Light poured into the cockpit. She opened her eyes slowly, and for a minute or two failed to process where she was. Then the incidents of the night before flooded back, and she smiled contently. Her first day of freedom. And she wanted to make it a good one. There would be no more pain now. No more annoying Doctor. No more moaning Starscream. No more pressuring father…

There was a groaning noise as the plane she was in appeared to extent, almost as if it was stretching. She squeaked and curled up, attempting to hide her face. The groaning stopped abruptly. She moved her hands slowly to peek out at the plane's dashboard, eyeing the controls suspiciously. Why had that groan sounded… robotic?

"Um… Hello?" She tried, to see if the plane would respond. There was a pause. A long pause. She thought it had been her imagination when…

"Hi there." A male voice greeted. She jumped, causing her head to smack into the glass window of the cockpit. She clutched it painfully. The plane seemed to wince. "Ohh, sorry, did I scare you?"

She calmed down slightly, assuming this plane wouldn't hurt her. Or maybe it was covering itself up… "O-Only a bit." She stammered, not sure what else to say.

"Sorry about that. I'm not entirely used to human contact." The plane apologized. She was tempted to say she wasn't human, but she didn't want to break this possible friendship before it had even begun.

"It's ok…" She replied, then paused. Perhaps it would do well to act like a dumb human. "Um, may I ask… What are you?"

There was a chuckle before the plane responded. "Name's Air Raid. I'm an Autobot from the planet Cybertron."

She almost twitched. This was… an Autobot? Oh Primus, what if he found out what she really was? Acting dumb, remember? She reminded herself. "Where's that?" She asked.

A wistful sigh followed. "Many light years from here." The plane, Air Raid, muttered. She assumed something had happened to it to make the Autobot miss it so much. Or maybe he was just homesick. She would never be homesick. Not in a billion years. Not after what her father and the Decepticons had done to her.

"So what's your name?" Air Raid questioned, snapping her from her thoughts.

Oh slag. She hadn't thought of a name. She was just 'her' or 'she' or 'Techno-Organic' to the Decepticons. So what would normal humans, and therefore the Autobots, be able to call her?

"Diana." She replied, then remembered humans had something called 'surnames'. "Diana Tron." Was that too obvious? Would he realize?

"It's nice to meet you, Diana." Air Raid replied with a kind voice. She silently sighed with relief, then smiled back.

"Nice to meet you too." She – no, Diana, chuckled. Diana would have to get used to her new name. Perhaps she could get used to it. After all, she was pretty much a 'human' now.

"I'm going to have to ask you to get out, Diana. I need to transform and stretch my legs…" His voice filled the temporary silence. She nodded as the cockpit opened, and Diana slid down the wing, landing gracefully on the ground. The cockpit closed as soon as she was out, and then the real magic began.

Bits of metal shifted on the plane, and it became something much taller and… humanoid. For an alien robot, anyway. Legs began to form, followed by arms and the torso, and finally the head, which had the most vibrant of blue optics Diana had seen. The only blue optics she had seen. She was so used to evil, deceiving red optics that she'd never imagined what those of an Autobot would look like.

As she took his new form in, she realized he wasn't entirely black anymore. The only black parts now were the nose of the plane that was positioned behind his head, a large gun-like weapon on his left arm, and parts of armor on his legs. The rest was white, except from a part that draped across his shoulder and down over his chest, which was red, like the Autobot symbol on the black wings on his back.

Air Raid chuckled at her, and Diana assumed she had an extremely amusing surprised look on her face. She quickly made it fade, and smiled up at him.

"What were you doing in my cockpit, might I ask?" The tall Autobot must've wanted to ask her that since he'd woken up to find her there, scared half to death.

Diana paused for a few moments. She couldn't just say she'd run away from her Decepticon captors because they'd been torturing her into infiltrating Autobot lines and splitting them up from within. So what could she say…

"I… I ran away. From my father." That wasn't entirely a lie, was it? "He used to beat me, and I just got so… fed up…"

Air Raid's face turned sympathetic, and he gently picked her up, placing her on the palm of his hand. The metal was cold on her arms, but soothing as well. She brought her knees to her chest, and her chin thudded into the small gap between them.

"Hey." He said, lifting up her chin to make her look at him. "You're safe here. I'll take care of you. Promise."

Diana smiled at that. "Thank you." She replied, moving towards his free hand and hugging the finger that had lifted her chin.

Perhaps this friendship could work out after all.

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Meanwhile, in Diego Garcia, the military organization known as NEST were busy as usual, trying to stop Decepticon attacks on various parts of the world. They'd increased lately, indicating they were looking for something.

What they didn't know was that the Decepticons were looking for someone.

"We've been through the AllSpark and the Matrix of Leadership, and there's not much else on Earth that they could want." A black soldier sighed to the tanned, blonde Major beside him.

"So what are they looking for?" The Major muttered, watching as the radar looked around the world for any signs of Decepticon activity.

"It's possible they have created a new weapon." A male voice suggested from behind them. Neither of the soldiers looked surprised.

"And it escaped?" The black Sergeant asked as he turned around – to face a blue and red armored Autobot that was the tallest of his group. He was the Leader of these Earth-stationed Autobots. Optimus Prime.

"Perhaps there is more to this weapon than meets the eye." Optimus pointed out, crouching slightly as he too eyed the radar, as if he was expecting an imminent Decepticon attack. Then again, his senses were much more advanced than those of the two humans below him.

"A Pretender?" The Major questioned, not taking his eyes off the radar.

"Maybe. But we must also assume the Decepticons may have found out about the young Prime… and used the idea to make their own."

The two soldiers looked at each other with slight concern.

"If that's what has happened, then we can only guess she didn't choose to be a Decepticon, and left them." The Major replied. Optimus nodded, and stood to his full height, before walking off down one of the many tall hallways that were best suited for the Autobots, presumably towards the hanger. And the two men quickly found out why.

A signal blipped on the radar. The Sergeant was immediately on a radio. "Decepticon signal detected. Location… Texas." He spoke as calmly as he could, and his voice rang through the halls, to be heard by any soldier in the base.

"And if Texas wasn't bad enough…" The Major grumbled as two more signals blipped just behind the first one. The Sergeant cursed quietly.

"Major." An English speaking man walked up to the Major and Sergeant from the hallway. "Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are stationed in California, not too far from the Witwicky's residence. They can intercept the Decepticons, if you would prefer."

The Major didn't pause before he nodded. "Alright, send them in. If they can manage to stay responsible…"

The English man nodded, and the Sergeant spoke again, into a different radio. "Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, three Decepticon signals detected within Texas. Intercept immediately."

Two replies of "On it." sounded in unison, and the comm. was cut off.