Swerve's arrival on Earth and his *little* predicament.

BOOOM!*

"- those blasted Con-" – a gruff voice shouted.

There were explosions, a trine of seekers flew overhead and he just had enough time to roll to the side before the street exploded in a fiery inferno.

"It's those blasted-!" – another voice cursed.

He had to move, it was not safe there and he could hear the roar of engines still, his audials ringing.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The city was destroyed, only ruins laid behind them as they drove off, the Cons surely would be following after their tracks. Swerve could feel the cracked street below his ties as he and the others sped up.

They lost, they had no other option but to retreat. If things continued like this, then Cybertron would-

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

They were running out of time! Soon Iacon would also fall, the planet was dying, the Autobots were forced to retreat. Everyone was hurrying to load up as much as they could into the Ark before the ship left the planet.

"Swerve- You seen - anywhere?" – Prowl asked.

"Sorry. I have been loading crates the past few cycles. Haven't seen him anywhere." – Swerve said, shaking his helm.

Prowl just nodded and walked away.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

"-old on! We're getting to the-" – someone was pulling him back to the shuttle.

They were ambushed. The Quints had opened their portal above their helms just as they were down to pick up some supplies and materials from the planet and then the warship started sending out drones and more of those ugly tentacled fraggers out!

The team scrambled back to their shuttle to regroup with the others and return to the Ark when the drones started shooting at them. After that… Swerve's memory files were corrupted.

He remembers being dragged by some bot, his audials ringing with the explosion that knocked him out and there was an excruciating pain on his left side. He remembers the shuttle's doors closing, then turbulence as they flew off and then…

He though he heard one of the medics and Optimus assuring him that he's be fine but after that… darkness. He thought that he was going to join the others in the Well…

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

…Until light shined in his optics. He woke up, he was alive. Everything was blurry and he felt awful, he was also somewhere, buried and the light streamed down from a tiny hole above his head. He was trapped, pinned under the weight of the rubble and couldn't move.

'What happened? Where am I? Where are the others?!' – he wondered but his helm ached.

"Uugh…" – he groaned as he tried to move.

"Hey-Herd so- there!" – an unfamiliar voice sounded from above.

He probably should be calling for help but his vision was blurry and spots danced at the edges of his visual field.

"Woof! Woof-arf!" – something was standing above and making unintelligible throaty sounds.

It reminded Swerve of the sounds he sometimes heard on organic planets, but then why would there be an organic there? Wasn't he supposed to be on the Ark? He could barely sense a lot of lifeforms milling above, his sensors fed his muddled processor information he couldn't even begin to process.

…Wait? Why was he here?

"-ound someone? Good job Brody! Good job boy!" – a feminine voice sounded.

"Woowoo!" – the animal made a joyful noise.

"We found-still trapped under the rubble! Might be a survivor!" – the same voice called again.

"We- bring the lift and stretcher!" a deeper, male voice sounded "Must be buried deep to not have-" – he continued.

Swerve was panicking a bit but was also feeling sick and confused, his processor still not working right. He could hear the voices above but couldn't understand what they were talking about. Did the Ark crash? Was it attacked while he was out of commission? Was he and the others somehow trapped on an unfamiliar organic-inhabited planet? He heard speech, so they must be of the intelligent races, right?

"-here! Be careful!" – the man commanded.

"Do you think- alive? It's been 2 days-" – a younger voice asked.

"Don't know- have to try!" – the man said with a solemn tone.

Soon, Swerve could hear the rocks and metal above his helm move. The beings above were talking and he could occasionally hear the animal barking and scrambling around. At some point he blacked out once more but was woken up by the feeling of pebbles falling down on him. He blearily looked up, just to see the grey stone above move and a beam of light to hit him straight in the faceplate. He hissed through his intake and shut his optics tight.

"There actually is-! They are alive, bring the stretcher!"- the male organic was not looking through the hole.

His face was only partly visible, a colored pair of safety goggles and a yellow helmet covered the top of his head as he peered down at Swerve with a grin.

"Don't worry we'll-Everything will be-" – he was talking to Swerve.

The Autobot couldn't understand a word of what the organic said and he tried to convey that to him, he tried to sue some of the more common dialects used in the cosmos but his processor was still on the fritz and everything was starting to blur and spin once more.

"Uhn…ashjz ka?" – he managed to mumble, completely incoherent.

"We must hurry and pull- have a concussion-hospital! Call an am-!" – the man shouted with urgency.

The rocks were now removed with even more haste and the hole became wider. Swerve could see the outlines of other organics circling the hole, all dressed like the leader.

'Must be from the same team or profession…' – he thought.

The man took a rope in one hand and lowered himself down to Swerve, careful not to step on anything and inspected the downed Autobot. The organic then shouted something to the others above and started unspooling a bright green rope from his waist. The rope looked flimsy and made from some thread.

'It is too thin and fragile. It won't be able to hold me… need steel cable…' – Swerve wanted to say.

"Ugh… samekh…sss! Aich!" – but instead mumbled something once more and hissed in pain as the organic touched him.

He was in a lot of pain and that scared him even more, his injury must have reached his inner frame! He wanted the organic to not move him, but he couldn't think clearly nor to form coherent sentence in his voice box. Swerve felt the organic wind the rope around him and tie it. Then, he was hooked onto the same rope the man used to get down to him. Swerve moved weakly as the organics started to lift him but the knots were quite secure.

Soon, somehow, he was lifted out of the hole and the rope held! The organics stretched their limbs as he came closer, their digits pulling the rope and flexing in his direction. One stretched toward his chassis and he moved his left servo to push it away weakly, but instead the organic caught his servo and held it.

His optics widened impossibly wide, his servo… was not a servo. It looked small and very similar to the one of the organics. His gaze moved up with panic, his optics locking with the gaze of the femme holding his helm up. He was venting too fast and all he could do was make a panicked whine before his processor powered down and everything went dark.

…

Swerve had woken up a few planetary rotations, or days as the locals called it, ago. He was in some… medical bay? Emergency shelter-like place? He was still unsure, he was barely starting to have basic grasp of the local language, plus he couldn't seem to connect to a network and download the information to his processor- brain- whatever, while in this unfamiliar frame-body-form? And that was without mentioning that he had been somehow injured and the locals would not let him out of his little curtained-off space, so the only information he could get was from the medics, the nearby patients talking and whatever he could see from the tiny window on the wall beside his berth- bed, it was called bed here.

He looked down at the blanket covering his lower half and ran his digits over the smooth material. He was so confused and lost at the moment and really didn't know that to do. He was in an unfamiliar place in an even more unfamiliar body. Swerve was hurt, he was weakened, he had never felt so vulnerable before, not since the cycle he had been sparked and that… concerned him.

"Good day-. How are you today? Any discomfort or-?" – a nurse approached Swerve.

She was in the usual white and red color scheme medics used back home on Cybertron, so he had quickly guessed her purpose the first time she came. She visited him several times each day to check on him and inquire about his condition.

"No." – he managed to say, the word he learned was denial.

"Good, then! You are way more responsive to- than previous days! This is a good-. When you first came, you looked completely cat- and we thought there could have been some brain damage on top of the concussion." – she smiled and wrote something down.

Swerve could only nod dumbly, not fully getting the meaning of some words yet, but he certainly felt better now that he could understand some of the conversation and communicate with the organics. He felt so dumb when he only stared and blinked as a pair of important-looking men, which he suspected were this planet's equivalent of enforcers, came, questioned and then shouted at him when he couldn't answer. The doctors had chased them off but he suspected they might come back, since with his current knowledge, he now knew they were questioning him about his identity.

"I brought some- and - today." the nurse said, drawing Swerve's attention "It is- but pretty good, considering what happened last week." – she smiled and brought him a tray of organic fuel- food.

He took it from her servos- hands, he reminded himself and she just stood there and watched him. Apparently, he had greatly worried them when he would not consume any of the food, so now they were watching him refuel-eat. So, even though Swerve did not yet feel the rumbling of an empty tank, he made himself eat slowly, the nurse happy to see him make progress. By the time she felt satisfied and left him on his own, he had finished half the portion.

'What am I going to do now? I have to go and find what happened with the others on the Ark, I am worried about them but… Will I be able to return back? Will I even be able to contact them from wherever this place is? Not to mention this new form…' – he flexed his fingers and stared as the fleshy exterior moved.

…..

A month after waking up on this planet, Earth, he was finally released from the hospital. He was led out by a 'social worker' with a nametag H. Bright pinned on his jacket. He only had the clothes on his back, a small folder of documents and his new ID with him as they exited the hospital. The city was still a bit of a mess but repairs were already underway. An enforcer- police officer, he reminded himself, was waiting for them outside.

"Don't worry, Mr. Doe. There have been many server failures due to the alien attacks and a lot of data was lost, so it is not that odd that you are not in the system. I am sure this whole mess will be sorted soon enough!" – Mr. Bright said with a reassuring smile.

Swerve only nodded awkwardly and climbed into the police car.

"We're going to drive you to the shelter and get you settled in. You have your temporary ID, right?" – the officer asked.

"Yes." – Swerve answered and opened the document folder.

Inside was a small pile of documents and on top of it sat a small plastic card with a picture of Swerve's current form – a caucasian man in his mid-twenties, short and slightly szocky build, green eyes and reddish-brown hair, there was a bit of stubble on his chin and he was staring at the camera with a thousand-yard stare. The name John Doe was printed beside the picture along with his ID number. Swerve looked down at the card with distaste and a lot of discomfort.

He remembered the day clearly, the detectives had returned, just as he suspected, once they were informed, he was healing and more coherent. They had questioned him for what seemed to be a few breems, but it was actually just a few hours, about who he was, what he was doing there and what his purpose was and also, apparently has a psychic evaluation made about him.

Swerve read through the documents in front of him as the car drove through the damaged streets.

'Patient seems to be suffering from a complete retrograde amnesia due to severe head trauma, which resulted into a 3-day coma upon arrival at the hospital. Patient showed irregular breathing patterns in the beginning, before his readings were stabilized a few hours later. After waking up, the patient was near catatonic, staring into empty space or at personal and other patients and not responding to any attempts at communication. Later, patient slowly recovered and regained normal functions.

The amnesia and delusions of the patient might also be the result of the time the patient spent injured and trapped under the rubble. The patient mentioned being a giant robot a few times, maybe as a coping mechanism to the trauma and memory loss…' – Swerve stopped reading and closed the folder.

He was not delusional! He clearly remembered his life back on Cybertron, his friends, his comrades, the war – he remembered every single cycle from his sparking up to waking up on this organic planet! And yet…

'I had to pretend and accept the amnesia claims to not be written off as crazy or worse…' – the currently human Autobot grimaced.

In the week prior to his discharge, he had learned a lot about this planet's current situation. The Quintessons were actively attacking the natives and before said attacks, the humans were not even aware of intelligent alien life even existing! He didn't know whether to laugh of vent out in frustration. This planet was so out of reach and behind the other civilizations that they not only had not started space-faring properly but many thought the only life out there in the near-infinite cosmos was on their planet and the rest was just…microbes! Fragging microbes!

Swerve noticed the police officer glancing back at him and forced his expression into a calm one.

'I really am stuck here on my own…'

Not only did he not have a way to contact the Autobots but aliens were viewed with a ton of negativity due to the Quints attacking and being the only alien life, this planet has seen. He didn't want to imagine what might happen if he tried to make a communicator and he was found trying to contact someone in space. So, he had to hold it all in and bear with it until he found a solution to his predicament.

'Still, why John Doe?! Why couldn't they accept that my name was Swerve?'

1 year later =

Swerve was in the factory's cafeteria. He was wearing a gray shirt, his blue work uniform, a protective apron with a few oil stains and yellow protective goggles. He had found this job soon after arriving at the shelter with no official ID and no family to be found. He worked hard to get a small place in the old apartments of the city and earn a living. After all, just like credits on Cubertron, dollars were necessary to live comfortably in the USA. He was lucky that he was so good with technology and this place had been in desperate need of engineers for the new anti-alien machines they were making, desperate enough to hire a man with no official identity as long as he was good and Swerve was DAMN good with his hands. He quickly became one of the best engineers in the whole facility.

"Hey, Swerve! How's it going?" – the cook greeted him.

"Good, Phil. We had a bit of trouble with one of the new engines but I managed to fix it up very quickly." Swerve smiled "Can you give me-"

"The day's special with a side of fries, garlic sauce and a coke?" – Phil smiled, already putting the food on the tray.

"Heh, you know me very well, Phil."

"How can't I? You order has been almost always the same for this entire year you've been working here! It's not that hard to guess." – the cook winked.

"Yeah… I guess. Hahaha." – he laughed awkwardly before moving on.

Swerve sat on an empty table and began eating the food, having actually began to like the taste a while ago, trying out the different dishes, despite not exactly feeling the 'hunger pangs' even if he didn't eat for a few days, but he got addicted to fries dipped in garlic sauce as a result of his experiments, so now he always ordered a portion.

"Swerve! Hopkins just called! He says a few 'big shots' have come asking about you!" – Eliza, one of the secretaries approached his table.

"Hm? Wha-" he had to quickly swallow his fries "What big shots? What happened? Is it an issue with an order again?"

"I don't know. He just said he wants you in his office in the next 10 minutes." – Eliza sighed and looked apologetically at the engineer.

"Well, I better get going, then." – he smiled and left his half-eaten lunch at the return counter.

'I just hope there's not another issue with a big order. My audials were ringing from all that quarreling.' – Swerve grimaced.

…

Swerve entered Hopkins' office, expecting to see a red-faced manager, instead he was greeted by two men in suits, all "Men in Black" style (yes, he watched the movie) and his boss acting overly-friendly to them. Swerve was so weirded out by how much the usually proud boss was acting like a bootlicker. Suddenly, all gazes were onto him.

"Y-you wanted to see me, Mr. Hopkins…" – Swerve stuttered.

"Ah, yes, Mr. Doe! Please sit down." Hopkins gestured at the free chair "Mr. Doe is one of our best engineers here at M-"

"We are aware. That's why MECH sent us here." – one of the men cut the manager off with his deep voice.

"Y-yes! My apologies!" – Hopkins looked almost like he was about to fall over and that scared Swerve.

"Mr. Doe." – one of the men addressed him.

"Yes!" – Swerve almost jumped up when the man stood up.

"We are representatives of MECH, the new organization that is developing mechs to fight the alien invaders." – the man began.

Swerve knew very well who they were, after all their factory was one of many responsible for building machines and creating components for MECH.

"We were sent here to offer you a position at MECH's main R branch." – the man finished.

"Huh?!" – Swerve was shocked, were they serious?

"The director heard of your engineering prowess and experience, so he officially invited you on an interview and offers a position on the spot if you are to accept the deal." – the second man said, also standing up.

Both Swerve and Hopkins were stunned into silence.

"Here's the official invitation with details, a contact number, email and the available interview dates, if you are to accept. The contract would be negotiated after accepting the position. That would be all. Good day." – the first man handed Swerve an envelope and the two men left.

…

Swerve ended up accepting the job after a lengthy interview and a look around the R publicly-accessible are. The technology there was probably the best on the planet, but they were also desperately in need of help. He did not want the planet overrun by the Quints while he was still trapped there and with no way to contact the Autobots, so this was his own way of helping with what he could. After all, if Optimus was here, he would have also fought to save Earth.

With his meager belongings loaded into the moving truck, Swerve climbed into the passenger seat and left for his new home. He looked back and took one last look at the half-destroyed Los Angeles before the moving truck left.