From now on, "Talking" is English while "Talking" is Cybertronian.

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Chapter 10: Found

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"This is the location, Prime." Ironhide pulled to a stop, followed shortly by Optimus Prime and Ratchet. They transformed into their bi-pedal forms and their optics scanned the area, searching for the source of the signal.

The signal had popped up after an earthquake last Earth night cycle. Red Alert had rushed to the Prime, who'd been working at the time, to inform him of the signal, having completely forgotten about his comm.

(Ratchet had promptly sent the paranoid mech off to recharge after that.)

It was agreed that seeing as the signal was from an escape pod, then someone must be inside. Ratchet, worrying that someone inside might be suffering from injury had insisted to accompany them. Ironhide was the final Autobot chosen to accompany the pair to the signal.

Which was how they got here.

It seemed the pod was buried until some rocks—it left Ratchet frowning because that meant it had to have been there for a long time. It had him antsy with worry. They worked, shooting at the rock to uncover the pod, Ratchet felt relieved the tiniest bit when he saw that it was a stasis pod, likelihood of the bot inside surviving was guaranteed unless something went wrong with the systems, but if it sent out a signal to be discovered, then it should still be in good condition.

Ratchet knelt before the pod once they pulled it from its hiding spot. He fiddled with the wires underneath a panel to open the pod. The door opened with a hiss, revealing a dark inside and Ratchet peered inside to first see a large red blanket. He squinted his optics, only for them to widened as he saw who—or what exactly was inside the pod.

He glanced over at Optimus in shock, unable to produce a sound.

"Ratchet?" Optimus questioned, worry forming on his faceplate.

"Sparkling." He answered after several attempts to just say the word.

Ironhide's knees nearly gave out under his weight. "A—a sparkling?!"

Ratchet turned back to the sparkling, reaching inside the pod and tugged the neatly tucked blanket away in order to unstrap her. At the back of his processor, the red blanket made a twang in his memory bank, but he pushed that off for now, his main concern was the femmeling. He used the blanket to wrap the sparkling up again as he lifted her from the pod.

A soft orange glow of her optics flickered to life as he'd started unstrapping her. A yawn followed, and then a blink; she was hardly even online, looking like she could easily drop off back into recharge any moment.

Ratchet set her against his chassis, and she snuggled closer. The medic then turned to the silent and eagerly waiting duo behind him, allowing them to see the sparkling.

"Primus." Optimus murmured, look closer at the sparkling curiously. He then turned his attention to their surroundings. "It would be best we return to base; it would be unsafe for the femmeling if the Decepticons had also picked the signal up and are headed here."

Ironhide grunted, his disbelief still visible on his faceplate, even as he'd managed to get a hold of himself.

The femmeling against Ratchet's chassis frowned in confusion, she chirped as she pushed her helm up. She glanced around, she… she didn't recognise where she was. Her helm hurt, and she knew she should know what had happened but for the life of her she couldn't.

She squirmed in Ratchet's hold suddenly as a feeling inside her chest burst to life, it reached for her with an overwhelming number of emotions. It was followed by others, it left her disorientated and she blinked, cheeping at the feeling then shook her helm but grimaced.

A servo reached up to the bump. Ratchet hummed, seeing the action. He ran a digit along her neck struts.

The feeling tugged and she squirmed and searched the area for the strange feeling. She reached hesitantly for the feeling in return. It curled around her and she purred.

The purr paused the Autobots' walking.

"Bond?" Ironhide questioned, tense.

Ratchet vented and nodded. "They seem to be reaching for her, they must be on…" Horrified realization flickered onto all three faceplates. "Planet."

"Let us hurry." Optimus ordered and they transformed, headed for base.

Resonate chirped in confusion and squirmed in the seat, not understanding why the feeling suddenly lurched, taking on an angry tone but despite the anger, she knew it wasn't meant for her. She tilted her helm and tried to recall what had happened last, her helm really hurt when she tried to do that. So she settled with rubbing the spot and not doing so.

Whoever it was that was reaching for her could come to her if they wanted her. She would tell them, but she didn't know where she was. The ground seemed weird—she'd never seen such colours before, she knew that at least.

o-o-o-o-o

Ratchet didn't stop once they'd arrived at base, instead headed straight for his med-bay—he'd leave the explanation to the Prime. The sparkling had curled up in her blanket to recharge not too long after they'd set off for the return journey, it helped tell Ratchet that she likely didn't have any serious issues, but the dent in her helm was a bit worry. She was visibly confused when she'd awoken—that was normal for any bot coming out of stasis (especially after who knows how long) but she seemed confused at the feeling of her bond which left Ratchet thinking she'd suffered from amnesia.

Whether it was temporary or not he wasn't sure, he hoped it wasn't, for everyone's sake.

He transformed once he arrived and set the sparkling on the berth and got to work with scans. The deeper scan of her helm showed no lasting damage thankfully, so it seemed it was likely stasis amnesia that was affecting her.

Ratchet patched her helm and began working on converting energon into some low-grade for when she woke up.

Arcee came rushing into the med-bay a joor later, optics wide in disbelief. "Is it true?"

Ratchet nodded his helm toward the recharging femmeling. Arcee approached and cooed down her, she brushed a digit along her helm.

Not a moment later, Optimus, Prowl, and Jazz came walking inside. At their feet was Lennox and Epps.

Arcee looked up from her cooing at their arrival, she looked slightly sheepish to which Jazz grinned at her for before peering down at the sparkling. "Primus."

"She's tiny." Epps commented after he and Lennox had been set onto the berth by Prowl.

"That is typical of sparklings." Prowl answered. "How old is she, Ratchet?"

"Twelve stellar-cycles at best."

Arcee keened softly in horror. There was a look of horror on all their faceplates in fact.

"Stellar-cycles?" Lennox questioned. "What would that be in human terms?"

"A single stellar-cycle is approximately seven earthen months, but our years are varsity different from yours. She's… sparklings are classed as such for one hundred stellar-cycles, but we have days which are ninety-three hours long; an orbital-cycle, a month, which is twenty-four solar-cycles. We have fifty-four solar-cycles in a year. But if we went by your years, she's roughly sixish but our cycle of life doesn't correlate well to yours, Will." Ratchet explained. "So, it's difficult, siz is a roundup, but I am possibly wrong."

"So, she's really young?" Epps added.

"That is correct." Prowl nodded.

"Hundred stellar-cycles, and she'd only twelve of them—" Will grimaced, looking pale.

"How is she?" Optimus turned his attention to Ratchet.

"I believe she has stasis amnesia; it should resolve itself soon. Typically, within a solar-cycle or two." Ratchet answered.

"And parentage?"

"I haven't started that process yet. But." His optics turned back to the sparkling, like he already— "I have a theory of who she might be."

"Well, let's hear it then." Jazz piped up from his stop beside Arcee, the two had been quiet cooing over the little one.

Ratchet met Optimus's optics instead of answering Jazz. "Do you recognise her?"

Optimus turned to the femmeling, something in his memory bank seemed to wiggle but he couldn't tell what exactly was causing it. He shook his head. "The femmeling seems familiar however."

Ratchet vented heavily and then pulled the red blanket from his subspace. "What about this?"

Optimus reached for and immediately spotted the name scribbled onto the label. "Ah." But then, his spark flared with hope. "Resonate?"

Ratchet nodded.

Arcee's helm snapped up at the name. "Resonate?!" She demanded; optics wide. "You think—!"

Her optics burned as silence filled the room, she gripped the edge of the berth to support herself.

"Resonate?" Lennox questioned softly when he noticed how Arcee was crying—like someone who'd just rediscovered a long-time dear friend.

"Resonate was the designation of the sparkling of an Autobot femme named Influx." Jazz stated; voice tight. His optics turned to Optimus; the Prime stared down at Resonate with sorrow. "Influx was offlined during an attack on a base back on Cybertron. Resonate had gone missing after, we believe her sister, Hexen, had run off with her."

"Then where's this Hexen now?" Epps questioned.

"She was confirmed deceased three stellar-cycles afterwards." Prowl pursed his lips. "We had no idea what happened to Resonate."

"Right, then who's the father?" Lennox asked.

Silence.

"You guys think she's been with him?" Arcee pipped up quietly, voice quivering at the idea.

"Yes." Optimus nodded. It surprised the others at the surety of his answer.

"You sound sure." Prowl frowned.

Optimus dipped his chin. "Call it a gut instinctive, Prowl. Plus, Soundwave might be a fearsome mech, but he does care about his cassettes, and he cared about Influx, and I have no doubt that he loves Resonate also."

"Wait, wait, wait." Epps interrupted. "You think her dad's Soundwave?"

"I do not think so, Epps, I know her creator is Soundwave." Optimus affirmed. "I knew Influx since we were sparkling ourselves, Megatron and I introduced Soundwave to Influx long before the war, where they bonded. I was also there for Resonate's birth."

The humans looked up at him in surprise. Lennox eyed Resonate for a moment before commenting. "I can see the similarities."

Arcee tittered softly but her attention, as well as everyone else's, was drawn to Resonate as she stirred. Orange optics flickered on and a yawn escaped as she reached up, pushing her visor up to rub her optics. Her servos lowered as she blinked, confusion formed as she was met with unfamiliar faces.

"Huh?" She sat up and glanced around curiously. "Where?"

"You are on a planet designated Earth, little one." Arcee answered. Resonate peered up at Arcee, optics seemingly searching for something, but she frowned instead. Her attention quickly scanning the entire room, where was her creator? However, she was distracted by the tiny strange creatures. She shuddered her optics in confusion.

"What they?"

"They are humans, the dominant species that resides on this planet." Prowl answered.

Resonate pushed herself onto her feet, revealing she was ahead or so shorter than both. "Why they so small?"

Arcee and Jazz laughed.

"What is she saying?" Epps asked.

"She's questioning why you are so small." Arcee said; Epps snickered.

"Is she not able to understand us then?" Lennox questioned. "You guys managed to learn our language easily."

"She's far too young." Ratchet explained, waving a servo. "She'll be able to learn your language naturally like you would another on earth. Her systems are not yet able to handle such a module that allows instant knowledge of another language yet."

"So, we get to teach her English?" Epps grinned.

Jazz nodded, a grin of his own on his faceplate. "She'll likely pick it up quickly because of her CNA."

"That's like DNA, right? Like she's inherited abilities from her parents?"

"That is correct." Ratchet nodded.

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It was a joor later, once Resonate had drunk her energon that she finally asked Ratchet and Arcee where Soundwave was. "Where creator?"

Ratchet paused at his desk, Arcee clucked her datapad to her chassis.

There had been talk about… about contacting the 'Cons. No doubt they'd launch an attack once they realise that it was the Autobots who had Resonate. But it was questioned on how Resonate was treated and if they should return her. However, Resonate showed no injuries that could have been given through abuse of any sort—accidents sure, but nothing serious.

Ratchet and Arcee had seen her tanks, scarring from not having the right grade was easy to spot but the healing was complete, and she hadn't had any non-low-grade in a long time from the looks of the scars.

Optimus knew their answer already; they couldn't willing keep Resonate here. She would suffer from bond withdraw in time (how long they couldn't be sure as she'd been in stasis a long time) and it would be painful for her.

Being far from their creator or carrier wasn't meant to be anytime long term—nothing more than several solar-cycles at minimum. The bonds were there to help sparklings and younglings grow and mature.

It was unethical.

They would fight to return Resonate back to Soundwave even if it meant others would lose their trust in them—they were a doctor and nurse, it was part of their programming to heal and make sure nothing harms their patients and keeping Resonate here? It would cause severe harm to her then do good.

They only hoped others came to their senses also.

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When they awoke on this planet three years ago, it was a jarring change. But immediately the family unit was hit with the harsh realisation that Resonate was who knows where.

She was alive—they would feel it. She was still within the stasis pod and had been sleeping as long as they had been—and still was. But they had no idea where she could possibly be, Soundwave couldn't track a muted bond of someone in stasis.

So, they searched—all the Decepticons worked to try and locate the pod when they could but they got nowhere and after three years on this organic world, they were beginning to lose some hope of ever finding her.

Then the earthquake hit and just like that, the pod's signal came online.

It was a miracle by Primus himself.

Soundwave with the assistance of Thundercracker and Megatron, headed for the locations as soon as they'd picked up the signal but once they arrived, to the pod unburied and already open, they knew the Autobots had beat them to her.

Soundwave let out a harsh vent of air in controlled fury. His cassettes also expressed their anger and annoyance via their bonds. Ravage was released and he sniffled at the interior to catch her scene. His ears perked up as he did.

~I've got it~

"Follow it then." Megatron ordered, seeing Ravage's reaction. "No doubt she'd within the Autobots base. It would give us a reason to attack them."

Ravage nodded. ~You wish for me to sneak in, Soundwave?~

~Affirmative, locate Resonate if possibly but remain hidden~

"Autobots wouldn't willing to keep her with them if they know she'd got a bond with you, right?" Thundercrack questioned, arms crossing as a frown made itself know on his faceplate.

It was Megatron who answered, tilting his head. "I don't believe Optimus would, nor his medic. But the others would likely try to keep her there, no doubt."

Soundwave vented quietly. "Autobots: likely to contact us in regard to Resonate."

His insides were boiling with anger, he wanted to punch something, break something, but he reframed from doing such, it would get him nowhere closer to Resonate. He had to only be a bit more patient. She'd be back with them soon. Whether the Autobots agreed or not.

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Yes, NEST will be a thing in this story, and they'll have a big part in this in regards to helping Resonate adjust.