Lost and Found

Writer's Note: I liked this story up until the third scene, where it all got a bit mushy. I'd change it, probably, to give Pearl a more interesting past. The story would focus on Depth Charge, a character I've only ever written once, in detail and who I'd like to write again. I may finish this fic - I'm still deciding.

Rattrap hated the sensation of grit in his metal. It was difficult to get out once in the nooks and crannies of his outer panels and it took days before every last grain had gone. This thought crossed his mind as he ploughed his hands into the sand and dug furiously.

"I'm gonna HAVE ta take a bath later," he thought irritably.

"Keep digging! We're almost there!"

Rattrap grunted and looked across the sand hole he and his team mates had dug to give Optimus a glare. The huge Maximals had hands as big as Rattrap himself! With big scoops Optimus disposed of more of the sand covering the wrecked spacecraft they were digging around.

They were on the beach. He, Optimus and Cheetor has been in the vicinity when Rhinox had alerted them of a ship coming down on this beach. They had rushed here, only to find that the ship had crashed head first into the sand, only a few meters from the incoming tide. As Rattrap worked, he felt a wave lap up the beach and lick at the side of his leg. "I'm gonna rust out here!" he grumbled.

The ship was streamlined but basic. It obviously was a one-pilot ship and a personal carrier. Its front half was buried in the sand but its back half was still steaming, sputtering out little flames now and then. It made Rattrap nervous.

"Why are we always so unlucky that every ship that comes our way either tries to destroy us or crashes?" Cheetor groaned.

Rattrap grunted at the cat's observation. It had only been a fortnight since Depth Charge's starhopper had been obliterated by Rampage. And that had happened not long after Ravage's ship had been destroyed, too. Rattrap smirked as he remembered HE was the one that took it out, but he wasn't upset about it. It had to be done.

"I've found the front!" Optimus declared. The others moved over to him and helped him dig out the last of the front of the ship. The tinted glass of the cockpit window gleamed at them in the light. The sun was starting to set and their shadows stretched out far behind them as they stood back, allowing Optimus to do his thing. The huge, powerful transformer put his hands beneath the nose of the ship, and lifted it. Rattrap and Cheetor went to the right side and heaved. The ship slid out and away from the hole. Optimus placed its nose down once more.

"No response yet. The pilot might be unconscious. Rattrap, it's your turn now," Optimus said.

Rattrap nodded and clenched his hand. His wrist compartment opened and he took out a small energon cutter. He started work on the cockpit glass door along the edges. After a few tense moments, the seal broke and the door hissed and opened upwards.

They backed away a little to make room for the new bot. All were cautious as none of them were sure as to what might be in there.

The orange-glow of the sunset hit the pilot's limp body. She had already obtained a beast mode of a local creature - a seagull, it would appear - and was in robot mode. Her face was soft and pearl in colour. The rest of her metal parts was a mix of soft pinks and beiges, as well as silver on her arms and legs. White feathers lined her face and covered her shoulder plates, shins and elbows while her wings were mounted on her back. Her beast mode head was on her stomach. Her face had delicate features and while her frame bared some resemblance to Airazor, her facial features were quite different. She was obviously tall and had long legs. A black Maximal insignia was displayed proudly on her upper torso.

"She's gotta be alive if her body activated a transformation sequence," Cheetor stated.

Optimus nodded softly and approached her. He touched her shoulder gently and received no reaction. He undid her seatbelt and picked her up and took her out of her ship.

He turned to the others. "Well, all we can do for her now is get her back to base for repairs. Her shell's taken some bad shock. She'll be out for a while. As for the ship, well... We could use some parts from it, but we'll need to get Rhinox out here to check it out. I want you two to remain on guard here. I'll be back with Rhinox once I'm sure our new friend is safe."

With that, he transformed to flight mode and flew off with the Maximal femme in his arms.

Rattrap turned to Cheetor. "I wonder who she is? Can't be a rescuer, cuz dey always send out teams. She didn't seem ta have any weapons either."

Cheetor shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe her ship will hold some answers. Can we take a look inside?"

Rattrap nodded. "So long as we don't touch anythin', I'm sure it's okay."

The two of them tentatively entered the ship, curious as to what they might find beyond its cockpit.

Silverbolt looked up from the monitors to the blast doors as they opened. Optimus was carrying a limp Maximal femmebot. He had alerted them of this on his way to the Ark. Rhinox had already prepped the CR chamber and gotten his tools together for his trip to her downed ship.

Optimus arrived at the control room and placed her on the center table before transforming to robot mode and landing with a thud. Silverbolt immediately stood up and hurried over to the table.

"Get her in an R chamber and then take to the guard post outside with Blackarachnia. With the base being so undermanned, I don't want any Predacons snooping around outside."

"What about Depth Charge? Can he not help?" Silverbolt asked as he scooped the femme into his arms and headed for the CR chamber.

Optimus sighed. "I can't get hold of him. Either he's beyond comm. range, or he's ignoring my calls. I'm inclined to believe the latter."

Silverbolt nodded with a grim expression. Both knew that Depth Charge was a bot who was focussed on one thing and one thing only. All other duties came second to it.

He placed the femme in the chamber just as Rhinox came to the control room. "I've got all my equipment. Let's go," the Maximal scientist said. Optimus took to flight mode once more, allowed a rather uncomfortable looking Rhinox onto his back, and flew out.

Silverbolt closed the chamber door, gazing at the femme curiously. "Where did you come from?" he murmured. Her face seemed to hold a constant expression of some vague pain. It was if she having a continuous nightmare.

With a soft sigh, he turned away from her and joined Blackarachnia outside for guard duty.

A half hour later, and it was dusk. The sun had set and nothing but a faint, dull brown glow on the horizon was left of it. Depth Charge came in to land outside the Ark's blast doors. He transformed and hit the ground feet first, buckling at his knees only slightly by the impact. He glanced around. The air was was still with only a few crickets chirping in the silence. It was a lovely evening. Calm, warm and peaceful...only...there was something amiss in the quiet that surrounded him. Silverbolt broke the stillness with a cry of greeting.

"Hello, Depth Charge! I think I should inform you that---"

Depth Charge pushed inside the Ark before the fuzor could finish his sentence. Silverbolt's mere presence irritated him, and he wasn't in the mood to listen to him now.

The Ark's monitors were devoid of activity and there was no one to be seen inside. The lights were dim and the computers silent. In fact the only faint hum of a machine was coming from the CR chamber. He could tell from the red flickering lights on its side that someone must be in there. He'd received a message from Primal stating that he, Rattrap, Rhinox and Cheetor were working on salvaging parts from a crashed ship...which meant that the bot inside had to be the pilot.

For once, curiosity got the better of him and his mind drifted from his failed pursuit of Rampage the past few days to who the new bot might be. He walked over to the chamber and was just about to peek trough the glass when the lights changed from red to green, and the door opened. He froze and waited for the bot to emerge. A few moments later, he heard a soft groan. A white female transformer stepped out into the gloom. She had the beast mode of a gull - an animal he knew well from the many hours he spent on or near the beach.

She sensed his presence almost immediately and turned to face him, soft pink optics glowing in the dark. Depth Charge was surprised to find how tall she was. Her head was the height of his chest.

"Who...who are you?" she murmured, a thoughtful frown creasing her delicate face.

Depth Charge felt something prickle at the back of his mind when he heard her voice. Some vague sense of deja vu.

"Depth Charge."

Her frown softened a little and then her eyes widened. "Depth Charge? As in the guardian of Trisac?"

Depth Charge nearly took a step back at the question. Trisac was his first post - a colony not far from Omicron. He'd worked there looking after the headquarters of the Maximal Intelligence Agency for three stellar cycles before he was promoted and sent to Omicron. Just about no one knew about Trisac, save perhaps Primal.

"Yes," he replied cautiously. "Do I know you?"

The femmebot smiled slightly and tilted her head to one side. "Maybe you don't remember me, but I do remember you. I'm Pearl. I used to work as the secretary on the same floor. You were the chief's second-in-command of security in the building before you left one day...a promotion, I later found out."

Depth Charge felt uneasy hearing about his past. He'd been so focussed on Rampage and the events of Omicron for so long, his life before that had started to fade into the recesses of his mind. He could just vaguely remember Pearl, though. A constant presence at the entrance of the building. He remembered she'd always greeted him warmly every morning.

"Yeah, I remember you. Primus, that was years ago..."

She looked at him searchingly. "What are you doing here? In fact, where IS here?"

Depth Charge crossed his arms and raised an optic ridge. "You're on prehistoric Earth, in the volcano that holds the Ark itself. There are two factions at war here. Optimus Primal's exploration team of Maximals defend this position from Megatron, who leads a band of renegade Predacons. As for me? I crash-landed here searching for Protoform X."

An expression of pain flitted across Pearl's face momentarily before she nodded and looked away. Depth Charge had noticed the look though, and once again curiosity got the better of him.

"You...know, of Protofrom X?"

She looked up at him, the pained expression back on her face. "I'm not supposed to, but I do, yes. My father worked on Omicron when that...that monster broke out and killed him and everyone else. It was very hush-hush, but I found out through a string of contacts about what Protoform X was. I heard that all but one bot was destroyed on Omicron."

Depth Charge remained still, and Pearl could see he too had a pained expression...he seemed to have drifted a little as if in a reverie. Then it dawned upon her.

"Primus! You were him! You were the survivor, weren't you?" she gasped.

Depth Charge frowned, eyes focussed on the ground. He battled with himself for a second or two, before facing her again, looking angry.

"Yeah, it was me. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to recharge my weapons..."

He pushed past her brusquely and she stared after him. She watched him head off into the shadows until he was almost out of earshot. Suddenly, she called out to him.

"Depth Charge, wait!"

He stiffened and stopped, but did not turn around.

Pearl realized she didn't have the right words ready to say to him, but she attempted anyway. "I remember you. I remember you as the proud, confident guardian of Trisac. I remember you were no-nonsense, determined and focussed. But I also remember you were kind. You respected those above you in rank, and were polite to me. But you're different now. I can see it written all over you. The determination and focus is there, but you've gone cold. Why?"

Depth Charge's posture slumped a little. There was a long pause. "I lost everything that day on Omicron. X took it all away from me. My partner, my friends, my dignity. Now my focus is getting justice. X is here, alive...and I'm here solely to change that."

With that, he continued into the gloom and out of sight. Pearl could tell it had taken a lot for him to admit that to her. He was harder on the exterior, but she could see the pain beneath it all. It saddened her. She had always admired him from a distance when she was on Trisac. She even liked him. But he was a changed bot now...

He'd lost his passion for life.

Silverbolt had arrived on the scene shortly after and had explained their situation in further detail to Pearl. He'd then contacted Optimus and let him know she was awake and functional. Optimus had spoken to her via communications link and she had told him all she knew about her ship. There was nothing of importance on it, and her transwarp cell had been extinguished in the crash. The ship was irreparable so they salvaged parts from it and left it for the sea to take away.

When Silverbolt asked her what she was doing here, she was reluctant to answer. Instead, she put it off, saying she'd explain once Optimus and the rest of the team were assembled for a meeting.

Silverbolt gave her a chair to sit on and resumed guard duty outside, leaving Pearl to her thoughts.

She had saved up for years for her ship. She had no real reason to have it, but she liked the notion of being able to travel endlessly into space if she ever wanted to. A stellar cycle after Depth Charge left Trisac, she had found the love of her life. He was, ironically, Depth Charge's replacement. They'd settled down and built a life together. Pearl had suffered depression on and off in her lifetime, but Kaltoh had made her feel whole, content. That was until he'd wanted children. It wasn't that she didn't want a child. It was rare for Transformers to have kids, seeing as they lived so long, but occasionally a couple would decide to produce one of their own. They'd tried, but it turned out she had a weak spark. The doctors said that was also a possible reason for her bouts of depression because her energy levels were always lower than normal. It had torn her up inside that she couldn't give Kaltoh what he wanted... After the death of her father, she sank even lower into depression until she was unreachable. Kaltoh never left her, but he did become exasperated with her in the end. The problem lay within her. Her own sense of failure, her own emptiness of self. It was around that time that she finally had enough money for her ship. Kaltoh hadn't any clue she'd been saving up for it at all. The day she got it, she left Cybertron. She had to - she was dying there.

She still wasn't sure how she managed to get through the anomaly that sent her here. She had been in such a state, that she didn't listen to any warnings her ship might have been giving her. Now she was here, in a war in the past. A highly unlikely possibility, but one that had occurred nonetheless.

And, so was Depth Charge. She found that too improbable to be co-incidence.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard he blast doors opening. A moment later, several transformers came into the room. One was positively huge. He introduced himself as the captain, Optimus Primal. Rhinox was the team's scientist and technician. He seemed a gentle personality, smart and level-headed. Rattrap was a small bot with a big attitude. She could tell that immediately by his first comment. "Good ta see you're alive an' flappin', babe." She'd taken the remark with good-humour, because it was meant as such. Cheetor was young and friendly, curious but polite with his questions. Blackarachnia was the other femme in the team. An ex-Predacon, as the insignia indicated on her torso. She was cool and not very talkative, but she wasn't unpleasant. Silverbolt was plain nice. An honest, well-mannered bot.

Optimus was informed of Depth Charge's presence in the base by Silverbolt. He opened a comm. channel to him and demanded he report to the meeting. He cut the connection before Depth Charge could reply, perhaps to indicate that he meant business.