I don't own anything to do with Transformers. Too bad.

"Time to wake up human."

Skywarp's voice was loud and rough in the cockpit. Bright daylight was shining in through the glass and a glance at the sun told me it was still early in the morning. We were cruising along effortlessly, it seemed. The landscape had changed; we were over an expanse of dark evergreen trees growing thick in deep valleys and up into huge sharp hills, all divided by a busy highway. It reminded me of the Ozarks, and at that thought I wondered when I had been there.

"Barricade has responded to my signal and is making his way to our location. He should be here well before sundown. Frenzy is with him, but he is damaged and will be of little use to us in the immediate future."

"Barricade and Frenzy? Who are they?"

"Apparently the only support we'll be finding on this planet any time soon, human. Starscream is not planetside. He claimed his mission was to find and assemble the remaining Decepticon army in order to return and lead the attack on Optimus Prime. If he's anything like he was on Cybertron, he's a spineless coward looking for an easy out, but he'll come back. Soon, if I'm guessing right."

I dumbly nodded my head and went on to try and stretch out my cramped limbs, but what space I had didn't make it easy. Moving around also reminded my body that it had other business to take care of, and I'd have to be on the ground for it. I gathered up my courage.

"Uh… Skywarp? Can we please land? I need to… you know. Go to the bathroom."

"Do what?"

"Just… get rid of extra waste. It has to be done. Soon. Please."

"Ah, yes. Your body is extremely inefficient when extracting energy. We can land."

He veered from the course of the highway and followed a service road deeper into the hills, which gradually grew a little taller. He circled a particular area twice, and he must have decided it was a good place to stop. His speed dropped to almost nothing and he hovered down to the ground, using equipment definitely not standard to his jet form. He landed lightly on the top of hill smaller than the ones around it. It was mostly covered in huge slabs of rock, so only a few trees had managed to take root. One side was a sheer cliff, maybe the height of a two-story house, and the rest gradually dropped off from a small plateau.

The top of the cockpit popped open with a hiss and I stood up slowly, my muscles and joints protesting. The makeshift ladder was waiting for me and I crawled down it unsteadily until my feet were back on solid ground. I immediately picked my way down the slope and took care of business.

Feeling much better, I started to give my aching muscles a break while I made my way back up to Skywarp. As I stretched my back out I heard Skywarp transforming ahead and it occurred to me that I hadn't seen him in daylight before.

I pulled myself up onto one of the slabs of dark red rock and was vaguely shocked. His whole body setup was much more complicated than I had imagined in the darkness, but he was dark in color, black all over with random accents of purple and some small areas of light gray. There were symbols in random places on his body. One on his shoulder, which seemed to be partly made of his wing stood out, was lined in purple against the black. Skywarp noticed me looking at it and I could swear his strange face had a smile on it. It was harder to tell when I was distracted by all his parts.

"That is the Decepticon insignia, human. Any transformer with any other symbol is the enemy. In fact, I have decided something. If you are going to be my pet, I need to take precautions. If Starscream keeps his word you will be meeting many Decepticons, and they simply won't care about any little human. I have looked it up, and I have found the process called tattooing. I want you to tattoo the Decepticon insignia on your forehead."

I had been in the middle of a yawn when he finished. Air whooshed out of me and I stared up at him, disbelieving. "Oh. Ha ha. That's a funny one. Nobody tattoos their forehead, Skywarp. Except that guy who got paid for it, but he doesn't count. Maybe my back or something…"

He growled, more of a metallic thunderous grind than a throaty sound. "If I wanted the symbol on your back I would have said so! You forehead is always visible. You will tattoo your forehead."

I stiffened in defiance. I couldn't get away from this big monster, but I wasn't going to let him control my appearance. What did I have to lose besides a life that I no longer had any control over?

"No."

His big fists clenched and he lea,ned over me menacingly. "You belong to me, flesh creature. You will do as I say."

"It's not normal! I won't do it!"

Skywarp raised his huge fist as if to fling it down at me again, but he just held it up for a nerve-wracking moment before slowly lowering it again. "Are you always this stubborn, human?"

I was taken off balance by the new direction of his question. "I guess I am… I don't remember. I wish I knew my name. I don't like being called human and flesh creature." I sat down under a scraggly tree growing through a crack in the rock, picking at my jeans dispiritedly.

Skywarp settled down beside me as well, blocking the bright sun out of my eyes whether he meant to our not. "You need a name, something that fits. You are a fearless fighter, and stubborn." At this point he made some weird, garbled and metallic noise and looked at me expectantly. "Do you like it?"

I couldn't help making a face. "Like what?"

"The name." More crazy noises. "It means fearless."

"Oh… That's your language?" He nodded. "Well, I'm sure it's wonderful but I don't know if I can pronounce it."

Skywarp burst out into a normal sounding laugh, much to my shock. "I don't even think you can hear some of the wavelengths. I'll find something human to fit you."

We sat in silence for a long time and the cool air of the morning was melting away in the rising summer heat, but in Skywarp's shadow it was bearable.

I looked down at my dirty clothes and sighed in dismay. I had been wearing a pretty white shirt with a light blue design wheeling all across it, but now it was covered in dirt and even some grass. My jeans were no better. My shoes were nice, and only a little dirty, so there was at least one thing to be happy about.

As I was contemplating the logo on the side of my once white sneakers my stomach rumbled insistently and Skywarp looked down from whatever was occupying him. "You need an energy source. What do you humans use? Wait, I'll look it up."

I watched him, faintly amused by his desire to take care of me. As a pet, but maybe he would start to see me as a real person instead of a gerbil at some point. "Ah ha! You call it food, and you prepare it in too many ways to bother mentioning. You are an omnivore; feeding you should be easy. I'll go get you one of those trees to graze on." He started to get up.

I got up too and held out my arms, yelling "No! Wait, people don't eat trees. Sometimes we eat fruit from trees, but not the actual tree. I need to go get food from a store, but I don't have any money."

Skywarp nodded as if he had predicted my helplessness. "I will radio Barricade to have Frenzy gather you some food and money. He should be able to handle that."

"Ok. I can wait, I guess… Are you a higher rank than Barricade?"

"Yes, a lot higher. I'm more mobile and more powerful. There isn't exactly much reason for a ranking system until Starscream gets back, though. I won't push him."

"Are you really going to make me get a tattoo?"

"I want you to. We can change the placement if you like."

"Yeah, I guess we should. You want it somewhere that's visible all the time?"

"To help identify you to my allies."

"Uh huh. Maybe like, my arm or something. Or my wrist, but that would hurt… At least it would be visible."

"Your wrist would be fine."

"Ok. In black and purple?"

"Why black and purple?"

I smiled up at him, but it was getting hard to see his face as the sun rose and outlined him in a brilliant halo. "Your main colors are black and purple. I thought you would like the extra touch."

I couldn't quite tell, but it looked like he was smiling again. "Yes, I do."

The day wore on uneventfully, watching the hawks and buzzards fly over occasionally, clouds sometimes whisking over the sun and giving a little relief from the heat. There was one scare with a rattlesnake that Skywarp squashed almost before I had a chance to scream. I moved closer to him after that, both for the snake insurance and because his shadow was disappearing as noon approached.

It wasn't long before his shadow was gone and I was left sitting in the sun, panting and sweating. I could almost hear my skin crisping.

Skywarp looked down at me when I started fanning myself with both hands, and was quickly alarmed. "You are changing colors, human. You are turning red. What is your illness?"

"It's the sun. My skin is kind of sensitive after a while."

He leaned down low to me and inspected my face and arms closely. "I have looked up sunburn. They can cause skin cancer. Cancer can be fatal to humans. You must be protected from excessive exposure."

This being said, he hunched his body over his knees, which were sticking out in front of him, and I realized suddenly that he was making himself into a big metal shelter for me. He watched me from over his legs as I scooted under him and I could see the red glow of his eyes in the shade of the robot tent. I craned my neck back to look at him and smiled, and he smiled back.

"I've found a name for you."

"You have? Well, let's hear it. I have to like it, or it's a no go."

He chuckled, his bright red eyes shining down on me. "I think you will. I was considering your skill when defending yourself. You were very brave facing those three humans, wouldn't you say?"

"Well, I'm not actually that skilled… but I guess I was kind of brave, or reckless, whatever you want to call it."

"I want to call it bravery, which is why I want to name you Bravura."

"Bravura? Did you make it up?"

"No, it's an earth word. It means brilliance, artistry, talent, and great skill, in your language."

"Bravura. Bravura…"

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah, I think I do."

We shared another smile while the sun baked everything around us.

Edited March 9th, 2010