Hey all! Sorry it took so long, and sorry for the cliffie. I warn all of you against working 65 hours a week if at all possible... Anyway, thank you for the reviews! You know I wouldn't leave you all in the dark for too long! Next week (starting May 11th) is my trip to Las Vegas, so it'll probably be a couple more weeks before you see another update, sorry about that. I'm working on it, I promise!
Anyway, here's the next update! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over Transformers or any other copyrighted material mentioned in this fanfic. However, I DO own Cat and Five, so no stealy stealy... hehe stealy stealy giggle snort
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"Ron! Can you get the door?!" Judy yelled from upstairs.
"…Busy…" Ron replied as he stared at the big screen television, watching a college basketball match.
"Oh for crying out loud… Sam! Could you get the door for me, sweetie?! I'm still undressed in the shower!" Judy yelled.
"Yeah mom, that's the image I needed to see today…" Sam replied sarcastically as he headed down the stairs.
Little Mojo growled as he tottered towards the front door.
"Get back, Mojo," Sam ordered, gently nudging the small dog away from the door with his foot.
Sam turned the knob on the front door and opened it, revealing the face of Captain Lennox.
"Hey Will. Back from the base already?…" he looked down into the arms of Lennox and saw a squirming pup, "Uh… And you got a new friend?"
"Uh, yeah," Will looked down at the little dog in his arms and then back up to Sam, "You mind if I come in?"
"Sure," Sam opened the door the rest of the way, letting the Captain in, "So, what's up?"
"Well, I was sort of hoping you guys might like to take care of this little guy for a while," Will cringed, he was sure that one of Sam's parents would intervene sometime soon.
"Uh… Well…" Sam cringed as well, because he heard his father's footsteps approaching.
"What "little guy"?" Ron asked sarcastically.
"I thought you were watching the game?" Sam asked.
"Commercial break… Oh no, no way. That thing's one of the big ones!" he pointed out.
"Well… He's not big now. And I'd just need you to take care of him for a little while. A few days at most. Just until things settle down. I'd take him home, but I'm sure Sarah and I would have trouble getting Annie to let go of it later," Will explained.
"Where'd you find him?" Sam asked.
"I didn't find him, Cat did," Will said softly.
"Well, why isn't she taking care of it?" Ron asked, watching Sam scratch the pup's ears. Meanwhile, Mojo was growling in protest to this new animal's interference.
"Well… Some things happened while I was at the base and -uh…" Will's voice trailed off.
"What things?" Sam stopped petting the small dog, noticing Will's lack of words.
--
-Oh damn… What a headache… What the hell happened? Did I get hit by a tire iron?!- Cat's thoughts swirled around for a moment in her aching cranium. Her world was dark and blurry for just a moment before her vision brightened, her right eye being the only one to work at the moment.
"Ngn…" Cat mumbled, her words forming into incoherent slurs.
She tried sitting up but one giant hand, and several pairs of human-sized hands made a grab at her, trying to gently pull her back.
"Lay down," the familiar sound of a sour medic made Cat start to become aware of where she was at.
"R..Ratchet?" she tried to push against the hands, but they became more persistent, all of them going from a gentle nudge, to a firm push.
"That's an order, Andrews," Optimus's voice was what made Cat's eyes open completely. Hearing the leader's voice somewhat startled her, especially when he called her by her last name. She finally stopped pushing against the several pairs of hands and laid back down.
"What… happened?" Cat then realized, that her voice seemed raspy, as her throat was dry and sore.
"We were hoping you could tell us," Ratchet replied, Cat noticed a light flashing across her right eye as her vision came back to perspective, "Can you reboot the power to your left optic?"
Cat realized that she must have looked a bit funky to her friends. She had discovered that her left optic, when offline, was a hazy dark gray. She quickly reinitialized power, which reboot her optic, powering it back on. The vision in her left eye quickly returned, which brightened it back to it's yellow color.
"Good. We were concerned that you had lost sight in that eye," Doctor Peterson sighed with relief.
"It always shuts down when I sleep for a while… What's the deal? All I was doing was taking a nap…" Cat yawned.
"According to several witnesses, you went from recharge to offline without a known cause," Ratchet replied, Cat noticing his rough, grouchy tone.
"Offline?" she asked, knowing that there were several ways that the Autobots defined "offline".
"Well you… sort of died…" Peterson explained.
Cat looked over to the human medic and an eyebrow raised in a bit of concern, "What do you mean, I died? I'm right here!"
"After you fell asleep, you began to toss and turn. We tried to wake you, but your movements became more violent, and then…" the doctor looked to the two mechs for help on what to describe what had happened.
"What?" Cat looked to Ratchet and Optimus, "What happened?"
"Cat," Optimus began, "I'm sure you can recall the events of Mission City…"
"Yeah? What does it have to do with-" and then her mind shifted gears, and the memory of her dream rushed back to her.
"Catherine?" Ratchet asked cautiously.
-I can't tell them about what I saw… They'll think I'm crazy… again…- Cat thought to herself.
Cat felt a human hand go to her shoulder, which pulled her out of her thoughts, looking to Peterson, who was looking down to her with worry.
"Are you all right? Do you feel tired, or any pain anywhere?" he asked the normal "doctor" questions.
"I feel fine…" she growled, sitting up and shaking off the doctor's hand, "I'm still confused as to why I laid down for a nap, and wake up to be told that I died and came back to life," she crossed her arms.
"Of course…" Peterson sighed, "After you laid down to sleep, you shook violently, and then something strange happened… I don't even know how to describe what it is that happened…"
"…What?" Cat asked. She was growing impatient.
Ratchet decided to just come out with it and get it out in the open, "Your body sent a shockwave throughout the entire facility, knocking some of us offline, and causing the Dam's emergency systems to activate."
Cat looked up to the medic with an alarmed look, "You… You mean… Like what happened when…"
"When you and your sister fused… Yes. Except this time it was somewhat different," Ratchet replied.
"How… How so?" she asked softly.
"This one caused some of our systems to disrupt, but then repaired them after doing so. I'm still in the middle of checking over our systems, although so far I've found nothing wrong. It's almost as if we all randomly went into recharge, so it's done no harm," the neon yellow mech finished.
Cat wasn't sure what to think. Wasn't it just a dream? It felt so real but… No… It couldn't have been anything more than just a dream. Now the circumstances seemed to change, and she had no choice but to tell them about what she had dreamt.
Cat put both hands to her forehead as she leaned forward, looking as if she were fending off an intense migraine.
"How could it have been so real?" her voice trembled.
"How could what have been so real?" Optimus asked, carefully seating himself on the floor so that he could get a closer glance at the girl.
"I've… I've been having strange dreams lately…" Cat began.
"That's never good… The last time that you had strange dreams you predicted the arrival of Five, and we had just SO much fun with that prediction…" Ratchet commented sarcastically.
"This one had Five in it too," Cat announced softly.
"Oh Primus…" Ratchet shook his head.
"What happened in the dream?" Peterson asked, having no clue as to what they were speaking of.
"I was back in Mission City. I could see everything around me, but it was all in slow motion, and I couldn't hear anything. People were running around me, their mouths were open because they were screaming, but I couldn't hear them. I finally heard Five call to me like she had back on that day, so I went to her. I went to the building and looked for her, but she wasn't there at first. I expected to see her body as it was before, but she just wasn't there… And then I heard Optimus yell at Sam when he turned and used the Allspark against Megatron," Cat stopped for a minute, trying to recall what happened next.
"Megatron was there?" Optimus asked, worried as to what this entire dream could mean.
"Well yeah, but he was killed, just like on that day… But then something happened. I think it's part of what happened. The part that I couldn't remember. I don't know what it was, but some sort of… black piece of metal appeared at my side on the ground. I picked it up and it burned my left palm," she stopped again to look at her left hand, surprised to see that it was actually burned.
"I saw that burn mark appear when we were trying to restrain you," Peterson took the girl's wrist to get a closer look at it as well.
"When I dropped the metal, Five appeared and picked it up. She kept tell me that it was the whole reason that she and I fused, but she wouldn't tell me what it was. And then she brought me to the transmutation circle and placed it in my hand, where it just looked like it melted into my skin. That's when I felt a power surge within me, and the blue light appeared… After that I woke up here," Cat finished.
"How long have you been having these dreams?" Optimus asked.
"That was the first time that I had that dream. I've had other strange ones… None that I can remember at the moment, but I remember them being strange…" Cat replied.
The room was quiet for several moments, everyone trying to figure out what all of this could possibly mean.
"I suppose we'll have to wait for everything to calm down before we can make sense of anything," Optimus began, "In the meantime, I'll send a report to Bumblebee and let him know what's going on -"
He was interrupted by the sound of a roaring engine and squealing tires. They all looked towards the medical bay entrance to see a yellow blur shoot through the doors, and come to quick halt.
"…I think he knows…" Cat smirked as she laid eyes on the desert dirt ridden Camaro.
The passenger doors swung open, and two familiar faces shot out of the car cabin.
"Cat?!" Mikaela was the first to see the girl sitting up on the human-sized medical bed. She and Sam looked frantic as they made their way over to her.
"We thought you were done for this time!" Sam looked exhausted with worry.
"I must've been out for a while…" Cat remarked, "Me? Done for? You obviously haven't known me for very long," she chuckled.
"Lennox said that he was told that you had died, and come back to life but with very little chance of survival," Mikaela was first to Cat's bedside.
"Very little chance of-?" Cat turned to Peterson, "What kind of doctor are you?!"
Peterson scoffed in reply, readjusting his glasses on the front of his face with a discerning eye.
"You waking up was surprising to everyone, Catherine," Ratchet interjected.
Cat looked up to the two Autobots, three after Bumblebee had transformed into his bipedal mode, with a questioning look. She then looked down to the table and asked, "That bad, huh?"
"Bad enough to make Will think that you weren't going to be needing this anymore," Sam had been wearing, what looked to be, a camera case that was square and bulky. He reached inside the case and brought out a wiggling, squirming puppy which was full of energy.
Cat looked a bit concerned and asked, "Where'd you get that?"
"Will brought him over and asked us if we could take care of it for a while until he found a permanent home for it. He thought you were as good as dead," Sam placed the dog on the bed and it immediately went to Cat's lap, jumping around as if he were a kid on a trampoline.
Cat picked the little guy up and scrunched her face up as the thing leaned forward and caught her with a few licks of his tongue.
"Wait… I thought he was dead?" Cat asked, confused.
"This little guy is one of the miracles that occurred during that little shockwave of yours," Peterson smiled at the animal.
Cat looked to the human physician with more than a surprised look, "You mean… I brought it back to life?!"
"I wouldn't be able to explain it any other way. The thing was half dead when you brought it in, and it was severely malnourished and dehydrated. We couldn't help it fast enough and it died. I watched it die right in front of my eyes, and now here it is," Peterson reached forward and scratched the creature's back.
Cat looked up to Sam and Mikaela with a soft smile and asked, "Isn't this a school night for you guys?"
"Uh, we were told that our friend was dying!? Hello! Of course we were going to be here. We thought that this was the last time to see you!" Mikaela scolded.
Cat giggled, "Believe me, I had no intentions of dying just yet."
"Well you're going to have to be the one to tell mom and dad that you're alive… They were going crazy by the time we left," Sam smiled.
"Oh lord… What a story this'll make…" Cat groaned, putting the pup down on the bed and watching as he romped around happily.
"Guess I've got a new friend," Cat yawned.
"I believe that we've had enough excitement for one day," Ratchet scooped the animal up and handed it to Mikaela, "Why don't you two stay in Cat's apartment tonight? You can leave well rested tomorrow in order to get to your schooling on time."
"But we just got here!" Sam protested.
"Well, we can have some of our new residents show you around since this is your first visit since the overhaul. Catherine needs to rest, and all of you need to leave so she can do just that," Optimus ordered.
"I think I've slept long enough, don't you?" Cat inquired, brushing off Peterson's attempt to reattach the monitoring strips to her.
"We'll need to monitor your sleep patterns since that's where your problems arise from," Peterson insisted as his assistants held Cat to keep her from leaving.
"The dream's over, and so is this conversation!" Cat easily pulled the assistants over the table as they all grunted to being laid out flat on the bed, the three of them finding themselves on their stomachs with their arms reaching over the table.
Cat was about to stroll away when she was stopped by "the look". The three Autobots looked a little peeved… just a little… Just enough to make Cat stop in her tracks. She gulped. Hell, even Bee was staring her down.
Cat sighed and reached into her pockets, throwing her keys to Sam, "I guess I'm stuck here… The big silver one's for my apartment…"
Mikaela hugged Cat and said, "Quit getting into trouble would you?"
"Hey, I don't make any guarantees," Cat joked.
As Cat reluctantly did as she was told, she could only think one thing to herself.
She had to find Five... Only she would have the answers to all of this... But how would she do it?
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We'll make this the Chapter Teaser, even though this little bit of writing isn't mentioned in the next one.
So... Chapter Teaser ahoy!
In the deep dark areas of the unused portion of the laboratories, something that was thought to be destroyed and lost was now lurking. In a small lockbox filed away in a safe, the shockwave had reached even this quiet section… Or so it was thought to be quiet.
The tall, walk-in safe, sat quietly in it's corner. By the looks of things the paint would fleck off of it before it would even be considered to be opened again. But wait… What was that?
From within the safe there were some soft "booms". As if something were tumbling around. The safe door suddenly burst open, the door being thrown off if it's hinges. The sounds of what seemed to be panting broke the silence. Small, blue optics burned with fury as the smoke from within the safe settled.
"F-f-f-f-frenzy…. Miss-s-s-s-s-ion objective; l-l-l-l-locate Decepticon f-f-f-forces!" The little mech galloped out of the basement facility finding an air vent to crawl into and search out his mission objectives…
Apparently Cat's shockwave could bring back more than just organic life…