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“Bee! Wait up!” Bumblebee didn’t recognize the voice that called his name, much less the other six that followed it. He turned to start running, but skidded to a halt.
This wasn’t Jasper. This wasn’t Cybertron either. It definitely looked like Earth, but there were no known Autobots in forest biomes.
He was going to have to figure out how to get a comm out to Ratchet if nothing else, just to be able to go home.
“Bee!” A different voice called out, but the cadence sounded similar. Maybe the mechs chasing him are all under the same commander?
*Autobot Scout!* He called, just putting the bare minimum. But if they were Autobots, they’d know who he was just from his binary. *Friendly*
“Wait! I don’t know what you’re saying!” The first voice called, and he heard a buzzing that was only in the air when Laserbeak was spying.
Not Autobots then.
*Contact Prime.* He called, trying his best to make the sounds as intelligible as possible.
“Does he not understand us?” A different voice called from above him. Oh, they were surrounding him. Amazing.
“I can’t contact him, nothing's working!” A shrill voice cried, with loud thundering steps.
Bumblebee tried his own comms, but he couldn’t even message Raf. There was something seriously wrong, but he couldn’t figure that out until he got these mechs off his tailpipe.
He ran a bit longer, his seconds being eaten up by having to dodge trees and brush. None of his assailants seemed too worried about it, which was helping them catch up to him.
“Bumblebee, please. It’s us!” The first voice called, backing him against a sharp cliffside. He couldn't even climb it if he wanted to. And he did.
*Designation?* Bee called out, transforming his blaster out, but not raising it. A drone flew out of the trees, weaving through the branches in front of him.
“Whoo, you’re fast.” The drone said, in the same voice as the first one he heard. It transformed, showing a little red seekerlet in front of him.
*Designation?* He repeated, gestured slightly with his blaster at himself and playing a coveted recording of Optimus saying his name.
“Yeah, you’re Bumblebee!” She said, nodding, then understanding washed over her faceplate, “Oh! I’m Twitch, and my siblings are almost here.”
Bee cocked his helm, watching five other cybertronians burst through the brush, one of them carrying a human.
Then not Decepticons, either.
“Bumblebee! We thought we lost you!” The woman sighed, then her eyes widened. She reminded Bee of Arcee during a fight.
“You’re not Bumblebee. Not ours, at least.”
“He said he was, Mom!” Twitch said, hovering in between the family and Bee. The one holding the woman was a little taller than Bumblebee, but seemed younger.
They all seemed younger. Which didn’t make any sense. He was the last sparkling of Cybertron.
“How about we try a different way of communicating? I fear that we don’t know the language you’re speaking.” The Green one spoke up, pulling a datapad out of their subspace.
Bumblebee didn’t move to accept it, instead allowing Twitch to ferry it between. It didn’t feel like any of Ratchet’s, or like anything from Cybertron.
*Bumblebee. Under Optimus Prime, of Cybertron.* Bee typed, hearing the datapad vocalize in a voice that made his spark twinge.
“Do you know who we are?” The dinobot asked, his purple optics staring at Bumblebee. He shook his helm, and typed into the datapad.
*Should I?* The neutrals looked gutted at the admission, one of them running into the trees.
“Wait, Thrash!” Twitch yelled, flying after him. “We can still find him!”
*Who did you lose?* Bumblebee typed, turning the attention back to him. The dinobot turned into the large one, almost hiccuping as the green one took a breath.
“We lost our teacher. His name is also Bumblebee. That’s why we were following you.” They gave him a small smile, “I am Nightshade, my pronouns are they/them. This is my sister, Hashtag, my brother Jawbreaker and our Mom.”
Bumblebee waved, feeling his plating settling down over his transformation seams.
*Are you Autobots?*
“We are Terrans.”
*What’s a Terran?*