Last chapter:

"Hey! Goliath!" the decepticon stupidly looked up at the human only to be hit in an optic by the gravel she let out of the clothing. " That's to show I CAN fight a stupid beast like you!"

Optic shattered, Barricade sat back and loud an ear piercing mechanical howl of pain, upon his glare setting back on her she knew what to do.

"Ohhhh shit…" she ran, closely followed by thundering steps, she faintly hear Bee shouting something but didn't even want to make out what it had been, she weaved her way between larger cars, effectively slowing him down. A shot however hit the path in front of her stopping her on her tracks, she had no time, clawed fingers closed over her with such for she felt the ground break and hit her with dust.

"Now I have you…" sneered the deep sadistic voice.

Now:

Trying to remain level headed while facing what could very easily be her death only one thing came to mind. " why do you even want me?!" it came out a shriek but who would be able to talk correctly in such a situation?

The massive fist surrounded her body lifting her from the ground and approaching her to his good optic, the other kept sparking and leaking energon.

"I am going to have some fun with you indeed before I take you to starscream."

"starscream? Is that another one of you or is it some kind of end of the world for me?" oddly enough crappy jokes were the only way she could remain relatively calm. The fist tightened a bit and she hissed biting her bottom lip to avoid screaming. She was NOT going to give this monster that satisfaction. A little bit more and he'd probably break her bones, but he kept it just tight enough not to, slowly giving her pain, this guy was a master in torture that much was clear, he'd enjoy every single second and took his time with it. Suddently his grip became not so tight and he turned his head to look up, for a while she couldn't make out anything of it, his metallic brows went down in a visible frown and that's when she started hearing engines approaching. She sighed in relief, help was here!

A resounding horn reached audio receptors and ears along with loud and collective sounds of transformation, she couldn't see them because Barricade held her facing himself.

"Release the human" Optimus's calm voice commanded from behind.

"Music to my ears…" she whispered to herself wincing at the pain she felt as the decepticon tightened his grip again.

"No chance autoscum, you move any step forward and I kill the human" he squeezed tighter making her head jerk back, she still bit her lip to the point it started bleeding all the while keeping up her mantra.

don't scream, don't cry, don't freak she thought.

An explosion took place right at Barricade's feet, she could even feel the heat from it as the dust lifted around her, but the decepticon kept her out of reach.

"Quit bluffin' decepticreep, if ye wanted tah kill the human you would have let her die right now instead of shielding her from the blast."

"OH SO THAT MAKES IT OKAY FOR ME TO DIE FROM YOUR BLAST ANYWAY?!" she shrieked, god did she want to see whoever took that shot, but by the voice it had been Ironhide.

"Fine, you want the human, go ahead" taking a step back she felt him pull his arm back, without warning he swung it forward realising his grip, effectively throwing her several feet into the air towards the autobots, problem was…she was going to go past them, no one would reach in time, she saw a blur of their colours and the gravel up ahead, closed her eyes and prepared for impact, as expected, it was hard, and she blacked out almost instantly, that didn't mean she didn't feel the pain.

"Icaughther!Icaughther!" Blurr's panicked voice called as he instantly ran back to his group and was assaulted by the CMO.

"Knocked out…no wonder, that will hurt once she wakes up but miraculously no bones broken… nice catch blurr." The medic said as he examined the girl in the blue racer's hands. The metal had been hard, but not as hard as the ground could have been, plus the way blurr caught her, by pure luck made it so she wouldn't literally splash into it.

They turned to their two other companions, Optimus had given the order not to follow the decepticon as they had more important matters at hand. Three of his soldiers were down, they took priority over capturing Barricade.

Ironhide had gone futher ahead to gather Sideswipe while Optimus got his report from the still awakened Bumblebee.

Rathcet's com turned to life as he looked away from the frail human.

"Ratchet this is Ironhide, you better get back here…Sideswipe isn't looking so good."The old mech's gruff voice had a morbid tone, and that was more than enough to motivate the medic as he ran over.

Blurr saw it best to approach his leader and the young scout for fear of any sneak attack he might miss, while the human was in his hands he was probably the main target.

"How is she?" Optimus asked as he approached, soft Optics peering over at the organic form with what any autobot could tell was pure remorse.

"justknockedout" the leader nodded turning back to his scout.

"The feeling you described must have been what caused your systems to hold back, somehow Barricade must have recovered Frenzy and used him to sabotage your body while you were fighting. You are lucky he didn't cut your main line my friend." Bumblebee snorted at that thinking how sick the decepticons could be to strike such a low blow.

"He kept going after the girl sir, even after Sunny left with her." His systems were just begging for him to shut down and recharge, automatic repairs wanting to kick into place, his wing panels hurt beyond words, that was the big problem with those parts of his body, extremely sensitive.

"That would explain why he was reluctant to let her die when Ironhide blasted him" the leader said calmly ignoring the frowns that instantly grew on the other two.

"I am going to convince prowl to put him in the brig for the rest of the cycle if he ever comes"

"I will deal with Ironhide's rashness later…did Barricade happen to mention why he wanted young Ashley?"

"No sir, he did mention however that he was taking her to starscream, meaning he is probably back on earth."

"Optimus we're ready to leave, just one slight problem though, we have three non-transforming soldiers to take back, and you can only take one of them." The CMO pointed back as Ironhide dragged a half tended to sideswipe, his chest was sparking and he was still out like a light. Sunny however was dragging himself behind them, having been awakened by the medic.

"I told you I can drive back! Just take care of Sides!" Ratchet hit him on top of his head with his palm lightly, the mech was already injured enough, he didn't have to be too rough.

"Quit acting though, you're still suffering from spark chock, you could easily loose control while driving back and I'm not risking another chassis to fix."

The yellow mech growled something under his breath well enough for Ratchet not to hear but didn't argue back.

"I can transform actually, I just wouldn't be able to drive, since my tire went off along with my arm…" Bumblebee managed to say, his voice hitching again.

"Exactly…Ironhide can perhaps pull sunstreaker the way back, but it's a completely different story with these two.

Prime sighed, this was indeed a complicated situation, he had to choose to leave behind one of his soldiers, that was never an easy choice…

"I'll stay behind sir" Bumblebee cut in through his thoughts. "Sideswipe is worse off than I am, I can hold on for a few hours hidden, he can't wait. Plus Ashley fixed my damages well enough for the time being I shouldn't be at risk anymore."

"I was wondering who did that" Ratchet said with a curious look towards the scout. "How did she manage?" but he didn't get his reply as Optimus spoke up again trying to regain the attention.

"That's settled then…Bumblebee will stay behind until I come back to pick him up, until then, Blurr, you stay with him and stand on guard in case any decepticon attacks." Both nodded, Blurr replying with a "sir!", the other was far too tired and quickly proceeded to transforming and picking a nice spot in the middle of all the turned cars.

"Sorry Bee" Sunstreaker said as the others started to transform aswell so they could leave. Blurr put the young human on Ratchet's cab along with Bumblebee's arm and wings, the parts were important since earth didn't have the same materials they had unless they forged it and that wasn't an easy task.

Once done he sat back next to his comrade keeping his sensors on as he watched the others leave.

Ashley felt her head spin as soon as she started to wake up, something wasn't right, it smelt like anaesthetics but when she opened her eyes there wasn't the typical blinding light, instead she found herself inside an ambulance.

If it hadn't been for Bumblebee's parts she would have thought she had been knocked out by bullies and imagined the whole thing.

"I see your awake." Ratchet's voice reached her from all around.

"Ratchet? Urgghhh" she had tried to sit up only to fall back in her place.

"I suggest you do not sit up, I'm surprised you haven't broken anything."

"So am I ,to be honest…what happened?"

"You were thrown into the air, but Blurr managed to catch you before you hit the ground, still the impact was a bit rough." She groaned

"Remind me to thank him, and to explicitly explain to you lot that the difference between metal and pavement isn't that much…I thought for sure that was it…"

"It shall be reminded" he said simply, keeping his attention in following the others.

She stood there in silence for a while, her head trying to make out the thoughts and recovering its logical sense.

"What happened to the others?"

"Bumblebee remains minimally stable thanks to you so he had to stay behind, Blurr is watching over him though until Optimus can go get him. Sunstreaker has a few dents, the usual, he is in a bit of spark chock though because of sideswipe, he is headed for the operation room as soon as we get to base." She paled visibly, some of her vital signs dropping. " He will be all right, otherwise I would have not allowed him to get to base, I would have performed the operation on the field.

Despite the medic's warning and assurance she sat up and leaned against his wall, pushing her knees against her chest and hugging herself, she felt horrible, they had gotten so badly hurt…and all because of her…all because of…she groaned, she'd have to go shopping again. Slowly she chuckled lightly at herself, it was bitter.

"Mind telling blurr to see if my shopping bags are still there? And if so to bring them once he comes back? I don't want to sound uncaring, but this whole thing started with those, might as well get them to avoid happening again."

"It will be done." He said averting his scans from sideswipe on Optimus's cab and over to the young human, over all, his conclusion was that she was a bit depressed, he couldn't blame her for that.

"Its my fault isn't it?" she asked after a bit of a pause, her voice was trembling a bit but she felt secluded enough to let herself have some shame.

Ratchet hesitated for a moment, evaluating the human for a little while, however it would do nothing to deny it.

"In a way, those three were bound to get in trouble again as usual though…"

"That …that thing was after me, if I hadn't been so spoiled, if I had paid more attention! This wouldn't have happened!"

"Did you get to find out why Barricade wanted to capture you?" Ratchet asked calmly, it was the best way to deal with humans from his experience.

"N-no….and yes…he said I should know…but I have no idea…I didn't even knew you guys until the twins helped me out."

"So basically you're as clueless as us" he concluded and both sighed.

"I don't know what a cybertronian could possibly want for me…I mean I don't have any experience with mechanics or electronic in general…I'm not connected with the government and I don't think he'd find me a suitable enough hostage to get advantadge over all of you…"

"You do have a point…"

"What made Bumblebee's charge so important to them?" she asked, hoping to find her answer.

"Samuel Witwicky is a descendant of someone who found Megatron by accident, in the process he acquired the location of the all spark and unconsciously passed it on to the next generation."

"I don't really think I have any ancestor with that kind of history" she snorted looking out the small tiny window of his vehicle form.

"Are you certain?"

"Huh? Well yeah…most of them are either architects or writers…no biggie…" the old autobot pondered a bit over the term 'biggie' before addressing the human again.

"Perhaps Barricade mistook you for someone else, though that usually isn't his type of thing, he was trained to locate and assassinate his targets…but I suppose humans are quite different, to us your kind are somewhat different to distinguish."

"Really?"

"Well most of us…Jazz probably found it easy, since he had all that obsession of his over style…"

"Oh…" there was another uncomfortable pause, she tried looking through the window again but winced when a bruise got a little too real and sat back down. "How's sideswipe holding on?"

"He'll live" was the short reply. Immediately his scanners indicated her mood was dropping. "I actually have a favour to ask you, if you are anywhere interested in helping the twins out." Rocketing right out of the scales, her heartbeat accelerated in excitement and glee, a will to somehow simply say how sorry she was.

"I'll do whatever I can! Just tell me what to do!" he chuckled lightly, something that seemed mildly uncharacteristic of him.

"I need you to stay with Sunstreaker while I operate on his brother, he is still in spark shock and I doubt he'll relax until Sideswipe is stable and safe. If you can, distract him, he tends to go into wrong thoughts at these times and gets desperate, if you can't manage that at least give him company."

"That's all?"

"That is all"

"Sure I guess…it's the least I could do…" just then Ratchet stopped and she felt herself swaying a bit with the movement. The doors opened and she didn't even have time to try and reach for the doors when a black hand came in, at first she panicked, thinking it was barricade again, then she noticed the number of digits and their shape, this wasn't the sadistic decepticon.

"Come on younglin' we ain't got all day" came Ironhide's gruff voice. She carefully went over and climbed on, being brought out into the day light, the sun was still up high and there was a light breeze.

Ratchet transformed and quickly proceeded to head over to the red twin, his yellow partner holding onto Ironhide by the shoulder, he couldn't stand properly, one of his feet was partially destroyed.

She felt horrible once more, the twin wouldn't even look at her, he couldn't get his optics off his brother's form as Optimus took him away into a different hall, Ironhide was taking them to the rec room.

"Get over it soldier" Ironhide said shoving the young bot a bit, he was taller than the twins but by little. Sunstreaker growled at him not in the mood.

"I'll stay with him Ironhide, you can go don't worry." She said climbing off his hand and onto the couch where he was putting down the battered soldier.

"You sure about that runt?" she smiled up at him; it felt good to have so many beings concerned about her.

"Sure, I think I can handle him…he just needs to let some steam out." Made a snorting sound with his..er…whatever it was.

"Your funeral" he said walking away.

She watched him leave; once he was gone she turned back to the yellow Lambo who was resuming his time staring at the pale ceiling.

"Sunny?" No answer "Sunstreaker?" still no answer, she crawled up onto his leg proceeding to his chest so she could sit on his shoulder, avoiding wounded looking areas. "C'mon Sunny speak to me, your supposed to shine here, not sit and brood!" She received a vague glance but that was all before he turned back to the ceiling. "Sideswipe wouldn't want you to be like this." That seemed to have hit the spark, she felt his body mildly jerk, as if he had stopped himself. " You know I'm right…and your probably not helping him in anyway by staying like this."

"I felt him fade away…its happened so many times…I'm supposed to be there to protect him…" Ashley smiled she could sympathise with him, she had wished many times that happened to her, that she had someone to care about in the same way.

"You guys must have been through a lot…but at least you both know you'll always have each other through all that right? Right now Sideswipe is counting on that, you can't just…give up on him."

"I didn't give up on him" he said sounding a bit more like the irritated Sunstreaker she had gotten to know.

"I know you didn't, but you were tempted to." She patted him on the side of the head. "You guys didn't have to do that though…you could just have ignored the whole thing and left...it was safer for you"

"Shut up, we wouldn't do that, we're not that low"

"Anyone else would…no point in you guys not doing the same." she shrugged.

"Humans are strange"

"Nah…we're just humans…" he tried to figure that out, he really did, but he couldn't. She cuddled up against his neck, it was funny how metal could actually feel smooth sometimes, Sunny's in special, it was probably of all the special care he paid to it. Even now in his battered, dented and scratched state he felt that way. "Don't worry, he'll make it, if he doesn't we can both go wherever he goes and bring his ass back to earth"

"Aft…"

"Whatever" she said starting to drift into sleep.

He waited for a while, watching the human falling into her recharge cycle, she looked far worse than the day before but mostly just tired, he was a little worse off but nothing a soldier couldn't handle. Smiling he leaned back careful not to make her slip and off lined his optics, he felt a bit calmer now, enough for him to rest himself.

The next thing Ashley felt she was being picked up by large fingers, she didn't quite register it at first until she blearily opened her eyes and looked around in the darkness, two bright optics stared down at her being the only source of light.

"Oh…hey blurr…"she said in a slurred manner. He nodded preferring not to speak while he took her out of the room, once out she could see he was a bit more relieved. " Iwastobringyoutothemedbaybutyouwereasleep,I'msorrytohaveawakenedyou" she blinked at him a few times, she was way too tired to make that out.

"How's sideswipe doing?" if blurr was sent to get her he probably knew this by now.

"HeisslowlyrecoveringbutofficerRatchetsayshewillbejustfine."

"Good…Sunny will be happy." She let a small smile creep its way to her lips, it actually felt strange to smile.

The light blue mech walked through the halls a bit too fast but she had learned this was just his way of being and he was probably already making a large effort to walk this …slowly.

The young teen tried not to nod off back to dreamland while on his hand but it was becoming rather difficult.

The med bay doors opened and she found herself back in the overly sterile room. Ratchet was over by a berth making his final notes into a datapad and giving one last glance at a recharging Bumblebee whose arm had been repaired already.

"Is he all right?" she asked as soon as they came near the CMO.

"Your emergency mending saved his life, you have my congratulations on that" she blushed lightly shrugging it off.

"Logic…that was all.."

"And how is Sunstreaker fairing? I noticed Sideswipe started having a better chance at some point." He asked blurr.

"Hewasasleepsir" the CMO's optic ridges lifted I clear surprise.

"Asleep?"a nod. "Well that's a rare thing to happen, I suppose this has something to do with you" he suggested glancing down at the human girl.

"We talked…he calmed a bit after that"

"I have to employ you to do that more times " he said with a snort picking her up from the other's hand. "Optimus had to go on with the meeting with the government officer without you." He informed, her eyes widened in horror.

"I completely forgot about that! What happened?"

He put her down on the empty berth and started examining her injuries.

"Well…for starters your people don't want you to go back home because of what happened today, however we only agreed to it as long as you stayed near us, I doubt your government would be able to protect you from a deception when three of us hardly managed." She stared at the distance, unsure of what to think of the matter. "They have made a research on your family background and found nothing that could come by of any interest to us."

"So…where am I staying then?"

"You will stay with us until Sam gets back from college, once that happens you will move into his household, his family has already agreed thinking you are an exchange student. They think you are sister to one of Sam's friends."

"Whoopie…" she said with lack of enthusiasm moving away his finger when he went to apply some sort of cream on one of her bruises. "I don't do creams, their icky. How long do you think this will last though?"

"I can't really say, only time will tell. Hopefully we will find out what caught their attention about you." She looked over at the datapad he was feeling out frowning slightly in concentration. "Are those codes?" he looked up from his notes studying the young human.

"Yes, these are my medical notes, I use a special sort of symbols so that it is easier for myself to write and read fast enough."

"Bet I can crack that code" she said still looking quite sleepy, Blurr who had been observing the two actually backed away when he saw the amused grin on the medic's faceplates.

"Don't be foolish, no human has enough knowledge to do so."

"Really? Because that looks pretty much like a description about how my ribcages are sore to give me pain for a good two to three weeks with proper care and medication." His optics brightened a bit, optic ridges lifting in pure bewilderment.

"How did you do that?" he asked giving her a suspicious glare, she shrugged her shoulders and looked at bumblebee for lack of a more interesting thing to look at.

"I'm good with codes, always have."

"You have just translated milinia old codes that have absolutely no origin from your planet and under less than five minutes, that is not a regular ability among humans."

"So I played a lot of brain games when I was young " she groaned feeling a bit annoyed, she was still tired and just wanted to go back to sleep.

"That is not what I meant, this could very well be WHY the decepticons want you" her attention returned as she looked at the yellow CMO confused.

"Come again?"

"Your ability to decode, it must be why they want you"

"And here I thought Kubrix's cube would never get me into trouble…"Her eyes suddenly widened. "Oh god…"

"I assume you realised how serious this actually is? You can probably hack into anything if you can decipher this that easily."

"I know what they want me to do…" she interrupted looking as if her soul had been taken away, he looked down at her expectantly. " I think they want me to code the all spark back."

Good bad? I'm not sure, btw if you didn't get her insult at barricade in the last chapter Goliath was a cyclop and supposedly david threw a rock at his eye using a sling to throw the said rock, effectively bringing down the giant.

Review please! 