Dorothy put down her phone and looked at the screen saying that the callshe was on with Cade had ended. A million thoughts were running through her mind as she sat there knowing two things: Optimus Prime was back and the kids were in danger again.
She had told Cade to call her back after the kids had finished dinner, which he did but not with good news. The inventor told her on how he found a truck that turned out to be a transformers that needed to be repaired. He told her that these people called Cemetery Wind showed up and this other scary black transformer had blown up their house. All of them, Cade, Tessa and now Shane, were with the transformer on the run with the government tracking them. Dorothy didn't speak the entire time Cade was talking, not wanting to let the kids know how incredibly scared she was. She said goodbye and hung up, sitting down in the chair in the living room to watch the kids.
She knew Cade was talking about Optimus the moment he started explaining what happened. The man didn't say his name, but she that there was only cybertronian in the entire galaxy to break their cover over something like protecting humans. Dorothy didn't really care for her own species anymore, knowing that most of them were stupid and not worth the amount of love she had for her family and the cybertronians she cared about the most. The inventor never mentioned any other vehicles, meaning that Bumblebee and the others were still in hiding. That was good, but she knew that if the government was hunting down Cade, they would be tracking his calls.
Around nice o'clock, Dorothy needed to get the kids to bed before someone she didn't know came knocking on her door and Frenzy or Rumble tried to answer it. All the kids were watching Pokémon in the living room with her, Frenzy, Rumble, Ratbat and Toxin all sitting with their favorite plushies on the floor while the girls were sitting on the couch. The mother of them all grabbed the remote and turned off the TV, all the children gasping and starting to complain about how she turned it off and why she would do something like that. Dorothy put the remote back down and picked Toxin up from the floor. "To bed, all of you."
"Wait, us too?" Laserbeak asked, moving her wing to point to her sister. "But we're so much old than them."
"I know, but you all need to go to bed, okay?" the woman replied back, gently hugging her youngest closer to her body. She smiled warily down at the little sparkling and kissed his forehelm, making him giggle and curl up in her arms with a yawn. All of the kids could tell something was wrong with their carrier, knowing that she focused on keeping Toxin happy whenever she was upset or nervous about something. The two condors took off from the couch and flew up into the rafters, landing in their nest. The boys made their way upstairs, going to their rooms and waiting for their carrier to say goodnight to them. Dorothy looked down at Toxin and nuzzled him a bit before looking up to the rafters. "Goodnight, girls. Make sure Ravage gets home alright."
"We will, Carrier." they answered back in unison as the mother walked upstairs with her youngest in her arms.
The little sparkling was already in recharge, his little winglets fluttering behind him as he was dreaming happily. Toxin was hugging the woman around the neck and slightly drooling on her shirt, but Dorothy didn't mind. What she was more worried about was the fact that Cemetery Wind probably tracked any calls that Cade made and they would be on their way. The mother walked up the stairs and went to the twin's room, pushing open the door and seeing that they were in their bunkbeds. "Hey, you two. I love you, no matter what stupid scrap you pull at school. Okay?"
"Carrier, are you okay?" Rumble asked, sitting up and looking at her. "You seem really nervous. Did something happen with Mr. Yeager?"
"Cade? No." Dorothy replied, shaking her head and smiled. "I'm just having one of those nights where I'm thinking about Soundwave a lot. I miss him and you know, I wish he was here to help us."
Rumble nodded, laying back down on his pillow and smiling at his carrier before pulling the covers over him to go to sleep. "G'night, mom."
"Mom? Since when do you guys call me 'mom'?" the woman questioned, but didn't get a reply from her two sleeping boys. She smiled, tearing up a bit and quietly closed the door to the room. "Goodnight, my loveable little dorks."
She leaned back against the door for a moment after closing the door. The only person to call her "mom" was Ravage, which was mostly a joke. She was happy her children were adjusting to being around humans and being human more times than not, but she didn't believe "mom" was a very good word to describe herself. She was a carrier, not a "mom". She could never be a mother to anything. In her mind, she was too aggressive and forcefully happy.
Dorothy took a moment to breathe a bit before going over to Ratbat's room and kissing the small bat on the helm as she placed Toxin in his crib. The two youngest shared a room with Ravage, but since he wasn't here at the moment, Dorothy was going to ask Starscream to come stay with them in his holo-avatar. "Goodnight, my little creature of the night."
"Goodnight, Carri." the little bat answered back as he hugged his Zubat plushie with his wings. "Uncle Star gonna do bedtime story?"
"Of course, sweetspark." Dorothy reassured, sending a quick comm. message with her phone to the seeker in the hangar to come up to the house in his avatar. She knew Starscream would get to the house, which also gave her another means of protection for the kids if something where to happen during the night. She was planning on staying downstairs and watching over the house for the night, just in case someone showed up. Having the seeker in the house even in just his holo-avatar would be great help if someone broke in and she needed someone to fight with since Ravage wasn't currently home.
While Ratbat waited for Starscream, Dorothy got Toxin ready for recharge. It was fairly simple tonight, since the little sparkling had spent most of his day running around the backyard with the resident giant cyber-panther. The little mech was very tired and only had time to grab his favorite T-Rex stuffie from the other side of his crib before completely passing out. The little weapons cassette sat with his older siblings and watched Jurassic Park on evening while Dorothy was out. Toxin seemed to like all the dinosaurs, but Rexy was his favorite. For his spark creation day, the mother had bought him a plush of the tyrannosaurus rex and Toxin had never lost it since. "Goodnight, sweetspark." Dorothy cooed, kissing the little sparkling before pulling a blanket over him.
There was surprisingly no sound of heels from the stairwell when Starscream came up on his holo-avatar. The seeker walked in the room and yawned, stretching his arms out a bit as he was wearing a red sweatshirt with white sleeves. He was wearing some loose jeans as well, but that was really surprising was that he was wearing house slippers instead of his usually combat boots with an extra heel. His hair was a mess on his head, looking a lot more like Ravage usually did on a daily basis, but his brown eyes were a lot darker than the nearly adult panther's was. Overall, Starscream looked really tired and like he was about to pass out on the bed he just sat down on. Dorothy felt bad for him and wished she still had some of Ratchet's sleeping meds to give him.
"Wow, no heels tonight?" she joked a bit, gently leaning against the white crib behind her as she crossed her arms over her chest. "The memory fluxes must be getting really bad if you're using your house wear attire tonight. Did you fall asleep after I gave you the energon earlier?"
The glare the seeker shot the woman standing next to her could kill. He looked like a moody teenager who didn't want to go to school in the morning, but his mother dragged him out of bed anyways and made him get dressed. It was amusing, but soon the look was lost to the fact Starscream was getting attacked by the little bat in the room and he was genuinely having fun. Ratbat sat on the seeker's lap as the two got comfortable sitting on the edge of the little mechling's bed, giggling as the human avatar of the seeker gently rubbed his helm. "I heard someone waited a story tonight from the great Starscream himself, correct?"
Dorothy chuckled as the two settled into their little act and quietly snuck out of the room so they could have their moment. The first time the kids had seen Starscream again after Chicago, all of them had been hesitant to approach him. He had a new frame that looked completely different from his old one, since he was now a more rounded and blocky looking. His face looked more like what most Autobots had and his entire appearance seemed less threatening. He was still a F-16 fighter jet, but his pedes were his thrusters and his wings weren't stuck to his back, giving them a larger range of motion to express his feelings. His old form had been designed by Megatron, explaining why when he was moved to his new frame, the seeker was much happier and lively than he had ever been.
The only one to get to know him first was Ratbat, unsurprisingly. Besides from Toxin, the little bat was the friendliest out of the siblings and was more accepting than the others. The mechling was the first to hug Starscream and spent the most time trying to help the seeker become more accustomed to his new look. The condors were next, followed by the twins and then Ravage. The panther had been the most suspicious of the seeker, never fully trusted him since the whole Ryder incident and was worried that Star would fly off again at a moment's notice to go take over the Decepticons now that Megatron was officially dead. But no, the seeker stayed with Dorothy and became part of the family. He promised Soundwave he would take care of his creations and his mate before the communications officer left to go into hiding.
Thirty minutes when by before Starscream came downstairs and met Dorothy in the family room, which was on the other side of the kitchen and where the mother of the household did most of her reading. There was a kettle of hot water on the stove and the seeker took the initiative of getting a teabag out from one of the nearby boxes to put in a mug. He poured some hot water into said mug and walked into the family room on the couch, where the woman was reading a book and had her glasses on again. "Ratbat asleep?" she asked, not looking up from the book.
"Yes, he passed out halfway through my story." the seeker answered back, twirling his teabag in the mug to let it brew a bit. He looked at the cover of the book and saw the title, Cryptonomicon with a weird symbol on the front. "What's this one about?"
"Mathematician is enlisted to break the Nazi code and his grandson runs a database network in the future. It's good so far." Dorothy replied, closing her book at the end of one chapter and placed it aside for the time being. "I got a call from Cade today."
"Yeager? The inventor whose daughter Ravage has a crush on?" Starscream questioned, taking a careful sip of his hot tea. He had to remind himself that his holo-avatar was very fragile and his sensors were oversensitive. "Does he need you to pay for his electricity bill again? I swear Dorothy, you shouldn't be wasting your money on him."
"Hey, I'm not wasting my money on him." the woman responded defensively. She calmed herself from yelling too loudly, knowing that she would wake the kids that way. "Anyways, that's not the point of the conversation. I need you to stay in Ratbat and Toxin's room tonight while I deal with the possibility that some unwanted guests are stopping by tonight that aren't cybertronian."
Starscream groaned a bit, but soon quieted under a small side glare the woman sent him. The seeker really didn't want to sleeping with the little ones, knowing that if Toxin woke up in the middle of the night, he would never go back to sleep. Usually whenever Dorothy said 'unwanted guests', she meant that either the government or Cemetery Wing found out about their residency. They have moved a couple of times before this, this move being the longest of two years, but Dorothy wanted to make this move permanent. The woman was always worried about when the government would show up and try to take her kids or herself away, meaning she was always very high-strung and tense. He nodded finally, agreeing with her order. "I'll try my best. Should I start packing the kids' stuff?"
"Not unless our cover is blown." Dorothy replied, still watching the driveway for anything. She just hoped Ravage got back soon so she knew all of her kids were safe. Everything seemed a little too calm tonight when there was a large thud from upstairs about the two adults' heads. Frenzy and Rumble's room was above the family room and they both froze, listening for anything else before realizing that there were tiny footsteps following the thud. Did one of the boys have a nightmare? It wasn't uncommon, especially for Frenzy, but something seemed off. "Stay here and wait for me to call for you. Something's not right."
Dorothy didn't even look back at Starscream to know that he understood the situation. The seeker stood up and leaned against the wall backing the kitchen as the mother walked through the opening and carefully poured herself some coffee she made earlier in the evening. She listened to the footsteps, too slow to be her kids and there was no screaming for her yet like Frenzy usually did after nightmares. She didn't recognize a second set of footsteps either, so she became worried at one of her kids had gotten hurt somehow. She quickly grabbed the small dagger from under the kitchen sink before walking into the living room and sitting down in one of the chairs.
"Carrier?" The voice was Frenzy's, like she expected. He sounded terrified, like he had a nightmare, but there was a shaking in his voice. Usually he would have ran down the stairs checking to see if she was there, but Dorothy could only hear him from the stairs and not see him. "A-Are you there?"
"Yes, Frenzy. Are you alright, sweetspark?" Play it off. Dorothy knew something wasn't right with her child, but she had to play it off to keep whoever was upstairs with him from attacking. She looked over at the stairs to see that Frenzy had come down to the small platform between the lower and top level of stairs. He was fidgeting with his digits and looked like he was about to cry, which was upsetting for Dorothy as a carrier to the mechling. "You have another nightmare?"
The red and black cassette nodded, rubbing the side of his arm as he looked up the stairs for a moment. He was scared of something upstairs, but the little creation hadn't said anything else since he came down the stairs. "I-I had a dream where you and Sire were g-gone and you left us." he muttered a bit, looking down at his pedes and starting to curl up on himself.
"Oh, sweetspark. You know Soundwave and I would never leave you all alone like that. We're family, and no one gets left behind." the woman replied, getting up from her chair and walking over to the bottom of the stairs, warmly smiling at her child. "Why don't you come downstairs and we can talk about it? I'll get you some warm energon before you go back to bed."
The lone twin nodded frantically and sprinted down the lower flight of stairs into his carrier's arms, shaking and crying into her shoulder with his arms around her neck. Dorothy smiled, walking away from the stairs and rubbing his back, not facing the stairs. She walked over to where the couch was and kissed Frenzy's cheek, nuzzling him slightly as she slowly reached for the dagger under her shirt as she could faintly her a second pair of footsteps behind her. She could feel her creation tense on her shoulder, whimpering a bit. "C-Carrier..." he whined, hiding his face in his caretaker's shoulder again.
"I know, honey. I know." she replied, feeling the presence of something directly behind her and the sound of blaster humming to life. She didn't move for a few seconds before she quickly jabbed her free arm back to elbow the person in the face and stabbed the dagger into the upper leg of the attacker. The person behind her yelped and groaned, falling backwards before catching themselves on their feet. Dorothy quickly grabbed the dagger out of the man's leg as he was falling and knocked him out with the wooden handle across the head. The man's head collided with the hard wooden floor and he was out, leaving the woman and her son standing in the living room alone. She exhaled the long breathe she was holding and placed Frenzy on the floor for a moment. "Primus, are you okay, sweetspark? Did he hurt you?"
"No, Carrier. I'm okay. I-I promise." the lone twin stated, hugging his mother still and resisting the thought of letting go. He was still shaken from being woken up and forced to distract Dorothy so that the man could attempt to kill her. Frenzy was shaking and trying to get the woman to pick him back up, but she was more focused on listening for more footsteps upstairs or anywhere around the house. "Is he dead?"
"No, not yet, but hopefully the rest of his friends decide to get him before the night is up." the mother replied, picking up her child and rushing around to grab some stuff from the living room. Dorothy wasn't panicking, no she couldn't afford to panic with her children's lives on the line. She started to grab all the emergency bags from around the room and started to organize everything. She jumped up and hit one of the wooden planks above her head, shaking the rafters. "Girls, wake up! Code Black!"
The two condor cassettes in the rafters were immediately awake and started collecting their things from their nesting area, knowing to leave their phones behind and other devices that could be tracked. They stored stuff in their subspaces before flying out and heading up the stairs to collect their siblings and their stuff. Laserbeak also was comming Ravage to come back to the house under Code Black, making sure that their older brother was there to pick them up from the house. Buzzsaw went into the younger twin's room and saw that the window was broken inwards, now knowing where the unconscious soldier form downstairs had gotten in. The dull golden plated condor shook her brother awake and passed along the message to start packing while the muted red plated condor was across the hall waking up Ratbat and Toxin.
Starscream rushed in from the other room and froze in the doorframe of the kitchen, cursing to himself as he saw the unconscious man on the floor and started to help the woman pack. "That escalated quickly, didn't it?" the seeker quipped while taking Frenzy from the woman and placing him on the couch as she finished packing up the last emergency bag. "What do you want me to do, Dorothy? I'm still recovering from the last time I flew, which ended up with me crashing and my legs getting messed up."
"Stay in the hangar then." the mother replied, placing her bag by the front door and looking up the stairs. "Laserbeak, what's Ravage's ETA?!"
"Ten minutes!" the oldest femme yelled back down as she continued to help Ratbat pack up his stuff before the two started to get Toxin all ready to go.
"Thank you!" Dorothy replied, watching Buzzsaw fly down the stairs with Rumble in her talons and dropped him off on the couch with Frenzy. The woman turned back to Starscream, who was had gone down to the basement to get some energon for Toxin. "As I said, stay in the hangar. You safer there under the shield than trying to follow us while Cemetery is coming after us. Soundwave and Ratchet engineered it to cloak a cybertronian's life force from human and cybertronian tech. The shield should fit over you in your alt-mode and keep you hidden from sight if CW comes to search the house. I'll contact you when I need you, or when we find a new place to hide out."
The seeker nodding, turning to help Buzzsaw get Toxin down the stairs as Ratbat flew down himself. The little sparkling was tearing up a bit, not knowing why he had to wake up from his recharge so early and started to hiccup and whimpered. The bat flew down with a little sac hanging from his back and tied it to Dorothy's bag before transforming into a laptop and sliding into the woman's bag himself. Dorothy grabbed the energon container and placed it in in her extra bag while taking the black and green sparkling from the condor. She started to calm him down, bouncing him a bit and getting him to transform into an assault rifle after he fell back into recharge. "Dorothy, I'm taking the rest of the energon and oil and hiding in it the hangar with me. I'll be fine. I've survived worse." the mech yelled up from the basement.
"I know, Star." the woman yelled back and heard a motocycle a short distance away from the house, but also heard ATVs as well. The seeker came back up the stairs quickly and hugged the woman, both holding each other for a few moments before letting go. The holo-avatar of the ex-SIC had tear trails down its face and Dorothy smiled warmly before kissing his forehead. "Be safe, you crazy jet. Don't make me have to fix you again."
"No promises." Starscream responded sadly before his avatar disappeared, his consciousness going back to his frame back in the airplane hangar out in the meadow.
Dorothy chuckled as she motioned for the kids to head outside the house. "That's my line." she scolded to no one as she headed outside to see a motorcycle with a young driver sped up the hill and pull up in the front of the house. Frenzy and Rumble instantly transformed into their respective CD players alt forms and dropped into the two back compartments of the shiny black motorcycle while the two condors transformed into their respective air drone forms and hovered above. Dorothy quickly attached Toxin to the weapon holder on the side of the bike and let the avatar sitting in the seat disappear before she hopped on. "Dorothy, we have ATV coming up the hill. How the heck did they find us?"
"Cade called me." Dorothy responded, forcefully revving Ravage's engine and getting the bike to start up down around the backside of the house to where the mapped out escape route was. "Optimus is alive and the Autobots are converging somewhere in the desert outside of Texas, I'm thinking Arizona. I didn't think I'd be going back to my home state so soon, but once we get far enough from the house and Cemetery, you can activate the tracker for Bee and see where he's at."
The two black ATVs popped up over the hillside where the house was and started to chase the bike through the forest towards the main room, a black Lamborghini not too far behind. The woman cursed again, which she seemed to be doing a lot of tonight, but see didn't care as she unhooked Toxin from the side of the bike and aimed it back at one of the ATVs. She felt the Allspark fragment release some energy before a giant shot escaped from the end of the assault rifle's barrel and dented in the front end of one of the vehicles chasing the family. Dorothy smiled a bit and took aim at the other, waiting for it to align before shooting again and blowing the engine of that vehicle.
That only left the Lambo following Dorothy as they came up on the military fence that surrounded the property, but it now had a wooden ramp a few meters in front of it. The mother clipped the gun to the side of the bike again and revved up the engine of the bike before powering through the ramp, inching it over the fence's barbed wire and landing hard on the other side. The black sports car skidded to a stop just before the fence as it watched the woman sped off towards the highway, engine growling in response to her getting away. All of the vehicles from Cemetery stopped as well, watching the woman as she got away from them for the third time in the last five years.
One of the ATVs' doors opened, a man with shades walking out as the black Lamborghini transformed into a tall mech, kneeling down to look off in the direction Dorothy had went. "Why aren't we going after her?!" the man screamed, looking at the cybertronian for an answer. "If you haven't noticed, she's still got that stupid fragment and those cons with her!"
"You humans are so stupid sometimes, you know that Savoy?" the mech pointed out, smirking to himself. "She wants us to follow her. You saw the weapon she was handling. If she got us cornered, which I have no doubt that she will, she could probably murder all of you in an instant and I could get seriously hurt myself. So how about you stop standing there like an idiot and try to find out where she's headed, because she aren't finding her any faster by standing her like little ducks."
The man nodded and hurried back into the car, sending the command to head back to the house to start searching for information on where they might be headed. The black cybertronian smiled to himself, chuckling as he looked out to the highway and tried to imagine the woman and her alien children on the run. "The chase has begun, Mrs. Haven. First you, then your children, and then Soundwave. Run as fast as you can."