Chapter 3: Crying Fowler.

-Jasper, Nevada dirt road-

Tiberius was currently letting Optimus drive him to the base, and he was trying to see if he could recall any more memories or possibly see if his two masks would give him directions on how to use them. So far he had nothing.

"It would be wise for it to simply let it happen on its own time, Tiberius. Trying to rush it will not bode well." Optimus said, knowing what he was doing.

"Easy for you to say, you're not the one with apparently repressed memories and powers." The boy sighed. As they entered the base, they heard the tell tale sounds of struggling. "What the…?" The green eyed boy muttered with furrowed eyebrows as he got out of the Autobot.

Transforming, Optimus started running and they soon saw Ratchet struggling with what looked like a reanimated monster made out of his broken claw arm.

"I what in the name of-?" Tiberius asked as the creature jumped at Ratchet, only to be shot by Optimus before it could make contact.

"What could've caused this?" Ratchet wondered.

Optimus looked down at the dead creature before sighing. "I have a grave suspicion, Ratchet. Dark Energon." He told his medic.

(Elsewhere)

Jack was in the middle of riding to the base on Arcie and the two wheeler seemed to be rather peppy today for some reason.

"Better tighten your grip, Jack." She told the boy.

"Whoa, what's gotten into you today?" Jack asked with a chuckle.

Arcie's only response was to do a wheelie before they sped off, much to the black haired teen's surprise before he laughed.

"I just thought you'd be able to enjoy the ride now that we're not being shot at." She chuckled.

"Oh you're on." He grinned.

Meanwhile with Miko and Bulkhead, they were on a cliff side with the Autobot in vehicle mode and Miko strapped in the passenger seat.

"Alright Bulkhead, let's go." She told him.

"You know I'm supposed to be protecting you, right?" He asked with concern in his voice

"Bulkhead, I'm strapped inside two tons of metal muscle. I'm protected." The Japanese girl told him

Reluctantly, Bulkhead drove off the top of the slope and Miko cheered at the adrenaline rush.

Meanwhile with Sierra, Raf and Bumblebee, the twelve year old was playing a racing video game with his Autobot Guardian, while the cheer captain watched. After a moment of racing, Bumblebee suddenly sent Raf's car off the road, much to the kid's surprise.

[Ha ha! Don't mess with the master, Raf!] Bumblebee chuckled.

"No fair! You've been driving longer than I have." He complained, though he still smirked a bit. Sierra chuckled a bit at the interaction between them.

(Elsewhere)

Tiberius sat on the balcony of the ground bridge as he listened to Ratchet and Optimus discussing what had just occurred.

"Are you quite certain? I mean the evidence seems to point that way but, Dark Energon? It's so scarce as to be nonexistent. What could it be doing on earth?" Ratchet questioned.

"I do not know, but I believe it is of the utmost importance that we find out." Optimus said.

"Don't suppose it could have been brought here by Megatron?" Tiberius asked, causing the two to face him. "I mean, Cliffjumper was killed a week before Megatron came back, right? He was brought back and we found him leaking Dark Energon, seems likely to me." He shrugged.

"Hm… He does make a valid point." Ratchet admitted. "But for what purpose?" He added.

"Maybe he wants to try starting his own Cybertronian Zombie movie or something?" Tiberius suggested jokingly.

"Considering that Dark Energon has been rumored to be capable of reanimating the dead… An army does sound likely." The medic mused, choosing to ignore the boy's humor.

"So we get this stuff before Megatron can use it and dispose of it. Seems pretty simple to me." The Bioformer stated.

"With Megatron, nothing is ever simple." Optimus stated. Right at that moment everyone else made it to the base. Tiberius was glad to see his friends come back, especially a certain pink streaked rocker girl.

'Is it just me, or do her shorts seem a little small?... Wait, why did I just think that?' He thought as he looked at the said article of clothing on Miko before shaking his head.

"Hey guys." The golden haired boy greeted his friends. The four all looked up at him and waved.

"Hey, man." Jack called.

"Morning, Tiberius." Raf greeted.

"Good to see you're doing okay." Sierra smiled.

"Heya Tibs! How's it hangin'?" Miko chirped.

"'Bout as good as it can get." Said boy shrugged.

"So what's on the agenda today?" Arcie asked as she faced Optimus.

"Should I tell them, or should I let you do it?" Tiberius asked his guardian/mentor.

"I will tell them." The large transformer replied. Everyone looked between them in confusion. "We have discovered something very grave. The discovery of the Blood of Unicron on this planet: Dark Energon." The Prime explained.

"You gotta be kidding me…" Bulkhead groaned.

"Blood of Unicron, the Destroyer? How is that even possible?" Arcie questioned.

[This is really bad.] Bumblebee added with a shudder in his coded voice.

"Who's Unicron?" Jack asked.

"Apparently he's the twin brother of the Cybertronian's version of god, Primus. Think of him as their version of Satan." Tiberius summarized. "And given that I'm Primus's direct descendant, it makes Unicron my uncle."

"Ouch." Jack commented with a cringe, which was shared amongst the rest of the humans.

"Hold on, when did you find out that you're Primus's direct descendant?" Arcie asked.

"Memory flashes." The boy told her. "Anyway, what's the plan Optimus?" He asked the bot next to him.

"Remain here." The Autobot leader said as he turned to Ratchet. "Ratchet, you will accompany me to the nearest Cybertronian burial sight here on Earth." He added as he turned to Arcie. "And Arcie, you will be in charge until we return." He told the blue femme. With that, Ratchet activated the ground bridge and the two went through it to their destination.

Tiberius was about to jump onto Optimus's shoulder, but was swiftly caught by Bumblebee before he could actually land as the two bots disappeared.

"Bumblebee, you have exactly ten seconds to let go of me before I transform and skewer you." The boy warned as he was still being held by the scout by his collar. On reflex, the yellow bot put him down with the others.

"Someone's testy today. What crawled up your tailpipe and died?" Bulkhead questioned.

"I got woken up in the rudest way possible." Tiberius bit out with a twitching eyebrow.

"Another one of your wet dreams get interrupted again?" Jack questioned in a teasing manner. The green eyed boy just sent a glare at him that said 'don't test me.'

[Uhhh, what's a-?] Bumblebee tried to ask before Raf interrupted him.

"Don't ask." He told the bot.

"So… What now?" Sierra asked to try and ease the tension.

"I'm gonna go on patrol." Arcie shrugged.

"But Optimus told us to stay here." Bulkhead told her.

"When you're in charge, you make the rules. Bee, with me." Arcie told the two.

[Oh come on!] Bumblebee whined, But as the two were about to leave, Tiberius transformed and blocked their path.

"Oh no you don't. You're not skipping out on responsibilities." He said firmly.

"Out of the way, Creator. You may be the son of Primus, but I'm still your superior around here." Arcie snapped.

"Which method do you think would be the best for seeing the most area at once? Air or road? Face it Arcie, with my vehicle mode I'm more useful out there than I am in here." The golden Bioformer told her.

"Ya know, he does have a point." Bulkhead piped up.

"Don't encourage him." The two wheeler hissed. "Tiberius, Cybertronian form or not, you're still a kid. Inexperienced, impulsive, and brash. You wouldn't last a minute out there."

"How am I supposed to gain experience if you keep me cooped up like this, then?" He questioned.

[Okay, you can't exactly argue with him there, Arcie.] Bumblebee stated. Though before Arcie could say anything, the proximity alert went off.

"Scrap, it's Fowler." Bulkhead groaned as Tiberius transformed back into his human form.

"Quick, hide!" The two wheeler urged as the kids hid behind Bulkhead.

Seconds later, Fowler came down the elevator and entered the base. "Prime! I thought you said you'd handle the Decepticons-! Where's Prime?" He asked Arcie who was standing in front of him while Bumblebee was whistling as he walked away.

"Out on a recon mission." Arcie replied.

"Well I don't know what language you bots speak on your planet, but when I said 'handle it' I didn't mean blow up an entire forest in the middle of Nebraska by your personal flying Autobot bombing it!" Fowler nearly shouted. "Where's that new recruit of yours, anyway? I'd like a few choice words with him."

"He's uh… not here right now." Bulkhead told him.

"Where is he, then? Out on patrol?" Fowler questioned. It was at this point that Tiberius, now growing increasingly infuriated at this guy's attitude, did not notice his backpack poking out from behind Bulkhead's leg. Right in Fowler's line of sight. "What the- What's that behind your leg?" He asked, pointing at it.

"Nothing!" The green Autobot said as he straightened up. But unfortunately the government agent was already onto what was going on.

"Alright, come out, whoever you are!" The agent called out sternly. The kids all sighed as they stepped into view, and Tiberius was just about ready to transform and give this guy a what for. "Contact with civilians?! You bots have gone off the book this time!" The agent growled as he stomped down the stairway for the phone.

"Hey." Tiberius said as he transformed and blocked his path. "Back off." He warned.

"WHAT THE-?!" Fowler got out in surprise as he stumbled back at the sudden action.

"What? You act like you've never seen a Bioformer before." Creator smirked.

"How in the world did you go from human to… This?!" He asked, gesturing to the giant form in front of him.

"I'm what's known as a Bioformer, or Biological Transformer. I scanned a human couple and became a human baby and grew up that way… Memory's still fuzzy on that." The Creator stated, tapping his foot.

'He really has a lot to learn about himself, doesn't he?' Jack, Raf, Miko and Sierra thought after he finished talking.

"We're taking care of the kids, Fowler. You don't have to worry." Arcie told the man.

"... And they're fine with it?" He asked, wanting to make sure there were no problems.

"We are." The group in question nodded.

"Optimus is training me personally as well." Tiberius nodded. "Still learning though." He added with a shrug. Fowler sighed as he ran a hand through his hair.

"This is gonna be difficult to explain to my superiors." He muttered as he went to the elevator and left.

[Oh boy.] Bumblebee sighed. [This is gonna be really hard to tell Optimus.]

(Elsewhere)

-Decepticon Ship, The Nemesis-

Megatron let out a guttural sigh as the Dark Energon finished mingling with his spark chamber. "Fascinating, this symbiosis, I can feel the Blood of Unicron flowing through my veins! As if, I can hear his very thoughts." He said to himself.

"Master, are you sure you're well?" Starscream asked in concern.

"Oh I've never felt more clear." The con said as he took another shard. "I know now what I must do."

"W-what must you do?" The seeker asked nervously.

"You shall see. Now stay here, and await my command." Megatron told him before walking away.

He had plans to enact.

(Elsewhere)

Fowler was in the process of leaving the base, and was now trying to contact his superior: Five Star General Anderson Brice.

"Sir, this is agent William Fowler, I'm en route from the Autobot base and… Sir, there's no easy way to say this but, we have a situation. I'll brief you in person." He said as he cut the call.

(Meanwhile)

On the Nemesis, Soundwave had intercepted Fowler's transmission and played it for Starscream to hear. When the seeker heard it, he smirked.

"Autobot base, eh? Humans, always the weak link." He mused before turning to the former council member/spy. "Fetch this, Fowler, so that he may brief us instead."

Wordlessly, Soundwave's chest piece detached and formed into the Decepticon's prized drone, Laserbeak, and flew off to fulfill its order.

(Elsewhere)

Back at the base everyone was letting out a collective sigh of relief from the fact that a crisis was averted.

"Man for a minute there, I thought Fowler was about to shit his pants." Miko noted as Tiberius let out a snort of laughter.

"Don't do that again, Tiberius. We're teaching you to not hurt others, not do the exact opposite." Arcie chastised the boy.

"I'm just making it a point that I don't appreciate getting that kind of flak from the government." The Bioformer shrugged.

"Let's just hope they don't try to take you and experiment on you." Jack said with a shudder.

"If they even can." Sierra added.

[Yeah, I doubt Optimus would let tha-Aw what now?!] Bumblebee asked as a sudden SOS message started coming in.

Frowning, Arcie went over and did a trace of the signal, only for it to be incomplete. "It's from Fowler, but it's incomplete." She noted.

"How is that even possible?" The son of Primus wondered. "Who would want to target him?" He added.

"Uh, how about the cons?" Miko suggested, causing the boy to facepalm.

"Of course." He groaned.

"Oh well, nothing we can do." Bulkhead shrugged.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jack asked.

"Fowler's a jerk." The bot told him.

"And you're just going to leave him high and dry because of that? That's just petty." Sierra commented with a frown.

"And you saw how easily he backed down from a bot! The cons will totally make him squeal!" Miko added.

"Then they'll know where the base is!" Jack continued.

"*Gulp* And be able to get us." Raf gulped, hiding behind Sierra instinctively.

"Well if you wanna really help him, we're open to ideas here." Arcie stated, crossing her arms and cocking her hip sassily.

'Is she always this sassy?' Tiberius thought as he watched the conversation.

"Just send in a rescue team." Jack shrugged.

"That would work if we knew where he was taken." Sierra inputted.

"I think I can help with that." Raf piped in as he slowly came out from behind Sierra and got out his computer. "Around five years ago the FBI started microchipping their agents, ya know, like owners do with pets." Everyone stared at him like he grew a second head. "I saw it on TV, okay?" He said defensively under their gazes.

"Okay, but we'd have to hack into their mainframe and unfortunately, my powers either create, reconstruct, or enhance tech, not hack. Plus hacking isn't my forte." He told them.

"Good thing I'm here, then." The child nerd shrugged.

"You can hack? But you're, like, six years old!" Miko asked incredulously.

"I'm twelve… And a quarter." He retorted as he went to work.

(Elsewhere)

Meanwhile on the Nemesis, Starscream currently had Fowler captured, and since he clearly wasn't going to give up the location of the Autobot base, he decided to ask about the Autobot that hurt Megatron.

"Tell me, Agent Fowler, do you recognize this Autobot?" The jet questioned as he showed an image of Tiberius in his Creator form. Fowler looked at the image before scoffing.

"I literally know nothing about him. Does he actually exist, or is this picture fake?" He asked while lying about knowing about Creator. 'Like hell I'm letting them find out anything about him.' He thought.

"Hmmm, seems you may be hiding more than you're letting on." Starscream said as he turned to a Vehicon. "Bring me the prod." He ordered. The Vehicon did as asked and went to get the tool in question. A few moments later, it came back with the prod.

Starscream took the prod and then took it to Fowler's midsection, causing him to let out a pained scream. "As I thought, Dark Energon and human nervous systems don't mix." He chuckled darkly.

(Elsewhere)

Back at the base Raf was able to get a lock on Fowler's location and now Arcie, Creator and Bulkhead were about to go get him.

"Bumblebee, you're in charge 'till we get back. If Optimus asks where we are… Tell him we're scouting a new energon mine we found." Tiberius told the camaro bot.

[Alright. Be careful out there.] He beeped.

As they left, everyone was rather on edge. Right until Sierra noticed there was one less girl in the area.

"Uhh guys? Miko's gone." She told the boys nervously. Everyone looked around and saw that Miko was indeed gone, much to their dismay.

"Why does she do these things…?" Jack groaned.

Meanwhile with the bots, the one Miko had stowed away on was Tiberius. She did this by latching onto a handle on the back of his shoulders. As they came out of the bridge, they immediately took cover behind some rocks.

"Okay, so what's the plan?" Creator asked his teammates.

"Not sure if stealth is an option with me around." Bulkhead commented.

"Why not just run and gun?" Miko asked, drawing their attention to her.

"Dammit, Miko! Why did you hitchhike to a place like this?!" The Bioformer hissed as a Vehicon walked by and didn't notice them. Quickly acting, he grabbed her gently by her waist and set her down next to him.

'Wow, she's got a really slim waist. What is she, a model or something?' He thought as he noted how slender the girl's waist was in comparison to her rather wide and equally attractive hips.

"I wanted to see you guys in action." She replied with a shrug. Though as soon as she said this, the same Vehicon circled back around and noticed them, and then pointed it's weapon at them. "Oh… Unwise." The girl said as the robot pointed its cannon at her.

Before it could fire, though, Bulkhead quickly tackled it to the ground and started wrestling with it. Tiberius then grabbed Miko and got the hell out of there as the giant bot grabbed the Vehicon and disemboweled it, which the Bioformer blocked from the girl's view by covering her eyes.

"Hey! I wanted to see that-!" She started to protest before Tiberius poked his metal pinky into her mouth to try and shut her up.

"Will you be quiet?! I'd much rather not get shot at twice today." He whispered. The girl's words were muffled by the obstruction in her mouth but she nodded and he slowly let her breath again.

(Elsewhere)

Optimus and Ratchet were walking to the Burial Site, and so far the walk had been quiet aside from minor chatter. Optimus had decided to explain that Earth was an old battlefield from the war and that it was the reason so many Energon deposits existed on the planet to begin with. Their walk came to an end when the duo finally reached the Burial Site where so many Cybertronians were buried.

"If Megatron intends to raise an army of the dead, this would be the best place for him to go on Earth." Ratchet said as he looked around, right before a large ship came flying towards them, which transformed and landed on a cliff top. It was Megatron.

"Welcome, Optimus." The Decepticon leader said, arms spread wide. "And I see you brought your trusty watch dog with you. I had thought that he was convalescing in a scrapyard by now." He added in a mocking tone towards Ratchet.

"Invite him down here, and I'll prove him wrong." The medic growled, clenching his fists.

"And what of that new recruit of yours? I was hoping I could pay him back for that blast he gave me to my spark. Tell me, what was his name again?" The Decepticon warlord added darkly as he dragged his fist across his neck as he said 'pay him back'.

"Creator is elsewhere. This is between us, Megatron." The semi truck transformer replied firmly.

"Very well then, Optimus. I will settle my score with your pupil another day, but for now…" Megatron trailed off as he took out his shard of Dark Energon and hurled it into the ground and caused it to ooze purple energy through cracks in the surface. A moment later, Cybertonian soldiers from the past rose once more as zombified perversions of who they once were.

"By the Allspark…" Ratchet gasped in horror.

"BEHOLD, THE POWER OF DARK ENERGON!" The warlord roared as he too glowed a dark purple and his soldiers started lumbering towards the two in front of them.

Things just escalated by a large margin.

Dragon Emperor0: All the cool zombie shenanigans aside, did anyone else feel a little dirty when Tiberius stuck his finger in Miko's mouth to shut her up, or was it just me?

ThermalsniperN7: It was probably just you. If he used his whole hand, he'd have hurt her by mistake. Not the best course of action. Using his finger was the smart thing to do.

Dragon Emperor0: True. Though that makes me wonder, in the show both Sierra and Miko have similar body types. And Jack even mentioned he thought that Sierra would make a great model. I wonder why Miko wouldn't wanna show that off more often? She seems like the kind of girl who wouldn't mind showing a bit more skin… I dunno, just something I always wondered.

ThermalsniperN7: I dunno what to tell ya. I don't really give that kind of stuff thought unless I want to. Anyway, see you guys next time.