Desi could still remember laughing about something Julio had tried to tell them early that morning. "Yo, G, listen. Guess what ma little brother did yesterday!" His poofy black hair was stylishly combed to the side, carrying at least half a bottle of gel. His chocolate-brown eyes sparkled with amusement.

"What?" she asked, trying not to smile. Julio's stories hadn't always been the best for telling during school hours.

Mark, and the other three sitting next to them leaned in to hear better.

There was a scream from somewhere in the back of the bus and a crash resounded/ Everyone froze. Desi turned and saw that part of the bus cave in under the pressure of a beat-up pickup truck slamming into it and see the yellow metal bend and twist to where she could see it from the inside.

Every teenager in that vehicle waited for two agonizing seconds for the back end to stop and hopefully not go off the cliff.

It had been way too cold that day on the way to pick up Stephanie. The roads were too icy.

Every last one prayed it wouldn't...

There were a few shrieks and cries of "What's going on?!" and "What's happening?!"

Desi still thinks she heard a "Danielle, I've always loved you!" from someone.

...but it did, and it took the school bus with it.

Time seemed to slow and the screams of Desi's classmates faded into a background noise.

Desi could remember Julio trying to say something to her over the noise of the rolling, but she had been in some other state of mind and hadn't understood him.

All she could focus on was being in midair, with the bus turning in circles around her. Most of the old grey leather seats' legs were ripped from the floor, metal points sitcking out of the floor, and tossed into the air by the force of the bus bouncing on the uneven mountainside. Some time during the middle, Desi was thrown against one of the ever moving windows and was knocked unconscious.

Desi didn't remember anything after that.

. . .

After what seemed like days, Julio heard the sound of metal on asphalt as the wrecked bus fell onto its side. The bus finally came to a halt on the road at the base of the mountain.

He could feel bruises everywhere, might have a few fractured ribs, and maybe a completely broken leg, but never had he been so grateful to God to have been alive.

The relief he felt was short-lived as he surveyed the wreckage of the bus. All except the rear windows were completely missing and all four lights had been cracked. Pieces of shatter-proof glass littered the black asphalt of the road, along with schoolbooks. A page of yesterday's math homework was under his shoe.

He hope God had blessed the other riders.

Mark weakly lifted up his head to look at the cause of the noise, but let it fall after his eyes clouded over. His back was curved unnaturally over a loose seat that had come completely apart.

Concern for a friend overrode the pain of his injuries. Julio propped himself up and forced his mangled leg to cooperate.

"Mark. Dude, wake up." His accented voice nearly cracked. "Wedo. Get up."

Julio wanted to cry in happiness when one of his best friends finally opened his eyes.

Mark's voice was raspy and quiet. "So not getting to school today, dude." He rolled over onto his stomach, groaning as he tried to get up.

Julio held out a hand, and Mark took it, holding his middle as he pulled himself up to his full height.

"Do you think..." Julio let the thought finish itself. In all honesty, he didn't want to think it out loud.

. . .

"Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?"

"I'm watching a school bus roll down a hill. What do you think the emergency is?" Preston O'Ryan barked into the phone, feeling no remorse. He gave her the name of the road without waiting for her response.

He was in no mood to deal with a calm and orderly woman on the other side of a phone line. He needed to do something for those kids.

Those kids...

The grown man looked at the rolling yellow death trap.

It was a little more than halfway, and gaining speed. Preston could see the scrap being let out through the broken and fractured windows. Papers, books, a schoolbag.

No.

Pierce O'Ryan let the moble phone drop to the asphalt ground beside his car and sprinted.

"Sir? Sir!"

. . .

Desi wasn't used to waking up in strange places than the the next person, but that didn't change the fact that she didn't see the point in screaming, yelling, and kicking anything that came close to her.

She shrugged off the strangeness and stood up- a bit too quickly. Desi's vision clouded over for a minute and her head felt oddly light. Her hand stuck itself out in an effort to lean against whatever wall there was and ended up cracking and scraping her knuckles against the cold, unforgiving concrete surface.

Desi groaned, a feeling forming in her stomach.

She wasn't about to have a good day, was she?

Curse her bad luck.

. . .

The black-haired girl walked out of the Army-ish room, wondering who brought her there.

Her gold and blue school-based T-shirt had seen better days. The lion that had been smeared with dirt and now looked something like a big blob. Desi's chin-length midnight-black hair stuck up in odd places and the ponytail it had been in was half down, even though it had been as perfect as she could get it when she left for the bus stop.

Her favorite pair of jeans were probably not going to be so any longer. The left leg had a rip through her knee. The right was almost completely off right below it.

Strangely enough, all she could feel that hurt was her head. When she felt the higher right side of her skull, she could feel a bump about as large as her palm, and about half as thick.

It was particularly unnerving.

Trying to take her confused mind off whatever happened, she wandered throughout the gargantuan halls, with concrete walkways and yellow handrails on both sides. Steel support beams laughed at her smallness from the ceiling.

What could could live here?

Conspiracy theories she had heard recently started circulating around her frazzled brain. Secret government organizations made to make people disappear, do experiments...

Desi shook her head.

They, whoever "they" was, wouldn't...experiment on her...would they?

Suddenly, Desi didn't feel like she needed anyone figuring out she was there. She slipped off her muddy running shoes and padded silently around the corner in her socks.

You know, as a fangirl, there are certain things you think will happen. You think you might see a yellow and black camaro and take a picture. You'll probably be excited, but you'll know that it's not really Bumblebee. Just like that silver Pontiac Solstice across from my house isn't really Jazz, even though I there was that one time I heard a "Sorry, my bad" in a familiar baritone voice.

Never once have you thought you would actually meet a Cybertronian.

Desi, a borderline obsessive fangirl, had always known somewhere deep down, that she would never ever get to see a real, living Cybertronian, fighting in a war or not.

So you can imagine a fangirl's shock when she looked around a corner and sees something she's really not supposed to: a giant robot.

As far as she could tell, it was the medic one...it was Ratchet, right? Not some cranky First Aid imposter?

She didn't like some Transformers universes, among them, Prime, Rescue Bots, and Movieverse. She didn't keep up with them. One look at the animation and she was repelled. Everything else about Transformers she loved.

Oh, how she wished she had been more open to the show.

All she knew was there were six bots, one dead, and four humans. A Saiyen hacker, a punk-rocker chick, some burger-flipping teenager, and the stereotypical obnoxious government official that was usually in every 'verse.

Okay.

. . .

So. Here I am again. I hope this seems at least a little long. I'm working on publishing longer chapters.

Disclaimer: MH stands for March Hare, who would still give me a concussion even if I did own the Transformers. I am merely using it for entertainment and do not make any profit from this story.