Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. I only take credit for non-recognizable characters and slight differentiation in plot.

Author's Note: I have written this chapter in celebration of two things! One: I got my laptop charger! Whoo! And, two: 100 followers on this story! I'd be extremely happy if we can make it to 100 reviews. Since I really want to write a oneshot but have no clue what to write about, I'll write one for the hundredth reviewer. :D

And, I went back and edited a few of the chapters. The only 'major' change I made was to the first chapter. I just added in a few details and changed up some words to fix the flow. ^^

Chapter 5

Heli rides and Unexpected Reunions

"Captain Lennox!"

Kris glanced over his shoulder from where he was walking with Epps and Will to see a suit approaching them with a haste in his step.

"We need you and your team to come with us right now!" the suit exclaimed. "Let's go!"

The men exchanged glances before rushing off towards the awaiting car.

So much for going home... Kris thought bitterly.

Noah…

Blinking groggily, Lyra sat up in her seat. Well, she tried to. Something was holding her down. And there was something covering her ears too. Looking down, she saw that a type of seatbelt was keeping her in place.

"—who knew?" Sam said, laughing humorlessly.

"What the…?" Lyra said, furrowing her brows in confusion.

"Good to see you're awake, Sleeping Beauty," a very amused voice said. Looking to her left, the brunette saw that it was Mikaela who had spoken. Her expression was a mixture of exhaustion, irritation, and relief, as if she couldn't decided what to feel.

"W-where are we?" Lyra grumbled as she yawned. She tried to stretch out her body, arching he back as much as the seatbelt would allow.

"In a helicopter on the way to the Hoover Dam," a blond woman answered, smiling politely. She had an Australian accent, Lyra noted, just now noticing that they weren't alone. Sam was there, seated on the other side of Mikaela. A blond woman and dark skinned man sat across from them.

"Oh," she said, glancing down awkwardly.

"I'm Maggie," the blond, Maggie, said.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Lyra." Awkward smile.

"Like the constellation?" Polite interest.

"Yeah. Mom was an astronomy freak." Half hearted shrug.

"That's cool." Equally awkward smile.

"I guess." Pathetically masked boredom.

"Uh, this is Glenn." Gesture to chubby man next to her.

"Hey, I'm Glenn." Awkward wave.

"Hi, Glenn." Awkward smile.

And it was quiet from there. Lyra was too busy thinking over her recent dream-thing about Noah. Mikaela and Sam were conversing quietly about Bumblebee. Maggie and Glenn were bickering about what could be waiting for them at the Hoover Dam.

This one was different somehow. It was much more intimate, like it wasn't just onesided. Lyra could swear on her life that Noah knew she was there to some degree. He was responding to her attempts at comforting him. That had to mean something!

Maybe this thing can be controlled, Lyra mused. Whatever this thing is.

Her heart and mind kept going back and forth on her situation. It just seemed so real. And Noah—Jesus! Noah; her heart couldn't accept that this wasn't real. The emotions ripping through her were too strong to be a figment of her imagination, a dream. Her mind, though, was insisting that this couldn't possibly be real. It was adamant in saying that it had created this, that it had weaved this whole thing up.

Right when Lyra finally thought that she had made a decision, something just made her doubt. What if she was in a coma? What if, by accepting that this was real, she was accepting being a comatose vegetable for the rest of her life? But what if this was, in fact, real? What if there was a legitimate reason for this all happening?

"Don't think too hard, your brain cells might die of exhaustion," Mikaela teased, bumping her elbow into Lyra's.

"Huh?" the brunette uttered, blinking rapidly as she snapped out of her thought induced stupor. "I was—what?"

"Hey," the gearhead said seriously, "we're all worried about 'Bee. Don't let it get to you."

Guilt consumed Lyra. How had she forgotten about that crazy 'Bot? "Uh, yeah," she said, swallowing nervously. "Tha-that wasn't what I was thin-thinking about, actually. I-I mean, I wish we could do something, bu—"

"But Noah, right?" Mikaela supplied, smiling in understanding. "Yeah. I get it. I guess I just kind of forgot that you have more riding on this than we do."

"Not really," Lyra sighed, watching Sam talk to Glenn about eBay while Maggie rolled her eyes. "If the Decepticons get the All Spark, then everyone is screwed. Yeah, my brother's in the grasp of imminent doom right now, but so is the rest of the world."

"But the rest of the world doesn't know that," the black haired beauty insisted. "You do. And you know what could happen to your little broth—"

"I get it," Lyra said sharply, her fists clenching tightly.

"Right. Sorry."

"No, it's fine. I'm just a bit—I don't want to think about it."

"I know. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

The two girls sat in silence then. Lyra chose to stare down at the ground below while Mikaela listened In on the conversation currently circulating the helicopter. The brunette wasn't particularly scared of heights, but she didn't like not being stable. She could trust the Autobots not to drop her, but this helicopter wasn't very reassuring.

"It's not that," Lyra said eventually, causing the ravenette to look at her in confusion. "You were thinking. You were just trying to make me see something I've been avoiding looking at."

"What d'ya mean?" Mikaela asked, running a hand through her hair absently.

"I don't want to accept that this is happening," Lyra whispered quietly. It was so quiet that the mechanic barely heard her. Barely.

The historical significance of the Hoover Dam was something Lyra had read up on for a US History assignment. Her teacher, Mr. Thacker, had given her a B- even though it was very detailed and had numerous annotations and references. His reasoning was "It's a 500 word essay, Miss Montez, not a trip to a history museum". Needless to say, he was not a favorite instructor of hers.

Thus, it was such a shame that Lyra's first trip to such a monument would be because the government had hijacked them in an attempt to learn everything they knew about aliens.

"Whoa," Lyra said to herself, looking out at the view. She slowed down slightly as she walked besides Sam, Mikaela on his other side. She didn't quite have an opinion on Sam: he was just a socially awkward teenage boy on the ride of his life.

"Hey, kid," an agent said. Lyra thought his name was 'Simon'. "I think we got off to a bad start, huh?" He put his hand on Sam's shoulder. "You must be hungry? You want a latte? HoHo? Double venti macchiato?"

"Where's my car?" Sam said angrily, glaring at the agent. Lyra and Mikaela backed him up by throwing out glares of their own.

"Son, I need you to listen to me very carefully," another agent, a bald one this time, said. "People can die here. We need to know everything you know. We need to know it now."

"Okay," Sam nodded. "But first, I'll take my car, my parents. Maybe you should write that down." He looked at Mikaela suddenly as a thought struck him. "Oh, and her juvie record. That's got to be gone. Like, forever."

Lyra smiled slightly. She felt happy for her somewhat friend for finding a guy who cared about her enough to bargain the fate of the world for her juvie record. Well, along with his car and parents.

"Come with me. We'll talk about your car," the bald agent said as Sam and 'Simon' had a staredown.

"Thank you," Mikaela whispered to Sam as they started following behind the agent. Lyra walked ahead of them, not wanting to feel like a third wheel by being near their...togetherness.

She was looking around at the scenery to keep herself occupied. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Sam and Mikaela holding hands and whispering into each others ears. She quickly averted her gaze to something else and was met with a moment of confusion.

What that her...

"Dad?" Lyra said to herself. She was a few yards away, and he was facing away from her so that she could only see him from a side view, but that was definitely him. Something about seeing hium triggered a turmoil of emotion deep inside of her. Her throat tightened painfully as she tried to keep tears from gathering in her eyes. "Daddy!" she yelled, running towards him.

The soldiers looked at her in confusion. As she got closer, recognition donned on the face of one of the men, and he stepped closer. His face was dirty and coated with sweat, and his hair, which was usually long, was cropped much shorter, but still looked slightly disheveled.

"Lyra?" the man asked, struck.

"Daddy!" Lyra called, practically jumping into his arms. She buried her face in his chest, her arms wrapping around his waist feebly. Her breathing was ragged, and her words came out unsure. "D-dad, they t-took Noah!"

"What?" Her father's hands, which had been wrapped tight around her small form, slackened considerably as he processed her words. "Who took him? What happened? Where's Noah?"

"The D-Decepticons," the brunette whimpered, choking back a sob as she tried to force her words to come out understandable. "Th-they...we were in a crash, and they just...we ran...he ran...God."

"Montez," one of the soldiers, a dark skinned man wearing a red hat, said. "This your girl?"

"Yeah. Yeah, Epps. My daughter, Lyra," Kris said absently, trying to absorb everything. What were these 'Decepticons'? They were in a crash? Running? From what?

"Ly." He felt his daughter flinch as a black haired girl approached them. She was trying to be soothing, placing a hand on Lyra's shoulder somewhat awkwardly. "Calm down. Optimus said they'd get him back."

'Optimus'? Who was 'Optimus'? Who the heck was this chick?

"Y-yeah," Lyra said shakily. "Y-you're right. He did. He'll keep his promise. I know he will." She nodded to herself, untangling herself from her father. "I know he will," she whispered to herself.

"All right, here's the situation," the curly haired agent said. "You've all had direct contact with the NBEs."

"NBEs?" The dark skinned soldier, Epps, asked. Lyra, who hadn't moved from her father's side, was standing behind him, equally as confused.

"Non-Biological Extraterrestrials," the agent provided. "Try and keep up with the acronyms."

Sorry we didn't get the memo, Lyra thought, too tired to say it out loud. It was a bit too snarky for her current mood. While she tried to stay positive, a feeling of dread was etched inside of her.

"What you're about to see is totally classified," the bald agent called back. What the names of these agents were was totally lost on Lyra. Honestly, the world could end and she wouldn't even notice.

Wait, that's what she was helping the Autobots try to prevent... Right.

The sight of a frozen Megatron was daunting. From a scientific stand point, the only thought she could come up with was "magnificent". From the stand point of someone who knew they were going to be up against him, the thought was "we're fucked".

"Dear God. What is this?" the Secretary of Defense gasped.

"We think," the agent continued, "when he made his approach over the north pole, our gravitational field screwed up his telemetry. He crashed in the ice, probably a few thousand years ago. We shipped him here to this facility in 1934."

"We call him NBE One," 'Simon' said.

"Well, sir, I don't mean to correct you on everything you think you know," Sam cut in, "but, I mean, that's Megatron."

"Yeah, the big, bad Decepticon leader," Lyra mumbled under her breath, blatantly gawking at the giant robot. He was huge. Honestly, she was probably the size of his pinky finger! Possibly, she thought, eying up the 'small' phalanx.

"He's the leader of the Decepticons," Sam elaborated.

"He's been in cryostasis since 1935," 'Baldy', as Lyra had come to refer to the agent as in her head, informed. "Your great-great-grandfather made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind."

"Fact is, you're looking at the source of the modern age," 'Simon' bragged. "The microchip, lasers, spaceflight, cars—all reverse-engineered by studying him. NBE One. That's what we call it." The man got close to Sam's face, enunciating his words clearly.

"And you didn't think the United States military might need to know that you're keeping a hostile alien robot frozen in the basement?" The Sec. Def. asked incredulously, walking over to 'Baldy' as he alternated between glaring at the agent and staring at the Decepticon leader.

Kris' facial expression didn't change as he looked around. He completely agreed with the Sec. Def. Whatever the hell this thing was, it was responsible for the taking of Noah. Right? Kris definitely wasn't a genius, but he could put two and two together fairly easily. If these 'Decepticons' were the ones who took his son, and this 'Megatron' was their leader, then it was responsible. Right?

The robot had been frozen for a good seven decades. There was no way it could just go, "Hey, tiny robot minions, I feel like doing something bad that really has no point behind it. Go out and kidnap a little human boy". Could it?

"So why Earth?" Lennox asked, craning his neck to see more of the metallic man.

"The All Spark," Lyra answered, glancing at every part of Megatron. She was trying to commit his anatomy to memory, making comparisons between Cybertronians and Humans.

"All Spark? What is that?" The Sec. Def. asked.

"Well, yeah, they came here looking for some sort of cube-looking thing," Sam said. "Anyway, Mr. NBE One here, AKA Megatron," he emphasized the last word, looking pointedly at 'Simon', "that's what they call him, who's pretty much the harbinger of death, wants to use the Cube to transform human technology to take over the universe. That's their plan."

"Are you sure about that?" 'Simon' asked.

"Yeah."

The two agents exchanged looks, causing the three teenagers to furrow their brows.

"You know where it is, don't you?" Mikaela asked, glancing between them.

"Follow me," 'Baldy' said. He didn't wait for acknowledgment of his statement as he walked off, expecting them to listen.

The All Spark gave Lyra chills. It wasn't bad chills, though. It made her feel...energized. Her hands twitched as she got closer to the window. Her mind was far from the small room she was in, oblivious to the going-ons around her.

Her gaze was locked on the Cube, as was her mind. The markings engraved in it were hard to see from her standpoint, but they made the hair on her skin rise. She didn't stop moving away until she was practically pressed up against the glass.

That Cube...it felt like...was it singing? That noise...it was calling... Was the Cube the reason she was there? That couldn't be possible. Oh, who the hell was she to decide what was possible? As far as she knew, being in a movie wasn't possible.

One step forward, and a million steps back," Lyra thought bitterly. She was just starting to get used to the idea of this being real, and she gets blindsided by another factor.

How was her father here? He wasn't in that car accident. He wasn't with them. How could he possibly have been there? He was stationed in Qatar!

But, wait, hadn't Noah said something related to Transformers about that...?

"Dad's gone off to war," Lyra deadpanned, staring blankly at her younger brother. "Why are you happy about that?"

Noah laughed, practically bouncing in his seat. "Because, at the beginning of Transformers, that's where the soldiers are stationed!"

"You're such a fan," she mumbled, shaking her head as she facepalmed.

So did that mean that her dad...he was there for the beginning of the movie? But why didn't he know? Why was he confused on what a Decepticon was? He was just as big a fan of the movie as Noah was!

Unless...

He doesn't know, Lyra thought. He was here, but he wasn't. This place must be what's real to him. To her and Noah, though...

"Lyra."

Said girl's head snapped over to look at Sam. The boy was giving her a strange look, his hand gripping her arm lightly. "What?"

"C'mon. We're moving on to another room."

"Oh. Right."

She didn't want to be here. She could practically taste the apprehension in the air. This was where the little Deceptibot died.

Absently, Lyra rubbed her collar bone. It was steadily growing colder and colder, and her body was trying to warm it up by adding heat from friction. She didn't notice, though. Her father was sending her worried glances as he noticed the look on her face.

She was desperately trying to find a way out of the room, but there was none. The door was sealed, and there were no windows. The little Nokia phone was sitting inside the glass containment box, waiting.

This didn't sit well with her.

"We're able to take the Cube radiation and funnel it into that box," 'Simon' said, flipping some switches.

Lyra could feel the Cube acting up as its power was drawn into the room. She was suddenly aware of how cold her collar was and pulled her hand back. The box started to glow, and the phone was zapped.

She felt like hurling.

The phone came to life, transforming into a small 'bot.

Fear. That's all she felt. It was a foreign feeling, like it wasn't her own.

The 'bot slammed into the walls of the box, causing some of the people in the room to jump.

The fear kept growing.

Lyra could taste something metallic in her mouth. It wasn't blood. No, it was more like bile.

"Mean little sucker, huh?" 'Simon' asked tauntingly.

"That thing is freaky!" Maggie exclaimed.

The fear seemed to escalate as one of the soldiers tapped the glass.

"Lyra? You alright?" Mikaela whispered, touching the brunette's elbow to get her attention. "You look green."

"No," she croaked. The fear was suffocating her. Instinctively, she went to run a hand across her neck and froze when she felt the cool metal that hung there loosely. The necklace was back? She didn't have time to think about the significance this disappearing piece of jewelry held.

"Kind of like the itty-bitty Energizer Bunny from hell, huh?" 'Simon' continued on.

The 'bot started shooting at the glass. It even sent out a missile. It was so scared.

"He's breaking the glass," 'Baldy' sighed.

Dread intensified as Lyra saw 'Simon's' finger move toward a button.

"No!" She exclaimed as the little 'bot was zapped. She stared at the poor dead creature sadly. All of the fear washed away. The dread returned to 'normal'. The apprehension disappeared, as did the cold feeling around her neck. The light weight of the necklace was gone as well. "Why would you do that?" Lyra whispered, her hand covering her mouth as she tried to keep the sudden anguish she felt at bay.

"Why does it matter?" 'Simon' asked obnoxiously.

"'Why does it—' It matters because you killed him!" she growled, glaring angrily at the snobby agent.

"In case you didn't notice, little girl, that thing would've broken the glass and killed us all. Or were you to busy thinking how cute it was to notice its killer weapons?"

"With all due respect, Sir," her father said through gritted teeth, "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't talk down to my daughter."

Lyra ignored him as she just stared at the agent incredulously. "He was scared. How would you react if you woke up in a room surround by a bunch of strange beings that were so much bigger than you?"

"He's kind of already done that," Mikaela butted in, smirking as she remembered the agent's reaction to seeing the Autobots.

"Look, girlie," 'Simon' snarled. He stopped his train of thought as the lights flickered ominously and faint explosions were heard.

"Gentlemen, they know the Cube is here," the Secretary of Defense said.

'Baldy' ran over to an intercom and slammed his hand on a button; "Banacheck. What's going on?"

"Well, the NBE One hangar has lost power..." a man answered.

"What?!"

"...and the backup generator is just not gonna cut it."

"Do you have an arms room?" One of the soldiers asked urgently as Lyra inched closer to her dad, one of her hands gripping onto his sleeve tightly as the other wrapped around her abdomen. Something told her that she was going to be in for another world of pain...

Author's Note: Please, tell me what you think. The next update might not be for a while since I'm trying to juggle school, clubs, fanfiction, and a social life. I appreciate reviews so much, but, if you only leave one worded reviews, I don't know what to fix or improve. Constructive criticism means the world to me. :)

Until next time!