Optimus looked at Alyssa's parents with a questioning look. The two adults looked back.
"I give up. Alyssa has decided to risk her life with you guys. There's nothing I can do to change it. We've seen this hellbent behavior before and apparently even aliens cannot change it," Alyssa's father sighed and threw his arms in the air, fed up with this nonsense. He had had enough of this crap.
"She's like her grandma, Priet: unwavering. Your decision will determine her path with you guys," Alyssa's mother told. "She's in the age in which she stops listening to her parents even when they mean her best."
"I see," Optimus said with a short nod. Alyssa waited, silent and trying to keep her impatience under control, but she felt her heart pounding wildly as she waited the decision of the Autobot leader. Her passion and interest had overpowered the authority her parents had over her, so it was up to the giant leader to either accept her help – or hear more reasoning why he ishould/i accept it.
"If I may say something, Optimus, I think we should accept her offer. When we drive among the human traffic, we tend to get attention… and some at least seemingly bad reactions from the driving humans. We really need to learn how to be among them," Arcee told.
(I agree. Wherever we drive, many of the drivers show one of their fingers to us when we are a problem around the traffic,) Bumblebee said.

Alyssa bit her lip. She was quite sure she guessed right which finger it was, but she did not ask about it; it was irrelevant and she could always discuss it – and other human hand signs – with them later. Her parents had already come to the same conclusion.

Optimus looked at his team. Ratchet had bothered to turn and look at them, unable to believe his optics and auditory sensors. When the medic was excluded, no one was against Alyssa joining to Team Prime. He looked at Alyssa.
"Alyssa, if you decide to join our team, I must warn you that you may not be safe even here. There is always the risk that despite of all the protection and cloaking the Decepticons find our base. It would put you to a great risk," he told.
"No worries, I know the risks! And I accept them!" Alyssa said eagerly. A part of her mind noted that her enthusiasm to join a group of alien robots could end up costing her life, yet she ignored it. She was not going to back down on the chance of her lifetime just because she was scared or could not bear the consequences.
"You must also never tell about us or our location to anyone," Optimus said with a stricter tone.
"As if anyone would believe me if I told 'em about all this. Seriously, they'd just kick me to the nearest mental hospital!" Alyssa noted. Cliffjumper snickered a bit, even though he was not sure about what a mental hospital is.
"Are you ihonestly/i sure about this? And not just you, human, but you too, Optimus? Letting a human to become part of our team? I see it merely as a safety risk," Ratchet broke into the discussion. "And you, if anyone, know that we cannot afford to increase the number of them."
"C'mon, can't you put some trust into me? I'll never, ever, ever tell anyone about this, I swear it!" Alyssa said with a more begging voice.
"Optimus, what are you going to decide? At least I wouldn't mind if we got to know some local people," Bulkhead said. "It wouldn't hurt to learn more about this world, after all, since it's our home away from home."

Once again Optimus looked at the team. Then he looked at the human family, especially at Alyssa. The girl looked like she was going to blow up from the waiting and excitement. With one last consideration, Optimus announced his decision, "Alyssa, I've decided to let you join our team."
"Really?!" Alyssa gasped.
"Really," Optimus said. "Welcome to Team Prime."

Ratchet scoffed and returned to his work.
"You don't need to mind Ratchet's unfriendliness. He just is like that," Arcee said.
"Though it seems he doesn't like humans anyway," Cliffjumper said.
"So, wanna tell me who you are and where have you come from?" Alyssa asked more eagerly than ever.
"We are autonomous robot organisms from planet Cybertron," Optimus told. "I'm Optimus Prime, the leader of this Autobot team."
"My name is Arcee," Arcee presented herself.
"My name is Bulkhead. I used to be one of the Wreckers, a subgroup of the Autobot faction," Bulkhead told.
"I'm Cliffjumper. And Arcee is my partner, isn't that right?" said Cliffjumper, with Arcee nodding. "And Bumblebee already presented himself. And that grumpy medic over there is Ratchet, as you already noticed."
"Happy to meet y'all," Alyssa said, smiling.
"Hey, does anyone know what day and time it is?" Alyssa's father interrupted.
"My phone's dead, I suppose," Alyssa told trying to get some light on the screen of her phone. "Maybe even broken if that Stargeek managed to hit it."

Arcee chuckled at the nickname Alyssa had just given to Starscream.
"What?" Alyssa asked, not knowing what Arcee found so funny.
"The nickname you just gave Starscream is a good one," Arcee explained.
"Oh, ok. I can keep calling him Stargeek if it's so funny," Alyssa said and grinned.
"Today is Sunday, as of your human calendar. And it's 9.30 local time," Ratchet interrupted.
"Local time? Are we even in the same time zone where we got kidnapped?" Alyssa's mother asked.
"Can ya show the map, Ratchet? Please?" Alyssa asked. "'Cause we need to get back to our summer cottage and get our stuff before getting back home."

Ratchet scoffed once again, but decided to not act difficult. At least this time things would go with less annoyance if he just complied. He opened up the map.
"This is the time zone we're in now," he told and pointed out the right time zone.
"Uh-oh… So if it's 9.30 here, then at home it is…" Alyssa started counting. "It's already 18.30 at home! Shit! My homework! I got a freaking lot of homework for tomorrow and I haven't done any of them!" The young girl got freaked out upon the realization. "We need to get home ASAP, or I'll get some marks for neglecting homework!"
"Whoa. She sure freaked out quickly," Bulkhead noted quite quietly.
"Bah, humans," Ratchet muttered, then raised his voice. "Okay then, child, just show me the time zone and let's start pinpointing the place where you need to be GroundBridged."
"Oh… yeah… sure… Though…" Alyssa said, looking up to the screen while trying to keep her panic in control. "It would help a little bit if I could see the map from any place higher."
"Oh, honestly!" Ratchet gushed.
"Hey, I ain't an 8-meters-tall robot from outer space. I'm just an under-2-meters-tall human from this planet. Can ya gimme at least some mercy on this one?" Alyssa ranted and faced Ratchet's reproaching face. The medic stole a look at the rest of the team; while others were too surprised about the young girl's suddenly changing attitudes, Optimus was frowning at the slightly disrespectful tone. But before the Prime could say anything about it, Alyssa noted, "You were the one to tell me to show the time zone. Kinda hard to show it from here, y'see, dude."
"Oh please, Optimus, are you seriously going to let this human talk to ime/i, the medic, like that?" Ratchet sighed.
"I was already going to note about that. Alyssa, you really should not," Optimus said.
"Okay, okay, I already got the message! I'll at least itry/i to not to be that disrespectful, okay? But, with all due respect, it doesn't really help at showing the time zone, right?" Alyssa said, keeping her tone in control.
"Well her attitude sure changes in astroseconds," Cliffjumper whispered to Arcee, grinning.
"And I don't think it's a very good thing. I wonder how her studies are going along with that," Arcee muttered, worried. At first, Alyssa has seemed like a nice person, but quick changes in her attitude had already started to worry her. Maybe it was not a good idea to take this girl to the team after all.
"Aww, come on, seeing that shortie verbally clashing with Ratchet is hilarious! Who could've guessed one so small could have so much guts?" Cliffjumper snickered.

Arcee did not answer. She did know that Cliffjumper, who probably had the biggest sense of humor in the team, tended to sometimes clash with the always serious Ratchet. But a human doing it, too? Arcee felt worried about how the situation would end.

This worried Bumblebee too. Therefore, he decided to end the tensing situation.
(I can lift you up, Alyssa,) he told.
"That would be very nice of you, Bumblebee!" Alyssa said, her bright smile returning. Bumblebee kneeled to let the small human climb on his hand. But when the Autobot scout lifted his hand, Alyssa did not manage to stay on her feet.
(Are you all right?) Bumblebee asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Even though I have a fear of heights…" Alyssa said, her voice fading away as she spoke. Ratchet decided to silence his scoffing this time. He felt that he would be scoffing a lot from this point on because of their human ally, and that probably would not do any good for his vocabulator.

It did not take long before Alyssa was already showing the right time zone.
"Well, the time zone is settled. But some more detailed location would be good", Ratchet noted. "The GroundBridge can't localize your memories and former whereabouts."
"I know. Get to the north with this map," Alyssa told.
"Can't you get any more detailed than that?" Ratchet asked. Even the time zone's northern part was huge.
"The country on the right of that smaller sea", Alyssa clarified, annoyed. Ratchet limited the map to show northern Europe and the most western areas of Russia.
"It's this one," Alyssa said, pointing at Finland.
"That small country? With such a big neighbor?" Cliffjumper asked. "Doesn't that encourage the big one to invade your area?"
"Finland and Russia have been in war way before I was born, but now we have peace," Alyssa told.
"So? A more precise location?" Ratchet interrupted.
"Yeah, sure," Alyssa said, a bit annoyed by the medic's interruption, and started to point out the exact location as the map got more detailed.

Suddenly a familiar ringtone went playing. Actually two of them.
"What's going on?" Bulkhead asked, bewildered.
"My phone! So, it was just turned off! Man, I hate it when it does this!" Alyssa said and took her phone out of her pocket. The phone was exploding with notifications about text messages and phone calls. And one of the incoming calls was still ongoing.
"I seriously have some adamant friends. My phone's gonna blow up with all this stuff!" the girl noted and turned to look at Optimus. "May I answer to this call? I think my friend has been trying to call me for hours."

Optimus nodded. He could understand that Alyssa's human friends had worried about her. The Autobot communications structure they had set up on Earth in tandem with the human communications system would keep their location hidden.
"Yeah, Selena? What's up?" Alyssa answered.
"Alyssa! Finally you answered! Why didn't you answer before?" Selena asked.
"Sorry, my phone was turned off. And it took a year to turn it on, as usual," Alyssa said, exaggerating the time her phone took to turn on.
"Oh, I see. Do you know about that tomorrow's biology test?" Selena asked.

Alyssa went pale.
"Wh-what biology test?" she asked.
"You didn't get the text message from Matti? He sent it to all of us," Selena told.
"How many pages do we have to read?" Alyssa asked.
"47," was Selena's answer.

Alyssa let out a shout of horror.
"Alyssa? You okay there?" Selena asked.
"I'm screwed by tomorrow, so yeah, I'm okay," Alyssa answered. "A migraine of the whole weekend doesn't save my hide from getting into that test tomorrow. Just damn, I haven't even done my homework yet and I have to study too? Oh man, I can't take this crap anymore…"

Alyssa tried to keep herself from sobbing or screaming in frustration. She had done her best in her studies, but her all-the-time-lowering biology grades hindered her grade point average. She hated her biology teacher and he hated her. The pressure seemed to inflate every week. And now it seemed to be too much.

On hindsight, it might have been the low blood sugar that made her feel so wrecked by the awful news.
"Maybe you should skip tomorrow's classes? I think Matti would understand…" Selena began optimistically, but Alyssa interrupted, "You know as well as I do that he won't. And I can't skip tomorrow! That asshole will never let me get away with it!"
"Well… Why don't you try to study and then ask me and Marie about the stuff before the test?" Selena suggested.
"Yeah, sure. I'll try to study a bit. Do you have any other news I've missed because of my phone which I should be aware of?" Alyssa asked.
"Nope. See ya tomorrow, then!" Selena said.
"Yeah, see ya," Alyssa said and hung up. She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her growing anger. But seeing her phone showing that it was Sunday and the time is 18.39, she could not encase her fury.
"THAT SONOFABITCH!" she screamed out loud. Her parents and the Autobots winced at the sudden explosion.
"Alyssa!" Alyssa's mother scolded Alyssa for her bad language.
"We had biology as the last lesson of Friday and that bastard didn't bother to tell about the test! No, he had to increase the phone bill, or maybe just ruin the weekend of the students! What is his problem?!" Alyssa raged to no one in particular, then fell silent, panting. She hardly ever yelled this much about anything at least in a single moment.

But whenever she did, it was almost certainly due to her biology teacher, Matti, nowadays. Alyssa had no idea why he hated her (no one had), but she countered his hate with her own since reason had failed to bear fruit. They had been sworn enemies for a year now.

And being kidnapped by alien robots and hurt by them was the opposite of making putting up with his animosity any easier.
"So, who is this person who angered you that much? If I may ask?" Cliffjumper asked.
"My biology teacher," Alyssa answered.
"Do you have some kind of disagreement with each other?" Optimus asked.
"Disagreement? Puh-lease. He's my sworn enemy by now," Alyssa answered.
"If you're enemies, why do you attend his lessons?" Ratchet asked, genuinely baffled by what he was hearing.
"'Cause he's the only biology teacher in my school and nobody cares. Everyone has to attend his lessons if they want to get diploma in this life and in that one school," Alyssa answered. "And if one wants to get a decent job or at least to postgraduate studies, one needs diploma from comprehensive school."
"So what is the human school system like?" Ratchet asked, partly interested in that subject. "Where do your scientists study?"
"It depends on the country. In Finland, everyone attends comprehensive school. Some industries need studies at vocational school, some need studies at high school. After that one can advance to university or polytechnic. I suppose scientists go to high school and then to university," Alyssa tried to describe the system in a simple way and shrugged then. "I dunno since I'm not into science that much. I prefer doing stuff with computers."
"Like what?" Ratchet asked.
"Programming, mainly. Some other stuff, too," Alyssa told.
"You sure have a big education system. We only have primary programming and then we either leave study in an academy or just go and get a job. I did the latter," told Bulkhead.
"Well that's easy! We just have years and years of studying; and most of the stuff either has no useful value in life or isn't what most people need later in their life! Like history, for example: how does it help you solve a difficult equation?" Alyssa said, jealous of the seemingly easier education system the Cybertronians had.
"History is important. When we know the mistakes our ancestors made, we can avoid repeating them," Optimus said.

Alyssa had heard this sentence before, but when a 9-meters-tall robot from outer space said that, she suddenly did not know what to say. It took nearly a minute before she found her usual note on situations kind of like this one, "You have your opinion, and I have mine." She was not satisfied with how bland the line sounded when she said it aloud to the Autobot leader who outranked her in anything that did not have anything to do with exclusively humans.

Alyssa could not help wondering how much older than her the Prime was. Or anyone else in the team, as a matter of fact.

Optimus merely nodded, not entirely happy with Alyssa's attitude. But, in the end, it was probably the best he would get in this matter. There was no point in arguing. Alyssa did not show it, but she was relieved that Optimus did not keep up the talk about history being important. She had already, as any casual slang-using student in her school would say in Finnish, "gotten served" by Optimus Prime.
"Well, I don't know about your timetables, as if you had anything set anymore with all this happening, but shouldn't you be going by now?" asked Ratchet.
"He is right," Alyssa's mother noted.
"Yes, if Alyssa has to do homework and study, we really need to get going," Alyssa's father said.
(Hey, can Alyssa come here tomorrow, then?) Bumblebee asked.
"Tomorrow?" Ratchet asked.
(Why not? She could teach us about this planet,) Bumblebee noted.
"I think it would be useful," Arcee noted.
"To be honest, I know some people can be jackasses, but if you're screwing up on the road so badly that many drivers show inappropriate hand signs often, you need to get some driving and traffic rule lessons!" Alyssa quipped.
"Alyssa, are you sure you should come here tomorrow?" Alyssa's mother asked.
"Why not?" Alyssa asked.
"Studying, perhaps?"
"The test is tomorrow. Matti never lets anyone, let alone ime/i, to get a retry on iany/i tests. Studying after the test will be useless."
"Well… I suppose it's fine then…" teenagers were difficult, and the previous year had already exhausted Alyssa's parents. They did not even bother to try anymore with their headstrong, do-it-yourself daughter. It was not worth the trouble to try to keep her from making bad decisions when she would do them anyway one way or another – and she would find that way no matter what.

The girl sneaking out of her window to watch a concert in the middle of the night about half a year ago had proven them that.

Ratchet and Alyssa both looked at Optimus, who looked at Alyssa and asked, "What time at your time zone we should GroundBridge you here tomorrow?"
"Hmm… Probably at 15.15. I think I've managed to do my homework and eaten something by then," Alyssa answered.
"And from where? I remember you implying you live in another place than where you need to GroundBridged now," Ratchet noted.
"Oh, yeah…" Alyssa said, pondering; it was difficult enough to show a house from the middle of nowhere, but a place with houses next to each other? Pretty extreme. "Can ya track human mobile phones from here?"
"Your primitive technology? If that's the best possible way to get the coordinates, then I'll see if I can make our scanners able to track down something as primitive as that," Ratchet scoffed.

He turned to the computer and did something on it. Alyssa did not understand the symbols on the screen; she thought they were some sort of code lines or just simply the language of the Cybertronians. After all, it was very unlikely that they would inot/i have a language of their own.
"Yes, if I get to scan your… device, I can track it down from here later," Ratchet told.
"That's good," Optimus said. "It can help us track you if the Decepticons attack you from now on."

Alyssa got her phone out of her pocket, truly intrigued about how such a different device could interface with her own. It appeared that the phone was about to die, which was nothing new; it had liked to go haywire and be uncooperative for a long time already. Ratchet scanned it quickly and checked that the tracking system was working.
"You're clear. Shall I open the GroundBridge now so that you'll get back home during this solar cycle?" Ratchet said.
"Go on," Optimus said. Bumblebee took Alyssa down from the computer panel and let the girl join her parents as the GroundBridge opened up, bigger than the humans had thought it to be. Optimus turned to talk to the humans, "I apologize for you being involved into this."
"No matter what I think about all this, I think you shouldn't apologize that. It's those who kidnapped us who should apologize," Alyssa's mother said.
"I agree, even though I don't want to get involved with this anymore. No talk about you from us and you stay away from our life… as much as you can when one of us has decided to spend time with you," Alyssa's father noted, glancing at Alyssa. The girl glared at him briefly.
"We will leave you be. But Alyssa, you we shall see tomorrow," Optimus said.
"I can't wait!" Alyssa noted, smiling joyously. "See you then!"

The humans disappeared into the GroundBridge.
"You know, that Alyssa sure has some guts, don't you think?" Cliffjumper said as the GroundBridge closed.
"I think it's not that good," Ratchet murmured under his breath.
"Bwaha! It's a shame that she's so tiny. If she was a Cybertronian like us, she could be one frag of a Wrecker!" Bulkhead noted.
"Or not," Arcee said grimly. "Who knows? She isn't like us. She can't fight the 'Cons. She can only help us conceal ourselves on this planet."
"That is true, but we must not dismiss her willingness to help us, even though this isn't her war," Optimus said.
"On the human scales she's still a youngling!" Ratchet noted.
(I was hardly anything more than a youngling when I joined the war. I think we shouldn't underestimate her, just like you didn't underestimate me back then!) Bumblebee noted.
"Well, we'll see how the things turn out," Arcee said. "We'll see…"

/Author's note: Transformers Prime (c) Hasbro, the humans of this story (c) Me/