I looked up at my red partner like he'd grown another head. "Are you insane? Do you have any idea what the big guy will do to you guys for pulling a stunt like that? You are supposed to be undercover, you know." We were standing in my backyard, which was basically out in the middle of nowhere like the rest of my folks' farm. He'd just outlined his plan to save one of our friends from the enemy base that our scouts had just located the day before. I understood, because I was just as peeved and worried as he was. Our friend had been out trying to find said base when he was caught and presumably taken for interrogation. He'd been gone a week by the time the scouts found the base. Heaven only knew what they'd been doing to him in there. Heaven only knew if he was still alive, and still at the base if he was alive. It'd been a frustrating week, made even more frustrating by the head honcho's unwillingness to mount an attack when they did find it. What was even more frustrating was that we all saw our leader's point. We just weren't prepared for a full-on assault, and not even our special ops guys had been able to bust through security.

But my partner thought he and his companions could.

"Yes, but I don't see any other options, and you sure aren't volunteering anything." I muttered a string of epithets under my breath, but didn't move to stop him as he and his comrades transformed and took off. I didn't have a better idea. I wasn't really worried about whether they could get through security undetected. These guys thrived on challenges like that. I was more worried about them making it back through.

"I just hope this works. Loony toons."

I prayed more than slept last night.

I should probably introduce myself. My name is Bella. I'm a senior in high school in a town called Tranquility, which is kind of funny, as my town is anything but tranquil. See, there's this race of people that came to our planet in search of something called the Allspark. This people, the Transformers, just happen to be giant alien robots that can turn into cars.

You're probably thinking, Whoa, Bella, what have you been shooting? I can understand that. When I first met up with my partner, I hadn't really had much sleep, so I thought I was hallucinating. Let me tell you, that went over real well. Fortunately, I figured out that they were real when I woke up the next morning and there were a bunch of giant alien robot guys standing over me with worried looks on their faces.

After I finished my freak attack, they told me about their mission: to save the Allspark from the hands of their enemies, who wanted to use it to wipe them out. If I had any doubts in the first place, they were gone by the time my first battle was over.

They were doing a routine perimeter check around their base and nearby Tranquility—with me there to show the ground mechs around—when out of the blue, this mech with some seriously nasty artillery showed up and started blasting at them. He attacked anything and everything metal that moved, including cars with people in them. Several buildings went up in flames from the repercussions of his blasts. I will never forget the screams of the people who died in those buildings.

Some of the guys opened fire right back at him while the others chased and hauled humans out of there like the devil himself was on their tailplates. They injured him pretty badly, forcing the loony robot to retreat to nurse his injuries.

We did a quick sweep of the area to make sure none of his pals were around and see if there were any survivors in the decimated neighborhood. The few we found were quickly rescued, bioscanned, and speedhealed as well as possible by the couple of medics that were with us. Then we sped out of that area posthaste.

In case you're wondering, I'm currently attempting not to fall asleep in my recent events class. Our teacher is one of those guys that can't teach, has no desire to teach, and has a reeeeaaaaalllllly boooorrriiinnnnng monotone voice and has no ability to speak in a rhythm. On top of that, he likes to stay very, very local. See, that's a bad thing because most of the population has no idea what's going on right outside of its little bubble. The excitement from the "mistargeted terrorist attack" has died down, leaving only grieving relatives and an extremely traumatizing memory for those few humans who actually saw what really went on. They're currently under official giant alien robot good guy protection.

Anyhoo, if it weren't for my giant metal friends, Tranquility would be as boringly grocery brand vanilla as its name. Its human population truly does nothing of notice. Seriously, when the biggest event of the year is the annual lawn ornament contest, that ought to say something. Talking about the county fair would be better. At least there might be some interesting side or backstories.

So I'm sitting here, alternately dozing and freaking out about my friends because they decided to take off without any backup, or telling anyone besides me where they were going, and my partner wouldn't even let me come along. "A) You'd be vaporized or squashed or shredded to bits. B) You wouldn't really be that much of a help—heck, you'd actually get in the way and get us all killed. C) You have school tomorrow." Real sensitive, isn't he. Oh, I still care about him, though!

Starscream, you and TC and 'Warp just get Barricade and get your tailplates back here!