The Vagabond Gospel.

Chapter Three: Survivors in Silver Skin

"In a way we are all connected, threaded together. In a way we are all suspended, bound going nowhere..." Hands Like Houses, Introduced Species

"Railchaser, grab that petro-rabbit!" Shockwave yells as the little metallic rodent begins scampering off at almost strut-break speeds. The short femme yelps when it rushes between her pedes, and she loses balance trying not to step on the more mechanism. There's the clank of metal on metal as Railchaser goes down and Shockwave begins to chase after it, growling under the slight steam from the heat of his body meeting the cold atmosphere.

The small light-gold creature continues to jump around, its small body just a blur until it jumps into the servos of Lunardust, involuntary of course. The deeply colored femme grins as she holds the creature down firmly, but is sure not to harm it in any way.

"Thanks, Luna," Railchaser says, taking a deep inhale before exhaling it through her exhaust port. Then dark-pink femme stands back on her stablizers as she watches Shockwave take the petro-rabbit from Lunardust's hands, nodding at older of the femmes. Lunardust nods back and clasps her servos together in front of her, down by her midsection.

Shockwave takes the small bot back to the cage it escaped from and locks the cage door tight.

"What are you needing petro-rabbits for?" Lunardusts asks, her faceplates shifting to show an intrigued expression when she looks over the flashing lights on the walls and the dozen or so petro-rabbits locked up tight.

"I am afraid that I cannot educate you with any of that information, Lunardust," Shockwave replies, and pulls a steel-wire tarp over the cage.

"I understand. I was just curious."

Railchaser feels her optics roll to the right at Lunardust's words. They both know perfectly well that they will sneak in later that cycle to see the datapads that some of the mechs always leave out by accident. They had been doing this since they originally started to work at the research facilities almost four vorn ago. The adventure that Shockwave and the rest of the mechs gave the two was still not enough for their restless sparks.

"Railchaser," Shockwave calls for the femme, and she appears beside her comrade. "Are you injured?"

"No, sir," she replies, shaking her helm. He nods.

"Very well, take a rest. I shall see you both next cycle," Shockwave says as a dismissal. The two femmes nod and do their traditional race-to-the-time-out from their position, Shockwave following their quick frames with calculating optics. Railchaser wins, just as she has a majority of their time in the facilities, and punches her time card with a victory pump into the air. Lunardust rolls her optics, but grins as she punches second.

The femmes go about their routine. The walk from the facility to the small apartment that they had just purchased for a steal-price is about half way between the orphanage and their work. It's a studio, with everything open and gleaming a light, soft blue steel. Lunardust punches in the correct door code, and the entrance isn't even completely open before they're slipping inside. Their mid-cycle had been full of chasing after the small, yet quick petro-rabbits and cyberweasels. The two were curious as to what an electric study facility could be doing with rodents, and were set to find out.

After a much craved mug of cool Energon, and a slight dash from their secret illegal-stash of High Grade, the two were as wound up as they had been when first going to work and eased out of their apartment just as fast as they had come in.

Their neighbor, a lovable intern that worked in one of the facilities adjacent from their own, greeted the two sluggishly as he dragged his stabilizers into his own apartment.

"How was this cycle working with the Hatchet?" Lunardust teased. The green bot glared at the two, narrowing his golden optics at them.

"You always seem to ask me that every time we see each other and the answer has yet to change."

The femmes whirl and click to themselves before leaving the poor bot to his own devices.

"Hey, Rc, Luna!" he calls just as they get to the end of the hall. They stop and he quickly runs over, handing them a thick card with his designation sigils engraved on the top. "Mind picking up some of that Sparkler for me? My roommate is having a get-together and said you're invited if you get us some for your supply."

The two femmes look to one another, reading each other's body movements before looking back to the mech and nodding.

"I hope you have enough credits. Our suppler has quite a steep price," Railchaser says, winking to the mech before she swipes the card from his servos. He rolls his optics.

"Just make sure you don't buy a new set of shoulder armor like you did last time," he grumbles and turns, leaving the femmes once again. Said femmes, dressed in shining orange and pink, click and whirl with laughter over that mild-prank that they had committed just a meta-cycle ago. They had bought him a new set of armor, but not in his usual dark green. Who knew yellow looked so good on him.

"The color really brought out your optics!" Railchaser shouts as he goes back into his apartment. There's a wave of digits given back to them, causing them to laugh again. One of the older bots in the building, a cynical, rusting Cloudjumper, pokes his helm out of his doorway and glares darkly at the femmes. They scoot from the hallway, but nothing can stop their soft clicks.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Lunardust and Railchaser ask at the same moment as they slip through the broken window underneath their old orphanage. They look to one another and that is enough for them to grin and go to the rusted door that still had not been corrected those few vorns ago when they had first found the door that lead to the secret tunnel connected to the electric study depository.

Lunardust and Railchaser move down the dark tunnel, their larger forms now taking up more space than usual. The orange femme whines softly when she brushes against the rough walls and feels some of the paint chip off and white scratches are left behind showing the light color of the primer on her paint and the original color of the metal. Her next large paycheck was going toward ionized steel so she wouldn't have to deal with paint chips.

The door is closed, but they push it open easily and step onto the catwalk that overlooks the circular testing room.

"Holy Primus," Railchaser clicks, staring at the quickly moving glyphs on the datapad she picked up from the stack set near one of the side consoles.

"What's it say, RC?" Lunardust asks, putting down one of the pads in her own servos and walking over to her friend. The pink femme hands her the datapad, and Lunardust's own yellow optics glance over the words that form information in her processor. "What are they planning?" She asks to herself, trying to make sense of the notes that were obviously made by Shockwave, on top of trying to connect why he would need petro-rabbits to-

"Someone's coming!" RC whirls in a low, harsh voice, dropping down behind one of the carts stacked with blank datapads. Lunardust freezes as she hears a group of voices beginning to come in the room. There's a shine of light from behind the Energon glass, giving more proof that they're about to be caught. She dives down into the small hold underneath the center console. The coursing electricity originating from the center pillar has her Spark beat increasing and small static blasts coming from the tips of her digits.

The two femmes are silent, trying to keep to the shadows so they are not seen, as three mechs walk in. Lunardust isn't sure of what to feel when she see Shockwave is one of them, but the other two she has never seen at the facility before.

"Are you sure this will be finished in time?" The dark grey mech says, his servos clasped behind him as he stands like one of the Imperial Guards. Lunardust can pinpoint him with a military background almost immediately. The other wears a white steel cloak just like Shockwave would. Lunardust and Railchaser's chief walks over to the stack of datapads that the two femmes had just been looking at, and he pauses when he notices the screen of one still lit.

"Yes, Megatron," Shockwave replies, taking three of the datapads and walking away from the cart. It is only a few hics from Railchaser's hiding place, and Lunardust can see her overheating from the lack of ventilating her systems. They would hear her and it would give them both away. "They believe we are merely experimenting to see what can slow the petro-rabbit."

"Very good, Shockwave," Megatron replies, letting his deep red optics move around the room. Buttons and squares on the walls flash and flicker different lights. Suddenly, he slams his stabilizing servos down on the thick metallic floor. The sound echoes in the room and scares Railchaser just enough to make her let out a scream of fear. The third mech, opposite of Megatron and Shockwave, moves the cart aside and grabs at Railchaser's thin armor, pulling her from the floor and letting her hang from her shoulder joint.

"Looks like we have a little spy," the mech says, his voice cold and menacing, with a grin to match. "What should we do with her, Lord Megatron?"

Megatron looks at the scampering femme, watching as she grabs at her shoulder strut so not to let the metal pop out of place. He then lets his optics roll to Shockwave's direction. "Do you know this femme, Shockwave?"

The deep purple bot looks to Railchaser for half a klik, his processor weighing out all his options to answer with, but he nods. "Yes, she is my apprentice."

"Not for long," the third mech says, roughly handling the femme before wrapping one of his servos around the wires and cords that connect under her helm.

"Let her go!" Lunardust yells, jumping from her own hiding spot and latching onto the mech's back, beating her small balled up servos into his shoulders and helm. The mech yelps and drops Railchaser before grabbing at the other femme now attacking him. "Don't you dare hurt her, you slagging glitch mouse!"

The mech growls before he pulls the femme from his back and slams her onto the center console. Lunardust whines at the pain of popped wires and dented metal.

"Looks like I'm just going to have to teach you a lesson," He hisses, his denta sharp and grinding together. Flicking a switch on the center console the electricity goes coursing from the floor pillar to the port on the ceiling. Neither Shockwave nor Megatron move to stop the red, gray and bright blue bot. Lunardust screams just before he pushes her into the thick current.

Lunardust's upper half is thrusted upward. She ventilates her exhaust, and her chest feels tight, but it may be from the large servos buried deep into the glowing blue energy. Slowly, Optimus pulls his servos from her Spark, watching as it lights back to the brightness it had been before it they had to grab her out of the static-lock.

The orange femme takes an astrosecond or two to catch her bearings before flipping off the table and cornering herself away from all of the large mechs that are surrounding her. The yellow one seems familiar, but she cannot place where she has seen him before.

"Who are you? Where am I?"

"Dusty, I'm here!" Terrance calls, fighting against Ratchet's hold on his shirt. The medic releases him and Terrance goes stumbling forward. Lunardust leans away from him, surprised at the sight of the fleshy little human being. Had he just called for her? The boy falls forward, just barely catching himself on the edge of the berth, and Will goes over to help him up.

Terrance feels his heart skip a beat as he looks up at the femme. She seems older than he remembers. He feels the connection that he had, is blocked and lost in those deep gold optics that he realized weren't Dusty's, they were Lunardust's.

Lunardust looks around, her optics touching every visible surface.

"Where is he?" she asks hurriedly, followed by a flurry of clicks and whirls as she crouches and looks through each bot, making sure there are no illusions or changes.

"Luna, who are you talking about?"

The orange femme looks for the familiar voice, and almost doesn't believe what her processor is telling her.

"Railchaser?" she asks, moving slowly from her curled position to in front of her longtime friend. Her armor is lighter than she remembered, and her usual flawless faceplate was covered in buffed out scars and the distinct sigil of RC just under her left optic.

The femme looks her friend up and down, making sure it is the same Railchaser she remembered, and not something controlled by the fiend that put her in this strange room.

"I'm so pleased to see that you're not harmed," Lunardust says, embracing the femme close to her chassis. Her Spark thrums happily. "I thought for sure that he would shock you too!"

Arcee frowns, deep crevices forming on her faceplates. "Who would shock me, Luna?"

Lunardust freezes, almost as if she had just been shocked again. She remembers the red glare of the optics and the glint of the beast's denta in the flickering buttons. His servos were cold to the touch when he thrust her into the blast. It feels as if small ant-droids are crawling up her back strut now, and all the metal in her body shrinks from the suddenly drop of full system temperature.

"Him," Lunardust whispers, and barely anyone's audio receptors could pick it up. "The one that will make the stars scream."

Will and Terrance are unable to comprehend the conversations, even though they are used to hearing the odd click and whistle from the bots, this is far too advanced for them.

"Luna, what do you last remember?" Arcee asks, softly placing her servo on Lunardust's shoulder strut.

"He pushed me into the beam, and it was so… painful. But I couldn't feel anything in my entire systems. My processor frizzed and then I woke up here!" Then, in a soft voice, once again, Lunardust asked, "Where is here, exactly?"

"What the hell is going on!" Terrance demands after being ignored far too long. The orange femme jumps in surprise at the sound of the human, and looks at him in wonder. Why did they have to be so small? She would easily step on one if not conscious of where she stepped. "Why doesn't she remember me?"

"The static lock," Arcee mumbles, before quickly going over to Ratchet's datapad that he had connected to Luanrdust's processor while she was in stasis and filing through it momentarily. Lunardust continues to watch the boy, taking in his wide, boisterous movements and the sudden rise in the temperature of his outer squishy coating. Arcee finds the results she needed and has it projected on the adjacent wall.

At first, when Ratchet first hooked the femme to his systems, the usual purple line that connected the processor to the Spark casing was nonexistent, but when Arcee flips to the next few slides, showing the sudden change as soon as Prime grabbed her Spark, the connection was remade.

"Before I joined the Autobots, when the Decepitcons first took Tyger Pax, we were apprenticed under Shockwave, and one post-cycle we had crept back into the facility because we were curious as to why they were ordering petro-rabbits only to find out that Shockwave had been experimenting with how to use electricity as a weapon for Megatron."

Lunardust watches her close friend, optics wide and childlike.

"We were caught and Starscream used Luna as the first official Cybertronian test subject. The connection between her processor and Spark was lost. She has no memories between then and now."

"How do you know if that's even possible?" Ratchet questions. Lunardust is slowly started to make a connection.

"Shockwave used me to lure other mechs and femmes into the tunnel that went to the testing site, and he would do this to them so that he could make a mindless, controllable army for Megatron. They would keep fighting until their Sparks were ripped from their chest."

The room is silent. Lunardust does not understand the strange human language, but she knows the yellow mech in front of her.

"You're Ratchet," she says, stepping up to him. His blue optics are old, which are in contrast to her yellow ones. "How is Thunder Rod? Please inform him that I apologize for not acquiring the Crystal stash he asked for."

Ratchet goes completely still. Some even fear that his Spark may have stopped pulsing.

Optimus remembers the just-as-sarcastic mech that Ratchet had taken under his wing not long before the war started. When on the battle field, if need be, Ratchet would take up arms while Thunder Rod took his position temporarily (and after one close incident they had all agreed that if something should prohibit Ratchet from completing his duty as CMO, that Thunder Rod would take over and complete the job to the best of his ability).

"My little sparkplug," Ratchet says, before he moves, mechanically compared to his usual fluid movements, from the room and into his private office.

"Will, tell me what the hell is going on," Terrance demands loudly. "What happened to her? Why can't she remember me? Make them fix her. She has to remember me!"

No one but Optimus hears him whisper, "She's the only one I have left.

Lunardust looks to Arcee. "Did I say the wrong thing? What's wrong with Thunder Rod?"

Arcee looks to Optimus, and when he nods his helm, she takes Lunardust's arm gently. "Luna, my dear star, we have much to inform you on."

As the two femmes sit on the berth on the far side of the Med Bay, Optimus looks to Will on what to do with the hysterical boy that has taken over the body of Terrance. He has lost the last person he had holding him to this life, and now he has nothing – not even himself.

"I shall speak to the boy," Optimus says, and Will nods, leaving the mech to do what he may have planned.

"Terrance," the Autobot Leader calls, and the young adult looks up with a pale face, bloodshot eyes and the look of a man who has lost everything. "I would like to acknowledgeable you on what we are going to do with this situation. Please, if you'll let me escort you."

The large blue and red bot reforms, the sounds of metal clicking and softly brushing against each other remind Terrance of the constant squeaking one of Lunardust's tires had while they drove, but he grew so accustomed to it he couldn't sleep without hearing it. The driver side door opens and a dark haired man with scruff, and too many small scars to tell where one stops and one starts, steps down. Terrance's face furrows.

"It is simply a hologram," Optimus says, but it comes from the truck and not from the man's mouth. "Come, I believe this form will be a bit more comfortable with you. Let us talk on our friend Lunardust."

A/N: This chapter is a bit shorter than the first two, and I know it was quite a bit of dialogue, but this gives important information for later on in the story!

Enjoy. Reviews are much appreciated. Have a great weekend.