Silverstreak slipped in and out of sleep for hours, so tired and weak that he couldn't force himself up. Nobody came to him to tell him to get up and get to his punishment, so he continued to sleep and mope in his room. The sleep wasn't restful at all, and he missed the nights where he spent his sleeping hours in the metal forest with the Primes. But they had become distant over the years, and now he had more human-like moments of dreaming. And as he turned over for what felt like the hundredth time, a familiar sensation of slipping down into the Primes world met his exhausted mind, and he dove in eagerly.

What he saw surprised him. He wasn't in the metal forest, but a dilapidated part of Cybertron. The buildings were a wreck, many crumbling to pieces from disuse and damage from the war. A lone mech stood staring out at the broken landscape. He was a handsome mech, but he looked incredibly young, smaller than the average Cybertronian. He was thin, with unpolished armor. It looked to be white and blue, but it was so filthy that Silverstreak couldn't tell. He looked bedraggled and sad, as if he had no hope left in his frame.

Silverstreak approached and called out, but the mech didn't move. He wasn't really there, then. It was a dream, or maybe it was a vision of some sort. He walked over to stand beside him and looked at the torn landscape. There was a large building, the best preserved in the whole area, and it, too, was dull with the passing of ages and lack of care. The mech took a deep breath, then he knelt down slowly, awkwardly. He glanced around to make sure that nobody was around, and the only one that was he couldn't see. Placing his hands together, he looked toward the building again. It took him several attempts to speak.

"Great Primus," he began softly. "I don't know what to believe about you, or if you're even there. You've been so silent for so long that many of us don't think you're real anymore. But we're desperate. If you are real, if you're still here on Cybertron, please, hear my prayer. We need a leader, somebody to take care of us. Maybe…" He trailed off then glanced away. "Perhaps you could bring us that Prime Magnus talks about. We need a Prime, Primus. Somebody to lead us, who understands what it is to be a youngling. Please, help us. Give me a sign that you hear me, that you will help. Please."

The youngling waited, looking around hopelessly for some sort of sign but none came. With a great whine of pain, the youngling doubled over and began to sob. Silverstreak reached out to touch him, sure he would go through the mech since it was a dream. But he made contact, and he could feel the shudders of the youngling's body as he broke down in hopelessness.

"It'll be okay," Silverstreak whispered in his audio, speaking in Cybertronian.

The youngling jolted up with a cry of fear. He stared around him with big, golden optics. "Who's there?" He paused, and then he slowly turned toward the temple. "Is that the sign? Primus, was that you?"

Silverstreak took several steps back, watching as delight filled the youngling's face. Several more whines, this time of joy, left his vocalizer. "Thank you," he whispered fervently, bowing his head to the dirty ground. "Please send him soon, great Primus. Send us a Prime."

There was a pounding sound, and Silverstreak jerked awake, wondering what in the Pit was happening. But then he recognized the knock at the door. He sat up as Bumblebee walked in. He took one look at the mess and made a face, but he made no move to clean.

"Are you okay, Sam?" Bumblebee asked, his optics resting on Silverstreak's face.

Silverstreak blew a lock of hair away from his face and shrugged. Bumblebee was the only person in the whole universe that still called him Sam. After his parents had disowned him, he had insisted that everybody call him Silverstreak, trying to break ties with his humanity. But he hadn't yet, and he feared he never would. He was a freak on Cybertron and a freak on Earth. There was no hope for him. Just being reminded of that made him angry again.

"Have you had energon?" Bumblebee persisted.

"Low grade," Silverstreak said sullenly. "Optimus is punishing me."

Bumblebee frowned. "Sam, it's for your own good. You've been mouthing off a lot lately. Did you honestly think you could keep getting away with it?"

Silverstreak shrugged again, drawing his knees to his chest. "What are his orders?"

His Guardian didn't even deny that he was there because of Optimus. Instead, he sighed. "Optimus says you start with Ratchet tomorrow morning at six."

"No apology?" Silverstreak muttered, his anger stirring again.

Bumblebee's optics flashed with a pale blue light. "Excuse me?" Silverstreak didn't answer. Bumblebee stared in shock. "You think Optimus needs to apologize to you?! You sent him into electro-spasms, and he needs to say he's sorry?!"

"He pushed me too far!" Silverstreak snapped. "You have no idea how hard it is for me to control the electricity! You aren't a youngling!"

"I am so a youngling!" Bumblebee said, drawing his holoform up to his full height.

"You are not!" Silverstreak yelled, tears in his eyes again. "You were made to be a mech, not a youngling. You are as fully grown as everybody else on this planet. So don't pretend you know how I feel! None of you do!"

Bumblebee's optics flashed a dangerous dark blue. "You start at six tomorrow. Be there or you will be punished worse. And you deserve it, Silverstreak."

With that, the mech disappeared. He wanted to be gone so badly that he'd just disappeared instead of walking out the door. Silverstreak felt his spark break, and he went very still as pain became his only reality. He didn't even go through the motions of breathing as his mind revolved around that one word, over and over and over. Silverstreak. Bumblebee had called him by his Cybertronian name, not his Earthly one.

Something tore inside of Silverstreak, and he looked around him at the mess all over the floors. It matched the mess of his spark, the mess of his emotions, and he wondered if he cleaned it if the pain would go away, if everything would settle back into place. With that slim hope, he slowly rose and began to clean. Bit by bit, everything was picked up and put where it belonged. For three hours he cleaned, and he even made the bed.

But when he stood back, he felt no better. He was alone. Just like the youngling he'd seen on Cybertron. The youngling had wished for a Prime. The only one left was Optimus, and Silverstreak knew that Optimus would sorely disappoint him. He wished there was a Prime that would understand younglings, but the bitter truth was that every mech left in the Autobots' ranks were far enough past younglinghood that they didn't remember what it meant to be that young and emotional.

With a sinking spark, he leaned against the wall and slid down to sit. They didn't know what it was to be a youngling, and there was nobody to talk to, nobody to guide him or that other youngling. Hot Shot and Bumblebee were younglings by age, but they never had to grow up. They were built fully grown, the usual route of sparking a sparkling bypassed for warriors. And the painful truth was that they just didn't understand.

Tears wound down Silverstreak's face, but it did nothing to lessen the pain, the hopelessness inside of him. He wanted to help that youngling, needed to help him, but he was on Earth, just as alone as he'd been for the last few years. Squeezing his eyes shut, he breathed the first prayer he'd ever uttered to Primus, the nearly mythological god of the Cybertronians, speaking though he knew it wouldn't work.

"I want to help, but I can't. We're all that's left, him and me. And if we were together, we could help each other. If it's possible, I want to help him. Take me to Cybertron, please."

With his eyes closed, he suddenly felt weightless, as if he were traveling through the darkness of space, through the compress of time to a new place, an old place, both familiar and unfamiliar. And as he peeked his eyes open, he could swear that he saw the starry skies above Cybertron, but he was so tired that he shrugged it off, turned over, and fell asleep.

The next morning, Bumblebee knocked at Silverstreak's door. The youngling was late for his shift with Ratchet, and Optimus, who was still on strict rest because of the electro-spasms, sent Bumblebee to force Silverstreak to go through with his punishment. There was no answer, so Bumblebee knocked again.

"Sam, come on. Take your punishment," he called through the door.

Nobody answered. Bumblebee huffed in irritation and opened the door. He was ready to order his charge to his punishment if he had to, but he froze in place, his vocalizer clicking with shock. The room was spotless. Everything was clean and in perfect order. Pride swelled inside of Bumblebee. It seemed the boy was taking his punishment already! He looked around, beaming, but his optics paused on the undisturbed berth. Nobody was there.

It took Bumblebee a moment to take in that fact. Then his spark leaped inside of him, and he scanned the room for any sign of his charge. There was no reading for any kind of life. Panic began to build inside the yellow mech, and he hurried over to open the closet. It, too, was in perfect, order, but there was no sign of Silverstreak. He turned and scanned the room, and then he saw a symbol burned into the metal on the wall beside the dresser. He paused, then he cried out, leaping into his body. He raced through the halls with a sharp whine coming out of his vocalizer, and he ran into the rec room, screaming and pointing, unable to speak, unable to calm down.

"Get Aid!" Kup shouted.

"Somebody get Ratchet!" Perceptor barked. "He's having a panic attack! Ironhide, secure his hands!"

The black weapons specialist timed his movement, and he snagged Bumblebee's hands, pulling him close.

"Easy, Bee," he crooned, soothing beeps coming from his vocalizer.

"Sam!" Bumblebee finally shrieked. "Sam! Primus! Sam! Primus!"

That confused everybody, and Ironhide pulled Bumblebee to sit down, beeping and hissing static in an attempt to soothe, but Bumblebee was still hysterical when Ratchet and First Aid hurried in. Optimus came in, too, having been caught while he was awake and strong enough to get up.

"Bee!" he cried in Cybertronian. "Bee, what's wrong?" He looked around, and he noticed that Silverstreak wasn't there. "Is it Silverstreak?"

Bumblebee looked at him and screamed again. "Sam! Primus! Sam! Primus!"

Optimus hurried over and knelt down. He placed his hands on either side of Bumblebee's face, a churring sound coming from his chest. Bumblebee's intakes began to slow, and he searched Optimus's face for reassurance. He found exactly what he needed, and he shivered as he relaxed. He whined softly, and Optimus sat back.

"Now, Bee. What about Primus? What about Silverstreak?"

"He took him," he whispered.

"What?"

"Primus took Sam," Bumblebee moaned, covering his face.

"How do you know?"

Bumblebee trembled as he stood up and led them down the hall toward Silverstreak's room. He projected himself and walked in without knocking. Optimus and the others sat down and did the same. They gathered in the small room. Ironhide's vents stuttered.

"He cleaned his room!" he exclaimed as he looked around. Then he froze, gaping at the wall that Bumblebee was pointing at. "Holy Primus!" he yelped.

"Exactly," Bumblebee whispered.

There, on the wall, was etched an ancient Cybertronian symbol, so old that they were sure that Silverstreak couldn't have known it. It was well-known to all of them, though. In delicate script, it was the symbol for the most powerful of Cybertronians. And they all knew then that Bumblebee hadn't just gone crazy. They knew the reality of the situation.

Primus himself had taken Silverstreak away from them. But where?