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In season 1, episode 12, Survival of the Fittest, Prometheus Black tried to experiment on Sari to make her a human transformer.
He failed, of course, and Prowl, Bulkhead, and Fanzone rescue Sari in that episode.
But what if they didn't?
Sure, maybe Meltdown was right and that a kid could handle the experimental treatment, but none of them knew a certain thing at the time.
Sari isn't fully human. She's a techno-organic.
So here we have an alternate universe where Prowl and Fanzone didn't escape in time, and because Meltdown is a seriously twisted fruitcake, he decides that he's going to let his prisoners watch his 'triumph' as he mutates Sari.
It doesn't go well.
On a side note, I think the reason why Meltdown took so long to do anything (it's night when Sari gets kidnapped but it's morning when the police show up at her house and it's night again when Prowl and Bulkhead sneak out to dinobot island but it's day again when they arrive, so at least two days have elapsed with nothing bad shown happening to Sari) was because he needed to do some pre-experiment stuff or whatever.
So Meltdown injects Sari with something while everyone else is forced to watch. At first nothing happens, and Sari starts taunting him like the eight-year-old she is.
At least until the effects kick in.
There's a lot of screaming.
And then to everyone's shock, Sari starts glowing.
The Cybertronian part of her is trying to reject the experimentation, like an immune system, but it might've actually made things worse, like an allergic reaction.
So now we have an eight-year-old who's part human, part alien robot, and part dinosaur-sea creature-random animal thingy. Though mostly reptilian to make her different from Meltdown's lawyer and whoever the shark guy used to be. At least Sari's still sentient unlike the other two.
Meltdown is just disappointed that she somehow turned into a part machine, and to say that everyone loathes him right now is a severe understatement.
This time, when Sari lashes out and makes a distraction to help them escape and take down Meltdown, no one stops the dinobots from taking their revenge on him.
It's a somber mood when they return home. Sari's kind of passed out by now from everything that just happened and Prowl admitted to Optimus about the dinobots because after what happened to Sari, he felt obligated to reveal everything that led to this.
Optimus is mad at him for various reasons. Like if Prowl hadn't helped free the dinobots, or at least told Optimus about it, then maybe they wouldn't have kidnapped Sari, if Prowl hadn't decided to go to dinobot island alone with Bulkhead, then maybe they would've been able to rescue her before she got mutated. Mind you, Prowl is also beating himself up about this, so Optimus isn't over-the-top harsh with him.
Everyone's feeling a sense of guilt for various reasons, really. Fanzone's upset because he was literally there when Sari got mutated and he still couldn't do anything, especially since he was the only one who wasn't an alien or had special powers. Bulkhead's upset because maybe if he hadn't lost his temper at Meltdown and almost died, he would've been able to help rescue Sari. Bumblebee's upset that this happened to Sari in general. Ratchet's upset because of similar reasons to Bee and he's also getting minor war flashbacks when people he cared about got hurt or killed and everyone else started blaming themselves for it, so he tries to make sure everyone understands that it's not their fault.
The only one who isn't feeling guilty is Sari, who just says it's all Meltdown's fault because it is.
She also confronts her dad about the whole techno-organic thing and Isaac tells her about how the whole protoform thing. Sari is kind of annoyed that it took being experimented on for him to finally admit that and maybe she's guilt tripping him a bit, but hey, she's eight. What eight-year-old doesn't guilt trip their parents?
Also, the other people that Meltdown experimented on get help because those two are never seen again in the show and I want to give them a happy ending.
Sari's classmates are really supportive of the whole transformed into a techno-organic monster thing. Sure, some of them are a little scared of how she looks, but they're mostly pitying and really nice. When your classmate gets kidnapped by dinosaur robots for two days and comes back not looking human anymore, it really changes your behavior towards them.
Sari also practices using her new powers since she's a human transformer now. She can't make herself look normal, but she has some mild shapeshifting where she can turn parts of herself into different shapes like giving herself claws or a clubbed tail or wings. Sari kind of gave Ratchet a spark attack when Sari figured out how to give herself guns with her Cybertronian side. Please note that she's not as powerful as she was in season 3 when she inserted the AllSpark key into herself since she didn't do that.
Optimus doesn't crash out as much in Megatron rising since he already knows about the dinobots. He also doesn't take Sari's key because he doesn't think she can take care of it, this time it's more of he doesn't want her to get hurt worse and thinks that if the key is with someone else, Sari won't get targeted.
Of course, she still gets kidnapped by Black Arachnia, so...
Black Arachnia is also pretty surprised that Sari is a techno-organic too, and commiserates with her. The two of them have a heart to heart, and Sari says stuff about accepting how she is now that really makes Black Arachnia start to think.
When Isaac goes missing, Fanzone decides he's going to take care of Sari since she doesn't have any parents. He didn't in canon, but guilt is a really good motivator.
The events of Black Friday doesn't happen, since Black Arachnia decided not to free the guy who experimented on a little kid and slowly starts to accept that maybe being part organic isn't a bad thing. Predacons Rising also doesn't happen either, so Wasp gets a happy ending. Redemption arc, anyone?
Sari manages to get all of the dinobots to be her substitute Autobots since they like Sari better in this AU. Hurt by Meltdown, looks like a dinosaur, partially made of metal, really powerful... yeah, they only haven't adopted her yet because Sari and Grimlock keep arguing over who's smarter and therefore should be in charge.
Also, Sari still has her key, so she can save Prowl! Yay!
Oh, and Ultra Magnus too. Almost forgot about him for a second there