And so life continued, Alana continued to go to school, and even though Mrs. Winkel wasn't satisfied with Susan's report she remained silent. The bell rang signaling school was over, Alana ran out of the class room in record time. She rushed towards the gleaming black truck in the parking lot. Just before she had reached it the door swung open, Alana giggled and threw herself into the passenger seat.
"You're excited" Ironhide said. His holoform was sitting in the driver seat, he was smiling at her.
"WEEKEND!" Alana shouted, she threw her hands into the air and waved them wildly.
Ironhide laughed "Yes it is!" he began to drive away, when Alana stopped him.
"Ironhide?" Ironhide stayed where he was.
"Yes Alana?"
"Can we go to a park?" Alana asked, she had brought her hands together and had her big puppy dog eyes on. Altogether it was the perfect begging expression.
"I suppose" Ironhide said thoughtfully, "Yeah, we can go to a park"
"Yes!" Alana pumped her fist into the air.
Ironhide laughed once more and contacted Optimus, he told him that he and Alana would be a little late coming home. Then he drove on over to a big park, with swings, monkey bars, tire swings, and almost everything was climbable. Once stopped, Ironhide allowed Alana out of his cab and turned on his holoform. He walked after the running child, smiling as she first went on the swings. Well not on the swings but she began to climb up the pole holding the swings. Alana made it halfway up when she looked down and saw that ironhide was so far away. She frowned and began to climb down to him. once down she grabbed his and led him toward a swing. There she sat down and told him to push her. Ironhide did as he was told. As Alana went higher and higher she gave of little excited shouts.
"Higher!" she laughed. Ironhide laughed at her excitement, not entirely sure how she got so much entertainment out of the swings. He kept Alana swinging for a while and then went to sit on the swing next to her.
"Ironhide" Alana shouted as she swung back and forth past him. "Like this, she showed him the proper swinging technique and when Ironhide began to swing she laughed. They swung together for a few minutes but then Alana of course grew bored, so she stopped trying to make herself swing higher and waited for the swing to slow down a bit. And so while still swinging, Alana jumped off of the swing. She landed perfectly on her feet. Then with another laugh she ran towards the monkey bars. Ironhide stayed on the swing perfectly content to watch his little girl have fun. As he watched her he noticed a bright light far off in the distance, Ironhide recognized the object immediately.
"Alana" he shouted. Alana stopped climbing the monkey bars and hung, she knew from Ironhide's voice that something was wrong. "Come on we have to go" Alana did as she was told, though a little bit disappointed that she had to stop playing. Once in the cab and the seatbelt safely around Alana, Ironhide revved the engine and shot off for the base. Alana sat silently knowing that Ironhide was thinking.
Good guy, bad guy, good guy, bad guy. Ironhide kept thinking, after a moment of fretting, he realized that it might be a good idea to notify Optimus. So he opened a com link with Optimus.
"Sir?" he started.
"Yes Ironhide." Optimus' calm voice came through on the other end.
"We have a problem" Ironhide said. "I spotted something falling from the sky, it looked like one of our kind"
"Do you know if it is an Autobot or a Decepticon?" Optimus asked, his voice had an edge of concern.
"Negative" Ironhide said.
"Bring Alana home as fast as you can and we will try and find out who it is" Optimus cut the conversation short.
Ironhide feeling a little better, picked up speed and raced on home. While they were driving in the countryside, steadily getting closer to the base, Alana's voice pierced the silence.
"I-Ironhide" she sounded uncertain.
"Yes Alana" Ironhide asked softly.
"Is it Ok?" She asked.
"Yes everything is gonna be fine" Ironhide assured her "I'll protect you"
"Oh" Alana sounded happier "Ok" she smiled a great big smile.
Once at the base, Ironhide let Alana out and told her to go to her room. Alana did as she was told, and so off she went to her room. Alana's room was fairly big, she had a big Queen sized bed in the middle of the room. There on top of the bed were her Buzz Lightyear sheets, and her big fluffy stuffed animal, which was a Kangaroo. All around the room were LEGO sets. Alana had a strange fascination with building and taking apart things. The Autobots had found this out when she had taken apart the toaster which they had bought for her. Needless to say all electrical appliances were put up high so that she could not reach them.
After a bit the Autobot's had found out that LEGO was meant to be taken apart and built up again, so they bought her a few sets to see how she would react. Alana loved it and she soon had a huge collection of LEGO sets. Now Alana wasn't one of those people who built the sets and let them be to collect dust, she built them and then had big battles in her room, destroying all her sets. Then with out any instructions she would built the sets back up or combine different sets and make bigger and better spaceships or guns. So Alana sat on the floor happily playing with her Slave 1 Star Wars set.
Meanwhile the Autobots had gathered in the monitor room. This room had screens on the walls and large keyboards against them. This room could connect to any camera, or any computer they wanted it to connect to. On one of the screens there was a smoking pile of metal with strange symbols on it. It was in a forest and had started a small fire around it.
Ratchet was studying the screen with a focused look.
"I can't tell Optimus" he said after a moment. Optimus stayed silent for a moment. Everyone else in the room also stayed silent looking at Optimus expectantly.
"Bumblebee" Optimus finally said.
"Yes sir?"
"I need you to go pick up Sam, and bring him back here. He needs to be ready to spend a few nights here" Optimus gestured for Bumblebee to go, Bumblebee left without another word.
"Ratchet, and I will go to the crash site and figure out who he is. And if need be we will use force"
Ratchet nodded "Understood"
Ironhide made a noise "What about me sir?"
"You need to stay here and take care of Alana. She cant be left home alone" Optimus told him. "Come on Ratchet" Optimus walked out of the room followed by Ratchet. Ratchet before leaving gave him a sympathetic look, and then left.
Ironhide cracked his metallic fingers and walked out as well. Though he was disappointed he was no able to go out in the field he knew Alana had to be taken care of as well, and she mattered more than some time out of the base shooting someone. So he walked on over to Alana's room and listened for a moment. There was silence until Alana started screaming.
"Whaaaaaa!" Ironhide made a move for the door. "Sir, we're goin down! AHHHHH! BOOM!" He heard the sound of LEGO pieces being smashed to the ground and heard Alana giggle. "That's it men, the enemy has been destroyed." Ironhide smiled as Alana broke out into cheers and laughs.
And so as the sounds of LEGO pieces being shifted through sounded from inside the room Ironhide walked into the room to see Alana had separated the room into two bases. Each had their different starships, airplanes, boats, cars, and tanks. The LEGO people held onto many weapons.
"Hello Ironhide" Alana said happily, she was holding a bunch of LEGO pieces which would soon be a new vehicle to use in her up coming war.
"Hullo Alana" Ironhide found a spot in the room with out LEGO and sat down. Then his optics powered down and before the giant robot a Holoform stood. Ironhide's holoform could be considered handsome; he had dark hair, which was cut in an army style and electric blue eyes. He body had no fat anywhere he was basically pure muscle. "Can I play" he asked, his holoform sounded just like himself in robot form except for the metal edge.
"Yes" Alana waited for Ironhide to navigate his way throughout the many LEGO sets towards her. Once he was next to her she told him to begin building. The two built in silence for a few moments.
Once their machines were built they took the time to examine the others inventions. Ironhide immediately saw that Alana had built a spaceship with hidden guns along the sides, they could be seen when the hinge LEGO pieces were moved to the side. Ironhide had built a jet with a one big massive gun, just Ironhide's style. Once done assessing the others set, they got to the best part- the war. There were a lot of sound effects and shouting crashing and yelling, and in the end it was Ironhide who lost. His jet came crashing to the ground and exploded in a wave of LEGO pieces.
Alana laughed and dropped her spaceship as well and ran over and hugged Ironhide.
"Thank you for playing with me"
Ironhide laughed "you're welcome" after a moment he asked "Alana, you hungry"
Alana broke away from the hug and threw her hands high into the air "Yeah!" she shouted. Ironhide laughed and led her out of her room towards the kitchen.
Meanwhile Optimus and Ratchet were driving at top speeds down an old country road. As numerous rocks pelted their paint jobs they drew closer to the crash site. Ratchet could see the smoke, and as they drove closer and closer he grew even more nervous. It had been a few years since he had fought anyone, so he was feeling a bit rusty. Ratchet made a memo to himself to train with Ironhide.
"Use caution" Optimus warned Ratchet as they pulled to a stop. They transformed simultaneously, and in the forest the sounds of grinding metal and shifting sounds could be heard for a few short moments.
Ratchet had his saw out and ready and Optimus held a defensive stance as they headed on over to the robot. The robot was still in its travel mode, meaning it looked like a lump of metal. But as the two Autobots drew closer the metal began to shift, morphing into a robot. Optimus and Ratchet stood ready from combat, but then they noticed a familiar Autobot sign and they physically relaxed. Once the robot was fully transformed it looked around for a moment and then gave off a gasp.
"Hey, cool, what's all this green stuff" the robot picked up a tree and ripped it clean from the ground to take a good look at it. "Cool" he said after a moment.
Optimus made a sound which sounded like a cough and the robot looked at him. if he had been human he would have been blinking.
"Oh Optimus Prime!" He said after a moment "Nice to meet you sir!" he stood at attention and waited for Optimus to speak.
"Its seems you know my name but I do not know yours" Optimus said, he sounded some what amused.
"Oh! Sorry sir! My name is Fireflight of the special team Aerialbots" he saluted
"Aerialbots?" Ratchet said "I've heard of them, there are five of them and they all combine to make a robot called Superion" Ratchet walked forward and held out his hand "My name is Ratchet by the way."
Fireflight took his hand and shook it "Nice to meet you!" they let go, and Fireflight looked around eagerly.
"So" he said excitedly "What planet am I on?
"Earth" Optimus said plainly. "How did you get separated from your team?" Optimus asked.
"Well you see we were flying around when all of a sudden BAM! We get attacked by Decepticons." He waved his hands for emphasis "so ya'know there was shooting and fighting and a lot of trading of insults and then some dumb decepto-creep hits me from behind and well im out of it. And the next thing I know im here" he paused "Cool eh?" as Optimus and Ratchet were left to digest what had been said Fireflight walked on over to a rock and picked it up. "What's this?" he asked no one in particular.
Optimus made another coughing sound and grabbed Fireflight's attention, "we the Autobots on earth, have a secret base here and I would invite you to use it and stay there."
"Yah!" Fireflight said eagerly. "I'd like to stay there until the others find me"
"Also," Optimus added "We need to stay hidden, the inhabitants of this earth are not used to use and are frightened easily. I implore you to take one of the forms of their machinery and stay hidden among them"
Fireflight nodded "Uh huh sure I can do that"
Optimus gestured to Ratchet "Ratchet will give you a few choices for you to transform into."
Fireflight looked at Ratchet eagerly. Ratchet projected an image of a few vehicles and Fireflight chose almost immediately of all the images shown. He chose a nice and spiffy jet plane. It looked to be an army type and seemed to be his style. Once he scanned it he transformed and flew up high into the air.
Optimus opened a com link with him and told him to follow them. Fireflight agreed and soon they were driving and flying to the base.
Bumblebee had picked up Sam and they had returned to find that Ironhide had somehow flooded the Kitchen with popcorn, and he and Alana were sitting on the floor eating it quite happily. Bumblebee and Sam also joined them, and soon the two humans were getting hyper off the popcorn and fizzy drinks out of the fridge. As Ironhide laughed at the two humans frolicking in the popcorn, Bumblebee inched on over to him.
"Ratchet's gonna kill us for feeding Alana and Sam bad food" he muttered. Ironhide had picked up a big portion of popcorn in his robot mode and had dumped it over Alana who was trying to get the popcorn out of her shirt. Ironhide was laughing when he responded to Bumblebee.
"Who cares, its good to let loose once in a while"
"I suppose" Bumblebee sighed as he dumped popcorn over Ironhide.
"Hey" Ironhide and Bumblebee were soon throwing popcorn over each other as Sam and Alana sat down on the kitchen table to watch. Alana was laughing while tears ran down her face and Sam was cheering on Bumblebee.
"What in the All-spark is going on?" Optimus' voice came from the door way, all paused and all heads turned to look at Optimus. Ironhide and Bumblebee dropped their popcorn and stood up. Sam and Alana also felt obligated to stand up.
Then suddenly Ratchet's angry voice came as well "what sort of crap have you been feeding Alana and Sam!?" he shouted.
"It's good tasting crap" Ironhide mumbled. Bumblebee nodded in agreement with Ironhide.
"I don't care if it tastes good" Ratchet began to trudge through the popcorn towards the two bots. "We have to keep them healthy." He snarled.
"Ratchet!" Alana shouted. Ratchet turned to see Alana doing jumping jacks. "I'm healthy, see"
Ratchet shook his head "that's not the point Alana." He watched as Sam began to do push ups.
"I'm healthy too" he shouted.
Ratchet turned to look at Bumblebee and Ironhide who were staring at the humans happily, but when they saw Ratchets stare they stopped smiling and put on a serious face. He was about to scold them when a new voice came in "What are those pinky things?" everyone's head turned to look at a red and beige robot, his face was hidden by a protective mask.
"Uh, who is this…?" Ironhide asked, he was leaning over to get a good look at the robot .
Optimus smiled "Everyone this is Fireflight" everyone said 'hello and then Optimus began the Introductions to Fireflight, once all of the Autobots had been introduced they came to the humans. "… and this is Alana" he gestured towards her "…and Sam"
Fireflight crouched before them "so these are the inhabitants of earth"
"They cal themselves humans" Ratchet told him.
"Humans, eh? They're cute" Fireflight held out his hand for Alana to climb on, she looked at ease with him.
Sam on the other hand was outraged "Cute!" he cried "Any word but cute! I mean I'm cool" he pulled a supposed cool pose "and awesome" another pose.
Fireflight began to laugh "and they're funny too"
Optimus started to talk "he is a new member but I expect you to treat him kindly"
"Yes sir!" everyone said including Alana. With a happy nod Optimus walked off.
"Say little human" Fireflight asked, it sounded like he was excited.
"Yah?" Alana stared up at him with big eyes.
"Can you tell me what you are made up of?" Fireflight asked the little girl.
"Uhhhhh" Alana's eyes went bigger, and she was frowning obviously thinking quite hard "well, I think we are made up of humanness, or something like that. I dunno" she lifted up her hands.
"Oh." Fireflight sounded somewhat disappointed. "You! Larger human"
"Me?" Sam pointed to himself.
"Yeah, can you tell me what humans are made up of" Fireflight asked, there was a bit of hope in his voice.
"Uh, not really, I think we are mostly water" said Sam "Or at least that is what I remember from my science classes"
"Water?" Fireflight tilted his head and watched as Alana began to poke herself.
"I don't feel like water" she said.
Ratchet sighed "humans are mostly 35 liters of water, 25 kilograms of carbon, 4 liters of ammonia, 1.5 kilograms of lime, 800 grams of prosperous, 250 grams of salt, 100 grams of saltpeter, 80 grams of sulfur, 7.5 grams of fluorine, 5 grams of iron, 3 grams of silicon and a little bit of 15 other elements. "
After that Sam had one of those dot, dot, dot looks and Alana had grown tired during the whole list and had sat down in Fireflight's hand and was biting her nails. Fireflight on the other hand seemed to understand it all and turned his head back to the human in his hand.
"Fascinating" he muttered. Then suddenly he stood up. Alana had to hold onto his finger to keep herself upright.
"Hey!" she shouted.
"Be careful with her!" Ironhide and Ratchet snapped together. Not even seconds later Alana was snatched out of Fireflight's hand and held safely in Ratchet's hand.
Fireflight tilted his head as he looked at Alana "so humans are fragile… not good, they won't be protected when the decepticons attack."
"What do you mean when the decepticons attack?" asked Bumblebee, he had picked up Sam and was placing him on his shoulder.
"Oh did I not tell you?" Fireflight said cheerfully. "We gained Info from one of the decepticons and we learned that they are planning to attack earth."
"WHAT!" everyone shouted.
"Yeah, good thing I told you right!" Fireflight gave them a thumbs up.
"Do you know where they are attacking?" Ironhide asked trying his best to keep calm.
"Yeah we got that info too" Fireflight seemed please with himself. Then he picked up the toaster and examined it closely. "What does this do?"
"Oh I know!" Said Alana. She threw up her hand and pointed it to herself "I can tell you" she made a move to get off Ironhide but his other hand stopped her.
When he spoke it sounded like he was under great strain "tell us where the decepticons are attacking"
Fireflight started to snap his fingers "uhnmm, well I think it was some place called Grande Cache" he then looked at Alana "so tell me little human what does this contraption do?"
"Well you see-" she was cut off by Ironhide putting her down on the floor, she watched as he and Ratchet ran out of the room followed closely by Sam and Bumblebee. She then looked back at Fireflight and held up her hands showing that she wanted to be picked up. Fireflight did as she had silently asked and once upon her hand he gave her the toaster. "Ok, first you must plug it in"
"Maybe I should put you down so that you can show me" Fireflight suggested.
Alana shrugged "sure" and so she was put down and she began to demonstrate the proper uses of a toaster.
It took a few moments for Alana to explain that they had to put bread into the toaster and when she pressed the button for the toasting process to begin the waited. When the toast popped out Alana took it and showed it to him.
"That's amazing!" he exclaimed. "But…" he lifted up the toaster ripping the plug and the outlet clean from the wall. "Where does the bread go?" she looked down the small slot of the toaster and saw no bread.
Alana thought for a moment and shrugged "I dunno where the bread goes" she told him honestly. "Maybe we should take it apart to find out where the bread goes."
"Alright!" Fireflight said enthusiastically. He activated his holoform, one that Ratchet had given to him. His holoform was a man in cameo pants and a dark brown t-shirt. He had a nice face with shaggy blond hair. The two then sat down around the table and began the figure out where the bread goes mission.
Meanwhile the Autobots were discussing a serious problem.
"How could he not have told us!" Ironhide raged.
"He's just a bit distracted, that's all" Ratchet defended Fireflight.
"He has put a lot of people in danger, we need to get there! We need to be prepared. He could have told us sooner!" Ironhide shouted.
"Exactly" came Optimus' voice, he was standing among them waiting for them to quite down. "we will go there, and set up a base and defend there"
"what about Alana and I" asked Sam.
"You will need to come with us" said Optimus "we cant protect you and them any other way"
"Alright" Sam nodded "just give me an hour to get my things and tell my parents that I'll be away for a while" Optimus nodded and Sam and Bumblebee left.
"Ironhide and Ratchet I need you two to get Alana's things ready and get her prepared" the two bots nodded and walked out, and Optimus was left by himself for a bit.
Ironhide and Ratchet walked in the Kitchen to see the toaster spread out all over the table and Alana and Fireflight shaking their heads.
"It makes no sense" Fireflight muttered. Alana nodded as she held a wet cloth to her hand.
"Alana!" Ironhide ran up to the small girl and picked her up, "What happened to your hand?"
"Oh this?" she lifted the cloth and Ironhide saw a small red patch of charred skin "Burnt it…"
Ironhide was speechless for a moment, he would have expected his little girl to be crying from such a burn but it was apparent he was wrong. "Uh, how did you burn your hand?" Ironhide asked.
"She burnt it while we were taking apart the toaster" Fireflight said, he hadn't bother to look up at Alana or Ironhide yet.
"And why are you taking apart the toaster?" Ratchet asked. He had his hand crossed.
"Well…" Fireflight seemed hesitant.
Alana finished for him "We were trying to figure out where the bread goes?"
Ironhide and Ratchet simultaneously said "Huh?"
The two then went through the long process of explaining the who bread toast switch which made Ratchet laugh.
Ironhide shook his head and started to walk out the door while holding Alana.
"Where are we going Ironhide?" Alana asked, her eyes were once again big.
"We are going to pack" Ironhide said simply.
"Oh… why?"
"Because we are going on a trip"
"Oh…"