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Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, but I do own Phoenix, although I suspect Optimus might fight me for her…

Chapter 4: Powers Revealed Phoenix yawned and stretched, waking up to find herself in the seat of a truck. Her first instinct was to freak out, but then she remembered what Optimus had said about them being able to transform. "Optimus?" She asked tentatively. "Good morning, Little One." She breathed a sigh of relief, "Morning, Big Guy." "Why do you call me 'Big Guy'?" Optimus inquired.

"Why do you call me 'Little One'?" She shot back.

"Because you quite simply are little."

"And you 'quite simply' are big." She said. "So anyways, Big Guy, now that that's settled, what's going down?"

Optimus chuckled. Even Sam and Michaela, who he'd know for almost a year now, didn't treat him with the same casualness as this girl who he'd barely known for a day. Nobody treated him with anything less then their deepest respects, and he would admit, he sometimes grew tiresome of the stuffier aspects of his rank as leader. He decided he enjoyed the nickname, and the playful way in which this girl spoke to him.

"What's so funny?" Phoenix asked.

"Nothing. You have been asleep for 10 hours, 43 minutes and 32 seconds –

"Thanks, I'll log that away." Phoenix grinned.

"And we have been on the road 7hours, -

"7 hours it is." Phoenix said firmly.

"Well closer to 8 really."

"Whatever. Where are we?"

A few hours later, they came to a small town.

"After this town, it's about 5 more hours to the base." Optimus said.

"Sounds good, let's get through here and go."

Optimus slowed down as they entered the streets of the town. Phoenix looked around. It was small, quaint. It was the kind of place she thought about living in someday. As she looked she suddenly noticed a huge cloud of black smoke a few streets beyond where they were.

"Optimus, we have to stop!"

"Why? We don't have time to-

"A house is burning!" She yelled.

Optimus screeched to a stop. "Where?" He said urgently.

"A few streets over to our left."

"Hold on." Optimus started his engine and roared around the corner, coming to a stop in front of the burning building.

Phoenix jumped out and barely caught his hissing whisper.

"Find out what's going on. I should only reveal myself if there is no other way. Hurry Phoenix!"

Phoenix nodded and launched herself into the gathered crowd.

"What's going on?" She asked an elderly woman who looked like she wasn't sure what she should do.

"Oh!" The woman gasped, "The daycare is on fire! We don't have our own fire station, so we have to wait for the neighbouring town to send them! It will be at least 20 minutes before they're hear." The old lady was frantic wringing her small hands.

Phoenix led her to a bench to sit and told her to calm herself down. Once she knew that she'd be ok, she went back into the crowd. She could hear another, younger lady shouting over the crowd.

"MADDIE! Where's Madison? Somebody find my little girl!" she was sobbing anxiously.

'Oh no." Phoenix thought. She had an idea.

"I need to see into that house." She whispered.

It came to her easily, as if the walls had melted away, she could see inside the blazing building. It took her only a moment to sense the living glow of a small child trapped on the second floor. She shook herself, releasing the image, and ran to where Optimus was parked.

"Optimus, I'll be right back. Don't transform. I have to go into that building."

She sprinted away before letting him reply.

"Phoenix no! Come back!" he yelled after her. In the mounting commotion, nobody could tell that the holler came from the truck.

Optimus was frantic. He was shaking with the effort of not transforming.

"Primus, please, please let her be all right." He prayed, fervently hoping that somewhere, someone would answer.

Phoenix dashed past the herd of people, hardly hearing the shrieks as she hurtled into the fire.

"I need to be fire proof!" She yelled, and felt her palms glowing response. She felt the flames barely as a tickling sensation over her body. She climbed the stairs a trembling feeling of fear of the roaring flames around her.

She heard the chid crying, before she saw her. The girl couldn't have been more than 5 years old, screaming as the flames cornered her down the hall.

Phoenix flew towards her and scooped her up just as she was about to be swallowed by the merciless fire.

"It'll be alright." Phoenix soothed her.

The child whimpered and clutched at her in terror. Phoenix tried to descended the stairs as calmly as she could and didn't look back as the house collapsed behind her. She was shaking so hard as she struggled out onto the singed lawn.

"MADDIE!" She heard the cry again as the young mother swooped towards her child. She was sobbing in relief.

"Thank you so, so much for saving her!" She sobbed in relief.

Phoenix hardly heard. All she could think about was Optimus. Getting back to him and letting him comfort her…

"Mommy," The girl, Madison looked at her mother with shining eyes. "That girl was an angel. She was glowing white, and she just came out of the fire to save me."

Madison's mother looked up to where the girl was standing, but she had disappeared.

Phoenix reached Optimus and climbed into his seat. As soon as she was safe she collapsed inside him.

"That was the scariest thing I have ever done in my entire life." She said shakily.

Optimus did not respond. He screeched out of the town at top speed, not stopping until they were some distance away and had pulled off of the highway and into the trees.

Phoenix stepped out of him and he transformed, grabbing her and holding her to his chest. He was afraid to speak. He had been so frightened.

"Optimus, are you mad?" Phoenix asked him.

Optimus looked down at her tenderly. "No." he said carefully, "You were so brave, Little One, but I was so scared, so scared that something would happen to you…"

"It was my palm again. It made me fire proof, and showed me where the child was. Optimus, What's happening to me?"

"I don't know, but we'll find out." He promised.

For a while they stayed silent. Gazing into his face, Phoenix couldn't help that notice he was strangely… good looking. But how could she ever be attracted to something so vastly different from her, she wondered.

Meanwhile, she couldn't know, but Optimus was having mutual feelings towards her. He was somehow finding this human girl extremely pretty as she absentmindedly twirled a piece of her waist length, flame coloured hair around her finger. Her deep, chocolate brown eyes met his huge, bright blue ones. He wanted to say something but he didn't know what.

He cleared his throat, breaking them both out of their dreamy imaginings.

"We had better move on."