5.Nov.08

Disclaimer: None of the characters, except for some misc humans are mine. I'm not making any money from this, so please don't sue.

Author's Note: A long time ago (when I was about 13, so 8 years ago) I wrote my very first fanfics about my very first fandom. The fandom was Beast Wars/Beast Machines and the series was called Drifted Sparks. Looking back on them now, I cringe with a “did I really write that!?” reaction, but bad cheesy writing aside, I don't think the concept was that bad. A friend of mine encouraged me when I started contemplating a rewrite, so here it is.

This series cuts of the very VERY ending of Beast Machines. The last 4 and a half minutes (as the DVD shows) to be precise. That means that the team got their sparks yanked, Primal and Megs had their fun, fell into the pit, essentially becoming the consciousness of Cybertron itself, but that's where the BM story stops and this one begins. The usual canon ships apply, and I'm planing to stay as much in character for everyone as possible. Enjoy!

Drifted Sparks Reimagining

By: Silver Spider

Prologue

Death

“You know this would be much easier if you were a tyrannical dictator instead of... well, you. Then you could just order instead of ask.”

“I appreciate the offhand compliment, but there's really very little time for this. I need an answer.”

“What did the others say?”

“I'm asking you. It's your life. It has to be your decisions.”

“You told everyone else that, didn't you?”

“Yes. If there's one thing this endeavor taught me is that individualism should be preserved at any cost.”

“It's never easy. What if I say no and everyone else says yes? Or vice versa?”

“I will not send any of you to the slaughter. If not enough volunteer, no one goes, and we'll meet the threat when it comes here.”

Silence.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I heard you. When do I leave?”

“Immediately.”

Chapter 1

Birth

Searing pain stabbed at her body from every angle. She waited for the majority of it to subside to a dull ache before attempting to open her eyes and look around. The first attempt was met with another wave of main as a bright light hit her unused pupils, but after a few more tries she realized that the might wasn't bright at all. In face, wherever she was, it was the middle of the night, and the offending light came from a street lamp.

Blackarachnia slowly rose to her feet. Her soldier's instinct demanded that she be weary of a possible attack, but for the moment she appeared to be alone. Her surroundings told her that she was in some sort of city, but it was none she recognized. A look at the sky was not of much help either, the stars and any possible satellites concealed by light pollution and cloud cover. That made her frown. Cybertron had no clouds, because it had no water. Not really. The organic ooze from the planet's core which she and her teammates had discovered had similar properties, but it did not evaporate or condense the way water did.

Interesting.

Without a mirror she had no way to assess her appearance, but one thing she had noticed instantly was the strongly organic nature to whatever her new body was. It wasn't the absence of an onboard commuter that had first alerted her – they done away with those when they had been reformatted at the beginning of the Technorganic War, but the distinct feeling that the pain she was experiencing was sharper, more profound than it should be. Even as a technorganic, her body had been fairly resilient. Now every move made her body ache.

“Thanks a lot, Primal,” she muttered under her breath as she took stock of her surroundings once more. “Could've at least warned us.”

Noise from several yards away made her jump and slink back into the darkness and away from the street lights. From her place in the shadows, she watched as a group of people walked by in the open, well-lit street ahead. At first they all looked alike to her aside from what she could only assume was their armor, but then she began to see subtle differences. Different hair color, skin tones, and two of them were female.

Humans, Blackarachnia realized with a measure of surprise and wonder. Young ones, too, if she understood their biology correctly. The only first-hand encounters she'd ever had with the species was back in the Beast Wars on prehistoric Earth, when they had been in the very beginning stages of their evolution. Everything else she knew about them came from data tracks and other sources. By the time the upgrade from Autobot to Maximal and Decepticon to Predacon occurred, all ties with humans had been long severed.

When they passed, she stepped back into the light so as to take another look at her new body. Fingers slowly traced facial features then torso, hips, legs. Confirming what she already suspected, she sighed. Human. Or at least that's what her new body appeared to be. She could easily tell apart the technorganic and purely technological having experienced both. Blackarachnia wasn't quite sure that she could tell the difference tween a  technorganic and purely organic body, but that would have to wait.

Before she went anywhere or did anything, she had to find some clothes. Blackarachnia may not have known too much about humans, but she knew enough to realize that in her current state, she would cause a scene if anyone found her. Forget the humans, she thought as she started down the dark ally, rather not run into any of the boys naked either.

Luck was with her. There were several lines strewn between buildings with various articles of clothing hanging in a random fashion. She found the sight odd but could hardly complain. The only annoyance was that none were within her reach, but the web of metal stairs and balconies on the side of the buildings proved useful. She soon had a pair of jeans, a red tank top, and a short jacket in her hands. Shoes would've been nice, she decided after pulling on the clothes. The skin on the sols of her feet was as new as the rest of her body,  and the ground beneath them was less than smooth.

After convincing herself she wouldn't stand out too badly among the humans, Blackarachnia finally took the time to assess her situation. She was alone on a human inhabited world, but that was all she could tell. Just because there were humans, didn't mean it was Earth. Even by the time Autobots had cut off contact with humanity, it had already spread to other worlds. For all she knew it could be a human colony light years away from Earth. And she had no idea where the others were.

“If anyone else is here,” she sighed. Damn Primal and his free will idealism.

The sound of something heavy crashing to the ground to her right startled her, but she didn't flee this time. Someone was walking – no, stumbling – towards her. She watched as a short figure with spiky dark hair and wide brown eyes stumbled out of the shadows. If it wasn't the obvious lack of clothing that alerted her that this was most likely one of her teammates, the same confused look on his face that she had when she first awoke in this strange place was a dead give away.

“Webs?”

She resisted the urge to grin and role her eyes at the same time. Appearances changed, but apparently annoying scratchy voices never did.

“Over here, Rattrap,” she called out, “but you might wanna grab something from those lines before you come any closer.”

There was some shuffling, scrambling, and cursing, but a moment later, Rattrap emerged wearing a gray sweatshirt, the strings of its hood comically resembling a pair of rat tails, and pants which were clearly both too large and too long for his short frame.

“What the heck just happened?” the rodent demanded. “Last thing I remember was Megatron reaching into my spark and then... poof.” He looked around for. “Where's the rest of the gang, anyway?”

“You're the only one I've run into so far, so wherever they are, I'm guessing it's not near here,” she replied. “Wherever here is...”

“Does that answer your question?” Rattrap pointed into the sky behind her.

Blackarachnia turned her head to see what he was pointing at and scowled. She really shouldn't have been surprised, but somehow she still was. The familiar cratered pattern of the face of Earth's sole moon greeted her in the cleared sky. For some absurd reason, an old human rhyme passed through her thoughts.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig...

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Cheetor had never, in his memory, had a habit of talking to himself, even internally, but at the moment, he was having a hard time keeping himself from talking through his jumbled thoughts. It wouldn't be the best move to give his companion, who Cheetor knew didn't hold a terribly high opinion of him as it was, more reason to question him. The young man bit his lip and absently fingered a curl at his temple. After the several body changes he'd gone through, this was by far the strangest one. Still he couldn't keep from grinning, even after receiving a dubious raised brow from Silverbolt. He was back on Earth. And not just in the boring prehistoric time where there was nothing to do but run around all day. There were humans here. Evolved humans. This was just so... cool!

The former bird-dog seemed just as engrossed in studding his own new appearance, thought somewhat less interested in their return to the planet that was the battle ground of the Beast Wars. He ended up with straight black hair that fell to the nape of his neck and gray-blue eyes. Though his features were much less angular than those of his technorganic form, whatever force was responsible for their new bodies had obviously used the old ones as blueprints. Cheetor's own form came complete with golden-blond curls, moss green eyes, and even a peppering of freckles across his nose. Not the most adult appearance, he thought somewhat peevishly.

“So we've established this is Earth,” he said, trying to sound more in control of everything than he actually felt.

“You have stated this already,” Silverbolt pointed out to his eternal annoyance. “Twice, and I have agreed with you. Now may we please focus on finding our teammates?”

The perpetual grin that had been on Cheetor's face for the last several hours immediately vanished. This was where the talking-to-himself part came in. The carefree child in him wanted to run around and see all these was in this wondrous new place. But his internal adult voice of reason, which sounded terribly like Optimus, insisted he make finding the rest of the team the number one priority. Seeing the worried look that Silverbolt was obviously trying – and failing – to hide, he felt doubly guilty.

“Hey, I'm sure she's fine,” he offered. “We all probably just got thrown in different directions. Earth's a big planet.”

“And yet the two of us emerged in relatively the same location,” Silverbolt pointed out, “but you are mistaken. I was expressing concern for the entire team, not any particular individual.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Cheetor rolled his eyes, “just make sure she want you back after... whoa!”

He was dimly aware of Silverbolt asking if he was alright, but Cheetor almost didn't hear him. It was almost like an out-of body experience. He felt his feet firmly rooted to one spot, but his vision was moving faster than he'd ever run before. It speed by countless people through through streets and around corners until he could see them.

Sparks. Two of them, pulsing brightly and vibrantly with life.

A less-than gentle jerk to his shoulder pulled him back into his body. He blinked twice before finding himself starting straight into Silverbolt's gray-blue gaze. Concern that Cheetor had rarely seen directed towards himself was written all over the other man's face. Cheetor could do nothing but look around in confusion.

“What just happened?” he asked.

“I was about to ask you the same,” Silverbolt frowned. “You froze, and something lit within your eyes. It lasted a mere second, though.”

“I saw something,” he said, finally piecing things together. “There are other sparks here, at least two.”

“How do you know this?” there was a note of incredulity in the other Maximal's voice.

“I don't know how exactly, but I saw them,” Cheetor replied, “the actual sparks, not the people. I don't know who's sparks they were, but there are definitely others here.”

He could practically see the thoughts turning over in Silverbolt's head, considering his deceleration. However since his return late in the Technorganic War, Silverbolt had not been the easiest person to read, though at one point Cheetor was sure he was about to question his sanity. Finally, after several minutes of simply standing at the street corner, the other man turned back to him.

“Where did you see these sparks?” he asked.

Cheetor tried his best to retrace the path his mind had taken.

“North of here,” he finally said. “I'm not sure exactly how far or where they are, but somewhere north. They're in the same place or close to each other. That's all I can tell you.”

“I... may be able to uncover more,” Silverbolt said thoughtfully, more to himself than Cheetor. “If you would give me a moment of silence.”

“Wanna tell me what you're planning to do?”

“No,” the response was short and blunt. “Please be quiet.”

Silverbolt had not ventured within his own mind for quite a while. Facing the much darker individual he'd become upon his return had been difficult, but the idea that that darkness could once again take the form of Jetstorm was enough to keep him from wandering anywhere past the very surface thoughts. It was as if an invisible wall that shielded him from the past and kept the pain at bay, dulling his emotions in the process. If that had been the only side effect, Silverbolt might have welcomed it, but the wall had other, much more severe consequences that could no longer be tolerated.

Brick by brick, he began to disassemble it. Not the entire wall. He was not yet ready for that, but a big enough gap to let emotions flow through. He took a breath, then channeled thoughts and feelings of comfort, safety, and above all else, love through the gap. He waited for a beat, then two. Finally just as he was about to loose hope, an answer came from beyond the wall. Confusion and weariness preceded, but soon the emotions became those of overwhelming joy and love,with perhaps a touch of annoyance.

He couldn't help but smile.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

On the other side of the city, Blackarachnia stopped mid stride. It took her a moment to understand exactly what it was she was experiencing, but when she finally understood, she grinned.

'Bout slagin' time, Bowser.

Chapter 2

Bond

Oh but there were advantages to this whole human thing, and one was staring Rattrap right in the face from its place in the cart board box. He grinned and happily tore off another piece of the cheeseburger. This was followed by three french fries dipped in the strange but tasty substance labeled “ketchup.” Rattrap grinned and rubbed his grease-sleeked fingers together. Energon could only be processed in so many ways, but here the verity of food was limitless.

He chuckled and pulled out the worn brown leather wallet he'd taken off a guy in a suit when he and Blackarachnia first came into the fast food place. He'd noticed the humans pulled them out whenever they needed to perches something, so Rattrap quickly acquired one. Inside he found several bills marked ten and twenty and a few marked one, as well as some plastic cards, one of which had a photo of the wallet's original owner. Probably an ID, he figured. He wasn't sure how much the currency was actually worth, but judging by the prices in the less-than high end food establishment, it was not much.

Blackarachnia who sat perfectly still across the table form him, hadn't ordered any food. She appeared as if she was listening to something far away that he couldn't hear. Rattrap glanced around the restaurant but no one around was saying anything worth listening in on. He poked her arm with the blunt end of the plastic fork, and she blinked.

“What?”

“Ain't it a bad time for day-dreamin', Legs?”

“I'm not day-dreaming,” she glared at him and changed the subject. “Let me see that wallet.”

Rattrap fished it out of the pouch in his hoody and handed it to her.

“I recommend the french fries,” he grinned. “Ain't nothin' like 'em on Cybertron.”

She looked at the messy stack on his tray, raising a dubious brow at it.

“I'm not hungry. Actually I wanted to see this,” she held up the man's photo ID.

“Somehow I don't think you pass for a balding middle aged man,” Rattrap grinned, which earned him a glare. “I know, I know. 'Shut up, Rattrap.' So what do you want with that thing?”

“According to this, the man who this ID belongs to,” Blackarachnia pointed at the card, “was born in 1973. You  were the one who conveniently bumped in to him. How old would you say he looks now?”

“ 'bout... mid-forties in human years?” Rattrap was catching on. “And if my math's right, that puts us in early 21^st century.”

The woman nodded. “Right at the end of or even after the Great War, but still about three hundred stellar cycles in the past from our point of view. If we go back to Cybertron now as is, we'll be explaining who in the Inferno we are to a planet full of Autobots.”

“Eh beats prehistoric Earth,” Rattrap shrugged.

“That's not my point. I'm wondering more about why Optimus sent us to this particular time. My human history is rusty. Is there something other than the end of the Great War that's particular important about this time frame that I'm missing?”

“Nothin' comes to mind,” Rattrap bit his lip in thought. “The heavy machinery left Earth alone after the war. Guess they figured they better not mess with humans any more than they already did. I doubt we'll be runnin' into any transformin' semi trucks. Ah a shame, 'cause I  woulda loved t' see the look on the great Prime's face when we told him we saved his spark in the Beast Wars.”

“If no Autobots means no Decepticons, I'm fine with it,” Blackarachnia said. “Something tells me we're going to have enough to deal with.”

“A more little info than there's-big-trouble-will-you-help from fearless leader woulda been nice.”

He would have never admitted it, but Optimus' absence left a vast void Rattrap wasn't quite sure how to deal with. Loss was anything new to him. Lots of friends died in the both wars. Some losses were more painful than others, but one learned to deal with them. It was just that Rattrap was having a hard time imagining just what they were going to do without Optimus' leadership, especially in a completely alien environment with bodies they still didn't quite recognize as their own. Absently he flexed his right hand.

“We'll just have to work with what we've got,” Blackarachnia must have been thinking the same thing, because her voice was grim.

“Yeah, but what we got now is pretty short work for any trouble we run into,” Rattrap complained. “The boss monkey did say he wasn't gonna send anyone if he didn't get enough volunteers, right? Just hope 'two' ain't his definition of 'enough.'”

“It's at least 'three',” Blackarachnia smiled wistfully.

“Ex-quzze me?”

She made a face that told him she had no desire to explain anything to him.

“I felt Silverbolt reach out to me. He's here, on Earth. I'm just not sure where.”

The spider didn't offer any further explanation, but Rattrap understood. He had heard of many different kinds of bonds between individual transformers. On Cybertron, some were revered as the highest form of intestacy between two individuals, while others were feared as tools of manipulation. Either way, they were rare and not wildly discussed. It would not be a stretch to say that a good half of Cybertron didn't even know of their existence at all. Rattrap, however, had and even though he didn't know the details, it was obvious that the lovers shared something akin to that.

“Oh yeah, that bond o' yours. So what's t' know?” he asked. “Just ask 'im.”

“It's not a com-link, rattface,” Rattrap had never seen Blackarachnia uncomfortable, but this was coming close to it. “The bond doesn't handle that kind of information well. It's...”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

“...private,” Silverbolt gritted his teeth and increased his pace to distance the gap between himself and Cheetor, but the cat quickly caught up.

“I'm just trying to understand,” the younger man defended. “Why didn't you guys ever tell anyone you had a secret way of communicating over infinite distances? It could have come in handy in the wars. How long have you had this, anyway?”

“Since she joined our side in the Beast Wars, and again, I repeat: it is private,” Silverbolt repeated.

If he was in a slightly better mood, he would have recognized that Cheetor was asking for purely tactical reasons, but the questions still felt too personal. The bond was sacred to him and Blackarachnia, something they spoke of to other members of the team. He was sure some of their friends were aware of it, but their privacy had always been respected. I should be concentrating on locating Blackarachnia, not indulging the boy's curiosity, he thought grimly, but it didn't seem as if Cheetor was about to stop with the questions.

“Okay you have some kind of tie, or bond, whatever,” he nodded. “So tell her we're here and we're coming, and ask her to stay put. Oh and ask who's with her.”

“It is not telepathic,” Silverbolt retorted sharply. “Telepathic bonds are aberrations. They are intrusive and undermine free will.”

He prayed to Primus Cheetor did not ask more, because his patience was already spread too thin. He did not want to answer any questions about how he knew about telepathic bonds or how his bond with Blackarachnia was different.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

“Uh oh,” Blackarachnia suddenly froze and got that look on her face that told Rattrap she was listening to the input from her bond with Silverbolt. Her brow creased slightly.

“What?” Rattrap had never been terribly good with suspense. “Somethin' happen? He in trouble?”

“No,” she replied slowly, then looked at him, all traces of the distraction gone from her eyes. “I think Cheetor's with him.”

“Really?” Rattrap's eyes lit up. Things appeared to be looking up. “How can you tell?”

“He's very annoyed,” she shook her head, rolling her eyes as if she was being forced to sit through a long tedious movie that she had already seen many times over. She took a deep breath and sent calming feelings through the bond.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

On his end of it, Silverbolt sighed, but the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. Thank you, he thought, and even he knew she did not hear the words, his gratitude did not go unrewarded. Amusement reverberated through their bond. He felt better.

“My bond to Blackarachnia will not be of help in locating her or who she is with,” he said in a much calmer voice. “Since you were the one who saw them, our best guide is your vision.”

Cheetor smirked, and Silverbolt felt the annoyance begin to simmer to the surface again, but he suppressed it. The younger man only waved his hand dismissively.

“I thought you didn't believe in visions.”

“I also do not believe in coincidences. It cannot be chance that you developed this unique new ability just as we appear to have been separated and left with no means of direct communication with our teammates.”

They began to walk again, this time keeping pace with one another. Silverbolt marveled at the shear number of humans they passed. Prehistoric Earth had been lush with life, but the Maximal and Predacon factions had both been relatively small. The Cybertron of the Technorganic War teemed with drones, but there were no other sentients save for his team and Megatron and his generals. He had never before been faced with so many other individuals.

Much of this world was unfamiliar, some things he did recognize. Earth vehicles were not terribly different, though certainly far less sophisticated, from most Cybertronian vehicle forms he had either read about or witnessed personally. He was intrigued by the site of a car stopping on the curb and releasing humans to go about their business. A machine that was driven by another sentient within it seemed an odd concept to him until he reminded himself that here, machines were not sentients. They had no sparks.

The noise of a plane overhead caught his ear, and he immediately stopped, instinct reading him for an attack, before he remembered that aerial machinery was used for the same purposes as the earth-bound vehicles: simply for human transportation. He relaxed, though his gaze did not leave the sky. Silverbolt was surprised to see that it was drastically different than he remembered it from the first time he had been there during the Beast Wars. Back then, there had been a sharp contrast between the inky blackness and the multitude of bright stars that littered it. Now it was more like the Cybertronian sky; marred by the lights of the city.

“I'm getting a little bit of a deja vu,” Cheetor's words broke him out of his musing. He looked quizzically at the cat. “Well, you kind of missed the beginning of the Technorganic War,” Cheetor said sheepishly. “After we were shot down on Cybertron, Megatron's virus messed with our heads. We didn't know what in the Inferno was going on, and we were all scattered. When Optimus found us, he said that something lead him to each of our sparks.”

A sudden realization lit up the young man's eyes.

“Go on,” Silverbolt encouraged.

“Optimus said it was the Oracle that lead him to find us. But... it never talked to me before.”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment, before Silverbolt decided that it was time to say what they were both thinking.

“Cheetor,” his vice was not without sympathy. “I do not know whether it is what you are experiencing. However, this is so, you must consider the possibility that perhaps it is because Optimus is no longer with us.”

Cheetor sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in a perfect imitation of how Optimus acted when he was frustrated.

“I was really hoping you wouldn't say that.”

“It had to be said.”

The younger man looked like he wanted to argue, but then his shoulders sagged in acceptance or defeat, Silverbolt couldn't tell. When he looked up again to take in their surroundings once more, his spirits appeared to be lifted.

“I remember this,” he pointed at a neon sign across the street then at an aged billboard at the  rooftop of the building to their right. “I think we're close.”

With renewed assurance in his step, he began a brisk walk ahead. Silverbolt jogged to catch up to him. Within moment they were standing in front of a small building that looked to be some sort of food establishment.

“Here?” Silverbolt looked at the crude exterior of the building. “Are you certain?”

“Yeah,” Cheetor grinned confidently, his hand already reaching for the door handle. “Ready?”

Chapter 3

Reunion

Blackarachnia was on her feet before the door of the restaurant even opened. She didn't need to ask or in any way confirm the identity of the two men who came through it. What she couldn't quite tell was whether the feelings of excitement and a little anxiety were hers or Silverbolt's, but that didn't really matter. Within a few long strides, their arms were around one another.

No words were spoken, but even after the embrace ended Silverbolt continued to run his fingers through her inky black hair, while hers noted the features of his new face, firmly assigning them to memory. To any onlooker, including the two grinning men on either side of them, it seemed like nothing more than a couple's happy meeting, but there was so much more beneath the surface than anyone else could have imagined.

Finally drawing back slightly, she gave him her best predatory smile.

“You didn't turn out half bad, Bowser,” she commented, tracing a finger across the stubble along his jawline.

He stared at her for so long she began to fear he would pull away as he had so often during the Technorganic War, but then an unadulterated smile stretched across his face, his gray-blue eyes alight. He cupped her face, his eyes never leaving hers as he spoke.

“Your beauty is as eternal as the vast expanse,” she was once again swept up in his embrace, his face buried in her hair, taking in her essence. “I did say we would be together no matter what happened.”

“But I bet you didn't see this coming.”

At Silverbolt's left, Cheetor cleared his throat. Having exchanged his greetings with Rattrap, both had stood back to allow the two lovers their moment, but Blackarachnia and Silverbolt had a tendency to forget about the real world at times like these. She clasped his forearm in a firm shake.

“Good to see you too, Spots,” she smiled then scanned all three men assembled. “Are we expecting anyone else?”

When Silverbolt looked at him, Cheetor simply shook his head.

“I haven't sensed any other sparks,” he said, elaborating when Blackarachnia and Rattrap gave him inquiring looks. “Remember the Oracle or whatever lead Optimus to find each of us after we crashed on Cybertron? Well, it looks like it's talking to me now.”

“Great!” Rattrap looked hopeful. “Any chance of asking it why we're all here?”

“I don't think it works that way,” Cheetor sounded apologetic.

Rattrap's shoulder's sagged. “Yeah, that seems t' be the theme for the evenin'. Okay, so how do we find out?”

He didn't get a chance to have his question answered before Silverbolt interjected. “We are drawing a bit of attention.”

The few customers in the restaurant in the late night hour were indeed trying to pretend not to be glancing in their direction. Though no one caught the entire conversation, names like 'Optimus' and 'Cybertron' did make the humans in the 21^st century stop and listen. Cheetor lowered his voice.

“I think we should find a less public place to talk.”

Everyone was quiet, until Blackarachnia snapped her fingers. “The library,” she declared. “We passed it on they way over here. It's closed now, but we shouldn't have much trouble getting in. Plus it should have computers which should help with figuring out what's going on.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * 

Rattrap had to wonder if all security systems on this world were as big a joke as in the library they had just entered. Even without a direct interface, he took one look at the keypad and had the alarm systems disabled in under a minute. He was a bit puzzled why it had been locked at all – on Cybertron, any data that was not calcified by the Maximal Elders or the Tripredacus Council was freely available to any citizen at any time – but if everything in this world would be so easy to access, they shouldn't have any trouble.

Of course, when was the last time anything was easy for them?

“What exactly are we looking for?” he asked Cheetor who had stopped by the stack of newspapers laying on the check-out desk.

“Anything that might be a clue as to why Optimus sent us here,” the young man held up a newspaper and pointed to the date in the corner. “It's 2008 now, and we also know Unicron was destroyed in 2005. So anything between then and now that looks at all out of place.”

“Forgive the obvious question,” Silverbolt leaned on the closest desk, “but since this is the past from our perspective, should we not know what this alien threat is?”

“Eh not if it's a new glitch in the time line,” Rattrap replied, sitting down at a computer and waiting for it to boot, “ 'member we saw first hand what messin' with the past can do in the Beast Wars. Aww man, these human machines are so freakin' slow!”

“Speaking of which,” Cheetor's attention shifted to their resident scientist. “You think that's what we are now? Completely organic? Human?”

“I thought so at first,” Blackarachnia admitted, “but now, I really doubt it.”

“Why?” asked Silverbolt.

“Organics – even highly evolved ones like humans – don't have sparks,” the spider woman explained. “Not the way we do, anyway. Judging by Cheetor's new trick and the fact that we still have our bond,” she said the last part in a lower voice, “both of which are spark-related, whatever we are, we still have our sparks. If I had to guess, I'd say we're still technorganic, but I'd need to have access to a lab and run some tests, before I could say for sure.”

“Well, there is a faster way to find out,” Cheetor suggested. “Why don't we just try transforming?”

“Into what?” she shook her head. “We don't know if these are our primary or alternate forms, or if we have any other forms at all. Transforming isn't as easy as it used to be. You change once, and you might not be able to change back. An overgrown house cat running around the city isn't exactly inconspicuous. By the way,” she turned back to the computer she was sitting at, “if we're going to blend in as humans, we need to actually exist as such first.”

“Come again?” Rattrap was busy at his own machine, but both Silverbolt and Cheetor gave her a confused look.

“We have no identification,” Blackarachnia held up the ID from the wallet Rattrap stole. “We don't exist anywhere in human databases. It's not exactly a problem now, but it could be an annoyance later. We're going to need fake human personas.”

“And you can make them?” Cheetor nodded at the computer.

“Of course,” she smirked. “Just tell me what you want your name to be, and I'll have them for you soon.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Cheetor looked over at Rattrap who was furiously typing away at his own computer, a mischievous grin on his face. “I'm assuming whatever he's doing involves more hacking than I know, but I'll scan the recent news, see if anything stands out.”

When he left them alone, Silverbolt turned to Blackarachnia. “I know I am not particularly computer savvy,” he said, “but is there anything I can do to help?”

“Keep me company,” she suggested, gesturing to the seat next to her, “and tell me what you're thinking.”

“It has been a while since we have sincerely spoken,” he admitted. “A fact, I take full responsibility for...”

“Oh, don't you dare go down that road again, Bowser,” she stopped him. “Slag happens. A lot, in our case, but I asked what you're thinking now, not what you thought about the past.”

“You have not changed, beloved,” he smiled at her warmly. “Very well. I was thinking... this is the first time we ended up on the same side from the beginning.”

Blackarachnia gave him a look, but then chuckled quietly. “You must be feeling better, if you're making jokes like that.”

“I am,” he agreed somberly. “That is to say, I am not fully as I once was. I do not think I ever will be. I cannot forget Jetstorm or what happened in the Technorganic War, but towards the end I realized that I must learn to live with it, or I would die with it.”

“We all died,” she reminded him. “Some of us not for the first time, and I've gotta say it's getting old.”

“But we are alive now,” he declared. “The past should never be forgotten, but in this new world, new time, new bodies, it is also a time of new beginnings.”

He was a bit surprised when she grasped his chin between her thumb and forefinger and pulled their faces close. When her lips pressed firmly against his, he wondered how he could have ever voluntarily exiled himself from her touch.

“The minute we have some real privacy,” she whispered against his lips, “we'll find out just what these new bodies can do.”

Heat touched his usually pale cheeks, spreading through to his fingertips and other parts of his new anatomy. Laughter helped to ease the not unpleasant tension, but not completely.

“That is a promise I will hold you to.”

“Somehow, I think I'll manage to remember.”

On the other side of the library's main hall, Cheetor wasn't quite sure what he was looking for. Most of the world news focused on human affairs, and if he went a little further back, the departure of the Autobots, but nothing out of the ordinary that would have required their intervention. A sudden idea came to him, and he began to type away at the keyboard.

“Hey, Rattrap,” he called to the rodent on the other side of the room, “try searching for things related to the Beast Wars.”

Rattrap raised his head from the monitor, as did Blackarachnia and Silverbolt who had been quietly talking amongst themselves. Cheetor felt more than a little uncomfortable with all three pairs of eyes on him. Everyone dropped what they were doing the moment his voice sounded. They were expecting him to lead, and the sudden realization was so overwhelming he nearly lost his train of thought. Apparently there was a big different between being second-in-command and being looked upon as a leader.

“Whatever goes wrong here now,” he recomposed himself, “could have been caused by something we did in the Beast Wars.”

“The Butterfly Effect,” Blackarachnia offered.

“Which makes it our responsibility to clean up,” he nodded with determination, returning to his own computer.

Being more of a visual person, Cheetor quickly found himself on a strange site called 'youtube', and from there it didn't take long for his idea to be rewarded. As he watched the video in front of him, his green eyes grew wider and wider.

“Oh slag,” he muttered under his breath, “guys, you better come take a look at this.”

The sound of chairs scraping on the linoleum floors was followed by a printer booting up noisily. Blackarachnia and Silverbolt were already heading his way, but Rattrap made a roundabout path to the printer first. Paper after paper was spat out by the blocky ancient machine, and Rattrap knew it would take a while for the whole thing to print, but he didn't know when he'd get another chance to hack into the United States Department of Defense network again, so he figured hard copies were a good idea. The last paper he noticed before he headed over to Cheetor had an article about a new Science and Technology advisor, but he didn't have time to read past the title.

Everyone was gathered around Cheetor's monitor, their faces pale. Rattrap was about to ask, but then his eyes focused on the video playing on the screen and he instantly understood. The voice of a man with a foreign accent sounded from behind the camera.

“Archaeologists all over the world, as well as here in Britain, are swarming to the site of these goliath stones. A site so often plagued by speculation and mystery seems to finally yield something for believers to sink their teeth into.”

The shaky camera work attempted to focus on the colossal rocks of Stonehenge, zooming in to the middle of the structure. Despite the less than perfect resolution, the all-too familiar symbols on the strange mass protruding from the ground were unmistakable.

“We're receiving conflicting reports about just what that thing is, but judging by the markings, one thing is certain: either this is the most elaborate hoax in history or we have more alien visitors than we realized.”

Chapter 4

Identity

By the time the library opened at nine in the morning, the Maximals were long gone, leaving no signs that they had ever been there, save for a severely depleted ink cartridge and a laptop missing from the main office. Blackarachnia quickly understood that creating human identities for themselves would take more work than she previously thought. Humans didn't just come online fully grown. Aside from fake names, birth certificates, social security numbers, and a lot of other documentation work, she began to leave fabricated traces of them on the internet.

By midday, they had to stop again, unaccustomed to the physical needs of the new bodies. Sleep had not yet become an issue, but they already felt the need for food again. As purely mechanical beings, energon had sustain them for days at a time. Eating, it seemed, would have to be more frequent. Rattrap certainly wasn't complaining about it, and everyone else also took some food when they stopped at a coffee shop.

Pleased to discover that she could actually connect to the network – both she and Rattrap had been appalled when they did not have access from just anywhere in the city – Blackarachnia turned back to creating more elaborate stories for their human identities. Silverbolt gently asked if she was hungry, but she shook her head, completely absorbed in refining the profiles. Smiling knowingly at his lover's workaholic streak, he promised to bring her something back anyway. By the time she finished, all three men returned. Silverbolt placed a cup with some sort of brown steaming liquid on the table in front of her, and she finally looked up.

“Thanks,” she said and, seeing the three trays overflowing with food for the first time, added, “what's all this?”

“We sort of don't know what we like,” Cheetor said happily.

“So we thought we'd take a little of everything,” Rattrap finished. “Dig in.”

“In a minute,” she waved her hand. “Mine and 'bolt's are done, but I want to finish this one, too. I need a name, Spots. Make it something inconspicuous, something you'll remember easily.”

“Okay... um...,” the young man thought for a while. “I can't think of any last names. You can pick that, if you want. How about Christopher for a first name?”

“Chris,” she considered then nodded returning to the computer. “Simple enough.”

She reached for the cup in front of her and took an experimental sip. Her bright green eyes grew wide as the sweet velvety taste coated her tongue and slid down her throat. She made a small sound of pleasure and thrust the drink sliding at Silverbolt who sat on her right.

“Are you well, beloved?” concern register in his voice.

“I'm... have you tried this?”

“I have not,” he took the cup from her hand. “Is something amiss with it?”

“Just try it.”

It amused her when he sniffed at the contents before taking a drink. Silverbolt seemed to consider the liquid in his mouth thoughtfully before swallowing.

“It is a bit too sweet for my taste,” he admitted, passing the cup back to her. “Do you like it it?”

“I love it,” she grinned. “What's it called?”

“The woman in the apron referred to it as 'hot chocolate'.”

“I'll remember that,” she vowed, taking another sip of the drink. “Anything useful in those papers on our friends, the aliens?”

Rattrap, who had been sorting through the stacks in between bites of his sandwich, shook his head. “Nothin' that we don't already know. I don't think humans ever really dealt with those things before. One or two 'supernatural' blip here an' there, sure, but nothin' solid.”

“So why are they back now?” Cheetor asked. “I thought they gave up on this place after we messed up whatever plans they had for it.”

“From the bits and pieces I have,” Blackarachnia speculated, “Earth was their experiment. I don't know what it was exactly they were testing, but they were definitely not expecting us. Since we did show up, though, we also accidentally introduced them to Cybertronian lifeforms. I don't think they even knew about the Ark before we came.”

“You believe that, knowing of the existence of our ancestors, they awaited their departure before becoming active again?” Silverbolt wondered.

“Musta been some wait,” Rattrap commented. “You really think they'd just hang around and do nothin' for four million years.”

“They weren't doing nothing,” Cheetor realized. “They were learning, gathering information. The Autobots and Decepticons were in emergency stasis, so they could have easily been roaming around the Ark and anything we left behind. But why are they back now?”

“Because there is no one to oppose them,” Silverbolt guessed. “The Great War is over. Our ancestors have returned to Cybertron, and humans are once again the sole sentient species on the planet. I do not doubt their ingenuity...”

“...but they're not exactly up for dealing with beings that can turn their planet into a piece of toast in under an hour,” Blackarachnia finished for him.

Silence fell over the group while she returned to the work of finishing Cheetor's human identity. They would all have to find a place where they could pick up physical ids – not too difficult once their identities were established in cyberspace – and credit cards, as thanks to her, each of them now had an account with twenty thousand to start and more set to trickle in every day. Blackarachnia marveled at the ease with which she accomplished it all. Humans should really invest in better online security, she thought, but then again there's the obvious advantage of being from Cybertron, and three hundred years in the future at that.

At a final overlook of the profile, something caught her attention. She examined the apparent typo, cursed, and sighed. “Looks like we're going to be siblings, Spots.”

“Huh?”

“I filled out your info after mine and forgot to change the last name because you didn't give me one. It's already in the system, and I don't feel like tracking down all the places to make changes, so deal with it. I'll change it later, if we have time.”

Her statement was so final that no one even tried to argue, though through their bond, Blackarachnia sensed that Silverbolt was less than thrilled with this arrangement. Expecting it, she squeezed his hand under the table. It's not a big deal, she thought, sending him the pacifying feelings that accompanied the words he didn't hear. Their link, thank Primus, was not telepathic, but both were surprised to learn just how much information could be transmitted through varying degrees and mixtures of feelings alone. Silverbolt didn't show any outward sign that it had effected him at all, but she felt him relax as he picked up his own drink. To her surprise, it was actually Cheetor who looked... upset wasn't the right word for it. He stared at the tabletop, a frown creasing his usually smooth brow.

“It's not that big of a deal,” she verbalized her earlier thought.

“It's fine,” he waved his hand as if waking up from something else. “Work on whatever else you need.”

Blackarachnia looked at him then shrugged and went back to work. “You're up, Rattrap.”

“Okay, I thought of this,”  he leaned into the table as if he was about to divulge a great secret. “I'm going to be Alexander... the Great!”

Blackarachnia gave a very unlady-like snort, while Cheetor and Silverbolt just exchanged head shakes. “That hardly sounds inconspicuous,” the former bird-dog commented.

“I can make him Alexander Grant,” the spider woman offered. “Probably a million of those running around.”

“Just do it,” Cheetor sounded tired. “The sooner we can finish this, the sooner we can start finding out what the aliens want, and why Optimus was so worried about them.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

He hadn't meant to alienate his team, but suddenly the return to Earth brought back darker memories for the young commander. The Vok had been a terrifying experience for everyone involved because they were an unknown, entities so far beyond the Cybertronians' range of experiences that they didn't know what to make of them or the enormous power they had. To Cheetor in particular they seemed doubly so, more than likely because of his then young age. Everything was more exhilarating, but also more frightening when one was young.

The fear he had gotten over, but the loss the aliens had inflicted would be with him always, and it was that loss that haunted him now. He had looked up to Tigatron almost as much as he had Optimus, and Airazor... well, that was a different matter. In an attempt to distract himself, he offered Silverbolt a game of darts when the group made another stop in the evening. Unlike the previous locations, this one had entertainment as well as food. Several pool tables were surrounded by players, and Rattrap had been more than happy to make use of his newly acquired ID at the bar, though Blackarachnia pointed out that he'd hardly need it.

Cheetor realized the mistake he'd made in the choice of his opponent after Silverbolt hit four bullseyes in a row. Both his fuzor and technorganic forms had come with weaponry that had to be launched at a target by hand, making him a master marksman, but somehow Cheetor missed the connection between that and the game when he issued the challenge. After one of his own darts whizzed half an inch left of the ear of the human sitting near the wall and bounced of the cement blocks, he handed the rest of them to Rattrap and returned to the table where Blackarachnia had been idly watching their game.

“Tired of loosing already?” she asked with a smile.

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure Silverbolt handed me my new humanized ass for the last time there,” he nodded his head at the dartboard.

“I could have told you this was the wost game you could have picked to play with him,” she laughed, “but I didn't think you'd actually hit anyone.”

“I didn't,” he protested then sighed. “I'm sorry if it looks like I'm in a mood.”

“I didn't notice,” she mocked, “but if that last name thing still bothers you, I'll change it. We can get you a new ID in the morning.”

“No, it's really okay,” he assured her. “It's just that I'm not looking forward to dealing with the aliens again. Before them, I had other friends. Before them, I had a sister.”

It didn't take her long to understand who he was talking about, “Airazor.”

“I know we don't have define family the same way humans do,” Cheetor went on, “but my circuits were used to help create her, so we always sort of thought of each other in those terms.”

“If anyone asks,” she offered, not being a fan of awkward silences, “you can say you have two sisters who just don't get along well.”

He laughed at that, throwing back his head. Being the only two women in the Beast Wars and never on the same side, it was no secret that Airazor and Blackarachnia had never liked one another.

“So what's my new sister's name?” he asked. “I already know our family name is 'Stark', but I just realized I don't know what you picked for your first name.”

“Brianna,” she replied. “I actually don't know that many human female names, but Silverbolt says it means 'noble' or something like that. It's as good as any, I guess.”

Cheetor was about to say something else when the familiar experience of his vision rushing outside his body came over him, but it wasn't streets and corners he saw. This time, his second sight pointed... above. Blackarachnia, who had seen Primal when he was experiencing one of his visions, patently waited for it to pass before inquiring. “Well?”

“Another spark,” he shook off its effects already getting up from the table. “It's close but  moving so erratically I lost track. We have to find it.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

They'd split up to search the moment Cheetor made it to Silverbolt and Rattrap and told them what he'd seen. He and Rattrap split up to cover the ground to the east and west of the building while Silverbolt and Blackarachnia did the same in the north and south only from the rooftops. The agreement was to meet back within two hours or return with whoever was out there if by chance one of them did happen to find him.

For Silverbolt, being above the city, however small the altitude, was like coming home. This was where he belonged; ironic, since his namesake preferred to keep both feet on the ground whenever possible. Even without wings, moving from rooftop to rooftop was not a problem, though Silverbolt hoped whatever alternate form he now possessed came with a pair.

When he was a block away from the pool hall, the Maximal stopped and scanned the area. It was past ten in the evening. The sun had set long ago, providing plenty of darkness for anyone who wished to hide. But sight was a sense Silverbolt had never relied on particularly heavily, not when his first form was a fusion of canine and aerial and there were more acute ones. Even now he picked up the strong scent of copper in the air.

Blood.

“Whoever is out here,” he called into the night, “I will not harm you, but I know you are injured. Let me help you.”

He waited, remaining absolutely still, until the clank of something hitting against the hollow metal pipes drew his attention to the right. Something moved in the shadow, something small judging by their disturbance. Silverbolt rested down on his haunches to be at eye level with whoever emerged. When the figure finally stepped out into the light, whatever expectations Silverbolt had had were instantly replaced with horror filled recognition.

The figure that stumbled out of the shadows was that of a boy, no older than fourteen by human years if even that. The loose fitting white shirt that hung to past his knees was marred with grime and dirt as well as other marks that looked frighteningly like blood stains. Sweat clumped strands of brown hair hung messily in front of the child's blue eyes. At least he guessed they were blue. It was hard to tell with the dark bruises that circled them.

“Nightscream?”

The boy's head jerked up as if it was a name he never expected to hear again. He stumbled forward grasping at him until he caught the boy by the arms to keep him steady.

“S... Silverbolt?” his voice was just as shaky as the rest of his body.

“Yes, son. I am here. You're safe.”

The boy made an attempt to swallow but ended up only choking and coughing. His eyelids fluttered.

“They're coming,” was all he said before finally giving into exhaustion and collapsing boneless onto him.

Chapter 5

Capture

Sensing urgency from Silverbolt, Blackarachnia was the first to return, a full hour before their designated meeting time. She was surprised to find him not back at the pool hall but in an alleyway behind the building and even more surprised when she recognized the limp form in his arms.

“Is that... Nightscream?” she knelt to receive the boy from him, supporting half his weight on the ground and half against herself.

“He was on the rooftop,” he replied grimly. “He only said that someone was coming before his collapse. I do not know what happened to him or what he meant, but I think it's imperative that we find Rattrap and Cheetor and move to a more secure location.”

“Rattrap went west,” she gestured to the right. “You'll have better luck catching up with him. I'll stay with the kid.”

“I will return shortly,” he leaned in to press a quick kiss to her lips. “Stay safe, beloved.”

He disappeared behind the corner, and she settled against the wall with Nightscream still propped awkwardly in her lap. He was young, she thought, looking at the child's pale face. Too young to be part of any of it. It was easy to forget those kinds of things when one was constantly in a life-or-death situation like the Technorganic War on Cybertron. War was indiscriminate towards petty things like age.

“It'll be okay,” she promised, her palm pressing against his damp forehead.

In the hour she waited for her friends to return, Blackarachnia didn't move from the spot she'd been sitting at. Nightscream hadn't awoken, but she had time to check his wounds. The bruises and scrapes didn't look too serious, but his chapped lips and dry skin suggested he was severely dehydrated. She found that odd since they had arrived on Earth less than a full day ago. What could have happened to him in such a short time?

If she had been listening carefully, Blackarachnia might have noticed the sound of a helicopter landing on the roof a few buildings away,  but the city was so filled with sounds and her attention was focused entirely on the boy. All she had was seconds between feeling the prick at the back of her neck and pulling out a tiny dart before her throat began to tighten and vision faded to black.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Never having been good at staying still for long, Cheetor paced outside of the pool hall. He was frustrated at not having found the spark, frustrated with his lack of success in calling up the vision that let him see the spark – what Optimus had called 'spark probing' – at will, and even more frustrated at being the first one back, like he'd given up or something. All of it was made worse by the fact that he was supposed to be their leader.

He was relieved to see Rattrap and Silverbolt jogging towards him, though his face fell when he saw their empty hands. He didn't even get the chance to say anything before Silverbolt asked.

“Where are Blackarachnia and Nightscream?”

He was taken aback. “Nightscream is here?”

“He musta been the spark you saw. 'bolts said he found him an hour ago, handed him over to Webs, and went to look for me,” Rattrap blurted out before Silverbolt could relay the story. “They're supposed ta be here.”

“I haven't seen anyone,” Cheetor shook his head, then, noting the worried look that passed between the other two men, added. “Is there something I should know?”

The hum of a rapidly accelerating propeller was heard above them in reply. As it lifted into the air, Cheetor spotted a marking that looked like a hexagon divided into three sections with 'S7' written beneath it on the tail of the helicopter. Behind him, he heard Silverbolt growl.

“They must be the people Nightscream fled from,” the older man, his fist clenching and relaxing in an unnerving rhythm. “If they harm...”

“We won't let that happen.”

Cheetor's eyes scanned the street for any appropriate vehicle. Spotting a sleek looking yellow car parked only a few feet away, he ran to it with Silverbolt and Rattrap at his heals. The door was locked, of course, but he had no trouble forcing it. Cheetor briefly wondered if it meant that Blackarachnia had been right about their new bodies still being Technorganic, but he didn't have time to think about that now. He was a little surprised when the door didn't just swing outwards like on all the other cars he'd seen but instead rotated upwards.

With an unhappy grunt, Rattrap, being the smallest of the three, squeezed into the cramped backseat while Silverbolt took shotgun. The uneasy look on his face made Cheetor smile. With a few manipulation of the wires, the engine roared to life. His grin broadened.

“Fasten your seat belts,” despite the situation his voice was almost singsong.

“Do you have any idea how to drive this?” Silverbolt demanded.

“We're about to find out,” the gear stick shifted to drive. “Hang on, guys.”

For once, Silverbolt did as he instructed, holding on to the inner door handle for dear life as Cheetor maneuvered the vehicle to the road in a series of jerky motions. It took him a while to steady the wheel, and by the time he did, both of his companions looked a little green.

“It's okay,” even his laugh was a little shaky. “We're fine. We're good. Now, which way did that thing go?”

Rattrap shrugged from the backseat, but Silverbolt did offer a reply. “North west,” he said. “Though I do not know if they kept that course.”

“It's the best guide we got,” Cheetor said, keeping his eyes on the road. “Rattrap, do you still have those papers you printed out at the library?”

“All of 'em,” the rodent pulled out the thick stack. “Why?”

“See if you can find anything about an organization that has a hexagon divided into thirds with 'S7' under it as its logo. That's what was on the tail of the helicopter. Silverbolt, got any news for me?”

“I cannot sense her,” the other man shook his head, still uncomfortable at having to use the bond to his lover as a source of information for anyone else's benefit but his own. “I suspect she is unconscious. If she were... otherwise, I would know.”

“Good. At least we know our teammates are more valuable to whoever it is alive. For now, anyway. Tell me the minute you know something else.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

She was getting pretty tired of waking up in unknown places and wondering how she got there. First it was the Predacon base at the beginning of the Beast Wars, then the empty Cybertron of the Technorganic War, and less than twenty-four hours ago, Earth. She was pretty sure that's still where she was, but the white sterile hospital-like room was nothing like the street ally she last remembered being in. Blackarachnia's head spun a little when she rolled over on her side, but her eyes finally refocused on the pair of wide blue ones staring at her.

“Hey, kid,” she crocked, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Any chance of getting some water over here?”

Nightscream quickly ran to the metal rolling cart at the door where a plastic pitcher and cups stood and pored one, though by the time he brought it to her, half the content has been splashed onto the floor. Still she took what there was and downed it in one gulp, wiping the remaining droplets with the back of her hand.

“Thanks,” she tossed the empty cup into the trashcan by the bed. “How long was I out?”

“Since they brought us back here? About three hours.”

It was the first time she heard him speak, and Blackarachnia noted how his voice was still that of a child. She wondered why, since Optimus had given them a choice, did Nightscream choose to involve himself in another conflict. He took a seat in a chair facing her.

“And where exactly is here?”

“I don't know,” the boy shook his head. “These people just call themselves Sector 7.”

“Never heard of them.”

Actually she was surprised that she hadn't. Blackarachnia was fairly well versed in human history, especially any aspect of it that related to Cybertronians. The fact that there was an organization she was not aware of bothered her.

“Tell me what happened,” she asked in a firm voice.

Nightscream took a deep breath, bit his lip, and looked to the side, as if he didn't want to think about it. “I've been here for about a week,” he finally said. “After I woke up, everything is sort of blurry, but somehow I ended up in what the humans called a hospital. They asked me questions, took all kinds of samples. I think they found something weird, because then they came and brought me here. I kept asking where you guys were, but...”

“Nightscream,” she squeezed his hand in a comforting gesture, “we just got here a day ago. However Optimus sent us here, it must have accidentally caused some time lag.”

“It always happens to me,” the boy sounded disgusted. “I'm always the one left alone.”

At that moment she realized just how frightening that week must have been for him. At the very least, she and the others had been to Earth before and most importantly, had found one another relatively quickly. Nightscream had never known anything but Cybertron. For him, arriving on this alien world must have been overwhelming. Worse of all, there had been no one else. Despite his bravo, it was a badly kept secret that Nightscream was nearly phobic of being  alone after spending so much time running and hiding by himself after Megatron's virus hit Cybertron. That made her next question all the more obvious.

“Why did you choose this?”

“You mean why did I volunteer to get in the middle of another fight instead of hanging back on Cybertron?” his laugh was humorless. “I sort of figured you guys would go, and without you, there's not much left for me back home. You're the only family I have now.”

“You picked a very odd one to adopt, kid,” but she was smiling. “Don't worry. We'll get out of here.”

“You sure?” Nightscream didn't sound so convinced, nodding his head towards the security lock on the door. “It took me forever to break out the first time, and I think they beefed up security since then.”

“Yeah, but you're with me now,” she grinned. “Come on. We dealt with Megatron. How hard can a couple of humans be?”

“What about us?” the boy held up his hands indicating the new body. “Aren't we human now, too?”

“That's getting to be a popular question,” she noticed a chart at the foot of her bed. “Let's take a look.”

The laptop she had with her was, unsurprisingly, confiscated, but at least their captors didn't bother to hide the medical information they had gathered on them. Blackarachnia flipped through her own, rather short, file. Her eyebrows went up.

“They pumped me with enough tranquilizers to put down a small elephant,” she muttered, more to herself than to Nightscream. “No way is our physiology human.”

“They did a lot more tests on me,” Nightscream volunteered, running to the bed on the other side of the room to bring her his own chart. “This might help.”

Nightscream's chart was a lot thicker than her own, and as she read it, Blackarachnia's brows drew further and further together. Her suspicions had been right; they were still Technorganic. Purely biological systems intermixed with silicon, wires, and various kinds of metals. Scans and X-Rays showed tiny metallic plates, not much bigger than cells, surrounding nearly every muscle of the body like internal armor. If these reports were correct and if those plates could be brought to the surface...

What surprised Blackarachnia the most, though, was that each test was run to discover a specific purpose with expected results, which was absolutely impossible. Humans might have been well familiar with Autobots and Decepticon, but Technorganic Cybertronians should have been completely alien to them. Should have been. But science didn't lie. Whoever ran these tests knew exactly what he or she was looking for and how to find it.

As if on cue, the door opened, and two men strode in the room followed by an armed escort of five guards. Both were middle aged, dressed in dark jackets with a hexagon divided into three sections and the characters 'S7' stitched on the right breast. One of the men had a mustache and light thinning hair, while the other had tight dark curls with only a little gray at the sides. The first one wore a curious, but hardly malicious look on his face, while the second was smirking.

“You, young lady,” he addressed Blackarachnia, “are in some serious trouble. You hacked the United States Department of Defense network.”

“I did not!” she objected indignantly and almost added, “Rattrap did,” but restrained herself. How in the Inferno did they detect his hack? Even here, rat face knows not to leave a trace. “Who are you people?”

“I'm Tom Banachek,” the man with the mustache stepped forward, “head of Sector 7's Advanced Research Division. This is Agent Reggie Simmons.”

“Yeah? Well, I'm Brianna Stark,” she replied without missing a beat, “graduate student in the computer science PhD program at M.I.T.. Check my Facebook page. I don't have so much as a parking ticket, so I don't think you have any right to hold me here.”

“M.I.T.?” Simmons laughed. “That's very funny. Why not Harvard or Yale?”

“Actually,” Tom Banachek ignored his associate. “I believe you're Blackarachnia. Maximal scientist and saboteur and a veteran of the Beast Wars.”

Interlude I

Eternity

“I know you are aware, but are you awake?”

Silence.

“Oh come now. Eternity without conversation is trying even for my patience.”

“I am not here for you amusement.”

“No, you are here to keep me prisoner, and thus yourself in turn. Why not free us both?”

“Do you take me for a fool?”

“I believe I answered that question once before.”

Silence.

“What's the matter? Concerned for your precious Maximals? Share your thoughts with me.”

“Will you ever shut up?”

“Permit me to remind you what happened the last time the aliens grew curious about something. Do you really think your mongrels will be able to stop them? What happens when they fail and the Vok come to Cybertron? There is no one here but us who is even aware of their existence.”

Silence.

“You know I speak the truth.”

“What do you want of me?”

“Allow me to send my own agents.”

“You must be joking. Why would I let you cause more problems for my team?”

“Because you know as well as I that stopping the Vok on Earth might mean life or death for Cybertron. Ah very well. I insist on one agent only. You may even send your own men to look after him if you like.”

A sigh.

“Why do you need anyone of yours on Earth?”

“Why, to pave the way for my arrival, of course.”

Chapter 6

Interrogation

Rattrap was beginning to sourly regret every single piece of food he'd placed into his mouth over the past twenty four hours. In the Front passenger seat, Silverbolt looked about as green as he felt. The rodent was grateful when the car finally ran out of gas. He still wasn't quite sure how they'd managed to get out of the city without hitting any pedestrians or being stopped by the police. He also finally realized why none of Cheetor's previous bodies had ever come with wheels. The man couldn't drive. It was as simple as that.

The problem with running out of gas, however, was that the car had done so in the middle of nowhere. The even stretch of road in the desert had been a curse in disguise. On the one hand, there were no other cars on the road, and Cheetor finally got a more or less even handle on driving, but on the other, he could also go as fast as he liked, which only accelerated the loss of fuel. When the engine finally died, they were four hours out of the city.

All he had been able to find in those four hours was that S7 stood for Sector 7 and they had recently ordered an AH-64 Apache helicopter to replace the one they lost a week prior. That trail had led him to a slew of other orders dating back to 1984 when the orders suddenly stopped. Every Cybertronian knew what the year 1984 stood for, and it had nothing to do with George Orwell. Whatever this organization was, it was directly linked to the Great War. So how come he'd never heard of them before?

He shared those thoughts with his companions as they began to walk from the abandoned vehicle. Silverbolt, the least versed in Autobot-human history of the three of them, walked ahead of them, silently listening for all input from his bond with Blackarachnia. She was awake, he'd told them earlier, and didn't seem to be in any immediate danger, though he sensed a great deal of confusion from her.

“Okay so I'm willing to believe that the U.S. Government set up some sort of secret organization to keep an eye on our ancestors,” Cheetor recapped. “It makes sense, but their info is still about three hundred years outdated. The word 'technorganic' doesn't even exist yet.”

“Yeah, but if they had the kid...”

“How much could they have learned from him in a day?” the blond man argued. “And how would they even know who he is? We don't exactly look like cars or planes. The whole point of these bodies is to blend in without suspicion.”

“Hey, I'm just givin' you the facts,” Rattrap held up his hands defensively. “Do whatever ya want with 'em.”

He couldn't blame him for being edgy though. They were all tired. After a little over twenty four hours of being in this place, the lack of sleep was finally starting to catch up. No one was falling down yet, but they were starting to feel it. It didn't help much that Cheetor had been the one driving for four hours straight and had the additional worry of leadership on his shoulders. Two teammates lost in de first day, Rattrap sighed inwardly. And dat use ta be the boss monkey's record.

In front of them, Silverbolt stopped abruptly, turning his head to the right, apparently listening to something in the distance.

“What's up with you?” Rattrap asked when he and Cheetor were standing next to him. “Is it the spider lady?”

“No,” Silverbolt shook his head, obviously distracted by whatever he was listening to, “there is a river near by. I did not notice it while we were driving, and I have been preoccupied since, but now it is unmistakable.”

Neither questioned him.

“How far away?” Cheetor asked.

“Perhaps a mile that way,” Silverbolt pointed to the right. “It sounds like a rather large source. I suspect the only reason we did not see it was because we either drove along side or are only now on approach.”

“Makes sense,” the rat shrugged and kicked at the abundance of sand beneath their feet. “ 'Round here, even secret military bases probably need to be near some kinda water source.”

“Alright, it's the best we have at the moment,” Cheetor reasoned. “Let's go check it out.”

At a brisk walk, the trio reached the source of the sound of rushing water within twenty minutes and stopped. The edge was so steep and sudden that had it been any earlier than the dawn hour, they might have all plummeted to a depth of what looked to be well over a thousand feet. At the very bottom, a river speed by in a series of rough currents.

“That,” Silverbolt commented, stepping back from the edge, “is a long way down.”

“Oh, yeah,” Cheetor swallowed. “I bet you're missing your feathers about as much as I'm missing my turbo jets right about now.”

Never having had any mode of flight other than his companions, Rattrap couldn't agree with him more.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Blackarachnia had not uttered a single word since this Tom Banachek man had put everything she thought she knew about humans-Cybertronians into serious question. Despite Nightscream's silent plea not to leave him, she'd made the decision to go alone when they gestured her out of the infirmary. She knew she had a better chance to get a clear picture about what was going on if they just questioned her. So far, beyond the Beast Wars had been mentioned, and she had no intention to volunteer any information.

They had led her into another room that was barren save for the single table and two chairs in the middle of it. Half of the wall on the opposite side of the door was obviously a double sided mirror. Typical interrogation setup, she thought with display. At least I don't see any instruments that could be used as intensives. Blackarachnia intentionally took the seat whose back faced the mirrored wall. They probably had hidden cameras all around the room, but there was no need to give them a clear view of her face if she did decide to speak.

Banachek took a seat on the opposite side of the table, his hands empty except for a laptop he placed in front of him. Simmons had disappeared, but she couldn't say she'd miss him. The man was entertaining for about five seconds after which he became a walking migraine.

“You have to understand,” Banachek's voice was even, “how your ancestors looked to us. In 1969, we landed the first man on the moon, and less than twenty years later we found ourselves involved in an interstellar conflict between a race of alien robots. We humans are quite adaptable, but it's still a shock to the system.”

Her expression remained neutral, so he continued. “Almost within days of first contact with the Autobots, the president ordered a special secret branch of the military to be formed whose sole responsibility would be to keep an eye on and learn about NBEs.”

“NBEs?” she couldn't suppress her curiosity.

“Non-biological extra-terrestrials,” the man sounded a little embraced.

“How original,” she rolled her eyes. And not entirely accurate anymore.

“Bad acronyms aside,” he sobered, “it had a very real purpose. I understand you're a soldier, so I'm sure you can understand the discretion involved in studding a potential threat.”

Blackarachnia couldn't argue with that, and a part of her was even a little impressed. Apparently humans were not as naive as she'd previously thought. But she wasn't about to dispense anything extra just for that.

“That's great,” she folded her arms, “but in case you need your contacts checked, I'm not a giant robot, so I don't see what this all has to do with me.”

“I'm getting to it,” the man replied patiently. “I understand you don't trust me. You have no reason to, but I'm trying to inform you on what's going on here. After I'm done, if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them. Fair?”

He must have taken her silence as affirmation because he continued. “You're probably wondering how we know about the Beast Wars. The answer to that is actually very simple. You and your people left so much behind, I'm surprised none of us found it earlier. Pieces of your technology were excavated from around the volcano where the Ark was located, not to mention the massive wreckage of the Axalon that was discovered.”

Outwardly she didn't show any emotion, but in hear head it was a different story. Stupid, was the only word she could think of at the moment. Stupid, stupid, stupid! The human was right. Had they seriously been expecting no one to find evidence of their presence, when humans had been digging up dinosaur bones from further back in time?

“You don't have to take my word for it,” Banachek got up from the table and went to the door. “You can see the artifacts for yourself.”

He opened the door to an crack and spoke in a hushed voice with someone on the other side. A second later, the cell phone at his hip buzzed. He flipped it open and listened for a few seconds, before sighing, slamming it shut, and resuming his conversation with whoever was on the opposite side of the door.

“I have to take this,” he turned his head towards her and opened the door wider to let another man through. This one was also middle aged, but his hair was still jet black and sleeked back, with light green eyes carefully turned on her from beneath a set of rectangular glasses. In his hands he held a thick rolled up cloth.

“Blacka...” she glared up at Banachek, and the man cleared his throat. “Miss Stark, this is Dr. Robert Khan, one of the US Science and Technology advisors. He's been with us for a few months now. Dr. Khan, please show Miss Stark our collection. I'm needed outside.”

“With pleasure,” the newcomer smiled in a way that didn't quite reach his eyes. Blackarachnia didn't like it. It made her nervous.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

“I'm sorry, sir, but tours haven't opened yet,” the guard who looked even younger than him held up both hands to black Cheetor's way through just as he and his companions were about to step onto the walkway of the Hoover Dam.

While it didn't exactly look like a secret military base, it was what they found following the river that had turned out to be the Colorado. Arguments over the best way to approach this were finally settled when Silverbolt had reasonable pointed out that none of them were armed and they didn't know how many humans there were in the facility. That left them with no choice but nicking on the front door and asking politely.

“I'm not here for a tour,” his patience was waning. “I need to talk to whoever's in charge.”

“Rogers,” a voice from behind the guard made him turn, and all three Maximals saw a man in sunglasses and a beret with a clearly visible Sector 7 logo on the front striding towards them. Another man, also wearing sunglasses but with lighter hair and in a suite and tie, was only a few steps behind the first.

“It's alright,” the man in the beret said to the guard. “We were expecting them. Go back to your post.”

After the young soldier departed, the man took off his glasses and turned to Cheetor. “You must be Christopher Stark, aka Cheetor. Gotta say, kiddo, you could have picked something less conspicuous to steal than a Lamborghini. Didn't you know that those babies come with built-in GPS? And here I thought you people were supposed to be technologically advanced.”

“Where are my teammates, asshole?” before the questions of how the man knew who he was could even cross his mind, Cheetor's hands were already fisted in the color of the man's jacket. “Where's my sister?”

“Yeah, about that,” he didn't look phased. “Who's brilliant idea was that? 'Cause, I really don't see the family resemblance...”

“Simmons,” the other man finally reached them and put one hand on Cheetor's shoulder and the other on that of his comrade to separate the two. He released him with a shove.

“I'm sorry about him,” the man took off his sunglasses. “I'm  Tom Banachek. This is Agent Simmons. We're with Sector 7.”

“I figured,” he sneer. “I want to know where my teammates are.”

“We apologize for any misunderstandings,” Banachek started, “but...”

“Look,” Cheetor held up his hand to silence him, “since you already know who we are, there's no point in beating around the bush. I know you're used to having a healthy fear of the Autobots because they could step on you and squash you to gooey pulp, but don't think just because we're the same hight, I can't make you regret ever hearing of us.”

He didn't know if he could actually back up the threat, but it sounded good at the moment. Rattrap and Silverbolt stood behind him, both looking as determined as he felt.

“I'm not going to ask again.”

“Both of your teammates are here,” Banachek confirmed, “and perfectly fine. We just started filling your... sister in on what's going on, so your timing is perfect. Please, follow me.”

Cheetor exchanged look a look with his companions. Rattrap just shrugged, and Silverbolt nodded his agreement. They were about to start after the two humans when Cheetor felt the familiar rush of his spark detecting another. Shutting his eyes, he watched his vision weave through the inside of the dam, through corridors, down stairs, and then...

He was gasping when his eyes snapped open and realized that he was doubled over, and that his friends were supporting him from both sides. In front of them Banachek and Simmons stopped.

“Is something wrong?” the human in the suite sounded concerned.

“No,” Cheetor waved him off, “just a little vertigo. We're coming.”

When they began to walk, Rattrap and Silverbolt fell into step beside him.

“Let me guess,” Rattrap's usually sarcastic voice was low. “You saw somethin'. Are the humans lyin' or are our buddies really here?”

“Oh, they're here alright. That's not the problem. I'm sensing a third spark. But there's something... wrong with it. It's different; darker and... and twisted.”

“Predacon?” Silverbolt suggested.

“Can't be,” the young commander negated. “Predacon sparks are no different than ours. You can't distinguish our races by sparks, only by programing. This... thing is like nothing I've ever felt before.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

She slowly circled the items on the table. Blackarachnia knew them all – intimately well in some cases – but was not about to admit it to the man who sat with his fingers intertwined on the tabletop on the other side. Her finger traced a rusted fragment of the Golden Disk, a short hard nail running across its grooves. She glanced at the man, but his expression was unreadable. He didn't so much as lift as a brow.

The small, pear-shaped object made of two attached spheres of circuits was the last the last thing she investigated. She would not have looked at it at all if she hadn't thought it would be suspicious to examine all the other artifacts and leave that one untouched. Her hand reached out to it. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the very corner of the man's mouth curve ever so slightly.

He knew.

Her heart nearly stopped with the realization. He knew exactly what it was, and the meaning it had for her. It was impossible, but Blackarachnia was versed in psychological warfare enough to know it was also true. She drew back her hand. The man's grin grew wider, and he didn't even bother to hide it.

“Are you familiar with that?” he asked, casually gesturing at the object.

A beat.

A challenge.

An answer

“No.”

The man only laughed and leaned back in his chair, pushing the rectangular spectacles further up his nose.

Chapter 7

Fear

Humans would call it a panic attack. That inexplicable sudden fear that grips a person and squeezes all the breath out of his body. That was exactly what Silverbolt felt as they walked through the dimly lit corridors of the structure withing and under the dam. He realized within seconds that the feeling was not his own. The two humans who lead the way had not noticed his sudden intake of breath or the way his jaw tightened, but his companions did.

“Tell me,” Cheetor said in a low voice.

Never comfortable with sharing any information he got from the bond, Silverbolt growled under his breath and uttered a single word: “Fear.”

“I hope that doesn't mean she ran into the third spark,” was the younger man's only response.

“That I cannot tell you,” Silverbolt's expression was solemn, “but she is not a woman easily frightened.”

It was an understatement. In fact, he rarely felt this kind of borderline terror from his mate. The woman who had single-handedly sent Rampage, one of the most feared monsters in Cybertronian history, sailing into a canyon wall was rarely truly afraid. She took everything, even near-death situations, with determination and acceptance. Irrational fear was completely out of character for her, and yet here it was.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

If he'd ever compared notes with Cheetor on what being a kid in a war was like, Nightscream would have discovered that the two of them had completely different experiences. Cheetor had been slightly older at the beginning of the Beast Wars than Nightscream himself had been when Megatron's virus hit Cybertron, but that was a minor difference. The biggest was that up until the first time Optimus died destroying the alien moon, war had been a game for Cheetor. He never seriously thought he could loose anyone. Sure, a few Preds might get blown up, but none of his friends could ever be seriously hurt, because after all, they were the good guys.

Nightscream knew better. He knew that death didn't discriminate Predacon from Maximal. It was a little difficult not to accept and expect death when it looked like he was the only spark left on Cybertron. For countless time, before the others arrived, he'd fought tooth and claw to stay alive, stay one step ahead off the drones. He may have butted heads with the other Maximals more than a few times, but he honestly didn't know what he would have done if he lost them. Waking up alone on Earth had been a nightmare all over again and being left alone while the humans spoke to Blackarachnia hadn't helped.

He'd paced the floor of the infirmary, glanced at the medical charts that went completely over his head, and finally settled on flipping through an old magazine from several years ago that had an announcement of the construction of the first – and as it turned out only – Autobot City on Earth. There was even a faded photo of the human president posing with Optimus Prime and looking rather ridiculous next to the thirty foot tall Autobot leader.

When Blackarachnia returned a full hour later, he tossed the magazine aside and jumped off the bed, ready to demand why she'd left him, but all thoughts of that disappeared as he watched her begin to pace the length of the room, hands firmly planted on her hips.

“What's wrong?” he finally asked carefully when he worked up the nerve. Nightscream had no desire to be on the wrong end of the black widow's temper.

She stopped pacing and turned to look at him for such a long moment that he had the strongest urge to run and hide.

“When they were running all those tests on you,” she jerked her hand towards his medical file, “did they ever hurt you? Did you ever feel like they were doing something... something they shouldn't have been?”

“They shouldn't have been doing any of it,” he snapped, remembering all the prodding and probing the humans put him through. “But if you're asking did they torture me, then I guess not. They always told me what they were gonna do before they did it and stuff like that.”

She nodded and then resumed her pacing, which made him even more nervous. A sudden frightening thought popped into his head, and he stared up at her wide-eyed.

“Why?” he didn't want to sound afraid, but was hiding it badly. “Did they torture you? Are they going to torture us?”

“No one's torturing anyone,” she snapped, but he was not at all assured of her certainty. “Was there a Dr. Khan in the room with you at any point while they were running these tests? About this tall, black hair, glasses.”

He frowned but quickly made the connection. “Yeah, I think I know who you're talking about. The guy who always hung out on the side lines, but looked like he was really running the whole show. Gave me the creeps.”

“Me too,” but she said in a way he guessed he wasn't meant to hear it.

She sat down heavily on the nearest bed, hands gripping the edges. Nightscream was at a loss. He didn't know what to do when one of the people he'd always counted on to have all the answers looked so distraught. I'm just a kid, the thought came to him not for the first time. What in the Inferno am I doing?

Fortunately for him, the door to the infirmary swung open to admit the two S7 humans and, to his everlasting joy, followed by three men who he would have recognized anywhere, new bodies or not. It took him all the dignity he could muster not to run to them and tackle them into one big group hug. As it was, he managed to just stand there and grin.

Next to him, Blackarachnia also rose to her feet. She didn't look so much surprised as relieved to see their teammates. Banachek, however, did seem surprised.

“There you are,” he said in Blackarachnia's direction, “I thought you'd still be looking at the artifacts with Dr. Khan.”

“I saw enough,” she replied coolly. “Now I need a moment with my friends. Alone.”

“Fine,” the human agreed. “Tell them what you saw, so they'll know we're not lying, but don't take to long. Simmons and I have other things to see to, but we'll be back soon, and I'll expect you all to be ready to discuss matters.”

When the humans left, Blackarachnia took two steps forward and silently wrapped her arms around Silverbolt. He wasn't sure exactly what kind of silent communication passed between the two, but he didn't have time to wonder before Rattrap swept him up in a hug as well.

“Hey, kid!” the rodent was beaming. “You're lookin' good for a lab rat.” He held him out at arms length for a better look. “And someone's finally shorter than me.”

Sad but true, Nightscream thought. His new body had not yet come with a growth spurt.

“Are you both okay?” Cheetor's gaze shifted between him and Blackarachnia. Both nodded. “Good, then you can tell me how humans know about us when Maximals don't even exist yet in this time frame.”

“No, but we left plenty of evidence for them to find,” Blackarachnia replied, one of her arms still wrapped around Silverbolt's back while her mate held her to him by the waist. “They have a piece of the Golden Disk, fragments of our technology, and stuff they pulled from the Axalon wreckage. I'm not sure how they know about us in detail, but if I had to guess, I'd say Optimus, Megatron, or whoever else kept records, and they got their hands on them. So probably the only one they don't know about is Nightscream.”

“Awesome,” Cheetor's voice dripped with sarcasm.

“Be grateful the humans didn't find this before the end of the Great War or didn't share this with the Autobots,” she pointed out. “That would've really messed with our time line.”

“So what do they want with us?” Nightscream asked.

“I don't know,” she sighed. “Depends on how much they know about the aliens.”

“What aliens?” the boy frowned.

“Oh, kid, you're in for one hell of a story,” Rattrap quipped.

“Later,” Cheetor interrupted. “We've got bigger problems. I don't want to discuss this in front of the humans, but like I told Rattrap and Silverbolt, there's a strange spark here. I want to know what, if anything, they know anything about it, and I'm not going to even listen to anything else until I do.”

“There's another spark here? What do you mean by 'strange'?” Blackarachnia repeated. Her hand grasped Silverbolt's shoulder tightly, and through their bond, he felt her fear rise again, though this time it was laced with a hint of something else. Was it... realization?

“Yeah,” the golden haired man confirmed. “I don't know how else to explain it.”

“There are mutant sparks,” Rattrap offered. “Ol' crab legs for one. That Decepticreep Starscream for another. They don't exactly give them out at every local electronics store, but they ain't unheard off.”

“Maybe,” Cheetor didn't sound convinced. “Neither of those are very comforting perspectives though.”

 “Now's your chance to ask 'em,” Rattrap nodded his head towards the glass slits in the door, and at the now three humans approaching.

All five took a step back as the doors swung open to admit the humans. Simmons remained at the door while Banachek and the man Blackarachnia and Nightscream knew as Dr. Khan stepped forward.

“I hope you've all had a chance to talk,” Banachek said. “If you want to see the artifacts for yourselves, I can arrange it.”

“Maybe later,” Cheetor's demeanor straightened, and everyone who knew him could tell he was in commander mode. “Blackarachnia's told us what she's seen, and we trust her.”

“Not hiding behind fake names anymore, are we, 'Miss Stark'?” Simmons quipped from his place near the door. She simply glared at him.

“Fair enough,” Banachek agreed. “Whatever will give us a chance to talk openly. I have to be honest, I don't know why you're here, but I'm glad you are. We could use your help.”

“In what?” Silverbolt asked.

“In dealing with the aliens.”

The team exchanged a look.

“That answers that question,” Rattrap commented.

“Why should we do anything?” Cheetor folded his arms across his chest nodding his head to indicate Blackarachnia and Nightscream. “After the welcome wagon you humans rolled out.”

“It's kind of your mess to begin with,” Simmons noted. “Didn't Primal ever teach you to pick up your toys, kid?”

A mixture of a roar and a hiss that no human could have ever made erupted from Cheetor's throat, and Rattrap and Blackarachnia had to physically grab his arms to hold him back. Simmons didn't look phased.

“Speaking of toys,” the rodent interjected, attempting to divert the conversation back to safer ground. “Did you people happen ta see my Pred parts collection in all that stuff you dug up?”

To everyone's surprise it was the doctor who burst out laughing. He took off his rectangular glasses to wipe the corners of his eyes before replacing them.

“None of you have changed at all,” he said, still amused.

The room grew silent for a moment as all eyes turned on him. Rattrap's mind raced to understand. The human knew them? How? The obvious answer was that the good doctor wasn't human at all. Doctor... not human... Entirely forgetting Cheetor's warning about an unusual spark, hope surged in him.

“Rhinox?”

The man raised a single brow, then laughed harder. “Rhinox? Wherever did you get that idea from?”

“Dr. Khan came to us a little over year ago,” Banachek explained. “At that point we had some evidence of your presence on Earth four million years ago, but we didn't know what they meant, or how to decode the encrypted tracks. His help was invaluable in learning more about the Beast Wars and warning against the aliens' return.”

“Tom,” the doctor turned to the two humans, “could you give me a moment to get reacquainted. I don't think they understand.” When the men were gone, his attention returned to the Maximals, a smirk on his face. “Tedious, aren't they? Humans, that is. Can't say you people are much better. Though, I'm surprised at you, Blackarachnia. I thought I taught you better than that.”

At that moment Silverbolt became so accurately aware of his mate's emotions that they seemed to nearly override any of his own. The first was that her initially minute feeling of understanding suddenly turned to outright denial, followed by slowly growing acceptance. Her emotions were in a state of tremendous turmoil, and when he thought the confusion was over, everything pooled together and blossomed into full grown terror.

“What's wrong with your spark?” Cheetor asked point blank.

The question was mostly to divert attention from his two friends who looked uneasy to say the least, but he also wanted to know what he and his team would be dealing with, and he was tired of riddles. The man frowned and cocked his head to the side, as if he was genuinely surprised by the question, then his earlier smirk returned.

“Why don't you ask your new sister?” he suggested, keen eyes returning to Blackarachnia. “You must have known or, at least, suspected.”

The woman swallowed hard and took a shallow breath, her eyes vacant and focused entirely on the floor. Silverbolt's own gray-blue orbs widened in alarm when he felt her flood of emotions  disappear entirely, as if he was suddenly on the other side of an enormous dam. All input from her through their bond suddenly flat-lined.

“The reason why his spark looks strange to you,” her voice was so quiet that even the people right next to her strained to hear it, “is because he's not Cybertronian. Maximal or Predacon, we all have the same origins. He's not like us. He's the spawn of Unicron.”

Everyone started at them in horror, but the man just shrugged.

“A bit long-winded, but correct,” he agreed. “I am Tarantulas, descendant of Unicron and emissary of the Vok.”

Chapter 8

Rift

Not for the first and far from the last time, Cheetor really wished Optimus would walk through the door and take control of the whole situation. He'd been prepared to deal with any humans, but not sadistic Cybertronian scientists who he was more than happy to see the end of in the Beast Wars. Or was 'Cybertronian' even the right term? Blackarachnia had said he was a descendant of Unicron, which made him a whole different ball of slag. But still, a spark was a spark, and Cheetor had personally seen this one blown to kingdom com.

“I saw you die,” he said.

“Really?” Tarantulas cocked his head to the side. “I must have missed that. No, cat, what you saw was the destruction of my Transmetal body. I attempted to take the power of the Vok for my own, but I underestimated them. Not a mistake I'm likely to make again.”

“Hold a nanoclick,” Rattrap interrupted. “Didn't you just say you're their 'emissary' or somthin'?”

“Not by choice,” the scientist scowled. “That's the reason I'm willing to work with you people; to defeat the Vok would ensure my freedom from them.”

Blackarachnia gave a single humorless laugh but said nothing. It urned her a scowl.

“Laugh if you like, witch, but once the Vok are done with Earth, where do you think they're going next?”

That's exactly what Optimus was afraid of, the young commander thought, but he wasn't about to share the thought allowed. The only advantage they had at the moment was that Tarantulas knew nothing of the Technorganic War. Theoretically, anyway. He looked over at Nightscream. Who knew what the boy had told the humans and Tarantulas with them? He was unusually quiet for the moment, standing beside Rattrap and staring at the doctor wide-eyed and nervous. The kid might not have had any personal experience with Tarantulas – lucky bot – but he was clearly picking up on the abundance of tension in the room, not to mention the whole 'spawn of Unicron' bit.

“You expect us to believe you suddenly care about Cybertron?” Cheetor was incredulous. “After you tried to blow up the Ark?”

“I care about my freedom,” Tarantulas replied. “You care about your precious Cybertron. We have a common enemy. I have been with them for... too long and I know them. Believe me, you'd much rather deal with me than them. Well, most of you anyway.

“The humans learned of the Vok and any details of the Beast Wars from me. Until my arrival, all they had were random artifacts who's significance they were completely ignorant about. I don't care what happens to them or this mud ball, but in this day and age it's difficult to act as an individual. Archaic as their resources are, I have enough to assist me for now.”

“So handle 'em yourself, eight eyes,” Rattrap suggested. “What do you need us for?”

“You saw those two?” Tarantulas pointed out the door indicating Simmons and Banachek. “They're the only ones who know who I really am. Getting the necessary equipment for research is complicated, and I could use help from others that know Cybertronian technology.” He paused for a moment. “When they come back, they'll tell you the same thing. They'll also ask you to get on a plane and go to their capitol to meet with several generals to explain the problem. Apparently these people don't take beings that can scorch their planet seriously. Imagine that.”

“So you want us to reveal ourselves to these people because you're too much of a coward to do it?” Cheetor scowled. “What makes you think we'll just go along with this?”

“Don't make me laugh,” Tarantulas snorted on his way out the door. “You're Maximals. However you may feel about me, you'll do the right thing in the end.”

We're not as naive as we used to be. But even as he watched the scientist go, Cheetor knew they were going to be on that plane. Actually convincing the rest of the team of it would be another story. Rattrap was obviously annoyed, Nightscream confused and scared. Silverbolt's look shifted between fury when he looked out the door and worry every time he looked at Blackarachnia. Cheetor could hardly blame him. He couldn't begin to imagine what kind of havoc the last few minutes were wreaking on her, but from the numb emotionless look on her face, he could tell some serious damage control was called for.

“Alright,” he took a deep breath. “I'm open to suggestions.”

Optimus would have never said that. Optimus would have simply launched into a stern but sympathetic speech about putting personal issues aside for the good of all, but Cheetor couldn't do that. He couldn't get past seeing everyone as his teammates rather than his team. Optimus had never been cruel, but his initial position of leadership had always set him apart from the rest. He was always more objective.

“Yeah,” all eyes turned on Blackarachnia as if they never expected her to speak again. “We should've never come here.”

With that she pushed the doors open and was gone. Cheetor didn't know if she meant they shouldn't have come to Sector 7 or they shouldn't have come to Earth at all. He caught Silverbolt's arm, who had already started after her.

“I need to know what's going on with her,” he said, trying to sound as authoritarian as possible. Silverbolt gave him a look of complete disbelief and when his eyes fell on his arm, Cheetor knew he'd better let go if he wanted to keep the limb. “I'm not asking because I'm prying, but I need to know what mental state my team is in.”

“I do not know,” the former fuzor replied and made another attempt to go after his lover, but Cheetor's hand held fast.

“What do you mean you don't know?”

“I mean I do not know, and this had better be the last time you ask about my personal life.”

Wrenching his arm away from his grip, Silverbolt  stormed out of the room.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Any woman who had ever put on makeup and her favorite cocktail dress on a Friday night and felt empowered and ready to take on the world because she knew she looked good, would have understood how Blackarachnia felt about her Transmetal 2 form. She'd never suffered from low self-esteem, but the new body had been a marvelous confidence boost.

From the moment she was free of Tarantulas' telepathic link, she'd made sure she was never alone in any place he could get to her. If that meant putting up with other Predacons, and later Maximals, than so be it. The weariness – she'd hated calling it 'fear' – had been a constant part of her life until her death. Her first death, anyway. Her rebirth as a Transmetal 2, not to mention a Maximal, had taken away the fear. Now it was back with a vengeance.

She rested her forearms on the ledge, absently leaning over just enough to get a few of the Colorado River. Blackarachnia tensed slightly when the sound of approaching footsteps reached her but relaxed when Silverbolt entered the corner of her peripheral vision. It disturbed her that she didn't feel him in advance the way she always had before, but Blackarachnia supposed she had no one to blame but herself.

“I'm not doing it on purpose, you know,” she said into the air when she knew he would be within ear shot.

Silverbolt pressed his lips into a tight line and leaned on the ledge next to her so they were more or less face to face. Though the bond helped, Blackarachnia learned to read him long before it was forged. There was a slight crease in his brow, but his otherwise neutral face told her that he was worried rather than angry.

“Can you tell me why this happened, then?” his tone confirmed the concern she'd been expecting, and she was also relieved not to hear accusation in it.

He had good reason to be worried. The last time one of them blocked their bond was upon his return in the Technorganic War, and their relationship barely survived that. She searched her mind for an answer to his inquiry and came up blank. Insistently, that was the answer.

“I'm not blocking you exactly,” she tried. “I'm blocking me, trying not to think about any of this. I just... I can't deal with him.”

She hoped it made sense, because Blackarachnia didn't know how else to explain it. Silverbolt was pensive, then nodded slowly.

“You have nothing to fear, beloved,” his hand reached out to stroke her cheek. “I am here. Our friends are here. No one would ever let that villain bring you harm again.”

“I never said it was a rational fear,” she replied evenly. “Look, I love you, and as annoying as they are sometimes, I care about and trust our friends. But I'm also used to being able to relying on myself. Let's face it,” she held out her arms, “this body isn't exactly built for battle.”

“We are all in the same situation,” he reminded her gently.

“It is not the same for everyone,” Blackarachnia snapped, feeling her frustration grow. “I don't remember him poking around anyone else's brain, or...”

“My apologies,” he held up both hands defensively. “I did not mean it like that. I was simply alluding to the fact that these bodies are strange and new to us all, and their current limitations are painfully obvious. But somehow I do not think this is simply about the body.”

Blackarachnia exhaled slowly. She wasn't mad at him. If anything it was her own lack of ability to articulate her feelings that frustrated her. Their bond was a good tool for that, but it was not available at the moment. She took a breath to steady her nerves and tried again.

“Tarantulas is my demon. For me to have peace of mind, I need to know that I can deal with him on my own. I know you understand that.”

“I do,” her lover agreed. “But it was also you who taught me that demons need not be fought alone. It's perfectly reasonable to desire to feel empowered, but forgive me for saying this, it does not come from nowhere. Take courage and strength from all of us, Blackarachnia, and please do not shut me out.”

She sighed and closed her eyes, willing herself to relax and remove her mental wall. But relaxing or giving in had never come easy for her. All she managed was to make a few cracks in the structure. Apparently some things were easier to build than to take down. Nevertheless some of Silverbolt's feelings of concern and desire to sooth filtered through the crevices, and she felt a little better. He, too, seemed pleased. Smiling, he leaned in and pressed his forehead against hers so that their faces were so close she could feel his warm breath against her skin. His kiss was almost chaste, caring more comfort than passion with it.

“A little at a time,” he assured her. “Now, perhaps we should return to our friends and discuss the situation. I'm sure they are taking your feelings of this into every consideration.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

I'm doing what's best for everyone. Best for everyone.

The phrase repeated in Cheetor's mind like an song he couldn't get out of his head. Or rather he wouldn't, as if repeating it would keep any forces of the Pit at bay. He would have welcomed them, too, if it meant not having to face Blackarachnia and Silverbolt any moment now.

“She's going to kill you,” Nightscream said very matter-of-factly. “I don't even know this guy or what happened between them, but even I can tell, she's going to kill you for this.”

“Fine,” Cheetor waved him off.

He was annoyed to be lectured by someone who was for one thing, the only one on the team younger than himself and for another, not even a participant of the Beast Wars. The young man began to pace again, feeling somewhat like a child about to face an exam he was completely unprepared for with possibly lethal consequences for failure.

“We could give you a few minutes' head start,” Rattrap offered. “Don't think we'll be able to hold her off for longer than that. Might not help anyway, though, even with your speed.”

“I get it,” he snapped, whirling on his companions. “She's going to be pissed. It's on me. It was my call. I'll take full responsibility for it.”

I'm doing what's best for everyone. I'm doing what's best...

The mantra ended abruptly when he saw the two returning Maximals through the glass slots in the door. Blackarachnia looked better, but no amount of good mood was going to help after he told her the team's – no, his – decision regarding the humans and more importantly Tarantulas. The moment she and Silverbolt walked through the door, and before either of them could say anything, he opened his mouth to speak.

“We need to talk.”

If he didn't get it out now, there was a good chance he was going to loose his nerve. Both simultaneously raised their brows. He wasn't sure which one of them had picked it up from the other, but Blackarachnia's was tinged in amusement.

“Are we breaking up, little brother?”

Possibly.

“Look,” he started again. “I know how you both feel about this whole Tarantulas mess. I'm not exactly thrilled about the guy myself. I mean, he tried to eat me once, and then there's the whole Unicron thing...”

“Cheetor...” Silverbolt's voice had a warning note to it.

“The point is, we all know he's a freak and a psychopath, but he also happens to know more about the Vok than anyone else. For whatever reason, the humans trust him, and he is right about one thing: it doesn't look like it's possible to do anything without interacting with them in this time period. So all things considered, we're going to at least try to work with them and yes, that includes Tarantulas.”

There was a long pause. The look on Silverbolt's face was a subtle mixture of anger, disbelief, and incredulity, but at least him he could read. It was Blackarachnia's impassive look that made him twitch.

I'm doing what's best for everyone... Even if it kills me.

“Say something,” it was a borderline plea.

“Is that an order, commander?” she folded her arms.

“What? No...”

“Because that first part sounded a lot like an order you just expect us to obey.”

His head snapped up at this, eyes filled with renewed resolve.

“Yes, I made a command decision, and I stick by it, because I believe it's for the best in the long run. I'm sorry you don't like it, and it would suck if you never talk to me again, but I'm willing to deal with that.”

Another long pause, then she nodded.

“Alright. When do we leave?”

“Are you serious?” it wasn't just Cheetor who blinked in disbelief, but he was the only one who stuttered. “You... you're not mad?”

“No, see, that's not how this works,” she corrected. “The way it works is you, oh mighty Prime, go and tell those people we're going with them. Then you ask them for every single file they made on Nightscream while he was here, and then for all of Tarantulas' research so I can read it on the plane and maybe actually figure some of this out.”

“And then you start talking to me again?”

“I'm making no promises.”

Chapter 9

Flight

At the very least the humans had their own plane and a fairly comfortable one at that; leather seats, individual tables, big screen television, and all. There was even a fairly large bathroom with a shower that everyone took advantage of in turn as soon as the plane took off. It was very tempting to put the comfortable reclining seats to good use, especially for Cheetor, Rattrap, and Silverbolt who had not slept at all since their arrival on Earth more than a day ago, but Banachek, who was also on his way to D.C. on a later flight due to some last minute business he had to take care of, advised them all against it.

“It's about a four hour flight,” he'd explained, “but there's a three hour time lag. By the time you get to D.C., it'll be past midnight. Better to suffer a little now and get back on a normal schedule when we land. We have accommodations for all of you.”

Reluctantly, everyone agreed. Blackarachnia settled in to study the material that Cheetor had amazingly managed to get from the humans. The others had offered to help, but she just waved them away, saying something about knowing best how Tarantulas works and that they would all just get in the way. Rattrap and Nightscream were more than happy to leave her alone. The duo discovered what turned out to be an Xbox game console by the big screen TV as well as a stack games. Discarding the racing and simulation games, they finally decided on a disk labeled “Halo 3” and within moment everyone else knew they would be unreachable for the rest of the flight.

Silverbolt quietly sat beside Blackarachnia for a while as she read the various reports. Despite the mental brier still in place between them, both took comfort in each others' silent presence, but Blackarachnia could also tell that he was growing increasingly bored to the point where even she was starting to feel some of it. The words “mile-high club” floated through her thoughts as she glanced between him and the large shower in the far back of the plane, but she dismissed the idea with a smile. There was work to be done.

“You're not helping me by sitting here and fidgeting,” she said and nodded at the cart of books near the door to the bathroom.

“Are you certain I cannot help?” he asked feeling slightly guilty about leaving her to do all the work.

“Yes,” she gave him a slight push out of the seat. “Go find a good story, and you can tell me about it later.”

He did find a few older books on the cart but was surprised to see that he'd actually read some of them before. Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton were all familiar to him, so Silverbolt picked up the first unfamiliar but particularly thick tome he could find. It had a silvery cover with the depiction of a throne that seemed to be made up of a collection of swords. Seems interesting, he thought, as he opened it and began to read.

While everyone had found a way to keep themselves occupied by more or less productive means, Cheetor was the only one who felt restless. It was the kind of feeling one got when he got past the point of total exhaustion. His mind was running as fast as his feet usually did, but he couldn't find anything to focus it on. In the end, all he could do was sit and occasionally glance out the window or at what the others were doing, and despite the human's advice, his thoughts drifted away from the waking world.

He saw Cybertron. He wished he could say he saw it as he remembered it before he left on the Axalon, but in truth it was the dark lifeless palace of the Technorganic War. Deeper and deeper into the planet he fell – or ran, he couldn't quite tell which – until the darkness exploded in a brilliant flash of light. A figure was approaching him, shifting between the numerous forms it had acquired over the years. It changed into a Technorganic gorilla before assuming a shape Cheetor had never seen before. A shape very-much human.

“You're doing fine, Cheetor,” he couldn't quite see the specific features, but his mentor's voice sounded just like he remembered it; warm and reassuring. “Have faith in yourself, in your team, and you can pull through anything.”

“Optimus...” he reached forward, but his hand was swallowed by the light.

Cheetor was yanked out of the dream with such ferocity, he gasped, and his right hand griped the arm of the leather chair in a death-grip that turned his knuckles white. He wasn't even sure what caused him to wake so suddenly. Rattrap and Nightscream were still preoccupied with the game, and Blackarachnia had an impressive pile of finished papers on the table at her right. Silverbolt had been the only one to look up though.

“Are you alright, Cheetor?”

“Yeah,” he whipped a hand across his face, trying to focus, but the more he thought about it, the less he could remember. “Just a dream. How much longer do we have?”

“Approximately an hour before landing,” Silverbolt replied, and looking out the window, Cheetor noted that the sun must have set quite a while ago. He turned his chair towards Blackarachnia, who had been rather conspicuously ignoring him the entire flight. “Any chance of filling the rest of us in on what you learned so far? I don't want to discuss this in front of the humans.”

She looked up, regarding him with the same disdain she might have given a piece of slag on her shoe, but finally nodded. Rattrap and Nightscream grudgingly paused their game, and Silverbolt closed his book, though he diligently marked his place with a torn scrap of paper and left it in his seat instead of replacing it in the small self. Apparently he found something he liked. Blackarachnia spread out the papers on the table in front of her more for her own reference than for the others to look at.

“Alright, recap,” she started, weariness apparent in her voice. “I don't know how much of this will actually sink in before we all get some sleep. Some of this is review, some confirmations, and some new information. Crazy as he is, Tarantulas is pretty good about keeping notes. A little disclaimer: I have no idea if he's lying or not, but at the moment I'm assuming 'not', because he really does hate the aliens and frankly we don't have anything better.

“According to him, the aliens – the Vok – are from a place called Nexus Zero. He doesn't know if it's another planet, another galaxy, or even another dimension, but he's leaning towards the last one.”

“Because it sounds more impressive?” Rattrap ventured a guess.

“Because of the aliens' properties,” she corrected. “It looks like they don't have any physical shape but are actually just made up of nothing more than pure energy.”

“Sentient energy?” Silverbolt looked doubtful. “Is that even possible?”

“In a universe with out laws of physics? Probably not. Which lead him to believe that Nexus Zero is really another dimension, and I agree that that's the most likely explanation.”

“But we've seen them here,” Cheetor objected. “Both their structures and even them directly when Tigerhawk came.”

“Their structures and the fact that they seeded the planet with Energon don't surprise me by themselves. I'm not sure how to explain it... Imagine you're writing a new program in a higher level language. You can manipulate the larger aspects of it – methods, attributes, global variables, etc – but unless you're the architect of the language, you have no control over every little zero and one.”

“So who's the architect here?” Nightscream inquired.

“I don't know. Primus, Jesus, Buddha, the girl behind the keyboard, whatever,” she waved him off, annoyed at the interruption. “That's not the point. I mean when you work with a program, first of all you don't have control of the lower lever details and second you don't work with it by walking into a computer, but rather through some sort of input-output device like a keyboard. They can reach into our world and manipulate large scale things, but they have no control over smaller pieces like individual people.”

“What about their 'emissaries'?” Cheetor asked. “If they can't control individuals, how do you explain what they did to Tigatron and Airazor, and slag, even Tarantulas.”

“I'm getting to that,” she gave him a dark look. “They can't manipulate anyone here, but it looks like it's easy for them to do it in Nexus Zero, especially with us, because our sparks are energy-based. The reason they were able to come here directly with Tigerhawk because they were literally within him. They hid in his spark, which I guess is a miniature version of their natural environ. It's sort of like a human diver taking a tank of oxygen with him when he goes under watter.”

“So what's their deal with Earth or us for that matter?” Rattrap asked.

“No idea,” she admitted. “All this is from observations of events in the Beast Wars and what Tarantulas saw directly, but the Vok are apparently not too keen on making their emissaries privy to their plans.”

“And here I thought all self-respecting bad guys did that,” Rattrap commented.

“So Tarantulas doesn't even know why he's here?” Cheetor double checked.

“No. He's under the impression that they sent him ahead of whatever their real plan is and assumes he won't know until they actually have a use for him.”

“No wonder he's freaked out enough to want our help,” the young commander realized. “He wants to finish with them before their program or whatever they put in to control him kicks in. Anything interesting on these new bodies of ours, by the way? You said they ran some tests on Nightscream.”

“I can tell you we're still Technorganic,” Blackarachnia replied. “The outside might look human, but inside there's just as many wires as nerves, just as many silicon strips as muscles. The scans also show that there are metallic platelets that form a sort of second skin but on the inside. I think they might be made up of a similar material as protoforms. They're malleable for now but should assume specific shapes and functions when we transform for the first time.”

“Sounds painful,” Nightscream winced as he vividly imagined countless tiny pieces of metal cutting through his organic skin. “And our new forms?”

“I don't know. I don't even know how we're supposed to transform, though I guess it's a similar mind-body thing as it was with our original Technorganic forms. There's no need for any special activation code, but something to focus on would help. We can try it once we're alone and not a couple thousand feet up in the air.”

Something in the small airplane window to his right caught Silverbolt's attention. He had given up on trying to get some glimpse of the outside world since the altitude had been too great to see anything but clouds in the earlier leg of the trip and when they began to descend it was already dark. Though none of them bothered to find out their exact location, the fact that the plane was making its way over Virginia farmlands accounted for the lack of city lights, but now he could see something bellow; a symbol clearly alien in origins was carved into the ground bellow, and he wouldn't have even seen it if it hadn't suddenly begun to glow.

The expression on his face, which was just short of an actual verbal curse, did not go unnoticed by the others. Everyone went to the closest window to see just what had elicited such a reaction. Nightscream only frowned, but to the rest, strange alien markings were an all-to familiar sight. Unlike Silverbolt, Rattrap had no trouble cursing.

“Slag me. I was hoping more for a “Welcome to Earth. Enjoy your stay” not a “Welcome to Earth. Enjoy your scrap-heap.” 'Cause I'm pretty sure that's what that thing says.”

The others' inexorable silence echoed their agreement, before Cheetor's eyes widened in white horror.

“Is that thing powering up?”

Sure enough the symbol on the ground bellow which up until now had simply glowed evenly began to pulsate and emit brighter bursts of light, as if it was a heart that had suddenly began to beat faster. With every pulse, it gathered more and more energy to itself until it looked like it was about to burst. Which, everyone realized almost simultaneously, was exactly what was going to happen.

“The cockpit!” Silverbolt shouted to Rattrap who was closest to the door. “Tell the human pilot, evasive maneuvers immediately!”

The rodent was already at the sealed door, banging on it, but the reply didn't come before the plane was rocked by the bang of displaced air somewhere right outside its hull. Rattrap was knocked against the door to the cockpit. Blackarachnia and Nightscream fell back into the seats behind them, while Cheetor held on to the overhead handle. Used to turbulence in the air, Silverbolt managed to keep his footing.

“Are there parachutes in this thing?” Rattrap scrambled under the nearest seat. “Man, I shoulda listened t' that in-flight instructional video.”

No one had a chance to respond before a second shock was felt, this time sending everyone to the floor then suddenly up and against the ceiling before bringing them down again. Cheetor only had a second to look up and see the entire tail of the plane violently ripped away and air rushed into the fuselage.

“Oh Primus...”

Everything fell away.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Silverbolt had inadvertently inherited his namesake's determination, unwavering loyalty to teammates and friends, and strong sense of right and wrong. He had not, however, inherited the Aerialbot commander's acrophobia. High altitudes didn't bring about paralyzing panic attacks. Quite the opposite, in fact. Flying was second nature to him. He took to the air whenever he needed to clear his head the same way Cheetor took to any open stretches of land he could run in to clear his.

It was exactly this ability that was about to save his life.

In his mind, he saw himself as he was supposed to be, not as the carrion-eating grim aerial of the Technorganic War, but as the pure noble warrior that only came from his wolf-eagle fuzor form. Perhaps it would be darker, he thought. Darker, but still the same.

It happened then.

There was no pain as Nightscream had predicted, at least not for him. Internal systems, both organic and technological shifted to accommodate the his new shape, but all he felt was the rush of air from the fall against his skin and then the cool feeling of metal sliding over his organic flesh. His back arched, shoulder blades tensed, then broke as newly formed wings erupted from his back.

Silverbolt soared.

Chapter 10

Capital

How they made it safely to the ground was still a mystery to Rattrap. He hated flying, but he hated falling more. It must have been what actual rodents felt like when running in a wheel, limbs flailing but not really heading anywhere. Except he was heading somewhere: the sudden stop at the end.

The stop did come, but somehow he was still in the air when it happened. He was jerked upwards by the collar of his jacket while gravity still insistently pulled him down. Fortunately the first won out, and he found himself tucked safely under Silverbolt's arm. At least he thought it was Silverbolt. The form and color matched, just not each other. The whipping air was making it hard to keep his eyes open, but he managed to catch a gimps of Blackarachnia at Silverbolt's other side, and a transformed Nightscream caring Cheetor in his talons.

All in all, Rattrap couldn't complain about the landing. He was actually a bit surprised the fuzor – because it appeared that that was what Silverbolt was once again – didn't plow into the ground, considering it was his first transformation here and he had the added burden of two extra people. They stumbled, rolled on the ground, but managed to get back on their feet with only a few cuts and bruises to show for the whole ordeal. The hull and cockpit of the plane came down  seconds later and mere meters away and promptly exploded. Being the only two transformed Maximals at the moment, the Technorganic aerials immediately spread their wings to shield the others from the falling debris.

It wasn't until a few moments later when the sky had spat back everything it was going to, that they finally looked up to get their bearings straight. Pieces of the fuselage, nose, and wings of the plane were scattered across the field, but there was not much left of the small private airplane. Asking whether or not the pilot was still alive seemed pretty pointless.

“Everyone alive?” Cheetor asked after expelling smoke from his lungs.

“Think so,” Rattrap felt around for any significant damage. “Thanks to the flybots.”

“No prob,” Nightscream was grinning, pointy bat teeth giving him a slightly vampiric look. He eyed Silverbolt's fuzor form that he had never seen before with admiration. “Nice new set of wings, 'bolt.”

“Hardly new,” the other Cybertronian replied, but he too was studying his hands and wings curiously, “but certainly an improvement.”

“That's all great,” Cheetor nodded at them. “Now change back. I know its dark and we're not exactly in a heavily populated area, but that crash is bound to attract attention, and I don't want you two to add to it.”

Nightscream shrugged and shifted back, technological components sliding back beneath his organic skin. Silverbolt hesitated, reluctant to part with his rediscovered form so soon, but grudgingly changed as well. It wasn't until they felt the cold air much more potently, that both recognized the distinct lack of clothing. Rattrap and Cheetor snickered but quickly handed the other two their jackets. Blackarachnia tried her best to keep a sober expression.

“This isn't exactly the way I pictured the first time I'd see you naked,” she gave Silverbolt an appreciative look all the while bitting her lip to keep from laughing. Suddenly she remembered something else. “Oh slag! All the research files were on that plane.”

She groaned in frustration and sat down heavily on the ground, burring her face in her hands.  Silverbolt crouched next to her, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, it ain't the end of the world, Webs,” Rattrap offered. “I'm sure those pencil-pushers in S7 have backups.”

Blackarachnia only sighed. It wasn't the fact that she'd lost documents that, as Rattrap pointed out, probably existed in many copies that was bothering her. It was the fact that they would have to ask for Tarantulas' research again. In her mind, she had a clear image of the scientist laughing at her apparent incompetence at not being able to hold on to a few pieces of paper.

“I'll ask them about it,” Cheetor promised, pulling out the cell phone Sector 7 people had given him. “We need to fill them in on what happened anyway.”

He stepped aside to talk. From the one side of the conversation he heard, Rattrap guessed that he'd reached Banachek because the cursing was minimal. He was on the phone for a full twenty minutes before asking about someone bringing two sets of change of clothes, thanking the human, then hanging up.

“They're sending a van from their capital for us,” he said, holding up the cell phone. “Apparently they can track these.”

“Funny how they forgot to mention that,” Rattrap snorted.

It was another hour and a half before the black unmarked can with tinted windows pulled up the dirt road, and a total of three hours after the plane went down, they found themselves in front of the Sofitel Lafayette Square hotel. If they had been remotely awake at this point, they would have seen that they'd driven by the Washington Monument and the White House, but their eyes just wouldn't stay open.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Blackarachnia wasn't quite sure how she'd gotten up to her room the previous night, but she awoke in a large bed, on top of the covers and still in her clothes from the previous night. Only her shoes were discarded on the floor at the foot of the bed. A glance at the clock on the wall told her it was nearly two in the afternoon. She'd slept well over eleven hours, something she'd never let happen under normal circumstances but she was awake now, and her head felt completely clear, so the indulgence could be forgiven.

Silverbolt was nowhere in site, but he'd probably just gotten up before her and went to see the others, so she rose quickly. On the couch at the far side of the room, Blackarachnia found several packages. The ones marked “For Mr. Michael Corbet” were open and empty, with small neat stacks of men's loathing on the cushion next to them. The others were labeled “For Miss Brianna Stark.” Fresh clothes! she was more than ready to shed what she'd been wearing since her arrival on Earth, then made a face as she held up a pink blouse between her thumb ans forefinger and tossed it aside. Okay, something else maybe.

After picking up a clean black and red tank top and low cut jeans, she rummaged through the remaining boxes for shoes when something on the small round table at the window caught her attention. Next to the vase with freshly cut red roses, were two credit cards with their names printed in the plastic and a note in Silverbolt's precise script.

“Downstairs in the lobby. No hurry. Take your time, beloved.”

Aren't we supposed to be somewhere? she thought all the way down the stairs. A few of the other guests gave her funny looks as they passed, and she finally realized that she must have looked completely underdressed for this place. Oh well, she dismissed them. Pleasing humans was nowhere on her list of priorities. Her friends must have figured the same thing, because when she saw them in the lobby, everyone was dressed casually.

“Hey,” Rattrap chimed when he saw her. “I'd say 'hey, sleepin' beauty,' but...”

She gave him a rude gesture and plopped on the couch next to Silverbolt.

“Don't we have a meeting with some generals or something?”

“Not anymore,” Cheetor took a drink of the coffee he was holding. “I just got off the phone with Sector 7. After that stunt last night, all air traffic is grounded.”

“What in the Inferno does that mean?” she was more indignant than confused.

“They're not letting any planes, jets, helicopters, or anything else that flies aside maybe carrier pidgins up in the air,” Rattrap replied, “till they figure out what happened.”

“Tom Banachek and the generals that are not here already were supposed to fly in this morning,” Silverbolt explained, “but now it does not seam likely we will see any of them for at least a few days.”

“Does that mean we actually have some time off?” Nightscream asked cautiously. It was a little too good to be true.

The adult Maximals exchanged a look.

“It may be useful to take a look at the city,” Silverbolt reasoned. “After all, this is their capital, and Earth as a whole is still strange to us. We are hardly busy.”

“ 'specially since all that research was lost,” Rattrap added and held up his hands defensively when Blackarachnia glared at him. “Hey, don't shoot the messenger, Legs. I ain't the workaholic 'round here.”

“Definitely not,” she agreed, “but there's other things that need to be done. Nightscream's identification for starters.”

She was grasping at straws now, but she really didn't feel like going anywhere with them. Blackarachnia was in a dark mood, and she was determined to hold on to it. Unfortunately for her, the youngest member of the team just shook his head.

“Actually I got one,” Nightscream pulled out a card from his back pocket and handed it to her. “The humans made it for me. I was here for like a week, remember?”

His photo stared back from the card along with the name “Nathan Wilson” and “DOB: 10/16/1994”. She tossed it back at him.

“And you know, what, about human names again?”

“They had comic books in that place,” the boy grinned. “So where are we going?”

“There is a place called the Air and Space Museum I would like to see,” Silverbolt replied.

“Cool,” like most thirteen-year-old boys, he would have never said 'cool' at the prospect of going to a museum except one that promised things that flew.

“And there's this movie out called 'Iron Man',” Rattrap suggested. “I think it's supposed to be about some robot.”

Nightscream looked torn, before Blackarachnia stepped in.

“Silverbolt can take you to the museum,” she suggested, “while Rattrap and I check out the local electronics stores. That laptop I swiped is gone, so I need something else to work on. Besides there might be some other tech here that's useful. We can all meet up back here around seven, and Silverbolt and I can go out somewhere while you and Rattrap go see the movie.”

“What about me?” Cheetor objected, having been left out of the day's events.

“You can do whatever the Pit you want.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

“Not that I do not welcome your company,” Silverbolt said as they passed through the hall of the earliest days of human attempts at aviation in a tone that suggested Cheetor's company was not completely welcomed at all, “but why did you volunteer to come with us?”

Nightscream ran ahead, looking at everything with the impatience and excitement only someone young possessed. Silverbolt had tried to slow him down and explain the origins of various aircrafts to the boy, but it seemed he was more interested in looking at the models than finding out how and when they were made. Of the three of them, Silverbolt was the most knowledgeable about Earth's air and space vehicles because he had spent an extensive amount of time reading, but Cheetor and Nightscream recognized a few particular pieces as well since many Decepticons and a few Autobots had taken planes and jets as their alternative modes during the Great War.

“At this point,” the blond young man admitted. “I think I'd be better of hanging out with Megatron than dealing with Blackarachnia's passive aggressiveness. No offense.”

“None taken,” he might have loved her, but Silverbolt had been on the opposite end of the spider woman's temper to know it was not pleasant, “but surely you can understand why she is upset. I cannot say I am terribly thrilled with your decision either.”

“Yeah, I know,” Cheetor ran a hand through his curls, “but you have to admit we don't have a better option. Maybe if Optimus was here, things would be different, but he's not so we just have to take them as they are. And I know it's not exactly fun for her, but does she really think any of us would let him hurt her again?”

“I will not let that happen,” Silverbolt declared then sighed. “If it is any consolation, she is hardly happy with the way things are between the two of you either.”

They rounded a corner and entered a large room where rockets and small space capsules greeted them. A few were American but many were marked with the “CCCP” of the acronym for the former Soviet Union. A photo of Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, was proudly displayed next to one particular shuttle.

“Then why doesn't she say something?” it felt weird for Silverbolt to be sympathetic towards him in the matter, but Cheetor couldn't say he didn't appreciate the chance to vent. “I hate fighting with her like this.”

“She is angry,” the fuzor said. “Angry with Tarantulas for returning from the dead, angry at you for the decision you made, despite its probable inevitability, even a little angry at me, perhaps for my passivity towards that decision. And she is letting that anger burn slowly. She believes that if she doesn't, it will consume rather than fuel her. Time and space is the only thing you could give her now.”

They entered the last room in their tour and stopped for a moment. A white flag with the red Autobot symbol at dead center flapped overhead and bellow it stood statues of all five Aerialbots. Tributes to other flying Autobots and even models of some Decepticons could also be seen about the room. This wing of the museum was the newest and obviously most familiar to the trio.  Nightscream was particularly excited and actually took the time to read all the placks. Silverbolt looked at Cheetor.

“Things have a way of working themselves out,” he said optimistically.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Rattrap liked gadgets.

A lot.

He liked them even more when they ran at Cheetor's overland speed rather than that of Optimus' we-can-do-it speeches. The junk they had at the library was closer to the later, but the ones from these “Best Buy” and “Circuit City” places seemed to be somewhere in between, so he supposed he didn't have much to complain about. Except maybe, the mood arachnid browsing the laptops in the next isle.

“So out of curiosity,” he asked, sliding in next to her while she turned a tablet over in her hands, “how long do you plan to torture the kid for?”

“As long as I feel like it,” Blackarachnia replied casually, then, apparently satisfied with the computer, picked up the slip of paper from next to the label to take to the cashier. She already had three others in her hand for various items, not to mention the five Rattrap held on to. S7 was paying for it all anyway, and he figured they wouldn't mind a few grand worth of electronics considering this stuff might help save their planet.

“Just checkin',” they made their way to the checkout line, but Rattrap was still bothered. “Look, Webs, I ain't one for these deep heart-to-hearts, but fighting with friends like this... it doesn't do anyone any good. Trust me, I know.”

He was, of course, thinking of Dinobot. Returning to Earth had brought back all kinds of memories of the Beast Wars for everyone, and for Rattrap his friendship with the Predacon raptor was both the happiest and saddest one. Yes, they had parted amicably, but that was nanoclicks before his death. They'd spent several days before that fighting, and in hind sight, it was precious time wasted.

Interlude II

Misgivings

“I don't know why I'm surprised, but I honestly thought you were smarter than this. Silly me.”

“Are you familiar with my other associates?”

“Don't you know anyone who is not violent and psychotic?”

“And fairly intelligent? No.”

“I can't believe you.”

“You said that already.”

A sigh.

“Do you have any control over him whatsoever?”

“Do you think I would have set him loose if I didn't?”

“I think it's not comforting given your questionable-at-best ethical code.”

“Oh I cannot personally oversee his actions until I return to Earth, but what does it matter? You are you not sending another of your Maximals, are you not?”

“As if you gave me any alternative. Wait here.”

“As if you gave me any alternative.”

Eternities intertwined. Eternities unraveled.

Voices faded. Voices resounded.

“Don't take this the wrong way, but how in the Matrix did you get here?”

“It's not important, and I can't stay long. Primus knows how much trouble he causes when I turn my back for a nanoclick. I need your help.”

“Slag off.”

“It's important. You're the only one I trust to get this right.”

“It's not...”

“It is.”

“You can't be serious. How could you let this happen? Again!”

Chapter 11

Leisure

One thing Sector 7 personnel were adamant about was not providing any of them with driver's licenses. They were willing to pay for any of the Maximals' other expenditures, but they put their foot down when Cheetor asked for a car and legal permission to drive it. He hadn't actually killed anyone on his way to the Hoover Dam, but there was a trail of traffic accidents followed him there. He could have asked Blackarachnia to create one for him if they were on better terms, but they weren't.

After meeting up with her and Rattrap, who had just finished dropping off the bags full of electronics at the hotel, he, Nightscream, and Rattrap set off on the few blocks walk to the E Street Cinema. Silverbolt and Blackarachnia didn't volunteer their destination, but at least now they had a way to keep in touch should anything happen. No one was thrilled that the humans could trace the cell phones, even if it was only temporary. Rattrap vowed to block the feature the second it became a problem.

“How did Silverbolt ever convince her not to stay in to play with these, find out what makes them tick?” Nightscream turned the new iPod that Rattrap had tossed to him in his hands. He was fascinated and somewhat appalled that humans couldn't just upload any music they wanted directly into their brains and recall it at will. Caring something around all the time was so cumbersome.

“She just likes to know how everything works, but all work and no play makes Blackarachnia more bitchy than usual,” Cheetor commented, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “Of course, in her case, her work also tends to be her play.”

“But not foreplay,” Rattrap grinned, effectively making the two younger Maximals extremely uncomfortable, then his expression changed from mirth to pensiveness, and he stopped dead in his tracks, forcing other people to walk around him and give them all angry looks. “Wait, what'd you just say?”

“Rattrap...”

“No, before that. You said she likes to know how things work.”

“This is new?” Nightscream looked confused.

Rattrap wasn't listening. All the memories of the events the aliens had taken part in, both in the Beast Wars and more recently, suddenly came back to him. No matter now much damage they did, it occurred to Rattrap for the first time that their actions had never exactly been unprovoked. The aliens didn't act like typical hostiles. They were more like...

“No wonder they took a liking to Eight Eyes,” he hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Our less-than-friendly-neighborhood E.T.s. They're like some sorta cosmic eggheads. Remember that flying island?” Nightscream looked bewildered, but Cheetor nodded in affirmation. “That place had all these symbols and stuff at every trap, and I said that it looked like  it was designed to attract intelligent species and test them.”

“So...” Cheetor made a get-to-the-point motion with his hand.

“So I was actually right back then! They're scientists!”

“Should we run this by Blackarachnia and Silverbolt?” he asked, trying to sound like the conversation made sense to him.

“No,” Cheetor finally decided, his brow creased as he absorbed the information. Nightscream looked between him and Rattrap, annoyed that he was once again out of the loop. “Look, we're not going to doing anything about this now anyway. No point in interrupting their evening.”

“And making her more pissed with you,” Rattrap smirked.

“That too.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The universe had a way of balancing itself out. It was a little known law called the conservation of optimism. In Blackarachnia and Silverbolt's case, it tended to mean that only one of them could truly be happy at any one point. She hadn't had the enthusiasm for much since  Hoover Dam, but at least her partner seemed happy. More happy than he'd been since the Beast Wars, and she had a pretty good idea why. The return of his fuzor body had done wonders.

She had to admit the coffee flavored atmosphere of the local Borders was mellowing even her out. The rows of books, DVDs, other odds and ends, the quiet but catchy music over the speakers, and even the square polished tables in the cafe were all having a soothing effect on her. It was nice to just go out and relax for a while, though she didn't expected to find herself here on her first evening of leisure.

“I must really like you.”

Silverbolt looked up from the art book he had been flipping through and graciously accepted the cup of coffee she handed to him. Both had a habit of becoming completely engrossed in something almost to the point of no return. For her it was one of her projects, while his passion was in a good story. Besides he had not indulged in something like this for a while, and he had just found the book from the plane.

“Thank you, and I am sorry that we are spending even part of our first evening alone like this,” he gestured around the cafe of the bookstore, feeling slightly guilty.

Blackarachnia just rolled her eyes and took a sip of her hot chocolate.

“Did we just meet yesterday? I know you. If you didn't find that thing now, you'd be thinking about it for the rest of the night, and sharing you was not part of my plan.”

Her index finger traced the spines of the rather impressive pile of books that had accumulated on the polished wooden table at his right elbow. Most of them were paperbacks from the science fiction and fantasy section or ark books, but there was one large format hard cover with the words “U.S. Air Force” and a photo of a shiny new F-22 Raptor on the front. Blackarachnia decided not to ask.

“I can't imagine dragging all these around,” she commented instead. “Give me a nice flat data pad any day.”

He smiled at this. No one could accuse his bond-mate of not being very well read. She was certainly much more knowledgeable about Cybertronian and modern human history than he was, but Blackarachnia placed no nostalgic value on archaic things like paper books.

“I like them,” he said, wistfully running a hand across the cover of the book from the plane. “There is something irreplaceable about reading the words of the page or the feeling the weight of the tome in your hand.”

“Irreplaceable?” she arched a dark, perfectly sculpted brow.

Underneath the table, he felt her leg rub suggestively against his and even through their two layers of clothing, the effects were potent. She leaned across the table and whispered something into his ear that made his head snap up and eyes grow wide.

“I think this is far too public of a location for that kind of talk,” he laughed nervously.

“So what are we still doing here?” her smile was both seductive and predatory.

If any outsiders observed them at that moment, they would have seen nothing more than a couple in that perfect early stage of a relationship, not knowing just how much history there was between them. It did feel like a new beginning of sorts. There was no more anguish of not knowing whether one of them was alive, dead, or on the other side of the conflict. It felt unbelievably good to simply be together for a change.

Another thing that felt unbelievably good, Blackarachnia observed the next morning, was the sensation of silken sheets against naked skin. She shifted under the covers to try to find a more comfortable position but quickly realized that the one she had was already perfect. She would have been more than content to stay there forever, but now that her mind was awake, the nagging feeling that she should get up and do something useful also set in.

Still she kept her eyes closed and expression neutral, feigning sleep even as the sheets were pulled all the way past the small of her back, and Silverbolt's fingers traced the line of her spine. She didn't even give in when his right arm slunk around her waist, hand running along the smooth plane of her stomach, but when he pulled her against him and kissed her shoulder than the name of her neck, she couldn't help but smile.

“You're in a particularly good mood,” she rolled over to face him, finally opening her eyes.

“I had a very good night,” was it her imagination or was there mischief in his blue-gray eyes? Silverbolt smiled and leaned forward to kiss her firmly on the mouth. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” her lover's post-sex good mood was both contagious and a wonderful confidence booster. “What time is it?”

Silverbolt rolled over with some reluctance to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand on his side of the bed.

“Nine thirty,” he replied and stretched. “I supposed we should rise. There may yet be time to shower and see to a late breakfast in the dining hall.”

“Typical man,” Blackarachnia picked up a small decorative pillow and threw it at him. He caught it with ease and gave her a confused look. “Fine, go shower.”

Silverbolt rose swiftly, heedless of his nakedness, and padded over to the bathroom. He paused at the door.

“Would you care to join me?” the offer was playful.

“Go shower,” she repeated, waving her hand dismissively. “If I join you, we won't be out for at least another hour.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

No one said anything when they came downstairs, though Rattrap, in his usual fashion, wagged both brows at them. Silverbolt either didn't see the gesture or ignored it as he pulled out a chair for his bond-mate, and Blackarachnia simply gave the rodent a look. It didn't help.

“We took the liberty of ordering for you,” he quipped.  “Figured you'd be starvin'.”

“Thank you for the concern,” now it was Silverbolt's tone that was warning but somehow still even at the same time. The best way to deal with Rattrap was to divert the conversation. “How was the film?”

“Total rip-off,” Rattrap declared. “I thought it was supposed to be able a super hero robot, not some guy in a suit.”

“Tony Stark,” Nightscream reminded helpfully, then, ever the peacemaker of the group, gestured between Blackarachnia and Cheetor. “Stark. Like you two.”

The spider woman merely raised a brow and said nothing, while Cheetor sighed. It would take more than that to get her to talk to him on friendly terms again. He really did hate fighting with her. She might have only been his sister for a few days, but she had been his friend for a lot longer than that.

“Right,” Rattrap laughed. “Webs is the crazy genius part, and Spots is the part that says '50% power' before flying straight into the wall behind him. Sounds accurate.”

“Nevermind that,” Cheetor interjected, a little embraced at his friends see-through attempts to get him and Blackarachnia to reconcile. “Tell them what you told us about the aliens last night.”

“Right, right,” the rodent snapped his fingers, all-business. “So yeah, the aliens...”

Rattrap recalled the earliest events of the Beast Wars, the ones that illustrated what he meant about the Vok's odd behavior. He'd expected to have to explain everything to Nightscream in gory detail, but in the process of the telling, Rattrap discovered that many of his other friends had not been present at the time. Cheetor had been at the base for the entire flying island fiasco, Silverbolt had not come online until much later, and Blackarachnia had been a Predacon and thus too preoccupied with gaining power to notice.

“Remember the times they got their hands on the boss monkey?” he reminded Cheetor. “They had plenty of chances to kill 'im, but they didn't. Poked and prodded him for a while and let us take 'im back.”

“Same with Tigatron and Airazor,” Cheetor agreed, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “They could have killed them on the spot, but instead they just sort of... tucked them away for safekeeping and then used them to create Tigerhawk.”

“They also attempted to destroy the planet,” Silverbolt objected.

“Actually that fits into Rattrap's point,” Blackarachnia said thoughtfully. She'd listened to the whole thing with quiet intensity and only now spoke up. “If Earth was their experiment, and we came along and contaminated it, they did what any scientists would do: terminate the experiment and start from scratch.”

“Exactly,” Rattrap grinned, pleased with himself for figuring it all out. “They're  interdimensional scientists with our whole universe as their slaggin' lab.”

“Well, not the whole universe,” Cheetor corrected. “They don't know about Cybertron... or didn't until we came along.”

“That's just great,” Nightscream spat in disgust, startling everyone else out of their thoughts. “Megatron and his virus weren't bad enough, you guys had to have more exotic friends. Way to go, team.”

The young teen pushed his chair back and stomped unceremoniously out of the dining hall. Moments later loud thumps could be heard as he ascended the stairs two steps at a time. Blackarachnia sighed and turned her attention to the food in front of her, while Cheetor growled and gritted his teeth, but it was Rattrap's face that contorted in fury, firsts clenching and unclenching rhythmically. It was taking all his will power not to spring out of his seat and go after the boy, possibly causing some violence in the process.

“I will speak to him,” it was Silverbolt who rose, more calm then the rest, and followed Nightscream up the stairs.

Silence set in among the three Maximals at the table, giving Rattrap some time to cool down. Cheetor understood how he felt. Everyone was acutely aware of the many repercussions of the Beast Wars, and every time Nightscream berated them about those consequences, it felt like the bat was degrading the memories of the bots who gave their lives in the conflict. He was not special simply because he had not been there the first time, and it had been his choice to come with them to Earth now.

He also knew that he should be the one going after him. Primus knew Optimus put up with his bullshit enough times and somehow managed to make Cheetor learn in the process, but you young Maximal commander honestly had no idea just how to deal with the teenager. Optimus had been an authority figure to him from day one, whereas he was too close in age to Nightscream. Any lecture he attempted to give would most likely be all but ineffective. Maybe Silverbolt would have more luck. Except for the rocky start, Nightscream had always responded fairly well to the other aerial.

Cheetor was actually grateful when the his cell phone buzzed and Banachek's number lit up in the display.

Chapter 12

Preparations

Nightscream wasn't sure what he meant to accomplish by storming up to his room. He paced angrily for a moment, kicked a few decorative pillows, then started fiddling with the TV and game console in front of the bed. Adding further to his annoyance, his only two immediate options when it came to games was either Super Mario Bros or some lame role play fantasy game where it showed that the characters were made of pixels. He chose the former, plugged in the controller, and  sat down cross legged on the floor leaning against the foot of the bed.

What in the Inferno were they all thinking? What had they been thinking in their slaggin' Beast Wars? One team responsible for so much trouble, and they didn't even seem terribly bothered by it all. All he'd been hearing from them from day one was, “Okay, this sucks, but we'll fix it,” and no real plan of how exactly they were going to fix it. Stupid team, and more to the point, stupid he for agreeing to come to this stupid place. He would have been better off back on Cybertron.

Except he wouldn't have been. Nightscream had no idea what Cybertron was like now. It could have been paradise for all he knew, but Optimus was gone, and as he'd correctly guessed, the rest of the team chose to continue the good fight. It might have been home, but there was no one there left worth saying for. He couldn't imagine dealing with the bots whose sparks had been captured by Megatron, even if he did recognize any of them. Like it or not, the four often-infuriating individuals downstairs were all he had. Blackarachnia was right: he'd picked a hell of a family.

Make that three downstairs and one currently knocking on his door.

“Nightscream, may I come in?”

Only Silverbolt could sound that polite and yet surprisingly unpatronizing. The youth weighed his option of ignoring the older man, but found it oddly unappealing. He paused the game and with as audible a huff as he could manage, stomped towards the door and swung it open.

“I wasn't going to run away or anything, if that's what you think.”

He went back to his game as soon as Silverbolt stepped over the threshold. Just because he'd let him in didn't mean he had to talk to him. Silverbolt simply sat down on the floor next to him.

“That was not something I considered,” and he sounded like he honestly hadn't. “I would give you more credit than that.”

“Yeah, well you and no one else.”

He did not respond for so long that Nightscream wondered why he came up there in the first place if he wasn't going to lecture him. Making a second attempt to ignore the other aerial, he pressed play on the game. Apparently he was still distracted because Mario hit a mushroom and lost Yoshi. Silverbolt picked that moment to speak up again.

“Would you please turn around?”

“What for?”

“Because I am speaking to you, and it shows respect.”

Instantly feeling guilty, though he couldn't quite tell why, Nightscream quit the game and met Silverbolt's soft gaze. There was no condemnation in it, and that only caused the boy to feel even more guilty. He bit the inside of his cheek.

“I do not judging you for things said in anger,” Silverbolt said gently, “but it would help me and the others to understand where the anger is coming from.”

“I'm just a little sick of always being left out, okay?” he said, surprised to be admitting it to anyone, even Silverbolt. “You guys all know what's going on, and no one is in any hurry to tell me anything aside from 'Yeah, we'll fill you in later, kid.' I feel like a useless tag along.”

Silverbolt looked thoughtful then slid out of the chair to the floor so they were on the same eye level. He say quietly for a moment, hands folded in his lap, and while Nightscream absently picked at the plush carpet. It was so quiet that he started to notice other sounds around him, like the hum of the paused game and the traffic outside. A few moments later, Silverbolt nodded and straightened his back.

“It has been a long time since I was the rookie,” he started carefully. “But it is never an easy place to be. There will always be something you do not know. I promise we will make a greater effort to include you, but you must be patient. This situation is difficult for everyone involved.”

“At least you're all actually involved in it,” the boy countered.

“You are as well,” the older man reminded him. “You became involved the moment you agreed to come here. It may not be a decision I would have chosen for you – not because I do  not want you here with us, but because yet another war zone is no place for someone so young – but it is an adult decision you made, and now you must live with it.”

“It wouldn't hurt if people actually treated me like an adult,” the boy was far from appeased.

“Part of growing up is owning your decisions. In this case, it means being patient and learning as you go along.”

To his credit, Silverbolt did not use the expected “but you're not an adult” line. Nightscream smiled a little but stared back down at the carpet when he saw the serious look on the older man's face.

“The other part is being more considerate of the feelings of the people around you. I am not certain you understand the impact your words have on our memories of those who gave their lives in the Beast Wars, but they are very hurtful.”

That sounded more like the lecture he'd been waiting for, but he didn't have the heart to argue. There was no real reason to argue. Silverbolt was right. Thinking back on his outburst a moment ago, Nightscream had to admit that it had sounded a lot like a childish temper tantrum. He looked up sheepishly.

“I guess I should apologize or something.”

“That would be very appropriate,” Silverbolt nodded approvingly. “And as far as the aliens go, if it makes you feel better, I am not closely familiar with these entities either. I was present at one of the later attacks, the one that claimed the two teammates Rattrap and Cheetor often speak off. However, the most significant interaction with them took place in the early part of the Beast Wars, and I had not yet come online at that point.”

“It's kind of hard to picture you as a rookie,” Nightscream admitted, then almost as an after thought added. “Wait, so are you actually, like... younger than Cheetor?”

“No,” Silverbolt couldn't keep the annoyance out of his voice.

“Because you just said you came online later in the Beast Wars...”

“Cheetor is not older than me.”

Nightscream laughed at this, and it occurred to Silverbolt that it was the first time in a long while he'd heard genuine laughter from the boy. It was definitely a good sign. The tension that had been in the room just moments before appeared to have instantly evaporated. He settled and bit his lip as if he wanted to say something else but wasn't sure if he should.

“You know, you're pretty good at this...” he waved a hand between the two of them to indicate the talk, “...thing.”

There was a grudging note in his voice, and it was Silverbolt's turn to laugh. He leaned forward as if he was about to divulge a great secret and lowered his voice to a whisper.

“Do not worry. I will not tell anyone you said that.”

There was a knock at the door, and Silverbolt rose to his feet to answer it. A human male, dressed in the uniform of a hotel staff member with two black bags draped over his arm, stood in the doorway looking slightly startled. He glanced between Silverbolt and the white tags on the bags he was holding.

“You are Mr. Michael Corbet?” he asked, unsure. The man tilted his head and looked past him at Nightscream, who still sat on the floor and started back. “And Mr. Nathan Wilson?”

“Yes?”

“Your friends downstairs told me you were here, and I was directed to deliver these to you,” the man handed him the two bags that Silverbolt now saw had their human names printed neatly on the tags. “Have a nice  day, sir.”

When the door closed behind him, Silverbolt brought the two bags to the bed and laid them out one next to the other. The larger one was labeled for him while the smaller one was for Nightscream. The boy wandered over to take a look and experimentally poked at one.

“Looks like a body bag,” he commented. Silverbolt looked at him quizzically, and he shrugged. “I also watched a lot of TV while with those S7 guys, but they didn't have anything good. Just crime shows.”

Dubious, Silverbolt pulled down the zipper that stretched from the top of the bag to the very bottom straight down the middle. When he pushed open the sides, a black tuxedo with a white undershirt and silvery vest and tie was revealed. Both stared at it, and Nightscream quickly checked his bag. Another tuxedo, this one with a black vest.

“What do we need these for?” he asked puzzled.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

“State party.”

Cheetor shrugged on his suit jacket in front of the full-length mirror, frowning at his reflection as he belatedly realized he should have probably buttoned the pale blue vest before putting on the jacket. He dreaded attempting the matching tie which was draped over the back of the nearest chair. Rattrap looked like he was having no more luck with his own suit if the colorful curses were any indication.

“Party?”

Nightscream hopped onto the bed and sat cross legged as soon as he and Silverbolt entered. He was making an attempt to be more friendly and enthusiastic, less coarse. Rattrap still didn't look particularly happy with him, but it was Cheetor's room, and he hadn't thrown him out yet.

“State party. Three days from now. Banachek called right after you went upstairs,” Cheetor said to Silverbolt's reflection in the mirror, still struggling with the suit. “He said there was going to be some sort of state party for various important government people, and the generals he wanted us to talk to are going to be there.”

“Let's go over how ridiculous this is,” Rattrap commented from his place sitting sideways in the arm chair next to the mirror. He had not bothered to try on the tuxedo, and the bag hung undisturbed on the bar that held the drapes of the window closest to him. “What does he expect us to do? Explain it to them between toasts?”

“The meeting itself is after the party,” Cheetor finally got the tuxedo to look like he thought it was supposed to and reached for the tie. “It was supposed to be the day we arrived, but air traffic is still grounded.”

“Why ain't we goin' to said meetin'?” Rattrap complained. “What's the point of stuffin' us in these monkey suits?”

“Because other leaders of this country will be there, and we should know who they are. Slag!”

The young man tugged roughly at the tie, succeeding only in tightening it around his  throat. He fought with it for a few seconds and finally manged to make it loose enough to pull over his head. The article was hopelessly knotted now, and Cheetor sat down on the nearest cushion with a sigh to disentangle it.

“Cheetor is correct,” Silverbolt agreed, still standing near the door. “It appears that we are to be here for a while, and since interaction with humans is unavoidable, we should make an effort to be more informed.” He looked around the room, only now noticing that something was amiss. “Where is Blackarachnia?”

Rattrap snorted and shared an amused look with Cheetor, who just shook his head and laughed.

“Probably in your room,” the rodent told him. “If you smell smoke, that's her burnin' that thing they sent her.”

“Thing?”

“I think it was supposed to be a dress,” Cheetor told him, mirth ringing in his voice. “But it weighed about as much as the rest of these,” he gestured around the room at the tuxedos, “combined, and something pink flashed when she peaked into the bag.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

No matter how tempted she was, Blackarachnia had not burned it, but she had unceremoniously stuffed the offensive article down the garbage shoot and gave a lukewarm smile to the two wide-eyed women who passed her in the hall. Feeling infinitively better, she returned to the room she shared with Silverbolt and pulled out the laptop she'd just finished setting up to her liking.

One good thing that had come from the human's call was that it allowed her a chance to request the files lost in the plane crash, and Banachek assured her he would send them over right away. E-mail was hardly a secure way to share top secret information, but the file was encrypted multiple times. Banachek had asked if she was sure she could break it, and Blackarachnia simply hung up the phone as a response. He must have taken that for as a yes because the files were in her newly created inbox an hour later.

She downloaded part of the attachment and began on working to decrypt it while the second part made up of videos she had not had originally downloaded. One of the humans must have done the encryption because she had it open within minutes. If Tarantulas was responsible for it, she might have been at it for at least a few hours. Just because they were playing at being on the same side, didn't mean he wouldn't mess with her for kicks.

Blackarachnia picked up the cup of coffee she'd brought up from breakfast and started sorting through the files all over again. She was surprised just how many she'd actually read and digested already. Those she hadn't were mostly maps and doodles of various alien symbols, some of which actually looked familiar to her. She couldn't place them until she remembered that they had been on the second Golden Disk, the one of alien manufacture. Filing the information in the back of her mind for safekeeping, she moved on.

All the maps were marked with little Xs in a seemingly random pattern. She studied them for a moment, then set them aside, not seeing any obvious pattern, and went back to Tarnatulas' notes. Pouring over them, some for a second time, one particular scribe among the rest of his papers caught her attention. She squinted at the screen to see if she read it correctly, but the script hadn't changed. The word and question mark popped off the screen.

'Sparks?'

“What in the Pit does that mean?” she asked no one in particular. “Where'd you see sparks?”

Blackarachnia reviewed the text surrounding the word but to no avail. Tarantulas' twisted logic was also reflected in his writing. Just because the phrase was in one place did not mean any of the surrounding notes were related. As much as she dreaded the prospect, she'd have to ask him personally.

Chapter 13

Party

The decoration in the Washington ballroom was elegant and simple, with drapes with the various insignias of the branches of the United States military hanging on the clean white walls of both sides of the room's length. A small stage complete with tall speakers, a microphone, and a screen mounted on the wall behind it stood at one end, while a sweeping staircase the lead up to the second floor and the balcony that outlined the perimeter was on the other. A web of smaller lights with a huge chandler at the center dotted the ceiling. About half the room was filled with circular tables, thus far empty of anything but clean plates and silverware in preparation for dinner. The other half leading up to the stage was nothing but smooth marble floor where people stood talking amongst themselves.

He had no particular expectations of what the human party was going to be like, but Cheetor had to admit, he was impressed and if only a little intimidated by the scores of people that filed past him. At first, the ballroom did not look as if it could accommodate so many, but almost as balloon inflated with air, it swelled as more and more guests arrived. Many of the human men and some women as well were dressed in what were obviously uniforms with various indications of their ranks that Cheetor tried to guess. The civilian men were dressed in tuxedos like the four Maximals that had arrived on time. Where the tuxedos all looked alike to him, Cheetor did not even bother to attempt to keep track of all the dresses the women wore. He found it odd that all the men dressed the same but the women dressed different but shrugged it off as yet another human quirk.

Speaking of women...

“When did Blackarachnia say she was going to be here again?” he asked no one in particular.

Rattrap, who stood at his right, was far more preoccupied with taking in the site of the entire party and grinning at some of the women who passed by. He'd actually stopped struggling with his tie which Cheetor thought was an amazing accomplishment considering he had complained about it all throughout the ride here. Next to him, Silverbolt was also studding the gathering but in a much more quiet and composed manner. At Cheetor's left, Nightscream looked a little uncomfortable, but it had nothing to do with his clothing. The boy had never been terribly social and being probably the youngest one in a room full of humans who kept giving him funny looks as if to ask why he was here hardly helped.

“She did not specify,” Silverbolt replied, “merely said that she would meet us here when she had acquired an appropriate gown.”

“Translation:” Rattrap offered. “We shouldn't expect 'er any time soon. Not before that 'S7' guy drags us off ta that meetin'.”

The question of where was Banachek did not have a chance to leave Cheetor's mouth before he spotted the human talking to several generals near the foot of the stage. He nodded his head in their direction, motioning for the others to follow. Banachek must have seen their approach because he raised a glass in acknowledgment.

“You made it,” he said. “I'd like to introduce you to General Graig Barnett of the United States Air Force and General William Sheppard of the Marine Corps. This young lady,” he raised  the glass again indicating the woman with the straight short blond hair and clear blue eyes, “is First Lieutenant Elizabeth Myers, General Sheppard's aid.”

The woman inclined her head in a polite greeting but otherwise said nothing. Her dress uniform was the same dark blue color as the Marine general's own, supporting Banachek's comment that she was of that branch. The lieutenant was about the same age that Blackarachnia appeared to be, very late twenties or early thirties, but she was taller than the spider woman, maybe five foot seven. She was pretty, but that was the only adjective Cheetor could think of to describe her, as there was not much particularly striking about her looks otherwise. He nodded his own greeting before returning his attention to Banachek and the other two men.

“Generals,” it was Banachek's turn to introduce the Maximals. “These are our visitors from out of town. Christopher Stark, Alexander Grant,  Michael Corbet, Nathan Wilson, and...” He looked around, as if just noticing Blackarachnia's absence, and turned to Cheetor. “Where is your sister?”

“Makeup,” Cheetor replied without missing a beat, “or other stuff the rest of us don't understand.”

He circled his finger in the air, meaning to indicate the male Maximals, and realized only belatedly that the gesture could have been misinterpreted. Lieutenant Myers' smooth brow creased ever so slightly, but she remained perfectly composed. He inwardly winced but quickly gathered himself and shook hands with the two generals, everyone else following his lead. Both humans were polite, but the marine's scrutinizing gaze was far less discreet than his fellow general's.

“You all look so...” General Sheppard looked like he was searching for any word that was not 'human', 'small', or 'normal'.

“Dashingly handsome?” Rattrap supplied with a wry grin, and the general's face turned as red as his mustache.

“Young,” General Barnett's eyes fell on Nightscream, who had been keeping one step behind Silverbolt ever since they had arrived and had an air of twitchy nervousness around him. He glanced at the general, then quickly looked away, opting instead for the few of the marble floor that he must have found fascinating because he did not look up until Silverbolt put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“War make soldiers of us all,” he said.

“Are we at war, Mr. Corbet?” the Marine general fixed his hard emerald gaze on Silverbolt. The fuzor cocked his head to the side, as if not understanding the question, but Banachek came to his rescue.

“Gentlemen, please,” he held his hands between them to defuse the tension. “There will be a time and a place to discuss these things, but now is not it. This is a party. We should all enjoy it.”

He gestured over a man with a tray of champaign glasses and passed them around the group, giving Nightscream an apologetics look when he did not receive one.

“A toast,” he raised his glass again and motioned for everyone else to do so, “to rekindling old alliances.”

Cheetor assumed he meant the humans' alliance with the now departed Autobots but did not bother to correct him. Banachek, General Barnett, and Lieutenant Myers all took a drink from their glasses. General Sheppard's gulp was more measured, his gray eyes never leaving the Maximals, as if searching for any signs of weakness. Unwilling to show any, Cheetor took an experimental sip, frowning at the unfamiliar taste of alcohol. Apparently he was not the only one cautions. Silverbolt sniffed the contents wearily before taking his own small sip. Rattrap was the only one who actually liked what was in the glass on a first taste. He downed the entire content in a few gulps.

“I need to find a few of my colleagues,” General Barnett put his own empty glass on a passing tray. “It was nice to meet you all, and I will see you at the meeting later tonight. Please excuse me.”

He left to talk to more military men and women who were crowded on the other end of the large room. Sheppard exchanged a farewell with Banachek but otherwise utterly ignored the Maximals before making his own departure. His aid followed, and they were left alone with the Sector 7 man.

“The meeting is not for another three hours,” he said after turning his right wrist to check his watch. “I can meet you all at the top of the stairs at, say, nine thirty? Till then, enjoy the party.”

The four of them exchanged silent looks, and Rattrap, Silverbolt, and Nightscream dispersed. Cheetor lingered for a moment longer. There was something he wanted to ask Banachek but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. The man must have read it on his face because he waited patiently, and then Cheetor remembered.

“Your Dr. Khan,” he said. “The one we know as Tarnatulas. Is he here?”

Banachek frowned, as if he didn't understand the question. “He's not at the party, but he will be joining us when you speak to all the generals. Why do you ask?

“Because I need you to understand something.” Cheetor firmly held the man's gaze, a technique he'd seen Optimus use whenever he wanted to show he was being very serious. “We agreed to help you, work with you, and if that means putting up with him, than so be it, but don't think that any of us remotely trust him. I'd be an idiot if I actually thought you had any control over what he does, but you were the one who introduced him back into our lives, so I'm telling you this: during the times we're not working with him, find a way to keep him away from my team, especially my sister.”

He doubted Banachek really understood, but the human did nod. It would have to be enough for now.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

“So this ain't so bad,” Rattrap piled some more pieces of sliced ham and cheese on his plate from the buffet table. “Not sure it was worth the monkey suit, but it ain't bad. Yo, Cybertron to 'bolt. You listenin'?”

Silverbolt, who was leaning on the edge of the table, still nursing the first glass of champaign, turned his head slightly to look at Rattrap. Seeing the glazed look on his face, the rodent rolled his eyes.

“Primus, you and Spots. She'll get here when she gets here, an' nothin's gonna happen.”

“I was actually thinking about the generals,” Silverbolt confessed. “They did not seem pleased to see us. Especially General Sheppard.”

“Humans did always have a love-hate relationship with Cybertronians,” Rattrap admitted. “They don' complain when the Autobots save their butts but they resent the fact that our ancestors and the Decepticons used this place as a battleground. Can't say I blame 'em.”

“Surely they must understand that we are trying to help.”

“They'll understand as much as they want to. Convincin' them of anything more is... tricky. But hey, it ain't our job. Cheetor's the one playin' at negotiatin'.”

“I would feel better if it was Optimus they were speaking to.”

“Wouldn't we all? Even Spots. Especially Spots. I get the feelin' the moment he stopped being a kid, he started wishin' he was one again. Speakin' of kids...”

He glanced around the room as if only suddenly remembering that it was a good idea to keep an eye on the youngest member of their team. He finally got a fix on Nightscream at another table reaching for the glass that he'd been denied earlier. It wasn't going over well with the closest waiter who was quickly closing in on the boy's position.

Time to mount a rescue operation.

Silverbolt must have seen it too because he put down his drink and started in that direction, but Rattrap put up his hands in the taller man's path.

“I got this one,” he said, grinning, and pointed over Silverbolt's shoulder. “You've got better things to do.”

Silverbolt turned his head, and Rattrap knew the second the fuzor's eyes fell on the top of the stairs because he froze, giving Rattrap ample time to slip past him. He headed towards Nightscream, all the while shaking his head and silently laughing at Silverbolt's absolute predictability. Intercepting the boy just as he lifted the drink off the table and the man in the waiter's uniform got to him, Rattrap snatched the glass from his hand.

“Hey, thanks,” he said. The waiter stopped behind him, his annoyed gaze drilling holes in to the back of his head. “I woulda gotten it.”

He finally turned to the waiter, ignoring Nightscream's scowl. The human had his hands crossed over his chest, looking like he didn't believe a word of the ruse. Rattrap simply grinned and threw an arm around Nightscream's shoulder.

“My nephew's a little impulsive,” he shrugged. “Can't take my eyes off 'im for a second.”

The human was clearly not pleased but he also was not about to get into a flight with a guest. He stalked back to his job, and as soon as he was out of sight, Nightscream shrugged off Rattrap's arm and glared at him.

“Don't give me that look, kid,” the rodent warned. “You know we all agreed to play by their rules for the time bein'.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Silverbolt was not sure exactly how the world saw his bond-mate – though from comments he'd heard other men make, it was not hard to guess – but Blackarachnia had always been beautiful in his eyes. That beauty seemed eternal, never fading with time or form. If anything, he found more and more things to admire and adore about her. It should have hardly come as a surprise how stunning he found her there, standing atop the marble staircase, and yet she still managed to take his breath away.

She wore a strapless black gown that hugged the curves of her hour-glass figure, accentuating her beautiful body. The top of the dress was embroidered with sparking material while the black fabric that made up the rest of it wound around her torso in a three-part spiral, playing peak-a-boo with the sparkles until it merged into the rest of the dress at her waist. One stray lock of her long dark hair about half an inch in width wound its way around her head like some sort of crown. The rest of her hair was twisted into an elegant bun and, coupled with a small heel, it gave her an illusion of height. She wore little makeup, just a touch of lipstick and dark eyeshadow to bring out her exotic eyes. The ensemble was completed with a simple silver pendant that hung on a thin chain down to half an inch above the start of her dress.

He met her at the bottom of the staircase, offering his hand half in support, half in tradition, and she stopped on the last step, placing her own palm in his. Remembering yet another tradition he read about, Silverbolt bent his head and kissed the top of the hand he held. When he looked up, he saw her eyes shining with elation.

“What's the verdict?” Blackarachnia made a sweeping motion to indicate the ensemble. The expression on his face must have been said it all because a second later she laughed. “That good, huh?”

“You do make that dress look beautiful,” he finally found the words.

“Good answer,” she smiled approvingly and let him lead her to further into the ballroom.

To Silverbolt's slight disappointment, there were not any dances at the moment, so the two of them made their way to an open veranda to the left of the stage. Despite being within a major city, the evening summer air smelled fresh and clean. They were only on the second flood from the ground but once again Silverbolt found himself appreciating some altitude. Now that he regained his wings, he yearned to be in the sky again. Blackarachnia leaned against the stone railing smoothing out her dress behind her.

“So where is everyone? I think I saw Banachek in there, but what about the rest of our gang?”

“Rattrap is keeping an eye on Nightscream, and I am not entirely sure where Cheetor is. Perhaps speaking to one of the generals.”

She lifted a perfectly sculpted brow. “You met them already?”

“Only two. The meeting itself is in a few hours, but Banachek introduced us to the Marine and Air Force generals upon our arrival. They seemed cautious of us at best.”

“Can't say I'm surprised,” her bare shoulders rose and fell in a shrug.

“I am certain they can be reasoned with.”

Even though she was not nearly so sure, Blackarachnia said nothing more on the topic, opting for changing the subject entirely instead. “Politics aside, you look like you're enjoying the party.”

“I am enjoying the moment,” he corrected. “It is... idyllic.”

“You mean it's fairy tale book style,” she teased. Silverbolt cocked his head to the side, his checks coloring ever so slightly. She rolled her eyes, but still she was smiling. “You forget how familiar I am with your corniness, Bowser.”

With an exaggerated sigh, she pushed herself away from the railing and extended her hand to him once again.

“Come on, let's go dance. I know this perfect image of yours won't be complete without it.”

Chapter 14

Meeting

With the men of her team and Banachek dressed in tuxedos and the various generals in uniform, Blackarachnia felt more and more ridiculous in her dress, even if it was infinitively more fitting than the one she had been provided with. The elderly man who she had not seen at the party but was clearly of some importance if his position at the head of the table was any indication, was wearing a suit. She also noticed with a mixture of smugness and slight surprise that she was the only woman in the room. The blond haired lieutenant who she'd seen earlier exchanged a few words with her commanding officer at the door and departed.

The room itself, situated a floor above the ballroom, nearly screamed bureaucracy. There was a simple long gray table and a dozen plastic chairs along its' perimeter with the barest hint at cushions on the seats and backs in the very center of the room. The walls has almost no decoration aside from a white board behind the old man if that could be counted as such. The projector in the middle of the table was aimed directly at it. None of the lavishness that had adorned the ballroom seemed to have made its way up here.

On the right side of the table sat men who she quickly understood to be the heads of the United States military. Immediately on the old man's right was general with dusky skin and a serious look in his brown eyes. His name tag identified him as General James Duellos of the Army. To the right of him was General Graig Barnett of the Air Force who her teammates had apparently met before her arrival. He was slightly younger than the Army general and kept looking over in their direction as if he wanted to ask something but did not think the time was right. Three seats from the head of the table was Admiral John Geary of the Navy, also middle aged with brown hair that was starting to gray at the sides and hazel eyes.

Last of all sat General William Sheppard of the Marine Corps who kept glowering in their direction. When they first entered the room, he had made an attempt to seat himself at the old man's left, clearly trying to make himself a stronger influence on whatever was about to happen in the room. But that seat was taken by Cheetor, who must have understood that the old man was of some importance and decided that as leader of the team the seat was his his place by right. Blackarachnia was secretly impressed by the action and amused at the marine general's annoyance, but she was not about to let Cheetor know this. She had full intentions of continuing to ignore him and sitting elsewhere until she saw Banachek sit down at the other end of the table and noted the gap between himself and the last general. Having a sneaking suspicion who the place was for, she sat down between Cheetor and Silverbolt to maximize the distance between herself and the empty chair.

Rattrap sat at Silverbolt's left, a pen waving in and out of his fingers as he waited for the meeting to start. Between him and Banachek sat Nightscream, and if anyone looked more out of place than herself, it was the boy. He alternated between trying to look serious and sliding down the chair in obvious boredom. Several of the generals and the old man kept looking in his direction with raised brows, and annoyed as she was that the humans had singled out the youngest member of the team, Blackarachnia couldn't say she didn't understand their surprise.

It took a few moments of shuffling around before everyone was finally seated and ready to talk. The man at the head of the table exchanged a look with Banachek, who nodded. The man returned the nod and stood.

“I'm John Keller,  Secretary of Defense,” he said it slightly turned in their direction and in a way that told her he wasn't used to people not knowing who he is. “Tom has  filled me in to a certain extent on what's going on, but I'd like to hear it from our gusts. It's been a few years since we've talked to Cybertronians and certainly never in such close settings.”

He waved his hand around the room, obviously trying to make a joke about the difference in the giant Autobots they were used to dealing with and the five seemingly human individuals who sat before him, then his eyes studied each one of them more closely. “Who exactly is in charge here?”

Without looking at anyone else for approval, Cheetor stood. “I am.”

“Ah good,” to the secretary's credit, he didn't seem disturbed by the fact that their leader was also the second youngest member to the team. “You're...”

The man hesitated and looked down at a piece of paper in front of him that had all their names in order. Odd as Autobot names must have been to humans, calling what looked like another human by an animal name must have been too strange. Cheetor had obviously reached the same conclusion because he saved Keller the trouble.

“You can call me Christopher Stark,” he offered his human name instead.

“Yes, I have it here,” the secretary peered at the paper. “Very well, Mr. Stark. Would you care to fill us in?”

With a nod, Cheetor launched into a summary of the Beast Wars, specific enough when it came to their encounters with the aliens but general enough to avoid offering any extra information. In particular, he left off the bit about her starting life as a Predacon and Megatron's attempts to alter history and wipe out humanity. Again she had to hide her approval. Kid was learning, judging his audience and making on the spot strategic decisions. She looked around the table to try to judge everyone's reaction to the tale.

Banachek, who knew a large portion of the story already, nodded every once in a while and raised his brows at whatever details were new to him. Keller, too, sat still, his chin propped on his hands as he listened intently. The general's reactions varied for genuine interest and curiosity from Barnett to open annoyance and impatience from Sheppard. From their group, Nightscream sat up straight, listening for anything new, while Rattrap had several moments where he looked like he wanted to add something but for once wisely kept his mouth shut. Cheetor had declared himself the team leader, and it wouldn't do much good undermine his knowledgeable of the situation in the eyes of the humans.

Like she had the first time Banachek and Simmons confronted her, Cheetor skipped over the Technorganic War almost entirely, saying only that they had returned to Cybertron but that their then-leader sent them to Earth because of the alien threat. At hearing Optimus' name, most of the humans who had zoned out for part of the story immediately came back with full attention.

“Your team was lead by Prime?” General Duellos interrupted waving a hand at the Maximals seated on the opposite side of the table from himself. “Does he look like you now, too?”

“No,” Cheetor looked apologetic. “I think I might've confused you. I mentioned before that we're roughly three hundred years removed from your time. Our leader was Optimus Primal. He is... was the descendant of the Autobot leader you knew.”

“And why isn't he here now?”

Obviously someone named Optimus inspired more confidence in the humans than they did alone. Cheetor thought for a moment, not sure how much to say.

“He was lost to us on Cybertron,” he said after a long pause, “under circumstances that are irrelevant to the current situation.”

Blackarachnia raised a brow and from the corner of her eye, saw similar expressions from Silverbolt and Rattrap. Circumstances irrelevant to the current situation? It was a diplomatic way of saying “none of your slagin' business” which is what he would have normally done. Cheetor? Diplomatic? What was the world coming to?

“I'm sorry to hear that,” the humans sounded genuine. “Go on.”

“Actually I'm done,” Cheetor sat down. “Anything more specific about the aliens, Brianna would be better at explaining.”

It took her a moment to realize that he was talking about her and when she refocused, Blackarachnia saw that all the generals and the Secretary of Defense at the head of the table had turned their eyes on her. She quickly organized her thoughts and began to recite all the facts she knew about the Vok, everything from their strange source of origin, to their energy-based composition, to a more detailed account of their role in the Beast Wars.

Halfway through the account, the single door which they had all initially walked through creaked open and whatever she was about to say suddenly became logged in her throat. Tarantulas, or Robert Khan as the humans knew him, slipped quietly through the barely open door, a small laptop tucked under his arm, and took the open seat at the right edge of the table between Banachek and the Marine general. She had not realized that she had stopped speaking until he waved a hand, seemingly giving her permission to continue. Blackarachnia narrowed her eyes at him and her first clenched under the table, but she went on, picking up her train of thought.

“We're not exactly sure why they do what they do, but as Alex suggested,” Rattrap gave a two finger salute in acknowledgment from the other end of the table, “they act like scientist. Completely immortal scientists.”

The last bit was added as an after thought, with her venomous gaze locked on Tarantulas. Far from oblivious, the man chuckled quietly under his breath. Her fist clenched tighter, but she managed to relax a little when Silverbolt's hand closed over it and calming feelings flowed through the cracks in the barrier of their bond. Grateful, Blackarachnia took his hand, entwining their fingers.

“Anything else?” Keller, who had been making notes as she spoke, looked up.

“That's as much as we know,” she affirmed.

“Actually,” Tarantulas stood, “that's as much as you know. I, on the other hand, know more.”

He pulled out the laptop, punched in a few commands, and reached across the table to pull the projector closer to attach the two machines. Clearly there were advantages, if such they could be called, to being on Earth for however long he had been. Unlike Blackarachnia herself or Rattrap, Tarantulas seemed to have no problem with the archaic technology.

“You're going to have to move,” he said to the Secretary of Defense a second before he flipped the projector on.

The bright light hit the old man directly in the face, and he quickly pivoted his chair to sit next to the Army general. On the white board was now a filled with the translucent image of the flattened map of the world. Blackarachnia tried not to look too unimpressed with the lack of holographic imaging systems that would have provided a proper picture of the globe.

“I have mapped all known locations of alien sites,” Tarantulas declared, “including those known in the Beast Wars and the more recent ones, like the one in Virginia.”

He pressed a key, and small red dots appeared on the map in various locations. A few seconds and keystrokes later, the dots were crossed through with thin lines, creating a distinct web pattern across the map. Intrigued, she leaned forward for a closer look. Cheetor, on the other hand, was far from impressed.

“Connecting the dots isn't rocket science,” he waved his hand dismissively at the projection.

“But interpreting them is,” Tarantulas objected. “They are not random connections. It took me over a year to understand that the true pattern lay in combining all four fundamental interactions: gravitation, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak force.”

Now it was Blackarachnia's turn to look doubtful.

“Are you telling me that you cracked the Great Equation, the Theory of Everything?”

The two scientists were met with blank stares from everyone else in the room, save Banachek and Rattrap, but she really did not feel like explaining. Tarantulas must have shared the sentiment because he gave her an exasperated look of “do you really want to go into it now?” Imitating his earlier permission to continue hand wave, she rephrased.

“Okay, you cracked the Great Equation. Congratulations. How is this related to the Vok?”

“If you recall, the reason why it has always been difficult to combine the fundamental interactions because gravity does not behave like the other three. The strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces act on an atomic and subatomic level, while gravity...”

“...acts on celestial scales.”

“Correct. Thus it has been speculated that the reason for this irregularity is that the first three are confined to one universe, while gravity is, in a sense, shared among a multiverse. Those places,” Tarantulas pointed at the map where the alien structures were located, “create a web of sorts that turns Earth into a gateway for them to enter into this universe.”

Her team looked at her for some sort of confirmation that what he was saying made sense, and Blackarachnia nodded, full understanding finally sinking in. If the aliens were from another plane or universe of sorts, and if Tarantulas actually figured out the Great Equation, it would be appropriate to try to apply it. Obviously certain people weren't nearly as convinced.

“Aliens from other universes?” General Sheppard all but laughed. “Are you people serious? This is ludicrous!”

This time all the Maximals, Banachek, and Tarantulas glared at the man.

“No, General,” the spider's tone was measured. “This is science. Which means that simply because you do not underdressed something, does not mean it does not exist.”

Sheppard's face paled but he tried to cover it with a glower and looked to his fellow generals for support. He was met with little luck. Even Keller looked at the map with interest.

“Hey, you really wanna sit around an' wait till they try to crisp this place again,” Rattrap spread his hands nonchalantly, “feel free. We're jus' tryin' ta help.”

“Starting to wonder why we bother,” Blackarachnia gave a very unladylike snort. “Humans tend to have an amazing ability to stick their heads in the sand and pretend everything is perfect even as the world falls apart around them.”

Even if her comment was not directed at anyone in particular, it had an instant sobering effect. Many of the generals sat up straight in their chairs, shuffling through papers before them or making any other gesture to pretend not to have heard her. Only the Air Force general looked genuinely thoughtful and receptive.

“I feel obligated to remind all of us,” General Barnett gestured to his right and left, indicating the other humans, “that less than a quarter century ago, we didn't believe there were other intelligent beings out there either. And yet here we are. Perhaps it's time we learn not to be so quick to dismiss the impossible.”

The comment brought fire back into Sheppard's eyes. “And that's another thing; how do we even know they are who they say they are? Autobot descendants look awfully human to me.”

From the corner of her eye, Blackarachnia noticed that Cheetor, who had been sitting quietly since he last spoke, was clenching his fists as if he wanted to reach over the table and strangle the general. Before she could say anything, he was on his feet, plastic chair clareting to the floor behind him, and took a few long brisk strides to a relatively open part of the room where everyone could see him.

“Cheetor, what are you doing?” Silverbolt's voice suggested that he knew exactly what it was and did not approve.

“Proving who I am,” the younger man tossed his tuxedo jacket on the table, “because I guess it's an issue. Sorry for damaging anyone's sensitivities, but I need something to wear back home.”

His voice suggested that he didn't give a damn about anyone's sensitivities, but he did stop short of stripping his underwear. Taking a moment to make sure all eyes were really on him, Cheetor straightened his back, closed his eyes, and muttered something under his breath that she couldn't quite make out.

An instant later the sound of shifting bones and stretching muscles was heard clearly. When Silverbolt and Nightscream had transformed during the fall from the plane, there had been no way to clearly observe the process. Now she could clearly see as each joint slid into place and the bio-metal platelets rise to the surface and take form for the first time. Silverbolt had assured her the process was not painful, but seeing it now, she guessed that the only way that was possible was if pain receptors were completely shut off during the transformation.

Within a few seconds, it was over. In place of the very human-looking Christopher Stark stood the tall sleek Cheetor of the Technorganic War. It was curious that he has preferred that form while Silverbolt chose a variation of his Beast Wars one, but in the end, considering what each man's experiences were.

“Any more questions?” Cheetor's violet optics were focused on General Sheppard, who for once wisely held his tongue. “Meeting adjourned.”

Chapter 15

Invitation

The ride back to Sofitel Lafayette Square was spent in silence. It was not a long ride, even a perfectly walkable distance in daytime, but because of the startin time and length of the meeting, it was three by the time they arrived back at the hotel. Nightscream trotted off to bed almost immediately despite the bravo that he was not tired. Blackarachnia also headed straight upstairs, Silverbolt close behind her. Neither seemed particularly tired as they were angry and distraught respectively. Rattrap himself wasn't sure if the meeting accomplished much aside from putting their faces on some of the human generals' dart boards and triggering Cheetor's transformation.

For his part, the young man lingered in lobby, clearly trying to decide if too wanted to go upstairs. His gaze darted between the stairs and the entrance to the bar that was still open. Rattrap took pity and made the decision for him.

“Come on, Spots,” he put a hand on taller man's shoulder. “I'll buy you that drink I promised.”

“You promised Silverbolt,” Cheetor said absently, remembering a conversation from many years ago back on prehistoric Earth.

“Details, details,” Rattrap made a slight push towards the bar. “You're old enough, and I can tell you need it.”

“Thanks,” the young man let himself be led to the bar and seated on one of the stools. “I'm too wired to sleep.”

“More like too pissed off,” Rattrap observed, sliding into a seat next to him and waving over the bartender. “Two of whatever's strongest.”

In any other place, a bartender might have considered that all obligation to manners end at one or two, but the staff at the hotel was paid for maintaining their manners twenty four seven. The balding man disappeared with a nod, off to get something stronger than what was immediately available. That gave them the opportunity to talk.

“Look, kiddo,” Rattrap hadn't called him that in a while, and he hoped it came off as an affectionate rather than reproachful reminder of his age, “ain't no one said this was gonna be easy. Humans. They're not always as intelligent as they claim ta be. Webs was right about them stickin' their heads in the sand, only cement mgihta been more appropriate.”

“Optimus would have been more...” unable to find the right word, he rephrased. “He would have known how to reason with them.”

“Not so sure 'bout that. Let's face it; none of us ever dealt with them. Not really. It woulda been a new experience in any case. Just so happens that you get to be in charge when it is. Though I gotta say; stripin' in front of those five big guns? Hell of a way to get their attention. Not so sure it's the good kind.”

Their drinks arrived at that point, and the bartender made himself busy cleaning the remaining glasses as far away from them as the length of the bar would allow. Apparently he could also spot when his costumers wanted to talk to him about their woes and when they needed space. Smart human.

Rattrap lifted the shot glass aware and downed it in a single gulp. Cheetor, unaware of the way this particular brand of alcohol was supposed to be consumed, tried a sip as he had with the wine at the party and ended up coughing and nearly spitting out the contents. Rattrap tried not to laugh and padded him on the back.

“How can you stand that stuff?” the young commander asked in a voice horse from coughing. “It tastes like fuel oil.”

“Worse,” Rattrap corrected. “It ain't for slow enjoyment, but another one of those shots and you'll sleep like a newborn kitten. Trust me.”

“I don't have time for sleep,” Cheetor shook his head, but he grimaced and swallowed the rest of the drink. “I don't know what to do, Rattrap. The generals obviously don't take the alien threat seriously. Keller gave Banachek the green light to take us back to Virginia to check out that thing that shot us down, but beyond that they made no promises, no long-term goals to dealing with this.”

Rattrap nodded solemnly. There was not much he could offer in way of advice, but letting Cheetor rant seemed helpful in and of itself. Optimus had always had Rhinox to confide in. All commanders needed to let off some steam sometimes, especially new ones. As Cheetor had grown during and after the Technorganic War, he nevertheless had a tendency for impulsive action. Of course, everyone in the team already knew this and learned to work with it, but to human leaders, it might be persevered as a sign of weakness and lack of reliability. Better he get his frustrations out in private.

“And if it was just Earth and humans,” he continued, “I'd say let them deal with their own problems, but it's not! Letting the Vok make it past this point of defense means it's much easier for them to get to Cybertron and our people.”

“Don't tell them that,” Rattrap advised, meaning the generals and Secretary Keller. “Humans sleep easier when they think we're just here to save their butts.”

“I figured,” Cheetor said dryly, “just wish there was a way to get some advice on all this.”

Rattrap shrugged. “Too bad we don't have the Matrix of Leadership no more. Sounds like that's exactly what you're askin' for.” Cheetor frowned, not following, so he elaborated. “Back in the day, Autobot leaders – Alpha Trion, Optimus Prime, Rodimus Prime, etc – used it as a gateway of sorts between here and the Matrix. They could call on the collective knowledge of all the leaders who came before to help 'em solve whatever problem they were having. You'd have no problem usin' it, since you have a... what's it called?... receptive spark, but the thing was lost or destroyed towards the end of the Great War.”

Cheetor was very curious. “They actually reached into the Matrix and spoke to sparks within it?”

“Yeah, but I'm tellin' you: that thing's gone.”

“Right, I heard you,” only he was acting like he hadn't heard him at all. Cheetor slid off the barstool. “Thanks for the drink, RT. I'll see you in the morning.”

“Hey!” Rattrap pivoted in his own chair to call after his retreating back. “Where're you going?”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Only after he'd arrived at the door did Cheetor remember that a) it was nearly four in the morning and b) Blackarachnia was still barely civil to him. He almost changed his mind and decided that waiting till morning was a better plan, but by that time he'd already knocked on the door. A second later, Silverbolt opened it. He was obviously not expecting anyone, about to go to bed if the sweatpants were any indication. Behind him, Blackarachnia, dressed in a blank tank top and matching sweatpants, stood behind their bed, a curious look on her face.

“Cheetor?” the fuzor's brow creased. “What is the matter?”

“Hey,” he tried not to look terribly anxious. “Sorry to bother you guys. I need to borrow Blackarachnia for a bit.”

“It is very late,” his tone was disapproving. “Can this not wait till morning?”

“Sorry, no. It's important.”

Silverbolt looked at his mate for an answer, but she was already moving towards the door. Aside from discarding the dress, Blackarachnia had obviously had time to disentangle her hair from the bun, and loose strands now fell haphazardly around her shoulders. The last reminiscent of the evening was the dark shadows on her eyes that she had not had a chance to wash off yet. Even the lipstick had smugged away. Compared to that, even without the tuxedo jacket, he felt overdressed.

“I'll be back soon,” she assured Silverbolt. “Go to bed.”

Silverbolt nodded and closed the door behind her as she stepped out into the hall, bare feet padding on the carpet. Crossing her arms under her chest and putting most of her weight on one foot, she manged to look intimidating to Cheetor even at a full foot bellow his hight.

“You wanted to see me?” her voice carried nothing but cool professionalism.

“I had a thought,” Cheetor was not sure how to say what he wanted to without sounding crazy. “Ever since we got here, I've been hoping for a way to talk to Optimus... you know, for advice.”

“Cheetor,” it was first time since Hoover Dam that he heard any warmth from her in his direction, “Optimus is gone.”

“I know,” Primus knew he did, “but there are ways to talk to sparks in the Matrix, to reach into it from here. The old Autobot leaders had the Matrix of Leadership, but it's been done since then. During the Beast Wars, Rhinox retrieved Optimus' spark from the Matrix. And you... you've died twice and come back through force of will.”

“The Transmetal driver played a huge role in bringing me back the first time,” Blackarachnia pointed out, “and the second time, yes, my spark was separated from my body, but it hadn't joined the Matrix. It was a sort of in-between plane.”

“And you and Optimus met there, right?” Cheetor prompted. “He got there through meditation and told you you could reunite your spark and body through concentration and various mental techniques, and you did.”

“I don't like where this is going,” she shook her head, concern written all over her face.

“You need to tell me what you did,” he said firmly. “Teach me a way to reach into the Matrix. If it's really everywhere, it shouldn't matter that we're on Earth. I should be able to access it from anywhere.”

“You don't know what you're asking,” Blackarachnia argued. “Rhinox had the transwarp wave to stabilize his journey. My trips were from there to here, not the other way around. You're asking me to help you send your spark into the ether and hope you make it back. I'm sorry, but you might be willing to take that kind of risk, but I'm not. We still need you.”

That caused him to raise a brow. “You need me?”

Her eyes narrowed. “The team needs you. In case it hasn't occurred to you yet, you don't have the luxury of acting like a selfish kid anymore.”

“I'm doing this for the team!” he took a deep breath, reigning in his anger. A thought of dry humor reminded him that hostility was the way Blackarachnia showed concern. “Look, I appreciate you being the big sister and looking out for me even if you still hate my guts, but really, I'll be fine.”

Blackarachnia looked uncertain, rubbing her forearms as if she was cold. “I do still hate your guts,” he wasn't sure who's benefit she said it for before her voice lost its edge, “but, Primus, I don't want you to die.”

“I'll be fine,” he smiled assuringly. “Optimus did it, right? I think the having a receptive spark stabilizes the trip.”

She chewed her lip, then nodded slowly and reached for the door handle. “I'll get my shoes, then we'll take a walk.”

So they walked, first around, then through Lafayette Park. The fresh night air there helped keeping both awake while Blackarachnia explained the process of willingly sending ones' spark – or was in consciousness? – into that strange plane just on the doorstep of the Matrix. Cheetor found that, while her demeanor had not warmed nearly as much as he would have liked, her presence had once again brought something of a comfort to him. Blackarachnia, in the manner of most scientists, sounded confident when she spoke of a subject she had personal experience with.

Eventually, around five in the morning, the horizon began to show signs of light, and they made their way back to the hotel. Cheetor wanted to try the transcendence immediately, but Blackarachnia objected, saying that in the exhausted sleep he was in, it was most likely useless, if not dangerous. Before their path diverged at the top of the stairs, Cheetor  turned to thank her for the help, but she got her words in first.

“I told you most of what I know,” the spider woman said, her voice weary from the sleepless night, “but I have to say this one more time. Anything deal with sparks and the Matrix is not an exact science. Despite whatever you think, I understand very little of it and I don't trust what I don't understand. Optimus is the one who understood it best and even then gaps in his knowledge almost lead to massive disasters. I want you to promise me you won't try this on your own.”

Cheetor almost laughed at what he affectionately considered her big sister worry but hid the smile when he saw the serious expression on her face. Showing his own earnestness, he nodded.

“I promise I won't try to explore the great beyond without you there to hold my hand.”

“Cheetor...”

“No, seriously. I promise that when I decide to try this... if I decide to try this,” that should appease her, “I'll make sure you're there to pull me back if you see anything going wrong.” He nodded his head in the direction of her room down the hall. “Go get some sleep, Blackarachnia. Like you said, it's too late... well, too early, to do anything now.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Silverbolt left Blackarachnia sleeping, even though she was likely to be annoyed at waking up late, and descended to the dining area around nine thirty. He was not surprised to find only Rattrap and Nightscream there. He pored himself a cup of coffee from the closest machine and sat down next to Rattrap.

“Spider lady gracin' us with her presence anytime soon?” the rodent asked, unaccustomed to seeing one without the other in the recent past.

“I doubt it,” Silverbolt shook his head and took a sip of his drink. “She and Cheetor spoke late last night. We are not due to return to Virginia today, so I prefer not to wake her needlessly.”

“What'd they talk about?” Nightscream inquired, curious.

“That I do not know. I was asleep when she returned.”

Not being the suspicious type, Silverbolt disregarded the slight frown that creased the rodent's brow. Even that cleared quickly when Rattrap, who was sitting in the chair facing the front door, spotted something.

“Hey,” he pointed, “isn't that one of the generals from last night?”

Nightscream turned in his seat, and Silverbolt looked up, focusing his blue-gray eyes on the human who had just walked through the front door and was now looking around the hotel lobby. When his eyes settled on them, he raised a hand in acknowledgment. It was also then that Silverbolt matched the face he was seeing now with the uniform the man wore last night. It was General Barnett, head of the Air Force and one of the few men at the meeting who seemed happy to have them there.

“General,” he shook his hand when he came up to them. “To what do we owe the unexpected visit?”

“Tom Banachek told me where I could find you all,” Barnett looked around the three gathered, “I had a question I've been meaning to ask, but you left so abruptly last night that I didn't get a chance to.”

“Apologize,” Silverbolt offered, “but if you are looking for Christopher, I'm afraid he is still asleep. It has been a long night.”

“Actually,” the general said, “I was looking for you. You're Silverbolt?”

Rattrap and Nightscream both rose their brows. After being used to the various military affiliated humans to calling them by their new names, hearing that felt a little odd. Silverbolt's own surprise was much more subtle, but he did incline his head in acknowledgment.

“I am.”

The general nodded, apparently happy to have found who he was looking for. “Any chance I could see you in the hall for a few minutes? I promise I won't take up too much of your time.”

Silverbolt excused himself and followed the general out of the dining area. He was more than a little curious why the human wanted to see him instead of Cheetor, the commander of the team. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been terribly secretive though if the general didn't mind discussing it in a hotel lobby where people constantly came and went.

“I read the profiles Mr. Banachek provided for us on each of you,” Barnett finally stopped and turned to him. “I'm sure they were far from complete but he wanted us to be at least in part aware of who you were before we met you. From what I understand you're an aerial, right?”

He hadn't been expecting that, but then Silverbolt nodded. “Yes. Though each of us have had many physical incarnations, all of mine included flight capabilities, and my function has always been aerial combat and reconnaissance.”

He did not bother to mention that the one form the general would be able to best understand was also the form he least wished to discuss, but very little had been said of the Technorganic War, so Silverbolt assumed – or hoped – that knowledge of his time as Jetstorm remained confined to the team.

“I wanted to say that I've worked closely with the Aerialbots before they left Earth. Most weren't exactly the models for military discipline, but I do hold a great deal of respect for their commander, the other Silverbolt. I understand remember your friend mentioning that none of you are directly linked with the Autobots we'd known, that you are not the same person. Nevertheless, I would love to work with an aerial Cybertronian again.”

Silverbolt opened his mouth, then closed it again, not sure exactly what to say. It quickly occurred to him that politeness was universal.

“I would be honored to work with you and your people, general,” he said honestly, “but my first responsibility is to my team.”

“I understand,” Barnett reached into his pocket and pulled out a card, handing it to him. “Here's my contact information. I'll be in town for a few more days but then I'm heading to Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts and I can show you the latest birds there. Let me know if you can make it.”

Interlude III

Partners

“I know it is not my place, but I would like the opportunity to help.”

“I'm absolutely against this! You want me to go? I'll go. But I'm not taking that thing with me.”

“That thing is precisely why you will need my help. And I do not recall asking your permission in the first place.”

“Quiet. I see no problem in sending you both, but I must admit I don't entirely understand why you wish to leave the Matrix.”

“Because of one who had no spark of his own. A creature of seemingly no free will, he nevertheless chose to assert it against tyranny. I have no hope of knowing him, but I would like the chance to avenge his memory since he himself cannot.”

A long silence.

“You can't seriously be considering this!”

“If I am, it's my call. To be honest, I have a feeling the team will need all the help they can get.”

“They surely will. Especially if you become convinced your personal presence becomes required. You know of what I speak.”

“Unfortunately I do. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.”

“Then what is your decision?”

Another pause.

“You're willing to live and fight and die again.”

“To honor the memory of someone who I believe showed honor against all odds, yes.”

A sigh.

“So be it.”

Chapter 16

Separation

“So you're off to Massachusetts to play with some shiny new planes, and we're going to Virginia to poke at the alien's latest toy. That's awesome.”

Cheetor's tone told Silverbolt that it was anything but. He tried not to sigh too loudly and continued to put away the few possessions he had acquired into a duffel bag. Even with only a few books and change of clothing, Silverbolt was having a hard time finding enough room. At least it was nothing compared to his bond-mate. Blackarachnia along with Rattrap had stalked up on virtually every kind of electronic devise available to consumers and some not quite as available. It was amazing what one could do with a screw driver, a few spare laptops, and technological knowledge far ahead of anything the humans had.

When he spoke with everyone, he made it clear that he thought the general's proposal had merit but that he would defer to the team's judgment. After some discussion, it was finally agreed that he, Blackarachnia, and Nightscream would go to Massachusetts while Rattrap and Cheetor would follow Banachek to the alien sight in Virginia. Everyone was to keep in contact and randevu either in Virginia or Washington depending on the situation.

It was obvious that some had agreed on the plan with more reluctance than others.

“Being on good terms with at least one of the generals would give us an advantage,” he repeated what Blackarachnia had said when he told her of the offer, because saying that he just wanted to go would not have been nearly as convincing, “and you certainly do not need my presence for for the exploration.”

“You, no. Blackarachnia, yes,” the blond man picked up one of the books Silverbolt had not yet packed, idly flipping the pages without reading them. The older man pointedly took the tome from him, as a parent might to a child who decided to look at a fragile vase. “I repeat: we're going to explore an alien structure, and you're hijacking our only real scientist.”

“Cheetor, we discussed this,” he wondered when had he regained so much patience and decided that like so many other things, it was probably due to his rediscovered fuzor form. “Rattrap is as familiar with the matter as Blackarachnia and he is confident he can handle the situation without her.”

“He's always confident,” Cheetor complained.

This time Silverbolt's sigh was audible. He put the last article of clothing in the bag and turned to face the young commander. “Would you like to make that an order?”

“Excuse me?”

“If you truly think this is unnecessary and that the entire team going to Virginia outweighs the benefits that come with personal interaction with the Air Force general, make it an order, and I will remain.”

Cheetor eyed him for a moment, no doubt trying to decide if Silverbolt was mocking him. Finally he shook his head and waved his hand dismissively, plopping down in the nearest chair.

“No, I trust your judgment,” he must have been as surprised by the statement as Silverbolt was because he quickly added. “In this case. I trust your judgment in this case.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Nightscream was nearly bouncing in the back seat of the van that was taking them to Massachusetts when the door slid open and Blackarachnia climbed in, followed by a duffel bag, backpack, and two laptop cases. She took one look at his broad grin and grimaced.

“You can't be this happy this early in the morning.”

“It's one in the afternoon,” he informed her. “You slept through the morning.”

She grumbled something inaudible and made herself comfortable in the seat opposite his. “Well, moderate the enthusiasm. You're gonna need it. It's an eight hour ride.”

“Planes are still grounded, I know,” Nightscream nodded, but his grin didn't subside. “Sorry, I'm just glad to do something other than this alien stuff.”

And he honestly was. It was one of the reasons he volunteered to be included, even if it meant more interaction with humans who the boy neither understood nor liked very much. The other reason was that he also preferred to be in smaller groups where he could feel he was making at least some measurable contribution. It didn't so much matter who it was with – though he did grudgingly admit he liked being around Silverbolt especially – as long as he had a voice.

“But since we're driving anyway,” he pointed out, “we can stop by that place I keep hearing about, New Your City. It's on the way.”

“Maybe on the back trip,” Blackarachnia nodded, then, obviously in a better mood, threatened, “I can drag you to the Museum of Natural History. Give you an idea of what this place looked like in the Beast Wars.”

“Deal,” Nightscream agreed instantly, delighted by the surprised look on her face, “but only if I get to drag you to the new Batman movie.”

“You adapt fast,” Blackarachnia commented. “But I'm not watching your stupid comic book movies.”

“It's Batman,” his tone that made it sound as if it was some great insult for her to call it a comic book movie. He put on his headphones and scrolled through the iPod, settling on a song. He had filled almost all eighty gigabytes that the device allowed for and was regretting that Rattrap had not gotten the hundred sixty one instead. Their music was one of the few things he liked about humans so far. Well, that and comics.

The human driver took a seat in front and fixed the mirrors before placing the key in the ignition and bringing the engine to life. Nightscream looked up expectantly just as the door to his left slid open, and Silverbolt took his seat next to Blackarachnia. Without thinking, Nightscream paused his music and removed the headphones. He might not have bothered with anyone else, but a voice in the back of his mind that sounded terribly like Silverbolt reminded him that it was rude to carry on a conversation with his ears plugged, even if the sound was off.

“Come see 'The Dark Knight' with me,” he blurted out.

He figured the title 'The Dark Knight' would appeal to Silverbolt more than 'Batman' would. The boy spared a glance at Blackarachnia, wondering if she would say something, but all he got in return was a raised brow. The action went unnoticed by Silverbolt entirely, who considered the request with a shrug.

“If there is time,” he promised.

Nightscream nodded with a satisfied smile and, placing the headphones back in, settled in for the ride.

They made a stop four hours later in northern New Jersey, and Nightscream practically bolted for the small plaza that promised both food and much more important necessities. Blackarachnia and Silverbolt followed behind him at a more leisurely pace, just grateful for the chance to stretch their legs especially with four more hours of driving to look forward too.

“Movie's not about the middle ages, you know,” Blackarachnia told Silverbolt when she was sure Nightscream was out of earshot. Let the kid think he got away with it.

“I gathered. Since Nightscream wanted to watch it in the first place,” Silverbolt smiled, “but I do not mind.”

“I think he only wants us along because be barely looks thirteen,” Blackarachnia joked, but it caused her partner to frown.

“Should he be watching it in the first place, then?”

“I don't think it's that bad,” she waved a dismissive hand. “Can't be worse than anything he already lived through.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Nearly as soon as it was over – more precisely as soon as he woke up disoriented on the nearly empty Cybertron – Cheetor decided he missed the Beast Wars. He missed being a kid, missed having the luxury of someone else cleaning up the messes. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like the Beast Wars were a pleasant stole in a nature park compared to everything that followed. But looking up at the enormous dome-shaped alien structure, Cheetor remembered just how much he did not miss the aliens.

The Vok, to him, were like a black hole in the path of a space vehicle; one did not have to what made it tick to know to avoid it. They were an unknown, and Cheetor did not like going up against things he did not understand. That was a lesson experience had taught him. Predacons had been easy to deal with. Bottom line: there was no fundamental difference between the two groups. Cybertronians were Cybertronians, no matter how faulty some of their programing was.

Then again, he glanced at Tarantulas who stood a few feet to his right, some are more different than others. It also occurred to him at that moment, that he, Rattrap, and the spider were the only ones standing within a meter of the structure. The large team of humans from Sector 7 that had gathered along with Banachek was keeping a safer distance. Along with several vehicles caring equipment, they created a partial perimeter around it.

Neither of the other two Cybertronians – in his head, he still thought of Tarantulas as such – seemed immediately concerned as they studied the structure with open curiosity, though he was not at all sure what they could possibly be observing for such a long time. The object was surprisingly simple. A perfect half-sphere constructed of something that looked both metallic and not at the same time. Metallic because the surface was reflective and had a chrome look to it. Not, because Cheetor had never seen a metal that flowed like mech-fluid or mercury.

“Any ideas?”

“Why don't you try knocking?” Tarantulas suggested wryly. “Though, of course, it reacts to large bursts of energy, so I advise against transforming.”

“How'd you figure that?” Cheetor tried his best to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

“They shot down your plane, didn't they?” Tarnatulas replied patronizingly. “And it isn't like they haven't used this type of weapon before.”

“Hate to agree with Eight Eyes, but he's right,” Rattrap agreed reluctantly. “They had somethin' like this on the flyin' island. Doesn't help us here though.”

“I beg to differ.”

The Maximals watched as Tarantulas pulled a device clearly self constructed from pieces of actual human tech. The corner of Cheetor's mouth twitched. If they found human technology obsolete, to Tarantulas it must have been like working with stone tools. The thought of the spider so annoyed was in immensely pleasing image. However he cobbled it together, the device sprang to life in his hand, and both Cheetor and Rattrap took an instinctive step back. Tarantulas smirked.

“And that is...?” the rodent asked expectantly.

“The door bell.”

He pressed something, and though he couldn't see anything, Cheetor felt the air pulse against his skin and become thicker then thiner in intervals. It was as if someone had turned on heavy metal and cranked the volume to maximum, but no sound was heard. Something was happening though, because the surface of the dome directly in front of them wavered then parted, revealing the black empty passage inside like an iris dilating. Tarantulas made an after-you gesture with his hand, but neither budged.

“I simply duplicated the frequency the structure gives off, then reversed it,” he explained, exasperated. “It won't last long though; this technology is so very primitive, so if we may...”

It was Rattrap who smirked this time. “After you.”

The passageways throughout the construction were perfectly spherical all the way around, making the walk uncomfortable. It was made even more difficult by the absence of any light once the iris closed behind them. Tarantulas lead the way with Cheetor and Rattrap close behind him. Not that there was much they could see, but it was good practice not to put such a dangerous ally at their backs.

Cheetor found that he had to test each step for a firm footing. In addition to curving to the sides, the floor had a strange quality about it that made him feel as if he was stepping into an extremely viscous fluid instead of anything really solid. It seemed to shift in little ways that made him wonder what exactly he was standing on.

“I don't remember anything like this from the Beast Wars,” he confessed. “They had some mechanical structures and a few biological ones, like the one that took Tigatron and Airazor, but this...”

“Looks Technorganic to me,” Rattrap poked at the wall experimentally and watched as it bounced back the way a rubbery plant might. “How come they got Technorganic toys when they've never been ta Cybertron?”

“It's hardly a difficult concept to come up with,” the rodent couldn't tell in the dark, but he would have bet Tarantulas was rolling his eyes. “I might be able to tell you more if someone,” that biting tone was directed at Cheetor, “would tell me about the war on Cybertron and how it came about there.”

“Need-to-know basis,” Cheetor replied coolly, “and all you need to know is that it happened, we won, and got shiny new bods as souvenirs. End of story.”

“I'd hardly use that would,” Tarantulas retorted. “More like 'useless' or 'pathetic'.”

“You haven't been able to transform yet, have you?” Cheetor guessed, smug.

“What's it to you, pussy cat?”

“Just makes you a slightly smaller headache,” the young commander grinned.

His momentary good mood suddenly vanished as all were momentarily blinded by a bright flash of light. Their eyes adjusted, and the trio found themselves on the edge of what also seemed to be a hollowed dome that looked slightly smaller that it had from outside. The walls were no longer of silvery mercurial metal, but rather a bluish green and pulsed like the inside of a living heart. There were five passageways plus the sixths they had come from, all placed perfectly measured distances from each other around the circumference of the room.

At least there had been before the walls expanded to swallow all six doors, leaving no trace that they had ever existed in the first place. Cheetor sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Perfect.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

There was a considerable amount of pain. The warrior had expected it, though even he had to admit that he had grossly underdressed just how much of it there was going to be. The dirt beneath his flesh was far harder than he ever remembered it being on Earth, and after tapping it experimentally with his knuckles, he realized that it wasn't dirt at all but concrete. He also noted with dismay that what he thought was a gentle tap had scraped the fresh skin from his knuckles clean off. Cursing, he licked at the scabs and grimaced at the coppery taste of blood. This technorganic body was so terribly sensitive.

He slowly rose to his feet, still rubbing his hand, and took in his surroundings. A city, a big one. The buildings shot out of the ground and disappeared in the evening sky, though bellow it was almost as light as daytime thanks to the numerous street lamps and other multicolored neon signs that gave the city a surprisingly Cybertronian feel. This was clearly not prehistoric Earth, and if the massive city was not indicative enough of it, the fully evolved humans passing in countless numbers through the lights on the main street told him the same. The man bared his teeth in a smile despite himself.

As interesting as everything he saw was, it was what he did not that concerned him. He could not see anyone else wandering around nude and in confusion. It either meant that his companion had not yet arrived or had arrived and not bothered to wait or had ended up in a completely different place entirely. The man thought for a moment then decided to wait, at least for an hour or so. He needed to acquire clothing in any case. A weapon would not hurt to have as well.

Chapter 17

Vision

Tarantulas was, if nothing else, an intellectually vain individual. A character flaw, and one he loathed to admit to, because it gave him the tendency to overlook and underestimate the abilities of others. He had felt nothing but contempt and annoyance at the Maximals from the moment they had arrived, and currently it was no different. While the cat and the rat franticly searched for an exit, he stood in the center of the circular floor, arms folded, looking up at the mass at the top of the otherwise smooth dome.

“It ain't gonna dance for you,” the rodent. “So why not stop starin' holes in it and come help us?”

“How?” Tarantulas asked. “The device I used to enter only opened the outer layer and then we followed the structure's natural tunnels. This,” he waved his hand around the inside of the structure, “is made of a completely different material. This is why I am studying it. To put it simply, I don't know how to talk to it. Yet.”

Cheetor's head snapped up, as if something suddenly clicked. “You can't, but maybe Rattrap can.” He ignored Tarantulas' frowning and demanding gaze and whirled to face Rattrap. “I know you haven't transformed yet, but if your robot mode is anything like it was during the Technorganic War...”

“I gotchya,” Rattrap grinned. “Worth a shot.”

As it turned out, his robot form was something that looked like an even cross between his Transmetal 2 body and the technorganic one. His tail was the same as in his previous body, and there were still wheels for faster mobility, but they were only additions at the sides of his ankles. Power and options, Rattrap grinned. Not bad.

But when he looked around at the perfectly smooth walls that made up the dome, the burst of optimism sank.

“Ah, Spots? Where exactly am I suppose't connect to this thing.”

“What about up there?” Cheetor pointed at the strange mass on the ceiling. “Looks like it could be... I don't know, its brain or something.”

“It's not a brain, fur ball,” Tarantulas objected. “This place may be Technorganic, as you call it, but it's hardly sentient. It's more like a heart with all the other structures on this planet making up the body of the web that will allow the Vok to enter this world.”

The feline paid him no mind. “Even if you're right, there should still be a way for it to talk to, send signals to the other ones. That means some sort of commands that it'll react to.”

“And even if you are right,” and grudgingly Tarantulas had to admit that there was a chance of that, however remote, “how do you plan to reach that thing? The top of the ceiling must be at least fifty feet high. There is no way to scale these walls...”

“And the flybots are off elsewhere,” Cheetor grimaced and wiped his face with his palms. “Okay, new plan.”

The other two waited for a moment, but he said nothing. Rattrap changed back to the more discrete human shape and began to tap his foot expectantly.

“Well?”

“I'll tell you when I think of it.”

Hours later, at least he could say he tried everything else, short of explosives which they did not have the materials to make. Cheetor was simply out of ideas. Conventional ones, anyway. He could hear Blackarachnia's voice in his head yelling at him that what he was about to try was extremely stupid and dangerous and that he would not do it without her present. But his sister was hundreds of miles away, and they were stuck here now.

“Rattrap,” he lowered his voice, glancing warily at Tarantulas who was thankfully studying something on the other side of the dome, “do you think you can keep him occupied for a while? There's something I want to try, but I can't have any interruptions.”

“Should I even ask?”

“Probably not. Just keep an eye on him.”

He waited till Rattrap was well on his way before turning to face one of the walls, making sure his back was to Tarantulas. He did not know how long the whole thing would take. It took Optimus, who had practiced the technique of reaching into the Matrix, many long hours to establish a connection, but Cheetor doubted he had that long. There was already a chance of loosing himself forever in the vast abyss, but if Tarantulas got wind of it, he'd find a way to make sure Cheetor never returned.

He willed himself to shut down all his senses. With his eyes closed, hearing was the next sensation to go as even the most subtle sounds faded to nothing. He almost felt like he was floating, even though he knew his physical body had not gone anywhere. It was like that state between wakefulness and sleep, where one's conscious thoughts were still his own, but  perception of the physical world was further and further away.

This has to work.

Cheetor did not know exactly how long he remained in the in-between state, but eventually a speck of light floated in the center of his vision even though he knew he had not opened his eyes. It grew bigger and bigger until it dominated his sight. At that moment, the light exploded into a countless flashes that quickly took the form of sparks. They whirled around him before collecting back onto the giant pool of light that formed the Matrix. Two remained, however, suddenly they were before him. He instantly felt a familiarity to the disembodied souls. He reached out for them, stopping just short of making contact.

“I know you,” he said in awe.

Another presence whizzed by behind him and Cheetor whirled mid air only to come face to face with a figure that shifted between forms the same way it had when Cheetor first dreamed it. He smiled, feelings of reassurance filling him with warmth. Remembering why he was there in the first place, Cheetor sobered, floating closer.

“Optimus, we need help.”

The gorilla merely smiled and raised his hand to point behind Cheetor. The young man followed obediently, expecting to see the two sparks he'd turned his back on, but it was not all he saw. They were floating above Earth, hovering patiently as if waiting for a sign. Optimus opened his palm, as if releasing them, and the two sparks sped quickly towards the blue and green planet bellow. Eyes wide, Cheetor looked at his mentor.

“Big bot?”

“You need to go back now, Cheetor,” Optimus said softly, and the young man could do nothing but nod, even though he did not quite understand.

He opened his eyes back in the real world, still within the alien structure, but just in time to feel the walls and ground beneath him shake. The object at the top of the dome began to pulsate faster until it seemed to burst in a flash of light. His eyes adjusted just in time to see two figures descend from the above.

“By the Pit,” Tarantulas cursed, and before Cheetor knew it, the spider had transformed into something that closely resembled his Transmetal form but of a silvery green color and with a definite Technorganic feel to it.

So much for that, the cheetah thought, briefly annoyed with himself for actually believing the arachnid when he implied that he could not transform. He did not have a chance to contemplate it further though, because as soon as he was in robot mode, Tarantulas instantly opened fire on the new arrivals.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Compromising was not one of Blackarachnia's strongest traits. In this case the compromise included being bored out of her skull while the general showed them around Hanscom Air Force Base, but not having to deal with working with Tarantulas on the alien structure in Virginia. It was the real reason she'd volunteered to go. She was better suited to mediate any interaction with humans, true, but flight was Silverbolt's area of expertise. He and General Barnett spoke a language nearly foreign to her. Hell, Nightscream understood it better than she did. Well, maybe not, but the boy was certainly more enthusiastic about being there.

She resined herself to the fact that she would not feel better until she was able to transform. She found herself finally able to empathize with Rattrap's frustration in the early days of the Technorganic War. It was not like she had been wrong about how to transform in these new bodies. Silverbolt had confirmed that the process was exactly how she'd theorized it would be, but theory and practice were two totally different things. Her mind had always been her greatest contribution to the team, but she was also used to being a fully combat capable individual.

On the other hand, the trip was proving to be more entertaining than she'd expected. Blackarachnia rediscovered her love of upsetting the established order. Among a base full of fly boys – predictably the human military was predominantly male – dressed in standard camouflage uniforms, all three of them stood out like sore thumbs, and none more so than herself with her form fitting black tank-top with the word 'BADGIRL' scrolled across her ample chest in bold scarlet letters. She caught more than a few men stop whatever they were doing and stare only to be yelled at by their senior officers. It amused Blackarachnia to no end.

The last toy they were to be shown before lunch turned out to be a tiny light-weight plane that could not have looked less like a military aircraft if it was painted neon pink. Silverbolt remained polity quiet, and Blackarachnia did not care enough herself, but Nightscream did not bother to hide his reaction.

“What's that supposed to be?” the youth was clearly less than impressed. “Besides target practice?”

The general responded before Blackarachnia had the chance to even glared at the boy. They were supposed to be making friends with these people. Insulting the human crafts was not a way to do it, no matter how unimpressive this one was.

“It's less than grand,” Barnett admitted, “but it's pretty fast and had another asset that makes it invaluable. See that attachment on the nose?”

The trio shifted their attention to the contraption mounted on the cone of the aircraft. Blackarachnia thought she recognized what it was and was about to venture a guess, but to everyone's surprise Nightscream beat her too it.

“You mounted a sonic emitter on that thing?”

“Good eye,” the general nodded. “It's just a prototype, but even this one has been implemented as a locater.”

“Or as a potential weapon,” Silverbolt and Nightscream shared a knowing look.

“We thought so too,” Barnett agreed, “but we could never get the frequency quite right. Are sonic weapons common on Cybertron in your time?”

“Not as such,” Blackarachnia tried not to smirk. Silverbolt was a bad lier at the best of times. The only reason it sounded convincing now was because it was half true. Nightscream was the only one they'd ever met to use sound as an effective offensive weapon.

“Ah, it's just as well. Like I said, it's still a prototype.”

Silverbolt opted to skip lunch to talk more with the general, so Blackarachnia was left alone with Nightscream and two trays of military cafeteria food. She had not payed much attention to the cuisine until now, but the spider woman found herself missing the room service at the  Sofitel Lafayette Square hotel. The various televisions mounted in the corners of the large dining hall were all set to news channels, and Blackarachnia briefly noticed the caption for one of the local networks.

“Break in at the Worcester Art Museum in Boston. Samurai sword theft.”

Some people are really bored, she thought before turning her attention back to her companion. The boy across the table pushed a stack of mashed potatoes back and forth on his plate, and after a few minutes the repetitive action began to annoy her. Blackarachnia fixed him with a look.

“Alright, kid, spill.”

“Huh?” wide blue eyes blinked up at her.

“You were practically giddy this whole trip and now you're in a funk. So what's up?”

“Nothing,” he looked back down at his plate.

“Don't give me that slag. I'm not Silverbolt, so don't expect me to handle you with kid gloves. Out with it.”

Nightscream looked around to make sure no one was paying much attention to them. Soldiers were moving around the cafeteria occasionally glancing at the direction of the pair they assumed to be civilians, but most quickly moved on. He lowered his voice and leaned in closer.

“I don't want to come off paranoid,” he whispered, “and I didn't want to say anything in front of Silverbolt, but are you sure hanging our around here is okay for him?”

Blackarachnia did not have to ask what he meant. She had thought about it herself, even before they set foot on the base, but was unsure how to lead into the conversation she knew she should have already had with Silverbolt. His familiarity with the aircrafts was bothered her. He should not have had this kind of knowledge. Birds knew how to fly, but that did not mean they knew about the specs and properties of military jets. That was how Silverbolt had been; in all his forms, his flight derived from nature. All, that is, except one. She had gotten so used to having her lover back to normal bringing up his past life as the Vehicon general Jetstorm was the last thing she wanted to do.

“He'll be fine,” she said, half to herself, half to Nightscream. The kid looked less than assured. “Don't you think he considered it before coming here?”

“I guess...”

“Then stop worrying.”

It was a good thing Blackarachnia was more proficient at deception than her lover by many degrees of magnitude. She easily gave off an air of someone who was completely unconcerned, so Nightscream seemed more at ease, going back to his food with more enthusiasm. She only wished she was as confident as she sounded. A talk with Silverbolt might not be the most pleasant prospect, but it might also be the only thing to pacify her own concern. Blackarachnia made a mental note to do it in the near future.

Her cell buzzed insistently, and Blackarachnia slid out from the holster at her hip and looked at the display. After running out of work on the eight hour car ride, she'd occupied herself by adding avatars to the few contacts she had on her phone. At the moment, an animated cheetah with its tail moving from side to side and eyes blinking every few seconds was staring back at her. She flipped the phone open.

“If you need help setting up the clock on the VCR in that thing, ask rat face.”

Cheetor was clearly caught of guard. “Ahh... what's a VCR?”

“An ancient human video player. Nevermind. What's going?”

There was a pause on his end and Blackarachnia could almost hear him fidget. Wonderful. She had a feeling problems were about to increase yet again.

Chapter 18

Adversaries

Cheetor had a grin on his face so big the humans securing the perimeter of the alien site were giving him funny looks but he could not care less. Behind him, the structure sported an enormous gaping hole in the side where shots from the firefight managed to tear the walls apart. Rattrap and Tarantulas were being reluctantly debriefed by Banachek, but Cheetor refused to talk to the human until he relayed what had just happened to someone who he trusted would get more use out of the information.

“Before you get mad, note that I am still alive,” he said. He could have told Blackarachnia the story without mentioning his experimental venture to the edge of the Matrix, but Cheetor figured that since he had returned in once piece and having accomplished his goal, she could not be too angry.

“You tried to access the Matrix.”

It was not a question, and he could tell her voice was restrained. She was not yelling at him, though, so he went on.

“Not just tried. I saw him, Blackarachnia. I saw Optimus,” he quickly summarized the story of their entrapment within the alien structure, his attempt tap into the All-Spark, and finally to the arrival of two bots he never expected to see again. “It was Tigatron and Airazor. They looked a little different because they were Technorganic, but it was them, I swear. You have no idea how good it feels to...”

“Cheetor,” his sister cut him off, not sounding so much angry as extremely concerned. “You can't take these visions literally. Remember what happened in the first half of the Technorganic War. Remember how Optimus' misinterpretations nearly cost us every spark on Cybertron including our own.”

“I see two sparks coming to Earth and then Tigatron and Airazor show up. What's there to interpret?”

“They shot at you!”

“They shot at Tarantulas. He was the only one in robot mode, and he fired first.”

“This is all too convenient. If Optimus really sent them as help, why did they disappear afterwards?”

“I repeat: Tarantulas was the only one in robot mode. Rattrap and I were too startled to react at first, and by the time we did, the fighting was over. They probably figured none of us was there and went out to look for us. This is a good thing.”

“I don't buy it. I don't like gift horses.”

He found that he was the one getting angry now. What on Earth or Cybertron was her problem? “Why are you fighting me on this? Do you not trust what I saw or Tigatron and Airazor themselves?”

“Honestly? Neither.”

Cheetor exploded.

“I'll be sure to call Nightscream or better yet, Silverbolt the next time I feel like sharing something with you,” he all but shouted into the receiver.

“I'm not trying to hurt your feelings.”

“Try harder!”

He slammed the cell phone shut with excessive force. Apparently unaware of his irritated state, Banachek approached him, pocketing his own cell.

“I just got off the phone with air traffic control,” the human said. “Since this thing is now more or less neutralized, and we didn't find any others in the country, planes will be back up in a few hours. We will be flying back then.”

Cheetor nodded absently, staring at the phone still in his hand. Be should call her back, he knew. There were important things for her to know. Important things about returning to Hover Dam as soon as her group were finished in Massachusetts. With some human assistance, Cheetor, Rattrap, and Tarantulas had removed the heart that had hung at the center of the alien dome and, along with other specimens, agreed to take it back to Sector 7. Blackarachnia should be there to examine it, but calling her back was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

On her end, Blackarachnia wondered why it felt like she spent a majority of her interaction with him in arguments. Siblings fought, no news there, but the status was no more than an electronic record that meant only as much as they made of it. It was not that the position of leadership was new to Cheetor, but in the past, Optimus had always been there to fall back on. The youth had rarely had to make monumental life-or-death decisions for the entire team.

Perhaps she should have given him more credit. He was not a kid anymore, but in this case, the circumstances were far too personal to trust him to be objective. Of all the bots that had ever been on the team, they were closest to Cheetor, possibly rivaling even Optimus. Blackarachnia had only ever met Tigatron and Airazor on the battle field. The two had been taken by the Vok by the time she joined the Maximals, and when Tigerhawk, an odd fusion of the two sparks, arrived, it was a different individual altogether.

Alright, so her outlook was not entirely unbiased either. She might not have ever been on the same side as the two Cybertronians, but she'd seen enough of them to form a particularly low opinion. For all his power and potential, Tigatron was a pacifist at heart, a trait she found synonymous with cowardliness, especially in a time of war. And Airazor... well, Blackarachnia had never gotten along with any other woman too well. But she refused to believe her concern about their timely arrival steamed so much from personal dislike. There was something else that bothered her. Blackarachnia just could not pinpoint it.

Across the table, Nightscream, who had just heard her half of the conversation, was giving her a puzzled and slightly worried look. She slid the phone back into its holster.

“You wanted to see some movie?” the boy's mouth fell slightly open, the question obviously unexpected, then he nodded vigorously. “Let's go get Silverbolt and head into Boston tonight.” We can all use a little cool down time.

Boston, as it turned out, was a beautiful city. She had not expected how beautiful until they arrived. It reminded Blackarachnia a little of the Ark, long destroyed in this time, if only for the strong sense of history it had about it. While she was good at anything she put her mind to, it held a particular interest for Blackarachnia. She imagined she must have been a historian in a past life. Had the museum not been closed thanks to the break in the previous night, she would have opted to go there instead and send the fly boys see their movie without her, but thanks to some bastard, that was not an option. It had not been all bad. Too long for her taste, but better than she'd expected since it had been Nightscream's idea to see it.

It was late evening by the time they decided to head back to Hanscom Air Force Base. There was a breeze despite the fact that it was summer. The cooler climate was another thing that made her favor Boston over Washington D. C. or New York, which they had passed on the way up. She wondered if there would be another chance to spend more time in the city, but leisure time would most likely be in short supply in the near future. Nightscream chatted insistently about the movie, and Silverbolt was paying more attention to the boy than she would have ever had the patience for. Not surprisingly, Blackarachnia was the first to notice that the street on their way back to the train station was blocked off by a series of signs and humans in uniforms.

“What's going on?” Nightscream wandered over to her side when she stopped.

The building before them, apparently the cause of the road block, was not tall enough to be a skyscraper but certainly more modern than the sights which has made her like the city in the first place. There were, at most, thirty floors marked off with thin lines between the rows and columns of glass windows. The seamless surface of the building was now marred with a gaping hole around one of the upper floors where several consecutive windows had been shattered and were now lying on the street in a pile of glass shards.

“This is human business. Not our problem,” Blackarachnia said without so much as a hint of curiosity and motioned for the others to walk around the blockade.

“Perhaps it is,” Silverbolt's dark eyes narrowed. “Look.”

He pointed at one of the men standing closest to them across the divide. The  hexagonal symbol on the left breast of his uniform stood out prominently even in the dim light. Sector 7. They exchanged a look and approached. A police officer clearly not associated with the organization noticed them first and moved to block their path.

“This road is closed, folks. Some pipes blew on the top floors.”

“You always call top secret government organizations for blown pipes?” Blackarachnia snorted. The comment must have been overheard by the Sector 7 representative, because he came forward, dismissing the officer with a wave of his hand.

“I take it you're our latest out of town visitors,” the man, whose name tag read 'Jameson', addressed them. “Ms. Stark, is it? I thought you people were supposed to be at the air force base.”

“We're playing hooky,” Blackarachnia responded. “What's going on here?”

“You tell me,” the man opened the barricade enough to let the three of them pass and lead them directly to the sidewalk underneath the blown windows. “One of your people broke in, stole some highly classified data, then disappeared.”

“Our people?” Nightscream sounded irritated. “What makes you think it's one of us?”

“He made one hell of an exit directly from the twenty-seventh story. Luckily civilians didn't get a good look at him in the dark, but that kind of jump was kind of hard to miss.”

“Our team is divided between here and Virginia, and we are all accounted for,” Silverbolt observed, deciding not to mention what Blackarachnia had told him about Tigatron and Airazor's return. He was still unsure what opinion he held about it.

“Look, all I know is it was someone who took down a handful of trained and armed agents without breaking a sweat, not to mention that jump. And he didn't look like any transformer I'd ever seen. Maybe my hight, sharp features. Slightly south Asian, if that means anything to you.”

“I thought you said you didn't get a good look at him,” Blackarachnia folded her arms under her breasts.

“Not this time,” Jameson replied, “but I bet my badge it's the same one that broke into the art museum last night, though I have no idea what for. Maybe you want to help us find him before he leaves the city?”

Silverbolt held up a finger telling the Sector Seven agent to wait a moment and motioned for Blackarachnia and Nightscream to follow him around the corner of another building and out of the man's earshot. When they were far enough away, he turned to look at his bond-mate.

“Do you suppose this is somehow linked to Tigatron and Airazor's return?”

She nearly shot back a 'how in the Inferno should I know' before remembering that even if she had been a Predacon at the time, of the three of them gathered there, she'd spent the most time with the duo. Blackarachnia pressed her lips in a thin line, thinking. Finally she shook her head.

“I have no idea what they're like now,” she said, “but this doesn't sound like either of them. Aside from the fact that it's not exactly they're style, I don't think they would have been able to make here from Virginia in just a few hours, especially if they traveled as humans to avoid attention.”

“Another player then,” Silverbolt concluded, “though if Cheetor only saw two sparks...”

“Cheetor doesn't know what he saw,” the spider woman retorted sharply. “Tarantulas being here is proof enough that there are ways for our kind to end up down here. As for the 'who' and 'why' in this particular case, we won't know that until we catch up with him.”

Silverbolt was thoughtful then nodded slowly. “Agreed. An aerial view would certainly help, but we do not want to attract human attention ourselves. Let us separate, cover more ground that way. Why don't you take Nightscream with you? I believe you have a better sense for the city.”

Nightscream looked like he was about to launch into an all-out rant about how he did not need to be babysat, but Blackarachnia squeezed his arm indicating for the boy to stay quiet.

“Keep in touch, Bowser,” she nodded to Silverbolt before pulling Nightscream in the opposite direction. “Come on.”

“What the slag, Blackarachnia?” the boy complained after she'd let go of him a full block later. “Should I remind you that I spent a whole week alone in this pit before the rest of you showed up? I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, kid.”

She stopped and sighed. Silverbolt was, if nothing else, transparent. It was not Nightscream he was worried about; it was her. The kid might not be terribly great with human terrain, but he'd grown up on Cybertron which was essentially one giant city. Nightscream would be fine by himself, but as the only member of the team still unable to transform – she was more than a little miffed that Rattrap had done it before her – Blackarachnia might not be. She'd simply let Silverbolt think his attempt at subtleness succeeded.

Nightscream was still staring at her impatiently, but Blackarachnia was not about to share any of her thoughts with the boy for the same reason she had not argued with her bond-mate. If she had even a speck of confidence in this human form, she might have, but the truth was she knew perfectly well it was a weakness, and if there was anything Blackarachnia hated it was looking weak.

“Look, I'll tell you what,” she finally decided, “check the area within the next ten blocks to the east, and I'll take the west. We'll meet up back here and go from there. Deal?”

He nodded and took off immediately. Blackarachnia stood for a moment, wondering just what direction she would take. She was a creature of darkness, she decided, and rounded a corner into a secluded alleyway.

Only a few steps into it, when the lights from the main street faded, Blackarachnia got the distinct feeling that something was amiss. Maybe she should not have dismissed Nightscream so readily. Several more meters in and she was sure there was something behind her. She stopped, loose fists contracting and relaxing at her sides as she pondered her next move. Fight or flight?

The few seconds she took to make the decision were a few seconds too long. Blackarachnia had no time to react before sharp cold fingers closed around her throat, lifting her a good three inches off the ground.

“Move, arachnid, and you will not even have time to scream.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

“Slagin' wonderful.”

The lean but clearly powerful man with straight platinum blond hair and eyes the color of clear water stood naked in the middle of the desert, hands firmly planted on his narrow hips as he tried to find any distinguishing feature about his surroundings. Sand, clay, and some mountains in the distance were all he could see. If it was just a matter of location, things might still turn out fine, but not seeing a trace of civilization made the man wonder if he was even in the right time.

“Your aim sucks, Primal,” he informed the sky, hoping that the target of that remark could, in fact, hear him.

A large crack within the desert floor and the sound of running water from the same direction caught his attention, and the man followed it until the crack expanded into a rather deep canyon easily several thousand feet deep. The river at the bottom looked like nothing more than a strip of blue, but he traced it with his vision until his eyes came to rest on a large gray and clearly unnatural structure.

“Fine,” he conceded with a lopsided grin. “It doesn't suck that much.”

Chapter 19

Warriors

White spots danced in front of her vision. She franticly clawed at the single hand holding her up, but her very warm organic fingers meant nothing but cold steel ones wrapped around her throat. She did not waste her thoughts to curse the weak form for the umpteenth time. A single, relentless mantra pulsed through her mind.

Help me!

Verbal thoughts may not have been transmittable through their bond, but the panic that accompanied the mental scream certainly was. It shot out of her own mind like a bullet, bypassing any resistance from the half-standing wall still between them. Silverbolt's response was almost instantaneous. He was on his way.

Whoever was holding her was too close to her face for her to make out any distinct features aside from a set of terribly sharp teeth, but from the corner of her very limited vision, Blackarachnia saw Nightscream run into the alley. He screamed something and transformed with a whoosh of displaced air. For a second the stranger's grip loosened, probably startled by the arrival of another, but it did not seem like he considered Nightscream all that threatening. If anything, it was the boy who looked startled.

Silverbolt's appearance a moment later, fully transformed and ready for battle, was marked with a bigger reaction. The green optics of her attacker flickered with recognition and his rough voice said something she thought to be Silverbolt's name. Surprise flashed across her bond-mate's canine features only for a split second before they once again hardened to resolve.

“Dinobot! Let her go!”

Dinobot?

The grip on her neck suddenly released, and Blackarachnia crumpled to the ground, violently coughing and touching her bruised throat. It took several minutes for her vision and breathing to return to normal, and when it did, she looked up to see the large Technorganic Cybertronian with definite predatory features looming above her, but his attention was focused on Silverbolt.

“I demand an explanation, fuzor,” the voice was gritty.

“I do not know how you came to be here,” Silverbolt replied, lowering his own weapon, “but if you truly are Dinobot – our Dinobot – you should know that much has changed since your death. Please, if you can, return to your human form, and we will talk.”

Like most of them, Dinobot retained something that was instantly recognizable as him in his humanoid form. He was of average hight for a man with a sharp nose and jawline, dark eyes and hair. Blackarachnia remembered the Sector Seven agent mentioning that the man they were hunting for looked just like that, and judging by the elegant sword in the raptor's hand, she had him to thank for not being able to visit the museum.

She rose to her feet as Silverbolt finished his brief recount of the end of the Beast Wars when her programing was returned to its original Maximal state. Dinobot's eyes kept darting to her as he listened to her bond-mate speak. Silverbolt, by this time, had also returned to a more discrete shape. The raptor did not seem pleased to hear that they were now apparently on the same side, but he did not argue either. As a former Predacon himself, it was hardly his place.

“I cannot believe we are on the same side!” Dinobot snarled. “However,” he had the decency to look at least slightly bothered if not particularly sorry for the attack, “my actions may have been... rash.”

“Yeah?” Blackarachnia whirled on her heel and with all the force her small humanoid body could muster slammed her fist into the man's jaw. It was not enough to even make him loose his footing, but it made her feel infinity better. “Now we're even.”

Dinobot growled but made no move to retaliate, apparently agreeing that it was more than fair. Her anger somewhat sated, she crossed her arms in a defensive posture.

“Well? Are you going to tell us why you're not roasting in the Inferno right now?”

“Eager to send me back again, widow?”

Blackarachnia had to admit that this time the shot was fair on his part. After all she had played a part in his first death. She made a conscious effort to relax her pose. The score was even, and Dinobot took a deep breath.

“I thought Megatron lied about sending only one,” he said as if it explained everything. “My understanding of the events after my own demise are incomplete. I was not aware that your programing had changed.”

“What about Megatron?” Nightscream's blue eyes widened at hearing the name of their former adversary. “He's dead!”

“For now,” Dinobot agreed, frowning at the boy as if he wondered how someone so young could possibly know anything on the subject, “but he and Optimus Primal have an agreement. He was allowed to send one and only one of his own agents to Earth to make a judgment on the alien threat personally, while Primal sent myself and another to make certain Megatron's man causes minimum problems.”

Blackarachnia was not sure what to react to first: the fact that Cheetor's vision had been right about two more sparks coming to their aid, that they were not Tigatron and Airazor, or that there was a Predacon among the unsuspecting humans. Silverbolt had made the choice for her when he addressed the raptor first.

“Who were you tracking now?”

“Megatron's agent. The one you knew as Protoform X or Rampage.”

“Rampage?” Blackarachnia and Silverbolt said in unison outrage. “Why would Optimus let him loose something like that on the universe again?”

“I believe it escaped his attention to ask for permission. Megatron assured him he had some control over the creature.”

“The Pit he does,” the spider woman spat.

“It is irrelevant now,” Dinobot continued. “It was he who broke into the building the humans now have closed off. I was on his trail when I stumbled upon you. I heard the boy say your name and, not being in possession of all the facts, made the only natural conclusion. He may very well have left the city by now.”

“Next time attack people you're sure are are your enemies,” Nightscream spoke up but closed his mouth when Dinobot gave him a cold hard look.

“We should return to the air force base and contact our friends,” Silverbolt concluded. “It seems there is much more at stake than we previously imagined.”

“You are working with the humans?” Dinobot raised a thick brow. “Then you may wish to ask them what it was that the Predacon stole. I know it was information of great value to them but not specifically what it was.”

“You could ask them just as easily,” Blackarachnia couldn't help but get one more jab in, putting her index finger to her lips in mock remembrance. “Oh wait, you're wanted for theft, too.”

Nightscream snorted but wisely stayed between the two he knew. Blackarachnia could not quite remember what any of them had ever told the boy about the former Predacon. Their memories had been shot when they had first crashed on Cybertron to the point where she had not even remembered Silverbolt – a fact that she'd still not quite forgiven herself for – and after they were restored, everyone was too preoccupied with the Technorganic War to share many stories with the rookie. She could imagine just how intimidating Dinobot must look to the boy.

On his end, the raptor seemed more than anything else curious about the presence of someone so young among people he considered soldiers. Even Cheetor had not been quite so young at the start of the Beast Wars. He glanced between her and Silverbolt before his eyes finally fell on Nightscream. Regarding him as if he was an aberration of nature, the former Predacon's brows drew together. He looked like he wanted to ask something, but thought better of it.

A buzzing sound snapped everyone out of their respective thoughts. Silverbolt pulled the cell phone from his jacket and held it up to his ear to listen to the voice mail from the one call he missed while at the movie. His face grew dark and a moment later he replaced it in his pocket.

“We are not returning to the air force base after all,” he said grimly. “We are flying back to Nevada as soon as possible.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Rattrap had that nagging sensation that he was missing something vital but he could not quite put his finger on what it was. They were back at Hoover Dam half a day later fully intending on taking a closer look at the specimens from the alien structure, especially the giant heart, but somehow he could not see himself concentrating on work at the moment. Obviously he was not the only one distracted. Cheetor, who had been walking just a step behind him, stopped a few meters from the entrance into Sector 7's headquarters.

“I'll catch up with you in a sec,” the other Maximal said when Rattrap gave him a questioning look. “Just want to get some fresh air.”

“Suit yourself.” Rattrap descended into the tunnels after Tarantulas, Banachek, and a few other Sector 7 personnel, but they did not go far before he, too, suddenly stopped. “Yo, Eight Eyes. Stick around.”

When the humans were out of site and earshot, he shoved the other man hard at the wall. Even in their human forms, he was still significantly smaller than the Predacon, but the look of surprise on Tarantulas' face was satisfying enough.

“You attacked my friends, freak.”

“I had no idea who they were,” the spider defended.

“You're liein' .”

In a moment of clarity it all fell into place. Tarantulas had not just shot blindly at unknown, possibly alien targets. There was recognition and anger in him. By the time the initial flash of light cleared, Tigatron and Airazor's forms, though new, were still unmistakable. The arachnid must have recognized them and fired nonetheless. Why? Aside from the fact that they had been his enemies a lifetime ago, there was no reason to consider them a threat. What did Tarantulas know that the rest of them did not? Luckily Rattrap did not have to think of a way to make him talk. Tarantulas did not seem phased by the accusation and kept walking further down the corridor, his back still to Rattrap.

“I didn't know they were your friends, but even if I did, it wouldn't matter. It's not as if they are still your friends.”

The nagging feeling of missing something important flashed through his mind again. He caught up with Tarantulas and spun the man around by the shoulder.

“Hows about you stop bein' cryptic an' start talkin' .”

“I thought even your tiny brain would have figured it out by now,” the spider merely shrugged and would have looked completely innocent if he were anyone else. “They're like me. Emissaries of the Vok.”

Rattrap stared at him as if the Predacon had grown a second head. Tarantulas rolled his eyes and switched to the patronizing tone of voice he used whenever he was explaining something he thought was completely obvious.

“They didn't blast their way in to save you. They came from within the structure. Specifically from within that object we brought here. I told you before that each of the alien monuments plays a role in connecting this world and theirs.”

“You said they all needed to be active.”

“For the aliens themselves to pass through, but one is more than enough to send things like sparks through. How do you think I got here?”

“Slag!”

Not bothering to yell at the spider for not saying anything earlier, Rattrap pulled out his cell. The first number that came up was Silverbolt's – 'Bird-dog' before 'Webs' – and he didn't wait for it to connect before running back to the surface. The rodent cursed as the voice mail picked up his call. Leave it to Silverbolt to leave his phone off when he was trying to reach him.

“Look alive, love birds,” he figured his message would almost certainly be heard by Blackarachnia as well. “Vacation's over. We need you back here at S7 HQ pronto!”

He was steps away when the dam shook with what Rattrap was certain was a blast from an energy weapon of some sort. There was shouting – Cheetor, he thought – and more gun fire. A bit of a one-sided fight from the sound of it, the rodent thought in alarm. He banged against the jammed door and finally managed to get it open when he threw his entire weight against it.

He ran out just in time to see two streaks – one white and land bound, the other gold and black and definitely airborn – spread away, but not before one final blast broke the stone barrier  across the length of the dam and sending the young Maximal commander plummeting to the river bellow.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Shock prevented Cheetor from actually feeling the impact with the surface of the river, but the unmistakable sensation of water folding his airway passage jolted him into reality. His eyes snapped open and against every instinct, Cheetor willed himself not to breath and expel as much access water as he could. His lungs still burned but somehow he oriented himself enough to spot the light at the surface. It was not until he made an attempt to push himself towards it that Cheetor felt the seizure grip his leg, rendering him mobile.

The right pant leg of his jeans was split from upper outer thigh almost to his knee. He could not see well, but judging from the crippling pain and mess of fluids oozing from his leg through the once-clear water, it was significant. He must have torn not only the skin but also the muscle on some rock when he first hit the water but had not noticed it in his initial reaction.

Cheetor could not breath. He could not move, and the current was strong.

He was drowning.

Just then the surface above him broke once again as a vaguely humanoid shadow fell into view, momentarily blocking the light. It sped through the water, swimming quickly and effortlessly. Cheetor felt something cool and wrap around his torso and with a significant amount of force pull him up. For a few seconds the water dragged around him, then he broke the surface with a nearly explosive power and to his surprise, contained moving upwards. Was he... flying?

Whatever was holding him set him down on the rocky ground well away from the canyon's edge, and Cheetor finally coughed up the rest of the water. He did not think air could ever taste so sweet. Eventually convinced that no one was going to take it away from him, the young man rolled onto his back, still breathing heavily. He squinted up at the sun, wiping his brow and the last of the droplets that clung to his long lashes. By Primus, he hated water.

There was a sound of things shifting and sliding into place. Like someone changing form, Cheetor thought offhandedly. A moment later the face of his rescuer came into view above him. A very human face with clear blue eyes and still-dripping platinum blond hair. Cheetor made an effort to lift his head, and the man's lips curved in a smirk.

“We gotta stop meeting like this, pussy cat.”

It took him a moment, but then he frowned as recognition set in. His head dropped back down and and the young commander release a burst of bitter laughter.

Chapter 20

Pain

Rattrap tried not to fidget as he and Depth Charge waited for the plane from Boston to land at the Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. They would have tarmac if they could, but security was ridiculous in his opinion. So there he was in the less than comfortable airport chairs drumming his fingers on the metal arms. A second later he pushed himself up and began to pace.

“Cut it out,” Depth Charge gave him a severely annoyed look. “What's wrong with you?”

“Nothin', nothin',” Rattrap waved him off and forced himself to sit down again. He wished he had a pen or coin, something to fiddle with so he had an outlet for the nervous energy.

Slag, what was wrong with him? After all he had witnessed, something like this should not have surprised him. Death was not as permanent as it used to be, but then again Rattrap had always been a cynic. He'd never dared to hope...

“Attention. Attention. Flight 172 US Airways Boston to Los Vegas now arriving at gate A14.”

He nearly shot to his feet and whirled so that he was facing the gate in question. Several humans in suits and with laptop cases emerged first, all apparently permanently attached to their cell phones and iPods. Next came several families with strollers and infants fussy from the long flight. He was almost about to ask what was taking so long before he saw them. All four of them.

Nightscream walked out with Silverbolt first, chattering to the man about something Rattrap thought vaguely sounded like “Batman”. Silverbolt was smiling in that way that meant he thought the boy's enthusiasm was sweet. Blackarachnia was a step behind the pair, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jeans. The spider woman looked deep in thought and obviously completely disinterested in the story Nightscream was telling. And the fourth...

Rattrap thought he would have recognized the former Predacon in any form, even if he did not look nearly exactly same. Their eyes met, and Dinobot bared his teeth in a lopsided cross between a sneer and grin. Rattrap pretended to shutter.

“Still with the teeth, Chopperface.”

Dinobot wrinkled his nose in half-mock disgust. “Still with the stench, vermin.”

For that moment, it felt like everything was right with the world.

The other reunions were easy after that. Silverbolt introduced Nightscream to Depth Charge who only gave the boy a funny look but otherwise ignored him. Something unspoken passed between the raptor and the water-based transformer. Depth Charge inclined his head in a questioning manner, and Dinobot shook his which caused the other man to curse under his breath. He exchanged a silent nod of greeting with Blackarachnia as well. The woman surveyed the two that were meeting them as if taking an interest for the first time in the world around her. She frowned.

“Where's Cheetor?”

Rattrap exchanged a look with Depth Charge who waved his hand in a way that meant it was up to him to fill them in. The rat hesitated, not really sure where to start.

“Tell you on the way back, Webs,” he finally said. “Some serious slag went down while you guys were off on your little honeymoon.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

At least this time Nightscream did not mind being ignored. He was not completely clear on what had happened in their absence. On the way back to Hoover Dam, Rattrap had told them that Cheetor had been attacked by two Cybertronians who had supposedly been their allies during the Beast Wars. He did not understand how or why they were now fighting them but Nightscream decided not to ask for clarification. With everyone, both his friends and the new arrivals, back at Hoover Dam, the tension was nearly palpable throughout the whole structure. Besides, there were definite advantages to having hearing as good as his.

Standing at one end of a long hallway, he could hear everything that went on within the passage. The lean man with straight pale blond hair who, according to Rattrap's story, had saved Cheetor, was standing only a few feet away from him, leaning on the wall, arms crossed over his chest. Nightscream remembered that the others had called him Depth Charge. They had been briefly introduced back at the airport but had not spoken since. The man did not look particularly talkative. At the other end of the hallway, Silverbolt stood with Rattrap and the scowling Dinobot. The three were talking in quiet voices, but he heard every word.

“I still don' believe this slag,” Rattrap shook his head in disbelief. “The lady and the tiger in cahoots with those stinkin' aliens?”

“Perhaps they are not doing this of their own will,” Silverbolt suggested, but he sounded grim. “Tigerhawk was an emissary of the Vok and under their influence when he first arrived. It is possible that upon death, his dual spark separated again but instead of ascending to the Matrix, they returned to the alien's dimension, and they took control again.”

“Eight Eyes is their emissary,” Rattrap argued. “He ain't exactly my favorite person, but he don't look like he's under their control.”

“It may be a matter of will,” Dinobot mused. “Tarantulas has a deep-seeded hatred of the aliens. It gives him strength against them. Certainly they attempted to control him, may even think they have, or they would not have returned him to Earth.”

“You sayin' they let themselves be controlled?” the rodent glared at him. “It don' exactly suck ta have you back from the dead, Chopperface, but I swear I'll send you straight back to the Matrix for talkin' about my buddies like dat.”

Dinobot snarled. It was hardly a secret that he held the pair's calmer nature somewhat in contempt. The only thing he and Blackarachnia agreed on when news of their return reached them was that they shared an innate dislike of pacifists in a time of war or really ever. Pacifism always had seemed like an idiotic and hypocritical sentiment to Dinobot. Maybe it was the Predacon in him, because Blackarachnia had been the only one to agree so quickly. Silverbolt had been reserved in their opinion at the time and apparently still remained so.

“Calmness, please,” he took a step between them to diffuse the anger. “I do not wish to speak ill of our former comrades, especially when there is a much simpler explanation. Cheetor said and Blackarachnia confirmed that Tarantulas' spark is fundamentally different from the rest of ours.”

“Accursed Unicron spawn,”spat the raptor.

“You knew?” Rattrap stared at him, and Dinobot gave a court nod.

“That difference may have attributed to the Vok not being able to control him in the manner they wished, if they were basing their methods on ordinary sparks,” Silverbolt finished his thought.

“It is hardly relevant at the moment,” Dinobot concluded. “Events are what they are. Wishing them different is pointless.”

Rattrap opened his mouth for another angry retort, but to Nightscream's relief, Silverbolt managed to speak first. He'd only been listening in for a short time, but the boy was already getting tired of the rodent's constant arguments with the former Predacon.

“How is Cheetor? I know he was close to both Tigatron and Airazor.”

“Haven't seen much of him after fish face's rescue,” Rattrap jabbed his thumb in the direction of the slender platinum haired man half way down the hall. “I know they bandaged him up, but he was really out of it, didn' look like he was up for visitors. Webs went to see 'im though.”

By this point Nightscream was tired of simply listening in and wandered over to the group. He half stood half hid behind Silverbolt, purposefully avoiding the raptor's sharp gaze. He could not even say he disliked him, though his status as a former Predacon was hardly endearing. Dinobot scared him, plain and simple. Silverbolt patted his shoulder affectionately before returning his affection to the others.

The conversation went no further. Several pairs of footsteps were heard in the hall perpendicular to the one the group currently occupied, and a moment later Banachek rounded the corner. Nightscream was about to get annoyed at the human's intrusion until he saw who was following a step behind him.

Then Nightscream did not know what to think at all.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

There was a point at least once in every war when things seemed so hopeless, Cheetor wondered why he was fighting at all. It happened twice in the Beast Wars and so often during the Technorganic War that he marveled that they had survived it at all. He hated those times, and the only thing more painful than the memories of them was being in such a time now. So Cheetor did the only thing he knew he could rely on.

He ran.

He did not think of direction or time or anything that might take his focus away from the hard ground beneath his feet. He ran so he did not have to think at all. Even the pain in his right thigh, which was so excruciating only an hour ago as to nearly keep him bedridden faded into a dull ache that he stubbornly ignored. A little physical pain was a welcomed distraction in any case. He did not look back as Hover Dam faded into a single point in the distance. He just ran.

Cheetor ran until his lungs burned, until the muscles of his powerful legs knotted and refused to carry him a single step further. He sank onto his knees in the dust, trying desperately to catch his breath somewhere between the starving need for air and the sobs that threatened to consume his body. Having finally evened his breathing a moment later, he took one final gulp of air before releasing it into the sky in a cry of all his anguish, fury, and despair.

It was several moment before he finally opened his eyes and miserably saw that he was not alone. The sun had begun to set long ago, but there was enough remained for the person to cast a long shadow on the cracked desert ground before him.

“You were right,” he said, refusing to look at anything but the shadow. “About... everything. I should've listened.”

There was a momentary silence before Blackarachnia spoke, her voice even. “You should be in bed.”

Cheetor gave a short humorless laugh and shook his head vigorously. “No way in the Pit am I lying around for five weeks while this thing knits,” he slapped his bandaged thigh and tried not to wince as intense pain shot through him.

“Five weeks?” she looked skeptical.

“That's what the human doctors say, and the Inferno will freeze over before I let Tarantulas anywhere near me.”

“I'll take a look  when we get you back,” she promised, “but I guarantee you're not helping it heal by straining it with a 10K marathon.”

“I needed to get away.”

That was new. Cheetor running away from problems instead of towards them. He had been hot-headed for as long as she'd known him, fierce and passionate. No one could accuse him of being uncaring. If anything, Cheetor felt too much, and in this case that included pain. Part of her felt sorry for the young man, for the burden he bore, but he was the leader, and there was little chance of that burden getting any smaller in the near future. Blackarachnia was quiet, then knelt on the ground before him so that they were at eye level. At least they would have been if he'd look up at her. He still wouldn't, even though he felt her eyes boring into him. She scowled.

“I know you're hurt, but I don't appreciate being ignored, especially since you're not exactly the easiest person in the world to catch up with.”

“Add it to the list,” he spat. “It's pretty damn long by now in any case.”

“List?” her voice held an edge. Blackarachnia did not like to play mind games, not when she was not the one leading.

“The list of all the reasons you're pissed at me. Starts with Tarantulas and ends with this latest debacle.”

Blackarachnia said nothing for a while, then her face lost its hardness and she sighed. “I heard about what happened,” she said. “Rattrap filled us in as soon as we landed.”

“And you're going to tell me you told me so,” he cut her off. “It's okay; go ahead and say it. I already know.”

He wished she would, too. Someone needed to acknowledge his failures. He'd had enough of the humans and Rattrap walking on eggshells around him. He trusted that Blackarachnia, at least, would be able – eager for the chance – to give him the serious smack on the head he deserved. If not, Cheetor wished she'd just go away and leave him in peace.

“No,” her voice was so soft, for a moment he did not even recognize it. “I was going to say I'm sorry. I know what Tigatron and Airazor meant to you. It doesn't matter what I think of them. They were your family, more so than I am.”

More than... what? The unexpected and honest sympathy took him aback, so much so that he momentarily forgot his own misery.

“That's not true!” their green eyes finally met. “Tigatron was like a big brother to me, and Airazor and I had the closest thing to a blood relation possible for our kind, but none of that means you're any less family. We might not be blood, but we've been through more than enough together.”

He neglected to mention that their sibling status was a result of an error when she created their human identities, but that really was not the point. Blackarachnia actually smiled.

“That's a nice sentiment, Spots,” she placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed comfortingly. “I know I don't really show it, but it does mean something to me, too. I'm not angry with you, Cheetor. Like you said, you were making command decisions. I might not have agreed with them and not all turned out as well as anyone hoped, but they were your adult decisions as team leader. You owned them and took responsibility when things went south. Maybe it's still a little hard to admit you're an adult now. Had Optimus been the one to make them, I would have still been less than thrilled but I know I wouldn't have taken it so personally. I'm sorry.”

It took a few seconds for his brain to process her words, and suddenly Cheetor recalled why he was out in the middle of the desert in the first place. The torn tissue in his leg was throbbing again, sending sharp spikes of pain through his entire being. His bod was waked with convulsive sobs. Before his perfect feline sight was completely obscured by the flood of tears, he saw Blackarachnia's concerned but also bewildered expression and felt her wrap an arm around him.

Primus, she didn't know...

Unable to give voice to his pain, Cheetor buried his face in her hair and cried harder than he could ever remembered.

Epilogue

Reason

Three hours earlier,

Slag it all to the Inferno! Cheetor thought as he experimentally placed his weight on his good leg and slowly tried to transfer some over to his right one.

It hurt.

A lot.

Enough to make him resent the Technorganic nature of his body. When he has been purely mechanical prior to the Technorganic War, Cheetor could have just shut off receptors to the injury, but nerve endings did not work quite the same way as wiring. The humans had given him something for the pain and a shot directly to the thigh to numb the area around the injury, but again his Technorganic nature worked against him, wearing down the medication far faster than it would have taken to pass through a normal human system.

And Cheetor was not one for sitting idol. He wanted to be there with Rattrap and Depth Charge when the others returned from Boston. It was still a little surreal having the water-based Cybertronian there, not to mention the idea that Dinobot would be joining them soon. He tried not to think about the colossal mistake he had made of confusing what he now understood to be Dinobot and Depth Charge's sparks in his vision for Tigatron and Airazor. An understandable mistake given the circumstance, as Rattrap kept telling him, but it did not make him feel any less stupid. He mentally winced at the thought of facing Blackarachnia in a matter of hours.

“Christopher Stark?”

He had not heard the door to the infirmary open and stumbled a little, bracing himself against the medical bed behind him at the sound of a woman's voice. Cheetor looked up to see a woman in a dark blue uniform with blond, neatly combed hair that fell to the nape of her neck. She looked familiar and after a moment of searching his mind, Cheetor came up with a name.

“Lieutenant Myers, right?” he was proud of himself for remembering.

She gave a court nod, her posture never loosing its military professionalism. “Mr. Banachek is waiting for you in his office. He asked me to tell you it's important that you come and see him immediately. Do you require assistance?”

“No,” he forced a smile. “I should be fine.”

'Fine' was a relative term. It took him a full fifteen minutes to stumble down the maze of corridors he would have normally covered in three. Cheetor almost decided to turn back once or twice, but in the end he pressed on. The young commander found himself grateful that his team had not yet returned from the airport to see his sorry state.

Having finally reached Banachek's office, he twisted the knob and pushed the door openhalf-way without bothering to knock.

“You wanted to see...”

His breath caught in his throat. The human was seated at his desk, but he was not alone. Standing beside that same desk was a man he would have recognized anywhere. Cybertronians were like that; a race that changed bodies almost as easily as humans changed loathing learned to see past the exterior. The newcomer's brandy-brown eyes radiated a warmth that was unmistakable.

“Big bot...”

Cheetor was filled with a kind of joy he had not felt in ages accompanied by absolute assurance that everything would be alright from now on. He took a step forward, wanting nothing more than to run to his mentor.

The door swung all the way open, revealing the room's final occupant. At the sight of the man's half-amused half-mocking smirk, another bolt of recognition flashed through Cheetor's mind.

No...

For the second time that day, his world shattered.

Drifted Sparks Reimagining

Q & A

1. What does this story have to do with the original Drifted Sparks Series?

The title is Drifted Sparks Reimagening (DSR for short) because this really is a reimagening of my original Drifted Sparks series (DSS for short). The only thing DSR has in common with DSS is the basic concept of the Maximals returning to a modern Earth (then 2000, now 2008) after the Technorganic War and having human forms. The similarities really end there.

2. Are you the same Silver Spider that ____?

Yes, I'm <i>that</i> Silver Spider from years back. I go by Silver Spider or SilverSpiderTM2 and as far as I know, no one else goes by any variation of that, at least not in any fandoms I participate in.

3. What prompted you to go back to Beast Wars fanfics after 8-some-odd years?

I was talking to a friend of mine on LiveJournal about this and kept saying how if I ever had a chance, I'd go back and clean up DSS, make it more realistic, darker, grittier. Because I really did like the basic idea (BW characters as humans in the modern world), but I was only 13 when I wrote it. It was my first fanfic. I look on it now with some fondness but mainly I cringe at how... bad it is ^^; So I decided to do a complete rewrite, paying more attention to realism and trying to keep the characters more true to themselves.

4. When/where is the story set?

For the most part, DSR takes place on Earth in modern time (ie 2008). I even make some references to current events, most notably some modern movies. This makes the story slightly AU from the established G1 oriented timeline, since we know from the animated Transformers movie that in 2005 (when Unicron attacked) the Earth of G1 is very different from what it is now. The Unicron attack still happened in 2005 but I'm saying that as far as human civilization is concerned it still looks like it does now with no outlandish futuristic stuff. Also in my story, the Autobots left Earth and humans alone soon after the Great War was one. By the time the Maximals arrive on Earth at the start of the story, there are no more Autobots there though their influence is certainly felt.

5. Sector 7 and the related humans are in this. Is this a crossover with the 2007 movie?

No, this isn't a crossover. This is still a continuation of the G1-BW-BM timeline. I explained a little in the first chapter that S7 was introduced in. Since the story is already slightly AU by making 2008 look like it does now instead of what G1 creators thought it would look like, I figured why not? Sector 7 here plays a similar but slightly different role it did in the movie. Here, they were established soon <i>after</i> the Great War started (so they've been around since 1984), and their job is to learn all they can and keep an eye on Cybertronians.

6. Where are Botanica, Rhinox, or [enter Predacon name here]?

That's a two-part question. The Preds (aside from Tarantulas, Rampage, and now Megatron) are not in this because we (me the author and Megatron the Pred leader) simply don't need them. After the Technorganic war, Megatron is at a point where he realizes he'd rather rely on his own wit and strength than massive numbers of subordinates that may or may not be trustworthy.

The question about Botanica and Rhinox comes up a lot in reviews. To put it simply, I'm being selfish. I know for a fact I would not be able to write Botanica well since I never got the feel for her in BM. Oh, I like her well enough, but I wouldn't know where to begin writing her so I feel that bringing her in would drag down the story. In my mind, when Optimus gave them a choice to come to Earth or not in the beginning of the story, she chose not to go. In a total cop-out (yes I recognize that's what I'm doing) I'm having all the other characters just ignore her past presence and not mention her at all. Same goes for Rhinox, though Rhinox not being there is easier to explain away since he died in the middle of BM and seemed at peace staying in the Matrix.

7. Is anyone else expected to arrive?

No. As of the end of this part of the story, the cast for the rest of the fic is set. I don't want to say it's set in stone because things change, but as of now, I have no plans to bring any other past characters into this.

8. Why is Nightscream so young (barely 13-looking) in this? I thought he was at least 17 in Beast Machines.

Nightscream's age here is the way it is for a reason. In BM I saw his rather unique interaction with the rest of the group, being a) the only character not to have participated in the Beast Wars and b) being the youngest, and I really liked it. Sorry, I like Nightscream. I know a lot of fans don't, but I never thought of blaming a kid for acting like a kid, especially after all the shit that happened to him. Let's not forget that he actually <i>witnessed</i> the genocide of all of Cybertron. Sorry, I'm getting distracted...

Anyway, my favorite moments were when he interacted with Blackarachnia (“Revilations” 2 and 3 and “Technorganic War II: The Catalyst”) and Silverbolt (“Spark War” eps, “Endgame” eps, and most of S2). It always seemed to me that they had a parental sort of streak in them towards him, even separately and especially on Silverbolt's part (he affectionately called Nightscream “son” in “Sparkwar” Pt. 1). I wanted to explore those relationships in DSR, and it was easier to do it if Nightscream was a little younger.

9. Blackarachnia and Cheetor are siblings? Wtf...

Similar reasoning as above. Cheetor and Blackarachnia were fairly close in the Technorganic War, especially in the first half of the series. In fact it was BM that made me look at Cheetor as more than just a kid. I like that he stood up for her (even to Silverbolt), not expecting anything in return. Again, I wanted to explore their relationship more, but I didn't want anyone thinking that it was interfering with the established canon (ie Blackarachnia/Silverbolt). One of the reasons I <i>didn't</i> like Cheetor in Beast Wars was because he messed with my ship. In hind sight, this decision may or may not have served its purpose since everyone (characters and readers) know there's no real blood/mech-fluid relation between them ^^;

10. OMGWTF is up with that ending?! Is Optimus crazy releasing Megatron?!

You'll see...