It was an average day at the NEST headquarters. Sam, Michaela, and Bumblebee had flown in from Tranquility to stay at Diego Garcia for the extent of summer vacation. Ratchet was in the medical bay fixing up Sideswipe and Sunstreaker after they got on Ironhides bad side. Said trigger-happy bot was blowing off steam and blowing stuff up in the shooting range. Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, was in his office looking over yet another complait notice from another town destroyed in the crossfire of the hidden war between the Autobots and the evil Decepticons. Will Lennox and his friend Robert Epps where lazily shooting Nerf darts at a small target about fifty feet away. Everyone was bored, so tempers where running high.
Lennox cussed loudly as one of his foam bullets flew wide, but then quickly sobered when a large, armed cannon was pointed at him and Epps. The owner of said cannon was the weapon specialist, Ironhide. A bright neon orange Nerf dart produced from one of his chest plates.
"Watch your toys, Captain William Lennox." A British-accented voice filled the dead silent room.
Lennox nodded fiercely. "Yessir." He was never usually this polite, but one's point of view changes when faced with a cannon the size of a garbage can.
"Good." said Ironhide. He retracted his cannons and he moved on. Sam and Bumblebee snickered, but quieted when faced with Ironhides cannons.
A large, black armored vehicle pulled into the hanger doors, the word NEST standing out in white against its polished black surface. Everyone's gaze looked at the new vehicle. From the front seat, an old friend climbed out.
"John Keller." Optimus rumbled a greeting to the former Secretary of Defence. He nodded to the Autobot leader, before addressing the rest of the hanger's occupants.
"Humans and Autobots. Last week we finished scouring through Sector Seven's headquarters for any more secrets they may or may not have been hiding. Unfortunetly, there was something else they were hiding. She was subjected to the Cube's energy. We don't know how or why, Simmons refuses to talk. We have brought her here, to show her that she is not alone." Keller said.
Everyone looked in interest as the armored vehicle's doors burst open, revealing two SWAT team members struggling to contain what looked to be a large leopard. The two men grappled with the beast for a few moments, but released it when two large clawed paws pushed them off of the sleek-looking cat.
The humans and Autobots didn't see anything out of the ordinary with this cat, but Ratchet was running a scan on the cat. Sadly, the leopard noticed, whipping around to hiss at the offending medic.
"Magnificent." he mumbled and walked away.
"What's so magnificent about a leopard?" Lennox voiced his thoughts. Sam, Michaela, Epps, and Ironhide nodded in agreement. After a hiss from the accused leopard, it began to change.
The body lengthened, the muscles stretched. Everyone watched in amazement as the fur slowly retracted, revealing human skin and a leopard-print leotard underneath. The face fur retracted, the snout vanishing into the face, but the cat's nose and whiskers remained on the face. Auburn-brown hair cascaded down her back, pointed cat ears stuck plainly out of the tresses. A gymnasts body was clothed in a leopard-print leotard, the girls hands were furry and claw-tipped. Her legs were furry from knee-down, with powerful paws where her feet should have been. Carnivorous fangs replaced her canine teeth. All in all, the resulting cat-girl mutant looked about fourteen. The transformation lasted about thirty seconds.
The girl looked around at all of the gaping faces of the occupants of the hanger, and freaked. Her eyes welled up in tears, a freighted wail emitted from her mouth. With a leap and a bound, she scaled the post nearest to her and ran along the ceiling bar, cat style, away from the people-filled room. The gazes of the hanger's occupants followed her.
"That, my friends, is one sweet cat-girl!" Lennox said. Sam and Epps nodded, but Michaela and Optimus were more worried about how the cat girl had reacted to their presence. Ironhide had left to find her.
"Why did she act like that? What did Sector Seven do to her?" cried Michaela. Optimus added, "Was it the Autobots that frightened her?"
Keller answered, "I don't believe that it was the Autobots that frightened her. She suffers from extreme anxiety from living in a too-small dog crate for her entire life." Michaela gasped. No wonder she is afraid of everyone… Michaela thought.
Ironhide wondered out of the first NEST hanger and into the next adjacent hanger. His optics scanned the large room for any sign of the missing cat-girl. A small figure landed on his sholder, and his cannons fired up as soon as the furry legs of the girl hit his armor.
"Don't shoot! Don't hurt me! Please!" the cat-girl sobbed.
Ironhide swiveled is large head to get a better look at the girl. "You can talk?" he asked.
"Well, yeah. What did you expect? A mute mutant?" The girl laughed at her own joke. She puzzled Ironhide.
"Well, do you have a name then? I am Ironhide." Ironhide asked, and he immediately regretted it. The girls eyes teared up and her whiskers twitched. "No."
The answer started Ironhide. "Well, everyone should have a name. How about we call you Kitty?"
"OK." The plain answer was almost too quiet for Ironhides audio receptors.
"OK then, Kitty. Why did you run away from everyone in the hanger back there?" Ironhide wanted answers.
"There were humans. The humans at Sector Seven would hit me and experiment on me to make me into what I am now." With that statement, Kitty drooped under the weight of a thousand painful memories. Ironhide didn't know why, but his spark ached for this small girl.
"Kitty, no one in that room will hurt you, ever. Not when I'm still breathing. So let's go meet the others, shall we?" Kitty smiled at the giant robot and hopped off his shoulder. They walked, side by side, back into the occupied hanger for introductions.
Authors Note: Please be nice, this is my first attempt at writing Transformers fanfiction. Reviews are welcome, flamers go on my death list.