Dear Karma

A Transformers Story

Co-written by MeinBenutzername and A Humble Reader

Beta and Advisor: sacrificialHarmony

Note: And so our slow going tale continues. This is Chapter one, Part two. We figured the last point was as good a place as any for an ending, and needed a bit of a time skip anyway.

We have no idea how long this may or may not drag out, or if the vague plot line constructed will hold true. We cannot guarantee completion, though we will do our best. There always was a bit of a risk with just winging it like this.

A humble thank-you to those who reviewed and provided words of encouragement, criticism, and professed excitement for the chapters to come. Favorites and follows that we have acquired are also highly appreciated.

Please enjoy the story, and leave a review if you deem us worthy.

Words: 7525

Pages: 23

Chapter 1

Part 2

If Only I Had Stayed in Bed

In which early morning premonitions are correct and one can only dream of having listened to them in the first place.

After a few grueling hours of preparing, moving furniture, some creative construction projects, and minimal amounts of cleaning, Sam decided that she was so done getting ready for the sleepover.

To describe the results of her work, in few words, would be simple.

It was epic.

She had pushed the couch back from the TV, made use of the coffee table in the center of the living room as a convenient snack bar, and set the reclining chairs in a strategic circle around the TV. Draped over the couch and one of the chairs was a pale pink sheet, and underneath it was every single pillow she could find. The rest of the exposed floor was covered with blankets, and it had Sam feeling quite proud of her efforts.

After she was done admiring her work, Sam sighed happily and slumped her way into the kitchen like only a teenager could. The Mac and Cheese earlier had been great, but she'd been doing manual labor for the past few hours, and her stomach had decided that she was either gonna pay up or suffer the consequences.

"Oooooh. I want some of those snacks. You hear me Sweetie? But I can't eat them. If Anna found even one bag that looked suspect of having been maybe tampered with before the proper sleepover rituals, I'd be dead. I'd be worse than dead. But…" Sam whined to the dog who lay on the floor, staring up at her with big sleepy eyes. Sweetie's tail thumped once, twice, before the dog yawned and closed its eyes for a nice nap. Sam scoffed and made her way over to the pantry.

"Fine then." Sam grumbled. She began rooting through the food, looking for at least a half opened bag of chips or something to keep her innards in check. "Apparently my woes are too unimportant for you. We'll see how long it is until I buy you those bacon treats again, huh? Bet you'll be feeling pretty sorry then!" All she got in response to her threatening was a soft snort, as though Sweetie could tell she was lying and it was her way of saying 'Yeah, right. Try saying no to this face.'

Finding some mostly gone Doritos, Sam swung the bag out of the pantry and glanced around the kitchen. She had moved some of the kitchen chairs into the living room earlier when she thought she might need them for the tent. But since she had decided to downsize it, and she hadn't moved them back yet...

Sam released a groan and finally settled for going outside with her find. She grabbed her entire purse instead of just her phone, (she needed her keys too, so this was easier than digging through a black hole anyway) and then opened the back door and sighed at the cool breeze that met her.

This was more like it. Since it was almost seven, the sun had let up on its assault and it felt much better than it had that morning. Now her hair didn't reform into a bush as soon as she stepped outside.

Closing the door softly behind her, she took a few slow steps, her bare feet seeking out sparse patches of grass instead of the rocky sand. One hand dug noisily through the chip bag as she walked, no particular destination in mind. Maybe she'd head out of the neighborhoods and catch a nice sunset. The sun went down before eight, right?

Well, she didn't really care right now. She'd rather just enjoy her nacho cheesy goodness and observe her surroundings.

As Sam munched and walked, she let her thoughts wander, much like they had earlier that day, with no pattern or real point to her musings.

This sleepover was going to be great, she was sure of it. It wasn't often she went to such lengths for a sleepover, but it had been a while since she and her girls had done anything together. Ever since Anna got her job at Jenkins' and Pens started babysitting. They just sort of stopped having time.

But aha, not this time! There was no way either of her friends could say no. Anna got off at five and Pens kids had gone on vacation for the summer.

And if they just didn't want to? Well, she'd find their traitorous asses and drag them to her house if she had to.

She would never admit it, especially not to said friends, but she missed being able to spend time with them. Even if she made sure to exude a sense of 'I'm a loner. I'm cool with hanging out, but being alone is just as great. I can handle myself.', she had felt a kind of gnawing in her heart at their increased absence.

And while that may have turned into a bit of extra grumpiness, it didn't help that she had so much bad luck lately, either.

Like earlier that day, when Sweetie went bezerk over that cop, just because he smelled like cats! Sweetie didn't even pay attention to cats. She just sniffed at them and walked away. Maybe she smelled all of the other dogs that had surely attacked the man.

But that was small, compared to earlier that week. She had gone to help out her friend Tiffany with some carwash thing the church was doing, and she (stupidly) wore a white T-shirt.

She didn't go there thinking she was gonna get a free wash with the cars! By the end of the day her top had been totally see-through and she was stuck hiding in a smelly old port-a-potty until her mom came to pick her up.

That had been Sunday. Last Wednsday, however, ugh...she was morbidly embarrassed just thinking about it. She was probably the laughing stock of the Daycare Staff by now.

She vowed, not for the first time, that she would never work with small children again. Ever.

From there she drifted to less upsetting thoughts, like the snacks sitting on her coffee table. She hoped her mom wouldn't get mad if they somehow got crumbs on the couch. Or ground into the carpet. With soda. And shaving crème.

But to be fair that one had been a total accident. How was she supposed to know Pens would react that way to Jurassic Park? She'd seemed fine before...then again, all of those pop rocks...

Pop rocks. Hm. This desert-y area sure was full of rocks. One might even say they popped up out of nowhere! Which was funny, because she was in a desert, which was like the middle of nowhere! And she had said they popped up out of nowhere, ha. Sam let a smile slip past her cheese coated lips at her little joke. Hee hee. She was such a genius sometimes.

Her smile vanished in the next moment however, and was replaced by a few choice curses when she dropped her near-depleted bag and started hopping around on one foot like a total idiot.

"Ow ow ow! Owch! Stupid desert; stupid rocks!" Sam hissed as she grabbed her injured foot and promptly fell onto her behind, sending up a small cloud of dust. She cradled the injured appendage and rocked back and forth wincing whenever she jostled whatever had managed to impale itself within her flesh.

Gingerly, she maneuvered her foot up into an awkward twisted position, until she could see what it was that hurt so much. She sucked in a breath when she saw what looked like a shard of...well, she wasn't really sure. Metal, or glass, or something. She didn't really care.

Luckily for her, it wasn't very big, and it wasn't stuck very far in her foot. Growing up with more splinters than she ever cared to count seemed to have its perks.

That did nothing to make it stop hurting, however.

"Owwww...ow ow ow...okay, okay, c'mon Sammy...be a man! Rip it out...ugh, whenever I actually need Pens she's not around...at least Anna and Olivia aren't here to faint on me..." Sam had delicately gripped the shard and was having a mental debate over whether or not she really could just rip it out like Pens would've. Okay, she may have also been stalling with her random blabbing, but it was as good a distraction as any.

Before she could really process that she was gonna do it, Sam ripped out the thing mid half-formed thought.

"And I just-OW! Ow...oh...hey! That doesn't hurt as much anymore." Sam pulled the little triangle, which she still couldn't really identify, up to her face for closer examination. She grimaced at the blood, her blood, dripping from it, but studied it none the less.

Sam let it rest on one palm, and absently noticed it was really light weight, and a little shiny, despite the grime coating it. She looked up then, searching for the beer bottle or broken stereo it had surely come from.

Instead, all she saw were twisted hunks of metal half buried in the sand, surrounded by bits of glass and other trash. Some of the pieces were as long as to easily reach from her elbow to the tips of her fingers, while others were even smaller than the triangle that was previously buried in her foot. It was...weird. She had no idea what could have put all of this...well, junk out here. Maybe someone scrapped a car or something? But if that was the case, where was the car?

"This is...weird." Sam's brows furrowed in confusion. What was all of this? Curiosity piqued, the girl braced her hands on the packed dirt, and slowly raised herself off of the ground. Her injured leg was held awkwardly and rigidly in front of her while she struggled against gravity to get standing on her one good foot. After a few tense seconds, she was standing on one foot and swaying precariously, but at least she was standing.

Sam bit her lip and frowned as she looked around. On one hand, she should probably get back, because she had no idea how long she'd been out here really, and for all she knew it was like, 7:57 and Anna was impatiently tapping her foot while waiting for Sam to stop being an idiot and answer the door. Plus she probably didn't want to risk stepping on anything else, or getting an infection by rubbing a bunch of dirt in her cut.

Of course that was gonna happen even if she chose the other hand, which provided that she stuck around a little longer and checked out this stuff. Because really who wouldn't want to check this out? Maybe she'd find a mostly in-tact car to lord over her friends.

That thought brought a small smirk to her lips, and Sam decided Anna could use the opportunity to learn a little patience.

Slowly, Sam wobbled and began lowering her foot back onto the dirt. She winced almost as soon as she touched the ground, but bit her tongue and slowly applied weight to it. A sharp intake of air was followed by a scowl when she tried actually taking a step.

"I'm such a wuss...ow! Jeez, you'd think I'd be smarter than this and go home...Pens is gonna go mother hen on my ass. Anna is too. Oh jeez, and if one of them tells mom..." Despite her whining to thin air, Sam took another step forward, and then another. Her progress was slow going, but she slowly made her way through the debris, following the kind of trail it made. The silence of the half-desert she trekked through was too unsettling, so instead she filled it with more mindless rambling. For some reason, there was a feeling settling deep in gut that something wasn't quite right.

"This is like a minefield...jeez. I sure am saying jeez a lot tonight. Where's the stupid car all of this is from? Or, oh, what if it was a bus? Or truck? No! What if this is actually from a plane crash? Well, I guess if it's a plane crash I could call 911..." Her gaze was focused solely on the ground and her own jumbled mumbling. She gingerly stepped around debris and trash, wincing every time she applied pressure to her injury.

She didn't miss the spots of blood she left in the sand with every step, but she didn't feel necessarily concerned about them either. Of course she was bleeding; she had just impaled her foot with some kind of metal! She just didn't think it was too serious to worry about at that moment.

As she walked, and subsequently talked, the stuff began coming in bigger and bigger clumps, and it was getting harder and harder to walk through. Sam narrowed her eyes and continued to berate herself for her idiocy. Why was she doing this again? Oh yeah, because she was stupid. How could she forget?

"I better find this stupid whatever soon..." She grumbled. Her lighter rambling had devolved into mostly insulting herself and asking why she was doing this. See, she knew she shouldn't have gotten out of bed that morning. Now she was stuck out here trying not to step on glass and going on some idiotic "adventure" to figure out who left it here.

It was then that she finally noticed the trench that was about five feet in front of her.

Eyes wide and all traces of annoyance gone, Sam could only gawk at the large tracks gouged into the earth. She quickly hopped her way out of the debris and ran around the piles of sand and dirt, too excited to even think about her foot bothering her.

Soon she found herself in front of a large crater, and, getting down on her hands and knees to peer cautiously over the edge, she saw resting inside...

...absolutely nothing. Nothing! It was empty, but for more metal bits and other materials. Sam groaned and let her head drop.

"Ugh. You've gotta be kidding me! I waste all this time and hurt my stupid foot coming out here, and I find an awesome crater, and inside it, is nothing?" She wanted to bash her head in.

Before she could go about doing as much, though, a glint down in the middle of the crater caught her eye, and she raised her head again to look up.

"Okay...so it's not entirely empty." She murmured, eyed the glinting object below with interest. Before she could really think about what she was doing, she swung her legs around so that she was sitting on the edge, her sandy feet hanging out over open space. Looking down to make sure there was something for her to land on, she braced herself and shoved off of the cliff face.

Hitting the ledge below her with an oof, she stood up fully and made a few futile attempts of brushing the sand off of her person. Looking around again, she shuffled over to the left and found a good foothold. Pressing herself up against the wall, her hands latched onto any protrusions, and her foot searched blindly for the little spot she had found.

Slowly, Sam made her way down the slope and into the crater. She was continually cursing herself, the crater, whatever was in the crater, and just about anything else she could think of that might have caused her some form of discomfort. Her foot was throbbing, but she did her best to ignore that. She had already started this stupid thing; she was gonna finish it.

By now the sun was beginning to set, but Sam had stopped caring about that. She was too focused on what was still glinting so enticingly down in the crater.

Now that she had gotten far enough down, the ground began to level out under her feet, and she let go of the wall she had been clinging to for dear life the whole way down.

The inside of the depression, no, the hole in the earth was strewn with the biggest pieces of twisted metal she had ever seen. Chunks of it were half buried in the ground, sticking out at odd angles and a few even seemed to be smoking. Sam marveled at some of the pieces, which were bigger even than herself.

Slowly, she made her way towards the object in the center of the space, the one that caught her eye.

She stopped about a foot away, and got down on her hands and knees to look at it. Sam squinted at it, and lifted a hand to her face to shield herself from the harsh glare coming from the surface.

"What...what is it?" She breathed, her eyes widening as she got a look at it.

In front of Sam, lying innocently in the middle of a huge crash site in the middle of nowhere, was a little metal ball. Except...well, it was pretty obvious it wasn't a normal ball. And it wasn't all that little, either. It was probably about the size of a beach ball, was covered in lines and panels, had blinking lights, and some weird kind of hieroglyphics across a strip that ran through the center.

Sam shuffled forwards on her knees, and reached out a hand to touch it. Her fingers hovered centimeters away from the surface, and she narrowed her eyes.

The girl quickly shot forward and touched it, before snapping her arm back to hold against her chest as though she'd been bitten.

The sphere just sat there, looking for the world like a useless piece of crap, with some fancy symbols on it.

Sam snorted.

Now she reached to pick it up, and slowly rose to her feet again, the thing now resting securely between her hands.

"Well...what is this? Is it like, a puzzle or something? Will I get a prize if I open it up?" Her question seemed to be posed to the thing itself, and when it provided no answer, she held it up to her ear and shook it lightly. (That was another thing- why was it so light? Was it mostly air?) There was a slight rattling noise, and she grinned.

"Ha! There is a prize inside! Maybe I can bring it back to the house and Pens and Anna can help me figure it out-"She stopped suddenly, her eyes widening in horror.

She quickly tucked the thing under one arm while she began to frantically dig through her purse, her fingers fumbling through the crumpled papers, random pens, and various other items until they wrapped around her phone.

"Oh god! I'm such an idiot! They're gonna kill me!" The clock read 8:43, she had 19 missed calls, and about 27 text messages, from both Anna and Pens. "Shit shit shit!" She chanted as she called Pens. She didn't think much of the jet she heard flying overhead, too busy thinking up what she would need to include in her will, and how she might leave some clues to her death for her mother to follow.

The dial tone rang ominously through the speaker, and Sam winced when someone picked up. There was no sound on the other end, just a steady crackle of static. Sam closed her eyes and took a deep breath, steeling herself.

"Uhm...Pens?" More silence. This was bad. Oh no. she was gonna die. She was gonna be brutally murdered by her best friends, and there was nothing she could do about it. "Pens? I uh, heh, know you're probably pretty mad..." Still no response. "But uh, I can explain! Well, actually, I can't. Because this was a pretty stupid thing to do, and I pretty much knew that from the start, but...that's beside the point!" Why wasn't she saying anything?

Of course, Pens and Anna both could be pretty terrifying when they wanted to be, and the ominous silence when she was angry was nothing new, but normally she would have started telling her off by now! Or, at the very least, Anna would have stolen the phone. She tried again.

"Pens...? Hey, are you even...are you really that mad? I mean, I know you must be mad, because I was a jerk to leave you hanging like that-"

"Beep. Beep. Beep."

Sam jolted and moved her phone from her ear. Pens' face smiled back at her from the screen, but her friend's voice wasn't coming out of the device. She put it on speaker and what was previously believed background static one would hear on most phone calls became and overwhelming drone. Frowning, she ended the call and tossed her phone back into her bag, zipping it closed. She shifted the...thing back into both of her hands, and pondered on whether or not it had some kind of radiation on it, and if she would maybe die.

It was then, also, that the roaring of the jet she had previously ignored suddenly recaptured her attention. Mostly because what should have been a distant rumble long passed, was suddenly coming from all around her at once. Her eyes widened as her head shot up, just in time to see a huge black blob blot out the sun.

Acting on instinct, Sam immediately hit the deck, throwing herself to the ground, along with the whatever she held. She practically wrapped herself around it and began screaming when it sounded like something huge was falling out of the sky, and the gut-churning screeches of metal on metal were practically on top of her.

The force of the impact created a shockwave that knocked her back more than just a few feet, ending her yelling when she hit the ground with a grunt. Shaking, she hugged the ball to her stomach and used her other hand to help her scrabble backwards in the dirt as fast as she could, feet kicking the loose sand wildly as they searched for some kind of purchase. Her eyes were glued on the huge metal foot that was a little too close to her for comfort.

Slowly, she followed the black and purple metal of the foot, to the leg, and then to the chest, and way, way up, she locked eyes with that of the head of the, well, giant, metal...person.

There was a deep chuckle as the thing looked at her, a nasty grin crossing whatever passed for its face. His blood red eyes seemed to look right through her and it made her skin crawl. Sam's mouth was doing an excellent impression of a fish out of water, and the teen found that she was incapable of anything but gawking. She couldn't have moved if she had wanted to! Or at least; that's what it felt like.

And then it spoke.

"Oh look! A little organic decided to come out of its hovel and play." When Sam made no noise, and just continued to stare, it only seemed to encourage it. It moved its hands to its hips, and laughed again. It was a harsh, grating noise and it sent chills down her spine. "How cute! Apparently you know a handsome mech when you see one huh? Speechless at my appearance! But then again, who wouldn't be?" Sam was a bundle of terrified, quaking flesh as the monster snickered at its own joke. Suddenly it bent down, bringing itself closer to her, and reached out with one purple-accented hand as if to grab her.

"Well if we're going to play some games, why don't you come over here, squishy? We'll have lots of fun, I'm sure."

Everything suddenly seemed sharp, and the girl snapped out of her terror-induced stupor. Gasping, she clambered to her feet, adrenaline suddenly filling her from the top of her head to the tips of her fingers as she began stumbling through the crash site, not caring about all of the little nicks and cuts she was getting as she ran for her life. She clutched the ball to her stomach with both arms, for some reason unable to just drop it. It seemed like a lifeline at the moment, something solid and there and real to remind her that this was really happening.

There was more laughter before a shadow fell over her, which was quickly followed by a feeling of nausea as she was lifted off of the ground and into the air, with as little effort as it might take one to lift a misplaced doll.

Sam didn't know whether or not she should scream or cry or just stare in horror at the face grinning at her. How was she supposed to react to a giant robot of death grinning at her like she was a fresh piece of meat?

"What's the matter my little fleshy? Do you not like to play?" She wasn't sure if the shaking she felt was her own skin trying to leap off of her body or the rumbles from the robot just talking. The thing's voice was scratchy, and static-y, and she didn't like it.

"Well? Aren't you going to say anything?" Red eyes narrowed as it suddenly honed in on her face, and whether the grip on her tightening was intentional or not as she was drawn close, only the monster knew. "Are you broken, then?" A rough shake that sent her head spinning. "Normally most squishies are screaming by now."

Her mouth opened of its own accord, probably planning to say something snarky or just completely idiotic in reply. But instead of something dumb or smart like maybe a plea for her life,all that came out was a choked, sob like sound. She wasn't crying, but she sure as hell wanted to.

Now it bared it's teeth at her, apparently excited by this new development.

"Ah ha! See, I knew you weren't broken. Silly organic; you can't hide anything from me! I knew I wasn't imagining that screaming when I landed." It chuckled again, a clawed hand raising to partially cover its mouth in a rather human gesture.

Sam was too preoccupied with the vomit threatening to rise if the sudden shaking from his laughter didn't stop soon to notice this.

Its amusement ending, it looked her over again, a frown over its face. Suddenly, it began looking around the crater, trying to find something, or maybe just appreciating the scenery. With her still in its grip, it spun surprisingly carefully, keeping the arm that held her steady.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered that the thing seemed to be familiar with humans in this situation, and took a moment to ponder if maybe it was being careful because it had been puked on before.

There was a growl, jolting her from her mildly humorous thoughts. Especially when it was accompanied by an increased pressure on her in the monster's grasp. The arms that were wrapped so securely around the metal ball, the arms that were now pinned against it, shrieked in pain with the feeling.

Her kidnapper glared at her as though she was the cause of cancer, and she had done it on purpose. The hand crushing her suddenly relaxed, and she was shifted until she found herself sitting in a cage of fingers, bum firmly planted on its metal palm. The glare moved from her to the object she still had snuggled in her arms.

"Human. Where was the sphere when you found it?" Sam blinked, her lungs still working overtime to get more air back in her system. The tight grip had made it hard to breath, and hard to think, and her mind was still too sluggish to register the question fully. The thing snarled, causing her to flinch and scoot back against the digits that, ironically, prevented her from falling off the edge.

"Tell me!" It roared. Sam's voice decided for her brain that it would be a good time to start working again.

"I-I-In the crater! In the crater!" she stuttered, practically yelling herself.

"And was there a pod around it? A shuttle? Anything?" Sam felt her brain rattling in her skull with the speed at which her head whipped side to side in the negative.

"N-N-No! It was just, it was just lying in the middle!" There was the sound of a few rapid clicks followed by what might have been two gears straining to move against each other in opposite directions from its mouth.

"Slag! 'Screamer will have my spark if the damn thing is broken!" One fist was clenched in frustration as it glared off into the space next to it, but then the red lights focused back in on her. The girl shivered against her will. "Well..." It mused grimly. "At the very least I could blame this little bug, and it least he wouldn't think I did it...but then the fragger would be mad at me for letting a pathetic human get to the weapon before I did! Slaggit, I just can't win!" A few more harsh noises, clicks, and the occasional whistle of air through a pipe was heard, as well as some distorted electronic sounds.

While it was distracted with making a symphony of industrial noises in its apparent anger, Sam took this opportunity to regain most of her senses and try to figure out if she would maybe survive this. Pushing whatever it had ranted about in English to the back of her mind, she flicked nervous glances between the thing's face and the edge of the metal she was on. The appendage had been lowered when the thing distracted itself with what something in the back of her mind told her it was a rant about how big of an idiot it was and how much trouble it was gonna be in.

For a moment she felt a surge of sympathy for the thing, and mentally murmured an 'I feel ya, buddy.' Before snapping herself back into reality.

If giant angry robots counted as reality, which apparently, now they did.

Sam quickly shoved all of these random thoughts, along with the sense of familiarity that was just beginning to niggle at the back of her brain, out of the way so she could focus on the task at hand; getting the hell off of this thing's hand.

As previously noted, she was closer to the ground than before, when she was being held eye level to the robot. She had no idea how she could judge the approximate distance in feet between her and the ground; the people on TV who estimated that something was such and such far away must have had superpowers or something.

She could tell, however, that it was too far away for her to jump without breaking about half of the bones in her body. It didn't help that the most athletic thing she did was probably walking Sweetie Pie every morning.

Regardless of the fact that her attempts were futile, Sam slowly scooted herself closer to the edge, moving with as little actual movement as possible.

She froze as there was a shifting of metal and the monster returned its attention to her mid escape-attempt.

Despite the sudden overwhelming terror that it had noticed her change in position, that didn't seem to be the case.

"Fleshling!" It said, commandingly. Angrily. With enough force to make the terror already coursing through her veins skyrocket to levels previously unimagined.

When it spoke to her at first, the tone had been teasing, and excited, as though it were a child who had just found a new toy. Then it was angry when it asked her about the ball that she was still clinging to like some kind of safety blanket. Angry, definitely angry; and scary enough to make her want to piss herself with fear.

But not the kind that had the threat of imminent death dripping from the words.

Like this one did.

"Give me the sphere. Now."

Sam didn't move. She couldn't move. She was too afraid to move. Deer in the headlights had a whole new meaning. It was more like teenager in the demonic-red-eye-lights of a blood thirsty giant robot that was probably going to kill said teenager. Deer were now childs play. Who needed deer? Certainly-not-Sam.

Apparently not in the mood for teenagers playing statue, or deer, as it were, the robot growled and decided that if she wasn't going hand the ball over, it would just take it instead.

Wickedly sharp claws darted forward and grasped the grooved metal, above and below where her arms covered the surface. With a sharp yank, the ball was free.

Or; it should have been.

Instead, poor, aggravated Skywarp now had his human nuisance screaming for dear life as she dangled dangerously in the air, her arms with a vice-like grip on the thing. This was turning out so much more frustrating that it should have been.

He had been given a simple mission; find the incoming weapon pod, remove the weapon before the autoidiots became aware of it, and if confronted with an autoboob, kick some aft before high-tailing it back to base.

Now he had a damaged weapon, which at some point he was pretty sure Starscream had screeched about being crucial to their efforts in destroying the Autobot forces on this miserable ball of dirt; a clingy, suddenly noisy human youngling, and what looked like at least one Autobot signature approaching.

Skywarp cursed and shook the little human parasite mercilessly, trying and failing to dislodge it from its hold on the weapon. If anything it only caused the screeching to get louder, and he barely resisted the urge to shut off his audio receptors to save him from the noise.

Normally he was all for the screeching of a terrified human, but when it was this close and had been going on for what must have been getting close to a slagging *breem and that high pitched...

Skywarp knew he should never have even bothered ending his recharge cycle that morning. Let Thundercracker take the stupid missions. Pit, let fragging Starscream do his own slagging missions, instead of passing them off to his trine like he always did! What did Primus have against him?

Sam's throat burned considerably with all of the screaming and shrieking she was doing while the giant robot swung her around. She didn't really mind it, though.

If a burning throat, some scratches, and a few dents in her pride were all the injury she came out of this with, she would never complain about anything ever again.

At the moment, however, she was still being shaken around like some kind of rag doll, so the screaming continued and her eyes stayed glued firmly shut.

"Stupid fragging human! Let go already! Primus! What, did you fragging weld your little fleshy digits to the thing while I wasn't looking? LET GO!" Somehow deciphering words from the angry growling above, then beside, then in front of her; Sam managed a defiant shake of her head, though it was hardly discernible from the thrashing her body was already suffering.

"NO!" Also squeezed its way past her vocal cords, just as high and grating as the screaming that resumed immediately afterwards.

The robot, thoroughly fed up and mostly just done with everything, finally relented in his shaking to try and pry the little thing off with his fingertips. (Why hadn't he done that in the first place?)

Gripping the girl around the waist between his thumb and fore finger, or what passed for the equivalent, he began to pull her away from the sphere, moving the sphere in the opposite direction as well.

Instead of the pressure on her insides inhibiting her ability to make pain-inducing sounds, they in fact increased in volume with Skywarp's efforts. What was wrong with this human?

"Fragging little glitch!" He shouted. "Let go before I rip your arms off!"

It was like the magic switch had been flipped. She suddenly let go of the ball, the screaming stopped, and a deeply frightened human female was abruptly stone-still in the two-fingered grip.

For a moment, there was silence.

And in the next moment, it was gone. Because the police cruiser that had been cautiously sneaking up behind the distracted Decepticon Seeker was replaced with the Autobot second in command and Tactical Advisor Prowl, his cannon blast inches away from the back of the unsuspecting target before he knew what had just fried his circuits.

Then several things were happening at once.

Skywarp immediately dropped what he was holding, in surprise, pain, and a need to retaliate.

The sphere fell slowly through the air, forgotten in the sudden heat of battle.

Sam felt a sudden weightlessness as the grip on her midsection disappeared, and her eyes widened in dawning horror as she realized that with nothing holding her, and nothing to hold onto, she was going to hit the ground with an unforgiving splat.

The Autobot Prowl, true to his faction's morals, ignored the furious Decepticon Warrior in favor of jumping for the delicate human that had somehow been caught up in this mess. He transformed mid-leap, shifting around the girl as their paths crossed in the air, and hitting the dirt with a dull thunk of his tires.

Sam was left in a daze in the front seat of a police cruiser, blinking the stars out of her vision.

Behind her and her rescuer, a flood of military jeeps approached the fuming Skywarp, along with an only mildly out of place Datsun.

Skywarp, noticing that he was thoroughly outnumbered and that his possible bargaining chip was most definitely gone, honed in on the orb lying forlornly on the ground. Quickly grabbing the item and subspacing it for safety, he stepped, jumped, transformed, and warped away from the flurry of bullets and plasma blasts.

The Datsun-turned-robot cursed in his native tongue at the purple haze left in the Seeker's wake, but soon let his aggravation drop in favor of transforming again to catch up with his commanding officer and former Guardian.

The human soldiers shared in their own frustrations, before retreating in their vehicles to do something probably military like.

Sam finally remembered to breath.

Blinking rapidly, the teenager whipped around in her seat, her breaths coming in short gasps and deep intakes as she struggled to make sense of where she was. Hadn't she just been falling through the air? Wasn't there a giant robot somewhere?

There was a minute tightening of the seatbelt around her, and with surprising gentleness she was coerced back into her seat.

Sam squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could manage and held the seatbelt in both hands in a death grip. What had just happened? What the hell had just happened? Was she insane? Did she get arrested for some reason? Did somebody shoot her up with drugs without her knowledge? That's why she was riding in a police car, right?

A police car that was driving itself only god knew where, with her inside! Sam opened her eyes.

"W-W-Where-" Sam coughed, and took a moment to hack into her fist. Her throat, oh how it hurt from all the screaming she did. "W-What-" She wheezed, "What the H-Hell just happened?"

She was looking all around the cab again, and finding no one there but her. Her hand shot to the handle of its own accord, jiggling it frantically for a few moments before returning to its place on the seat belt.

Sam hunched up in the seat, tucking her knees in and making herself as small as possible. She stared silently out of the windshield, watching the scrubby bushes and sand go by. It was dark out now, and her mind instantly latched onto what sane thoughts it could.

Her sleepover was dead. If Pens and Anna had been waiting for her before, they were definitely gone now. And probably murderous.

Anna had sounded so excited, too. Heck, she had been super excited herself! The first chance to hang out with her best buddies in weeks, and she blew it. Totally blew it. Sky high.

Not to mention how high her phone bill was gonna be this month with all those texts and missed calls. Her mom was gonna be furious-

Suddenly aware of how much of an idiot she was, Sam jerked into motion and practically ripped the zipper off of her bag in her haste to get it open. Yanking her phone out, she immediately went to dial and was about to tap the numbers for her mom's emergency cell, Anna, Pens, anyone, maybe see if she could ask an operator for the FBI or better yet the President – the President would know what to do with giant robots, right? – when she was stopped in her tracks.

"Please don't." A disembodied voice said. Sam's finger hovered over the keypad and her breath hitched in her throat. "Trying to call anyone would be pointless. The signal is being blocked and I'd prefer it if I wasn't forced to remove the device from your possession." Sam gulped. Looking behind her, and to her right, her gaze wandered around the vehicle in search of a source. But there was none.

"W-Where are you?" she squeaked.

"I am currently in my alternate mode, the police cruiser you are sitting in. Panicking would be pointless as well; you've already met something much more frightening than a talking car this evening, and myself and my compatriots hold no ill will for you." Sam's gaze lurched to the radio, and she forced herself to take a steadying breath. Breathing slowly, she decided to think.

For some reason the...talking car's logic calmed her down a bit more. It was right, too; she was pretty sure she had had enough terror and panicking today for an entire life time. It said it didn't want to hurt her, and while she had no reason to really believe that, it was better than what the robot had said.

Slowly, she put her phone back in her purse again, her eyes never leaving the stereo system. She wasn't trusting the talking car, oh no, that was definitely not what she was doing. She was just deciding to stop freaking out like a total wuss and crying and screaming like a baby, and instead start calming down and taking things in stride.

Talking car? She could handle that. Totally. Because, really; hadn't she just done pretty well for almost dying a couple of times in the clutches of a giant, menacing, black and purple robot with vanity issues?

A talking car was a cakewalk.

Sam nodded and allowed herself to relax slightly.

"Okay...okay." She murmured, experimentally. Could she talk without her voice squeaking like a terrified kitten? (Though of course it would still croak hideously due to the abuse of her vocal cords) Would her questions be answered, anyway? Well, she wouldn't know unless she tried. "Where...where are we, uhm, going?" there was a pause.

"I am taking you to a secure location where you will be asked a few questions, and required to sign some paperwork. Other things will also be explained. You will be requested to provide a written statement of your encounter with the being that held you." Sam nodded slightly. So, kind of like a police investigation? She could deal with that. She had seen those kinds of things on TV, it seemed easy enough.

"You will also be seen to by a medical professional for any injuries you have sustained, before the questioning. When you enter the building you will be blind folded, as a precaution. Do you understand?" Sam nodded again. Okay. This was all pretty standard, right? Had to be cautious when dealing with talking cars and giant, insane robots, right?

They had to make sure she wouldn't keel over while they were questioning her. And now that she thought about it, her arms were tender and her legs were stinging with the tiny cuts she received from the stuff buried in the crater. None of it hurt more than her foot had earlier, so she decided she was doing pretty well.

Her stomach was a little sore too, but she could live with it. The half-monotone voice of the car was calming her down, making things seem more normal. He was telling her what to expect in the same way one might comment about the weather, and it was doing wonders on her still slightly panicked mind. This was...this was okay.

She was okay.

Okay.

Breath.

A new inquiry bubbled up, and she hesitantly voiced it.

"Will...will I be going home, soon? And, will my mom have to pay for, uh, medical fees? I...uh, I don't know anything about our insurance..." She waited for the voice to respond. It took a little while, and for a moment she wondered if she was going to be answered at all.

"You will be released as soon as the questioning process is completed, and escorted home by an officer of the military. There will be no cost for the medical treatment." Sam blinked.

"Oh. Okay." Deciding the conversation to be effectively finished, since she had no more questions to ask, and since the car didn't seem to be the talkative sort, she lapsed into a semi-comfortable silence.

Her mind was blank, mostly, content to just sit and be, instead of worrying or panicking or wondering.

The she groaned to herself and dragged both hands across her face in irritation. She felt like crying.

"I knew I shouldn't have gotten out of the fucking bed today."

Her automotive companion made no audible comment, but to himself, Prowl couldn't help but agree.

*Breem – A breem is a term commonly found in the fandom, though we are uncertain whether it is just that; a fandom created term or something canon. It refers to a unit of time for cybertronians, approximately 8.3 minutes. If anyone has any questions regarding terms that we use and are not explained at the end of each chapter, please defer to the PM inbox of Mein Benutzername. Much thanks.

Note: This turned out several pages longer than part 1. We are overjoyed by this, though! We aren't completely satisfied with the final turnout of this chapter, so any advice, and especially any criticism, is welcome.

Work on the next chapter, and perhaps even completion of said chapter, will have already begun by the time this is released to the public. Soon, there will be an in-depth explanation of the precise setting for this fic, as it has, admittedly, become somewhat AU. (Somewhat multi-verse, as well.) It contains elements from various continuities, and hopefully you readers, and Sam, too, will have all of your questions answered in chapters to come.

Thanks much, and please come again.