Neos Mnestis

Chapter 1: Nostos

Part 1: Ardu Arco

     Cybertron, post-war, wasn't the most beautiful planet in the galaxy—though the ever-so-slowly returning populace claimed it was better than most places they had sought refuge at—every city was in disrepair, most to the point where it was too dangerous to try and live in, and although the last Prime had given his life to reignite the planet's core, it was still a long, slow, healing process.

     Why would anyone want to return here?

     Arcee hadn't a clue as to the answer as she helped to unload a small cargo vessel, which had just arrived from the Milky Way galaxy with Ironhide and Chromia onboard. The older Autobots had been taken to the med bay for a decontamination and health check by their resident turncoat, leaving Bumblebee, Smokescreen, and herself to unload the ship (Bulkhead was supervising the remaining Vehicons and Eradicons in the reconstruction of the city Iacon, Arcee's home city, Wheeljack was helping roundup the few living Wreckers and anyone else he could contact, Ratchet was still on Earth, and of course Ultra Magnus was busy restoring a form of the chain of command in the slowly growing populous) though honestly there wasn't much to unload from the cargo vessel: A few cubes of poorly refined energon, and little else; actually there was also a whole lot of scrap metal, most of it pink of all colors—good thing they had brought carrying crates that had sub-spacing storage too.

     As soon as the ship was emptied, and cleaned a little as is was full of grit from whatever rock the two had been calling home, Smokescreen took it to the almost-repaired shuttle bay, leaving Arcee and Bumblebee to take their fellow Autobots' belongings to their assigned living space. The trip would not have been long in vehicle mode, but the team still had their Earth alt forms—which didn't mix so well with Cybertron's metallic ground—so she and the young warrior had to carry the four crates of personal belongings all the way to the housing district. Actually, Bulkhead had been able to find some old schematics he was compatible with in one of the building he was reconstructing, would have been nice to have him around right about then.

     Arcee's shoulder struts burned by the time they set the meddle crates down in the main room of the small apartment. Although she was a warrior, Arcee was not a very strong model; sure, she could do sudden bursts of strength, and she was rather agile, but anything that required an extended effort wore her frame down quickly--one of the many faults she found with her form. While she was on the topic of fault finding, Arcee also disliked how small she was. She never felt that this was a problem before the war, but once she started to spend most of her time with military units she became self-conscious of the fact, and after confronting Megatron for the first time she was unnerved by the thought that the leader of the Decepticons could snap her in two with his bare hands—if he could catcher her of course.

     "Are you okay, 'cee?" Bumblebee inquired, bringing her back from her thoughts.

     "Um, yah." Arcee was a little shocked to realize that she had been staring blankly at the gray wall of the room for nearly a minute. Rubbing the back of her helm, she turned to leave—Bumblebee following her. "Guess I was just thinking about life."

     "Yeah, I do that a lot too." The young Praxian murmured.

     They remained quiet for the remainder of the trek back to the mostly-empty ship dock; then Arcee got a ping on her long distance comm line. "Lieutenant Arcee here." The black and yellow warrior looked back at her.

     "Lieutenant Arcee, this is Lieutenant Prowl." Arcee's mouth fell open at this: Lieutenant Prowl was alive! He had been presumed dead after the destruction of moon base three—one of the last battles fought on Cybertronian held ground—along with most of the Wreckers. Did that mean... Could it be that Spri—NO! She couldn't think about that.

     "Lieutenant Arcee," Prowl stated, his voice flat, emotionless, and just as familiar as ever. "I, along with Special Operations leader Jazz, courier Blurr, and Wreckers Drift and Perceptor, will be arriving at Cybertron with in the joor." It had been awhile since she had heard the interstellar time measurement and it took Arcee a moment to convert it to the Earth time which she was accustomed to. Prowl would be arriving in a bit under three Earth days.

     "Glad to hear you will be returning soon Lieutenant. Will your group be needing any specific medical aid?" Arcee knew she had to follow protocol with Prowl, despite the sudden urge to ask about the status of a curtain Wrecker who had been stationed on moon base three, or even just about his health and that of Jazz.

     "No. That is all." With that Prowl ended the transmission.

     "Was that Lieutenant Warpath?" Bumblebee asked, referring to her only fellow lieutenant thought to have survived the vicious fighting before both factions abandoned the planet, as her attention came back to the world around her.

     "Prowl." The young warrior looked shocked, mouth falling open. "He'll be here in three days."
That night as Arcee walked back to her small room she wondered if perhaps there was some small hope that a large, yellow and green Wrecker had survived the war. Should she try to contact him? NO, Arcee decided: it would too spark-breaking to try only to realize he had become one with the Allspark.


      The three days passed slowly for Arcee: she was impatient to see her fellow lieutenant—and some-what friend—Prowl. It would also be refreshing to have Jazz's upbeat attitude around again, she had missed his jokes and clean humor—the majority of soldier mechs tended to be a little crude.
The tedium of reconstruction was interrupted the evening of the second day when Jack and Miko—now 33 and 30 respectively—came by Space Bridge to pay a visit to their Cybertronian friends. Arcee was glad to hear that Jack and his wife Diana would soon be having their third child, a true blessing indeed, which was why she hadn't accompanied him on the trip. Miko was doing well: she had moved back to America for college and lived in the same apartment building as Raff—who hadn't been able to come to the little reunion because he had 'like three million midterms,' to use Miko's words.
Jack had been happy to follow Arcee around the city—the stuffy spacesuits were now replaced with flexible bodysuits—and help put the finishing touches on rebuilt circuitry, to help lessen the strain on the healing planet. Miko was 'totally hyped'—her words—that she got to spend all day working with Bulkhead to rebuild the basic road system in Iacon and Praxis.

     After a while of working in amicable silence Jack turned to Arcee and asked "What's been on your mind lately 'cee?"

     The Femme was surprised by her companion inquiry: she thought she had been doing a fairly good job at keeping her angst over the arrival of Prowl and comply, and over a green and yellow mech—who she hadn't seen since moon base three—well covered under a skin of calm; apparently Jack was still as good as ever when it came to reading her.

     "Sorry for being a bit distracted," after all, she did want to spend quality time with her little friend, "I'm just a little nervous about a shuttle that will be landing tomorrow."

     "More of you are coming back?!" Jack asked; the excitement plain on his face: maybe he could have a chance to meet them. He had yet to see any Cybertronians—other than team prime—since his arrival; the majority of them had little to no experience with such tiny organics, they chose to steer clear of the humans and just try to return life to normal.

     "Yes Jack." Sometimes she still saw the K.O. Burger worker, who dreamed of owning a motorcycle, in her human friend. "Though I thought Smokescreen would have told you by now."

     "He's been busy. Will I be able to meet them Arcee—Commander Magnus permitting of course?"

     "Certainly Jack. And he gave permission for it almost the moment Bulkhead and Miko asked this morning."

     "Sweet!"