The one thing that Sawyer hated about plane rides that lasted more than three hours was the fact that her body always locked up and it took ages for her to get rid of the cramps in her legs. She did all that she could to prevent it, wearing compression socks, drinking plenty of water, getting up and walking around the cabin every so often - but it always ended the same. Sawyer left the plane with a slight limp, cursing her body as she tried to work out the kinks in her neck. Diego Garcia was gorgeous, yes, but also extremely hot and humid. She didn't expect anything different, of course - it was an island after all. Humidity definitely wasn't her favorite thing in the world, but she could handle it well enough. Once her body grew accustomed to it, that is.

"Dr. Neal! So glad you've come." A voice she vaguely recognized shouted over the roar of the plane. The tar-mac was extremely loud, wind whipping her hair around her face and making it even harder for her to hear. Shoving her hair behind her ears, Sawyer looked around for the person that had spoken to her. A tall, blond man wearing a military uniform walked up to her.

"Major Lennox, I presume?" she asked, holding out a hand for him to shake. He did so quickly, then adjusted the military cover on top of his head so that it wouldn't be blown away in the fierce wind generated by the aircraft on the tar-mac.

"That's me, it's nice to officially meet you," he said. "If you'll follow me, there are a few things we need to get out of the way before you can have access to the base." Turning around, he began walking towards a smaller, more secluded building that was set a distance away from the large aircraft hangar that they were standing in front of.

Sawyer followed him quickly. Looking around, she was in awe of just how many buildings she could see on the relatively small island. There was the aircraft hangar that the plane had landed near that looked as if it could have fit her entire apartment complex in it, a large building that she assumed was where the soldiers were kept seeing as how she could make out a few coming and going from the large sliding doors, a smaller building that Lennox was currently leading her towards, and a few other large buildings placed sporadically farther down the island. She wondered just what this base was being utilised for, to be needing so many large buildings.

A large boom interrupted her thoughts. Spinning around, she was met with a large cloud of sand and dust rising over one of the buildings that was quite far from her current position. Turning back around quickly, she saw Lennox talking into a radio, the earpiece connected to his uniform making it so that she was unable to hear whatever he was being told. He gave a sigh, shoulders slumping down slightly. "Those damn twins…" he grumbled under his breath.

"Uhh...Major Lennox, what was that?" she asked. He shook his head, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Don't worry about it. Some of our personnel are uh…" he trailed off, wondering exactly how to phrase the fact that they were aliens with a penchant for troublesome pranks. "They like to cause trouble," he said finally. "It's nothing that harms others, and their commanding officer will take care of it."

"Okay…" she said. Admittedly, Sawyer was extremely confused. Already this military base was unlike any that she had encountered before. Not that that was necessarily a bad thing. If anything, this base seemed a lot more lax in how their soldiers and personnel carried themselves. Especially if some were playing pranks that caused that loud of a boom!

"Anyway, if you'll follow me here, we can get the last of the paperwork finalized and then start introducing you to everyone," Lennox said, opening the door for her. Taking a deep breath, Sawyer followed him into the room.

Looking around, she was greeted with a large, open space filled with desks. To her surprise, there weren't that many people in the room. The few that were briefly looked up when the two entered, then quickly went back to whatever they were doing. Sawyer was led through the large room into a smaller room at the back of the hangar. Lennox sat at the large desk that filled up the majority of the room, gesturing for her to sit across from him. "Okay, so now that you're officially on base, there's just a few more things that you need to sign and that we need to go over before I can start introducing you to everyone and showing you around," he said.

"Even more paperwork?" she joked, putting her backpack down by her feet. "Okay, let's get this over with."

"Yeah, especially because you're not actually military personnel, there's quite a few hoops we had to go through to get you here," Lennox told her. Sawyer's eyes widened slightly with shock. They did all of that because they wanted her here? Weren't there other options that were actually enlisted? Why, then, did they decide to bring in a third party that wasn't even a part of the military? She decided to ask him this.

"So why did you want to bring me in so badly?"

"Well my superiors have pretty high standards, especially when it comes to the care we provide our soldiers," he told her. "And you're quickly becoming the next big name in the medical field, after all. We couldn't possibly let this opportunity go." Lennox then pulled a decently sized stack of papers out of one of the desk's drawers. "Okay, so this is your official contract," a large packet plopped down onto the desk in front of her. "And these are the last NDA's that you'll have to sign before we can continue."

Sawyer sighed to herself, sinking down into the large desk chair she was sitting in. While she definitely wasn't looking forward to signing even more paperwork, she did understand why she had to. The military had all kinds of weird secrets that normal civilians couldn't know about lest it cause mass panic. She had to admit, she was pretty excited to figure out why this island was so exclusive. Granted, she was also pretty nervous. What kind of situation was she getting herself into here?

"Okay, after you sign these, I can finally tell you about our little operation here," Lennox told her, sliding the NDA's over the desk to her and handing her a pen. "Understandably, if for any reason you leave this island before the duration of your contract, you are not authorized to talk to anyone about anything that you see on this island. Should you choose not to renew your contract, you are not authorized to talk to anyone about anything that you see or learn on this island," Lennox said, his eyes staring into her soul it felt like. "Basically, no talking to anyone about anything."

Signing the papers quickly, Sawyer nodded to him. She was more than ready to learn what she had to in order to do her job to the best of her ability. "I'm ready!" she said, smiling at him. Lennox smiled back, his demeanor relaxing a little bit as he reclined back into the chair.

"Okay, what I'm about to explain might be a little hard to comprehend. I'm going to have to ask you to stick with me here and I promise that I can prove everything that I'm about to tell you," he told her. Getting slightly nervous, Sawyer leaned forward in her chair. Resting her arms on her knees, she gave her full attention to Lennox.

"I'm listening," she said.

"Do you remember the Mission City incident that happened two years ago?" he asked.

"Yes of course - I was called in to help with the casualties," she replied. He nodded, shuffling some papers around.

"Do you remember what people were saying caused it?"

"I mean I think the official story was something about a gas leak? I know that people were saying all kinds of stuff about it though," she said. Sawyer remembers all of the conspiracy theories that came from the incident, things about aliens and government conspiracies and she thinks she remembers something or other about lizard people in there too.

"Well you'll find that some of those conspiracy theorists were actually right," Lennox said as he slid a piece of paper with a grainy photo on it across the desk towards her. Picking it up Sawyer saw a picture of what looked like...a giant robot? It was huge, easily coming halfway up the buildings around it. Large black cannons were fastened on its arms, glowing red as they primed for an explosion. Bright blue...eyes? Were narrowed in concentration as he stared at something that was out of view to the camera. Eyes widening, Sawyer's eyes flicked from the picture up to Lennox and then back.

"You're joking!" she exclaimed. "This is...are you serious?" Laughing incredulously, she sunk back into the chair. "Giant robots are what caused it?"

"They're called the Transformers. There's two factions, the good guys - or the Autobots, and then there's the bad guys, or the Decepticons," he told her. "What caused the Mission City incident was a fight between two alien species that had an artifact on earth fighting over it. Their planet was destroyed because of this war and so they came here. Don't ask me why they chose Earth out of all of the planets in all of the galaxies but they did. After the Mission City incident, the American military decided that it was best to team up with these Autobots and try to hunt down the Decepticons that remained here.

The Autobots have quickly become our allies and friends, and I'm sure that you can understand why it's imperative that the general public doesn't know about them. Their leader, Optimus Prime, is one of the people that wanted to bring you onto the team, by the way," he told her. Sawyer could do nothing but blink at him for a few minutes, just taking the time to process everything she was just told.

"So...aliens?" she asked.

"Aliens," Lennox told her.

"This is...this is wild, man," she said, running a hand through her ponytail. The major laughed slightly.

"Yeah I know what you mean. At least your introduction to them is in a controlled environment like this. My introduction was fighting off a Decepticon shaped like a scorpion in the middle of the desert," he told her. She shook her head, placing it in her hands. "Take your time, I know it's quite a lot to process."

"I'm just….aliens?!"

"Yes, aliens," he laughed. "Now that you've signed all of your NDA's and we got the contract stuff worked out, what do you say to going and meeting Optimus Prime?"

"I...that sounds awesome," she said, jumping out of her seat. Swinging her backpack over her shoulders, Sawyer followed Lennox out of the small room, a smile growing on her face. She was about to meet the leader of an alien race. What had her life become? Not that she was about to complain about it, she just couldn't quite believe what she was about to get herself into.

All of the NDA's and other paperwork definitely made sense now, however. Obviously, something as big as fucking aliens was going to be a secret of the highest priority. Even if the people kind of knew about the existence of aliens, it was another thing entirely to have the government confirm the existence of aliens, y'know? As the two of them walked across the island towards one of the biggest hangars that she could see, Sawyer had to remind herself to breathe. But also… she was about to meet the leader of a race of gigantic robotic aliens.

"I believe that Optimus is currently in the med bay with Ratchet, that's the Autobot's CMO by the way," Lennox informed her. "Ratchet is someone that you will also be in quite a bit of contact with as he also helps Dr. Evans oversee the human personnel." They walked through the door into the hangar and once again Sawyer was in awe of just how big everything on this island was. The ceilings on this one building had to be at least forty feet high. "So this is the Autobot's hangar," Lennox said as they walked through the large open space that was currently empty. The two walked through a set of double doors that were as tall as the building, Lennox scanning a badge and the doors opening for him automatically.

"I've told you that if you get yourself hurt during training one more time today than you have to deal with it yourself, Sideswipe!" a cranky voice said as soon as the doors opened. Sawyer got her first look at an Autobot as she walked in. A large robot (she really had to figure out what they called themselves - knowing that they were sentient beings made calling them robots feel inconsiderate) was sitting on the biggest hospital bed that she had ever seen. He was huge, his armor colored red and blue, and she could see flame designs that reminded her of race cars and semi-trucks on his lower legs and shoulders. A slightly smaller one was behind him, fiddling with what looked like wires. This one was colored the shade of lime green that was common in search and rescue vehicles in certain areas, and she could vaguely make out the words 'fire' on one of the legs.

"Ratchet it's me, and I brought the new doctor in to meet you guys," Lennox said, a wide smile on his face. Sawyer could just tell how much love and respect he carried for these beings by the smile he had on his face. It made her excited to get to know them.

"Oh, well in that case…" Ratchet trailed off, looking over Optimus Prime's shoulder at them. The blue and red robot was already looking at them, and if Sawyer could name the look on his (?) face she would say that it was...gentle.

"It's nice to meet you both, my name is Dr. Sawyer Neal. I'm excited to help out in any way I can," she introduced herself.

"Dr. Sawyer Neal," Optimus Prime said, his deep voice resonating with her soul. "Welcome to the team."

A/N: Uhh...Hi? I know that it's been forever and I'm sorry about that lol. A lot of shit has happened in my personal life that made me not want to write at all. I'm moving next week so I wanted to get this chapter out and give y'all something before I was busy with a new place. I didn't proof read this at all so if you see any issues with it please let me know!

As always, thank you guys so so so much for the reviews. They really do mean the world to me and they definitely motivate me to continue this story. A big, big thanks to Lill E D, MayTylers, TomRiddlesTwin, EatsBooks, inmemoryofblue, Teletraan, Storygirl747, Shelbyzz, and SilverStorm5. I love you all so much!

Hopefully the wait until the next chapter won't be this long lmao. See ya later!

-WW.