I forced my eyes to open, but I couldn't make sense of everything above me. It was all jumbled together, but slowly clearing. Voices on the other hand, I could hear perfectly.

"She's awake now." I heard a voice - I SWEAR to Primus and God it was Optimus Prime - say. I groaned. It was really loud.

"If what we saw is true, then she must be from some other dimension." Red Alert said. I slowly sat up, but I still couldn't see all that well.

"If this is some elaborate prank or a joke set up by my brother I swear to Primus above that I will get my kitten Kali to eat you all." I warned as my eyes started adjusting to the view, and guess what I saw? Optimus Prime, Starscream, Red Alert, and Sideswipe. "Oh. Um.." Gah! I couldn't concentrate.

Until a set of wires caught my attention, and I focused on them, seeing they were attached to some sort of projector device, and to my head.

"What the frag? Were you watching my dreams?" I demanded of Red Alert. Despite the awesomeness of the situation, that was an invasion of my personal space! Plus, nearly every fraction of those dreams had been about Starscream through one way or another!

"You were crying, and I wanted to see what was distressing you." Red explained, as though that made it better. I felt my face and saw he was right. There were wet spots all over my face, and my nose was clogged.

"Oh scrap! Please tell me you didn't see all of those." I begged. The look Red gave me was enough to know. "How much did you see?" I demanded.

"From Smokescreen to your argument with the boy."

I stopped myself from thinking, wondering if the projector would still...project. Before I could think my thought, I pulled the things off my head, and was free to think it.

'Oh great, now they know about my crush on Starscream! Even worse, Starscream could know too! Wouldn't that be just peachy. Ugh. He's got enough on his plate already without some insignificant human femmling falling all over him.' I thought sadly.

"You're not insignificant." Optimus said. I groaned.

"Say what? Now you can hear my thoughts, too? Is NOTHING sacred in my mind?" I demanded.

"I heard it too." Red Alert said.

"You're not making me feel any better down here! As if I didn't have enough with my brother mentioning it all the time back home! So fragging what if I cried when Starscream died in the show! So what if I hate Unicron for it even though he's supposed to be fictional!" I ranted. I had completely forgotten that the mech in question - Starscream - was standing right there. Then I took notice of him again and hid under the conveniently-large blanket, blushing furiously, curling into a sideways ball.

'Ugh, I can't even think the word without remembering that creep Sideways!' I growled in my head, hearing a small chuckle. "Personal note for you all to remember, I hate Sideways, Squidhead, Mega-twit and Unicron! Oh, and Cyclonus scares me!" I called out loud, getting more chuckles.

I peeked out from the blanket and saw all four of them had small smiles on their face. Minus Optimus. I didn't see his mouth. I giggled. "I like that sound. You guys should laugh more often." I said, directing it towards Optimus and Starscream. I stood up on shaky legs, before vertigo overtook me and I literally keeled over. Of course, something caught me and I almost screamed before I saw it was Sureshock.

"Well hello there Sureshock. It's nice to meet you." I said pleasantly.

I walked to the edge of the high-off-the-ground medical berth, back to the autobot-sized blanket, and I got an idea. With a grin I picked up the corner of the blanket and rolled the blanket up before shoving it off the berth onto the floor. I ignored the curious look I was getting from the autobots, and jumped, landing in the heap of blanket with a peal of laughter.

"Optimus, can I explore around the base? I promise I won't touch anything!" I pleaded, wanting to meet the other autobots. He nodded, and I saw Red Alert pick up the huge blanket, giving me a human-sized one when I shivered.

"Thanks Red Alert, bye guys!" I called with a wave, wrapping the blanket around me as I walked aimlessly.

I hadn't counted on running into Scavenger. Truth be told, he scared me too. I tensed when I saw him round the corner with Hotshot, both of their optics set on me. As they walked up I craned my neck to see them properly.

"Hi!" I squeaked, walking past them nervously.

Somehow I managed to find myself in the rec-room, lounging on the couch, completely hidden under my blanket.

"Hey, what's that?" I heard a female voice - definitely Alexis - say. I didn't respond, and I felt the blanket being moved from my face. I sighed. "Who are you?"

"Alexis, I'm tired." I whined, pulling the blanket over me again, just as the door was opening.

"Hey Starscream, good to see you." a robotic voice said. I snapped my eyes open, sitting bolt upright, and I saw Swindle.

"I think I just understood what Swindle said! Starscream, did he say 'Hey Starscream, good to see you'?" He nodded, and I looked to Swindle again. 'Epicness of the minicons! I can understand him! I wonder about the ones that make the Requiem-blaster, Skyboom shield, and Star-saber sword. That'd be cool..' I layed down onto the couch again, but frowned when I felt something nudging me.

"Kid, if you fall asleep on the couch, your neck's gonna pay for it. Come on." Swindle urged. 'Since when does he care?' I didn't get time to answer before Starscream picked me up.

"What're you doing.." I mumbled tiredly.

"I'm taking you to the med-bay. You can sleep there." he answered.

"'Kay..." I mumbled as I found myself drifting off in the seeker's hand.

I woke up seconds later - or so it seemed - and I was alone. I went out of the med-bay - leaving another blanket in a heap on the metal floor - and found the rec-room again, where I saw all five kids sewing together the chamois they present Starscream with later.

"Hey, can I help with that?" I asked, walking over. "I mean, I didn't get one of the mars-rocks, but I still want to show appreciation to Starscream." I elaborated as I sat down next to Alexis and assisted her with sewing a few patches of cloth together. Hours passed while we chattered pointlessly. I told them a few things I knew about their world, and a few things about mine, and soon it was time for them to head back to their homes.

I fell asleep soon after hiding the chamois to be worked on the next day, though it was almost finished.

(Dream/Flashback)

"It's time to let go of your silly fantasies, Kora. If you keep your head in the clouds your whole life you'll never get anywhere worthwhile..." - Mom

"You're such a baby, Kora. I can't believe this. You're crying because a fictional character died! You need to grow up!" - Aston

"It's time to get it through your head! Transformers is not real! It's a concept created by someone with an imagination! Starscream is fake! Optimus Prime is fake! None of it happened, and none of it will ever happen! You're almost seventeen, so start acting like it!" - Dad

"I don't see why you like Transformers so much. They're just a bunch of robots." - Ginny (school 'friend')

"Why don't you just go on to something else if that one episode made you that upset? It's not healthy, Kora." - Marissa (Councillor)

"You need to get over your immature infatuation with that flying one, Starscream." - Elisa (school 'friend')

I didn't like this dream. I wanted to wake up. Right. Now. But I couldn't escape; the voices of my family and my 'friends' trying to get me to 'act my age' were haunting and painful. I wondered if I were in something like Inception; a dream within a dream, Armada being the dream. I didn't care. Anything was better then home, including being with the Autobots.

'Please-let-me-wake-up! I don't like it here! Bad memories! Never wanna go back!' I thought desperately, the voices repeating themselves in my mind.

(Dream/Flashback End)

I felt genuine relief when I woke up. I shivered in the now-dark medical bay, pulling the blanket up closer to myself. Of course I saw the projector thing, which I realized was Laserbeak, attached to the wire things in my head. With an angry growl I pulled the connectors off, curling in on myself.

Most people wouldn't find that dream as frightening as I did, but for me it was horrible. Then I noticed my surroundings weren't as abnormally large as they once were. Upon noticing this, I felt something attached to my back flick. It felt like it was a part of my body, but like it wasn't supposed to be there. I looked behind me to see wings. Metal wings, attached to a metal body!

"The hell?.." I asked absently, moving my hand to touch the wing, but stopping when I saw it was made of metal as well. I gave an indignant squeal in surprise when something tapped my thigh.

"Ah! Who's there?" I blinked, or the cybertronian equivalent when I saw the minicon. "Is that you Highwire? Where is everybody?" I asked.

"Went to fight Decepticons, just outside of the base." he answered. Without another word I was running at top speed, eventually finding way topside, and apparently just in time. There were Decepti-dorks along the top of the mountain, they had the autobots pinned, Optimus was on one knee, weakened, and Megatron had his cannon aimed at the former's face.

With a defiant growl I charged, tackling the mech away from Optimus, taking a defensive position in front of him. Megatron grunted in surprise and disgust as he saw that it was a femme, AKA me, that had stopped him from killing Prime.

"You're between me and what I want, little femme. That isn't a good place to be." he commented levelly, his voice betraying no emotion. I chuckled.

"Let me think on that Mega-moron; I'm standing in between my childhood hero, and the tyrant that wants to permanently offline him." I pretended to think for a moment. "Yeah, I think this is where I want to be. You're not killing Optimus Prime. Not now, not ever!" I growled, not moving. He growled at the name and lunged. I dodged with practiced movements, landing a swift kick to Megatron's spinal-strut.

'Thank you Power Rangers!' I joked in my head.

He grunted, landing face-down in the ground from the force of my kick. Not for long. Not two seconds later he was struggling to his feet, lunging at me once again. For the next five minutes - to put it simply - I kicked his aft to cyberton and back before he ordered the retreat. Then it was just us and the humans.

Rad, Carlos, and Alexis were the first to come up.

"Who are you?"

"What did you mean 'childhood hero'?"

"How did you get here?"

"What's your name?"

The amount of questions they asked were utterly ridiculous. I held up my hands to stop them.

"Okay, the answers to your questions, in order; I'm a human-turned-cybertronian teenager. Optimus Prime was my childhood hero since I was six, when I first saw him kick Mega-twit's aft for the first time. I honestly don't know how I got here, but I woke up in a tree. My name's Kora." I said softly, kneeling down. I saw recognition flash in Alexis's eyes.

"You're that girl we saw on the couch!" she exclaimed. I giggled.

"That would be me. I don't know how I got like this, but I certainly don't mind." I said light-heartedly, a smile on my face. I squeaked again when someone tapped my shoulder.

"Primus, I'm too jumpy." I said with a grimace to myself when I saw it was just Optimus. He chuckled.

"I suppose. Thank you."

"Any time, Optimus." I said honestly.

Before I could say more I felt white-hot pain at the back of my neck and I collapsed. Someone caught me, but I couldn't see who. I could still hear though.

"Red Alert, what's going on?" Optimus asked urgently. I screamed as fiery, torturous pain coursed through my veins, touching every nerve in my new body.

"I don't know Optimus. I need to run a scan on her." I felt the telltale tingle of a body-scan across my frame, but only barely.

"It- it hurts." I whimpered, clutching my hands to my head.

"Kora, calm down. Everything's going to be okay, but I need you to move your hands away from your head, so Red-Alert can finish the scan, okay?" Optimus reassured. I nodded weakly, and forced my hands away from my head.

"That's good.." Optimus said.

"Make it stop!" I screamed. The pain was the only thing I could feel now. I didn't feel the arms of whoever was holding me, nothing but the pain.

"It's energon. Something - or someone - shot her with this, and it had unrefined energon in it." Red Alert said. Well that explained it. The difference between refined and unrefined energon was massive. Unrefined had small crystals of energon in it, and if you put unrefined energon in your systems, it's the worst torture imaginable for a cybertronian. I remember that method of torture was used several times in fanfictions I'd read as a kid.

"Kora, this is all gonna be over soon." Red Alert said to me. I believed him, because he was a medic who knew what he was doing.

"Why though? And who?" Alexis asked.

"That question will have to wait for another time, Alexis. We need to get Kora back inside the base." Optimus said. Then there was the feeling of movement. I was obviously being carried by somebody. I forced my optics online through the pain, and saw that it was Optimus himself.

"Thank you..." I whispered before going unconscious.

A/N: Okay, so now Kora is a cybertronian. Or is she... Anyways, you'll have to read on to know.