Disclaimer : I don't own Transformers.

Note : I'm not entirely happy with the last third of this chapter. I kind of wanted to include a scene with Cael freaking out and panicking, but he's apparently stuck in a traffic jam inside my brain at the moment.

The Simple Things

Chapter Three

"Well? What's going on!?" Captain Fanzone yelled at one of the officers who had arrived at the hospital before him. Several others were running around helping the doctors and nurses move a few patients into temporary tents.

"Uh, well," began the officer, looking extremely unnerved at having been put on the spot like that. "It seems there's a..."

He paused, flipping through a large and colorful book that appeared to have been appropriated from the local library. Upon finding an appropriate page, he held it up for the Captain to see.

"It looks like this one."

There was a rather cartoonish dipiction of a dinosaur with a domed skull and few stubby horns sticking out of the back of it's head. For some reason it was head-butting a tree. Beneath the illustration was a short paragraph about the peculiar looking dinosaur, including a pronunciation guide for verbal usage of its name. Fanzone vaguely remembered sitting through an old movie about dinosaurs with on of his brother-in-law's kids and finding himself laughing when one of them rammed itself headfirst into the side of a jeep. The folks in the film had called it a 'Pachy' for short, probably because the original name was too much of a mouthful.

He also recalled, through more recent experience, that none of the Dinobots in any way resembled a Pachy.

"Where is it?"

"The left wing, sir," the officer answer, pointing. "In MRI and X-Ray. They--"

He was cut off by the sound of a random collection of vehicles approaching. Captain Fanzone sighed irratably and turned around in time to watch the Autobots park and transform just a few feet away. Obviously, they had been listening in on the inter-city police radio frequencies again, as he hadn't really wanted to deal with them after that fiasco down at the docks.

Thankfully, it was Prowl who spoke up first.

"One of the Dinobots?" he asked, glancing between Fanzone and the building.

"I don't know about that," Fanzone answered, pointedly ignoring everyone else. He held up the book and pointed at the page. "I was told it's one of these, but last time I checked none of the Dinobot's looks like this. Said it showed up in the MRI room about a half hour ago."

Prowl took the book examining the page. It only took a few seconds before the rest of the group was looking over his shoulder, much to the ninja-bot's annoyance.

"That is one ugly looking lizard thing," Sentinel remarked, squinting at the page. It was obvious from the mild irritation in the expressions of the other bot's that his presence wasn't their idea. "It doesn't look that big."

"It is not a lizard," Prowl corrected, handing the book back to Captain Fanzone. "Dinosaurs were warm-blooded reptiles, and despite it's seemingly small size, it is thought by some scientists that this particular dinosaur used it's domed head to fight off larger predators which makes it, at the very least, capable of inflicting a moderate amount of damage."

"Uh, how do you know that?" Bulkhead inquired, looking perplexed.

"There was a documentary about it on one of the nature channels."

"Who cares? This is hardly worth the time it took to drive over here. It-"

Sentinel was cut off by a crash emanating from within the building, followed by a loud and decidedly non-human shriek. One of the doors near the front entrance opened and several more people ran out, a couple pushing wheelchairs with patients in them. A doctor, mostly identifiable by the lab coat he was wearing over his day blue scrubs, dashed up to Captain Fanzone.

"It busted into the ER, I think," the doctor explained hurriedly, hands wildly gesturing towards the the side parking lot. "We got everyone out though, they're headed for Eastern Regional."

"Allright," Fanzone said, turning to squint up at Prowl. "Just what're we gonna do about this."

"Well..."

"I fail to see how this is any of our business," Sentinel interrupted, folding his arms across his chest. "This-"

"This may very well have been caused by an Allspark fragment," Optimus cut in, frowning. "We-"

"You don't know that! The ship's scanners didn't pick up anything!"

"We won't know unless we look."

"I'll go in," Prowl volunteered, glancing back at the building. "Maybe I can get whatever it is to calm down..."

"Sounds good," Optimus agreed with a nod. "The rest of us will block the exits in case it decides to run out."

"Sounds good? That's the worst plan I ever heard!"

"Well, if you want to head off and do something else, be my guest."

Sentinel glared at the smirk on Optimus's face, but didn't argue any further as he turned to take up a position on the wing of the hospital farthest from where the action was. Bulkhead shuffled off to block off the ER entrance, Prowl walking with him since that was the door closest to where this mystery dinobot was currently located. Fanzone, however, stayed right where he was looking shrewdly up at Optimus Prime.

"You're not going to let him live that down, are you?"

"Nope."

Bumblebee fidgetted.

This in itself wasn't exactly remarkable seeing as pretty much everytime he tried to sit still he ended up twitching in some way. Hyperactivity was his speciality, after all, and having to stay in one place for more than two hours was not his idea of being productive. And even though he wasn't the only one on base right now, Ratchet had made it pretty clear that he wasn't in the mood to talk.

Not that he ever was.

He could play video games, but the collection he'd accumulated was mostly made up of two player games and since his favorite opponent had declared that she was going on a walk in the park, he was faced with one of the things he dreaded most -- boredom. He'd already driven a loop around the city twice, gotten yelled at by several pedestrians, and chased by one of the traffic bots occasionally posted around the city to catch speed limit violators. Of course, he'd been able to get some amusement out of outrunning the traffic bot, but it just wasn't the same without Sari there to cheer him on.

"This bites."

Okay, so it hadn't been all that bad. He'd spent some time on the internet investigating commonly used human slang, which had led to a parallel expedition to discover the definitions of certain words. Some of them, he wished he hadn't read, but then again, a lot of them sounded like they'd be fun to use in certain circumstances.

Bumblebee sighed, glancing up and down the street only to spot a familiar pair of pigtails bobbing along the fence-line a few blocks down. His grin faded, however, when he saw that Sari was not alone. She was accompanied by a human boy of about the same age with tangled hair and even less of a fashion sense than he was accustomed to seeing on this planet.

Both of them had ice cream.

As they approached the gate, Bumblebee's audios caught on to their conversation. It sounded suspiciously science related.

"--which she said wouldn't cause a disruption in the Earth's magnetic field, but my dad said she's not allowed to use anything that requires the use of anti-matter...whatever that is."

"You're cousin is wierd."

"This coming from someone who's favorite double scoop flavors are Bubblegum and Mint Chocolate Chip."'

"Well, Rocky Road is gross," Sari said in an indignant tone. "It's got almonds or whatever."

"I think it's walnuts..."

"So, who cares?"

"I like walnuts."

"Well, you're wierd too."

By the time that statement was made, they were standing in front of the rolled up garage-style entrance to the building and Bumblebee was beginning to wonder whether or not they would notice him sitting there. He folded his arms across his chest and glared at the two of them.

Being ignored was starting to get annoying.

Fortunately, his movement got the attention of the boy, whose gaze went slightly frosted. Ice cream dribbled out of the cone and down his fingers unnoticed, and the hinge holding his jaw shut malfunctioned, making it droop slightly. Sari poked him, but it didn't have any effect.

"Wow," she remarked in surprise, looking over at Bumblebee. "I think he's in shock or something."

"So what?" Bumblebee asked, putting on a grumpy face and looking away. "It's not my fault."

"What's wrong with you?"

"Oh nothing. Nothing at all -- except you left me here with grumpy-bot!"

"Well, s-o-r-r-y. You could've come with me, you know, but you didn't so..."

Bumblebee blinked, having not realized that the 'walk in the park' thing had been an open invitation.

"Oh," he said, looking embarassed. Now he felt kind of silly for having sulked throughout the afternoon. "So who's this guy?"

"His name's Matt," Sari answered, crunching on the remains of her ice cream cone. "We had a bet over who had a wierder life. According to him, I won, so he bought me ice cream."

"Why would you bet about something like that?"

She shrugged in response, then leaned over to wave a hand in front of the scraggly headed boy's face.

"Hey, wake up!"

"Uh..."

"You alright?"

"I think I've got brain freeze," Matt answered, looking down at his ice cream cone and its now melted contents. "Or not...um."

"Matt, this is Bumblebee," Sari informed him, waving a hand in the air at the yellow mech by way of introduction. "He's my best friend, well, one of my best friends."

"And you turn into a car?"

"Yes," Bumblebee answered with a grin. "Yes, I do."

"Sweet."

Prowl ducked into the ER lobby, taking note that, while the ceiling in this section was high enough for him not to bump his head, it did not appear to be the same with the corridors leading off of it. A few of the lobby chairs were overturned but other than that there appeared to be nothing wrong. Frowning, he turned towards the nearest corridor to begin his search but froze upon hearing a noise emanating from the other side of the receptionist's counter. He spun, shuriken at the ready, only to catch the tail end of a black blurr dashing out the door.

"Bulkhead, it's headed your way!" he shouted both out loud and over the comm frequencies, so that the others would hear. He ran back out the doors only to freeze just outside. "What the...?"

"Uh," Bulkhead murmurred, somewhat distressed. "A little help?"

Recovering from his shock, Prowl smirked.

"Well, it looks like you made a new friend."

Bulkhead frowned, holding his arm up and away from his body in order to better survey what was currently clinging to it. It did indeed look like the mechanical equivalent of a pachycephalosaurus, complete with a golden domed skull and two horns sticking out the back of its head. It had its black arms clamped tightly around the armor on the lumbering green Autobot's upper arm, the rest of its body dangling in the air. Every few seconds it's tail would twitch, and, from the glint in it's optics, Prowl could tell that it was highly amused by the entire situation.

"What the slag is that!?"

Turning, he saw both Optimus and Sentinel approaching, the latter staring rather apprehensibly at the little robotic dino.

"That is our mystery dinobot," Prowl answered, glancing back at the tiny bot. It had somehow climbed up higher on Bulkhead's arm and was now attempting to burrow it's face into his arm. "It seems to like Bulkhead."

"Where did it come from?" Optimus asked, stepping in closer for a better look. The little bot lifted it's head from Bulkhead's shoulder and chirped at him in an almost curious fashion. Within the next three seconds he found himself knocked to the ground, the little bot now clinging to his neck. "Er..."

Sentinel started to laugh, but was silenced a moment later when the tiny dinobot transferred itself to his leg.

"AAAAHHHH!! GET IT OFF!! GET IT OFF!! GET IT OFF!!"

The Elite Guard officer hopped around, shaking his leg in an attempt to free it from the little bot's grasp. In response it giggled almost shrilly, grinning and clearly enjoying the ride. After several seconds, however, Sentinel lost his balance and fell flat on his aft. Fun ruined, the robot dino shook itself and looked over at Prowl, head tilted as if contemplating whether or not he was a worthy target.

The ninja bot crouched, bringing himself to eye level with the mechanical pachy. He noticed several things about it that his first precursory glance had not picked up. For one, the bot did not appear to be made entirely of metal. Only the gold colored portions and the parts covering it's spinal column had the light reflective qualities of typical plating. The rest of it had a texture similar to thick plastic. It's coloring was different as well. Where the other Dinobot's were grey, this one was black, and it's optics were a sharp shade of violet.

"I wonder..."

"What is it Prowl?"

"Fanzone said it originally showed up in the room containing the MRI machine," Prowl answered, still watching the little bot as it prodded Sentinel's leg. "I think if we looked in that room now, the machine will be missing."

"So?" Sentinel asked, looking extremely annoyed. "And you, cut it out!!"

The tiny dinobot simply giggled in response, the horns on it's head wiggling ever so slightly.

"Didn't Ultra Magnus's contact on Cybertron warn that the Allspark shards would have...odd effects? Perhaps this is merely one such effect."

"Come off it! You don't honestly think a piece of the Allspark made this...thing!"

He waved a hand at the bot in question, who took it as an open invitation for grabbing. The blue mech's shoulders slumped for a moment before he narrowed his eyes down at the little bot.

"Grah."

"Little slagger."

It stuck out it's glossa at him, before releasing his arm and running back over to Bulkhead.

"Well, I like it," the green mech said, scooping the little bot up in his arms. "He's kinda cute."

"I think Prowl may be right," Optimus said, frowning only slightly as the little bot again clamped onto Bulkhead's arm. "We'll have to take it back to the ship to verify it though."

"Oh no. There's no way you're bringing that thing on the ship!"