And I finally get the second chapter finished. D:

Prowl/Jazz fans, get your tissues ready. You've been warned.

Title: Cadence
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Miles couldn’t tell his best friend that his brand-new stereo was alive. Oh, no. Sam was much too paranoid for that. -- Sparkling warning.
Warnings: Sparkling alert. Attempted humor. Teenagers. Maybe slash, if I feel like it.
Disclaimer: They’re not mine, but I like to play with them anyways.

-Chapter Two-

Moonracer paced the length of Optimus Prime’s office on the subterranean Autobot base as she waited for her superior officer to arrive. She’d been in a frenzy since she’d arrived on Earth. She and her teammate, Chromia, had arrived to the Autobot base much later than the other two who had been with them when they entered Earth’s atmosphere. The green-armored femme wrung her hands together in an anxious manner.

The door to the office opened and Optimus Prime stepped inside. Towering over the femme’s eleven-and-a-half foot frame, the leader of the Autobots was an impressive mech to stand by. Moonracer’s spark pulsed in its chamber, intimidated by Optimus’ presence. She held her ground, despite feeling like her circuits were about to short out from her panic.

Optimus walked past Moonracer and took at seat at his desk. His blue optics rose as he looked at her. “Chromia informed me of the reason to your delay,” he told her.

Moonracer slumped. “I’m sorry, Optimus, sir,” she said, her voice quiet. “It’s all my fault! I was the one who lost Blaster. I was supposed to take care of him and I couldn’t even get him through the stratosphere!”

Optimus raised a hand to interrupt her. “I understand you feel responsible, but there is still a chance that he survived the descent. Our scanners are searching for him now.”

Moonracer’s head rose slightly, her pale blue optics peek up to focus on the Autobot leader. “Sir…?”

“A youngling his age is a precious sliver of hope for our kind, Moonracer.” Optimus leaned forward, resting his arms on the surface of his desk. “We cannot sit idly back while there is a chance to find him. Our human allies are using their own resources to help track him down.”

Relief pulsed through Moonracer’s frame. “Thank you, sir,” she murmured in gratitude. Her voice rose as she straightened herself. “If I may, sir, I’d like to continue to search for him as well. Jazz put me in charge of him, after all.”

Optimus nodded, his optics dimming in remembrance of his fallen first lieutenant. “Of course.”

“Thank you, again, Optimus Prime.”

The green-armored femme gave a respectful bow, which Optimus acknowledged with a nod of his head. He allowed her to leave so she could get back to her search for the missing sparkling. After Moonracer was gone, Optimus stood up and left his desk to approach the west wall. On the wall, the Autobot leader kept a large monitor with images of his fallen soldiers on its screen. He stepped closer to it, raising one hand to the screen. As his finger brushed across the screen, images and data changed until he stopped on the images of two particular Autobots.

Optimus looked at the screen. Jazz’s image looked back at him with a crooked grin over his lip components. Next to Jazz, there was a picture of Optimus’ once-loyal second-in-command, Prowl. Prowl’s face was serious as it’d always been. Beneath the pictures of the two soldiers, Cybertronian text read their designations, positions and the stellar dates that they were lost.

The Autobot leader hung his head in solemn respect. “You may have regained each other in the Matrix, but you’ve left behind so much.”

* * * * *

Saturday morning. It was an unwritten rule of every teenager in existence that Saturday was the day to sleep in until noon and Miles was a careful follower of this rule. The blond lay on his stomach in bed, blankets pulled up over his bed and his face buried into his pillow. Soft snores escaped his open mouth as he slept.

Blaster, on the other hand, was already out of his recharge cycle. His external radio was off, as he did not want to wake his new friend. Instead, he’d plopped himself in front of Miles’ television and was watching the Saturday morning cartoon run. He’d seen Miles watching television several times while the boy still thought that Blaster was just a stereo. The shows seemed to entertain the teenager, but Blaster found many of them boring.

After an hour or so, Blaster heard his human friend begin to stir. The small robot stood up and hopped onto Miles’ bed, chirruping at the boy. Miles hid further under his blankets with a groan of protest and an unintelligible mumble. Discouraged, Blaster switched his stereo onto a rock station. The loud music finally got Miles to sit up, blinking his eyes blearily at the little robot.

“Blaster, do you have any idea what time it is?” he asked.

Blaster chirped and pointed to Miles’ alarm clock. The red numbers on the digital face told him that it was eight forty-five. Miles raised one hand to his face and rubbed at his eyes for a moment before he flopped back down onto the bed, burying his head under his pillow.

“It’s too early to get up,” he complained.

Blaster frowned. He crossed his arms over his small body and tapped the fingers of one hand on the arm it rested on. He remembered his guardian often doing that when he was doing something she didn’t like. The metallic taps only made Miles hold his pillow more firmly against his ears. Frustrated, Blaster finally cycled air into his systems and then let out a loud, high-pitched electronic screech.

Not only did Miles roll and fall out of bed at the sound, but the noise rattled the window overlooking the street in front of the house, woke Miles’ parents downstairs and sent Mason into a barking frenzy. Miles quickly held his hands up and waved them in an attempt to get Blaster to stop screeching.

“Blaster!” the teenager exclaimed. “Stop, stop, stop! Don’t do that, you’ll bring my parents up here!”

The little robot did stop, but Miles could hear the heavy footfalls that alerted him to his father’s flight up the stairs to his attic-bedroom. He jumped up and looked at Blaster, hastily telling the little robot to hide. Blaster continued to frown at him for a moment, but transformed into his stereo mode just as the door to Miles’ room opened and a bleary-eyes, unshaven, robed Darryl Lancaster appeared in the doorway.

“What was that noise, Miles?” he asked.

“What noise?”

Darryl eyed his son. “Don’t you ‘what noise’ me, buddy. I know it came from up here!”

Miles’ eyes flickered to where Blaster was sitting on his bed, looking to the unknowing like your every day stereo. Darryl caught the movement of his son’s eyes and followed their path to the stereo.

“Is your stereo acting funny?” he asked.

“You have no idea,” Miles murmured under his breath. He hoped his father would just figure some kind of electronic glitch and leave it at that.

No such luck, however. Darryl went over to the bed and reached for the stereo, picking it up. Miles held his breath. If Blaster did anything odd (or worse, transformed) while in Darryl’s hand, then both he and the robot were in trouble. Miles could only hope the little guy would behave for a couple minutes.

Darryl looked the stereo over, testing its weight in his hands as he examined it. Blaster, despite that it kind of tickled to have a human turning him over in stereo mode, managed to keep himself in check. He didn’t liked having the various buttons on his front plate pushed or the knobs of his alt mode twisted, though, and when the human began playing with them, he couldn’t help letting out a warning growl.

Darryl frowned at the growl, then set the stereo down. “You should take this thing back where you bought it, Miles,” he told his son. “Get your money back. It’s probably defective.”

Blaster let out another electronic growl. He did not like this human. Miles, hearing the growl, gave a nod in his father’s direction, then ushered him out. Darryl left, heading downstairs to put on a pot of coffee. As soon as he was gone, Blaster returned to robot mode and crossed his arms over his chest, blue optics narrowed in anger.

“Am not defective,” he growled.

Miles gave a sigh and dropped down on his bed. He gave Blaster a pat on the shoulder. “Yeah, I know,” he told the little robot. “Dad thinks you’re just a stereo. He doesn’t know you’re actually a robot.”

Blaster gave a final growl, then sat down, curling up next to his human friend. Miles leaded back, propping himself up with his arms. He yawned, still tired, but too awake to crawl back into bed to fall back asleep. He thought about what to do now, but then he remembered how determined Blaster had been to get him out of bed.

“Hey, Blaster,” he said, catching the little robot’s attention. “What was so important you had to wake me up before noon?”

Blaster looked up at Miles, looking a bit confused for a moment. Then he remembered. “Hungry.”

Miles paused, blinking his eyes in surprise. “Robots get hungry?” He thought about this for a moment. “What can I do about that? I mean, you probably don’t eat like humans do, so it’s not like I can get you a bowl of cereal. What do I feed you? Batteries?”

Blaster blinked back at Miles. “’Nergon.”

“What?”

“’Nergon,” Blaster repeated.

“What’s ‘nergon’ supposed to be?” Miles asked. He groaned and flopped back onto the mattress. “Great. I have a stereo that’s really a robot and it’s hungry. And I have no idea what ‘nergon’ is.”

Blaster stood up. He reached down and tugged at Miles’ shirt sleeve, trying to get the teenager to sit up again. He pointed to the window. “’Nergon. We go find.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Miles muttered. With Blaster persistently tugging at his sleeve, he had relatively little choice but to get up and throw on clothes and shoes. Wondering how to transport Blaster, Miles looked around his room for something to carry the little robot in. His eyes eventually settled on his backpack. He quickly emptied it out and gestured for Blaster to hop inside.

Blaster looked into the backpack and gave a sniff. He gave a disgruntled chirp and a violent shake of his head in disgust. Miles gave an apologetic grin as the little robot looked at him with an expression of disbelief.

“Sorry, I know it smells like old gym socks, but it’ll have to do.”

Blaster gave him another look and reluctantly got in the pack. Miles left the pack half-zipped so that Blaster could peek out, but not fall out while they were out. Grabbing his wallet, Miles headed downstairs. He stopped briefly in the kitchen to put food in Mason’s bowl and make sure the mastiff had plenty of water before he left the house, giving his father the excuse of going over to Sam’s.

Going around the house and towards the garage, Miles looked around to make sure none of the neighbors were outside; with Blaster peeking over his shoulder, it would be really awkward to have to explain the little robot. Opening the door to the garage, Miles stepped in and began hauling his bike out. He climbed onto the bike and, after making sure that Blaster was safe and secure in the backpack, rolled down the driveway and began pedaling down the street.

“So where can we find this ‘nergon’ of yours?” he asked.

Blaster gripped the handle of the backpack he was riding in. “Find ‘Racer, find ‘nergon.”

“Racer?”

Blaster chirruped, but didn’t elaborate. Miles figured it was because, even though the little robot could speak, his English was limited. As he pedaled down the street, Miles kept an eye on Blaster through the mirrors posted on the handlebars, watching the little bot for directions. Blaster pointed every so often for Miles to make a turn as they searched for what the little robot wanted.

They’d gotten a couple miles from the house when Blaster suddenly ducked into Miles’ backpack with a startled wail. Miles squeezed the handbrakes and the tires squealed as they came to a stop. He turned his head back to try to look into the backpack for Blaster.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Blaster gave a series of clicks and whirrs in response. He remained hidden in the backpack for several long moments before poking his head back out. His blue optics were flickering and his little lip components were quivering. Miles frowned; he didn’t like this.

“Blaster, you have to tell me if something’s wrong.”

“Followed,” the little robot managed.

Miles’ eyes widened. “What do you mean, we’re being followed?”

Blaster gave a shake of his head. “Followed!”

“If we’re being followed, we have to head somewhere it’s safe,” Miles said, chewing on his lower lip. He wracked his brain trying to figure out where a good place to hide would be. Beginning to pedal again, he turned off the street they’d been on and headed down a smaller road. “Hang on, Blaster. We’re going to Sam’s house.”

Blaster nodded and hid back in the backpack. Miles sped up, lifting his body off the bicycle’s seat to give a little more momentum as he headed down the street.

A block or so behind the blond teenager, a bright blue Toyota RAV4 moved forward to continue following.

Author’s Note: Yeah, I dunno why Prowl and Jazz are Blaster's parents; they just are.