(Warning Mentions of death are in this chapter.)

Chapter 3

Where did you come from, young one?

Sitting himself next to the medical berth, Optimus kept a watchful optic on the youngling, who was deep in recharge. The youngling was blue and yellow in color, with two cute pony tail-like appendages on her head, and a diamond shaped crest on the middle of her forehead. Her shoulders were circled like balls. And her stablizing servos looked just like human bell bottom pants, with cute little pads to match. Cables and wires were connected almost all over her body, some plugged into her arms, a few in her stabilizing servos, and one directly above her spark chamber, all of which were injecting fresh energon into her system, since she was dangerously low on it. Coming to the medical berth, with some printed data in one hand, Red Alert spoke.

"You did the right thing by bringing her here. And you were right about her energy level. Any astro second without any help, she could have gone offline." Red alert said. Looking up at the CMO, Optimus questioned. "Is that the good news?, or is there anything else I should know."

"There is some good news, but there is some bad news. The impact from the crash left her body with a couple of sprained joints, and the chase from Hot Shot and Sideswipe didn't help at all." Red Alert reached into a drawer and pulled out a medical syringe needle, filled with a reddish serum. " I'm going to have to wait on injecting her with this. Being weak as she is, her internal systems won't be able to absorb the medicine. I'll give it to her when she is fully recharged, when her energy level is back to normal."

"That's good to know." Optimus nodded, turning his gaze back at the youngling. "She is so young. She must be about 10,000 vorns old. An impact from somthing like that could have killed her."

"Well, that might count as the good news. She must be pretty strong. A very strong girl." Red Alert agreed. "Why don't you retire to your quaters. She isn't the only one who needs some sleep." He chuckled softly.

"Very well." Prime agreed as he sat and started to walk out, when he turned around to look at the femme for one last time.

"She's going to be okay, Optimus. By tomorrow she her energy level will be functional. Everything will be fine." Red Alert reassured.

With that Optimus left the room and proceeded to his quarters. Laying himself down onto his berth, he sighed loudly. All sorts of thoughts were filling up his processor, so much in fact that couldn't even fall into stasis. Who was this youngling? Where did she come from? Where were he parents? Would they be looking for her? What was she going to think about the team? Would she be comfortable with all these mechs around? What would Rad, Alexis, Carlos, Billy, and Fred going think about her? But the one questioned that still hung around was, What would happen if Megatron knew about her? There was no way in pit he was going to let Megatron find out about her. A little femme like her should never be found and maybe be turned into a Decepticon, or worse, killed.

"No, stop it. Argue with your processor later." He thought to himself as he dimmed his optics and slowly fell into stasis.

…

…

…

…

The next morning all the Autobots reported to the medical room, awaiting Red Alerts report on the youngling. "Her energon levels are back to normal. But before I awaken her, I must advise you all to stay where you are and not crowd her. She might not understand what is going on, and we don't want her to be frightened."

All Autobots agreed to remain where they were as Red Alert came to the medical berth and with the most gentle touch, shook the younglings shoulder. Soft, quiet moans were heard as the young femme began to stir, and fluttering her big, bright optics, she was awake.

"Wha...What happened." She spoke, slowly sitting up, but then groaned as she rubbed her head, brushing her digits over her metal pony tails. "and why do I feel so achy?"

"You're just a little sore, little one." Red Alert softly answered, causing the femme to turn to his direction. "Now, don't worry. There is nothing to be scared of. You're at our base on the planet Earth." He continued as he took the youngling hand into his. This seemed to calm her down, but then she looked around and found herself surrounded by other robots, and the two familiar ones she had seen last night.

"He-he, dont worry about them. They are friends of mine, and yours now." Red chuckled. He then directed her attention to his commander. "This is Optimus Prime. Our leader."

"Thank you, Red Alert. And as for you little one, I can very much assure you that you are in no harm. My men and I are Autobots." Optimus announced, as he stepped forward. "Allow me to introduce my team." As he announced each of the Autobots names, they would greet her with a "Hello" or a "Nice to meet you." And in return the femme would either nod her head or answer them. "They do seem nice." She thought to herself.

"Now then, may you tell us your name?" Optimus asked.

"Name?" The youngling asked.

"Yes. What did your parents call you?" Oprimus inquired.

"I, uhhh, don't have a name. No one had enough time to name me." The youngling answered, her cheek plates blushing in embarrassment.

"No name? That's not right. A name is something that tells others your personality, you spark." Sideswipe interrupted, surprised at the situation.

"Hold on there, we don't want to excite her." Optimus said, turning around to Sideswipe, then returned to the youngling. "Sorry about that. Before we can figure out a name for you, we want to know one thing. Where did you come from, young one?"

Rubbing her hands a little, the femme blinked twice and answered. "It a long story."

"Well, nothing's happening so far, so I guess we all got some time for a long story, kiddo." Jetfire chuckled, trying to sound friendly. To his delight it worked. Feeling comfortable, the youngling began her story.

She told the Autobots that she had came from the Nebulana Orphanage for Femmes. A home for orphaned female younglings who had lost their families during the war. The place in which she stayed was on the planet Nebulana, a couple miles away from the planet Cybertron. She told them that she was the daughter of a low class weapons specialist named Jack Hammer, and to a middle class librarian named Elita 1.

She said that she never knew her mother, because her father told her, that they had gone through a divorce. Her father, gained the rights to keep her, but despite that he had too much work too do. Every single day, and the youngling had been left to do nothing but imagine and read some of the books her father kept in storage. Her daily chores included cleaning up their home, fixing up some energon for dinner, with help from a neighbor every now and the, and ran errands to the local weapons transport to deliver most of Jack Hammers' weapons, that would be taken to the Autobot Academy, several miles away.

She then told them that after 6 stellar cycles of living with her father, Jack Hammer had lost his job and couldn't find another occupation. His only decision to better his childs future and spare her from starvation, was to send her to the Nebulana Orphanage for Femmes, in hopes that another family could care for her. But to the younglings disappointment no one came in to adopt her. She was much older than the rest, and most of the younger ones would be adopted, and yes, she still didn't receive a name.

For 3 stellar cycles she waited and waited and waited, and no luck. Then one night, while she was deep in recharge, one of the nurses bursted into the room and hastily pushed her out of the room, telling her that a group of Decepticons have located the orhanage and were sneaking into the building. Guiding her to the emergency bunker, underneath the building, the nurse and femmling nestled themselves with the rest of the orphans, not speaking a word or making a sound, for up above several steps of intruders. For a while this went on, all the femmes trembling in fear, and the nurses tried their best to comfort them, as the Decepticons continued their search up above.

Then to everyone's relief, they heard the intruders make their way to the exit, and slowly and cautiously, the nurses and headmistress lead the younglings upstairs. Just as the last orphan came up from the stairs, a shot rang out, and a nurse was struck to the ground offline, sending everyone into a frenzy, screaming and crying in terror. The young femme told the Autobots that the Decepticons had waited for them to come out of hiding and attacked, shooting at the orphans and nurses. She told them that she managed to dodge fire fire and reached to the main office of the headmistress, which she and all the orphans were told to never enter, but now it was time to break the rules. Just as she expected to find. An escape pod, hidden away from anyone who came in. She got inside, randomly typed in coordinates, and felt herself and the pod shoot out and within a few astro seconds found that the pod was softly moving its course. She didn't know how long she had stayed in the pod but she was starting feel hungry, but in her haste forgot to spark some fuel for the trip, leaving her with nothing.

She was almost to the point of starving when she heard loud beeps and clicks from the pod, realizing that the pod had reached to its destination.

"And that's how I got here." She finished, sighing a great deal, for she was correct on the tale being long.

Everyone in the room was flabbergasted. She was an orphan with no name, and was nearly killed by Decepticons, who were obviously sent out to murder the occupants of the orphanage, since that was one of their last efforts in order to win the war. By killing off the youths the Autobots might have literally went into extinction. She was a very lucky youngling. A very, very lucky youngling.

"Wow. You've really been through a whole lot , haven't you?" Hot Shot exclaimed.

"Yes, I have. Now I don't know where to go from here." The femme said quietly, a little sad.

"What will we do with her, Prime?" Asked Jetfire, turning to Optimus.

Rubbing his face mask Prime pondered for a few seconds, until he spoke up. "We may not have enough room for another member, but I'm sure we can manage. As of now young one, you shall live here at our base." He said.

Nodding in agreement the youngling smiled faintly. Red Alert the stood up and went to one of the drawers and pulled out one of the syringe needles, one that was filled with medicine. "But before you can get settled, you have to get this. You've had some sprained joints from the crash, and this will help heal the pain."

Immediately seeing a flash of light being reflected from the needle, the youngling gasped and scooted a few inches, clutching her upper arms. " Pain? What pain? I don't feel any pain. I feel fine." She desperately whimpered.

"Easy there, it will just sting for one micro second and you're done." Red Alert tried to calm her down, but that didn't work. He a bit surprised at her behavior. At one moment she was shy and nice, now she was scared and unresponsive. Just then Hot Shot came over to the youngling and knelt on his knee so that he was at optic level to hers.

"Hey, what's the matter?" He asked calmly.

"I hate getting shots," The femme whimpered. Smiling, Hot Shot lay one of his black hands on her left shoulder plate and spoke. " It's going to be okay. In fact, I'll show you a little trick to not feel the needles sting."

"What kind of trick?" She asked, unclenching her arms.

"Whenever I get a shot, I would think up something that always made me laugh. As long I keep thinking about it, and laugh if I wanted to, I never feel the needle." Hot Shot told her with a grin, reassuring her that she was going to be okay.

"I'll try." The femme said. "But can you hold my hand?"

"Sure thing." Hot Shot answered, holding the younglings tiny hand. As Red Alert brought himself close to the child Hot Shot asked the femme what would make her laugh. She told him that sometimes she would imagine her headmistress being splattered with gunk and ooze. The headmistress despised being dirty. As she said that she emitted a giggle. Hot Shot in return told her to think of that image of the headmistress being dirty and focus on that image. The femme closed her optics and focused hard on the image and soon erupted into crazy giggles, and then she began to laugh uncontrollably. While this was going on Red Alert managed to insert the needle and inject the medicine.

"All done." He announced, startling the youngling. She turned and saw that the needle was empty.

"Hey, you were right. I didn't feel a thing." The femme smiled, making Hot Shot rub her head.

"Told ya it would help." He snickered.

Red Alert thanked Hot Shot for the help and told the femme that the serum would take a while to take effect, so she had to stay in the medical room, until the pain in her joints were gone. If she was feeling better Red Alert told her to let him know, then maybe he could give her a tour the base. Hearing this Optimus Prime ordered the rest of the Autobots to leave the room in order to give youngling some time to herself, bid his farewell to the femme, and left the room. Seeing Hot Shot, Prime halted him so that he could talk to him.

"I'm very impressed with how you interacted with the youngling. I have never seen that side of you before." He told him.

"I couldn't help it, Prime. I can relate to her. She isn't the only orphan around you know." Hot Shot said.

"You were an orphan? Why didn't you tell me this?"

"Well, I thought you wouldn't be interested. But I'm glad to see you are. I lost my parents while I was a sparkling. They went offline when they somehow contracted cosmic rust. But it's nothing to be sad over. I was taken in by my uncle." Hot Shot reassured his leader. " I just want to make her feel welcomed, and maybe gain myself a little sister." He said smiling to himself.

"I am pleased that you care for her." Optimus said as he dismissed the young bot and left for his quarters. It was nice to se the young bot love the new arrival, but should he care of her?

He remembered the the first time he had ever shared his feelings for a certain femme back on Cybertron, back when he was in his first years as a Prime, but then he remembered pain and suffering that coexisted with that love. If only Megatron hadn't know about his bondmates existence, he would have still have her alive, and maybe even had a future generation.

"Don't get to attached to the child." He said to himself, as the doors to his quarters slid open. "I don't want her to suffer the same fate as Aquarius. That youngling must never be found by the Decepticons, and be used against me. Never again."