A/N – Thanks to the review from Makkenna Witwicky! It's keeping me publishing these chappies instead of keeping them to myself :)

Thanks for reading chapter one! This one's a tiny bit shorter than the rest of them but as they say, it's the quality that counts, not the quantity :)

I edited loads of stuff before this final version, so if there are any weird stuff/plot holes/grammar and spelling mistakes please let me know!

As before, viewed best at 1/2 page width!

Disclaimer: anything you recognise is mine. Anything you don't belongs to me. If I owned the Autobots I'd be far, far away, hugging Bumblebee, Having long conversations into the night with Optimus and kick some Decepticon butt with Ironhide :)

Chapter 2 - Nonexistant

Sam and I stepped out of the car. I looked up at the building where my apartment was.
"Amy, look for anything out of the ordinary. We must find the Gateway before it closes. If it does, it will be near impossible to find," said Optimus, already in his robot form. I nodded.
"I can help if you like, to speed things up," offered Sam.
"That's probably a good idea."
As we reached the last flight of stairs to the apartment, I started fiddling with the inside of my bag. I found the key and inserted it into the lock. It didn't fit.
"This isn't right," I said mostly to myself, squinting at the lock.
I tried again, more aggressively this time. It didn't help.
I sighed.
"Now what do we do?" I asked, not really expecting an answer. Sam looked slightly awkward.
"What if you don't exist?" He asked, and I had no idea what he was talking about.
"Huh?"
"I mean, think about it. You come from a parallel universe, what if in this universe you've never been born? What if someone else lives here?" he pointed at the locked door.
That option hasn't even crossed my mind. What if he was right?

"You wanna tell me I don't exist at all?" This was getting a little too much to handle.
"I don't know, I could be wrong. I mean, what if you do exist and you live somewhere else?"
"Now you're telling me I might have some sort of a parallel twin? Great." Sarcasm got the best of me.
"I don't know, anything's possible now," He said, and immediately a look of comprehension dawned on his face and he added, "Hang on, let me make a call. I think there's a way to figure this out."
He quickly took a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed a number. He didn't wait long for the other end to pick up.
"Hello, this is Sam Witwicky. Can I speak to Major Lennox?"
There was a long pause.
Holy hell. Lennox. On speed dial. Impressive.
"Lennox? It's Sam. Yeah… Listen, I need to look up someone up for me. What? No, it's important. I'll explain everything later. Okay, you're writing it down? It's Amy Grosvendor. No, it's G-R – yeah, N-D-O-R."
Another pause.
We waited.
"Sure, no problem," he spoke into the phone again, "Nothing? You sure? No, I'm here with the Autobots. Yeah, they'll be there for debriefing. Okay, thanks."
He put the phone back into his pocket and looked at me with pity.
"Looks like you don't exist."
The sound of his announcement was strange to me, even a little depressing. After all, who would want to hear that they don't exist? On the other hand, I'm not sure how I would've reacted if I found out I had an evil twin…
"Yeah, that's great… Just – oh, whatever. Let's go back downstairs, we have more important things to do." This whole situation felt a little too strange for comfort, but I had to pull myself together and focus. We had a job to do.
"Listen," he approached me, "we'll figure it out. We'll find a way to get you back home," he tried to comfort me. He seemed to have mistaken my confusion for a desire to go home.

As if I had anything to come back to.

"What makes you think I wanna go back?"
"You don't?" he asked, "Why?"
"You're kidding, right? Sam, my life is boring. I have a boring job, I live in a tiny boring apartment and it doesn't look like things are gonna change anytime soon. I know you wanna have a normal life but I wanna be anything but ordinary! I'm sick of being average and now that I have the chance to change that I'm not gonna throw it away!"
As I spoke these words, the strange feeling I had simply disappeared and I realized - it didn't matter where I go, as long as I'm with the Autobots. With Bumblebee. Things were starting to make a little more sense now and I started to think like my rational self again.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to take it out on you," I apologized.
"It's okay, I know how it feels," he smiled at me, "Sometimes things can get a little bit overwhelming," he said, and I knew he understood how I felt.
"So how do you know so much about me?"
"Where I come from, you're a character in a movie, remember? I know a lot about all of you," I answered as I started going down the stairs.
He followed.
My spirits were high. True, we didn't find the Gateway, but it was only a matter of time.
As we walked outside the building the Autobots were waiting for us and seeing as we came back empty handed, they didn't look surprised.
"What happened?" asked Optimus.
I looked up and opened my mouth to explain but Sam was quicker than I was. I guess my reflexes were slow tonight.
"We couldn't get in. She doesn't exist in our universe so the apartment isn't hers," he said.
"We don't sense Energon nearby. The Gateway must have been sealed. Amy," he looked at me, "it can only be opened with the Key or part of it. It must have been in your possession at the time it was activated. Can you think of any strange object you had?" he asked.
"No, I don't think so," I replied, and then quickly added, "Hold on a second…"
I fiddled with the inside of my bag again, until my hand closed on a necklace I bought in what now seemed like ages ago.
Seriously, what were the odds?
I held it by the thin chain high above my head for the Autobots to see.

The little Decepticon stood across the street. Hidden behind a tree, he was watching the Autobots and their human pets. A look of disgust appeared on his face at the thought of humans but it quickly vanished. He was very happy about something. His optics have located a small object dangling from a delicate chain which was being held by the human female. He had no idea what it was, but he was certain his master would be very interested in it. He kept watching them closely. Megatron would be pleased.
Thousands of miles above them, a top-of-the-line secret military satellite was in synchronous orbit of Earth. There was something, or rather someone, attached to it. He was processing a new stream of data he just received. It consisted of some interesting information of great value to his master. He responded with two simple words:

"Soundwave acknowledges."

Optimus took the necklace with a delicacy of a surgeon's hands and placed it carefully in his hand to give it a closer look. His metal fingers briefly touched mine and I was half expecting them to be cold. Instead, I was surprised to find comfortably warm. I wondered if this was what Bumblebee felt like and glanced at him. I was surprised to see him looking back at me and quickly looked away.
The pendant was shaped like an empty square pyramid: each face was made of thin, silvery lines of metal (which gave the impression of being fragile when in fact they were very much strong), and a solid base which was roughly cut and somewhat uneven with strange glyphs engraved into it. I assumed the jeweler did a poor job, but now I realized there was a piece missing and the glyphs were, in fact, ancient Cybertronian.
"How did you get it?" asked Optimus.
"eBay," I shrugged, "What's written on the base?"
He looked closely at the base of the pendant and read, "When the Sun stands above its peak, there lies perfection."
A riddle. Great."What does it mean?" asked Sam.
"It's a riddle, just like the one that led you to the Matrix of Leadership," I replied.
"How do you know about that?" asked Ironhide.
"I watched it happen, remember?"
"This is so strange," commented Sam.
"Sam, we need to head back to base. We will need your military's help to find the other piece of the Key," said Optimus.
"Yeah, okay," Sam was obviously disappointed, "I need to go back to college anyway. I'll get my ass kicked if I don't finish that paper by tomorrow. Let me know if you find anything major because you're not leaving without me!" he replied.
Optimus gave me back the necklace.
"Amy, you must keep the Key safe at any cost! We have to find the other half and destroy them both. It's too dangerous to be kept whole," he paused, and gave me back the necklace. I put it around my neck and placed the pendant under my shirt.
"Bumblebee, we need to keep the girl safe, she will need every form of protection we can provide."
"Aye aye, captain!" I heard Bumblebee's voice for the first time. I wasn't sure why he was still using the radio if he could speak, but I guess it hasn't been fully repaired yet, and besides, how else would he make all those funny remarks? I liked him just as he was.
Ratchet sniffed the air, narrowing his optics. Something wasn't right.

The hidden Decepticon across the narrow street has reported everything to his master and was attempting to escape unnoticed. However, his plan did not work.

"I smell the stench of a Decepticon!" exclaimed Ratchet.
"There he is!" pointed Ironhide to a point across the street. He immediately transformed his hand into an energy rocket launcher and took a shot at what seemed like a small Decepticon.
I was completely unprepared for the force of the explosion. It was so bright I had to close my eyes shut and shield them with my hands in fear I would be hit by the flying debris and the heat. I felt as if the sound of the explosion was ripping my eardrums apart. Suddenly, everything went quiet.
I dared open my eyes.
The scene in front of me was completely chaotic: half the sidewalk was blasted into pieces and where a tall tree once stood, was a burnt trunk less than half its previous height. There were scattered pieces of metal everywhere.
"Punk ass Decepticon," said Ironhide, who transformed his weapon back into his hand and lowered it.
After the initial shock, Sam and I ran across the street to see if there were any survivors but there was nothing left.
"What happened?" I asked, looking at the scene of destruction all around me, then turned back and looked up at Optimus.
He replied with only two words, but they were enough for all of us to understand:

"They know."

For the first time in my life, I was truly afraid.

"Bumblebee, get Amy back to base. We'll be right behind you," Said Optimus.
The next chain of events happened very quickly. One moment, the Autobots were in their robot forms, shielding Sam and I from sight. In the next, we were surrounded by cars. The door to the yellow Camaro opened and I literally jumped in. Time was now a luxury we didn't have.

I could tell Bumblebee was driving as fast as he could, and the rest of the Autobots followed suit.
The ride was quiet, except for the purring of the engine. Bumblebee seemed pleased to be doing his part.
I wanted to talk to him, to know more about him, to tell him he was my favorite Autobot, but I couldn't find the words to say any of that. Besides, I was dirty and sweaty (and overall felt disgusting) and this certainly wasn't the right time for these kinds of things. So I kept quiet and fidgeted with my dark blue painted nails. I only painted them two days ago but everything normal and ordinary in my life seemed to have happened so long ago. I wasn't complaining though, this is what I wanted.
The silence between us felt almost unnatural, which made me feel uncomfortable sitting in the passenger's seat. I had to strike up a conversation.
"So what base was Optimus talking about? The one in New Jersey?" I asked. I wasn't sure which answer to expect.
"We have a winner!" came an excited man's voice from the radio. I wasn't in the mood to laugh but I did so despite of myself.
"Do you think the military can help us find the other piece? I mean, this is Megatron we're talking about here, he'll stop at nothing to get it," I voiced my concerns. A slight shiver went down my spine. If Megatron finds the missing piece before we do, he will probably go after me next.

"Gold (gold)
Always believe in your soul
You've got the power to know
You're indestructible
Always believe in…" came the familiar song of Spandau Ballet from the radio. I smiled.
Talking to Bumblebee was as easy as breathing.
"Thanks for believing in us, Bee, even when sometimes we don't believe in ourselves," I was referring to myself more than everyone else.
"Believe you can and you're halfway there," came the voice of President Roosevelt.
"Easy for you to say, you're Autobots! You have power and weapons I could never dream of having!"
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," I heard the voice of Neil Armstrong and I realized he was trying to remind me that we too are capable of doing great things if we put our mind to it. I was grateful for that.
"I guess you're right, Bee. I've been through more than what I call an average night, and I'm not thinking straight," I replied.

"In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight
In the jungle, the quiet jungle
The lion sleeps tonight..."
That was probably one of the funniest songs I've ever heard.
"You're probably right, I need to get some sleep," I said as I took a small hair rubber band out of my bag, pulled my hair back and tied half of it back, letting the rest fall down past my shoulders. Lucky I was a typical girl who keeps that kind of stuff in her bag.
This was much more comfortable to me. I didn't need to constantly push my hair away from my face anymore.
I rested my head against the window and closed my eyes. I felt the seat belt being pulled over me and heard it click.
It was almost like falling asleep in his arms.