ATE: Hey everyone! I finally got chap 2 done and everything. I wanna thank lilyou22 and DarkButterfly128 for their reviews on the first chap of this story. Enjoy!
Declaimer: I don't own Transformers in any way, shape, or form. And I definitely don't own iPod (but I was listening to mine as I wrote this chap) or the toys called Sky Dancers. But I am the proud owner of my OC Valerie.
Chapter 2: Meeting the Autobots
Consciousness started returning to me and I slowly opened my eyes to find myself staring at a ceiling that was so…high…up. My head was throbbing slightly and I brought a hand up to it, only for my fingertips to brush against cloth. Was my head wrapped up? I sat up and found myself on top of a platform of sort. The room was so huge that I thought I somehow shrunk in size. I felt…small.
'Where am I?' I thought.
"Valerie! You're okay."
I turned my head in the direction the voice came from and found Alexis next to me (I'm not sure how I didn't notice her in the first place), along with Rad, Carlos, and the addition of Billy and Fred.
"Alexis. I'm so glad to see you." I said. "I had the weirdest dream ever. You, Rad and Carlos were in it, too. And there were-"
Suddenly I saw the one thing that I was about to say standing in front of me.
"-giant robots…"
I suddenly fainted.
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I woke up again to find myself in the same place and I saw my friends gazing down at me.
"Hey, guys." I said. "I fainted, didn't I?"
"You did. We want you to meet some of our friends so please don't faint again." Rad told me.
"I'll try not to." I sat up.
"Okay. Red Alert, you can let the others in."
"Will do." A metallic voice said.
I looked in the direction the voice came from to see a giant blue robot with what looked like a red visor covering his eyes. He went over to a large door and it slid open to allow the robots I had seen into the room, along with another one I didn't recognize. The one I didn't recognize was the orange robot with red eyes.
"It's good to see you're awake." The red and blue robot said as he came closer to the platform. "How are you feeling?"
"Other than my head, I'm fine." I replied.
"Good. I'm Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots." He turned to the other robots behind him. "Everyone, I'd like you all to introduce yourselves."
"I'm Hot Shot!" The yellow robot said. "You…literally ran into me earlier."
"Blurr." The blue and orange robot I remembered from earlier said.
"I am Red Alert, the medic." The blue robot with the red visor said. "I wrapped your head up, if you were wondering."
" I'm Scavenger." The green and purple one said. "I'm considered a trainer of sort."
"Smokescreen." The orange bot said.
"The name's Jetfire, lil lady!" The bulky white robot said.
I felt my face heat up slightly at the 'lil lady' comment, but quickly recovered as I looked at all the robots in front of me. I smiled, knowing for sure they wouldn't harm me and felt more at ease around them. If my friends trusted them, why shouldn't I?
"I'm Valerie." I told them. "So what are you guys, anyways?"
Optimus told me about the transformers (along with why they were called that in the first place), and how the Autobots were the good guys while the Decepticons (their leader being Megatron, who happened to be the horned robot I had seen) were the bad guys. I learned about their war over the Mini-Cons and that Megatron wanted to conquer the universe with them. And now I was drawn into their war along with Alexis, Rad, Carlos, Billy, and Fred. Optimus made me promise not to tell a living soul about the transformers and what I learned, to which I more than willingly agreed to.
"Good. Any comments?" Optimus asked.
"This is a bit overwhelming." I told him. I turned to Alexis, who was sitting beside me. "So are we still having that sleep over?"
"Yes, but since you know about the transformers we could have it here instead. Are you okay with that?"
"Am I okay with that? Of course! I wouldn't pass an opportunity like this for anything." It was then that I remembered something. "Where's my bag?"
"It's right here." Red Alert answered, retrieving my bag and giving it to me.
"Thanks. You didn't look inside it, did you?"
"No. Why?" He brought his face closer to the platform so that I would has to strain my neck. "Are you hiding something illegal inside it?"
"N-no! Nothing illegal at all!"
"Then what's inside it?"
"Stuff."
Red Alert just stared at me, making me shift a bit from feeling uneasy. I knew he wanted a better answer.
"Fine! It has my things for practice."
"Practice?"
"She's involved in an activity she goes to every Friday after school." Alexis stepped in to help me. "Now I have a feeling you don't want to be coped up in the med bay, so we might as well show you around the base."
So Alexis, Rad, Carlos, Billy, and Fred showed me around the base and I even got to meet the other Mini-Cons in the process (now that I got a closer look at them without having my life in danger they were cute looking, as in stuffed teddy bear cute). The place was huge but it was understandable because of the big size of the transformers here at the base. The cool thing was that there was a room everyone could go and relax in for both humans and transformers alike (I think it was called the 'rec room' if I remembered correctly).
By the time the tour was over Fred started to complain that he was hungry and luckily there was food for us to eat. We stayed up late talking about things, but I think I fell asleep during a conversation since I woke up to the sound of people snoring. Sitting up I could see that the snoring was coming from Carlos, Fred, and Billy. Why wasn't I surprised? I looked at my watch, pressing a button that lit up the screen, only to groan mentally when I saw it was 6 am. I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep so I grabbed my bag, deciding to go to the rec room. I could probably practice my ballet for a bit.
When I got there I looked around to see if anybody was in the room. Good, I was alone. I looked at the floor, noticing it was smooth metal. It wasn't exactly a wooden floor, but it was better than nothing. Opening my bag I took out my ballet slippers and iPod, replacing my tennis shoes I wore with the ones I took out. I placing my ear buds in my ears and listened to orchestral music as I stretched. With my stretches out of the way I stood up, taking a deep breath before standing on my toes and doing my first spin. As I continued moving to the music on my iPod I closed my eyes, imagining I was dancing in the sky, imagining I was flying. Have I finally accomplished my dream to be able to fly?
Before I knew it I found myself on the floor and opened my eyes. I tripped! I can't believe I did that! I was so stupid! I forced myself to get up, turning off my iPod. I'm done practicing. I couldn't continue.
I suddenly heard clapping and turned to where it was coming from and was surprised to find Jetfire standing in front of the door that led out of the rec room (which was closed behind him), his golden colored eyes (or were they optics?) gazing at me from where he was.
"I didn't know you did ballet, Valerie." He said, sounding amused.
Jetfire came over to where I was and I found myself looking up at him. I felt my face heat up slightly and looked at the floor.
"How long were you standing there?" I asked.
"Long enough to see the performance from start to finish. I must say I haven't seen something that graceful in awhile."
My face got warmer than it already was, both from embarrassment from learning that he'd been watching me dance and from his compliment.
"Y-you think I'm graceful?" I asked quietly.
"Yeah!" I was surprised he had been able to hear me in the first place.
"I'm not graceful."
"What? You're not graceful? You're joking, right?"
"I'm not. If anything I'm a klutz."
"C'mon! Don't put yourself down! Just because you tripped doesn't automatically make you a klutz. How come you have such low self-esteem?"
I was quiet, unsure of how to answer his question. I tried going through my mind to find the answer, but didn't find anything. And he said the same thing Ms. Sanders told me.
"…I don't know." I told him.
I heard Jetfire sigh (or at least what sounded like a sigh) before he started to move, the ground shaking slightly as he did. The ground shaking wasn't the only thing that told me he was moving (although it was the obvious indication) but it was the fact that as he move his form made that distinct mechanical sound that I always heard from the transformers. Suddenly I saw one of Jetfire's fingers in my line of sight and before I knew it he placed it under my chin before forcing me to look up at his face. I noticed that he was kneeling down in front of me so I wouldn't have to strain my neck too much.
"One way to improve self-esteem is to make eye…err…optic contact whenever you're talking to someone. You seriously need the confidence boost."
"Wait, what?" I was confused. Where was he going with this?
"That's right, kiddo! As of today consider me your official self-esteem instructor, or confidence booster buddy. Whichever sounds the catchiest."
My face got warm again but I had no way of hiding it from him. I tried looking to the side, but my result…
"Hey, hey, hey! What did I tell you about making eye contact?"
Jetfire lightly poked me in the stomach with his free hand and I started laughing, placing my hands on my stomach as I did so. I just wasn't expecting him to do something like that and I hadn't really known him that long.
"There we go! Another confidence boost." He sounded as if he accomplished something. "That's probably the first time I've heard you laugh."
"Why are you doing all this?" I asked after having calmed down a bit from laughing.
"What? Can't a mech help out a friend when they need it? Besides, I'm not just doing this 'cause I was told to or anything. I just felt like it." He then removed his finger that was under my chin but he still remind kneeling in front of me. "How 'bout I show you something?"
"Show me what?"
"I can't tell you. It's a surprise of sort." I was surprised when Jetfire suddenly place his hand down in front of me and I looked at it before looking up at his face. "Well, get on! I'm not gonna drop you or anything. Autobot's honor!"
"Could I get these ballet slippers off first? They're not really meant to be worn casually like regular shoes."
"Sure thing."
As quickly as I could I got my ballet slippers off and got my tennis shoes back on before placing my slippers back in my bag. With that out of the way I climbed onto Jetfire's hand and immediately latched onto one of his fingers when he started lifting his hand as he stood up. I tighten my hold when he started walking (and I think I heard him chuckle a bit) out of the rec room and down the hallway. I had no idea where we were even going and I got confused with all the turns Jetfire was taking through the base. After awhile he stopped in front of a door and typed in a combination on the code pad (or whatever it's called) before said doors opened. I had to cover my eyes from the sudden light that invaded my vision as he walked out into it. And that was when I noticed the slight breeze that was blowing through the air and I opened my eyes to see that we were outside and gasped!
"The sky…" I said quietly, mesmerized by its color.
"Well? What do you think?" Jetfire asked.
"It's…beautiful." I turned to look at him "Thank you, Jetfire."
"No problem!"
Jetfire moved over to a bolder and saw down with his back leaning against it. He placed me on his in order for me to get comfortable. I looked at his face and saw that his gaze was set on the sky. I did the same thing, enjoying the scenery.
"So what inspired you to do ballet?" Jetfire suddenly asked.
"Believe it or not the sky did." I answered.
"The sky, huh?"
I nodded. "I've always been fascinated with the sky since I was little. I've even wished that I could fly at times."
"You know what? Just because of that I'm giving you the nickname 'Skydancer'" I couldn't help but laugh at that, which apparently made Jetfire confused. "What's so funny?"
"When I was little there used to be these toys called 'Sky Dancers'." I explained after calming down. "It consisted of a doll dressed up as a ballerina with wings made out of foam on its arms and a base with a pull string. The doll was placed on the base and when you pulled the string it launched the doll into the air while the wings were used like a propeller as it spun."
"That gives me all the more reason to call you Skydancer now. Personally, I think it suits you."
I felt my face heat up again. What was up with me and my face heating up lately? It didn't make sense to me.
"Can I ask a question?" I asked.
"You just did." Jetfire replied.
I giggled a bit.
"You're able to fly, right?"
"I'm called Jetfire for a reason, you know. And it's not just for the kicks."
I smiled. "What's it like to be able to fly?"
"It's quite fun, actually. It's definitely a lot better than just walking around to get from one place to another. And I'm the only Autobot here that can fly." He turned his head to look at me. "Maybe sometime I'll take you flying. How does that sound?"
"Really? You'd do that?" I asked, my eyes wide in surprise.
"Why not? You said so yourself that you wish you could fly. It's the least I can do."
"That's so nice of you, Jetfire."
"Well, I just so happen to be a nice guy. Now let's get you back inside before the others wonder where you are."
Jetfire wrapped one of his hands around me and he lifted me up as he stood up from where he was sitting. We went back into the base afterwards.
ATE: That concludes chap 2 for now. I got the idea of Jetfire helping Valerie with her self-esteem when I was watching episode 26: Linkup of Transformers Armada on youtube where Alexis made a statement about Jetfire: "Doesn't exactly have a confidence problem, does he?" I just decided to play off that idea a bit and I think it worked for the most part. Please remember to review! If anyone has any ideas they'd like to suggest for future chaps feel free to do so. I'll give anyone credit for their ideas.
