Chapter One: The End

As my vision cleared I forgot for a moment what had been going on, but the cloud of dust and debris didn't hide the blood covering my shirt and didn't stop the dark liquid from reminding me that not all of it was mine. The smell of energon and copper filled the air and in my daze I found myself amazed that the smell of blood (both transformer and human) overwhelmed the stench of scorched metal and cement. My mind struggled to piece together scattered events for what seemed like an eternity in that single moment. A falling body part brought everything back to the foreground of my mind. Not human, robot, which was just as bad to me...

"ARCEE!" I shouted in despair and concern, but then realized the arm was black and not blue. It wasn't my partner's.

"Jack!" a dark blue motorcycle with light pink highlights rolled over to me weakly from the dust still floating in the air, she sounded relieved, "Thank the Allspark you're okay! When I saw you on the ground covered in blood..." her voice choked ever so slightly, the pain of the very thought of my death was clear in the way she spoke, "... Airachnid standing over you with that look of satisfaction... I... thought you were dead!"

I had a foggy recollection of hearing Arcee crying out in rage and sadness, and an explosion, but what exactly had happened right after I fell was a mystery, "What happened?"

"She won't be coming after us again, Jack."

The weight of the day was starting to sink in now that we weren't fighting for our lives anymore, "Neither will MECH... probably."

"How bad are you hurt? That seems like a lot of blood to have outside of your body." She was trying to keep things light, which I was thankful for.

I leaned on her chassis, groaning a little from what was probably a broken rib, my expression falling, "Not all of it's mine..." I still couldn't get the image of Silas' last moments out of my head... Even to this day, even though I'm past the trauma of the event, I still can't get it out of my head.

Arcee shook suddenly, I recognized the motion from the handful of times she'd transformed to her robot mode while I was riding her. I could tell she understood what had happened while we were separated... why I was so jarred... even though I couldn't see her face and she didn't say anything. She was transforming so she could comfort me, probably carry me out since I was in no shape to ride. Strangely though, she didn't leave her vehicle form no matter how much she shook.

"Dammit!"

"What's wrong? Are you too injured to transform?"

"No..." Arcee's voice had the same tone as humans got when they gritting their teeth in frustration, "I burned out my TRE."

"TRE? You broke something?"

"No." she probably would have shaken her head in time with that if she'd had one at the time, "TRE is the energy reserve used to transform. I used it all up against Airachnid. Ratchet will give me an earful for this... Optimus too probably, but that's not important right now." Arcee repositioned herself so I could rest on her as she worked on opening a com-link to the base, "Ratchet, do you read? I need an emergency landbridge and the medlabs ready... both of them. I also need priority four clean-up. I'm in no shape to manage it myself."

I could overhear the response on my own link device, the autobot medic tried to seem calm, but there was clear concern in his voice, "I'm locking onto your coordinates now. Where have you been? We've been trying to contact you for over a day. Scans were useless until moments ago. It was like you dropped off the face of the Earth!"

Arcee paused, a note of surprise and a note of pride in her voice when a reply managed to form, "Yeah, we were being jammed, but I guess my partner has a real talent for blowing things up."

Ratchet seemed displeased at the mention of explosions, "So are you it seems. I assume you need someone to carry him out for you? I detected a Transformation-Reserved Energon pulse, which means you can't transform."

"I... I didn't have any other choice."

A landbridge opened as Ratchet continued, and he rolled through in his vehicle form, Optimus and Bumblebee beside him, both with weapons ready in case of danger, "You're lucky you didn't get the two of you killed. Frankly I'm surprised you were about to focus a blast without blowing your whole chassis apart."

"I...," Arcee started to say something, but stopped. I got the feeling she'd been about to say something she didn't want me hearing, "I got lucky... it was a moment of spontaneous brilliance."

I stood up, forcing myself to shrug off the pain, "I don't know what you guys are talking about, but you're more hurt than you're letting on, aren't you?"

"So are you." She replied flatly.

Bee loaded me gently into Ratchet's ambulance form and I complied, even though I was still pressing the issue, "I'll live, but will you?"

She couldn't nod, so Arcee 'nodded' her rear-view mirrors, "Some parts might fall off, and out, when I can stand again, but I've been hurt worse." she turned away slightly, "Not much worse if you're making me be honest, but I have gotten over worse."

Ratchet sighed, "Hopefully this time we won't have to reformat you into a smaller model."

My guardian laughed a pained laugh, "I can't afford to lose any more wheels... or meters."

I joined in on the weak attempt at lightening the situation, mainly to make Arcee worry less, "You better fix her properly Ratchet, I'm not riding a unicycle to school, motorized or not."

"Hey, you're lucky. At least there's an Uno motorcycle out there that looks cool. I'm the one that would have to put up with being short and losing half my horsepower."

Optimus placed a comforting hand on Arcee's frame and brought the topic back to the important stuff as gently as possible, using a somewhat fatherly tone, "Are you able to roll out?"

"Yes, Optimus. I'm still road-worthy." I could tell she was trying to act tough, but I also knew it was best to humor her this once.

So did Optimus, "Very well. Bumblebee and I will ensure no Cybertronian technology leaves the site. You should get right to the medbay."

Arcee didn't even try to argue about seeing to my wounds first, like she normally would... that had me more worried than anything so far. "Right. One decepticon, and at least one armory of 'con-based weaponry. There's also a factory."

"I blew half of that up." I chimed in, "The servers mostly. I think they might have sent the schematics to another site though." pulling out a flash drive, I held it aloft with a smile, "But I did get Raf and Ratchet a souvenir."

Optimus nodded, his voice thankful, "Excellent. Perhaps we can track the transmission, and use the schematics and salvage to even the odds against our enemies. All of them..."

"Your seeing far too much action, Jack." I sighed, "You're getting good at this."

I shrugged, and it hurt.

Ratchet slammed the doors on his vehicle form, "Enough talk. We need to get them treated as soon as possible. My scans don't detect any internal bleeding, but some might occur if he continues to aggravate his injuries."

"Right. Make sure you stabilize him first." Arcee insisted.

There we go... that made me feel a lot better. She was still putting me first after all. I didn't like it, but her not doing it had been alarming.

Some time later I woke up on a small bed in the makeshift medical bay of the autobot base. I heard Arcee's voice (much to my relief, and it sounded like she was mostly all better, "This is getting too dangerous Optimus. Jack nearly died today. I mean, Airachnid is dead, and that takes out a major threat to him, but the kids keep getting more and more involved in our war. I don't want to see him trading fisticuffs with Megatron!"

Bulkhead chuckled, "From what I hear, Jackie-boy would probably win!"

Arcee snapped back, "This isn't funny, Bulkhead! Jack is a seventeen year old boy... and he killed somebody for the first time today. Problem is that the way things look it might very well be the first and not last! No kid should have to take another person's life. Involving them in our problems isn't right and they keep getting involved!"

I hopped out of bed (probably more forcefully than was healthy for me) and cut off Optimus as he was about to agree with her, "I had to get involved this time. MECH had you partially dissected, Arcee, and it was my fault that they were able to get you to begin with. If I hadn't blown up Airachnid's collection-"

She looked over to me and I noticed quickly that she was plugged into a generator of some kind, probably recharging, "She was a demon from my past. You only blew up her ship because I got you involved back then."

"There is no I! Aren't we partners?" I shouted, "You're problems are my problems, just like you make my problems yours."

"I'm a two story tall robot outfitted for war, you're a human under six feet tall with almost no training whatsoever. Some of my problems are mine alone. I thought you understood that! I thought you were okay with that."

Optimus and Bulkhead looked at the two of us arguing, then to each other. Reading the mood they inched away to give us some space. Well, given their size it was more like yarding, but that's beside the point.

"What am I supposed to do? Am I just supposed to sit around and try to not look squishy? I can't just sit back and ignore the direction my life is heading!"

"This isn't your fight!"

"This is all I have! You're all I have! I don't have any direction in life aside from the same direction as you! I have no idea what to do but what I keep doing."

Arcee's head slumped, and her anger went away as I brought up a point I had once confided in her. For a long time I had felt like I was meant for something different than my mundane life, but I had known for just as long that there was very little I could actually do. Worse was that if the war against the 'cons ended I had no goals after that. Being with Arcee, helping Arcee, was all I had. Though I hadn't said it in those exact words until that very argument. I could tell Arcee wasn't sure how to reply, having not come up with any answers since the first time I'd brought the problem up.

"I'm sorry, Jack... it's my fault you have these problems, I shouldn't have asked you to come back. If I hadn't been so selfish back then you'd be living normally, safely."

"Still directionless, and bored to boot. I'd have come back in a few days anyway. I told you that." My anger had gone away as well, "I'll be more careful. I promise. Don't break up what we've got going."

"I just don't want to lose anyone else..."

"Neither do I. Do you think I went all secret agent against a terrorist group, blew up a factory, and battled a madman to the death on a collapsing catwalk because I was bored this morning?"

My partner laughed despite herself, "That's was actually pretty bad-ass I have to admit. Please don't make it habit though."

"Of course I won't. Are you nuts?" I laughed, "I was just picking up the slack for you. Don't you make a habit of needing it."

Arcee rolled her eyes, "Watch it, hot-shot."

Almost on cue, an alarm went off. Not the "OMG DECEPTICONS ENDING THE WORLD!" kind, but the still important but less apocalyptic "Get the heck over here and look at the sensors!" kind. It was a bit sad that I could tell the difference. Neither of us were in the condition to run over (though in Arcee's case it was mostly because she was plugged into a device that was bigger than her), but we could see the massive screens from where we were sitting as Ratchet manned the console.

"I'm picking up an autobot transmission from what looks like a transport ship. The vessel doesn't have a signature though."

Optimus looked at the monitor with resolve, "Any indication of who it might be?"

"The access code is out-of-date, but that's not too strange. Thing is, the encryption is indicative of Cybertronian Elite Guard."

Miko popped up from her place on the rec-room couch next to Bulkhead, "You guys have an Elite Guard? Awesome!"

"Can't be fake." Arcee noted, "'Cons can't duplicate that encryption style as far as I know. Even Soundwave doesn't have the skill."

Raf looked over the console's display, "Wow... I'd have to agree. I've went against Soundwave's hacking first hand and did decently enough, but that encryption is way beyond me. Looks like a triple-layer intertwining encryption, each with an oscillating sequence cipher."

I looked to Arcee, "Translation?"

"Basically you have to decrypt the thing three thousand times all at once in a split second. Just managing to seal it that tight takes some crazy skills."

Raf, not surprisingly, thought of the solution almost right away. Which would have stunned Ratchet in the old days, "I'll look for a loose transmission bounced from another direction. A code that complex on a communication probably has a key code sent along with it." He scratched his head after several moments, "Nothing... wait. I'll check the back log... Bingo. Whoever this is, he's a careful one. He sent the code during that solar flare three days ago."

Ratchet frowned in annoyance, "I thought that was just static... this 'bot is good."

Arcee nodded, "Standard spec ops procedure. We can probably trust this guy."

Optimus was cautious regardless, "Connect on a double secured band. We wouldn't want to waste all his hard work."

Ratchet pressed some buttons and the message came through, "This is the Excellion calling Optimus Prime. I repeat, this is the Excellion calling Optimus Prime."

Arcee shot to her feet in surprise, a happy expression on her face, "Speak of the devil."

Ratchet turned to her with a confused expression, "Excuse me? The devil? Isn't that an Earth religious figure that is supposed to be the incarnation of evil? Should we be worried?"

I explained, "No, that's just an Earth saying used when you run into someone right when you are talking about them. Not sure why Arcee used it. We weren't talking about anyone..."

"This is the Excellion, I hope you are just taking a little too long to decrypt this, because mild lack of hacking skill is vastly preferred as opposed to you being dead."

Ratchet's expression shifted, "Wait... I think I recognize that voice."

Optimus hit the button to respond, "This is Optimus Prime, we read you. Welcome to Earth, Hot Rod."

Arcee smiled at the sound of the name, "I can't believe it. Is that really you, Hot-Shot?

"I'd recognize that nickname anywhere." The 'bot on the line replied, "Glad you're alive, C.C.!"

"C.C.?" I looked to my partner, perplexed.

She ignored me completely, not looking away from the monitor or saying anything in explanation. Soon though, I would find out that this 'Hot Rod' would not only make things more complicated for me than they already were but for all the Autobots. Which hardly seemed possible at the time.

Next Chapter: In the Middle

Author's Note: Handy bit of trivia: Transformers Prime is supposedly set in the same continuity as the "War for Cybertron" game in which Hot Rod was credited as "Hot Shot" due to copyright tomfoolery but has ever since been called "Rodimus" by the game's makers (which is the name the original Hot Rod took after taking over the role of leader from Optimus). Thus "Hot Rod" being nicknamed "Hot-Shot" by Arcee is a reference to that. You might also note his ship is named after a toy that was a version of a different character named Hot Shot that was a re-paint made as a salute to Hot Rod. REFERENCES ABOUND! This Hot Rod is the same character as in War for Cybertron, but fleshed out with a mix of his original (G1) incarnation, his "Rodimus Prime" incarnation from Transformers Animated, and some original elements. And yes, somehow (despite this being a fanfic) he is still voiced by Judd Nelson, because Judd Nelson can do that.

Thanks for reading and please review! If you are one of my long time fans that were hoping for a Yugioh related upload, don't worry, there's one coming soon.