Disclaimer: "I do not own any part of the transformers franchise, or any of their characters. I own only Harper, and any original content that I make her do or say. Everything else is property of the amazing men and women who brought this story to life on the big screen. Thank you."

Chapter 4

"Harper!"

At the panicked sound of his voice over the phone, Harper sat up in bed so fast that she's surprised she didn't get whiplash. Throwing off the covers, she asks, "Sam? What's…" "My car is being stolen! I need you to head down to the tracks, ASAP! I'm in pursuit!" "Sam! What are you even following them in?!" "I'm on a bike, okay! Just… just get here!"

He hangs up after that, so Harper shoves her phone in her pocket and hurries to head out the door. Slipping on her tennis shoes, she tugs her jacket on over her tank top and hopes that her sweatpants will protect her against the heat of the bike engine well enough. Then she sprints down the stairs of her apartment complex, hops onto her bike in the parking lot, and cranks it up. Sighing, she says, "Alright. Let's see what you can do."

It takes off out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell. Cranking the speed, she cuts a sharp turn with ease, and smiles before saying, "You probably were worth thirty-five hundred. You ride smooth on everything. It's amazing."

But, of course, she might not have said that had she known her night was about to get just as weird as Sam's was. She was fine up until she got to the railway station yard. She passed through the already busted in gates, and was going to hop off to find Sam, wherever he was in this place.

The handles of her bike suddenly shifted forward, out of her grasp, and steered sharply to the left. And Harper would've fallen off, if not for the seat somehow shifting to tighten her more into the seat. Eyes wide as she holds onto the metal in front of her, she hisses, "What the fuck?!"

The bike drives itself around to the other side of the yard, and then comes to a stop. Harper feels the seat loosen, so she hops off instantly and scrambles back from the machine that had just come to life.

And now it was moving… but not the way a bike was supposed to move. All of the pieces began shifting and lifting and spreading out from one another, only to come back together in a completely different form. And that form…

Harper doesn't know what to call the thing she's looking at it. Where her bike had been seconds ago, now stood a piece of machinery that she decided should only exist in movies. It was, essentially, a robot. A heavily advanced robot. One that apparently had a mind of its own. No one was at the helm of it, operating it with controls. It was its own being.

And right now, it was staring down at her. Harper scrambles further back when it leans down closer, bending so its face was at her level. And then, it tilted its head at her, as though curious or confused by her nature.

Harper could've almost found it adorable, if not for the fact that she thought she had to be going insane. Then the robot held out its hand to her, making a motion that it wanted her to stay put. And as it walks away, Harper thinks about running, she really does. But there's a moment in which her legs still won't cooperate to help her stand back up.

And then… well, curiosity makes her step out to try and see where the thing had gone, and what it was doing. And low and behold, there it stood, side by side with another, slightly taller and buffer looking, robot.

A robot that has racing stripes down some of its yellow paint. That had to be Sam's car. Which meant that Sam's car wasn't stolen. It had driven itself here.

Harper briefly reminds herself that she sounds insane, even to her own mind. And she's looking directly at all of this shit, so she's not sure what else could be done to make it more believable. But it's just… it's too much. Too much stuff happening all at once. First her friends and the love of her life are gone, and now her new bike and her brother's new car are turning into robots.

She's losing her mind. That's what's happening.

Then the yellow robot shines a light up into the sky, a beacon with the emblem of some kind of face that reflects off of the clouds above them. The hard lines and edges of it, sort of resembled the look of the machines themselves. Maybe it was their calling card or something.

In which case, how many more could Harper expect to suddenly show up here? How many were here already? What the hell even were they?

And why was she worried about any of this, when it obviously couldn't be real? Right?

She was still pondering these questions, when her bike… if she could still call it that, returned to her and bent down to her level again. Staring at it for a moment, she finally says, "I've cracked. I've officially lost it. Will and his whole unit died, and in my spiral down towards depression, I'm losing my mind."

Harper shakes her head at herself, "And I thought I was doing so well. Shit." The robot tilts his head at her again, and then says… the thing actually speaks, "You are not crazy." The deep mechanical voice has a soothing tone to it, somehow. Harper tilts her head at it, and asks, "What even are you?"

Rising back to its full height, he says, "We will present answers to your questions tomorrow, when the others have arrived. For now, I will take you back home. You need rest." As it morphs back into her bike, Harper stares at it for a moment. Then it revs on its own, obviously encouraging her to hop on.

She huffs, "This is insane. A talking motorcycle says get on, and I'm about to listen." But… well, she was a long way from the apartment, and walking back would be a bitch. And… she wasn't afraid of this thing… this robot. Weirded out, absolutely. But afraid… no, not really.

As she settles on for a smooth ride home, letting herself be driven, rather than drive, she asks, "Can you at least tell me what to call you?" "I am called Dragonfly." Harper tilts her head at that, and then grins and says, "Cool. I like it." "I am glad."

When they get back home, before she goes inside, Dragonfly says, "Do not worry through the night, Harper Witwicky. I am here, and will protect you."

And in spite of how bizarre all of this was turning out to be… Harper found that it was easier to sleep, knowing that Dragonfly was outside, and that he was guarding her door.

Yep. She was definitely going insane. Perfect.

As Will and his team finally get over the mountain, he comments, "Let's hope this phone of theirs works." Epps nods while reaching into a well of water. Scooping some up, he pours it on his overheated face, sighing in relief.

That's when something from underneath the sand ripples around beneath them. It knocks over a giant tower stand meant to mark the location of the well from a distance. Epps shouts for everyone to take cover, and everyone except Donnelly moves. He's just lucky that the tower didn't hit him.

When he turns around after hearing the crash, he asks, "What was that?" And Fig, to his right, begins commenting in his rapid Spanish, which no one understands. Donnelly finally shakes his head, "English, dude. English."

Another argument was about to break out, Will could feel it. Even as he was scanning the area behind his men, trying to see what else might be out there. And he was about to shout out that, until they were with Harper again, who could always interpret for him, Fig needed to stick with English.

That's when Epps looks behind Will's back, and shouts, "WHOA!" All guns raise to shoot at the mechanical tail that dives back underground right next to where Will is standing. And in a desperate attempt to kill the thing, Will even begins shooting down towards his feet, hoping to hit it while it's still beneath him, before it can move somewhere else. But, faster than they could've anticipated, the machine then reappears behind one of the other men, who immediately begins shooting at his own feet to hit the damn thing. But none of their bullets appear to do any sort of damage to it at all. It dives back under the sand again with barely a scratch on it.

Then it comes up behind where Donnelly is standing, and impales him on the end of his tail, like a spear that was thrown perfectly through his body. As it lifts his body and swings him around victoriously, Will shouts, "MOVE, MOVE, MOVE! GET TO THE VILLAGE! LET'S GO!"

As they race for their lives to get to the village, the villagers see them approaching. The men grab what guns they have from their houses, while the women hurry themselves inside to be out of the way. As Mafhouz trips and hits the ground, Will picks him back up and shouts, "Let's go!"

Jumping the wall at the barrier of the village, Will turns to his men, "Cover fire! Fig, cover the rear! Epps! Cover the rear! Move it!" His men move into position as instructed, and Will drags Mafhouz along with him, asking, "Where's your papa?" "Papa!"

The man hurries to the door to greet his son, and then backs out of the way so Will can quickly step inside. And Will hates to break the two apart, he really does. But they have no time. Gripping the man's shoulder, he says, "Sir, I need… a telephone. Telephone?" He doesn't know the native tongue, but luckily, Mafhouz's father knows enough English to understand the word 'telephone'. He hurries into the next room where he keeps his, and explains, "Cell phone." "Perfect."

With the gunfire and mayhem happening all around him, Will then struggles to explain to the operator, "This is an emergency Pentagon call! I need you to… do you understand?! I need you to call the Pentagon! It's…"

The window behind him shatters from an impact made entirely too close to the house. Meanwhile, the operator explains to him that he has to have a credit card to charge for the call anyway. "I don't have a credit card!"

The man on the other end of the phone simply says, "Sir, the attitude is not going to speed things up any bit at all. I am going to ask you to speak into the mouth piece very clearly…" "I'm in the middle of a war! This is fucking ridiculous!"

Bolting from the house, dodging whatever it is that the monster in the sand keeps firing at them, he comes up on Epps. "I need a credit card! Epps! Where's your wallet?!" "Pocket!"

As Will scrambles around, he asks, "Which one?!" "My back pocket!" "You've got ten back pockets!" "Left cheek! Left cheek! Left cheek!" Hurriedly pulling out the wallet, then the card, Will shouts, "Alright, it's Visa!" He reads the number off to the man on the phone, who then offers him a premium package. "I don't want a fucking premium package! Put me through to the Pentagon!"

And finally, he gets a voice on the phone that asks who he is and what his status is. "This is Captain William Lennox of the United States Army Rangers. Me and some of my men are survivors from the attack on the base in Qatar. I'm going to put on my air force sergeant. We need air support yesterday!" Turning the corner of his wall to find Epps again, he says, "Epps! Pentagon!"

It takes him a bit after that… far longer than Will is comfortable with. But all things considered, their support is wrangled and ready pretty quick. It takes about two minutes, and then Epps shouts, "Lennox! We got heat incoming! Laser target assist needed!" "On it!" Running around to the other side, he shouts to his men, "Laze the target! We got a beam-rider incoming! Laze target!"

And as the gunships appear on the horizon, Lennox shouts, "Get ready! Heat's coming!" Epps shouts in turn, "Bring it!"

They hit it with rapid fire from the ship, and then four missiles are launched that hit the thing. But when the smoke clears, Will can't believe his eyes. It might finally be slightly wounded… but it was still moving. "No fucking way… that thing's still not down."

Epps, refusing to be deterred, says into the phone, "Spooky Three Two, use 105 shells. Bring the rain."

It still takes a minute for the shells to have any effect. And when the smoke clears this time, the creature isn't actually down. It's just gone. Only the end of its tail remains.

Will then looks around at his men. Donnelly, they already knew, was gone. But the rest of his men…

Turning sharply to Epps, he asks, "Where's Fig?" That's when Mafhouz comes running out, shouting for Lennox to hurry, and that his friend needs him.

Fig is lying on the ground, half buried beneath the rubble of one of the crumbling walls that had been shot down. Will drops his gun and shouts to Epps, "Get a medic!" Mafhouz and Will's men hurry to find the cleanest towels they can to press on the wounds while Epps hurries to round up a medevac for their friend. And it's still nearing sundown by the time it arrives.

But Fig is alive, and hopefully, he'll stay that way.

On the chopper ride home, Lennox asks if there's any sat phone they can use to call home with. But he got the expected response. Due to recent events they'd been involved in, they had to be debriefed before they could speak to anyone outside of the military.

Epps knows Will is worried about Harper. Ever since he'd brought up the idea that she already thought they were dead, Will had worried about what she might be thinking and going through. Patting his shoulder, he says, "She'll be alright, man. And hey, she might not even know."

But judging from the look on Will's face… he didn't believe that. Not one little bit.