Bumblebee was guarding the base when the girl he'd saved appeared not five feet away from his car.

He quietly started his engine, rolling forward and getting in front of the girl. He opened the door, and she got in.

"I'm sorry," she said, sounding sad. "But I need a ride and I need to know if what Elsa said was true."

"I can - take you - where you - need - to go," he said to her through the radio.

"I need to get to any place with a vistapoint," she said, her eyes wide. "I need to calm down, and that's the only thing that will help right now."

Bumblebee slowly drove off, messaging Ironhide to tell him to guard the base while he took one of the humans out to calm down.

He shut off his communications.

~:~

Barricade got a ping. Pulling up live videos, he seemed to grin. He'd just gotten a lock on the Autobot scout; and with a heat signature.

Nobody would know he was there.

None of the humans would get there in time, either.

~:~

Jayla's eyes widened as Barricade transformed. Good news: He hadn't spotted them.

Bad news, they needed to shoot him with the hastily-assembled tracking device now, before he raced off to do evil.

Jayla shot him several times.

The shots hit him and pinged off of him; he ignored them.

"Thank gods," she sagged. She then got up and took out the tablet. "Alright, baby. Work for me." She waited -

SIGNAL INTERFERENCE

"SON OF THE FURIES!"

~:~

Sunny stared out at the night.

Lady Nyx, this world is frightening, she prayed, her eyes wide open and looking up at the stars. I want to go home. Please, take me back.

Something seemed to shift; Sunny could feel the shift as Lady Nyx took form. She was hugged to Lady Nyx's chest.

I cannot take you back, Nyx said, sounding regretful. You are my champion, my dearest child. You are the first mortal I have felt anything but anger and hatred for.

Sunny wanted to cry. My mother is gone. I don't know how to cope right now.

The child of fire will be important to your destiny, Lady Nyx revealed. If you desire to see me again, you need only ask. My heart would break for you if I had one, little Sun-child.

The inky blackness shifted from Sunny's body and began to vanish.

But... This world is full of heroes already. I cannot be better than they are.

I am not asking you to. I am asking for you to help the world as heroes do, not be a hero.

Nyx faded from her senses.

Sunny turned to see a police car driving up.

The yellow car transformed, going into a fighting stance.

Sunny swallowed.

~:~

Barricade glared at the human and scout.

"Lord Megatron will be pleased when I have you to bring him," Barricade cackled.

Bumblebee said nothing, his blue optics glaring at Barricade.

"Right! He ripped out your voicebox. How pathetic!" Barricade snarled. "You are nothing but a foolish little Autobot. I will take you before Lord Megatron, and he will reward me when I tell him of your base's location!"

"He won't find out!" The little human darted in front of Bumblebee. "Because I won't let you!"

"And how will a little fleshbag stop me?" Barricade demanded with a glare.

The human glared at him, then touched one of Bumblebee's pedes.

Bumblebee vanished, the human collapsing; Barricade's processor didn't process what had happened right then.

With a roar, he snatched the human up, none too gently, and transformed, not caring if the human died in the process. He drove off, his spark filled with more anger then it usually was.

~:~

Elizabeth Archen brushed her daughter's hair. A family dinner; her parents didn't approve of a lot of things, and her daughter was one of them. Or the way Elizabeth had her.

Either way, Elizabeth didn't want her parents to disapprove even more.

"Okay, Sunny. You're good to go." Elizabeth smiled at her daughter.

"Think they'll approve, Mom?" Her daughter's big blue eyes tugged at her heartstrings.

"Yes, honey. They'll definitely approve of you." Elizabeth smoothed her beloved child's hair down.

Elizabeth was a daughter of Nemesis; she hadn't caught monsters' attention and Apollo had overlooked her many times.

The daughter of Nemesis had dearly hoped her daughter would never have to live like her - but instead of a mother, without a real father. But Apollo had pretended to be Fred, and had lied about his identity (well, that was obvious). And when he'd told her the truth, when Elizabeth had been hinting about her pregnancy and that she wanted to marry him, Elizabeth had never felt more humiliated.

Telling her parents, who had barely tolerated her, about her demigod parentage - and her own true parentage - was out of the question. Elizabeth had allowed them to help her, as long as she found a man that would help her.

She did.

Walking out to their ride, leaving Elizabeth's old car in the driveway, Laurent, a Paris native who had left Paris on a whim and met Elizabeth at her work at Sunny's school during an art showing, waited. He'd been a good parent to Sunny where Elizabeth had failed.

Now, driving to Elizabeth's parents', she was having a small talk about her parents' aversion to Sunny.

"They don't approve for many reasons," she told Laurent nervously. "I hope you don't care that I'm possibly crazy."

"No, I don't think you're crazy," Laurent said, shaking his head and smiling at her. "I think you're very right. My mother was a demigod."

Elizabeth gawked for a moment.

"I'm sorry for not telling you," Laurent said quickly. "My mother was a daughter of a Muse."

"Oh," Elizabeth laughed weakly. "Is that where you get your art?"

Laurent laughed. "No. I don't think so - my dad was mortal and loved art. I think I got it from him. Anyway, trust me when I say I can see through the Mist well enough that I don't want anything to happen to your daughter."

Elizabeth smiled. "Hear that, sweetie?"

Sunny rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever Mom."

The dinner passed in silence.

After it, though, was weird. Her mother was very... Touchy, hugging Elizabeth and crying when she left.

"Your mother thinks something will happen to you." In the back, Sunny dozed, very full from the meal.

"I'm not an idiot." Elizabeth frowned.

She tucked her daughter in that night, hoping her mother was just overreacting.

The next day, she died in a crash.

~:~

Sunny jolted awake in a trunk.

Well, this was strange enough.

Oh, no. She'd just shown off her powers. Not good. If what Jayla had told her about the Decepticons -and this one, Barricade - was all true, then Barricade was going to kill her.

She was thrown from the trunk, into what looked like a huge storage space.

"This will be your home for now, little human," the Decepticon hissed. "You will be bait."

Sunny swallowed.

Not good.

~:~

Jayla was about to burn the tablet to a pile of melted electronics when there was a ping.

SIGNAL FOUND

"GUYS, I HAVE A SIGNAL!"