(A/N) Okay, I'm now getting back into the swing of things with this story (I think), and I'm trying to make this chapter a little longer than the past three. Thank you to all of you that reviewed, and I've shut off that "signed review only" thingy so now everyone can write something. I watched that new Armada episode "Rebellion", and was I the only one who wanted Starscream to beat the living hoo hah out of Megs? Anyway, I hope that they'll show a little bit more of the Autobots in the next eppie. Enough ranting for this chapter.

DISCLAIMER: Still don't own Transformers Armada, still broke, so don't sue.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

CHAPTER THREE: THE RESCUE

"So, no matter what we do, those Decepticons will catch us?"

Sideswipe nodded. "Unless we run into the Autobots, the odds of which is practically zero to none."

" 'Autobots'?"

"They're the good guys, remember?"

"Oh yeah. You don't know where to find them by any chance, do you?"

"Nope."

"Great."

The D-cons' leader surveyed his troops looking for the Minicon, all of which were going in the direction opposite of our little hiding spot. I peered out from around the rock to see how far away they really were, which I knew I would regret doing in the long run.

"Caitlin?!" Sideswipe hissed in panic. "Get down! Do you want them to find us?!"

I was about to answer "Don't worry, they won't." when the leading Decepticon turned around and set his fiery orange eyes, er, optics on me. He sent chills up and down my spine, and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I dove back behind that rock faster than you could say "run", but the damage had already been done.

He grinned malevolently. "Change of plans, men," The leader said coolly.

"Why's that, sir?" the other Decepticon who transformed from a tank asked.

He didn't see me, I told myself silently. He did not see me.

"It seems we have company, Demolisher." He answered with the same malice, looking right at the rock we were situated behind.

"Oh great," I moaned.

"What?" Sideswipe asked me, oblivious to what had happened.

"I'll give you two guesses, and the first one doesn't count."

"They saw us?!"

"Yeah, and they're heading over here as we speak."

"I hate to say 'I told you so', but-"

"I know, I know, I messed up. I say we run for it. We'll have a little bit of a lead on them anyway."

"They'll still catch us!"

"I'm not gonna sit here and just give up. I'll give them a run for their money before they ever lay a hand on me. Now are you commin' or not?"

Sideswipe paused for a moment, sighed, and transformed into his motorcycle mode. "Get on," he ordered.

I smiled. When I met Sideswipe, he was a very cautious Minicon, but only after a day, my tenacity and courage was rubbing off on him.

"So there's a human behind that rock, what good is a human if they don't know where a Minicon is?" the clumsy-looking tank-bot, who I now knew was named Demolisher, asked his leader.

"You fool, don't you know how soft those Autobots are? If we have a human in our possession we could exchange them for their Minicons!"

"Very wise sir," the helicopter Decepticon said in a voice dripping with enthusiasm. "If you don't mind, Megatron, I'll go get that human for you."

I scoffed. "Suckup."

"Go ahead Cyclonus. But if you fail at this you will regret it."

"I won't fail you, Megatron, sir! Catching a human should be no problem!"

"That's what he thinks," I added under my breath.

"So which way do we go?" Sideswipe asked me.

"Straight ahead."

"But we'd be going towards them! What good would that do?"

"If we wait until they're literally on top of us, and go between them, it'll buy us some more time to escape."

"Oh, I see," Sideswipe said, finally understanding my logic.

"On the count of three, okay?"

"Alright."

"One…"

"Come out, human!" Megatron's booming voice commanded.

"Two…"

The Decepticons' footsteps were getting closer and closer. Cyclonus' shadow had eclipsed the rock by now. "If you come out from behind there, we'll let ya live a little bit longer."

"Three!!"

At my mark, we tore out from behind that stone, and went right between the Decepticons' legs. As I had hoped, it took them a good few seconds to turn their huge frames around, and by then we had a decent head start.

"Hey!" Cyclonus shouted plaintively. "Get back here, you little runt!"

"After that human!" Megatron roared. "She's got the Minicon!"

"Yes sir!" they responded in unison.

I looked over my shoulder, and saw Cyclonus and Starscream revert into their vehicle modes.

"Oh great!"

Remember that little line about getting a head start? Forget it. What the two aerial Decepticons lacked in ground maneuverability, they compensated for in the air.

"Sideswipe! You have my full permission to gas it!"

"This is as fast as I can go without overheating!"

"Can you out-maneuver them?"

"If there were a few of what you humans called 'trees' it would be possible, but without any of them to use as cover, I doubt it!"

"Perfect," I said dryly. But something bothered me: where were Demolisher and Megatron?

I looked over my shoulder once again to find myself staring right down the barrel of a very big cannon, mounted on a tank. Megatron. And right next to him was the other tank-type Decepticon, Demolisher, both of which were having no problem keeping up with Sideswipe and I. That's when things started to get frantic. Cyclonus and Starscream began to pelt us with laser missiles.

"They're shooting at us!" I shouted angrily. "Those creeps!"

One shot was only feet away from my left side, and the shockwave nearly made us wipe out.

"We're doomed!" Sideswipe cried frantically.

I hated to admit it, but I was thinking the exact same thing at that moment. Instead of showing my fear, though, I tried to snap Sideswipe out of his negative attitude by refusing to accept our fate. But as we came to a fork in the road, I forgot that the left trail had been the target of a very nasty rockslide, and was a dead end. It was too late by the time I had realized my mistake, and I knew I had sealed our fate.

"If you give up now, we'll spare your pathetic life. Just hand over that Minicon and we'll let you go," Megatron cooed.

"Never!" I shouted back over my shoulder. "You can never have Sideswipe!"

We came around the final curve of the trail, and I found myself looking straight at four more giant Transformers.

"This was a setup!" I yelled, finally panicking. "They wanted us to come down this trail!"

I tried making Sideswipe bank a sharp right, but he kept going straight.

Right towards the other Decepticons.

"Are you nuts?!" I asked incredulously. "If you haven't noticed, there are more of them straight ahead of us!!"

No answer came from my Minicon, and we continued towards the other four Transformers. When we had covered about half of the distance to the new 'bots, the ones I had been so "politely introduced" to came around the corner. Sideswipe and I were still being pelted with ammo from Cyclonus and Starscream, but none of the bullets were actually hitting us.

"I love target practice!" Cried Cyclonus gleefully as he unleashed another round of fire on me.

"Get a new hobby, creep!" I answered back.

Suddenly, Sideswipe hit a sinkhole, sending the both of us careening through the air only to crash down onto the earth again.

"Ow…"

I picked myself up in time to see Cyclonus transform in mid-air, and drop down right in front of me. I was too dazed to run, much less stand, but after shaking my head a few times I was able to see the Decepticon clearly. He reached down, and out of the corner of my eye, I caught a blur of yellow. One of the new Transformers slammed himself into Cyclonus, knocking him off balance and throwing him to his big metal butt.

"Back off!" The yellow and orange newcomer shouted.

"Go park yourself, Auto-boob!"

Sideswipe cheered. "We're saved!"

"Sideswipe, what is going on?!" I asked my Minicon friend, who had already transformed back into his humanoid robot mode.

"These are the Autobots! Megatron can't touch us now!"

"You!!" Megatron shouted angrily once he saw his adversaries. "Why do you foolish Autobots always have to get in my way?! If you knew what was good for you, you would back off and leave us to our own devices."

One of the larger Autobots stepped forward. "Not this time around, Megatron. We won't let you capture another innocent Minicon to use for your evil purposes."

"I won't will I? Well, let's see about that!" Megatron then transformed into his robot mode, followed by the other Decepticons, Demolisher and Starscream. The two Decepticon grunts rushed forward and engaged two of the Autobots in combat. The Autobot leader and Megatron locked hands, neither of which were about to budge or back down.

"Hotshot," the red, blue, and white Autobot grunted as he tried to shove Megatron into the mountain wall. "Get the human and the Minicon to safety."

"Yessir," the yellow and orange Autobot answered as he knocked Cyclonus to the ground a second time. "Red-Alert! Cover me!"

The navy and white Autobot who was exchanging fire with Starscream nodded. "Go!"

As the huge Transformer approached, I had the strong urge to run, but Sideswipe put a hand on my shoulder to quell my doubts. "He won't attack us."

"Are you sure?"

Sideswipe was about to respond when the Autobot named Hotshot reached us. "You should listen to your friend. I'm not here to hurt you." He answered as he scooped my Minicon and I into his hands. However, I looked behind, and saw Cyclonus pull himself to his feet, than take to the air in his vehicle mode.

"Behind you!" I cried.

Hotshot turned to see the Decepticon dive upon him, and, with a deafening blast, was sent to the ground a third time, thanks to his comrade, whom he called Red-Alert.

"This is not my day," Cyclonus muttered, his face in the dirt.

Like he should talk? I said in my mind. I just wanted to live my life as a normal person but nooooo, I get dragged into this.

He hauled bumper to a nearby ledge that overlooked the battle, where three kids and three Minicons were standing. Right away I recognized them. They were a couple years younger than me, but they definitely went to the middle school that shared the same building as the high school. As far as I knew, they were a close-knit group that hung out together every chance they got.

"Hotshot? Did you get the Minicon?" a boy with blond hair asked as we neared them.

"Sure did, Rad. But, uh, I think we're all gonna have a bit of explaining to do once this is over," He answered, looking down at me with his blue optics.

Just so long as I don't have to do any explaining, I thought silently. After all of this, I really don't feel like talking.

Hotshot set me down on the ledge gingerly, and then returned to battlefield. Just in time, too, because the stocky, orange and blue Autobot who was fighting Demolisher wasn't having an easy time.

"Ya need some help, Smokescreen?" Hotshot called out to him. Cyclonus wasn't about to get up and start fighting any time soon, so he had nothing to worry about.

The battered Autobot glanced at him with his red optics for a moment. "I'm fine. Just keep them from getting that Minicon. Liftor! Let's go! Powerlink!!"

At his command, a Minicon attached himself to the base of the lift crane mounted on his right shoulder, and what appeared to be a laser cannon swung forward. Demolisher took three steps back before Smokescreen fired, flooring him instantly. And he didn't get up. Ouch.

"That's gonna leave a mark," I said under my breath.

Now I knew why the Minicons were so valuable.

"Give it up, Megatron! You won't get the Minicon this time!" The apparent leader of the Autobots said, contempt ringing in his voice.

The head D-con growled. "As much as I hate to admit it, you're right, Prime. Decepticons, retreat."

And in the blink of an eye, they were gone. I let out a sigh of relief.

I was safe.

Sideswipe and I hugged each other merrily. "Yay! Those creeps can't get ahold of us now!"

"Look at 'em run!" Hotshot crowed. "That wasn't even a fight!"

"Speak for yourself," Smokescreen mumbled, nursing a rather nasty gash on his arm. "Hey, Red-Alert, can you fix this?" He winced in pain as he tried to move it.

"Once we get back to the base, yes. But I think we have another problem," he answered, turning around to look at me.

"Yes," The leader (whom the kids had called Optimus) agreed as he did the same.

Great. Attention. Just what I don't need. I hate being put in the spotlight. But I was just a tad bit more worried about what they wanted to do with me than about my social phobia.

"Aw, cut it out, guys!" Hotshot spoke out, waving his hand dismissively. "You two are freakin' her out by acting all serious and stuff."

That's when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It wasn't Sideswipe, but it was one of the kids who seemed to already know the Autobots. Beside her stood an orange colored Minicon. "Don't worry. These guys just want to help out."

I nodded absently. I still couldn't believe something like this was happening to me. It was more than I wanted to believe, actually. I guess I'm just a sucker for this sort of stuff or something, but I always seem to find myself in one crazy dilemma after another.

"So, should we go then?" Smokescreen asked finally.

"Let's move out," Optimus answered.

"We wouldn't want to forget about them, now, would we?" Hotshot inquired, heading casually over in the direction of the ledge we were situated on. He then held out his hands, allowing my Minicon and I to step onto them. Lowering me to the ground, he again set me down with the utmost care, and then proceeded to do the same for the other kids.

"Thanks Hotshot," one of the other kids said. He had darker skin than the other two, with curly dark hair and brown eyes.

"Don't mention it. Now let's get out of here before those Decepticons change their minds."

Simultaneously, all of the Autobots reverted into their vehicle modes: an eighteen-wheeler, a hot-rod, a rescue vehicle, and a crane truck. The eighteen-wheeler (who happened to be Optimus) pulled around to the other three kids and their Mincons, and opened his door. They all clambered into his cab with ease, although it was quite a distance above the ground. Snapping me out of my thoughts, Hotshot came up on my right and opened his door.

"Can I offer you a ride?" I could almost hear the grin in his voice.

Sideswipe nudged me towards him. "Go. He's no Decepticon, and besides, he saved the both of us."

"Okay," I answered sheepishly, and then climbed into the driver's seat.

By the time Sideswipe and I were set, the other three Autobots were already moving back up to the good trail, which I concluded would lead them to their base.

"You ready?" He asked me.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Sometime during this cycle, Hotshot!" one of his comrades called back.

"I'm commin', I'm commin'. Don't blow a fuse already!"

I giggled. I couldn't believe myself. I had been chased by giant bad robots. I had been saved by giant good robots. I was riding back to their base in a giant robot.

And I was giggling.

I must be going crazy…

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

(Author's note) Ugh, this took me forever! God! I started this on Tuesday and it's freakin' Friday! ::bangs her head on the wall:: damn my writers' blocks! Damn my writers' blocks! Damn my writers' blocks! Just tell me if it's good or not. And I'm thinking of making this flashback into an actual story. If you like that idea tell me, k? Buh-bye!!! ^_^