A/N: Yay! Update! It's a little longer than the last two chapters, but since things haven't really picked up yet, it's a little difficult to make it as long as my updates for my other stories. I am trying though! I would've had it done earlier, but I had a birthday party to go to. One year old kids are so much fun! :D I love kids… :)

Scripture of the Update: I know some people don't get why I do this, but I will do it anyway. Let's just say it's a faith thing. :D

"Do not be afraid of sudden terror, nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes; for the Lord will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being caught." ~Proverbs 3:25-26 New King James Version

Author's Replies:

Mikaela the Cat: Indeed. Lol. Edmonton? Chapters? Never heard of 'em, but good luck! They are awesome books. :D Thanks for the prayers and AMEN! :D We shall not go down without a fight. :)

Sci-Fifan95: Indeed. It is a hard thing to not be able to talk to someone. :( And again, thank you for praying. :)

Devil-O-Angel: Thank you! :D Indeed. :)

KayleeChiara: Hehe, yup those are all things to be considered. Glad you liked it. :)

Transformers' BABY: ^.^ Glad you liked it.

Vivian Hale: Ah, that's right. Hey! I recognize that one too. They take longer to update than I do, but the story is really good. Go for it Viv. ;D And listen to Jazz about finishing…whatever you're supposed to finish. Lol. As a seemingly random note, every time I see the word "proxy" I think about Proxy from Faecat's Science and Fiction. XD

crystal winged prime: I like romance as much as the next person. However, if I have romance in this story, it will not be between OP and Mina. I am not about to ignore the existence of Elita because you "hate" her. I do not understand how you could hate her, as she is a good character and perfect for OP. Unless you hate her because of that, which would kinda put you in the same category as those snubby popular girls from high school. I hope that is not the case. As for her design, if I have her changed, which is a big if at this point, I will decide her design not be demanded by some random person to design her a specific way. Thanks for the suggestion, but next time you might reframe from being so demanding sounding. :|

ANYWAY! For those of you who are at least curious enough to stick around, here is the next update!

Chapter 4: A Birthday Away from Home

Journal Entry #7: Come to Terms…

It was like by crying and having Orion comfort me in his own alien way that was almost like a hug, it helped me come to terms with my predicament.

Sure I was light-years away from home. Sure I was spending my birthday alone. Well, I found I was not truly alone. Even though he would spend much of the day away, I did have Orion to hang with after he got home. Even if we could not easily communicate and even if he did not realize it was my twentieth birthday.

Do not get me wrong. I still missed my family.

But the separation had somehow become more bearable.

I was still left with one question though…

How does one entertain yourself in a situation like this?

~Mina Castina

I bit my lip and pondered that question as I tilted my head. I was absently twirling my pen in my hand as I did so, a habit I had seemed to pick up this morning in my anxiety to do more than just sit around.

"Minah."

I looked up from my typing to look at Orion. He was standing near the door, so I gathered that he was leaving. When he stopped talking, I gave a wave before returning to my computer to turn it off. It was another moment before I heard the door open and close. I looked up again and lifted my visor, frowning. I did not even look when I closed my laptop after it completed its shutdown cycle. Then I looked around at the apartment without the filter of my visor or the bleariness from tears for the first time.

"Hmm, how am I going to spend this day?" I wondered. "I am not going to spend my entire birthday on a desk."

I frowned around at my perch. My stuff mostly sat against the wall, save my laptop when it was in use. Whatever I was using to occupy my time would be with me closer to the edge away from the wall. Orion had gotten me more cloths, which I had bundled up in a sort of blanket nest, like how I had slept at some point during my high school years. It was not the same as a bed, but it was a lot comfier than sleeping on the desk with nothing. A good part of the desk contained some large pads that Orion worked with when we were not trying to hold some form of conversation. Well that was how it had went yesterday anyway, after I calmed down from my breakdown. He had worked on the pads and I had sat not far from him, writing in my notebook that had originally been for my communications class, not that I had many notes in it anyway.

But now that I was alone, again, I did not want to remain on this desk indefinitely. My curious side was starting to get the best of me again. If it were not for the fact that I had not had a choice in this, I would be in my own explorer's heaven. I had also been interested in life on other planets. I just had expected to be able to say goodbye to my family before going off to see one if the opportunity ever had arrived.

"But how am I going to get down?" I wondered, inspecting the front of the desk by standing at the edge and looking down.

I immediately regretted the action and backed up, eyes wide and heart beating just a tad faster. I had not realized just how tall this thing was.

Of course, it has got to be tall with how tall Orion is, I thought to myself. Still, if my old hamster could do this, so can I.

I took a deep breath and began edging myself carefully over the edge of the desk. I hung onto the edge tightly as my feet tried to find purchase. As soon as I was sure I would have a few seconds to move my hands, I released the edge before grabbing hold of the best grip I could see. The climb down wasn't graceful or fast by any means, but after what felt like half an hour-at least-I finally landed my feet on good ol' solid ground. I took a moment to relish the fact I no longer had to worry about losing my grip and falling to a splatty demise. I flinched when it crossed my mind that Orion would've returned to find a splat on his floor and no human. I could tell he cared enough that it would upset him-slightly anyway.

I shook the thoughts out of my head and then looked around, placing my visor back over my eyes. Now I had to decide where I would explore first. I caught sight of a hole in the wall and despite the logical side of me telling me I had the entire apartment to explore, I was inevitably drawn to the hole. It was large compared to myself, but appeared to be about the size that a mouse would chew when I compared it to the size of everything else I had seen so far. It also looked like it had been chewed there, leading me to believe that they had something similar to mice on Cybertron.

I looked back at the apartment for a moment, debating in my mind where to explore first. Part of me longed to go into the hole and seek adventure I wouldn't find too much of inside. But yet, I was not yet comfortable enough to venture outside, so I ended up deciding on staying indoors where at least I knew I wouldn't get attacked by Cybertronian mice. Not that I thought mice were mean, but I didn't know what kind of temperament the Cybertronian version had. Especially when it came to things my size.

"I feel so small…" I muttered as I walked by the enormous chair that sat in front of the desk. "Hm, maybe I could make this fun…"

I grinned, a small part of me reverting to the antics I pulled as a kid. I climbed back up the desk and grabbed a few of my blankets and threw them to the ground. I grinned when they landed near enough to each other that I could hop from to the other. I grabbed one of the remaining blankets and tied one end around my neck, glad the one of the cloths Orion had found was small enough I could do that without tripping me. I knew using a blanket as a cape was a childish thing, but I was alone and needed to make exploring the apartment fun somehow. I slung the remaining one over my shoulder and looked down briefly before starting the climb back down.

My game called for me being on an adventure and I had to safely traverse my way to the lair of an evil bad guy-I wasn't sure the bad guy's name yet. The evil man held one of my friends hostage and the only way to save them was defeat the evil villain. The biggest catch was that I couldn't touch the ground directly, but with something in between my feet and it I would be safe and wouldn't burn to death. As such, when I reached the ground I dropped the blanket that I wasn't wearing as a cape below me before dropping down onto it. I then moved across the blankets, before realizing it wasn't exactly fun when it was this easy to stay off the ground.

"It was much funner as an eleven year old," I realized. "Oh I miss my childhood innocence."

As I sighed wistfully, I looked around for a new idea and gathered the blankets back up in a pile. There was no way I was gonna get them back on the desk. I was actually a little cold, but I figured I would warm up by moving around, so I dropped my cape blanket into the pile as well. I then went to look around the apartment in a sane manner. Since my idea of using blankets to avoid the floor wasn't as exciting as I had remembered it, I had to find other ways to make my adventure interesting. I did this by climbing up the tallest piece of furniture I could find and looked out over the room.

Climbing proved to be a difficult task. Climbing the sparse furniture in Orion's small apartment was a lot different than climbing trees. It was closer to rock climbing in its difficulty, which I had never been too good at. Mostly because I got so high and began to think I would fall back down. But it was amazing how being in an unknown place motivated me to push myself beyond my normal comfort zone in more than one way. I never got to the top though. About three fourths of the way up I came to a spot where I could safely lounge. Since my arms hurt from all the climbing I had done so far and a check on my height told me I would die if I fell, I settled down for a break.

I sighed, leaning against the object as I slid down to the part underneath my feet until I was sitting. I took a deep breath, removing my visor and wiping my brow. I closed my eyes, intending to just rest for a bit before either looking out over the room, but before I realized it, I fell into a slumber. My adventure would wait till later on in the day.

~Normal PoV~

Orion Pax was not sure, but as he observed Minah a couple mega cycles after he and Jazz had found he started to think that she was growing bored with her current schedule. As far as he knew, she had yet to do more than do something on the terminal she owned and write the old fashion way on a pad of paper. She hadn't come up with anymore pictures since the one that he was sure was of her family unit. But the way she twirled her writing utensil had him believing she was getting antsy.

I wouldn't be surprised if I came home and found her in a new location, he absently thought as she stopped typing on her terminal. Despite the fact that she was wearing her visor, he knew she went into thought when she tilted her head while what would be the lower mouth plate on a mech.

"Minah," he finally called to her. When she looked up at him, her twirling ceased and he continued. "I am headed to the Hall of Records now. I will have a visitor when I return." Despite the fact he knew she likely didn't understand a word, he still felt obligated to voice it to her.

She did that odd waving motion with her hand before turning back to her terminal. Orion hesitated a moment, trying to decide what the motion meant. But when it didn't appear that she had wanted him to come over, he left his apartment and headed to the Hall of Records and the job that awaited him.

The cycle went as it usually did. He sorted through the communications going through the Grid. The ones that met the correct criteria, he listened to, annotated, categorized and saved to a different sector of the DataNet. That was the cycle he started hearing some strange transmissions. They weren't too strange, but the fact that it was from Kaon and Slaughter City and he could only call them philosophical. They were fragmented and distorted, but he could make out that a gladiator by the name of Megatronus was starting to speak about being living beings and something about the High Council keeping everybot enslaved with the caste system they had in place.

Orion Pax didn't know if he believed the talk going back and forth between the two cities, but it did catch his attention. He filed and indexed the communications for later reference to think about later. He would keep track of this gladiator and his ideals for a while before he decided what he was going to do with the transmissions.

Other than the unusual transmissions, the cycle was pretty normal. When he left the Hall of Records, Alpha Trion accompanied him. He wondered how Alpha Trion would take that he was harboring an alien in his apartment and how Minah would react to meeting Alpha Trion. She had come to be relaxed around him, but it had taken a bit of time and it may have something to do with the fact that he comforted her when she was upset.

"Do you mind sharing what it is that you find so distracting before we reach it?" Alpha Trion's question brought Orion out of his thoughts.

"Oh, well," he replied. He wasn't sure how to tell his mentor there was an alien in his apartment. "It is…not something one would expect."

"I see," Alpha Trion said, his optics betraying his amusement. "I suspect if it were, you would not need my advice."

Orion rubbed his helm sheepishly. "That is true," he said. After all, he knew how to handle the expected. "But perhaps we shouldn't talk about it on the streets."

"Very well," Alpha Trion said. "You may tell me when we get there then."

Orion nodded in gratitude. He was thankful that his mentor was not one to pry or speak of the things he sought advice on in public if he did not wish to. Of course, Alpha Trion spent most of his time in the Hall of Records, even when the data clerks have all retired for the night. Orion sometimes believed he lived there, but he didn't know for certain.

Once they were in his apartment, Orion felt it safe to tell Alpha Trion after a quick glance through the immediate room showed the organic to not be in there. As he had suspected, she had wandered from his spot on the desk. What he found odd though, was the fact that the clothes he had given her and she had made into a place to sleep were on the floor, rather than on the desk.

"So what is this that you wish my advice on, Orion Pax?" Alpha Trion asked.

"I have…come across something," Orion Pax said. "It…she is not from this world."

"She?" Alpha Trion asked. "Are you meaning that you have found an alien? A being from another planet?"

"Yes," Orion said truthfully. "She is very small, no bigger than a glitch mouse. She does not speak our language, but Jazz and I have been able to communicate our names to her and we have found that her name is Minah. That is about all we know, but I believe she did not come here on purpose."

"What makes you think that?" Alpha Trion asked curiously.

Orion paused, considering what he should tell him. "She…did not know where she is until I told her. It was not easy, but it seems names and names of things are easy enough to communicate," he explained. "It takes a few tries, though."

Alpha Trion nodded. "It seems a fair assessment to make," he concluded. "But how do you think she will react to me?"

Orion paused again. "I am not sure," he said. "She was not too enthused to meet Jazz and I at first. But once she realized we did not intend to hurt her, she seemed to calm down quite a bit."

"Perhaps since she already knows you, she will, at the very least, not run away," Alpha Trion said with amusement.

Orion almost chuckled. "Indeed," he agreed with his mentor.

"Now where is this 'Minah' anyway?" Alpha Trion asked.

"She should be somewhere around here," Orion said, looking around. "She is usually sitting on my desk, but it seems she has wandered away from it."

Alpha Trion chuckled. "Well, you would expect her to explore her surroundings," he said.

~Mina's PoV~

When I had woken up from my unplanned nap, I found myself a little disoriented when I realized how high I was. I had almost panicked before remembering that I had climbed up here. My next course of action was to look around the room I was in.

There was an area with a few chairs and a small-for them anyway-table. There was the desk by the window, with the chair in front of it. The piece of furniture I occupied was some kind of shelf and on it sat numerous of those pads that Orion worked with. Also on it was some kind of machine that reminded me of a soda dispenser. I had seen Orion get some kind of glowing blue liquid from it a couple times. I had no idea what it was, but I figured it was safe to assume that these aliens required the substance. That, or they just liked drinking it. Or both.

As I moved on to climb down from the shelf, I reflected that I really needed to stop calling them aliens, seeing as how they were the ones who belonged here. I was the alien and they were the locals. The thought brought back my thought I had had that first day, what would happen to me for the simple fact I was an alien? Would they treat me as a guest? Or would I be treated as they always said aliens were treated in Area 51? Granted, that was all a bunch of conspiracy theories and there was never any real proof. I had always believed there were aliens, but I had not known for sure if they had been on Earth before.

I shivered a little, hoping that these guys were not like humans in the respect that they didn't like things that are different. Orion seemed nice enough and so far I had no reason to believe he would tell anyone about me if he thought they might experiment on me. The thought still made me wary, but I figured there was not much I could do about my situation. If it came down to it, I could always find out where that hole in the wall led to.

I pushed the thoughts out of my mind as I explored the other rooms of the apartment. There was a room that I could more or less recognize as being for sleeping. It contained a large slab of metal that I somehow got the sense of it being similar to a bed. There was what appeared to be a blanket draped over it anyway. Other than that, the room was pretty bare. There was also a room that contained what looked like a giant shower. That was pretty much it, though I took my time to explore each room, getting to know the layout and how long it took me to go through each room and the hallway.

I walked back into the main room with the intention of finding a way to return the blankets to the top of the desk and possibly do some writing. My plans were thwarted, though, when I noticed both Orion Pax and another mech in the room. The mech with him was much taller than him and had red and blue armor. There were bits of metal on his face that reminded me of a long beard and mustache. He had an aura that just screamed that he was very wise.

Orion had been looking around, but had stopped when his eyes fell on me as I stared up at his friend. He said something, which brought the strange mech's attention to me, as he moved forward. He knelt down and offered his hand, saying something as I looked suspiciously at the strange mech. When I turned my attention to Orion, I saw his encouragement and figured he was probably trying to tell me I didn't need to worry. I reluctantly climbed into his offered hand, but still watched the strange mech warily.

I was deposited on the desk, as seemed to be my designated area when talking-or trying to-to my hosts. I turned back to the mechs only to find myself under the gaze of the unknown mech, who was looking at me in interest. I fidgeted, feeling much like I was being held underneath a microscope, even though I wasn't. He said something and I couldn't tell if he was awed or puzzled by something. I could tell that the closeness in which he was examining me-for that's what it felt he was doing-was starting to make me uneasy.

Orion must've seen my uneasiness, because he said something to the mech and he backed up a bit. The mech was intimidatingly tall, but that seemed to be a norm for these guys.

Journal Entry #8: A Birthday Meeting

Well, I may not have gotten the birthday I had wanted, but I would be lying if I said it wasn't interesting. I mean, how was being on an alien world not interesting? I was too busy being curious, in awe and a little excited to really miss home that day.

So far I had gathered that there weren't a whole lot of differences between humans and this race of beings. It appeared that they slept, worked, washed and consumed…something. It didn't seem that different from humans, specific details aside.

The strange mech that Orion brought into his apartment had me wary. I somehow got the feeling I could trust him, but my rational mind was still wary.

What I knew for sure, after a bunch of arm flailing and poor attempts at communication, was that this mech was named Alpha Trion. I also could figure out that he was Orion's boss at the place he worked. I still wasn't sure what they did though. I'm pretty sure they tried to communicate that, but the odd words and hand motions were not easy to translate.

Maybe I should've invested more into my charades skills during those parties my family used to drag me to.

Alpha Trion seemed nice enough, for a being who seemed to take so much interest in me anyway. The three of us talked, or tried to, for a good portion of the remainder of the day.

They attempted to tell me about their planet, though they got mostly confused looks and an attempt at conveying that I did not understand.

In return for their attempts though, I attempted to tell them about my old life. I think I had as much success as they did. Which was very little.

When Alpha Trion finally left, I was still uneasy about the mech, but I still didn't believe Orion would tell a dangerous mech about my existence.

Jazz made an appearance after Orion's boss left, bearing some more of that strange tasting food and a cheerful greeting. The silver mech seemed a lot more laid back than the other two and he chatted with Orion for some time. Parts of their conversation seemed serious and I couldn't help feeling that some things weren't so good for them.

Without understanding them though, I had no way of knowing for sure.

~Mina Castina