably still in the hospital after that freaky attack.

"Maybe there is something I can do," She said furrowing her brow slightly.

Ok, so maybe going to see Mike WASN'T the best idea Penny thought to herself standing outside of the hospital some cheap flowers in hand. She had bussed here from her house after Ironhide had gone to check on Ratchet, which meant nobody knew where she had gone. I really didn't think this through she thought walking through the hospital doors and approaching the front desk. She wanted to ask him some questions about what had happened to him but she was starting to hate her b rain for coming up with this idea, well too late now I'm here.

Last time she was here she was rushed through the entrance and into the emergency section with injured ribs. She still had the support cast Ratchet had made her on, though he had replaced it a couple time so she could clean herself. There was a lot of bruising under it and she expected that she would be purple for some time. The halls were pure white as were the floors, though every other tile was a light grey color. The waiting room had a few chairs and a couch or two, one which had women laying on it a black jacket over her face.

"Her boy got in a car crash, she hasn't slept all night," A pudgy woman behind the semi circular desk said. She had blue-framed glasses and was wearing a women's suit, her hair was mostly brown but had a few grey strands and was tied up tightly in a bun. Penny wondered to herself if the woman realized that there was a pencil sticking out of it.

"So dearie are you here to visit or are those flowers for me? I'm fine with either one" She said smiling laugh lines appearing next to her lips which were lined with a light red lipstick.

"I uh, I'm here to visit" Penny stammered and returned a nervous smile.

"Awh I really wanted the flowers" She responded continuing her cheerfulness.

"Now what's the name I can direct you to the room" She turned to her computer and opened up the patient registry.

"Uhm, his names, Mike" Penny continued, this woman was delightful but it didn't help to calm her nerves.

"Hun, I need a last name." The woman responded.

"I- I don't know I'm just a friend from work" Penny officially felt like an idiot of course she needed to give her a last name. Mike wasn't exactly an uncommon first name, and she didn't even know if it was short for anything. A look of dismay crossed her face.

"Well, let me see what I can do. We currently have 4 Mike's here, and I doubt he's the coma patient whose been here for months now" The woman said pulling up more files on her desktop. Eventually she smiled slightly and turned her attention back to Penny.

"Now we just had one come in a day or two ago, he has blood poisoning but is currently stable. His last name is Sampson does that ring a bell?" She said pulling a file out of the drawer beside her and opening it. She handed Penny a picture but didn't let her see the information inside. It was her Mike for sure all of his veins were showing through his skin and they were all a dark purple color. He looked terribly ill from the picture they took of him in the hospital bed.

"That's him," Penny said handing the picture back to the woman. To be honest Mike looked disgusting, Penny wasn't even aware of the fact there WERE that many veins in the body.

"Alright, that's great because he's agreed to visitors. It's down the hall, take the elevator to the fourth floor, Room 408" The woman said handing her a sticky note with the name and room number. Maybe she thought Penny would forget?

"Thank you" She said taking the card and heading down the hall, she got in the elevator and pressed the button for the 4th floor. She was glad there wasn't any elevator music; instead she had to hear doctors being paged to different areas of the hospital and codes she didn't understand. She read the room numbers until she located what she was looking for, 408 was pretty close to the exit. The door had been left slightly ajar and she stood there staring at it for a moment. Taking a deep breath she pushed the door open stepping inside.

"Mike?" She said as she entered, bur to her surprise there wasn't anyone in the hospital bed. The sheets had been thrown off and the curtains on the windows had been ripped down. The IV was lying on its side and a tray of uneaten hospital food was spilt all over the floor beside the bed. It was a complete and utter mess and would have left except there was a familiar blue robot standing on the windowsill, arms crossed over his chest.

"Thundercracker! What happened?!" She said dropping the flowers on the bed as she went to the windowsill. It had been a while since she had seen the little decepticon jet. She was just happy he was still standing, his red optics weren't flashing and if anything he didn't seem even slightly low on energy.

"Mike happened," He said looking up at her as he surveyed the mess in the room.

"I was wondering when you would decide to come here" He said and then handed her a vile of murky red liquid.

"That's a sample of Mike's blood, I took it from the hospital a few days ago. They didn't seem to notice" He said and Penny eyes grew wide staring at it, she felt slightly disgusted but also intrigued by the fact it wasn't the right color.

"Why are you giving me this?" She asked switching her attention back to Thundercracker. She honestly didn't know what she was supposed to do with it, not like she was a doctor.

"You'll need to figure that out" He said, she went to respond but he just held his hand up stopping her.

"Penny you need to be careful from now on, or you'll lose your gift. I've repaid my debt to you; I won't be greeting you in a friendly manner again" He finished and launched himself off the windowsill and into the air, leaving Penny standing in a destroyed hospital room clutching a vile of blood.

Hey guys!

I do hope this chapter was worth the wait :) Its a lot longer then the other ones I have posted
as promised I have full intention to finish this story and have already started on chapter 16
Please R&R I love hearing what you guys think :)
I take every comment to heart and often try and include suggestions from the readers!

Hope to hear from you all! 3
-WS