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"My son is missing?!" June Darby demanded, hands tightly gripping the railing on the platform that led to three large monitors and the elevator to the top of the missile silo. She was still wearing her nurse scrubs, having just got back from her shift at the hospital.
Optimus's optics were dimmer than usual, and there was slump that wasn't there before. After searching the forest for hours, they came up with nothing, and were forced to return to base, demoralized. Winglets low, fields drawn in tight, plating clamped down, they had walked into the base, barely able to meet Ratchet's optics. It was as if MECH simply vanished into thin air.
"I assure you, Ms. Darby, we are doing everything within our power to locate Jack, Miko, and Raf. Their safety is our highest priority."
June wasn't having it. "Your highest priority?" she snapped, glaring with anger filled opti—eyes at the Autobot leader. "My son is out there, God knows where, and you're standing here talking about priorities? How could you let this happen? You promised me he'd be safe!"
Arcee, who had been standing to the side, winced at the accusation. She took a step forward, optics dim, winglets low and plating clamped tightly to her protoform. She couldn't bring herself to meet June's furious gaze. A cold, twisting sensation grew in her spark, spreading through her circuits like rust. "June, we didn't know MECH would be there. We thought it was just a routine scouting mission. We—"
"You thought wrong!" June cut her off, her voice trembling with anger. "You're supposed to be protecting him, not dragging him into danger! He's a child!" Her voice cracked on the last word, and she pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to hold back a sob.
Bulkhead, still simmering with anger, shifted uncomfortably, but he didn't say a word.
Bumblebee let out a series of soft, mournful beeps. "She's right, this is all our fault."
Optimus's calm voice filled the room again, ignoring the scout's depressed words. "Ms. Darby, I understand your pain—"
"You don't understand anything!" June shot back, tears glistening in her eyes now. "Jack is my only child! My entire world. And he's gone because you decided it was safe enough to take him on one of your missions!"
Arcee flinched at the accusation. June wasn't entirely wrong. They'd thought it was safe. She had thought it was safe. And now, Jack, Miko, and Raf were in the hands of MECH, subjected to horrors she could only imagine.
"Ms. Darby, rest assured, we will not rest until Jack and his friends are safely returned to you," the Guardian Knight assured the woman.
"And what if you can't? What if you don't find him in time? Do you have any idea what MECH is capable of? What they could be doing to him—to them—right now?"
Arcee winced. Just a few weeks ago, June had nearly died that night, hanging from the catwalk of MECH's temporary base in a web cocoon made by her archnemesis, Airachnid. In a sick way of revenge, the huntress decided it would be prudent to tear apart Jack's family, since it meant so much to him.
The cobalt femme instinctively brushed a servo over her chassis, directly above her spark. Silas had managed to drill a hole into her chassis, getting a view of her spark. She couldn't have felt more violated—a spark was a Cybertronians most sacred and intimate part.
She shuddered at what would've happened if she hadn't managed to break out of the webbing in time or even reach Jack's carrie—mother in time. You'd promise me he'd be safe. Arcee's promise. Her duty. And she'd failed.
"I failed him," Arcee murmured lowly, rubbing her arm.
June turned sharply; her fury now directed squarely at Arcee. "You're damn right you did!" she snapped. "You're supposed to be his guardian. Where were you when they took him?" Her furious gaze snapped to all the Autobots in the room. "And it's not just your fault. I trusted all of you, and now my son and his friends are paying the price."
The cobalt femme's gaze dropped to the floor. She wanted to explain, to tell June that she'd fought with everything she had, that she'd been incapacitated, that she tried. But none of it mattered. The result was the same.
"I—" Arcee began, but her voice cracked.
"Enough." Optimus turned his gaze to Jack's mother, giving her a firm look. "We will bring them back, Ms. Darby. I give you my word."
June glared at him. For a moment, it seemed like she might argue further, but then she shook her head. "Your word doesn't mean much to me right now, Optimus."
She turned and stormed down the stairs, leaving a heavy silence in her wake. The tears she had been holding back finally spilled over, streaking silently down her face as stomped to her car, refusing a GroundBridge from Ratchet and speeding out of the missile silo.
The Autobots stood there in silence, watching June's car leave the base. It remained silent for a few more kliks until Ratchet's voice broke through the tense silence in the silo. "We're receiving a transmission. It's from... Jack."
In an instant, the eager Autobots converged around the console, hoping that Jack, Miko and Raf had somehow escaped from MECH. But the moment the screen lit up, that hope was crushed.
The image of Raf appeared, bound to a chair. His small frame trembled, glasses crooked and smeared with grime. His face was pale and streaked with tears, bruises mottled his skin, cuts oozed crimson trails down his arms, and his lip was split. He cried out in spark-wrenching, desperate, terrified sobs.
"¡Por favor, no más! Please, stop! No more, por favor!" Raf screamed, twisting against the bindings, but it was clear he lacked the strength to free himself.
The recording showed a bald man in a white coat sitting on a chair, reaching out with a gloved hand, dragging a scalpel across Raf's exposed arm. Blood trickled down his skin as Raf shrieked, jerking in pain. His cries became incoherent, a jumble of pleading and wailing that echoed painfully in the Autobots' audial receptors.
Bumblebee's optics spiraled several degrees, eyes darkening to an ugly shade. A rare expression of pure rage from the usually cheerful scout crossed his faceplates as he let out distorted, enraged series of beeps.
"They're going to pay for this!"
Arcee's optics were glued to the screen. Her spark felt like it was being torn apart at the sight of Raf, the smallest and most vulnerable of the humans, subjected to such cruelty. "No..." she whispered, shaking her helm furiously.
Bulkhead slammed his fist into a nearby wall, leaving a deep dent. "Those monsters!" he bellowed, his engine roaring as he muttered Cybertronian curses under his breath.
"This... This is beyond barbaric," Ratchet growled.
The recording abruptly ended, leaving the Autobots staring at the now-blank screen, furious. Everyone was startled when Optimus' fist slammed into a nearby wall, denting and cracking the concrete. His normally stoic expression was filled with anger.
In just a few short months, Jack, Miko and Raf had grown to be a big part of Team Prime's life. They brought laughter and joy to the base, and when they weren't chasing after Miko, they played video games, watched movies and spent time with their guardians. They sometimes even helped on missions, especially Rafael, who was a computer genius.
Now... they were gone, leaving a gaping hole in their sparks. And it hadn't even been a half a solar cycle yet.
None of the other Autobots were in a better state. Bumblebee paced in circles, angrily beeping, Bulkhead's optics were filled with righteous fury as he struggled to contain his anger, looking like he was about to turn something into a lob ball, and Arcee kept glancing at the GroundBridge, itching to be sent out to find the children.
"Would everyone be quiet!" Ratchet shouted over the noise that had suddenly filled the room. Everybot in the room froze, falling silent as they stared at the medic. Arcee didn't miss the concerned glance the medic shot Optimus before he turned back to the console. "Thank you, now if we could refrain from losing our heads again, I'm trying to locate Silas through the tracer program I installed in the children's phone."
Arcee blinked. She had completely forgotten about that. After the incident with Airachnid, Ratchet had installed a tracer each of the kid's phone to track them if they should ever run into trouble—which was inevitable with Miko.
"How long will it take you to locate them, Ratchet?" Optimus finally asked, managing to get his emotions under control, returning to his stoic state.
"It depends. MECH is no doubt disrupting the signal or else I would have found them already," the medic stated, glancing at the Prime.
Before they could do anything, a ringtone ran throughout the base. It was Agent Fowler's number. Ratchet quickly answered and the familiar face of Agent Fowler popped on screen.
|"Prime!"| the government liaison started, sounding furious. |"What in the blazes are your people doing out here? We had an agreement! No collateral damage."|
Optimus stepped forward. "I am sorry, Agent Fowler, but all Autobots are present and accounted for."
|"Then explain why we're receiving reports of two jumbo sized bots mixing it up twenty miles outside Omaha."|
"Decepticons?"
Arcee crossed her arms. "There has been plenty of infighting lately. Megatron can't seem to keep his ranks in line."
|"Well, I'm just arriving on the scene. Have a look."| The screen shifted from Fowler's face to a battle scene, where a large mech that looked like... Skyquake? The camera zoomed in, getting the mech's details and location.
"I don't know. Paint job aside, it can't be Skyquake," Bulkhead said. "You and Optimus pounded him into the ground."
"Before Starscream yanked him back out as some kind of undead Terracon," Arcee reminded them. "The question still stands, who's the dance partner?"
The camera panned to a Cybertronian ship where a familiar mech stood, two katanas out. It zoomed in, showing the mech in greater detail.
"By the Allspark..." Ratchet breathed. "It is one of ours."
"Wheeljack!" Bulkhead laughed; his spirits briefly lifted. "Jackies' back!"
|"I don't care if Abraham Lincoln is back,"| the government liaison retorted. |"We have to contain the situation before we all wind up on the 11 o'clock news!"|
Whether they wanted this or not, the children would have wait. Ratchet entered the coordinates into the GroundBridge. Optimus turned to his team. "Autobots, transform and roll out."
"Sir, is it wise to engage them?" Conners asked. The scientist stood stiffly across from him, nervously clutching a clipboard. Though brilliant, undeniably so, the man lacked the ruthlessness required for MECH's true purpose. That weakness made him expendable, a pawn in Silas' grander scheme.
Silas leaned back in his chair, staring at the device in his hand. Jack Darby's flip phone was a relic in comparison to MECH's advanced technology, but effective in its simplicity. Silas almost smirked as he imagined the Autobots' reactions to the message he had sent them.
He tapped the phone against his palm as he considered his lead scientist's words. "Perhaps not wise," he admitted slowly. "but necessary."
Conners shifted uncomfortably. "Sir, enraging the Autobots could provoke them to—"
"To what?" Silas interrupted sharply. "To come after us? The Autobots have their morals," the man continued, gesturing dismissively. "They won't kill humans, no matter how provoked they are. That limits their options."
The man swallowed hard. "Still, sir, if they find us—"
"They won't. Our base is shielded. They can't track the signal. And even if they could, they would hesitate to storm in guns blazing, knowing we have their precious humans as leverage." Even as he said this, he knew that there was always a slim possibility they could. That is why he had contingency plans.
Conners looked down at his notes. "If you say so, sir."
The man strode toward the observation deck. Below, a team of engineers worked tirelessly, finalizing the modifications to a captured Vehicon frame. The once-purple Decepticon drone had been stripped down, repainted black with red accents, and retrofitted with five fully functional fingers on each hand. They had modified the visored faceplate to have some more features, adding visible eyes, though keeping the mouthpiece.
Silas clasped his hands behind his back, studying the modified frame. "How long until the other units are ready?" he questioned.
"Two more will be completed within the next two weeks," Conners replied quickly. "The modifications are proceeding as planned, but there are some complications with—"
"Address the issues and complete the work. I expect results, Conners, not excuses."
"Of course, sir," the scientist said, bowing his head slightly.
Silas turned to the security cameras that monitored the three brats in their cell. According to MECH's resident sadist, Dr. Victor Felton, the serum was yielding results. The children had each been injected with the experimental substance and subjected to various forms of "stress testing," a substitute word for torture that Silas found darkly ironic.
Being cut open and bruised, even breaking their bones, their bodies showed no evidence of the horrors inflicted upon them. Within hours, their skin was unblemished, with not even a scar to show what they had been through. It was as though they had never been harmed.
Dr. Felton had been eager to push the experiments further, suggesting ever more brutal trials to see the serum's limits. Silas had tempered the man's enthusiasm—not out of mercy, but because the children needed to remain functional.
Their survival served a greater purpose.
While Felton insisted additional doses weren't strictly necessary, he had advocated for more injections to accelerate the process. Silas was inclined to agree. The sooner the sparks fully manifested, the sooner the children could be pushed into the next phase of experimentation.
The man's thoughts shifted to the next phase of his plan. His endgame required more than biological enhancements; it demanded shaping these children into weapons. Their young, malleable minds could be trained to serve MECH's vision—or at least be made more vulnerable to the programming of their future bodies.
A cruel smile touched his lips as he considered the irony of it all. These children—trusted companions of the Autobots—would one day stand as their greatest threat.
But first, there were obstacles to overcome.
Silas turned back to the observation deck, looking at the captured Vehicons. MECH's attempts to repurpose the drones were hitting a wall, both literally and figuratively. Their technology was leagues beyond anything MECH's engineers had encountered before. Even the most basic systems were protected by complex firewalls.
The man had authorized every method at their disposal to extract the information, including torturing the drones themselves. Despite endless hours of being tortured, they refused to give up their core secrets.
These setbacks were unacceptable. Their most brilliant minds were failing, and time was not on their side. The Autobots would be searching relentlessly for their human companions, and despite MECH's precautions, nothing was foolproof.
It was then that his thoughts shifted back to the boy. Rafael Esquivel.
They had gathered extensive information on the three brats and their families, and according to the files, Rafael was a prodigy, a genius with a knack for technology that rivaled MECH's top engineers.
More importantly, Rafael had spent significant time with the Autobots. He'd worked alongside them, perhaps even learning their systems. If anyone could help MECH break through the Vehicon firewalls, it was the boy.
The irony of it was almost poetic. What better than to have the boy program the very systems that would one day control their Transformer bodies? The boy would unknowingly become the architect of his own imprisonment, programming the very technology that would strip him of his humanity and bind him to MECH's will.
Of course, persuasion would be necessary. Silas doubted the child would cooperate willingly, but there were ways to ensure compliance. The girl, Miko, would serve as the perfect motivator. The boy's caring nature and loyalty to his friends would be exploited to the fullest. If Rafael resisted, the girl would be the key to breaking him. Seeing her suffer would push the boy to comply.
Everyone had a breaking point, and Silas was a master at finding it.
He was brought back to the present when he saw the Vehicon struggling against its restraints. It was sprawled out on a metal slab, similar to the one they used to dissect Breakdown. Cables snaked from various parts of its frame, siphoning what data they could obtain from its systems to MECH's servers.
The Vehicon's head weakly lifted, the dim crimson slit for it eyes brightening as it locked onto Silas with a burning intensity. "I will tell you nothing fleshy!" it spat; its voice laced with static from the torture. "I am unit ST-3V3 and loyal to Lord Megatron!"
Loyalty, he thought with a chuckle. "How quaint," he said. "Loyalty is such an outdated concept, don't you think? It only serves to bind you to ideals that, in the end, mean nothing."
The Vehicon thrashed against its restraints. "You know nothing of loyalty, human! Lord Megatron will crush you for what you've done!"
Silas arched an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Oh, I think not. Your dear 'Lord Megatron' has far more pressing concerns than the disappearance of a few expendable foot soldiers. But even if he were to come, I'd welcome the opportunity to test MECH's progress against him. Your technology will be the key to ensuring our victory."
The drone's visor flared brighter, and its voice rose in fury. "You desecrate Cybertronian lives, stripping us of our dignity, treating us as if we're nothing more than machines! You will pay for this!"
Turning to Conners, he gestured to the Vehicon. "Take care of it. I have other matters to attend to."
Jack groaned as his awareness returned, his body aching as though he'd been hit by a truck several times. His limbs felt heavy, his head throbbed viciously, and a strange sensation tugged at his skin. Slowly, he forced his eyes open, blinking against the light that streamed into their cell.
The first thing he noticed was the blood. It caked his clothes and arms, dried and cracked in patches. He quickly panicked, running his hands over his body, searching for wounds. But... there was nothing.
No cuts, no gashes, no bruises, not even a scar.
"What the...?" he muttered, wincing at the roughness of his voice. He vividly remembered the scalpel slicing into his skin, drawing painful lines. Yet now there was no evidence that it had ever happened.
His thoughts were interrupted by a soft sob. Jack's head snapped toward the sound, his heart sinking as he spotted Raf curled up in the corner of the cell. The boy was trembling, rocking his small body as he hugged his knees to his chest.
"Raf," Jack croaked, staggering to his feet despite the pain in his leg. He stumbled across the cell and knelt beside the younger boy, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.
Raf flinched at the contact, and after a few seconds, a tear-streaked face lifted to meet the elder teen's gaze. His glasses were askew, one lens cracked. Jack's stomach churned at the sight of Raf's haunted eyes, wide with fear and red from crying.
"Hey, buddy," Jack said softly, trying to ignore the tremor in his voice. "It's okay. I'm here. We're gonna be okay." He didn't believe his own words, but the preteen needed to hear them.
Raf didn't respond, just buried his face against Jack's chest and sobbed quietly. The teenager held him close, gently rubbing his back and murmuring reassurances, even though he wasn't sure he believed them himself.
As the eldest teenager tried to soothe Raf, he heard a soft shuffle. Turning his head, he saw Miko sitting against the opposite wall, arms wrapped tightly around her middle. Her hair was disheveled, falling over her face like a curtain as she stared at the floor.
"Miko..." Jack called softly.
Her head snapped up at his voice. Her red-rimmed eyes locked on his and slowly, she stood and shuffled over to him, her arms still wrapped protectively around her torso. When she was close enough, she sank to her knees beside him. "They hurt him," she whispered, her voice trembling.
The girl let out a shuddering breath. "You—you weren't awake when they brought him back in. They... they beat him, Jack. Right in front of me." Her voice cracked, and tears streamed down her face. "They broke his arm, and then... then they snapped it back into place like it was nothing!"
Jack's stomach churned. He couldn't imagine the horror Miko must have felt, watching that. Or the pain Raf endured.
She buried her face in her hands, sobbing. "He's just a kid! How could they do this to him?"
Jack felt his blood boil. He glanced at Raf, whose sobs had died down to hiccups. He looked so fragile, so impossibly young, and Jack's protective instincts surged.
"They hurt him so much," Miko continued. "It isn't right. It... it should've been me."
"No," the teenager said firmly. He reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Don't say that Miko. None of this is your fault."
Miko shook her head. "But it feels like it is," she whispered. The eldest teenager winced at her words, suddenly wishing that he could take back what he had said earlier to her. It wasn't her fault, or theirs, or even the Autobots. It was MECH's fault.
Jack didn't have the words to fix this, but he did the only thing he could think of—he pulled her close. Miko leaned into him, burying her face in his shoulder as she cried. Jack held her tightly, his other hand brushing over Raf's hair in a soothing gesture.
He didn't care about the dried blood on his skin or the aches in his body. His friends needed him, and that was all that mattered.
"I swear," Jack said quietly. "We're getting out of here. All of us. Together."
Miko sniffled but didn't respond, her sobs gradually quieting as she relaxed against him. Raf remained silent, but Jack hoped his presence was at least some comfort. The boy looked around the cell. They couldn't stay here. They wouldn't stay here. No matter what it took, he'd find a way to protect them. To save them.
I took some lines from Hexaly's lines in After the Fall, because I couldn't think of anything else. I have borrowed multiple ideas from many other fanfictions, such as Misgel's Darkness series, and his/her (I have no idea what their sex is) and Rian Moeru's Human turned Cybertronian books, which you will see in the upcoming chapters. (If you have read their books, that is) I wanted to give credit where credit is due and not seem like I am piggybacking off their works.
And yeah, a chapter three days later... I finished it fairly quickly, I've had nothing to do the past days because I'm sick. I hate doing nothing so I decided to be productive, and enjoy myself (I love writing) Since I am a chapter ahead on my other fiction, I decided I'd work on this one.
I hoped you enjoyed this chapter. Let me know what you think :)