A/N: Bit of a shorter chapter this time, and once again time to see what our marooned Autobots are up to.
The past few months had been hell on Arcee, and she was absolutely furious now. First there was the jailbreak at Blackspark, then what turned out to be months wasted travelling in space to catch up with only three escaped prisoners, only to find out they landed on a world that was crawling with even more Decepticons, and getting bested by them. But, one thing she was excited about was now she had another chance to kill that annoying bug princess Airachnid once and for all.
However, such plans and desires would have to wait for another day. For right now, she was stuck onboard the slow moving shuttle that Prowl and Jazz had retrieved her with. Quite frankly, she was surprised that there was any other Autobots in this system, and hadn't expected to learn that an entire Autobot warship lay dormant on the moon of this wretched planet. What surprised her even more was how many members of the top brass where onboard. Rodimus, Prowl, Ultra Magnus and what's left of the Wreckers. When Optimus Prime had sent them to take down Megatron, the concept of "overkill" must not have come to mind. Then again, it just might take that much to finally off the Decepticon leader once and for all.
"Alright, we're coming in for landing now. Grab your gear, and I'll take you to Rodimus," Prowl said, activating the shuttle's landing protocols, as they flew into the hangar bay of the Lost Light.
Arcee wasn't usually shaken by things, but having never met the Prime's son in person, she had no idea what to expect. She had heard tales of how the ship he captained had taken out many Decepticon squadrons when the war started to spill out into space, and creeped towards the old colony worlds, and about how fearsome his crew was.
One thing she certainly wasn't expecting when she stepped down the boarding ramp and into the hangar bay, was to see heavily crippled looking Ultra Magnus, stood up with a sturdy cane and leg braces, hoveling about shouting orders at the crewmembers.
"Magnus, I didn't expect you to be awake so soon, if not ever." Prowl said coldly.
"Yes, well, those restraints I woke up to didn't help much. Thankfully, that little bot First Aid is a pushover, I doubt he's ever even seen a real battle." the large beige and black camo mech said. "And besides, somebody has to make sure this ship is running at peak efficiency."
"I can assure you, we were just fine in your absence. Now would you kindly step aside so that I may escort our guest to the captain, or must I crack that cane of yours over your thick head?" Prowl said grumpily.
"HA!" Ultra Magnus bellowed. "Getting a little too emotional, are we?"
"No. If I was getting too emotional, I wouldn't involve myself. Instead, I'd just task Arcee here with killing you." The police bot said, gesturing back to the assassin. At the mention of her name, Ultra Magnus' expression dropped from sinisterly happy to full of dread.
"Um, of course. As you were." Ultra Magnus said with a half-sparked salute, and stalked off elsewhere, most likely to abuse more of the crew.
"Is he always that insufferable?" Arcee asked, as herself and Prowl continued on their way, whilst Jazz went off somewhere else.
"Unfortunately, he is. And I'm guessing you caught word of his traitorous actions while on Cybertron?"
"Yep. That's how I knew it wasn't a hollow threat when you told him I'd kill him."
As they reached the main elevator, Prowl received a ping over his comms, and one of great interest to him.
"Something else has come up, so I can't show you to Rodimus. I'll send you a basic map over comms so you don't get lost. But for a more detailed idea of where things are, don't be afraid to ask around. Some of the crew are surprisingly tolerable." Prowl said, as he walked off down the corridor elsewhere.
It was only a few moments until the elevator came to the level they were on, however Arcee was deeply annoyed at who she saw standing inside it.
"Well, I'll be. How've you been, 'Cee?" Cliffjumper said smugly.
"Go get scrapped, Cliffjumper. I'm not in the mood right now." She replied, reluctantly stepping into the elevator, and saw that Cliffjumper had already punched in the level of the bridge.
"Aw, what's the matter? I thought we were still close. After all, I am the one who comforted you after that Tailgate rascal left you and ran off with some 'not-a-Decepticon' guy. What was his name again? Cyclone, or something-"
That was when Arcee slammed her fist square into Cliffjumper's face, having finally reached her already short limit with the black and flame-clad mech. She then grabbed him by the neck, and hoisted the struggling bot up, pinning him against the elevator doors.
"I appreciated it back then, yes. But in hindsight? You're the worst bounce-back in the history of Cybertron." Arcee stated coldly, letting go of Cliffjumper's neck. Still being pressed against the elevator doors, when they arrived at their destined level, he clumsily fell backwards onto the floor. Arcee stepped over the still recovering mech, and made her way down the hall to the bridge.
It was quite hard to miss the bridge, really. The large doors had the bright purple Autobot symbol painted on, making it stand out. And when Arcee had thought this day couldn't be any stranger, the first thing she saw when stepping onto the bridge was Rodimus, the son of a Prime and future ruler of the Autobot Empire, destroyer of countless thousands of Decepticons, stood up on his throne, playing air-guitar like some idiot.
The music itself was very much foreign, some strange melody that she could only assume was from this planet in particular. It wasn't all that bad, she made a mental note to look into it more later.
She was about to shout over the music to introduce herself, but the black, gray and teal sound system that was at one of the main terminals cut out, and transformed into a red-visodred, blockly mech, who merely pointed at her.
"Oh scrap, thanks, Blaster. Sorry about that, didn't hear you-"
Before Rodimus could even finish, Arcee had gotten down on one knee, and a fist-over-spark salute.
"Lord Rodimus Pax, it is an honor to be in your presence. I am Arcee, and I humbly request your permission to stay stationed onboard your warship, as I have become marooned in this system." Arcee said, not daring to make optic-contact with Rodimus.
"Woah, uh ok. First off, you don't need to bow. To me, at least, I know some other mechs get real cranky if you don't." He said, extending a hand to help her up. Arcee, a little confused by his laid-back demeanor, took it, standing back up.
"And secondly, welcome aboard. I'm sure we have spare quarters somewhere. If not, hope you don't mind bunking with another crewmember."
"If I may request, my liege, that I do not have to be stationed anywhere near Cliffjumper."
"Oh, no worries. I understand that he can get a bit… excessive. And explosive, lot of noise complaints from his sector…" Rodimus said, now realising that more people seem to complain about Cliffjumper's antics than Brainstorm's. He would definitely be looking into that later.
"Wasn't Prowl supposed to escort you here and fill you in on everything?" He asked, realising the tactician wasn't present.
"Tore off just after we left the hangar bay, said he was called off elsewhere. Didn't catch what for, though." Arcee replied.
"Huh. Welp, just one more thing to add to the to-do list then. Come on, I'll give you a tour of the ship. You might be stuck here a while, so best to know your way around the place." Rodimus said, as he began walking towards the door. Arcee looked back at Blaster, an optic ridge raised. He just gave her a gesture along the lines of, 'just go with it', and off she went off with a very odd mech who she wasn't expecting.
In the dark recesses of the Lost Light, Prowl's headlights where the only thing properly illuminating his path, as the power had been cut to this level of the ship when they found out nobody uses it. Which had made it the perfect place for Chromedome to further conduct his experiments on Overlord. At least it had been, before the Decepticons came along and wrecked most of the equipment they had down here.
"Got here a lot quicker than I thought you would," Chromedome said, as he was hunched over a small terminal at a too-small desk.
"Your message sounded urgent. What's this breakthrough you spoke of?" Prowl said.
"Ah, yes. I've finally cracked those encrypted files I found stored deep within Overlord's processor. The way they were hidden, I doubt even he knew about them, really."
"And what, praytell, did this information yield?" asked Prowl.
"It's a command, a subroutine, or whatever. The point is, it's Shockwave's design for sure, no other mech makes such intricate details like he does in his work. And judging by the vast contents that I've only been able to read a fraction of, it's exactly what we were after."
"You mean, this is…"
"Yep. We've finally got the secret to creating our own Phase Sixers."
And on that day, for the first time in many, many years, Prowl's devilish smile was that of genuine happiness.