Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There comes a time in every bots' life where you can't ignore the world around you. You may try and try, but eventually it will catch up to you and you'll have to face it.

Don't be afraid of the world, embrace it. All the struggles, laughter, joy, and anxiety. You might eventually get used to it, if you stick around the right bots.

Open up to those who you believe care for you and your well-being. Deep down, you know you must do so, for you alone cannot bear too many burdens on your processor. Share your grief, worries, and anxiety. It may just save your life.

There is a human saying: If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. This goes for bots as well.

Accept yourself and others for who they are, and do not judge a book by its' cover. You'll find that there are some genuinly good bots out there who just need your help and guidance. It may take time, but patience is a virtue all need to have to succeed.

You are here for a reason. You may not know that reason yet, but that's ok. Take your time, and your purpose will soon be clear.

Remember. Not everything is lost when you still have someone to care about.

Life may lead you where you least expect, but have faith, and you'll know exactly where you were meant to be.

Chapter Text

A red Dodge Challenger races down a deserted highway, its' front decorated with bull horns on its' hood. A male's voice with a country accent then speaks. "So, there I am on the lookout when out of nowhere these high beams light up my rear view. And then it hits me! I'm illegally parked!"

Cutting to a dark blue and pink motorcycle, it speaks up in a female's voice. "Another parking ticket?"

"Better! The boot." The red muscle car crows.

The motorcycle sighs a bit, playing along. "Big metal tire clamp impossible to remove..."

The muscle car chuckles. "Bingo! So the local police do their thing, and I let'em all the way down the block. That's when I kick of my new shiny shoe and BANG-"

The motorcycle finishes his exclamation, with a grin in her voice. "-New York's finest soil themselves."

The Challenger hums a bit. "You know me, Arcee. Mess with Cliffjumper-"

"And ya get the horns." She finishes again.

Cliffjumper laughs.

"Not sure how that complies with Autobot Rule #1: Keep a low profile?" Arcee asked.

"What can I say? Patrolling for energon out here in dullsville gets lonesome. Almost makes me miss the Decepticons." Cliffjumper muttered.

"Like Jasper, Navada's a party? We're alone wherever we travel on this rock, Cliff." Arcee said back.

A beeping noise from Cliffjumper's GPS cuts off their conversation. "I'm getting a signal."

"Need back-up?"

"Do I ever need backup?" He asked, then turned violently. As he comes across what he was looking for, he comms back, "I just found a whole lot of Energon!" A shadow casts over him, and he transforms, revealing a dark red mech with a scar on his right eye. "Decepticons!"

A massive ship comes into view, and shoots out a laser shot, sending Cliffjumper into the cavern of Energon crystals below. As he recovers from the blast, he turns back around to see multiple Vehicon troopers looming above him.

In a nervous tone, he asks, "Arcee? About that back-up...."

_ _ _

As Arcee calls for backup from Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Bulkhead and Bumblebee, Cliffjumper struggles to fend off the troops. Unfortunately for him, one Vehicon slices off his right horn.

"You want the horns? You got'em!" He hollers out before firing at all of them.

Many hit, but one fires a blast into an Energon crystal, making it explode. It nearly sends Cliffjumper unconscious, making it easier for the Vehicons to subdue him.

As he is carried into the Decepticon's warship, a figure emerges from the scorched earth, glaring in fury at the vessel. 'How dare you destroy my domain?! You will pay!' The figure then vanishes.

Unaware of the second being lurking around, the Decepticon named Starscream turns to Cliffjumper, who mocks him with a "Where's your master?" line, which makes Starscream snarl back, "I am my own master!"

As Starscream curls his arm back to strike the Dodge Challenger, an invisible force snags it and twists it behind his back with a horrible screeching noise. Howling in agony, Starscream jerks forward and tries to pry his way free, only to be kicked between his legs, dropping him. As Starscream just lays there, moaning in pain, the Vehicons holding Cliffjumper captive are knocked out, leaving the red Autobot to stumble around. However, a force clamps around his hand and in an instant, he vanishes from the Nemesis.

_ _ _

As soon as Cliffjumper opens his eyes again, wincing at the pain in his head, he notices that he is in a cavern of sorts. As he tries to look around him, his stomach churns with nausea. As he fights to not purge, he then sees a figure outlined within the shadows of the cave.

Before he can even speak, the figure does. "Relax. Calm down. I'm not here to hurt you, not after I just saved your ass, buddy. Just breathe. Oh! And here, you lost this." The figure tosses something forward, and the object rolls over to his feet.

Finally able to stop the rush of the feeling of purging, the Challenger breathes out, "My...horn? My horn! You-you grabbed my horn! W-why? H-how did you-"

"Find it?" The figure scoffs. "It wasn't that hard to find, as I did see your ass getting beaten and that stupid Vehicon slicing it off of your poor head! Geez, you were way in over your head with coming over here alone. Are you that stupid?"

Cliffjumper glared, offended. "Excuse me? How was I supposed to know that the Decepticons would follow me here?! And just who are you?! Come out into the light so I can see your face!"

The figure growled a bit, but stepped into the little light the cavernous cave had, and Cliffjumper's jaw dropped. IT was a SHE! A femme, teal and green in color with some dark brown highlights came into view, and her optics were strange: her left eye was red, while her right eye was an icy-blue color. The rims around her eyes were purple too. Over her right eye was a lightning-bolt shaped scar, which looked like it ran deep. On both sides of her head were two curved horns that stuck out a bit.

As his optics took in the rest of her battle scarred chassy, she let out a growl. "Don't just stare at me! That's really disturbing!" He glanced away guiltily. "Sorry, sorry! Don't mean to stare at ya! It's just weird, seeing another femme after so many years..."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, Hornhead."

"My name is Cliffjumper, thank ya very much! It's not Hornhead! What is your designation, if I may ask?"

She looked surprised, then huffed. "No one's ever really asked for my name before now, so it's kinda strange to hear it... It's-" A noise sounded from above ground, which sounded like a groundbridge portal, interrupting her.

The femme narrowed her two-tone eyes, then walked over to Cliffjumper and held her servo out. "Well? Let's go see if your comrades are here now, shall we?"

_ _ _

As Arcee and the other Autobots arrived at the battleground site where Cliffjumper had called for backup, they all looked around. Arcee's optics darted back and forth as she hollered Cliffjumper's name. "Cliff?! Cliff?! Where are you, Cliffjumper?"

Optimus Prime, a red and blue long-nose truck cab mech, then spoke up. "I believe that we should all split up to search for our comrade."

Before any of the others could split up in different directions, however, a shimmer then radiated in the air. Then, out of nowhere, a figure then popped up into existence. The figure then exclaimed, "Holy Scrap! What in the world did you just-Arcee!" Cliffjumper then stood there in shock and relief, looking worse for wear but alive, clutching his broken horn in one servo.

"Cliff! You're alive!" Arcee cried out, then ran over to him and tackled him to the ground in a hug. The red mech grunted in pain and surprise at first, then hugged her back. "Hey, hey, Cee. I'm ok!"

"Cliff, you nutjob, you look terrible! How'd ya fend off the enemy forces by yourself?!" Bulkhead, a green SUV mech exclaimed as Arcee got off of Cliff as Ratchet went over to assess the red Autobots' injuries for himself.

Someone answered for him though. "Pshhh, he didn't, although he gave it as good as he got, that's for damn sure!"

All Autobots present went on alert, as no one else was visible. Bumblebee, a yellow and black Urbana 500 mech, beeped out *Who's there?*, and before their very optics, the Teal and green battle-scarred femme appeared out of thin air.

"What the!-": Bulkhead

"Primus!" : Arcee

"What in the Allspark?!-" : Ratchet

"....!" : Optimus

"Geez! Ok, could you just stop doing that disappearing act already! It's freakin' me out, here! Also, you never gave me your name! I'd at least like to know the name of the one that saved my aft!" Cliffjumper snapped at the fembot, who smirked. "Wowwwwweeee...someone's REALLY NOT concussed anymore!....You're welcome for healing the worst of your wounds by the way!"

Cliffjumper stalled at that. "Huh? What? You mean to tell me that I was worse off than I was?"

She huffed and crossed her arms, a deadpan look on her face. "You tanked an Energon explosion to your entire body. It's a miracle you still lived after those Vehicon idiots blew it up! Speaking of...."

She then turned around abruptly and started walking off, until Optimus called after her, "Wait just a moment, if you'd please!"

The femme's shoulders slumped minutely, then jerked upright as she turned around with a smile on her face. "Yes? What can I help you with?"

"If you'd please answer some of my questions, it would be greatly appreciated, femme." He said, to which the femme then drew herself up in a glare. "Fine, have it your way."

"My name, or designation or whatever you'd like to call it, is Echo. I live here. I've been on Earth now for years, and don't ask how many I lost count. Take whatever Energon is left and don't worry about me. I'll have plenty in no time. Then get out of here. I'd rather not have anymore unwelcome guests today, thank you very much! There, satisfied, Optimus Prime?" After nearly snarling those last few words, she then vanished.

_ _ _

Returning to their Autobot Omega One Base was a hurried affair, as Bulkhead, Bumblebee, and Optimus gathered as much Energon as they could while Ratchet tended to Cliffjumper's other wounds with Arcee going on a drive to clear her head.

However, Arcee ended up being discovered by three human children: Jack Darby, Rafael "Raf" Esquival, and Miko Nakadai, so she had to return to the base to have the three of them speak to Optimus. After being paired up with an Autobot each (Optimus and Ratchet excluded), Optimus heads off to his room to recharge.

However, something is still on the Prime's mind: Echo. Who is she really, and why does she look so familiar to him? And why did it seem that she hated him?

_ _ _

Back at the Nemesis, Soundwave and Starscream bridge back an old enemy, Megatron.

_ _ _
And within the Earth, back at the Energon cavern, recharging fitfully, is a Neutral-Faction femme named Echo.

Chapter Text

While the Decepticons are busy dealing with Megatron's return to power, along with his discovery of Dark Energon, the Autobots try to deal with the three humans. Arcee is paired up with Jack Darby, Bulkhead is paired with Miko Nakadai, and Bumblebee is paired with young Rafael "Raf" Esquival.

Meanwhile, Ratchet is keeping an eye on Cliffjumper's recovery from his encounter with the Decepticons and Optimus? Well, he's had his mind....occupied.... on a certain femme named Echo that saved Cliffjumper. He is confused on how she has evaded detection after all these years that they have been on Earth, and many other questions. So what does he do?

"Optimus, are you crazy?! You want to-" Ratchet started, his optics wide with shock as he stared at the Prime.

"-Go and meet with Echo once more? Yes, old friend. I have more questions for her, and I will not rest easy knowing she is alone and vulnerable to attacks from the Decepticons." Optimus explained, to which Ratchet responded with a huff of scarcatic laughter. "What do you plan to do Optimus, recruit her to our cause?"

He stopped laughing at his leader's unchanging gaze. "Y-you can't be serious?! Optimus, it was made clear from the very beginning that she didn't want us there for long because we were on her turf, do you honestly believe that she will leave if you ask her?"

"I still will make an effort for her to see that there are greater risks to her being discovered and eliminated if she remains there alone, and she will be much safer here at base with us." Optimus was still dead-set on his decision, which Ratchet conceded with a mutter of "fine, but don't come back and say I didn't warn you, Optimus."

As Ratchet fired up the groundbridge, he turned toward Optimus as he started walking away. "Be careful, Optimus. You have no idea what Echo may be capable of, so be cautious. Comm me when you are ready to return to base."

_ _ _

As Optimus left the groundbridge portal, and payed no attention to its closing, he looked around in surprise. The last time they were here, there were very few Energon crystals left for the taking. Now however? There were tons of glowing Energon shards of multiple sizes all around the explosion-scarred field. It was as if they had just started regrowing themselves at different rates...

'How is this possible?' He thought to himself.

A voice interrupted his train of thought. "Well, well, well. Look at what we have here. A Prime."

He turned around, recognizing the voice, and confirmed it as Echo, who stood there behind him. She had a glaring look of annoyance, resentment, and resignation all at once. "Why are you here, Prime? Need more energon for yourselves? If that's the case, take what you'd like. I won't stop ya."

He blinked. "No, I didn't come here for that. But if you are offering, when I am done here, may I take some back to our base?"

She scoffed. "One, didn't I tell you before on our last encounter that you could take as much Energon as you could carry with you? And two, why are you here again?"

"I came here to ask some questions, if I would be able to?" He inquired, to which her body language shifted as her plating pulled tighter to her thin but muscular frame and her doorwings jerked a bit as if in alarm. She then glanced up at him, tilting her head to the right a bit. Optimus noticed that her right eye had a lightning bolt-shaped scar over it and was strangely a black color. Hadn't it been blue beforehand? Also, a "E" shaped emblem of sorts was engraved within her helm that he hadn't noticed before...He was brought out of his inner musings when she spoke up. "What kind of questions, Prime? Let it be known that I don't intend to answer any that I don't want to answer, so go ahead and ask away."

If Optimus was surprised he didn't show it. "I understand and thank you for giving me this chance. I'd like to ask some questions. The first one is this: Are you of Neutral faction?" The scarred femme rolled her optics. "Yes, what gave it away? No insignia whatsoever, right?"

Rather than answer, he asked the other questions and got various answers:

Q2: "How did you arrive here on Earth?"
A2: "Next question."

Q3: "Are you a threat to my team of Autobots?"
A3: "Only if I need to be. You attack, I use self-defense. It's simple. Next."

Q4: "How did you get that scar?"
A4: "Not relevant and that's too personal. Next."

Q5: "If you were to hypothetically join the Autobots or Decepticons, which one would you choose to join?"
A5: Hypothetically? Autobots. Despise the Decepticons...Why?"

For his last question (and to not answer her directly), he asked her, "What is your opinion of humans?"

At that, Echo seemed to freeze up, her hetrochromic optics blown wide. She didn't answer for a minute or two, her mouth opening and closing like a fish, until she breathed out, "I stay out of sight and away from them at all costs. Why do you ask?"

Optimus took in her almost stricken and inwardly panicked optics, and felt her EM field for the first time. It seemed like she was struggling to maintain a uninterested demeanor, but her field suggested otherwise. It fluctuated between worried and calm, like she was unnerved by the question but didn't want to show it.

Feeling like he had enough information to go on, Optimus decided to leave her be for now, as it wouldn't do any good to ask her any more questions while she was like this. "No reason, Echo. Just wondering. I'll be taking some Energon crystals back with me to base, and thank you in advance for allowing me to ask some questions."

As he started toward the crystals, he heard her faintly say, "N-no p-problem. T-take w-whatever. I-I s-shall n-not b-bother y-you. E-excuse m-me. Her presence had vanished by the time he had turned back around in concern, for her voice had gone staticky, like she was about to break down and cry.

As he returned to his task, he wondered why asking her about the humans had made her so worked up... Shaking his head, he commed the base, saying "Ratchet, I require a groundbridge-"

_ _ _

Echo's POV

I teleported back to my bed, quivering with anxiety and pushing the flashback that had started to assault me away. 'Why? Why did Optimus Prime have to ask me that question?! What does he want from me? Did he...find out...what I did...' I shook my helm violently. 'NO! He couldn't have! That idiotic and insane organization is long gone...'

Then I remembered his fifth question: "If you were to hypothetically join the Autobots or Decepticons, which one would you choose to join?" I had automatically said the Autobots to not have him ask further questions, but I know that if I'd said "to stay a Neutral or die factionless", it would probably make him ask more questions about it. I didn't want to answer to him why I would have said my true feelings on the matter.

I vented and said aloud, "It doesn't even matter anyway-Ah!" I cried out as a vision shot through my helm: Megatron holding up a Dark Energon crystal and stabbing himself with it, growing more powerful. After doing so, he turned to a corpse of a Vehicon and stabbed it as well. I knew full well what was going to happen next; the dead Vehicon rose to its feet and started rampaging until Megatron kicked its body and let it fall into a cavern below. Afterward, I heard Megatron speak about reviving many fallen warriors, then my vision ended.

I staggered, struggling to stay upright. I had to warn Optimus, he and his team were the only ones who could do something about this.

As I used the last of my strength to teleport back to where I had last left the Prime, I fell to my knees. I could blearily see Optimus before a groundbridge portal with some energon in his servos, and I must have made a sound or something, because as soon as he turned toward me and noticed that I was there, he dropped the Energon (which didn't break) to obviously try to assist me, but I never got to see or hear anything else.

I blacked out.

Chapter Text

Optimus lunged for Echo's falling frame, but was too far away to actually catch her, so she fell to the ground with a thud. As he reached her, his comm. link crackled to life as Ratchet asked, "Optimus, what's going on? Why aren't you back yet?", and he responded, "Ratchet, prepare the medical bay! Echo has fallen unconscious for some unknown reason, and I'd like you to see what's happened to her. Send Bulkhead and the others here in my place to collect the energon."

"What?!....Oh, fine." Optimus ignored the medic's grumbling and picked up the teal-colored femme in his arms. To his surprise, she was heavier than she looked. He turned toward the groundbridge in time for Bulkhead, Arcee and Bumblebee to walk through. Bumblebee buzzed in alarm, while Arcee's optics widened and Bulkhead exclaimed, "Geez, Ratchet wasn't kidding when he said that you said she was unconscious! She looks like she's out cold!"

Not even bothering to answer, Optimus walked forward, only to halt as Arcee blocked his path briefly. "Optimus, are you sure it's wise to bring Echo to our base? I mean, we have the humans to think about, you know."

"I understand your concerns, Arcee, but I believe that Echo will have no reason to harm them. Trust me on this." Arcee nodded reluctantly, but let him pass.

As Optimus passed through the groundbridge and into the base, Ratchet met him and looked surprised and worried as he saw the unconscious femme in his arms. "What in the Allspark happened, Optimus?! She's out cold!"

_ _

Ratchet's POV

I had to admit that I was a bit skeptical when the Prime commed to tell me that the femme who had rescued Cliffjumper had fallen unconscious, but as soon as he walked through the groundbridge with her in his arms as such, I knew I had jumped to judgement too quickly.

"What in the Allspark happened, Optimus? She's out cold!" I exclaimed as the Prime went over to the medical berth that I had set out and laid her down on it.

"I do not know. All I know is that after I had asked some questions, in which to some she answered, then she disappeared for a bit. She seemed upset at my last question, so I didn't want to push her too far. She reappeared before I was about to head back, but fell unconscious before I could ask what was wrong." He answered, looking confused and slightly worried.

I hummed in thought as I scanned the femme for anything troublesome, then gasped in shock. "By the Allspark, she's extremely low on Energon and she's suffering from exhaustion! Quick, Optimus, get me some of our Energon! I must refuel her before she offlines on us!"

As he hurried off, I got a good look at the starving fembot. I had to admit, for a bot who was starving, she had quite a lot of muscle mass on her and it was obvious to me that she was most likely stronger than she looked. 'She's also kind of attractive....in a way...' I thought to myself, then shook my head. What was I thinking?! Who knows how old she is, and besides, who would ever want an old bot like him?

I was jolted out of my thoughts as a high-pitched voice then spoke up. "Helloo?! Did you not hear me?! Who's the girl bot?!"

I groaned interally. 'Humans....forgot about them..'

I shifted a bit to see the three human charges looking at me with questions in their eyes. Miko looked impatient, Raf looked curious, and Jack just looked like he wanted to ask but was refraining himself from asking anything. I rolled my eyes. "You may call her Echo. She is an...ally...of sorts."

"An ally?" Jack asked.

Miko butted in with her two sense, "Where did she come from, huh? And why wasn't she here when we got here?"

Before I could answer, laughter sounded.

_ _

Chuckling came from around the corner as Cliffjumper came into the medical bay. "Aren't you a curious one, huh? Echo here saved my butt from the Decepticons, but decided to stay at her place for some odd reason."

"What was her place, Cliffjumper? Where was she living?" Raf asked, just as the other three returned with some energon crystals through the still-opened groundbridge.

Ratchet made his way to the portal lever and pulled it up to have the bridge vanish as he huffed, "Took you three long enough!"

"Sorry for the wait, Ratch! Grabbed as much as we could carry! Man, you wouldn't believe that there was a battle only yesterday over there at that mine!" Bulkhead exclaimed, heaving the energon away to the storage area.

"Bulkhead is right. There's crystals all over the place, it's weird" Arcee vented, following the green Wrecker with an armful of her own.

*Not that weird, it's actually amazing! I didn't even know that energon crystals could grow that fast!* Bee buzzed as he passed by.

Cliffjumper whistled, then replied to Raf, who was waiting patiently. "To answer your question, kid? Echo here lives in an abandoned energon mine."

"Woah! Cool!" Miko gasped out.

"Yeah, kinda is, isn't it?" Cliffjumper grinned at the girl's excitement, then turned to Jack who then said, "Wait a second. That doesn't answer Miko's second question: why wasn't she here when we arrived? If she's an ally, wouldn't she visit here to see what's going on?"

Ratchet scoffed as he inserted an IV line into the femme, as Optimus had returned with the Energon while Cliffjumper was interacting with the three children. "You'd think so, Jack, but you'd be wrong. Echo hasn't really seemed too keen on visiting here. In fact, we barely know her ourselves!"

"Then...why do you call her your ally? If you don't know her personally?" Raf asked, looking confused.

Optimus was the one to answer this question, as Ratchet was busy making sure everything was in order. "We call her an ally because she is of the Neutral Faction, Young Rafael."

"Neutral? What's that?" Miko asked.

"Don't you know what Neutral means in general, Miko? It means that she's not an Autobot or a Decepticon, right Optimus?" Jack then turned to Optimus as Miko hissed at him for his question.

Optimus nodded. "That is correct. However, I did manage to ask Echo that if, hypothetically, she were to join either the Autobot or Decepticon factions, which would she choose? She would choose our side."

"Really? Ours?" Arcee asked, raising an eyebrow as she sat down beside Cliffjumper. She and the other two mechs had returned from storing the energon away. Bulkhead and Bumblebee were sitting down too, with Raf being held in Bee's servo and Miko in Bulkhead's.

"Yes, although she also told me that she despised the Decepticons."

"Huh. Well, that makes two of us." Bulkhead muttered aloud in agreement.

*Makes you wonder what happened to her to have her despise them.* Bee beeped, Raf nodding along in agreement.

"What I'm wondering about is how we never detected her being here on Earth, though? It's really strange that we never picked up her signature, don't you think, Optimus?" Arcee asked, looking skeptical.

"I agree, Arcee, as that was one of my questions. But it was made clear to me that she did not wish to speak about it. Therefore, I believe it is a subject that is quite sensitive to her. For now, we must respect that. All of us have things we wish to keep secret to ourselves for different reasons.." As Optimus trailed off, seemingly in thought, an alarm went off throughout the base.

Ratchet hurried over to one of the many scanners that they had in the base, and reported, "Optimus! A massive energy surge just occurred at an abandoned mine, but I have no idea what that source could be....It's strange...."

"Then let's go and investigate. It may be something important." Optimus decided. "Bumblebee, Arcee, and Bulkhead, you three shall accompany me. Ratchet, stay here and keep an eye on our human charges and our ally."

"What about me, OP? Can't I come with?" Cliffjumper complained, only to have Ratchet glare at him, so the red-horned mech groaned in annoyance. "Ughhhh, fiiiinnnneeee. I'll stay here! Cee, kick some Con tailpipe for me if you run into any!"

"Sure, sure, Cliff. Just keep recovering. You'll be back on your feet and scouting with us in no time, partner!"

"Awww man!! Why can't we go with?! It's sooo boring here!" As Miko groaned in complaint, Rachet huffed out an affirmative and set the coordinates from where the energy source had surged from. As the groundbridge portal roared to life, he told them all to be careful and to comm him when they needed to return.

After the four bots had vacated the premises (Cliffjumper had left for some reason), Raf then walked over to the still-unconscious femme and observed her. "She has a lot of scars, what do you think happened to her, Ratchet?", the young boy asked, looking worried.

Glancing over at the boy (who had been joined by Jack and Miko), Ratchet vented. "I do not know, Rafael. But I have some suspicions...That I won't share, either! It's none of our business anyway! Not that I care, either..." The medic muttered under his breath.

"You have to admit that that scar over her right eye is epic as heck, though! And I love the purple colors too! Actually, all the colors!" Miko squealed, while Jack rolled his eyes at her enthusiasm. "Chill out, Miko. She looks cool, I agree. But do have to be so loud about it?"

"Oh, shut up, Darby. It's not every day you see something that is teal-colored! She's really pretty!"

"Yeah, yeah..."

"It looks like she's got some kind of horns on the sides of her head, too. Weird..." Raf mused, pointing at the sharp-looking features.

As the humans dicussed the femme's looks, Ratchet tried to keep an optic and ear out for the communications between his other teammates out in the field.

"-Geez, this place looks weird!-" :Bulkhead

"-*Uh, guys? Shhh, look!*-" :Bumblebee

"-Decepticons! What are they doing here?-" :Arcee

"-Mining operation of sorts, I'd guess. But that doesn't explain the surge of energy- Oh my!- Optimus' voice was cut short as shots sounded from beyond the comm. link.

A battle ensued, as it was made obvious that they had been spotted.

-Several hours later or so....-

Optimus and the others' return to their base yielded few answers, only more questions, as it seemed Arcee had ran into something that had her going to take a decontamination bath, Cliffjumper following to make sure she was ok.

Whatever the strange substance was, Ratchet was tasked with figuring out what it was.

However, what he didn't know was that the knocked out femme was gonna have an integral part in disposing of it.....

______________________________________

As Ratchet was doing his best to figure out what the foreign substance was that had been discovered on Arcee, he heard something. "Huh?" He glanced up, seeing nothing.

He looked back into his microscope, but then heard something again. "Optimus?" He called warily, as he knew that while Bulkhead, Arcee, Bumblebee and the now recovered Cliffjumper went out and about getting to know the three humans, Optimus has remained behind to do some things. However, what he saw next was shocking: a broken tool of his had somehow came to life and was now charging at him!

He let out multiple yelps of surprise and tried to fend off the "creature", but ultimately, Optimus came to his rescue and killed it, only to have to step on it to fully destroy the wretched thing. "And stay broken! Now what could have caused THAT?!" He exclaimed, to which his leader replied, "I have a grave suspicion, Ratchet. Dark Energon."

Ratchet scoffed incredulously. "But, that's only a myth, Optimus! Isn't it?", he asked nervously at the look on the Prime's faceplate. "If the residue we found on Arcee brought your broken equipment to life, it would stand to reason that the very same substance brought the strange Vehicon she fought against back from the dead as well."

"Hmmm...but Dark Energon? It's so scarce as to be virtually non-existent. What would it be doing on Earth?" He mused.

"It was transported here. By Megatron." The Prime answered grimly.

"F-For what purpose?" Ratchet asked.

"To conquer this planet by raising an army of the undead." Optimus said, with a slightly concerned look on his face.

Ratchet let out a scathing laugh. "Well, Megatron will need to break quite a few toaster ovens, I mean, WHERE on this world would he find that many Cybertronian dead?"

A revving of engines interrupted their discussion as the four Autobots and three humans returned. After they had finished exclaiming their excitement, Optimus announced that he and Ratchet would be heading out. He placed Arcee in charge, then both of them left through a groundbridge.

As Arcee and Bulkhead bantered about it all, and after she had placed Bulkhead in charge of the human children, she, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper left to do their own little scouting mission.

A little bit after that, Agent William Fowler arrived in the base and discovered the existence of the three kids and left in annoyance, only to become captured by the Decepticons. Bulkhead left to go retrieve Fowler, only for Miko to follow him, and then to try to protect her, Jack and Rafael followed right after.

This left the Outpost in silence, until the last occupant decided to make herself known and functional by waking up and stretching. "Ohhhh goddd, that was more difficult than I thought. Ughhhhh...wait...what in the hell?!"

Echo's Pov

I woke up in an unfamiliar place, which made me pause for a moment. I noticed the Autobot insignia immediately, and groaned inwardly. 'Oh Jesus Christ, no! Why am I in the Autobot base?! Damn it, Optimus Prime, you just had to bring me here!...' Out loud, I said, "Hold up? Where is everyone?"

Then I heard the comm link crackle to life. "-For the first time in my life, Optimus, I had hoped that you were wrong.-"

That was the Autobot medics' voice, Ratchet, I think it was?

I went over the the control panel to see the coordinates of which they were at, and drew in a sharp breath as I heard the faint voice of Megatron. "Optimus! Been well? I see you brought your...trusty watchdog. I was certain he'd be wasting away in a scrapyard right about now."

Ratchet let out a snarl of, "Why don't you invite him down here for a chat?", followed by a punching sound of servos. I inwardly snickered at his comeback.

"I know why you're here, Megatron." Optimus growled out.

"Hardly surprising, Optimus! After all, you and I have been at this a long time! And your time has come to a end!" The dark leader hollered out, and I froze at the sound of crumbling and cracking earth.

What he roared next had my own energon freezing in my veins. "Rise my army! Behold, the power of Dark Energon!"

Chapter Text

Echo's Pov

'No, no, no! Don't tell me what I think is happening is happening?!' I thought frantically to myself as I uploaded the coordinates of where Optimus and Ratchet were, now undoubtedly fighting a horde of zombies, into my processor.

As they loaded, I unhooked an item from the back of my neck, then enlarged it as soon as it was freed. It transformed into its deadly weapon, and I grimaced a bit at how it felt in my servos. 'I'd rather not use you, Soul Slasher, but I must!'

The coordinates locked on and I took a deep breath. "Here goes nothing!", I breathed out, then created a portal.

_ _ _

As Ratchet and Optimus battled the undead, they were slowly but surely losing strength. "We can't keep this up, Optimus!" Ratchet gasped out. "We must hold out, Old Friend!" Optimus called back as he struck another one down.

Both were increasingly shocked at the fact that Megatron had taken his leave after rising the undead, as they believed he would stay and watch their demise with his own optics, but that wasn't the case. His excuse had been, "Well, I'd love to stay and watch your imminent demise, Optimus, but I have an army of my own to run! Farewell and good riddance!"

As the zombies were just about to overrun them both, a strange portal appeared from beyond the horde and a figure jumped out! It instantly ran forward, reeling back a massive Scythe behind them and whipped it in front of them, creating a massive energy wave which sliced most of the zombies in pieces. With the distraction of their dead "comrades" now gone, the remaining turned toward the death-wielding figure, who turned out to be Echo!

"W-what?! H-how-?!" Ratchet gasped in shock and surprise, at the femme, while Optimus' optics widened in surprise as she let out a roar of, "Come On! Let's goooo, you fragging corpses!", and made to swing again, only for a stray zombie to appear out of nowhere and grab her from behind, trying to bite her.

In response to the back-end assault, Echo twisted and body-slammed it to the ground, then grabbed it by the throat and tore its helm off. She then gave a death-glare at the rest of the zombies, took a deep vent in, then opened her mouth and seemed to scream silently. It did not affect Optimus and Ratchet, but the zombies suddenly all seemed to seize in place and all fell apart into tiny pieces.

As the clattering of body parts quieted, Echo lifted a ped and stomped down on the body beneath her until it was in pieces as well. She then glanced up at both mechs with narrowed optics. "You. Stupid. Fools! What in the ever-loving hell ever gave you the idea to come out here and face off against Megatoilet of all bots?! Are you insane?!"

She stomped right up to them, hefting the Melee Scythe to the side and pressing on it, which it then shrank to a small size. "Be glad that I woke up when I did, otherwise you'd both be scrap metal by now!", she snapped at both stunned mechs as she reached behind her and placed the now tiny weapon somewhere on her back.

Ratchet snapped out his shock and then glared at her. "W-well, excuse us for not expecting Megatron to actually do something like THIS!", he exclaimed, gesturing to the carnage around them.

She then gave him a deadpanned look. "Really? You didn't think that Megatoilet was capable of summoning something disturbing and/or evil?"

Ratchet opened his mouth to retort, but Optimus then beat him to it. "I'm sorry, what did you just call Megatron?"

"What? Megatoilet? Yeah, I could call him something else, but I won't. It would be just as insulting, but it would be definitely more...disturbing...if I called him Megathot, now wouldn't it?" She shuddered as soon as she said the word "Megathot", and Optimus made a face that meant he agreed.

Before he could say anything else though, Ratchet burst out laughing, and would have nearly fallen over if if weren't for Echo grabbing him around the waist and slinging an arm over her shoulder as her eyes glowed a bit. A portal appeared out of thin air, and she jerked her head for the Prime to follow.

As the three of them left the portal, Optimus noticed that they were back at their base. 'She just teleported us to the base with little to no effort', he thought to himself as Echo tried to calm down the nearly hysterical-with-laughter medic.

"I know it's funny, but it's not THAT funny, Ratchet." She giggled a bit despite herself, and her giggles grew in volume as the medic cackled on, eventually growing into full-blown laughter as well. Optimus struggled to keep a straight face, as Echo's laughter was almost contagious.

As they walked through the base (Optimus had taken the lead as Ratchet and Echo were trying to walk behind him while laughing) and came across the main center, though, Optimus saw that the others were there, fussing over something...or someone. "What happened?", he ordered, seeing that Agent Fowler was unconscious.

"Let's just say that after the Decepticons kidnapped Fowler, the kids came after us when we tried to rescue him." Cliffjumper said, grinning guiltily. Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee cringed at their leaders' look of disappointment, but looked shocked at the sight of Ratchet and Echo coming in gasping for breath as their cackles died down.

"W-what? What are you all looking at?" Ratchet grumped as he straightened up at their stunned looks as Echo released him from her hold. Well, Arcee and Bulhead looked greatly disturbed, while Bumblebee and Cliffjumper turned away to hide their chuckles as Echo's laughter caught in their audio receptors.

"Oooohhhh man, I needed that! Laughter is good for the soul-Sweet Solas Prime!" All of them jerked as Echo let out a shriek of surprise as she caught sight of the humans in the base, and all of them stared as she dove around some machinery for some sort of cover.

"Uhhhhh.....Hi?" Raf squeaked out from his hiding spot behind Jack and Miko, as he had scurried behind both taller teens at the femme's high-pitched cry on instinct. Jack looked slightly alarmed at Echo's strange reaction, while Miko looked like she was gonna break down laughing at any second.

"Are-are you...scared...of us?", she finally laughed out loud, not being able to hold back her inward giggles.

"N-no! Not really! No! I was just....surprised! That's all!" Echo snapped back from behind a cluster of monitors. As she peeked her helm out though, her optics conveyed that she was worried and incredulous. An unknown look that Ratchet wasn't able to decipher passed through them so quickly that he thought he imagined it, and after he blinked, her faceplate seemed wary but friendly to the children enough.

"I just....didn't think there would be any...humans here...", she breathed as she stared at the three children, who had started to become a little unnerved at her one-eyed stare. Anyone would be kind of freaked out by her scarred-up appearance.

Arcee's voice broke the awkwardness. "Sooo, when did you wake up-" She pointed at Echo. "-and where did you both go, Optimus?" She then turned toward the Prime for answers, but it was Echo who inadvertently answered her.

"Wow, Prime. You didn't tell the rest of them you were gonna go have a battle party with Cybertronian zombies? Ones that were created specifically by the insane fool Megatron himself? And that if it weren't for my timely wake-up call so that I was able to go and save your sorry asses, that you'd both be scrap by now? For shame, Prime, for shame. And here I thought leaders told their comrades almost everything." The femme drawled sarcastically, an eyebrow raised, as she still hovered behind the machinery.

Arcee, Cliffjumper, Bumblebee and Bulkhead gaped at the brave femme while Ratchet just stared at her. 'Wow. She's...something else...'

"Hold up...Cybertronian zombies?!" Miko exclaimed.

Jack looked at the girl. "Of course you'd focus in on that detail, Miko..."

Raf shuddered. "Oh geez, I don't want to even think about it...I'm glad you all are alright though!" He exclaimed.

"Same here, kid. Nearly got myself bitten by one of them, but even if I was, I'm immune to that scrap!" Echo huffed, coming out from behind the barricade.

*Immune? Immune to what?* Bee buzzed.

Echo looked at the scout. "Why, Dark Energon of course!"

"Woah, woah, woah! You're telling us you're IMMUNE to Dark Energon?! No Cybertronian is immune to that stuff!" Bulkhead exclaimed.

Echo scoffed. "No Cybertronian but me. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm the ONLY ONE IN EXISTENCE to be immune to that poison." She glanced back over at Optimus, who had a shocked/surprised look on his faceplates. "Now are you glad that I went to where you guys were? Can I at least get a thank you?"

Optimus schooled his expression. "I must admit, we would most likely have been overwhelmed if it weren't for your...timely assistance...Echo. So...thank you for assisting us."

She smirked. "You're welcome. Now then! Why was I here in the first place?"

The Prime blinked at that. "You do not remember what caused you to go unconscious before I brought you here?"

The femme paused, blinking rapidly, then drew in a sharp vent. "Oh....yeah....that's what happens when I'm low on energon and experience a vision at the same time...Kinda forgot about that side-effect of my powers..."

"Powers? What powers? And what vision are you talking about-Wait a second! Are you saying you are psychic!? Can you read our minds?!" Miko babbled, grabbing onto her head in shock.

Echo grimaced and placed a servo to an audio receptor. "First of all: Ow, turn down your volume, why don't cha? Two: I have psychic powers and abilities. Three: No, I can't read your minds if I haven't been given permission to do so. Plus that would be wrong on sooo many levels! And Four: I had a vision of Megatron saying that he wanted to take over the planet with an undead army of Cybertronians, that's what i was gonna try to warn you about!"

Gasps were heard throughout the room, although Optimus just had a look of shock on his face.

_ _ _

After that revelation, all the Autobots converged to discuss what they should be doing. As they did so, the three kids just stood there, observing the organized chaos, until finally, Jack couldn't take it anymore.

"Ok, that's it! I'm out!" Jack exclaimed, backing away with a look of fear on his face.

Miko turned to him in disbelief. "Huh? What you talking about, dude?"

"This! All of this craziness! I'd like to stay out of danger, thank you very much Miko! I don't know why you're liking being so involved with this sort of stuff, Miko, but I'm not! I actually have a life to get back to!" He snapped at her.

"Excuse me? Are you implying I don't have a life, Darby?" She snapped back, getting right up into Jack's face with a glare.

Raf backed away from the two quarreling teens, a look of nervousness on his face, and hit an over sized foot with a quiet "Oof!". He looked up to see Echo looking down at him with a concerned look on her faceplates.

She mouthed, "You good?", to which he mouthed back, "Yeah, but i wish they would stop fighting with each other...". At that request, Echo moved around a bit so she wouldn't accidentally step on him, and reached down and grabbed both arguing teens in one hand each.

"Hey!"

"Woah! What are you doing?!"

"Separating the two of you because you are too loud and you're arguing about the littlest of things. Jack, if you want to leave, just say so. And Miko, respect his decision and shut your trap, you've gotten into enough trouble for one day! Send these three home, would ya, Ratchet?" She turned her attention to the ambulance, who then looked at Optimus for permission.

Before Optimus could say anything though, Arcee let out a growl of, "You let my charge go, right now Echo, or else I'll-"

"You'll what, Arcee? Claw me to death? I'm not doing anything to them, so shut up and leave me be! Same goes to you, Bulkhead!" She growled back at both partners' guardians as she set them both down on the ground next to Raf, who looked relieved.

"Awww, but we just did some "recon" for you!" Miko whined, pulling out her cell phone and showing some strange schematics that she had snapped on the Nemesis.

"Thanks, Miko. But you three should head on home. You had a long day!" Cliffjumper insisted, and after giving over the pictures, all three left through the ground bridge.

As soon as the portal had closed, Echo let out a long vent. "Thank god, I thought they would never leave!"

"You and me both." Ratchet agreed, turning to the data Miko had photographed, and then realized it was specs for a Space Bridge part. He said as such aloud, to which Bulkhead expressed that he thought it was great Megatron was leaving.

"Leaving? Leaving? HA!" Echo barked a laugh at that.

"What?" Bulkhead was slightly offended by her reaction.

"To an extent, Echo is right. Like she surmised, Megatron intends to bring an army to Earth with it, and there is only one place for him to find enough dead Cybertronians for his plan to work: Cybertron." Optimus explained.

"Oh...." Bulkhead grunted.

*Yikes!* Bumblebee buzzed out.

"Well, isn't that just convenient..." Arcee drawled.

"Creepy..." Cliffjumper sang out, to which Ratchet smacked him lightly for doing so.

"How do we stop him though?" Ratchet asked.

The answer came from Echo herself. "It's quite simple."

All of them looked at her.

She grinned, her sharp denta on display.

"We use me as a distraction while we destroy the aforementioned Space Bridge, and slaughter Megatron in the process!"

Chapter Text

"Destroy the space bridge?! How would we even manage such a feat, Echo? Do you realize that we don't have the technology to do so?" Ratchet exclaimed incredulously.

Echo rolled her eyes. "You don't need any technology to destroy a space bridge, Ratchet, when you have ME! I'll be able to blow that thing sky high with no problem. Besides, we may even get to blow up Megatron into smithereens in the process, now wouldn't that be just a shame for the Decepticons?" She drawled with a sneer on her faceplates.

Optimus then spoke up. "While your idea of destroying the space bridge is a good one, Echo, we do not want to offline every one of the Decepticons in the process. Autobots do not kill indiscriminatley."

Echo narrowed her optics. 'Oh really? If only you knew how wrong you were, Prime...' Out loud, she said, "Fine, maybe we can leave just a few of them then, and just eliminate Megatron? Without their precious leader, they will fall into chaos and confusion. That way, we won't have to worry about them."

"You're forgetting something, Echo. When I was captured a while ago by the Decepticons, Starscream was leading them." Cliffjumper reminded her.

Echo snorted with laughter. "Pfft! Starscream? That imbecile I immobilized? HA! Him, the leader? Ooooh boy, then we really don't have anything to worry about then! It didn't look like he had things under control then, and I highly doubt he would even if Megatron were to kick the bucket and have Starscream become the leader afterwards! He's a weirdo..."

"Don't underestimate Starscream, femme. If he managed to mobilize the Nemesis beforehand, he's smarter than he appears. You of all bots should know better." Arcee growled.

Echo straightened her frame up, her optics landing on the motorcycle in annoyance. "I never underestimate my opponents or my enemies, two-wheeler. I just state the facts, you have a problem with that?"

Arcee snarled at the four-wheeler, but turned away and asked for a ground bridge. After she (and Cliffjumper, who had hurried after her) had rolled on through, Echo huffed. "That's what I thought."

"Hey, Arcee's been an expert in combat for a long time, Echo, so you should respect what she says! Don't just brush her off like that, it's rude!" Bulkhead defended his friend.

Echo rolled her optics. "So have I, Bulkhead, but there is one thing I have that very few bots possess nowadays..."

"Oh? And what's that?" Bulkhead scoffed back.

Echo got up really close to the wrecker, who jerked back a bit at her proximity. "Common sense." She said with a smirk on her face, then backed off and walked over to where Ratchet was looking at the monitors, leaving Bulkhead sputtering and Bumblebee staring after her in surprise.

_ _ _

After a heartfelt and enlightening conversation with one another, Jack came back with Arcee, just in time for her to join in the Autobot's currently set mission: reaching Megatron's Earth Space Bridge.

Jack looked up at Arcee. "Be seeing ya?", he asked, to which she tilted her helm to the side before walking toward the group.

As Ratchet fired up the Ground Bridge, Raf and Miko said their own farewells to Bumblebee and Bulkhead respectfully. Cliffjumper and Echo were already in some sort of formation around Optimus, although Cliffjumper waved a goodbye to Jack, who waved back with a nervous smile.

As Arcee came to a stop between Cliffjumper and Bumblebee, she noticed that the teal-colored femme Echo, was standing beside Optimus at an angle of sorts so Arcee was able to see her fully. Echo had both arms crossed over her chest, one pede kept scratching behind the other, her doorwings were standing straight up, and her optics were darting around. It seemed she was nervous about this mission, but she still turned toward the ground bridge and transformed at Optimus' cry of "Autobots, Roll Out!".

Arcee was surprised to see that Echo's transformation was, well, an actual Echo, like her designation was, but with a few modifications. 'Ain't that ironic...'

As he passed by her, Cliffjumper noticed that Echo's helm horns disappeared when she transformed. 'Well, at least I'll be the only one with horns on my hood! Ha Ha!'

Bulkhead took notice that Echo's dark brown highlights turned a golden color as soon as she transformed, which he thought odd. 'Her wheels turn golden?! Holy Primus, that is epic!'

Bumblebee saw that Echo's frame seemed to jerk every now and then, like she was new to driving or something, and it was strange to him. 'Huh...guess she has been living in an abandoned mine for years on end...but surely she got out and drove around some!'

Optimus wasn't oblivious to the way Echo had seemed nervous about this mission, nor of the way she had so casually declared on how her first plan was to eliminate the Decepticons as a whole. It disturbed him greatly, if he was being honest with himself. 'How can any bot think of destroying innocent lives so quickly? Even the Decepticons need to have a second chance to join us if they wish...'

He had to stop thinking about their ally and focus on the mission at hand. "Maximum overdrive!" He ordered.

As they came out of the ground bridge, he then ordered, "Autobots, transform and gravitize!"

Each of them did so accordingly, Echo included, and she had a look of relief on her faceplates. She then steadied Bulkhead when he nearly fell down. "Don't look down. Or up. Or left." The wrecker muttered aloud, to which Echo snorted in amusement.

She turned with the others as they heard a humming noise from behind them. The Decepticon's warship approached.

_

Megatron stood at the helm of their ship and scoffed at his archnemesis' bravery and Starscream's idiocy. As Starscream pointed out that Soundwave was locking onto Cybertron's coordinates, Megatron noticed the extra warrior that stood in front of all of them. "Who is that, Starscream? I was not aware that Optimus had a new recruit."

Starscream peered at the screen showcasing the Autobots and looked confused. "I...have never seen that femme before...Lord Megatron..."

Megatron narrowed his optics and hummed. "Hmmm...."

_

Echo's engine let out a loud snarl, and her mouth then shifted into one as she then reached behind her. The others watched curiously, as they had never seen her like this before. Her servo then showed a tiny Melee Scythe, which enlarged with a click of a button, and she grabbed the handle with one servo and hauled it over one shoulder strut.

*Woah!* Bee buzzed in awe.

"Ok, that's cool!" Bulkhead gasped.

"That...will be quite useful." Arcee muttered to herself.

"Where in the world were you hiding that?!" Cliffjumper exclaimed.

All of them stared at him incredulously, and he let out a fake cough. "Never mind, let's focus here!"

"Yes, focus on our main problem, the Deceptibums! I'll start my assault, you all take your positions! This could go either really bad or really good, so make your actions count!" Echo barked out as her door wings then shifted shape to become dragon-like wings. A hissing noise escaped the femme as the horns on her head extended and curved wickedly outward and her servos became equipped with deadly-looking talons. She shuddered and shook her helm from side to side as her optics then changed to a brilliant golden color.

Ignoring her gaping audience, Echo gripped her weapon of choice with a growl of "Soul Slasher, you shall get to have fun today! Let's rip them to shreds!", and reared the Scythe back as she shot off like a bullet.

Her wings flexed back and forth as she flew toward the Nemesis, and as she let out a roar of challenge, she swung Soul Slasher and a beam of energy sliced off one of the Nemesis' wings.

As the warship tilted, Optimus noticed that the Decepticons' interstellar navigation dish was damaged. Since a target as far as Cybertron needs pinpoint accuracy, the Decepticons will be unable to use it to aim the Space Bridge without an alternate targeting system.

-

After Raf figures out that the Decepticons may be using the giant sized array radio telescope in Texas, but with Fowler still too out of it to alert the array staff, Raf attempts to hack in, but the array's firewalls are too good. Jack thinks that the three of them should go on site and see what they can do.

-

As this is happening, Megatron sends out the Decepticon forces to attack the Autobots, in retaliation for Echo damaging their warship, but Echo destroys them with ease.

_

Meanwhile, the three kids sneak into the array site. Raf does his best at hacking what he needs to do, and for a while it works, but unfortunately for them, Soundwave is in the very next room. Soundwave finds and battles the kids and ultimately wins, to their dismay.

_

With Starscream activating the space bridge and Megatron finally taking it upon himself to do something (throwing a ball of Dark Energon into the Space bridge), the Decepticons' plans seem to be coming to fruition.

However, as Optimus realizes that the only way to stop the Terrorcons is to destroy the Space Bridge, Raf supplies the specs he downloaded earlier, and Ratchet sets about working out a way to do so with Raf's help.

As Optimus faces Megatron, Bulkhead, Arcee and Bumblebee go to implement some sabotage while Echo deals with the Nemesis and his forces.

Megatron manages to defeat Prime, but as he raises his sword, Starscream alerts him to the actions of the other Autobots. Optimus takes advantage of the momentary distraction to block Megatron's killing blow, and blast him away, but the Decepticon leader transforms and flies off to find Prime's team. However, Megatron fails to notice a certain femme coming for him....

_ _ _

Echo's POV

'Damn the Decepticons! They have too many numbers! This sucks!' I snarled inwardly, as I destroyed convoy ship after convoy ship. Thankfully I managed to halt the Nemesis in it's tracks, as I had sliced off one of their main wings earlier, so they might be occupied for a bit...

In a lull of convoy ships, I turned back toward the Space Bridge and saw Megatron getting blasted away by Optimus, who had obviously been beaten down quite a lot. When the warlord shot off toward Arcee and the others, I snarled inwardly to myself in fury. 'Oh hell no! You're not killing anyone else that I care about, Megatron!'

Reeling back Soul Slasher, I shot off after the warlord, intent on stopping him from doing any of the Autobots harm.

I grew closer...and closer...and closer...until...

BAM!

I managed to stall myself with my wings in mid-air and curve Soul Slasher so it would catch Megatron around the waist before he could attack the others, and, with a guttural roar of protective rage, I sent Megatron reeling and straight back smack into a part of the Space Bridge.

Heaving my vents to get more air (even though we don't breathe air....) into me as I placed the now tiny Soul Slasher back behind me, I hear Arcee holler that the space bridge is about to blow, I become aware of the agonizing pain that came from transforming into my dragon form for too long.

Everything started fading...then I felt like I was falling....then darkness.

_ _ _

As all the Autobots gathered in front of their ticket home, Bumblebee let out a series of frantic beeps and motioned to a falling figure. It was Echo, but she was now in her regular form, not the dragon-like one! She was knocked out, and as it seemed like she wasn't coming online any time soon, Bumblebee managed to catch her with Optimus' assistance, and they all hurried through the ground bridge.

Seeing the potential damage the soon-to-explode Space Bridge would cause, Starscream decides to pull the ship back, imploring Megatron to do the same. Overcome with regret over the loss of his army of Terrorcons as they begin to come through, the Space Bridge explodes in Megatron's face. A short distance away in the ship, Starscream notes that Megatron's spark is now extinguished and all will hail him.

_ _ _

As the Autobots came back to their base, Ratchet let out a gasp of shock at Echo's unconscious form. "By the Allspark! What happened out there?!" He choked out as he hurried over to the fallen femme's form.

"A lot, Ratchet." Arcee huffed out.

"You don't even know the half of it." Bulkhead grunted as Miko shot over to him and hugged his servo.

*Crazy shit!* Bee beeped.

"Language, Bee!" Cliffjumper cackled out.

"I don't think you'd believe us even if we said it, Old Friend." Optimus sighed out.

By this time, Fowler had woken up. As he put on his coat and got into the elevator, he stated, "I don't think I ever thanked you Bots for the save. I owe you one. We all do."

After he left, Miko then went over to Optimus. "Sooo....Is this the part where you say goodbye and tell us we need to forget we ever saw you?"

Optimus stared at the young girl then looked up.

As he speaks an answer, his image fades into a blue sky. Multiple scenes follow.

"Without a way to leave this world, we Autobots take strength in the bonds we have forged with out three young friends. True warriors. If not in body, then in spirit. My name is Optimus Prime, and i send this message: Though we did not choose to be of Earth, it would seem that we are here to stay. If you approach this planet with hostile intent, know this! We will defend ourselves! We will defend Humanity! We will defend....Our Home!"

_ _ _

???? Pov

"Please....Help me...Echo..."

Chapter Text

After the battle over the Space Bridge, the Autobots set about getting to know their new human charges.

Cliffjumper and Jack rode around everywhere while not getting spotted, and Arcee took Jack to work whenever he had to.

Bulkhead and Miko loved to go "dune-bashing" and listen to crazy music as they both had similar interests.

Bumblebee and Raf found a spot where no one could see them and played video games against one another.

As for Optimus and Ratchet? They watched over Echo, who hadn't woken from a strange coma she had somehow placed herself in after the massive battle. It was unnerving...

_Three days into Echo's self-induced coma_

"That's it! I can't take it anymore!" Miko exclaimed while she and the two boys were over at the base.

"Can't take what anymore, Miko? Staying inside?" Jack snickered.

Raf giggled as Miko rolled her eyes at Jack's joke. "Noooo, Echo being so still and creepy! I'm gonna wake her up so I can ask her what she'd do to make her like this! I want answers!" She barked, as she climbed up the ladder to the teal-colored femme's berth where she was laying on her side.

"Errr, I don't think that that is a good idea, Miko!" Jack called up after her as he and Raf followed to the bottom of the ladder in a haste to try to stop her. "Yeah, Ratchet said that she'd wake up on her own, Miko!"

"Well, she hasn't woken up yet, has she?" Miko called back. The two boys winced, and watched nervously as the girl walked over by Echo's helm, then halted in her tracks. As she knelt down to inspect a strange-looking switch on Echo's back (below her neckline but just above where her spine would start) and placed her hands on it, Miko jerked a bit in surprise as the rest of the Bots came into the room.

"What the-Miko! What are you doing?!" Bulkhead cried out, as Miko leaned a bit too forward and pressed on the switch just so that it made a *CLICK* noise, then heard a *WHIRRING* sound start up.

"Uh-oh..." Miko squeaked as she hurriedly ran over to the side, but was forced to jump as Echo's helm gave a sudden jerk backward.

Light on his pedes, Cliffjumper (who had guessed what she was gonna do) caught her in mid-air and scooped Jack and Raf up in the same time frame, then shot back over to where he placed Jack next to Arcee, Miko next to Bulkhead, and Raf next to Bumblebee on the floor.

Ratchet ran over to Echo, who was thrashing around on the bed to the point that it looked like she was having a seizure, and was about to sedate her when her optics shot open and flared a bright pinkish-white light, which engulfed the room.

All of them covered their eyes as the light blared, then uncovered them when it faded. They were all shocked speechless as they saw that everything in the room had faded away and they were all just standing in whiteness.

Miko was the first one to break the silence. "What the hell just happened?"

"Miko, language!" Bulkhead snapped, his helm glancing down in shock.

"Miko, what did you do?!" Jack shouted, turning toward her and glaring. "Me?! What makes you think I did this?!" Miko shrieked back, her hands turning into fists. "Oh, I don't know, you are always doing something to get us into trouble, Miko! What am I supposed to think?!" He retorted, to which Miko let out a shriek of fury and lunged at him. Tackling the boy to the floor, they both rolled around, fighting and accusing each other of things.

Raf dodged around the two to avoid getting caught up in the struggling match, then grabbed onto Bumblebee's digit as the scout scooped him up to help him. "Thanks, Bee!" *No problem, Raf! Um...where are we and how did we get here though?* "No idea. But, I'm gonna guess that it has to do with Echo, though."

After Cliffjumper had bravely separated the two, Arcee grabbed Jack and Bulkhead grabbed Miko to stop them from killing one another as Optimus realized that time had just... stopped...for some reason. "How is that possible, Optimus?" Ratchet asked him.

Before the Prime could say anything, the whiteness around them started to shift and add color, distracting all of them to watch as the color morphed and twisted to finally create a figure in front of them, along with a background.

The figure was a child, who sitting on the ground, playing with an object. "A....femme sparkling?" Ratchet breathed.

"Does she look...familar...to you guys?" Cliffjumper inquired quietly.

Optimus' optics widened as he recognized the sparklings' colors. "Isn't that...Echo?" He rumbled.

Bumblebee and Bulkhead's optics widened, while Arcee took in a sharp vent in surprise. "She looks...upset.." The tiny sparkling, whom happened to be Echo, did look upset as she listlessly played with the object, which they now recognized as the Melee Scythe she possessed. She also did not have the scarring on her face. In fact, it looked like she didn't have any scars, at least none they could see. However, she did look like she was starving, as she was quite thin. 'Are her creators...starving her? What in the world is going on?' Ratchet thought to himself.

"Echo! Get inside now!" An unknown voice startled them, as a blurry figure was shown behind her, and after Echo put the Melee Scythe away in a flash, she stumbled towards the figure. "You know you're not allowed outside, you stupid femme! Get to your room and stay there!" The figure grabbed Echo roughly by the arm and heaved her inside the blurred structure.

Blank whiteness, then Sparkling Echo came into view once more, and this time, she was in a room. She was curled up into a ball on a tiny berth, shivering. "One day...one day I'll leave this horrible place...no one will help me escape...so I'll have to do it myself!..."

Blank whiteness, then in an abrupt splash of vibrant color, they all bore witness to an horrific scene that made all three kids scream in terror and their guardians cover them up to shield their vision: a blurry figure of a femme with multiple wounds laying on the floor with a blurry figure of a mech pointing a gun at Sparkling Echo, who cowered in fear. The Autobots noted she looked slightly older than what she was in the previous scenes. "Leave. Now. Never speak our names and never tell what happened here. If you do, I WILL find you and snuff out your spark. Understood, you miserable disgrace?" The blurry mech's voice sounded like static, almost as if it wasn't realistic. Sparkling Echo nodded numbly and ran out the flaming door for her life.

Blank whiteness remained afterward, then they all shut their eyes as it grew brighter. Before they knew it, the light had faded once more, and they all oriented themselves to find that they had returned to the Base.

Nothing seemed disturbed or out of place, and the only thing that was disturbed was Echo, who was groaning aloud and shifting slowly, as if she was waking up. All of them tried to make it seem like everything was normal as Echo blinked open her two-tone optics, and sat up with a hissing noise. She rolled her helm around a few times, flexed her limbs, and stood up to stretch. "Ughhhh! I feel like I've been sleeping for a long time! Geez, I'm sore! I need to move around! What's with all of you? Why are you looking at me like that?" She asked, an unnerving look on her faceplate.

"What are you talking about?"- Bulkhead

"I bet you are sore..."- Arcee

"Glad you're awake!"- Cliffjumper

*What look?*- Bumblebee

"....."- Optimus

"You've been out for four days, Echo!" Ratchet growled out, to which she looked shocked.

"Four days?! No way!....Well, that explains the stiff joints, I guess..." She muttered to herself, then said, "Welp, I'm off to go see how my place is doing! See ya! Let me know if you need anything! Feel free to come grab some Energon if you are running low, and don't wait until the last minute!" She disappeared into her portal before anyone could say or do anything to stop her.

Quiet reined inside the base as the rest of them tried to come to terms with what had just happened, but since they had no idea what had happened, they all just...separated and dispersed.

As Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee took the kids home (after making sure they were okay after everything, of course), Cliffjumper looked at Optimus and Ratchet. He remarked, "Well...that was really something else, huh?"

Ratchet grumbled himself. "It was something all right..."

He then turned to the Prime. "Optimus, what can we do about what we just...saw? Shouldn't we at least contact Echo and confront her about what happened?"

Optimus shook his head. "I don't think that Echo even knew what just happened, Ratchet. If she had, she would have confronted us about it, I'm sure. All we can do, old friend, is pretend nothing happened."

As Cliffjumper made to protest, Optimus put up a servo. "As much as I would like to know what we just witnessed, we cannot ask Echo about her past if she doesn't bring it up to us first." Cliff nodded reluctantly, then headed off to his room to recharge.

Ratchet stayed behind, but as Optimus walked off to do something and as soon as he was out of earshot, he spoke up. "I hope you are right about this decision of yours to not say anything, Optimus....Because if you are not...then we may lose Echo's trust...And I for one, do not want her as an enemy..."

Chapter Text

Several days after the strange fiasco with Echo, Bulkhead and Bumblebee are assigned a mission to Antarctica. They find a strange, massive structure and bring it back to the base.

As soon as they put it away, Ratchet forces Bulkhead and Bumblebee to defrost themselves, much to Bulkhead's annoyance. "I already told ya, we're fine Doc!", he growled out, yanking off the defrosting lines and getting up.

However, Ratchet forces him back down with a servo on his shoulder. "To make sure you're fine Bulkhead, you have to undergo standard defrosting procedure! You know that being in the cold for too long can cause significant system damage!"

Bulkhead grumbled to himself, as Optimus and Arcee came into the room. "Ratchet, is there anything you can determine about our Arctic find?" The prime asked.

Ratchet shook his head. "No, not yet. It has to thaw out, whatever it is...."

"Then, we shall go and see if we can find any other evidence to what it may be." Optimus concluded.

The rumbling of an engine sounded, and Cliffjumper came into the base. As soon as he stopped, Miko, Raf, and Jack got out and he transformed back.

Jack went over to his guardian. "What gives Arcee? Wasn't expecting a carpool today."

"Sorry, Jack. Got a mission." The femme grinned.

"Where are you going?! Can I come?" Miko exclaimed, to which Arcee shook her head. "Unless you want to be a frozen popsicle, no. Cliff and me are gonna go with Optimus to the Antarctic."

"Sweet!" Cliffjumper pumped his servos in excitement, to which the femme shook her helm fondly. Ratchet was giving a lecture to Optimus about something.

"Ah, gotcha! Well, I'm all for staying warm! See you guys soon!" Jack pointed over in the direction to the stairs and waved goodbye. Miko groaned but trudged after him. As the groundbridge opened, Rafael went over to Optimus. "Can you bring me back a snowball, please? I've never seen snow before!"

"I shall...do my best, Rafael. We shall return." He turned to Arcee and Cliffjumper to make sure they were ready, then nodded to Ratchet, and all three of them headed into the portal.

As soon as they had vanished and the groundbridge had disappeared, the console fritzed with electricity. Ratchet gasped, "By the Allspark!", and went about seeing what was going on. Not really seeing anything, he turned to Bulkhead and Bumblebee, who were over near the kids. "Bulkhead! Bumblebee! Over here, now!", the medic barked as he tried to get the machine up and running again, to no avail.

"You can't boss us around just because Optimus isn't here!" Bulkhead complained, as he and Bee went over to the medic.

"I need some heavy lifting, the groundbridge is down!" Ratchet snapped, to which Bumblebee responded with a few beeps. *What happened to Optimus, Arcee, and Cliff?*

"Those three made it through just fine, it's bringing them back that concerns me!" He pointed to the ground. "Now open those panels! Chop chop!"

_ _

As Raf explored the base on his own, he ran across something. "Huh. The Autobots never said anything about pets."

As the thing followed him around a corner, metal screeches rose from behind some strangely chewed metal.

_ _

After Jack had won a round of video game racing against Miko, the power failed....then was revived.

As the two teens went over to the three Autobots, who were examining some panels of the groundbridge, Ratchet muttered aloud, "We most definely have a problem", as he held up one that looked to have been chewed up.

Raf's voice then came from behind Jack and Miko. "Hey, guys! Look what I found!"

"We're busy-AHHHH!" Ratchet screamed out in fear at the sight of what was cradled in Raf's arms.

"Woah!" Bulkhead shot up and backed away, his blaster trained on the glasses-wearing kid.

*Aiiiiii!* Bumblebee screeched in fear and backed up.

"Woah, woah, woah! What's with you guys?!" Miko exclaimed as she and Jack got in front of Raf to protect him.

"SCRAPLET, SCRAPLET!" Bulkhead howled, his blaster arm shaking violently.

"What's a scraplet?" Raf asked.

*That thing you have!*- Bumblebee

"Get it away from us!" -Bulkhead

"The most vile creature to ever live on Cybertron!"- Ratchet

"Huh? But scrappy here is teeny!" Miko scoffed.

"Yeah. I mean, this little guy can't do that much damage to you guys, you're huge!" Jack agreed.

Bulkhead shook his helm. "Y-you don't have any idea what that teeny thing can do!"

Before any of them could do anything, the scraplet woke up and charged at the three bots. However, a golden portal appeared before them, and Echo stepped right in the middle of the scraplet's path. "Hey guys, what's going ooonnnnn- Holy shit!", she yelped out as the scraplet jumped onto her leg and started munching away.

Echo let out a screech of pain and high-kicked, sending the scraplet straight into the air and smack-dab into the ceiling, where it died in mid-fall and smashed onto the floor, leaving parts scattered everywhere.

For a moment, all you could hear was harsh venting and breathing from the scare, then Miko breathed out, "Woahhhh...now that was a kick...You just destroyed that thing, Echo!"

Ignoring the girl's praise, the teal femme let out an annoyed snarl in the back of her throat cabling. "Ok, whose idea was it to bring scraplets into the base?!"

"No one's idea, Echo."- Ratchet

*You alright?*- Bumblebee

"Oh, thank the Allspark you're here!" Bulkhead exclaimed, to which everyone just looked at him with deadpan faces. 'Really?'

"Errr...I meant to say....what are you doing here? Heh heh..." Bulkhead amended, to which Echo rolled her mismatched optics. "Can't I just drop by? Anyway, it's a good thing I did!"

"Well, bug squashed, everything is good, right?" Jack asked.

"Not even close. Follow me." Ratchet growled out.

_ _

"Oh a scraplet trap. Wonderful!" Echo huffed, crossing her arms.

"An...empty...scraplet trap..." Bulkhead gulped.

"How many were in there?" Miko asked.

"Thousands. Who knows where they all could be now?" Ratchet growled out, retracting his flashlight and turning it back to his servo.

*This is not good....*

"I agree with you, Bee. This is not good at all..."

"What are we gonna do? If there are as many as you said, Ratchet, what are we gonna do about them? How can we get them out of here? And where can we even put them?" Jack fired out, worried.

"Here's a better question: Where did you even find this?" Echo asked slowly, looking thoughtful.

"The Arctic." Bulkhead said.

Echo flung up both servos. "OF COURSE! No wonder the damn trap thawed out and made them all escape!"

Ratchet waved both servos around blindly as he went over to the control panel. After trying to contact Optimus to no avail, he punched it and turned around to face them. "Never mind that. We must get the groundbridge operational! If we cannot, Optimus, Arcee, and Cliffjumper will perish!"

"T-they will?" Jack breathed in a quiet voice.

Miko balled her hands into fists and confronted her guardian. "Bulkhead, you never run!" After Bulkhead tried to explain why he was so scared of the scraplets, Raf then interjected. "Why not send them back to the Arctic? We already know that they don't do cold."

"Great idea, champ! However, we'd need to gather them in one place first..." Echo muttered.

"We need to get the groundbridge repaired to send them back beforehand!" Ratchet exclaimed.

Jack came up with a plan. "Ok then...Ratchet, I'll stay here to guard you while you repair the groundbridge."

Miko then pointed behind her to Bulkhead, Bumblebee and Raf. "You can do that while we go on a bug hunt!"

Bulkhead and Bumblebee shuddered as Raf turned to Echo. "What about you Echo?"

"I'll stay here with Ratchet and Jack. Repairing the bridge has to be done first, so I'll make sure that nothing bothers Ratchet while he does so. You all be careful though, ok? Scraplets are really annoying and they bundle together in large numbers..." She trailed off, then spotted something. "Oh, here! Bring the fire extinguishers with you!"

Miko and Raf both grabbed one each, then headed off with their respective guardians. Jack grabbed the third one with a determined and focused look on his face, as Ratchet got to work and Echo scanned around for any scraplets. 'Prime, Arcee, Cliffjumper, you better not die on us! Hang on just a little while longer!'

_ _ _

Back in the Arctic, Optimus, Arcee and Cliffjumper are climbing around when their patches go off in warning. Optimus commed the others to stop and head on down to seek shelter after trying to reach the base to no response for some odd reason.

_ _ _

"Ratchet to Optimus, we have a situation!" Ratchet tried to get through, but the screens fritzed and failed. "Scraplets have gotten into the comm. link system!" He pounded a fist onto the console and turned around to address Echo, who was still on lookout. "If we don't eradicate these creatures immediately, they will reduce the entire base to a scrapheap!"

The femme's optics narrowed and she let out a rumble of annoyance. "I really hate scraplets...stupid things..." As the femme shifted in place, Ratchet went over to the floor panels once again and knelt down. Echo glanced back at the medic, turned back around, then whipped her helm around to stare at him. Optics widened, she turned her helm back, and gulped a bit. 'Hot damn...He's got a nice aft....And he's handsome...Stop it, Echo! Focus!'

_ _ _

As the three Arctic explorers fought their way through blinding snow and wind, Arcee crumped and collapsed to the ground. Cliffjumper looked back and exclaimed, "Arcee!", and ran over to her side. Accepting the horned mech's assistance, Arcee grasped her partner and looked up at Optimus, who had joined them. "I wouldn't suppose a drive could help? I hear Hawaii is lovely this time of year", the blue femme joked.

"As much as it pains me to admit, driving in these conditions will not be good. And civililization is miles away, unfortunately. I apologize." Optimus rumbled.

"Don't apologize, Optimus! We're tough! Besides, Ratchet and the others will get us back home where it's warm! Don't worry, Cee. We won't die here, you hear me partner?" Cliffjumper murmured into Arcee's audio receptor as they followed the Prime.

Arcee gave a hum in response.

_ _ _

Back at the base, each of the "bug-hunt" teams were having their own problems: Bulkhead and Miko had scraplets being dumped on them (quite literally from the ceiling) and Bumblebee and Raf got the scare of a lifetime when scraplets came up from the flooring.

As for Echo's team, Jack called over to Ratchet, "How's it going over there, Ratchet?"

To which the medic called back, "I've re-routed the power to the main sources and done all I can, but the groundbridge still won't recieve POWER!" He punched the floor underneath him, to which Echo looked back to him in worry and concern.

In that short time she did, Jack looked up when he heard a clinking sound from up above, and as soon as he looked up he saw scraplets clinging to the walls, only to cry out in horror "They fly? You never said they could fly?!", as they did just that.

Echo whirled around, only to get scraplets attached to her faceplates. They started munching, and she started shrieking in pain as she reached up and clawed at them. Staggering backward, Echo killed each scraplet that got on her, but more just seemed to flock to her. They attacked her everywhere on her body and, as she flailed, she tripped on her own two pedes and would have crushed Jack if he hadn't run out of the way of her falling chassis in time.

A massive CRASH echoed through the main area, and Jack stared in horror at the amount of scraplets on the femme, who looked both terrified and infuriated at the same time. Before Jack could move or anything, Ratchet let out a roar of fury. "HEY! GET THE HELL OFF OF HER!"

Somehow, someway, the scraplets had ignored the medic's prescence and had only charged for the teal-colored femme. That was their fatal mistake, as the enraged medic had grabbed another fire extinguisher (this one Bot-sized), and froze them all up.

As the now deactivated little terrors tumbled off of her, Echo stuggled to rise from the ground. However, she had been horribly chewed up, if the energon running down her frame from everywhere to underneath her was any indication.

As Ratchet knelt down to her level to assess the damage, Bumblebee and Bulkhead limped back into the main area.

"Ratchet, get the patch kit. We're leaking energon like-WOAH!" Bulkhead yelped as he saw Echo's bleeding form and the tiny corpses littering the ground around her.

*What happened?!* Bee cried out, Raf and Miko echoing his question.

Jack ran over to his friends and the two injured mechs. "The scraplets attacked Echo, but not Ratchet! Don't know why though!"

"Is she gonna be ok?!" Miko cried out, worry on her face, as Raf cowered behind her clutching her shirt for comfort and not looking at the terrible sight.

When both mechs got to Ratchet's side, they saw the damage for themselves. Echo laid on her side, venting harshly and gritting her denta as Ratchet started welding her major wounds shut. Even though the energon flow was lessening by the minute and the rest of her wounds had started healing from her self-repair, she had stil lost a lot of energon. "I've said it before...and I'll say it again...I. Hate. Scraplets!" She snarled out as Ratchet finished up. "Yes, yes...I heard you the first time, Echo! Now then, you've lost a lot of energon. You need to rest."

Echo huffed a few times. "Rest? At a time like this? Ratchet. I've had worse, believe me. I'm still gonna be helping you, no matter what!"

"Ohhh, no you don't! Whose the medic here? I am! You do what I say, missy!" Ratchet growled back.

As Echo glared back at him and opened her intake to say something, Bulkhead broke in to say, "Um...Hello?! Me and Bee need some help, here!"

Ratchet turned to them and let out a bark of, "Get over there then!", and motioned over to where the floor wasn't stained with Echo's energon. As the two left, Ratchet turned back to Echo, and without any warning whatsoever, picked her up bridal style! As he carried her over to an unused berth and set her down, the rest of the occupants in the room gawked at the medic. For her part, Echo was just as stunned as the rest of them, and stayed quiet after he walked away to treat the two mechs. 'He is really strong....wow...'

_ _ _

Meanwhile, Optimus, Arcee and Cliffjumper struggle to survive in the freezing environment.

_ _ _

After treating Bulkhead and Bumblebee (Bumblebee being the worst off between the two), Ratchet tried to think of a plan. He figured out that the scraplets must have made a puncture in the energon fuel line, so Miko, Raf, and Jack head off to fix it after getting instructions.

As the three kids are off on their mission, the three mechs settle themselves by Echo's berth. She's the one to break the ice. "So, what's the plan to get the scraplets back to the Arctic to freeze to death?" She grunted, her right optic closed and her left eye open, the ruby red boring into the three of them with lazy amusement at them looking at one another.

Eventually, Ratchet sighed in resignation. "We cannot allow Optimus and the others to come in first, or they will refuse to leave. We will need to use bait."

"BAIT?! What bait! Everything's already been chewed up in here, Ratchet! Where are we gonna find-oh-oh no!" Bulkhead blanched as they all glanced at him, then shook his head. "No! No way am I gonna be bait!"

Ratchet snorted. "Well, Echo and Bumblebee can't be bait, they are too injured to! You aren't that bad off Bulkhead!"

Bulkhead glared. "Oh yeah? Then what about you, Doc Bot? You're not injured, are you? Take one for the team, Ratchet!"

Ratchet glared back. "Excuse me? I'm the only medic on this team, Bulkhead! If I offline, who's gonna fix you all up then, hmmm? Or did you acquire medical skills when I wasn't looking?"

Bulkhead sputtered, but before he could make any other arguements, scraplets swarmed out of the ceiling, and they all cowered away, shaking. However, when the kids came back, and Miko screeched out, "Fire it up!", Ratchet darted toward the groundbridge lever with surprising speed and pulled it.

"Groundbridge, activate!" He huffed, then had to duck down as the scraplets lunged toward his position.

Bulkhead made a split-decision and hollered to get the scraplets' attention. "HEY! YOU WANT SOME? COME AND GET IT!" As he ran through the portal, Ratchet rushed over to where Bumblebee and Echo were, and covered them with his own body to protect them.

As the scraplets finally left the base, Ratchet glanced down and came face-to-face with Echo. With Bumblebee on the ground, Ratchet had had to brace himself on the berth she was on, but he didn't think he'd be this close to her. She looked up at him in surprise, her mismatched optics meeting his blue ones. They both took in each other's faceplates, then felt themselves heating up from embarrassment.

Before either of them could explode with mortification, the sound of the others coming back drew their attention. As Ratchet drew away from Echo, he felt her EM field brush his for just a brief moment. It felt....warm and inviting. Before he could dwell any further on it, he had work to do.

Chapter Text

While defrosting Arcee, Cliffjumper, and Optimus, Ratchet told them about their encounter with the scraplets. In the meantime, Bulkhead and Bumblebee's self-repair had healed them enough to take the kids home. As for Echo, she was still on the mend from the tiny terrors' attack, so she was still berth side on Ratchet's orders.

After the three Autobots who went to the icy landscape healed enough to head off for recharge (Optimus thanking Echo for her help once again beforehand, Arcee begrudgingly thanking her for protecting Jack, and Cliffjumper making her laugh at a joke or two), Echo's optics fell on the medic, who was still up and running.

'He's got to be exhausted, why doesn't he go recharge?', she thought to herself, then let out a yawn, her jaw cables creaking a bit.

The slight noise had Ratchet turning around just in time to see her shutting her intake and blinking rapidly to stay awake, and he let out a huff. "Why don't you go ahead and recharge? You'll heal up faster that way."

Echo huffed back. "Why don't you take your own advice? You look dead on your feet." Ratchet's EM field rippled confusion. "I'm sorry, what?" She rolled her optics. "It's a human expression...Never mind. Back to my point. You look exhausted and are obviously in need of recharge, so why don't you?"

He crossed his arms. "I know my own limits, thank you very-", he was cut off suddenly as he yawned, and jerked in surprise. Echo giggled tiredly in response. "Looks like yawns are contagious with us Cybertronians, just like humans. Strange how we are so similar, yet so different..."

Ratchet looked at her for a long moment, seeing at how her optics had slightly fogged over when she mentioned the species, and her EM field held a bit of sadness, longing, and fondness within it. However, as soon as the emotions had filtered out, they were suddenly replaced with nothingness, like she had realized something and was covering something up. Ratchet decided to bite the bullet and ask a question that had been nagging at his processor ever since the day that Optimus had first brought her to their base.

He remembered a conversation he and Optimus had had after the whole fiasco:
_________________________________________________________________________________
Flashback:
O: "Old friend, do you have a moment?"

R: "Of course, Optimus? What is it?"

O: "I'd like to confide in you about something that concerns Echo. When I had asked her what she thought about the human race, she answered with this: "I stay out of sight and away from them at all costs. Why do you ask?" Even though she told me this, when she first met the children, she acted frightened of them. What do you think?"

R: "It sounds to me like she's probably encountered humans before, but not directly at least. However, without any other information, I couldn't tell you much more. Why do you ask?"

O: "I just have a feeling that she's holding information back, information that she doesn't want us to find out. If there ever comes a time where she says anything about humans, can you see if you can get her to open up about it?"

R: "Me? Optimus, I'm a medic, not a psychologist! How would I even start a conversation like that?"

O: "Have her start then, and you follow up with inquiries of your own. That way, she won't suspect anything. Will you do this, Ratchet?"

R: ".....I'll do my best, Optimus, but I make no promises."

End Flashback:

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ratchet cleared his throat cabling and took a deep vent. "I agree with you that both our species are strangely similar, but how would you know so much about humans? You've never seen or interacted with anyone except the children, right Echo?"

Echo's doorwings seemed to jerk a bit, her body became rigid, and her optics went wide. They were all signs of someone who had been caught in a lie, and she obviously knew it, but her faceplates closed off and her body language instantly went back to the way she was before. "No, I haven't. I get all my information on humans from the internet. Now then, I believe it's time for me to take my leave before I pass out and spend more time here. Thank you for healing me, Ratchet, but I'll be going now."

"Please, wait Echo! I was just curious, that's all! And you're not fully healed yet!" Ratchet exclaimed, his rushed plea coming out more snappish than he wanted it to, but it didn't make a difference. Echo was already gone.

Ratchet slumped and sighed heavily, but as he turned to leave to get some recharge like she had suggested, he spotted something on Echo's berth. When he reached it, he took in a sharp vent of surprise. A piece of jewelry laid there, it looked like something a bot would wrap around their doorwings to keep them from flinging themselves everywhere (just think of thin ponytail scrunchies).

He had never noticed it before, so it surprised him even more when he saw that it had engraved writing on it: Echo&Kaye, Forever Linked By Fate.

He had only one thought: Who is Kaye?

Chapter Text

As soon as he'd taken off, Wheeljack vented in relief. 'Thank primus that's over with! If Bulkhead had tried to make me stay any longer-huh?' A beeping noise alerted him away from his thoughts. Wheeljack raised a brow ridge. "Some sort of unknown energon signal? That's odd....Well, may as well check it out!"

He turned the Jackhammer toward the strange signal and shot off.

Unbeknownst to him, he wasn't the only one to get a hold of it...

_ _ _

Echo let out an annoyed growl as she finished off several Decepticon Vehicons who were guarding an energon mine. "You just keep multiplying like rabbits! Geez, it's unnerving...huh?" Her attention was drawn toward a strange ship coming toward her location, and she narrowed her optics. 'Don't recognize it, may as well shoot it down! Probably Cons!'

Echo fired off an energy blast and it struck the ship's engines, blowing them up in flames. As it spiraled out of control and its trajectory went askew, Echo huffed a vent and went into the mine. "Too bad, so sad! I'm claiming this mine as mine! HA! Made a pun! Oh, Kaye would be so proud if she were here..."

_ _ _

Wheeljack let out an infuriated snarl as he took in the blast damage to the Jackhammer's engines. "Frag it all! Who the frag shot me down?! If they are still here, I'll kill'em!"

He turned and transformed, roaring toward the energon signal. However, he had to stop before the energon mine because of the downed Vehicons, who were in a heaping pile next to the entrance. "Woah...." Wheeljack breathed, then whistled at the damaged Cons.

'Whoever did that do them must have been the one to shoot me down. May still be here, so I'll have to keep my guard up.' He thought as he went right past them and into the mine. As he ventured deeper, he heard strange noises that sounded like...humming?

'That's...weird..' When he got just close enough to think that he was pretty close to discovering who the person was who was making that noise, he cautiously peeked around the wall and saw who it was: an unknown femme Cybertronian, one whom he had never seen before!

Her teal plating glinted in the light that did filter from cracks within the earth and when she adjusted her stance, he saw that she was actually stacking and organizing the energon. She seemed to be so focused on her tasks that she hadn't even noticed his presence, and the mech took advantage of it. He activated his blaster mask, unsheathed his swords from his back, and charged out from his hiding spot with a battle cry.

However, noise echoes in such an environment, and he really had underestimated the femme, who then jerked around and actually grabbed his swords with her bare servos!

"I may have been focused on my organization, but my audio receptors still function, you idiot!" The unknown femme snarled at him, and Wheeljack recoiled at the sight of her scarred faceplate. 'Holy frag, oh frag, oh frag!' Wheeljack rambled internally as the femme shoved him away from her, her arms flexing visibly and showing more muscle that he thought she possessed.

Wheeljack found his footing and straightened up, looking at the femme, who was glaring at him in annoyance as she held her bleeding servos. "Great, just great! Wonderful idea, Echo, grabbing swords with your bare servos....Stupid idea, ouch that hurts!", she grumbled loudly to herself as she healed her servos before his optics.

Wheeljack gaped, forgetting his will to fight her at the insane sight. "How the frag are you doing that? You got advanced self-repair abilities or something?!"

The femme deadpanned. "Well, geez, I don't know...DUHHHH! Are your optics functioning properly? Wait! Don't answer that, of course they are, you just tried to offline my ass...Anyway, you want some of this energon or what? I can't take it all, so...." She gestured to the stacks.

The white, red, and green mech shuttered his optics multiple times in bafflement, then shrugged and put his swords back in their sheaths. "Sure, if you're offering...Sorry about that... What's your name by the way, Scarface?"

The femme barked out a laugh. "Scarface, really? That's your nickname for me? Oh well, better than some I've heard...To answer your question, my name is Echo. What about you, Sword-Wielder?"

Wheeljack grinned wide. "Oh-ho-ho! I like that nickname! The name's Wheeljack, and I gotta ask: why the frag did you shoot down my ship?!" He shouted suddenly, to which Echo jumped at the sudden shift in mood.

"Hold up...That was yours?! Oh crap, sorry about that! I didn't recognize it, and thought it might a Decepticon ship, so I shot it down! Didn't think it would be an Autobot one! Want me to help you repair the beauty?" She explained sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck in embarrassment.

Wheeljack groaned, then vented. "Well, I guess I can't fault ya for doing that..." He then grinned as he went over a hauled up some energon cubes to take back to the ship. "You think the Jackhammer's a beauty, huh?"

Echo blinked once, then chuckled lightly as she helped him gather more. "The Jackhammer, huh? Cool name."

"Thanks, built her myself!" Wheeljack called back to her, as she followed him outside, only for both of them to come face-to-face with more Vehicon soldiers.

As they all pointed their weapons at both of them, Wheeljack and Echo exchanged glances at each other, then grinned wickedly.

Both simultaneously dropped their cubes, then charged at the troops with battle cries.

_ _ _

After the short battle (which ended with the newly arrived Vehicons joining their brethren in the fallen pile right next to the mine), both the mech and femme loaded up the Jackhammer with as many energon cubes as it could carry safely, and Wheeljack shook servos with Echo. "Now that was awesome! Had some great moves there, Echo! Wanna come with?"

Echo gripped Wheeljack's servo back and smiled. "Back at ya, and gotta decline, but thanks for the offer! Hey, wanna get my comm.link? I'll send you the coordinates of my personal home base, so if you ever need a top-up or just some down-time, you can stop on by whenever!"

"Sure thing!" After exchanging comm.links, Wheeljack took his leave, but not before calling out to Echo, who had started walking back toward the mine, "Hey, Scarface! See you around!"

Echo turned back, only to cover her faceplates as dust kicked up from the Jackahmmer's lift-off, and just before he was out of sight, Echo murmured under her breath, "Yeah, see you around, Sword-Wielder..."

Chapter Text

As the days passed, a lot of things eventful happened. While on a mission, Arcee and Jack encountered Arcee's Nemesis, Arachnid, and barely escaped. Also, Jack's mom June found out about the Autobots after getting too suspicious and, after confronting Jack about it, started coming to the base as often as she could.

A couple of days passed, then after getting a call from Agent Fowler about transporting a volatile nuclear device called the Dynamic Nuclear Generation System (aka the Dingus) safely, the Autobots decide to assist by road travel. As Prime starts hauling the trailer in which "the Dingus" is in with Fowler in tow, Bulkhead and Bumblebee follow them.

As they travel however, they are all unaware that they are being followed by a helicopter. Eventually, they all spot the helicopter, but are surrounded by sports cars. When a masked man tries to kill Fowler, each of the Autobots do their best to use non-lethal force to get them off their trail.

As they do so, a commotion is going on within the helicopter.

_ _ _

? ? ? POV

I hurt all over from trying to stay alive, and the helicopter isn't helping my injuries. Being flung all over my damned cage gets old fast, and I'm slowly starting to lose my patience with these absolute monstrous fools.

'That's it! I've had it!' I roar within my mind, and somehow I get an adrenaline boost right at the time the helicopter sways so that my cage starts tumbling toward the exit hatch, so I fling myself at the door to the cage.

The momentum allows my cage to start rolling fast toward the exit, and I brace myself as it crashes out of the exit hatch, in which my captors let out roars of fury and disbelief.

As my cage free-falls, I smack into the sides of the cage, knocking what breath I had in my scarred body from me.

As I try my best to get it back, I shriek in agony as a rain of bullets slice right through me like paper, although my screams are muffled by the chain-gag in my mouth. As blood erupts from the bullet holes in my body, my sight goes hazy and the last thing I see is the top of a train car rushing up to meet me and my confined space.

_ _ _

When Silas introduced himself, he didn't expect what happened next: the test subject escaped their grasp! The M.E.C.H leader didn't think she would be awake to have such energy to do so!

"Kill her now! Shoot her down!", he roared at his minions, but they were all trying to make sure that the helicopter stayed airborne, so he let out a snarl and grabbed his gun himself.

As he braced himself against the exit hatch and aimed toward the falling objects, Silas thought to himself, 'You may not die from the bullets, you damned bitch, but the impact surely will do the job! You can't be allowed to survive any longer, not when you know too much! Farewell, you immortal whore!'

Silas shot on point, hitting his intended target, and felt satisfaction seeing the massive trail of blood and gore through the air. 'Good. Now that that's been dealt with...'

As he turned back to see the living technology fight themselves, he orders his men to follow Agent Fowler, as he is the one in possession of the "Dingus".

_ _ _

After Optimus is knocked out and down for the count, Jack and Miko are teleported onto the train with the "Dingus" on board. "We're in." Jack breathed into his cell phone.

"I read you Jack! The cell phone com link patch works!" Raf exclaimed from the other end.

As both Jack and Miko look up to hearing the whir of helicopter blades, they both hear a sound behind them, to which they turn around to see the door ajar. An agonized groan sounded behind it, then a smashing noise.

"W-what was that?" Jack asked shakily, cowering behind Miko, who glared at him. "Dude, I'm not your shield!"

Both then heard something akin to a punching noise, another punch, then retching noises from behind the door. As both kids cringed in disgust, the retching sound faded into wheezes, then it sounded like someone was getting to their feet and staggering towards them.

As they looked around frantically for something they could use to defend themselves, the ajar door was wrenched open, and Jack and Miko both screamed in horror and terror as the sight that assaulted their eyes was horrendous: a young woman covered in bullet wounds, bruises and cuts staggered forward, then halted in her tracks and stared at them with a single right eye, massive wings flaring out behind her in shock.

"Jack?! Miko?! What's going on over there?! What's wrong?!" Ratchet and Raf's voices sounded from the cell phone, and both jolted when they heard the helicopter getting closer. Ignoring the girl entirely for the moment, they opened up the train car's door and saw it. "Raf! M.E.C.H's landing on top the train!" Jack said seriously.

"In about a couple seconds, you're gonna come to a fork. Brace yourselves!" Raf exclaimed.

As soon as M.E.C.H's helicopter had landed, the tracks shifted onto the other pair, dislodging it. Soon after, Raf's computer was hacked and fried. Ratchet rolled his optics. "And what have I been saying about Earth's technology?"

Back with Jack and Miko, both were reminded of the wounded female, who then made a growling noise from behind her gag, which they noticed. "Oh god, oh god! Don't kill us please!" Jack pleaded, to which the girl looked at him like he was saying something stupid, then jerked around a bit. As he recoiled, clanging noises sounded from behind her and chains fell to the ground, freeing up scarred and bloody hands and wrists.

"How are you still alive?!" Miko shrieked, as the girl grabbed hold of the chain-gag clasp on the back of her head and ripped it off, allowing her mouth to fall open and have the bloody torture device fall to her feet to reveal her blood-stained mouth. As the girl worked her jaw and bent down to rip off the chains on her feet and ankles, M.E.C.H landed on the train again and started to saw through the roof.

The girl looked up and her mouth curled into a furious snarl, blood dripping down her chin. "Stand back you two....leave this to me...", she snarled out.

_ _ _

Coming back to consciousness, Optimus let out a groan and shook his helm. As he glanced up, wondering what he had missed, he saw the train rounding a bend in the wide canyon. His optics widened.

_ _ _

"W-what? L-leave what to you?" Jack stammered, as Miko grabbed an ax from behind them just in case, and Jack grabbed a fire extinguisher.

As soon as the sawed-off roof square dropped to the floor, the girl let out a gurgling roar and launched herself toward the M.E.C.H agents.

All four disappeared from sight, and the only thing that Jack and Miko heard were howls of agony, snarls and roars of pure fury, and shattering of broken bones. Both kids quivered and shuddered, as suddenly as the chaos had began, it just stopped.

All that they heard next was the helicopter taking off and hissing noises that turned out to be the girl, who then toppled back into the train and fell to the ground, not moving and covered in blood.

_ _ _

As Optimus raced toward the train, Ratchet's voice sounded in his comm link. "Optimus! Jack and Miko are on that train and M.E.C.H has blown the tracks!"

"I'm on my way! Maximum Overdrive!" The Prime roared.

_ _ _

With the tracks blown, both Jack and Miko were frantic and terrified, as their savior wasn't moving and was unresponsive to their calls. "Get up, please! You're our only hope of surviving this!" Miko cried out. Jack stared at her. "What are you talking about, Miko?! She doesn't have the power or strength to stop the train!"

"She's got wings, Jack! She could fly us out of here!" Miko exclaimed, then froze as blood coated her fingers. Jack froze too, then gazed down at his hands, which were the same way. Jack scrambled backward in horror, Miko copying his example, as the girl started to convulse and glow with light.

Both of them grabbed onto one another and stared as the girl's wounds started to slowly heal, until there was no sign of injury. Only bruises and bloodstains remained on her skin.

Before either of them could comment, they heard the roaring engine of Optimus, who had reached the train. As both braced themselves for the jolt of their lives, they didn't notice the girl stirring and slowly evaporating the bloodstains on them, then falling unconscious.

After stopping the train and worldwide disaster, Optimus went to the train car where Jack and Miko were in. As he knelt down and glanced inside, he got the shock of his life when he saw both of them clutching one another and staring at an unknown female, who was covered in blood.

"Jack? Miko? Are you...alright? Who is that?" He rumbled gently, trying to keep the horror out of his voice. Both kids glanced back at him and shrugged and shook their heads, obviously in shock. "W-we d-don't know w-who s-she i-is, O-Optimus....S-she s-saved u-us t-though..." Jack stuttered, shaking along with Miko, who was quiet for once and glancing down at her hands multiple times.

Optimus held out a servo. "Let's go home. Ratchet will take a look at you. All three of you." He soothed, both kids shakily climbing and clinging to it like a lifeline, as he reached inside the train car and gently removed the young girl's still body.

As the Prime straightened up, Bulkhead, Bumblebee and Arcee hurried toward them, Fowler in tow. "Prime! Are you all alright?!"

"I am alright, Agent Fowler. However, we must get back to the base to get these three checked out." As Optimus revealed his precious cargo, Bulkhead and Arcee gasped and took their charges from his servo, both clinging on with their eyes shut tight.

Fowler covered his mouth at the sight of the bloodstained girl in horror. "Oh good god almighty...Is she-dead?"

Optimus shook his head. "No. However, she did save both Jack and Miko, they said as such."

Fowler averted his gaze and nodded. "Alright then...get back to base, all of you! Me and the boys will take care of this! You've done your part, and thanks a lot."

Optimus called for a ground bridge, and as they all stepped through, a surprise was waiting for them: Echo was there, talking to Ratchet and Raf. However, when her optics found the figure laying on the Prime's servo, she staggered backward, her EM field going haywire with shock.

Before any of them could speak, Echo did. And she spoke a name: "Kaye?"

Chapter Text

All Echo felt was horror, denial, and fear as she locked her optics on the figure within the Prime's servos. 'What?-How?-Why?-' Her processor whirled around viciously for a couple of moments before she snapped back to reality and shot forward.

Shouts of shock and surprise sounded from the others, but Echo ignored them as she stole the girl from Optimus' servos and clutched her in her own.

"Kaye? Kaye! Wake up! Don't you dare die on me! I thought you-you were dead- how the f-frag are you s-still alive and....Just wake up!" She roared, ignoring the way her EM field lashed around her, engulfing the others and not allowing them to advance toward her any further.

_ _ _

The Autobots were stunned by how Echo had reacted to seeing the girl, as she had rushed forward and snatched her from their leaders' servos with no care in the world. As she bellowed with terror and disbelief in her voice, her EM field lashed with so many emotions that all of them stumbled backward at how potent it was.

Ratchet's spark constricted at how...raw... her EM field felt to him. It was like she had been suppressing it for so long that, when she felt such strong emotions, she was unable to control the output, which explained the stinging pain that he was feeling from it. The others surely were feeling it too, as they had all retreated away from the distraught femme to avoid the backlash.

Optimus could tell that Arcee, Bulkhead and Bumblebee were slowly becoming overwhelmed from the onslaught of emotions from the teal femme, and made a decision. "Arcee, Bulkhead, Bumblebee! Take the children away from here and go to Jack's residence! June will be able to assist with them! Cliffjumper, go with them and leave Echo to me and Ratchet!" He ordered.

Arcee wasn't happy with it, but she understood Jack took prority, since he looked pretty shaken up by whatever had happened out there. As soon as she was able to place Jack into her partner's cab, she took off after Cliff. Bulkhead was more then happy to get out of the base and get Miko some help, since he was pretty concerned about her. Miko was never this quiet....Bumblebee gently grabbed Raf, who had just froze up when he had seen the unknown girl's condition, and now instantly scrambled into his cab. As soon as he was secure, the scout took off after the others.

With the others gone, both leader and medic focused their attention to the femme, who was now on the floor, cradling the young woman to her faceplates and making a keening noise. Her EM field was still fluctuating, but not as violently, just wavering in intensity. Both of them looked at one another in alarm, and Optimus commed Ratchet:

O: Old friend, you must calm Echo down.

R: Optimus, why me?

O: I have a feeling she will not take kindly to me approaching her, especially in the state she is in. You are a medic, meant to heal. She may be more inclined to listen to you.

Optimus could tell that Ratchet didn't entirely believe him, but the medic slowly turned and started toward the femme. When Ratchet had done so, the Prime retreated away to conceal himself around the corner to observe from afar. The Prime had a feeling that the team medic would be able to get through to the stubborn femme who had distanced herself ever since the scraplet incident. Besides, who better to understand and assist someone in turmoil, but Ratchet?

_ _ _

As Ratchet made his way toward the femme and got closer, he could hear her mumbling to herself. "....Don't go...Don't leave me again...I just found you, or you found me...Please...I'm sorry...Never should have left...Forgive me, Kaye...."

She didn't seem to notice his presence until he stopped right behind her. Before he could even move or speak, Echo's whole body went rigid and jerked upright, although her servos stayed curled around her precious cargo. When she turned her helm and chassis to look at him, Ratchet felt his spark skip a beat at the look on her faceplates. A mix of guilt, worry, resignation, and fear rippled through her EM field as coolant tears streamed down her faceplates.

"Echo..." He had no idea what to say, but it seemed she knew what he wanted to say and ask.

"Don't. Just don't. The time has come for secrets to come to light, or as a human saying goes: the truth always comes out, no matter what. Just....just don't judge me until the end of the story. Can you promise me that much at least?" She rasped out, one servo coming up to hover over the back of her neck plating.

"Wait! Please...wait, Echo." Ratchet quietly breathed out, reaching his servos out to the femme, who flinched as he knelt down her her level and grasped her hovering servo in his. Lowering them down so that he could fold his servos and clasp hers tightly, he glanced up into her mismatched optics, which glistened with coolant.

Gazing into her optics, Ratchet saw the longing to share what burdens she carried with her, but the fear of not being accepted and understood, as well as many other emotions he couldn't name. Swallowing down his own misgivings about it, the medic lowered his gaze to their conjoined hands and brought up the forbidden topic that the Prime had ordered the team to never bring up to the femme: "Before you say anything, I want you to know something that has been weighing on my processors. Ever since the day you helped the team explode the space bridge, in fact. Optimus told the team to never tell you, but I cannot bear to withhold this secret anymore from you. If we are revealing secrets, it's only fair for me to tell you what we all unwillingly witnessed-"

He was unexpectedly cut off by Echo. "-It was some of my early memories wasn't it?"

Ratchet looked up so fast that it's a miracle he didn't give himself whiplash. "Yes-but-how-how did you-"

"Know about it? That day I woke up from my comatose state, I pretended to know nothing because I didn't want to remind myself of that time. I didn't want to have to answer any questions any of you might have had. I had blocked it all out of my mind, and yet-and yet, one of you must have triggered my memory switch. You must have seen some things that you obviously didn't want to see, and I didn't want any of you to feel bad or guilty about intruding. It wasn't your fault that you saw anything personal. It was my fault of not telling you that I had it..." She explained, a small quirk in her dentas revealing a sad smile.

Ratchet was floored. "I-I can't believe you've said nothing about it! We have all tried to make sure that you didn't suspect anything, and yet you knew right away!"

Echo snorted. "You honestly didn't even have to try to hide it. From the second I saw the kids' faces, I knew that you had had seen something. Although-" she looked upset, "-I am kinda upset that the kids saw whatever you saw. They didn't deserve to see such things..."

Ratchet huffed. "Nothing can be done now. The damage is done. In any case, I'm just glad that we've got that out of the way."

Before Echo could reply, a tiny moan reached their audio receptors, and they both looked down to see the young woman slowly moving. Echo's vents caught as she carefully drew her servo up, just in time for the young lady to open up her eye and look into mismatched optics.

_ _ _

Kaye's POV

Ohhhhh god, I ache and hurt all over...What hit me? I opened up my eye and instantly saw two eyes.....one was red, one was icy-blue....Both had purple rims...They were familiar...Very familiar.

I looked around as best as I could, and instantly took in the familiar teal and green plating....The strange horns on the sides of the head...The scars all over....

The lightning bolt shaped scar instantly jogged my memory, and I was surprised when tears started forming.

_ _ _

The surprise on the young girl's face when tears started forming in the corners of her eyes made Echo choke out, "Oh gosh, Kaye! Don't you start crying, you'll trigger me to start again...."

In reply, Kaye choked out, "I didn't think I'd be able to cry, since I've already lost so much fluid in my body from so much of the shit I've been through....So shut up, Echo and let me hug your face, you crazy bitch!"

Echo started laughing and brought Kaye up so she could hug her faceplates, a few drops of coolant falling onto the girl, who shook her head and drew back, grinning with bloodstained teeth.

At the sight of the blood, Echo instantly stopped laughing and turned serious. "Who did this to you and where the fuck can I find them so I can rip them apart?... Limb.from.limb."

Kaye cringed and flinched. "Ohhhhh.....I'd rather not say...Hey, who the hell are you?" She addressed Ratchet, who started in surprise. "Me?", he rumbled dumbly.

Kaye rolled her eye. "Who else is in the room? I mean, if you have ghosts in here, I wouldn't know, so...."

Ratchet barked a laugh. "Ghosts? HA! I highly doubt there are any in here, besides, ghosts don't exist!"

Kaye raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that? If you, an ALIEN RACE, exist, why can't ghosts exist too?"

Ratchet opened his intake, paused, then shut it. He did this a couple of times, and huffed when Echo chuckled at him. "Whatever. May I do a scan of you, Miss Kaye? I need to see what damage you have been inflicted with and help you accordingly."

Kaye seemed to flinch and cower back a bit. "I-"

She was cut off by the sound of engines approaching, and the rest of the team roared into the base. Arcee was first to transform and storm toward them, a look of fury on her face. "You have a lot of explaining to do, and I want it done now! No more secrets, Echo!"

As soon as she saw Arcee's enraged faceplate, Kaye whimpered and cowered back. At her reaction, Echo's whole body language changed from relaxed and amused to furious. Then, Echo turned to Ratchet and placed Kaye into his servos with a grin on her face. "Please take care of Kaye, Ratchet. I need to take care of beating a bitch!"

Then, without a warning of any sort, Echo lunged at Arcee and both femmes went down into a screeching and clawing cat fight. As both tumbled and tussled on the floor, reactions varied with everyone in the room:
Bulkhead gaped.

Bumblebee froze, stared, and then shot out of the room, presumably to look for Optimus.

Cliffjumper stayed back from the chaotic scene, but was hollering for Arcee to stop.

As for Ratchet, he just stared and gaped dumbly at the scene, then glanced down and exchanged looks with Kaye. She looked just as stunned, shocked, and horrified by this chain of events as he did. Finally, she spoke up just loud enough for the medic to hear. "Sooo....about that checkup? Wanna do it now?" Ratchet pursed his derma, nodded in response, then got to his pedes and walked away and started out of the room.
Before he could get too far, Cliffjumper blocked him. "Hey, doc! Aren't you going to stop them?!" Ratchet looked at the horned mech like he was crazy. "Are you insane, Cliffjumper? I'd rather face off against Vehicons than two fragged-off femmes!"

An unlikely voice sounded from behind the medic. "As much as I hate to see anyone on the same team fight, let them battle it out and don't get involved with this, Cliffjumper. I advise against it." Optimus reached over and patted the mech on the shoulder as Bumblebee waved at Kaye, who waved back, then visibly winced.

*Ratchet, you may want to take her and check her out, she's hurt.* The black and yellow scout beeped, and Ratchet growled out, "That's what I was going to do before I was intercepted, and-OH FOR PRIMUS' SAKE, WOULD YOU TWO FEMMES GO SOMEWHERE ELSE TO DUEL BEFORE YOU DESTROY THE REC ROOM, PLEASE?!" The medic roared out, to which both femmes broke apart and tore out of the base in their alt modes.

As the motorcycle and Toyota Echo revved away, Cliffjumper's own engine revved in annoyance. "I'm gonna go make sure that they don't offline each other at least, is that alright, Optimus?"

Optimus nodded his approval, then the red horned mech shot off after them. As soon as Cliffjumper had vacated the premises, the Prime turned to Bulkhead, who had been lingering in a corner and watching the fight. "Bulkhead, how are the children?"

Bulkhead startled. "Oh! Um, well, June said that they were all just in a bit of shock and need some time to recover. She wasn't exactly happy about everything, but she understood that we all were doing our best to protect'em! She'll keep us up to date how they all are."

"Understood. Go get some rest and recharge." Optimus rumbled, and the dark green mech did just that.

Afterwards, the Prime rumbled a sigh, then transformed and headed out of the base. 'A leader must intervene with any fight, even if it is a personal one....'

Chapter Text

As soon as she had shot out of the base with Jack in tow, who was shaking a bit with his arms wrapped around himself, eyes wide and as pale as a ghost, Arcee knew this was the last straw! That other human girl was the one responsible for his predicament, and Echo obviously knew her, so ultimately, it had to be Echo's fault that this had happened to Jack and the other kids! Arcee was so done with that damn femme, and she promised herself that when she got back to base, she'd get some answers, even if she had to beat it out of Echo!

As soon as she got back to the base, she saw red. Echo was crouching down and cradling the girl with Ratchet next to them both, but all Arcee saw was a femme who didn't have a care in the world about anyone else around her and just did whatever she wanted.

As she stormed over, Arcee hollered, "You have a lot of explaining to do, and I want it done now! No more secrets, Echo!"

At that, the teal femme turned to Ratchet and gave him the girl, then whipped around and tackled the blue motorcycle. Smacking the two-wheeler into the ground and knocking her breath away, Echo dug her digits into her shoulders and snarled, "I've had enough of your inconsiderate, bitchy aft and attitude, Arcee!"

Arcee snarled back, "Back at ya, fragging femmeglitch!", and kicked her in her tanks, sending Echo reeling backward. Clutching her stomach and gagging slightly, Echo lunged again and got the upper servo in the fight, but was quickly sent back.

However, at Ratchet's infuriated tone of voice, Echo transformed and tore out of the base, Arcee following. As Arcee tailed the Toyota Echo, she was so wound up she wasn't expecting a portal to open up in front of the other vehicle, and skidded into it.

When she came out the other side, Arcee transformed back to root mode and glared at Echo, who had transformed back to her root mode as well, huffing. Arcee smirked. "Ha! Tired already, glitchhead?"

Echo glared back and let out a growl. "You try making a portal to get us away from civilization, and then see how tired you get! Until then, don't make fun of me, got it? It won't end well for you..."

Arcee growled back. "There you go again with the damned threats! It's really ticking me off! Do you have no filter?!"

The scarred femme grinned. "Threats? What threats? Contrary to what you may believe, Arcee, I was merely giving you a warning, not a threat. You'd know if I was giving out threats, trust me."

Arcee narrowed her optics. "....Whatever. I don't trust you in the slightest, so I highly doubt anything and everything you say. Speaking of trust, you must be lacking in it for us too, since you lied to all of us about not knowing or interacting with humans, since you seemed to know that girl who traumatized the kids."

Echo narrowed her optics and sneered, her derma twisting up into a snarl. "Excuse me? You're one to talk about trust. You have trust issues with others too, don't think I haven't noticed, Arcee." Then, the teal femme started toward her, her EM field lashing with calm fury. "And what did you say about Kaye? Let me rephrase that: Accuse Kaye? Accuse her of what? Traumatizing the kids? Last I heard, Kaye SAVED the kids. So I don't understand what bullshit you're saying, but-" Echo got up real close into Arcee's personal space and loomed over her, as her EM field buffeted the two-wheeler, who had stepped back in shock at the fierceness of it. "-Knock. It. Off. You don't want me as an enemy, Arcee. So don't start giving me any reason to beat your aft and leave you for dead, cause I'm not above doing so. Sure, I don't relish the thoughts of doing so, but I DESPISE bots who act out for no good reason and ESPECIALLY attack my loved ones or those I care about, but I'd gladly get rid of anyone who dares to do so..."

As Echo stepped backward and away from Arcee, she then muttered aloud, "Don't go accusing someone of something before you know the full details. There may be consequences in the aftermath...Or as the human saying goes: "Don't judge a book by it's cover."

Before Arcee could retort or say anything back, something hit Echo from behind and pinned her to the ground on her chestplates. Then, the same thing hit Arcee in the chestplates and flung her backwards, landing flat on her backplates and stuck. As both femmes thrashed in their web like prisons, a voice came out from the shadows of the forest that Echo had teleported them into. "Oh my! Lovely speech, unknown femme I don't know."

Arcee froze in terror and shock, while Echo stilled and went quiet, as Arachnid came out from behind the trees, smirking. "Well, well, well, Arcee. It's been awhile, hasn't it? Last time I saw you...you had poor Jack with you. How is the boy by the way?"

Arcee then let out a terrified snarl and thrashed about, trying to get herself free. "Arachnid! You'll pay for this!" Arachnid let out a cackle. "Will I? Dearie, you can't even break free from my webbing! Besides, what do I have to pay for?" "You know exactly what for, you bitch! You killed my partner, Tailgate! I'll kill you for that!" Arcee shouted but her EM field was terrified. "Oh Arcee, you won't even get the chance to take your petty revenge out on me, since I'm going to eliminate you myself, like I should have long ago!"

As Echo looked up and saw the spider femme go straight in front of Arcee and halt, several of her legs raising upward, she just snapped.

_ _ _

As Arachnid raised her legs to finish her archenemy off, she made the mistake of forgetting about the other trapped femme, who radiated heat and burned off her webbing. Instantly free from her bindings, Echo reached forward, her optics turned a blood-red color tinted with black. Black vines erupted from the ground and ensnared the spider femme, who let out a screech of pained surprise.

_ _ _

On the ground still trapped, Arcee stared at the scene before her in terror and fear: the vines around Arachnid started warping and twisting around the evil femme, who let out a scream of agony as her backstruts started bending unnaturally.

_ _ _

Echo grinned maniacally as her adversary started begging for mercy. "Mercy? Mercy? You expect me to give you MERCY? After what you have done? Oh hell no. You get to experience the same agony you gave to all your damned victims, Arachnid. Torture isn't fun when you are having it done to you, now is it? IS IT?! ANSWER ME, YOU DAMNED BITCH! ANSWER ME!" Echo roared, to which Arachnid howled, "NOOOO! NOOOO, IT'S NOT FUN! STOP! I'M-BEGGING-YOU-STOPPPP!"

Echo's grin turned to an ugly snarl. "Allow me to end your suffering, even though you deserve more than you'll ever know...Goodbye, Arachnid!" Horrific snapping sounds then erupted throughout the purple femme's whole body, and her screams abruptly were cut off. As the femme went entirely limp, Echo stood up, her curled servos extending outward, revealing them coated in her own energon. "When you see Unicron, tell him Echo sent you...Or not..."

The spider femme's corpse then started to fragment in the air, right in front of Arcee no less, who watched as her first partner's killer faded into dust, then vanished before her optics. Her bindings faded away as well, but the blue femme was too stunned and shocked to move.

The black and red faded from Echo's optics, but the fury remained. "Good riddance, you homicidal bitch aft! Oh, but might as well say this too: Rust In Invisible Pieces! Hahahaha!"

As the teal femme cackled, Arcee started shivering in her plating. 'She just killed Arachnid like it was nothing! And then vaporized her! Echo was right about one thing: I don't want her as an enemy!'

Echo's cackling ended abruptly, then she glanced at Arcee with a look of concern in her optics. "You alright there, Arcee? You look like you might faint. Want me to carry you back to base?" Arcee mentally shook herself violently. 'Get a hold of yourself!'

Aloud she spoke, "Yeah, no...I'll be fine...thanks though.." Echo shrugged. "Suit yourself."

She made a portal, then glanced back. "Well? You coming or not?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming! Geez..." Arcee huffed. As she got to her pedes, Echo then asked, "We're good, right?"

Arcee halted for just a moment, then nodded. "Yeah...We're good..."

Echo grinned. "Good! Let's let the others know that we are, ok? Can't have anyone getting confused now, can we?"

"Right...Hey, can I ask you something real quick, though?"

"Sure!"

"We are gonna let the others know what you just did, right?" Arcee asked hesitantly.

Echo seemed to freeze in place, then huffed. ".....We can tell them that that bitch is dead and gone, and that they won't have to worry about her stupid aft showing up anytime soon. That should be enough. They don't need the details."

Before she could protest, Echo shoved Arcee into the portal, and Arcee had to head through it to not become trapped. All the while, her processor was reeling. '"They don't need the details?!" That's all she's gonna say about it?! I can't lie to the others, that goes against everything I learned from Optimus!'

As soon as she emerged from the portal, a familiar voice hollered out, "Arcee! Arcee! You're back!", and Cliffjumper snatched her up from the ground and hugged her tightly.

"Cliff-You're crushing me! Can't breathe!" Arcee gasped, and he placed her down with a sheepish grin. "Sorry, sorry! You and Echo vanished into the portal she made before me and Optimus could go through, so I- we- were worried!"
Arcee then noticed the Prime, who had a look of relief on his faceplates. "I'm glad to see you are alright, Arcee. But where is Echo?"

"I'm here, I'm here!" the teal femme snapped as she emerged from behind Arcee. 'Speak of the devil and she shall appear.' She thought to herself, inwardly shivering at the description, as she remembered the way Echo's helm horns had seemed to grow longer and much more devil-like when she had disposed of Arachnid. Now they were back to normal, which was strange....

Before Optimus could say anything, he received a comm from Ratchet. "Optimus! Did those femmes come back in one piece?"

"Yes, they are both unharmed except from some scratches, old friend." He replied.

"Well, all of you come back already! Don't stay out all night! You all need recharge!" Ratchet snapped, and after a couple of minutes or so, a groundbridge portal appeared.

As Cliffjumper guided Arcee back to base, Optimus felt himself start as he saw how...undecided and distracted...the blue motorcycle was, and it made him feel uneasy.

When he turned to look at Echo, he was greatly disappointed and unnerved to see that she was gone once more.

As he turned back and headed for the groundbridge, the Prime thought to himself, 'What happened while those two were gone? And what will it take for Echo to come stay with us at our base to make it her permanent home?'

Chapter Text

As Ratchet took Kaye into his lab/med bay, he took note of the young woman's physical state and how she tensed up when she saw the place. On her back, her unusual appendages twitched and quivered violently, as if she wanted to instinctively take flight and run. He blinked in surprise when she shifted her stance to where: one leg was bent under her while the other was splayed out to the side; she leaned onto her forearms to brace herself; and started to swivel her head back and forth and around to look at her surroundings. 'Most likely trying to find escape routes....' Ratchet mused to himself.

Out loud, he tried to make her feel more at ease. "Kaye, I can assure you that I will not harm you. My medbay may be more equipped for us Cybertronians, but I do have some human equipment to deal with any injuries you may have."

Kaye huffed. "I know you won't hurt me on purpose, Ratchet. I just hate rooms that are filled with science equipment. Reminds me too much of the torture chamber that I was in for years on end..."

"Torture chamber?" Ratchet's optic ridges rose up and his optics widened.

Kaye nodded. "Yes, torture chamber. That is what I just said. In any case, let's go ahead and get this over and done with ASAP."

"ASAP?" Ratchet was unfamiliar with such a term, to which the young lady explained, "It's stands for As Soon As Possible. I'd thought you'd know that, considering you are much more advanced than I am." Kaye then snorted at the look Ratchet gave her, then grimaced as some phantom pains shot through her body.

She sucked in a deep breath, then let it out in a series of pained hisses. "Ouch, ouch, damn you body! Stop hurting already!"

Concerned, Ratchet placed Kaye down onto a cleared off table, where she sat down and shifted around muttering to herself, "Should be used to all this by now....hate this..."

"May I go ahead and scan you, Kaye?"

The young woman craned her neck upwards, winced visibly, then dropped her head with a nod. "Don't think I'm gonna be looking up that far for awhile...go ahead..." Before he did so, however, he went out of the room to check on the progress of Optimus and Cliffjumper finding Arcee and Echo, who had run off to beat each other up or something.

_ _ _

"Optimus! Did those femmes come back in one piece?" He asked the Prime, who responded back with an affirmative. "Well, all of you come back already! Don't stay out all night! You all need recharge!" Ratchet snapped, activating the groundbridge.

Cliffjumper and Arcee were the first ones through, and even though Ratchet tried to insist Arcee that he look her over, she waved him off, saying her self-repair was already doing its job. As the two-wheeler walked away, Ratchet got the feeling something was off with the femme, but his attention came back to the bridge as Optimus walked through.

Ratchet was surprised that Echo wasn't with him. "Where is Echo?"

Optimus shook his helm. "She teleported away, old friend. I have no idea where she may be now. How is our guest?"

Ratchet huffed. "As far as I can tell, she's in pain, but I don't know what from. I'm about to go back and see if I can scan her. She may have internal injuries that I won't be able to assist with."

The Prime nodded in understanding. "Understood. Shall I contact Ms. Darby for her expertise?"

Ratchet shook his head a negative. "No, her priorities lie with the other children right now. I'll contact her if need be, go recharge Optimus. Primus knows when you last had a good night's rest..." Not even bothering to retort, the Prime turned away and went off toward his berthroom.

Ratchet headed back to his med bay.

_ _ _

When Ratchet returned to his medical bay, Kaye was on her back and rotating her limbs like she was cycling. The doctor blinked. "What are you doing? Weren't you in pain earlier?"

Kaye stopped her exercise and sat up with a grunt, bracing herself back onto her hands. "I may still be in pain, but exercise helps keep my mind off of it. You gonna scan me instead of lecturing me or what?"

Ratchet rolled his optics, scanned her, and when the results came onto his HUD screen, he couldn't help staggering backward at the sheer number of past injuries that had happened to the poor girl...And would have fallen backwards onto his aft... If it weren't for Echo teleporting inside at the last moment. "Yo, did I miss anythiiing-WOAH THERE!" Echo yelped and caught Ratchet by the shoulder struts and backstruts before he could fall to the ground.

Both breathed out vents of relief as Echo heaved Ratchet back to his pedes. "That was a close one! You alright, Ratchet? Good catch, Echo!" Kaye complimented the teal femme as she glanced at the doctor, who huffed, "I'm alright, thank you Echo."

Echo huffed in return. "No problem. What made you nearly fall in the first place?"

Ratchet pointed at Kaye. "Her! She has so many healed injuries that I can't even begin to tell you which ones she was inflicted with first! I've never seen such a mutitude of injuries, and most of them are horrific! How are you even still alive?!" He demanded incredulously of the young woman, who shrugged her shoulders, then winced again with a sheepish grin afterward. "Ehhhhh....I don't really know...Sorry Doc!"

"Please don't call me Doc!" Ratchet snapped, and Kaye flinched. "Ok...Sore subject or not a fan of nicknames...got it..."

Ratchet gave a sigh and his shoulders slumped a bit. "My apologies Kaye...Just....bad memories, that's all..."

"It's alright, Ratchet. Just let me know if there are any other things that I shouldn't bring up around you..Come to think of it now, is there anything else I should try to avoid talking about while I'm here?"

Echo cleared her throat. "I'd like to think that they'd tell you if you brought up anything taboo here, Kaye. Or you'd figure it out yourself, too."

"True, true....So, what the hell have you been up to these days, Echo? Last time I saw you, you were screaming in agony and then everything went white, and when I woke up, you were gone! Vanished from sight! I had no idea what happened to you, I just assumed you were dead!" She snapped suddenly at Echo, whose EM field the lashed out with fear and uncertainty.

Ratchet was stunned and shocked. "W-what is she talking about, Echo?"

Echo stepped backward, her optics as wide as saucers, but before she could say anything, an alarm sounded from beyond the med bay, to which Ratchet hurried to say, "Never mind, we shall talk about this later, Echo. Kaye, why don't you stay here with Echo while I go and check out the alarm?"

Without waiting for an answer, Ratchet hurried off, leaving the two alone together.

Chapter Text

As soon as Ratchet had gotten to the control panel to see what the alarm was about, he heard the familiar rumbles of Bullhead's engine, and he inwardly groaned as he could clearly hear Miko's voice with it. 'Wonderful, just what I need...'

He turned his attention to the monitors, and his optics widened as he read the results on it. "Well then, that's something..."

"What's something, Doc Bot?" Miko chirped, as she jumped out of her guardian, who then transformed.

Ratchet rolled his optics. "An energon pulse has been detected in Greece."

Miko gasped in excitement. "Oooooo!", while Bulkhead exclaimed, "Sweet! You know what this means, Miko? Road Trip!"

"Yes! Let's get going already, Bulk!" She jumped up and down, then stopped as pedesteps were heard coming into the room. Echo walked in, Kaye on one of her shoulders, who looked down at her in surprise. "What the-It's you!" The young woman breathed out, and without any warning, unfurled her wings and jumped down from her perch.

Miko let out a short scream at her stunt but stopped in shock as Kaye landed with both feet planted firmly on the ground, only for her two wince and shake out her legs. "Ehhhh, shouldn't be doing that too often..."

Miko gaped at her. "I'll say! You could have broken both your legs! I'd have broken them if I'd tried doing that! And what's with the wings, girlfriend? They're cool, but where did you get them?!"

As Miko fired off questions at her, Kaye glanced at the girl from the corner of her good eye with a wary look. She then turned away, ignoring her questions, to look up at Echo, who just looked amused. "Well Echo? Wanna go check it out?"

The femme then looked confused. "Go check what out...Oh! You mean the energon pulse?" As Kaye nodded her head, Miko then exclaimed, "Oh no! You are not ruining me and Bulkhead's trip to Greece! We go solo together!"

At that, Kaye turned around with a slight glare. "And who are you to tell us what to do? Besides, you're just a kid! Why are you gonna go put yourself in danger? Do you have a death wish?" Even though Miko flinched back from seeing her face, she stood her ground and glared back. "Excuse me? I'll be fine! I have Bulkhead to protect me if I need it, thank you very much!"

"HEY! Stop arguing you two! We can all go and scout it out, alright? Everyone fine with that?!" Echo barked out, her voice echoing throughout the room, living up to her namesake. As both girls flinched and winced from the volume, Echo looked to the green mech, who shrugged his massive shoulders. "Ehhhh, sure...Come along. I don't really mind."

Realizing that a consensus had been agreed upon, Ratchet put in the coordinates and fired up the ground bridge. As Bulkhead transformed and Miko got in, Echo walked toward the portal with Kaye following.

Ratchet called after them, "Aren't you going to transform, Echo? So, Kaye can go along with you?"

Echo called back, "Nahhh, see no point. I make my own portals, remember? This is nothing!" "I'll be fine, Ratchet! Thanks for the concern though!" Kaye hollered in return, then vanished through. Bulkhead and Miko followed through.

_ _ _

Meanwhile....On the Decepticon's warship...

"Well, well, well. Finally showed up, have you, Knockout? I don't like to be kept waiting." Starscream sneered at a red mech with a shiny finish, who huffed. "Well, it took me some time. It was a long drive, Starscream. I'm still picking bugs out of my grill."

Starscream had a look of both disgust and annoyance on his faceplates. "Yes...well...You're one of those..."

Knockout looked confused. "Come again?"

"For the life of me, I can't understand why ANY self-respecting Decepticon would choose to have an automobile as his vehicle mode...when he could have flight."

"I like the way I look in steel-belted radials." Knockout smirked.

A few minutes later...

"I take it Lord Megatron requires lab assistance?" Knockout inquired, to which Starscream replied with, "Youu...might say that..."

A door opened, revealing the dark lord on a table slab with tubing attached to him, a gaping hole in his chassis and a gaping line that spanned across his waistline.

The only thing to come out of the red medic's mouth was a "Woah..."

_ _ _

Back with the Autobots (and Echo) ...

As soon as all four emerged from the ground bridge, Kaye let out a groan. "Ohhhhkayyyy....maybe Ratchet had a point...that portal is way different than yours, Echo...." Echo glanced down in worry. “You alright, Kaye?" As Kaye waved the femme off, Miko jumped out of Bulkhead, who transformed. "Whoo-Hoo! Hello, Greece! Whatcha hidin' from us?"

Bulkhead interjected with a, "Woah there, Miko! You're here to do research on that project of yours, remember?" As Miko let out a disappointed whine, Kaye looked over at the young teen. "Project?"

Miko grumbled to herself as Bulkhead answered her, "Miko has to do research on some history of a place of her choosing. Thought this may help her out." "Ahhh, ok gotcha."

"Hey! Are we going to check out this pulse or what?" Echo barked from up ahead. All three looked at each other. When had she walked off without them noticing? As they hurried off, Kaye thought she heard something in the distance...sounded like an engine...but then got distracted by Miko hollering for her to not get left behind.

'Ehhh...probably just my imagination...' Kaye thought to herself.

When she caught up, Bulkhead was holding up a scanner. "Hmmm. Signal's strong...An excavation site?" "Woah..." Miko said, as she and her guardian glanced at each other.

Echo, who was standing a bit away, was looking around. Kaye went over to her. "What's up with you?" Echo glanced down at her, then up and swiveled her helm around again. "I keep thinking we-"

She was interrupted by Bulkhead's exclamation of, "That's Cybertronian!"

Seeing that both Miko and the green mech were preoccupied, Echo crouched down. "I'm gonna go and scout around. Wanna come with?" Kaye grinned. "Just like old times? You bet!"

_ _ _

Back with Knockout and Starscream, the seeker was explaining what was going on to the red mech, who looked at the gray mech with incredulity in his optics. "I've done plenty of bodyworks, Starscream, but I'm better at breaking them, than fixing." He showed off his drill to further his point. He sighed. "Would help if I had my assistant..."

"I summoned both of you. Where is he?"

"We were hot on a fresh energon trail when you contacted us. Breakdown will show, when he's done scouting it." Knockout reassured with a smirk.

_ _ _

Bulkhead was baffled. "Why would the Greeks paint an Energon Harvester?"

"You know what that round thing is? You're smarter than you let on, Bulk!" Miko took a picture.

An unknown voice spoke up, making both turn around. "But even dumber than he looks." A blue and dark gray silver mech with a deep orange faceplate faced them. Bulkhead recognized him instantly. "Breakdown..."

The mech chuckled darkly. "Miss me?"

"Like rust in my undercarriage..." Bulkhead growled, curling his servos into fists. "You know this lunkhead?" Miko asked, narrowing her eyes. ".... We have a history..."

"And you have a PET!" Breakdown mocked, then narrowed his optics. "Does it play catch?", he scoffed as he turned and picked up a giant pillar. Just before he made to launch it at both of them, a figure came from out of nowhere and slammed him away.

Both Miko and Bulkhead gaped as Echo body-slammed the Con into the rockface, snarling in fury. Yet, her faceplates had a giant, disturbing grin on them. "Now, now, I know you weren't gonna kill my friends, were you, big guy?"

Breakdown was stunned by the tackle, but when he saw who had him pinned down, he froze for a moment. "What the-who are you?! Let me up!" In response, Echo dug sharp claws into him. "Why should I? You were gonna offline my friends, it's only natural I offline you, right?"

Breakdown hissed in pain as he looked into the teal femme's optics, which seemed to be staring into his very spark. It looked like she was debating something within herself, then she nodded. "You know what? Here's what I'm gonna do: I'll let you escape, but only if you don't attack my friends."

Against his instincts, which were screaming at him to surrender, Breakdown scoffed. "Really? I have a score to settle with Bulkhead, femme, so-Ugh!" He gasped as the femme shoved him harder into the ground. "I. Just. Said. No attacking my friends. If you do, I'll kill you! Don't you want to live?"

"Of course, I do, but-"

"But nothing, you idiot! This should be easy to comprehend: You don't attack, I don't slaughter you. Why is that so hard to understand?!" The femme spat. "It's not!" Breakdown spat back, his spark starting to pound a bit tighter as he felt his mate's worry for him, and urgency to get to him as quickly as possible.

Now knowing that something was up, Breakdown begrudgingly growled out, "Fine! Fine! I won't attack unless Bulkhead does, ok?!"

The femme then started to relax her grip on him. Her manic grin became slyer and smugger as she whispered into his audials. "Ahhh, now you get it.... You get to live another day, you foolish mech. Go crawling to the Decepticons. I wish you luck, being on the opposite side. If there is ever a time you start to rethink being one, seek me out. My designation is Elementia. I'll be waiting for BOTH your change of sparks..."

Before the mech could respond to that, she flung him away so quickly he didn't even know he was literally flying away from the group. "Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh...."

As Echo dusted off herself, Bulkhead and the two girls stared off in the direction of where she had yeeted the Con off into the distance. Miko was the first to speak up, "W-w-what just happened?"

Kaye then answered, "I... I believe Echo just stopped massive destruction from happening to all of us..."

Bulkhead was the one to snap out of his shock first. "What the- Hey! Why did you do that?!" Echo looked at the mech with a look of confusion on her faceplates. "Do what? Get rid of the stupid Con before he killed you guys? I wasn't gonna allow that to happen!"

As Bulkhead opened his intake and shut it multiple times, obviously dumbfounded by her response, both their comm links activated. "Bulkhead? Echo? Did you find what that signal was?"

Since the Wrecker was still trying to get his thought processor together, Echo took it upon herself to answer. "Hey Ratchet! We found something, and Miko got a picture! You'll want to see this! Bridge us back, will you?"

With confirmation, a bridge opened up for them, and as Kaye ushered Miko through it, Echo and the Wrecker locked optics. When she did so, she saw confusion and something else she couldn't put her digit on, in Bulkhead's optics. When Bulkhead looked into the femme's optics, he was unable to decipher what was going through her processor.

Shrugging, Echo jerked and turned away, asking aloud, "You coming or what?"

"Yeah, I'm coming. Give me a klik..."

"Fine by me." The teal femme replied and vanished into the ground bridge.

Bulkhead then observed the construction site, and then looked at the spot where Echo had tackled and pinned his archenemy. It was like nothing had occurred there....

'What did Echo say to Breakdown that I was unable to hear, and why didn't she finish him off...' He wondered, when suddenly, his comm link went off. "Bulkhead! Are you coming to base or not? I can't have this thing on all day!" Ratchet barked, and the wrecker winced.

"Sorry, Ratch! I'm coming!"

_ _ _

Back at the Nemesis, Knockout was doing his best to "fix" Megatron on his own, when Breakdown showed up. "About time! Goodness, what happened to you?!" The red mech exclaimed when he saw the state the blue mech was in.

"Errrrrr....Long story...." Breakdown muttered, then his optics widened when he saw the ravaged body of the leader of the Decepticons. "Holy scrap! What did that to him?!"

Knockout scoffed. "Apparently, our dear leader decided that standing inside an exploding space bridge was a wonderful idea..."

As Breakdown cringed, Starscream sauntered in, Soundwave following. "Ah! Breakdown! You have returned...with nothing?! What were you doing, Knockout said you were on the trail of energon, so where is it?"

"About that...There were...complications...But I did find something else!" Breakdown said, showing the image from the ruins. Starscream looked confused, but Soundwave went over to the console and after some typing, pulled up an image.

Starscream then gaped in shock and pointed to the photo. "Isn't that-"

_ _ _
"An energon Harvester?"

"It is indeed an Energon Harvester. A powerful tool created by the Ancients, to remove raw energon from any source." Optimus confirmed.

"Greek gods knew Autobots?" Raf looked at Jack and Miko, while Kaye snorted. "Ha! As if..."

Optimus shook his helm. "No. The Ancients often used the art of a given era to conceal messages. This fresco was likely a signpost, indicating a Harvester's location. Hidden somewhere on this planet."

Jack looked up at the mech. "Uh, Optimus? If the Harvester removes energon from anything, and you all have energon pumping inside you..."

"Then the Decepticons will want it to snuff out our sparks...." Echo growled out from where she stood near a window, looking outward into the distance.

Optimus looked at Echo, then turned to Jack with a slight nod. "Echo is correct. In the Decepticons' hands, it would be a devastating weapon."

"Too bad we didn't destroy the painting; cause Breakdown has probably showed it to the other Cons' by now!" Miko whined.

"Even if you did destroy the painting, how would the Cons find the fresco?" Arcee pointed out.

"By high-speed internet? If you do research for Greek golden orbs, this pops up. It's in a museum. " Raf broke in, showing a picture.

Cliffjumper looked at Optimus. "That the real deal, OP?"

Optimus had a grim look on his face. "Contact Agent Fowler."

After a few minutes of trying to get in contact, to no avail or answer, Optimus decided that they would need to extract the Harvester themselves. This decision was met with protests from Jack and Raf, as it would be illegal to go in and steal it. Kaye jumped in too by saying, "Do you really want any of us to go to jail? I'd rather not, thank you very much! Prison is NOT FUN, I'd know..."

"Huh? How would you know what prison is like?" Miko asked, only to flinch back as the young woman then glared at the girl. "Don't ask, and besides, it's none of your business!"

"Easy, Kaye, easy girlfriend!" Echo chimed in before Bulkhead could defend his charge. "Look, I've got an idea.... you all wait here while I go snatch the dangerous energon-sucking device from the museum!" She huffed.

Arcee scoffed. "And how do you plan on doing that? You're not a human, Echo."

Echo then grinned. "Oh? You think I didn't notice?" She then shifted into her car alt. All of them looked at one another in confusion, which turned into alarm as Echo began to quiver and shake on her wheels. As soon as it had begun, the shaking stopped.

Nothing happened after a moment, and Raf squeaked, "Um...Echo? You alright?"

In response, Echo's door opened, and a human female stepped out. All of them gaped or stared at the female's appearance. She had medium-length dark brown hair that naturally curled and green-hazel eyes and also wore purple glasses. She then shook her head and grinned at them. "Well, what do you think? I'm pretty sure I can pass for being human now, right Arcee?"

"Echo? Is that really you?" Jack asked, while Miko shrieked, "No way! No way! How did you turn human?!" Miko ran toward her to grab her, but Echo then swerved out of the way. However, she unbalanced a bit and stumbled around. "WOAH! I forgot-how long-it's been-since I've been in-this- holoform-"

"Oh yeah! I totally forgot you could make a holoform! Huh...weird." Kaye remarked, watching as her friend walked around a bit, orienting herself. "You sure you'll be able to pull this stunt off, Echo? You look like you're a drunk." Kaye barked a laugh at Echo's playful glare.

"Oh ha-ha, Kaye! Very funny.... Besides, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve that no one knows about...." Echo smirked at her, then looked up at the bots. Eyes widening a bit at how big they were to her perception now, she let out a low whistle. "It is so weird to look at all you bots when in this form...I'm too small for this kind of perception...Let's get this mission over and done with!" The holoform then vanished into thin air, making the kids jump when her vehicle mode then shuddered on its axles and vibrated almost violently, then as soon as she had transformed, Echo moved around jerkily for a few moments.

Nearly all of them cringed as grinding and creaking noises emanated from Echo's whole body, while Echo let out a gusty sigh of relief. "Whew! I needed that!"

"I'll say! What in the world is so wrong with you that your body made those noises?!" Ratchet snapped, going over to Echo with a concerned glare on his faceplate. She took a couple of steps back from him, only to get a resigned look on her face when Ratchet scanned her frame and gaped at the results. "By the Allspark, Echo! You need energon and recharge! You're not going anywhere except your berth!"

"Excuse me?! I'm sorry, what about this mission did you not understand? You need human interference, Fowler's MIA, the kids can't do that themselves, and I'm the only one with a working holoform! I'm the only...logical...explan...ation...." Without warning, Echo's optics flickered then went dark, and she would have fallen to the floor if not for Ratchet catching her.

The others reacted accordingly, of course....

"What happened?!"- Bulkhead

"Looks like you were right, Ratchet..."- Arcee

"He always is on medical matters, Cee!"- Cliffjumper

*Is she ok?!*- Bumblebee

"Yikes!"- Raf

"Good catch, Doc Bot!"- Miko

As the others were shooed away by Ratchet, who carried Echo out of the communication room, Optimus spoke to them in low tones. Kaye looked at them all with a deadpan look on her face. 'Why am I not surprised Echo still runs herself into the ground? And it is weird that these Cybertronians are worried about her....'

Jack then sighed in resignation, catching Kaye's attention. "Jack? What's wrong?"

"Looks like we are gonna have to get involved now...no way around it this time..." He pinched his nose in annoyance when Miko chimed in. "YES! Let's do this!"

"As much as it pains me to put you all in harm's way, we must have human interference on this mission. Can we count on you all to assist us in this endeavor?" Optimus rumbled. Jack, Miko, and Raf nodded in agreement with determined looks on their faces, and Optimus nodded back.

He then looked to Kaye, who shifted in nervousness. "Would love to help out, Prime, but one problem-I can't hide my wings, and I don't do well with people, so I'm not coming with you.... If this goes south, I won't be able to hide..."

Raf let out a quiet, disappointed, "Awww...", while Miko whined a louder "Aw man! I was hoping to go on a mission with you...". Jack had no response to that, other than to shrug. "That's alright, Kaye. We'll see you when we get back!"

As Kaye smiled weakly at him, Optimus nodded. "I understand. Arcee, Bulkhead and Bumblebee, you and your charges will accompany me to the museum. Cliffjumper, stay here and man the comms and groundbridge until Ratchet returns. We shall comm for you if backup is needed."

"You got it, OP!" Cliffjumper saluted to the prime and went over to the control panel. As the kids got into (or in Jack's case, onto) their respective guardians, Kaye went over to Cliffjumper and flew up to land on his shoulder, which surprised him. "Whatcha doin?"

Kaye shrugged. "Keeping you company? Also, want to chat while they are gone?"

Cliff grinned. "Sure thing! You and I can exchange stories!" He then fired up the groundbridge, and the team left.

_ _ _

Unfortunately, Kaye and Cliffjumper don't have much time to exchange stories, because as soon as the team leaves and starts the mission, things go haywire with an encounter with Knockout and Breakdown, who set off the museum's alarms.

This, in consequence, allows Miko to be caught by a security guard, and Soundwave snatching up the Harvester. After the Decepticons make their getaway, the bots and their two remaining charges return to base, where Cliff, Kaye and Ratchet are waiting for them.

"Didn't go as planned, huh?" Kaye asked hesitantly as she took one look at the sorry group.

"Nothing ever does without my intervention! Told you I should have gone!" Echo's voice was heard in the doorway, to which everyone turned to her. Ratchet looked at her in disbelief. “How in the world are you awake?! I gave you a sedative so you would be in recharge for the rest of the night!"

Echo glared at him. "Yeah.... No. Those don't work on me right away...It'll take a long time for them to take effect, which by the way! Thanks, sooo much for giving me it!"

As the heavy sarcasm was registered, Kaye and Cliffjumper snickered at Ratchet's faceplate. It looked like he was trying to figure out how to feel about this, but Jack interrupted him. "Hello? What are we gonna do about Miko and the Harvester?! How do we get them back?"

"Jacks got a point. We've got to figure out how to get the Harvester back from the Cons! Who knows what they will want to do with a weapon like that!" Arcee said.

Bulkhead then pounded his fists together. "Hey! What about Miko? How are we gonna rescue her?! We can't leave her there!"

Optimus then managed to calm the room a bit. "Arcee, Bulkhead, we will find a way to do both. Cliffjumper, contact Agent Fowler. He may be the key to rescuing Miko."

Kaye snorted. "That guy? Ha! Good luck with that...."

Optimus continued as if she hadn't interrupted. "As for the Harvester, we will have to get it back from the Decepticons and return it to the museum, for Miko's safe return, I fear. There must be an exhibit for the security guard to understand that she did nothing with it."

"Hold on, what if you made another one? Then you wouldn't have to return the real one." Raf came up with the idea, to which Ratchet made a thoughtful hum. "That may be possible...I'll need several hours to do so, however..."

Optimus nodded. "Ratchet, go ahead and work on building a replica of the Harvester. We shall find the Decepticons and take back the original!"

'And this time, I'm going with you, no debates!' Echo snapped to herself, as everyone dispersed. When it seemed no one was around to see, Echo teleported. However, someone did see: Kaye. She smirked sadly. 'Same old Echo, always running off and dealing with everything herself...Let's change that!'

Kaye looked around. Everyone was busy, so she grinned and walked off. After making sure no one had followed her into an empty hallway, her hands began to glow....

_ _ _

Starscream, Knockout and Breakdown were located at the Ancient Ruins in Greece where the picture of the Harvester was. After Starscream had demonstrated the weapon's power by draining a vehicon trooper of their energon, both the red and blue mechs were submissive to the dark gray seeker.

While the seeker gloated to himself, the mechs commed amongst themselves.

'Well, I don't know about you Breaky, but even though Starscream can be a major pain in the aft, he can be quite intimidating.'

'You said it, KO....Hey can I tell you something really quick? It's about before I got to the Nemesis...'

'Sure. Not like there is anything better to do...What exactly happened?'

'Well, I encountered Bulkhead and a small pet of his...Think they are called "humans"? Anyway, I was about to scrap them both when a femme tackled me and prevented me from doing so!'

That got Knockout's attention. 'A femme, you say. Who was it?'

Before Breakdown could answer back, a shimmering portal erupted from out of nowhere, and a figure stepped out, a wicked grin on her faceplates. "Well, well, well! Look at what we have here! Mechs who don't know any better!"

Starscream let out a screech. "Excuse me?! Who the frag do you think you are? How dare you speak to me that way?! Don't you know who I am?!"

The femme's grin got bigger. "Oh, I know who you are!"

Pause.

"A mech who doesn't know any better!" She cackled, lunging at the Harvester in the Air Commander's servos.

As Starscream shrieked and ran away from the hysterically laughing femme, Knockout and Breakdown could only stare in shock.

Breakdown managed to comm Knockout briefly, 'That's the femme I just told you about...', before Starscream screamed at them to help him.

Both looked at each other, then ran after them, not noticing a small figure watching.

_ _ _

While the fiasco with Echo was happening, Kaye held back her laughter and sneaked her way over to the dead vehicon. 'Poor thing didn't deserve this...'She thought mournfully to herself as she positioned herself onto the soldier's chestplate, where she then proceeded to do something....After she did so, she disappeared like she had never been there.

Several minutes passed, battle raging in the distance. Then out of nowhere, the vehicon glowed a light green, and then opened their optics. As they took in their surroundings, they then realized that this was their chance to escape.

As they did so, they wondered, 'Who was that nice human...and why...did she save me?'

_ _ _

Meanwhile, Echo was having the time of her life humiliating Starscream and the other two mechs. She recognized the large blue one, but the red one was a new faceplate.

“Hey! Redface! Who are you? Never seen you before!” She hollered as she dodged another one of Starscream’s blasts. The mech looked startled, as if he wasn’t expecting her to address his existence. Then he smirked and hollered back, “Why should I tell you when you’re about to be snuffed out, femme?”

Echo then let out a shriek of pain when a blast hit her in her backplates, making her stagger for a moment. Unfortunately, this allowed Breakdown to lunge at her and pin her down on the ground. She grunted as his digits dug into her and glared up into his orange faceplate. He smirked at her, then frowned as Starscream’s voice sounded. “Well done, Breakdown! You finally did something important! Now, hold her out in my direction, will you? I have something I’d love to try!”

Even though she heard his engine growl in obvious annoyance, Breakdown hauled her up and jerked her around to face the Seeker, who still held the Energon Harvester in his servos. ‘Scrap! Forgot he still had that...’

“Let’s see how this weapon works against this femme, shall we?” Starscream grinned, powering up the Harvester and pointing it straight at Echo, who narrowed her optics. Her lips formed a snarl. “Go ahead and try, Screamer!”

_

The Harvester whirred to life within Starscream’s claws, and it shot out a beam that started sucking out Echo’s very life force. Echo shrieked in agony as it did so, but then, the device started acting strange. It started sparking and shaking, and as Starscream struggled to keep ahold of it, he failed to see Echo’s pained grimace turn into a wild, unabashed grin. ‘Not that easy to take my life force when I already have a device that can take other forms of energy into myself…’

Unbeknownst to the Cons, Echo kept another kind of Energon Harvester within her subspace. Shaped as a gun, a very dangerous weapon if felled into the wrong servos, but this one was a special case, as Echo created this one to absorb any kind of energy that encountered her person and heal her in the process. Because of this, the sphere-shaped Energon Harvester was becoming drained of its own function and giving her the advantage, she needed to destroy the stupid thing and leave the Cons with nothing!

Not that the Decepticons couldn’t figure that out, of course, but they had no idea who they were dealing with. Echo was surprised that Starscream had no idea who she was, though. After all, he’s supposedly Megatron’s SIC. Surely, Megatron would have at least mentioned the gladiator femme who had eradicated the arena he and his fellow warriors had once inhabited….

’Eh! Who am I kidding? That fool would have never said anything anyway…’ Echo mused to herself as she got the pleasure to witness the doom of the rounded Harvester as it exploded into tiny shards and fell to the earth, never to function again. Taking in Starscream’s horrified/dumbfounded faceplate, Echo roared with laughter and broke free of Breakdown’s clutches, racing away in car mode.

Swerving wildly yet coordinated, Echo created a ground bridge and disappeared. Before vanishing though, she thought to herself, ‘I never got to learn Redface’s name. That’s a real shame…’

_

Starscream was horrified and beyond confused. How did the Energon Harvester break? Why did it break? What did that femme do to it? Without looking, Starscream addressed Breakdown and Knockout, who were just standing around and nervously twitching. After the femme had escaped, both had taken off to see if they could catch her, only to come back empty-handed. “Breakdown. Knockout. Tell me something: WHO WAS THAT DAMNED FEMME?!”

“I have never seen her in my whole life, Starscream! Don’t ask me who she is!” Knockout exclaimed, waving his arms around. Breakdown hesitated, and Starscream noticed. He snarled at the mech. “Well, Breakdown? You’re not hiding anything from me, are you?” Breakdown shook his helm quickly. “No! No way! I ran into her earlier, and she said her designation was Elementia! But that’s all I know, I swear!”

“Hmmmm…” Starscream hummed to himself. ‘Elementia, huh?’ Before the Seeker could muse any further, a groundbridge opened where they all were, and Optimus Prime, Arcee, and Bumblebee appeared.

“Starscream! Give us the Energon Harvester and we shall not fight!” Optimus said, as he and his two soldiers pointed their weaponry at the three of them. All three of them raised their arms up in surrender as Starscream spat out, “Too late, Prime! The Harvester has been destroyed! Check where we are standing!”

Then, in dramatic effect, the ground started to shake as an earthquake happened suddenly. Due to this timely distraction, all three Cons transformed and shot off, leaving three confused Autobots behind.

As the quake ceased, Arcee growled in annoyance. “Those slaggers got away!”

“Never mind that, Arcee. If the Harvester has truly been destroyed, then there is nothing for us here.” Optimus rumbled.

Bumblebee protested for a moment. *Woah! You’re just gonna take Screamer at his word, Optimus? He could be lying!*

Optimus waved to follow him to where the three Decepticons were previously standing. Crouching down and picking up something, he showed them pieces of the Energon Harvester. “Is this proof enough, Bumblebee?”

As Bumblebee relented with the proof in front of him, their comms beeped.

R: Optimus, Arcee, Bumblebee? Do you read me?
O: Yes, Ratchet. We hear you. What is it?
R: Agent Fowler has retrieved Miko and the Replica of the Harvester has been placed. Have you found and retrieved the Energon Harvester?
A: Not exactly, Ratchet…
B: It’s in pieces, Ratch. Nothing really can be done about it now….
R: What?! How can that be?
O: I don’t know, old friend. But for now, let’s just be thankful it will not be in the Decepticons’ servos anytime soon. Bridge us back now, if you’d please.
R: ….Right. Of course.

As the three Autobots vanished into the vortex, a lone figure peeped out from behind a large structure. The revived Vehicon then came out and went to the remaining shards of the Energon Harvester. He spoke softly. “That femme…Elementia…held her own for a long time against Starscream, Breakdown, and Knockout…She did something to this Harvester so they couldn’t have it…Who is she and why do I get the feeling she knows the human who saved me? I have so many questions to ask her…”

The Vehicon then abandoned the ruins of Greece.

_ _ _

After Optimus, Arcee and Bumblebee returned to base, they had barely had the time to start reporting their findings to Ratchet and Cliffjumper, when another portal opened in the middle of the room and Echo shot out of it. Transforming back into root mode, she grinned strangely, pointed right into the air and announced, “I DID IT!”, then landed on the floor with a CLANG!

Kaye, who was watching and observing from the human area, started laughing her ass off. “HAHAHAHAHA! IT’S SUPER EFFECTIVE!” As she doubled over from her giggle fit, Ratchet went over to Echo’s prone form and carefully turned her over, only to exhale an uncharacteristic snort of laughter, cover his mouth, stand up and start walking away, his shoulder pads shaking from repressed laughter.

When the rest of them went to see what had made Ratchet and Kaye start laughing, all of them started doing so themselves and had to walk away toward their own quarters. As Optimus walked away, his blast mask hiding his amused expression, he thought to himself, ‘Echo was correct. Ratchet’s sedative did take a long time for it to take effect....’

Chapter Text

Several days passed after the Energon Harvester Incident, and Kaye was still laughing at Echo, who had recovered from the sedative she had been injected with. “Alright, Kaye enough! Stop bringing that up!” Echo snapped at the young woman, who was drawing something on a notepad. Kaye’s head snapped up and looked at her with alarm. “Ok, ok! I’ll stop! What’s up with you? You haven’t snapped at me like that ever since I’ve got here…You on edge or something?”

Echo rolled her optics. “Gee, what gave it away?!” Echo sighed through her vents at Kaye’s look. “Ugh, sorry…”

Kaye placed her notepad to the side. “It’s alright, Echo. I shouldn’t be bringing that up anymore, anyway. So! On another topic-“

She was interrupted by engines coming down the hallway, and Arcee, Bumblebee, and Bulkhead came inside. They had gone to pick up the kids from school earlier, while Cliffjumper was out scouting with Optimus. Ratchet was somewhere else in the base, doing something.

Kaye got up and went to the railing, calling down to the three kids, “Hey kids! How was your….day? Holy scrap, Miko! What happened to you?!” She cried out, seeing the girl’s black eye. Miko grimaced in response while Bulkhead transformed. “I asked her what happened too, and she hasn’t said anything!”

Jack had already gotten off Arcee and Raf out of Bee, and as they headed for the staircase, Kaye shot past them like a speeding bullet toward Miko. Miko let out a shout of surprise as Kaye gently took a hold of her face, tilting it this way and that to access the damage. “Hey! Get your hands of my face!”

“Calm down, Miko! Just want to make sure that it’s not serious..” Kaye huffed, and she growled in annoyance. “Don’t worry about me! Worry about Jack and Raf!”

Kaye stilled. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Yeah, they got beat up by Vince and his goons too! They just don’t want to admit it!” Miko exclaimed, as Kaye turned around to glare at the two boys, who had frozen halfway up the stairs as they heard Miko spill the beans.

“Boys? You have something to tell me?” She called in a sickly-sweet tone as she made her way toward them. Both boys looked at each other frantically, then slumped in unison in defeat. Kaye pointed upward. “Sit down on the couch and I’ll be right there! And don’t move until I’ve seen you! That includes you too, Miko, don’t argue with me!” She called, spreading her wings and hurrying off toward her room, bounding up another flight of stairs.

As the three kids got situated on the couch, resigned to their fate, Ratchet walked into the room. He had been drawn in by the shouts. “What’s going on in here?”

“Nothing of importance, Ratchet. Go back to whatever you were doing beforehand, Kaye’s got this under control.” Echo said, her voice sounding distracted. Ratchet turned to look at the femme, who was looking at the spot where Kaye had departed with a strange look within her optics. Before he could say anything, Kaye returned with a whooshing noise as she landed gracefully next to the three kids, who were looking annoyed and despondent at the same time.

Kaye placed the first aid kit down onto the table next to them and opened it. “Ok, who’s hurt worse and where?”

“Miko.” Both Jack and Raf said in unison, and Miko muttered, “I hate you both…”

Kaye’s wings twitched a bit in annoyance, but she sighed heavily and turned to Miko. “Alright, let’s start with you then. Jack, Raf, tell me what’s wrong with you two as I do so and what exactly happened to you all...”

Jack sighed, but with a worried look from Arcee and the other bots, he relented. “Ok, ok! Here’s what happened: Me and Miko came out of the school early to see a classmate of ours named Vince and some of his friends dragging Raf behind the school. We came to his defense before they could do some serious damage to him, but we got involved instead…. Vince got a few lucky shots to my stomach and legs, so I’ll probably be a bit bruised for a few days.” Kaye moved over to him and asked permission for him to raise his shirt so she could see if what he said was true after checking out his legs. Jack blushed but obliged. Unbeknownst to him, Miko stared when he did so and quickly grab the video game controller before he could notice. After giving him a cold pack to alleviate the slight pain from his stomach to help bruising and helping him lay down, she moved over to assist Raf.

“I’m glad they did come…he had more guys than normal. I honestly didn’t think Vince had that many friends to begin with…And I just have some bruises on my arms from them grabbing me.” Raf said quietly as Kaye moved onto him to examine his arms. He had noticed that her wings were ridged behind her, and her hands seemed to flex and twitch violently, almost as if she was wanting to curl her hands into fists as Jack explained.
After she had done her best to assist them, Kaye stood up and spoke with a chilling voice. “Where does this bastard live and what does he look like?”

“Kaye! Language! And what the hell, you better not think about doing what I’m thinking you’re gonna do?” Echo warned, her optics narrowing at the young woman, who turned to her with a fire in her single eye. “Shut the hell up, Echo. You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“Oh yes, I do! You’re planning on getting even with this bully, aren’t you?” Echo growled back, and the three kids looked at Kaye in alarm.

“What?!” Raf exclaimed, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

“No way! Are you for real? What are you gonna do to him?” Miko grinned in anticipation.

Jack started to get up. “Oh no, no, no! Don’t get involved, he’s our problem to deal with!” Kaye whipped around to glare at him, and he sat down quickly at the look on her face. “Excuse me? If he’s YOUR problem to deal with, why haven’t any of you reported his bullying?" Jack winced, while Miko exclaimed, “We’ve tried so many times, but no one takes us seriously!”

Kaye let out an actual snarl, and Raf cowered on the couch as she growled out, “That makes it even worse! I’ll do something about this fool, since no actual adult will! I HATE bullying of any kind, and I’ll give that idiot a good verbal one! I’ll see how he likes my kind of “bullying” and we’ll see how he treats others afterward….”

Kaye rushed for the railing and spread her wings to fly off the landing, only for her to slam straight into Echo’s servo with a resounding CLANG! “Ohhhh, shitbiscuits…” she slurred, as she fell backwards into Echo’s open palm, knocked out.

*Echo! That was too far!* Bumblebee yelped.

“What the heck! Why did you knock her out?” Bulkhead gaped.

“Seriously? Why did you stop her? Sounds like this guy needs to be taught a good lesson.” Arcee was surprisingly on Kaye’s side.

Echo rolled her optics as Ratchet went to her to examine the unconscious woman in her servo. “You clearly have no idea what lengths Kaye will go to save someone from being conflicted with any kind of pain, mentally and physically-She’s fine, Ratchet! Geez, she made of tougher stuff than you give her credit for!” She hissed at the medic and dodged away from him as he tried to take Kaye from her. “That may be the case, but she smacked right into your servo, Echo! That was uncalled for, by the way!” Ratchet hissed back, trying to grab Kaye from her.

All three Cybertronians and their charges watched with amusement as Ratchet chased Echo around the room, Miko giggling audibly. The chase was halted when the comm. Console beeped with Optimus requesting a ground bridge for himself and Cliffjumper. Ratchet glared at Echo with an “This isn’t over!” look on his faceplates, while Echo glared back with an “Oh, yes, it is!” look back at him as he went to open up the bridge. Both the Prime and Cliffjumper returned to see the children on the couch while their guardians kept watch nearby, and Echo and Ratchet both seemingly in a staring contest of sorts.

“Give Kaye here, Echo.” Ratchet huffed, holding out his servo.

“She’s mine, Ratchet. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been her guardian all my life, so-“Echo broke off suddenly, paused, and then shook her helm. “Never mind…. here.” She gave the girl to Ratchet, who gently took her and stared at the femme.

“Don’t come to me and complain when you can’t find her though!” Echo called and vanished into a portal without any more context.

As everyone stared at the spot where Echo had vanished, Cliffjumper spoke up hesitantly. “Ohhhh-kayyyy then…. What did we miss?”

“Not a whole lot, Cliff. Just the fact that the kids got beat up a bit from some other kids at school, and Kaye’s all pissed off about it. She was going to go teach the kids a lesson to not do that, but Echo knocked her out flat.” Arcee explained to her partner. Cliffjumper’s optics widened and looked to the three kids, who were relaxing in the “human corner”, as they called it. Ratchet had placed Kaye on a chair. “You three alright?” he asked, coming over to the railing and looking over them. Jack looked back at him and shrugged. “We’ll be alright, Cliffjumper. Thanks for asking.”

Raf was busy on his laptop doing something, while Miko was fiddling with the video game controller. She huffed a bit angrily. “I wish we COULD HAVE done something to teach that no-good guy a lesson! He needs to be put in his place!”

“Miko….” Bulkhead sighed worriedly, and she whirled around to face him with a look of indignation on her face. “What? Don’t tell me you haven’t had to deal with people who beat you up and you don’t try to get them back somehow?” Bulkhead shrugged awkwardly, but before he could really say anything, there was a loud, annoyed groan coming from Kaye, who was waking up from being knocked out.

“Ughhhh…. What hit me? Echo!” She spat out, jumping up from the chair with her wings spread wide. Before any of them could do anything to stop her, Kaye flung herself upwards and crashed through a window, escaping the base. All of them cried out her name in shock, surprise or horror. “KAYE, COME BACK!!”

She did not, and after a few minutes of everyone gawking, Miko broke the quiet shock with saying, “Well, we’re screwed.”

Jack whirled to look at the girl. “Oh geez, Miko, you think?!”

“We have to go after her! Who knows what she’ll do to Vince and the others!” Raf exclaimed, to which Miko scoffed and rolled her eyes. “First of all, why should we go after her? And second, Vince is gonna get his own taste of medicine from her! I say leave her to her own devices!”

Jack balled his hands into fists. “Raf’s got a point, Miko! We don’t know what she’s capable of! Didn’t you hear Echo about what she told us: “You clearly have no idea what lengths Kaye will go to save someone from being conflicted with any kind of pain, mentally and physically”, meaning she might do something that she’ll regret for the rest of her life! Besides, remember, Kaye didn’t even go with us when we had to go and grab that Energon Harvester because she was afraid of being spotted?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m kind of confused about. Why was she afraid of being spotted?” Bulkhead broke in.

Jack looked back at the Wrecker and sighed. “Well, she’s got wings, right? People would freak out majorly if they saw her because normal humans don’t have any kind of those characteristics…And they would probably call the authorities to arrest her…”

*That’s crazy though!* Bumblebee buzzed, and looked at Raf when he placed a tiny hand on his guardian’s servo to comfort him. Raf gave a small smile. “It is crazy Bee, but that’s just how society is…People don’t like what they don’t understand, so they lash out. That’s probably why Vince bullies us at least….”

Arcee growled a bit. “Still doesn’t excuse him and his pals beating anyone and everyone up, though…” Then she froze up, her optics wide as she realized something. “Uhhh…Who’s gonna tell Echo about this?”

Everyone stopped at that, slight horror and terror shooting through them at the thought of the femme finding out that Kaye escaped their clutches…

Ratchet turned to Optimus, his optics wide. “We must find Kaye before Echo shows up again.”

Optimus nodded, his faceplates serious. “Agreed, old friend. Bulkhead, Arcee, Bumblebee! Take the children into town and see if you can find Kaye before anything happens. I shall go and see if I can track her route from where she escaped out the window from. Cliffjumper and Ratchet, stay here and monitor our communications! Autobots, roll out!”

_ _ _
Kaye’s POV
As I flew high above the ground below and far away from the base, my mind whirled with anger at the kids’ situation and how Echo had been treating me ever since I was “rescued” from the train incident.

‘How dare this Vince character bully kids?! Has no one tried to stand up to this bastard?! I guess not, since he hasn’t stopped beating innocent kids up….’ Suddenly, I had an epiphany and screeched to a halt in midair.

“Shit! I don’t even know what this stupid kid looks like! Damn it!” I shouted as I hovered. Extremely annoyed at the situation of knowing that because I had no idea of what this kid looked like, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to return to base.

However, since I was still pissed off at Echo, I just decided that I would stay away from the base a little while longer until I was calmed down enough. As I looked around the deserted landscape, I grinned.

‘Might as well practice some of my powers while I’m out here…’

Unbeknownst to me, a tiny device pulsed.
_ _ _

Ratchet’s POV

As the rest of the team scoured for the missing winged girl (Cliffjumper included, since I had gotten really annoyed at his pacing), I hovered around the monitors. During this time of rare silence, I thought to myself about an earlier statement Echo had made to me during her panic attack of Kaye’s arrival to base: ‘“Don't. Just don't. The time has come for secrets to come to light, or as a human saying goes: the truth always comes out, no matter what. Just....just don't judge me until the end of the story. Can you promise me that much at least?" What in the world did she mean by that?’

Before I could wonder anything further, a familiar sound echoed through the room as one of Echo’s portals shimmered into focus and the femme herself walked through, looking a bit distracted, if her optics were anything to go by. She ignored the obvious fact that I was there, muttering to herself. I strained my audio receptors a bit to hear, “Don’t think on-stupid organization-It-exist anymore-Don’t panic-will ask questions about-chill out-“

“Echo, are you alright?” I asked.

She physically jumped and both servos went to her chest plates as she gasped in surprise and shock. “Ratchet! Don’t scare me like that! I’ll have a spark attack! Don’t. Do. That.”

I smirked a bit despite myself. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

She rolled her optics and huffed in fake annoyance, then looked around in suspicion. “Where is everyone? The kids aren’t supposed to be going back home yet, and Kaye-“She then froze, and my spark felt like it was doing the same. ‘Please, please, don’t freak out…’I mentally prayed, then jumped in shock and surprise as Echo started cackling. Just straight up cackled like an evil villain.

As she bent over double due to the force of which she was howling, I started toward the femme in alarm. “Echo! What is the matter with you? Why are you laughing at a time like this? Shouldn’t you be mad at us for Kaye escaping?”

Echo shook her helm as she struggled upright, giggling like crazy. “Mad? I’m not mad! This is hilarious to me! I get to say, “I told you so!” for losing her! I did tell you to not be surprised if she escapes you, didn’t I?”

Instead of calming down, like I thought she would, Echo’s giggles became manic, and her EM field started to fluctuate. She covered her face plates with both servos as she struggled to reign herself in, and my spark squeezed in its casing. Something was obviously wrong, and I yearned to help her, so I slowly made my way to where she stood and placed both servos on her elbows to try to ground her. “Echo, calm down. You’ll overheat your systems if you keep going like this…. come sit down...”

I coaxed her to sit down beside me, and as soon as I had made myself comfortable, she suddenly latched onto me and buried her face in my neck, low keens coming from her vocalizer. I froze at the puffs of air gusts on my sensitive cables and brushed away some alerts that had popped up on my HUD. Feigning calmness, I huffed and wrapped my arms around her. “What’s wrong, Echo? You’ve been acting strange all day. Well, stranger than normal for you…”

Echo choked out a huff and retreated to wipe her face plates of coolant, and I had to fight myself to not reach out and grab her servos in mine. Something about this femme made my emotional coding go a bit haywire…

”Let me tell you a story, Ratchet. I’ll warn you though, it may be unbelievable to you, but it’s all real….”

“Tell me. No judgement here, and besides, I’ve seen and heard everything. Nothing could be more unbelievable that what I’ve heard of.” I rumbled, and she glanced at me with a small, sad smile. “All right…Here goes…”

She took a breath and started her tale. “Truth is, I’ve been here on Earth for a long time, Ratchet. Before you lot arrived here, that’s for sure. So, I’ve had my fair share of human culture and stuff…. But when I first arrived here, my first impression of humans was not good. Like, at all. Let’s just say I crash landed here and humans found me first and foremost. These humans…were not human…they were monsters, Ratchet. These monsters captured me and experimented on me…they wanted to know what I was, what made me tic, and how they could use me for their own nefarious purposes…I grew to HATE humankind, as I believed that all of them were like these cruel bastards…Until the day I met Kaye.”

I hated to interrupt, but I had to clarify something. “You did not always know Kaye, then?”

She shook her helm and continued. “I met Kaye when they placed her inside my prison cell. They probably thought I would kill her. I didn’t though, as she had tried to fight back against her captors, which was something I desperately wanted to do, but didn’t have enough strength or will to do so….I had almost given up by this time, but Kaye’s fighting spirit kept me going. After we had talked to one another and gotten to know each other a bit, we promised one another to escape together. She-she made something for me to wrap around my back to remind me what we were to each other, but I found out recently that I have lost it somewhere…”

I remembered the strange jewelry I had found after the scraplet incident. It had Kaye’s name engraved on it, so maybe it was Echo’s? I reached into my subspace and pulled it out carefully. “Do you mean this? I came across it after the scraplet incident and haven’t had the chance to give it-OOF!” I was forcefully broken off when Echo grabbed it from my servos, stared at it like it wasn’t even real, then near tackled me in a fierce hug as she repeated “thank you’s” in my audios.

“You’re welcome, Echo. I’m glad to give it back to its rightful owner…”

After a few minutes, Echo withdrew, beaming happily as she tucked it back within her subspace. “You don’t know how much this means to me….Where was I?”

Before I could answer, the comm console beeped and Cliffjumper called in, sounding panicked. “Ratchet? Ratchet! Are you there? This is an emergency!”

Both of us looked at one another in alarm and helped each other up to get over there. “Cliffjumper, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“Found something, and it’s not pretty.. Looks like a battle happened here, but there’s a catch, doc….I don’t think it has anything to do with any of us Cybertronians either….” Cliff said and trailed off.

I narrowed my optics. “What do you mean, Cliffjumper? What did you find?”

An audible gulp sounded over the comms. “Dead humans…and a lot of blood…human blood.”

_ _ _
Echo’s POV

As soon as Cliffjumper had spoken those words, I knew something bad had occurred, and I needed to get over to where the red mech was located. “Cliffjumper, what are your coordinates?!” I barked, shooting up from the floor and over to the console, Ratchet right beside me. Cliffjumper rattled off the location and, as soon as the bridge had locked on, I scanned the numbers. Before I could turn around and put my servos outward to create a portal, Ratchet placed a servo on my shoulders. “Wait just a moment, Echo! What do you plan to do here?”

I glanced back at the medic. “What else? Go find Kaye and dispose of whoever has taken her of course! Wanna come along?”

A couple minutes later…

I created a portal and went through without the mech after he told me he had to stay behind to let the other team members know what had happened. I had also warned Ratchet to send the kids home, since they shouldn’t see Kaye when she inevitably came back injured.

“Wow! You weren’t kidding when you said that you found dead people, Cliff.” I exclaimed as I came across the red mech, sitting far away from the horrible scenery. The poor guy looked sick to his tanks, and he glanced up at me with greenish faceplates. I huffed and waved to the portal to the base behind me. “Get back to base, bud. You don’t need to be here anymore. Thanks for the location beacon, too.”

Amazingly enough, Cliffjumper said nothing in return and walked through the portal without a word. ‘Poor guy obviously can’t handle the gruesome sight of dead human remains…Makes me wonder about everyone else…’

‘Now then, who the fuck are these guys?’ I growled inwardly to myself as I eyed the bodies, which were in various states of decomposition. ‘Wonder how long ago this happened…Eh! It doesn’t matter now!’ I thought to myself gleefully as I took multiple snapshots of the victims, then obliterated the bodies so that they would never be discovered.

After I did that, I straightened up and looked around. ‘Where is Kaye now? Hopefully she’s fought back and escaped…’

Spotting vehicle tracks in the sand, I let out a sigh, then transformed into my vehicle form, much to my chagrin. I really didn’t like using the car form, as some of my features grinded against one another within the seams and my protoform. This was why it looked like I was drunk or something whenever I drove…

As I swerved around following the trail, I spotted a figure in the distance heading my way…Was It-Could it be-YES!

_ _ _
Kaye’s POV

As I staggered through the desert, my mind whirled to what had happened hours earlier…

Flashback
While I was blowing off some steam and practicing some of my abilities, I heard rumbling noises of vehicles headed my way and I jumped at the chance to hide myself behind a sand dune. ‘Wouldn’t do any good to be captured or questioned out here…’ I thought wildly, recognizing the sounds of M.E.C.H.

It was obvious that there were at least four vehicles full of M.E.C.H soldiers, and I was both terrified and infuriated at the fact that they somehow, someway found where I was located. ‘How the fuck, do they keep finding me?!’

Each vehicle stopped, and the soldiers all filed out. I could hear how annoyed and exhausted they all were, and one of the voices sounded familiar to me. – “Oh, she’s here alright! I can sense her! Come out, come out, wherever you are, dear girl! Don’t you want to come and play?!” It was HIM. Why did it have to be HIM?! He knows how I think and feel about him, and he knows how to push the right buttons…

“Boo, bitch.” Clawed hands grabbed me from behind and yanked me out into the open, flinging me across the desert and making me slam into the sand.

Even with the breath knocked out of me, I jerked myself up. “Bastard! How do you fuckers keep finding me?!” I spat, whirling around to block a punch from my attacker. HE grinned at me. “Where’s the fun in telling you, when I can just show you?” He hissed, kicking me in my stomach with such a force that sent me reeling backwards.

Almost falling flat on my face as I heaved up bile, instincts told me to careen away from the next kick coming my way, but my body wasn’t fully healed yet, so I took the hit.

Retching a bit as I ended up sprawled on my hands and knees, I wasn’t prepared for multiple people to grab me from everywhere. Despite that, I inwardly grinned. They just made a HUGE mistake-And before any of them could react…Death happened.

As I recovered from the energy I had just released, I straightened up to see the carnage I had wrought, and my stomach threatened to rebel again, but before it could do so, I was snatched from my place on the ground and into the air! I shrieked in terror as HE tightened his clawed grip on me, hollering down at me, “Hope you like the view!”

I screamed back, “Not really, asshole!”, and using the method of swinging, I kicked HIM straight where the sun doesn’t shine, making him roar in agony and drop me.

As I fell, I flared my wings, and glided away as fast as I could. When I dared to look back, HE was flying away from me, not in pursuit. Relieved beyond belief, I swore to myself I would work on making sure my surroundings were all clear in open areas.

“Oh god, oh lord, help me please!” I yelped as I landed on the ground and resembled a tumbleweed for a bit until I came to a stop.

‘They are all gonna be so mad at me…’ I thought to myself as I got up and gasped in agony as my right arm and wing screamed at me in pain. “Probably need to work on my flying and landing procedures…” I hissed as I got up and started walking in the direction I came from.

Flashback Ends

“What a crazy day…Hold up, what’s that...coming my wayyyyyy-Oh god!” I screeched, as I realized that it was Echo as soon as she transformed in front of me. “Wow, don’t you look rough!” She commented, and I glared tiredly at her.

_ _ _
Echo’s POV

“Wow, don’t you look rough!” Is all I could say as I took in Kaye’s condition: injured arm and wing were obvious, dusty with sand, and vomit stains on her clothes, but other than that she looked ok.

Kaye glared up at me. “Oh, shut up and take me back to base please. I feel disgusting.”

“You certainly look it.” I huffed, reaching down and gently reclining her into my left servo while my right servo created a portal back to base.

“Did you learn your lesson, at least?” I asked, as we entered the base to see all the bots there.

_ _ _
Back At Base

Ratchet’s POV

All teams had returned to base (poor Cliffjumper was in berth after he had hurried to the wash racks to purge his systems and Arcee had gone off to tend to him) and after the kids were sent home (much to Miko’s chagrin, of course), I was just about to comm Echo to see if she had found Kaye yet, when she arrived via portal with said runaway, who just looked done with everything and everyone.

I caught Echo’s question of “Did you learn your lesson, at least?”, as she came into earshot. Kaye replied by standing up, grabbing her right arm and wrenching it with a loud cracking noise. This was followed by the young woman herself shrieking at the top of her lungs in pain, then cursing herself as she paced on Echo’s servo, stomping her feet with a strange grimace on her face.

Echo had stopped in her tracks and gaped at the girl (alongside everyone else). Before I could say anything, Echo said it for me: “What. In the ever-loving. Frag. Did you do that for?!”

*That sounded painful! * Bumblebee cringed and hurried off.

“I second that! Ouch!” Bulkhead stepped back a bit, then followed the scout.

“Why did you do that, Kaye?” Optimus stepped over to address the young woman, who was still growling to herself. Kaye turned to look at the Prime, and then I noticed that her wing looked to be in similar shape. “I’ve dislocated parts of my body before, sir, so I know what to expect. It never gets any easier dealing with the pain though! God that smarts!” She spat out, stomping a foot for emphasis as soon as she was put down on the platform by Echo.

“That’s what happens when you deal with injuries by yourself, Kaye, so you kind of deserve the pain.” Echo chuckled a bit with laughter as she muttered, “Shut up, Echo, look who’s talking!”

I came up to say my two cents: “Primus, let me assist for your wing at least! You didn’t need to do that on your own, Kaye! What am I, chopped liver?! And what happened to you? You’re filthy!”

Kaye then turned to me and deadpanned, “I went to explore the desert and made myself sick. My apologies, I’d rather not talk about it. Can I go wash up now? Thanks.” Without waiting for an answer, Kaye hurried off into the human quarters of the base.

“Will she be alright, old friend?” Optimus asked me, and I huffed. “I have no idea, Optimus. She’s quite fast, even when she’s injured, I must admit.”

Echo chimed in from where she had sat down on the floor to stretch a bit. “Oh yeah, Kaye’s a speed demon when it comes to a lot of things. You’ll get used to it. She’s used to dealing with everything on her own, so she normally comes up with the craziest ideas to avoid anyone else getting involved with her business. Reminds me of a speed bump trap, actually…”

“A…speed bump trap?” I questioned, confused. Echo nodded with a hum. “Yeah, well, my version anyway. You know what speed bumps are right?” Both me and Optimus nodded. “Well, speed bumps are made to slow down drivers from going too fast in populated areas. I call Kaye a speed bump trap because she doesn’t allow any obstacle to slow her down unless it is necessary TO slow down, or something MAKES HER slow down!”

Now done with her exercise, Echo got up and brushed herself off. “Might not make any sense to you guys, but it does to me! Now then, I’m off to get some recharge and energon! Night!” Before we could stop her, Echo had vanished.

I huffed a sigh and turned back to go to the monitors, but Optimus’ servo halted me. “Ratchet, I must inquire, what happened to the deceased humans that Cliffjumper reported?” I blinked in surprise, then worry. “Oh, well, I honestly have no idea Optimus. I didn’t get anything out of Cliffjumper when he returned because he became physically ill when I tried to ask him about it, so…”

“Hmmmm….Do you think Echo knows something about it?” He mused, to which I hesitated, remembering what Echo had told me in confidence earlier. “Everything has been so chaotic today, Optimus. Shouldn’t we ask her tomorrow?”

Our Prime nodded in agreement, although it was obvious to me that his optics still looked clouded in thought. He then wished me well and headed off into the base, leaving me to the monitors. I let out a very quiet sigh and headed over to the electronics. As I settled in to do my nightly duty, my processor whirled with worry and trepidation.

‘What happened to those humans? And what-if anything-does Echo know about them?’