-1Just then, loud cursing from Ratchet alerted both of them to the fact that something was wrong. "She reverted," the medic said over his shoulder. "Rumble, get over here, I need your help!" Ratchet had barely finished the sentence before Rumble was sitting on the table next to Sarah's motionless form. Moving her onto the floor, he transformed into his ambulance form, opened his rear door and ordered, "Load her in. I don't care if we're in the middle of nowhere, I'm getting her to a hospital." The little Autobot complied. "Rumble co-co-come too." Ratchet objected. "But you're…" He was downright shocked when Rumble actually yelled at him. "Rumble not le-le-leave human girl!" A fairly long awkward silence followed. "…Rumble fail once. Rumble no-no-not fail twice." Another pause came, this one quite a bit shorter than the previous one. "…Get in."
Being out in the middle of nowhere had its perks, as there was no one around to see how ridiculously fast the ambulance was traveling. Gravel roads and narrow, winding paths meant nothing as it tore across the landscape toward the nearest hospital. Not bothering with the lights or sirens until he reached a road, Ratchet was a medic on a mission. It didn't cross his mind how odd it had to be, an out-of-state ambulance sailing in out of nowhere with lights and sirens blaring full-tilt, and he knew the humans wouldn't be able to detect anything different about her save her odd blue markings. Still, he was relieved when the people opened his door to whisk Sarah away to the Emergency Room.
None of them could figure out exactly what in the heck had happened to the poor girl. Her sternum was crunched inwards, many ribs fractured as if from a massive impact, but she was also burned, badly burned across her chest and face. Things didn't look good for her at first, but she must have had some serious willpower or some other kind of inner strength, or whatever deity was out there was firmly on her side, because she didn't die. None of them could figure out who she was since she carried no identification. The only clues to figuring out who she was were her odd tattoos and her red boom box. They couldn't ask the ambulance driver for clues because the odd out-of-state ambulance that had brought her in had immediately disappeared afterward. Asking the girl herself was out of the question, at least for a while, since she hadn't regained consciousness yet.
The nighttime room was dark and silent, the only illumination the streetlights shining through the curtained window. Every so often somebody would come to check on her, but at that moment there was nobody. Sarah was utterly alone. Or so it seemed, until the boom box on her bedside table quietly transformed. Stepping down off the table, Rumble stood by her bed and looked down at her, claws gently stroking her hair. "Human girl not leave Rumble… Pl-pl-please?" From the moment of his accidental creation he had pretty much appointed himself her guardian, and he considered it his duty to protect her. She'd introduced him to the ones he now considered his friends, had defended him from them at first. Everything he had now, including his life itself, he owed to her.
The only warning he got was the fact that the window went dark, as if something large had come between it and the streetlights. Then the air was filled with the sound of crumbling concrete and shattering glass as the wall itself was torn away. The whole building trembled as if an earthquake had hit and the lights flickered but just barely remained on as Rumble turned to behold the huge dark form standing where the window used to be. Smirking at how ridiculously easy things were proving to be, Starscream reached out to take what he had come for, only to recoil as Rumble landed on his face, kicking and clawing as he had with Barricade so long ago. "Screamer no-no-not take human girl!" This frantic assault bought the little Autobot enough time to transmit a distress call to his friends, but that was all, since Starscream promptly ripped him off, slammed him into the wall face first and then threw him across the hospital parking lot.
Rumble found himself lying in the repair bay, with Ratchet leaning over him. Looking around, he could see Megatron waiting semi-patiently off to the side. Seeing him there made Rumble remember what he had been doing previously. The little red Autobot promptly lost it. "Screamer take human girl! Screamer take human girl! Rumble fail again!" Jumping over to Megatron, he clung to the thoroughly surprised Decepticon's chest and just shook. "Rumble try… Rumble try so hard…"