Ruby - Origins - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Puzzling

Thursday evening found Ruby sitting in the autobots' temporary hanger.

The atmosphere was somber. Mainly due to the absence of the Twins, it was quiet. 

Ironhide and Ratchet whispered to each other, making plans for their future without NEST. Jolt crouched close by, listening but not contributing to their conversation. Sideswipe was in vehicle mode, presumably asleep.

Ruby stopped listening to the autobots. There had been talk of them leaving the planet, and if they did that, she would be left behind, a thought she couldn't fathom. 

She sat with her head against the wall, holding her right wrist up to the light. Unlike the autobots' hanger at the main base, the one here was fitted with flood lights. 

Ruby examined her bracelet again. Ever since Sam had mentioned the symbols that may or may not be embedded in it, Ruby had this growing idea that the bangle held some kind of secret. But whatever this secret was, it refused to reveal it. Earlier that day, she'd asked both Ratchet and Ironhide to try and get something out of it by scrutinizing the silver with all of their abilities and lasers; but they had found nothing.

Since devoting so much of her energy to the fruitless exercise that was Optimus' revival, Ruby had been experiencing a dull ache in her shoulders from where Megatron had stuck her. Ratchet suggested this was because she had diverted her energy away from healing the wounds, and it was taking time for it to return. 

The pain made her think back to that evening: Megatron had wanted her bangle, but why? Did it hold a power he could exploit, or did he just dislike the risk it proposed of granting power to others? Ruby quickly rejected the latter, thinking Megatron would assume humans were far too stupid to realize that the bangle was something more than just an accessory. 

No, Megatron must have had proper plans for it. He fled as soon as Optimus was dead, without trying to retrieve the bangle; maybe he had wanted it to kill Optimus and get revenge. Ruby didn't believe this either. When the autobots had handled the bangle, it had not shown even the slightest of reactions. In the hands of the transformers, the bangle was just a lump of useless metal; they could not utilize its powers at all, and Ruby expected it would be just as futile to the Decepticons.

She took it off and held it between her finger and thumb, trying to make something out of the patterns. She rotated it this way and that, looked at it from all sides and angles, and with growing frustration, she dropped it on the floor. 

Ruby snarled, remembering what Optimus had said about how ill she would become without the silver bangle. She snatched it back up and slid it into place on her right wrist. She ran her fingers over its embossed patterns, wondering what would happen to her tomorrow. Her fingers hit the small ball that was the visible part of the clasp. She had never ever opened it before; she had never needed to as it slid easily over her hand. Now, she pushed down on the ball to release the clasp. 

It clicked open but didn't fall off. Ruby forcibly pulled the bangle off again and looked under the clasp. There was nothing special there. She held it up to the light again, expecting to find nothing. To her surprise there was the tiniest of circles engraved into the metal under the clasp, but it was just a circle. 

When she moved the circle into the light, her body became enclosed in a huge sphere of blue light. Excitement bubbled in her stomach and her hopes soared. She frozen in place, terrified that if she moved the sphere would vanish again.

"Hey guys," she called over to the autobots, remaining completely still. They didn't seem surprised, but cautious, except for Ratchet who strode straight up to the sphere and began examining it.

"It seems to be a projection of the earth," Ratchet concluded, having made some measurements.

How was a projection of the Earth any help if  it didn't even show a map? Ruby looked at Ratchet, who was shaded blue through the sphere. He continued through his collection of lasers, ending with some sort of red laser to scan the sphere. 

Shaded dots appeared in separate places all over the sphere. Ruby couldn't work out where they were. Ratchet calculated the coordinates. He gave a nod to Ruby when he had them all, and she let out a breath and relaxed, just to find out that the sphere didn't vanish until she shut the clasp again anyway.

"What do they mean?" she asked Ratchet as she slipped the silver back.

"I do not know what they mark," he said, "Places of history maybe, or the locations of various things,"

"How about pieces of a puzzle?" suggested Ironhide. He held out his large metal hand to Ruby, allowing her to jump up and sit on his shoulder, "Scattered across the globe,"

"Are any of the locations bigger than the others Ratchet?" asked Ruby.

"No, they are all of the same dimension," he replied.

"So if the coordinates show where pieces of a puzzle are, what is this puzzle?" said Ruby.

Ruby had to cling onto the edges of Ironhide's shoulder as he shrugged in response to her question. She didn't agree with him. Decepticons didn't have time for puzzles.

"We're not very good at riddles are we?" said Ruby.

"What's a riddle?" asked Sideswipe.

"Exactly."