Wouldn't that be called an assumption? You know what happens when you assume, right?


In another part of the United States, trouble was brewing in the form of curious people. People who knew enough about the Autobots and Decepticons and wanted more information. Who they were. How they functioned. What made them tick. These people were seeking to get one again to study. Breakthroughs had been made on NBE-1, and unfortunately, their studies had come to an abrupt halt.

They hadn't dared interfere with the NBEs again, even though they knew of their existence.

"So how many did you count?" He had been sent to talk to this guy. Even he had no idea who he was. It was a simple text message but got the point across. He wasn't to ask any questions unless they were pertinent and only to supply information.

"Aside from the Autobot NBEs, there are 7 others we suspect to be Decepticons, which include small ones like the one associated with the one called Barricade."

"What do we know about them?"

"Not much sir, but earlier in the year we had set a couple satellites to watch the base. We did however, set individual ones on each of the two fliers I saw a few days ago using miniature drones." He replied. "They are the size of flies. So far, they have gone undetected."

"Did they show anything that we should be worried about?"

"Well, after going over the surveillance footage, we found some disturbing information." The man turned the laptop towards the other and hit the play button. It gave a brief image of Thundercracker and Skywarp.

"I heard they go by the designations 'Skywarp' and 'Thundercracker', the one known as Starscream called them by these designations while I was there. They both appeared hostile by the way they were acting,"

The other man nodded. At first it showed nothing but the two standing around, but then they started walking, heading to what appeared to be a target range where Ironhide had been firing rounds at inanimate targets. Nothing unusual. Then it showed the two talking to Ironhide before they moved away from him and took position to his far right. Ironhide went back to firing at targets.

"I don't see anything," The man responded with a shrug as he continued to stare, waiting for something dramatic to come.

"Keep watching," The other replied. "Watch the seekers."

Then it happened. They watched as the camera seemed to go through several different filters as Skywarp suddenly vanished, and reappeared behind Ironhide, grabbing him over the neck and around his other arm. Ironhide seemed to struggle, and managed to take the arms around his neck with his free arm and flipped him over his shoulder. Both men were surprised. This black guy was pretty strong if he could pull that off. As they kept watching, his cannons aimed at Skywarp, and then Thundercracker seemed to be behind a boxcar, watching what was going on, and as soon as Ironhide turned again, he suddenly sprang out, weapons aimed and fired. Ironhide had dodged the fire and ran towards Thundercracker who suddenly put his arms out in front of him as something under his arms in his chest flipped to his front and apparently fired, sending Ironhide to his back. Both Seekers moved to the downed Ironhide and the purple one placed a foot on his chest, while the blue one leaned down over him. When they were done, Skywarp looked to the sky and just before both took off. There was no apparent emotion.

"What is this?"

"It looks to be an attack on the Autobot Weapon Specialist, designated Ironhide."

"What did those two do?"

"It appears they attacked him and perhaps said something to him."

"What was said?"

"We don't know. To lessen the chance of the cameras being seen, we could not add audio."

"What were those maneuvers they were doing?"

"Well one disappeared and reappeared in a different location and the other used some sort of shockwave strong enough to drop the black one,"

"I want to know how," The man behind the desk tapped at the file he had under his hands. The other man, noticing the tapping, looked down. It was the entire file on NBE 1.

"There was also a camera dedicated to the other big one. The smaller ones seemed to be with it a lot so we felt no need to place a camera for each one. We do not know anything about it."

"Can I see it?"

The man turned the laptop around and went through the saved images and video captures of it and turned the computer back around. It showed a yellow Autobot and a red one standing outside, seemingly enjoying the air and talking. Then out walked this more menacing looking one, slightly larger than the two. It stopped at the door and stood there as if it were on guard.

Suddenly, after a few moments there were a few sparks from his body in different places and his arm went out straight, 4 smaller bots leapt from his body. The two on the ground went after the yellow mech while the two flying went towards the red one. They jumped at them, landing on their faces, and what the men saw was the two Autobots apparently under some sort of struggle as they tried to get the smaller bots off of them. They couldn't see what exactly the four smaller ones were doing to the Autobots, but after a few minutes, the symbiots detached themselves from the mechs and suddenly scuttled towards the big one and vanished again. The man paused the footage.

"Another attack?"

"We think so," What did he know about Autobot culture?

The other man leaned back, "I wonder if the leader of these NBEs know what is going on?"

"No hostile actions have been taken, so either no one is talking, or he accepts this strange behavior,"

"Perhaps some talks should be in order to get these Decepticons from the Autobot base?"

"The Decepticons are apparently hostile and the entire lot of them is dangerous. If we were to somehow manage to wrangle the Decepticons up, there's no saying they wouldn't kill people to get free."

"They haven't attacked humans the entire time they were here, and we hold no government treaties over how they treat each other,"

"There was the plasma cannon incident,"

The man behind the desk smirked darkly, "Yes, yes there was,"

"Then there is no way to get them. They are under the protection of the Autobots."

"Find a way," The man put his hands on the table and stood up, "I am going to go and talk to a few people,"

He took the laptop and closed it, "I will see what more I can find out about them. There should be profiles coming soon per request of the Secretary – More specifically the other Autobots as well," The other man then grinned, "I am one of his 'bodyguards'." He picked up the laptop and left promptly.

The other man sat back in his seat, his hands going behind his head. He glanced a t the phone, debating on making a phone call. They would be in business soon. With a sigh, he reached for the receiver and picked it up, dialed a number and waited for someone to answer.


The Secretary of Defense received the files at his request and they sat on his desk waiting for him later that day. Each file had information on each Decepticon, given willingly by Optimus. He knew he had Optimus', Bumblebee's, Ironhide's, Jazz', and Ratchet's profiles. He had no information on any other Autobot or Decepticon. It was probably from forgetting or what not. Today he would have all of the files for all of the Autobots and Decepticons. He looked over the first one.

THUNDERCRACKER was written across the top.

He opened the file; the first picture was of a bluish F-22 Raptor. He set it aside and the next was an image profile of him, showing a front view, side view and back view with height and weights. He remembered the silver jet calling him Thundercracker. The name was the same. His eyes went to Thundercracker's Cybertronian duty. His function was what they called a 'Decepticon Seeker'.

He looked over the paper for a description of a Seeker but found nothing. Interesting. He set the paper to the side.

He read down the next paper.

ABILITIES: Thundercracker has the unique ability to manipulate shockwaves as an effective weapon.

He read further to his weapons.

WEAPONS SYSTEM: Thundercracker has an arm mounted fusion cannon on his left and his right he has a laser rifle. On each wrist are mini guns. Each ordnance was listed with an image and brief description of their attack power, range and whatnot.

Well apparently, they weren't hiding anything about him. He smiled and went to the next file, deciding to read Thundercracker's personality and such later.

SKYWARP was written across the top of the file.

He opened the second file to find an identical jet in the image, only his coloring was a bit different. His tail fins were purple, his body was black and he had a purple and silver strip down his wings. Interesting color scheme. He placed the picture to the side, viewing his image profile details. Identical to Thundercracker.

The next was listed almost identical to Thundercracker's duty as a Seeker. He nodded to himself and placed the paper to the side, curious what this one's armament and abilities were.

ABILITIES: Has the unique ability to displace time and space, similar to a wormhole, moving from one place to another using teleportation. What a strange ability. What would he do if something like that attacked? He was sure glad it wasn't the case, because he didn't know.

He looked down further.

WEAPONS SYSTEMS: Skywarp has a small projectile firing Gatling piston on his left shoulder. On his right arm he has a plasma missile launcher and on his left he has a ray cannon with accuracy of firing as he exits wormholes. The mini guns on his wrists have this same accuracy as the ray cannon.

Terry nodded to himself, deciding to read the rest later and placed the file to the side, on top of Thundercracker's file.

SOUNDWAVE was written across the top of the file.

Ok, he had never even heard this name before.

He opened the file to find the image of what appeared to be an F-117 Nighthawk. He moved the paper to find a very menacing looking creature in the image profiles. The side shot showed a rather large what appeared to be cannon on his right shoulder. On the front profile, this one showed it had a mask like Optimus wore when in battle and a visor similar to Jazz'. He cocked his head. His other profiles of bots that had battle masks or visors had both pictures with and without the features. This one had none. Just looking at Soundwave gave him the creeps. Moving on, he looked for what his function was. He read with a puckered eye, Decepticon Chief Communications Specialist and High Priest. He'd never thought that the Cybertronians had a priest. He wondered what that function meant.

Time for this guy's abilities and ordnance.

ABILTIES: to manipulate sound using decibels and sine waves either too high or too low for human hearing as an effective weapon using his shoulder mounted radio wave sensor.

Has 5 symbiot mechs: RAVAGE, RUMBLE, FRENZY, BUZZSAW, and LASERBEAK. Frenzy is partnered with Barricade.

The ability to sense sounds from around a confidential number of miles and can also hear radio waves from a confidential distance.

Soundwave also has the ability to read other Cybertronian processors. With this ability, he can also extract information at will; however, the procedure is painful and can lead to a neural net shutdown – imminent death.

So that thing on his shoulder wasn't a cannon, it was a radio wave amplifier/sensor. Well, no wonder he had that name. Terry snorted with a smirk. This guy was very dangerous, even he knew that 200 decibels could kill a human, and he could use them beyond human hearing? Freaky.

WEAPONS SYSTEMS: Soundwave has the most weapon ordnance ever recorded on a Decepticon. His left arm has a plasma missile launcher, below it, there is an electrical pulse disrupter coupled with a mini gun that fires laser type projectiles. On his right arm he has a pair of laser rifles and has the ability to create a spiked flail much like Barricade for close range. His most dangerous weapon is his use of sound, which is also his preferred type of attack. Who was Barricade again?

Again, Terry wanted to read the rest of these creature's alternate modes, functions, abilities and armaments, so he set the file aside.

STARSCREAM

He felt a pang of dread hit him, perhaps guilt. He opened the file, seeing Starscream's alternate mode which was a silver F-22 Raptor, just like the previous two. He set that paper aside and looked at his image profile and function. It was slightly different from the other two. He read Autobot and Decepticon Seeker Commander. So, he was the leader of the three. He went on.

ABILITIES: Confidential. Short and to the point. So, they had something to hide?

WEAPONS SYSTEMS: Starscream has on his left upper arm what is called Null Ray, able to disrupt metaphysical technology functions for a limited amount of time. His right hand can form into a missile launcher, and he has a Gatling machine gun on each wrist, next to each Gatling gun, is an electron pulse emitter.

He looked towards the other opened files and proceeded to line them and close them, setting them aside from the ones he had yet to go over. There were two secrets they had to hide, and Terry wanted to know why. He turned to the phone, feeling it was his right to know everything about them, since they were on government property.


About an hour later, the bodyguard who'd been speaking what that mysterious man had walked to the office of the Secretary, finding it open and no one there. Walking in, he saw something most interesting and set about skimming through the files. It was exactly what he'd needed. Taking pictures of each Cybertronian and their information, he left abruptly, leaving the paper he'd been asked to bring earlier. Having not being seen, the Secretary would be none the wiser nor would he have any reason to suspect them of being touched.


"Assumptions make an ass out of u and mption"