Word Count: Ultra Magnus's POV
He looked around and saw nothing, "I don't know!"
"Everyone, fan out. Search for the girl." I ordered, "You two, head back to base. You've done enough."
I saw Wheeljack roll his optics as he walked away, but then Bumblebee said something loudly.
"I think I found Knockout's pede..."
"What?" Wheeljack asked incredulously, walking over to Bumblebee, I followed suit.
And indeed, right there on the ground, laid a severed red and white pede.
"What happened here?" I asked, but the two humans were already gone.
I turned back around and spotting something small and black. A human jacket, and it was on fire.
I frowned and walked over to it, before looking up.
I saw something else out of place and looked over, seeing a ball of cybertronian metal. Was this Knockout's?
I picked it up and it shifted in my hand, curling inward. It almost appeared to be... It looked like the feathers of a Earth bird. Was it alive?
Suddenly it moved and revealed flesh. My optics widened as the metal shifted and revealed Alias.
"I found her!" I said.
I heard the groundbridge open and I ran through, leaving Wheeljack and Bulkhead behind. I saw everyone looking over worriedly and I handed the girl to Ratchet quickly.
"This is a matter for Nurse Dar- By the Allspark!" Ratchet turned away and scanned the girl.
"What is it?" Optimus asked.
Oh, so Optimus is back now. Ok.
"Alias has... cybertronian wings on her, but she's injured. Nurse Darby, come here." Ratchet said, grabbing Nurse Darby and putting her on the table with Alias.
"How is that possible?" Smokescreen asked.
"I don't know. It seems Alias has been hiding more than Agent Fowler assumed." Ratchet said.
"She's bleeding out through a head wound. I need bandages." Nurse Darby said.
I grabbed some off the human shelf and dropped them next to her. She wrapped them around Alias's head.
"What happened out there?" Ratchet asked, working carefully on welding together a torn portion of the wing.
It was leaking energon. I looked at Nurse Darby and saw the Alias was bleeding normal human blood from the wound on her head.
"We were ambushed by Knockout and when June and I ran, Alias was grabbed. Then she must gave made a sword from Knockout's hand, because suddenly, he was dropping her and there was a sword shaped hole in his hand. Then she cut off his foot while he tried to grab her. Then Knockout called for backup and it arrived and a vehicon shot Alias right before she stabbed into Knockout's spark chamber. Then our backup arrived." Agent Fowler explained.
"Wait hold on. She cut off Knockout's giant pede with just a tiny little sword?" Raf asked. "Because I've seen her sword, it's not that big. And it shouldn't be that sharp."
"I think the majority of these questions should be answered by Alias when she wakes up." I said.
"Agreed. But until then, I believe we have made a mistake. Ultra Magnus, you need to be Alias's charge. The Decepticons were after her when he first met, it is obvious that they knew something we did not and she is in as much danger as our three human charges." Optimus said.
"If you think that is best." I replied dutifully.
"Ah!" Nurse Darby suddenly yelped, jumping back as a sword blade swung at her face.
"Alias! Calm down!" Ratchet yelled, poking the sword into the ground.
Alias was stilling laying on the table, breathing heavily and staring at Nurse Darby.
"I- I'm sorry. I thought you were my mom." She said.
"Daphne?" Agent Fowler asked, "Did you try to kill her when you saw her?"
"No, but I should have." Alias said darkly.
"Enough." I ordered.
"Alias. We were not aware that you had... wings." Optimus said calmly.
Alias's eyes widened and she turned her head and sat up, looking behind her at the twelve foot long metal wings.
"Uhhhhhh... Surprise?"
Ratchet helmservoed, "Do you have an explanation?"
She stood up unsteadily and winced, before poking her bandage. Nurse Darby gasped and smacked her hand away.
"Don't do that!"
Alias shrugged, "I guess I just never brought it up."
"You never thought to bring up the fact that you have wings on your back made out of metal from our planet?" Arcee asked skeptically.
"Wait, what?"
"You didn't know? Your wings are made out of cybertronian metal. The same metal that our bodies are made of. And they are full of energon, our blood." Ratchet explained.
"No, I have normal blood." Alias said.
"Yes, in your body, but not the wings." Nurse Darby said.
"Have you always had them?" Optimus asked.
"Uh, no." She replied.
"When did you get them? And how?" Ratchet asked.
"I don't know, maybe two years ago. They were just there when I woke up." She explained.
"Twelve foot wings just magically sprouted from your back?" Arcee deadpanned.
"Yup."
"You seem very calm." Optimus said.
"You're the ones who found out." Alias said.
"The 'cons weren't even here two years ago. I should take you to the Pentagon so we can get you checked out. What if there are other people like you out there?" Agent Fowler mused.
Alias's eyes widened into giant saucers and her muscles tensed. Uh oh.
"Alias, wai-"
She unfurled her wings and violently flapped them, sending her hurling forward. She rammed into Fowler and threw him into a wall. She pressed a sword blade against his throat.
"If you ever tell anyone outside this room that I have wings, this blade will be sticking out of your back." She threatened darkly.
I quickly reached down and grabbed the girl, before handing her to Ratchet.
"Nobody is killing anyone, but Agent Fowler, perhaps you shouldn't tell your superiors about this quite yet." Optimus advised.
"And you shouldn't be moving like that, I just patched the wing. If you break it, I'm not fixing it again." Ratchet warned.
"You're lucky you don't have a concussion." Nurse Darby asked.
Alias frowned and poked the bandage again, before wincing and lowering her hand.
"From now on, you stay with Ultra Magnus. He will be your Guardian until the threat to your life is gone." Optimus ordered.
"Yeah, and from now on, Optimus is in charge of you. I give up." Fowler decided.
"Yes and from now on, Agent Fowler, you don't try to retrieve any Predicon remains without my permission or Ultra Magnus's in my absense." Optimus said.
"What if you're both gone. Like today?" He asked.
"Then you ask Ratchet or you don't go at all." Optimus told him sternly. "Endangering human lives, even your own, is not acceptable. If it wasn't for Alias, both of you might have been killed today. And Alias herself could have died too."
Agent Fowler put down his head in shame. Serves him right.
"Everyone, it's been a long night. Head off to recharge." Optimus ordered.
The bots nodded. Nurse Darby left the building to go to the doctor's barracks and Agent Fowler left to his office. The bots headed off to recharge and the children went to the couch and sat down, still watching us.
I glared at them and they ducked back down beneath the cover of the back of the couch. I huffed and turned to Ratchet.
"Ultra Magnus, take Alias to recharge." Optimus said.
Ratchet handed her to me, "Oh joy, I get to be held for the rest of my life."
Ratchet rolled his optics, "Make sure she doesn't do anything strenuous."
I held her in my servo gently and walked off to my recharge station. The door closed behind us and I put her down while putting a clean energon cloth on the table.
I picked her up and placed her down, before sitting on the recharge station and watching her.
"That is so creepy." She said.
I ignored her and looked at her arm, "What's that white mark?"
She glanced down, "A scar. Why, you guys don't have scars?"
"It depends. What is a scar?"
"What's left behind after you heal from a wound." She said.
"Oh. Sometimes we have welding marks and scratches, but they usually aren't permanent unless you die." I said.
"Our scars are usually permanent unless they are small or shallow. Even then sometimes they stay." She explained.
"Ratchet said that humans had something called mitosis and meiosis. An odd way of recovery." I said.
Alias laughed and I smiled. She had a very pretty laugh, at least whenever it is genuine.
"You should go to recharge. I trust you won't run away?"
She nodded, "Sure."
Then she turned around and laid on the cloth. I leaned back and closed my eyes, falling into recharge.
Optimus's POV
I watched as Ratchet worked on the synthetic energon. Everyone had just gone off to recharge. I handed him a corth when he held out his hand.
Suddenly I froze, feeling an evil presence in the room. This was the second night in a row. Slowly everyone came into the main room again, exhaustion hovering clearly over their helms.
I looked around, "Where is Ultra Magnus?" I asked.
When nobody replied, I narrowed my optics and walked to his room, everyone following behind me.
Alias almost killed a Decepticon today, one who was conscious, nevertheless. How hard would it be for her to have killed him in his sleep? This was the third night she was here.
She was gone the first night and we felt the evil presence when she slept the second night and now again. Perhaps she masks her true intentions in her sleep.
The way Fowler describes it, she almost killed Knockout with ease. She was very powerful. Enough so that if she was truely evil, it might really be her presence that turns us on in our recharge and creeps beneath our mesh while we are on.
I pushed through his door and froze.
By the Allspark.
Word Count: 1672