Encounters

"Here kitties, kitties, kitties, here kitties, kitties." Alex was walking in the woods in the canyon behind her house, looking for her cats. "Emma, Blitz here kitties- oof." Alex fell on her butt. "What the hell?" She looked around, she was in a clearing with no trees, but she just hit something. She blinked and looked up; she could see the moon and stars, but nothing else around her. "Emma? Blitz, is that you? I'm sorry if I tripped over one of you…" She peered around carefully, trying to catch a glimpse of the black and white kittens, but saw nothing. She sighed and stood up.

"Come on kitties it's late, a fox or a coyote could get you." This happened almost every night. She tried to put the kittens in for the night, they think it's a game and lead her on a wild goose all throughout the large canyon behind her house. She sighed and kept calling them wearily, just wanting to go in and go to sleep. She started walking over to a shadowy grove of trees when she ran head first into something. She stumbled backward and held her head, which was pounding painfully.

"What the heck---Hello? Is anybody there?" She looked around but the clearing looked as deserted as ever. Her neck prickled and she felt fear start to rise up in her.

Every scary movie she had ever seen suddenly came into her head and she stood stock still, listening for footsteps. When she didn't hear anything she turned and started walking towards her house, keeping on eye behind her when something flickered and she caught sight of something in the moonlight.

It was large, too large, almost the size of some of the trees, its metallic body gleaming in the moonlight. It had a head, two arms and two legs, but was far larger than anything she had ever seen. What looked like weapons decorated it, and it had what looked like a rocket launcher on its shoulder.As quickly as it appeared it disappeared again. Alex breathed raggedly for a few seconds before swallowing and running back up to her house.

"There you are." Alex spotted her cats sitting on her porch step. "Come on there's something worse than foxes and coyotes in the woods." She grabbed her cats and locked all her doors, positive she wouldn't get any sleep that night.

"It's been two days! Two days and she still hasn't shown up!" Alex listened to Charlie rant on the phone. She still thought Charlie just hit her head, but after last night she wasn't too sure. "But don't worry I've got a plan!" Oh she knew she didn't want to hear this. "I'm going to track her! I've had my dog get her scent-"

"You don't have a dog."

"Not the point."

"Did you steal someone's dog?"

"Big picture Alex. I'll have my dog track her and once I find her I'll bring her back home."

Even if Charlie's stolen dog could find Nelly, and if she could manage to rope Nelly, then she would just get dragged behind Nelly, giving her even more brain damage. "What if she just drives away?"

"I thought of that! That's why I'm wearing roller blades!"

"Charlie I don't think that's a very good idea."

"I can't talk anymore Alex. I'm off to find my car!"

"Okay Charlie, you go do that. Call me if you find her. Actually take pictures too, that's something I have to see." She humored her. Charlie often had stupid ridiculous ideas that only people on television would come up with, but they usually ended with a lot of laughs for her.

"Okay see you later!" Charlie hung up excitedly and went and put on her special car finding outfit consisting of plaid shorts over black leggings, a neon green tank top under a Captain Planet t-shirt, knee and elbow pads, and an electric blue helmet. She saluted herself in the mirror and pulled her roller blades on. "Okay black dog whose name I do not know, find my car!"

"Yeah okay, see you later!" Alex put her sunglasses on and walked out of the mall to her car. She only had a four hour shift today and was anxious to get back home to go back into her canyon. She realized it was probably a stupid idea but she felt safer checking it out in daylight. She thought about calling the police, but realized they would think she was crazy if she had no proof. And she didn't. She brightened when she opened her paycheck. This would buy her that new motorcycle helmet she'd been wanting. Now she just had to get a motorcycle….

Charlie sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. She didn't have any luck looking for her car; she even put up stolen car posters! And still no luck.

"Come on black dog lets go home." Charlie looked around for her dog only to find him running away from her. "Oh come on does everything I have, have to run away from me? This is great, just f-ing great." Charlie started skating back to her house, her head hanging in defeat.

Once she got back she decided that the only thing that could make her feel better was Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

"Oh Nelly, why did you have to go and leave me? Was it something I did?" After Charlie discovered that ice cream would not make her feel better, she decided that rum would. "Nelly, think of all the great times, the crashes, the free food I got for being in you, look I even took pictures!" She held up a picture of her and Nelly, then threw it in the air and stumbled out of the room. Her gray and white cat ran past her, almost tripping her.

"Skittles, is that you? Skittles, Nelly ran away, go get her!" The cat rolled over. "Damn." She took another swig of her rum, then shrugged and chugged it. She tripped and fell down the stairs, landing next to her front door. "Owwww, Skittles why?" Lights flashed outside, and she sat up and squinted out the window. "Nelly? Nelly you came back!" Charlie threw her front door open and stumbled down her drive way. "Nelly I love- you're not Nelly." Charlie stared at the green jeep in front of her. Hm, Alex always drove jeeps. This must be Alex!

"What are you doing here? Have you come to help me? Let's go find Nelly!" Charlie opened the door to the jeep and climbed in. "Alex! We have to go find Nelly! God only knows what she'll do if someone else finds her, she never did like strangers…."She blinked and squinted at the person in the driver's seat. They were tall, blonde, and wearing green. Yep, definitely Alex.

"We have to find her before she does something worse! Like holding up a convenience store! Then where will we get junk food and cigars? Where?!" Charlie moaned and hit her head on the dash board. Hound blinked confusedly. Did this human know about transformers? There had been traces of decepticon energy signatures all around this town, the strongest coming from this organic dwelling. Maybe this human female did know about transformers. If the decepticon came back she might be in danger, but she might also be a decepticon sympathizer. Hound wasn't given a chance to decide what to do with the girl, as she proceeded to pass out in him. Well he couldn't transform with her in him, and he couldn't remove her. He had no choice but to take her back to the base with him.

Alex had finished checking out her canyon and found nothing. So she fed her family a story about someone seeing a mountain lion down there so they would stay away. Now there was no way someone was going to go back there and get killed by some giant….thing on her watch. She walked back up to her house and changed clothes. She had to get to her job at the mall in an hour, and she couldn't go in sweats. She worked at a clothing store, not exactly ideal, but college, gas, and car payments really added up. But her boss was understanding, and her parents just happy they didn't have to pay for it. She changed into black pants, red tennis shoes, and a vintage t-shirt over a long white sleeved shirt. She slapped on some makeup and grabbed her purse.

"Hey Emma, Blitz, what trouble are you guys getting into now? Oh, hi Tammy." Tammy was their nine year old tabby. She didn't like the kittens very much. She stalked into the garage, Emma trying to follow her. She growled and the little white kitten backpedaled into her black sister.

"Tammy, be nice they're just babies." She sighed and went into the garage to refill their food and water. An unfamiliar looking box sat on the workbench. She frowned and picked it up. "A tape deck? What is this doing here?" Alex picked up the blue tape deck and tried to make it work. It must have been her dad's, he always keeps this stuff around. "No batteries. Huh."

She set it down outside the garage and started walking away. She was almost to her car when the sound of metal grinding on metal met her ears. A shadow grew in front of her and she paled. She turned around slowly. Alex was met with a large box-shaped thing in front of her, like the one from the night before it had a humanoid shape, and was at least twenty-five feet tall. It had a clear glass panel on what should have been its chest, with a purple crowned symbol on it.

"Consort of Blackfire identified. Operation retrieval: commenced." Before Alex even had a chance to scream the metal being grabbed her and flew away.

"Have you identified the source of the decepticon signal?"

"No sir."

"Have Hound try to sniff it out when he returns from patrol." Optimus turned back to the control panel, taking another look at the signal. It was strong.

"He's back man, and he's got cargo." Optimus turned.

"What?" Jazz motioned to the door, and Hound entered, followed by Ratchet, who held the body a human female in his hands. "Tell me everything."