Chapter 5

(1st person Lauren)

One second I'm walking towards Jazz so that he can take me home from work to be with my siblings, the next I find myself running for my life. Not what I expected to happen on Tuesday, an otherwise ordinary day besides now knowing that there was life on other planets. Well, at least one other one anyways.

I'm not sure how it happened but Jazz was easily defeated by the Decepticon he was fighting; the former grabbed me, transformed around me and strapped me into the back seat with both seatbelts.

"Starscream to Barricade, do you have that flesh creature?" a voice asked over the radio.

"Affirmative Commander Starscream but she is being uncooperative." My captor, whose name I now knew, replied.

I had in fact been trying to get out of the seatbelts and kick the back doors open but so far I was unsuccessful so I stopped.

"Knock her out; we do not need her telling the Autobots about the location of our base." Starscream stated.

I don't know what it was that Barricade put in the air but it did put me to sleep for several hours according to what I found out later. Just before I passed out, I began thinking that this was going to be the end of me…

(1st person POV Darcy)

Note #2

It has hard to believe what has happened to us kids over the past few days but it is so amazing at the same time. Today, us kids got home, took several outfits of clothes, our school stuff, and our food out of the house since Optimus Prime suspected that the Decepticons had probably figured out where our home was by now and it would no longer be safe for us there. Now we are at the Autobot base, waiting for Optimus, Ironhide and Bumblebee to get Lauren back to us.

To keep my mind off of things, I've been thinking about how Ratchet explained to me about how Cybertronians are made of living metal and are not limited to Earth technology. Needless to say, it was a bit scary how similar their method of reproduction was to that of organic species but there a few key differences plus according to the Autobot medic, not nearly as messy as far as the "birth" goes. That made me think of Marcy's favorite underrated movie *batteries not included and how the "robotic" species in that movie also had a similar way of reproducing like non robotic species only the "birth" method being the newborn "robots" just exiting the "womb" after the metal plating on the female Fix-it just opens . Needless to say, that is not the only aspect of Cybertronian "biology" that I'm interested in. Maybe Ratchet will tell me more about it such as homeostasis, what they eat for food, etc.

(Sometime later)

Ratchet has explained that he fears that Lauren will be subject to extremely nasty torture. I don't want to know if that's sexual in nature although that's not likely since, as Optimus Prime explained it, they look down on humans and probably wouldn't want to bother messing with certain parts.

I didn't want to admit that I was scared but Ratchet still knew that I was. He stepped out of his role as medic temporarily and gave me a friendly hug, maybe the only thing good so far today. I'm still hoping that Optimus, 'Hide, and 'Bee get my oldest sister back here alive and in one piece…

(Optimus Prime's POV)

"Like hell I'm going to tell you where the Autobots' ship is located."

I heard Lauren say that as soon as Bumblebee created an open comlink. Surprising as her resilience was, I was very surprised to hear what Knockout had to say.

"Pity, I might just have to force it out of by getting into certain places."

No, I thought to myself. I did not know where those parts on a human were but I knew that there were times that Decepticons would touch femme prisoners inappropriately no matter what the species as a torture method, usually they did not do much worse than that with few exceptions. Lauren shouted "You get your hands away from there!"

That was when I heard her screaming. "He wouldn't!" I wanted to believe that as I said that but knew that it was false.

"Prime, we got to get her now!" Ironhide said.

I wasted no time following him onto the Nemesis; from what I could tell from mostly hearing gunfire over the comlink, Bumblebee was already engaging the Decepticon. Ironhide and I came to assist; I picked up Lauren, whose clothing had been removed and transformed around her to drive her back to our ship while my two teammates held the enemy off.

"Optimus thanks for getting me out of there." Lauren was embarrassed to be seen without anything covering her however, I was mature enough to not look at those parts and instead focused on driving. I knew Marcy had packed several outfits for her sister in a suitcase so she would have something to put on once we got there.

I took a blanket out of subspace and she put it over herself.

"Lauren, what did they do to you?" I asked.

She replied "Well, Starscream he tried to throw me against the wall when Bumblebee came in-I wound up hitting Bumblebee before he caught me and now my head hurts." She rubbed her head for emphasis. "I don't want to talk about what Knockout did."

"Do not worry; we are almost to the ship."

"Prime, we're retreating now and we're on our way, ETA is 20 Earth minutes." Bumblebee told me, now having switched the comlink to a closed connection.

"Thank you both of you." I told them.

I could only hope that Ratchet could take care of Lauren, physically and emotionally once I got her to him. Those who attack anyone via inappropriate touching and/or forced interfacing, especially those too young to understand what it is, are weak and cowards though I am not surprised that the Decepticons have stooped that low…

(Neutral 3rd person POV)

Lauren was now being examined by Ratchet. She had hated that she could not have clothes on again just yet but was cooperating with him.

"Knockout touched my breasts and punched me thinking that I had somehow contacted all of you when I didn't once Bumblebee stopped him from doing worse things." The human girl admitted, after having told the Autobot medic that he had a headache.

Ratchet scanned her. "Having hit your head is the most serious of your injuries fortunately." He said. "You may get the clothes Marcy left in here for you on now."

"Thanks." Lauren was helped down from the medical berth and then she put the new clothes on. After she had gotten on every piece of clothing, she put on her shoes and took a small bag of ice from Ratchet and held it against the back of her head as she walked back to the main room of the ship.

Emerald saw Lauren and then asked "Anything else you want to talk about?"

"No." the human teenager replied. "I just want a hug."

Lauren's siblings all came to hug her. She accepted this and then asked "So, where are we going to sleep tonight?"

"We do have a spare room where you can put your sleeping bags on the floor." Jazz replied.

"Awesome!" Brandon shouted excitedly, going to put his stuff in the room. His siblings followed and then Bumblebee went with them to show them where it was.

Optimus Prime sighed then looked to Ratchet. The Autobot leader then spoke to the medic. "If Lauren had been raped or worse killed, I do not think I could forgive myself. I barely got there in time."

"Prime, she and her siblings are safe now. As we know that the Decepticons were planning to blow up their home, we have them all here and they will be better protected." Ratchet reassured him.

"Anyways, we got the kids here just in time; I intercepted an emergency call for an explosion." Ironhide added.

Optimus wondered. "How long should they stay here? I find myself getting more attached to them, Kayla thinks of me as a progenitor, father as they would put it…I do not want the kids to have to have a creator bond with me as a Cybertronian having a bond with an organic has severe effects on the latter species."

"Prime, whatever is meant to be will be." Jazz said. "If they've got to stay with us permanently, we'll all help with caring for them. "

"Thank you all of you; I will inform the mayor that the children are safe and that they should be allowed to see if anything of theirs is salvageable." The Autobot leader stated. He then went to Teletran-1 to do so, wondering if he would be the right person to be a parent to 8 younglings who were of a different species than he was…