Hunt for the Thirteen

The Autobots

Time: Middle of great war.

Place: Earth, exact location, classified, but somewhere in the USA.

"Last time on "As the Kitchen Sinks"..."

"Argh!" Mia moaned, flipping over on the old couch. "Do we have to watch this again?"

She was shushed by every autobot in the room, plus her sister. And her Dog Gerome, who gave her an annoyed look.

Bee gently scolded her. As if he were her parent.

"I'm 15." She mouthed at the yellow autobot.

Optimus and Elita-1 watched with amusement.

They certainly weren't your average family...team!

They had 5 humans who lived in the base, all under 18.

At 17 the oldest was Clarissa, Mia's older sister. The two had entered the autobot's custody when Bee rescued them (and their dog) from Megatron and Soundwave killed their parents.

At 16, Hailey had been through a lot. Raised by an autobot until she was seven and captured by Shockwave, the teen was now a cyborg with a built in gun. Her little brother Vram was just happy to have her back, as was their father Gearshift.

The last human was a time-displaced 11-year-old princess named Eliza, who was besties with Warpath.

Besides that, 2 other human kids lived at home with their parents, though they spent most of their time at the base. Benny and Clarice. And then there were Drift and Ratchet's kids, Bata and Alex, in New York. Plus four turtles they had basically adopted.

Then there was Cheetor, the guardian of the allspark who they'd found a while back, their fourth in command Chemico who now could transform into a sparkeater thanks to the quintassons, and Soundquake, the clone of Soundwave.

Add Thrust, Jazz, Windlade, Hot Rod, Ultra Magnus, and....

They were a big weird family.

In the middle of a war, as they were all reminded as an alarm sounded through the base.

Mia jumped up faster than some of the more seasoned autobots.

"Attack or incoming from space?" She called up as she grabbed her laptop, which was connected to the autobot's server.

"Neither." Ironhide said as he examined the data. "It's picking up an unaligned cybertronian signal."

"Like Lockdown unaligned?" Clarissa asked, shivering at the memory of when Hot Rod and she had faced him.

"No clue."

The room sunk into silence. They had faced a couple of these unaligned signals. Most had turned out to be enemies like Lockdown.

"Well, we going out or what?" Mia cried as she ran over to Bee, waiting for him to transform and roll out.

"Excuse me? And why do you think you're going?" Clarissa and Bee said in tandem.

Mia glared at her sister and turned back to Bee.

"You always used to let me come." She argued.

"I always never noticed you sneak behind on your motorcycle." Bee pointed out.

"And remember the last time you went out on a recovery? On your own?" Clarissa said.

Mia sighed. "I was closest to the signal. I couldn't risk a decepticon finding an autobot."

"Only it turned out to be Overlord." Clarissa cried out.

Mia simply shrugged. "There are always risks."

"None of the children are coming." Optimus Prime ordered.

Hailey, who had also been preparing to go, deflated. Even Clarissa looked upset. Even if she didn't want her baby sister getting into trouble meant she didn't want to.

"But--"

"No buts. Overlord, Lockdown...none of you kids were supposed to be there." Prime began.

The light and silly mood from before was gone. In every cybertronian's minds were places the kids weren't supposed to be, and the prices they had payed for it.

And of course, what had happened to Mia and Clarissa's parents.

"Sorry kids." Chemico said as she and Ironhide and Thrust, the autobot's second in command, got up to go.

"Elita, Chem, and I will be going." Optimus spoke with a nod of agreement from Elita.

"What?" Thrust and Ironhide cried.

"We don't know who we are going up against or their threat level." Elita-1 explained. "We're not gonna risk recon like Bee, but we're not risking all our leaders and hardest hitters."

"Who are unfortunately usually one and the same." Ratchet grumbled.

He was working on a recovering Chromedome, whose leg had been blown up. His conjunx sat nearby in concern.

The others tried to argue, especially Bee, Hot Rod, and Windblade, but they were overruled.

"Come on guys. It could just be a friendly singing telegram." Chemico reassured.

"Like the Quintassons were?" One-Way asked. "Only the kids had been able to get us out of that mess."

"And they'll be here if we need them." Chemico rebutted.

"Can we go now?" Elita-1 rolled her optics.

"Wait." Cheetor interrupted. "I would like to come."

This was a surprise. Since Cheetor had joined them a few months ago, he had mostly stayed back at base. He had never asked to join them on a mission.

"Why?" Optimus asked.

"I...feel something about this signal." Cheetor answered

"You had a feeling? Like a "disturbance in the force" feeling? Or "I've got a bad feeling about this" feeling?" Mia asked excitedly.

"Like, a disturbance...but in a good way." Cheetor explained.

"And you want to come?" Elita questioned. "Because of this good feeling?"

"Yes." The feline bot answered confidently.

"Well, he is connected to the allspark..." Chem threw out. "He might have a sixth sense about this thing."

"Alright. You may come Cheetor." Optimus declared.

The bot did a little happy dance as he transformed and rolled...ran out of the base.

"That bot is not going to survive this war." Ironhide grumbled.

"That's what you said about Mia." Thrust pointed out.

"Hey!"