Here's chapter three! Hope you guys enjoy!
Look in my profile and at the long list of characters at the bottom. Pick one and be the first to message me with a particular character and said story for particular character will be dedicated to you!
Thanks to:
Shadow 1n2 - Aww, that's sad. What kind of dog is it? I have a kitty and she got scared by the fireworks, too. In our little community place, they set off fireworks right behind the retention pond and stuff.
warriorkat21 - Haha! Your slag shall not be bothered XD I will make a point to continue this because I'm planning on having this go through all three movies.
Tibli - Haha that makes me feel powerful. You squeaked, like out loud? That's just a funny image in my head. Thanks for reviewing!
Mic Mov - Thanks for reviewing! Yeah, I wanted to introduce Lennox and the others and thought it would be a good break from the storyline if I added what was going on in other parts of the world as well. =D I have some sad things lined up for Bee and Arianna. I actually had a dream of this story last night lol
Chapter Three
The Grade
Arianna's breath was caught in her throat. The destruction around her was great, but the ship seemed to be in one piece.
"Arianna." A slightly familiar voice caught her attention as she turned to where the voice was coming from. She recognized the shape and form of the mech bending down to look at her, but his name was just on the tip of her tongue.
"Jolt?" she questioned and smiled when the bot nodded. His facial places stretching to allow him to smile the best he could.
"What happened, Jolt? Where are the others?" she questioned as she looked at the destruction on the ship. Judy had caught her talking to Sam about her last dream and had, once again, explained that the robots were just a figment of her imagination, but then she had brightened and told Arianna that she should write a book about her dreams. Perhaps they were just mere figments of her imagination, but she felt something when she was talking to them. She felt like she belonged.
Maybe it was a good thing she had met with Jolt. She had found this strange mark that appeared on her skin the other day.
"The ship was damaged and was not able to travel very far. We are now stationed on a planet in your solar system called 'Mars.'" He said before making a few whirs and clicks. She had found out a while ago, after asking Ratchet about it, that the whirs and clicks were their native language – the language of Cybertron. "The Special Ops team has been sent ahead, but Bumblebee should arrive on Earth before the others." That shocked Arianna so much that she remembered his injury from her other dream.
"Bee! What happened to him? Is he alright to travel?"
"I am unsure. The Special Ops team left right after the attack." Jolt said, narrowing his optics as he scanned her body. "I am sensing a flux in your energy signature. Has something happened to you?" he softly questioned. Jolt was one of the shyer Autobots.
"Um…well, there's this mark that appeared on my shoulder." She said in a confused voice. She shrugged off the shirt she was wearing – she had a tank top on underneath it – and showed him the mark on her shoulder. Jolt vented hard – it resembled a gasp of some sort. "What? What is it?"
"You have…the mark of the Allspark on your shoulder." He breathed very softly, "It is a rune that symbolizes the Allspark's power of communication. Perhaps that is why you 'dream' of us…as you say. If you have come in contact with the Allspark, its radiation must have granted you some of its power. I must confess, however, that I am surprised you haven't died from the radiation." He said. I just shrugged my shoulders, remembering the small piece of rock that shocked me when I was little.
"I found this small rock when I was little and it shocked me. It was more like a shard, really. Do you think that might have been part of the Allspark?" the red hared girl questioned, tilting her head to the side.
"I am unsure. I would have to see it to confirm it. Ratchet would have been able to tell you more…he is pretty old, even by Autobot standards." Arianna chuckled – Jolt had just made a joke! The girl sobered quickly enough – she felt like she was waking up.
"I'm waking up, Jolt. It was nice to talk to you." She said with a smile.
"As it was to talk to you, little one." Jolt said, lifting his facial plates once again in a smile. Suddenly, the world flashed white…and Arianna awoke.
The red haired girl sighed as she thought about her dream. She lied awake in her bed for a few minutes before forcing herself to get up. Those dreams are just so real and the mark on her shoulder had just appeared so suddenly…but if it was a mark of the Allspark, like Jolt said, why did it just appear now? Had it just taken time for the radiation to set in?
She had no time to think about that now. She and Sam had their projects due today.
Their history class was an odd one – it was also Arainna's least favorite class. Why? Because the one person she hated more than anything was in it. Trent. Even though he had a girlfriend, Mikaela Banes, he still insisted on hitting on her. It was just…disgusting.
"Okay, Arianna Witwicky. You're up." the teacher said, pointing to her. She gulped, obviously nervous. She was the only person left before Sam, but that didn't mean she wanted to go before him.
"Alright…My name is Arianna, but I was adopted into the Witwicky family. My real last name is Fletcher…and I traced my family back to old England. There are several people on my family tree that are interesting, but the one that is the most interesting is just named Robin. He lived in a place called Locksley…and was called Robin of Locksley. He was poor, but he worked closely with King John in the Crusades. Some referred to him as 'Robin Hood.'" She said as some of the people in her class gasped.
"I mean, there are several rumors that he and Robin Hood are one and the same, but they're only rumors. Robin Hood is a myth, but the man he was based on was real." She said, pulling out a few of her mother's things. One was a broach handed down through her family and the other was an old document tracing her family's name. "It is unclear if it was forged or not, but back then…nobody was really sure who anybody was. He could have been made up for all I know, but at least I have the document to prove that he was real in the village's eye."
Her entire presentation took a whole fifteen minutes. They had been presenting the entire week so her presentation was about average. Sam was up next as their teacher marked down her grade.
"A." he simply said as he nodded towards Arianna. He wasn't really grading for content – he made them write down sources that he could check so he knew that they actually worked for it.
"Okay…Mr. Witwicky, you're up." Sam cringed as he stood and went to the front of the class with his backpack.
"Sorry, I got a lot of stuff." He said as he dumped out his backpack. Mikaela smirked and leaned over to Trent, who whispered for her to watch. He drew back a rubber band and flicked it at Sam right when he started to begin his presentation.
"For my family genealogy pr…" he trailed off as the rubber band hit him in the neck. It stung, but he didn't say anything.
"Who did…who did that?" their teacher shot up, glaring around the room. That meant that the teacher was paying no attention to the class whatsoever. "People! Responsibility." He said, shaking his finger before he sank back into his chair.
"Um…" Sam stuttered, fiddling with his hands as he turned back to the class. "For my family genealogy report…I decided to do it on my great-great grandfather, who was a famous man. Ah, Captain Archibald Witwicky. Very famous explorer. In fact, he was one of the first to explore the Arctic Circle." He said as he opened up a map of the Arctic Circle. "It was a big deal. In 1897, he took forty-one brave sailors straight to the Arctic Shelf. So that's the story, right?" he questioned as he looked to the bored faces of his classmates over his map.
"And here we have some of the basic instruments of the nineteenth century seamen." He said, getting laughter and giggles from his perverted classmates. Arianna pursed her lips and glared at her classmates, but it did little to get them to calm down. They were still laughing when the teacher held up his 'quiet' sign.
"This here's the quadrant." Her adoptive brother explained as he held up the piece of equipment. "You can get it for eighty bucks. It's all for sale by the way." Arianna didn't really approve of Sam selling his ancestor's stuff, but it couldn't be helped, "Like the, uh, sextant." That provoked another series of giggles and laughter and yet another glare to the other students from Arianna. Their teacher lifted his 'quiet' sign once again, but it didn't do anything but make the students laugh harder.
"You can pay fifty dollars for this. It's a bargain." He said, shuffling through all of the items he brought for the presentation. "These are pretty cool. These are my grandfather's glasses." He held them up and Arianna gasped. The glasses flashed in her mind and the mark on her shoulder grew hot. It was almost unbearable.
Arianna? Optimus questioned in her mind. This was the second time he had been able to speak with her, but this time he was concerned. It was like he knew that she was in pain.
Arianna, what's going on? Optimus demanded in a slightly louder voice.
'I…don't know.' she said, 'The mark on my shoulder…hurts. It started to hurt when Sam held up his grandfather's glasses.' She said with a wince.
Mark? What mark? Optimus demanded again. He hadn't known of any mark on her. And what about those glasses triggered it? But she didn't answer him. The mark on her shoulder grew even hotter and she had to struggle not to cry out from the pain.
"I haven't quite gotten them appraised yet, but they've seen man cool things." Sam said as he held the glasses up to the light. It was then that she saw the strange markings on them. They were the same marks that were on some of the surfaces of the Autobot ship.
'His glasses have Cybertronian characters…' she breathed, not intending for Optimus to hear her, but she heard him gasp in her mind.
"Are you going to sell me his liver, Mr. Witwicky?" their teacher questioned. "This isn't show and sell. This is the eleventh grade. I don't think your grandfather would be particularly proud of what you're doing." Sam gulped and shot a look at Arianna, eyebrows quickly furrowing when he realized that she was in pain. Sam had always been protective of the red haired girl and, even though others around her might not notice it, he could tell when something was wrong with her.
"I know, I'm sorry." The brunette teenager said in an absentminded tone, "It's all going towards my car fun – the fund I'm sharing with Arianna so if you don't want to give me money, do it for her." He said in a light tone, "You can tell your folks, it's on e-bay…, cold hard cash works, too, a-and the compass makes a good gift for Columbus Day!" Sam exclaimed as he tried to reel in some potential buyers.
"Sam." The teacher said and the brunette teenager apologized.
"Unfortunately, my great-great grandfather, the genius that he was, ended up going blind and crazy." Sam held up some newspapers with some weird symbols on it – the same symbols on the glasses. Arianna's mark flared up again, even hotter this time, and she heard multiple voices in her head.
Optimus, what's wrong with Ari? That was Ironhide. He sounded worried for such a big and strong mech.
Yeah, what's up with de lil lady? And that was Jazz.
If I were there, I could scan her and get to the bottom of the problem. There was Ratchet.
But no Bumblebee. But, she did hear some whirring and clicking.
'I can hear you guys, you know.' Arianna said with a sigh and a wince.
Arianna…I still don't know how this is possible. You are speaking to us when we are communicating with our internal systems. Optimus spoke with deep worry and curiosity lacing his voice.
This…is most curious. Ratchet said, a deep curiosity coating his voice as well. A few sad clicks and whirrs echoed through the connection, but she could almost feel the worry echoing through the link.
'Yeah, but the link makes my mark burn and it hurts a lot!' Arianna almost squeaked when the heat spiked once again. Class was almost over and she would be away from the markings.
If it hurts yeh, lil lady, then we don't want yeh t' do it. Try t' ignore us. Jazz said, obviously worried as well. Arianna's lips twitched upward into a smile. Leave it to them to worry about someone not of their species. They haven't even met face to face…and she didn't know if they were real or not, but she would see in time. If what Jolt said was true (depending on whether or not he was real as well) then they were coming to Earth soon.
'I can't just ignore you guys. You're my friends…' she trailed off when Sam started to speak again.
"He ended up going to a psycho ward, drawing these strange symbols…and babbling on about some giant iceman. He thought he discovered…" but he was interrupted when the bell ring. Sam put away everything and as suddenly as that, the pain disappeared…but so did the voices of her friends.
Was she going insane?
"There might be a pop quiz tomorrow, there might not! Sleep in fear tonight!"
"Fifty, forty, thirty!" Sam said as he held up the case with the glasses.
"Sam." Their teacher said in a frustrated voice. Arianna stood with a sigh, brushing back her short wavy hair and pinched the bridge of her nose. If Sam managed to get an A from that, they would get a car…but that meant that they would have to go car shopping and she had a headache starting to form.
"So, pretty good, right?" Sam questioned with a grin on his face. The teacher, however, didn't think so.
"Uh…I'd say a solid B minus." He said, shooting down their dreams of getting a new car.
"Oh no…" she whispered, sad.
"A B minus?" Sam said in disbelief.
"You were hocking your great-grandfather's crap in my classroom." Their teacher said.
"Kids enjoy – look, can you do me a favor?" Sam questioned, having the teacher look out the window to Ron's car. "Yeah, well let me tell you about a dream. A boy and a girl's dream. And a man's promise to those kids. He looked us in the eye and said 'bring me three As each and two thousand dollars' okay? Well, I got the two thousand dollars. I got the two As and Arianna, as smart as she is, already has three As…your B minus?" Sam said as he stared at their teacher, "Poof, dream gone." He said.
"Sir…just ask yourself…" he thought for a moment, but Arianna came to his rescue.
"Sir…what would Jesus do?" she questioned.
