Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any of the characters. I only own my OCs.
Massive, metal creatures were fighting. Chaos and ruin were everywhere one looked. The planet was in flames, ruin, and despair. In the distance, a large space craft shuttered as it went to make flight.
"He's escaping!" someone yelled in the background.
A dark blue creature took off running, scaling boulders and weaving around fights. The aim was another space craft amongst the rubble. Once in the ship, the creature worked to start the engines. Finally air bound, it took off in pursuit of the other craft.
On the ground, a silver creature looked around frantically before noticing the two fleeing crafts.
"Stormride!"
Sam was packing his things for college and preparing to leave. Judy, his mother, was flittering around in tears, while Ron, his father, dreamed of what he was going to turn Sam's bedroom into. Sam escaped the chaos to talk on the phone with his girlfriend.
Mikaela answered the phone almost immediately, "You know, you didn't need to call. I'm going to break up with you."
"You should say it with more meaning, then I might've believed you." Sam quipped back as he went through his things.
"Well I am."
"Ooh, getting closer."
"Why can't I just hate you?"
"I guess it's just my Witwicky charms."
Mikaela and Sam both let out small laughs. Sam pulled a torn, battered shirt out of his pile of things.
"Oh hey, do you want my D-Day shirt? You know, to go with the care package? It's got my blood on it and everything."
"Sounds like everything I want in life." Mikaela mused back.
Sam inspected the shirt further, and noticed a shard he hadn't noticed before.
"Huh." Sam started, "I think there's still a shard of the AllSpark stuck in my shirt."
When Sam pulled the shard out, he inspected it in his hand. He walked down the stairs with it, phone cradled between his ear and shoulder. The shard sparked, causing Sam to jump and let out a small cry. Suddenly, the appliances in the kitchen began to move. Judy and Ron both started to panic. Ron went for the dogs as a fire began in the house.
"Sam!" Judy yelled.
"I'm gonna have to call you back!" Sam quickly said down the phone.
"Wh-" Sam hung up before Mikaela could get any further.
"Bumblebee!" Sam called.
Bumblebee, the Autobot that had been living with Sam since before the Mission City battle, started squealing. Bumblebee effectively took care of the kitchen appliances that had come to life. Firefighters arrived shortly after to take care of the fire.
"Sam!" Judy yelled again.
"Here! Take this Bee!" Sam threw the shard into Bumblebee's interior, effectively hiding it from his mother. Bumblebee was in his alt mode, a black and yellow Chevrolet Camero.
While Sam was being chastised by Judy, Bumblebee sent out a radio transmission to the Autobots.
Optimus, Sam found a piece of the AllSpark. It's active. It changed the kitchen appliances in the kitchen.
Do you have it in your possession?
Affirmative.
I'll send Sideswipe and Sunstreaker to come retrieve it.
Copy.
The comm link was effectively cut off afterward. Bumblebee couldn't help but think about Sam. The boy was to be heading to college soon. Having a shard of the AllSpark was dangerous. Bumblebee figured it would be safer in the hands of the Autobots.
Later in the day, Bumblebee went to meet with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. The urgency to hand over the AllSpark shard was great. Bumblebee sat quietly in his alt mode waiting for the twins. The matching squeal of tires alerted him to their approach. A Corvette Stingray and a Lamborghini Countach turned the corner. In order to stay inconspicuous, the three stepped out of their alt modes in their holoforms. Holoforms were created by Ratchet. Essentially, they were holograms were solid.
Bumblebee appeared as a seventeen year old in jeans and a hoodie. The twins were both in their late twenties, and were taller than Bumblebee in his holoform. They shared the same tanned skin and brunette hair. Sideswipe's was messier in appearance and he was wearing tighter fitting jeans, a grey shirt, and a leather jacket. Sunstreaker's hair was slicked back and he was wearing a white shirt with a blazer and dark blue slacks.
"Do you have it Bee?" Sideswipe asked.
"Yes." Bumblebee opened his hand to show the AllSpark shard resting in his palm.
"We'll take it directly to Optimus." Sunstreaker promised.
Sideswipe took the shard from Bumblebee's outstretched hand. Sideswipe violently flinched and dropped the shard as if he had been burnt.
"Ah! It shocked me!" Sideswipe shook his hand out.
Sunstreaker rolled his eyes, used to his brother's dramatics, "You're such a sparkling. I'll get it." Sunstreaker stooped to grab the shard, only to have a similar reaction. "What?"
Bumblebee looked at the twins in confusion. He had touched the shard without harm, why had they both been injured. Bumblebee picked up the shard, and didn't have the same reaction.
"What is going on?" Sideswipe asked, sharing a confused look with Sunstreaker.
"I don't know mech. We should get back to Optimus. Bumblebee's just going to have to come with us." Sunstreaker finished out his sentence and went to flicker out his holoform.
Sunstreaker's form flickered, and stayed solid. Wide eyed, he tried again.
"I can't get out of my holoform!"
Sideswipe looked at Sunstreaker incredulously, "That's impossible!"
Sideswipe then went to change back into his alt mode, but found he had the same result as Sunstreaker.
"What is going on?" Sideswipe looked at his holoform's hands and flexed them.
"I don't know," Bumblebee said worriedly, "but we better get you guys to Ratchet."
The three Autobots rolled out together to go meet up at the Autobot base in the Californian desert. The base acted as their temporary headquarters until the permanent one in Diego Garcia. Construction was set to be finished within the next month. Already Autobots and soldiers alike had begun moving. Upon their arrival, they were greeted by Ratchet and Optimus Prime in their bipedal modes. Bumblebee had opened a comm link to forewarn them of their arrival. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker both stepped out of the driver's seats of their alt modes. Having to actually drive their alt modes to the base as humans had rattled them more than they cared to admit. They clung to their bond, taking in invisible reassurance from one another.
Ratchet quickly ushered the twins to the med bay while Bumblebee transferred the AllSpark shard to Optimus Prime before racing back to Sam. The twins were both scanned by Ratchet.
"I don't understand it. But you're both scanning as completely intact and healthy. Show me what happens when you try to change back."
Both Sunstreaker and Sideswipe tried again to transform back to their alt modes. As before, their holoforms flickered before staying solid. Ratchet scanned the twins once more.
Ratchet noticed something in Sideswipe's scan he hadn't noticed the first time.
"Sideswipe, when was the last time you were able to feel Stormride through your bond?"
Sideswipe visibly flinched for a second time that day. It was well known amongst the Autobots that Sideswipe's sparkmate, Stormride, had begun a pursuit after Megatron when he had fled Cybertron with the original AllSpark. Throughout the years since the battle, Sideswipe would go back and forth between being able to barely feel his sparkmate's bond to not feeling it at all. He hadn't seem her since.
He was positive that if it hadn't been for Sunstreaker, he would've been offlined from the grief.
"Sometimes I feel as if she's there, as just a whisper. And then other times I can't feel her at all." Sideswipe's voice was thick with emotion when he finally choked the response out, "I haven't been able to establish any sort of communication with her when I lost it the first time."
Ratchet hummed in thought, "I can see your bond in my scans. I can see it."
Sideswipe's eyes widened, Sunstreaker looked equally as stunned. The last time Sideswipe had come in for a check up, Ratchet hadn't been able to detect his bond with Stormride at all.
"What?" Sideswipe gaped, "That means she's close, right?"
"I don't know what it means," Ratchet dismissed, "I don't know why you can't leave your holoforms and I don't know why you're suddenly showing a bond with your sparkmate again. I need to do more research."
While Ratchet had been working on the twins, Bumblebee had made his way back to Sam. Sam had finished getting his things together and was ready to start the journey to Princeton University.
"You know," Ron began, "Your cousin Charlotte lives in Princeton now. You should give her a call."
"Oh! That's a great idea!" Judy agreed.
Sam thought it over. Charlotte was always his favorite out of all his cousins. He rarely saw them, but Charlotte was the best. She was the cooler older cousin who always had the good stories when he was younger.
"Yeah. I think I'll do that." Sam nodded.
Sirens wailed as the ambulance raced down the street. In the front cab, two partners were arguing ferociously as they responded to their next call.
"I'm telling you CJ! It's the same person!" the male in the passenger seat expressed, using his hands to punctuate his point.
"There's no way! He was on the other side of town the last time we ran into him!" CJ, the female in the driver's seat, argued back.
The streets in Princeton, New Jersey were always crowded with vehicles. It was almost impossible to get anywhere without driving emergent in an emergency vehicle. The humans in the front cab were dressed in uniforms. Black, button up formal shirts and navy blue pants with lots of pockets. CJ, the driver, wore patches on her shoulders emblazoned with the word "Paramedic." Her partner in the passenger seat matched her uniform, other than the patches that said "EMT." The pair was responding to a call that had been labeled as a potential injury.
"If I'm right, you owe me lunch!" the male declared.
CJ rolled her eyes, "When you're wrong, you owe me lunch!"
Their day continued much the same. Friendly banter, running emergency calls. As the work day drew to a close, the partners were heading back to their station. CJ's phone rang from inside her pocket. Now in the passenger seat, she put her tablet down that she had been doing paperwork on and twisted to pull her phone from her pocket.
"Someone's popular," CJ's partner teased. CJ lazily flipped him off.
"Hello?" CJ answered, putting the phone to her ear without bothering to check who had called.
"What? You can't give a more enthusiastic greeting to your favorite cousin?" the amused voice came through the phone.
CJ pulled the phone from her ear to double check it was who she thought it was. A smile graced her lips as she put the phone back up to her ear, "Well hey there little Sammy. Long time no talk. How've you been?"