Welcome back everyone!

So, I get that there's some confusion with the whole 'Vince being Silver's human partner' thing. I did consider Sierra, or even a secret daughter of Leland Bishop being Sil's human friend, but the dynamics just felt too easy.

These two characters both have a lot of growing to do, and they actually compliment each other in that way. Hopefully that'll come across better in these next few episodes.

Also, heads up for this episode! I decided to move an episode that happens earlier in the show to here because it's one of my all-time favorite TFP episodes. Plus, I wanted to write out how I imagine Silver handling the situation.

Enjoy!

Chapter Seven: Scraps of the Past

Cybertron, before the Exodus . . .

Black smoke was strung along the early morning sky as I ran alongside Red Alert. It'd been mission after mission after mission, and yet somehow, we were still alive.

Ultra Magnus had sent us to aide a team of Wreckers just outside of Kaon - a risky move so close to the Decepticon Capitol. But I was too afraid to let Red Alert leave alone.

Ducking behind a nearby pile of rubble, I placed a servo over my spark. My helm rang from the booming sound of gunshots. I glanced over to my friend to see him beaming with excitement. His blue optics shone so brightly as he grabbed my shoulder eagerly.

"Did you see how crazy that was?" He exclaimed, seemingly forgetting that we were still in the midst of battle. "The gunshots, the sirens, the explosions! And we MADE it!"

I shook quietly, staring at the floor. "Y-Yeah. Crazy."

His excitement subsided into concern. "What's wrong?"

Glancing up to him, I could feel myself forcing back the tears. "I-I thought you were gonna die, Red. A Vehicon fired a shot inches from your helm. That didn't scare you?"

His expression softened. "Silver...you don't need to worry about me like that. I'm a tough guy. I can take care of myself."

"How many 'bots have said the same?" I murmured, thinking to all the patients that swear up and down that they're fine. "How many claim they're tough, only to get dragged to the medical bay within an inch of their life?"

Red's optics trailed down to the floor as he furrowed his optic ridges. I glanced away, feeling a little bad about being so blunt with him. But I was so tired and scared for our safety.

My frame jolted a little as I felt a servo on mine. Carefully turning back to him, I saw him offering a light smile.

"Nothing's gonna happen to you." He reassured me. "Not while I'm here."

I blinked in surprise, feeling a light blush on my face. "B-But what about you?"

He shrugged, changing his free arm into its blaster form. "I trust you to have my back, Silver. Even if you don't believe you can."

"You've got a lot of misplaced faith." I turned away.

"Give it time." Red Alert chuckled. "There's a lot of fight in you. You just don't see it yet."

"Dodge, Sil!"

I struggled to jump out of the way as Bee threw another punch at me, but managed to avoid it. I barely had time to be proud of myself before he launched another punch at my arm.

Stumbling back, I just about managed to dodge that one too.

I smiled. "Ha! I'm starting to get this!"

"Not too bad," Bee smirked under his battle mask. "Always keep your fists in front of your face in the middle of a fight."

"Right!" I quickly put my hands up, steadying them. "Fists up, feet planted, and a wide stance so I can't be easily knocked down."

"You're a fast learner." The scout chuckled. "Let's see what you remember about how to throw a punch."

My optics widened. "I-I don't wanna hurt you."

He nodded, relaxing his stance and spreading his arms out. "Don't worry, I'm tougher than I look."

Well, if he was sure.

I reared back my fists, leaning on my back leg for balance. Launching forward, I threw a punch straight for his stomach. As it made contact, the scout's optics immediately widened.

He stumbled back, grasping his stomach in pain. "Primus, that hurt!"

I quickly shifted from a fighting stance to panicking. "I-I'm so sorry, are you okay?!"

He leaned against the wall with one free arm as the other held his stomach. "I-I don't know, I think I'm going to..."

He couldn't complete the sentence as he dramatically wobbled around a bit before collapsing to the floor. My optics turned deadpan as I realised what he was doing.

"Okay. I see what's going on here." I folded my arms.

"I see a bright light..." The scout lay on the floor, reaching out to me. "If I don't make it...tell Raf...I didn't like the second Matrix movie..."

Crouching down, I poked at the scout's shoulder. "Alright, I get it. I need to work on my punches."

"Can't talk. I'm offline from the force of that mighty blow." He stayed in character.

I rolled my optics, but couldn't help smiling. My smile then grew mischievous as I figured out how to end this little routine.

Standing up, I feigned ignorance and dramatically brushed a make-believe tear from my optic.

"I can't believe he's gone," I added a hitch to my voice. "And before I could tell him how I really feel."

Bee's optics shot open. He quickly scrambled to his feet, running after me.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" He hopped in front of me, then tried to act cool and collected. "Uhhh, what was that about how you feel?"

All of my playful confidence quickly disappeared as I realised what I'd just implied. A blue blush quickly swept across my face.

"I feel..." I scrambled for an excuse. "That we should head to the main room. Training has run late today."

The scout nodded, but I could tell his smile was forced. He stepped aside and we began walking toward the main area.

My face was still flushed with the blue hue. I really didn't know what came over me to say something like that to him.

We both glanced up at hearing the computer blaring from up ahead. Reaching the main room, we saw my sister, Optimus, Ratchet, and Bulkhead gathered around the computer. The kids were in their usual hangout spot, save for Vince.

"Arcee and I will investigate to see if we can discover more of our Arctic find," Optimus informed the others, then spotted Bee and me. "Bumblebee, Silver Sun. Your timing is appreciated. We do not require aid on this reconnaissance mission, but I'm certain that Ratchet could use your help deciphering what the frozen pod could be."

I'd almost forgotten about the pod that sat in a distant room on the opposite side of the base. I was glad that they'd moved it so far away. It was difficult to place my digit on, but something told me that the pod was...strange.

It didn't help that it was almost fully thawed...

Optimus made his way towards the bridge as Ratchet typed in the coordinates. My sister strode over, folding her arms as she approached.

"You were together for a while today." She made it seem like she was talking to both of us but raised an optic ridge directly at me.

"It's my fault, Arcee." Bee tried chiming in. "I got carried away with dodge practice."

She shot him a glare. "You're supposed to be teaching her to fight, not run."

Bee tensed up. He glanced away a little to avert the awkwardness.

"...Y'know, this seems like a sisterly moment so I'm just gonna..." He slowly backed away, moving to speak with Bulkhead near the kids-' hangout.

I couldn't blame him for running. I tried to be understanding with my sister, but Primus, she made it difficult.

"Arcee..." I began softly.

"Don't 'Arcee' me." She pointed at me angrily. "This is the second time you've been late because of training."

I raised an optic ridge. "Bumblebee is my friend, 'Cee. So what if training ran a little late?"

Arcee scowled and looked away. "You're meant to be learning how to defend yourself. This isn't an excuse for you two to become buddies."

Shoulders falling slightly, I tilted my helm at my sister. "Is this really about the training?" She still averted my gaze, but I persisted. "This isn't the first time you've brought up Bumblebee and me."

My sister grew silent. She was always reluctant when it came to my relationships with mechs - even just in a platonic sense. No matter how many missions I'd been on, and how much I'd grown, she still saw me as her little sister who needed constant supervision around "boys".

It was endearing, but also a little annoying.

"Forget it. We can talk later." She ignored my question, walking toward the portal.

I wanted to pursue it, but she and Optimus had a job to do. Reluctantly, I watched them march through the Ground Bridge just before it swirled to a close.

My frame jolted as I heard a loud spark come from the computer, followed by a panicked yelp.

"By the Allspark!" Ratchet jumped back from the sparks of electricity from the keyboard.

I quickly rushed over to check on my mentor. He seemed fine but was cautiously further back from the computer than before. The monitor was glitching and flashing with 'error' messages, and the keyboard was spitting out bright sparks of electricity.

"What happened, Ratchet?" I kept a safe distance from the sparking computer.

The doctor tilted his helm to get a better view of the computer. "I'm not entirely sure. But whatever it is has just caused a serious blow to the ground bridge's functionality." He then shouted to the other side of the room. "Bulkhead, Bumblebee! Here, now!"

The scout and the brawler walked over, one being noticeably more agitated than the other.

"You can't boss us around just 'cus the boss is out." He grumbled. "Between watching late-night monster-truck rallies with Miko, and these two waking me up training," He gestured to Bee and me, "I barely got any sleep!"

Bee and I shyly glanced away from each other. Ratchet simply ignored the mech's complaint.

"The ground bridge is down." He explained, cautiously examining the bridge's blueprints on-screen. "I require you and Bumblebee to remove some parts from it for myself and Silver Sun to check over."

My optics widened. "Down? What do you mean down? Arcee and Optimus can't stay in the Arctic for longer than-"

"I'm aware, Silver." Ratchet turned to me with his optic ridges furrowed in sympathy. "Which is exactly why now is the time to fix it."

No One's POV . . .

Vince didn't really know how to navigate the halls of the Autobot base. Silver Sun had offered to show him around, but he could see her worrying about her sister and the big leader guy, and just didn't want to distract her from it.

He was kind of regretting that empathy now.

After turning the last corner into yet another identical concrete hallway, he finally had to admit it.

"Oookay...might be just a little bit lost." The human admitted.

"Hi, Vince!" A cheerful voice piped up, causing the former bully to jump.

He spun around to see the familiar smiling face of his younger, nerdier classmate.

"Oh. Raf. What's up?" Vince tried to play down the surprise.

Rafael angled his head slightly, unsure of Vince's tone. "Not much. I was gonna have a gaming tournament with Bee, but he's busy. So are Jack and Miko. Why aren't you hanging out with Silver?"

Vince shrugged. "Eh. She tries, but it's usually a little awkward. Reminds me a little of you, actually."

"Hey, I'm not awkward!" Raf argued.

The red-haired boy chuckled. "I meant like that 'smart' kind of awkward. Nothing wrong with it."

The shorter kid pouted a little. "Well, alright then. But if you wanna hang out with me, you need to learn to be nicer."

They started walking down the empty hallway, looking around for pretty much anything to do.

"Y'know I'm not that mean." Vince began. "Used to be a whole lot nicer before senior year."

"Oh yeah." Raf remembered. "Didn't Jack and you used to be friends?"

"No." He denied it quickly. "We were never friends. I mean, the guy's a total nerd and I'm...not. Why? Did he say we were friends?"

Rafael wasn't buying it. "Okay, so something dramatic happened, and now you're bitter rivals."

Vince gave up trying to deny it. "We hung out. Then we stopped. Nothing bitter about it. He just chose a different crowd than I did."

"You mean you chose street-racing over him?" Raf guessed.

"Hey, it wasn't like that, okay?" Vince pointed at Raf defensively. "Anyways, I thought we were just hanging out. What's with the interrogation?"

The smaller boy shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just curious." Turning back to the hallway, the kid squinted. "Hey, what's that?"

"What?"

"There, under the metal." Raf carefully snuck over to the spot up ahead. "Looks like something is moving under there."

Following Raf's gaze, Vince saw it too. Something small and metallic shuffled around beneath one of the pipes. Vince was hesitant to look into what it could've been, but his curiosity was getting the better of him.

Picking up a piece of broken metal pipe, he nodded for Raf to stay behind him. Rafael, although equally intrigued, wasn't about to argue.

Vince held the makeshift weapon above his head, ready to strike if something went wrong. He stepped closer the machinery. The scuttling grew quieter. It was as if whatever had been making the noise knew he was there.

Taking a deep breath, he ducked down slightly to look under the pipes He squinted to make sure he was seeing correctly through the dark space. His eyes quickly widened again as he spotted what was down there.

"No way..." He murmured.

Silver's POV . . .

While Bulkhead and Bumblebee removed the panels from the groundbridge, I looked over the data cartridges with Ratchet. The kids seemed fairly unaware of the situation as they played video games in their hangout area.

"We most definitely have a problem." My mentor confirmed as we examined the broken green slides of data. "But what could've caused this? Potential overheating?"

I picked up one of them, getting a better look at the damage. "Not likely. The chunks missing are too even to each other. If anything, they look more like...bites?"

"B-Bites?" Bulkhead stuttered. "What kind of creature on Earth can take whole bites outta metal?"

"None that I'm aware of." I smiled nervously. "Unless we've got a rogue goat on the loose."

I glanced up to see Ratchet and Bulk staring at me in confusion. Bee looked like he was trying to stifle a chuckle.

I shrugged. "If you were humans...actually, no, that still would've been a really bad joke."

Ratchet sighed, shaking his helm as the others walked over to us. "It might be the main grid. Hopefully, it isn't a sub-station malfunction."

"Hey guys!" Rafael's cheerful voice greeted. "Look what I found!"

The doctor rolled his optics. "We're busy!"

His view then fell on Rafael, standing beside Vince. Ratchet then let out a yelp before I could see what was happening. Turning back, I finally saw what Ratchet had been so startled by.

In Raf's arms, he held a small creature. No - a monster.

The thing was small enough to be held by a human child, and yet it didn't stop Bulkhead and Ratchet from jumping back in fear and aiming their blasters. Bee quickly put his arm out in front of me, urging me to fall back with them. I did not need to be told twice.

Miko and Jack rushed over from the kids' hangout area as Vince stood protectively in front of Raf.

"Whoa whoa! What's with you guys?!" He intervened, panic clear in his voice.

"S-Scraplet!" Bulkhead yelled out. "SCRAPLEEEET!"

The sight must've been pretty funny in hindsight. Four massive robotic organisms, cowering with their backs to the wall because of a human child.

Raf poked out from behind Vince. "What's a scraplet?"

My optics widened as I backed up further. "The most dangerous pest ever to crawl upon the face of Cybertron..."

The kids looked at each other, then slowly started to laugh.

Miko pointed to the creature. "You're GIANT ROBOTS! Scrappy here is...teeny."

"You have NO idea the damage that "TEENY" thing can do!" Bulkhead panicked.

"Awwww, he would've hurt anything!" Rafael cuddled the small scraplet.

Apparently, that movement was enough to wake the beast.

It shifted in Raf's arms, opening its large, purple optics. It immediately fixed its gaze on the four of us. I already knew what was coming.

"Scrap..." I murmured.

The four of us jolted as the creature pulled back its mask to reveal its mouth - multiple sets of teeth, all rotating like rows of saws, perfect for devouring metal.

It leapt from Raf's arms and scuttled towards us. Bumblebee and Bulkhead shot at it, but these things were quick - they'd been designed that way.

I panicked as the creature reached Bumblebee. It scurried up his leg, biting into as much of his metal frame as it could manage. He grabbed it and tried crushing it in his servo, but it squirmed out of the trap and bit into his forearm instead. He swatted it to the ground.

I grabbed a loose metal pipe from the wall. Before it could return to finish the job, I brought the metal down on it, hitting it over and over again.

It was such a blur that I couldn't tell you how many times I'd hit it.

As I was about to bring the pipe down again, a servo gently grabbed my arm, snapping me out of the frenzy. Turning to see who it was, I saw my mentor staring with concern.

"It's gone, Silver." He reassured me.

He must've seen it in my optics. The memories that seeing that thing had brought back.

I blinked as I remembered Bumblebee's injuries.

Dropping the pipe, I rushed over to the mech. He sat upright on the ground, looking over his wounds. I knelt down, quickly scanning the injuries with my optics.

Sighing in relief, I nodded. "Just a mesh wound. It didn't hit any energon veins."

As the panic subsided, I met his optics. It took me back a little to see his surprise. Or maybe it was fear. I'd never been so violent in front of him, but scraplets were a different matter when it came to my pacifism.

"Um...not to interrupt the moment." Vince interjected, arms spread out in confusion. "But what the heck was that?!"

"NOW do you believe us?!" Bulkhead's panic hadn't left even though the scraplet had gone. "All scraplets do is dismantle machinery and eat anything metal. Especially LIVING metal!"

Jack shrugged, obviously shaken by the incident. "Well...bug squashed, game over, right?"

"No..." I shook my helm, glancing towards the hallway. "There's never just one..."

"Of course..." Ratchet seemed to realise something ahead of the rest of us. "The frozen pod. It must've been a scraplet trap. How could I have been so callous?" He began pacing back and forth. "It ended up in the Arctic where the temperature kept them in stasis. We thawed it, and them by default."

Vince looked at me, fear obvious in his eyes. "How many?"

My gaze was fixed on the hallway. "Hundreds. And that's a minimal estimate." I rushed back to the groundbridge. "The bridge being down is obviously their work. We need to get the groundbridge operational before anything else."

"Ep ep, YOU will do no such thing." Ratchet's interruption confused me. "If there truly is a swarm of scraplets in our base, they could devour a two-wheeler much faster than any of us. For your own safety, you need to stay somewhere far from their reach."

"Wait, what?!" I countered. "Ratchet, you know you need my help with the bridge. If I could just-"

"Now that we know the issue, it will be an easy fix." He pointed out. "But I must order you to stay out of this fight. Especially given your recent encounter with Knock Out."

I wanted to keep arguing with him, but I knew he was right. Like Arcee, I was a third the amount of metal that took up the frames of four-wheelers.

"So...what are we supposed to do?" Bee's tone was clearly afraid as he glanced around nervously. "It's not exactly easy defending yourself against a creature that eats metal."

Raf tilted his helm. "Well...you might not be able to fight off all of them, but we're not made of metal."

"Yeah! The scraplets can't hurt us!" Miko added.

Jack seemed to catch on. "I'll watch Ratchet's back while he fixes the bridge."

Vince nodded. "Guess it's a good thing I carry a baseball bat."

"Curious, but I'm not gonna ask more." Miko brushed off the comment, jumping into a pretend fighting stance. "Time for us to go on a bug-hunt!"

I exchanged knowing glances with Bumblebee and Bulkhead, shuddering slightly at the thought of how many small creatures could be scurrying around the base as we spoke. This wasn't the first time I'd encountered them.

Suddenly, hanging out in the Arctic with Arcee didn't seem so bad.

End of Chapter Seven!

This is obviously a two-parter, but I just LOVE the episode Scrapheap and saw a great opportunity to link it to Silver's lore. You'll see more of that in the following part.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'll post the next one as soon as it's done!

'Til All Are One,

GreyroseLegacy