Chapter 8

Searching

Amelia had been jogging through the Decepticon base for about two minutes when she encountered her first obstacle. A Decepticon drone. It was guarding a door with its plasma gun loaded. Amelia, because they did not have specific names, had nicknamed the drones Steve's. This Steve in particular seemed bored and not to alert, so passing him would be easy so she thought. Amelia could not have been more wrong. As soon as she turned the corner the Steve was on her. Amelia hightailed out of there as fast as her legs could carry her with the Steve in pursuit. As she was running she felt this strange warmth in her legs, similar to the feeling she got when she transformed into a mermaid. When she looked down at her feet she nearly fell over them with shock. Her feet had turned into white big feline paws and she was covered in white fur up to her waist. The Steve was closing in on her fast, she needed a plan and fast. After quickly going trough her list of option, which were limited, she picked the one, which was most likely to work. She closed her eyes and leaped forward, she landed on her hands/paws and sprinted forward. Her plan had worked, she had transformers into, what looked like, a snow leopard. Now that she was a big cat, she could run way faster. She easily outruns the Steve who was now falling behind. When Amelia was sure that the drone was to far away to find her, she collapsed into a heap on the floor. She was exhausted, she had never run that fast before and she had to say, it was amazing. Running on all fours was much easier than running on two feet but it was also very tiring. After catching her breath she stood up on to her back paws and looked around her. She scanned her surroundings and tried to get a sense of direction. She decided to go the opposite direction from where she came from and went further into the base in her search for Abby.

Amelia was silently walking when an idea struck her. The base was underground, therefor it need a vent system to keep the circulation of oxygen going. Vents. If she could find a vent, she could crawl through it without being noticed. It was not long before she found one in the smooth metal walls. It had bars in front of it but they did not hold her back. Her head was able to fit trough the bars and, because she was a cat, the rest of her body would be able to fit through it to. When she had passed the bars she stood up. The vents were very big, unlike the ones she had seed in school, she was able to stand up in these vents with ease. After walking for about five minutes the vent she was in became smaller, so she just walked on all four of her paws again. She had gone trough quite a few of the vents and was going strong until she walked up to a dead end. From that point on the vets went only up and down, very far down. Amelia coked her head at the vent's wall as if asking it what to do, after a moment of thought she crawled into the vent and positioned herself with her hands and feet on the vents sides and slowly proceeded upwards. The crawl up was very long and frustrating but finally she had found another vent and gratefully crawled into that. Amelia sighed, her arms and legs hurt and she still hadn't found Abigail. She sighed again and got up to walk further, just when she realized that she was no longer in the vent system she had up until recently been in. she looked around and narrowed her eyes in concentration. Then she recognized where she was, she was in the lab she had been in before she was placed into the fish tank a few rooms away. Amelia was now standing before the vent on a large cupboard, overlooking the lab. She looked for Abigail's form and found her on one of the berths. She was not moving from what Amelia could see but that was not going to stop her from trying to get both of them out of this base and into safety. Still in her cat form Amelia jumped down from the cupboard and landed on one of the medical berth, from there she jumped from one berth to another till she was on the one her friend was lying on. She quickly transformed back into a human and started working on the straps that were holing Abigail down. Just as she finished her friend woke up.

"W-what's going o-on." Abby mumbled

"Ssshhh" Amelia hissed back at her sleepy friend as she clamped her hand over Abby's mouth.

"If you don't shut up, they'll find us and lock us back up! You here me!" Amelia whispered angrily. Abigail, who had now fully awoken, nodded her head quickly. Amelia removed her hand

"Good." She whispered

"A-Amelia…" Abigail asked her friend

"Yes…"

"I have something to show you…"

"Ok"

Abigail rolled her shoulders and then slowly opened her wings. They were very big and a soft, white, tawny color. Her wingspan was 6 or so meters wide. Breakdown wanted her to be able to fly so he had created, with Knockouts help, a pair of wings for his pet human.

Amelia gasped, they were probably the most impressive things she had ever seen. She stretched out a hand and stroked the soft feathers lightly.

"They're beautiful." She breathed out. After a minute of admiring them, Amelia spoke up.

"Um… I have something to show you too…" Amelia transformers into her snow leopard form. Abigail stumbled back in surprise but then slowly took a step forward and touched Amelia's thick, soft fur.

"Wow. Looks like they did something to you to." Abby said.

"Yeh, well, we better get outa here." Amelia said as she stood back up onto her hind legs.

"Can you fly with those wings of yours?"

"Yes, but not very well though"

"Ok, so here is the plan. We get back to that shelf over there and climb up it, then, we go into the vent and find our way out, kay?"

"Sounds good to me" Abby replied

"Ok, on one, we jump"

"Three… two… one… go!" Amelia said and they both jumped onto the next berth. They did this until they had finally arrived at last berth in front of the cupboard.

"How are we supposed to get up there?" Abigail asked, as she looked up at the gigantic bookcase.

"I have no idea." Amelia said "Maybe we could just climb up it, shelf by shelf."

"That's going to take forever and it's probably going to be tiring"

"Have you got any better ideas?" Amelia asked mockingly. Abby sighed.

"Fine, fine. Well let's start then! Your first."

"Ok, here goes nothing!" Amelia leaped up and just managed to get a grip with her right hand.

"Very smooth Amelia." Abigail said sarcastically.

"I know right! Humpf." Amelia griped the shelf with her other hand and pulled herself up.

"Wooh, that was tiring."

"Told you so. Well I guess it's my turn, here comes!" Abigail jumped, extended her wings and landed next to Amelia in a heap.

"Very smooth Abigail, very smooth." Amelia chuckled. After they both got to the top of the cupboard they took some time to catch their breaths.

"I am never, ever going to do that again." Abby said between heavy breaths

"Same here." Amelia said as she wiped a trail of sweat from her brow. When they were ready again, they both climbed into the vent and kept walking until they found another exit.

"Where is she?" Barricade growled at Knockout.

"I told you already, I don't know!" Knockout growled back.

"I think I know how we could find them." Shockwave said.

"And how are you planning to do that Shockwave." Barricade hissed at him.

"Well, humans radiate a specific heat signature, so if we activate the base's scanners we could find them with ease." Shockwave replied coolly. Barricade looked at him and then nodded curtly.

"Online all operational heat seeking scanners and find them!"

Knockout comm linked Soundwave to activate all of the heat seeking scanners, the communications officer did as he was told without question. An evil grin appeared on barricade's faceplates when he had locked onto the two humans signatures. It turned out that they were running through the vent systems and that they were very close to the exit of the base. Barricade turned his head to face his comrades. All three of them nodded and hurried towards the human's location. Barricade turned back to the screen.

"You can run, but you can't hide." He whispered to the two small heat signatures on his screen as he watched Shockwave, Knockout and Breakdown close in on them.