Chapter two
Raf woke up from another nightmare. She could feel her body shaking and her breathing getting more and more irregular. It was the same one for the past three years, she was being held by a woman with golden wings putting her behind a strange door inside a wall. She's singing her a song. She closed the door and was gone the last thing she saw was a look of fear in the woman's eyes.
"What is wrong with me?" she questioned in the dark. Eventually her eyes grew heavy again and she fell asleep.
The next morning, Raf woke up and looked out her window. "Today's the day," she told herself. "Today is the day I am finally going to beat my record." She looked at the remote control car sitting on her dresser. She put in her backpack and headed for the kitchen. What welcomed her was a circus.
The Esquivels were one of those families that just couldn't turn any child away that needed a home. That is how she came to be part of their family. Though not everyone knew about her wings. The only ones who did know were her, her parents.
Raf snuck around the chaos and grabbed an apple, fig bar and a thermos with orange juice inside. Then she made her way to the front door and started walking to school. She had gotten about a block from her house when her Dad pulled up.
"Need a ride to school kiddo?" he asked with that same smile he had when she became part of their family.
"Yes. Thanks Dad." Raf answered climbing into his squad car.
Mr. Esquivel was the chief of police for Jasper Nevada and took great pride in his work. He viewed his job as more of keeping the peace, not going around arresting bad guys and stopping criminals in their tracks. But that didn't make him any less protective of his family, especially toward Rafaella. Though he couldn't give her as much attention as he could when she was younger, these times he could drive her to school were the times he loved spending with her the most. Because on the way, he and Raf would talk about all sorts of things and he would tell her jokes and stories about what life was like for him when he was a kid. Raf loved this time with her Dad too, but still couldn't wait to get her license and her own car.
"You know your birthday is coming up fast, honey. Any idea of what you want to do? You only turn 14 once." He asked as they got closer to the school.
"I haven't decided yet, but you'll be the first to know, I promise." Raf said climbing out of the car.
"Be home before dinner?"
"I will. I'm just going racing after school, trying to break my record."
"Alright. No speeding, understand?" Mr. Esquivel joked looking at her through his shades.
"Yes sir." Raf joked right back saluting him as if she were addressing any other officer.
She then ran into the school building and into her first class. Raf loved her first class because she was such a whiz at it. Computers came so easy to her, as did math, science, and art. It all came easy to her. Unfortunately, it didn't make her so popular with the other students. No she was always the one that got singled out with the bullies. But Raf didn't really care. She knew that she had bright future ahead of her if she applied herself to her work, which she did with a great desire to succeed.
Computer class was over and it was time for her least favorite class, gym. Rafaela was never so good in gym because she was the smallest of any of the kids there, given that she skipped a couple of grades. She was proud of this, but not so much of the fact that she was not so physically gifted.
This particular day, they had to climb the rope to the ceiling. Raf kept pushing herself to reach the top, but always ended up falling from the middle to the mats below and the laughing and jeers from her fellow class mates. Once everyone had gone, Raf ran as quick as she could to the lockers and changed back into her regular clothes.
"At least this day couldn't get any worse." She said to herself as she pulled on her sweater vest and grabbed her back pack heading off to her next class.
(Autobots)
Bumblebee was out patrolling for Energon again but was beginning to lose any hope of finding any out here.
'Not like it's any better back at base.' He thought to himself pushing on the accelerator. 'It's too quiet.'
Just as he was about to reach his limit, he heard his comlink come on. "Bumblebee, rendezvous back at base and prepare to Ground Bridge." He heard Optimus Prime order.
Bumblebee quickly turned around and raced for the base back in Jasper. He was really hoping for some action. He was no adrenaline junkie, but he was no coward either. He just hoped that he could get there in time. Optimus sounded pretty serious.
Once he got there, he and the other Autobots raced through the ground bridge to Cliffjumper's coordinates. It looked like they had missed the fight because not much remained except what was left of an Energon deposit. Bumblebee looked and saw Arcee holding something. He got a closer look and saw it was one of Cliffjumper's horns.
"No." he heard her whisper. Bumblebee understood how worried she might be. He was there the day she lost her first partner Tailgate. So losing another would be too devastating for her.
"Ratchet, can you track his position." Optimus Prime asked turning to the medic.
Ratchet looked at his scanner in time to see a weak signal fade. "No. Cliffjumper's life signal just went off line." Ratchet gasped turning toward the others.
Bumblebee looked at Arcee and could see signs of life leave her eyes. The feisty bot she had once been was now gone.
(Rafaella)
Rafaella ran as fast as she could to get out of the school building, hoping to avoid any one who loved to pick on her, especially Vince. No such luck. Vince caught her just outside the school doors and ripped her backpack off her.
"Where are you going half pint?" he sneered.
"None of your business." Raf shot back.
"Let's have a look then." Vince said opening her backpack and dumping everything out on to the ground. "Notebooks, pencils and what do we have here. A toy car, where are you going? Hoping to win the kiddie races?" he teased dropping the car to the ground.
"What I do in my time is none of your business." Rafaella said gathering her things and racing away.
(Autobots)
The Autobots stood on a cliff side not far from their base. "We must not allow our anger over the loss of Cliffjumper to impair our judgment." Optimus Prime announced. "As of today only we five Autobots remain and we owe to ourselves, to the memory of Cybertron, to any other Autobots out there seeking safe harbor, to human kind, to those who have fallen and we owe it to the memory of our fallen comrade to survive."
Bumblebee watched Arcee place the one piece of Cliffjumper that they had left on the ground in manner much like they would in a burial. Arcee then began to walk away.
"Arcee…" Optimus said to her.
"If Cliff's gone standing around here sulking won't bring him back. So unless anyone minds, I think I'll get back to protecting human kind." Arcee said transforming and driving off.
Bumblebee could tell she was in a lot of pain but she refused to show it. Just like when she lost Tailgate, she was starting to close herself off from feeling.
"Optimus, helping humans will only result in more tragedy." Ratchet stated.
"Your opinion is noted." Optimus acknowledged.
Everyone then went back to their routine patrols. They went in different directions, but they all had the same thing on their minds, they had just lost another team member and a close trusted friend.
(Rafaella)
Raf made her way to the ditch she usually spent her afternoons at racing her car. When she got there, she took the car and the controls out of her backpack. She sent it racing and sat down to watch. She was at it for a couple of hours when her cellphone rang.
It was her Mom. "Hey Momma. Racing. Right up the street. Okay just five more minutes." She then hung up and sped her car faster and faster almost making it back faster than she did last time.
But instead, she was interrupted by a motorcycle jumping over the highway guardrails and a boy she knew from school in the driver's seat. This came as a pretty big surprise to her since she didn't know anyone who would be crazy enough to do that. Surprised her enough that she didn't even realize she had dropped her controls.
"Whoa!" she breathed.
"You have no idea." The boy whose name was Jack responded.
They both the heard two more cars up on the highway then jump over the guardrails and transform into giant robots. They stepped back and saw the motorcycle Jack had been riding transform as well.
"This ends here 'cons." She said harshly.
Rafaella and Jack ran out of the way and saw this huge fight break loose in front of them.
"What are they?" Rafaella asked in total awe.
"Talking cars that turn into robots, or the other way around." Jack responded sounding like he was trying not to panic.
It looked like things were going well for the femmech until she took a shot to the chest. The other mechs started to walk toward her to finish the job when another car jumped over the highway just above them, transformed and landed on one of the other bots and punched the other one sending it flying across the ditch.
Rafaella stared at him for a minute and was shocked out of thoughts when she heard a crunch. The mech lifted his foot and they both saw that he had stepped on her car. He backed away a few steps.
"Sorry about that." He apologized.
"It's okay really." Rafaella said accepting the apology. But just as she was ready tell him it was no big deal, a blast from one of the other bots sent him flying in the opposite direction.
He landed a short distance away and they looked like they were going to kill him. Rafaella felt something come over and she couldn't hold it in.
Her wings burst out her back. "Leave him alone!" she shouted.
The bots turned to face them. She felt all that energy leave her, but it was too late, both Jack and the bots had seen her with her wings out. "Please." She said weakly.
"Bad call." Jack said putting his hand on her back avoiding touching her wings.
They made a run for a large pipe and ran inside. Raf tried to fold her wings but she was too worried about the things that were chasing her and Jack. It reached in to grab them, but was pulled back by something. When it was gone, the face of the mech peered in.
"You two okay?" he asked, then stared at her in complete surprise.
"Thank you." Raf said as he turned back to the fight. "What are those things?" she asked turning to Jack.
"I don't know and I'm not sure I want to find out." Jack replied turning back around and running with her hand in his down the pipe to the other end just outside an old abandoned warehouse.
"Just as good a place as any to catch our breath." Jack said forcing the door open.
Once they were inside, Raf sat down and concentrated on getting her wings to fold back into her back.
"What I'd like to know is what are you? You have wings and you could understand that yellow robot."
"Couldn't you?" Raf asked a little shocked that he couldn't
"No all I heard was these bleeps and blurs. Why do you have wings, what are you?" Jack asked again in surprise.
"Truth, I don't know. My parents found me when I was only three years old and shortly afterward, I was adopted into their family. I have no memory of my birth parents or where I'm from." Raf explained folding her wings in. "We should head back. My parents are going to be wondering where I am. I promised my Dad I would be home in time for dinner."
"Okay. We're not far from the school. I could walk you home if you like." Jack offered.
"Okay." Raf accepted.
(Autobots)
Bumblebee still couldn't wrap his mind around what he had seen. The girl had wings. The last time had seen anything like her before it was the Guardians, the coexisting race back on Cybertron. But they were supposed to be extinct. But he could worry about that later. Right now he had to focus on the fight.
Things started to get hot when Bulkhead showed up. "Who's ready to rumble?" he asked.
The Decepticons drove away. Bumblebee let out a sigh of relief.
"What took you?" Arcee asked with slight annoyance in her voice.
"Traffic." Bulkhead responded.
"You guys are never going to believe what I saw." Bumblebee interjected.
"What?" Arcee said turning to him.
"One of the humans had wings in her back. I know we don't know that much about them, but I have been on Earth long enough to know that humans don't normally have wings." Bumblebee explained.
"Whoa." Bulkhead responded "Are you sure you weren't just seeing things?"
"I'm sure. They only showed up when she saw the 'cons were going to kill me. I think, I think she's a Guardian." Bumblebee said.
"We can talk about this later. Right now we have to get back to base and report our scrimmage to Optimus." Arcee said turning and transforming and then driving down the road.
Bulkhead and Bumblebee followed close behind. When they got back to the base, Arcee told her story to Optimus. "And the 'cons would have been scrap metal if I had been distracted by the human."
"Human?" Optimus asked in surprise.
"Two actually, a boy and a girl." Bumblebee said.
"A boy and a girl." Optimus acknowledged.
"The second one caught us in action, I don't know. Was a little busy at the time." Arcee finished.
"If the Decepticons are targeting us, any one perceived as our ally will be at grave risk." Optimus informed.
"There's more to it. One of the humans, the girl, had wings in her back. But they only appeared when she saw the 'cons were going to kill me when they had me pinned down. I think she's a Guardian. I know that sounds crazy because the last of the Guardians disappeared a long time ago. I'm just telling you what I saw." Bumblebee explained.
"We must then bring her to us. If she is indeed a Guardian, she may not yet know of her power and will be in grave danger if the Decepticons ever find her. The boy as well." Optimus Prime instructed. "Bumblebee you will bring the girl. Arcee, you will bring the boy."
"Yes sir." Bumblebee replied.
(Rafaella)
When Raf went to bed that night she wasn't sure if hiding what she had seen that day from her parents was a good idea.
"A lie by omission is still a lie." She scolded herself. "But what if knowing puts them in danger? I mean, I already know so I'm taking a big enough risk as it is knowing and I would never live with myself if I lost them." She then reasoned.
She laid down in bed ranting and reasoning to herself until she fell asleep.