Ratchet was not a mech prone to unwarranted concern. But right now, he was worried about his new Prime.

Elita had changed her black paint to red upon her promotion to Prime. The rest of the old crew had retired with Convoy, so they had to wait for some new bots, and Ratchet was reasonably sure that there hadn't been that much red tape when Convoy was Prime.

Elita had been pretty good with the two young bots, Bulkhead and Bumblebee, Bulkhead was easy going, if large and clumsy and Bumblebee tended to race off without listening, but he was getting better about listening.

It had been a coincidence and an accident that they had gotten their two newest members- Chromia had been picked up at a space port, very obviously (to him at least, Elita probably suspected, but Bulkhead and Bumblebee hadn't) running away from home. Prowl they had found on an asteroid and was only with them until they got back to a space port. (Ratchet hoped.)

Which brought home back to Elita. Elita was a science bot, he regularly caught her tinkering with things and had to chase her away from Omega's spark casing more than once. But then there were the times he'd find her watching old war vids and reading old history accounts that were secondhand files, judging by the annotations.

Like how he caught her right now. He utterly despised the old propaganda vids, particularly the way they left out the dead and the misery involved in war. Elita just seemed to be watching something that wasn't on the screen.

"You've watched that one how many times? Must have it memorized by now." Was his opening statement.

It startled her from the grip she had on her arms. The grapples had definitely not vanished as time went on, but she had gotten better about grabbing her arms unless she was really upset.

Ratchet understood that surviving when someone else hadn't was its own torment.

"Not really, history was never my best subject." Elita leaned back in the chair. "I almost failed the class." She sighed, a servo briefly tracing her arm before she turned it off. "Now, it's almost an escape."

"Speaking of." Ratchet gestured out the window.

"I take a break and somehow they're in trouble." Elita groaned. "Let's make sure they haven't hurt themselves."

Now, it had turned out that the grappling hooks had not been the only thing Elita had copied from the mystery bot, but they were part of four options- grapples, a net, bolas and a fire suppression system. The last had been incompletely copied, meaning she couldn't synthesize the Fire suppressant, she had to have it put in manually. (Ratchet made sure to carry extra since Elita tended to forget.)

Not the most impressive of mods, but one that she was quick to use to her advantage when things went wrong.

It was amazing to watch her in action, and it reminded him a little of Arcee as she managed to protect the crew from the glitching space bridge.

"Wow. She's amazing." Chromia had wide optics. Prowl had to close Bulkhead's mouth.

Of course, it seemed like the universe just loved to throw him into the worst danger zone- several hundred space bridges, and they find the one high command used to hide the Allspark!

The Nemesis

Megatron was unimpressed with the bickering in his crew. He had picked them for their abilities and how useful they'd be for exploration, but he hadn't planned on their unique personalities.

He didn't trust Starscream not to try and lead a coup while he was gone, and the seeker was a good scout. Lugnut was loyal and useful for heavy lifting... however, his regular vocalizations of loyalty grated on Starscream and the others (and Megatron, on occasion). Blitzwing's personalities were also grating, though he was useful firepower.

Tarantulas was constantly tinkering or attempting to experiment on anyone who stayed still for too long, but the upgrades he did make were useful.

Flamewar had been brought along in case they needed to infiltrate autobot outposts, but she usually wanted to be the center of attention, any attention, and competed with Starscream for the most shrill yells.

About the only one who wasn't getting on his 'to shoot list' was Nemesis Prime, and that was because Tarantulas' pet ex-Autobot was mute and had no personality other than hard worker.

"You're all just all talk and no action." Flamewar declared as she leaned against Nemesis Prime, who merely stood at attention. If it bothered him to be used as a piece of furniture, he didn't show it.

"Compared to you, who will even flirt with an emotionless organic-contaminated drone?" Starscream sneered.

"You're just jealous because no one wants you." Flamewar sniffed.

"And Nemesis isn't technically emotionless. The crossover programming is starting to correct itself, and he's regaining some emotions." Tarantulas absently mentioned from where he was programming the scanners. "Mostly basic ones in extreme circumstances, like anger. Only useful for diagnostics. He doesn't feel anything for you at all." Tarantulas cackled.

Flamewar attempted to lunge at the spider, only to be stopped by Nemesis Prime.

Miraculously, despite the processor ache that was his crew, the universe was on his side, and the Allspark was finally in reach, allowing him to leave their bickering behind him. Smashing Autobots to scrap would be a wonderful reprieve from having to keep his crew in one piece. (If he was lucky, one of them would be offlined by the time he returned.)

Except there was an explosion, he lost his arm, the Autobots were as annoying as scraplets and their leader was a femme that was able to copy his canon and blast him out the docking tunnel as they entered the atmosphere of a planet.

He knew nothing else for a very long time.

Elita shook as the cannon vanished. It had been a very long time since she had used her copy mod, but Megatron was definitely a reason to use it. The fusion canon had definitely put a dent in her energy reserves, too. She quickly checked that she still had the grapples and decided to analyze the way her spark burned when they appeared, the same as ever, later. They were still in danger of crashing.

"Stasis pods! Everyone into Stasis!" Elita ordered as she returned to the bridge.

"But what about you?!" Bumblebee asked.

"I'm right behind you, just got to clear these buildings." Elita made sure they were on course for a water landing before rushing to her stasis pod.

Hopefully, it would be the Elite Guard that found them. If they were even looking