Sara hobbled in the direction of the yellow glint on the horizon, with Annabelle holding her hand. Very soon the glint became a yellow Camaro with unusually designed tires. The girls' hearts lifted as they recognized Bumblebee's flashy alt-form and redoubled their efforts to be seen. Sara waved her arms wildly and Annabelle copied the movement. The Camaro seemed to speed up across the open valley, tearing up grass and dirt. True to his high speed reputation, Bumblebee soon came to a halt a safe distance from the two females.

Will barely let the Camaro transformer stop before he threw open the door and charged for his wife and daughter. In a furious instant he had his arms wrapped around each one of them, relieved emotion melting his usually calm, collected demeanor. Just as the human family reunited a bright flash blinded them from a distance away. Bumblebee quickly pulled around to block them from the light. A mighty gust of dust and hot wind swept over them followed by a muffled BOOM!. Bumblebee transformed fully, curling his arms and torso around the humans to protect them just in case. Soon the light died and the young Autobot turned around, scanning.

A low moan of shock escaped his vocalizer. Ironhide didn't...did he?

Though Bumblebee desperately wanted to go and investigate, Prime's previous orders resurfaced in his memory core: find the Lennox females and get them all to safety. Besides, it appeared Sara's leg was injured and would require a human doctor's attention. The young scout backed off and transformed, throwing open his doors.

The humans were staring blankly in the direction the blast came from, eyes bulging.

"What was that?" Will managed to croak. He'd never seen an explosion like that in his entire military career.

"Please, Captain. My orders are to get you and your family to safety." Bumblebee stated gently, but with urgency.

Sara shook her head dumbly, "But...what was that explosion? Where's Ironhide?"

Bumblebee inched closer to them. He knew he couldn't tell them what he was thinking; Ironhide had activated a plasma bomb. Any Autobot daring enough to even carry one of those and actually use it would've been Ironhide. A pulse of dread shook his spark. He didn't want to think...

Urgently, the Camaro flicked its doors, "Optimus and Ratchet are going to help him. Now, please get in."

Will reacted first and pulled his wife up into a cradle carry while nudging Annabelle inside the car. When all were strapped in, Bumblebee sped off searching the internet for a map that would lead him to a human hospital.

....

When the dust finally settled and the burning light died, both the semi and the rescue Hummer sat in silence for several moments. It was a plasma bomb explosion, no question. Plasma bombs were a very dangerous Cybertronian weapon specifically designed to take out multiple enemies and structures in a predetermined radius. However, unlike Earth's nuclear bombs, there were no devastating after-effects such as radiation. But, it made their destruction no less deadly. Mostly, they were a weapon of last resort. Neither of them knew Ironhide had been carrying one.

Without wasting anymore time, Ratchet and Optimus plowed on to find Ironhide...or perhaps what was left of him. It didn't take them long to find the outer rim of the blast radius; trees leaning way over their bark bleached almost white from the intensity of the plasma light. Since Ratchet's alt mode was better equipped for traversing the rough terrain and he was the medic on a mission, he led the way while Optimus circled around to scout for any Decepticons.

Ratchet plowed through the charred remains of the trees, unhindered by the heat that radiated from the ground.

"Ironhide! Ironhide! Can you hear me?" he shouted, calling on all communication frequencies he could think of.

No response.

Ironhide was either in stasis or he was offline. The medic swept the area with his sensors until he picked up the faint signal of Ironhide. Ratchet sped up, ramping over rocks and uneven ground as fast as he could.

Finally, he transformed when he found the source of the signal. Covered in charred dust and debris was the right half of a Topkick with a mangled arm and leg splayed out on the left side. It looked as if Ironhide had tried to transform in order to protect his more vital systems from the explosion, but the severely damaged state of his left arm and leg hindered him from completing the transformation. Every panel was bent and dented, some of it torn and ragged. His "windows" were blown out and his two formed tires were melted to the ground.

"Oh...Hide. What have you done to yourself?" the medic moaned.

Ratchet immediately shoved his emotions down, allowing his medical programming to dominate. He knelt down and scanned the twisted, broken form, accessing the weapons specialist's internal diagnostic. The list of injuries was extensive, but his Spark was still intact. Ratchet blew relieved air from his vents, even though there wasn't much to be relieved about. There were at least three main Energon lines with ruptures and leaks and a small fissure had formed on Ironhide's spark casing; those were the most critical injuries that could and would extinguish his Spark if not treated immediately.

"Ratchet to Optimus, I found him." the medic announced.

"Condition?" Optimus's normally stoic voice betrayed a deep-seated dread.

"Critical. He's in stasis and losing Energon. I can give him a field patch, but we have to get him back to base before he drains out."

Optimus knew this was Ratchet's expertise so he asked, "What do you need me to do, Ratchet?"

"I need you to go find a trailer to hook up to your alt form so we can transport him back to the base. Preferably something contained." Ratchet stated, beginning his search for Ironhide's leaking Energon lines.

The Autobot leader ran a quick Internet check and much to his relief an ad revealed a semi-trailer park and rental not too far down the main highway. By remote he hacked into the rental system, selecting a trailer with the specs they required and fed the system a fake, but effective credit card digit. Even though he was against tampering with human technology and commerce, the desperate situation seemed to supersede the transgression. Optimus transformed into his robot mode, knowing he could run the distance much faster cross-country than he could manage in his semi form.

....

A few miles away...

Barricade's vision came online again as he resurfaced from his stasis. He could feel his legs and arms again, lifting them and flexing them experimentally. A hissing moan escaped his vocalizer as a fresh dose of pain hit his receptors.

"Oh... slag that Autobot to the Pit."

It was then he felt someone shut one of his chest panels and his optics focused and became filled with a red visor and blue grey metal.

"Soundwave?"

The mech seemed to scan the fallen police Con, "Motor control restored. Systems stabilized."

A sudden dread filled Barricade. Why would Soundwave fix him? Decepticons who weren't designated medics didn't usually take it upon themselves to fix other fallen Cons. It was much more common for fallen Decepticons to be field stripped of their weapons and armor so the living could use them in later battles. Soundwave could've easily disassembled him and taken his flails or even some of his mainframe components. Why didn't he? Unless...

"All right, Soundwave. What do you want?" Barricade demanded, slowly rising to his feet.

The communications specialist was silent, as he usually was. His chest compartment flicked open; he reached in, and pulled out Rumble's body which appeared to be damaged.

"You have Class 1 experience in Drone Repair because of former partner Frenzy." he stated.

Barricade knew where this was going, "So, you fixed me so I could help you fix your drones? I thought you could do that yourself."

The harmonic voice replied, "Your skills and scouting abilities are highly useful. Conclusion: You are more valuable online than offline."

For a moment, Barricade wasn't sure what to make of the statement. Was it Soundwave's cold logic or a hidden compliment?

"Fine." After a few moments he glanced around, "So, what happened while I was off?"

"Starscream's plans inferior." Soundwave stated, handing Rumble's tiny body over to Barricade.

Barricade laughed corrosively, "What else is new?"

....

Over on the other side of the West mountains...

Thundercracker dove head-long from the sky and gracefully landed near Skywarp's signal.

"Warp? Hey, Warp! You online or what?" he boomed, scanning the area.

At once he saw bits of black and purple armor littering the ground accompanied by smoldering vegetation and torn up dirt. A faint groan signaled Warp's presence. Thundercracker shoved the trees out of his way until he found Skywarp partially transformed in the ground with a broken left wing and a severely damaged right.

Turning his comrade over, the blue Con noticed the ice encrusted in the dark Seeker's crumpled chest.

"Hang on, Warp."

Thundercracker shifted his afterburners around to the front of his torso and ignited them. The heat quickly burned off the offending ice and a few minutes, Skywarp began to reanimate.

"TC? That you?" he groaned, optics flickering to stay on.

"Yeah," Thundercracker shifted his wingman's body so he was leaning against a pile of granite, "Geez, Warp. You look like slag from the bottom of the smelter."

Skywarp managed a dented smirk, "And I still look better than you, ya ugly fragger."

"Yeah in your hard drive fantasies."

The damaged Seeker winced, pain shooting into his body from his broken wings. His red optics darted to each wing and a horrified look crossed his metal face.

"Oh...OH! My wings! OH SLAG IT!" Skywarp panicked. "I can't fly with these wings! What am I going to do? I CAN'T be a ground-crawler!"

Thundercracker smacked his wingman across the head, "Get a hold of yourself, Warp! We can fix 'em."

"How? You're no medic!"

"Not by programming, but I know how to repair busted wings. You remember that skirmish on the Western Hemisphere of Cybertron?" Thundercracker made a motion with his hand.

Skywarp's optics widened with remembrance, "Oh, yeah! We fragged those Aerial Bots back to the base they came from."

"I also got my wing blown off with no medic in sight. But I fixed it." he flexed the wing, "You see anything wrong with it?"

The black and purple jet shook his head, "All right. But where are we going to get materials? These Earth alloys are too soft."

Thundercracker waved a hand, "Well I can use some of your wing parts...once I find all of them. But we can scrap some human jet. Your nanobots will form new metal over that in a few cycles and it'll be good as new."

Though nonplussed about being flightless, Skywarp nodded, "Be a lot easier if we had the All Spark." He growled, "I'm going to offline that Autobot! He's going to pay for doing this to me!"

The blue jet Con smirked, "After that aft kicking you still want more?"

"He took me by surprise. He won't do it again." Skywarp swore to himself. "And those puny little humans too!"

Thundercracker grimaced, "Naw, Warp. They're not worth it. Besides, once you're sky-worthy again I was thinking we should leave this mud-ball."

"Huh? What about Screamer?" Skywarp asked.

"Frag him. He ain't Megatron and besides I'm tired of following his orders, aren't you?" Thundercracker sat down.

Skywarp shrugged, "Yeah I guess so. Won't we be Decepticons anymore? Cause I like being a Con, TC."

"Who says following Starscream made us Decepticons? We can STILL be Decepticons, just not Starscream's Decepticons." the blue jet waved his arm dramatically.

"Yeah...yeah! I like that. We'd be Rebel Cons." Skywarp's red optics lit up brighter.

Thundercracker nodded, pleased Skywarp was taking defection well, so he spread the icing on the cake, "Besides, once we leave here we could go anywhere we want and maybe finds some femmes along the way."

At that Skywarp leaned forward but fell back from the pain, "Slag, yeah! OW! Scrap a jet! Let's fix my wings."

....

Some hours later back at the Autobot base...

After a field patch up, Ironhide was whisked off to the Autobot base to begin his "surgery". Together, Optimus and Ratchet placed his damaged body on the medical table. Splaying open his crumpled armor plating, Ratchet set to work repairing the severe Energon leaks. His metal fingers flew, shifting and transforming into new soldering and medical tools as he needed them. Ironhide's body was a mess, slathered in Energon, black scorch marks, loose wires, and twisted plating. He barely looked like an Autobot; more like a Topkick that hit a brick wall going full-speed.

Ratchet cursed him under his vocalizer, "Oh, Ironhide you bolt brain. Why'd you do it? Why did you go alone and unarmed?"

Optimus stood nearby, watching Ratchet work, "Is he going to make it, Ratchet?"

The medic made a face, "I've stopped the Energon leaks but I need him in his normal mode to repair the damage to his Spark casing."

"Are you suggesting a forced transformation?" Optimus asked, voice betraying shock. A forced transformation, especially on an injured Cybertronian, was extremely painful. To humans it would be like re-breaking a bone so it could be set, but without anesthetic.

"It's the only way to fix him. If he doesn't transform, his Spark casing could rupture and we'd lose him. I just can't get to it in this state." Ratchet explained.

"What can I do?"

Ratchet grimaced, retracting a device with a prong and a sparking node on the end, "Hold him down."

Preparing himself, Optimus positioned his hands where Ironhide's shoulders and chest would appear, "Ready."

The greenish yellow medic inserted the sparking device into a special cluster of sensory nodes, ones that triggered transformation. A horrible shrieking moan erupted from Ironhide's vocalizer and soon morphed into a low groaning bellow as his damaged body slowly transformed into his bipedal form. His good arm and leg thrashed as he struggled to get away from the intense pain. Optimus put his full weight on the weapons specialist but still found it difficult to keep him down.

"Easy, soldier! Easy. You're almost there." Ratchet tried to sooth, keeping an eye on the transformation.

The pained screams continued until finally the transformation ended and Ratchet injected a pain receptor inhibitor into Ironhide's Energon line. The black mech slowly withered with relief as he went into stasis again. Ironhide looked even worse in his robot mode. His plating was bowing outward at awkward angles, some of his armor was torn into ragged, sharp edges, and his arm and leg were bashed into twisted lumps of metal.

Ratchet knew this was going to be a long road of repairs. He just hoped he could save Ironhide.

....

The next day...

Sara's tibia had fractured and her ribs and shoulders were severely bruised but she was alright, resting in the hotel bed. After the trip to the emergency room and getting a cast on Sara's leg they decided to simply rent a room so the two girls could rest. Annabelle had fallen asleep in her daddy's lap, utterly exhausted from the ordeal. Will stared at his family. The only time he'd felt relief this prevalent was when he reunited with them two years ago after his tour of duty. To have them safely in his arms again was the greatest relief a husband or father could experience. But, he still worried about his family guardian.

Will glanced out the window, hearing a hiss of brakes. Outside in the parking lot sat the distinct blue and red flamed semi. Will knew Optimus was here to speak with him, why else would the Autobot leader come?

Gently, he lifted up Annabelle and replaced her in the comfy reclining chair next to Sara's bed. She nuzzled into the chair, too tired to be disturbed by the move.

When Will finally made it outside to the parking lot, Optimus obligingly opened his cab door to allow the man inside. Climbing up, Will settled into the expansive seat.

"How is your family, Captain?" Optimus's mighty voice asked.

The man bobbed his head, "Very tired, but all right. Sara broke her tibia and is bruised up, but she'll be just fine."

"They are very lucky. I am pleased they came through this alive." the voice replied.

"What about Ironhide? Did you find him? Is he all right?" Will asked with worry.

There was a brief silence but the semi answered, "He is still online, but in stasis. Ratchet fixed his more critical wounds last night." Optimus paused a moment, "His frame damage, however, is extensive and will take a few of your Earth months before he is healed properly enough to be your guardian again."

Will leaned back in the comfy seat, overwhelmed. He knew Ironhide's loyalty to his family was unshakable, but to hear how much damage he took just to keep his girls alive...it was almost too much to believe.

"What about the Decepticons?"

"We didn't find anything and we still are unable to track them. I suspect they've developed some kind of technology to cloak their energy signatures." the Autobot leader replied.

Will bit his lip a moment, sighing, "So, are we still in danger?"

"It is possible. But until Ironhide comes out of stasis and reports what went on I cannot say for certain." the semi seemed to shift a moment, "But, until Ironhide is repaired and fully operational, I will serve as your temporary guardian. If it is permissible to you?"

The man snorted dubiously, "You will? Really?"

"Yes."

Shaking his head and throwing up a hand he said, "Sure. Thank you, Optimus."

"I will be here until you are ready to depart." Optimus offered, opening his door to let the Captain out.