"Okay. Autobots. Cool, cool. So, would it even matter to them that we're not part of the war? Maybe they'll just leave us alone?" Thad's voice shook, betraying his sense of optimism. They all turned back toward the vehicles, hearing the rumble of engines grow louder as they drew closer.

"(I know all too well that the fresher bodies are from the colony. They don't care all that much if we're involved or not,)" Doll muttered, her optics narrowing at the approaching threat. "(We need cover. Fast.)" Uzi didn't need to be told twice; she instinctively grabbed Lizzy's arm and tugged her toward a fallen building, ignoring her annoyed "Hey!" as Thad and Doll rushed after them, with Doll casting a glance over her shoulder.

"(They're on us, hide!)"

The group scrambled into what looked like an old theater. Broken glass cases and shattered screens hung crookedly on the walls, and remnants of long-faded movie posters still clung to the surfaces. They quickly found hiding spots: Uzi and Lizzy ducked behind a pillar against a wall, while Doll and Thad huddled behind a large pile of rubble.

Outside, they heard the distinctive whir of multiple t-cogs shifting and faint words being spoken.

"(There are five of them,)" Doll whispered, pressing herself tightly to her cover. "(Maybe they're just passing by? A patrol?)"

"Do you think they know we're here?" Thad whispered, his voice shaky as he didn't even dare to peek out of their hiding place. Before Doll could answer him, a shot is fired in their direction, sending chunks of rubble flying from their cover.

"That is your one and only warning shot," an older, gruff voice boomed from the entrance of the theater. "No use hiding; we spotted you four from a mile away." He grew louder as he stepped into the building. "So you can come out and surrender, or you 'Cons can find out first hand what happens when you mess with a Wrecker."

Uzi's eyes flickered with nervous energy, her gaze locking briefly with Lizzy's as they silently shared their uncertainty. Before she could form a plan, Thad suddenly shouted, "We're not part of the war! We're neither Autobot nor Decepticon! We're, uh…" He faltered, glancing at Uzi with a panicked look, hands spread wide, clearly lost for words.

Rolling her eyes, Uzi spoke up, "We're NAILs. Neutral Cybertronians."

"We're kids!" Lizzy added hastily. "We still have training software installed for Vector Sigma's sake!"

A tense silence followed, broken only by the heavy footsteps of the Wrecker approaching. "Kids? Neutrals?" The gruff voice echoed, thick with skepticism. There was a murmured exchange among the other Autobots, ending with the voice barking, "I know what Elita's orders are. It's still my call to make. Come out. All of you!"

The four young drones exchanged uneasy glances. Every mechanical instinct screamed at Uzi to run—the Autobots were supposed to be the enemy after all. They couldn't be trusted. But she knew there was nowhere they could go right now. They had no real cover that would last in a fire fight. Not to mention, there was the fact that none of them were even armed.

She could attempt a break for it anyway, but without a vehicle alt mode, she wouldn't make it far. And, though she'd never admit it, leaving the others behind wasn't an option she could accept.

"I'm going to count to three. If none of you come ou—"

Before he could finish, Thad raised his hands in surrender. "No need to count, Mr. Wrecker, sir." Uzi stifled a curse under her breath, watching as Thad slowly stepped out from behind cover, his movements deliberate and submissive, as he was trying to look as non-threatening as possible.

Lizzy, after a moment's hesitation, followed his lead. She stepped forward, her arms raised in mock surrender, but there was a cautiousness to her swagger that Uzi had never seen before. She might act confident, but in front of a Wrecker, even she couldn't pretend to be unaffected.

"...shock." Mumbling another curse, Uzi was the last to peek out from behind the pillar, her optics narrowing as she scanned the situation. Her mind raced, but she couldn't afford to make a move yet. Doll remained pressed flat against the ground, hidden from sight, her body tense as a coil. She wasn't about to risk exposing herself unless she had no choice. Uzi didn't blame her—this was a mess of a situation.

The Wrecker's silhouette loomed close by, his presence unmistakable. Every step he took seemed to send a pulse of intimidation through the air. He paused just before them, studying the three visible bots.

"You kids out here picked the wrong place for a field trip." He stepped forward, allowing them to see him more clearly. "And no need for the 'sir'. I feel old enough as is. I don't need you all reminding me of it."

Uzi instantly recognized him, at least from some historical war documents. His name was Impactor and had once been the leader of the Wreckers, an elite Autobot team known for their brutal tactics and unyielding resolve. He was taken from his position executing Decepticon prisoners, a dark chapter in Cybertronian history that some Autobots tried to forget, but others—Decepticons especially—never could.

He was everything she expected an Autobot to be: huge, strong, and battle-ready. His purple and yellow tactical armor was designed for combat, complete with a tank cannon mounted on his right shoulder and a harpoon weapon replacing his right hand. In his left hand, he gripped a large handgun, which was now aimed squarely at Thad.

"What exactly are you kids doing here?" he asked, his voice direct and to the point. The four other Autobots surrounding him kept their weapons trained on the group, ensuring that none of them made a sudden move.

Thad, ever the spokesperson, cleared his throat and stood a little straighter. "We're from a nearby underground colony. One before the war." He paused, glancing nervously at the others. "Well, I think it was made during it, not sure. I got a 'D' in history. Anyway, we can go right back!"

Uzi couldn't help but roll her eyes at his awkward explanation, but Lizzy spoke up before she could add anything. "One of us left because of personal issues," she said, giving Thad a pointed look for leaving the asked question vague. "The rest of us came to bring her back home. I'm sure if she spoke up, she'd tell you how sorry she is for causing this whole thing, right?"

Uzi felt Lizzy's mental nudge, urging her to cooperate with their made-up story. But she wasn't about to give in—not to a bunch of Autobots, least of all a Decepticon-killer like Impactor. "Bite me!" she shot back, her voice full of defiance as she refused to show herself more than just peeking from behind her pillar. She wasn't going to beg for mercy. Decepticons do not beg. They conquer.

Thad looked horrified at Uzi's response, his optics wide and full of concern, but Lizzy remained unfazed. She simply closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath before speaking. "As you can see, she's clearly defective. We're basically saints of Primus for looking out for her."

Impactor let out a low, amused chuckle at that. "You kids certainly got some spunk," he lowered his gun and raised his hook hand toward his squad. "All of you, ease up. We're going to escort these kids back to their home."

"You sure about that, sir?" One of the Autobots spoke up, a note of uncertainty in his voice. "We're supposed to meet up with the Disassembly squad at this location." He then dropped his voice, speaking lower than before. "And we still have Elita's orders about NAILs. Shouldn't we at least—"

Impactor's expression hardened, and he shot a sharp glare at the questioning Autobot. "We do nothing. Let me worry about Elita," he growled. "Now, put the weapons down. Their kids for Primus's sake." The squad hesitated but followed his order, each of them lowering their weapons with visible reluctance.

Impactor's demeanor softened as he turned back toward the kids, his voice returning to its usual gruff tone. "Besides, N's a good kid. He'll understand the moment I tell him we found actual bots that needed help. The other two will be a headache if we run into them, but I can deal with either of them if I have to." He waved his hand dismissively as though the matter was already settled.

"Now, you kids," he continued, his gaze turning back to Uzi, Thad, and Lizzy, "Get your friend out. We're getting you home. You can keep living underground, but I wouldn't recommend leaving again. Not till the war is over. Whenever that is..."

Thad and Lizzy stepped forward, but Uzi remained rooted to the spot, her eyes still filled with uneasiness as she stared at the Autobots. Something didn't sit right in her spark.

She had expected a bot like Impactor to be more hostile, more... well, like the villain she had read about in the history archives. But here he was, standing in front of them with an unsettling ease in his persona, as if he had nothing to prove anymore. The rest of his squad, though, were still alert. They kept their weapons out, and their eyes were scanning every movement, not just from them but from each other. The atmosphere was thick with unspoken threats, and Uzi couldn't help but think that there was no way this was as simple as it seemed.

She opened her mouth to question him, to accuse him of playing some kind of trick, when a sudden flash of red light caught the corner of her optics.

All thoughts of confrontation with Impactor vanished in an instant as her attention snapped to the source of the light and saw something even more troubling: Doll was missing.

"Guys, come on, we gotta get a move on," Thad called out, noticing Uzi was still only peeking out from behind her cover. "Doll, you too, we need to—" He quickly moved back behind the rubble, only to find no one there. "Where did she go?"

"You lost her?" Lizzy asked, turning toward Thad with disbelief.

"I swear, she was right here a second ago!" Thad responded, throwing his hands out in shock, as he pointed to the exact spot where Doll had been sitting moments ago.

"She was," Uzi confirmed, blinking her optics to make sure she wasn't imagining things. "I swear to Primus, she was right there."

Lizzy's frustration flared up. "Hey, I kept an eye on your friend, you should have at least kept an eye on mine!" She raised her voice for the first time since Uzi had known her, and before Uzi could even react, Lizzy grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out from behind the pillar. "We gotta go find her! Right now. Maybe she got scared and went deeper into the theater when we weren't—"

The unmistakable sound of multiple weapon safeties clicking off silenced Lizzy mid-sentence.

"Boss…" An Autobot spoke in a warning tone. Uzi, Lizzy, and Thad cautiously turned their heads to see that all the Autobots were pointing their guns at them once more, even Impactor.

"I see it." He said, his eyes trained on Uzi as he aimed his gun right at her. "Hey, purple girl, you know what you're doing wearing that?" The three followed his line of sight, their eyes landing on the homemade Decepticon symbol stitched on the shoulder of Uzi's hoodie.

"...Primus, shocking damn it, Uzi." Lizzy whispers, and Uzi couldn't even reply with a retort.

The three shared a very concerned look as they glanced at each other and then toward the firing squad of Autobots. None of them could think of anything to say. None of them could even think of anything to do. They were just scared for their lives at that moment. "Why don't you three just calmly and quietly walk over here so we can ask you a few questions?" Impactor offered, his finger tightening on the trigger of his gun.

Thousands of thoughts ran through Uzi's mind. She had fantasized about something like this for years—how she would turn the tide, how she would surprise them, how she could do so many things. Yet, at this moment, all she could think about was how much she missed her dad. How much she wondered if this was how her mom felt before she was kill—

Suddenly, there was a flash of red, and in the blink of an optic, all the Autobots were thrown out of the theater by an invisible force. The sound of metal bodies crashing against the many corpses buried in the snow echoed, giving the colony drones some much-needed distance from their would-be Autobot-attackers.

"What the heck was that?" Thad shouted, stumbling backward in surprise. "Did either of you do that?" Uzi and Lizzy both shrugged their shoulders at him. Unable to even make a sarcastic response due to their own shock.

"It's a Decepticon trick, blast them!" One of the Autobots shouted, and suddenly gunshots rang out. High-velocity energon blasts ripped through the theater's already crumbled doorways, heading straight for the three young drones. Without a word, the three of them ducked back into cover.

"I knew it, your fashion sense would kill me one day!" Lizzy shouted as the pillar that she and Uzi were hiding behind shook from several shots striking it. Thad, however, was less focused on the firepower raining down on his position. Rather, he tried his hardest to shout over the gunfire. "Doll! Doll, if you can hear me, just run! Transform and fly out of here as fast as you can!"

"Damn it! Damn it, damn it! You idiots! This is all your fault!" Uzi cursed under her breath, her back pressed tightly against the cold, cracked wall as blaster fire screamed past her, ricocheting off the walls and tearing through the air. Her optics darted around, scanning the narrow theater hallway where they had taken refuge. The shots were too close. Too many. "We're too big of a group! Of course, they found us! Now they're gonna kill us! Ugh, freaking Autopunks!"

Lizzy glared at her with fiery pink eyes. "Our fault? Are you serious right now? For the record, I knew following you was a bad idea." Her voice was sharp, laced with frustration. "This is Thad's fault!"

"My fault?! I was ju–" Thad's words were cut off by a loud, agonized scream as he suddenly collapsed to the ground, his knees buckling underneath him. His hand clutched his arm as one of the shots had pierced through the cover. Uzi and Lizzy both called out his name but couldn't move as they were pinned down by the shots aimed at their position. "–Ah! Oh, Primus, that hurts! Ah, that's worse than a damn robo-charley-horse shock!"

"Shock." Lizzy groaned, leaning her back against the wall next to Uzi. "It's official. We're all gonna die."

Uzi took a breath as she was about to scream something, maybe just to shout some insult at the Autobots, but she was stopped by a loud boom that rocked the very theater they were in. A single blast had wiped away what little cover they had left from the front entrance of the theater in an instant, leaving only ash and steam.

Suddenly, all the firing stopped.

"You know," Impactor's voice could be heard from outside, "I actually knew Megatron before the war. Before there was ever any of this Decepticon scrap." Uzi couldn't help herself. She had to risk a peek from behind the cover. She saw Impactor walking toward the theater, the cannon on his shoulder still steaming from its recent fire "I worked as a miner near Nova Point. We worked together. He used to be a pacifist! Can you believe that?" He stepped inside the theater, his Autobots once again flanking him with weapons drawn. This time with full intent to shoot. "I got into a bar fight with him once. You know what he did? He hid under a table. He was practically cowering like a little sparkling. Can you imagine how much trouble he would have saved all of us if he just kept doing that?" Impactor bitterly laughed at his own recollection, and Uzi...

Uzi suddenly lost all fear.

"You have working optics, so I bet you saw the Spire. There's more of us on the way, and they'd happily add you to their messed-up collection." Uzi wasn't paying attention to Impactor's words. She was sinking into her own mind, truly taking in what he just said about her hero. "I'm gonna give you all one last Primus-damn chance to end this peacefully."

She thought about her life—what it could have been under the rule of the Senate. She thought about all the writings of Megatron she had read. All the suffering he described about the lower classes, especially the disposable class. The drone class she would have been born into it, if not for him. Her father had transformed into a switch for doors. She couldn't imagine the life he had before the war, the suffering he went through. Her mom also...

"Come out, slowly, and surrender."

Uzi stepped forward without hesitation, ignoring Lizzy's quiet protests. She placed herself directly in the Autobot's line of fire and chose to glare at them. All the while, she thought of the countless lives touched by Megatron. She knew there was a war, but in the colony, no one truly cared about alt. modes. Everyone was free to be whatever they wanted. None of her classmates would have been together. She wouldn't know Lizzy. She wouldn't know Thad. She wouldn't even have known Doll, one of the only family members she had left, if not for Megatron...

And now, this Autobot called him a coward.

A single passage from one of Megatron's writings came to Uzi's mind at that moment.

My weapon is my burden: A reminder of the path I was forced to take.

When the word 'weapon' is emptied of meaning; when the purpose of a weapon is impossible to grasp; when the rejection of my weapon is of significance to no one other than myself…only then shall I remove it from my arm.

Because only then will I have earned the right to rid myself of its burden.

"I am a weapon," Uzi said, glaring at Impactor with clenched fists. He looked at her, momentarily confused, before shaking his head and ordering one of the Autobots to subdue her. "Lizzy, you know how to work a camera, right?"

"What?" Lizzy asked, taken aback by the sudden question.

"Yeah, you do. That means you know how to point and shoot," Uzi chuckled as an Autobot began to approach her. He hesitated as the sci-fi-like augmentations that Uzi still wore from her class presentation suddenly lit up green.

She had deactivated her own safety, and the soft hum of her T-cog sounded. The Autobot's optics widened in shock as Uzi gave him a wicked grin and shouted at the absolute top of her vocal processors, two simple words.

"Die, Autobots!"

In the blink of an optic, Uzi was airborne, shifting into her Gun-mode. She landed in Lizzy's arms, leaving the other girl shocked and unsure of what to do—until she noticed the Autobot aiming his weapon at her.

Instinct took over as Lizzy gripped the gun firmly and took aim. The Autobot fired first, but he missed—she didn't. At the pull of Uzi's trigger a stream of thin concentrated beams of green energy shot out and pierced through the Autobot's chest plate. In a instant, the Autobot's entire back erupted in a large blast of burning energon. He was dead before he hit the ground, as a burning broken wreck of a bot.

"Vector Sigma!" Lizzy shouted in surprise, gripping Uzi's still-smoking barrel. But before she could react further, a flash of red blurred her vision and she was yanked back into cover as the Autobots resumed their relentless gunfire.

"Lizzy!" Thad pulled himself along his side as best he could, as he tried to think of something he could do. When he noticed that the dead Autobot's blaster had slid close to him, he used his good arm to grab hold of the weapon.

"No more fooling around! I want you guys to—" Impactor was issuing a command, when suddenly a shot rang out, hitting him squarely in the abdomen. Thad had leaned out from behind his cover and, firing wildly, managed a lucky hit just where the armor was weakest. The ex-Wrecker dropped to his knees, gasping as trails of burning energon escaped his mouth.

"Boss! You damn Cons!" Another Autobot raised his weapon, aiming right at Thad. Knowing he couldn't dodge in time, he braced himself for the worse. But before the shot could fire, Doll dropped from the ceiling, a long blade in hand. With a swift strike, she sliced through the Autobot's arm at the elbow, sending the limb clattering to the ground. The bot barely had time to process what happened before Doll's blade swept again, taking his head clean off. "(Surprise, you're dead,)" she said, giving a smile as inner energon splattered across her face.

The remaining two Autobots spun to target her, but in an instant another red flash came and their weapons made nothing but hollow clicking sounds.

"What the—?"

"Our weapons are jammed!"

"(Theirs aren't.)" Doll stepped aside, clearing a path for Lizzy and Thad, who didn't hesitate to aim and fired, each shot finding its mark. Impactor watched helplessly as his squad-mates crumpled to the ground, lifeless. "You damn kids—" he muttered, still coughing as energon fumes spilled from his mouth. He was just about to pick himself back up, and get into the fight—his shoulder cannon had moved to take aim… only for a blade pierced through it, stabbing into his shoulder and into the ground, pinning him on the spot.

Doll loomed over him, almost casual with how she was leaning on the blade. "(You shouldn't have insulted Megatron. My cousin's a big fan.) "

"Yeah, well, your cousin should have picked better heroes." Impactor managed to rasp out a retort, before lifting his harpoon hand toward Doll's face. In a split second, the weapon launched at her, its spike gleaming in the dim light of the theater as it was just about to stab through her visor...

But then there was a sudden flash of red.

For a brief, disoriented moment, Impactor couldn't process what happened—until the searing pain ripped through him. He felt his own harpoon embedded through his mouth and out the bottom of his jaw. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a muffled, agonized gurgle as he crumpled to the ground, struggling against the onslaught of pain. Doll stood over him, the flicker of a strange symbol pulsing in her right eye for a moment as she watched him squirm, an eerie smile on her face.

"Terrorized!" Uzi laughed, her voice ringing through the broken-down theater as she transformed out of Lizzy's arms. "This was almost too easy!" She threw her arms up in a cheer, green energy crackling around her like sparks.

"It'll be a lot easier if you remember to put your safety back on before you overcharge and blow yourself up, again" Lizzy said, her tone completely dry. Uzi gave an annoyed groan but grudgingly did as she was told, the green glow around her body to dim as her augmentations powered down. "Now you can hop around like an idiot all you want," Lizzy said, striding over to Thad and helping him shakily to his feet.

"Oh Primus… we just… we just killed those bots," Thad said, looking over the scattered remains of the Autobots. His visor showed stress marks as he let go of the blaster he'd fired only moments before, it clattering to the floor with so little noise.

"Hey, they're the ones that started shooting at us," Lizzy said, snapping her fingers in front of Thad's face to pull him back to reality. "Or do you need a reminder that your shoulder got shot up by them, not bruised from football?" She inspected his arm, noting that while it was mostly a nasty scrape, he'd definitely need a trip to a CR chamber to heal up properly.

"All because of some weird red light. What even was that?" Thad mumbled, wincing as he flexed his shoulder. But before he could dwell on it, Lizzy was already walking toward Doll.

"Hold on—you have swords built into you, and you never mentioned it?" Lizzy asked, her eyes wide as Doll coolly yanked her blade from Impactor's shoulder.

"(You think my helicopter blades are just for show?)" Doll replied, a smirk barely visible across her lips as she reattached the blade behind her, slotting it into place alongside three other rotor blades she had, each of them fitting together seamlessly, as if they were part of a puzzle.

Uzi sidled over, looking at Doll with envious admiration. "Ugh, that's so cool…"

Thad joined them while shaking his head. "It actually is. But seriously, where'd you go? You freaked us out when you disappeared like that," he was looking at Doll with genuine concern in his eyes.

"(I…)" Doll hesitated, her gaze dropping for a second as if considering her words. "(I got scared. Ran the moment I saw a chance.)"

"And then came back with a dive bomb and sliced an Autobot like a ninja-bot," Lizzy added with a grin, making Doll chuckle for a change.

Thad still looked worried, though. "Please don't do that again, okay? You really scared the spark outta us."

"(Aw, pretty boy cares about me,)" Doll teased, earning laughs from both Lizzy and Uzi as Thad's visor turned flushed. He tried to hide his embarrassment with a shrug, as he was eager to change the topic back toward the fallen Autobots scattered across the floor, and toward the downed Impactor.

"Looks like we're officially part of the war now. You heard him—other Autobots are on their way. When they see what happened here, we're no longer neutral."

"Good! To hell with being neutral!" Uzi exclaimed, her voice fierce. "I'm done with just wasting my life in the colony. I told you all, I'm going to Kaon, and I meant it."

"(Kaon is pretty far. And you don't have a vehicle mode,)" Doll reminded her.

"Then I'd better start walking. You all can go back home and hide, but I'm not doing that. I'm going to make something of my life. I'm going to help bring the Golden Age to Cybertron, turn the tide of the war, and help the Decepticons vanquish the Autobots forev—"

"N-No," a weak, barely audible voice spoke up. Uzi looked down, feeling a hand clutch at her ankle. Impactor was still alive, still trying to fight, even as she talked about killing more Autobots. "Do-n't...ple...ase" His vocal components were damaged, he could barely speak. Yet he chose to plead with her for his fellow Autobot's lives.

She recalled how he'd laughed as he called Megatron a coward.

"Such heroic nonsense."

Uzi shook her foot free from his grip and brought it down on his head with all her strength. Impactor's head buckled slightly under her boot, a metallic groan escaping as his optics flickered. She lifted her foot and stomped down again, harder this time, denting the alloy, spreading cracks across his visor. She kept stomping, her boot crushing the metal until the light in his visor began to dim. She didn't stop—again and again, she brought her heel down, watching the head crumble under her might. A [Fatal Error] message flickered on the screen moments before a final, satisfying crack was made and Impactor's head was split open, as dark wires and his inner energon splashes across Uzi's leg.

"Maybe you should have been the one cowering under the table, glitch!" she spat.

With one last stomp for good measure, Uzi stepped back, breathing out in relief as she looked down at Impactor's crushed head. "All. Hail. Megatron," she whispered, before glancing over her shoulder at the others. They stared back at her in shock and in silence.

"Fiiine." Uzi groaned. "Maybe I am a little evil. Bite me." She waved them off dismissively as she began walking out of the theater and into the snow. "Not like you'll have to put up with me anymore—I've got to get to Kaon, so…bye, I guess."

"(No.)"

"Huh?"

Uzi turned around and saw Doll walking toward her. "(Kaon is over two hics from here—that's over a thousand miles—and due east…which was the opposite direction you were heading before we found you.)" Uzi let out an embarrassed "oh" as she heard that. "(It's faster if we go together. Our mothers used to walk the surface of Cybertron together. It's only poetic that we do the same.)"

"I…" Uzi was too stunned for words, and Doll just flashed her a smile. "Why?" she finally asked.

"(I've got my reasons, Cousin. Same as you have yours. That's what matters.)"

"This is insane," Thad chimed in. "Lizzy, please say something."

"Well, if Doll's going, then so am I." Lizzy suddenly stepped up, shrugging and shaking her head, as Thad let out a loud "What?"

"Look, I don't like it, but as much as it totally sucks to admit—Uzi's right. Better to do something with our lives than nothing at all. Besides, the colony needs a new energon chip, right?" She offered him a smile, that was way too 'innocent'. "The adults are too busy voting on how to tear themselves apart. Meanwhile, we're actually going to do something about it. Dad's never going to bug me for being on my Hasbro too long after this."

Thad just stared in disbelief at the three girls. "Did you all just blow your circuits? Or am I the one going crazy?"

"(Maybe both,)" Doll chuckled. "(Join the dark side, pretty boy. We have energon cookies.)"

"How many times do I have to shocking tell you guys, the Decepticons aren't evil?" Uzi's interjection is ignored as Thad just sighs and begins to walk toward them.

"I can't come home alone. And besides, I know I'm not gonna get any sleep worrying about you three." Rolling his injured shoulder, Thad seemed to fight through the pain. "I guess, we're all Decepticons now."

Uzi was once again taken aback as the others turned to look at her. She had mentally prepared herself and planned this whole journey alone. Now, she wasn't. It was a surprise, certainly. Though not an unwelcome one.

It actually felt...nice to know she had people to watch her back.

Suddenly not wanting to appear weak, Uzi slapped her hands on her face, trying to shake herself free of any sappy thoughts. "Okay! So we go together. It's gonna be a long journey, but we have to think of the colony. We'll make it back, and we'll be heroes," she said, clenching her hands into fists. "We might run into more Autobots, and it'll get dangerous. But that's not gonna stop us! Kaon is the capital of the Decepticons, the heart of everything they are—everything we are. I know it's still standing, and if the Auto-punks are here, then the Decepticons must still control it. They'll have a chip, I'm sure of it." Uzi looked toward the Spire, her gaze lingering on the many fallen drones it had taken to build. "And when we come back, the first thing we're gonna do is tear down that eyesore. Decepticons, transform and rise up!" She threw her fist high in the air, finally getting to say the words she'd dreamed of declaring her whole life.

"You know Thad and Doll are the only ones here with actual vehicle transformations, right?" Lizzy said casually and instantly deflated Uzi's power fantasy with just a few words.

Suddenly, there is the sound of a T-cog purring, and the girls see Thad had transformed into a large pickup truck where he was moments ago. The truck's doors were open for them to climb inside.

"Well, I am motivated, Uz. I might be a little banged up, but as Coach Gal always said, time to stop whining and get it done."

Not missing a beat, Lizzy walked towards the trunk. "Wasn't he the guy who got banished for sniffing girls' underwear?" She asked as hopping in, taking the driver's side.

"(I think I'm standing on top of his corpse,)" Doll said, momentarily looking down before she jumped and landed on the back of the truck.

Uzi just sighed and followed Lizzy inside as she took off her backpack and pulled out the map she had printed out. The truck immediately spun off, and the four of them rode toward Kaon, marking the true start of their journey.

"I'm thinking of a team name. What do you guys think? U-T-L-D. UTLD, as in 'Hot Lead!'" Thad said as he drove through the snow and corpses, down the street and away from the Spire. He could hear the 'boos' echoing from within himself from Lizzy. "Oh, come on, I think it's a great name! What about L-U-D-T? LUDT, as in 'Looting'?"

"(Are we a gang of thieves now?)"

"Oh, come on, guys. Those were the only names I could come up with."

"I like the first one…" Uzi admitted.

"You would, gun-nerd," Lizzy retorted.

"Bite me!" Uzi shouted back, with Doll heard sighing, being the only one in the group to realize it was going to be a long drive.