Shannon had gotten her car for her 16th birthday, now three years ago. It was a nice car- used, but not incredibly old. Large, but not too much of a gas-guzzler. Often dirty, but only because it's white paint never seemed to stay clean for more than half an hour. All in all, she liked her car, if only for the reason that it was hers, to use as she pleased.

So, when she felt the thump of her car hitting something as she backed out of the parking space, she spent a full 5 seconds worrying more about her car than what she hit. Then her eyes grew wide as it dawned on her that a car cannot be stopped with just air, and she quickly scrambled out of her car.

She had hit another car that had been going down the road. A dent could clearly be seen in it- although not as large as the one that was now in her own. She was angry over this, before guilt caught up with her. She must not have looked around carefully enough. How could she not notice the bright red car going down the road? And Shannon was not so uneducated in the world of automobiles that she was unable to notice how nice and well cared for it was- a pit formed in her stomach as she anticipated the tirade that the driver would probably give her.

"Look, sir, I'm so sorry-" The words had left her mouth before she realized that there was no one in the red car's driver seat. For a moment Shannon could only stand there staring, before she awkwardly tried to regain her composure. She had hit a moving car that had no driver. Sure, why not.

Perhaps, the driver had ran away after the collision? That didn't seem likely to her, as she was sure she would have seen someone in the time it took her to get out. Then, maybe, the car hadn't been parked properly, and had started rolling down the street because of gravity. Yeah, that explanation worked. They talked about that quite a bit in driver's school, after all.

But, what driver's school hadn't told her was what to do in a situation when you hit one of those runaway cars. She shifted from foot to foot, looking around for someone, anyone, to come claim his or her car. She could see no one on the town street. Should she leave a note telling the driver what had happened, or just stay by the unmanned car until he or she came so she could explain it in person? If she just left it, wouldn't it start rolling again? Could she even get her car out of the parking space without hitting it again? She chewed her lower lip a little, fidgeting her hands, as she looked down at the red car's new dent.

"It doesn't look too bad." She said to herself. "Just a ding, really." It was a bit worse than a ding, but she was being optimistic. Her lips twitched upwards in an attempted smile that didn't quite make it. There was something about this situation that just seemed wrong (besides her hitting a car, of course), but she was at lost for what it was.

Then it hit her. The red car had been traveling uphill.

It was almost as if the fates had waited just for that moment of clarity before they allowed all hell to break loose.

Bursting from around the corner of the street, a sleek black and purple car started speeding towards them. Shannon could only perform her impression of a deer caught in the headlights, before the red vehicle behind her burst to life. "Move it, girl!" it yelled. Shannon nodded, before she scampered back to her own vehicle, not quite comprehending that a car had ordered her around.

The red car started up, heading towards the black car for a moment, before doing a U-turn that Shannon was certain she'd never be able to duplicate. It practically flew past her and her car. And then the black car got out it's guns and started shooting.

Shannon screamed, and fumbled with the handle of her car's door. She could see in her car's rear-view mirror that more black cars were coming up past the corner. She finally got the door open just as one shot hit her car, and she screamed again. It was obvious that the black cars were aiming at the red one, but in her panic-filled state she couldn't tell. It didn't help that at least one of them was an incredibly bad shot, as it hit another parked car.

She finally managed to get in. She slammed the door closed, put on her seatbelt, and hunkered down in her seat as the black cars sped past. She breathed heavily for a moment, before she got into her purse to search for her inhaler. She took a puff, and waited, focusing on slowing her breathing. She brushed away the strands of her unruly mouse-brown hair that had gotten into her face. After fumbling with her inhaler as she tried to put it back (her hands were shaking), she then played with the radio station. Her usual, questionable, music wasn't going to help her calm down now.

She was finished changing it to a classical music station when she looked up, and noticed that two of the black cars had come back.

She froze, eyes wide as she stared at them. Surely, they would look over her. She was in her car, surely that was a safe base.

The black cars started shooting again, this time aiming at her. For the third time within minutes, Shannon screamed, as she slammed on the gas pedal with her foot.

To her credit, Shannon actually got rather far driving her car in a panicked state. She was now on the freeway, traveling far above the speed limit. The black cars kept up with her the entire time. After the first shots that had gotten her onto the road, they hadn't fired. Shannon didn't take time to ponder this, nor did it even occur to her that she had a cell phone that she could have used to call 911. All she could think about was getting away from the black cars and the guns they carried.

She briefly glanced in her rearview mirror. There was only one of the cars behind her now. Where had the other one gone?

She got her answer, as without warning her car was slammed in the side, and she was pushed off the road.

Her car started to tumble down the hill that bordered the road. There was no brush big enough to even slow it's decent, so it didn't stop until it reached the bottom, and it landed sideways. The seatbelt dug into her, and the airbag had blown up. Her head banged against the window. Her arm made a loud crunch when she was slammed against the side door.

At the bottom of the ravine, she blinked, and numbly looked up towards the cars responsible.

The two cars started rolling down the hill towards her, and then they transformed, taking the form of identical black and purple robots.

Even with the shock of everything that had just happened, her mouth still dropped open at this. They looked straight at her, a long, glowing red stripe where their eyes would be. One of them reached down and plucked the driver's door off her car, as easily as she might pluck the petal off a daisy.

And once again, she screamed.

The sound of a car engine made the two robots turn towards the road. The red car from before sped off the road towards them, and turned into yet another robot. It charged the other two, and their hands turned into guns too late. The red robot slammed it's fist into one of their heads, sending it sprawling, and just as quickly speared the other with a staff it was carrying. If the spear entering it's chest hadn't killed it, the electric shock the staff gave did. The black robot fell like a rock, missing her car by inches.

The red robot spared a glance over at her. It's eyes, Shannon noticed, were black, with a blue ring being the only hint of where it was looking.

It's shoulders slumped when it spotted her. "Scrap." It (he?) said. The voice startled her, it didn't sound at all like the robots in the movies. If she hadn't known better, she'd have never guessed it belonged to anything but a human.

The first black robot got back up, and the red robot turned his (for she figured it was a he) attention back to it. The black robot raised it's arm to shoot, and the red one charged it again, managing to knock it's arm aside before it fired.

Shannon watched silently as the robots fought. The black robot had managed to rip the staff away from the red one, and for a moment it looked as if it would win. But then the red one's right hand transformed into a circular saw, and it slashed the black one in the neck. Sparks came out of the wound, along with some blue substance, before the black robot fell to it's knees, and then to the ground.

"Fraggin' Vehicons." The red robot said. His hand turned back into, well, a hand, and he picked up his staff again.

He turned his head towards the overturned white car. "You okay in there, human?" No one answered. Concerned, he walked over to it. "Hey, human?"

He looked into the driver's seat. The human was curled up into a ball, as much as she could be with an airbag in the way and hanging from a seatbelt. She wasn't moving. That scared him for a second, before he noticed her chest moving as she breathed. He bent over it. "Hey, girl? Can you hear me?"

Slowly, without looking at him, she nodded. He reached down to help her out of the seat, but she squeaked and curled up even tighter, her eyes shut tight.

He lifted his arm away. "I'm not going to hurt you." He said, trying to sound as non-threating as possible.

"You cut that robot's throat open." She said, still not opening her eyes. Her voice sounded so tired, so dead. Of course what had just happened would be a lot for any human, but this one seemed especially fragile.

"Of course." He glanced over at the Vehicon he had offed. "But that's war."

"My brother died in the war."

That shocked him, before he remembered that the humans had their own war, over in the middle world. Not the war that he was familiar with. Still, that wasn't the answer he had been expecting. "Oh. I'm sorry for your loss."

She let out a sob, and burst into tears.

Now it was the car's turn to shift from foot to foot, and to look around to see if anyone could help. Obviously there was no one. He had no idea how to deal with a crying human. Well, he had no idea how to deal with humans period, but especially not a crying one. "Don't… don't do that."

The human finally opened her eyes. They were green. Green and glazed over. She was probably in shock, and her physical wounds needed medical attention.

He kneeled down next to the car. "C'mon, I'm taking you to a hospital."

She didn't shrink away this time, and he managed to remove her from the seat belt without having to cut them (in this situation, turning his hand into a saw or drill would have probably done more harm than good). As soon as she was out, he transformed back into a car, with her sitting in the passenger seat.

She slowly blinked, looking around. She wiped away some blood off her face, and he realized too late that he would probably have bloodstains in his seat by the time he got her to the nearest hospital. He pushed down the revulsion and thoughts of how hard it would be to get those out, and instead focused on his driving.

"I'm sorry for hitting you with my car." She said. She was looking of the window now.

"It's fine, I've had worse." She actually jumped when he said that. Must not have thought he could talk as a car. "The name's Knockout, by the way."

Her eyes were drooping closed. "Shannon." She said, before leaned back onto the seat and curled up. Knockout was no expert in the daily cycles of humans, but he suspected she had just fallen asleep.

He continued down the road towards the hospital. This was going to be hell to explain to Megatron.


Edit: I changed some of Knockout's dialog thanks to a suggestion from Copyright-Prime. Also a few mistakes she caught. Thanks, girl.

I realize how overdone the whole 'human girl finds stumbles across hidden war' is, I do. But Shannon and this little adventure happened to pop into my head, and I ran with it. It was a good at getting rid of all the stress homework has given me. Except I ended up doing this instead of doing homework. Um. Opps.

Any and all constructive criticism is greatly appreciated, especially in making Knockout sound more like Knockout. While this is the shattered glass version of him, and he is concerned about the human here, I don't think he sounds like... well, like himself. I still want him recognizable as KO. Any advice would be nice.

Wordcount- 2135

Song listened to while writing- Fly on The Wall by Thousand Foot Crutch.