Transformers Prime: The Tesseract

Two: Bot Named Sunbeam

A few days later...

"Okay! First lesson! We should start with something easy!" Raf exclaimed. "I brought some children's books from home to start with."

"Awesome! I'm finally gonna learn to read! I've always felt behind, so it'll be nice to be able to do something!" Sunbeam exclaimed.

They had been trying to read the same page for almost two hours, and were getting nowhere. Raf wasn't losing any patience, but Sunbeam was starting to.

"I don't get any of this!" She exclaimed with a facepalm.

"Okay. You know what sound each letter of the alphabet makes, right?" Raf asked.

"Depends which one," Sunbeam replied with a shrug.

"The English alpha- wait, what do you mean 'it depends on which one?!' How many different alphabets do you know?" Raf questioned in shock.

"Uh...English, Spanish, French, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic—"

"And you can't read?!" Raf shouted in surprise. Sunbeam laughed nervously and scratched the back of her head.

"Yeah..." she confirmed.

"Well, now we know where the confusion is," Raf mumbled. "Let's try this again..."

They stayed like that for the rest of the day, sitting against a wall and trying to read together. Arcee and Bulkhead had already taken Jack and Miko home, but when they'd ask Raf, his answer was the same.

"Just another hour, then I'll go home," he said, which made Arcee chuckle to herself.

"Alright. One more hour," she'd reply.

This went on until Raf fell asleep. Sunbeam didn't notice at first, but quickly realized when she needed help with a word.

"Raf? Raf! Hey! Are you okay?! Are you dead?!" She shook him a little.

"Cut it out! He's just asleep!" Ratchet scolded her. She laughed nervously.

"I knew that...I guess we should send him home, then," Sunbeam pointed out.

"Jack already contacted his parents and said he was staying the night at Jack's. His mom'll vouch for him," Arcee explained.

"Really?" Sunbeam asked skeptically.

"We know her," Ratchet pointed out.

"Wow! Your humans sure are different from mine!" Sunbeam exclaimed with a grin.

"Yeah, we're pretty lucky," Bulkhead agreed.

"So...you guys are from another planet?" Sunbeam asked, trying to change the subject.

"Yeah, our home world was destroyed by centuries of war, so we sought refuge here...where we met the kids. Fortunately, we're able to begin restoring Cybertron, but we still come around often to help Ratchet protect the kids," Arcee explained.

"You love them, right?" Sunbeam asked.

"They're like our own children," Arcee responded.

"Well they certainly act like it!" Sunbeam admitted with a giggle.

"They do?" Ratchet asked.

"Yeah! I mean, you all have so much in common! From what I've seen at least. Even though you guys are from different worlds, you're still just as human as them. But that's just a fake Autobot's opinon," Sunbeam joked. There was another silence.

The next day, Miko and Jack arrived early in the morning. They greeted everyone and played some video games with Raf while Bumblebee, Bulkhead, and Sunbeam played monkey in the middle.

"C'mon! This ain't fair!" Sunbeam shouted as she tried to grab the ball from the air.

"You can do it! All you've gotta do is grow about a foot taller," Bulkhead remarked as Sunbeam finally smacked the ball. Everyone watched in horror as it hit an unsuspecting Ratchet in the back of the head.

"What the-?!" Ratchet yelled. Sunbeam raised a hand.

"Yep...that was my bad..." she said through fits of laughter.

"Nice shot! That's ten points!" Miko joked.

"Yeah!" Sunbeam agreed as she and Miko gave each other a high five.

"Ultra Magnus! Care to explain why I got a call that you stole government property?!" Fowler questioned as he entered the autobot base.

"Property?!" Sunbeam yelled, clearly more offended than scared.

"They're on their way to take it back to where it belongs before it can cause any trouble. So be ready," Fowler explained.

"Well you can tell them to go die in a hole, because they don't have to 'worry' about me," Sunbeam responded.

"I wouldn't have to tell them anything if you didn't run away," Fowler replied.

"Are you serious?! It's not my fault they lost track of me because they had their heads so far—" Sunbeam started before Ratchet dragged her away.

"And we're done here," he responded.

"I ain't finished, though!" Sunbeam pointed out.

"Now you are," Ratchet retorted.

"Jeez, what's got you so angry?" Miko asked as Sunbeam sulked behind the couch.

"I'm not angry," Sunbeam admitted. "I just...I'm not ready to go back, and I don't know why they want me back so bad. They didn't care before."

"Perhaps there is a way to negotiate for your freedom," Ultra Magnus suggested.

"Yeah. Autobots aren't meant to be humanity's slaves," Ratchet pointed out.

"Wait! You'd do that for me?!" Sunbeam questioned.

"Why not? You're an Autobot, right?" Miko asked. Sunbeam looked on Miko in shock before smiling.

"Yeah! Sure!" She agreed.

"Then it's settled. There's no escaping us now," Bulkhead stated, nudging Sunbeam with an elbow.

"Ah, dang it. I was hopin' I'd get to sneak out a window or somethin'," Sunbeam teased with a laugh.

"Well, Magnus, if that's how ya want it..." Fowler started before smirking slightly. "Then let me do the talking. These special ops guys don't like you very much, anyway."

"Thank you, Agent Fowler," Ultra Magnus stated with a nod.

"Yeah! Thanks Agent Fowler" Sunbeam exclaimed, hugging the human tightly.

"You're gonna crush me to death!" Fowler deadpanned.

"Don't ruin this," Sunbeam remarked before putting him safely back onto the ground.

Ratchet opened the ground bridge to allow Ultra Magnus, Fowler, Sunbeam, and Arcee to pass through. Arcee huffed.

"Are we sure we should bring the newbie with us? She isn't very stable around humans and she seems to hate these ones in particular...not that I blame her all that much," Arcee stated.

"It wasn't my call to make, Arcee, so stop complaining to me about it over comms," Ratchet responded.

"Yeesh, if there was ever an Autobot equivalent of a grumpy old man, you'd be it, Ratchet," Sunbeam mumbled. Arcee chuckled a little.

"Okay, I may actually enjoy this," she explained.