Cybertron Girls

by SonicSpeedster97

Bedside

For as long as the girls had known, the medical bay on the Ark had usually been fairly quiet – a few dents, the occasional small bullet or blaster wound, things like that. Never had they seen anything as serious as when Smokescreen was brought in after the battle outside town; his midsection had been blown open, fuses and valves were broken, and his Energon was leaking everywhere.

Lifeline was terrified – of course, she was – but still, she helped Ratchet and Fluttershy in doing all they could to help him. The rest of the crew was nervous as well, not least of which were Smokescreen’s brothers. When Ratchet and Fluttershy emerged from the medical bay, Bluestreak was the first to welcome them. “How’s he doin’, Doc?”

“Not great.” Ratchet shrugged. “We’ve managed to stop the leaks and get his body replated, but he’s lost a lot of Energon and the internal damage is too intensive to repair by hand. We’ve put him in the CR Chamber for healing, but with our limited reserves of Energon, it may take too long.”

“You’ve done all you can, old friend,” Optimus assured. “Now the rest is up to Smokescreen.”

“Where’s Lifeline?” asked Arcee.

“She wanted to stay with him while he rests.” Fluttershy nodded. And sure enough, there near the CR Chamber was Lifeline, a hopeful and worried look on her face.

“Will she be okay?” asked Twilight.

“She just needs some time,” Cliffjumper assured. “Let’s see what work we can do in the meantime.”

Suddenly an alert came through on the computer. “Optimus, Dr. Fujiyama is calling; audio channels only.”

“Dr. Fujiyama? What does he want?” asked Twilight.

“There is only one way to find out. Teletraan, patch him through.” Optimus ordered as the communication channel opened. “Dr. Fujiyama, I was not expecting to hear from you so soon.”

“Nor was I expecting to contact you so soon, Mr. Pax.” the doctor assured. “Though it seems I am in need of your assistance again; my robot has escaped.”

This certainly raised some eyebrows among the crew. “Define ‘escaped’,” asked Optimus.

“I’m sending you security footage from the loading bay where we left her.” The footage was soon put up on the main screen, showing the robot formerly known as Nightbird punching her way out of the titanium containment pod she was sealed in before she stood up and punched out the security camera, which cut the footage out. “The next thing anyone knew, the wall was destroyed and the robot was gone.”

“Understood, Doctor.” Optimus nodded. “I will dispatch a team to aid in the investigation.” With that, the connection was terminated as Optimus turned to the others.

“Okay, does someone wanna explain to me how that thing can move around on its own when we wiped what the ‘Cons did to it?” asked Rainbow.

“Must be a contingency program Bombshell installed.” Twilight theorized. “If Nightbird was captured, it probably ordered her to escape and find a way to join the Decepticons.”

“And there is no telling what sensitive data may have been hidden on her internal drives,” Perceptor added.

“Then we’d better go find her,” Rainbow noted.

“Agreed.” Optimus nodded. “Rainbow Dash; you, Prowl, and Cliffjumper will mobilize to investigate the scene and do what you can.”

“In the meantime, maybe the rest of us can find a way to shore up our Energon reserves.” Twilight suggested. “Loot a few Decepticon mines, set up our own, something like that.”

“It’s certainly worth a shot.” Drift shrugged. “I know a few regions the Constructicons suspected of being rich in Energon. Maybe we should check one of them out; see if they were right.”

“Sounds good to me.” Twilight smiled as she and the other girls all shifted to their bot-modes.

They were just about to leave until Bumblebee looked back at the console, seeing his human partner looking a bit concerned. “You wanna come with, Sunset?”

“I’ll stay here. I have a feeling Lifeline’s gonna need someone to talk to.” Sunset nodded.

“I think Arcee and I will stay too; keep an eye on her and Smokescreen,” Bluestreak added.

“Very well, Bluestreak.” Optimus nodded as the Autobots quickly transformed and mobilized, Rainbow’s team disappearing through the GroundBridge to New York.

It was only a short drive to Madison Square Garden, where they indeed found a large portion of the wall from the loading bay broken away from the inside. Rainbow was actually sufficiently impressed as she jumped out of Cliffjumper. “Man, three days since we caught her, and she does this sort of damage. Crazy,” she noted.

“I’m afraid that’s putting it nicely.” It was Dr. Fujiyama, inside examining the rest of the destruction, including several components of the nearby computer banks destroyed and missing. “I built that machine with the most advanced weapons I could get my hands on.”

“Well, it certainly looks like she put them to good use,” Prowl remarked, his avatar examining the damage for itself. “Our science team has determined that her escape was due to an implanted subprogram, ordering her to join back up with the terrorists that stole her.”

“She should be pretty easy to find; a giant robot doesn’t exactly run through downtown New York without someone seeing it.” Rainbow brought up.

“I think you’re forgetting something, Dash; this robot is a ninja.” Cliffjumper reminded. “For all we know, she could’ve gotten out of town without anyone seeing her.”

“Well, if she was trying to leave town, the best direction to go would’ve been north, up the Hudson River,” Prowl noted. “Let’s check out that way first.”

“Fine by me.” Rainbow nodded as they moved back to the cars. “We’ll let ya know what we find, Doc.” With that, they loaded up and drove up north, hopeful for some good luck.

---

At base, Sunset, Arcee, and Bluestreak were still watching over Lifeline and Smokescreen. “I’ve gotta ask; how did those two meet anyway?” Sunset asked seriously.

“How do ya think? On the battlefield.” Bluestreak shrugged. “It was at the Battle of Protihex. Our battalion was sent to commandeer arms and Energon, and liberate prisoners from a Decepticon outpost. Lifeline was one of the prisoners, and believe me; she earned her keep. We blew the cells and then literally five nano-kliks later, Megatron’s general Obsidian had us surrounded. Smokescreen tried to hold them back with his mag-smoke, but some punk got in a lucky shot so Hoist and I had to drag him to safety. It wasn’t until we made it back to Iacon that we managed to get Smokey the medical attention he needed. Lifeline was in charge of his treatment, and it sorta… spiraled from there.”

Arcee smirked. “Was that before or after Hoist found them making out on Smoke’s medical slab?”

Sunset chuckled. “Yeah, I figured it was something like that.”

“Personally, I think there’s something greater behind it.” Bluestreak shrugged. “But I’d rather not let Lifeline hear it.”

“Good call. Cmon, over here.” Arcee indicated over to the other end of the control panel, which the two Autobots quickly moved to.

Sunset was just confused as she followed them. “Wait, what’re you talking about?”

Bluestreak glanced around the corridor to make sure no one else was around to hear before he kneeled down to Sunset’s level. “Smokescreen told me and Prowl this in confidence, but he received special orders from Optimus when he was assigned to his post; to get close to the other Autobots and give Prime a sort of ‘on-the-ground' perspective for what we’re thinking.”

“I’ve sort of been worrying that he’s only with Lifeline to get a really in-depth report to give to Optimus,” Arcee remarked.

“Do you really believe that?” Sunset asked seriously.

“She’s not wrong.” Bluestreak shrugged. “I’ve looked over Smoke’s shoulder a few times while he’s working. I’ve seen his file on Lifeline; it’s huge. He probably knows things about her not even she knows.”

Sunset wasn’t sure. “That sounds like one side of the story. If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll try and get the other side from the real source.”

“Yeah, knock yourself out.” Bluestreak shrugged as he and Arcee allowed her to move on to the medical bay, where she found Lifeline sitting next to Smokescreen’s tank.

“Just like after Protihex, huh?” She figured that was as good of an ice-breaker as any.

Clearly, she was right, as Lifeline chuckled. “Yeah, except this time it’s a little harder for me to hold him.” she smiled… before it fell and she looked at Sunset seriously. “If you know about Protihex, I’m guessing that means Bluestreak and Arcee told you the rest.”

“You mean about Smokescreen’s job? Yeah.” Sunset nodded. “Arcee’s worried about you; she thinks Smokescreen’s just taking advantage of you for his work.”

“Arcee was Military Intelligence; work like that makes a ‘Bot paranoid.” Lifeline corrected, looking at the prone Smokescreen. “I found out about Smokescreen’s mission orders when I accessed his medical history during his treatment.” She chuckled a bit as she remembered. “When he woke up, he said my hands were even more gentle than Ratchet’s; like I was wearing silk-steel gloves. At first, I thought he was just trying to charm me for information, but we talked through his recuperation and I found out that he actually did like me, since he actually saw me in training with the Paradron Medic Corps. We’ve been together ever since.”

Sunset smiled as she walked over to Lifeline, placing a hand on her foot. “I know how you feel; I was kind of an abusive jerk when I first got to this universe. And believe me, I paid for it. I’m sure Smokescreen worries about that sometimes too.” Lifeline smiled at her kind words, though her optics popped when she saw Sunset Pony-Up and her Geode glow brighter.

“Perceptor! Prep Teletraan and call Optimus; we’ve got the map!” she called down the hallway. She was right; Sunset’s Armor hovered from her pocket and locked around her Geode, pulsing with energy.

The armor gave a loud ring as Sunset’s eyes suddenly glowed bright white, as if she was using her powers but then the glow spread around the rest of her body, forming a massive avatar of mental energy, which suddenly solidified into metal. Her face and limbs turned the same pale orange as her skin, her breastplate turned a darker orange with her red and gold yin-yang sun emblem forming in an orange button on her collarbone as the back and her sides turned black with gold spikes in the same places as her vest. Her thighs turned deep purple with black bands wrapping around her left leg like her skirt. Her feet turned the same black as her shoes as a bright orange horn-like spike with a red diamond-shaped center formed on her forehead, in front of her red and yellow metallic hair, her optics opening to reveal the brighter blue of her natural eyes in the centers.

But then something more unusual happened; a panel exposed itself in her back, almost indicating something was contained inside. But Sunset was much more interested in what had just happened to her as she looked at her hands.

(Cut it)

“This is awesome!” she remarked, looking over her new metallic bodywork. Her admiration was suddenly interrupted by Perceptor who dashed in and practically instantly began thoroughly looking her over. “Wha- Ow! Perceptor, you bolt-brain; stop it.”

“Ah, there you are.” Clearly, Perceptor had found the data drive in Sunset’s wrist and swiftly plugged the computer cable he brought into her wrist, instantly transferring the data to Teletraan. Once the data was loaded in, Perceptor was beyond happy; the map was complete. Quickly he turned on the com-system. “Optimus, return to base. The hunt for the AllSpark is about to come to a close.”

Author's Note:

And that's it, folks; all the armors are online so here are the last two bot-modes:

And how about a full-team lineup just to spice things up?

As usual, art by eiloo

Comments

[TopGun1986]

11158085
That’s because he already did this fic on AO3.

[MLPMekarm]

so is this why you were turning out this many chapters?

[OP Omni God-Emperor Doom]

11158150

Oh, thanks.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

You know. It would have been cool.if her robot form had an equine head. Point tonher true nature

[SonicSpeedster97]

11162044
I'm thinkin' more like a horse-head hood ornament.

[MatTheBook]

Arcee smirked. “Was that before or after Hoist found them making out on Smoke’s medical slab?”

How does that work!?

11236445

[SonicSpeedster97]

11477819
It's like a hospital bed situation.