Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

So, you wake up in an undisclosed open location, practically in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, I thought so too, but no. I don’t think you’d understand my predicament entirely. Oh, I forgot to answer your unasked question. I’m a bit like that, you know. Uhm, different? My mind is always all over the place and sometimes it’s hard to concentrate on a single thing for too long. Other times it’s that one thing that I would obsess about for days, weeks even months on end until I either crash and burn or I flush it out of my system by being bored of it.

But back to what I was talking about. You wake up in an undisclosed location in the middle of nowhere and you have no idea how you got there, nor the hangover to at least suspect how you got there. The land is barren and there is nothing remotely familiar about my location, except the fact that it’s nowhere near the vicinity of Paris, which is where I hail from. Sort of. It’s complicated, but ain’t all personal stories so? Oh yeah. Michael says I get off track. I get carried away, if you haven’t noticed that already.

Uhm. I really should start at the beginning. I might be able to follow all the weird thoughts randomly popping in my head and make heads and tails out of my sporadic mind. Hell, maybe even Michael can do so to some extent, but we just met and I doubt you can figure out what’s going on. You guys are lucky I have Michael with me, you know. She always helped me keep track of reality. I doubt I’d make it anywhere without her. I’d probably go out in a blaze of glory somewhere, which is perfectly fine. No, really! It’s fine! As long as people remember me. As long as I’ve left my mark on the world. As long as I’ve made a difference.

Michael says I’ve got this whole future megalomaniac thing going on about me and I wouldn’t exactly disagree with her. Michael is smart like that, you’ll see. She’s pretty bad ass and all around the best friend to have in the situation that we’ve literally landed ourselves in.

You see, for me to start at the beginning, you should know that I was born Fiona Johnson, though my mum says that Francesca was a pretty close second. I was born in 1995, 31^st of July, in New York, but I’ve lived in Paris since I’ve been 5 years old. You could say that my family is very well off. We’re the pretty people and we’re the smart people and if you ever find a Johnson out there that’s both pretty and smart and has European roots, then you’re probably looking at a relative of mine. Michael says I’m full of it, but hell! I was pretty proud with who I am and where I came from.

Remember when I told you that I was a bit different? Well, I was born a genius. Like, Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four type of genius. Kind of like Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory type of Genius. You know, the mad scientist type that’s bound to end up dead somewhere in a ditch or in a little basement in a blaze of glory thanks to that latest experiment that’s gone wrong. Michael says it’s her job to keep that from happening to me, but she also reassures me that if I’d be going out in a blaze of glory, she’d make sure it was at least a decent sized blaze, not a little spark of a flame. Cus that’s what good friends do for each other, you know? They stick by your side, make sure you get where you want to get.

If you haven’t guessed by now, Michael happens to be my best friend in the whole wide world, and I’d probably do some real crazy shit if anything ever happens to her. I’m protective of my friends, given how few of them I have. I am not an easy person to be around with and I admit that fairly openly to you, folks. But that’s mostly because you are that fictional little crowd that I always imagine going Ooh! and Aah! whenever I regal you with my dramatic stories. Cus I kind of like to imagine myself as one of those awesome superheroes or tragic but still ultra-badass antiheroes. Or even as a charismatic villain. Someone capable of swaying the crowds with a single word. I think you can see where that whole megalomaniac thing comes from, I think. I am a dreamer. And I dream big. Everything I do, everything that I plan to do, that I have planned to do in my life all bounds up to one thing. That single moment, that apogee of my life where I finally do something worth living for. Where I, a mere spec of nothing in the grand scheme of the universe, finally make the world acknowledge my existence. For me, that one moment of my life would mean the world, no, the Universe for me.

And when I woke up in the middle of nowhere, among the barren wasteland of that undisclosed location, I knew that whatever I had been craving for would no longer be possible. It was as if everything that I’d done so far no longer mattered. In fact, I’m pretty sure it no longer existed.

You see, when I woke up, I was no longer human. The sheer fact that I processed that thought almost immediately, as in literally processed without panicking to the point of fainting or going into shock was… disconcerting. Nothing more, nothing less. It felt as if I was disconnected from everything, though now I was certain that at the time it was the change in the processing power of my, well, not brain…Uhm. I’d rather refer to my thoughts as part of my mind, because I know deep down inside that I’ve not always been a glorified autonomous calculator. The sensation was more of a “It’s a fact, I understand it and it is time to carry on.” So much was going on about me that I had I think I would’ve had hard time accommodating to the sheer amount of information that I was processing.

You think being a transformer is awesome? Well, duh. It’s awesome. But at those first few seconds of my life as a mechanoid I had to come to terms with a lot of things. For example, you know those things organics call instincts and reflexes? Forget those. Fuck ‘em. Mechanoids (and I will stick with that word ‘cus I like it times more than robots). As I was saying, mechanoids don’t have instincts or reflexes. We have programs and files for everything. And we have sensors all over our… uhhh bodies. I’m pretty sure my optics (those are the equivalent of an organic’s eyes) saw things in a ridiculously wide range of the Light Spectrum. And I was checking out that I also almost immediately became aware that I could actually modify said range to my heart’s delight. And I could do that with pretty much every other sensor of any type that I had. It’s like starting to play that brand new and super complicated game with ridiculous amounts of mods and you have no idea what to do, except that you actually know how to control your character. Yeah, I’m not touching the default settings. It’s what I will call them for simplicity’s sake and that’s how I described it to Michael, who is NOT a tech savvy in any way. Actually, what I did was more of the lines recounting that first time I tried to hook her up on Minecraft, only to have her give up after five minutes because she had no idea what to do with the hundred and fifty or so mods that were running.

Before you decide that I’m super –hyper-giga-mega vastly ahead of humanity now that I am an awesome transformer, let me tell you this. I have no idea what I am doing. In fact, I can’t describe to you the sensation of understanding perfectly well that this body, this-this pile of scrap that I am wearing is nothing more than a very well constructed shell that protects what I truly am – a spark. A friggen sentient, condensed amount of energy that is more or less my soul. Yeah, when you put it that way, and see things from my perspective, you can understand why I was going through an existential crisis even though I probably had more processing power than the sum of our world’s total computing power. I might be exaggerating a tiny bit (well, a lot) but I think you finally get the gist of my situation.

So, to sum up my ramblings, I present to you:

Day One

I woke up hours before Michael even started to shift out of her deep sleep cycle. She looked peaceful but I doubted she was comfortable where she lay. On the rocky ground. In the sun. Especially in the sun. My first order of business was to find some sort of cover for her, so I simply picked her up with my big ass hands. She was like a doll in my hands and I was terrified that I’d hurt her by accident. I was very careful

Oh before I forget, you probably wonder what I look like. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’re asking me that but I was too busy having a monologue about my own problems, as usual. Well, to be honest, I’m not sure what kind of transformer I am myself. What I can see of my body is that it is rather tall and slim, though I don’t think anyone else would call themselves slim when they weigh just about 20 tons. My hands and feet, I think the transformers call those servos or something? Never mind. My hands and feet are rather thin and wiry and clawy and I look down to examine my legs further. I will tell you right now that the universe or whatever deux ex machina (talk about literally!) brought us here has a very twisted sense of humor.

Why? I have fucking chicken feet. Just looking at those stupid pseudo stilettos made me want to cringe. I will forever hate myself for laughing at Starscream’s design and declaring that the devil indeed wears Prada. It was still funny as fuck, though. As for color, well. It’s this dull bronze-ish, copper-ish thing that I’m not sure if I like. It does help me at least blend in a bit with the environment. I am not in a protoform, however. I could see bits and pieces of an aircraft all over me, even though if I was human I would’ve been hard pressed to figure out the model of it. I’m not an aircraft junkie, though, like every sensible human I appreciated a nice, sexy and sleek design.

You can tell I stared at myself the entire time I was waiting for MJ, that’s Michael by the way, to wake up. My shoulder and chest area were rather wide compared to the tiny and ridiculously slim hip area that I had. Forget tits and arse. I did not have these things. At least my voice was still somewhat feminine, though it was creepy as fuck. I wish I had EDI’s voice. Hell even GLADOS’ voice. Maybe even that female Microsoft voice. It was depressing to think about what my face may look like. It was depressing to think about what MJ would think of me when she woke up. She did not have the luxury to actually program herself to be calm.

It’s a rather depressing way to start your new life, isn’t it? In fact, the more I thought about it, the more problems seemed to pop up. The year was 2007, so it was obvious we were seven fucking years back in the past. Neither myself nor MJ existed in this world, which was obviously some sort of Transformers based realm. I had no idea where either Autobots or Decepticons were and I was even more apprehensive thinking about what I should do when I meet them. It might be obvious for you folks to simply join the Autobots and help them protect Earth. Well, life isn’t so simple. If I wanted to track down Autobots, wherever they may be, I’d need to send out a signal that would probably attract vultures of the Decepticon variety. And Decepticons were not a friendly bunch by default. I’d be forced to work for them and while I, myself, am a rather selfish creature and most certainly would screw the fate of the world for the sake of finding myself a niche where I fit it, I doubt MJ would appreciate said sentiments of mine.

If it was a matter of my own personal survival, then I’d fucking do it for the sake of that blaze of glory thing I talked about earlier. I’d probably stick to some sort of support role though, since I doubt even I would manage to live with myself by so actively betraying my previous race. Ugh, details. Anyways. I don’t think these sentiments of mine matter because I wasn’t alone. MJ was with me and she was still very obviously human and it was my job as the obviously more awesome and superior being to keep her safe. She’s my friend, if not THE Best Friend I’d ever have in my life and I’d probably even shoot Optimus Prime in his fucking spark with a shit eating grin on my face if I knew full well that would keep MJ alive, content and kicking. Well, probably not too content, seeing as I would have practically kicked the biggest puppy of good and goodness ever. Uhm, I’m getting off-track again and I should probably not bore you with all the scenarios running through my head.

Anyways, our safest bet is just to keep ourselves away from the big picture. I mean, as far as I could tell, I couldn’t see a single insignia that would designate me to either the Autobot or the Decepticon faction, which was disconcerting and relieving at the same time. But! I was a jet, possibly some sort of seeker and I recall quite clearly that the majority of the flying transformers are Decepticons. I don’t seem to possess any sort of readily accessible weapons, nor am I that bold to check them while I’m cradling the only link to my previous life in my hands.

MJ woke up with a jolt and started screaming and trashing, to which I had to carefully let her down on the ground. Then she started running as fast as she could away from me, at which point I knew I had to stop her before she had a heart attack or a heat stroke or something.

“MJ wait! Calm down! It’s me! It’s me!”

“G-get away from me!”

I cringed and pulled away before she could hurt herself. Humans were ridiculously squishy and I knew from first-hand experience.

“It’s me, MJ! It’s Fiona. Calm the fuck down, woman, you’re giving me the ones and zeroes’ equivalent of a headache from that  screeching!”

“Fia?” she gasped incredulously, eyes even wider with shock, if that was even possible.

“Yes! You’re wonderful! Thank you God or whatever Asshole up there got us in this situation! Please calm down! Yes, it’s me! Even though I’m more or less not human anymore and …uhm… a giant fricken robot with stripper stilettos.” And probably an ugly as fuck mug.

“You’re a transformer!” she stated with that British Accent of hers so pronounced that I just had to laugh heartily (or was it sparkily?) in her face.

It took me about an hour or so to tell her what I’ve scrounged up about our predicament. Yes, it took that long because I am good at multitasking and I had been browsing the Internet for anything relevant for our situation. I also trolled on some forums because I totally could with all that awesome processing power that I’ve been regaling you about.

Right about now we were walking with MJ safely cradled in my hands. You probably wonder what she looks like. Well, MJ is tall and slim, of a wiry and athletic build. She’s very pale with rosy cheeks and lips and her eyes are a very pale blue color. She has straight, shoulder-length hair that is jet black and very shiny. She has what I call the “Good Hair Policy” and MJ is very adamant about the parameters of said policy.  What can I say? Good hair is important and I am certain that I’d still appreciate this sentiment even if I technically no longer have hair. Hehe. Get it? Technically? Cus I’m a robot now and no longer an organic so…. Uh, yeah. Tough crowd and bad puns. I’ll suck it up and carry on. With the Bad Puns!

We were in Northern America, and I don’t think it’s important where exactly, because we weren’t anywhere close to Mission City or the Hoover Dam or whatever.  My current and most important concern was to get the hell out of Dodge and find a suitable shelter without having Sector 7 on my shiny superior behind and MJ locked up somewhere in a government facility. Always with the cheerful thoughts, aren’t I?

I have an interesting alt form, let me tell you that. You see, I am technically a Unicorn because I don’t exist! Get it? Unicorn – Unicron? Ugh, you guys are a really tough crowd tonight, seriously! Back in 2014 in my our world, the real world, there’s this thing about Generations of fighter aircrafts that pretty much applies here as well. Well, my current fighter jet model is one that is considered a Generation 6 and from what I’ve gathered said generation was expected to be in use around the late 2020s to the early 2030s. So my alt form is based on that pile of informational shit that comes from another dimension and hasn’t even been put to exploitation. It was a two-seat, twin-engined tailless jet with a blended wing design and I had a variation of weaponry that suggested that I am pretty much scout oriented or something of the sort. Like I said, I may be a genius, but I was not someone with an unhealthy interest in cars, planes, trains and whatever other forms of transportation there was. I knew that my form was primarily stealth oriented and that suited my needs just perfectly.

“Fia, are you certain you want me to fly inside of you on your very first ever flight?”

“It’s not whether I want you to or not, considering that we are talking about popping the proverbial cherry here on so many fronts” We both had the decency to cringe at our words, don’t worry.” It’s just that we really have to get the fuck away from here before we’re swarmed with government officials and I end up was Captain Mega-Capsicle.”

“Do you even know how to fly this thing?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a hundred per cent certain?”

“Yes!”

“And you are a fully functional aircra-“

“For the last fucking time woman – YES!”

Transforming is profoundly weird to my senses and I doubt, given my history of being a human for some twenty years of my life, that I would ever feel perfectly comfortable doing it. I was nervous, Michael even more so, but we were also both giddy little shits on the verge of our very own adventure.

It’s a frightening prospect, you know. To start a journey. I was terrified and, in fact, still am. I was terrified of both what lay ahead of us and what would become of myself and MJ. Hell, I couldn’t even comprehend myself as an actual transformer. It’s hard to explain. I was still me. Even if I was no longer in the same body, even if I was no longer organic, I was still Fiona Fucking Johnson and I was going to kick ass and take names, all in due time. With Michael by my side I could see myself firmly standing on the edge of my future and ready to plunge directly into the great unknown.

It was strange, but it was also wonderful. To start a new life, a new journey, a new adventure. It was a clean slate for the both of us and even if it would take us time to realize just how much we’ve lost by simply being here, I am certain that neither of us would regret it. Not in the near future at least.

As it was, we were getting a clean slate and I, for once, would not look a gift horse in the mouth.

:: This is Fiona Fucking Johnson signing out until next time. ::

Chapter Text

Remember when I said I had this creepy mechanical/artificial voice that was creepy as fuck? It’s mechanical, it’s hissy and it’s slightly screechy and it has this sinister reverb effect going for it and it has nothing to do with the voice I used to have back when I was human except, perhaps, for the accent and my speech quirks. It’s depressing and I bet it showed on my face because Michael rolled her eyes and went back to staring at the duck she had skewered over the fire. We were hiding in some sort of abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere. It was a different type of nowhere, close to some mountains and woods and to be honest I don’t think the location mattered. It was to the north of our original location. MJ appreciated the ready presence of shade and water, let me tell you that.

“What do you think will happen to us now?” She asked suddenly. Her tone was apprehensive, to say the least.

“I don’t know.” I told her honestly and I carefully sat down on the other side of the fire, hugging my knees to my chest. I didn’t really want to think about that, at least not long term. I knew what we had to do, but that didn’t make it any easier. The uncertainty was what we were afraid of. Michael Bay explosions and death matches are cool on screen but this is our real life now and we’re just a couple of 20 year olds with not a cent to our names. We had to prepare. I had to prepare and make sure MJ was taken care of. She was only human, even if she just happened to be the only human I currently cherished on this planet. She was my precious person.

“Will you try to contact the Autobots?”

It was a moment in which I visually imitated the human actions for sighing exasperatedly. We talked about this but MJ could be stubborn and I understood where she was coming from with her arguments. Safety in numbers, not to mention it’d be a lot more easier to have them fellow glorified autonomous calculators from outer space teach me a thing or two.

“I want to but I’m scared, you know. Worst comes to worst and we end up dead before doing anything awesome.”

Speaking of blazes of glory, I am pretty sure my meager arsenal is in no way prepared to defend MJ even against Bumblebee, who, I think, was one of the youngest transformers. To say that I didn’t like my current set up was an understatement. In what I’ve watched of transformers, they all show up with these awesome weapons and lasers and cannons and all I have are these mosquito bites that came pre-fabricated (I think) with my current alt form that happened to be a Unicorn. Yes, you heard me right. My alt form is a fucking Unicorn because it doesn’t exist yet. It’s fucked up and even MJ agrees that this is some sort of divine irony going on.

We didn’t talk much. Our thoughts were mostly focused on the various possibilities of how and why we came here. I am certain that it has something to do with the Allspark, because, believe you me; everything in this fucking Universe has to resolve around the fucking Allspark.

It’s the fucking Allspark! Why ever not should the Universe revolve around it?

Why?

Because reasons!

It’s fucked up, I know, and it leaves me more than a bit disconcerted with our predicament and about the state of affairs up high in the divine department. You heard me assholes! Yes! I use plural because I know that whatever sick fuck is responsible up there for this cannot be doing it for their own cheap entertainment alone!

My personal opinion on religious matters aside, I prompt Michael to turn the skewered duck again, so that it will be evenly roasted over the flames. I swear, even as a mechanoid, I still have a better sense of cooking than MJ. She can’t boil water to save her life. Not that I was any better back in the day, mind you. And that day had been a Tuesday. Tuesdays are always shitty days but it’s in the times of great need that people come up with the best ideas. That day MJ ditched her dancing classes and took up self-defense lessons and I took up cooking to meet up the challenge that had been presented. Talk about spoiled brats, right? I mean, there are people out there, like in Africa, that are starving and dying and here we are, learning stuff because we’re bored.

Yeah, I’ve got a very screwed up view of life. I’m also selfish like that and you should know that I had taken great pleasure in serving my mother perfect crepes for breakfast all the while knowing that somewhere out there on planet earth a bunch of children were starving.

Uhm. That went out wrong. What I meant to say is that I took great pleasure in serving my mother perfect crepes because it had taken me a while to perfect the skill and it’s rare for me to get praises, especially when I’m a genius and excellency is the expected level of mediocrity from me. And life is fucked up like that, because, while I live in comfort, somewhere out there in the world there are people who count clean water as a luxury. And you could say that I am okay with that. This whole unequal grounds thing. It’s not nice for those who are suffering nor am I accepting the status quo because that’s just not how I roll. It’s just that day after day after day life keeps proving to me that it gives not a single fuck about what it does to us people.

I mean, look at me and then look at MJ. We’re fucking screwed from the get go, but I know that we won’t take that lying down. Blazes or no blazes, I am not going to sit around and wait for something to just happen! While I am depressed about pretty much everything, I am also almost as angry about everything. It’s annoying and, worst of all, I feel powerless at the moment. And that sort of helplessness had to go.

“I think I’ve got a plan.” I finally broke the silence and MJ looked up to me. She merely nodded and it felt nice to know that she trusted me that much with making decisions for the both of us. When the time comes, I’d trust her enough to do the same for me.

The plan was rather simple and flexible, as all best laid out plans had to be. Our first order of business was to find a permanent residence. Preferably on the outskirts of a big city, where it was easier to blend in. Fuck the fact that I’m practically not only alien tech, but also future tech. Finding an alternate mode more suitable for hiding in plain sight was also highly desirable. I’d look into having more than one alt mode. Despite how freaky I look, I’d rather keep my jet form if at all possible.

Why?

Flying is fucking awesome, that’s why.

I think I remember transformers with more than one alt mode but my knowledge on the topic is sketchy at best. I dare not do a more thorough inquiry on the world wide web lest I get noticed by the wrong people. I think I have been designed as some type of scout, spy or infiltrator. I might be wrong but I think my kit is specifically made for information gathering and stealth. It’s not a well-rounded or even a complete build, but for what I’m lacking as a mechanoid I shall make up with my sheer human ingenuity.

I still think of myself as human.

MJ ate while I scouted the area. We were pretty much alone where we were. It was a nice hiding place but not one that we could afford to stick to. That night, while MJ slept, I decided that it was worth the risk to take a closer look at the Internet and see what the hell was going on. In short, I was going to hack and slash through any security to my heart’s desire and I was going to do that from a safe distance from MJ, lest I be detected.

First order of business – get a hold of the timeline. It’s easier than it looks because I’ve watched the movies and I am familiar to some extent with some of the cartoon series going on. Also, how many people do you know would pop up with the wacky family name Witwicky? Well, there are fourteen families with that name in the States but there is only the one Samuel Witwicky. By the looks of his eBay page, I would say that he’s still the nerdy loser teen and that nothing has happened yet. In a spur of the moment decision, I made myself a Facebook profile and sent out a friend request.

Now, before you say anything, I just want to remind you that I’d probably be the only transformer with an actual Facebook page. The thought makes me giggle and I think you’d agree it’s pretty awesome. That way I can keep track of him if need be. Also, you know how I am basically a computer? I still have the memories of my previous life. Everything is set up as pictures or video streams, to put the whole concept in the simplest of terms as possible. I used an actual photo of me from that memory. It’s kind of cool being able to show people your actual thoughts in this sort of proverbial Power Point Presentation. I could also recreate music to the same results.

Yeah. You caught me.

I’d totally be the only military grade jet blaring AC DC, Skrillex and 2014 hits high up in the skies.  And I’m totally going to do it as soon as my paranoia subsides enough to let me actually enjoy that for once. I think you can tell I’m as paranoid as fuck but I can also remind you that chances are we are not waking back in our world if we end up dying here. And while I like to chance fate, I’d not play so readily with MJ’s life. I respect her and she deserves better than that.

I returned to the warehouse early in the morning. MJ was already up and was cleaning herself by the stream nearby. She didn’t ask me where I’d been because she knew me well enough. And what can I say? I’ve been up to no good and it’s ridiculously easy to mooch money from any number of banks all over the world. At least we’d be financially secure for a few of MJ’s lifetimes. I tried to school my facial expression into something that was less smug and less shit eating grin because MJ just scowled. And I know that scowl.

You’d be surprised but there are people, like MJ, who even in our situation would disapprove of stealing money. Oh, no. Don’t worry. She won’t make me return them. I’ll stick her in a spa then set her up in a five star hotel for a few days for some rest and relaxation and you’d be surprised how often getting her pampered works. She ain’t no saint, no matter how awesome and righteous she can be.

Speaking of pampered, I want a new fucking paintjob. And I want a paintjob so custom and chromed that I’d be the shiniest, slickest, sexiest full metal bitch around. Imagine a fighter jet in full chrome paint. Oh yeah. Definitely sexy and awesome and it’s going to turn some serious heads around here. Remember when I told you I dream big? Well, there you have it.

“Anything interesting?” MJ finally asked as she nibbled on left-overs from the duck.

“Hmm.” I nodded and she looked up at me expectantly. I gave her the basic rundown of what was going on. Which wasn’t much but it was enough for us to get us around.

“The question is where we should settle. We need a base of operations and it has to be somewhere that’s both in plain sight and easily accessible to you as well.”

“How about New York?”

“Isn’t that too high profile?”

“No, hear me out. New York has everything a woman needs and you need to settle yourself in a position where you’d both be comfortable and capable of spending a lot of cash without people batting an eye.” New York also happened to be as far away as it could be from Mission City while still being on the same continent and within the States.

Naturally, she glared at me.

“And why would I be required to spend a lot of cash?” Maybe she was a bit more adverse to the idea than I’d initially expected. Uh oh.

“Uhm. We need a lot of cash whether it’s for comfort or weathering out either world domination or world destruction.” She had to admit I had a valid point there. I mean, wasn’t the point of the Transformers franchise having the Autobots save the day from the Decepticons? I mean, in all three movies so far Megatron has tried to A) Take over the world, B) Destroy the world and C) Enslave humanity. I think it went primarily in that order. I might be wrong.  I’m not a hardcore fan and seeing how I ended up in the fucking movies I doubt I’ll ever be a hardcore fan.

MJ didn’t say anything and I think I may have been too blunt about the world domination / destruction thing.  It all bounds down to the fact that our mere presence may have been enough to tip the balance and the Autobots end up losing just because destiny has a sick sense of humor. Preparations must be made, whether MJ likes itor not. I just have to make sure that said preparations are sneaky enough and underhanded enough so that the proverbial plot ball remains in our hands rather than in our court. All of this is very nerve wracking and I had to do something to keep myself at least somewhat distracted from darker thoughts.

After scouting the area again I found myself shuffling through whatever was in this warehouse. It was one of those collectors’ warehouses and it was full of collectors’ junk and MJ was still glaring around her with mildly disgusted distaste. Usually I’d be right up her alley and steer clear of anything that was dirty or covered in dust and cobwebs and mice shit. But right now I needed the distraction.

Lo and behold, we found some useful things, like an actual bed with a moderately clean mattress. At least MJ would get to sleep properly tonight. We also found a full body mirror and that discovery actually had me very apprehensive. For the first time ever I’d get to see what I look like proper. I had this sinking feeling in my heart (fuck it, spark!) and, let me tell you now, it was not unfounded.

I was a fucking Decepticon if I ever saw one. While I had my suspicions for a while, given my chicken legs and my over-all clawy-ness, it’s an entirely different thing to see yourself as a whole. I rolled my shoulders and stared as my whole frame moved in the mirror. It was so surreal. That monster couldn’t possibly be me, could it?

My optics were yellow and I had this helmet thing going on. Other than that, I had trouble recognizing the various features of my face. I probably made faces in front of the mirror for about half an hour before I felt satisfied with the results… if you could call the dreadful feeling I was experiencing even remotely satisfying. I touched the plates surrounding my face as I noticed that they fluttered occasionally. After a bit of fiddling around my programing I had them conceal my face, which, to be honest, was a vast improvement to what I’ve seen so far. No wonder Michael had screamed in horror when she had woken up in my arms.

As I’ve said before, my build is substantially slim and spiky. I finally found the actual location of some of my weaponry, like a pair of small rocket launchers attached to my forearms that seemed to be part of my alt mode design. As a whole, despite being spiky and what not, my build was compact and focused around mobility. Perhaps I would upgrade my arsenal at some point, but right now I don’t think it mattered that much. I’m not planning to wage war on humanity anywhere in the near future nor am I planning to actively fight big ass robots such as myself anytime soon. You could say that I am, in essence, planning to take the term fence-sitting to a whole new level and exploit it to the best of my ability.

Well, that, and first I needed to learn how to better fly in my alt mode. It’s plain embarrassing to be unable to do a simple barrel roll or whatever you call it in the air.

…

I need to invest in learning military terms, especially Air Force related. I feel so uneducated the way I am right now.

“You should stop moping.” I turned to see MJ standing next to my left foot, looking up at me with a look that reminded of my mother whenever I displeased her. “Beauty isn’t everything.”

I cringed and looked away, even though she could not see my expression because of my helmet thing. She was, however, familiar enough with my antics to know what I’ve done exactly.

She sighed, irritated.

“As far as you know, you might be pretty by Cybertronian standards.” She tried, but we both knew it was futile to play that card. I had been previously human and I had no idea what Cybertronian standards were even if they slapped me in the fucking face. Hell! My fucking interface was in English, for crying out loud!

“Those must be some low standards.” I grumbled, earning a very unlady-like snort from her.

“If you don’t want my sympathy for something that you can’t really change, then don’t expect me to cut you any slack about it either.”

“You’re one to talk!”

MJ actually looked affronted.

“And what is that supposed to bloody mean?”

“You still have tits and arse for one! And look at me! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No wait! It’s a bird-legged freak that transforms into a plane! That also happens to be an alien robot! From outer space! Where is Commander Fucking Shepard when you fucking need him?” What can I say? I am a firm believer that Commander Shepard can fix anything. Except perhaps the Mass Effect 3 Ending. Nothing can fix that amount of fail, but I digress.

I confess that I shamelessly quoted a caption of a Starscream photo I saw on this wiki page once. And I also confess that while my voice is eerily creepy as fuck, it is still capable of carrying out emotional inflections. I sounded profoundly bitter and possibly a bit hysterical at this point.

“You’re not a monster, Fia.” MJ said simply and walked away, leaving me to my own thoughts.

Somehow, that helped. Somehow, her conviction was enough. As insecure, and helpless, and bitter as I felt, it certainly helped knowing that she did not think of me as a monster. I felt a bit better but that did not stop me from sulking by the fire, with the helmet thing still covering my face and with my hands hugging my knees to my chest.

After another sleepless night I actually found something that I liked about myself. That something was my wings that were basically my alt form wings. They weren’t whole, rather they were segmented into these elongated sections that folded into each other and were snug against my back for the most time. I found out after a bit of tweaking that I was capable of fluttering them and stretching them, not unlike the wings of a bird or an insect. Perhaps even an amalgamation of both? I’d tweak with that some more later. I have to prepare some documents and bank accounts for MJ and, believe you me, you can never be too careful with that kind of stuff.

I think that was the gist of the important stuff up to right when we reached New York. Oh wait. There was one more thing. Remember at the beginning when I introduced MJ? Well, as you know, her actual name is Michelle Jessica Keats. It’s this thing I do, really. I’d rather give people names that fit them, you know, the way I see them. That kind of thing. And for me, MJ did not look like a Michelle. Not at all. Michelle sounded like a spoiled brat of an arrogant princess, a true mockery of the nobility and awesomeness that Michael radiated. And MJ is nothing if not noble and kind. Where I am this deviant little hell spawn, she is righteous with a no-nonsense personality most of the time. She’s also a wise-ass cynic, but that’s one of the things that make her so awesome.

Uhm. Back on track. New York.

Day Seven

I haven’t been to New York in ages. Last time I was here I had spent approximately 10 hours, waiting for our flight to Vegas where we’d meet up with some friends for a convention. I’ve seen the sights and all that, but the fact that I wouldn’t be able to strut my stuff on the New York streets without causing mass panic and havoc was enough to make me depressed all over again. I took stealthiness and the sneaky-sneaky to a whole new level as I landed in the dead of night at this wooded area. I wasn’t going to stick around but I needed to make sure that MJ would be fine.

Well, logically she was capable of taking care of herself, given her level of expertise with certain martial arts, but I was prone to being a worry wart and a paranoid one at that.

For those of you who are curious, I had landed somewhere within the Mariners Marsh Park, while I had flown as low and as quietly as possible. From there, MJ had gone off on her own and I reluctantly had to leave for a less populated area. For the first time since we got here, I actually felt really scared at the prospect of being alone.

I miss home.

It had been days before I managed to find a suitable place to hide that was still near enough to New York. I was rather weary at first, but my odd appearance fit almost perfectly amongst the odds and ends and gadgets that were all over the place. Yes, I was yet again hiding at a warehouse filled up with various junk with supposed collector value. The owner was this nice old lady that was pretty much deaf and very short sighted. I doubted she’d spot me even in broad daylight.

About around day ten did I realize that I was quickly developing a very problematic situation and I had no idea how to fix it. I was running low on Energon and I had no idea how to refuel. For days I just sulked quietly it the warehouse, thinking over my options. I could stick to my alt mode and, on theory at least, I should be able to be sustained with whatever fuel fighter jets used. The problem is, that this is all on theory and, what’s even worse; I can’t stand still for five minutes to save my life. I honestly hope MJ would call soon so I can alleviate the boredom.

Several days later and there is a bit more development. First off, there is truth to the saying “Desperation feeds Ingenuity” or something like that. Apparently I have this search function thing that I don’t really understand how exactly it works. I tweaked with it for a couple of days and it turned out that I can scan an area for Energon. There was none around me, I checked. But the important part is that said discovery has lead me through a sequence of programs and stuff and I finally found a couple of obscurely named files that contained information on basic Energon Processing.

I shall turn my attention once again to the higher power that has me dealing with this bullshit and I wish to the depths of my heart that they burn in My Little Pony hell. I mean, seriously!? One would think I’d found porn files with the extensiveness they had been hidden within my programming.

I idly wonder if I have more of these little gems scattered around in my mind. Probably.

And, before I forget, the old lady now thinks the warehouse is haunted. I’d be amusing if she actually brings a priest to put a stop to said hauntings. Muahahaha!

:: I’m Commander Shepard and this is my favorite warehouse in the galaxy. Just kidding. Fence-sitter full metal bitch signing out. ::

Chapter Text

I have seen the face of madness and it is a stuffed chimpanzee with gleaming fake eyes and a purple jacket that screams of bling. Or in other words -boredom, coupled with the ever growing urgency of finding some sort of sustenance. I know that Energon can be produced from literally any type of energy source found here on Earth but I have no idea what the process itself entails. Maybe I should rephrase that a bit. All I know is that I have this processor thingie inside me that can turn any kind of fuel into Energon that I can actually use. It’s small but it’s enough to get me by until I can find actual Energon.

I have power in me to burn for about three months but that in itself means that I barely have time to organize anything at all. I am surrounded by mostly useless garbage and it hurts saying this, because there are so many cool things in this little warehouse that my ADD-ridden sparkly heart would skip a beat every time I find something small and probably unique piece of American history. And yes, here I am, torn between my unhealthy desire to sift through every little whatchamacallit and my ever growing need to get a hold of a more or less staple source of sustenance.

Had I still the ability to sigh, I would’ve done so. It is very unhealthy for me to constantly want to do something human and not be able to do it. I have programs for those things, those human actions and instincts, but I have not the faculties to carry out these programs. It’s literally straining me and then this vicious cycle continues anew. I find something to distract myself, I start thinking about some shit and then I get frustrated. And the frustration just keeps on building. I don’t know if I can wait like this any longer than a few more days before I literally snap and start doing things that I’m really not supposed to be doing.

Ugh, this waiting game is so degrading and I am literally out of things to do. The old lady hasn’t called any priests or shaman or even the cops, she might’ve put down my little shock spell to a raccoon or something. Speaking of raccoons, I’ve not seen a single animal in my direct vicinity. Now that’s something to look into. Maybe animals detect unnatural things such as me like they detect earthquakes? I’d make sure to tell MJ to get a particularly nasty pooch that she’d train to hate Wall-E’s like me with a passion. Best. Warning. System. EVER!

Of course, that would imply animals could actually detect Cybertronians which is only a speculation on my part…

When I received a call from MJ I think I nearly knocked out the warehouse. Seriously! I should pay attention to my own fucking programs! Gah, 20 tons jumping 30 centimeters from the ground is not healthy, I tell you! To make matters even worse, MJ wasn’t even in New York! My mood dropped even further .

“Michael, the fucking fuckity fuck are you doing in VEGAS!?” I swear I could hear slot machines and music all around her.

“I’m winning big.” She said with a tone usually used to say “I’m doing the dishes.” I think my processors stopped working for a long while. “Fia? Are you there?”

“I thought we agreed to stay away from the West Side.” I muttered through gritted teeth or whatever I had as an equivalent. She still heard me, despite her loud surroundings.

“I agreed that you should stay away from the West. I, however, have no problem being around here. Hey, I’ll call you back when I can, another game’s starting up.”

“MJ! Wait! Ugh….that bitch, she hung up!”

It’s so unfair, I swear! I’m stuck in a dusty old warehouse in the middle of bloody Nobodycares and’s she’s living the big life in Vegas. I feel so left out. I need to do something…anything. Fuck this. Fuck my life. Fuck my paranoia and, above all else, fuck fucking Primus! This is all his fault!

I need to take a walk.

I transform into my robot form and carefully head over to the warehouse’s big ass doors. I promptly open them , thinking about how relaxing it would be to simply fly without a care for direction and –

I hear a very sharp intake of breath and my bright yellow optics immediately pinpoint the source. It’s the Old Lady that owns this place. Out here, in the middle of the night. Really? For a moment, we were just staring at each other. I blinked. Old Lady clutched her chest and her eyes rolled back and she promptly slumped on the ground. Uh oh.

What do I do now?

I mean, I should call 911 but I’m not exactly inconspicuous, not to mention I have the voice of Satan’s ex-wife or whatever and…Ugh, I’m rambling again while Old Lady here is on a cruise down the river Styx.

I dial 911.

“Hello? This Old Lady dropped dead on the ground. Uhm. I’m thinking of a stroke or Myocardial Infarction. Uh, no, this isn’t a prank call. Yes, that is the address. Damn it.”

I dial 911 a second time.

“Please, the woman is dying here and she really needs to get to a hospi- I swear I will desecrate whatever shrine of Primus I find just because of my voice. Urgh!”

And a third time.

“God Damnit, just get an ambulance right now- That’s it! Sorry Old Lady, 911 is being a bitch and I don’t fancy being experimented on.” I stared at her limp form. “Uhm. This is so awkward. I’ll, ugh, be just going now, Old Lady.” Still no response.” I’m really sorry. God, this is awkward. Uh…bye!”

I’ve never transformed this fast in my life. Not that I’ve transformed that many times, but still! I was outta there faster than a straight man out of a gay bar. I feel kinda bad about Old Lady, you know. But then again it isn’t my fault that I am an almost 10 meters tall robot bitch queen with a rather monstrous appearance. Hell, if I was in her place I would’ve probably fainted as well. Granted, it would’ve been from fangirling. Ahem.

I am not a good person and I don’t doubt that I will be keeping Primus company in My Little Pony Hell when I die. Simply because I will personally drag that bastard there so that we could suffer the Pony-ness together. Just out of spite, you know? It’d sure make me feel better watching him squirm under the pressure of the Friendship Magic. Wishful thinking aside, I was already pushing Mach 2 outta there. I found some sort of mountainous area to hide in, with lots of trees and stuff that would hide me even in my robot form. Not that I plan on using it until I feel safe enough. Tire tracks is one thing but giant chicken feet stamps on the ground is something else entirely.

And I might be in Canada.

Oh well. It’s not like MJ can do anything about it now that I’m out of the country nor will she really care that much. It was days before she managed to contact me again. As far as I’m concerned it’s frightful what kind of headway she makes when she puts her mind into it. She’s really been winning big and that makes most of our money currently legitimate. I could only wish to have a poker face as good as hers, especially because she plays Texas Holdem like nobody’s business. Sure, she lost a lot in the beginning but it’s not like I can’t hack some more money for her.

Right about now our legitimate fortunes amount around 3 million or so dollars and she’s ridiculously busy searching for a suitable home for us. I’m partial to anything with a lot of gardens and fields surrounding it. And at least a three story white mansion with a big ass swimming pool where I can chill with my homies. Or rather, my single one homie.

The sooner we set ourselves up, the better. I’m tired hiding in the woods and I think she may be tired by the Vegas Night Life.

Day 35…I think

It was a great relief when I finally met up MJ again. We’d organized meeting up at this abandoned gas station and I’ve been snugly hiding in the shade of this overhang thing. I use the word snugly loosely.  Yeah, I just said that. I may have freaked out a bit when it wasn’t only MJ coming but a whole lieu of people in black shiny cars.

Okay, I did not freak out. I totally did that jump thing. In my alt mode no less. MJ came out of a car with a bunch of MiB’s and at that point I pretty much transformed and pointed my mosquito bites at them. Not at MJ, just at the Men in Black. I may have been pretty wild looking but I had my helmet thing covering my face so I don’t think they saw my terrified facial expressions.

If things went even more South than they already have, I could always grab MJ, stuff her in my proverbial belly drawer and fly my shiny metal behind out of there. The MiB’s were also freaking out and now they were pointing their guns and stuff at me. Classical standoff between alien and human, I must say.

“Everyone calm down. Fiona! Stop being an insolent brat this instance and get over here!”

The most incredible thing happened! MJ was ordering the MiB’s and they reluctantly drew their weapons away. I sort of did the same thing. My mosquito bites may be mosquito bites for transformers but they are the equivalent of a grenade launcher in your face for humans. I pulled my helmet plate things from my face and stared, blinking in confusion at what was going on. I felt kind of incredulous watching all the things that were unfolding.

I did the most natural thing at that point and simply crawled over to MJ and sat crossed legged in front of her, looking every bit a chastised puppy. A giant ugly, clawy, metal potato thing of a chastised puppy. Well, not really a metal potato thing but I imagine alien robot puppies looking like metal potato things, like that Don’t Starve item. Man, I really want to play some computer games. It’s been like what? A month? I feel deprived of basic first world human needs, I tell you!

“Those are MiB’s, right?” I lowered my face to about MJ’s height and whispered theatrically with an innocent, wide eyed expression. It’s not that I did that on purpose. But it’s just that I actually did that on purpose even albeit accidentally. But hey, I wanted to know what was the deal with the MiB’s. It was kind of important to know that asap, I think.

That there were several actual chuckles and a few snorts was a bonus, though I don’t think  I cared about that at the time. I was freaked out and there were strange people surrounding me and I was feeling uncomfortable and I needed MJ to explain things to me before I got whiny and sniffly because I pretty much had it with all this cloak and dagger thing we’ve been playing for the last month. And I don’t thing whiny and sniffly are any sort of words that should ever be used to describe a “first contact” scenario involving a giant alien robot. It would be plain embarrassing to be remembered as the cry baby alien that made contact with the human race for the first time.

MJ rolled her eyes and I must say that her exasperation wasn’t even remotely hidden. She sighed tiredly and waved over a tall, skinny and pale blonde woman that looked like an Olga or a Hilde or something. She was wearing a snug tight black formal suit with a knee length black skirt. I actually liked her clothes’ design, especially the suit’s jacket cut. It was really classy. She looked like someone that you wouldn’t want to mess with. A real professional.

“Get the transporter here as soon as possible, I don’t think she’d be up for flying herself to our destination.” MJ said to her. ”And these are my people.” She turned to me as an afterthought, making me blink in confusion again.

Her people!? Since when she had her OWN people!?

The woman wrote something down on a pad and pulled out a mobile phone. I actually blinked at the mobile phone. Sometimes I really forget this is 2007 we’re talking about. I mean, we used tablets and androids and mini computers that were so useful and stuff and here we are, looking at grandma’s ancient mobile phone. It was a Samsung SGH-E250 and I think MJ actually noticed me staring dejectedly at the offending piece of technology. Hey, it ain’t no mobile phone I’d use. Not that I had any need for a mobile phone. The woman looked at me questioningly before she glared testily.

“This is my Personal Assistant, Masha – “ MJ started, trying to get my attention back on the matters at hand. I accentuate on the word “tried”.

“I knew it!” I interjected triumphantly, people pulling away when I bounced excitedly.” I was absolutely certain that you were an Olga or a Hilde, or an-“

“Fiona, focus.” MJ stopped me tiredly.

I think she was resigned to the fact that I just ruined whatever image she had made of me in front of her people. HER people!? Can you imagine that!?

Anyways, I had the decency to look sheepish and like a chastised puppy again and I smiled apologetically and rubbed the back of my head by habit.

“Sorry about that. I haven’t had decent civilized contact for a while. It had been just me and the dust bunnies, you know. And the occasional spider. Ugh.” I made a face and shuddered at that memory. Never again. And I mean it. Never again will I get distracted enough to let a spider make a web inside my cockpit. Oh God, the nightmares!

“I’m sure it had been a traumatizing experience.” MJ almost sounded sincere but I knew her well enough to understand that she was being her usual sarcastic self. She’s in a pretty pissy mood to boot and I think she may be covering some sort of bags under her eyes because I am certain that I see at least a three millimeters thick layer of make up on her face.

“Hello Masha.” I waved uncertainly at the Personal Assistant woman, trying to appease MJ’s shitty mood.

“Greetings, miss.” She said tightly with a thick Russian-ish accent. Hey, you never know, she might be from Croatia as far as anyone knows. That was a no-nonsense woman right there, I am telling you. I’ve no idea where MJ got her but holy hell, she scares the crap out of me.

I looked back at MJ, hoping for a bit of appreciation for my efforts but when I got none I kind of slumped my shoulders  and looked around, at her other people. They were an ok bunch, I guess. I mean, they looked pretty organized and I think that fit perfectly with MJ’s obsessive cleanliness and orderliness. No wonder they were wearing uniform black suits and stuff, too.

“So, where’d you get them?” I finally turned back to MJ and asked her this budding with curiousity question.

MJ looked at me.

“Get what?”

“You know, your own humans.”

Hey! Minions! Me want!

“For the Queen’s sake, Fiona. They aren’t my property, they are my employees.”

“Minions get paid too.”

There were a few chuckles and I preened at the positive feedback we were getting for our bickering.

“Ooh, that’s a big chopper!” I suddenly exclaimed, pointing at the distance.

“That’s what we’re transporting you with.” Masha, the P.A.,  stated evenly, as if describing the weather.

“I am not hanging on cables, with the winds swinging me precariously at high speeds!” I reached a new high pitched level of screechiness with that one exclamation. MJ even cringed.

“Don’t worry, you’re going to ride inside as you are.”

“Fine! But I want some peanuts and some coke!” It didn’t matter if I couldn’t eat or drink human food at the moment. Just having said items delivered to me would somehow keep the illusion of a twisted normalcy going on in my head, uh, processor.

“Fine! I will get you some coke and peanuts.” MJ nodded at her P.A. who went and reached inside one of the shiny black cars and actually got me a bag of peanuts and a bottle of cooled coke.

When I was finally settled inside this huge ass carrier chopper, I was huddling my knees at one corner, looking every bit like a sulking child but right about now I couldn’t care less. I came to the conclusion that I preferred to fly under my own power and not inside another contraption. At least MJ and that infernal P.A. of hers were sitting in here with me, along with some of the Minions in Black. Minions, ‘cus, you know, they’re her men? Oh well. I get it, bad pun.

I finally got over myself just enough to talk to MJ again. It wasn’t easy for me but I felt seventeen different kinds of ridiculous in my current situation.

“So, what’s the big deal with the MiB’s? I mean, you could’ve gotten me with the chopper alone and stuff.” I looked at her with a slight scowl, which I hoped was as scary as I imagined it would look. Hey, if you have a scary looking ugly mug, then best put it to good use!

That little cunt had the audacity to smirk at me.

“That look on your face, though. Priceless.” She sipped at her coffee mug thing, looking as smug as ever.

I actually stared at her with my mouth hanging open. I shut my trap with a very audible metallic click and pointed an accusing finger at her.

“You cheeky little dick waffle! Eat shit! Seriously, eat a fuck-bucket full of your own bullshit! I can’t believe you had me so easily! Seriously, that was a good one! I can’t believe I’ve been had by the likes of you!”

You’d think I’d be mad. Nah. The two of us shared a hearty chuckle at my own expense. It’s always wise to know when to admit defeat. Now that I think about it, it was a genuinely funny thing that had happened and I think my respect for MJ’s brilliant poker face has risen up a few notches. And during all this time, Masha the P.A. didn’t even so much as twitch. That woman isn’t human! In the metaphorical sense, of course. I ran some scans discreetly, on three separate occasions, just to be sure.

I clutched at my bag of peanuts and bottle of coke and smiled happily, relaxing completely for the first time since I’ve woken up in this God-forsaken Universe.

: This is Fiona Johnson and I’ve been had. Kudos folks! :

Chapter Text

I want a bat cave.

There, I said it and I don’t regret it!

To be perfectly honest, MJ’s story of how she came to be the owner of this company was nothing short of losing big, winning some, then losing big again and then winning big, but not as much as I had hacked at the beginning. There is already a very huge investigation going worldwide looking for the culprit who had stolen over 10 million dollars (that would be me) and I’ll be an idiot to try anything right now as it is. Despite losing a little over two thirds of our fortune to MJ’s now infamous Las Vegas Poker Binge, at least now what money we have is actually considered legal, which is a very needed bonus.

So, Michael is now the proud owner of a company dealing with manufacturing and distributing some sort of medical equipment that really hits it off around 2011. The only reason she knows so much about it was because her parents, both renowned doctors, worked tightly with them for over four years.  Being someone to never pass an opportunity, MJ promptly bought all shares of the company and apparently, she is trying to pull something of a Bruce Wayne with the way she spends money on everything.

Being a massive hoarder of everything that I happen to like, I hardly approved of the fact that in less than three months we were down to a single million dollars, but at least Masha the P.A. says that the investments that have been made will cut our losses by the end of the year and then we will be earning a decent sized sum.

Masha, despite being the emotionless creepy Russian (it turned out she was really Russian!), happened to be a cool person, I think. She’s very practical and diligent in her work and she takes her time to talk to me, despite the fact that we didn’t really see eye to eye at first. But it was mostly because I was childishly jealous of her stealing my best friend and because, according to her, I acted childishly with a mean petty streak and she disapproved of that.

The bulk of the company doesn’t know of my existence. Apparently the only people that do know are what MJ dubbed as her inner circle. And those people would be the MiB’s (Minions in Black) and Masha the P.A., who, apparently, also knows that we’re not from this Universe or something. Imagine a woman like Masha working in the government. Any government. Yeah, I want to live in a Utopia without crime and corruption like that as well.

But back on track.

Michael did buy a lovely mansion which also happened to house its very own research department that was currently being retrofitted inside the second floor. It’s going a bit slow but we’ve been over this and Masha’s calculations are as accurate as my own – if we keep this rate of upgrades for now we can manage to keep to our current budget and not end up broke. The main point of this particular research facility was to make designs based on my own body. I’ve already dug out some of my programming and I’ve been carefully adjusting a copy of it to work with Windows, though the majority of that work was being handled by actual professionals and not a self-taught underappreciated genius like me.

What we’ve been working on for the most part would be out for testing by the end of the year and I feel pretty confident that at least the Minimally Invasive Surgery machinery will really take hold on the market.

So, about that bat cave thing…

 We have a reasonably sized cave system that has been used for various purposes over the years, including for smuggling runaway slaves, storing wine casks and even digging for gold at one point. The cave tunnels and most of its caverns are a bit of a tight fit for me but one of the larger galleries shows promise for an actual bat cave. I want to deck out that place with stuff for myself, like having my own little room. It would be a place where I won’t have to worry about being discovered or about bothering the humans too much with my terrifying visage.

I’ve already planned out some of the interior. Like, there will be one wall that will be an entire flat TV screen, along with a nice comfy chair for myself and a gaming rig set up just to my specifications. Or I could always hook the TV to myself and just play whatever game I feel like playing from myself. The fact alone that I can do that is what makes, at least for me, being a transformer so overly epic. It’s like we’re almost completely self-sustaining and, barring my constantly present problems with my perpetually low energy levels, I actually find this existence kind of OK.

And just kind of OK is fine for me, now that the novelty has finally worn off. Sure, I can’t do or have certain things but that’s just the wishful thinking of my human programming. I am still a human deep down inside. My spark holds a human soul and I know that is the truth because MJ is here with me. Had I been alone here, I would’ve gone nuts by now, either hiding out with Decepticons or as a little experiment bunny down in some secret Sector Seven facility. A shiver ran down my form just thinking about it.

Bad thoughts.

I finally got around to getting that new paint job. Not as easy as one would think. I could always go with a uniform cool color but where was the fun in that? We had to figure out a design that looked good in both my forms and that was a bit harder. In the end I decided to leave my fate in the hands of the professionals MJ had hired to deck out my awesome alt mode. The only instructions they had was to make my paint job pure art, something fresh and breathtaking, unique and elegant.

I ended up with a shiny chrome blue color, white wave/cloud super detailed patterns and this amazing looking hot orange/pink phoenix design. All in all, very Asian looking and probably a one of a kind custom job among us Cybertronians. Now what was left was to see how it looked in my robot form. The bronze/copperish pieces of my frame didn’t clash too horribly but the entire MiB team agreed that those needed a repaint too. We couldn’t call back the guys who did the outer frame of my jet form because, let’s face it, we couldn’t have them knowing that I was actually an alien. Though, I will totally promote them the moment the transformers become known to the whole wide world.

So, as a compromise, we had some of our MiB technicians carefully remove my plating and slowly I went from Copper and Bronze to a uniform Shiny White Chrome and oh Lawdy was I gorgeous! If my optics were blue, they’d fit even better, I guess, but the yellow went well with the phoenix design thing and I actually felt pretty for the first time in months.  You couldn’t wipe that shit eating grin off my face with anything!

“So, are you finally satisfied?” Michael asked me, as I did a few struts around in my hangar much to the delight of my MiB’s.

“What do you think? Eh? Do you like my new colors? What about you, Masha? Sleek and sexy and Frrrrrreshhh!” I practically purred the last part with that sinister screechy voice of mine.

“Now you certainly match your personality.” Masha said but I didn’t know whether to take that wisecrack as a compliment or as an insult.

I’ll take it as a compliment.

“Don’t let me catch you spelunking again, especially with your new paint, Fiona. If there’s even a single scratch, I will not spend money to fix it.”

“Yes, mom.” I rolled my eyes and sighed exasperatedly.

“Don’t you ‘Yes, mom’ me, woman! Do you even remember how much caked mud you were covered with!?”

Of course MJ would care about spending money and cleanliness. Oh well. To each their own, I guess. My only regret is that I can’t really show off my paint job to more people. I can’t really fly about freely either, because I might cause MJ some problems with the government and she’s right about that, though, to be honest, being grounded for such a long period of time makes me feel…I don’t know, depressed maybe? It just didn’t feel right, you know.

“Christ’s sake, Michael. I friggen cleaned that up. You made me do it!” I scowled at her and it was a shiny and OH LAWDY DAT CHROME scowl.

I may gripe and whine all about MJ’s quirks but they do me a lot of good in the long run. Except the no flying thing. I’ve actually started working on my wings. Remember when I said they’re really versatile and stuff? So far I’ve programmed two separate wing forms, which allow me different types of mobility in my robot form.

I have a pair of what I refer to as the main wings. They’re the longest pieces of metal that are at the top of all the other pairs. When in robot form I usually keep my wings in this sprite-like state, where they all sort of sprout from the same location. While I haven’t yet really gathered the guts to try and fly proper in my robot form, I do know that I can do that because my wings have thrusters and I also have some sort of thrusters on my chicken legs.

Now, I’ve been tweaking with my wings’ programs and I’ve discovered that the other pair of wings can sort of slide up the main pair, creating more bird like wings, which reminds me an awful lot of the Aether Wing Kayle skin. You know, from League of Legends? Ah well. Never mind.

The important part is that that wing form is far easier to hover with and allows for some really slow and delicate movements, while the other form is more about a really fast-paced approach to flying.

I feel as if things are finally starting to look up for me. It’s been four months, almost five since we’ve arrived in this Universe and already I feel as if this new life is starting to settle in. I spend a lot of my time playing video games or tweaking with my programs. At first most of the MiB’s were really terrified of me but they sort of got used to me. I’m not a scary person, at least not most of the time. I try to be nice and mindful of them and even help out at whatever’s going on in my warehouse. It sort of doubles as this workshop thing where maintenance is done for whatever large tech we have.

Our latest project involves installing this huge solar panel array that is designed to supply the Mansion and its surrounding grounds with power. Its real purpose, however, is to supply me, specifically, with power. It would be up and running within the week so all I have to do is some heavy lifting here and there in between my near 24/7 binge of being online on World of Warcraft. It’s 2007 so it’s still on the Burning Crusade expansion and it’s kind of cool to be back in the good old days of kicking Illidan’s ass and not having to worry about Item levels and achievements.

I have a pretty active online life, if you haven’t guessed already. There isn’t much for me at the moment in the real world so I spend a lot of time either lurking or trolling on forums or hanging out in my social pages, like my Facebook (stalking Sam Witwicky, for one). Since World of Warcraft is the primary game that I play, next to DoTA (Defense of the Ancients, the predecessor of League of Legends), I do spend a lot of time on our guild website and forums and I am the one responsible for the guild themed colors and cool images of various guildies. I play on an RP realm but my guild is very Raid and PvP oriented. We’re Alliance, so, naturally, I’m a stalwart Alliance supporter and a very mean Horde hater.

I wouldn’t be talking about my guild if it wasn’t for the fact that I was planning on a huge guild Real Life Reunion at the next BlizzCon. I’ve told my guild that yes, I am a girl, but I also happen to be a huge ass alien robot from outer space. Naturally, I was met with various levels of skepticism and outright laughter. There was no way a girl could be playing the game. Notice how they didn’t even bat an eye when I told them I was an alien?  They think it’s this continuous joke that I’m running on them when I speak to them via Raid Call. It’s been two months so they’re pretty used to it. The guild leader even finds it endearing so it isn’t a big problem. I can’t wait for them to see me in real life. I’d even paint myself in alliance colors with a huge ass lion face insignia all over the place. Then we’d see who’ll be laughing!

Michael and Masha also play World of Warcraft. Well, Michael plays with me during raids while Masha spends the majority of her online time gathering materials and what not for Michael. Masha also happens to be our top Hunter dps. Michael’s a balance druid and I play with a Paladin tank. I also happen to have a Night Elf rogue that I use to harass Horde in PvP when I am bored.

“Fiona, could you please send a BRB for a moment?” MJ was standing next to me.

“Sure, gimme a second. What’s up?”

“Sam Witwicky has put up his grandfather’s glasses on E-bay some thirteen minutes ago.”

It took me about 0.3 seconds to confirm what she had just told me.

“So it begins.” I murmured knitting my brow-plates together and pursing my proverbial lips.

“It begins.” Michael repeated and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear nonchalantly. That betrayed her nervousness to me. I knew her well enough.

“I will be going out of town tomorrow and Masha will keep things going on this end.”

I nodded. There wasn’t anything to say, really. MJ was going to Tranquility, which was the city where the Witwickies lived at. I wasn’t very keen on getting involved but a thought had taken roots and grown as the days had passed. The All Spark was an instrument of God. Perhaps not our God, per se, but it was still the literal Deus Ex Machina and it was here on Earth. It was what gave Cybertronians their life and I, for one, could understand the sheer significance of its existence. It was like the Holy Grail or, say, Jesus Christ for the Christians. Even if I was hardly impressed with Primus, who I still find to be a tremendous Douchebag by the way, I couldn’t just sit back and watch as the All-spark would be eventually destroyed. To me, that was the equivalent of the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs all those millions of years ago.

It was tremendous loss of future life and looking up at the night sky I can’t help but think how we’re so lucky to have even existed. If it comes to saving Earth at the cost of the Allspark, then I’d gladly pay that price. Earth is and will always be my home. But to destroy the literal Life Force of the Cybertronians just to play on the safe side? I can’t do that. I won’t do that. Not until I am one hundred percent certain nothing else could’ve been done.

It would be a somber night and an ever more somber morning tomorrow. The moon scythe was high in the sky and it was a very distinct reddish, orange-ish color. Blood will be spilled tonight and I knew that somewhere, halfway across the world, American Soldiers were dying in Qatar at the hands of the Decepticons.

: I don’t feel like talking anymore. Fiona Johnson signing out. :

Chapter Text

This is definitely a situation I’ve been in before. No, seriously. Like, at least five times. It always goes the same way. Somebody says “Don’t do it, Fia.” and somehow I get it in my head that I’m capable of handling whatever I’m not supposed to do and then I go ahead and do it. Usually the results are less than stellar, but that’s pretty much how I met MJ. Then there was that time we went to Serbia, which turned out to be awesome. And Australia. Not so awesome. Oh well.  I think if I was human I’d still have the scars. Oh well. My point is that while I am pretty much very, very smart, I tend to downplay danger and needlessly expose myself to risks. MJ says that one day my luck will run out and her father wouldn’t be around to patch me up. Or a decent mechanic, seeing as I am a mechanoid and not an organic.

So, the situation. It’s definitely one that I haven’t found myself in before if aliens are added in the mix, which is somewhat of a plus since I am always looking for new and exciting experiences. But then again I am also in a very precarious position and I might get blown up just for the principle of it.

Here’s the list of pros: I finally met other people like me, as in, other Cybertronians. Well, they are Cybertronians but I am technically not a Cybertronian, since I was born and raised on Earth and all that jazz. I’m still having a hard time choosing a proper name for my kind. The Earth kind of mechanoid. I’m torn between Earthborn and Terran. Terran sounds pretty awesome and it’s Latin, while Earthborn sounds a bit more mystical and old-school, kind of like something you’d find in an old D&D board game. As you can see, I have a lot on my mind and I’ve managed to occupy myself well enough while also keeping my mouth shut. Me? Silent? I know, amazing and highly improbable, isn’t it?

Anyways, here are the cons. As in, literally, here are the Cons. As in Decepticons. As in Bad guys. As in, big, ugly and scary and oh God (I am still mad at you, Primus, don’t look at me like that!) Starscream has really sharp teeth. Yes! That Starscream! I am torn between being giddy and abso-fucking-lutely terrified.

Here’s a recap of my situation. MJ went to ninja Sam’s grandpa’s glasses and left me under Masha the P.A.’s care. I tried to be nice but I really needed to at least stretch my wings in the wind and staying in my warehouse / workshop was starting to make me feel caged and really closed in. I’ve never been a person that really had any claustrophobic tendencies. In fact, I am pretty sure I used to be afraid of heights. Now, however, when it finally clicked inside my processors, I realized what was causing this undue stress upon me. I am a flyer. I literally need to be in the skies for a reasonable amount of time and believe it or not it was Masha the P.A. that explained it to me. According to her, I had been showing the typical signs of some form of claustrophobia.

Normally Masha the P.A. scares the crap out of me but then I sort of picked her up and kissed her cheek. Or tried to. I ended up squishing her against my mouthpieces, or, rather, the side of her face against my mouth pieces. She may have glared at me for all she was worth for wrinkling her awesome suit but there was no way for me to know as I had been already gaining height in my alt mode as soon as I had set her down again.

While she had explained the situation to me, she never explicitly told me NOT to go around flying. And I dashed out before she had the chance to. See what I mean about getting myself into these messes?

Anyways, I won’t bore you people with my lack of flying skills. I’m still too much of a wuss to try anything more complex than a barrel roll. Now, with the amount of fail I’ve seen across the various Transformers series, I had been under the opinion that Starscream is a bit of a pushover. Whatever I’ve thought of his character, I’m taking that back now. Starscream is one scary, competent son of a mother and he flies. He FLIES. I’ve never been to aerial shows simply out of lack of interest, but he makes flying look like an art.

It happened really fast, to be honest. I had my radars and stuff off, keeping a low profile and just enjoying the sheer sensation of the air against my sleek form. It wasn’t too dark, because the moon was out and I was flying above the clouds. The stars were bright, the air was thin and crisp at this altitude and I was the happiest little shit you’d find this side of the planet.

And in this state of personal mini-Nirvana I heard this ping and then a string of what I thought was angry Romanian. I remained perfectly silent; trying to figure out why was anybody contacting me in bloody Romanian. Well, that, and I had no idea how to actually reply even if I did want to contact the Romanians.

When a warning shot came ridiculously close to blowing up my left wing I knew I was in deep trouble. Well, actually, I think he had been aiming for my left wing but I managed to dodge the missile by sheer dumb luck, screaming hysterically, at the time, on top of my lungs, figuratively speaking, of course:

“Holy shit! Not Romanians! Those are not Romanians!”

I lost quite a bit of altitude with just that one maneuver and I think the only reason he didn’t shoot me down then and there was because he figured out I was really new at this, as in, really, really newb and stuff. I think the whole situation was akin to world PvP where when this big bad Horde asshole spots my meager little clothie Alliance alt with PvP on and decides not to kill it because it’s not worth his time and I wouldn’t be giving him any honor points.  But that’s just me trying to assimilate and make sense of what the hell happened and why I am still alive.

At the time it felt as if eternity had passed, but, really, it had been only a few seconds. The “Romanian” got even angrier, if that was even remotely possible and suddenly it had switched to English, which had scared the crap outta me and I had lost even more altitude by that little jumpy thingie I do every time I get startled by something. This is so not going to be healthy for me in the long run, I am certain of it!

“-even listening to me!?”

I am entitled to being overwhelmed every once in a while, you know! Even with my superior processing power. I had been scared shitless right then and there, and there had been this boss-level asshole yelling at me for no good reason and I was really, really scared and I was (and still am) very acutely aware of my lack of ability to summon up any sort of useful weapons and I am actually very, very glad that I had not been grounded at the time because I have a feeling this guy has been looking for me for a while now. Which is a scary thought in and on its own.

“I am listening.” I had finally replied with my equally screechy voice and even though I had tried to sound at least composed, I mentally cringed as I could hear myself being timid and scared. Ugh, I am such an epic fail it’s not even funny.

There had been a period of eerie silence and I remember feeling as if I had been scrutinized.

“How is it that you do not speak our own language, jet?” he had finally spoken then, his voice sounding no longer angry, but still commanding and intense. I had the feeling this calmness was not something I’d get to see ever again. After all, I think I knew then with whom I was dealing with.

This meeting was crucial, I thought at the time. I’ve been going through various scenarios for several months now and I knew that even hinting at being from a different dimension would be akin to a death sentence. A slow and antagonizingly painful one. I think it’s fairly obvious that I was going to be lying through my teeth about everything, keeping my answers as logical and plausible (and short and vague) as possible. Truthfully speaking, I don’t think my body is older than at least a month or two before I woke up. As such I decided to do the smart thing and present the truth the way it would be if I had not been from a dimension where all of this is a multi-billion dollars children’s franchise. I needed to milk my situation to the best of my ability because I knew for a fact that there was a young woman out there who was risking her life for the sake of all of humanity and then there was me, who cared only about the safety of said young woman. And possibly the safety of Masha the P.A., because she was kind of cool, even if she scared the crap out of me.

 It was time to get this show on the road.

“So…you are like me.” I had stated, letting a bit of my actual wonder seep into my voice. It was, indeed, fascinating to watch Starscream fly so effortlessly next to me. There was something almost organic to his movements that left me in a right state of awe.

 I wish I could fly like that.

“I…I have never met anyone like me before.” Truth.

He was silent for a while longer, possibly plotting and scheming just as much and possibly even more than I was at the time. Finally, he spoke again.

“My designation is Starscream. We are autonomic robotic organisms from the planet Cybertron.”

I swear, had I been in my robot form, my jaw would’ve dropped. I can’t believe he just said that. I mean, there are coincidences but damn, you don’t literally repeat Optimus Prime’s first words to humanity just like that out of the blue. This wasn’t a coincidence, just like I was fairly certain it wasn’t a coincidence that I woke up as a mechanoid with my best buddy MJ next to me. Again, I had felt even more overwhelmed by that simple sentence alone. This was a sign. Of what I don’t know. Of whom, well… Fuck you Primus, you Inglorious Ass. I don’t care if you are doing this with some greater purpose in mind but I am still so pissed at you! Still, I could not simply ignore what was before me. I know signs and I know subtle signs. I knew that I had to follow Starscream at least for now. After all, those were Optimus Prime’s words, even if he didn’t know that he’d be quoting him. Or would that mean that now Optimus Prime would be quoting him, now, that Starscream said them before he did? Eh, semantics, I guess.

Not soon after we were both grounded. I was green with envy at the grace of his landing. For a giant burrito metal potato thing, he was sure comfortable with his body. Comfortable enough to land and transform at the same time. Me? I kind of awkwardly and sloppily hovered in the air before kind of plopping into the ground and then transforming to my robot form.

For a while he just paced and stared at me, and I probably looked as intimidated as I felt. And even so, I stared at him too, curiousity and awe probably slapped onto my faceplates. I could tell he found my paint job to be deplorable if his scowl was anything to go by, but there was also something in his optics that I could not determine. Something cold and calculating that he did his best to hide.

“Do you know who is your creator?” he asked, finally. You’d be surprised but we didn’t speak much. What you’ve seen so far is literally it. Starscream is one for talking, but I found that out a bit later, when he wasn’t feeling as on edge as he had been feeling when we first met.

“No.” I replied, my answer again truthful.

He came closer to me and I had to stifle the urge to squeak or gulp by his proximity. Granted, those would be typically human reactions, at least I think so, judging from what I’ve seen so far of his behavior. It was a close call too. It’s not every day you get stared down by a sabertooth werevampire falcon metal potato Dorito hybrid space alien monster. Starscream is one scary son of a mother. He also happens to be shiny but I was too busy staring at his terrifying blood red optics to pay too much attention to that yet.

“Do you have a designation?”

“Fiona.” I answered almost right away. There was no point in lying when there was a possibility that he had been looking for me. He might’ve stumbled upon the name somewhere so it was best to be in his good graces. Starscream seemed to be of the easily irritable variety.

“Feh. That is a human vermin designation.”

I looked away, slightly scowling and trying not to talk back. I happen to like my name!

“It means light and fair.” I finally turned to him again and spoke as softly as my screechy voice would allow. He pulled away and looked me over one more time, considering my words. He was really making me uncomfortable and there wasn’t much I could do to hide it.

Starscream and I seemed to be of the same height, even if he was probably twice as wide as I was. It seemed that his wings were incorporated with his form, while mine folded at my back, providing me with a more condensed and sleeker design than his own.

“Hm. How fitting. Do you know why we are here, jet? Can you even imagine how long we have searched? Do you even know who you are?”

I remained silent as he was obviously going to go into a dramatic monologue concerning the history of Cybertron and possibly the presence of Megatron and the Allspark here on Earth.

“Our home planet can no longer sustain life, jet. Not without the Allspark that was banished to this planet by the Autobots. Our leader, Lord Megatron, followed it here. We came here to find Lord Megatron and the Allspark. And instead… we found you.”

I totally called the dramatic monologue, let it be known to all! Ahem. Starscream made a dramatic pause and I blinked…well, shuttered my yellow optics as he invaded my personal space again.

“You don’t realize your significance, do you, jet? You are new. And you are proof that our Lord Megatron has succeeded with at least with finding the Allspark. It is here, on this planet. Hidden. And with you, I will find it and I will restore Cybertron to its former glory.”

I totally figured out his game plan. I was half-worried there was something wrong with dear old Screamy. See, I know that he is a back stabbing son of a mother, but here he was, actually speaking good of his dear old Leader, Megs. I know what he will do. He will try to locate the Allspark and pass me off as proof that Megatron lives through me or some such bullshit and then he will take control of the Decepticons. And he will try to get rid of Megatron if he could get away with it. Then he might get rid of me. Not a bad plan but utterly predictable.

I am not, however, in the position to decide anything for myself, seeing as he is a boss-level death machine and I am a little butterfly of newbness. I will have to go along with whatever he decides for me.

“How long have you been on this planet?” Again with the questions/interrogation thing.

“Several Earth months.” That’s the truth again. I really like how he can make his own conclusions about me with me barely opening my mouth. He stared at me incredulously. I don’t think several Earth months amount to anything in Cybertronian terms. In fact, judging by his stare, I am not even supposed to be more than a sparkly embryo or something. Maybe telling him this was a bad idea? I don’t know. Maybe it will play out in my favor. I will figure something out if this entire situation gets even more out of hand.

“This must be the work of the Allspark. Follow me, jet.”

And great. Now he is back to being a grumpy Romanian again. He went back to his alt mode and I had to really accelerate to catch up to him by the time I transformed and was in the air. I’ve no idea where we are going but I hope it isn’t too far away. My fuel levels never look too good and I’m already really close to that “Warning! Need more Energon!” point.

I spent our trip mostly silent, seeing as Starscream was communicating with somebody in Cybertronian. Apparently Cybertronian sounds eerily like Romanian. Not that I am an expert in Romanian per se, but I do know several choice words concerning one’s mother’s possessions and stuff I’d allegedly do to one’s mother in general.

Cybertronian is a pretty language, I must say. It’s very lyrical and intrinsic and yet very fast paced. I hope that I’d get to learn it soon enough or at least get the damn language pack. I’d hate to be that kid on the block that only speaks the “inferior” language. It’d be one of a kind mood off-putter.

I remember then finding myself wondering about Cybertronian culture, what Cybertronian music would be like, that kind of thing. I always imagine Cybertronian music to sound like dubstep or electronica or techno of some sort. Fast beats and pretty sounds, kind of like their language now that I think about it.

We reached our destination sooner than I had anticipated. I noted we weren’t in any sort of warehouse or secret Decepticon military base or anything of the sort. We were literally in the middle of nowhere, a place that was not unlike to where I first woke up. This gave me an eerie, uneasy feeling on top of my already really taut proverbial nerves.

Among the first things I noticed was the unmistakable form of a Police car, a Saleen Mustang something or other, I think it was. There was a tank and this military truck thing that I am pretty sure I’ve seen in the first movie but I didn’t really know their names. I did, however, know the Saleen Mustang. That was the one and only Barricade, whose alt form had the words “To punish and enslave” instead of “To protect and serve” or some such American thingie that I didn’t really care about, seeing as I lived the majority of my life in Europe. I got a real kick out of it back when I first watched the movies. It was pretty kick ass and kinky.

It was around that time that I realized that it hadn’t been only Starscream talking in Cybertronian, but all of them. Great. I’m going to have a hard time recognizing them by voice alone, seeing as I thought it had been only Starscream dramatically monologuing again in Cybertronian. Though I wouldn’t put it past Starscream to actually do that on occasion.

I kind of wished I knew what the hell was going on at least a wee bit better. For all I know Screamer may have brought me along for some gang rape. Ugh, just the kind of thought to keep me cool, calm and collected. Do mechanoids even have sex? I will have to ask at some point when my life isn’t in such immediate jeopardy.

All of the present Decepticons transformed and stared at me. I kind of stared back. Their transformation sequences are so much more fluid and smoother than my own. My self-esteem will take a swan dive if I am to stick around for a prolonged period of time.

I noted how different we were from each other in design and looks. The only thing I could pinpoint as common was their red optics and just how vicious we all looked. Even myself, though I kind of looked like something of a villain out of a Final Fantasy game than an actual scary Bayverse Decepticon. At least I felt somewhat pretty, compared to the dreadfully colored Decepticons surrounding me.

Barricade came closer to me and I took a step towards Starscream. Compared to my and Starscream’s sizes, he was a bit of a midget. A really angry looking, vicious metal police midget. The kind that you do not want to meet in any situation at all. Even when the alternative is a throng of actual human midgets that looked just as angry and vicious as he.

“Is that the squirt?” Barricade growled out at Starscream, though he never really took his eyes off of me. I was certain there was some sort of divine irony in the fact that the midget just called me a squirt. I really hate Primus…

Why do I get the feeling that I am surrounded by a pack of hyenas?

I didn’t say anything to Mr. Kinky Police Prop Car, but I did glare at him at which he chuckled.

“Jet’s surely got the glare down splat.” The tank con rumbled and I turned my still scowling gaze to look at him.

They all seemed to be in some sort of elated mood. I also started noticing little things and details about them that I probably would’ve missed had I been human. Their posture, the way they moved, the way their parts moved. It was different for each and every one of them. Unlike organics of the same species, they all seemed to be wired and constructed differently. It must be a nightmare for any of their medics to get their qualifications. I mentally shuddered at the thought. Human medicine was hard enough, thank you very much.

They started talking between each other in Cybertronian again and Starscream pulled me to sit down next to him on some rocks. There was a strange sense of familiarity about them. Nothing obvious, God no! They seemed very hostile and aggressive at best but it was as if I could sense some sort of…happiness permeating the air, I guess?

Something brushed my leg and I did my startled jumpy thing, making the cons laugh at my expense. I looked down and saw this really tiny metal construction… I blinked at it, trying to figure out who this was. Frenzy! Yes, that was his name. He looked like a tiny, adorable little finger monkey.

He was muttering in some sort of jittery language that may or may not have been Cybertronian of some form or other. I grinned at him and offered my hand for him to climb on. I felt it a better alternative to him tickling/groping my left thigh area. I brought him to my eye level and studied him as he balanced/fidgeted on top of my index finger. Frenzy’s probably the coolest little gadgety thingie I’ve ever saw and there was something absolutely adorable about him. Come on! It’s Bayverse Frenzy! He’s a tiny (and a very adorable) death machine, for God’s sake! I think he may have caught on that I thought of him as adorable because he started preening and his gibberish got even more excited and fast and I finally let out a giggle. A screechy, high pitched and incredibly creepy giggle. But a giggle none the less.

Starscream scoffed. How do I even interpret his expressions with that kind of a mess of facial plates is beyond me. He said something to Frenzy and the little guy grumbled and jumped off my finger (somewhat to my horror) and landed on my thigh. From there he jumped down on the ground and headed over to Barricade where he so obviously proceeded to sulk like a little kid who didn’t get his candy or something.

I turned to Screamer.

“The little guy wasn’t bothering me.”

“He should still know his place and you – yours.”

I hummed and turned to look at the other Decepticons for a few moments.

“I always wondered what you guys would be like.” I stated quietly and looked back at him again. He was silently studying me and my mannerisms. I grinned at him, mouth plates pulled back to show my equivalent of teeth. It was as close as I could get to my trademark foxy grin. My excitement was finally overcoming my initial terror. I guess that was a good thing, since I needed a somewhat clear mind if I was to survive my camping trip with the Decepticons.

My wing plates weren’t as tightly packed against my back and they were fluttering gently behind me, probably showing off my own elated mood as well.

“You act like the humans.” Starscream said, obviously greatly displeased.

“I think I may have been sort of raised by humans. And it isn’t necessarily a bad thing, right? I mean, we need to find the Allspark. It’s why you guys are here and with me knowing a lot about Earth and Humanity in general-“

“We’ve been monitoring human activity for nearly a Vorn, jet. I doubt you could tell us anything that we don’t already know.”

Harsh much?

“I must be able to help with something then? I mean, Cybertron’s on the stake and-“

“And nothing. You will stay out of the way and out of sight.”

So much for feeling welcome.

You know what really grinds my gears? Starscream’s a right asshole. That’s what. That, and the fact that if I try to go back to the mansion, they’d probably have Barricade track me down and kill everyone on sight, like they are probably doing in Qatar. I mean, the helicopter guy isn’t here and that Skarner metal thingie – Who’s Skarner? He is this character from League of Legends. I never played him but he’s an annoying little scorpion dude that can drag you away from the safety of your turret. And before I forget, what the hell is a vorn? Anyways, the metal scorpion thing isn’t here either.

I am starting to get bored and there is little I could do about it. Starscream’s pretty much told me to sit tight and look pretty and he’s been hovering about me and keeping the rest of the Cons from talking to me. Especially cute ickle Frenzy, which makes me a very sad little robot from outer space.

***

Holy fuck! I just had some Energon. Some real friggen Energon! Whoa! It’s awesome and it’s almost better than Cuba Libre. The taste has much left to be improved, though I don’t really think that was its actual taste or anything. We mechanoids don’t exactly have taste buds but since I have my previous human sensations and experiences in the form of compatible files, I can actually compare the chemical compounds I intake to whatever previous experiences I have had. As a result I can tell you that Energon compares to something metallic tasting, kind of like blood, though I think I automatically compare it to blood because Energon is both our blood and sustenance at the same time. It’s kind of creepy and weird, but the after-kick from it is amazing! I’ve never felt this alive since I woke up in this God-forsaken dimension and the sheer freshness and vivaciousness that’s filling me up on the inside does not go unnoticed by my caretakers.

Anyways, a random fact I’ve found out. While us mechanoids have far more sensitive sensors in far wider spectrums than humans, humans experience sensations and emotions and what not 476 per cent more intensely than us mechanoids. Except when it comes to Energon, I think.  This actually reminds me of something that I heard while playing Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines back in the day, to sort of continue my blood sucking analogies. For the vampires in the game, blood was their only passion. It’s pretty much the same with the Transformers as a whole. That does not make them any less people though, me being a prime example of that. I’ve found out that we can intake various sources of Earth fuel to sustain ourselves but as far as cuisine goes, nothing really compares to Energon. Energon is the equivalent of a chocolate dipped turkey stuffed with boiled chestnuts, raisins, orange peel scrapings, carrots and onions. Oh God, I will totally make that turkey for MJ and the Minions in Black for Thanksgiving. I mean, Americans totally eat turkey on Thanksgiving. It’s almost like the Balkans’ where the locals eat carp for St. Nick’s day. I also happen to know this amazing recipe for this amazing stuffed carp dish…

I miss being human.

I almost forgot. I was assigned a caretaker. I think Starscream, and probably the rest of them, are under the impression I am some sort of a toddler that needs 24/7 surveillance. Naturally, note the sarcasm, said toddler (that would be me), is being watched over by the most heavily armed single unit I have seen in my life. That would be the tank guy, Brawl. He has two tank turrets on his back, four missile launchers on EACH shoulder, two blade thingies and a Gatling gun on his left arm and a long tank turret thingie on his right arm. And here I thought Starscream seemed intimidating.

On top of that Starscream had Frenzy stay with me 24/7 as well, which I pretty much think is the other huge change that will be happening with the timeline. As cute as Frenzy is, he is also a top notch ninja assassin hacker of death and trollness and now I am afraid to even slip into a slight recharge. I’ll see how long I can hold on to being awake. On the plus side, this is Frenzy, who is a super cute little ninja assassin hacker of death and trollness and I will probably be devising ways to get him to prank big bad Brawl over there.

***

I’ve been in the company of Frenzy and Brawl for several days now and I’m pretty sure MJ is freaking out by my absence. I’ve talked with her about this kind of scenario and I’ve told her that if I do not call her within three days to assume me captured either by Decepticons or the government and to continue as planned. If worst comes to worst, she’d have the Autobots rescue me or something like that. She has a one track mind about these kind of things, being the moral and honorable person that she is, which may also mean that she’d not continue as planned and there it is also quite plausible that she’d give the glasses to Optimus Prime and his homies in exchange for saving me and still keeping the planet safe. After all, if I remember correctly, it was Frenzy that found the location of the Allspark and Megatron by hitching a ride in Mikaela’s purse all the way into Hoover Dam.

Speaking of Frenzy, he is pretty awesome at keeping me entertained by just being his fidgety troll self. Brawl, on the other hand, is a Decepticon of a few words. He is constantly staring at me and he only speaks to me when absolutely necessary. He may have been ordered by Starscream to keep an eye on me and not to talk to me or something like that. I am also under the impression that he doesn’t like me very much. Maybe I’m not Decepticon enough in my behavior? There isn’t really a way for me to know when he’s almost constantly in his alt form, this huge and mutated version of a tank. It’s impossible to glean reactions and anything of the like from a friggen tank!

***

It appears that there are far more Decepticons present on Earth than I first thought, which is really, really frightening. On a further note, I am fifty kilometers off of Tranquility, which totally makes me feel stupid for not keeping track of my location while following Screamer. There isn’t much I can do right now about it, however. Especially not when I just realized that there are over twice the number of Decepticons present that there would be Autobots here on Earth. I hope there would be unannounced Autobots appearing as well, because otherwise Earth is seriously and royally fucked from the get go.

Anyways, I had the dubious pleasure of meeting Swindle, who is the greasiest son of a mother I’ve met in my entire life. And I am not talking literally. We’ve all met sleazy salesmen with a way with words. Swindle would be the Emperor of all men and women of sleaziness and sales. Thankfully Brawl had him at gunpoint to have him stop talking to me, which totally earned him two brownie points.

You know what? I think I will have the Brownie Point System work for the Decepticons. I can’t make heads or tails of them, so I will probably have to keep my opinion of them to myself until I have something more solid than Brownie Points to indicate whether or not I will like them.

Anyways, Swindle. Swindle’s alt form is this Chevrolet sports car, he is red hot red, which I guess suits his boisterous personality. The reason I found Swindle to be so absolutely fascinating was because he didn’t have a face. He had a lens head and not a face and this extendable chest cannon that was totally rad. I swear the guy looked like one of those Plumbot designs from Sims 3: Into the Future. I guess I could get to like him and his awesome personality that totally didn’t need an actual face to get its point across. Then again his name was Swindle and Brawl of all Cons there had him at gun point and went as far as to tell me to steer clear of him. Common sense has it that it was a very sound advice.

The next person I met was Thundercracker. At first I thought that was Starscream again, but that was at a distance. At my current distance from him (about 15 meters) I could easily tell the differences between him and Starscream. Most notably in his speech. When he first introduced himself to me my mind immediately produced the very distinctive “Bill!” exclaimed by Sookie from the series True Blood. TC here has a very distinct southern drawl, and he also seemed the most gentlemanly and likeable from the entire bunch of Decepticons I’ve seen so far. There is something about him that practically screams “PvP toggled on”. Or, more accurately, a very Leeroy Jenkins feel about him.

I don’t know how to describe this feeling. I’ve been having similar feelings concerning all of the Decepticons I’ve met so far but I really have no idea how I can actually glean these kind of impressions when I’ve barely met these guys. Human intuition and life experience is one thing. This…this is entirely different and I don’t know what it is. It kind of scares me. What if these guys have similar impressions of me? What would become of me then? Even back as a human a lot of what went along in my head was mostly kept to the most private recesses of my mind, while I’d project myself in a certain way that I hoped was likable or at least presented me in some sort of positive light and not as an antisocial sociopath.

So much good that did for me in the long run, no shit.

The other present jet was Dreadwing and he didn’t really come to speak with me like the others. He stood to the side of the rest and simply watched. For a moment or two we shared eye-contact. I kind of waved at him and he sort of sighed and looked away. He’s kind of antisocial, which I don’t know whether it is good or bad for me, seeing as the others don’t really bother him and he doesn’t bother them. There really is something off about him. He seems to be composed of two separate color schemes, kind of like a chimera of some sort. I don’t know what to make of that and at the moment it isn’t in my best interest to ask a lot of questions.

Of all the Cons I met that day, I think the most crucial one was Shockwave. There’s something about him that makes me stand on edge, not unlike Starscream. Shockwave is huge. Really, really huge. He also took his time observing me before deeming me worthy to be spoken to.

“Fiona, is it?”

“Yes.”

There was this ping and…he sent me something? I looked startled and it showed clearly on my face plates.

“It is our language pack.” The way he said it made me feel eerily uncomfortable. As if he was forced to use terms that I’d understand. “No legacy of Megatron’s should go about uneducated.”

Something had happened and I literally felt it, like a subtle shift in the air about us. I knew, somewhat, who Shockwave was. He was, like, one of Megatron’s Second in Commands, I think. I also knew that he was in the play for Megatron’s position of Leader of the Decepticons. That made him direct opposition of Starscream.

I did not know much but I knew that if he was here right now… He’s extremely dangerous and he was not in the movies. Not the first movie, at least. Shockwave’s really dangerous and he is also very subtle about his schemes.

He also called me Megatron’s legacy. That… I think that explains a lot and it’s not a fact that’s easy to accept.

Am I really his legacy? Oof… that’s really a lot to think about.

I tentatively accepted the file package he sent me. It might be rigged with a virus or something but I don’t think he’d use such a thing on me, especially when I’m supposed to be new. That newness of mine seemed to be held in almost as great as reverence as my status as “Megatron’s Legacy”. My curiousity got the better of me and I opened the language pack. A moment later I looked up at Shockwave. For his entire cold and calculating demeanor, he was actually the first Cybertronian to show me any actual kindness, even if it was a meager basic Decepticon language pack, a political courtesy of sorts. It was oddly touching of him.

“Thank you.” I said to him in that same Cybertronian language I had confused with Romanian not even a week ago. He had been preparing to leave. He turned to look at me one more time and then, without saying anything, transformed into a helicopter and flew off to the north, away from Tranquility’s general direction.

It did not take me long to realize that Starscream and Shockwave would be using me as a medium for their ambitions to take Megatron’s position. It will probably get more and more intense with time and, not for the first time, I cursed my luck to be stuck with the faction that made the Game of Thrones series look like child’s play.

At least I discovered why Thundercracker was here. He was supposed to teach me about all things Seeker, which made me really giddy. On the other hand, however, there was Dreadwing, who happened to be the most pessimistic person I know bar MJ whenever she doesn’t get her morning coffee the moment she wakes up. He’s really depressed about everything and sort of reminds me of Marvin from Hitchhiker’s guide of the Galaxy.

:: This is Princess Fiona and apparently Megatron is in another castle. I’m signing out. ::