I do not own anything except for my OC"s and a little bit of the plot.

"And the con's would have been scrap metal if I hadn't been distracted by the human." Arcee reported to their leader Optimus Prime as he stood with his back to them, looking intensity at the readings on the computer screens.

"Human?" He asked.

"Three, two boys and one girl." Bumblebee answered while holding up three fingers.

"Two boys and a girl." He stated more to himself than to the others in the room with him as he thought about the complications to this new predicament that they were apparently in.

"I guess two others caught us in action. l don't know, I was a little busy at the time." Arcee said in defense of her actions.

"If the Decepticons are targeting us, anyone perceived as our ally will be in grave risk." Their leader told them gravely.

Both she and Raf were waiting for Jack under the tree that was next to the road. It was a nice day to be outside in Jasper, not too hot, but not cold ether, it was just about right with a clear blue sky. But the weather was the most furthest thing from her mind at that moment as Astrid leaned her back against the tree that Jack and she agreed upon meeting at with her arms crossed over her chest, her face carefully blank, while Raf silently stood next to her, both looking to be lost in their own thoughts.

She knew that she should probably be thinking about the giant robot smackdown that they had all witnessed not 24 hours ago, but she couldn't help but think about the scene that she had came home to with Eric. He had been more drunk than usual, which was saying something considering that he got himself at least a little bit tipsy every day, if not every few hours. She understood why he drank, god did she know, but it didn't mean that she had to like it. If she had anyone to blame for his condition, it would be herself mostly, it was her fault that he was like this, drinking himself to death in a desperate attempt to wash away the consent pain and the grief.

"Hey Raf, hey Astrid." Jack greeted from behind them.

Both of their heads snapped towards him, Astrid was the first to find her voice out of the two of them. "Hey Jack, what took you so long." She asked with a slight smile, trying to get herself to release some of the uneasiness that she felt.

His expression turned stormy as he said with a slight growl in his voice. "Vince." Was all he needed to say on the subject for her to know that nothing good had happened.

Her smile quickly turned into an unhappy frown, she wanted to ask him what had happened, but knew better than to broach the subject of the over cocky rooster that was Vince.

"Sooo, what are we going to do with our giant problem?" She asked instead, making sure to be as vague as possible in case anyone was listening to them.

"I think we should just keep it between the three of us and forget that anything happened." He answered, calming down at the change of subject.

Astrid was about to open her mouth to protest at his answer, how could he possibly think that all that they had witnessed last night would just suddenly disappear. It was foolish to think that something like this would just simply go away, and she was go tell him just that, but before she could, she heard a car beeping its horn loudly while coming their way. Beep! Beep! Beeep! They all heard as a yellow and black striped car rolled towards them. "Jack, Astrid look!" Raf gasped in excited amazement, hardly believing along with them that the subject matter of their conversation was suddenly coming towards them.

"Oh not again!" Groaned Jack.

Once coming to a complete halt, the robot disguised as a car opened it's doors and started talking in it's own language again, but Astrid got the gist of it, although just to make sure she still looked to Raf for confirmation, just in case her assumptions were wrong.

"It wants us to get in." Jack stated, coming to the same conclusion as her.

"No, just Astrid and me." Raf corrected Jack's statement.

"How do you know that?" Jack asked, bewildered by Raf correcting him.

"It said so." He answered simply.

"What!?" Jack exclaimed in shock.

"Yours is over there." He continued casually, pointing over towards the blue motorcycle that was behind them. Astrid couldn't help the smile that was slowly growing on her lips as she and Raf got into the car. "Hey, how's it going." Raf asked the robot in disguise as he got in the passenger's seat as Astrid herself got in on the drivers side. Once they were both completely inside of the vehicle, the doors closed by themselves and the car started burning rubber as they shooted down the road at high speed.

Everyone had introduced themselves, and she found it particularly amusing that she had been able to guess what his name was even before he had told them. After that, Raf and Bumblebee had continued on with their own conversation. It was kinda like listening to one side of a phone call. And while doing so, they had unintentionally made her feel like a third wheel, but she didn't mind all too much at that moment, normally she would be asking questions of her own as well, despite the fact that she could only understand one of the two, but today, her heart just wasn't in it. Her mind just kept replaying the events of what happened last night.

Astrid was just about to open her front door to her house before she quickly turned around calling out. "Jack!"

Jack stopped walking towards his house as he turned to face her again, wearing a look of confusion on his face. "Yeah?"

They looked at each other for a moment before Astrid opened her mouth. "Thank you Jack. For helping to save me and Raf." She said with genuine sincerity in her voice.

He looked even more confused than before, but she could still see the light embarrassed blush around his cheeks and nose even in the fading light of the sun.

"I didn't really do anything, it was that yellow one that really saved us." He argued lightly, not wanting to take her praise when he didn't feel like he did anything worth to be thanked for.

"But you at least tried, and that's more than what most people would do." She told him with a closed lip smile.

They stared at each other silently for a few moments, like they were really seeing each other for the first time. Jack finally smiled back at her, his blue grey eyes locking with her own hazel ones. "How bout we all meet up under the tree outside the school tomorrow at three, and talk about what we're going to do from there?" He asked her.

Astrid nodded her head in approval. "Sounds good, I'll give Raf the heads up. Good night Jack."

"Night Astrid." He said before turning around to walk back towards his house again, which just so happened to be five houses down the road from her own house.

Turning her head back towards the door in front of her, Astrid took a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly before opening the door. Walking into the living room the first thing that she noticed was the strong smell of alcohol, making her nose wrinkle in disgust, the second thing that she noticed was that the lights were off making it dark except for the glow that was coming off the TV, she also noticed Eric sitting on the couch with a beer bottle in one of his hands again like usual, but for some reason this felt different than all those other times she's seen him like this. His pale blue eyes were more cloudy and unfocused than normal, the pale skin around his thin cheeks were a rosy red than their natural paleness, his graying blond hair was even messier than the last time she saw it, and she noticed from the tears and smudges on his red flannel shirt and washed out blue jeans that suggested that he got himself into another bar fight again.

Even though she wasn't really all that worried about him getting hurt in the actual fights that he sometimes gets himself into, what with his ability to read the minds of others that makes it nearly impossible to land a good hit on him, even for her, who had been trained in different types of fighting styles since the age of three. He was always able to see his opponent's next move in their mind before they even physically perform it, but this ability has a terrible side effect on him, he can't ever shut it down. He can hear everyone's thoughts within a one mile radius, he can hear even her own thoughts on a constant daily basis, and even at night when everyone is supposedly asleep he can still hear the voices ringing inside his own head.

It was one of the major reasons as to why he drinks so much, he says that it makes the voices go fuzzy and makes it more bearable to live with, but she knew the real reason why he does this to himself, not that he'll ever admit it.

A quiet wary sigh escapes from her lips as she looked at him with an exasperated expression. 'Really Eric, can't you just for once not get into a fight every single week?' She thought with slight annoyance.

"Maybe." He croaked out before taking a sip of his beer, his voice was rougher than usual.

Rolling her eyes heavenward, Astrid closed the door behind her, and then started walking towards the kitchen to the fridge in order to see if she could find something to eat, slowing time down, even by just a fraction of it, took a lot of energy from her body. It's why she always tries to have some kind of food with her at all times, just in case.

"So, did anything interesting happen today?" He suddenly asks her, flipping through the channels on the TV.

Astrid's hand froze at the words as she reached out for the leftover mac'n'cheese that she made yesterday. She suddenly started to feel a tiny spark of panic rising up inside of her at the unexpected question. He must of heard Jack and her talking outside of the house. How much did he see and hear? Considering how drunk he looked, probably not much, but probably enough to get his curiosity going.

It wasn't that she didn't want him to know, it was more like she just didn't want to get him unnecessarily involved in something that even she barely knew what was going on herself. She had made a promise with Jacqueline to take care of Eric if anything would ever happened to Jacqueline herself, who had been Eric's rock in life, she always knew how to calm him down when the voices became too much for him. Astrid did her best, but she was nowhere near as good at it as Jacqueline had been.

As casually as possible, Astrid made her frozen hand move to grab the leftovers from the fridge and places it on the kitchen counter closest to the living room, she quickly decided that it was for the best to tell only half of the truth and to try her best to not think about the strange metal giant robots, which was easier said than done.

"Yeah, Raf showed me some more of the town and also made me this really awesome toy car." She started saying, but then her stupid mind betrayed her as the memory with the yellow bot accidentally crushing Raf's miniature car with it's big metal foot flashed within the forefront of her mind so suddenly that she didn't have any time to squash it down before it was too late.

"What was that?" He asked sharply as he turned to face her, his eyes looking like ice as he stared at her intensely in his drunken state.

'Crap!'

Astrid couldn't stop the slightest flinch what flitted across her face at his hard stare, but nevertheless stood her ground stubbornly, even knowing that she would never be able to stop him if he ever tried to read her own mind, but she knew that she was at least able to distract him, at least to some degree, so she started playing classical music in her head, specifically something that was Mozart, he hated that.

She watched as his face scrunched up as one of his thick eyebrows twitched violently in annoyance as he unsteadily got up to his feet to stand next to the couch, grasping the back of it for support. Eric was a little over six feet tall, making her five foot and seven inches tall frame look small compared to him. "What are you hiding from me Astrid?" He asked through gritted teeth.

Astrid knew that it wasn't normal for her to be keeping secrets from him, what with him being able to read her mind and all, but this time she just didn't want him to get involved in this, at least for now.

"It's nothing for you to worry about Eric, I'm handling it." She said with forced calm.

His pale blue eyes narrowed even further at her, and then at the edge of her mind, she felt his aura slowly coming closer, and closer into her mind.

"Eric?" She asked in a shaky breath.

He was coming closer now, she could feel him advancing towards her mental walls. Scared, Astrid's breathing became faster, almost to the point where she was hyperventilating. She tried putting all of her focus on distracting him and hiding the memories of metal giants in the darkest corners of her mind as best as she could.

"Eric!" She cried out, real fear coursing through her veins as she felt him take a mental step closer into the very core of her own mind. This wasn't right, Eric had never ever gone this far into her mind without getting her permission first. The alcohol and his somewhat possessive nature must be messing with his head, making him not think clearly, nearly blinded by her rising panic and fear, Astrid did the only thing that she could think of to possibly make him stop in his tracks. She just hoped that he would be able to forgive her for it later.

"Wolf! Stop! Please stop!" She cried out loudly, desperately, her left hand holding her head in slight pain as her right was clenching so tightly that her knuckles turned white on the kitchen counter in order to keep herself standing on her now shaky legs, her eyes were shut tightly, her entire body shaking in shock and fear, but mostly in shock.

As soon as the first word left her lips his advances into her mind suddenly stopped, and then slowly started to recede from her mind. Gathering up whatever courage she had left in her, Astrid opened her scared filled hazel eyes, only to meet with the shocked and horrified pale blue eyes that belonged to Eric.

Without any kind of warning Eric ran out of the living room and went straight towards his upstairs bedroom and slammed his door shut, making the whole foundation of the house shake just a little as he did so.

Taking in shaking breaths, Astrid was able to calm herself down by just a bit before looking up towards the staircase, her face filled with sorrow and regret.

"I'm sorry Eric." She whispered softly.

After that episode she put the mac'n'cheese back into the fridge, not having the stomach to eat anything at that moment and then went up the stairs to her bedroom to hopefully sleep, but as she had walked past his door she could hear music softly coming through the painted wooden door, she recognized it almost instantly. It was one of the old tapes from his and Jacqueline's days of being in a music band together, before that life had been cruelly ripped away from them forever.

With a heavy heart, she had made her way towards her own bed and without even changing into night clothes, had fallen sluggishly into her bed covers and tried her best to not think about anything at all that night. In the morning she woke up earlier than what was normal for her, deciding that it was for the best to apologize to him first than waiting for him to get his courage together in apologizing to her instead, she got dressed quickly and made her way down the stairs, she had expected him to be laying on the couch like usual during the mornings, but when she didn't see him there she started looking around to find him, but after looking around inside the house, she realized that he was gone.

"Hey Astrid! Astrid look!" Raf's excited voice slowly came into focus as the memories started fading away.

"Hmm." She started as she turned from her position of looking out the window towards Raf, only to see him pointing out with a finger towards the front of the car. Curious, she looked at what he was pointing at and felt her jaw drop just a little at the site before them.

The mountain in front of them was opening as the red rock side of the mountain slid down into the ground and then behind that were ginormous metal doors that started sliding open from either side, revealing a huge tunnel, both She and Raf leaned forward in their seats as they rode through it, and at the end of the tunnel opened a gigantic room with more giant robots in it.

"Cool." She heard Raf say in amazement as her own wide eyes stared at them in awe.

"Whoa." She breathe out so faintly that even she barely heard herself.

The first one was painted a reddish-orange color with mostly white metal plaitings, it looked like it acted like armor for them. He turned to face them as they moved to the center of the huge room. He was taller than Bumblebee by a few feet, and looked little bulkier than him to, but the thing that caught her attention the most was his face, his smooth silver metal plated face was set in a slight scowl with irritated glowing blue eyes looking straight at them.

'Sheesh, what was his problem?' She couldn't help but think to herself as she looked up at him. They haven't even been in here for less than five seconds and already he was looking at them as if they were a bunch of muddy dogs walking on his perfectly clean white carpet.

The other giant robot was even taller and wider than Mr. Scowly face over there with a military green paint job, he kind of reminded her of one those sumo wrestlers that she saw in Japanese show on the TV once.

Once Bumblebee came to an complete stop, he opened his doors for them, both she and Raf got out at the same time, and as soon as Bumblebee was sure that the both of them were out of the way, so that he along with the blue female robot transformed back into their bipedal forms.

"I thought where were only three?" The reddish-orange and white one asked, walking to stand next to the green bot, looking down at them.

The blue female was the one that answered him, perching one of her hands on her metal hip in a sassy manner. "Didn't you hear Ratchet, humans multiply."

'Wait what, who else is here?' Astrid thought in confusion, her ginger eyebrows nearly touching as she looked around towards where Jack stood and saw one of the few people at Jasper High that she really didn't want to be here with them.

It was Miko Nakadai, all that Astrid knew about Miko Nakadai was that she was a transfer student from Japan, was extremely loud, and apparently likes to cause a lot of trouble for herself and for those around her, which was one of the reasons as to why Astrid tried her best to avoid her if at all possible. She and Eric had worked to hard on keeping as low of a profile as humanly possible without going completely off the grid, it wasn't easy, but it was definitely a lot better than the lifestyle that they had been forced into living in before they came here to Jasper.

Suppressing a groan within the back of her throat, Astrid walked over to Raf's left and stood there with her arms crossed, while leaning most of her weight on her right leg, causing the left side of her curvy hips to stick out slightly. The leg that was grabbed by one of those robots was still a little bit sore from being in its death grip. She was just lucky that it didn't break her ankle while in the process of grabbing and dragging her back out of that drainage pipe yesterday, she guessed it was the small blessings that counted.

"I'm Raf." Raf said, introducing himself.

"I'm Miko!" Miko said as she ran towards the big green one and started rapidly asking questions like a machine gun. "Who are you?"

"Bulkhead." He answered, looking a little nervous at her coming towards him.

She gasped. "Are you a car? I bet you're a truck, a monster truck! Do you like heavy-metal? How much do you weigh? Ever use a wrecking ball for a punching bag?" She looked like she was going to keep going on and on with her questions until the point where she might actually make herself faint from the lack of oxygen.

Thankfully for everyone's sake, Raf interrupted her with a question of his own. "So if you guys are robots, who made you?"

That, Astrid thought was a good question. Where did these guys come from? Where they made by humans? or where they even from earth at all? She had seen some amazing and horrifying things in her short life that most normal people wouldn't even dream of being possible, so giant metal alien robots weren't to off the scale of possibilities for her.

The one named Ratchet gave a sudden sound of disgust at the question, he rolled his glowing eyes while saying. "Pah-leez ."

Astrid hazel eyes narrowed up at Ratchet, what was his problem? it was a simple question, how did he expect us humans to learn about them if he wasn't even willing to answer their questions, no matter how silly or ridiculous they seemed to him.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Raf's shoulders droop slightly as he tried to put on a brave face in front of everyone, but she saw straight through it instantly. Astrid gently placed her right hand on Raf shoulder in silent support, knowing that even though he was trying his best to not show it, but she knew that his confidence in himself had dwindled a little bit at Ratchet's response at his question.

"Hey! Cut him some slack, it was a simple question, how do you expect us to learn if we don't ask questions, no matter how ridiculous they seem to you." Astrid argued hotly. For nearly her whole life, she had been told to not ask questions and to only follow the orders that she was given, and at first she did as they said without question, especially after going through a few of their punishments for her random spurts of rebellion in the past, but it wasn't until she met Doctor Bishop for the first time that she really started to rebel against them. He had encourage her to ask him questions and vice versa, so long as she didn't ask him about his life before he came to that place then he would always answer her questions as honestly as possible for him.

Everyone was silent as they watched her and Ratchet as they glowered at each other, both had their arms crossed over their chests as her golden hazel eyes glared up at him, and he down at her with his glowing turquoise ones.

She suddenly heard and felt loud booming footsteps, making the very ground beneath their feet tremble. Feeling her heart leaping wildly in her chest in surprise and even in a little bit of fear, Astrid whipped her head towards the sound and once again felt her jaw dropping in awe.

If she had thought Bulkhead was big, then this next one took the cake. He was big, no 'big' didn't even begin cover just how freakishly tall he was. Ginormous was more like it. He had to be at least 30 feet tall with a red and blue paint job. Astrid had to crane her neck as far back as it could go just to see his face properly . He had a smooth silver plated face like the rest of them and glowing blue eyes as well.

She watched as he looked at each of them individually before speaking to them in a surprisingly deep baritone voice that sent shivers down her spine.

"We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet Cybertron, also known as Autobots. I am Optimus Prime leader of the Autobots." He said looking down at them, not in a mean or arrogant way, he was just watching them carefully, trying see what our reactions would be to this new information that he had given them.

Both Jack and she looked at each other over Raf and Miko's heads, trying to discern as to who would be asking the questions first. Astrid had noticed that she and Jack had grown a little closer since yesterday, so much so that she was even starting to think that maybe there was a chance at possibly being friends with him instead of just good acquaintances. But she unsurprisingly found herself to be emotionally conflicted with this, it wasn't that she didn't want to have friends, quite the opposite in fact, she would love to have friends that she could count on and them in her, but she knew better than that, she knew that her past would catch up to her eventually, it was only a matter of time before they find her and Eric again.

It was bad enough that she got herself attached to Raf, which was her own fault she knew, she wasn't even sure what had made her go to him so suddenly and share her lunch with him in the first place. Maybe it was that she saw a bit of herself in him when he sat in that big lonely table in the back corner of the cafeteria all by himself on that day?

Whatever it was, she would deal with the consequences of it when the time came, and now with these... Autobots was it? She would have to deal with the consequences of that as well, but that was for another day to worry about.

Astrid gave Jack a subliminal nod of her head to indicate that he should be the one to start asking the questions.

He nodded back at her and then stepped forward to face the hulking giant that was Optimus Prime. "Why are you here?" Was his first question.

"A fair question Jack." Optimus said as he got down on one knee in front of them, making it easier on all of them including himself to be able to see each other without straining themselves out.

"Wait, how did you know his name?" Astrid asked in suspension, she knew that Jack and her hadn't shared their names to them yet, at least as far as she knew of course, but if they knew his name, then it was possible that they would already know her's to, and that was very unsettling for her because that meant that these Autobots had been doing some background research on them, and that could come with some dangerous consequences for both her and Eric.

The Autobot leader looked down at her in slight surprise in his glowing eyes, and now that he was closer, she was able to really see them properly. They were definitely blue alright, they kind of reminded her of aquamarine crystals in a way.

But she could see so much more than that, she could see someone who was a fierce and a strong leader. Someone who had seen things that they wished that they could forget, but knew that if they did that, then it would mean that they could possibly be making the same mistakes from the past again or even dishonoring the lives of those who had sacrificed themselves for something that they had believed in. It was something that she could relate with to some degree.

He tilted his head a little in curiosity at her before answering her question. "Arcee had reported that she overheard him saying his name to another human before being chased by the Decepticons. May I inquire as to what your name is?"

Astrid could feel the heat rising in her cheeks, making them turn pink in her embarrassment. 'Gee I sure do have a way in making a good first impressions don't I.' She thought scathingly to herself. It would seem that her suspicious and paranoid mind had missed judged these guys just a little.

"It's Astrid. Astrid Wells."

"Then it is nice to meet you Miss Wells." He said while he giving her a respectful nod of his head.

"Just Astrid please, there's no need for formalities." It felt weird for her to be called 'Miss Wells' by him for some reason, but that was a thought for another time.

He gave another nod to show that he heard her request, before turning back to face Jack again. "To answer your question. We are here to protect your planet from the Decepticons."

"The jokers who tried to bump us off last night." The blue one, who Astrid assumed was Arcee clarified for them.

Looking back towards Optimus, Jack asked his second question. "Ok… Why are they here?"

"In part, they are here because our planet is uninhabitable, ravaged by centuries of civil war." He told them.

"Why were you fighting a war?" Raf asked.

"For most, over control of our world's supply of energon, the fuel and life blood of all Autobots and Decepticons alike. The combat was fierce, and endured for centuries; In the beginning I fought alongside one whom I considered a brother. But in war ideals can be corrupted and it was thus, that Megaton lost his way."

Miko gave a sudden yawn of being bored before saying. "Is there going to be a quiz?" While lazily twirling her little ponytail with her fingers and tosses a look at her fellow humans that says; Ain't I the coolest or what.

Before Astrid could even think about it, her body had already started moving on its own accord towards Miko and just as she got herself behind Miko, she lightly slapped Miko on the back of her head.

"Ow!" Miko exclaimed, more out of shock at the act of being slapped than of actually being hurt by it. "What was that for?!" She barked out annoyedly as she span around to face Astrid, who was taller than her by a few inches and was glaring down at her in disapproval with her arms crossed over her chest.

Astrid's hazel eyes narrowed even further at her question. "He just shared something with us that

was obviously painful for all of them to be reminded of, and you have the nerve to treat this whole situation as if it's some type of video game that's for your entertainment!"

Whatever Miko's response was to her statement, she never found out, because Jack had quickly interrupted her and miko's building argument before they made it even worse. "So what is Megaton or any of this have to do with with us?

"Megaton has not been seen or heard from in some time, but if his return is as imminent as I fear, it could be catastrophic."

"Well, isn't that all just sunshine and rainbows." Astrid muttered sarcastically.

A/N: So there you go, hope you enjoyed reading this. I know this chapter didn't have a lot of action in it nor does it have too many new things to see, but now you guys have officially met Eric for the first time. Yay! I hope I wrote that part of the story okay? I wasn't sure if it was good or not.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this and thank you for all of you who have favorited, followed and for reviewing this story, it really does mean a lot to me.

Thank you again, tell me what you think of this either by review or PM.