Hi All!

I understand many of you will not be very happy with me and I sincerely apologise for such a delay in the release of a new chapter. My family have been through a considerable amount of emotional trauma this past year and I just couldn't bring myself to write. I would start to write a chapter and just not have the drive or will to do it. Things are beginning to look brighter now though so hopefully I can begin to publish new chapters once again. I cannot promise how frequent these will be, it purely depends on family circumstances and how the future pans out.

I would also like to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for so many follows, favourites and lovely reviews! I can't believe I'm already near 100 followers at the chapter 10 mark!

Enough of my babbling though. Please enjoy chapter 10 of Phoenix Formation :)

Millie

"You gotta stay here and you've gotta watch them."

"Okay, okay–"

"All of them."

A small sigh of irritation escaped Millie's lips.

"All of them. Got it."

Sam nodded before rushing off towards the house, adding a hasty "five minutes, all right?" over his shoulder as he ran over the grass towards the house, completely avoiding the newly installed path.

Millie crossed her arms and tapped her foot in irritation. Sam was a nervous wreck following the news they'd all received from Optimus and the Autobots that night, and he was definitely a nervous talker. He could barely keep his mouth shut for five seconds over the whole journey. Bee had the courtesy of playing the boy's conversation with Optimus over the comm because he'd found it highly entertaining watching Millie's frustration develop. Evil bot.

"That's just Sam." Mikaela said, seeing Millie's sour expression. "He's… something else."

"He sure is." Millie agreed with a light laugh, shooting Mikaela a shared smile before turning to see Optimus standing up into his bipedal form, his metals falling easily into place.

"We need to stay here," Millie said quietly up to Optimus, "Sam will be five minutes while he finds the glasses. In the mean time you guys have to be discrete."

"We do not have time; we must find the glasses before the Decepticons." Optimus rumbled worriedly, making his way towards Sam's back garden from the private back lane the Autobots had parked on.

"No, wait!" Millie tried to stop the bot as he stepped over the fence, before shooting a helpless look towards Bumblebee. An apologetic whine came from the Camaro before a quiet clip of audience laughter could be heard from the radio.

"Useless, the lot of you…" Millie grumbled looking from Bee to the rest of the Autobots who sat patiently waiting for their Prime as he completely ignored Sam's request to wait. She turned on her heel and marched into Sam's garden, following the sounds of Sam's cry of "Watch the path! Watch the– Please please please!".

As she entered the garden, Millie could hear the sounds of the other bots transforming and making their way towards the garden. In front of her, the new path was now completely destroyed, with an Optimus-sized footprint embedded into what used to be a centrally placed water fountain.

"I told you to watch them!" Sam cried as he ran up to Millie, an understandably pained look on his face as more Autobots entered his garden and a Chihuahua clambered down the steps of the porch.

"I tried but they seem to be in a bit of a rush." Millie said shortly, Mikaela coming to stand with them as the Chihuahua cocked its leg against Ironhide's foot and proceeded to pee on it.

Millie really struggled to contain a bark of laughter as the Weapons Expert leapt away from the pitiful excuse of a dog, a sound of disgust rising from his vocal processors as he shook his foot angrily.

"Mojo, Mojo! Off the robot! Oh God!" Sam cried out as he ran to the dog and pulled it off the ground, holding it away from Ironhide as the bot online his cannons and aimed them at Mojo.

"You have a rodent infestation; shall I terminate?" Ironhide grumbled angrily as what little colour remained in Sam's face drained completely.

"Oh no no no no no please put them away! This is Mojo, he's a pet of mine!" Sam babbled as Ironhide continued to hold his cannons mere feet from his face. "He's not a rodent he's a Chihuahua, we love Chihuahuas!"

"He's leaked lubricants all over my foot!" Ironhide argued angrily, still refusing to offline his cannons. Millie covered her mouth to withhold the snigger, shooting a look at Bee to see the young scout was having the same problem as her.

"He peed on you? Bad Mojo! Bad Mojo!" Sam squeaked, holding the dog out in front of him and shaking it slightly to add emphasis to his words.

"Bad Mojo." Ironhide echoed deeply, slowly offlining his cannons as he turned his back on Sam while grumbling about rust.

"I'm so sorry he's got a male dominance thing." Sam called after the retreating Autobot, before he himself began to retreat towards the house, turning to talk to Optimus as he went: "Please go hide somewhere!

"Autobots, recon." Optimus murmured in a resigned voice, turning and signalling to the other bots as Sam disappeared into the house and up the stairs. Millie watched for a moment as Ratchet and Jazz retreated away from the house, while Bumblebee – the nosy bugger – crept towards the house and peered into a ground floor window.

"Bee no!" Millie chastised, her voice still laced with laughter from Mojo's display of male dominance. "If Sam's parents see you they'll freak out!"

"Aye, Captain." Bee played as he backed away from the window, casting a look to Optimus as they communicated silently over whatever system they had, before he retreated to beside the garage and swiftly transformed back to his alt form.

"What should we do?" Mikaela half-whispered to Millie as the two of them were left standing in the middle of the completely destroyed garden.

"Wait for Sam I suppose…" Millie replied, glancing up at the open window of Sam's room as sounds of books and other items being thrown around the room haphazardly drifted down to them.

Optimus, who had also heard the sound, knelt down to the two girls standing together in the middle of the lawn and outstretched his hand.

"Would one of you possibly help Sam with his search?" He asked gently. "He sounds as if he needs it."

Mikaela moved forward hesitantly, before looking back at Millie; nodding, Millie gestured for her to continue.

"You help Sam," she said, stepping back in the direction of the garage, "I'll see if I can find a rag or something to clean that dog pee off Ironhide's foot."

With a brief smile and a nod, Mikaela stepped carefully into Optimus' hand and held tight as he carefully lifted her to the open window, supporting her until she was completely inside. As Millie turned her back and walked towards the garage, she wondered at how gentle a 32-foot robot could be. Optimus was a complete riddle to her; she could usually read a person easily, but he was complicated.

On the outside he was the calm, calculating leader who showed strong signs of empathy and selflessness, however underneath there was someone much more complicated; he'd already displayed a number of times in the very short period that Millie had known him that he was a gentle and kind soul, but there was more hidden behind a wall that he was hiding away from the world. Was that to protect others or to protect himself? Millie could only wonder as she searched the garage quickly for a rag, grabbing a small bucket and filling it with some water at the hose to take with her.

"Ironhide!" Millie called as she came out of the garage, only to stop in shock as she saw all the Autobots sitting quietly on the lawn in their alt forms.

"This isn't hiding!" Sam was calling irritably from his window, his voice strained. "This is my backyard not a truck stop!"

Millie couldn't contain her snort of laughter as she stepped out of the garage and over to where Ironhide sat patiently. Optimus' Peterbilt form shattered as he once again began to transform up into his bipedal form. He strode over to the window to speak with Sam as Millie tapped Ironhide on his hood.

"'Hide, transform and I'll clean what's left of that dog pee off your foot."

There was a pause before the Topkick broke apart as Ironhide stretched up to stand at what Millie guessed to be roughly 26-ft.

Looking down at her with a half-hearted glare, Ironhide stepped the specific foot forward to allow Millie access.

"Are you sure?" He questioned, a small hint of distrust in his voice as he watched Millie carefully. Meeting his piercing gaze without any wavering of her own, Millie smiled and nodded.

"Or course! Don't want your metals to rust, I bet it'd be a pain to deal with at a later point."

She smiled brightly up at Ironhide as he responded with a curt nod. He didn't trust her completely, that was as clear as day. Millie didn't exactly know what Bee had told them of her situation when he saved her life, but she doubted he could have provided enough information to satisfy the Weapons Master's questions in any situation. As a result, it was natural for Ironhide not to trust her; he was responsible for the safety of his unit and she was an unknown entity, a conundrum that had yet to be answered. She was a danger.

Millie hastily cleaned the pee off Ironhide's foot with the sponge and water, before wiping the metals clean with the rag, the metal shining in the light of the house as it was once again clean.

A sigh of frustration came from Optimus as Millie finished her work; she looked up to see him coming to the end of a conversation with Sam through the window. Perhaps the boy had finally convinced the Autobot leader to go back to the lane and wait until he was done.

"Autobots, fall back."

Yep. Sam did it.

Millie stepped back towards the garage as the Ratchet, Bumblebee and Jazz transformed to their bipedal forms and the five Autobots began to head back towards the lane.

Ironhide pushed Ratchet slightly as the two bots were followed by Jazz, the smallest bot shouting a not-so-subtle "Move!" to the two of them.

"Remember he wants us to be quiet!" Optimus chastised quickly as he stepped over the fence and into the lane.

Ratchet turned and shot a withered look at Jazz as the athletic bot leapt his way over the fence, however the Medical Officer didn't pay attention to the electricity wires in front of him and walked straight into them. Sparks flew from the wires and the Autobot jerked as jolts of electricity conducted over his metals and through his systems; with an earth-shaking clatter, Ratchet fell to the ground amongst a haze of smoke and sparks.

Millie clutched the doorframe of the garage as Ratchet caused the ground to shake for a moment. She managed to keep hold of the bucket and not spill any water, looking behind her with a smirk and a shake of the head to see Ironhide helping Ratchet to his feet.

Turning back into the garage, Millie listened to the sounds of the Autobots reaching the lane, transforming and retreating to a more discrete spot a little further away to wait for Sam, Mikaela and herself. Millie tossed the water down the drain in the corner of the garage, before replacing the bucket to where it had sat on the counter and the rag to where it had been abandon on the lawnmower.

Brushing herself off, Millie looked out of the dirty window to see Sam and Mikaela talking with Sam's parents. They must have thought Ratchet's fall was an earthquake or something similar as the father was holding a torch and the mother had a baseball bat. Millie watched as the four of them moved from Sam's room and disappeared, before appearing a moment later by the ground floor window, Sam clutching his backpack.

They have the glasses! Millie thought excitedly to herself. The next job was to somehow get them to the Autobots without Sam's parents getting suspicious.

Glancing around herself, Millie saw an American History textbook laying abandoned on the worktop. God knows why Sam had left it in here, but it was her perfect opportunity to get into the house. She'd pretend to have borrowed it at school, claimed she'd been at work late so hadn't been able to return it any earlier, and she would adopt a sweet, shy personality to instantly charm the parents. Perfect.

Grabbing the textbook in her hands, Millie jogged lightly from the garage and made her way across the destroyed lawn, leaping over the remains of the path and fountain as she went. She could hear voices inside the house as the leapt up the steps of the porch two at a time and lightly tapped on the back door.

The voices quietened inside as Millie waited patiently, her muscles twitching slightly as she subconsciously tensed. Something wasn't quite right… She could hear the sound of a clicking Geiger counter coming from the other side of the door.

The door swung open faster than Millie could possibly react, a smiling Seymour Simmonds standing in the doorway with a gun pointing straight at her forehead.

"Well isn't this a lovely little surprise!" Simmonds shouted ecstatically, a look of pure joy overtaking his features as he stepped forward and pressed the cool metal of the gun tip to Millie's forehead. "Looks like I'll be bagging my favourite little terrorist too."

With no other options, Millie scowled in defeat as she dropped the textbook to the ground with a loud thunk. Simmonds' smirk increased further as two suits leapt forward and took harsh grips on both her arms, while a third secured her hands in tight handcuffs behind her back.

"Bet you didn't think you'd be seeing me again." Simmonds gloated as Millie was pulled into the house by the two agents holding her.

"I'd been wondering how long it would take for you to scamper back from drying your tears on your Mamma's skirt, actually." Millie replied nonchalantly, raising her chin in defiance. She caught Sam's eyes as she did so, a look of utter confusion covering his face. She sent a small smile his way to try and reassure him, but it was broken off as a hand slapped her harshly across the cheek.

"Damn I've been waiting to do that!" Simmonds mocked gleefully.

"Didn't your Mamma raise you not to hit a girl? Or are just too much of a coward?" Millie spat as she tasted a bit of blood from a small split her tongue felt in the corner of her mouth.

"Gag her and shove her in the back of the van." Simmonds ordered the two suits holding her, a scowl taking over his face as he held the counter up to Millie, the needle rocketing off the scale. "Send the parents and the Chihuahua straight to Site 4, I'll ride with the kids to the extraction point."

A gag was forced into Millie's mouth and tied around her head before she was dragged forward and escorted through the front door of the Witwicky house. Outside there were men in high intensity quarantine suits taking samples of the plants surrounding the house, and a line of vehicles took up the majority of the street. Millie watched helplessly as Sam and Mikaela were escorted into the first SUV, while Sam's parents were clambering into the SUV behind the large van she was being directed towards.

A suit pulled the back doors of the van open and Millie was forced up the step and onto a bare metal bench inside. The handcuffs were clipped to a ring behind where she sat, and a tight belt was secured across her lap. She couldn't move.

The two suits that had escorted her leapt down from the van and slammed the doors shut firmly, plunging the interior of the van into completely darkness.

Millie glanced around herself for a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness as she felt the engine start beneath her.

This really wasn't how she'd expected her day to end; she had especially not expected the reappearance of Sector 7 and Simmonds.

Well shit, this was going to complicate things.

I don't think this was my best chapter to be honest, I found it a surprisingly difficult scene to write because the focus jumped back and forth so much between Sam and the Autobots. I am also trying to make it as original as possible in terms of Millie's narration and storyline so not to bore you all with basically the movie script :')

Please leave a review, follow or favourite if you enjoyed this chapter, and once again I am sorry for such a delay.

Until all are one.

Shakalakaboomboom x