Author's Notes: OH BOY. How the best laid plans of mice and men can be thwarted by something as simple as a stomach bug. I had been planning on getting in touch with my inner Rhea by visiting the North Carolina Coast with my family! I hoped to get loads of writing done while I was there and update on time from the hotel. Something about traveling gets the creative juices flowing, right?

Weeeeeell, as I write to you dear readers, almost two weeks late to update, you may assume correctly that things did not go according to plan. The first night we arrived at our beach side destination, something was off about my young nephew and my mother. Cue them getting violently sick and the rest of us going into damage control to save the vacation for the rest of the kids while us not sick adults took turns rushing back and forth to the nearest pharmacy, the store for more sickness supplies, and taking care of the infirmed. Beach trip was a bust. Sadly, it was just one of those moments in life where you have to admit defeat and chalk it up to bad luck.

I drive home with my untouched lap top, having barely glimpsed more then a single ocean wave. And then I catch the bug! Cut to ME being violently ill for five days! Because of course I did. I had been trapped in the same hotel room with two extremely sick people and their sick people germs coating every surface. Then my sister and her husband get it, them getting it so bad they had to be hospitalized due to the dehydration! So yeah, it's not been a fun few weeks.

But I have survived the vacation from hell, and the hell week that followed! We can get back to normal, and I can get back to never mentioning that weekend ever again!

A small coarse correction for those who may have already noticed… I made a mistake and have mixed up two of the DJD character's names, Vos and Kaon. I shall have to go back and fix that in the earlier chapters when the character I meant to mention was Vos but was at the time addressing him as Kaon. Not a huge deal, as I caught it before the character appeared, as he does briefly in this chapter.

But otherwise! All is right once more (mostly) and we jump into chapter 14 with a bit of a flash back! A glimpse into the lives of the dreaded DJD… Before they too fell into radio silence in that mysterious stretch of space along with all the other missing.

Share a comment and tell me what you think, and as always, enjoy!

Date: One year previous in deep space

Decepticon assault ship, the Peaceful Tyranny

Nickel

The fowl mouth plated minicon seldom had imagery flux while she was in recharge. Frag, she hardly got a chance to recharge at all. But the cycle before, she did have a flux, and it was a bad one.

By the time she came back online, curses and sputtering vents shaking her voice box, mostly everything about her flux was already forgotten, save for the feelings left behind. A cold emptiness deeper than the star filled void they called home most orbital cycles. She could have sworn she felt like she was being chased… Her very Spark on the line if she were caught by whatever stalked after her.

But it was gone, thank fragging Primus. Lost into the depths of her inner memory banks. Good riddance.

Nickel bolted up from her smaller than average berth quickly, happy to leave flux land and get her day started… She was in such a hurry, she hadn't noticed the pair of yellow optics locked on her until she was tripping over their owner.

"Pet!" She yelped, and she did end up falling.

The semi rabid Cyberfox they decided to drag along on their stupid adventures didn't flinch at her outburst or their collision. He even caught her with his back before she slammed face plate first into the floor.

She groaned, holding fast onto the animal until she regained her wits and her dignity, "The frag you doing in my quarters again, you rusty mut?" She growled.

His silent stare was hardly an acceptable answer, but hey, he was a mechanimal after all. If she expected him to answer her in any meaningful way, she would be more worried about her current mental state then she already was. Still grumbling, she gave Pet a few grudging pets along his spined back plating before righting herself on her wheeled peds. "Kaon is lucky we decided not to shoot you into the nearest sun the second he kicked it with Helix and Tarn. You are way too much of a burden," She made sure to remind Pet with a scowl.

Again, he only followed her with his narrowed optics in silence as she got ready for the day. Now recovered from her near fatal fall, she made sure her tools were in order. She checked the ships log from her personal wall mount… Good, her bad flux didn't mess with her internal clock and she would be among the first of the morning crew to come online.

She sat down in the bench mounted in front of a reflective monitor. And there she was, tiny, frowning, and looking like hot scrap. She shook her helm, trying to dislodge the clinging bad vibes she was convinced were contributing to her scrap outer appearance. How had she managed to dent her chest plating during her recharge? Had she been flailing around?

Pet was still vigilant. She made sure to check on him in the reflection. He was sat on his haunches and watching her as she tried to buff out the small knicks from her armor. "Really, you have nothing better to do you rust mite infested mongrel? Why aren't you begging Vos for your Energon rations? Isn't that your favorite pass time? You always end up in my quarters. Like, I get we are the same relative size, but that doesn't mean we have a thing here."

Pet finally stirred. He tapped up to her on clawed peds and sat again right by her side. She turned, done fussing over the little dents and instead giving the animal a curious and silent stare right back. "What?" She grumbled, breaking the silence first, "You have been doing this like, every other cycle. What's your problem? Something bothering you?" His pointed audio receptors on either side of his helm twitched. Did their little mascot seem, uneasy?

She glared at him. "Well, you better get over whatever your problem is quick. There is no room for the weak on this ship. Tarn instilled that in us at least before he fragged off to the All Spark… If you have an issue, you deal with it yourself."

He nudged closer. She narrowed her own optics at him, both stubborn, unwilling to break the staring match. Her focus flicked about the animal's face plates. Behind her forced scowl, she smirked. With a single digit, she gently poked the tip of Pet's olfactory snout, "Boop," she said as she did it.

Finally, she got a reaction beyond his dead opticed stare. Pet snarled, and she pulled her hand back with a juvenile snicker before he could decide to bite the offending digit off. It was still worth it. She made peace between them by petting him between his audio receptors. "Fine, stick around. I guess scrap company is better than none… Did Vos feed you yet? I may still have some Energon ration left of my own…" She turned back around in her chair to start searching her tool compartment in the wall under her reflective monitor.

She felt more optics on her. An all too familiar pang in her tanks was present again. With a vent, she peeked up.

There they were, watching her just as closely as Pet was from behind her reflective monitor. Tarn and Megatron's silence was even more noticeable then Pet's. She had programed her Lord and her old Captain's likeness to be on either side of her monitor, there to greet her every time she was in her quarters. It always made her feel like scrap, but she didn't want to change it.

She bowed to Megatron's image in the right corner of the monitor, "Good morning, my Lord. I am here to serve you as always…" she came up from the helm bow and smiled at Tarn's masked faceplates, "And good morning Captain. This marks the tenth orbital cycle since you have abandoned the cause by dying. Really, it hasn't been so bad. Tesarus has been on the decent side of mediocre when it comes to being Captain in your absence. You will be happy to know, the ship is still in one piece, and it is all thanks to my handy work."

She retrieved her Energon rations from one of her many compartments (she had forgotten where she stashed it so it had taken a while to locate) and she then laid it down for Pet to lap up. "A recent update from Cybertron, if you care to hear about it," She hummed to Tarn's memory while also finishing up her touch up paint job to cover the scratches, "Kaon has expanded farther its original territories. The Autobot fraggers are keeping to themselves. That wimp of a Con Starscream is actually managing to not disgrace our whole cause when he isn't flaunting around with his helm up his actuator… Everything's going remarkably well. Primus, you would hate it. Nothing to do really. We absolutely turned down the call from 'Lord' Soundwave to give up the hunt for those Pirate fraggers and come home. They have officially been labeled off line, but it's like you always said. If there isn't a body, then they aren't rusting…

"You know, it isn't fair how I have stopped hating the guy. Soundwave, that is. Like, he cut off your helm. You would think that would stick with me in the worst way… But, and I am only saying this because you aren't here to strangle me anymore, I'm glad you are with Lord Megatron in the All Spark. It's supposed to be peaceful there, and you both deserve that. I assume you are getting along, even after your scrap in the Pits that knocked you both offline permanently. Not like that was the first time you both fought each other to the death… You just took it a little too far this last time."

She vented long and hard, leaned back in her chair as she cycled through the latest news she had uploaded from Cybertron. She felt stupid every time as she repeated her little morning routine of talking to the two pictures, but it never stopped her. It made her feel better overall, and she didn't intend to dig deeper than that. "Let's see, what else is new? Oh, not that you would care, but I had a bad flux. It actually wasn't the first either. I've been avoiding recharge because of it… I just have this, how to put it? It's an off feeling. I know that is vague as fragging pits but that's all I got. It's gotten worse in recent cycles. This feeling of everything not being quite right. Sort of like the way I remember the past, and how others recall it, just don't match up. And now, I think I'm starting to have these feelings while unconscious too. Lucky, I know. This will contradict me wanting you to be all happy and peaceful in the All Spark, but I wish you were here to ask about it. You would know what was right. I just want to have a chance to ask you… When was the cycle it all stopped feeling quite right?"

She jumped when Pet nudged her with his snout. Was he worried how deep in her one-sided conversation she was sinking, or was he getting revenge for her poking him first? She blinked at Pet, then looked quickly back to Tarn and Megatron's pictures. One more cycle of never getting a response from the two most important bots in her life. Oh well.

"Well, have a good cycle, as always. We'll be here, hunting down that bearded freak who tried scrapping Lord Megatron. I have a good feeling about finding him and his scrap crew this time. Not like we have anything else to do… That loser Soundwave pardoned all the Traitors and wiped their records so we couldn't figure out who they were. Peeling the plating off a bunch of pirates will make up for it!" She promised as she bounced up to her peds. She pulsed a loving wave at the pictures before she shut down her monitor and hurried for the door.

"Oh wait!" She yelped before stumbling back to the consol and flicking it back on with a wide grin, "I forgot to tell you Tarn! We have been getting bombarded with chatter throughout the outer rings about this absolute lunatic of a new Con! His name is Destructor, and from the kind of scrap I've heard about him you would have loved him! Apparently, he's an unstoppable psychopath! We've been trying to find him for almost five solar cycles, but all we manage to stumble across is his impressive body count left in his Energon stained wake! Pirates, Autobots gunning for Cons, even hostile aliens, this guy tears through it all! I have never been so hyped to meet a fellow Con in my whole fragging life and I can not wait to finally get to. Bonus points, I hear conflicting info he is either a size changer or a Minicon. How amazing would that be? A Minicon killing machine? Tesarus fully intends to offer him a job, if we ever can find him… I've got a good feeling about it this Cycle!"

Finally in a chipper mood, Nickel headed for the door. She hesitated only a moment when she saw her Energon rations were left untouched… How odd for Pet not to eat. Maybe something really was bothering him.

Pet was right behind her as she rolled along the gangway of the Peaceful Tyranny. He was almost under her wheels to the point it was annoying her. She arrived onto the Command Deck after only cursing at the suddenly clingy mechanimal three times.

Big shocker, Vos was at his station. Audio receptors linked into the monitor as he scanned any fleeting frequencies in the depths of space. He didn't even turn to greet her as she hummed to herself. At least some things were still the same.

"Morning Vos, how was the night shift?" she asked with a smile, getting right to work checking the ship's hard links as she always did before shifting to her next tasks.

Vos twitched, but only vented. She waited, always patient as he considered answering out loud.

His seldom used voice box hissed online, "Coarse, changed."

She looked up from her work to gawk at him, but then she grinned like a proud… what was the word the filthy organics used? The type that secreted their young from their own bodies and were for some reason delighted and protective of said offspring. She couldn't recall the word used, but it was that feeling. "That was great, Vos! Wonderful response time to my question. And it wasn't even encoded! You are really making strides with your practice."

Vos shrugged, helm facing the monitors again.

"Wait, you fragger!" Nickel snickered, "You got me so distracted, I didn't even process what you said at first! We diverted course? Why?"

Vos grumbled something unintelligible, maybe irritated he was expected to talk more. She patted him on the ped to encourage him, giving him all the time he needed.

He pulled up their projected course, and pointed, "New, objective. New, orders."

"When did these come in?" She asked.

"While you were snoozing away and the rest of us were actually working," came Tesarus' snicker.

Nickel spun around as their Captain came onto the Command Deck. His broad shoulder plates were slouched, and he appeared board as always. Hardly the correct posture and expression befitting the Captain of the mighty Peaceful Tyranny. She would have to make fun of him for it later if she remembered to.

Vos gave a vague salute, but it could be interpreted less favorably. Tesarus took a moment to pat Pet roughly on the helm before he took his place before the front viewing monitors.

"Morning Captain," Nickel greeted sweetly, "Were you the one to back out of our original sacred mission like a transmission leaking coward?"

Tesarus snorted, "Only because it was against my will. Not like we were making any headway hunting down Thundertron or the rest of his renegade crew of scallywags. With our famous tracking abilities speaking for themselves, if we can't find a bot, that means they can't be found. He's probably dead. I already have a bet with Vos here how it happened. I think it was a black hole, he thinks a radiation storm. Right Vos?"

Vos grunted, armor plating flaring with irritation as bots continued to talk to him.

Unfazed, Tesarus grinned again at Nickel, "Maybe it was both. Here's hoping anyway. But we've wasted enough time on the fragger, so I decided to take on a new mission, at least for the time being. We received long distance orders from Cybertron command about Decepticon vessels going missing in the outer most rings of mapped space. I assumed it would be fun to figure out who is eating up all our wayward friends."

Nickel crossed her servos. "Whose orders did we receive?"

"Soundwave's."

Nickel nodded, now assured, "Good. It wasn't the other spare."

"The, Vehicon?" Vos assumed.

"No. The other more annoying one," She corrected.

Tesarus laughed again. "Anyway, I jumped on the opportunity. It wasn't orders to go back to the lovey dovy world of friendship and feelings or whatever the Autobots have turned it into. And I'm done chasing ghosts from the past. I need action. So does the rest of the crew."

Nickel matched his smile, observing him as he gazed out into the stars on the view screen. Her mocking of him aside, Tesarus really was a good leader. He would have made Tarn proud. At least when he was of, saner mind. She was sure Tarn was now. She had the urge to share this thought but squashed it the moment it started forming in her voice box. Primus fragging damnit… Was the Autobot's sentimental scrap getting to her too even from so far away? She needed to kill something organic to really quell the feeling totally.

"Captain…"

She and Tesarus looked to Vos at the same time. He had a new transmission open on the screen, and it wasn't from Cybertron.

Tesarus walked to Vos' monitor and observed the transmission with a hint of excitement. "Well, speak of the Destroyer Himself. We just received an SOS from a Decepticon vessel listed as missing."

Nickel rolled her optics. "An SOS? From fellow Cons? That's pathetic. Were they crying too?"

Tesarus hummed in agreement, "Yes, but alas, it is our job to investigate. We could also assume it is a trap to lure other ships in."

"Here's hoping," Nickel said, cracking the pistons in her fingers. "Maybe we'll luck out and the SOS will also attract that Con called Destructor."

Tesarus mirrored her excitement, "Oh frag yes! The faster we can finally track that awesome lunatic down and get him on this crew the better." He snickered before ordering the crew on the Command Deck to push the engines into a hyper jump so they could get to the coordinates of the SOS. So far from the Space Bridge grid, their own Bridge was worthless. But that didn't much matter. The signal wasn't far by any means.

Pet yelped, and it brought Nickel back from her inner contemplation of murdering pirates or organic aliens. The Cyberfox was nipping at Tesarus' heel struts, his once composed and quiet nature melting away and becoming a skittish mechanimal. Tesarus only patted his helm, shooing him away to instead focus on their new set course.

Nickle tried holding Pet out of the way as the crew hustled about. His audio receptors were flat to his helm, optics darting about the Command Deck like he was cornered by a pack of rabid scraplets. He must have sensed danger. They were probably flying right into it. She grinned. She couldn't wait.

Date: May 1st, 2020

Earth

Rhea

Shawn was fumbling with his coffee cup lid. The leader of the Concurrence had popped the lid off his recently purchased beverage to add his usual six sugars and three creams but was having a hard time putting it back into drinkable order as he had received it. It wasn't that Rhea thought he would fumble and dump the scolding hot coffee onto their assortment of important papers lining the table between them, but the possibility had crossed her mind.

Such get togethers had become somewhat common between them over the last month or two. They were all working to decode the interdimensional message, and he had been raining funds onto Rhea and Raf's own attempts. Swapping notes on the topic was not a bad idea.

Another thought she had long since dismissed was the reason for the public space they utilized. They were technically working with top secret stuff. But Rhea was loathed to tolerate any of that nonsense, and she was happy when Shawn had reported he did too. Though he had given a much funnier reason for the venue change from his office at the Concurrence headquarters or any near by Autobot bases. "If I get one more call from a government official, I will jump into traffic." He had explained. Hard to argue with that logic.

"So, the bot we need to find is this Steeljaw?" Shawn finally asked after winning the coffee struggle and snapping the plastic lid back into place.

Rhea pushed Steeljaw's printed files across the table for Shawn to study. "Apparently, he has something the dimensional message sender needs to escape. But on the Cybertronian end, he's just one of the many missing bots they can't find in deep space. It's not exactly encouraging."

Shawn rubbed the stubble starting to grow on his lower chin as he studied Steeljaw's files. Between sips of coffee, he said "Steeljaw was one of the ones that crashed onto Earth a decade ago. And the message sender appears to be broadcasting from here too… I'm starting to wonder if whatever Steeljaw has that the message sender needs, came from here too."

It was certainly a possibility. She studied the original message she had gotten the month before while on Cybertron.

IMMINENT. DANGER. EARTH. CYBERTRON. NEED. STAFF.

They needed to know what danger they were referring to. And the message sender needed a means of escaping. Somehow this 'staff' had everything to do with it. Did Steeljaw know where the staff was, or did he possess it? They could never retain a strong enough link to remain in communication long enough to find out.

"Soundwave was once stuck in the Shadow Zone, right? Remind me again how this isn't similar?" Shawn asked.

Rhea nodded, "So, when two Space bridges are opened in a relatively close proximity to each other, they create energy feedback that can rip open a rift in time and space, and it leads to what Miko affectionately named the Shadow Zone. Messages are hard to reach there, but not impossible. That's how I located Soundwave when he was stuck there. Long story short, I was able to use the Autobot's Groundbridge at the time and reflect that same Bridge frequency with a refractor of my own design to mimic that phenomenon to get him out without having to use two Bridges."

For some reason, Shawn gave her a bit of a smile, "You did all that when you were seventeen?"

"Yeah?"

"That's impressive. Like, really. You know what I was doing when I was seventeen? I was getting shoved into my locker by the leader of my high school's football team. Then I would concoct elaborate diabolical schemes to get even with the guy. That usually ended with me getting shoved back into that same locker. Hardly anything to brag about."

"Well, jokes on Mr. Football jerk. Now you are head of one of the government's most well-funded Cybertronian and human relations organizations," she offered in an attempt to cheer him up. Not like he needed it. He was indulging in a self-teasing smile as he regaled the tale of his youth.

Shawn shrugged as if in agreement, "Sorry, I got off topic. It's just, you… Um, it was impressive. What you pulled off so young."

"Thanks, though I can hardly copy and paste the same strategy. Wherever this message sender is, it is absolutely not in the Shadow Zone. From what we have gathered, it's even farther down the dimensional road. A Space or Ground Bridge may still be the key, it usually is, but we need one so hyper charged it is beyond what even the bots are technologically capable of right now."

"That's where this staff the message sender may come into play," Shawn offered, "Either a weapon, or a tool to do just that. I guess we won't know until we get our hands on it."

Rhea swirled the beverage in her own cup and watched it thoughtfully. She also pressed her hands along the porcelain to feel the heat of it in her fingertips. "What I'm worried about, is the Energon levels of our poor trapped friend. When I found Soundwave, he was basically on deaths door his Energon levels were so low. But the Rescue Bots decoded the first message from this trapped bot almost ten years ago. Either time is a non-issue in the dimension they currently call home, or they are relying on some other trick in order to not starve."

"There is the chance, it isn't Cybertronian?" Shawn offered.

Rhea shook her head. They had considered that possibility briefly, but squashed it. The message sender used Cybertronian tech to communicate. Plus, they knew Steeljaw and about Cybertron. They may not know who was trapped, but it was pretty safe to say they were a bot.

"Oh, I forgot to mention this," Shawn piped up with sudden enthusiasm, "Since there have been so many Cybertronian vessels going missing, I've had the boys start work on a sort of cloaking tech. I had the thought, because the drones and satellites we've sent into that same region of space have not been bothered with. And that's even after making a bunch of commotion to try and lure stuff in. Maybe because it's human based tech? Could be worth testing on Bot vessels to try and trick whatever's out there snatching them up."

"Not a bad idea. I'll mention it to the group on Cybertron… See? You come up with impressive stuff too," she offered with a grin.

Shawn fumbled, trying to draw attention away from his chronically blushing ears by loudly sipping at his coffee. "Haha, thanks, I'm, it's nothing. The Memorial… Yeah, that! When was that again? It's coming up, right?"

Rhea gave a bit of a snorting laugh, "Not really by human standards, but you would never know it the way Bumblebee is constantly talking about it. I've found Cybertronian time management is way different than ours. I guess being basically immortal space fairing beings, that makes sense. It's almost still a year away. But that works out for them getting in contact with off world colonies, ships in deep space, stuff like that."

Shawn's playful air sort of soured, "A lot of ships… Will they be flying through that off limits part of space?"

Rhea pursed her lips, "Some may have to. Not exactly advisable right now."

He brightened just as quickly, "All the more reason to use the human cloaking tech my boys are working on, I guess."

She nodded in agreement. Whatever worked to save more lives.

Before she could start packing up her stuff to leave, Shawn was quick to ask, "The Cyberformation testing… Um, you're still doing it, right?"

"Yep. And it's stopped trying to fry my brain, so that's a plus." Really, there was loads more to say about the process. When not trying to contact the Message sender, she had been spending almost every free second practicing smaller transformations with Soundwave and Arcee in preparation for her 'big flight' coming up. She was way more nervous than she should have been for the event, but excitement was still the strongest emotion regarding it.

Her Cybertronian body also had everything it needed for the moment. Agent Fowler had offered her a tour of the military jet yard for her to pick from. "All state of the art and upgraded with Cybertronian tech to boot," Fowler had bragged at the time. "Thought I'd make the offer before your Con boyfriend tempted you with some off world crap. Nothing's better than what's made here on good old fashion American soil!"

"Aren't most of the parts for these jets made in China?" Miko had chimed in.

And the conversation had devolved from there. At the time, Rhea was too busy admiring the many ariel vehicles to really hear much of the background banter. She had stopped before a small jet in the shadow of a larger winged craft. Some of the craft had personalized names painted on the sides of them, and this was one of them. The small jet was christened "Kansas Kid." Was it most likely referring to the state and not the musical band she listened to in her youth? Probably, but it was one of those little life ironies that drew her to it, and she decided to take it that way.

Breaking out of the daydream, she saw Shawn sporting a sort of forced snicker, "Hey, as long as it's safe. I was just curious," Then his ears started to blush again before adding, "And maybe I'm also a little disappointed. When you switch from human to bot, I'll lose my coffee buddy."

She blinked at him. Well, now she felt bad. She tried to save the moment with an assuring pat of his shoulder, "Hey, if you don't mind the venue change and me being about ten feet taller than you, we could still have our meet ups."

He shrugged hollowly, but managed to maintain a smile, "Something to look forward to, I guess."

Date: May 20th, 2020

Rhea

Soundwave's personal ship had air, so she wasn't worried about leaving the pod that contained her human body on it. It was strange to bring her human body along on their little space adventure as if it were carry on luggage, but she could hardly leave it behind. The range for the Cybertronian avatar to wander from her human body was impressive now but didn't span galaxies.

She was also still limited to her ability to switch back and forth. Her body, mostly her head, had to be wreathed in wires and other conduit devices to maintain the connection. A few weeks before, one of the wires slipped while moving her pod and it jolted her back out of the avatar with a monster of a headache as consequence for the slip up. Soundwave had to catch her collapsing Cybertronian chassis and her human pod before they both hit the ground. It was a good thing he had quick reflexes.

"I overheard Shockwave and Autoclave talking about a fix for that too," Rhea hummed from her copilot's chair. She was multitasking. She was maintaining their set course through Kaon's Space Bridge hub and also monitoring frequencies on the many open comm channels. She was constantly listening for the message sender, or any more SOS's from deep space. Thankfully, no other ships had gone missing in the past few weeks. Maybe due to their large-scale patrolling of the area. It was hard to say.

"As did I," Soundwave retorted flatly, "I assume you mean the permanent implantation. Shockwave informed me."

"It would let me make the switch myself and not have to rely on outside influence," she said with a shrug. "I mean, I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but-"

"It would also require them to implant a Cybertronian transmitter into your skull. I shutter to calculate the number of potential side effects." He grumbled.

'But Master, you turned down the notion without giving it ample time to consider,' Laserbeak began to complain.

"Refrain from starting this argument again," Soundwave growled.

Laserbeak pouted from his place attached to Rhea's back, but did keep the rest of his rant to himself. She brushed the Minicon with her field before turning to give Soundwave a too sweet smile, "So then, the answer is no?"

He mirrored her sarcasm, "As long as I am the Decepticon Lord in command of the project, I am afraid that is the case."

She tried to make her mechanical sigh sound disappointed. She felt his peripheral gaze on her, and she couldn't keep the act up. He was too good at calling out her bluffs. She soon grinned again, "So, I'm actually surprised the test flight will be happening on Earth. I guess that makes sense, since I picked an Earth based vehicle mode against everyone's suggestions and overall better judgment."

"It is functionally the same thing," He assured her, "Though I have made a last klik abridge to our plans if you do not mind. Though near Earth, I decided the planet's surface would not be an ideal location. Nor would Cybertron's surface."

She tilted her helm at him, "Well, now I'm curious."

He was maintaining a blank expression, "For a first flight, gravity could be a challenging hurdle."

Her metal body gave its strange snorting sound as she laughed, "So, you think I'll crash that quick? I guess it's a reasonable fear."

He finally smirked, "Not at all, my dear. But I know it is something you have been anxious about. It should alleviate at least that concern."

'Additionally, the flightless nosy Autobot can not follow us into space,' Laserbeak pointed out.

"A very accurate point," Soundwave agreed.

They traveled through the massive Space Bridge portal and came out into space Rhea didn't instantly recognize. First to note, there was no Earth. She assumed they would be at least close even if they wouldn't be struggling against it's crash inducing gravity this time around. But this didn't appear to even be Earth's Solar System. They were surrounded by unfamiliar stars and dazzling gas giants. Soundwave was hard to read as ever. She tried to glean where he had taken them, but she sensed something in his field. A touch of excitement, and anticipation? He was waiting for her to figure it out.

To stubborn to just ask, she brought up the star map on the consol before her to figure it out. 35 and a half Solar Rek's in Cybertronian measurement. About 2.5 million lightyears away from Earth in human standards. That measurement sounded familiar.

It clicked in her brain, and she fully spun to gawk at him. She recognized that slight smirk. It was subtle, but he was definitely proud of himself. "You brought me to the Andromeda Galaxy?" she said, and was embarrassed it came out basically as a whimper.

"I'm sorry. I know you do not enjoy surprises, but it was not planned. It was a last klik decision on my part," he admitted.

This stupid handsome genius. She needed to hug him. He most definitely sensed that desire, because he turned in his chair and extended an arm as an invitation. She quickly closed the small gap between them and wrapped her arms around his neck, letting him envelop her in the embrace. She was also using the pressure of his arms wrapped around her to squeeze out the overwhelmed feeling trying to worm its way into her brain and spoil their moment.

"I did promise you," he reminded her.

She just nodded in agreement, unable to find her voice. She was too happy to think clearly. Probably not the best condition to contort her whole body into a totally different form and then fly through unfamiliar space, but she felt totally safe. As long as she was with him.

They left her human body in its pod, secured in an air cycled portion of the storage hold. Then she followed him to the ship's airlock, feeling those strange Cybertronian butterflies where her stomach would be if she had one. He took her hand as the system cycled, the gravity went away, and she was weightless. The large bay doors opened, and thanks to the cycle system equalizing everything, they weren't sucked outside. Instead, she just held tight onto him as he led them out with the use of the boosters in his peds.

She had been in space before. Having an alien husband, that was just part of the gig. You get to float around space. But that had been in countless ships, or in his own subspace, or even a specialized suit occasionally. But this was the first time there was nothing between her and space. Really, it was more then she could have ever imagined it. The lacking gravity almost like floating in the waves of the ocean. But there was nothing to grasp, other than Soundwave. Flailing didn't help. But she remained somewhat level. Laserbeak was still attached to her back, and he was helping to stabilize them with his own small boosters.

She should have been trying to transform, but she was too busy looking at everything. They had parked in the midst of a very fine asteroid and ice field. Every piece of debris that floated about was touched by the closest white star, giving it the most remarkable glow. Like they were swimming in the rings of Saturn. She couldn't help herself. She continued to reach out and brush her free hand through passing particles as they floated along.

Her metal body was reading it was cold. Duh, but it wasn't anything they had to worry about. There was no moisture in space, so no worry about their internal systems failing. Feeling temperature was odd in this body. She could tell the difference between hot and cold, but even on the extreme sides of those thermodynamic spectrums, it was all relatively the same. She felt certain systems within her close off, the handy information readings in front of her gaze informing her in Cybertronian about the environment around her and how her systems were adapting to it. But uncomfortable she was not. Nothing failed to amaze her.

Soundwave brought them to a stop, just above the sea of glowing ice and rock crystals. She maintained her tight grasp on his hand, silently pleading for him to not let go. She was already ready for her own attempts at stabilizing herself to go horribly wrong and send her careening into the closest Gas Giant.

His free hand brushed her face, and their aw inspiring surroundings became secondary. She was focused on Soundwave and his encouraging optics. She was ok… She had him, she had Laserbeak. She could pull this off.

Gently, she loosened her grip, and they slipped apart. Pushing down the initial panic as they started to float apart, she focused on everything they had covered up until this point. Shifting forth weaponry. She had gotten pretty good at that. Practicing with all the different plates that made up her body. She knew how to put that all together. It was just taking that first terrifying step.

As if to encourage her, Soundwave transformed first. He shifted into the long winged and sleek Cybertronian aircraft he had long since scanned for a better fit for his personal standards. Boosters burning on low, he flew in wide, careful circles about her. She wanted to join him.

'You got my back if I mess this up?' She mentally whimpered to Laserbeak.

The minicon pulsed confidence to her, 'Indeed. Now, and for the rest of forever,' he promised.

She felt the pull of Soundwave's field also, and together it was enough of a push. She made the leap in her mind, much like learning how to shift her arm into a blaster and shoot. A now familiar warmth in her side where her Transformation Cog was activating from the mental stimulus. It was hard not to think she was coming apart. No pain of course, but very very strange feeling the shifting disjointedness click across her whole being, inside and out. But those pieces of herself didn't just break apart and float away to join the asteroid field. They came back together into a new shape. Something totally different than her bipedal form.

The way she saw was different now, but no less clear. She didn't really get how she was seeing, as her optics were lost somewhere in the shuffle of limbs and metal plates. She was locked in her one focus, unable to move her perspective down to look at herself. No more helm with a movable neck, so no big shock there… Her servos, now wings respectively, were fixed in place. She was not ready for how locked in this form would feel. She couldn't even glance down to see if she had done it all right.

Soundwave's field enveloped her and she almost got drunk off of his pulsing pride. He was so proud of her, and even in this form, she felt her whole essence blushing. She wanted to close the distance and fly with him. He was right. Gravity would have messed this up. Being weightless and not worrying about crashing was a luxury she didn't know she needed until this very moment.

She willed herself forward, like tensing a muscle. Pushing the gas petal on a car. She clearly pushed too hard.

Somewhere inside herself she yelped as she zoomed forward and passed him. She wanted to put her arms out to stop herself, but that wasn't an option like this. On instinct she forced herself to shift again. Back to 'normal' and struggling to right the spin she sent herself into. Not having gravity was now showing its downsides. Her momentum just didn't stop.

Laserbeak's boosters righted them fast enough, and a whisp of grayish blue flashed by them before it transformed to catch her. She clung to Soundwave, now utterly overwhelmed. But true to their word, they had both come to her rescue. Soundwave was chuckling, and she found herself laughing in his grasp too. It wasn't a total disaster of a first transformation, even if it only lasted about ten seconds. Second time would be better.

Now she was the first to pull away, collecting her focus and trying again. Much less mind melting the second time, but only because she wasn't focusing on the mechanics of rearranging her body. She didn't focus on the stiffness of this second form again. She also only tapped the mental gas petal in her mind as opposed to stomping it.

She was moving forward again. Not at MOC a million like the first time. She was focusing hard to maintain a straight path, only vaguely registering the transformation behind her. The glowing sea of tiny stars raced under her as she flew. She felt Soundwave's presence by her side. In this form's impressive peripheral vision, she found his arial form on her right.

Fear was ebbing away and being replaced with pure exhilaration.

She followed him along the upper line of the dazzling asteroid river. No destination in mind. She was slipping behind. No, he was speeding up, egging her on to go faster. She pushed a little harder to catch up. Her brain was screaming, but her heart, her Spark, was racing with delight. It was better than any ride at the State Fair.

She felt more of his wordless presence, a questioning push. The walls surrounding his inner field were waning, and she could basically feel his thoughts. No worry for anyone all the way out here hearing their connection.

How far was she willing to go? That was the question he was pressing.

Lowering her own walls, she decided as far as they could. She could hide under her weighted blanket later, after totally overwhelming herself. She just wanted to fly through space with her two boys.

She struggled to lean right, trying to follow his drifting course. But he had her enveloped in his bubble of energy, like she was being towed along in a tractor beam. It made the movement easy to figure out.

Where were they headed? She saw a picture in her mind, courtesy of Soundwave's own perspective made manifest through their Bond. A swirling world of purple and silver gases. So, they would be tackling gravity. She was intimidated, but curiosity burned like the gas giant's core. What lay under the clouds of the mysterious planet?

He flew in close just as she felt the planet's impressive pull. Pulsing waves of encouragement and protectiveness. This was dangerous, but he had faith in her ability to tackle it. She just wouldn't panic. Their communication through the Bond was so much faster than words. She was able to sense his direction as they touched the outer planet's gravity, then the atmosphere… They couldn't go to deep. Not even a Cybertronian body could withstand the crushing gravity at this planet's core. But it was farther than any human could ever dream.

The safety of space's lack of gravity was lost here. The sudden pull intense, willing her down. But she felt Soundwave's own pull, his instruction leading her to test her boosters in tandem with Laserbeak's. Together, they conquered the gravity. It was like flying through a swirling haze of twinkling sand, all somehow made of clouds. She couldn't see anything but the vortex of color, but she could still clearly feel Soundwave through it all.

Now for more Cybertronian senses she had yet to use. Soundwave was encouraging her to switch to a new perspective within. Her sight, no matter how high she cranked it up, was worthless here. But now she was able to sense more than her optics could normally see. Soundwave's heat and life signal appeared on a little mental map in her brain. She saw herself, and Laserbeak of course. Then there was everything else swirling around them.

Molecules of hydrogen and helium drifted over her wings and against her body. She felt them, a heat that didn't really hurt. Cybertronian sensation was so strange.

She wasn't sure how long they spent sailing along the shimmering upper atmosphere of the nameless planet. She decided it didn't matter in the slightest. Even as her brain sort of melted into an amazed and stressed soup, she wanted to keep going.

But he was in her head too, and to soon she felt Soundwave's firm pull. Reluctantly, she pushed that inner petal harder. She had to really stomp it to break out, but it drove her up and out right behind him. Her odd perspective watched wistfully as the curve of the spiraling gaseous orb became obvious. They were in its orbit, no longer fighting the pull, but being carried by it. Were they going to break out of the orbit and go somewhere else? How long did they have to explore the whole galaxy, because she couldn't wait.

Stop. He was stopping, and he wanted her to change back. She did, but not in that order. Again, she found herself transforming back into her more bipedal form before she had really worked to slow her momentum. Laserbeak had it covered, and Soundwave caught her in his arms again. She had fully intended to laugh at her clumsiness, but oddly enough, all she could really do was sputter. The place under her chest armor was tight, there was heat everywhere… Was something wrong with her body?

She was melting into Soundwave. He had dropped his emotional walls to invite her into the safety of his quiet mind. It distracted her from the growing panic. No, nothing was wrong. He was assuring her of that. She was just overwhelmed. Her mind couldn't keep up with the input. Was this going to be a continuing problem from now on and for eternity? Her human consciousness stumbling a few lightyears behind her Cybertronian form? Hopefully, Soundwave had the patience to wait on her, because she wasn't sure she did.

His grip tightened around her, physically and mentally embracing her whole essence. 'I would be content to wait forever,' she could feel his answer.

She was wordlessly laughing like a giddy teenager. Coming up from her panic when her brain finally felt like calming down. There, she found his soft gaze. And it was patient, just as he promised. Holding tight as they floated along in the planet's gravity. The light from the strange solar system's sun catching their reflective bodies. She let the rest of her tension go, just so she could melt into him. He was pulling her in, wordlessly entangling her mind with his own.

Had they meant to merge fields again? Probably not, but floating alone above a glittering sea of color was one hell of a romantic place for it. Almost alone, anyway, but Laserbeak kept his little field to himself, content to float along with them feeding off their collective good vibes.

She let him drive, so to speak. She was happy to. It was still strange to her, losing total mental autonomy in favor of this perfect melting of memories and feelings. She was caressed with his pride for her, and it crushed all thought of self-consciousness regarding her stumbling first flight. He thought she was beautiful. More glowing than the galaxy swirling around them.

The distant, maniacal laughter somewhere in the back of her consciousness jarred her from the moment. She didn't have time to ask if either of them heard it too.

The sharp tug was even more jarring than the cackle. Yanking her apart from Soundwave's comforting embrace so fast she didn't know what hit her until she slammed her head against the ceiling of her transfer pod.

"What the hell?" She gasped through the sudden stabbing pain of a splitting headache. Her bolting up and whacking her skull into the metal roof of her pod probably didn't help. Her hand rubbed her head, and it came back bloody. The top of the pod wasn't exactly a smooth surface…

Soundwave was gone… So was space, and the gas planet. She groped her head, and instantly located the problem. The many wires meant to maintain the connection to her avatar were gone. She cycled the pod to open it, grasping around with her fingers until she located the wires. They were almost down to her feet, as if they had been yanked from her head. Ok, that had never happened before. 'What the hell?' didn't even cover her confusion.

Her finger went to her ear to assure Soundwave and Laserbeak she wasn't brain dead from the sudden disconnection. Crap, she forgot. No translator while in the pod. Because it would cause some sort of interference, or something Shockwave said.

She groaned as she rolled out of the open pod and onto the floor with a pained "oof." After having a joyous and carefree floating dance through space, the ship's artificial gravity was a bummer. She was also dizzy and nauseous. Not exactly unusual for coming back into her skin, but this felt worse somehow. She hit her head pretty hard… She should probably get that checked out.

She went to reach for the translator but hesitated before picking it up. Even away from her ear, she heard it's screeching. "I get you are trapped in a different dimension, but this was a crappy time to interrupt," she grumbled to the message sender, just sort of assuming that's what did it. How it had caused enough interference for her own body to flail and pull the wires free, she didn't know, but that was just her current theory.

The ship's intercom system activated, making her wince from the whining feedback.

'Rhea, do you read me?' Soundwave demanded, very panicked, but also punctual as ever. The moment he failed to get through to her with the translator, the ship's intercom systems was his second-best bet.

"Yeah," she grumbled as she plugged the translator into one of many wall consols. "Sorry I ditched you two… It was an accident, I swear." As she waited for her translator to align with the message sender's correct frequency, she pulled up the pods internal surveillance system, usually meant to monitor her human body for safety reasons. Soundwave had that feature installed after her near-death experience a few months back. But the cold tendrils of clarity clutched her through the painful haze as she watched her peaceful body on the feed, eyelids fluttering as they did sometimes. The sound of her Translator activating somewhere outside. Then without her moving, the wires yanked from her head. As if by a phantom.

Her body reacted with a violent gasp and jolted up, and she felt the ghostly pain of the impact when her instinct to bolt up slammed her head into the ceiling of the pod. "Ok… Maybe it wasn't an accident," she muttered, in total and utter confusion.

Soundwave was silent. She peeked at the map on the monitor and saw his, Laserbeak's and her Avatar body's life signals headed back to the ship. He was connected to the ship, so he would have witnessed what she had.

'Remain where you are. I will be there shortly. Do not communicate with the being in the translator,' He ordered. And it was in that deadly tone he rarely took, mostly because it scared her. But why? Beyond his venomous vocals, did he think the message sender had somehow done this? How was that possible? When trapped in the Shadow Zone, Soundwave could not physically interact with anything in their dimension, save for the ground and what was attached to it. But they had determined this other being was not in the same dimensional rift. How long was this being capable of manipulating things in the real world? Had it really felt it necessary to yank her out of her avatar body? No. Not unless… She looked too the still buzzing translator. "Not unless it is something bad."

'Rhea!' Soundwave snapped from the ceiling as she plugged in the translator.

"We may lose the signal," she reasoned just as she zeroed in on the message sender's frequency.

I HAVE LOCATED THE STAFF'S LOCATION.

The words on the screen translated the moment her efforts paid off.

"Was that you?" She questioned of the voice. "Did you pull those wires off my head?"

YES.

"You could have killed me," she felt the need to inform the message sender with a grumble.

LIMITED TIME TO COMMUNICATE.

Rhea scowled, still rubbing away the blood from the impressive bump forming on her head. Well, it certainly got her attention.

"What staff are you talking about?" She went on to ask when she decided it was in everyone's best interest to just gloss over her annoyance. The message sender did say they had limited time each broadcast, she needed to get as much as possible out of them this go around. "Is the staff a tool to help you escape? And last time you mentioned Earth and Cybertron are in danger. Danger from what?"

The outside hatch cycled a few chambers over from the storage room. Soundwave was back.

YES. THE STAFF IS ONE OF QUINTIS PRIME'S CREATIONS THAT WOULD AMPLIFY A MASSIVE ABOUT OF RAW POWER. PLACED WITHIN AN ACTIVATED SPACE BRIDGE ONCE CHARGED, IT WOULD CREATE ENOUGH OF A DIMENSIONAL DISRUPTION TO ALLOW MY ESCAPE. IN ADDITION, THE STAFF COULD ALSO BE UTILIZED TO SEAL ANY RIPS IN SPACE TIME. THAT WILL BE ITS SECOND FUNCTION. TO SEAL OUT THE TWISTED.

She blinked. "I'm sorry, the what?"

The storage room door slid to the side and Soundwave stormed in. He was still cradling her Avatar's body, but he had her plucked from the ground and away from the room's interface with the use of his cables. He gave her a quick once over to make sure she was alright. He quickly zeroed in on the red stickiness in her hair. She felt stupid, because she had tried to assure him she was fine purely through the field she no longer had. "It's not a big deal," she had to say out loud instead.

She really wished she still had the Bond, because he wasn't buying that at all. He gently placed Rhea's Cybertronian avatar onto the floor. Then his full furious attention was on the interface.

"I'm ok," she tried to assure him again.

It was quick, but going strictly from the glance he gave her, Rhea thought he was angry at her too. "But one slip up, one wire undone to fast, you may not have been 'ok.' Please, do not downplay this." She didn't argue. Instead, she remained secured on his shoulder as he took her place questioning the words on the interface. "Identify yourself." He snarled, and she had to stop herself from wincing, "You have utilized a private communication channel on multiple occasions to send your encryption and we will not move forward with any rescue attempts until you identify your designation and the nature of this emergency you have implied."

"They said they need to lock out the 'twisted?' You caught that, right? Whatever the hell that means, I assume-" she let the rambling and nervous thought drop just as Soundwave's expression did. She didn't ask if he was ok as he staired in a rare moment of utter dumbfounded shock at the screen. She just looked.

The message sender did send a name just before it carried on its rant regarding Steeljaw, who had this staff of destiny. Rhea was stuck on that name, and she assumed Soundwave was too.

"Megatronus," She read out loud. She recognized it almost immediately. But not only because of its close proximity to the late Decepticon Lord. Similar for a reason, because Megatron had named himself after this same bot. "Like, the Fallen Prime? I'm assuming that's who he's saying he is. That's about as far fetched as it gets… Soundwave? Hun?" she placed a hand on his face when he failed to respond, or react, or blink his optics. "You're scaring me. What's going on?"

Her touch must have done the trick. His trance broke. A flash of true fear flicked across his features before he shoved them under a mask of tense stone. He worked fast, disconnecting her translator from the computer interface before the bot calling himself the mythical Fallen could finish. Soundwave was quick to bring the small device up, tinkering with its inner systems as he remotely started the ship.

"Until we determine what Steeljaw has uncovered, we will no longer be in direct communication with this entity," he said. It was far from a suggestion, or at least Rhea didn't take it as one as she silently watched him fiddle with the familiar device. "And I will lower the sensitivity of your translator until further notice. That will make it, so you are unable to pick up this frequency, or it is unable to utilize the device in kind to communicate."

She just held fast to him as he hurried to the control room. He was working impossibly fast, contacting his fellow lords back on Cybertron for an emergency meeting while also piloting the ship. Back towards Earth, she assumed. Where she would be dumped off. That was until she noticed the intended course.

"Wait, Cybertron?" she squeaked, in genuine surprise.

"To have Autoclave scan your brain," Soundwave huffed, focus unwavering from his ten other tasks. "I don't want to risk any lasting damage done by, what happened."

She slid down from his shoulder, finding perches to hide in the plating between his chest and Laserbeak. Without the translator nestled in her ear, Laserbeak's words didn't come easy, but she did recognize the meaning of his worried chirps. She shuttered, wondering if she had done something to have circumvented this. She should have figured this all out sooner.

His touch startled her. Even amid his insisting conversation with Starscream over Commlink, he had found the time to run a gentle finger down her arm. Her heartbeat was probably loud and distracting him. She tried to settle that too, for his sake.

She watched the stars blaze by in streaking lines as they abandoned their dancing place in the heart of the Andromeda Galaxy. She tried not to be bitter towards the voice claiming themselves to be a long lost Prime. But that being said, could it have picked any other time to interrupt? Was that selfish of her to think, considering the fate of the universe was tied up in this? Oh, totally. So, for the sake of all of everything, she kept her bitterness to herself. She decided her time was better used figuring out how the supposedly long gone and Fallen Prime had managed to touch her while locked away in a different plane of existence.