When Alice awoke a few weeks later, the first thing she noticed was the dull pain in her back. It was as if her whole body had been destroyed and rebuilt… "Mommy…" She called out, almost worried her carrier hadn't made it through the crash. She smiled when she felt Lockdown's hand ghost over her helm before reattaching her visor. "Mommy, you look different… What happened to my vocalizer?"
"It's okay, sweetspark… We both had a lot of damage and I got a complete armor reformat…" Lockdown answered as he ran a hand over one of the horns on her helm, making her giggle. "You needed to become techno-organic to make it. I'm sorry…"
Alice sat up and caught her reflection in the mirror. She looked… Pretty. Her helm was shorter, there were long spikes that made her look a bit older, and she had wings. "I like it, Mommy…" She said, smiling up at Lockdown, who smiled back, happy his daughter enjoyed the way she looked.
A few days later, Alice went to go begin her classes with Absolem, the caterpillar, who was teaching all the children. Lockdown was going to train with the soldiers, so someone needed to watch her. She was shy, having never interacted with any sparklings her age, and learned just how mean they could be. After being teased for the fact that she wasn't fully robotic and then the fact that she was most likely the child of defectors from the Decepticons, Alice had run off in the middle of the lesson on the Jabberwocky.
"Oh dear… Mallympkun, can you go after her while I lecture these miscreants?" The small femme nodded and ran after Alice, smiling as Absolem began to educate the other youngsters on the fact that there were actually more techno-organics on Underland than normal mechs and femmes.
"Awice?" Alice turned and looked at the other femme as she walked up. "It's okay. Dey waugh at me too… I'm Mawympkun."
"I'm Alice…" Alice smiled and wiped her cheek, trying her best to stop crying. The two girls talked for a few minutes before a loud roar sounded.
"We shouwd go…" Mally tried to get Alice to follow her back into the woods, but the other femme was enchanted by the sight of the Jabberwocky as it climbed over the ruins and came closer.
"Hello…" Alice smiled at the creature, already knowing what it was. She was glad that the real Jabberwocky wasn't like the one in her book, it was prettier.
"Now, what are two… children doing this far from the safety of their parents?" The Jabberwocky asked as he looked them over. Both were techno-organic, and one smelled like his species… Carefully picking up Alice with his teeth, he carried her over to the top of the ruins. "Let's see if you can fly, young one." He said before pushing her off.
Alice let the air stream past her, wings pressed to her side. She had seen Earth vids of birds doing this, and at the last possible second, spread her wings and turned. The tip of her left wing skimmed the water as she banked before pulling upward. The Jabberwocky laughed as he flew close by, ready to catch her if she tired. Mally simply sat and waited, and a few hours later Lockdown and Tarrant showed up. Alice was soon spending every afternoon flying with the Jabberwocky as she built up her strength.
As she grew older her lessons began to include sword fighting and some circuit-su that her carrier taught her. Alice and Mally were in the same classes for both, and the two girls were constantly making the other laugh. The stellar cycles went on, with Lockdown losing most of the use in his left leg when Alice was around 16 for a human. After that he mainly worked in the library, shelving books and scrolls that Absolem could no longer look after so they could be preserved. Around this time was when Alice realized that she had feelings for her childhood friend, and it was soon obvious that Mally felt the same, but a tad nervous about the whole thing. Yet Alice always made the nervousness go away… It would be years before any other bots from Earth came to Underland, and when they did it wasn't long before Alice felt once again left out.