"When did the Dinobots get a human?" Sideswipe asked. All optics were on Swoop. The flier was walking around in the rec room, chattering cheerfully to something sitting on his servo. A closer look revealed that 'something' was a human. Not any of the Witwickys or other Autobot human friends, that's for sure.

"Hello." The human gave a small wave to surrounding Bots. "Who are these guys?" She directed the question towards the mech carrying her. Swoop was glad to give her an answer, judging by how he lit up. "Red Sideswipe, yellow look-like Sunstreaker. Black and white short Jazz..." So it went on. The human looked fascinated, for all that she didn't seem to trust any other bot beside her caretaker. That was judging by how her eyes kept on darting back and forth between each new introduction.

Why is she so scared? Prowl wondered, certainly not for the first time and not for the last. Her heart-felt explanation may have explained her reasons, or what she thought her reasons were, for hating the Autobots. But it didn't quite explain her care for the Dinobots without fear. Or really why she was so afraid in the first place?

One thing was for sure, her creators were not going to be pleased when they found out where'd she been.

Later that afternoon...

My parents were not happy when I got home (courtesy the Autobots. They can turn into cars, after all.) Not happy at all. Mom even hugged me, which was strange for her. Dad did, too. But the moment I realized what pain I had caused them was when Alec stepped outside. He slowly made his way towards me, gaining speed with each step. Until he raced forward, throwing himself into my arms.

My little baby brother sobbed. "I thought you were never going to come home!" Holding him there, I felt my heart melt. My throat closed up. "I'm so sorry." I finally choked out. Right then and there, I made myself a promise. I won't make Alec cry ever again. Never. Not in a million years.

Of course, the best promises are the ones that always get broken. Without fail, like clockwork. But I can't tell you about that. Not yet.

Instead, after all the hullabaloo, when Alec was calm enough to go inside without hanging on my arm in a death grip, my parents scolded me. Part of it was relief, I knew. But that didn't make me feel any better about it. "What were you thinking!? Putting your life in the hands of crazy alien robots!?" My dad. Of course, I had to be a bit smart back. "Technically, their 'hands' are called 'servos', and they are 'mechs', not robots, thank you very much." "Don't talk back to your father. You should have come back. Not stayed with...them." She meant the Autobots, not the Dinobots. My temper flared anyway.

"You don't know them at all!" I calmed slightly, enough to say regretfully, "But you're right. I should have come back. And I didn't because I made a promise to someone who needed a outside friend. I'm sorry." After that, my parents didn't have much to say. I left for my room, clutching my sketchbook so hard my fingers were white.

Up in my room, late at night...

I nearly swore as another pencil broke in my hand. I tossed the pieces away, to join the others on the carpet. The secret of these shattered pencils was that I was gripping too hard. I was too angry to think of it. Why can't I draw? A thought entered into my mind, one so quiet yet attention-catching that I sat up, listening to it. Maybe you should go over by the window. The fresh air will help you think. Hmm...I couldn't argue with that.

So I went over to the window. I scooted my seat over to it, and attempted to draw again, this time the shadows I could see through the glass panes. I slightly had more success with that, eventually relaxing enough that I was no longer in danger of breaking my pencil. Fine feathery lines revealed the barest of outlines, branches reaching for the Moon, bordered by thick lines that meant the surrounding window. A pleasing enough picture, I thought.

Why, there was even a bird-I looked a little closer, both at the picture and the actual window. There wasn't a bird in the window, only one on paper. Maybe it's just a weird shadow shape that was made by moving branches. I shrugged, about to return to my paper, when another thought came. Try opening the window. The fresh air will help calm you down. I shrugged. Why not? It took me a couple tries, but eventually I got the window unstuck and open. As far as it could go.

I returned to my drawing, wind blowing on my face. The breeze feels so good. A shadow fell over me. I didn't bother looking up, figuring that it was just a stray tree branch. That is, until something grabbed the back of my shirt. "Aagh!" I twist enough to see a bird-thingy hanging onto me. A metal bird-thingy with a familiar-looking purple symbol on it... "Holy crap!" Decepticons!

Just my luck. I thought glumly, as I was carried away, despite my struggles. I attempted to scream, only to find something in my mouth preventing me from be able to. The bird set me down, if you could call it that. It was more like tossing me onto some grass, where I rolled for quite bit. I stopped rolling when I hit something hard and I spat out the weird thing in my mouth. "What is going on here!?"

Something shifted behind me. I turned around, expecting to see the bird again. I froze after seeing what it was, moving out of the shadows. It's a big...mech. A red visor glared down at me. "Laserbeak: Well done." The droning voice coming from his mouth was the stuff of nightmares. Nightmares about alien robots kidnapping you in the middle of the night. A nightmare I was living through right now.

My mind went blank with terror. Little ones I could handle. Big ones? Not so much. I screamed, loud and hard, crawling back on my butt away from him. A huge cat came out of the bushes and pinned me down. I felt like a mouse. Even worse, I realized, I was a mouse to these guys. I happily passed out after the cat hissed in my face.

Hopefully Megatron wouldn't expect too much from this human. For someone who had faced down the Dinobots and lived, being terrified out of her wits from running into more Cybertronians seemed out of character. But then, there was no real way of knowing. At least he had completed the mission with little to no mishap. Now time to return to base...he glanced down at the human. How to do that?