Note: This is also on my deviantart account: my deviant username is Wh1t3-t19Lightning. Please don't accuse me of plagiarizing myself; this will only embarrass you.

There are aspects of the television series Transformers Prime here. I tried to code this as a crossover, but that show wasn't listed.

ENJOY!

In Pieces

The silent figure glided over to its master's outstretched arm. The two did not speak, but each informed the other of the week's events. The meeting ended when an enemy came too close.

CHAPTER 1: THE WANDERING LAPTOP

I came home from school starving. My lunch period (class) is at ten thirty in the morning and it was currently four. That said, I made myself a sandwich and went to go get my laptop to do some writing. But my laptop was gone. The ordinary person would immediately panic, tell their parents and search for signs of a possible break-in, which was what I did—the first three times. After like, forty instances of this situation, I knew it would turn up sometime. I wasn't quite sure where it went, but whenever it came back it was hiding somewhere weird. There were no signs of hacking, and it wasn't damaged at all. It unnerved me a little, but not to the point where I was freaking out. I welcomed a good mystery. I craved adventure, but was not a fan of travel and possessed dietary restrictions that prevented me from going anywhere without at least four sandwiches and other food that travelled well. So books and media became my adventures. But my own ridiculous and impossible adventure had already begun. I just hadn't realized it yet.

The laptop hadn't been found anywhere in the house by nightfall, which was odd, but not unheard of. Once, when it was 'hiding' behind my chest of drawers, it took us five days before we found it. 'Us' is me, my parents, and blond foreign exchange student Clifford (Cliff) from who knows where in Europe. I think he speaks Norwegian or something. He calls me '"Wuh-rim" instead of Wrim. He does it because he knows I hate it when people screw up my name. He's like seventeen and steals my frozen yogurts from the freezer. He doesn't actually live at my house; he lives next door, but my parents like him, so he's usually here. When things get hidden, Cliff is usually the number-one suspect, but when it comes to my laptop, he's just as baffled as anyone else. He wishes he could hide stuff as well as my laptop. My parents were going out to dinner with some friends of theirs, so I was home alone. Cliff had offered to babysit, by I had insisted I wouldn't burn the house down so my parents declined (much to my relief). I think he went out with his girlfriend Daisy afterward. It started raining at around six P.M. I was bored without my laptop, and my iPod had recently malfunctioned so I had no music. I don't touch my parents' computers. My dad uses them for his job: he helps giant corporations with their computer problems. My mom is pretty much a human calculator and puts data into spreadsheets or something else about as interesting. If I ever broke my parents' computers (and I constantly encounter problems with computers so I don't even take the chance) I would be deaf from the shouting and red-eyed from crying. My parents aren't mean, they're just really loud. And I'm a wimp anyway, so… My activities for the night—in order—consisted of this:

Walk around in circles thinking.

Draw my pet gerbil—again.

Turn on the T.V.

Immediately turn off the T.V. because Johnny Test is on.

Walk around in circles thinking.

Search for my laptop—again.

Play with my gerbil (much to his dismay).

Turn on the T.V. to see if Johnny Test is over.

Turn off the T.V. because King of the Hill is on and it's adult hour.

Write a little more of my story, then get writer's block.

After all this, it was like, nine or something. My parents wouldn't be back until like one A.M., so I still had a lot of time to burn. So I stared off into space for around a half-an-hour. I was rousing myself to go and get some ice cream when I heard a quiet screeching noise. I didn't hear it too often, but I immediately recognized it as metal on pavement. I crept to the back door (which was in my room) on all fours, spidering across the floor so that whoever was outside in this downpour wouldn't see me. I nudged the blinds on the back door apart just enough so that I could see out… and froze. Most kids my age (15) in my position would either (in order of how often each outcome would occur):

Scream

Run

Get a parent

Get a weapon

Call 911

Take a picture

I went with the fourth option (but I don't know if you'd call an old plastic whiffle ball bat a weapon). I stood up carefully, dull yellow bat at the ready, and opened the door. The… thing… looked up as I stepped gingerly onto my back porch. Spray from the rain dampened my makeshift weapon, and would have blown my hair around had I not recently cut it short. The creature that stared at me was decidedly shorter than me, dull orange eyes gazing listlessly across the porch. It had a silver metallic body, and what appeared to be mock feathers on its… wings(?). Mock feathers as sharp as knives. It looked a bit like a vulture with a long, spiny tail. I wondered if it understood that my presence was meant to scare it off. I decided that holding a large object over your shoulder threateningly had to be a universal gesture. It stared at me for a minute, then spread its wings in what I at first thought was a defensive gesture, but reassessed as submission after I noticed the neon-blue fluid dripping off of the right side of its chest. I hate alien movies for all sorts of reasons, and the whole 'injured and you can't figure out how to help it' problem is one of them. Yet here I was, thrown head over heels into my own extra-terrestrial confrontation. I did not lower the bat. Too many horrific scenes of various ways it could kill me had been enacted in my brain for me to let down my guard. We stood there for about five minutes. My impatience was building as I became more and more uncomfortable. As far as I could tell it wasn't afraid of me, but the opposite was very true: I was terrified. Only when I realized its tail tip was a small, fully-automatic gun did I slowly place the bat on the ground. I backed away, hands raised in front of me in a pleading gesture. It took a step toward me, jerking slightly, right wing drawn against its side. I inched up against the wall. I felt the rain on my back where there was a leak in the porch roof. The creature continued forward, legs shaking, body lurching slightly as it attempted to take pressure off of its right side. I shrank against the wall, fear radiating off of me. The creature stopped about four feet away from me, placing almost all of its weight on its left foot. There was a sizable puddle of blue liquid where it had been crouching before.

"D…do you speak English?" I asked tentatively. It looked almost sleepily at me, then nodded. "What do you want…?" I was almost afraid to ask that question. More terrifying ideas bolted through my head. It swayed a little. I wasn't sure if it was going to answer me, but it murmured "safe, hide" then it staggered backward a few steps. It crouched again, neck shuddering as it tried to hold its head up. I continued to stare at it, now with growing concern.

"Dry," it hissed, "No… water…" I was at a loss for what to do. Should I help it? What if it kills me once it's all right? What if it kills lots of people once it's all right? What if it doesn't want to hurt me? What if it dies? Would it be my fault? I shivered at some of the possibilities. I wished that this hadn't happened to me. But then that voice, that powerful little voice in every person's head that is their ideals, morals and strength spoke up. Listen. You can't change what has happened, only what will happen. Make a decision now. And your decision can't be based off of keeping things normal, because your life will never be normal after this. Never. I knew I couldn't pretend any of this didn't happen because it had. Maybe things would get better later on; I just needed to get over the hill, so to speak. I crept slowly sideways toward the porch steps. Orange eyes followed my every move. I moved around the side of the house until I reached the gate.

"This way," I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. "We have a storm cellar." It looked almost longingly at the door. "I-I'd let you in that way but I don't know what my parents think of blue carpeting…" It was an attempt at a joke, but it didn't make me feel any better at all. The creature slowly rose and spread its chipped feathers. It leapt off the porch and glided down next to me. I shied away a little as it folded its wings again. Its tail dragging, it followed me to the storm doors. I grabbed the combination lock and bent over it so that the thing couldn't see. I turned the three
numbers: 4-18-26. The lock popped open, waterproof finish living up to its name. The creature leapt nimbly down to the floor and looked back and forth. I hopped down after it, closing the door behind me. I grabbed a silver padlock lock from the table and locked the door from the inside. I couldn't risk someone (particularly Cliff) barging in with my new 'visitor' here. Speaking of, the orange-eyed thing was surveying the storm cellar. It had a door that connected to the basement. I decided I'd have to lock that one too—and hide the key. The thing crawled its way over to an old tool bench and curled up underneath it. I almost sat on the stool in the corner, but then I remembered it was broken and couldn't support any weight. That would've been embarrassing. I rattled around in a box, searching for a light source. Bingo; a large bag of spare Christmas-light bulbs and a nine-volt battery. One bulb would overload, but I might be able to make a circuit of a few. I felt around for some wires and grabbed a handful. I found a scalpel (what the heck was that doing down here?) and began removing the plastic casings. Once I had twisted a few bulbs together with some wires, I searched out a pair of rubber dish gloves and twisted the first wire around the positive end of the battery. I made a ring with the other wire and looped it around the negative output. The room was suddenly bathed in purple and green light. I placed my makeshift lamp on a table and settled myself in a corner. The thing looked between me and my creation.

"Your father… builds things too… Fixes… things…" I stiffened.

"How do you know my father?"

"I-we… know lots… of things… about your family… Your father's clients… do you know any…?"

"Not really… I don't ask too much about work." The thing shifted.

"One of his clients… is us…" My blood ran cold. Does Dad know them? Does he like them? Do they force him to do things? What does he do for them? Them. The realization was like ice. Oh shit, there's more than one of them! What if they come looking for me? What if they want to kill this thing? What will they do to me and my family for harboring an enemy?!

"Um… 'us'…?" I realized how terrified my voice sounded after I said it. The creature looked indifferent.

"Us."

"How many is 'us'?"

"A sizable force." Aww shit! It said 'force.'

"Force? Like, war kinda force?" I asked, afraid of the answer. The thing looked at me.

"Wrim, if… I wanted to… hurt you… I'd have… done it already—aacck!" The creature's bent feathers had scratched its wound.

"How do you know my name?" Fear was steadily becoming defensiveness. "What else do you know? How long has my dad been working for you? Are you going to use anything he's done for you to hurt people?" Questions flooded my brain, one leading to another leading to another. "Are you going to hurt anyone at all? Are you at war? Why are you here (as in on earth, because you're clearly extra-terrestrial)? What galaxy are you from? Do you want something from us? How do you know English?" There was a large fluorescent blue puddle forming on the ground. The creature lay motionless on its side, orange eyes dark and tired. I cautiously approached it. I got down on my hands and knees so that I was closer to eye-level. It was still alive; its pupils followed me frantically. Now I detected a sense of fear; of loneliness. Its eyes flickered between me and its wound. "You want my help?" It opened its mouth/beak slightly. "Yes?" It nodded slowly. "Okay, what should I do?"

"Ssstop… leakkksss…" I looked around the room.

"With what?"

"A..rmor… Meta…l… Quick…ly…" My gaze lanced across the room, searching for anything I could use.

"Any metals in particular?" He nodded slightly and proceeded to utter a few clicks, obviously a language I didn't understand. But something occurred to me. Physics stayed the same, no matter what planet you were on. "Do you know the periodic table of elements?"

"Not…English…"

"No, I just need to know the element's atomic number." I grabbed a framed periodic table off the tool bench.

"T..twenty… two… best…" I swore.

"That's Titanium. I don't think we have any of that. Does twenty-six work? That's in like, everything."

"…work until… better… yes… please… quick…" I found a bunch of sheet metal over in the corner and a blowtorch (Cliff sometimes stored his tools down here because his mom doesn't like them in the house). I searched for a lighter, but couldn't find one. I remembered my light source and un-looped (while shocking myself a little) the negative end. I placed the blowtorch next to it and moved the loop close enough to the charge until it arced. The torch sprang to life. I dragged a piece of metal over to the limp form of the creature.

"This is an alloy with twenty-six in it. It's stronger than pure iron. Is that okay?" The thing's voice was faded and weak.

"Yes… no… matter… please… please… fix… anything… do… anything… pain not probl—aaaghh…" it sank to the floor, unconscious. This was very uncomfortable for me. I didn't know if what I was doing was right. But then again, if I did nothing, the creature would bleed—or, as it put it, leak—to death. I cut a corner of sheet metal, grabbing gardening gloves while I was at it. I used multiple pieces of metal to try to increase flexibility, but it didn't really matter. Once I'd melted the last piece on, I had a look at the creature's wings. In some places the feathers were ripped halfway through. I couldn't fix bent metal. At which point, I wondered… fix anything, it'd said… Better to work while it was still unconscious.

I never thought I'd end up as a blacksmith, especially not at age 15. But I can say, looking back, that that was the day I started to become one. I'm very good at building things, and it didn't take too much practice for me to figure out the basics. I used a few random hammers lying around to flatten any bent feathers once I'd used the blowtorch to heat them. I had nearly finished the creature's right wing (which was the worst, the left seemed okay), when it stirred.

"Hey, hey, hold still. I'm almost done." I finished welding the feather back into place. In order to get them flat, I'd had to remove them and place them on a flat surface… namely, the floor. The whole room smelled like molten metal. I was just glad that there wasn't a smoke detector in there. The creature flinched as I poured a little water on the glowing metal. "Relax, it's just to cool it off. Okay, be careful, it's still a little fragile…" The creature staggered to its feet and nearly passed out again. I grabbed it. "Whoa whoa whoa, fluids loss, buddy, major fluids loss. Lie down, alright?" It flopped on the ground next to me. "It's going to take you a while to get your strength back. Do you eat anything?"

"Nothing… you have… on hand…" I sighed. I looked at my watch. "Ohcrap! My parents will be home any minute!" What am I supposed to tell them?"

"Nothing… no one… knows… Secret… please… no… don't tell…" I had to agree. The creature would be hard to explain to anybody.

"All right. But I've got some questions. Does my dad know what you are?"

"No… we… We… hide…" I nodded.

"Are you fighting someone else? Are you at war?"

"Yes… long time, fought Autobots… now… leader usurped… few loyal… new leader… Destroy us… can't trust Autobots… better relations… humans… spies… need stay…secret… please… secret…" I nodded.

"Okay. How do you know my family? Like personally; my name." It looked at me, exhausted.

"Master… sent… monitor… progress… spied… report… attacked… Master missing… Me… injured… Others… don't know…" I winced.

"I'm sorry." The thing dipped its head. "How did you spy on us?"

"My kind… hide… pretend… something else… not know what… until shown… too tired… show you… later…" I looked at my watch.

"Okay, I have to go upstairs now. I'm locking the door so nobody bothers you. You have to be quiet until I come back, okay? Now I have to go look for my laptop. Darn thing always gets hidden somewhere."

"Will be quiet… Don't look for laptop… won't find… will… explain… when… stronger…" Its head fell to the floor. I walked back over to it.

"You still awake?" No response and dark eyes gave me my answer. I carefully picked up the creature and carried it over to a dark corner. I placed it in a large storage bin, but left the lid slightly open so that it could see that it wasn't captive. I slipped out the door and locked it. I put the key around my neck on a thin silver chain. I proceeded to shower and stuffed my burnt-smelling clothes in the washing machine and started the cycle. Any strangeness was gone. It almost seemed as if nothing had happened—until the cold key touched my skin.