Disclaimer: What? Who's Michael Bay? Steven Spielberg? Hasbro? Never heard of 'em! -sounds of guns being cocked- Ohhh… You mean that Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg, and Hasbro! Well… they own Transformers… not me…

(3/20/08) Author's Edit: Came back, tweaked a few things. Nothing major.

- - - Set in Motion - - -

Chapter 3

His world was spinning again.

Sam groaned, resisting the urge to crack his head open on the nearest rock (which was sitting exactly twenty-three point seventy-two feet away). He tried to remain as still as possible, leaning against the tree he had propped himself against and barely moving while he tried to slow the onslaught of information. However, that didn't mean the world around him would stop as well. No matter how small, he couldn't escape the slightest detail. Every breeze that sifted through the leaves of the trees brought with it a library of information. As it ghosted over him, he could tell which direction it had come from, its temperature, and how many miles it traveled within the hour. It carried with it the smell of damp earth and he knew it had rained up north, near the mountains. He could hear the sounds of every animal, from the padded steps of a prowling fox to the heartbeat of the mouse, unaware of the silent threat. From far away, he could hear the occasional car traveling along the back roads, their engines thrumming, whistling against the wind. He could smell the gasoline and almost taste the pollution excreted from their exhausts.

He closed his eyes, trying to block out the constant feedback. Only, the information changed from giving him a report of his surroundings to his own bodily functions--a majority of which he didn't understand in the slightest. A dull throbbing that had been insistently pounding away at his skull escalated to a sharp pain behind his eyes. Strangely, Sam felt like it was alive. It felt like it was constantly moving, running wild inside his head as it touched and explored. It radiated curiosity as it handled every thought and every memory he had, turning it over and studying it before it threw it aside like a child growing bored with its new toy, moving onto the next thing that caught its interest. When it reached a dead end, it charged right through, bashing its way through as easily as a relentless river behind an old dam. He pushed back, struggling to keep his dam steady.

It held.

Barely.

Sam opened his eyes again and the world snapped back to him with an audible "CRACK" of clarity. He knew the tree he was leaning against was exactly eighty-four years old, three feet three inches wide, and twenty-one feet tall. He knew how many different kinds of shrubbery and plant life made up the forest around him. He knew exactly where a fox had buried the spoils of its latest kill and how deep it was buried. He knew in approximately fourteen minutes, two blue jays that had found a home in a seventeen year old pine would soon be tending to the hungry mouths of four healthy chicks. Hell, he could count the number of pine needles in every God-forsaken pine tree. Silently, he promised a horrible, long, drawn-out death to the gray squirrel that clambered down the side of a thirty-three foot tall evergreen, dug up its winter stash of acorns and pine nuts beneath five month old pine needles and leaves, then scurried back up its tree to the little burrow located fifteen feet from the ground, blissfully unaware of Sam's threat.

All of this and he sill had no idea where he was.

Mind you, he knew what he was.

Oh, it didn't take a genius to figure out he was no longer in his own body. Constant feedback about said body had told him that much and he could put two and two together on his own quite well, thank you very much. That, and he was pretty close to sure this wasn't a common human trait--unless it was some form of puberty Health class hadn't thought to cover. He could already hear the overly-enthusiastic announcer from the many black and white educational videos they had watched on the ancient film projector... "So, you're receiving information about your body and parts you never knew you had? Congratulations! You've officially become an adult or clinically insane!"

Wonderful.

Yet none of this information could tell him how he had become an Autobot. He'd already tried to recall what had happened before, but his headache had gone from a dull aching, to a stabbing pain behind his eyes, and then a sudden white light. He hadn't tried again since waking up on the forest floor, the sun already beginning its westbound descent.

Just as the thought of picking up a nearby rock (the very same he'd thought of using on his own cranium) and chucking it at the energetic squirrel (who was still busy unearthing his winter harvest), consequences be damned, an unexpected spike of information froze all thought.

He would know the sound of Bee's engine anywhere.

They moved with surprising grace in their bulky forms, traveling as a single unit with such agility it would have put a team of Hollywood stunt drivers to shame. They then jumped off the road and continued over the bumpy terrain as smoothly as if it were asphalt. Drawing closer, engines rumbling, they paused only when he forest became too thick for them to move in. Then, they rose, unfurling out of their deceitful forms like a butterfly's wings. Not as graceful, nor as beautiful, but certainly something otherworldly.

He had no idea whether Autobots needed to breath or not (the thought had honestly never crossed his mind…), but Sam felt all the air rush from his body like he had taken a powerful swing to the gut. Vaguely, he felt the 'thing' move again, dropping whatever it had found and turning its attention on him. Sam didn't move, his body as weightless as it had been in Mission City, falling from the cathedral, the All Spark clutched tightly to his chest as Megatron swung, missing him by mere inches as the statue plummeted to the streets below, taking him with it.

Optimus was there. Metal twisted and turned, creaked, clicked, and whirred. It all fit together like an intricate master piece, made of alien metal and his favorite childhood colors. The ground shook and moaned underfoot, untouched by even human feet. The branches crackled around them, some snapping with a loud "CRACK" as they gave way to the strain of behind bent at an angle. Large feet stepped between the trees, followed by another pair. Ironhide was less careful, his black bulk brushing against every branch and pushing away what got in his way with less care than his leader. He was grumbling something about leaves and twigs in unkind places. Bumblebee followed closely behind, moving between the trees much more easily, shifting with the practiced ease of the scout he was between the branches.

When they reached him in the small clearing they stopped, though Bumblebee seemed to brim with worry as his optics watched Sam. Despite still adjusting to Autobot facial expressions and alien body lingo, Sam could tell his guardian was tired. His door wings seem to droop a little lower, as did his shoulders, like his armor was suddenly much too heavy. His optics, while they still glowed their brilliant blue, flickered occasionally, as if struggling to keep his optics focused. Behind it all, however, there was firm determination. He would not give up. No matter what.

He really had worried Bee… Guilt washed over his relief and he found himself angry at himself for causing Bumblebee to worry.

"Sam?"

He had relaxed, if only for a moment, but it was enough. Somehow, he had tuned out the flow of information. He had been focusing on Bee for so long his mind had stopped trying to process anything else. Broken out of its stupor, however, his mind seemed to flick back on with the turn of a switch.

Everything rushed back.

The dam held… then cracked.

And all hell broke loose.

Sights, smells, textures, sounds, colors, temperatures… all of it jumbled together into one writhing mass of… everything. There was no way to explain it. It overwhelmed him. He could sense everything in perfect clarity.

It was as if he had taken a picture with a high tech camera and then looked at the film. Somehow, he noticed all the detail he hadn't looked at while standing there. The camera had brought his attention to everything around him. He saw every shift of movement before it joined the mass of sensations. He could feel every texture, the tree, the earth, the rocks, the leaves, even the caress of a stray breeze. The smells of earth were overpowering… living, breathing, dying… and the sounds. Oh god, the sounds sounds sounds sounds! Everything. Like paint, it ran together, shifting, morphing into one amorphous mass of sensations. He was scared. He didn't want to become a part of it. He was Sam. He was his own person. He was Sam!

The white light was back, along with a loud ringing in his ears, but this time, he didn't black out. No, there was no mercy as his mind tried to keep up, overtaxing itself as he strained to keep up with the onslaught. It failed and tried again. It failed and then tried once more. Again and again, failing, crashing, falling. It simply couldn't keep up.

A shriek, his own, tore itself from his voice box and the forms around him stepped back. Their shock was palpable in the shifting air. They spoke to one another, whether aloud or through his own head, he wasn't sure. It all jumbled together, whirling around him like a storm. Somehow, through it all, he could hear his guardian…

"What's happening to him! Optimus?"

"Calm down… nothing we… do……"

'Stop.'

"-Ratchet, report.-"

"-I don't… his system is…… data………fluctuating………can't handle……overload.-"

'Stop it… Shut up.'

"-How can we stop it?-"

"-…working on it…… override…………shutdown…-" Fingers were prodding at his brain, poking around like his headache had. Only these were much more careful, moving over some things and only touching certain parts of his brain.

'Stop it!'

MANUAL OVERRIDE COMPLETE

INITIALIZING STASIS SHUTDOWN

Fatigue suddenly washed over him and Sam found his panic grind to a screeching halt. It was as if someone had simply turned it off, like turning the valve of a water facet. It trickled out of him, like rushing water turning into a small stream, thinning as it continued to drain. The world around him seemed to slow down and his brain slumped in relief. He no longer felt like he was in his own body, but at the same time, knew he was in it. He could liken it to his times at the dentist when they had given him a gas that had made him sleepy and sluggish. Everything had faded out, and what he could see was covered in a haze of pink. Was he back in the dentists? Had he eaten too much junk food while staying up at Miles's house again?

':W-w-what wrong with you:'

'Hmm?'

':D-d-danger.:'

SYSTEM OVERRIDE

He was about to ask who he was talking to (or at least tell Miles he had a speech impediment) when he was abruptly yanked out of the pink clouds surrounding him and thrust back into his body. The world around him swung back into view, tilting ever so slightly before righting itself. The movement around him didn't stop. No, it was a constant variable, ever changing.

Yet… something was different.

"He's back online?"

"I thought you said Ratchet shut him down manually?"

His weapons were offline, his arm cannon disabled. Only one thing had been overlooked.

"Are you alright, Sam?"

His optics swiveled to land on the yellow figure standing a ways in front of him. As his optics met the other's, the yellow one started forward slowly, as if afraid he would bolt at the tinniest sudden movement.

"Sam?"

How foolish.

- - - -

To say Bumblebee was shocked, would be the understatement of the millennia.

One moment, Sam had been sitting still, optics dim and not even transmitting so much as a signal. (Bumblebee had feared Ratchet's emergency manual override had been too much for his processor to handle and may have permanently offlined the boy.) The next, bright blue optics flickered online to stare back at him.

He had approached, cautious that Sam might run again.

Then, the huddled form had brandished a set of blades on each forearm and lunged with such a ferocity that Frenzy would have been proud of.

Despite Sam's size now being a little less that three quarters to his own, he was still very much surprised when the much smaller mech had tackled him, sending them both toppling to the ground with an earth-shaking thud and loud crunch of metal.

Then pain.

It was minimal, compared to what it could have been. It was the fact that the 'could have been' had only been three inches from losing his right arm. The three metal spikes connected to Sam's forearm had slipped under his armor, disappearing beneath the metal and coming dangerously close to a vital energon line underneath his shoulder joint. It had, luckily, only slid across the under armor, missing the line and grazing across metal before lodging itself in a crevice of his armor.

With a heave, he rolled to the left, grabbing Sam and throwing him a ways, lest he crush the smaller. The bot seemed to anticipate this, however, and coiled in on himself in the air, contorting into a ball of twisted metal. He then landed on double-jointed legs, feet connecting with the earth and causing him to backslide across the rough ground until sharp-taloned feet caught in the dirt. One arm came down to steady himself, causing the blue mech to look very much the part of an aggressive linebacker as he charged one again, blades swinging, gaze set solely on Bumblebee.

So intent on his target, he noticed the large sweeping hand too late. While it may have only meant to deter him, the bot was once again airborne for a second time, his landing lacking the same grace as before when the back of his foot caught on a stray tree root. For a moment, his arms spun, long limbs pin-wheeling in a comical attempt to regain his his balance, before gravity took its hold and yanked him back into a bush.

Bumblebee stood, watching the bush warily. "What the Pit was that?"

Optimus seemed to think along the same lines. It had been his hand that had knocked Sam into the bush, and he stood slowly, turning to look at Ironhide who already had both cannons at ready. "-Ratchet?-"

"-I saw, Optimus.-" The medic's voice was grim, hard-set as he likely watched through Ironhide's optics. "-However, I can't diagnose the problem from here. Bring him back to the base.-"

Ironhide scoffed, bringing one cannon up to bear when the bush began to rustle with movement. "-With the kid on the fritz like that? Why not just shut him down like you were supposed to?-"

The were a distinct icy air over the communication line, anger flaring briefly before it cooled to a dangerously calm tone. "-I just did that. What you're looking at it the repercussion.-"

This seemed to throw the weapon's specialist and one large gun tilted slightly. "-You're telling me the kid's already in stasis?-" He shook his head, disbelief in his tone. In human terms, the kid was sleep walking!

"-According to his signature readings: yes.-"

"-Then how is Sam still mobile?-" Bumblebee interjected, worry once again seeping into his voice.

He didn't get an answer, however, as the bush parted to reveal a set of glaring optics. The small bot swiveled his head suddenly, blue optics narrowing as the whine of a charging cannon met his audio receptors. His gaze landed on Ironhide, who had trained one very large cannon on a much smaller mech.

He sneered, "Don't move, punk."

Sam seemed to consider his options, glancing at Bumblebee, to Optimus, and finally to the black mech and the large gun pointed at him.

Then promptly fell to the ground, unmoving.

For a moment, there was silence. The forest around them was quiet. The only sound was the constant hum of machinery from the three large figures.

Ironhide let his canon slide back into its hiding place and cocked his head.

"Well... That's the first time they've ever listened."

End Chapter