~General Narration: ?~

    The adolescent form of a Cybertronian femme, light green highlighted by bright red with teal optics, stood, biting the tips of her digits, in front of a young mech, a bright scarlet brought out by small bits of emerald with blue optics, as he sat in the darkness near her.

???: “Why must they be so silly?”

    She asked him, not even expecting an answer, simply asking aloud what she couldn’t figure out in her processor.

    The young mech shrugged, watching her.

???: “They can’t help it. They’re stressed. They can’t remember things. It happens.”

    The femme took a deep intake.

???: “But she hurt him.”

    She exvented, shuttering her optics.

???: “But it hurt. She hurt a lot, thinking he’d abandoned her. She wasn’t thinking rationally and so it’s understandable. She felt bad. She’ll make it better. She loves him.”

    The femme nodded, knowing she had found and spoken the reasoning for her mother’s apparent attack on her father. For their mother’s apparent attack on their father.

    The mech nodded.

???: “They love each other, Jade. We know they do.”

    He stood, wrapping his arms around her gently. Jade nodded again, embracing him back for a small moment before pulling away. The mech smiled. It was her way of things. She allowed small amounts of contact, no more.

    He also knew that while he was patiently waiting for this to find a way to work itself out, she was internally frustrated at the lack of progress with their parents. She’d never let on.

    In that way, she was very much like a Prime. Like their father.

    Him? He was like their mother behavior-wise. He was fiery, quick to love and defend, very passionate about most things.

    They both took after their mother, their carrier, in the way that they were capable of manipulating the UP. Not as much as the one they knew to be Angel, but they knew their way around. It was how they were capable of making themselves age as quickly as humans. If not, they’d still be tiny.

    The tiny lights flickered around them and in the distance, the waves of purple and blue ebbing here and there only to swell again.

    Jade sighed, sitting down, going back to the calm state her brother usually saw in her.

    He smiled lightly, sitting down next to her, draping his strong arm around her smaller shoulders.

    She vented softly before speaking to him.

Jade: “Blaze. Get your arm off me. I’m fine.”

    He shook his helm, smiling.

Blaze: “Not a chance, Jadey! You need me.”

    He pulled her closer, kissing her forehead.

    She pushed him away, fluid beginning to well in her optics.

Jade: “Blaze, I don’t need YOU. I’ve had you here for me for years! I need them! I need our parents! We need Mom and Dad . . .”

    She shook her helm, instantly washing the tears away, her stoic strength returning.

Jade: “We need to get them back together.”

    Blaze nodded, but pulled her close again. She didn’t fight this time.

Blaze: “We’ll work it out, Jade. And we’ll be a happy family again . . .”

    She looked at him critically, half sad, half . . . indescribable to Blaze . . . hopeless?

    He didn’t know, but it didn’t last long, because the moment passed, and her optics gave nothing else away. He felt sort of odd when she was always the one putting on a stoic front and he was just so free with his passions, but he always shrugged it off.

    She stood again, her processor finally starting to work, but what was she actually thinking . . . ? She didn’t know, really, her thoughts were scrambled like they’d been put in a blender. Everything was indiscernible.

    Blaze stood behind her. In the minutes that had passed, they’d both aged considerably. They now looked very much like their parents, their bodies filling out to adulthood. It often happened in the UP; when things got more intense, their forms adapted to the situation.

Blaze: “What if we spoke to them again? What if we appeared in their dreams to speak to them? We spoke to them before, Jade, only a little but we did.”

    She shook her helm, venting heavily, but she knew that, once again, her twin had known her thoughts. Only difference was that he was able to verbalize and organize his. It figured. She’d gotten their father’s attitude, he their mother’s, but he was organized as their father was and she was just . . . scrambled. She figured it was a trait of their mother. Where else would it have come from?

Jade: “They ignored us last time, Blaze. How could we possibly get to listen this time?”

    He smiled.

Blaze: “We shout instead of whisper, that’s how.”

    She doubted him; the logical part of her processor fought the part that always told her to do whatever was needed. To always try.

    The logical usually won out, but today, it told her to hope and try. To make a calculated attempt. After all, no danger existed here.

    Blaze immediately noticed the lack of fight in his twin’s body language, and he embraced her quickly, lifting her off the ground with ease.

Blaze: “Thatta girl!”

    She let him hold her for a moment, secretly enjoying the touch as it was the only comforting thing she’d had from family for years, before speaking up.

Jade: “Blaze, would you please put me down now?”

    He smiled, respecting her wishes and setting her back on her peds.

Blaze: “As you wish, Sis!”

    He did a mock salute and she raised an optic ridge at him quizzically. This only brought him laughter.

~General Narration: Jasmine~

    She sat at the rooftop of the cafe, in the center table of the three, swishing white wine in her glass, the sun having long since set. She looked up at the sky a moment, taking in the slowly darkening horizon, a dark blue chasing away the gold, red, purple and faint green. . . the small border of bright blue between the night sky chasing away the sun’s colors left a small pang in her chest.

She sighed, letting her head fall back down, staring at the nearly transparent liquid in her glass, placing it back on the table, tracing the tip of her finger around the rim slowly, her hair coming to block her face in a veil.

    The door opened quietly, and a voice called her name in a quiet, gentle tone. She knew Jimmy had probably warned them that she was upset. He’d been shocked when she’d showed up looking so distraught.

She called back to them in a sweet, but less than happy tone than usual. She’d been sapped tonight.

Jasmine: "Good evening, Darlings. What brings you here?"

Meggy: "We uh . . . came here for supper and-."

Yistina: "And we were stalked by this really creepy woman!!! Meggy said that she could tell she was dangerous and-."

Meggy: "Yisty!"

Meggy exclaimed, groaning a bit. Typical of her. Jasmine smiled lightly, her face still pained. It was nice to have some sense of normalcy when everything just felt so incredibly abnormal around her.

Jasmine: "Well, sit down, Jimmy will come to take your orders, shortly, I'm sure."

Tanisha looked at Meggy and Yistina, not entirely sure what to do. She hadn’t seen Jasmine like this before. None of them had.

Meggy shrugged and sat down.

Meggy: "You sure are . . . calm . . . You feeling okay?"

Tanisha followed suit quietly, taking a seat, and Jasmine raked back her hair with one hand.

Jasmine: "I . . . I've been having dreams. That's all."

Meggy: “Dreams . . . ?"

She trailed off.

Meggy: "Like nightmares?"

Jasmine sniffed. It certainly felt like nightmares . . . she always felt pain or fear or sorrow either in the dream itself or up waking and finding she was still alone.

Jasmine: "Yeah. Something like that. Every night. Normally they're gone when I wake, but lately . . . more and more visions stay with me."

Meggy: "Uhm, is it okay if I ask what kind? Y'know, talking about it kind of helps."

Yistina: "Yeah! I read it inna book once!"

    Yistina enthusiastically areed.

Tanisha raised an eyebrow at them, sure she knew where this was going, but wasn't going to interfere. Jasmine nodded.

Jasmine: "They're of the robotic kind. It's crazy, I know. It's absolutely insane, but I keep . . . seeing them. And if it's not robots then it's a man I've never met and never want to meet."

    She wasn’t ready to talk about the sense of loneliness from the dreams she still couldn’t remember upon waking, but as she thought about it more and more . . . the eyes. Those sapphire blue eyes . . .

Meggy: "Would . . . would one of them h-happen to look like a giant, red-and-blue one? With this stern, but kinda . . . kind face?"

Jasmine nodded slowly, focusing on the memory. The mech she’d come to know in her sleep as Optimus . . .

Jasmine: "I . . ."

She closed her eyes slowly.

Jasmine: "I wish I could explain it without breaking down. It's my own fault for trying to take an early night."

    That seemed like a reasonable excuse as to why she was so upset. No one would ever think that she’d received a letter that way . . . try to sleep early and have a nightmare. That would upset anyone, right . . . ?

Meggy: "It's okay . . . t-to be honest . . . I've been having kind of the same thing. I keep seeing this green female robot . . . that red robot . . .  and my . . . "

She stopped short, apparently thinking something over.

Meggy: "Someone who I-I think is my mother. There's an explosion and then nothing . . ."

Jasmine sighed, trying to pretend the explosion didn’t ring a bell in her memory.

Jasmine: "I do believe we have much to discuss, Meggy. Very much."

Her eyes shone a bit, feeling a small spark of happiness since waking up, and then Jimmy came up the stairs, breaking the silent understanding they were having.

Jimmy: "Do you girls have your orders ready?"

Before anyone else could speak, Meggy saw something across the street that made her eyes widen.

Meggy: "Guys, stay cool, stay cool . . . But that lady from before is watching us."

Yistina: "What?!! W-where?!!!"

Yistina looked frantically around.

Meggy: "I said stay cool! She hasn't noticed that we've spotted her I don't think. But she's watching us up from the one balcony across from us."

Jasmine took a deep breath, catching on quickly to the situation. And she was willing to do whatever necessary to keep these girls safe.

Jasmine: "Stay calm. Describe her appearance and her location in detail. Trust me."

Meggy: "Yisty . . ."

Yistina took the lead, forcing herself not to freak out.

Yistina: "She's got black hair, done up in a sort of wavy style. She's wearing a tailored, black tube-top with yellow details on the sides, and a mini-skirt with purple trim. Ankle boots, black with yellow and purple details. Black lips. Caucasian I think."

Meggy: "She's right across from us. Table and everything."

Meggy concluded, giving a location.

Jasmine took another breath, closing and reopening her eyes, but they held a slight glow to them now. She’d connected herself to the UP, though she had no idea what it was actually called, only knowing that by reaching through someplace she didn’t know, she coul manipulate others to her will.

Jasmine: "Leave. Go and do not come back."

She whispered in a low tone. Meggy took that as their cue. Jasmine wanted to tell them otherwise, but didn’t dare break her concentration.

Meggy: "C'mon girls. Let’s go. NOW!"

She and the other two got up, swiftly walking out. But the moment they hit the street . . .

Yistina gasped.

Yistina: "How'd she get down hers so fast?!!"

She saw the woman across the street from them.

Yistina: "M-Meggy . . ."

The woman was blocking their route to the hotel, and Jasmine was becoming frustrated with the lack of control.

She now stood at the top of the roof, glaring down, but not at the girls. At the woman, eyes glowing brightly.

Jasmine: "I told you to leave!"

She pointed down the street.

Jasmine: "Now."

Her voice was a low growl. When she said no one threatened anyone she cared about she meant it. At last, the small stands of silver shone near the woman, but they were invisible to anyone without access to the UP. Again, Jasmine was clueless, except for the fact that no one had ever been able to see the strands before, and so she was unworried now.

Meggy's eyes widened as the threatening woman slowly turned and walked away.

    The girls paused for a moment, talking, but Jasmine didn’t pay much attention, she sat back down, finally downing the wine in swallow, trying to ease the wavering in her skull. It certainly didn’t look like tonight was ever going to get easier . . .