I was showing Nebula around the base while Optimus, Ratchet, and Bee were out of base doing something. Arcee and Bulkhead were manning the ground bridge. I hear the ground bridge open and see the three coming through and in Optimus' hand, something I did not want to see. The spark extractor.

Bee excitedly told his tale to Arcee and Bulkhead while Ratchet told Optimus why we detected it in the first place. A lot of explaining happened and I kinda zone out. I only zone back in when Ratchet starts speaking.

"Clearly, the beacon was added as a safety measure should the weapons ever be found by the undesired party", Ratchet says. Bulkhead thanks Bee and I laugh at it. However, Arcee remains solemn.

"Do you think this is the only information you supplied to Megatron?", she asks.

Optimus, being solemn as well, responds with, "Arcee, you are right to ask and I am afraid I..." he pauses and I place my hand on his lower arm. As that's the best place I could reach to be comforting since I'm so short. Taller than Arcee, but shorter than Ratchet. He looks down at me and continues. "...do not remember..."

I keep my hand his arm for a few more seconds before removing it. Ratchet then spoke, trying to comfort him. "Optimus. Megatron clearly took advantage of your amnesia, but for all we know, this spark extractor could be the extent of it. Have you stopped to consider that he might have suggested otherwise, merely to plague your thoughts?"

Optimus doesn't respond but I hope he takes Ratchet's words into consideration.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Me and Bumblebee are driving in a canyon at dusk when we pick up a signal. Bumblebee buzzes something into the com and Bulkhead responds. "Yeah, I just picked up the same signal. Could be another homing beacon. Let's rendezvous at the coordinates."

Me and Bee speed up and head deeper into the canyon, transforming once we're out of sight of the road. Bee sees a device and before I can warn him, it's too late. He runs toward it and is distracted by it for a little while, until we hear a buzzing sound. I look towards the sound and there's four men there, and they shoot at me and Bumblebee, the electricity knocking us out. Before I pass out, though, I hear a name. 'Silas'.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wake up a few minutes later and find a helicopter flying away. I hear a car driving up and Bulkhead transforms. "Bee, Aura", he shouts. "Who did this? Cons?"

Bee doesn't know and currently my brain is a little slow so I can't remember anything of the past 5 minutes.

"Only one way to find out. Come on!", Bulk yells and runs off, before transforming and starting to drive away. Bee and I try to follow but... when we try to transform, we can't. I look at Bee in surprise and try again but can't. I can feel my fear creeping up on me and I look at Bee who has the same feeling held in his optics.

"What's happening?", I whisper. Bulkhead was still driving but he slammed to a halt when me and Bee stopped running. He drives back, and transforms.

"We rolling or not?",  Bulk asks angrily. Bee answers and Bulkhead is confused.

"What do you mean, you can't?", Bulkhead asks. Bee only looks at him with sadness in his eyes. Sadness and fear so I speak up.

"He means he can't transform. I can't either! Something happened to our T-cogs!!", I yell, my fear making me lash out. I huddle in on myself, not happy about not being able to transform. I don't rely on my wheels as much as Bee does but I hate it when I can't transform... I shudder softly and close my eyes. We get a bridge back to base instead of driving back and I don't look up at anyone as we come in.

Soon, Ratchet is scanning Bumblebee and as he's doing so Raf comes up and asks the one question I hoped would not be asked.

"You can fix Bee, can't you?", he asks. I was leaning against the wall but now I slide down. I could see Arcee, Optimus, and Ratchet giving me worried glances but they left me alone for the most part.

"Bumblebee was hit pretty hard. The stun blast may have fried his t-cog", Ratchet says. Miko then asks the stupidest question. I groan and hit my head against the wall softly.

Ratchet looks at me while Arcee explains to the humans what t-cog is. Ratchet goes back to his scan of Bumblebee to find that it wasn't damaged... It was missing!!  I raise my head and stand up.

"Does that mean mine is missing too?", I ask softly. Ratchet has me lay down and then he scans me. As he's scanning me, he looks into my eyes. I wasn't surprised by the emotions I saw in his eyes. Worry, hope, scared. There was one more emotion but I couldn't place it. He goes back to his scan and sighs in relief.

"Aura's is thankfully just damaged from the stun blast. I don't know if I'll be able to repair it but I will try. Just let me know when", Ratchet says. I nod and stand up. Bee is looking at the ground sadly and I sigh.

"I don't want mine repaired until we get Bee's back", I say and Bee looks up at me, grateful that I would do that for him. That is, until Optimus cuts in.

"Aura, while your spark is in the right place, we need all the warriors we have able to fight. Ratchet can repair yours and I will need you out there to help us.

"Optimus, with all due respect, I was gone for half of the fighting. You did just fine without me. Besides, you have Nebula now. She knows how to fight and I can help Ratchet here while we work on getting Bee's t-cog back. Please, let me decide when. For Bee", my voice drops down to a whisper so only Optimus can hear. "He needs someone who he can relate to, someone to talk to. I may not use my wheels as much as he uses his but I hate the feeling of not being able to go out and drive. Please, let me do this. For him."

Optimus considered my words. "You know that by doing this, you will have to remain in base?"

"I know. But I'm willing to do it to help a teammate. You've always taught me help anyone in any way that I can. That is what I'm doing", I say. Everyone is staring at me and I chuckle nervously. "Besides, I can always help out Ratchet."

"And by that, she means annoying me", Ratchet mutters but there's a playful twinkle in his eyes.

"Hey!", I exclaim, putting my hand over my spark in mock hurt. "I would never annoy you! Never!"

Arcee is watching the whole thing and she's silently laughing while the others are watching on slightly confused. I glance at the team and start laughing. Ratchet and Optimus smile as they watch me grin happily. We all go off to do our own thing, AKA the humans playing video games, Bulk and Bee talking, and me, Nebula, and Arcee talking. Ratchet and Optimus were also talking but I didn't bother try figuring out what they were talking about.

I was watching Ratchet from a distance as Arcee was busy teasing me about him. I blush and glare at her only to look back and Ratchet and notice him blushing. I tilt my head to the side and Arcee notices and follows my gaze.

"I wonder why he's blushing", Arcee says.

"Me too...", I trail off, blushing again.

*Ratchet's POV*

Aura had just gone over toward Arcee when Optimus came over to me.

"So... what's going on between you and my daughter?", he asks.

I was confused.  "What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know for certain, but it sure seems like you've developed feelings for her", Optimus teased. This was the Optimus that not many people knew. He only teased me because we've been friends for so long.

"Feelings? What are these feelings you are talking about?", I ask sarcastically to hide the fact that I was nervous about him getting close to finding out my secret. I glance over at Aura only to find her looking at me. I start blushing and try to hide but Optimus notices. He had also seen me glance over at her. He smiles and rests his hand on my shoulder.

"I hope things work out in your favor", he says. I blush even more and go back my work, grumbling about how annoying Optimus was. I was very surprised when Aura came over to me.

"Hey, Doc. Need any help?", she says, using that infernal nickname.

I glare at her playfully. "My name isn't Doc." Before I could continue, she interrupted.

"No, it's not. Your name is Ratchet. But you're also a doctor so your nickname is Doc. I could call you Grumpy though...", she trails off. I was confused but apparently Miko overheard and she was dying of laughter.

"Are you sure he's not Happy? Or Sneezy?", Miko exclaims through her laughter. Aura starts laughing too and now I'm really confused.

"What are you guys talking about?", I exclaim, growing confused every minute.

"Woah, there Grumpy, we're just making references", Aura says, laughing.

I roll my optics and get back to work.

"Ratchet, do you need any help?", Aura asks as she finally manages to contain her laughter.

"Actually, yes I could. I'm trying to figure out who would take Bumblebee's t-cog", I say. Aura goes quiet for a minute and when I look at her, she looks like shes thinking. I wait for her to speak because I know she would.

"I couldn't remember this before, but now that I'm actually thinking about it, I can remember hearing a name or something. I think his name was Silas or something like that...", she says.

I groan and call everyone together. "We believe that Bee's t-cog has been taken by the ones who we know to be obsessed with our biology."

"The ones who cannibilized Breakdown", Bulkhead says.

"And tried to gut me", Arcee adds.

"MECH", I say solemnly. "And it would appear that their knowledge of cybertronian biotech has grown more sophisticated."

*Aura's POV*

I was confused. Who's MECH? I have never heard of them... Wait, cannibilized Breakdown. Is that why he has an eye patch. He never did tell me that story.

"Who's MECH?", I pipe up. Optimus glances at me and I could tell that he was saying that he would tell me later. Everyone else caught that glance too so no one else spoke up about them.

Raf spoke, obviously hurt that his friend is missing a vital part of his body.

"But why would they want Bumblebee's part?", he had asked.

Bee buzzes something and started to walk away but Optimus stopped him. "Bumblebee, please. You are not presently equipped to handle this."

Bumblebee buzzes something again and Optimus speaks.

"You are mistaken, my friend. I do know what it's like to lose a vital part of one's self", he says. "And as a result, I know the value of putting one's faith in the strength of those around you. We vow to do everything in our power to make you whole again."

Miko then spoke up and I wanted to face palm.

"And if not, Ratchet can just make you a new cog thing, right?"

Okay, so maybe I did face palm. Bee groaned and sat down on the berth, his head in his hands. "What'd I say?", Miko asks.

Ratchet then explains to her that t-cog is not a scrap-yard find. (He still does a lot of explaining... more explaining than Optimus...) He also started talking about Bee's voicebox. I look at Bee sadly. I wish I could understand him. He buzzes something angrily and then sadly. I sigh. "Bee you are not useless!", Raf exclaims. I look at him in surprise. Bee thinks he's useless? No... not on my watch. Bee buzzes sadly and that's when I gave in. I gave Bee a hug who seemed definitely surprised by my contact.

"I'm really sorry, Bee...", I whisper. He tenses up at my words before relaxing and putting his arms around me. The rest of the team was having a conversation but me and Bee weren't paying attention.

"Bee, I promise to do everything in my power to make you better. I will try to understand what you're going through even though I can't fully understand since my t-cog is just damaged and not missing...", I whisper.

Bee pulls away and I could tell he was grateful. ":Thank you, Aura:"

"You're welcome, Bee. You're like a little brother to me", I whisper before I realize something. "Bee... did that really just happen?"

":What?:", he asks. I grin.

"Bee!! I can understand you!!", I exclaim.

Bee looks surprised before a joyous look came into his optics.

":You can?!:", he asks.

"Yeah!" I grin and he hugs me before quickly pulling away.

":Wait. I'm like a brother to you?:", Bee asks.

"Yeah...", I look away. He hugs me and buzzes something happily.

":Well, you're like a sister to me!!:", Bee says. I grin and hug him back.

"Well, there's a lot of hugging going on over here", Arcee says. She had wandered away from the rest of the team back over to here.

"I can understand Bee!!", I exclaim. Arcee looks surprised.

"You can?", she asks.

I nod before standing up. Bee stands up as well. "Well, there's something happy in this dark time for Bee", Arcee says. Bee looks down and I put my hand on his shoulder, not noticing the jealous looks I was getting from Nebula or the jealous looks Ratchet was giving Bee.