I don't own any transformers related material. Too bad...
(bb 2010: Before we begin, I want to make something perfectly clear. This story, and the (as of Big Edit) about 300k words that it and its sequel/side story entails features a Mary Sue. A whopper of a Sue. She's proven to be likable, at least to some, but if you don't want to take the gamble or waste your time please just GO and don't bother me with whining about what I already know.
Otherwise, if you can get past this boring-as-hell first chap, enjoy!)
The only life I remember starts in the woods running as fast as I could from three men. One was in a blue jacket, another in a green t-shirt and the third wore a red plaid button-up. Trees, bushes, roots, all one fog as panic drifted over my senses like a veil. Of course, my memory could be faulty because of what happened later, but for whatever reason I didn't completely forget the chase that led to the end of my old life.
I was flying through the trees as if my feet were barely skimming the surface. This was hardly true, since I my ankles threatened to roll on unseen and rocks and my going was actually sort of slow as far as running goes, but my adrenaline made the twigs slashing at my legs and face more or less painless and it all seemed so fast. The slivers of sky whispered through the leaves and undergrowth, illuminating the forest floor littered with raised roots and broken limbs.
My perspective upended suddenly as my ankle twisted sharply against something. I didn't believe it in the split second it took me to go down: I was in a world without edges and a part of my brain seemed to think the air should hold me upright on its own power. I hit the ground so hard my right arm popped through the surface into an animal's shallow tunnel. I felt something furry brush my wrist before I ripped my forearm out of the dirt. As I stared at the crumbled dirt on my hand reality snapped back to me like a rubber band.
The men were calling loudly somewhere behind me and I was torn between running to keep the distance between us and making a lot of noise, or staying where I was and hoping they passed me by. My ankle was slowing my decision; I didn't know if I could run fast enough, but I wanted to try. The longer I waited to run, the more dangerous the situation became and I knew I had to choose fast. My muscles started to coil like springs beneath me almost without my permission as the drunken laughing, yelling, and crashing of the three strangers got closer with every second.
The forest around me was in sharp detail now, the moonbeams punching through the branches and burning into the dirt, little spotlights trying to find me in the safety of the dark. I saw a path through the undergrowth, but as my calves and thighs sprang in synchronized forward motion a tight grip closed around my shoulder. Consequently, my legs shot out from under me and my upper half stayed where it was. I hit the ground on my back, but aside from some sticks poking me, I was fine. Until a boot connected with my shoulder and pitched me onto my side.
"Rich bitch! 'Hard to get' isn't my game! You like it in the dirt, whore." It wasn't a question. "Dirty little slut!"
I doubt I'll ever forget him saying that.
The other two men, blue jacket and green t-shirt, were standing over me now too, laughing and slinging me insults and drinking messily out of beer bottles. That meant red plaid was the one standing over me.
Think. I have to get up. I can't do anything until I get up. Get up now.
I rolled myself onto my hands and knees and slowly sat up with my hands in my lap. They watched me and laughed, comfortable that I wasn't going anywhere. I looked up at Red, and smiled weakly, tipping myself back and forth like a drunk. "What's all the name callin', boys? I was just goin' out to the truck for a little more privacy and ya'll scared me," I smiled as widely as I could and forced a strangled giggle out of the back of my throat. Funny, I remember saying it like that, with that thick southern accent that I didn't really have, but I don't know why anymore.
Red grabbed me by the shoulders dragging me back onto my feet. "Damn you are a whore, rich bitch!" Or why he kept calling me rich bitch. "Hope you don't mind, I just plain forgot protection," he wheezed out and his friends broke into raucous hooting, blasting sour breath in my face, "but what does a slut like you care! Let's get in that truck!" Red wrapped an arm around my shoulders and started me back the way we came. I let him take us back out through the woods into a stretch of open scrub behind some low, indistinct buildings in the distance.
It was the opening I was looking for, with sharp rocks all over the ground, perfect for what I planned to do. As Red shifted his weight from one foot to the other, walking right next to me, unsuspecting, thank God. I stepped across his line of balance. I didn't even have to push. One step, timed just right, sent him down with a lot of help from gravity. The arm around my shoulder started to pull me down with him, but I expected it and reached up to his wrist, grabbing it in a lock I had never really perfected. I don't think I was very good, just very lucky.
You see, I studied a martial art called aikido. I seem to remember everything I learned, but not where or who taught it to me. I do know that aikido is purely defensive, and the mantra was stressed to me many times that a small defender with the right technique has an infinite advantage over a larger, and higher, center of gravity. I also knew how to fall.
His bulk still pulled me down, but with a twist to his wrist along with his own weight, I was out from under him and the pop and snaps of his bones and joints assured me that he wouldn't be using that arm on me again. I was back on my feet before the other two knew what had happened. The sharp overall clarity of the entire forest had left me again in exchange for the minute details of the remaining two men. I was ready for them. I didn't have to wait long; while their friend thrashed on the ground babying his broken wrist, the two men came at me with fists.
Understand that I am only a green belt. Not that good, not skilled enough to take on two attackers at once. But I tried.
The fist of the one on the left, blue jacket, was closest, so I reached out to meet it and closed my last two fingers gently around his wrist. The world slowed down around me. As we turned inexplicably together, led by my butterfly-light grip on his wrist, I waited for the moment as his body rose into another step and – now! – his feet left the ground and he smashed into the legs of his friend. It took less than two seconds.
The thrill of taking down three men so much bigger than me didn't last long. I had forgotten Red. His good hand closed around my good ankle, the one I hadn't fallen on before, and as I put my full weight on the bad one, pain shot through it and I fell. I fell as properly as I could, but I couldn't help the rock sharply jutting out of the dirt. Despite my brief training to always land safely, the rock was tall enough to hit my temple as I spun off balance. My world went black.
I came back after what felt like hours but what could only have been seconds. Green was getting to his feet, and Blue was still cursing on the ground. Red was trying to yank my tightly tied shoes off, to keep me from running away again, I suppose. Or to help remove my jeans. I lay still and limp until he'd finished with my feet, and as he looked away to his partners I lashed out with the heel of my good foot, trying to jam his nose into his brain. I missed. Disoriented, I gave him a nice black eye, but it only made him madder. I scrambled into a crouch and scuttled sideways, crab style, back away from Red and got my back to the tree line. I shakily got to my feet and stared Green down as he started to approach me.
"Know what you gone and done, woman? We're gonna beat you black 'n' blue, you're gonna learn a lesson you ain't forgettin' any time soon, rich bitch!" Green had an apple-sized rock wrapped in his fist and I had no doubts on what he planned to do with it.
I felt my face go blank and threatening as I stood less than ten feet from the three men who wanted to kill me. I would go down fighting. I expected a fight, albeit a short one that I wouldn't make it out of. That's why it surprised me when first Green, then Blue, and finally Red, who'd been gazing down at his tortured wrist, dropped their jaws and started to make indistinct, frightened noises, staring over my head. Without any of their previous bravado they scrambled away, running as fast as their drunken state would allow.
I was shocked and confused. I am not an intimidating person, and I doubt I ever have been, so my bemused and aching brain slowly processed what to do next: Find out what they were running from. Get ready to run too.
I slowly turned my body around. It took me a moment to catch the source of their fear against the backdrop of the tall dark trees, but as my eyes slowly adjusted I both felt and heard something very, very large stomp heavily in the hard packed dirt. As it moved I saw it, craning my head back to see the top. Its feet were very, very close. Huge and dark, where the head should be two glowing red eyes stared down at me.
I hissed through my teeth, fell on my butt, and scooted away as much as I could until my back met a prickly scrub bush. The monster in the trees didn't move.
I gasped for air, my heart pounding in a way unlike anything I'd experienced before, not even being chased by hostile pursuers. We both stayed where we were, unmoving, waiting, it seemed, for the other to act first. It was watching me in an intelligent, thoughtful way. I took the initiative and managed to raise my croaking voice to pose the critical question.
"What… what are you?"
It watched me for another long, painful, and drawn out moment, and then finally in a deep metallic voice, hushed against the sounds of the night insects in the field, said, "Skywarp." It studied me as it spoke, then looked across the horizon with an air of suspicion.
I sat still for an agonizingly long moment, amazed that it spoke English and then confused by the answer, so I asked, "You're a sky warp?"
"My name is Skywarp. You had no chance against the larger humans but fought anyway. Why?"
It had been watching us. Watching me. And it was the reason I was alive, whether or not it had intended to save me. I thought carefully about my answer, but the pause didn't seem to bother the huge… robot... standing in front of me. "I would rather go down fighting and respect myself than just roll over and die. I thought they would kill me no matter what I did, so..." I couldn't create anything more logical than I already had with my heart pounding the way it was.
It studied me for a long moment, piercing me with its emotionless stare. "You are damaged. Why did you provoke the humans if you expected to lose?"
Once again I had to think about what I was going to say. What did I do to those guys, anyway? The reality of the situation hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn't remember. The harder I tried to recall the night, to recall anything; I realized how little I still knew. I didn't even know my name.
I didn't remember anything before the trees.
(bb 2010: I'm calling this the Big Edit. I'm fixing things as I see them, making things clearer or sound better, capitalizing Autobots and Deceptions and fixing some names I totally effed. Little lines may change, but nothing that affects the story line.)
Edited March 9, 2010
