For Cade Yeager, a lot of things had happened over the last two days. The truck he bought happened to be a Transformer, he lost his house, and now he had to deal with the fact that Tessa was a mess since Lucas and her unofficial boyfriend died in an explosion. He never liked him anyways.
Tessa was currently sitting with Bumblebee, who was trying his best to console her on losing Shane, but it didn't seem to be working. The scout was just sitting there, lightly patting her back and wrapping a blanket around her. He understood what it was like to lose someone he cared about, since he was still upset about not being able to find Barricade. He wasn't going to say anything to the rest of the Autobots about it, except for Prime who knew about it already, but he hadn't exactly told Crosshairs, Hound and Drift about his relationship with the ex-con yet. Heck, they didn't even know about Dorothy yet, but that was probably gonna change soon.
Sooner or later, the crying girl fell asleep and Bee was finally about to relax some. Cade could see it all over his face, since the scout gave a loud whirled sigh after he had walked away from his daughter and came to sit with him by the makeshift fire they made earlier. Drift was back to sharpening his katanas after he and Bumblebee started fighting, Crosshairs was leaning back against a rock structure behind him and Hound was doing a weapons check of his entire inventory. Optimus was on a short patrol around the area, but wasn't too far away if something were to happen. The father kept looking down at his phone, expecting someone to call back and tell him he and his daughter were gonna be okay.
"So who's this 'Dorothy' person, Bee?" Crosshairs asked, shifting his position to learn forward and rest his elbow joints on his knees. "Why do you and Prime keep talkin' about 'er?"
::She's an old friend and really nice.:: Bee replied back, glaring in the paratrooper's direction. ::Dorothy used to work with us back when the Autobots were sanctioned by the U.S. government. I don't know where she is now, but we are kinda hoping that she shows up at some point. She has a habit of doing that a lot::
"Sounds like a bunch of scrap metal to me." the green trench-coated mech replied, picking something out of his denta with his pinkie digit. "I mean, these little buggers are about the size of your servo. How in the name of Cybertron did she keep up with you all? She drive with you."
::No, she has a bike and that only thing I can say about how she does the things she does is... magic...:: Bee lied a bit. The scout knew he wasn't allowed to tell anyone what happened, since that was Dorothy's private business and not his. If Crosshairs wanted to know, he would have to ask her when she got here. Yes, there is no "if" this time. Bumblebee knew she was going to be here this time because Optimus sent out the message over the Autobot comm system, so she must have heard it by now.
"Magic?!" Crosshairs replied, shooting up from his seat a bit and fell back with laughter, clutching his stomach. "You mechlings gotta start digging' your helms out of your afts! There ain't such a thing as magic!"
"Do not judge someone you have never met, Crosshairs." Drift spoke up, waving his sword at the green and black mech as a method of scolding him. "I am sure you will grow to like her once you meet her, if you meet her that is."
::Don't worry. She's gonna be here, Drift.:: the yellow and black scout replied. ::I know so. I can feel it in my spark... for reasons.::
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on guys!" Cade called out, having listened to their conversation and realized something really important to his own well-being in the near future. "Are we talking about Dorothy Haven? Like, Dorothy 'I've got seven kids and if you mess with me, I'm stabbing you with a pen' Haven?"
Bee's optics widened and he nodded happily, leaning down to listen more to their new human friend. ::Yep, that's her.::
Crosshairs laughed again. "Seven kids? Man, she got busy with her sparkmate."
::Crosshairs, shut up before I make you.:: Bumblebee threatened before turning back to Cade. ::As you were saying, Cade? Do you know her?::
"Yeah, I do. I happened to have called her..." the man replied, scratching the back of his head nervously. "And from what I could gather, she was not too happy about our situation because she didn't question anything I told her... and then hung up."
Bumblebee stared at Cade and then at the ground in front of his pedes. ::Okay, we're so screwed.::
Hound perked up at the statement and raised a grapping gun up in the air. "Why do ya say that that, Bee? You need me to shoot someone?"
::No! That will just make it worse!:: the scout exclaimed as he started to freak out a bit. ::We are not shooting the woman that we actually need alive right now!::
The sound of a motorcycle broke through the empty desert and both Cade and Bee's heads snapped towards it. The thing was, they couldn't see the bike. They could only hear it and that was a hundred percent scarier than being able to see what was coming their way. Everyone else at camp had picked up on the sound as well and activated some sort of weapons and waited for the sound to come to a stop. The motorcycle's sound altered from an engine rumble to more of an animalistic growl at some point and everyone started to get the unnerving feeling that the human and the scout were onto something. That's when the sound stopped and Cade was on the end of bolting for the nearest rock structure.
"CADE YEAGER, YOU PIECE OF SCRAP!" A blaster shot blaster through the darkness in front of the man and exploded at his feet, making him yelp and jump back. Cade watched in somewhat fear as a woman walked towards him with her helmet in one hand and her charged up assault rifle in the other. She dropped her helmet and seized the inventor by the shirt collar, tugging him back towards her and glaring at him point-blank in the face. "I have been driving for 5 hours just to find your sorry aft because of you making that stupid phone call! Do you know what could have happened if I wasn't train for this?! The kids could have been taken away from me, I could have been in jail by now and... and... I can't even speak anymore I'm so pissed off at you!"
Dorothy let go of the man's shirt, making him drop a bit to the ground holding him up a bit and turned around to mutter and curse to herself for a few minutes. Cade didn't dare more and neither did anyone else, just waiting to see if she was try and shoot the man again. Instead, she just fell to the ground and started crying into her hands silently. She made a loud shaky sigh and just sat on her knees and sobbed silently, her anger gone and sadness taking its place. She had been so stressed from trying to protect the kids and herself that her damns just broke up from all the pressure of being a mother. The woman wasn't okay in the slightly sense of the word.
Luckily, Bumblebee knew what to do having experienced the mother of seven completely crashing from high levels of motherly stress before. He walked over to her and picked her up into his servos, gently holding her and walking back over to the rock he had been sitting on. ::It's okay, Dorothy. The kids are okay, right? They're safe and everyone's accounted for?::
The woman looked up from her hands and gently wiped away the extra tears falling, nodding and smiling to the scout. "Yeah, Bee. I've got everyone. Thank you, sweetheart. I'm sorry I broke like that, but a lot of stuff has happened this week, not to mention Cemetery Wind came to my house and we literally had to evacuate already. Good to see you again, kiddo."
::Good to see you, too.:: Bee replied and chuckled lightly, it coming out as a couple of strung together buzzes from his vocoder. ::So, where are the kids?::
"Oh, frag! That's why I forgot!" she replied, standing up to quickly kiss the top of the scout's forehelm before getting down from his servos. She ran to pick up her assault rifle and tapped it twice, it transforming into a tiny sparkling and clinging to Dorothy's front, half awake. "Ravage, turn on your headlights for Primus's sake!"
"I am! Give me a second to at least drive over!" the motorcycle called back, slowly trucking his way over to the campsite and then turning on the lights to a lower degree. The motorcycle transformed instantly, forgetting he had passengers still on him and they all became scattered on the desert ground. The cybertronian panther stretched out quickly before sitting down in the spot he transformed in. Everyone else transformed and woke up, groaning and whimpering about how it was one in the morning and they wanted to sleep more.
The three Autobots that had no idea what the heck was going on just watched in silence as the seven extra cybertronians came out of nowhere. Before anyone could get a word out, Drift shot up in a defensive stance with his swords out at the seven cassettes. "Decepticons!" he shouted and Crosshairs and Hound stood up with weapons of their own. "State your purpose of being here!"
Everyone was really calm about this, besides Cade who was silently thinking that there was going to be an all-out war between the seven transformers that just appeared and the Autobots. Frenzy and Rumble looked at each other before laughing out loud, hard. Ratbat joined them and the rest of the kids just face palmed. Dorothy was more focused on Toxin at the moment and he was chirping and squealing with excitement, bouncing in his carrier's arms. It took a minute for the twins to stop flailing around on the ground to sit back up and smiled. "Wow, are these guys new or what?" Frenzy asked, before his facing going a bit more serious. "No, I really mean it. Are they new, Bee?"
::Yep. Came around during the five years you guys were in hiding.:: the scout answered, smiling under his vocoder before waving off the others. He turned around and glared a bit. ::That's Dorothy and her kids, guys. They're good, don't worry... I hope.::
"So you mean you're telling me that the woman you were talkin' about before was a human female was major emotional issues and is the mother of seven of the most dangerous Decepticons on this planet?" Crosshairs asked, quirking a brow and staring in disbelief. "What's next? She's dating Soundwave and Starscream's their uncle?" The paratrooper was laughing at his joke, but none of the kids or Dorothy were. He stopped, growled and threw his hands up in the air to show defeat at this point.
"Sparkbonded, actually, but close." the woman admitted, raising her left hand to show a ring on her ring finger. The kids started laughing and Dorothy did as well, bringing her hand back down and holding it, silently thinking about her mate a bit with a small frown. Toxin looked up at her and patted her face, making her snap out of her thoughts and smiled down at him. "And little Toxin right here is not mine or Soundwave's. He's adopted."
"No, wait. Stop, Dorothy!" Cade yelled, seeming very frustrated and tired at the same time. The woman guessed he probably had a long two days, since he had learnt of an alien race living in his barn and running from the government. "Your children are human! I've seen them! Ryan, Fred, Ron, Betty, Laura, and Robin! I've never seen Taylor, but they are-were all human, I don't know... what the heck is going on here?"
Dorothy sighed, chuckling to herself and patting the inventor on the shoulder. "I'll explain it to you later, Cade, I promise. Right now, I have to wait up for Optimus so I can yell at his aft too. Bee, can you take Toxin and help him recharge? He's pretty tired and once he has his stuffie, he'll be okay." The woman walked forward and placed the tiny sparkling in the scout's servos and going off to start unpacking her stuff from her backpack. She pulled out the weapons cassette's stuffed T-Rex and handed it to the sparkling before going back to unpacking a few things.
Ravage, on the other paw, was staring at Tessa, who had recently just woken up from hearing all the commotion. Frenzy and Rumble were watching him, their line of sight moving between their older brother and his friend from school. The biggest smirk appeared on both of their faces and they walked around to stand in front of the dreamy-opticed panther. It was their sire's story all over again. "Hey, Rav." Frenzy called up, trying to catch his attention.
"Yeah?" the cat replied, not even looking at them and his long tail wagging happily behind him. The two twins chuckled a bit, realizing that this cat looked like a love-struck puppy dog.
"You have a crush on Tessa, don't you?" Rumble asked, quirking his brow from under his red visor and crossing his arms over his chestplates. His twin mimicked his stance.
"Ye-No! No, I don't!" Ravage quickly snapped out of his stupor and looked down at his siblings. He glared at them and growled under his vents. "What in the name of Primus gave you that idea?"
"Well for starters, you're looking at Tessa like Sire did when he first saw Carrier." Frenzy replied, holding up his fingers to count. "Two, everyone in the family knows that you have a crush on her. Even Uncle Star knows and he was in the hangar for most of the time. And three, Ratbat has told us both that you talk about her in your recharge and that's just creepy. Dare I go on?"
The panther narrowed his blazing red optics even further and groaned, bringing a paw to his face. Why did his brothers torture him so? More importantly, why do his siblings hate him so much? "Okay, okay, yes. I have a small interest in Tessa, but why does that matter to you?"
"Oh nothing." Rumble continued where his twin left off. "Just that because you're in your root form and not in your holo-avatar, what will she think of you now?"
The panther was scowling at them until that point and paled visibly. He looked back over at the teenager girl to see that she was looking weirdly at Dorothy, probably wondering why she's here. He growled again, mentally berating himself for not thinking about that and looked down to see that the twins were gone. He jumped back again, back arched a bit and plating flaring out, but settled and looked back to Tessa. He sat on his haunches, rubbed his muzzle with his paws and walked over to the teenager. He sat down behind her a ways and cleared his vocal box. "Hi, Tessa." he said, voice shaking and cracking all over the place.
The teenager girl spun around and screamed, making Ravage cringe and fold his audial receptors back. She picked up a stick from the fire and waved it at him, trying to get him to leave her alone. Apparently, she didn't like big giant black cats creeping up behind her and the cybertronian panther did the correct thing and slowly backed away every time she stepped forwards. "Go away, Decepti-whatever!" she yelled, throwing the stick at him.
The stick hit off his plating, not even making a dent, but wincing from the words that come out of her mouth. He could hear cackling from over by Dorothy to see Frenzy and Rumble laughing their afts off at him, which also made him a little pissed. "Ow, that's hurt my spark. Tess, come on. I'm not that scary, am I? I didn't mean to scare you, but you're so small now and I really big now. Can't we just talk?"
"How do you know who I am?!" she yelled back, going back towards the fire to grab another stick, but Ravage walked around her and sat in front of her path.
"I know you because we literally spend most of our lunch period trying to rig the vending machine to give us free candy." the cat replied, digging his paw into the ground and messing with the sand. "I take you on bike rides when your other friends can't drop you off. For Primus's sake, I even picked you up really early in the morning so we could go get coffee before school and you wouldn't stop making found of my hair."
It took the teenager a moment before see putt everything together. "...Robin? Is that you? Oh my god, what have they done to you? Did those Cemetery guys turn you into a Transformer?"
"A what?" Ravage asked, wondering what a "transformer" is. "Oh, you mean cybertronian! No, I've always been one. Actually, I am the motorcycle, but this is what I normally look like."
"But you were human though. I could hug you and touch you and you didn't look like this." Tessa complained, using her hands to gesture to all of him.
The panther chuckled, laying down in front of her and spreading his back legs out. He thought Tessa completely confused was utterly adorable and he just started answering some of her questions. Frenzy and Rumble were now a little bummed out that the teen didn't keep throwing sticks at him and went off to go pester Hound about guns and other stuff. Ratbat was currently napping onto of Crosshairs' helm without him noticing and Toxin was already asleep in Bee's arms.
Dorothy had finished unpacking by the time that a horn sounded in the distance and she groaned verbally. She didn't really want to be dealing with Optimus right now, but she probably had to. She stood up from her backpack and looked back to see the big rig pull up to camp, transforming to stand in front of her. "Hey, Prime. How long has it been? Four years and six months now?"
"What are you doing here, Dorothy? I thought you were in hiding with your family." the Prime asked, tilting his helm and kneeling down to talk to her.
The woman crossed her arms in front of her chest, popped her hip out a bit and quirked a brow. "I was, until someone broke cover and decided to let the human he happened to pick up call me. Cemetery came to my place and I had to evac. Now, you and I need to come up with a battle plan before Primus comes for both of our afts. So, what do we have to work with besides a snark, a war dog, and a warrior from the time of emperors, Prime?"