And it didn't take a year to update this time.

Enjoy, peeps

Chapter Six: Truth Hurts

Halo paced up and down the training room. The two other Wreckers stood before her, both staring down at the ground in shame. The flight back with Bee and Wheeljack had been dead-silent, and she'd kicked the scout out of the room before beginning this conversation.

She finally stopped pacing in front of them. Her visor gleamed against the light.

"Is it true?" She asked, half-angry half-scared in her tone.

Bulkhead glanced at Wheeljack, who sighed in response.

"Haley-" He began.

"Nope. No 'Haley', just an answer," She cut him off. Her servo wrapped around the necklace, "Dreadwing said this was his parents'. You said you found this with me twenty-one orns ago. I checked the record and he wasn't lying about his carrier and sire being murdered around that time. So I have one question left: Is. It. True?"

Silence took over for a split second. Bulkhead continued to stare at the floor to avert seeing her expression.

"It's true," Wheeljack stated bluntly.

Her shoulders sank, "You didn't 'find' me in Prax. You stole me."

The white mech turned to the green mech beside him, "Bulk? You wanna take this one?"

Bulkhead sighed, hesitant to tell the story they'd tried so long to shield her from, "Look. Duros...he wasn't a good guy. He claimed to be neutral, but killed any Autobot soldiers he came across and let 'Cons go free. One day, he got one of ours. So Jackie and me went on a revenge mission."

Halo turned away, gritting her denta, "And I guess my carrier was just as bad for you to kill her?"

Jackie shook his helm, "No. But after we were done with Duros, we heard Jyn upstairs. She'd just had you, was in a lot of pain and the sparkmate empathy bond after we killed him was what sent her over the edge. You...you were in her arms when she died."

Words really couldn't describe how infuriated the young Wrecker was. Every new bit of information they gave seemed worse than the last.

"We knew we couldn't leave you there for the 'Cons, so we..." Bulkhead trailed off.

"You took me and pretended I was abandoned," She realised, "That's why I was never on the record? Because they'd find out who my parents were?"

Both mechs nodded.

The femme scoffed in disbelief, "Did you ever plan on telling me?"

"When you were old enough to know," Wheeljack answered, "We...thought it was best for you."

"What was best? Are you fragging kidding me?" She repeated, taking a threatening step forward, "You killed my sire and carrier, kidnapped me, never bothered to confess who I was, lied to me my entire life. And you think that was what was best for me?"

Bulkhead sighed, "I...I'm sorry, Haley."

That was it? A lifetime of lies and that was all they had to say.

She shook her helm, turning away from them, and began to storm towards the exit. What more was there to know?

Wheeljack and Bulkhead watched as she left. The green mech was about to follow after her before feeling his friend's servo on his shoulder. Jackie shook his helm. He knew they were in no position to question her. She'd probably only yell if they tried. And who could blame the kid?

--

"Soundwave, pull up all files on the Autobot femme known as Halo Jyn," Dreadwing ordered.

The silent mech followed his command, searching across all databases available for the name, however, no references appeared. Of course, he didn't know her by her wartime name: Nightbreak. After all, she'd done her best to stay off the grid.

Dreadwing scowled, but thanked Soundwave for trying, "Very well. Try the two Wreckers upon this planet: Wheeljack and Bulkhead."

Now those two got a lot of results. Both known in their respective fields. A brawler with considerable strength, and a tactician with a love for blowing stuff up.

The Decepticon SIC couldn't help gritting his denta as he read more and more about them. These were the ones who his sister considered family? It was almost laughable, that is if he was the type to laugh.

"Thank you, Soundwave," He said appreciatively to the mech.

The files disappeared from the Con's face/screen, replaced with a question mark. Dreadwing seemed to comprehend what he meant.

"Why must I know?" He tried to come up with a non-incriminating answer, "The Wreckers...they are the ones who murdered my family. I must avenge my parents for what the Autobot betrayal did to them."

Soundwave still didn't speak, but Dreadwing seemed to understand what he meant.

"Of course, I am forever loyal to Lord Megatron," He corrected himself.

He just hoped he could convince his newly-discovered sister to be as dedicated to the Decepticon cause as he was.

--

"You okay, Halo?" Bee asked, looking at her in concern.

For the past ten minutes the two had been walking around the forest. She'd barely said anything and kept fiddling with the pendant around her neck. But the Wrecker seemed to quickly click back into reality as her friend asked the question.

"Uh, yeah," She lied, "Why'd you ask?"

"Because you asked me to come on this scouting mission with you and so far, the conversation has been 'hey' and 'fine'," The scout challenged, "I thought we agreed to no more lying."

She sighed, "Yeah, well a lot's changed since I made that promise."

"Like what?"

Halo didn't respond, instead shaking her helm and trying to walk a little way ahead of him. Bee glanced after her.

"Is it about Wheeljack?" He asked.

She stopped in her tracks.

Bumblebee tilted his helm, "You've been acting weird ever since he got here. First running off, then going on a mission without Optimus' approval, and now this."

The gold femme turned back to him, servos on her hips.

She may not have been able to see, but he could almost feel her glaring at him, "First off: I don't ask Optimus' permission to help out my friends. Second: I just wanted someone to have the decency to let me know Wheeljack would be arriving. Third: I don't need to tell you everything about my life, Bumblebee!"

The yellow scout took a small step closer to her, "I'm not asking for a life story. Just that you don't lie to me again."

"I'm not lying!" Halo yelled, also walking closer to him, "I'm fine. I'm TOTALLY fine! About Wheeljack being here, about all the lies he's told me, about the fact that my brother is a Decepticon, about Bulkhead and Jackie murdering my parents before I could even learn my own name. I am FINE with ALL of that!"

Bee stared at her. Even she seemed shocked at herself. Of course she got angry, but she felt her face blush in embarassment that he'd seen her that way.

"Bumblebee, I..." She began, but quickly stopped.

The femme just sighed. Her shoulders sank as she turned and walked away from him. He tilted his helm at her, trying to remember everything she'd just said and check if he'd heard correctly. The scout had so many questions. But by the look of the situation, so did she.

The black and yellow mech breathed in and out deeply before finding it in himself to walk over to her. She leaned against the trunk of a tree, clutching her helm.

"So..." He didn't look at her out of awkwardness, "That's what you guys were talking about after I left the room."

She shrugged, "More or less. It's complicated."

He nodded, "Well, we're out here in the middle of nowhere. I think we have time."

Halo shook her helm, "My carrier and sire are dead, Bulkhead and Wheeljack are responsible, and Dreadwing is my older brother." She gestured to the necklace, "This was his parents'."

Bee didn't say anything. There was a lot he thought of saying, but all would've been of little help to the situation.

"They've been lying this whole time?" She nodded, "Whoa."

"Yeah," Halo agreed dully.

He looked at her with sympathetic optics, "Do you want to...talk about it? I mean you don't have to, but-"

"No, I..." She seemed to relax a little, "...I think I should. There's a lot of scrap I can ignore. This isn't one of them."

--

Bulkhead paced up and down the hangar as Wheeljack continued to lean against the wall.

"We messed up big-time, didn't we?" The green mech began.

"Mm-hm," Wheeljack murmured, staring directly ahead at the wall.

He sighed, "She's gonna hate us forever, isn't she?"

"Sure is," His friend responded.

Bulkhead turned to him, furrowing his optics ridges in confusion, "Why aren't you being more 'you' about this?"

Wheeljack didn't shift his focus, "Bulk, we've known this was coming for a long time."

"There's gotta be something we can do," The big mech said optimistically, "Halo can't go on hating us forever."

"She can. I raised her," Jackie stated.

Bulkhead walked over to the mech, leaning against the wall beside him. They stood in silence for a good second before the green mech sunk to the floor in defeat. Wheeljack followed.

The Wreckers didn't look at each other. They knew full well they'd screwed up. The white mech sighed and turned to his friend.

"Look," He began sternly, "I hate us too right now. We were young and stupid and angry. And what came from that? An orphaned sparkling. If I were in her position right now, I definitely wouldn't forgive us." He noticed the mech next to him starting to get more upset, "But I'm not her. Who knows what'll happen?"

There was a pause. Both of them sat there, just thinking to themselves about Halo.

Bulkhead tried to convince himself that she cared too much to hate them forever. After everything they'd been through before he'd left, caring about her for that long, there was no way she could just ignore their history.

Wheeljack tried to do the same, but didn't so much share in Bulkhead's enthusiasm. He'd told Halo not to take scrap from anybot, himself included. She'd learnt from him how to fight, but he'd always regretted not teaching her well enough.

Needless to say, there was a lot of self-reflection going around.

"Would you change it?" Bulkhead finally broke the silence, glancing at Jackie, "If you could, would you erase what happened?"

"No." His answer was immediate and definite, "'Course I wish Jyn didn't have to die. But Duros was bad news. Can't say that I could let Halo grow up with him as her sire. And we'd lose the one good thing that came from the situation: Her."

A few hours later . . .

The ground bridge hummed to life, allowing two figures to walk through. They seemed to be standing a closer-than-normal distance apart and Halo was actually smiling - in a non-sarcastic way. Ratchet folded his arms and turned to the two, awaiting an obvious answer as Raf and Miko hurried down the stairs.

"And where have you two been?" He demanded, "Standard reconaissance missions may take one to two hours at maximum."

Bee shrugged, "Sorry, Ratch. We just...got to talking."

The doctor raised an optic ridge at them, "What about?"

"Er...about..."

"About all the stuff I've missed since you guys arrived on Earth," Halo was quick to interject, "I can't believe I wasn't here for the terracon battle."

Truth be told, she'd learnt the majority of that on her first race with Bee. But how could she tell them all the stuff she'd learnt and expect them to still treat her the same way? That wasn't how distrust worked.

The grumpy medic clearly didn't believe them, but chose to let it go, "Very well. By the way, Wheeljack left earlier."

Halo's smile was quick to falter, "Wait, 'left'? What do you mean 'left'?"

"I mean 'gone', 'drove away', etcetera," Ratchet returned to his computer, "He's decided to explore the Earth before establishing a base here. I'm surprised he's stayed put for this long."

Miko shrugged, "That's kinda rude, TBH."

"I just..." Her shoulders sank, "Of all the fragging times to go."

"Halo Jyn!" He grew defensive, "The children don't need to hear such language!"

He'd understand if he knew what was going on. Maybe. It was difficult to tell with Ratchet.

Giving up on the conversation, Halo groaned in frustration and stormed off to her room. Bee watched as she disappeared around the corner. It was unnerving when she did that. Normally, it'd only be because someone had annoyed her. But he knew this was a whole lot different.

Meanwhile, Halo slammed shut the door to her quarters. She felt like she needed to hit something, or yell at someone. Just any way to let out her anger.

Wheeljack had left in the middle of an arguement. And she couldn't hate him enough for it. It was like adding scraplets to a bleeding wound. A betrayal. A coward's way out of confrontation.

And there was absolutely no way to stop him, short of tracking down every energon signal on the planet.

She sighed and collapsed face-first onto her berth. This sucked. As in, it really sucked. She'd been lied to by the ones she trusted all her life and that was a major shot to her pride.

How was it possible to trust anyone if she couldn't trust the ones who raised her? She felt lost for an answer.

And that sucked too.

I know, I know. It's a little shorter than what I normally write.

I didn't want to drag this chapter out too much. But I feel like that ship has sailed.

Sorry if this story's getting confusing, but I promise there it something relating to a plot that I have in store for it.

As always, thanks for reading what I write at 2am.

'Til All Are One,

GreyroseLegacy