Transformers Prime: The Tesseract

Nine: From Ash and Dust

"It's you again!" Sunbeam yelled, pointing at Starscream.

"Of course it's me!" Starscream shouted back in a rage.

"Well then...what're you planning?!" Sunbeam questioned, kicking him into a tree and collapsing it.

"Please don't destroy the forest," Ratchet warned.

"Have some faith! I have more restraint than that," Sunbeam responded.

"Please, you have as much restraint as a Scrapletts with a metal hammer!" Ratchet retorted.

"I don't know what that means," Sunbeam responded. While her and Ratchet were talking, neither of them noticed Starscream aiming a missile in their direction until Sunbeam just happened to turn at the right moment. "Oh no ya don't!" Sunbeam turned the missile away from them, unknowingly turning it toward the lab.

"Wait!" Ratchet started before the missile fired and collided with the lab in an explosion of blue and white flames, leaving only ash and minimal remnants of a structure. Sunbeam took off running toward the lab, hopeful that there could be at least one survivor. There was nothing. Ratchet arrived only seconds later, Starscream cuffed at his side.

"Hello?! Is anybody there?! Answer me!" Sunbeam called in a devastating, pleading scream.

"There's no way anyone could've survived..." Ratchet pointed out.

"No...no way...someone had to have survived! I just have to find 'em," Sunbeam denied before beginning to dig through the ash and dust.

"You killed humans...not very 'Autobot' of you, is it?" Starscream remarked before getting smacked in the back of the head by Ratchet.

"Let's just go back to base and figure out what Starscream knows," Ratchet suggested.

"Wait...let's not wake up the kids. Let 'em sleep, then we can leave tomorrow. Their parents think they're staying with friends, anyway," Sunbeam pointed out.

"Fine. They need rest, anyway," Ratchet agreed reluctantly.

The walk back to camp was completely silent. Sunbeam trailed behind Ratchet and Starscream, and Ratchet kept stealing glances back at her to make sure she didn't get lost somehow.

"Hey, Ratchet. Hey Sunbeam," Raf greeted them when they reached camp before intensely glaring at Starscream.

"What're you doing awake?" Ratchet asked.

"Miko and Jack snore," Raf responded simply, which caused Sunbeam to giggle a little.

"Here, you can stay next to me and Ratchet, okay?" Sunbeam offered, to which Raf nodded sluggishly. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep.

"Do you think they know I didn't mean it...?" Sunbeam asked after a long period of silence.

"Humans have a way of sensing things. I'm sure they figured it out," Ratchet admitted.

"Yeah...they aren't as stupid as I am..." Sunbeam laughed without her typical happiness.

The next morning, Ratchet, Sunbeam, and the kids went back to their base with their new prisoner. However, they didn't get to interrogate him at all before Agent Fowler stormed in.

"Seriously?! I just got word that one of you blew up a military laboratory in Alaska! I get that Prime's gone, but that doesn't mean you can go around blowing things up!" Fowler scolded them. "Now I have to visit 134 families to tell them that a person they cared about is never coming home!"

"134...?" Sunbeam asked, looking at the ground. "That's...that's a lot..."

"You bet it is! Now which one of you did it?!" Fowler questioned, arms crossed over his chest.