Woah I'm not dead!

Thank you for all the support this story is getting, I really appreciate it. :D

-Pastel

Bond that can't Bee Broken

Chapter 8: Unpleasant Surprise

July 14

"What are you doing?"

Madeline looked away from her chalk drawing of Stitch from Lilo and Stitch, and squinted up at Crosshairs. He stood slightly bent over, with his hands clasped behind his back. His eyebrows, or what looked to be his eyebrows, lifted slightly, a clear indication that he was waiting for an answer.

"It's called drawing." Madeline answered after a moment, continuing to blend two shades of blue together to create a smoother look.

"But...what is it?" Drift asked next once he had come to stand next to the green robot.

"A cartoon character from a Disney movie." Madeline replied easily, reaching forward to grab a pink piece of chalk.

It was Sunday.

They only had to wait one more day before their plan could move into action. For now, Madeline had to go back to doing what she used to do at the gas station; doing whatever to keep herself occupied. For some odd reason, Aira had picked up chalk when she and Parker went to get supplies. When Madeline asked, Aira had just shrugged.

"I know you get bored easily," was all she said.

So, Madeline decided to not put the chalk to waste, and found a secluded corner to start her drawing. She wasn't the best, but she wasn't bad either. Though, something about her Stitch drawing was off; Madeline knew it was bound to happen though, she couldn't remember the last time she actually saw the cartoon character.

"What's a Disney?" Crosshairs whispered.

"What's a cartoon?" Drift just whispered back.

"Don't you both have something to do?" Madeline said, her tone harsher than intended.

"Listen, little girl. When your head nearly touches the ceiling, you'll understand the difficulty of doing things without getting caught." Crosshairs retorted, though he straightened and walked away.

Madeline watched him walked towards Bee, saying something that she couldn't hear. Though, she knew it must've been about her, because Bee looked over at her, then frowned at Crosshairs.

"I don't know what it is, but I like it." Drift said quietly, before walking away as well.

Madeline's furrowed eyebrows relaxed once she once she was left alone again.

She felt bad; she hadn't meant to be harsh, but what Aira said yesterday had really irked her. The idea of being unable to go back to living normally was scary. To be constantly on the run was something Madeline didn't want, and definitely didn't want for her little sister.

If her dad was here, no doubt she'd be in deep shit.

Despite the fact she pretty much already was.

July 15

Monday.

Madeline purposely made sure to wake up early in order to get the first part of the plan over with. Which was taking Bee to KSI headquarters to get a reference for the badge that they needed.

She had Bumblebee park just a little ways from the front entrance to keep from looking overly suspicious.

With the use of the small dragonfly-looking drone, and a controller with a tiny screen, Madeline was able to scan the badge of an unsuspecting victim. Though, her reaction to the drone was funny, to say the least, it did gain a bit of attention, and Madeline had Bee drive away as soon as he could.

When they arrived back at the warehouse, everyone offered some sort of monotone 'welcome back'.

Aira on the other hand, shoved herself from the couch and threw her arms around her sister.

"Woah, woah." Madeline laughed lightly, returning the hug. "What's this all about?"

"I thought something happened to you." Aira explained briefly, letting Madeline go and taking the drone and controller from her hands. "That is, until Hound told me you woke up hellishly early."

Madeline's eyebrows furrowed. "So...you knew I was okay?"

"Pretty much." Aira shrugged. "Though I wasn't sure if I could trust Hound's words."

Somewhere else, Hound grunted.

"I just wanted to get it over with." Madeline replied, watching as Aira walked up to Bumblebee. "I had enough trouble trying to get him fired up."

Bee made a whirring noise to try and defend himself.

Aira laughed, but it sounded like a scoff. "I'm sure you did." She showed Bee a blank card. "I'm assuming you're the one who's gonna be creating the badge?" Aira silently begged him to say yes. She really didn't want to interact with the others; they still intimidated her.

When Bee nodded, she grinned.

"Awesome. Maddie, come here."

Madeline shrugged off her zip-up jacket, throwing it on the used couch as she walked over; she grabbed a pair of fake glasses on he table on the way. She stood next to Bee, who quickly scanned the badge, then her face, and proceeded to print the contents he gathered onto the blank card.

When he was done, Aira lowered her hand so that she and Madeline could inspect it. "Hey, that's pretty good." Aira complimented, turning to smile up at the youngest transformer.

"Mhm." Madeline agreed. "Good job, Bee."

"Looks like your new name is...Whitney Blake?"

"Fits me perfectly. Let's get moving."

Madeline and Parker sat quietly in a long line of workers for KSI.

They were nearimg the entrance where each worker gets authorized to drive through. But the closer they got, the more anxious Parker became.

"Stay calm...stay calm." He whispered to himself, his breathing shallow. He adjusted the sun glasses he wore for the fifth time in a row.

Madeline just pinched the bridge of her nose. "Usually in these situations, the idea is to be cool, not look like it." She mumbled, rolling her eyes when Parker looked over at her oddly. "I'm saying, take off the sunglasses and put on the fake ones."

Just like her, Parker also managed to get his hands om a pair of fake persciption glasses. They were tryingto alter their appearance, considering their faces were on the news. They were pulling a 'Clark Kent', as Aira called it.

Parker took them off, but not in a nonchalant manner. Quite the opposite, actually.

Madeline sighed. "Hey, Parker."

"...yes?"

"A couple months ago, before this whole fiasco…" She trailed off, twirling a strand of hair in between her thumb and index finger. "I heard noises in the middle of the night at the house." She turned to look at him. "Was that you?"

Parker squinted, his breathing showing no signs of returning to normal. "What? Come on, no way."

"Parker, don't lie to me." Madeline's tone sounded like she was taunting him. "You see that guy standing out there? The one with the gun?" She gestured subtly with a nod.

"There's so many guys with guns." Parker replied breathlessly.

"Let's get out of the car and tell them we plan on breaking it, and it was your idea." She gave him a fake smile. "I mean, I've lost pretty much everything. Why not, right? All we gotta do is take off these glasses-"

Parker grabbed the 'oh-shit' handle above his head. "You have a really bad habit of having these types of conversations at the wrong times.

"Do you want to come clean, or do you want me to make a mess?" Madeline lifted her eyebrows, and when Parker just looked away, Madeline turned and looked out the window. She waved at a nearby guard. "Excuse me, sir? Can I speak to you for a second?"

"It was me, it was me, it was me."

Madeline smiled and waved the guard away. "Never mind, sorry."

They pulled forward, and another guard approached the driver side door. "Taking it in for scanning?"

"Yessir." Madeline lifted her badge and let him scan it.

"You're good to go."

As they drove away and towards the building, Madeline frowned. "I'm going to kill you."

When they arrived in the building, the first thing they saw was a transformer standing in the middle of the cylindrical room, held up by wires.

As far as Madeline and Parker knew, the room that they were in, was the room before the car was transferred to be scanned.

Madeline climbed out of the car and approached the large robot; the large screens that curved with the room came to life.

"We took old alien technology, and made it better in every way." The woman on the screen announced. "Introducing: Stinger. KSI. We make the world."

Parker slid over to the driver side and peeked out the window. "Now that, is a badass robot."

Madeline looked up, squinting against the bright fluorescent lights. "It looks kinda like you, Bee."

Upon hearing this, Bumblebee's engine revved, and Madeline could tell it wasn't a nice response. She smiled slightly at him.

"Sorry." She looked back up at Stinger. "It looks like they're trying to make their own versions of the autobots." She started to walk in a circle around the dormant transformer.

Parker sighed. "At least they're bigger and cooler cars then this."

Almost immediately after Parker finished his sentence, Bumblebee's steering wheel jutted out, and smacked Parker directly in the nose. He had no time to recover, because Bee did it again, except held it there, and made it hard for Parker to move or breathe.

"You talk to me like that?" Bee's radio practically screamed.

Madeline rolled her eyes. "Bee he didn't mean it," her voice didnt sound like she was that concerned, but gave a sigh of relief when he released. She moved over to the window. "See what happens when you're a dumbass?"

A cough from Parker was his only response.

"Now get out of here." Bee spoke, opening his door when Madeline moved back, allowing Parker to literally fall out and onto the floor.

Parker crawled away and stood, making Madeline shake her head. And to make things worse, the woman on the large screen spoke again.

"Stinger. Inspired by Bumblebee. But better in every way."

"Son of a-!" Bumblebee's wheels started spinning, and quite literally began burning rubber. Smoke began to appear, and he began to drive around, making marks on the pristine floor.

"Bee! Stop, calm down!"

"Stop going psycho!"

As if on cue, Bee stopped short, almost like he shut down. In the next moment, a man leading a large group of people entered the room from behind the wall the screens were attached to.

"Hey! You two!" He waved at Madeline and Parker, frowning. "Grease monkeys. What's going on here?" He waited for a response from the two, but when he didn't get one, he pointed at Bumblebee. "What's this vintage crap, huh? We're not scanning car collector junk."

Madeline opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by the man.

"What do you think it is that we make here? We make poetry." He enunciated the last word. "We're poets. Alright?"

"Understood." Madeline and Parker spoke in unison.

"Good. Now let's get this...pathetic thing out of here." He paused. "And you too." He turned away, and led the group the same way they came. "Sorry, so sorry."

When the group disappeared, Madeline whipped around to face Parker. "Watch Bee. I'm gonna go see what I can find. Get out of here. Quietly." With that, she jogged off and out of the room.

Parker walked towards Bee, with the intention to leave, but Bee transformed before he could touch the handle of the door. Parker stumbled backwards, in order to avoid getting hit in the process.

"No...no Bee you gotta calm down right now."

"I'm perfectly calm, dude."

Parker ran over to be in front of the large transformer, trying to get his attention off of Stinger. "Hey, hey. Just...breathe...or whatever you guys do..."

"I'm calm, I'm calm!" Bee replied, grabbing the collar of Stinger and pulling the robot in close. "I'm not even touching it, I'm barely touching it, I'm barely touching it."

"Oh my god. Turn back into a car right now!"

Bumblebee just waved at him dismissively, walking right past him and toward the large screens. "Get out of my face, alright?" The screens now showed a few people conversing about Bumblebee.

"Let's start with, the Bumblebee."

"Honestly, the robot's design was decrepit. Well, let's face it, antique."

Bee leaned toward the screen. "What the f-beep-k?"

Parker dragged his hands down his face. "Bee, it's fine! Don't take it personally-"

"Old, and ratty-"

"You mean ugly!" The people on the screen erupted into laughter.

"Oh hell no!" Parker's wide eyes followed the large robot as Bumblebee whipped around and approached Stinger's dormant form. "You think you're better than me?"

Parker opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out as he watched Bee lift a leg, and kick the middle of Stinger's back, sending him forward and the wires holding him up snapping off. He landed with a crash that sounded louder than it probably was.

In the midst of silence that followed the fall of Stinger, the sound of footsteps grew closer. Bee and Parker both whipped around, and a moment later, a man walked into the room.

"What did you touch?" The man asked, obviously fuming.

Parker stepped back. "Uh..." He turned around to look at Bee, but found that he was back into his car form.

"I told ya homeboy, can't touch this-"

Madeline stood ridgedly in the lab she happened to, fortunately, stumble across. On the way in, she managed to snatch a lab coat, so she didn't stand out. She inwardly thanked herself, for her ability to become invisible in plain sight.

As far as she could see, they were melting down dead robots, in order to get the metal they needed to create their own transformers.

She overheard two workers talking about their job, and how they were glad they were part of the team that were getting rid of the decepticons. But when Madeline looked closer at the transformer they were currently melting, she automatically knew that it was an autobot.

Funny, KSI workers aren't as knowledgeable as I thought, Madeline thought bitterly. She couldn't really expect any less.

Moving subtly, she pulled the drone from out of her lab coat, and turned it on, moving slightly so that the drone could capture the melting autobot.

"They're melting down the robots they kill, in order to get the metal to make their own." She quietly reiterated, for those that were watching through the drone. Slowly, she moved the drone around to let them see more.

"They slaughtered him!" Prime shouted, moving away to destroy a street light out of anger.

The other autobots dealt with their own anger in other ways, while Parker and Aira were too busy looking up at Drift's roof.

They tried to taking in as much as Madeline was showing them, until she stopped moving completely, and the drone shut off.

"Maddie?" Aira called out, as if Madeline could hear her.

"Do you think she's in trouble?" Parker started, and moved to get out, but Bee was already speeding away from the group.

Madeline was sprinting down the hallway.

Her mind was blank; all she remembered was being calm one moment, then looking over and seeing a woman pointing directly at her, while speaking to two men that looked like they were security.

As soon as she recognized the woman, Madeline started panicking, and ran. She was the woman with the badge that Madeline took a picture of, and apparently she was being questioned because a 'Whitney Blake' had already signed in.

And that's where she was now, but Madeline didn't know why she started to run in the first place. She probably would have a good chance of getting away if she just remained calm.

A short glance back, she saw an unnecessary amount of security sprinting after her.

Shit, shit, shit-

Just as she was about to turn a corner, she was stopped abruptly by more security, who immediately started grabbing her arms to restrict her. She struggled against their grip, but with the amount of people around her, Madeline knew it was a lost cause.

A moment later, the same man that approached she, Parker and Bee in the room with Stinger, walked up to her again and smiled slightly.

"Looks like you're in a bit of trouble, Ms. Taylor."

The journey up to the office that Madeline was being brought to, was awkward to say in the least.

There were still an unnecessary amount of security around her, and they weren't being very gentle when directing her where to go.

It was ridiculous; she had handcuffs on, what the hell could she do now?

When they finally arrived at the office, she was told to sit down, stay, and keep quiet.

Might as well give me a dog bone if you're gonna treat me like one, Madeline thought.

She sighed, but the peaceful silence in the office was cut off quickly, because a man rushed into the office.

"Hey, who're..." Madeline trailed off, eyes widening.

She knew this man.

"Dad?"