Disclaimer - I don't own them.

Groove had been very quiet, Perceptor thought, sitting by himself down at the shore's edge while the other four worked on building a rock fort with Grapple. Though any dangers on this planet were minimal, the Protectobots were still very new. Perceptor had learned to never underestimate the hazardous predicaments new-sparks could generate, even in the midst of nothing but rock and water and gusting wind. His frame type had its advantages, however; it was no great difficulty to keep one of his lesser optical units trained on the solitary sparkling while still observing the other four.

"Is Groove distressed by something?" he asked Hot Spot. It was unusual to see one of the five so greatly separated; at this stage of development they were they were rarely out of arm's reach from one another for very long. Perceptor didn't remember overhearing any disagreements, but with the gestalt bond much of the communication between the five was inaudible. Maybe there had been an argument.

Hot Spot cocked his helm as if he didn't quite get the question. "No," he said slowly. "I don't think so, anyway. He's just figuring out what he thinks about rocks."

"Hm." Perceptor nodded, trying to puzzle that out. "He couldn't accomplish that here?"

"Hot Spot and Blades want to throw the rocks and make them into new things," Streetwise chimed in, wedging a nicely angled boulder into the wall he was working on. Grapple made an approving noise. "First Aid wants to make sure they're happy, and I want to know more about how they got here, all of their stories, like you were showing us, but Groove didn't have any rocks in his processor except for ours. So he went down there to find his own rocks, what he thinks of them, all by himself."

First Aid's section of the wall hadn't made nearly as much progress as the others, since the youngster spent a great deal of time patting and murmuring softly to each rock before he placed it. "He's still with us, even down there," First Aid added, looking up at Perceptor for a moment, "only we're not so loud this way."

"Ah. Indeed." Perceptor smiled, surmising that First Aid meant "loud" in terms of the gestalt bond, as the building of the rock fort was being accomplished with remarkably little discussion. Wheeljack would be pleased. Separating on their own initiative, even to this small extent – it was a big step for a gestalt, although he thought that Blades was not quite so sanguine about the situation as the others. The helo kept pausing in his work to gaze down the hill towards his brother, a hint of a worried frown on his faceplates.

Perceptor increased his magnification, zooming in curiously to see what Groove was up to down there. Playing with pebbles, it looked like…

"Oh dear." Perceptor turned around quickly, heading down the slope to the shore. "Groove!" he called, waving an arm. The sparkling didn't hear him over the wind, picking up another tiny rock and examining it closely. Perceptor arrived just as Groove was preparing to tuck it away.

"Groove, pause a klik. Might I see what you have there?"

"Hullo, Perceptor," Groove said, smiling as he looked up at the somewhat hard-venting microscope and handed over the pebble. "Sure thing."

"A marvelous specimen," Perceptor told him. "And do you, perchance, have more of these?"

"Yeah! Lots!" Groove said, his optics glowing with enthusiasm. He irised open the panel to one of the data ports in his arm. "Huh," he said, poking it with a finger digit. "It's stuck in there."

oooooOOOOOooooo

"What on Cybertron possessed you to fill your data ports with rocks?" Grapple marveled, a bit later, as Perceptor patiently fished out yet another pebble without damaging any of the delicate wiring. The other four Protectobots watched the procedure with great interest.

Groove shrugged one shoulder slightly. "They looked like they'd fit," he said, and then giggled, his toe components squirming a little as Perceptor fished a bit deeper but still managing to hold remarkably still for a half-orn sparkling with someone probing about in his data ports. First Aid held his brother's hand and leaned in closer to see what Perceptor was doing.

"Henceforth, my dear young mechanism, only data goes in data ports," Perceptor told him, and then made a small noise of triumph as he removed the last pebble. "There we go! Now, anywhere else?"

Groove solemnly pointed along both of his sides, his thigh plating, his shoulder components, and several places on his back and neck.

"All of them! My goodness, Groove, how did you even…" Groove blinked up at him innocently. "Nevermind," Perceptor sighed. "Roll over, youngling."

"Do you think he needs surgery?" First Aid asked hopefully.

Grapple stopped laughing long enough to say "I'll go get us some fuel, looks like we'll need it," and headed back up the trail.

oooooOOOOOooooo

"Did your ruminations on the morphology of small rocks yield any reward? Other than the coincidence of their diameters to that of your data ports?" Perceptor asked, quite a bit later, although things were going faster now that First Aid was helping. Perceptor hadn't been sure about that at first, but the youngster had very steady hands. Groove and First Aid gave him identical head tilts and expressions of concentration as they processed the question.

"They're pretty," Groove said, after a long moment of thinking it over. "I like how they're all different, and how they feel in my hand. They don't…they don't really need us, though, do they."

"The rocks? No, I suppose not. Rocks will carry on, being rocks, whether we are here or not."

First Aid looked down at the handful of pebbles in his hand, almost sadly. Hot Spot moved a little closer, from where he had been finishing his cube of energon that Grapple had brought, and put an arm around him. "That's a good thing?" he said doubtfully. "That the rocks don't need us. But…"

The five Protectobots were all exchanging glances, expressions shifting subtly in a way Perceptor recognized as indicating a high level of gestalt bond communication.

"There must be something else," Blades said, looking down in his own mostly empty cube of energon and shaking it a little, as if it contained an answer.

"There is more out there, isn't there." Streetwise did not ask it as a question; his optics were bright with eager certainty.

"Perceptor." Something in Hot Spot's voice made Perceptor suspend his current pebble extraction and give the young gestalt leader his full attention. "Why are we here?"

Perceptor looked over at Grapple, who waved his open palms, looking mildly alarmed. "All yours, Perce."

"Thank you, Grapple." The note of sarcasm, Perceptor was sure, went quite over the Protectobots' helms. He looked at the five pairs of optics, watching him intently, and gathered his thoughts, setting things in simple terms as this was not the time to exceed their verbal comprehension.

"We need your help." They blinked and straightened at that, optics brightening. "Wheeljack will tell you more, and soon, but for now just know that on our home of Cybertron, there are many things broken, many beings in pain. You were built to help mend and repair. To protect."

"We are the Protectobots," Blades said, in wondering realization.

Perceptor smiled. "Yes."

Hot Spot was standing, his hands clenched into impatient fists. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

"Not so fast, youngling," Perceptor said, laughing. "You've got a long way to go, many vorns before you will be ready. For the present you need to concentrate on learning, on the skills and knowledge we will teach you, so you can best be of help."

Hot Spot sat back down reluctantly. "Learn." The Protectobots were fairly thrumming, their engines running together in a swift high harmony. "We can do that."

"Of that I have no doubt," Perceptor told them.