I glare up at the Einstein wanna-be, blue robot as he lifts me closer to his face. "I'm sorry about that femme, it seems I had a coding error that pulled you into my lab without my command."

I roll my eyes. "Dude, do you really think I care why I'm here?" I don't even give him a chance to answer. "Is there a way you can get me back before I fail my classes?"

He hums in thought, absently placing me on top of a massive lab bench a little closer than I would like to a large, humming container glowing like something radioactive. "If I can adjust the calculations properly, and test it several times to make sure I can retrieve whatever it is that has been summoned and returned multiple times, then I ought to be able to manage it."

"So what the hell do I do until then?" I grumble.

He blinks his eye-things for a moment, silent, before nodding and offering his hand to me once more. "I'll be takin' you to Prime, he'll take care of you for now."

"You make it sound like I'm a dog," I mumble, sitting down and crossing my arms and legs, a little self-conscious in only my tank top and shorts, having been pulled from my dorm while I was relaxing and watching a movie before bed. I'm more than a little peeved, considering I had a bit of a rough landing, having been pulled from my dimension and landing in a rather large pile of metal scraps.

A large number of uniformed men, soldiers, stare up at me before shaking their heads, though a few of the younger ones, close to my age, wolf whistle, to which I flip them the bird with a scowl, earning laughs from the ones who didn't whistle. When another one like the scientist carrying me, painted black and looking rather intimidating, though not to me, takes notice, he just sighs in what I think might be annoyance.

"How did you pull a civilian into the base, Wheeljack?" he growls.

"Well, there might have been a slight calculation error for my warping experiment, but I don't know how it activated, I got to the lab just as it dropped her into the scrap pile," he mumbles. "Prime told me to take the femme to him so he could watch her."

"Woof," I grumble, startling the other robot into laughter.

"I like this femme," he declares.

I glare at him. "Seriously, what is with all of you? It's like I'm some shiny new toy or a pet."

"I like her already, 'Hide," another soldier calls up, walking over to the second robot and stepping onto the offered hand automatically, lifted to be at eye level with me. "What's your name?" he asks, and even as tired as I am, I can recognize someone with authority.

"Hannah Richmond," I answer sourly, looking away from him as I yawn, covering my mouth. "Are you gonna tell me where I am? Bolts-for-Brains won't tell me."

He lets out a snort of laughter. "You're in a top-secret military base in D.C. kid," he informs me.

I roll my eyes. "Great," I grumble, and glare up at my slightly scared-looking holder. "You're lucky I don't have a bunch of bottle rockets, or your ass would literally be on fire."

The soldier laughs at that, and my holder, Wheeljack I can assume, shudders in fear. He better fear, because I know that I'll do it if the opportunity ever presents itself.

Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobot faction of Cybertronians, sighs as I stare up at him tiredly, Major Lennox shaking with suppressed laughter.

"What do you suggest, Optimus?" he asks his fellow leader.

The biggest Cybertronian meets my gaze evenly. "I would simply say we host her here for now, until Wheeljack finds a way to return her to her previous dimension."

I feel my eye twitch. "And what should I do while you babysit me?"

I swear he smirks. "You will just have to find a quiet way to entertain yourself."

I close my eyes and sigh. "You're all enjoying this way too much," I inform two of the Cybertronians and the Major in the giant office.

They finally settle me into a sleeping bag on top of Optimus's desk, with a pillow and extra blanket, and a promise for someone to bring me some clothes in the morning. With a sigh, I settle down, ignoring that the desk is rather solid, but helped by the cushioning of the sleeping bag and large blanket I slowly cocoon myself into as I twist and turn as I get comfortable.

I don't really remember falling asleep, but when I wake up, I find myself in a rather warm cab of what I think is a semi-truck, still wrapped in my sleeping bag and blanket, laid out in the backseat. I blink a few times, before shrugging it off and snuggling back down into my makeshift bed, rolling over to hide from the dim light pouring in through the windows.

I think the cab rumbles a bit, but ignore it in favor of sleeping some more.

I sigh as a Charlotte Mearing gives me a glare a few hours later, having finally been given a black t-shirt, dark wash jeans, and tennis shoes. "Honestly, I'm just waiting for Einstein to figure out how to send me home."

"Why should I believe that?" she asks, sneering slightly.

I frown at her. "Why would I lie? I've practically been kidnapped by aliens, which was actually what Einstein says was not his fault."

"You aren't in the system."

"Did anyone mention I'm from a different dimension?" I ask, voice flat.

She still doesn't look like she believes me, but nods anyway. At that moment, Lennox opens the door, trailed by my best friend, wearing jeans and a black shirt with a Cinderella picture on the front, and wearing old sneakers. Her brown is hair tied back, but her brown eyes alight first with curiosity, then shock.

"Carrie?" I ask, before getting up and pulling her into a tight hug.

"Hannah, what?" she asks almost dumbly as she returns the hug. "What's going on? One second I'm putting my stuff down in my dorm, the next I'm lying in a pile of scrap metal being stared at by some giant robot, and then this guy looks at me, rolls his eyes, and drags me here without explaining anything!"

I cover her mouth with my hand to shut her up before she can continue rambling, and turn to Mearing. "Do you believe me now?"

With a sour expression, she nods and points to the open door, which Lennox gestures us to go through first, following closely. I take my hand from Carrie's mouth with a sigh.

After being here for nearly two months, I learn about Optimus when he's furious, and when he's meeting Mearing for the first time no less. I walk up to him slowly, and rest a hand on the side of the engine. "Optimus, you're not the only one who didn't know about this. Governments all have secrets from one another. The American government likely wouldn't have been told about this, it dates back to the Cold War era."

He slowly backs away from me, and transforms, before picking me up and placing me carefully on his shoulder, before addressing the other humans, calmer than he was before.

After the meeting, Ratchet takes me to the Med-Bay, having run a scan over me. "You've been injured recently," he states, rather than asking.

I nod slowly. "I just fell down some stairs last night, that's all it was. I'm a little sore still."

"You should have come here last night to make sure there was nothing serious. Your wrist is sprained, a strained muscle in your upper arm, and possibly a poorly treated dislocated shoulder." He glares down at me.

I look away from him, blushing a bit. "I didn't think it was worth your time," I try weakly.

He sighs, before transforming into his alt form, and activating his holoform of a tall, blonde-going-grey haired doctor in a military uniform with a lab coat over the top instead of a jacket. He makes me take off the sweater I wear and prods at my shoulder and wrist, making me wince in pain at the light pressure. "You'll wear a brace on your wrist until I say otherwise, and use a sling to rest that arm," he growls, pulling out the mentioned items and slipping them on easily.

I'm with Bumblebee three nights later, he's showing me recordings of the day where he was 'Satan's Camaro' chasing Samuel Witwicky five years ago, when that same voice screams from the main gate. He doesn't even give me a chance to get out of his cab before he speeds through the complex, stopping and giving me all of a second to use the momentum to hop out of him as he transforms into his natural form. I take one look at the guards manhandling Sam and who I believe is his girlfriend, and shake my head.

"That's my car," he growls to one of the guards, before approaching Bee. I keep my laughter quiet as Sam scolds Bee for not visiting in the past few months, but it is sort of my fault, and Carrie's to a smaller extent.

I clear my throat once I think Sam's gotten his point across. "Uh, Witwicky and lady friend?" Both of the newcomers look at me weirdly, not that I blame them, having casual jeans and an oversized t-shirt on with a sling and brace on my wrist, and going around wearing flip flops. "If you're done, we can go in. Lennox is probably waiting."

"Who are you?" she asks as we walk in.

I smile at her. "Hannah," I introduce myself, not bothering with my last name, before turning to Sam. "Sam, right?" He nods with a frown. "Did you know Bee recorded the day you thought he was Satan's Camaro?"

He blushes bright red as his girlfriend laughs. "Carly!" he groans, royally embarrassed.

With a grin, I continue. "I have to admit, that faceplant into the concrete was epic, and that pink bike with the tassels was just the icing on the cake."

"Where did you get all of this?" Carly asks, knowing that I've already picked up on her name.

"Bee was showing me when you guys arrived, since Optimus was busy getting something and couldn't watch me, and my friend Carrie was with Ironhide," I inform her. "I'm usually with Optimus, and Bee likes kidnapping me from him."

I stare out at the world silently from where Megatron holds me on his leg, claws brushing lightly through my hair, almost delicately, in a mockery of how Optimus likes to do in his holoform. I try not to cry as Sentinal talks to him, just tuning them out, knowing now that he was going to betray and murder the other Autobots all along. It hurts that he even condoned kidnapping from alternate dimensions, now that Megatron gleefully informed me that a minicon bug activated the warping device and pulled both Carrie and I into the middle of his war, just for leverage and fun.

I hear Optimus and Sentinal fighting nearby, before Megatron and Starscream take off, tossing me carelessly into a cockpit and taking me God-knows where.

Starscream dumps me at a penthouse, where Carly and some guy are holed up, but she's being manhandled enough to make me think she's here as a hostage or prisoner like me. I stay with her in the living room, laying on one of the couches through the evening, but I watch carefully enough to notice that nobody, human or Cybertronian, is paying any attention to me. With that thought, I somehow sneak out of the building and into the chaos of the streets, running through alleys and occasionally hiding inside of a store.

I sleep for a while in one of them, and eat a bunch of snacks and drink plenty of water, knowing I'll need the energy for later as I plan to try something Mama forbade me from sharing with anyone who isn't part of my family. Meditating earlier in the penthouse helped me prepare to do this, but I've only ever done it to heighten my senses, and never for more than a few minutes or going far from my body every time.

I close my eyes after hiding myself in the cellar of a bakery downtown, underground and under the building rather than the street, and slow my breathing and heart rate, focusing on my surroundings.

Bit by bit, I pull my mind away from my body, and open my eyes to find my body curled up in a sheltered corner of the cellar. With a grin, I walk back out and lock it with hardly a thought, and run through the middle of the road, making sure none of the Cybertronians spot me. I duck into buildings when I feel the vibrations in the air signaling the approach of a patrol ship, and find myself doing it more often the further I get from my body, and get stronger the longer I go on.

When a small group of people make a run for it too soon, I throw a brick at the patrol. "Hey ugly!" I call, gaining the pilot's attention and letting them escape the city alive. "Fight someone your own size!"

As the gun whirrs to life, it gets shot down, before a red and blue flamed foot kicks the thing into the building across the street. In shock, I stare up at Optimus, having been utterly convinced that he would at least be injured, knowing he and the Autobots were still alive. He stares back down at me for a moment, and I look down, noticing for the first time my outfit. I've been barefoot this whole time, wearing a pair of black shorts like the ones I was in when I came to this dimension, and a blood red v-neck with long bell-bottom sleeves.

He kneels and picks me up ever so gently. "I thought you were dead," he informs me quietly, even as the Wreckers tear into the pilot of the patrol ship.

I smile up at him with dark humor. "I've got more than a few surprises up my sleeve, Optimus." I look up at him almost sadly at that. "I don't know how long I'll be able to stay like this before I have to return to my body, but I can help."

"You are one of the Spirit Walkers of your world?" Ratchet asks, scanning over my Spirit-form. "You've a solid form, but are more like an energized pocket of particles pulled from the atmosphere. Much like our holoforms."

I nod slowly. "I am, one of the few that are left in fact. I can keep this form as long as my body is in the same state as I left it, but I've never kept it up longer than a few minutes until now, and I'm at seven hours right now."

"What are your limits?" Ratchet asks, running another scan over me.

I smirk. "I don't know what you mean."

Starscream shoots me once, and I feel as though I'm being torn apart even as Lennox and his men rush to fend him off, when the pain just… stops, and I feel… alive, focused. I open my eyes and see perfectly the fight going on right before my eyes. Sam dangles from a grapple attached to Starscream's head, an experimental bomb of Wheeljack's broken and fallen on the ground, and the Decepticon is about to stop freaking out and pull the grappling hook from his head when I get up and phase onto his shoulder, reaching in and blindly grabbing a main energon line, and pull. It disconnects and he falls lifelessly to the ground, Sam landing on his chest as I phase to the ground safely.

Lennox looks at me with disbelief before turning to address his men, and I pull Sam off of the Decepticon corpse. "Next time, check the bomb before you try using it Sam," I order him, before following Lennox to learn what the next move it.

He orders me to phase around the city and cause chaos, try to bring down the ships if I can phase up there and back safely. I nod and head away, wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting city, and come across Bee and some of the other Autobots held in a circle, with the man, Dylan Gould, talking to Barricade about trophies.

Unimpressed, I phase onto his shoulder and do the same to him I did minutes earlier to Starscream, giving the Autobots time to fight off the Decepticons that would have killed them. I give Bee a smile before I feel that agony lancing through my Spirit-form, and look down to see arcs of lightning zipping over my skin, a hole in my stomach sealing up after taking a round through my center. I look up again to find Gould staring at me in fear.

Growling, I take slow steps towards him, making him back away and unload the weapon into me, ignoring the pain as I get closer, backing him into the burnt-out shell of a sedan. "Traitor," I hiss as I pin him against the metal, reaching up with an electrified hand and grasping his neck, almost like a lover's grasp. "You have no idea who you've pissed off," I whisper in his ear, before focusing the energy into my hand, sending it into him, frying his heart in seconds from the force.

Without turning around, I look up and phase into the falling ship, grabbing two tiny Cybertronians and phasing away again, bringing them to the safety of the Earth before running from the crash site and into an alley, dropping them as I fall to my knees, gasping for air this form doesn't need but trying anything to calm the convulsions.

I force my eyes open only to see a fading city and the sharpening details of a dark cellar, before I give up the fight and don't see anything but the darkness of the cellar before everything just… fades away.

I slowly open my eyes to find the dark cellar again, but everything is silent, no destructive sounds from above anymore, just… nothing.

I force myself to stand up before gasping in pain, doubling over at the sudden arc of agony bone-deep all throughout my body. I can't blink back the tears or hold back a scream of pain, and something wet and warm trickles down my neck and arms. I force myself to not curl into a ball and cry, making my body inch its way towards the door leading to the outside world, and falling back to screams of pain as I scrape my torso against the sharp edge of the first steps.

A yell reaches my ears in a familiar voice, before it all fades again.

I wake up cradled in a warm metal hand, propped up against a red and blue painted chassis, body heavy and head light from medications. I blink at the dim lights in the Autobot section of the Med-Bay and realize the metal around me twitches in time with electric pops and clangs coming from in front of me. I focus on what is in front of my eyes, and notice Jolt holding a separated arm close to the shoulder it should be attached to, and Ratchet slowly working to attach it, fine wires and energon lines first before anything else.

I just watch the process in a stupor, curling slightly and snuggling into the chassis as I do. I dimly notice Ratchet's attention turning to me for a second, before he focuses once more on Optimus. "Optimus?" I mumble.

He looks down and smiles as I twist my head lazily to look up at him. "Hannah? Are you alright?" he asks, voice low and gentle with concern.

I frown, and remember what happened in the city carefully, blinking slowly. "Imma kill Lennox," I inform him, before lowering my head to rest more comfortably against his chassis and close my eyes again, falling into the warm darkness as laughter fills the Med-Bay.

I stare at the completed device in front of me, a year after my arrival in this world, and three months after Ratchet deemed me healthy enough to walk around without supervision. A month after I began to admit to myself I care about the Autobots like my family. The calculations are complete and it's been tested a dozen times, and worked perfectly after the first two attempts.

Wheeljack finally finished the warping device. But I don't want to return to my world.

Carrie hasn't been the same since she found out I'm a Spirit Walker, one of the most feared and hated beings in our world. Sure, she may be half-demon, but at least her kind are accepted in our world. Mine isn't, we've been hunted for the past hundred years, and I could count our numbers in the single digits now. We aren't natural enemies, but we aren't allied species by any means.

She's been distant, looks at me with nothing but fear, and doesn't communicate with me unless she must. It hurts that one of the people I've been more than acquaintances with for three years no longer wants anything to do with me, but this is why my mom and I kept what we are a secret. It's why Dad left us when he found out what Mom was before they knew about me.

Carrie walks up to the portal without looking at me, waiting for me to step up next to her so we can go through, but I stay where I am, and look down at the ground.

I don't want to leave this world. I've been accepted, welcomed here. NEST has been my home for the past year, and I haven't been shunned or feared since the events of Chicago. If anything, I've been more respected since then, and many people in high places have given me open-ended favors for what I did. I have nothing to fear in this dimension, and it isn't like I'll be missed back in our world. Mom died before I went off to college, thankfully of illness rather than having been hunted, and I have no other family. Carrie was the only one who I considered a friend, and anyone else would barely notice if I never came back.

I step away from the device, and turn back to the few members of NEST that came to the lab to see us off. "There's nothing for me in that world… not anymore," I whisper, but I know everyone hears. I turn my head to look at Carrie over my shoulder one last time. "Can you do me one last favor Carrie?"

"What?" she asks harshly.

"Tell the police you witnessed my murder, and my body destroyed before you escaped our captors."

She flinches, but nods, then steps through the activated portal. Wheeljack deactivates it, and I step closer to Optimus, who picks me up and holds me close to his chassis again, this time for comfort rather than protection.