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Short chapter. Things will get weird starting here.


Ratchet pinched the bridge of his wide nose, looking up from the delicate repairs to a small conduit casing to replace the one damaged on Bumblebee. His hands were now made up of numerous small, deca-jointed appendages looking like the legs of spiders helping the medic in repairing his patient's delicate systems. Ratchet had set up a temporary med-bay in the building that held Wheel-jack's semi constructed lab. That med-bay was a temporary home for three patients, all of whom were sleeping on a large berth several dozen feet from Ratchet's work desk. Well, sleeping was not the right word. To be asleep, a human would have to breathe and the three laying on the berth had not taken a breath in nearly sixteen hours. If Ratchet would have to choose a word to describe their state, it would be similar to 'stasis'.

What ever had happened to them in the instant between the med-bay being blown to shreds and Jazz coming back online, it changed the three beings laying there in such a way as to make them unrecognizable. They still looked vaguely human from a distance but the three had undergone a metamorphosis the likes of which the medic had never seen. And, he mused, would likely never witness again. Their bodies had absorbed the metal that made up the loose parts Ratchet had stored around Jazz. The evidence of which shone dully under the lights. Ellie's left leg seemed to have been completed in the same anatomy and style of their protoforms when the Autobots had first arrived on this planet. She and the two younger adults had not moved since they had been brought to the lab by a very panicked Bumblebee. The small scout had made himself a nuisance looking over Ratchet's shoulders while he scanned the three humans. Ratchet understood, however. Bumblebee was only wanting his mates to be safe.

Currently, the little yellow mech was recharging on a berth not far away from the three. He had finely gone down after being assured five times over that Ratchet would let him know if any of the three humans condition had changed. That was six hours ago and absolutely nothing had changed. Ratchet leaned back, the spidery appendages of his fingers drawing back into his hands as he enjoyed the peace of the current moment. Up until a few hours ago, the med-bay had played host to a haggard Defense Secretary, a worried Prime and two sets of parents who were absolutely beside themselves with fear. Not fear of their children dying. Those fears had been quickly soothed by Ratchet's masterful bluntness. What had taken the place of the fear of loss, was the fear of what their children were becoming. Ratchet could not comfort them in this regard. He could not explain to them what was happening with their children when he himself did not understand everything that was going on.

What the medic knew for sure, however was that the only thing that had remained human about the three were their skins. And those were quickly being assimilated as well. They had no brain, or heart, or lungs to speak of. What they had instead were CPUs, pumps and coolant systems. And one more addition as well. Even Sam had not had a Spark before yesterday. But inexplicably all three now possessed Sparks of their own, each giving the thin skin over their chests a soft azure glow. The limited explanation from Jazz facilitated the how, but not the why. Why had these three had to sacrifice their human bodies to bring the Autobot's Spark back from the Matrix? The Saboteur would only shrug his shoulders and say that what ever deal was struck, only the 'little ones' knew.

Ratchet sighed in a soft hiss of air escaping his intakes in his chest. He felt like he had just pulled a double or triple shift in his med-bay back on Cybertron. There was certainly enough to keep him busy. Iron Hide had made for a ornery patent, grumbling about not being able to feel the lower part of his left arm. Of course, when he was repaired his main complaint was a tingly feeling in his hand. Though the weapons specialist had quieted down when Ratchet had threatened to detach the offending arm and shove it up Iron Hide's rear plates. The CMO had never seen Iron Hide move so fast. Ratchet chuckled to himself as the door opened slowly, revealing the worried face of Optimus Prime. Ratchet waved him in raising himself from his seated position, groaning at the stiffness in his joints. "Are you alright?"

Ratchet shook his head, misunderstanding the question and thinking it was directed at his patients. "Sam, Mikaela and Ellie are the same as before," he said as he brought his fingers to Mikaela's leg, peeling back the gossamer like skin that was sagging from her now metallic frame. "We will have to wait until they come on line before we can know for sure what is happening."

"I meant the question for you, Ratchet." The CMO turned to regard Prime strangely. It was something he never thought about. He judged his well being on the health of his patients. But now that Ratchet thought about it, he was exhausted. A quick check of the time let him know why. It was almost half past one in the morning, and he felt it in every servo and gear, his shoulders sagging with fatigue. "I suspected as much," Optimus smiled, placing his hand gently on Ratchet's shoulder. "Why don't I keep an eye on these four while you recharge?" The question also carried a subtle plea not to make the request a command.

Ratchet stared Prime down for a moment, his processor coming up with thousands of reasons why he should not even off-line one optic. The three could take a sudden down turn, or they could wake up and need his attention. But just as fast as those objections came to mind, Ratchet threw them into the rubbish bin. Each was as unlikely as the last and as much as he hated to admit it, he could not make up an excuse good enough to reject Optimus' generous offer. Optimus patted Ratchet's shoulder as the medic nodded mutely and shuffled over to one of the open berths on the other side of the temporary med-bay. He would not have broken his own self imposed rule if the four in with him did not need constant attention. "You wake me the moment anything changes. I don't care if it's a twitch or a sneeze, you wake me up."

Optimus smiled, sitting at Ratchet's work desk, leaning back in the chair. "Don't worry, old friend. You will be the first to know if anything happens." Ratchet nodded, laying flat on his back and off-lining his optics. He did one last scan of the med-bay before he booted up his recharge sub-routines and slipped into blissful unconsciousness.

Optimus quietly watched the three beings, several hours ticking by before he observed something strange. One of the forms on the berth was moving. Almost as though their entire body were stiff and sore. Optimus imagined that his observation was not far from the truth. He could only imagine what it felt like to change so suddenly into something so different. The slightly shorter stature and ginger hair marked the one waking as Ellie. She seemed to settle down with a sigh, remaining on the berth. She lifted a hand to her face, the thin skin on her arm shredding as it was stretched against her now slightly thicker frame. Prime winced, wondering if she still had feeling in her skin as she lifted it from her face like a grizzly neoprene death mask.

The skin fell to the berth with a soft whooshing sound as Ellie sat up, her hands examining her new face. Instead of skin covering muscle, nerve and bone, her visage was made up by plates which slid past one another as they were manipulated by controls hidden away underneath. The space between her cheek and lower jaw was left open, giving anyone up close an intimate view of the workings of her neck. Her fingers poked at this open area as though she were exploring an open wound, gingerly touching the plates. The rest of her body was equally as altered. Even in it's protoformic state, it was still evident that she was female. She no longer had breasts in the normal sense, but she did have a rounded swell at her chest that designated her as a femme. Optimus smiled as her optics met his. Unlike Sam's, who took their design from Bumblebee's human like optics, Ellie's looked more feline inspired like Iron Hide's optics.

Ellie shuddered her optics several times as though getting used to the sensation. She must have found the action slightly annoying, much the same way, Optimus mused, that he would feel if he had flesh coverings for his eyes that touched and scraped against his optics with every blink. Prime got up to alert Ratchet when Ellie raised her hand, her voice coming out in a croak. Optimus went to her as she coughed, thinking hard as she got used to speaking without moving air through her throat. "Need to talk...to you first," she softly annunciated. "Things you need to know." Optimus clicked to himself in curiosity, leaning down toward Ellie so that she did not have to strain her vocalizer.

Optimus held out his hand for her to climb onto. Ellie hesitated for a moment before extricating herself from the now dead skin that used to protect her delicate organic workings. Her legs were still not capable of supporting her, so she managed a modified bear crawl into Optimus' waiting hand, settling into his palm with a sigh. She off lined her optics as the sensation of movement made her dizzy, only opening them again when the movement had stopped. Gently Optimus deposited her onto Ratchet's work desk, seating himself in the chair as Ellie got comfortable on the table. "There is something I must ask, Ellie. Before the battle, the All-Spark was hidden near Jazz's body and now it has disappeared. Do you know what happened to it?"

Ellie nodded, glancing over to Sam and Mikaela for a moment before shifting her gaze back to Optimus. "The first thing you have to understand, is that this was our choice. We were given the option, and our answer did not affect Sentinel Prime's promise that he would bring Jazz back. The second, is that the All-Spark did not disappear. In order to better protect it, Sam, Mikaela and I agreed to give it different physical form." Optimus seemed confused by this explanation. Ellie chewed her lip trying to word it better. "We agreed to become the All-Spark in order to protect it and our bodies were changed so that the All-Spark wouldn't die when our organic bodies did."

Optimus appeared stunned into silence as he tried to process all of what Ellie was telling him. "The All-Spark was split into three pieces," Optimus trailed off when Ellie started shaking her head, her face becoming sad.

"Not three; four." Again Optimus tried to process what he was being told.

"Who has the fourth piece? Jazz?" Again Ellie shook her head. "Who could possibly..." Prime trailed off, his face going slack as his optical guards widened in disbelief. "No...please tell me that it is not true." The desperation in his voice made Ellie wince.

"It's true. The moment we each touched what was left of the All-Spark and touched Jazz, we awakened him as well. There was no other way, Optimus." Ellie immediately crawled on her knees, putting her hands on either side of the Autobot leader's face as his shoulders sagged in defeat.

"But Megatron is on the bottom of the Atlantic at the moment. It would take him months to climb back to the surface." Optimus' hopefulness was dashed with the uncomfortable look on Ellie's face.

"I don't know how they could have gotten the distance wrong, Optimus. The Laurentian Abyss may be in northern Canada but it is only a little more than 4,000 meters deep from the North American continental shelf to the sea bed. The deepest place is actually in the Pacific, the Mariana Trench. It's more than 10,000 meters deep and would have held him better. But what is done is done. And because he has a larger part of the All-Spark with him, he has almost fully repaired himself." Ellie held on to Optimus' face tighter when it looked like he would panic. "This is the only way we could protect the All-Spark without having to lug the thing around with us all the time." She smiled. "Besides, I think Primus did a pretty damn good job." Ellie pushed herself to her legs, wobbling slightly. "Don't you think so?"

Prime laughed as Ellie struck a pose, her hand on her hip as she gave him her most seductive smirk before sticking her glossa out at him. Ellie walked forward, placing an awkward kiss on Optimus' forehead. "That's better. Megatron does not have all of the All-Spark's power and what he has resists him at every turn. That is why we took this piece into ourselves. It makes it impossible for him to access all of its powers and much easier for us to defeat him."

Optimus's brow ridges rose slowly. "Who told you all of this?"

Ellie smiled, tilting her head. "I believe his name was Primus. Well, he really isn't a He. Or a She or an It. Primus is...well Primus." Ellie shrugged. "And the biggest guy I've ever seen. I thought you were tall," Ellie whistled, not noticing the slack jawed look Optimus was giving her. "Sam called him a 'Heavy Metal Grandpa', Primus nearly fell over laughing. I wish you could have heard it. It took him forever to get himself to stop laughing."

"Not that I wish to interrupt this wonderful story...But what was it about 'Wake Me Up If ANYTHING CHANGES' did you not understand?" Ratchet bellowed as he planted his feet on the ground, stalking toward a visibly cowering Optimums. Ellie's optics widened as she was greeted with a very irritated Ratchet about to go into Glitch mode.

The yelling from Ratchet roused two very sleepy looking silver protoforms, their optics wide. "Wow, someone needs to get laid."

The entire med-bay was silent, crickets chirping somewhere outside. Suddenly both Optimus and Bumblebee burst into laughter, neither able to keep themselves in their respective seats as they toppled to the floor. Ratchet, however narrowed his optics at Sam, looking like he was going to chew him into a metal pulp and reform him into an ashtray. Sam only smiled in return, looking like the perfect Cyber-Cheshire cat.

Mikaela rolled her eyes at the two. "I think you broke Optimus," she stated, referring to the way Prime had tried to get up only to topple over again when Ratchet had fixed him with his meanest glare. Iron Hide peeked into the med-bay, but ducked out when Ratchet threw the conduit casing he had repaired at Bumblebee, hitting him square in the head. Ellie rolled her eyes as the med-bay filled with the sound of a gong being struck.

"Just another day in paradise."

Ratchet grunted, his patience with the mech and femme in front of him coming close to its breaking point. The small pliers on the end of one of his appendages freed another section of metal, the two caught together sighing as they were able to move a little more on their own. Ratchet kept going until he had only two more metal plates to free, sitting back to rest his optics. "Tell me again, how was it that you two came to be so...attached?" The two autobots glowered at Ratchet who could barely suppress the chuckles rising from his engine like someone had just filled his tanks with bubble bath.

"FeVerUstPisking..." The two crossed their arms over their chests, rolling their optics as Ratchet lost himself for a moment. The medic regained his composure and started working their faces apart.

"You could have asked any Autobot what happens when you try to do something that was meant for a being with skin." Ratchet chuckled, shaking his head. "You two are very lucky you did nothing more than lock your mouth components together. I see that I am going to have to teach the two of you how Cybertronians mate." Ratchet's mouth twitched. "Haven't had to do that since a very young Bumblebee walked in on Optimus and Elita-1." Mikaela and Sam looked at each other, surprise evident on their faces. "Yes, it took several orns, nearly a month for Bumblebee not to break down into a giggling mass of scrap metal when he saw either Optimus or Elita-1. Apparently he thought Optimus' anatomy to be funny." Ratchet shook his head. "It took a long while for Iron Hide to live down having 'lost' 'Bee for that long. He was usually good about keeping track of the little young-ling. But as children are want to do, 'Bee snook off to see Optimus and got a little more than he bargained for."

Sam waited for Ratchet to pry him from Mikaela before he asked anything else. His mouth felt a little funny and he exercised his his 'lips', watching Mikaela do the same. "So, Optimus had a...wife?"

"Bonded Mate," Ratchet corrected. "and no, nether committed to bonding their Sparks. Their work kept them apart from each other for long periods of time, so to bond themselves together would have made them subject to the pain of separation. It was no secret, so you can stop looking like you have to keep this to yourselves." Sam actually had the nerve to look abashed. "Optimus and Elita have not been near each other for the better part of two hundred vorns. Roughly sixteen thousand-eight hundred years. Elita-1 has long since taken up with a mech called Kup. He was one of the first Cybertronians ever created, even older than Iron Hide. In fact, I believe he created Iron Hide." Ratchet laughed as he examined Mikaela's mouth plates. "The mech's a pulse off of the old Spark if you ask anyone who knows the two."

"Wow, no wonder Optimus throws himself headlong into his duties." Sam sighed, suddenly feeling sorry for the Autobot leader.

"I don't think he misses Elita as much as you think he does, Sam. Besides, keeping up with the three of you over these past few months has been more than enough to distract him. And dare I say, entertaining?" Sam made a scoffing noise, crossing his arms over his chest and giving Ratchet a withering look. Mikaela, however, bit back the urge to laugh at Sam, it was never wise when he was sulking.

"Entertaining, how?" Mikaela tried not to make eye contact with Sam, knowing that if she did she would burst out laughing at him.

Ratchet smirked. "When you two tried to keep the fact that you had brought Bumblebee into your relationship a secret?" Mikaela would have blushed if she still had that ability. "As though he could ever hide anything from me or Optimus. Especially an overload. " Ratchet looked pointedly at Mikaela, one optic shuddering in a wink. "Bumblebee would have done nothing so drastic without first clearing it with Optimus or I."

"Now," Ratchet clapped his hands together, signaling his want to move on to another subject. "I suppose I could tear Bumblebee away from his duties long enough to give our three Glitch-mice an anatomy lesson." Ratchet stopped, looking around his temporary Med-bay. "Speaking of which...where is Glitch-mouse number three?"

*****************************

Optimus Prime grunted as he pulled himself onto the ledge just below the one Ellie had perched herself on. He settled himself, glancing to his left as Ellie acknowledged him with a nod of her head. Ratchet had asked the Autobot leader to look for Ellie. He was concerned with how she had become withdrawn of late. Both looked out over the base, not knowing exactly what to say to the other to get the conversation going. Finely, Prime decided to play the Bluntness card. It always seemed to work for Ratchet, who was monitoring their conversation to get a better grasp of what was bothering Ellie.

"Ratchet is concerned with your sudden withdraw from your regular social circles." Ellie seemed to smile at this, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. She shook her head, smiling back at Prime, confusing the mech to no end. Humans, and that definition fit the woman just to his left, still puzzled him at times. Though he could see some of the humor. Ellie and Mikaela both considered the Autobot's bluntness charming. "I must admit that I also am curious as to what has caused you to shy away. I confess that Iron Hide is not the same without his," Prime searched for the appropriate word. "Surrogate Daughter there to needle him."

Ellie smiled back, leaning back on her hands as she enjoyed the afternoon sun. "It's got nothing to do with any of you, Prime. I'm just giving my parents some space while they...adjust." The way Ellie articulated the word 'adjust' caught the attention of Ratchet through the audio connection with Prime. Ellie herself had hunched over slightly and rubbed the back of her neck with her hand in a gesture of emotional exhaustion. "Do you think I'm asking too much of them to understand that it's still me?" Her shoulders slumped at Prime's silence.

"I don't regret it, Optimus. But it gets hard when my own parents treat me like a..." Ellie sighed again shaking her head, disgust written all over her features. "They treat me like a mindless machine! Like their real daughter died and all I am is just an image of her. Like...I'm here to mock what I used to be." She pulled her legs up to her chest, resting her forehead against the smooth metal of her knee caps. She turned her head to Optimus, giving him her best lopsided smile. "Other than that little road bump, I'm right as...a spot free car wash."

Both shared a much needed laugh. It had been said by various philosophers that laughter cleansed the soul, and it seemed the same could be said for sparks. At least Ellie thought so. But it was not long before the silence filled the air between them again and the same bleak thoughts began to bounce around inside her head. "Give them time, Ellie." Ellie turned to face Optimus, trying her best to show him a smile. She only wished she were as sure of her parents acceptance as she thought she looked. "Besides...I think it is best we stay here for now."

Ellie cast a sidelong glance at Optimus. "Why?..."

The silence between them took on a whole new texture. "I believe that Ratchet is using Bumblebee for an anatomy lesson." The way the leader of the Autobots squirmed looked almost exactly like Sam when he was explaining why her gray car had polka-dots of missing paint. The look she gave Optimus made him feel like he had been caught sneaking a sip of medicinal grade energon...by Ratchet. "A reproductive anatomy lesson."

For a moment, the servos controlling Ellie's optical guards triggered once, twice and finely three times before the air was filled with her laughter.

*****************************************

Maggie opened her compact, checking her hair for the third time in less than an hour. Her fussing had annoyed Glenn into his PSP and Defense Secretary Keller into staring the young woman down when the glare caught him in the corner of his eye. This would then panic Maggie as she would stuff her compact back to the bottom of her bag and cross her arms over her chest, looking anywhere than at the Defense Secretary. This is exactly how they pulled up to the checkpoint that marked the boundary between the affectionately named 'Autobot City' and the rest of the United States.

The guards snapped to attention as Keller flashed his ID, and let the motorcade through. The term Autobot City had been somewhat of a misnomer. There were still several Appropriations bills to be sent through to the House and Senate to secure the funds to begin more than the restoration of electricity and water. Even the plans still had to be agreed upon as well as how to hide such a massive undertaking from the eyes of the public. There were several estimates ranging from a few billions of dollars to astronomical dollar amounts that would rival the national debt. And too there still was the number of refugees that had to be worked out. Being scattered throughout the galaxy and perhaps beyond, Optimus was only able to give a somewhat optimistic estimate of under a hundred individuals. Even less if the Decepticons had raided the nursery colonies as had been rumored. Keller turned his attention from Maggie's endless fussing to the last meeting he had had with Optimus as he pulled the lead car into its parking space. The Autobot leader's adjourning words had hung heavy in the air; "It is difficult to have hope for the future when our young are murdered before they are old enough to know what Hope means."

"Glenn...we're here."

"Uh huh..."

"Glenn..." Keller turned his head in the drivers seat, watching Glenn, his attention focused solely on his PSP, fingers flying over the controls as he licked his lips in time with the taps of his fingers. "Put that up, Glenn and get out of the car." Keller was becoming increasingly perturbed by Glenn's situational deafness. The Defense Secretary was about to pull rank, when Maggie held up her hand, pointing out the window.

"Glenn!" Maggie crowed, her eyes focused on the scene outside the driver's side window. "I think I see Jazz!" Glenn looked up from his PSP as his game ended abruptly with his character getting blown to bits by the level boss. The slack look on his face belying his confusion, though when he realized what had happened, he just rolled his eyes and stuffed his game back into his bag.

"Great, now I have to start all over again. Do you know how long it too me to get through that level? And joking about Jazz isn't funny. Maggie? Are you even listening?" The irony of the situation fell on deaf ears as Maggie scrambled out of the car, Sgt Robert Epps parking a few feet to her left, exiting much slower. "What are you looking...at?..."

Glenn clamored out of the car, his game forgotten as his face lit up. "AAAAHHHHHH!!" he shouted, running up to to the Saboteur, his right hand held out in front of him as he gripped the mech's lowered forefinger. "My brother from another mother-ship!" Jazz' face broke out into a broad grin, laughing as Glenn struggled to get several thousand questions from his brain to his mouth with little success. Maggie helped with the bottleneck by smacking Glenn on the arm, making him shy away and feign injury.

"How?" she asked, watching as Jazz stood up to his normal height, shrugging his shoulders in a human expression of not having a certain answer.

"Because someone asked nicely," the mech offered, smiling at the perplexed looks on Maggie and Glenn's faces followed by the amusement of Sgt. Epps. "You three been keeping Keller on his toes?" John answered with a derisive snort, making the Saboteur laugh even harder. "Your lucky. 'Bee has all of us and he still has the power to annoy either Ratchet or IronHide into a full processor meltdown."

"The reason for that is obvious." came the deep baritone of IronHide's voice as he strode up to the gun metal gray mech, putting his fists on his hips. "You taught him everything he knows!" The tone was not accusatory, but carried the mirth that had so often been absent from the Weapons Specialist's voice for so long. "You were the one who showed him all the secret passages, AND you were the one who gave him the pass-code to Ratchet's secret stash of High Grade." Jazz ducked his head, but his grin was ever present.

"You three should have seen the state 'Bee was in after just three sips." IronHide was saying to Maggie and Glenn. "Kid could never hold his high grade. Of course it didn't help that the stuff was for medicinal use." IronHide chuckled at the perplexed look on Keller's face. "Medical High Grade is used for dire circumstances when the patient is in danger of loosing too much energon. It's great for dying patients, but for a functioning mech it over-energizes to the point of...I believe Sam would call it 'Vegging Out'."

"Ahh," Keller seized upon the opportunity of IronHide's unintentional segway. "Where might I find the young...man?" John's slight indecision was not noticed by Glenn or Maggie, though it did give Robert pause. "You probably figured out that we are going to need these three moved into the base as soon as possible because of the recent Decepticon activity. Safety in numbers and all."

Both Jazz and IronHide seemed to visibly shrink when Keller asked about Glenn and Maggie meeting Sam. "Sure, he's in the temporary med-bay over on the southern end of the base. Him and Mikaela are helping Ratchet with something." Both mechs stayed unnaturally quiet after that, watching Keller walk with Maggie, Glenn and Sgt. Epps in tow. Only Jazz still had a smile on his face.

"Five bucks says that Glenn makes that strange squeaking sound again." IronHide turned his head slowly, staring Jazz down for nearly a minute before huffing a sigh and shaking his head.

"First of all, that is hardly worth betting over; Second, he does that all the time. And third," he stared at Jazz hard. "where on Cybertron would I keep five adult male deer?"

"Same place you keep your CPU most of the time..." Jazz laughed, walking off toward the cliffs he had seen Ellie heading toward earlier in the morning. He figured since Prime had had to leave to supervise the reintroductions, Ellie would need some company. "Right up Chromia's aft."

In all his years working for Sector 7, Agent Simmons had great dreams for his career. They often culminated with him running the entire sector and coordinating the efforts of the U.S. Military war machine to his will. Grand dreams, though he was convinced that most would call them insane at the very least. Though for all of his machinations, Simmons had never considered what he was about to do as a part of his plans. It was bold enough to secure his place within the hierarchy of the government and get most of his dignity back. Dignity he had lost at the barrel of a gun held by a rather rattled Captain Lennox. And backed by the Defense Secretary himself.

So when he extended his hand to the Major sitting next to him, sealing their deal, he naturally had no trepidation. The major had contacted several higher-ups within the Army, his wife, the Air Force; and had convinced several Generals and Commandants who were wary of the Autobot's presence that their welcome had officially worn out. Those Joint Chiefs sympathetic to Major Murdock's suffering had re-instituted Sector 7 as a high level intelligence branch of the NSA. All of this was done quietly. Not even the President or his advisers knew what was going on, and it would remain that way as long as Simmons was in command of the NSA's NBEC office.

It was this office who had suggested subtly to Def. Secretary Keller that the NBE Registration Act be passed into law. It was this secret office who had been keeping track of the Autobot's activities for well over a year. And it was this office that contacted the only mech sitting in on the meeting.

Most of the military personnel present were wary of Starscream. He looked like something out of a bad science fiction/horror movie. His entire body screamed killer. To Simmons, he was a work of art. All hydraulic and piston, not a micron of wasted material. Starscream was created for one thing, to hunt. All though at the moment, he had put his hunter/seeker algorithm into the background programs, instead devoting his CPU resources to watching the burly Major and his stoic wife. Both sat with ridged backed postures, their mouthes pursed into straight lines that made their expressionless faces seem somehow less real.

"I am very sorry to hear what has befallen your female offspring," Starscream soothed, bowing as well as he could in the confined hangar. "It seems that the Autobots are more desperate than I had believed them to be if they are resorting to changing humans into Cybertronians." His maw twisted into a rather frightening imitation of a sympathetic smile. "You must understand, Commander Murdock; Optimus' Autobots are a dying breed. There are less than fifty individuals with more joining our ranks each orn. Their young are intelligent enough to make the right choice when they are free of their creators' influences. Optimus calls this 'raiding the nurseries', however the young make their own choices, and are rewarded accordingly."

Simmons' mouth twitched as he heard the truth; from Starscream's point of view at least. Perhaps these robots were more clever than he had given them credit for. Through the corner of his eye he watched the two officers as they exchanged a silent glance. For them, their daughter had ceased to exist several months ago. No matter what the human-like robot would tell them, she would never again be their little girl. It was simply beyond their capability to understand how she could retain her soul without her human body. Robots didn't have souls. Period. They may have had intelligence, but nothing resembling a soul in their opinion. And what their daughter had become flew in the face of everything they knew and believed.

Commander Murdock's eyes bored straight into Starscream's optics, her mind imagining that the fires of hell were what gave them their crimson glow. But both her and her husband were beyond rational judgment. Their grief overrode their capacity for logical thought. Though Margie would rather dance with this devil than keep silent about what Optimus had done to her daughter. "What do you need us to do?" Came the question before she could stop herself, making the monster's smile crawl outward in a way that reminded the Commander of how a shark looked just before it devoured its prey.

"Perhaps it would be prudent for you and your mate to take a...vacation?" Starscream's suggestion brought chuckles bubbling up like a rotary saw suddenly plunged under water. "The Autobots, my dear Commander, are nearly extinct. There are more individuals in this room, than there are Autobots in the entire universe." That declaration seemed to have a bolstering effect on those gathered. "Though I would not underestimate their will to survive. It is just that will that had driven Optimus to use the last of the All-Spark to reanimate the corpse of his second-in-command." Starscream almost grinned at the reaction that statement garnered. "Oh yes, that same power was used to reanimate the bodies of your daughter, Sam and Mikaela after they had been killed by Optimus' own ineptitude."

The disgusted murmur flowing through those gathered brought a silent smile to Starscream. If he had known how easily it was to manipulate these simple simians with a few choice words and a few references to Necromancy; which Starscream considered a rather wonderful past time, he would have opted for this strategy long ago. "And to make matters worse," the Decepticon continued, garnering the attention of the various military personnel once again. "another Autobot by the name of WheelJack is due to arrive in less than a week." The blank looks were enough to send a rather rueful sigh issuing from his vocalizer. "Your species has a name for his kind...Frankenstein. He is brilliant, do not mistake me. However his single minded pursuit for the next great invention has often landed this mech on dubious moral ground. He has very nearly gotten his fellow Autobots deactivated on several occasions because of his lack of situational rectitude." Starscream shook his head in mock exasperation. "The mech is as much a danger to himself as he is every living being on this planet. It would be like him to try to build a better mouse trap that goes after humans as well. Most probably with some thermo-nuclear device."

The entire room was already willing to declare war on the Autobots from that one tiny stretch of truth. Simmons however, had to fight to keep from having a rather inappropriate 'shit-eating' grin from smearing itself all over his face. "What do you require in exchange for privileges to neutralize this threat?" Simmons spoke up for the first time, attracting Starscream's attention. The same grin that Simmons fought to suppress, instead latched itself to Starscream's face. This was a little more than raiding the cookie jar and trying not to get caught. This was telling everyone how, when and where he would do it and triple-dog-daring them to stop him. If either being felt guilty for leading everyone on else in the room on, they hid it with expert control.

"I require three things. First; the privilege to dispose of Optimus and his little band of Autobots personally. Second; I require fuel with which to do so. We mechs require sustenance as well. And third, by far the most important...we require the femmes." He stilled the murmur with an upraised hand. "The Autobots are not the only ones who have suffered losses in this war. I believe that I can convince the femmes that joining my cause will work out much better for them in the end. After all, Optimus seeks only to prolong this war. I, however seek to end it once and for all. After which we will take our leave of this planet. There is nothing here that interests us except for the Autobots. You need not fear having to pay for our way as well." Simmons gave a slight nod to Starscream as it seemed that his speaking had had the intended effect. He was to have all the available resources of the U.S. military represented at his disposal.

****************************

Ratchet walked around the rebuilt med-bay, examining his friend's choice of transformation. His right hand was stroking his chin in a gesture of deep thought he had picked up from John Keller. "Well, I approve. It is appropriate, at least now you will be able to clean up your own messes from now on." Ratchet chuckled as he did one last visual check of the large Haz-Mat van in front of him. Everything was perfectly disguised except for the Autobot symbol where the seal of the local Anti-Terrorism department would be. The mech in question transformed, putting his fists on his boxy hips, vocal indicators a rather irritating cyan marking his annoyance.

"If your still blaming me for that experiment with dry ice and water, it was not entirely my fault!" Wheeljack held up his hands defensively. "Sunstreaker got a hold of it and shook to see what would happen." His vocal indicators on either side of his head flashed a pale pink before returning to their normal blue. "How was I supposed to know he would throw it at you just as it exploded?"

"If you recall...it turned my paint...pink." The medic became even more irritated when WheelJack started vibrating with laughter, his vocal indicators turning a rather iridescent lime green.

"That..."WheelJack laughed into his fist. "that was because Sideswipe had soaked you in a phenolphthalein and lye solution." His laughter threatened to double him over at the dark look he was getting from Ratchet. "Had...'squelch' had I known that Sideswipe was as educated in chemical reactions as he was, I would have had him working on something else entirely."

"And have that glitch addled creation of a fritzed-processor atom smasher blow the entire base to sub-atomic particles?" Ratchet narrowed his optics at WheelJack. It seemed that the inventor was here only a few days and he was already on his way to irritating Ratchet into a new processor. "I would rather have looked like Hello Kitty regurgitated on my armor." With a quick search of the Internet, WheelJack descended into a heap of laughing metal as Ratchet blessed the inventor with a rather large conical dent in his cranial armor.

******************************

Sam sat on Bumblebee's foot, watching the three women of the base playing a one sided game of volleyball. Glenn had excused himself from the game nearly twenty minutes ago complaining about metal amazonian women showing him up. Mikaela was playing with Maggie against Ellie and Epps. Surprisingly, the game was evenly matched. Ellie was never one for sports in high school. The teachers were always afraid she would break her leg or scuff the floor up with it. Mikaela dove forward to save, digging a small trench in the concrete with her chest plate. Her protoform was not even scratched. Though she did have to fish a couple of pebbles out of some sensitive gears before they were pulverized into dust.

And dust was one of the many things that Ratchet would not tolerate getting into their armor. Even though they could just rinse off with the water hose, Ratchet did not like to take chances and would scan the three, threatening to weld their afts to the wall so he could keep an optic on them. It was one of the reasons they were forbidden from playing this game anywhere near sand. Even the mere mention of powdered silicon was enough to have Ratchet expel a cinder block from his rear end. And that cinder block oddly enough, would land no where near Bumblebee. Being the eldest of the three, Ratchet seemed to have it in his processor that Ellie could control where the three went and what they did. Even her exasperated protests to the contrary did not silence the medic. He was, after all, looking after their own safety, but that did not mean that he could be a pain in the butt.

Bumblebee would often get snarky with her when she tried her best to live up to Ratchet's assumption. 'Yes mommy...' he would reply, giving the older femme the urge to throw something heavy at the yellow scout. She threatened on more than one occasion to 'grab Ratchet by the ankles and beat Bumblebee senseless with his hard head.' Sam smiled as Ellie missed the ball entirely, the white sphere hitting her between the optics. At least the responsibility had taken her mind off of her parents, and their absence seemed to bolster this effect. If they weren't around, there was nothing to squash her high spiritedness. Though she would sometimes spend several hours on one of the rocky outcroppings surrounding the central barracks. She told everyone that she liked watching the sunsets, and it would sometimes be well into the night when she came back down.

She would sometimes keep to herself the following morning, and sometimes she would be vociferous enough to rival Bumblebee's almost non stop radio chatter. Mikaela started laughing herself stupid when she reached up to spike the ball and ended up literally 'spiking' the ball through with her thumb.The ball was slowly loosing air, making a hiss punctuated by loud 'pfffts' when Mikaela shook her arm to dislodge the ball from her fingers. Epps seemed to take pity on the ball and winced in sympathy as Mikaela grabbed it and ended up popping it with a careless twitch of her fingers.

This was the one thing that all three were getting still getting used to. They may have been roughly the same size as a human, but their strength was on the order of three to four times that of a normal human, making normal activities an exercise in precision and dexterity. Helping his parents move furniture, Sam had to watch himself with the fabric. One twitch of his fingers and he would either tear the upholstery or break the frame and have it resemble a wood filled bean bag with more splinters than a pin cushion. His dad's favorite armchair had not been so lucky. Sam had leaned against it after moving into the preferred spot and broke the support on the back of the chair. Fortunately Lennox dabbled in carpentry and was able to fix the chair with minimal fuss. Sam's mother enacted her 'no leaning on furniture unless you want to fix it yourself' rule. Which was fine by Sam because he had already learned his lesson. And ironically enough, how to turn down the sensitivity to his audio receptors when his mother flew into a tirade at the sound of splintering wood.

Luckily Ratchet had missed the little display with the volleyball, being occupied with putting the finishing touches on WheelJack's lab. For some odd reason, the medic had insisted that the lab be shielded for anything short of a gamma bomb; from the inside. This had begged the question from Mikaela which in turn was answered by a long and exhausting list of all the things and mechs WheelJack had blown up, melted, fritzed, broken, shattered, bent, vaporized and sanitized other than his intended target. Which he had done almost exclusively to himself. Sometimes, however the mech actually got lucky and hit his target. Sometimes it hit his target and just about everything within arms reach of that target. And sometimes it just smote everyone within an umbrella of catastrophe.

"If you hear WheelJack ever utter the word Interesting," Ratchet had advised the three while the inventor was busy trying to convince Optimus that a nuclear reactor was perfectly safe in his lab. "run fast, and run far because it is a precursor to the end of your planet."

Watching Mikaela manage a pout was entertaining enough to forgive her for destroying their third volleyball this week. The first wasn't actually anyone's fault. When WheelJack found them playing with it a few days after he had arrived, he uttered the afore mentioned dreaded word and had sent Bumblebee tearing out of the area as though he were being chased by a chop-shop mechanic, flattening the ball with a muffled pop under his feet. The second was decimated by Sam when he spiked the ball over the net, through his barrack, into the mess hall and nearly fifty feet further right into IronHide's face, finely putting a stop to its path of destruction and existence. The only effect it seemed to have on the weapons master was the narrowing of his eyes in the general direction the ball had come from. Which had led him back to Sam, who looked sheepishly up as IronHide dropped what was left of the poor ball on his head. Without a word, the big mech had turned and left, though Sam could have sworn his shoulders were shaking with laughter.

And this now left them without a ball, making their game moot. They certainly could not play volley-pancake. They could have played Frisbee with it, but it would have looked like a pitifully flaccid ninja star trying to fly. Mikaela threw what was left over her shoulder, sitting next to Sam on Bumblebee's knee. The yellow Autobot had been looking upon the scene with some amusement. Both leaned back on Bumblebee, resting. They were tired. They had not done much other than play a little and spend the rest of the time in idle conversation. It was barely three in the afternoon and already the three of them were exhausted. They had been waking up at about the same time in the morning, but it seemed that they got tired earlier and earlier in the day until they were awake only five hours and in stasis for the other nineteen.

Ratchet had been keeping an optic on them as he promised (or threatened) he would do and had instructed Bumblebee to bring the three of them into his med-bay if their sleep patterns altered any further. The week previous they had stayed awake until five in the afternoon. Bumblebee put a quick text message through to Ratchet, and picked the three up to take them top the medic. He had only gotten half way, however when Ratchet text-ed back for him to get there as fast as possible. The medic also inserted something about what he would do to Bumblebee if he did not hurry his aft up. Most of the threat, Bumblebee was sure was not physically possible, but Ratchet knew how to rearrange things to make it possible so Bumblebee hurried. He certainly did not want IronHide's cannons shoved where Ratchet threatened to insert them.

When Bumblebee arrived, Ratchet had already set out several tools that the scout recognized immediately. He knew their purpose, and gave the medic a pointed look as though to ask why. Instead Ratchet ordered Bumblebee to close the doors, toggling his internal comm to IronHide's signal. The medic frowned, trying IronHide's comm again. The answer was the same as before; static. Ratchet called up Chromia, whom to his surprise answered.

'What is it, Ratchet?' Chromia did not seem the least bit perturbed. Ratchet was sure she would be with IronHide fooling around somewhere out of sight.

'Have you spoken to IronHide?' Ratchet asked, still examining the three in stasis on his exam table. 'I can not raise him on the comm.'

Chromia issued a puzzled grunt. 'That's odd. I just talked to him a moment ag...' Ratchet tapped the side of his head, but he was met with the same static as before with IronHide. He tried to raise WheelJack, Optimus and Jazz, but he was met with the same static. It was only then that things seemed to click into place. The intent was beginning to form in Ratchet's processor to lock the doors, but the last thing he remembered was Bumblebee sinking to the ground, a puzzled look on his face and a slender long barreled gun aimed between his optics.

This is "^$%*&$%*ing BRILLIANT!!!!!! I love the way you turned Sam, Mikaela and Ellie into bots. Are you watching this Bay? Is there any chance you could look at my fan-fic, the link is in my sig. Thanks!

Ratchet waited for the numbing blast with the distinct urge to close his eyes and flinch. When several moments passed without the sound of the weapon firing, Ratchet looked up into the optics of that weapon's wielder. Starscream stood calmly in the door to his med-bay as though he had just popped in to say hello, an amused smirk on his angular features. The low chuckle was completely inappropriate for the situation, though coming from Starscream it was not unexpected. What was unexpected was the hand he used to gesture out of the open door as though beckoning the medic to follow.

"My, my you Autobots are slow. Get the three sparklings and follow me. It is not that difficult." The annoyance in Starscream's voice was enough to snap Ratchet out of his shock. The medic moved between the Seeker and the three sleeping on the berth, his features hard.

"No," the statement was as simple as it was final. Though the only thing it gained the medic was a rather dubious look from Starscream. Both stared each other down, Ratchet hoping to keep this going until the weapon's effect finely wore off on either IronHide or Optimus. He hoped that ten minutes went by as quickly as his memories of his life were through his CPU.

A burst of static issued from Starscream's vocalizer, the Decepticon shaking his head. "Do not be stubborn, Autobot. You and I both know that the sparklings will not survive if their sparks are not transfered into a larger containment unit." This brought Ratchet up short, his features slackening in surprise. How in the pit did Starscream get to understand their situation? "I know for a fact that you do not have the materials to build anything more than rudimentary spark casings," Again, this caused a slight back step from Ratchet. He had a feeling that he knew where this was heading. "I, however have the materials to build them fully functioning shells."

"Then what do you need me for?" Ratchet was standing so close to the berth Sam, Mikaela and Ellie were sleeping on that the bolts holding it to the floor creaked. He also wondered how much more the Seeker knew than he was letting on.

"Do I look like a medic?" Starscream spread his hands as though the answer was obvious. "The spark casings of the mechs we recovered from the abyss are damaged or cracked entirely. Only a medic would have the needed equipment and programing to repair such damage. Need I explain more, or are you going to question why I do not blow your worthless chassis to the pits and leave your precious Autobots without a medic?"

Ratchet reassessed his situation, deciding that what Starscream offered was much better than the alternative. He would not trust the Seeker to lay one digit on the three behind him for even the promise of Cybertron rebuilt. The medic sighed, his shoulders lowering in defeat. "I accept. I would not trust these three with you alone anyhow." He ignored Starscream's snigger and gathered the three in his hands after tucking his equipment away within his own side panels. He cast a brief apologetic glance down at Bumblebee who was trying his hardest to move. Starscream seemed to have improved his weapon's effect since he had used it last. Ten minutes had come and gone and still there was no sign of any of the other Autobots.

Starscream followed behind, his weapon always at Ratchet's back, reminding him of the consequences of trying to escape. As though the medic needed to be warned. He spotted Soundwave a short distance away, waiting in his Sea Knight transformation, doors open. Inside were three cots strapped down to the floor. No explanation was needed, though Ratchet was loath to release the three from his possession. A quick prod from Starscream to the small of his back drew as sigh from the medic as he strapped the three into Soundwave's interior, the doors sliding shut with a snap, almost catching Ratchet's digits. He stepped back as the blades began to spin, lifting Soundwave and the three with him into the air.

Ratchet turned to transform when a hand on his shoulder stopped the program in mid-execution. "No need for that." Starscream grinned. "You're entirely too slow to keep up." He was about to take offense at the blatant insult when Starscream transformed behind him, magnetic locks on his underside locking Ratchet to him as he blasted into the sky, Ratchet screaming all the way up. "Shut up! Do you wish for every recharging human to see us? You may be the pets of the governmental body of this continent, but I doubt they would come to your rescue if you were found outside of your play pen!"

Ratchet snapped his mouth shut, vowing to disassemble the Seeker slowly. Though he found some advantage to having Starscream do all the driving. It gave him free time to come up with the basic designs for the new bodies for Sam, Mikaela and Ellie. He figured that with Sam's ability to get into anything, he would be a perfect Saboteur like Jazz. That body type would need a low profile, highly mobile joints, efficient pneumatic actuators and a fast CPU. For Mikaela, he figured a body like Fire Star, one of his trainees back on Cybertron would do. Slightly shorter than Bumblebee, but just as quick and nimble with her hands which came in handy in her work as a medic. And finely, Ellie. She had a kind heart, but when there was fighting to be done, she was not afraid to jump into the fray. The day Starscream attacked the base the first time, she had come out of her barrack with her father's pistol aiming it at Skywarp's optics. Only a quick save from Optimus kept her from eating a missile. Prime had scooped up Mikaela and threw them like a bowling ball into the med-bay. She seemed like the perfect child of IronHide and Chromia. It seemed fitting, since the two Autobots had become surrogate parents to the young woman.

With the basic designs chosen, Ratchet shuttered his optics and slipped into recharge, programming his CPU to come on-line the moment their altitude decreased to less than ten thousand feet.

********************************

It had taken the Autobots less than half an hour after they recovered to understand the full extent of Starscream's undertaking. Sam, Mikaela and Ellie were gone, and so was Ratchet. The reasons for which were fleshed out by an inconsolable Bumblebee. The three needed their sparks moved into housings that were able to sustain them better than the tiny containers they were in. Somehow Starscream knew this. Somehow he had ripped through international treaty to recover the bodies of Bonecrusher, Brawl and Blackout, each having more than enough material within them to build three shells for their sparks. And since Ratchet was the only Autobot on the planet that knew how to build shells out of spare parts, Starscream had conned him into the job. Though it gave the Autobots some comfort that someone they knew was going to supervise the construction. It was what would happen afterward that was frightening.

Secretary Keller had made a few calls to contacts from within his own department. What he had found out did not make the man happy at all. It seemed that Ellie's parents had been supplying key officials with information regarding the Autobots. Not only names and designations, but the location of their base had been compromised. The Major and Commander had also been in secret talks with the last vestiges of Sector Seven, which did not bode well at all. The major players within the agency were hell bent on getting their hands on any one of the other 'NBE's with the express purpose of turning it into leverage. And if tonight's actions were any indication, they had found that leverage in the three sparklings. This made Sector Seven no better than the Decepticons in Keller's eyes.

Informing the remaining Autobots of his findings was just as hard as John had anticipated it to be. Bumblebee's keening wail combined with IronHide's stony silence seemed to sum up what Optimus himself felt at hearing the news. He had tried to console Ellie's parents, tried to get them to understand that it was still their daughter. She was the same, just with a different covering. But they would not accept it and accused Optimus of playing 'God' with the All-Spark. Nothing he could have said would have changed their minds, so Optimus let it be. He hoped that with time, they would come to understand that who Ellie was had changed little. But neither could see past the metal, and cut Ellie out of their lives entirely.

Optimus sighed. Grief was something he understood well. He had lost many comrades in this war, some dying by his command. He understood the mental anguish that threatened to boil over into vengeance. It was so easy to give into it. To take a life for a life. But he had always told himself that acting in such a way would make him no better than those who had taken the mech he had cared about. But he had never lost someone as close as Ellie was to her parents. He had come close once, at Tiger Pax. Despair seemed inviting then. But he had others to remind him of his duty. Mechs and femms who counted on him, to pull him back from the brink and help him to focus on what was important. But this was different.

Where Sector Seven was getting their clout, not even Keller knew. But they apparently had enough sway within the U.S. government to strike a deal with the remaining Decepticons in order to further their goals. Not one of Keller's contacts knew everything that was going on. There were so many covert agendas being batted around that it was hard to know which ones were true and which were decoys. Even following up on the leads was risky. Just putting feelers out, asking to obvious a question could get their attention and put Simmons on the defensive. Even if Commander and Major Murdock knew what they were getting into, there was a good chance that if it fell through, they would be brought up on treason charges. Keller had had his colleagues slip in an additional clause to the Transformer Registration Initiative that made it a treasonous offense for any citizen of the United States to have any willful dealings with any being associated with Decepticons. He pulled an often used trick; slip the clause in a few hours before voting to make sure anyone opposed to it would have no time to even file a motion to suspend voting. If they found it at all.

Unfortunately not even that law could track one of these beings if they wanted to stay hidden. Despite their size they had an uncanny ability to be anywhere at all and have no one know what they were standing next to. Even the EID on Ratchet had been disabled. Or perhaps turned off. If Keller's limited time with the Autobot medic was anything to go by, Ratchet had disabled it intentionally to give his patients the best chances of survival. He was like most of the medics within the armed forces, he would take parts from his own body if it would help ensure his patient's survival. The only difference between Ratchet and a human medic, was that he could make good on that wish.

********************************

As Ratchet had anticipated, he was given no time rest. The spark casings of the three non functional decepticons were laid out in front of him with little pretense. It was apparent the extent of the damage these three had taken was severe. Shaking his head, Ratchet set about resealing the casings and making sure the energon conduits leading to and from the casings were not clogged with debris. It had not helped that Soundwave and his charges were hanging around the makeshift repair facility. The ceiling of the warehouse was full of asbestos and cobwebs and every time Soundwave's main weapon brushed the top of the rafters Ratchet would have to cover the casing he was working on lest it be filled with dust. "Stand still or leave!" He had shocked the Decepticon into silence...well, even more silence. "If I have to do any disassembly work to remove particulate from any of the sparklings systems, I will use your body for spare parts!"

Ratchet fully expected to be terminated on the spot, but Soundwave merely sat as best he could in the corner and called Ravage to him. The feline mini-decepticon was getting too familiar with Ellie for Ratchet's liking. It was likely that the mini-bot was still curious if her legs still detached themselves. Though Soundwave was intelligent enough to know that Ratchet's threat extended to his charges as well, and kept them close at hand. He had heard enough about Ratchet from his spy work on the Autobots long ago to know never to cross the medic. He had spotted Sunstreaker sporting several deep dents in his cranial casing along with unpainted patches on his armor. What ever the warrior had done to incite such wrath, Soundwave did not want to know.

Now free to work without dust or dirt in his way, he was finely able to seal the third casing. It had been hours since he had started and he hoped that Optimus would be understanding enough not to go looking for him too soon. Optimus had personally observed many complete assembly operations and knew that the design and construction then core programming took time. Especially without the equipment that made such undertakings that much quicker. But then Ratchet had a brilliant idea, a dangerously eager smirk pulling at one corner of his mouth.

Soundwave caught the look on Ratchet's face, suddenly wishing he could turn invisible like Mirage and run as fast as he could. He wondered just what kind of punishment Starscream had intended for him when he ordered the telepath to guard Ratchet. What ever the offense, it must have been bad enough to be stuck in a warehouse with a medic from the pit. "How good are you with an arch-wielder?"

Soundwave was struck dumb for a moment before he recovered, thanking his maker for the battle-mask on his face. "I am no medic. However I have had experience with field repair." Ratchet grunted, satisfied.

"Good. I am going to need your help if I am to finish the shells quickly." Ratchet sent a file to Soundwave listing everything he would need for all three shells. "Either you or your charges could gather the needed materials for me. I have a feeling I will be active for quite a while desalinizing everything. I just hope barnacles have not had a chance to take hold on their bodies." The medic seemed to descend into grumbling loudly to himself, leaving Soundwave to happily leave the warehouse and gather the listed materials. From the length, it would take several trips to get the needed materials for just the rough protoforms. Armor could wait. The salt water damage made it necessary to start from scratch, and that would require smelting and heavy processing until anything on this planet could be made into something resembling acceptable armor. That was assuming that Starscream even wanted them able to defend themselves.

Soundwave had only just gotten that last thought out when Starscream himself wandered around the corner. As soon as their eyes met, Soundwave knew that Starscream had figured out what he had been sent to do, the snide insults and barbed remarks already loading themselves into his processor for easy use. Soundwave wanted nothing to do with what ever was bubbling up in the Seekers mind. "The Autobot already has the Spark casings fully repaired and ready to accept the low-grade transfer." Soundwave knew before he even saw the moment's indecision on Starscream's face that he had not thought of building the machine. Nor had he thought of a way to process raw fuels into energon for their use. The new 'Commander' of the Decepticon forces had more important things weighing on his CPU than how they would enable the survival of the two femms that would ensure their campaign was not cut short. Soundwave continued to gather the supplies he needed from the pile, including the energon processors from the three non-functioning mechs to fashion the equipment needed to keep energon flowing through the casings.

Starscream let Soundwave pass back into the warehouse, an acidic glare in his crimson eyes. Soundwave paid him no mind, and set the three energon processors on another table to begin configuring them to take a mixture of fuel and high-grade energon to produce low-grade. It was not difficult, only tedious. Though with Ratchet grumbling in the corner, it made to be circuit-racking as well. The Autobot medic was as volatile as Starscream on a bad day and twice as likely to make good on his threats. Hours seemed to pass like moments and the three processors were finished. All they needed was to be primed with energon and fed fuel to begin manufacturing low-grade to feed through the spark casings.

"What are you doing?" Ratchet's highly annoyed voice made Soundwave turn his head slowly, wondering what in the pit he had done to garner his attention. "Why don't you get one of those 'fly-boys' out there to donate? I need you fully functional. They can dump their entire fuel tanks into those things for all I care." Soundwave smirked behind his mask, thinking that he was going to like working with this medic. He would enjoy watching Ratchet putting caldera sized dents in Starscream's armor. Ravage purred from the table, sensing his creator's amusement. He hopped on Soundwave's shoulder, settling himself in the crook of his armor. He wanted to see the looks on the three Seekers faces as well when Soundwave informed them that they had been tapped as energon donors.

*******************************

As expected, the three Seekers were not exactly thrilled with the idea of having their energon pumped out of their bodies into any thing else. Soundwave told them to think about the femmes they would be helping to save, and was not surprised at the immediate eagerness that bloomed in their optics. Though when the three were hooked up to their respective fuel processors, Starscream seemed deflated to know that his energon was going toward Sam's processor. Even experiencing the first stages of energon loss, with alarms trilling softly in his HUD, Starscream managed a lethal glare toward Soundwave. The telepath was punishing him for being too slow to recover Megatron's body from the abyss. The Seeker had lied and said there was not enough left to bother with retrieval. He would not dare tell the others that Megatron's shell was not where it was supposed to be. Nor was it where the currents could have taken it. And to make matters worse, there were huge gouge marks in the rock. Gouges made by a mech pulling himself along the sea bed while crawling with one leg.

Starscream was brought out his memory by a none too gentle knock on his head by Ratchet, who seemed to enjoy the surprise on the seeker's face a little too much. "Is your CPU still functioning?" A quick nod and grunt brought a rather disappointed look to the medics face. "Too bad. Well, don't just fall there, go lay down somewhere out of my way. These processors have a while yet before the low-grade is usable enough to begin the spark transfers.

Blasting the medic seemed so tempting. All he would need to do was to raise one cannon...

Ratchet tapped Starscream on the forehead, sending the Seeker keeling back-wards and into Soundwave's arms. By the time he was caught, Starscream was already recharging like a sparkling. Leaving Soundwave to deal with the Seeker, Ratchet returned to monitoring the three processors, nodding and grunting in satisfaction when they were working at optimal efficiency. He set all three in front of their new casings and waited for the processors to finish.

COOOOOL!!!!!!! I like it! Like I said could you read my fan-fiction, the link is in my sig.

Chapter 14

Ratchet was working as fast as he ever had. The fingers on both of his hands had each blossomed into dozens of grappled appendages, each acting like an arm of their own to hook the lines to and from the spark casings to the energon processors. Both of his hands were working on Mikaela and Ellie's casings, and Soundwave was working with Sam's. If he were human, Ratchet would be sweating profusely. He had counted on having a few more hours to play with, but Sam's spark had nearly extinguished itself half an hour ago. Unfortunately, this was familiar territory for Ratchet. Sparks produced between mating couples or triads during the war were precious. Each one sparked was celebrated for orns. Most of the time, they had the materials to construct basic stasis units for the sparks to reside in until a full body could be constructed.

Sometimes, however, materials were scarce, or they were under siege making it impossible to go scavenging for parts or materials. Sometimes, there was little choice but to let the spark extinguish itself within it's creators body. Humans would call it 'miscarriage'. Nothing could be done about it, and the entire base would mourn its passing. Mech sparks were more susceptible to this spontaneous death. Some theorized that femme sparks were supposed to be stronger to support another life along with itself, which made them more able to survive periods of sparse resources. But Ratchet would be damned to the pit if he let these three expire under his watch. Sam and Mikaela had given the Autobots a second chance. All three had given them Jazz back, and now they themselves were the first sparklings created in over five hundred vorns. Each one was more precious than every natural resource on this or any other planet to the Autobots. They were the embodiment of hope.

Success! Ratchet made the final connection just as Soundwave finished. Now, came the hard part. Soundwave stayed back. He was not built for this delicate of an operation. Each of Ratchet's multi-jointed appendages tapped and probed the seams of Sam and Mikaela's armor, finding the release controls. Their chests slid apart, revealing the oh, so tiny sparks within. Mikaela's was pulsing in a steady rhythm, where as Sam's was beating fast, skipping here and there. Ratchet started with Sam first, and opened the seal on the middle spark casing. The energon was primed within, and Ratchet reached in with two of his grappling appendages and gently lifted Sam's still pulsing spark out of his tiny chest. Quickly, the medic placed it within the spark chamber, sealing the inner chamber and releasing the energon as he closed the outer casing with a hiss.

Both medic and spy watched as Sam's spark pulsed quickly before slowing into a more acceptable rhythm. And grew. Out of it's tiny enclosure, it could expand without being crushed to death. It took the energy from the energon, and used it to give itself the biggest growth spurt any human had ever had. From a tiny pin prick of light, it grew almost instantly into a pulsing sphere of blue-white. Sparklings were always blue-white. They only settled into the azure glow after they had gained a few hundred vorns.

Mikaela and Ellie were a breeze, settling into their new casings with perfect ease, growing with nearly every pulse. Though now the fun part was just beginning. Their bodies still had to be constructed, and with only the two of them able to preform the construction, it would take a while. But at least Ratchet had the basic designs sketched in his processor, and he copied these files to Soundwave. He hated having to do this, but he needed all the help he could get, Decepticon or no.

"The femme, a warrior?" Soundwave's deadpan voice made it difficult to know if it was a question or a statement. "She will never see combat. Starscream would never allow it. She would never leave his sight or protection."

Ratchet scoffed, fixing the spy with a withering glare he had learned from Maggie. It seemed to work well enough on Bumblebee and Prime, and not even Soundwave seemed immune. "She is the child of warriors. Her father is a tanker, her mother a Commander in the Air Force. Her surrogate parents are IronHide and Chromia. There is nothing else she could be. And besides," Ratchet tried to seem reasonable. "if I gave her any other designation, she would terminate me in recharge." Ratchet knew that Soundwave would make things difficult in Ellie's respect, so Ratchet had already begun the coding for Ellie. He had fought with and repaired IronHide often enough to know his systems inside and out. He also made a point to raid Bonecrusher's weapons. Any child of IronHide, be they surrogate or no, would by default need big guns.

But Ratchet had more in mind for the three than just ordinary designations. There were several that Ratchet knew with secondary and even ternary designations. Prowl was both a Tactician and a warrior. Springer, along with being a 'Triple-Changer', was also a warrior, Aerial Defense Commander, and sometime field medic. Even WheelJack was a trained medic. Though he had throughly alienated his patients with his observations on how he could improve on their systems.

*************************

In the weeks after Ratchet and the sparklings abduction, two more Autobots had joined the ranks. Optimus had been relieved to have his 2IC back as well as his Science Officer. Prowl and Perceptor had been welcome additions and were brought up to speed within hours of their arrival. Both had expressed excitement at not just one but three sparklings being created. Though both knew exactly what Starscream would do to the two femmes. They had seen the results of it throughout the contested sectors. Both on Cybertron and near by systems. The femmes that were not lucky enough to escape or self-terminate were used to create sparklings until their own sparks had no strength left to sustain themselves. Their shells were then raided to create new bodies for the created sparklings. And any younglings that did not swear allegiance to the Decepticon cause were executed. Their sparks ripped out of their chests and shells used to repair or build new shells. It had taken everything the two had not to give up at the sight.

And both were nearly beside themselves at the discovery that Jazz was alive. Each had been speechless before they clapped the Saboteur on the back. Prowl had commanded Jazz never to do anything like that ever again. But the celebrations could not last long. Prime had to reveal what Ellie had told him when she had awakened after the attack. The three sparklings had become living vessels for the part of the All-Spark that Prime had recovered. And that when the three agreed, Megatron had been reactivated.

"But Prime! You're just going to sit here and wait?" Prowl seemed about ready to pop his processor out of its socket, his optics threatening to do the same.

Prime answered with a simple nod. "When Ratchet is ready, he will reactivate his EID. Until then, we must wait."

"But what if Starscream has already terminated him?" Perceptor stepped forward, his hands upheld in a gesture he had observed humans using when they wanted to argue the point without seeming hostile. "There is no guarantee that he was needed in the first place."

"Starscream said it," Bumblebee chimed in, sitting still for once on a large crate. " 'Do I look like a medic?' " He even used the same gesture Starscream did. "He needs Ratchet, whether he likes it or not. And Ratchet will keep things going in the direction he wants them to go. You all know how he is when he sets his processor on something." Everyone gathered nodded, IronHide grunting in assent. "Come Hell or high water, he will do things the way he wants them to be done."

Perceptor could only guess what the first part of 'Bee's last statement meant. But he was not a genius because he liked the title. "You said something about one of the femmes being adopted as a surrogate after her parents abandoned her." Perceptor thought it best to be informed on everything. Even the small details. "Who adopted her?"

Prime actually smiled, though there was a devious glint in his optics that was almost unnerving in the Autobot leader. "She was adopted by IronHide and Chromia. Her biological father was a warrior. A 'Tanker' I believe, and her mother was a pilot in this continent's areal defense branch of their military.

Perceptor and Prowl's optics met as Prime finished, both their mouths snaking up into a very human grin. "Oh! Well, why did you not say so before, Prime. We needn't have worried!" Perceptor laughed. "If this is the same femme that had a pistol aimed at Thundercracker, then I believe it is the Decepticons who are in danger." IronHide seemed to get the joke, and started smiling himself, holding Chromia close to him.

"If my analysis of the sparklings' personalities are correct from the holos you provided, Prime," Prowl cut in, his face taking on the look of devious amusement as well. "I believe both femmes would rip out Starscream's transfer cable and use it to tie him upside down off the nearest cliff."

************************

Starscream did not like Ratchet at all. In fact, he hated the mech. Hated him with all his spark, with every piston and electro-driver in his body. With every aching micron of metal dented inward on his head. Starscream had made the mistake that every Autobot was warned not to make. He had pissed Ratchet off. And not only had he pissed the medic off, he had insulted his skills and tastes when he had made a rather snide comment about the form of what he thought would be one of the femme's bodies. It had turned out that he was insulting Sam's shell.

The medic had rounded on the Decepticon Commander, brandishing a rather large crescent wrench. Even though Ratchet was a good two meters shorter than Starscream, the medic knew precisely where to strike to bring any taller being to it's knees. Ratchet had banged his wrench against Starscream's piston that controlled the movement of his knee and easily brought the Seeker down to eye level. Ratchet had then raised his arm and brought the wrench down so hard that Starscream's optics fizzled with static. Then, just as suddenly, Ratchet went back to work on Sam's shell, grumbling loudly about what Starscream could do with his aesthetic opinions. This left the Seeker to limp as best he could out of the warehouse, his left knee aching as much as his head.

The medic had been irritable all that day and into the night as he finished Sam's shell. It was decided by Ratchet that all three be brought on-line at the same time to minimize the stress. Soundwave had helped the medic by writing the code being transfered into Sam's shell, but he had an inkling that he was being kept out of the data-loop for the older femme's coding. Not that he would know how to write the coding for a warrior, but that did not mean that he had to like it. Soundwave watched Ratchet as he began on the shell for Mikaela. Hers would be the most like his, and therefore was built quickly. The medic knew how to build his own hand by memory, and gave Mikaela variations of his multi-functional fingers.

Though the one thing the medic refused to use were the optics. He would not have these three with red optics, so he built them from scratch. Sam's were a variation of Bumblebee's, Mikaela like Ratchet's own; and for Ellie, he gave a more feminine version of IronHide's optics. These were the first things the medic had done and each set were sitting on the table with the spark casing, waiting to be installed.

Weeks had passed before the last of the protoforms was finished. Ratchet kept getting up in the middle of the night to sneak a tweak in here and there. He even raided Boncrusher's weapons, disassembled them and loaded them into Ellie's protoform. He had nearly been caught by Starscream who had taken the opportunity to fondle the protoforms when he thought he was alone. Ratchet had put a stop to that by throwing a dead rat into a crevice in the Seeker's armor. The gears of his shoulder made a gooey mess of the corpse and scared Starscream off before he could do any more to jeopardize his position as a functioning mech. Ratchet also made slight changes and revisions to the core programming of the three protoforms. Where Soundwave had given all three basic coding, Ratchet beefed it up with not only his and stored knowledge, but also knowledge he had accumulated from Earth. Fighting forms, various medical procedures, schematics for weapons upgrades and the like were uploaded into the protoforms. Even knowledge of how to turn Ratchet's EID on in case he was disabled or terminated. The medic knew that his usefulness only extended so far, especially with the personal grudge Starscream had against him.

Ratchet's head whipped up as a slightly muffled scrape got his attention. He narrowed his eyes as he heard it again. Quickly he hid his work in his side panels and tore off toward his own berth in the next room. He had managed to get onto the low shelf, turning on his fans in one burst to cool his systems enough to stasis temperature and quickly booted up his recharge sub-routines. His eyes dimmed just as Soundwave peeked around the corner. Ravage growled softly, looking up at his master. Soundwave had hoped to catch the medic tonight, but the mech was too fast. One could never tell from looking at him.

The Decepticon spy looked over the three shells, not one thing was out of place. It didn't matter though. The three would have their sparks inserted in the morning, and after that the medic would be a pile of spare parts. Hook and Scavenger had joined their ranks in the last couple of weeks, making their number six. Although it was not close to the Autobots number, they did have an advantage. Bonecrusher was Hook and Scavenger's brother, and both Constructicons were looking for revenge. Though they could not transformer into their Gestalt form any longer, both were eager to get their hands on Ratchet. And they would have their wish within the next solar cycle.

**********************

Ratchet knew that his moment had come. Every second of his life had led him to this moment. He had spent his spare moments tallying up every act he had committed in his long life, every moment that had led him to this point. He had decided that he had lived well. He had kept the Autobots together mostly for several thousand vorns, done impossible repairs no one else would dare attempt, and gave the three who had given his race a second chance, their own second chance. He had rehearsed this since the day he had begun on the spark casings. He had made it so that everything was his way and no one else's. As soon as he entered the warehouse the three were kept in, he knew his life was about to be over. And painfully so.

Hook and Scavenger were standing against the far wall, looking very much like two hyenas watching a wildebeest taking its last breath. Starscream was there, eager as always as were his two doppelgangers. Soundwave had Ravage on one shoulder and Rumble on the other and perched on his crest was Laserbeak. Ratchet began with Sam's spark, beginning the delicate process of hooking the casing into the power conduits of the shell and feeding energon into the spark chamber. He took his time. Not only did he want to be as accurate as possible, but because this needed to go exactly according to his plans. His hands moved of their own accord. He had already preprogrammed their movements, planned for every contingency.

Except for one. When he got to Ellie's spark, he noticed something odd about her shell. While keeping his eyes on her spark casing, his scanners drifted across her body, and he found it. The one thing he had not planned for. The one thing he had counted on not being discovered. Soundwave had been busy last night. His optics rose as he made the last connection, meeting Soundwave's. Greeting Ratchet, was the most sadistic grin he had ever seen, or perhaps it seemed so horrible because all he had seen of the spy was his optics and battle mask. It didn't matter though, nothing these Decepticons did mattered. Because Ratchet had turned his EID on the moment he had rose from recharge. He had already tight beamed his exact location during the loudest parts of the Decepticons processor-to-processor conversations. And he had used that moment of optic contact to reconnect the sensor wires to Ellie's weapon systems.

And he stepped back as Ellie's chest plate closed. The medic waited as first Sam's, then Mikaela's, and finely Ellie's optics came on-line. Each groaned as they woke, taking in their surroundings. Ratchet tried to comfort them as much as he could, used as soothing a tone as he could muster. But nothing could make up for the shock of waking up in the middle of a group of very eager Decepticons. "They will need a few cycles to recharge..."

"Save it, Autobot." Ratchet was cut short as Hook's arm wrapped around his neck and squeezed, his other hand gripping painfully around several critical bundles of wires. "Any last words before we take you to the pit?"

"Yes," Ratchet smiled at Mikaela and Ellie. "Don't scream." His smile was calm and serene as Hook shoved a spiked claw through his cranial casing.

Aw, Ratchet's dead. Oh well, he saw it coming. Mwuhahahahahaha! I have got to stop evil laughing to myself. And thanks for praising me on my fan-fic, I actually got praise from someone I respect! There was a typo though, the latest sub-chapter was meant to be Chapter 2.1.

You don't kill a Cybertronian with a blade to the back of the neck. You only break the connection to their voluntary movement sub-net. Laymen terms, you just paralyze them, not kill.

Chapter 15


It hadn't taken long for the rest of the Decepticons to clear out of the warehouse. They were more interested in Ratchet than in the three quivering protoforms. They needed to recharge. They could feel exhaustion pulling at them, but neither could make themselves succumb. The memory of Ratchet crumpling to the floor, optics still blazing, mouth distorted into a silent scream would not leave their minds. As clear as the image, their memories replayed themselves over and over. But that was not the worst of it. Not near the worst.

The worst were the screams. For the first few hours, silence had suffocated them like a heavy blanket. Each had clamored off of the tables and huddled in the corner, shivering with fright. Ellie tried to hold them to still their shaking, but Sam and Mikaela were as rattled as she was, and not even Ellie could stop shivering. Exhaustion pulled her toward blessed darkness, but then it started. Ratchet's voice, volume raised, the fear and pain ripping through their need for rest. If either had the ability to cry, they would have. Each wished for the ability to weep, to do something that resembled a human gesture of distress. But all they could do was shake and stay silent. Keeping silent was all that kept those monsters who were torturing Ratchet from them. It was selfish, they knew it. But they did not want to know what was happening.

Neither of their minds could cope. And so they continued to hold each other, wishing that they would let Ratchet die. It would be merciful, but mercy was not counted among the traits of a Decepticon.

**************************

As one, every Autobot within the base shot up either from sentry duty or recharge. None needed explanation as they each formed up in the large area between the barracks. As silent as giant beings made of metal could be, they slipped out of the base, not transforming until they were out of earshot of the sleeping humans. Optimus led, paying no mind to any of the posted speed limits. Their destination was an old, and little used section of Detroit, Michigan. For normal vehicles, this journey would have taken nearly two days. But by the time the strange convoy bullied themselves onto the main streets and into the abandoned district, the sun was just setting.

They knew the block, the exact building the transmission had come from. Each could see it, an old abandoned vehicle manufacturing facility. The area consisted of nearly a dozen buildings, each large enough to let Megatron walk without stooping. No humans were within sight. They had all been chased out by the buildings new inhabitants. Bumblebee transformed first, making his way slowly to the plants' main gates. Two Seekers whom he guessed were Thundercracker and Skywarp were guarding the entrance. 'Bee inched closer, his audio receptors at maximum sensitivity.

"...been too many vorns, TC. I can't even remember the name of the last femme I've mated with."

"Do you ever ask for their names?"

"Good point. Do you think Starscream will let us have one of the femmes? Before he breaks them, I mean."

"I don't know, Sky." Bumblebee flattened himself when he heard both move to his side of the area. "But he has a real grudge against the older one. Slag, I would love to make her pay for all the misery she put me through."

Both seemed to chuckle. "Speaking of misery," both moved slightly further away, leaning on the brick fence that surrounded the factory's main open area. "How long do you think that Autobot has before he breaks? Hook and Scavenger have had him for almost the entire cycle, you would think he would stop screaming by now." Bumblebee looked up, watching as Skywarp looked over to one of the buildings, light emanating from its windows.

The younger Seeker shrugged, making 'Bee wonder where he had seen the gesture. "I don't know. But I do know who I would rather hear." His maw had crooked itself into a hideous imitation of a smile. "That Bumble-Squirt's mate. I wish I could see the look on that little mini-bot's face right now. I'd tell him exactly what I would do to both of his mates."

"Wow, TC. I never figured you for a dual-format."

Bumblebee tuned out Thundercracker's reply. He had all the reason he needed to kill the two on the spot, but Optimus' query into the situation calmed him down. He would never be able to look his leader in the eye if he lost control. Nor would he be able to save his mates. He relayed the information back to Prime, waiting for a reply. Optimus's voice was as tight as Bumblebee had ever heard it. "Keep an eye on the two guards, Bumblebee. We will split up and take them from both sides." 'Bee could not help the whine he sent over the inter-processor comm. He wanted to protect his mates as much as rescue Ratchet. "No, Bumblebee. Stay there. If they see you going toward the sparklings they will kill Ratchet and all of us afterward. We must remain unseen."

The little spy had no choice but to obey. He would never willingly jeopardize Ratchet's existence any more than he would any other fellow Autobot. Bumblebee poked his head up, watching the two Seekers as they made their lazy rounds, talking in rather loud voices. Obviously they felt comfortable enough that they were well hidden that they did not care who heard what. The little mech turned the sensitivity up to his audio and visual receptors, watching the two Seekers, his optics narrowed to slits.

*******************************

Ratchet's temperature control center tried desperately to keep his internal components cool. The fans in his body were working over time as he took advantage of the brief respite the two Constructicons had given him. No matter how often he sent the commands through, his limbs would not respond to them. Hook had damaged the control surface that regulated the signals between his cerebral cortex and the controls of his body. He could imagine what it would take to repair the delicate circuitry and wondered if WheelJack would be up to the task. Or perhaps he would just install satellite TV...

The medic allowed himself a low chuckle, the thought bringing a smile to his face. He would never allow himself to give in to these under trained sparklings. Hook may have been trained in field medicine, and Swindle may have dabbled in scrap repairs, but neither possessed the finesse one acquired after vorns of medic duty. It was one of the reasons the Twins were so afraid of him. Not only did Ratchet know how to heal, but he also knew how to deal out pain as well. He would be more than glad to teach these two a few things when he could get his internal repairs to just splice the connections together. Right now they were giving him errors every time he tried. Ratchet's optics spied Hook's feet approaching, something dripping from his hands.

"You know," the dark green Constructicon mused as he held up the vial of sea water. "there are more micro-organisms in this one vial than there are in one-hundred square kilometers on Cybertron."

"You don't say!" Ratchet managed a harsh whisper, schooling his face into an expression of intense interest. "The protozoans alone could eat through the seals on your joints."

Hook managed to keep his face from slackening from shock for too long. He made it a point to wash his hand shortly. "Interesting. I wonder, then, what it would do to the seals in your pump? Or perhaps, your spark chamber? Oh the suspense is killing me!" Ratchet had a few more things in mind that would kill the Decepticon.

"Now where is that flavor injector? Such a wonder of human invention, isn't it? Though I imagine you could not get any 'Saltier', could you?" Hook laughed, frowning when he noticed his play thing was laughing even harder. "What's so funny, Autobot?" If anything, Ratchet laughed even louder, howling with humor. "What the slag are you laughing at? Have you finely blown your processor?"

"No!" Ratchet laughed again. "I know something you don't!" He almost sang his last statement, knowing that this act was disturbing. But far be it from Ratchet from finding the limitless humor in knowing that his tormentor was about to get his dues.

"Oh do tell, Nut Driver." Hook was getting unnerved.

"Look behind you..." Hook turned around, his optics widening as he took in the state his brother was in; a sparking smoldering mess on the floor. The Constructicon's head whipped around, looking for his brothers assailant, but all he got in response was emptiness. Now it was Hook's turn to be tormented, his grip on the vial in his hands slackening as he reached for his weapon. The crash of the glass on the floor met his audio receptors as Jazz's fist met the space between his optics. The Decepticon staggered back wards and right into the arms of IronHide, ill tempered and ready to hurt the first thing that came across his path. Unknowingly, Hook provided the perfect target to take his anger out on.

"Where are the sparklings?" Hook nearly lubricated himself, stammering something that sounded like 'Help'. "Ain't no help commin' Decepti-crap. You tell me where my daughter is or your head will make a nice addition to my quarters."

"Da...da...?"

"Yes, Daughter. Female offspring. Where is she?" IronHide had the Constructicon by the neck, holding him off the floor. Hook looked to Optimus for some sort of mercy, but the Autobot leader just folded his arms and gave him a pointed look.

"I would answer his question." Hook could hardly believe his audios. The leader of the Autobots was not intervening! He was going to let this loose cannon have a go at him!

"East warehouse!" Hook answered quickly. "With the other two. Soundwave's guarding them." He struggled against IronHide's grip, kicking his feet. "I answered, now let me go!"

"Alright..." IronHide set the Decepticon down on his feet before clobbering him with a massive fist. "There ya go." He gave the limp body one last kick for good measure before moving toward Ratchet, yanking the medic's chains until they snapped and he fell limply to the ground.

"Ow..." Ratchet watched as the wall changed to the floor as he was turned over, WheelJack's hands probing the back of his head. "He damaged my motor control, I can't move."

"But you can still feel," WheelJack finished, sending a burst of static through his vocalizer. "Just like Hook to keep his victims from fighting back. Hold still, I can connect some things back, but fine motor control will have to wait until we get you back to base." Ratchet's body jerked as WheelJack hooked the larger bundles together by splicing the cables together. Without the controls to regulate the signals, there was no telling how much or little his limbs would move when he commanded them to.

"Slag...that hurts." Ratchet hissed as he sat up, his legs jerking at the confusion of signals. "I will never again laugh at Maggie's Restless Leg Syndrome. Ever."

***************************

Ellie started at a sudden noise outside the door. Mikaela and Sam had long since slipped into recharge, their heads leaning against each other's. Ellie, however, refused to rest. She was too keyed up, waiting until one of the Decepticons made a wrong move. She wanted badly to hurt something, feel someone's metal bend beneath her fists. She clenched her fists as she heard the door open, moonlight flooding in to illuminate the far wall. She watched a stark bulky silhouette step inside. His shadow was inoquious, but the chevron on his head was unmistakable. Slowly she stood up, stepping into the shadows in front of Sam and Mikaela. The shadow was slow, quiet. It picked its way through the room, stopping every so often to listen before resuming his steady trek.

Prowl stayed as quiet as he could, watching soft moonlight dance off of two still forms in the corner. He moved closer, crouching to get a better look at the two. One femme and one mech in deep recharge. The sight was almost sweet except for one thing. Where was the third? Prowl had just gotten that thought out of his processor when an arm grabbed him around his neck, holding him in a sleeper hold, squeezing hard enough to make the pistons his neck pivoted on creak. "Leave them alone!" Prowl started at the feminine tenor, surprised by the strength and for a moment, he wondered if it was these three that needed rescuing.

"Friend..." He managed to rasp out as her grip put pressure on his vocalizer. "Autobot...Prowl...slag!"

"Let him go, Ellie." She whipped around, gagging Prowl in her grasp as, his optics bugging as IronHide shone his lights into the warehouse. Ellie didn't let go immediately, but as Optimus stepped out from behind IronHide, she finely let her grip loosen. She paid no mind as Prowl hit the floor, hand at his throat as he tried to get his squeezed circuitry working again. She took a step forward, then another step and ran the last few meters into IronHide, wrapping her arms around the big mech.

"I'm fine...in case anyone is concerned." Prowl hissed out, slowly getting to his feet. He was startled again as two sets of hands helped him into a standing position. The femme and mech had obviously been awakened from their recharge by the commotion.

"Hi..." the mech seemed to want to keep quiet, almost startled by his own voice. "Who are you?"

"Introductions later," Prime piped in, ushering IronHide out over the unconscious form of Soundwave. Ravage was somewhere nearby, stuck in the wall where Ratchet had flung him with more strength than he had intended. The medic was leaning against WheelJack, swaying like a drunkard after last call. He called to the three, his hand limply clapping against Sam's shoulder. The smile was somewhat forced as he was limply puppetted by WheelJack.

The whine of jet engines broke the silence, signaling that their cover had been blown. IronHide shoved Ellie behind him, covering him with his body as Skywarp strafed him with small artillery. The bullets weren't enough to puncture his armor, but the sparklings were still in protoform and therefore vulnerable. "No, IronHide!" Prime grabbed the Weapons Master's cannon, forcing his arm down with a shove. "Get the sparklings out first. They could easily be destroyed with even one stray missile." IronHide struggled with his need to protect Sam, Mikaela and Ellie and the urge to blow the Seeker out of the sky. The matter was decided for him when Thundercracker landed a missile close by, sending Ellie's lighter body crashing against the building behind her.

IronHide grabbed his dazed surrogate daughter and ran. Chromia met up with him, providing covering fire as they ran between several low buildings, shielding themselves from most of the bullets. "Stay!" IronHide deposited Ellie on the ground as he and Chromia headed back out. She clamped her hands over her audios as a missile landed behind her, throwing dust and debris into the alley. Peeking around the corner, she watched as Bumblebee struggled to shield his mates and direct them over to the same area, only to be pinned down by Thundercracker as he fired a stream of bullets over their heads. In front of them, Skywarp landed, blocking the way and Starscream landed opposite him so that the only way out, was to blast through one of them.

Bumblebee kept Sam and Mikaela low to the ground, aiming his cannons alternately at Skywarp, Thundercracker and Starscream. There was no way he could shoot all three at once without getting shot at least twice in return. There was no chance of any of the others coming to his rescue. IronHide and Chromia were both busy holding off Soundwave and his creations. He had Ravage by the scruff of his neck and threw him directly in the line of fire from Hook's cannons. The Constructicon had recovered and was now trying to blast Ratchet who despite his best efforts was a limp target. None of his weapons systems seemed to be responding to his commands and it did not help that he kept leaning to the left and right into the path of most of the bullets.

Optimus had stationed himself in front of the medic, shielding him from the worst of the hell-fire. The Autobot leader had also Rumble and Laserbeak to contend with as each tried to distract him into taking a hit. Each was doing a splendid job of chipping away at Prime's armor, bending back metal here and there and trying to unhook cables and hoses with long fingers and laser bursts. Perceptor and WheelJack were doing their best to keep the three small mechs off of Prime, but their large hands could not keep the two contained for long before they had to defend themselves from a barrage of gun fire.

No one could protect him and his mates now. But he would not let these Decepticons lay a finger on either of them until he was a smoldering corpse. Though he preferred the Seekers to assume that position. Though out of the three, Starscream was the most dangerous. But Skywarp was quicker and Thundercracker had the greater strength. 'So, Basically,' Bumblebee thought, 'I am choosing which to be killed by.' He aimed his cannons at Starscream and Thundercracker, watching Skywarp from the corner of his optics. He had just sent the command to his cannons to fire when a blinding light ate its way through Skywarp's chest followed by an explosion so loud it caused his audio receptors to reboot. The world was silent for mere seconds as Skywarp fell to his knees, his face a mixture of pain and bewilderment as he fell face first onto the pavement.

Starscream followed the line of fire, his optics narrowing. The third sparkling, the elder femme, lay on the ground, the kick back of her cannons having sent her into a brick wall. The Seeker leapt over Bumblebee, grabbing hold of Ellie's throat and dragging her out of the pile of bricks and concrete. "You will pay for that, femme." He grabbed her left arm and started pulling. "You will pay dearly."

***************************

Optimus had had about enough with this little game. As soon as Ravage made another lunge toward his arm, he grabbed the little mech and threw Ravage will all his strength straight at Hook, who had to duck to keep from getting a face full of robotic-feline. That moment of distraction was all it took for Prime to aim his cannon into the Constructicon's face and fire. The headless body spasmed before it fell still. Soundwave was failing under the combined insanity of IronHide and Chromia. Both had taken their fair share of hits, but neither would back down. They simply were not built to surrender. Neither was Soundwave, who called to his creations. They immediately attached themselves to his armor, Ravage forming a rather fierce looking claw and Laserbeak a self aiming computer for Soundwave's main weapon.

Soundwave would have made a formidable warrior if two things had not happened; One, Soundwave ignored the four mechs behind him. And one of those mechs threw a magnetic dampening bomb. The resulting explosion and release of electro-magnetic energy scrambled Soundwave and Laserbeak's CPUs. But unfortunately, it did the same to IronHide and Chromia, leaving all three on the ground.

"Stop!" Ellie screamed as she felt the first power conduit pop in her shoulder. The pain of the joint being torn apart was blinding. She kicked and fought against Starscream's hold on her throat, but he had better leverage. His hand squeezed tighter, causing her vocalizer to squelch loudly. The first piston flew apart on her arm, spraying compressed oil and a stream of metal bits. And still the Seeker pulled. Ellie continued to scream and kick, trying to claw at Starscream's mid-section with her feet. But he had longer arms that she had legs, and he continued to slowly pull her left arm from her body. A second conduit popped free, sending a spray of glowing blue droplets as it came loose. Starscream seemed to enjoy the pain he was dealing, like he was getting off on it. "You don't need arms for what I have planned."

Thundercracker had pounced on Bumblebee, holding the little mech to the ground as he brought his fists down on his armor, denting plates and support struts. Sam and Mikaela made feeble opponents trying to take Thundercracker on strength to strength. Mikaela raised her arm, a buzz saw springing out from between her third and fourth fingers and shoved it into the area under Thundercracker's shoulder. The Seeker screeched as a fountain of oil and energon sprayed out, sparking a small fire within his frame. Though Mikaela caught the back of his hand and went tumbling away, dazed.

Sam had no such saws, but he did have a weapon. He pushed Thundercracker off of Bumblebee, taking the Seeker by the shoulders and bringing his head down hard against Thundercracker's. Both were left in a daze, but Sam recovered faster. Apparently, the gyroscope inside his cranial casing made it possible to take a hit and keep walking, or in his case, crawling. Almost by instinct, he grabbed the back of Thundercracker's neck, and gave a small node a huge squeeze like popping a pimple. The control popped and sparked once. Thundercracker's body limp on the ground.

***************************

Ellie's scream ripped through the night as the gears in her shoulder shredded free of themselves. Her shoulder burned, the pain coursing through out her body as though she had been dipped into a smelting pit. Her receptors could not tell where the pain was coming from because of the sheer strength of the signal, so they fired everywhere, making it feel as though the Seeker was ripping her entire body apart. Starscream's laughter reached a crescendo when it was suddenly cut off. Prime's fist snapping his head to the side with a whip-crack. Starscream's fingers loosened, letting Ellie fall to the ground as his own body hit, optics struggling to come back on-line.

Optimus grabbed Ellie's face, holding her head tightly as he called her name, trying to get her attention. Only after realizing Starscream no longer had a hold on her could she hear what Prime was saying. "Ellie, calm down. You're alright..." Ellie shivered, her voice quaking as her left arm hung useless at her side, still sparking. "...didn't damage anything critical. Your shoulder can be repaired. Do you understand?" Ellie nodded quickly, her body still shaking with mixed combat algorithms and self repair programs. She laid her head on the brick building behind her, her optics off-lining as she slipped into forced recharge.

Mikaela and Sam gathered Bumblebee in their arms, holding the brave little mech close, rocking him as much to comfort him as themselves. Sam looked around. IronHide and Chromia were muttering curses as they came to, crawling toward each other through the rubble. Ratchet was still being led by WheelJack with a hand around his mid-section. The medic could do no repairs with his control all but gone, but he was able to make on the spot recommendations to WheelJack who set to work on two very pissed off warriors. Preceptor was busy clamping the energon lines that had ruptured in Ellie's shoulder and Prime was staring at the woman with an unreadable expression. Mikaela was holding Bumblebee close, her other arm around Sam as she just enjoyed the closeness. "Were alive..." Sam whispered, relief flooding his CPU.

"Were alive!"

Sigma Vortex wrote:You don't kill a Cybertronian with a blade to the back of the neck. You only break the connection to their voluntary movement sub-net. Laymen terms, you just paralyze them, not kill.

fair enough.

Sorry,accidentally posted this and I don't know how to delete posts.

christron101 wrote:

Sigma Vortex wrote:You don't kill a Cybertronian with a blade to the back of the neck. You only break the connection to their voluntary movement sub-net. Laymen terms, you just paralyze them, not kill.

triple post, baaaad.

Someone got jumpy...

That was an accident...when does the next chapter come out? And my next sub-chapter will be coming out soon.

Soon...though 12 hour work days take their toll on creativity.

12 hours...ouch!

Nothing outward is in this chapter, but innuendo and implied relations are peppered inside. Have fun!

Chapter 16

Ratchet grumbled menacingly, his left foot twitching to the beat of a hyper drummer hopped up on some super-stimulant. "That is not helping, WheelJack!" The inventor muttered an apology and switched the configuration of several jumpers behind Ratchet's head. His leg stopped twitching, and now he had the uncomfortable sensation of having feeling on only one side of his body. For the first time, he questioned his creators' need to be so, as the humans put it, so anal retentive in his design. There were so many numerous jumper and resistor configurations that it boggled the mind, and the mech behind him trying to get a grasp at the sheer number of wrong turns to be made.

"I think I see how this is done." Ratchet thanked Primus that WheelJack could see how any thing was put together without reducing it to ash. "The jumper configurations form a Levy C curve fractal after the first twelve iterations. Ingenious." The inventor went on to describe the workings of the fractals, all of which bored Ratchet to no end. He did have his own processor after all. Though the fractals he was interested in had to do with the formation of organic structures within the human body.

'Can you say obsessive...' Ratchet thought gloomily as he sat up, allowing WheelJack to replace the casing on the top of his cranium. He flexed his hands, walking a few circuits to make sure his components were working in the correct order. "How long have Iron Hide and Chromia been in stasis?"

WheelJack's vocal indicators seemed to turn a shade of rose. "Three hours. But, I assure you, the effect of the..."

"I know you had nothing to do with that WheelJack, calm down," Ratchet chuckled. "They are quite effective at getting themselves nearly deactivated without your help. I need them down anyway. I hate it when he hovers over my shoulder." The medic ignored WheelJack's silence, grateful that the mech was not talking his own head off for a change. "Who is watching the sparklings?"

"Prime, I think. He said he had nothing to do and wanted to be useful." WheelJack shrugged. "He sent Jazz and Perceptor off to explain what happened. I think he was afraid of what Sam's mother would do to him." His laughter was cut off by Ratchet's glare.

"And you're not?" Ratchet laughed. "That woman would key Prime's paint, put sugar in his gas tank and feed turpentine into his oil pan if that mech so much as looked at Sam the wrong way." The grimace from WheelJack spoke volumes as to how much the inventor knew the Witwickey parents. "Then she would call a scrap yard and have him disassembled for spare part. And besides," Ratchet stepped over to the door that separated his open medical wing from the private area the three sparklings were using. "Jazz knows how to speak to humans better than any one of us. He would be the least likely to insult them with too blunt an explanation."

****************************

Optimus Prime never liked killing. He loathed the act with every atom of his being. Yet, here he stared at the result of his actions and not for the first time, found the disturbing feeling of being glad he had killed. He had severed the head of Bonecrusher with the blade he had stored in his upper arm. It was out of expedience really. And too there were humans nearby that could get injured if he drug out the battle to make sure that the Decepticon was dead.

Though had he only injured Bonecrusher, his body would not have been used to build Ellie's protoform. Nor would her spark have had a place to reside comfortably and receive the nourishment it needed. Her shoulder had been fully repaired and she lay in deep recharge, making up for lost time. She had stayed on-line to defend Sam and Mikaela if any Decepticon got it in his processor to take advantage of them. Prime's optics focused on her hands, zooming in to watch the conduits twitch with each pulse of the valves in her pump. Those hands that had crushed countless Autobot sparks, ripped hope from millions of hands and seared dread into billions of processors now lay serenely at her side.

Their design had been changed of course. The chassis reduced to allow for a more femme like shape, the armor stripped and cleaned, the sensor systems reconfigured for the new body. And within that arm lay one of her massive plasma cannons. They were similar in design to IronHide's cannons. Though Ratchet had not had enough time to install inertial dampeners in her elbow or shoulder joints which would have kept her from being sent through the brick wall on the recoil.

Optimus turned his head to the left, watching Sam and Mikaela on the opposite side of the room. He could see bits and pieces of Brawl and Blackout in these two as well. Blackout's long legs were unmistakable on Mikaela's form as was the half helm that gave the impression of short dark hair cut in a Bobbi style. Her entire frame was dark and slender alternated with silver patches at her joints and face. Her hands were small, each with an extra joint to give them added flexibility. She looked to be a meter or so shorter than Bumblebee, who happened to be resting on the other side of the medical wing where Perceptor had gotten through with his repairs.

Sam, just beside Mikaela was slightly bulkier but not nearly enough to be a warrior. He looked to have the same body type as Jazz; perfect for getting himself into more trouble than he could handle. Standing just equal to Bumblebee, Sam was the color of oiled metal. Unlike Mikaela or Ellie, he had no built in weapons to speak of, but from what he had seen, Prime didn't think that would be a problem. He already knew how to use his head, literally, in a fight with any mech. Even against one as large as a Seeker. Prime chuckled. Sam had nearly knocked himself stupid when he hit the Seeker with his own head and had continued babbling all the way back.

The three of them were carried in trailers, strapped down and a tarp put over them to keep prying eyes away. Neither had chosen an alt form as yet, but that was not needed until much later. All three still had to break in their new bodies. Prime shuddered as an errant thought caught him by surprise. He flicked his optics toward Ellie as though she had put the thought there herself. He blinked a few times until his optics brightened to their normal sky blue. Where in the Matrix had that come from? He shouldn't have even had that thought to begin with. IronHide would blast his spark out of his chest and make him eat it if he knew what had just gone through his processor.

But still, the reason he had thought that was not as important as the fact that the thought had occurred to him. It had been a very, very long time since Optimus had been close to a femme. But working as closely with Arcee as he had, he had not felt anything remotely close to what had just happened. Elita had conjured those feelings once, but she and Optimus had been apart for far too long to facilitate any kind of rekindling. And besides, she was close enough to be bonded with Kup, so there was absolutely no chance, barring he was suicidal, that he could have any feelings for the Femme Commander. They had parted amicably, but there was nothing between them any longer. The images and feelings entered his processor again, causing the boot-up of several long ignored systems that made the Autobot Commander very uncomfortable in his own armor. Again he gained control of his own processes and squashed the notion as fast as it had started.

Now this was odd. Not only was it odd, it was wrong. There were only a few things that could conceivably land a mech in the pit for all eternity, and this was one of them. No matter how old Ellie had been as a human, as a Cybertronian she was barely a sparkling. In human terms, the femme would barely be able to hold her own head up. Only after several hundred vorns, when her spark had settled into a deeper shade of blue could she be remotely ready for what his indiscriminate thoughts showed him. Optimus gripped the edge of the berth, steeling his resolve. There was only one thing he could do besides sending her off-world. He would have to keep his distance and hope no one caught on. He would never speak of what he had thought of to anyone of his soldiers. They would loose all respect for him.

Optimus started as the door to the private room opened, Ratchet standing there outlined by the brighter lights of the med-bay. "You're free to go, Prime. I can take it from here." Prime lifted his hands from the table and stood stiffly and quietly made his way out.

Ratchet watched Optimus go, one of his optical ridges rising slowly at his stiff demeanor. He raised the lighting a few levels, his eyes focusing on Ellie's berth. Right where Optimus had been sitting, there were two distinct sizable dents in the berth. Dents made from two hands clutching the metal with every bit of their strength. The raised optic ridge rose even higher, followed by the roll of his optics. Ratchet had worked with the Autobot Commander long enough to know two things about the mech. One; that he took his position seriously, and two; he was as obtuse as IronHide could be on his worst days. What Prime saw and what was in front of his face were sometimes two different things. Such as this case.

Ratchet bent down to scan Mikaela, his digits opening an access panel on the side of her chassis. The medic plugged several wires into the panel, watching as the readouts scrolled across his vision. He did the same with Sam and Ellie, the same results scrolling across his HUD. He ran the diagnostics several more times on each before he accepted what he was seeing. It was official, he had seen everything. The sparks he had placed into the containers were the sparks of younglings barely old enough to know how to process on their own. What greeted him now, were the sparks of adolescents and within the month Ratchet knew, would be adults. The medic shook his head, a puff of air exiting his vents. Hope came in the form of a curve-ball it seemed.

****************************

Blurry optics slowly focused on a dimly lit room, the lights flickering weakly. The first thing he noticed, was the shadow across the wall. Addled processors took several minutes to register that this was his shadow. Why, then did it look smaller than before? He stared at the shadow on the wall as though it would speak up and tell him the answer when another shadow joined the show. This one was much bigger, much bulkier and somehow, familiar.

"Ahhh, Starscream," The Seeker started at the black silk voice filled with oily undertones and a barely audible sub-sonic howl that sent prickles over his armor. "You are on-line. Good." Starscream could almost imagine the smile that graced the face behind him. Pale white face angled inward, mouth components spread out until the plates barely made contact with themselves. Dental apparatus stained yellow from the smog of a thousand burned worlds held in a maw that would have given Sentinel Prime pause. He imagined the crimson optics twinkling with barely concealed maleficent glee, his hands clenching in anticipation of the carnage yet to come. Starscream could not help it as his old routines kicked in.

"Why, Megatron! It is a pleasure to see you functioning..." The roar he got in response fizzled the rest of what he was about to say. If anything, the shadow got bigger.

Starscream screeched as he was grabbed roughly from be hind and forced to turn where he was hanging. The sight that greeted him made his processor freeze, his systems stuck in a semi permanent state of terror. Gone was the bleached bone armor, the oddly flexible mouth, the rows upon rows of jagged yellow teeth... What replaced them was armor so black it shone an iridescent violet. The helm split down the middle and curved up at either side like the horns of one of the taskmasters of the pit from myth. The neck and mid-chest were charcoal black, the seams illuminated by a spark so corrupted it shone a dull crimson like the core of this planet. But that was not the worst of it. Megatron's face was a malformed monstrosity in itself. The upper jaw moved normally, but the lower jaw was split at the chin, each side moving of it's own accord to form the words that issued from his vocalizer.

"Megatron no longer exists! Did you think I would be fool enough to allow such failure to go unpunished!?!" The silence echoed through the warehouse. Starscream's mouth worked, but no sound came out, his optics as wide as they would go. "No...of course you did. You were always an arrogant fool, Starscream. But even fools have their uses, do they not?" The blank look from Starscream did not deter the speaker one bit. "You helped me more than you know with your arrogance. How? You gave bodies to those three sparklings. Sparklings carrying the last shards of the All-Spark. "I believe loyalty should be rewarded. Even unintentional loyalty. Do you think so, Starscream?"

The Seeker finely found his voice, his head nodding vigorously enough to jar one of his relays. "Yes! I will serve you well, Meg...Sir!"

"I am sure you will..." The glimmer had returned to the dark mech's optics, his maw spreading and climbing his face until he was nearly engulfed by his own mouth. "Will you serve me loyally at my side, Starscream? Will you swear to execute your duty exactly as I command?"

"Yes!" Starscream practically trembled with delight and relief.

"It shall be a pleasure..." The voice had gone even silkier, the depth resonating through Starscream's armor like the seductive beat of synth-percussion. Dark, clawed hands stretched out and grasped Starscream, by the waist, bringing the mech crashing against dark armor. Pain unlike anything he had ever experienced filled Starscream from head to clawed foot. The unnerving feeling of parts moving, reorienting themselves and disappearing entirely filled his body. His chest felt like someone were pushing out from the inside, his head felt about ready to explode from the pain. After a long while, the pain subsided, leaving hyper-sensitive metal behind.

Starscream hissed as a clawed hand was drawn up his thigh, resting at his rounded hip. Optics shot open as the dark mech holding him chuckled, his eyes darkening until they were darkly shining orbs of blood-red magma. The hand at his hip held him tightly as it's twin traced the seam that split Starscream's thoracic armor in two. Armor that curved outward with an alluring grade, flattening into a narrow waist that culminated with the access port nestled between two shapely thighs. The fear that showed in Starscream's face only encouraged the Dark mech further, his hands roughly caressing his...or more accurately, her armor.

"You're service begins now, Starscream. Your master has been refined, galvanized, hardened into the ultimate doom upon all who oppose my rule. Address me as...Galvetron." The maw seemed to consume more of Galvetron's face. "Show me how loyal you can be to me..." Starscream stood as still as she dared as Galvetron lifted one of her legs and draped it over his thigh.

Bahahahaha...talk about your ultimate role reversal

IronHide landed hard on his aft, his jaw clenching at the jarring impact as his rear made a dent into the hard packed dirt. He opened his eyes, glaring at the young femme giggling at him as he made his way back to his feet. The weapons specialist swore that he would let Ratchet have it after he had figured out the array of fighting styles he had given Ellie access to. Most of which he had not come up against before. And he was quickly becoming tired of being thrown around like a rag doll.

Ellie had just taken him by the hand and heaved his massive frame over her hip and deposited him onto the ground, where he landed with all the grace of a skydiving hippo. IronHide growled, narrowing his optical guards. He was not going to be bested by this femme, especially when it was he that was trying to teach her how to defend herself! He lunged at her again, sidestepping a jab from her left hand and catching her around her wrist and snapped her arm back behind her. 'Hide thought he had her pinned, but she raised her shoulder slightly, his leverage disappearing. Whirling around she hit him with a open hand straight to his midsection, knocking several relays out of position. She followed with an uppercut to his jaw which sent him back on his aft on the desert floor.

"Alright, Ellie. I think you've softened him up enough." Chromia laughed, letting IronHide gather what was left of his dignity. "Go let Ratchet have a look at you," she ordered her mate, sending him off with a pat to his dented rear, ignoring the grumbling and the occasional 'Ow!'. "Where did you learn that?" Chromia sat against a small rocky outcropping, watching Ellie dust herself off.

"Back when I was human, I took some Judo classes. It was my dad's idea so I could defend myself in case some guy thought he could take advantage of me." Ellie shrugged, perching herself on a rock about ten feet away. "They always taught that no matter how small you are, you can always take down an opponent twice your size with a well placed blow." Chromia harrumphed thoughtfully, smiling. "But I never got more than a few weeks into the class, so I just know the basics."

This sent Chromia into a fit of laughter. "I can't wait to see what would happen if you actually got further. Poor IronHide is going to have to find a new sparring partner for you if you keep it up." Both femmes started laughing, not noticing the pair of optics watching them. The optics darkened slightly before their owner shook his head, clearing it of the errant thoughts that always seemed to flood his processor when Ellie was near. Prime sighed, sending a puff of air from his intake vents in his chest. Ellie and Chromia had descended into 'girl talk'. Nothing in particular seemed to be exchanged between them, just meaningless talk. Of course it was essential for Ellie to feel like she was welcome since her life had changed dramatically in the last few months. She still had problems with her size, forgetting to bend down before she went through the lower doorways. She had figured out that it felt worse being hit in the head now than it did when she was human. Proportionately, a human's skull was stronger than a Cybertronian's cranial armor. But she wore no armor over that, so it was little wonder.

Prime turned to leave, nearly running Wheeljack over in his haste. "Good morning, Prime!" Wheeljack greeted jovially. He was so loud that the two femmes turned their heads, watching as Wheeljack happily chatted up their leader. Chromia narrowed her optical guards. Prime looked absolutely uncomfortable, but Wheeljack had not yet mentioned anything that involved explosions or nuclear melt-downs. Perhaps Optimus just was anticipating his next obsession. But the leader of the Autobots turned his head in Ellie's direction, his optics darkening before he pulled his head around and made to direct Wheeljack away so the two sitting nearby could carry on their conversation without being interrupted. Chromia smirked, Prime's ruse too little, too late to her experienced optics. She made to crack a joke about the situation, when she noticed that Ellie's optics were the same deep sapphire Prime's had been. Oh, this was just too good!

Ellie jerked as Chromia chucked a small rock at her head. "Earth to Ellie," Chromia used one of the sayings Bumblebee loved to use. "So...what are you thinking?" The older femme grinned deviously at Ellie's sputtering. "Out with it!" Chromia nearly knocked Ellie over as she crowded the younger femme, getting her face directly into Ellie's. "Come on...you can tell me. I won't tell IronHide, I promise." At Ellie's silence, she added. "Scout's honor."

Ellie cracked up. "Thats the sign for the Boy Scouts, Chromia. Just two fingers is for Girl Scouts.." Chromia frowned; there was a difference?

"So...why so silent?" Chromia continued to boar into Ellie's head with her optics, undeterred.

"Silent? I'm talking, aren't I?" Ellie smiled a rather poorly contrived disarming smile, spreading her arms with the most innocent look on her face. "Honestly, you need to get your ears checked."

"Oh, no you don't! I saw you! You can't hide it!" Chromia shouldered Ellie so hard the slightly larger femme tumbled to the ground in a heap.

"You saw what? I didn't do anything!" Ellie rubbed her rear, feeling a small ding where she had landed on a rock. Boy did that smart!

"Your optics, you sparkling! A Cybertronian's optics darken when they have feelings another Cybertronian. And they only darken that much when there's lots of naughty bits going through their processors." Chromia looked triumphant sitting straight on the rock, face haughty as though she had just proved herself better than all the other femmes in the universe.

Ellie worked her jaw, trying to come up with an explanation, but she finely quit, folding her arms over her chest and looking away from Chromia. "I don't know what you're talking about." She ignored the look Chromia gave her, like she wanted to shoot her with something big and destructive, and then beat her over the head with one of Ratchet's tools. "We just...looked...at each other." But Ellie knew she was sunk the moment she had opened her mouth because her optics had darkened again. Her voice had betrayed her thoughts, and she knew it the moment Chromia's jaw dropped.

Ellie clamped her hands over her audios at Chromia's happy, glass shattering squeal. 'Since when did Autobot's squeal?' Ellie thought, her head ringing. "Primus, Ellie! Do you know what you just said?" It didn't matter what Ellie thought she had said, Chromia had already read deeper into it. "You shared his thoughts!" Again, not a question. "You felt, ACK!!"

Ellie threw herself at Chromia, taking the elder femme to the ground, covering her mouth with her hand. "Will you shush! Your going to freak out everyone from here to Canada!" She almost laughed at the hurt look on Chromia's face. "So what if I saw or felt something? Its not like any of it's possible. It's just my imagination..." Ellie cringed. "My very active imagination." She saw Chromia trying to come up with a retort, but Ellie hook her head. "There's no way! He's...well, he's older than dirt, that's for sure. And he was probably thinking of someone else. A guy like him probably has a...mate already," Ellie finished quickly, not wanting Chromia to grill her about it any further.

Excuses, that was all that was coming from Ellie's vocalizer. Chromia was about to inform her of her mistake when she saw the communication spider across her HUD. "Incoming friendlies." It was Perceptor, probably with his lens to the sky. "Landing fifty miles west. Counting three. Designations: Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Mirage." The older femme groaned. There went their peace and quiet.

*************************

IronHide frowned at the three protoforms standing in front of him. Mirage he could handle, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe he would rather shoot first and save himself the trouble. Good thing they had the brig up and running. The two mechs would be its first occupants. "Mirage," Prime nodded his head in greeting, "Sunstreaker, Sideswipe," Prime had a slight warning tone in his voice that the two mechs took as encouragement, grinning like idiots. "Welcome to Earth." Optimus finished the rest in his head; 'Please don't destroy it...' Though he knew for a fact that these two would have Keller bald from pulling his own hair out in less than a week's time. Perhaps if he let Ratchet remove their arms and legs...

"Prime, Ironhide," The two mechs said these names with such pleasure that it made Optimus and IronHide cringe. "and Prowl...it's been vorns!" The two mechs each clapped Prowl on the shoulders, making the Security Chief absolutely miserable. "We certainly hope you missed us." Their optics roamed over the gathered Autobots and halted on Mikaela and Ellie. The grins they had threatened to turn into leers as they devoured the sight before them. Each sidled up to Mikaela, Sunny on her left, Sides on her right.

"Well, well. We haven't met before." Sunstreaker made his move first, getting as close as he could to Mikaela. He was about to put his arms around her when he was halted by twin growls, Bumblebee and Sam breaking in between them and standing firm. "What's with you, 'Bee?" Sunny asked, more than ready to shove the smaller mech out of the way.

"This is Mikaela and Sam, Bumblebee's mates." Both brothers' optics nearly popped out of their heads, their feet backing away slowly. "I wouldn't get any closer if I were you." Ratchet's warning seemed to deflate the twin terrors. But their egos were not flat for long. Each locked optics on Ellie and made a bee-line her way. The elder of the three looked positively uncomfortable.

Fortunately, Mirage made it there first. "I must say," the refined Autobot played up his impeccable manners, bowing to the crimson femme. "it is an honor to make the acquaintance of someone so beautiful." Mirage delicately brought the flat of her knuckles up to his forehead, the Cybertronian equivalent of a kiss on the hand. "And what might your name be? I trust it is as lovely as your countenance?"

Ellie's optic ridges nearly shot off her head. She had never head any one lay it on thicker than this smooth talker. But she had to give him points for getting those two buffoons off of her trail. "Eloise Gretchen Murdock. Mirage right?" She asked, cocking him a half smile, half smirk that only served to embolden the mech. She saw the twins frowns and tried her best not to laugh. If she did not know any better, she would say that this mech was flirting with her. Ellie was no virgin in any sense of the word, but it still felt good to have someone think she was beautiful.

"Yes, Mirage is my designation. Though any name you give me will be just as perfect." The saboteur 'kissed' her hand again before letting it go, standing at attention at the acid stare he was receiving from IronHide. He was smart, and put the pieces together. "IronHide, your daughter is quite lovely. May I ask where you found the time to raise a femme so perfectly?" Mirage was not deterred by the harrumph he received in answer. Though he was amused all the same.

"As much as we would love to continue the greetings," Ratchet raised an optical ridge at the acidic tone in Prime's voice. "We are much too close to a roadway to stay for much longer." Ratchet puffed air out of his intakes, resisting the urge to shake his head. The twins seemed to take no mind of the tone, too accustomed to being yelled at to know any better. Mirage and the rest chalked it up to nerves and trying to keep their growing group secret on this planet. But Ratchet knew better, and glanced at IronHide.

'I'll explain later...' was all Ratchet sent over the processor-to-processor comm as the large group made their way back to the base. As the group began their trek, a group of car carrying semis came over the slight incline, seeming to appear out of thin air as the heat rippled off of the pavement. Those that could transform did, the new arrivals hiding behind their shadows, watching the convoy pass by. IronHide remembered that there was a car show going on this week featuring exotic foreign cars and other vehicles. He chuckled inwardly, perfect for these three.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe both locked optics on the first semi carrying a load of brand new Lamborghini's. Both twins scanners came to life, each picking a different car, one yellow, one red. Mirage caught sight of an Aston Martin and fell for it instantly. He too scanned his favorite, and where three protoforms were laying before, were three sleek, shiny vehicles. A Lamborghini Reventón, muscular and slightly reminiscent of an F-22 Raptor in bright sunshine yellow, and a Gallardo SE, sleek and smooth in bright candy apple red and the trademarked black roofed color scheme. Mirage took the form of a royal blue Aston Martin DBS, showing off haughty curves that could cut through any speed barrier without compromising his refined tastes.

The group pulled away from the road as the last semi past by, throwing up a cloud of dust and pebbles. One such unlucky pebble landed softly on the hood of Sunstreaker, sending a shrill alarm as the entire frame shuddered. "My paint job!"

"You complain too much." Sam laughed, still on his belly close to Bumblebee. He propped his hands under his head and slowly kicked his legs in a genuine imitation of what he used to do when he was still human. "There's water and soap back at the base so you can scrub to our OCD heart's content." Mikaela snickered on the other side of Bumblebee, who despite still in his alt form, looked positively about ready to burst with pride at the jealous and lustful stares his mates were receiving from the twins. Sam had taken the form of a Scion Fuse, bright oiled silver glinting in the afternoon sun. The butterfly doors wiggled on his back, giving him the look of a silver wasp lounging in the sun. Mikaela had scanned an Audi Locus, smiling with obvious glee at how the armor fit over her body. If she was long legged and curvaceous before, she would have the heads of every species of male turning as she walked by.

Ellie on the other hand had stood up already, her eyes watching the horizon in case more vehicles popped out of nowhere. Loving big trucks, she had scanned a Dodge Rampage, which suited her just fine. She was not as slender as Mikaela or as sleek as Sam, but the armor gave the impression of wide hips and shoulders. The front and rear opening doors sat on her back in a butterfly pattern, her body a dark blood red that seemed to heighten the dangerous feel of of her stance. "I say we get a move on. With that many concept cars coming down the road there are bound to be fans following behind." She smiled back at Optimus, whose engine revved despite himself. "I know I would be close on their tails. Especially with all those concept trucks. Yummy." Optimus' engine revved again, gaining him a snicker from Ratchet. Ironhide gunned his accelerator in irritation, throwing up more dust in Sunstreaker's direction, causing the yellow Lamborghini to have a fit, cursing in both English and Cybertronian. Though some of that dirt landed on Optimus, his windshield wipers activating to clean the dirt off of the glass.

It didn't take long for the others to catch up, though Prime's mood went south as he spied Mirage keeping close to Ellie's side, knowing that the haughty Autobot would be more than eager to get the femme by herself once they got back. For once, Optimus hoped IronHide kept his cannons out and charged. He would never admit it, but watching Mirage nudge Ellie as she experimented with her new alt mode made his energon boil. He still would not approach her, no matter what he had felt when their eyes had locked earlier that morning. There was no way in Prime's mind that he could ever have those kinds of feelings for one he saw as so young. He knew it was petty, but there were somethings Optimus just could not get past, and age was one of them. Though he still growled low when the twins kept pace behind Ellie, looking every bit like they would steal her or any unattached femme if given half the chance.

Cool! This could be TF2! Personally, this combined with Mike Bay's statement regarding TF2, have inspred me to wrie my own fanfic. (Transformers: aftershock)My only complaint is that the whole "ElliexPrime" and "SamxMikaelaxBumblebee" thing is bringing up long-supressed memories of KISS players. Oh god, I'm having a relapse... AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, THE CREEPINESS! THE CREEPINESS! Sorry you had to witness that.

What's KISS? Other than the band, of course.

KISS Players was a very creepy part of the japanese continuity, and is the reason most people fear human-TF relationships. Here, see for yourself. http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Kiss_Players

OMG! I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. The moment I hear the word KISS now I will imagine Megatron chasing that girl with his phalice like tongue.

I hope that I am doing this with a little more descression than that...yeesh. Besides...the transfer cable plugs into the holding chamber in the Femme's chest. Its not like you see some fictions where the femme has babies like a human. That just doesn't compute...

Crimson eyes glinted in the artificial light, watching the flurry of activity around him. The mech found it amusing that those who had once served him as Megatron made no comments toward his change of tactics. Skywarp, chest still sore from Hook's patches ran cabling around the massive chamber that served as the Decepticon's base of operations until they could expand further into the Mammoth cave system. The Western half had 'mysteriously' suffered a massive cave in resulting in the shifting of a previously unknown fault line running through the system, courtesy of Rumble's sonic pile drivers. Currently they had the western part of the system converted for their uses, the formations that made this system famous were removed to make way for the bulkheads and equipment being constructed on the walls. Thundercracker was busy working on the wiring of several panels, his back to Galvetron. Though each time he turned his head, he would shudder in revulsion and turn back to his work, trying to forget.

Galvetron's form was partially to blame for his discomfort, but the larger part was held on a chain at his feet. The short chain clinked, the femme turned her head listlessly to one side to observe the progress through dim optics. The chain was so short that she had no choice but to literally nuzzle herself against Galvetron's leg like the female subject of a cheesy Harlequin novel's front cover. Starscream imagined that this gave Galvetron an immense ego boost to have her forced to be so close to him.

Starscream gasped as the chain was roughly pulled, her head slowly rising to meet her new master's optics. She already knew what she would find there, and resigned herself to her fate. The femme was led like a dog, crawling on all fours, knees scraping the loose gravel, to the rear area, still without lighting. Galvetron sat in a Stalagmite formation that mimicked a throne, holding the chain tightly in his left hand, forcing Starscream's optics level with his waist, making no sound to indicate his desires. He already knew his pet understood. Starscream lowered her face, knowing she was forbidden from using her hands. She slowly gave hard bites to Galvetron's pelvic armor, using her serrated teeth to trail over the sensitive protective armor that closed his interface cable off from contaminates on the outside. Starscream knew that Galvetron had kept her hideous visage for a reason, humiliation. The same reason she was kept on a short leash and forced to move on her hands and knees. The slow humiliation was pleasure in itself to Galvetron, and the mech loved to watch Starscream's optics dim each time she was ordered to service him.

It wasn't the pleasure of their joining that kept the leash around her neck, though that did play a part. Galvetron loved power, especially when he wielded it over someone else. And he took particular pleasure out of humiliating Starscream. The Seeker had had the audacity to assume control of the Decepticons. He had had the nerve to seduce others to his cause with promises of Decepticon victory and the Autobots crushed under their heels. And he had had the gall to lie to one of Megatron's most trusted lieutenants about his plans to recover his old leader's remains. Galvetron gasped as Starscream nibbled on a particularly sensitive spot, soothing the sting away with her glossa. Though the femme did have her uses. She seemed adept at pleasuring another and Galvetron wondered just how many lovers his lieutenant had had over the vorns. Perhaps he should ask, though right now he was having too much fun with his pet to care one way or another.

*********************************

IronHide's optical guards lowered slowly, fixing the medic in front of him with a look he reserved for new recruits when they had just been caught over energized on high-grade. "Repeat that again, Ratchet. Without the medical gibberish." The dark yellow Autobot had just spent the last fifteen minutes explaining the situation without any word of it making any sense to IronHide. Sometimes he had to remind the medic that not everyone else was 'blessed' with his knowledge.

Ratchet bristled before calming himself enough to speak without shooting IronHide in front of Chromia. "I said, Ellie has the same spark frequency as Optimus." At the blank looks he elaborated. "You two know how rare it is for two sparks to resonate as one. They call to each other, as you know," Ratchet explained, referring to the bond the two Autobots in front of him shared. "Bonding to another's spark who calls to yours is not mandatory nor does not bonding jeopardize either mech's existence. However, it does make functioning in close quarters almost impossible, which is why Optimus has been avoiding your charge these past few months." Ratchet fully expected to hear the whine of IronHide's weapons charging, but the black mech just continued to stare at him.

"Does Ellie know this?" IronHide turned to Chromia who just shook her head. Ratchet, however was not surprised.

"She doesn't have enough knowledge of Cybertronian physiology to understand why she gets distracted when he is around. She's convinced that nothing will come of it and that he avoids her because he already has a mate." Chromia smirked, her processor buzzing with all the possible ways she could get the two alone together. Either there would be spark-bonding or a blood curdeling scream as Ellie beat the snot out of Prime. Either option was just as fun as the the other to Chromia.

"So...that over-chivalrous piece of scrap metal," IronHide annunciated every syllable with clipped and forced patience. "has been driving himself and Ellie insane with his over inflated sense of...of...I am assuming that Prime has sense left?" Ratchet stared at IronHide. The mech was more than willing to blast a hole into the twins and Mirage but he was not ready to do the same to Prime. Perhaps the medic had underestimated the weapons specialist. Then again, that was not a hard thing to do.

"Leave that to me, IronHide," the grin on Chromia's face started a low rumble in IronHide that turned into full out laughter. "I've been dying to get those two together the moment I saw them look at each other. Ellie won't stand me trying to convince her, so I will just have to show her." Chromia practically rubbed her hands together in anticipation, laughing manically like some cartoon villain about to hatch an the biggest of evil plans. Both mechs hoped that they would keep out of Chromia's sights when she got into her scheming moods. The last thing they needed was to wake up painted pink with paper flowers glued to their armor. Not that she had not threatened to do something similar to Prowl on all those occasions the mech had refused to let IronHide out of the brig early. They had retaliated by making so much noise as to be mistaken for an invading army. Though that would usually be followed by several more orns in the brig for both of them.

Ratchet held up his hands, backing away from the scheming femme. As much as he would like this idiocy to end, he was not going to let himself be drug down by helping Chromia in any way. Nor was the medic going to dissuade the femme. Once she had a plan formed in her mind, not even an entire garrison of Decepticons could stop her from carrying it out. "Count me out of any direct involvement." Ratchet chuckled. "Though...if things get interesting, put me down for a front row seat. I, too am curious as to their true feelings on the matter."

IronHide shushed her when she tried to describe what she wanted to do with a his hand covering her entire face. "No, you don't femme! The less we know the better chance we have to escape the fallout. You just do what you need to do and let us know when the fireworks start." This elicited a grin so wide Ratchet was convinced he would have to recalibrate the pneumatic pistons that controlled the plates in her face. Both mechs knew that if they got involved they would be spending a few weeks in the brig, and that was looking on the bright side. But if just Chromia was involved, then she would easily be forgiven. That was their plan at least. Now they had to figure out what to do to distract the twins and Mirage.
"Keep your arm steady, let it follow your optics," Mirage smiled as Ellie relaxed, letting her own targeting sub-processor take over the movements of her arm. He had to admit that her weapons were impressive, though they looked absolutely out of place on a femme in his opinion. Most mechs of his social standing thought of weapons on a femme as the epitome of distasteful. However they were needed sins against the demure nature of all femmes if they were to survive in these dangerous times. Though the way this femme relished the feel of a large gun reminded Mirage too much of Chromia. 'I shall have to help her to rid herself of that misguided need," he thought. "Right, now as soon as you have a lock on your target, you may engage your firing mechanism."

Ellie grinned, imagining her finger was tightening on an imaginary trigger. The plasma cannon on her left arm hummed to life, charging with energy in a high pitched wine before screaming out of the barrel of her arm, the recoil making her wince, though she was not thrown as she was the first time she had used her cannons. Her target, an older M1A1 Abram tank had its leading side turned into a puddle of melted slag, what was left of its body tumbling away with the force of the explosion. "Remind me to thank Ratchet." Ellie almost expected some half snide comment about her love of big guns, but when silence was her only answer, she turned.

Ellie rolled her optics. On the ground, Mirage lay, knocked out cold from the recoil of her shoulder hitting him square between the optics. leaving a rather nasty dent the size and shape of her elbow in his face. She almost laughed. "Poor little pretty rich boy." Ellie laughed as she slung Mirage limply over her shoulder. "Too bad you can't walk your talk..." She was about to take the blue mech to Ratchet when she spied two figures headed her way, both with identical grins on their nearly identical faces. "I'd rather take 'rich boy'," Ellie grumbled, turning her back on the twins, knowing that neither would be deterred until she got within sight of the med-bay. Over the past few hours she had gotten to hate the twins as much as IronHide, even begging him if she could use them as target practice when they clung to her like her shadow.

Ellie sighed, resigning herself to her fate when the two caught up with her, walking one on either side of her. "Wow, what did Mirage do to you?" Sideswipe had to start the games, determined to annoy her into killing him if it killed him. "I mean, I know he's pompous and all, but did you really have to shoot him?" Ellie nearly shot Sideswipe, opting instead for the most patient answer she could muster.

"He just got too close to my elbow and got hit by the recoil." She ignored the snickers from the red and yellow mechs. "Damn rich boy wasn't going to keep his hands to himself otherwise..." Ellie ground out, referring to the fact that Mirage's hands like to wander around her waist when she was trying to aim. This little side trip could teach him some manners, Ellie supposed. But she seriously doubted it. Now if she could just teach the two hounding her some manners her day would go by so much better. But she was in for no such luck as the two started shooting banter across her to each other, trying their best to get Ellie to answer or make a comment which they would respond with something lewd. Ellie kept track of Sunstreaker out of the corner of her right optic, waiting for him to do something stupid. Something stupid he did when he queried his brother on the perceived difficulty of two mechs mating with one femme.

Ellie hoped that Mirage would at least understand as she took his unconscious body in her hands and swung him by his ankles, hitting Sunstreaker in the midsection. The larger yellow mech went tumbling to the ground, cursing and fuming as he shot to his feet. His words, however, died as he came up to Ellie's cannon aimed directly at his face. Now this was familiar. Perhaps the family resemblance went deeper than the body type. "One more word, 'Sunshine'," Ellie knew that Sunstreaker hated being called Sunshine after Sideswipe mouthed off at him and had to have several dents pounded out of his aft. "and I will shoot off something more important than your head." She lowered her weapon to the junction of his hips, watching his face slacken, his lower 'lip' trembling. "Good boy," Ellie smiled, patting Sunstreaker on the head with her hand as it transformed back, turning to continue her trek toward Ratchet's med-bay.

***************************************

"Primus, Ellie!" Ratchet exclaimed, watching the femme drag the beaten body of Mirage behind her like a raggedy doll. "What the fragging pit did he do to you!" The look on her face, however was enough to quiet any further questions as Ratchet lifted the smaller mech onto a table and began to take in his heavily beaten frame. "May I ask what transpired to elicit such a reaction?"

"He got too close behind me when he was showing me how to fire my cannon. I think my elbow caught him." Ellie leaned against a near by wall, sending a puff of air through her intakes.

"Were you practicing on top of a mountain? Mirage looks like he fell all the way down." Ratchet watched Ellie's face, noticing the dark look that crossed it as she crossed her arms. "What else happened?" Ratchet asked, getting out the CO2 wielder to start getting the small cracks sealed up.

"'Sunshine' and 'Sideshow' happened." She snorted, seeming to become very interested in her fingers.

"And you saw fit to beat the living slag out of Mirage?" Ratchet's deadpan was belied by a tight grip on the wielder gun and slowly rising internal temperatures.

"No! Sunstreaker made a comment on what it would feel like to have two mechs on one femme and I took Mirage and smacked him." Ratchet stared at Ellie for a moment, his face slack. He made a curious noise that reminded Ellie of a can of shaving cream that was almost empty. The medic could only hold his composure for a few moments longer before he burst out laughing, leaning over Mirage's frame, shaking with mirth. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe chose to appear in the med-bay at that instant, Sunny sporting a Mirage sized dent in his midsection, blue paint marring his beautiful frame.

Ratchet lost it, pounding his hand on the table Mirage was laying on, rousing the blue mech from what ever stupor he had been in. His groans drawing an ugly look from Sunstreaker. Mirage was wearing little streaks of sunshine all over his armor, turning his royal blue paint sea green. Ellie was left in the middle, not sure if she should beat Ratchet over the head with something as the medic told Sunstreaker to wait for him on the other side of the med-bay. He also included something rather 'creative' to occupy himself with which caused the yellow mech's jaw to drop open. Where in the pit did Ratchet find out he had experimented with power receptacles when he was a youngling? He had thought that rather embarrassing episode was behind him when he had nearly shorted his entire system out trying to see if his interface cable would fit.

Drawn in by the noise, Prime poked his head in, optical guards rising until they nearly left his face. Ratchet had controlled his laughter, but he was still breaking out in snickering fits, directing his looks at Sunstreaker who looked like he wanted nothing more than to crawl under a rock and expire. And was that paint transfer on his and Mirage's bodies? And what in the slag had happened to Mirage? He looked like he had tried to take a flying leap off of the Hoover Dam face first to see what it would feel like. Ellie was on the far end of the med-bay, looking like she wished she was anywhere else as Sunstreaker eyed her with such contempt Prime was hard pressed not to laugh.

The small tug on her spark turned Ellie's head toward the door, her optics meeting Prime's for the second time that day. Both were unaware of four sets of optics watching them, and two sparks sinking in disappointment. Sunstreaker had sworn the femme off. He wanted a femme who appreciated the work that went into maintaining his looks, not someone ready to grab the nearest mech by the ankles and play 'Beat the Cyber-Pinata' with their heads. Sideswipe and Mirage however found the situation a little less heartening. How in the pit could they compete with Prime, let alone a spark bond?

Both mechs pouted, watching as a rather amused femme guided the two stupefied Autobots into a closed off area at the back of the med-bay, shoving both in before they could protest and locking the door with a complex series of code-keys. All four mechs swore that the giggling Chromia was the most evil femme ever created.