AN: Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed last chapter! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and the plot.
Chapter 1: Starting Over
First there was a loud bang.
Then there was an enraged yell.
Followed closely by maniacal laughter and two giant red and yellow blurs.
This was the scene which Andi and Axle arrived to as they came to a stop at the Autobots temporary base; a secured section of Tranquility's warehouse district given to them by the government for the Autobot's personal use until a permanent residence could be completed. Of course, this scene had also become a regular occurrence over the past month, and no longer shocked or bothered Andi as it had at one point.
As long as the twin terrors steered clear of her, she could care less what kind of trouble they got into.
"Ah, the sounds of mayhem in the morning. Nothing better, ay, Axe?"
"I'm glad you think so. I'll be the one dealing with it later," he grumbled in return.
Andi patted her partner sympathetically on the leg, all the while smiling up at him. "Better you than me."
The space allotted to the Autobots was nothing special by any comparison, but it was most definitely secluded. Set as far away from surrounding warehouses as possible, the lot consisted of four large, renovated warehouses. Each large enough to house twenty or more of the large bots, and each supporting a different designation. One of the buildings acted as a rec room and mess hall. The second acted as a makeshift hospital on one side and a large reinforced laboratory on the other. The third building acted as housing for some of the bots and the last was designated as the training area and control center. This last building tended to see the most use at this point by bots and humans alike as it had been designated the meeting area.
Surrounding the lot was a security fence, which had at one point been lined with barbed wire and was now watched 24/7 by armed guards. No one could enter without the proper clearance codes and ids. Andi had done some research on the lot after the government had initially given it to the Autobots and found that in the past, the warehouses had been used to hold munitions for the army. A surprising piece of information considering they lived in Tranquility, a place where until recently, nothing ever happened.
As of three months ago, however, the warehouses had become very busy, and had continued to be so throughout that time.
A lot had happened since the time of the 'Battle of the Cube,' as Andi referred to the day months ago when the Autobots and Decepticons battled it out in Mission City. The three months since that day had been filled with work, crowd control, work, new arrivals, work, and more work. For Andi, the most exciting of those had been the new arrivals.
Immediately following the 'Battle of the Cube,' Optimus Prime had sent a message out to any and all remaining Autobots throughout the universe, telling them that they should come to Earth, a place they were welcome, their new home.
Several weeks later, he received a reply.
It was Prowl, much to Axle's delight.
Optimus' second-in-command informed his leader that he and his team would be entering Earth's orbit within a week. The prospect of new arrivals thrilled the Autobots and put the humans on edge. What were they going to do with all those incoming giant robots? Hence the warehouses.
The day Prowl and his team arrived was one Andi wouldn't forget. She never would have compared Axle to an antsy child until that day. In the two months that they had been together, Andi had never seen her large friend quite so excited nor so nervous as he was that day.
The group of Autobots and humans had traveled some 50 miles out of Tranquility to a deserted chunk of land within the Nevada desert. Optimus led the group of onlookers, standing at the head of the pack and staring intently up at the sky. The other Autobots, minus Jazz, who was still being repaired, stood behind him. Axle had taken up his spot next to Ironhide.
Andi had noticed over time that the two bots were actually very close. Axle seemed to regard Ironhide as an older brother or uncle; and Ironhide got along better with the younger bot than Andi would have thought was possible. Originally the idea had made her shudder; the last thing she wanted was Axle to become trigger-happy. Now, however, she was used to the strange relationship the two bots had, and was happy that Axle had someone he could talk to when he needed it.
Andi and the rest of the humans stood back, allowing the bots the chance to greet their comrades first, before introductions would be made.
The odd group stood outside for half an hour before the first sign of arrival was detected: five streaks of flame and smoke far off into the distance. Andi watched, fascinated as the falling bots drew nearer. The last time she had witnessed the actual landing of an Autobot was the night Axle had arrived. At the time it had been dark, and she had been so terrified by the image of a flying ball of flame hurtling towards her that she had been unable to appreciate the event. It was fascinating to say the least. And also a tad terrifying. There was a moment when she thought they might actually land on the group. However, the five spheres instead continued onwards over the welcoming committee to land over some hills quite a few miles away.
Axle and the other bots looked accusingly at Optimus who shrugged his shoulders in apology.
"Sorry, my bad."
Andi rolled her eyes.
The group then waited another hour before Bumblebee sighted Prowl's group heading towards them; having decided to acquire their alternate forms before meeting with Optimus and the others. Leading the small fleet of vehicles was a black Nissan 350Z S-Tune GT, followed closely by a white and blue Nissan GT-R, two Lamborghini Murcielagos, one red the other yellow, and an ambulance. The group came to a stop in front of Optimus and transformed.
What is with these bots? They claim to want to stay hidden, yet they pick the most extravagant alternate modes they can find. Andi had been mildly disgusted.
While some of the new bots were quite large, none were quite as tall as Optimus, though the ambulance came close. The black bot came forward first and Optimus addressed him by name.
"Prowl, my friend, welcome! I am glad to see you well."
"Prime, the same to you."
While the two commanders exchanged pleasantries, the other bots greeted their fellow comrades. Ironhide and Ratchet moved forward and met with the ambulance, greeting him with smiles and firm handshakes. Andi pegged him as First Aid. Axle had told her about all of his team some time ago, now she was excited to be able to see them for herself.
Not far from the older bots, Bumblebee moved eagerly forward to meet the white and blue bot. The two met with a hug and then the white one proceeded to talk to Bee, waving his arms around as he gestured rapidly as he spoke. Andi smiled. Bluestreak. Axle had said that he was never one to shut up. Actually, now that she thought about it, Bee and Bluestreak were perfect friends for each other. Even when the little yellow bot could only speak using sound bites, he had been rather talkative. And after he regained his ability to use his voice capacitor, it surprised no one that he was even more talkative than before. She could tell, however, that the older bots fully welcomed anything Bee had to say, and were only too happy to listen. They had missed hearing their youngest member's voice.
She turned back to Axle then, in time to see him tackled by the red and yellow bots. The three then proceeded to wrestle for a moment, Axle trying to push the two slightly larger bots off of him with little success. Andi watched in bemusement as before long, the yellow and red bots had Axle in a headlock. She laughed slightly. The twins. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Sides and Sunny to their friends. They could be no others.
She watched as the three greeted each other, Axle still in a headlock.
"How ya been, buddy?" The red one, the one holding him in the headlock, asked. "We missed you."
"You always get to have all the fun," the yellow one added, punching him lightly on the shoulder.
"Get off!" Axle rumbled. "Sides, let go!" He managed to push the red one, Sideswipe, off of him, only to be engulfed in a round of handshakes and back pats. Andi was happy to see her large friend smiling. She had never seen him quite so happy.
The three spoke for several minutes, before they were joined by Bee and Bluestreak, who greeted Axle in much the same fashion as the twins had, minus the headlock. The group of five was then joined by the three older bots, Ratchet and Ironhide staying as far away from the twins as they possibly could.
Axle and First Aid greeted each other with a warm hug, after which the older bot held Axle by the shoulders as they spoke.
"Good to see you, son."
"You to, First Aid."
The group spoke for several more minutes when Axle told his teammates, "There's someone I want you to meet."
He turned towards the group of humans then, who had until that point been unacknowledged and walked towards them, kneeling in front of Andi. "Andi, will you come with me please?" He held out his hands to her. She nodded and moved forward, sitting in the palm of one of his hands as the other hand carefully wrapped around her waist, supporting her as he stood. He held her against his chest as he made his way back towards the bots. He stopped in front of First Aid.
"This is Andrea Hammond. I've been living with her since the night I landed and she has helped me a great deal. Andi, this is First Aid," The white bot smiled and nodded to her, and Andi did the same in response. "Bluestreak," The bot tipped an imaginary hat at her, "and the twins, Sunny and Sides."
She smiled at the lot of them. "It's nice to meet you all. Axle's told me a lot about you."
And so, the introductions continued. Optimus and Prowl soon joined them, and the rest of the humans were introduced. They spent another hour out in the middle of nowhere, before it was decided that it was time to leave and the now slightly larger caravan made its way back to Tranquility.
Andi yelped as she was suddenly scooped up in Axle's arms, seconds before a yellow blur stepped where she had previously been standing.
"Hey! Watch it, will ya?" She shouted from her perch on Axle's arm. The bots paid her no heed, though.
"Hey, Axle!" The yellow blur shouted as it ran past.
"Hi, Andi!" Then the red.
"Welcome home!" They both shouted.
"Get back here, you slags!" They were followed closely by an even larger, enraged black bot. Andi and Axle waited until Ironhide had passed before attempting to continue forward and enter the control room warehouse, known simply as Control, where the other bots and humans were congregated.
Axle held onto her until they were a safe distance away from the activity behind them, before placing her back on the ground near a waiting Sam and Mikaela. He then joined his fellow bots, who greeted him warmly, First Aid patting him on the back as he took a seat next to the older bot.
"If any of you get damaged, I'm not repairing you this time!" Ratchet roared over to the three rampaging bots.
Andi shook her head in amusement before turning to her two younger friends. "Hello. Good morning," she greeted the couple with a smile.
"Hey, Andi," Mikaela returned.
"You're late," Sam continued.
Andi rolled her eyes. "Give me a break, Sam. We got home late last night and my parents wanted to talk this morning. Besides, what no, 'Hi, Andi! How are you? Did you have a good trip? We missed you.' Boy you sure know how to spread the love. Heck even the Twins have better manners than you. At least they said welcome back after almost stepping on me."
Sam stuck his tongue out at her and being the mature almost adult that she was, Andi returned the gesture.
"So, how was it?" The younger boy asked as he and Mikaela joined her as she continued to walk further into Control.
"Not bad," Andi shrugged. "Didn't have much time to enjoy D.C. though. It was mostly, in, work, and then out. The drive there and back took longer than the actual installation."
Following the events at Mission City, Andi had been hired by the government, specifically the SecDef, to create a bot-proof firewall for their computer systems, both military and otherwise. No one wanted a repeat of Frenzy's attacks and since the little menace had disappeared after the battle, the possibility of a repeat was extremely high. So with the permission of the Autobots to perform quite a few systems analyses on each of them and with their help understanding Frenzy's initial hack attempts, Andi had done just that. After much trial and error, she had created an unhackable firewall. Testing had consisted of each Autobot attempting to break through and after two months of endless work, she had finally achieved her goal.
Ten days ago, she and Axle had left Tranquility to drive to D.C. where she installed the firewall on the servers of the government's super computers and military defense systems. She spent one full day then teaching a limited number of tech specialists how to run and perform basic maintenance and then she and Axle had made the long trek home.
Andi had rolled into bed that night around 4 am, and would have given anything to sleep for at least 10 hours. Unfortunately, she had told Lennox the day before that she would be at the meeting the next day. So she rolled out of bed a mere 6 hours later and made herself presentable for the day.
From the moment she had walked into the back door of the main house from her room over the garage, her mother had talked to her non-stop for over an hour. What had been going to be a fifteen minute breakfast stop had turned into an hour and fifteen minute lecture. And even then, the only reason Andi had been able to leave when she did was because her dad had taken pity on her and distracted her mother with a question. She made a mental note to treat her dad to lunch at his favorite diner sometime soon.
Turning her attention to a grouping of tables and chairs set up several yards away near a host of human and bot sized computers, Andi started over. When it had first become clear that the warehouse would become the main meeting location for the Autobots and humans, provisions had been made for the humans. Some tables and chairs to work at had been the least of those provisions.
Currently, one of the tables was overrun by Glen and Maggie, who were sticking around Tranquility until they finished their current project, and their laptops. Surrounding the two, was a mountain of papers, which on occasion one or the other would dig through and write something on them. Andi had to refrain from laughing at the two, knowing that their current work was frustrating enough; they didn't need her to comment.
A second set of chairs was occupied by Major Will Lennox and Sergeant Bobby Epps. The two Rangers had been designated by the SecDef to head the army relations with the Autobots. Which was fine with all those involved. The Autobots liked the two humans who had played a large role in the fight against the Decepticons. Hell, even Ironhide liked them, enough in fact that for the time being he chose to live with Will and his family. Andi suspected that relationship was based largely on the two's love for munitions.
She greeted the four as she came near.
"You're late, girl!" Will responded, causing her to huff in annoyance and Sam and Mikaela to snicker behind her.
"Yeah, Major…Good to see you too."
AN: There you have it. I hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think. I love hearing from you! Till next time…