The tree had stood for longer than could be counted. It was a noble redwood, towering high with it's fellows. Unfortunately, the flaming debris from space crashed into it, wounding the ancient tree and raining the forest floor with splinters of wood.

The debris of course had been tracked for sometime now, it's tradjectory calculated and plotted and everything about it well known. It had been, of course, pure luck that it had been detected at all, and from the mundane calculations of amature astronomers it seemed obvious that it would mostly, if not entirely, burn up in the atmosphere. It hadn't. Their calculations didn't include the fact that this falling star was intentionally shielded against the heat and pressure of reentry.

So it lay there, a dull metallic seeming jewel. Heavily tarnished and quite burried in the forest floor, having struck several trees on the way down. Oh, now that it had landed someone was going to investigate, that was certain. With a metallic groan that one could only consider a sigh the commetary protoform shifted under it's own power. Seams that had withstood reentry now popped loose from one another. Parts shifted, pressure locks disenganged, and the reentry pannels broke apart, allowing the jointing beneath to flex freely.

He stood only eight foot tall. His mass spread to this humanoid form it was somewhat larger than the protoform shape. A quad-optical array swept the forrest, providing him with visual recording of his surroundings. He liked what he saw, despite the trail of destruction he had cut with his impact. It bothered him more that he was leaving a smoking smoldering crater for some curious investigator to find, but the enviromental impact wasn't lost on him either.

He reached one forearm out, and from the wrist extended what seemed to be a second limb, uncurling like the claws of a mantis, it dug into the trunk of one of the great trees about him. He flipped in mid air, catching the rough bark with his clawed feet. He continued his unhurried scan of the surrounding. He was looking for autonomous creatures in the area. Nothing matching his aproximate mass however was availible. He monitored the electronic signals that invisibly filled the air, sifting through various frequences and listening from his perch.

The occasional design caught his attention, but monitoring communications channels from here was only providing him a limited cross section. None of the shapes he saw on the airwaves seemed appropriate to him.

A small bird flew past, one of the few brave creatures to return to study the impact sight. It had not caught him by surprise, the sound of it's wingbeats had registered on his passive sonar and he had swung around the trunk of the tree, hoping to avoid it's notice. Now he slowly looked it over, his optical array focusing on it with the two primary lenses and magnefying the creature to pick out details. The bird, for it's part, shifted around, glancing at the area and seemed undisturbed by the metallic creature that studied it.

Clinging to the side of the redwood with both legs and one arm he lifted up his other arm. The two mantis like apendages mounted on his wrists flexed open, from his arm a series of metallic blades extended, fanning out into two wings. He encouraged his symbiote, and it lifted its own metal body up, plates shifting and moving as it attempted to mimic the form he requested. The metal pannels seemed wafer thin as they closed together, mounted on two scrawny hind legs. He relaxed the spiked apendages attached to his arm, recurling them against his forearm and upper arm. The symbiote creature shifted on it's perch until it was on top.

He now stood there with a robotic simulation of a falcon on perched on his forearm. It glanced around, it's own optical array taking in the sights and processing them with it's limited instinctual based computer mind. Twin turbines mounted on it's shoulders started to softly breath in air, and it spread it's blade like wings. It gave a faint sound, launching from his forearm. The body itself was to heavy to fly by flapping those wings, but with the thrusters it could mimic the birds flight and even make improovements on the complex biological design. The symbiote would allow him a second set of eyes and would covertly allow him to take samples for his mission.

But that did not solve his immediate problem of finding a disguise form. However, as the small local life forms were returning, he suspected that the larger, and more dangerous, life forms would soon be arriving at his crash site as well. One course of action would be to stick around, possibly adopt one of their forms. He didn't like that option.

The second choice would be to compromise. Another flying creature caught his attention and he looked at it as closely as he could without disturbing it from across the ruinous clearing he had created. With a bit of annoyance he decided that would be an appropriate, if temporary, form to mimic. He tucked his arms up against his chest, letting the metal plates on them rotate around until they formed a solid carapace with his multijointed forearm claws still exposed. His head folded back, splitting into two large domed eyes while the horns inverted themselves to create mouth parts for the dragonfly head. One leg extended out to create the stablizing abdomen, while the other folded against his back and split apart, flattening into metal wings.

He felt decidedly out of place, a lone metal dragonfly glittering against the deep rust treebark of the redwood, but it couldn't be helped at the moment. He fluttered his wings once, working out their movements. Then he beat them until the four wings became a blur of motion, cutting the air with a steady droning sound. His six multijointed limbs released the tree and he lifted off, hovering and looking around. Satisfied, he tucked his six legs against his body and launched himself through the trees.

Before life was, there was the Cube. The sacred object that had taken the lifeless barren metal astroid and filled it with life. Primative, feral life, but life all the same. Each carried it's own spark of life within it's body, a unique energy matrix granded from the Cube. This life grew, flurished, evolved, and learned. They were to be known as the Transformers, and the world became known as Cybertron. The power of the Allspark held within the Cube was harnessed. But like all things of great power it could be used for good... or evil. And so the Cube was lost, blasted into space never to return to Cybertron again. Cybertron's life began to fade without the nurturing Allspark. The children of Cybertron left their home, searching the galaxy for the Cube once more.

They found something else. On a far different world than their own they found the Sphere. Similar to the Cube, it was a counter to it. The UniSpark. This Sphere had also brought life to a barren planet, but not in the same way. The planet itself had merged with the Sphere. In their efforts the Children of the Allspark had awakened this single living creature that was the entire planet. Unicron had stirred from his sleep and the wrath of the Chaos Bringer was mighty.

The Children of Cybertron still carried on their war for control of the Allspark. Autonomous Robotic Lifeforms, Autobots, waged their battles against the evil forces of the Decepticons. But now, for all their petty battles, something evil was watching them. There was nothing they could do. World after world, Unicron devoured everything the Allspark had touched through it's children. There was slowly becomming nowhere left to run. Standing divided as they did, across millions of worlds, they all fell to Unicron.

So this was judgement day. The final stand would be made on a small, primative, lost world where a few rogue Autobots had made their home. This planet had been the final resting place of the AllSpark, until the day it had been destroyed by the very energies it produced, merging it with the matured lifespark of Megatron destroying them both. Now, on this lone world, Optimus Prime and his band of Autobots lived, not knowing of the evil comming at them from the sky above.

Which is why he was here. Why they were comming. An army ready to strike back at the threat of Unicron. His body shifted once more, the dragonfly shape being so obviously out of proportion he didn't feel he should retain it much longer. Not now that he had hit what passed for civilization on this world. Or at least one of the main transportation arteries of the civilization.

Hiding himself from view of the interstate highway he studied the traffic there. All of those vehicles outmassed him. He could, perhaps, ride witin one of the larger, but as they were all moving gaining entrance would be difficult. Thankfully, here he had better reception to the worlds telecommunication network. Slowly but surely he scanned through the airwaves, filing the information away in his mind for possible use later. At the moment he was still without proper understanding of the native languages. But he had decoded the information of their computer systems enough to at least look at pictures.

His symbiote returned, the little bird creature having found something interesting. It reattached itself to his arm and he downloaded it's memories of the ranger station. A solution finally formed in his mind as he studied both images on the world wide web and the photographic imagery provided by his symbiotic associate. He folded his arms back, extending spokes from his shoulders to reach around. His legs collapsed down, folding up and pressing together into one solid mass. Pannels shifted and rearranged themselves, some folding out. Within moments his symbiote was perched on a Harley Davidson 1985 touring cycle. Heavily customized to his own personal sense of taste. The symbiote itself shifted and collapsed wings and head while splitting the main body apart. It wasn't actually attempting to become anything particular however, just properly attach to the motorcycle seat while aligning holographic emitters.

With a flicker the park ranger appeared mounted on the cycle. Paging his way through the various websites he could access without directly interacting with the network, he chastized his symbiote. The hologram flickered revealing the blue endoskeleton for a brief moment, and then reformed so she was now wearing leathers and a helmet. That looked more appropriate. He tried out the new configuration for a moment, rolling while idleing, and then drove out onto the side road. It wouldn't be to hard to merge with the highway traffic from here. He had some searching to do.

((Idea here was to introduce FnorDoM characters, as they would appear movie style, in a coherant plot. The plot of course being a pretty direct sequel to the movie. Feel free to recreate your character as you please. Yes, the robotic Dragonfly/Motorcycle is JaggedWing, he'll keep switching alt modes until I can come up with a way for his sabertooth tiger/bat fuzor mode to be implimented. The symbiote is PrettySparrow, given the same treatment that Scorponok was given.))

((Like'n the story so far, great idea with the Unispark and Unicron. I do have to question before adding to it though, is this serious toned or are we truly doing it FnorDoM style. Makes a big difference... I'm assuming since it's in the Hub, you want FnorDoM style antics, but so far the story seemed... better than that.))

((Maybe a bit more serious than our regular wackiness, as the movie was a bit more serious than the cartoon... but not completely. I just didn't have space to add much humor while laying down everything else. Plus I was never one of the truely random writers to begin with, having all my craziness build up before being revealed.

Oh, and originally I just meant this to be a JaggedWing solo story, in which I would have put it in Smelting... but I don't think he could carry it by himself and it would be more fun to see everyone here re-introduce their characters in the new style. Plus probably reintroduce themselves to everyone else.))

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From the sky came another burning ball of fire. This one seemed seperated into two pieces, one large and one much smaller.

Over the blisteringly bright desert the two pieces plummeted, falling in the vast wasteland of rock and sand.

At the last segment, the smaller of the two objects stopped, suspended only meters above the burning sands. It's surface glistening silver as it hovered and rotated in midair.

However, the larger of the two impacted with earth shattering force, sending a large cloud of sand and rock up into the air, and back down cascading over the smaller sphere's surface.

As everything settled, the smaller sphere spun once, shaking off the hot sand, and moved over to the center of the new crater. Below, a distinctly curved protoform pod was coated in flames and smoldering liquified silicon.

*You know, we do have the ability to use air brakes, right?* the sphere emitted in a language that sounded to the human ear like little more than a series of high pitched static.

The larger object shuddered and hissed. Plates began to rotate and unfold, rapidly revealing a large humanoid form, *Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. It's not like I don't have ten times your body mass to stop. Besides, the gravity ratio is considerably higher than that number you quoted me."

The sphere suddenly went through a similar series of shifting, and landed as a small, light framed humanoid about a quarter of the larger bot's size, *Don't know what you mean." His colors were distincly silver and dark metals, almost black. A single red optic glimmered in the brilliant sunlight.

The larger robot was comprised of more brownish metals, where melted silicon and carbon scoring didn't cover up his frame. His optic was more visor-like and green. As he looked at the smaller robot, he couldn't gauge if he had detected a note of humor in the bot's voice.

Shrugging, he turned his attention to the dripping silicon, *Slaggit, it'll take days to pick all of this outta my servoes. I've got sand in my locking systems!*

The other bot wasn't paying attention. He was scanning out over the wasteland of dunes, *I thought you said that no one would live out here?*

The other bot looked up, *What do you mean?*

The small bot pointed to a dust trail that was rapidly approaching.

Within seconds, a series of vehicles came out of seemingly nowhere. They were all shapes and sizes, but were all quite obviously military in nature.

Overhead, a series of aircraft zoomed over once.

The two bots looked as small fleshy creatures got out of some of the vehicles.

*Oh, gross.* the small bot's optic narrowed.

The larger held a hand in front of him, forestalling any negative reactions.

One of the flesh creatures stepped out and said something unintelligeble in some pondering verbal form of communication.

The two robots looked at each other blankly. The smaller said, *Can I kill them now?*

*No. Look, we agreed to do this on our terms, on Autobot terms. You're a smart bot, can't you translate?*

The human was holding something up, a small black box the size of the creature's palm. He was gesturing to it and saying something even slower and louder.

*Got it.* the smaller bot sent a signal into the hand held device. Instantly he got a line feed and began transmitting information from it. The larger bot did the same.

The difference was instantaneous to the humans, the larger robot spoke first, "My name is Roadbuster. We're from the planet Cybertron..."

The human interrupted, "We know what you are, and we also know how to deal with you if you decide not to cooperate. My name is Commander James Gordon. You will follow us to our base, and will not make any actions we deem as violent."

The smaller bot grunted, *Shoulda let me slag them.*

Roadbuster growled, "Shut up Bladewing."

((Ooh, am I ever in. No time for a full intro right now - need some thinkin' time and whatnot. If I can, I may post something later. I wonder if I should NPC The Wanderer or not...))

((I'm NPC'n Bladewing... so what the 'eck))

((Ahh, but with The Wanderer I run the risk of a pissed off brother. He's ok'd it, though, and offered some suggestions, too...Oh, and don't hold the fic on account of me. My computer access is far from constant at the moment.))

~Somewere in the Pacific~

The large, silver humanoid relaxing on the shores of the atoll watched the plums of steam dissipate off the ocean. At least they were blowing away quickly, obscuring the landing sites - as near as scans could determine, there wasn't anywhere on this planet one could land and not attract some sort of sentient audience. All one could do was try to pick a place that was inconvient for that audience to get to.

Of course, out of the way locations came with their own sets of problems, she reflected as she scanned the information flying through the airwaves. This "Internet" thing was helpful, at least.

She turned her attention to the water as a disturbance moved steadaly closer to shore.

*If you care, the scans show that even extended exposure to "salt water" shouldn't cause us any lasting damage,* she said with what a native speaker of her language would have recognized as a laugh. *What were you doing down there for so long?*

*Staying out of sight, for one,* came the reply from the slightly taller silver humaniod. *Shouldn't you be doing that, too?*

*We spaced our landings far enough out. We're just a glint in the distance here, and we aren't all that shiny in the first place.*

*You hope.*

*...And in the meantime I'm trying to figure out what to do from here. This place isn't exactally full of scannable objects. Why did I go along with your idea to land here anyway?*

*'Cause I was just listening to your suggestion, of course. What about those data streams you noticed?*

*This place isn't advanced enough for that, unfortunatly. I'm getting what people happen to be sending, but the storage is on hard drive computers. And I don't want to try following the streams home and looking around until I know a bit more about their tech and security. But I am getting a bit...*

((Aannnnd the library is closing. Crud.))

Investigator Nicholas Flint studied the crash scene with growing distaste for what he would be reporting. Reports of newly arriving Cybertronians were comming in with alarming frequency. Well, alarming being a relative term, any more extra terrestrials landing was alarming, but he was sure he'd heard reports of two arriving in Quatar recently, and those were only the ones they actually caught. Particularly since Optimus Prime had sent out his homing beacon as an open invite that earth was accepting refugees. Give us your poor, your outcast, your eager robotic masses yearning to process hydrocarbons with limited restrictions.

This one, unfortunately, was going to be added to the list of those that had been witnessed, but managed to escape somehow. That was a short list, usually if they got away, they got away clean. Nobody heard of them until they just sort of showed up out of the blue. Surprises like that were always a problem. The paper work alone was enough to make anything seem hostile, even if the giant robot in question is rescuing kittens out of a tree for an elderly lady.

The object, the cometary protoform he was certain, had been picked up by some civilian stargazers. That was sheer luck, they still didn't have the ability to scan every inch of sky for something headed towards earth yet. However, from there this new arrival had gotten luck back on it's side. Or perhaps not lucky at all, but clever. It was still somewhat debated if the limited space flight systems of a cometary protoform allowed one of these N.B.E.s (Transformers he corrected himself, they seem to have adopted that moniker and it was a bit more descriptive once one saw them in action) to pick their landing spots precisely. They tended to land roughtly, but on the other hand they clearly did slow even while making planet fall, showing at least some control over their landings. Nobody had yet convinced one of them to return to their protoform shape after arrival to test it's abilities, and even the cooperative arrivals were closed mouth on the subject. This landing site had not been a barren unpopulated area where it would be easy to spot any new arrivals. Barren wastelands of rock and sand were easy to cover visually. Neither had it been a heavily populated area, thankfully. Covering that up would again stress the budget. Instead, the protoform landed here, near enough to a heavily populated area that it could infiltrate with minimal difficulty, yet far enough away that the arrival as a firy object from space would be hidden. Plus, the trees blocked satelite survilance. Not that the Transformers were easy to spot with ranged survilance anyway, being able to hide their heat signatures and often project an energy field that absorbed or diverted rather than reflected focused energy sensors like radar. It's no wonder the investigator decided that instead of kids he would foster an ulcer at a young age.

There was one noticable and actually rather easy way to detect N.B.E.s. Sector Seven had learned that they produced a unique energy signature. The radiation leak was far from harmful even in relatively large doses, at least as far as humans were concerned, but it was detectable. At close range. This Energon Radiation was most prominate when they altered their form. Specially modified geigercounters were buzzing like mad at this landing zone. The whole area was saturated, meaning the target had transformed numerous times in the area. Probably going from protoform to humanoid, and then adopting a form of disguise to leave the scene. So this new arrival was an exobitionist who liked changing in the woods? Or maybe he just had to flex those reactive armor plates after a long flight in coach.

But whatever form had been choosen it was one that didn't leave a trail of prints on the ground. Now what did that mean? Flight? They had the air pretty well covered, not only by radar but also it would be pretty obvious if a full sized aircraft had lifted off out of the redwoods. This one's protoform didn't seem as massive as the others, given the size of the impact crater and the limited damage to the forrest, though that was relative. The target could be anywhere from the size of a small car to the size of a tape deck. The investigator winced at that thought. That was an embarrasment they had turned into a training video. Well, at least it wasn't a massive tank or something like that.

Agent Flint sighed and walked back to his car. It wasn't a short walk. He had plenty of time to reflect on the fact that no matter how prepared humanity thought it was, with the radar screens covering the sky, sonar nets covering the ocean, weapons that could not only injure but outright kill hostile N.B.E. in military use already(and of course some fun toys not yet in production), something always seemed to go wrong. And it wasn't like they could use the same trick they lured N.B.E.2 out into the open with. Since the Autobots arrival Sector Seven's artificial duplication of the energies of the Cube had been a long shot. The Energon they created certainly couldn't match the life giving qualities of the Allspark.

A massive figure loomed above him. Nicholas glanced up and winced. Why didn't he get a partner who prefered to sleep in their vehicle mode while the humans conducted business? "Find something?" Agent Flint asked. The massive mechanoid shifted and then shook it's head. At least he really hoped that was it's head, it was in the right place, but you couldn't make out the features on it between the overlapping plates that made it up. "Then get your chevy made bumper back to ground level! I've seen all I need to see here, the clean up crew will cover it. We've got a non-authorized N.B.E..."

"...Transformer..."

"Transformer." Agent Flint corrected. "Running loose. We could assume that they're simply lost and need to be contacted, but until contact is made we've got problems. Less mass than you, I'm betting you could take him in a fight if it came to that." Wouldn't have been the first time, that's why they were partnered after all. By this point the car had resumed it's less humanoid shape and was awaiting it's partner. "You know, something always bothered me. Why don't you call yourself Cybertronian?"

"Why don't you call yourself Earthlings?"

"Sometimes we do." There was a mechanical sigh, similar to the distinctive sound they made when transforming. "Okay, so sometimes you call yourselves Cybertronian but you prefer Transformer. What's wrong with N.B.E.? It describes you."

"What's wrong with Fleshling?"

"Point taken." It was a truely odd partnership, but one that was growing on the both of them.

((Actually wanted to do something more with JaggedWing, but I figured I'd do more world building first. I'm not sure who Agent Flint is teamed up with, but we've got the Chevy Rise of the Autobots drones to consider, plus all the drones in the PC game, plus of course any toys that claim to be from the movie-verse to draw from. Personally I'm going with the idea that he's teamed with a Swindle repaint, making it a Chevy Cobalt.))

((question: Sector 7 in the movie was disbanded. Are we to assume that was governmental 'coverup'?))

Hmm, this sparks interest. I shall continue to read.

((answer: Could go either way at this point, depending on what you prefer. All referances to Sector 7 I made were in past tense and I never explained exactly who Agent Flint was working for, when I assumed it was simply a different department of those who met Roadbuster and Bladewing. I'm leaning more towards this being who replaced Sector Seven. Perhaps homeland security or something. They're still intent on covering up the existance of Transformers from the general public(as the Witwicky's interview implies), but work more closely with the military and "enlightened" world governments, like Sector Seven of the prequel instead of Sector Seven of the movie. With of course our own twist to keep it up to date))

((I thought maybe a simple approach like the president realizes just how many are coming in response to Prime's call and re-instates Sector 7 with different directives. But anything is fine really.))

((I also haven't decided if I will be adding to this or not, as my own character is not a transformer. I can't quite think how to work her in. Also, my writing skill is severely lacking.))

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The trip to the Soccant Military base was long. Mainly because the humans had specifically stated they didn't want Roadbuster or Bladewing to scan any of the vehicles in the convoy. Bladewing easily swung up and hitched a ride on the top of a tank, however, Roadbuster was either too large or to annoyed to do so. Instead he chose to walk... the whole way.

*So, why exactly did I agree to come here with you?* Bladewing silently sent the message to Roadbuster.

*Oh, I don't know... this world and maybe the whole universe is in danger of being devoured by a being that is out to wipe our race from existance?*

*Hrmph, I wasn't in danger. Not til now.*

*Look, just bear with it. You know as well as I did what that signal said, and what is coming here.*

The two lapsed into silence as the miles ground away in clouds of heated dust.




Soccant II Military Base

As they neared the base, it became quite obvious that the human establishment was on high alert.

Looking down at the lead jeep, Roadbuster muttered, "All this for little old us?"

The human didn't even look up, "Last time one of your kind visited Soccont military base, it and all it's soldiers and civilian residents were erradicated in a matter of minutes. You'll understand if we don't roll out the red carpet."

Around them, military personel were all dressed in primitive armor, carrying weapons and standing in ranks near heavy armored vehicles of a multitude of shapes and sizes. Large cannons tracked the convoy from armored bunkers, and overhead helicopters hovered pointedly as a squad of jets roared overhead.

As Roadbuster took in all of the weapons, he felt a surge of energy from on top of the tank. Looking over he glared at Bladewing, whose panels were shifting and altering already.

*What?! He said don't scan the covoy!* ((Blades took a scan of a black skinned Reaper ))

Roadbuster thought about that... and agreed. Quickly he locked onto a heavy armored vehicle and scanned it.

As his plates began to shift, the Captain looked up, "I SAID NOT TO SCAN ANYTHING!!"

Roadbuster looked down as the last of the plates locked into position, "No, you said not to scan anything in the convoy."

Immediately Roadbuster transformed down into the thick wheeled heavily armored vehicle, (( Roady took the scan of a desert camo'd Golan ))

The Captain continued to grumble, but Bladewing simply ignored him.

~Some Island In The Pacific~

*A bit? Like what kind of bits?*

*Like we're not the only ones here...*

*Duh.*

*...since there have been strange impacts coming in and strange sightings by amateur astronomers. But nobody seems to know what's really going on, so I'm thinkin' cover up.*

*Any detailed technical charts we could use?*

The look the female gave her brother was very expressive for a mostly faceless protoform.

*Hey, just asking...*

*I am getting some good language info, though. Link up.*

Sionyx and The Wanderer sat in silence for a few minutes, absorbing all they could about the languages of the world they had landed on. Finally, The Wanderer broke the silence.

*You know that someone official is gonna show up soon.*

*Yeah.*

*And they'll actually do a decent search of the surrounding area.*

*Yeah. Maybe we'll have to hitchhike, since I'm still not finding anything and I'm not looking forward to walking to somewhere where we can...*

*Actually, that's when the what else I was doing down there comes in...*

~Some Time Later, Heading East (Towards the U.S., for those of you who flunked geography)~

*I cannot beLIEVE I let you talk me into this,* the blue and green shaded ship grumbled at her brother.

Two luxury yachts sailed eastward. Unfortunatly...

*Hey, I warned ya. These things are built for luxury, not speed.* The Wanderer sported a gray and wood trim on his new alternate form.

*If we hadn't done the math, I'd be saying that we'd get there faster walking. Not to mention the sea floor. But am I ever keeping my eyes open for something...there's gotta be something we can use that goes faster! And...*

*WHEEE!* Completely ignoring his sister's complaining, The Wanderer had noticed a favorable wind and had thrown up his sail. *This is FUN!*

*We're not here to have FUN!*

*Lighten up! And you may want to catch up, too!*

Well, the wind was good, and it was heading in the right direction...The slightly smaller yacht's sail went up and she sped after her brother.

((Notes: This isn't the end of our intro, but again, time is against me here.
This section was written with some input from The Wanderer over the phone. For those of you wondering, he scanned a yacht from underwater - we're presuming someone was close enough to notice the steam from their impact and be curious. No, these aren't the final forms, but they had to get off that island somehow.
When I said absorbing languages, I meant it. Both Sionyx and The Wanderer are very polylingual now, since they aren't sure what they'll need.
Si's enhanced data sensing ability is essentially her telepathy. If anyone can BS up some technobabble on a replacement for the telekinesis, yay. Bill decided there wasn't any good way to keep the teleportation shtick so he had to drop it.
If anyone can suggest a decent alt. mode for Si, I'd be grateful. I keep coming up blank. The Wanderer has already chosen his final alt. mode.
I caught myself wondering about what kind of Decpticon Pyre would make. A rather interesting one, it turns out. If I ever get the chance, she may turn up, too.))

((Heheheh, BladeWing is a drone! Hehehe. Um ahem... According to Movie toy tech specs, Teleportation is still in there. They have DreadWing who is pretty much that continuities version of Skywarp(just as Blackout is sorta like a SoundWave). Teleporting is more limited(not sure how much more, as I don't think he's never seen using it. Possibly VERY much more), but it's still there. Also, JaggedWing will be demonstrating a variation on his "gravity control" which I don't bother explaining(magnetics... we'll say it's magnetic, like how Jazz disarmed the Sector Seven team... that was magnetic right?). That works similar to telekenesis, right?

Oh, and Jade, your character (oversimplifing here) is a shapeshifting dragon, right?... why not have her as a dragon-oid for "robot mode", and constantly rescanning without ever choosing a single alternate mode? Transformers into whatever she feels like at the time. I'm sure your writing skills are at least up to par with mine.

Aaaaannnnnnd from the looks of it I still don't have nailed out how I want my next chapter to go... oh well carry on without me.))

[Heh, really wish I revisted this place more often, I keep wandering away. but I akways find awesome shite when I return. May I throw a hand into the pot?]

Though no one could see it, space was still twisted about on itself and torn open as a gravity well punched a whole in space-time. Through this rip in the universe, miles wide, came a relativly small dagger like craft. Obsidian black and lined in gold the vessel glid into the Sol system between Saturn and Jupiter. It was as close as he dared go given the wimsical nature of wormwholes and how the gravitational mass of stars altered their geometries. Even out here Dreadnought was able to pick up a constant wash of radio-electo signals broadcast from the world Optimus identified as Earth.

Slingshotting about the red gas giant Dread moved deeper in system, running through the information he had and steeling himself for what was to come next. The fore of the strike craft that was Dreads' current form seemed to itch. Idly he checked that his energy screen was operation and still deflecting stellar particles but he knew the real cause for the itch. On the fore of his craft, what would be his chest in robot mode was an autobot symbol, defaced and scowered. In truth he had no desire to see his old commander, Optimus, again he left the Autobot ranks because he tired of the war millions of years ago.

"However some things never end..." he was forced to admit as the small blue sphere came into view. He left the war nly to find he needed war, so he became a mercenary, fighting throughout the universe for fuel and technology. He'd even won others, Bot and Con, to his faction and set up a little mercenary empire on the edge of the universe. That was before some one found the sphere and sent Unicron questing about the universe for all life and transformer life in particular. Now Prime was his only chance, Prime and whatever brave or foolish souls came to his beacon. "Which am I I wonder?"

Slidding into the upper atosphere Dread began combing the air waves,, hunting through channels and listening as he ansorbed em-transmissions and reduced his sensiry signature to zeroe. It was habit now, instinct actually, knew world, knew mode. Find something to impress the new boss and convince him that your services are needed. This time, however, the job was free, Dread was just hoping they could stop Unicron here before he discovered his little coven of transformers out at Ground Zero.

'There, ordered, terse, and making less sense then everything else around it, must be millitary,' surmissed Dreadnought as he homed in on one of the many transmissions littering the air waves.

((I didn't WANT to follow up with another Agent Flint bit... he's really a bit player... but this next bit probably comes first in order of events, before the scene after it and the confrontation which will come after that. Which I haven't written yet... Besides, writing for Dispensor(official name from the movie) was fun.))

Agent Flint pulled over and walked up to a Mountain Dew vending machine that sat on the corner of the brick convinence store. No cameras covered this machine, and he simply walked up and leaned against the wall beside it.

"Dispensor, we need to talk." Agent Flint said.

"Dewbot397 does not respond to his slave name." Came a seemingly disembodied voice. Agent Flint groaned. It was turning out to be one of those days.

"I don't really care." The human finally declared. "But there has been a jump in internet traffic near here. It's like someone has been trying to download the whole thing. But there's been no source."

"That is none of my concern fleshling. Dewbot397's directives are to bring about the strangely refreshing apocolypse that has been fortold."

"Listen, N.B.E.-39, the only reason you're still alive is because you haven't caused enough damage to be worth the EMpulse it would take to reduce you to smoking circuts. I'm sick of your games with your name. When the Autobots introduced you to us they told us your name was Dispensor. That you had picked it." Agent Flint addressed the machine directly.

"The Autobots are fools. Soon Dewbot397 will bring about their destruction and the thirst quenching revolution will sweep the world..."

"I'm going to ignore that comment for the moment." Agent Flint growled. "I know you have wireless tapping capabilities, it seems to be built into all of you N.B... Transformers. That means you can remotely monitor our unsecure communications, such as the internet. But directly asking to download specific information, like we've monitored, requires something more than you're equiped to do wirelessly. Now, either you've been hacking the 'net, or you were listening when some one else was."

"Dewbot397 does not like your tone fleshling!" The Soda Machine exploded in moving pannels, pulling away from the wall and extending clawed arms with built in launchers that resembled a gatling gun. Agent Flint glared at it as the machine stepped forward threateningly, then as a shadow covered the both of them, stepped back shrinking down on itself and looking up. "So Dewbot397 offers fleshling complimentary cannister of MountainDew CodeRed drink product. Perhaps after thirst quenching refreshment fleshlings tone will sound less parched." The gatling launcher shot a can of the soda into the claw and the mechanoid offered it, cautiously, to Agent Flint. It never stopped staring at what was casting the shadow over them both.

"Smart move." Rumbled the mechanical voice above and behind the investigator as he accepted the peace offering.

"Now that it has been mentioned, Dewbot397 does recall an excessive amount of electronic traffic in this region. Dewbot397 was not the cause, and did not wish to be involved. A majority of such traffic takes place in the region of the building where recently matured fleshlings advance their scolastic abilities. Dewbot397 knows a cute coffee vending machine on campus, but she is to elitist to speak with Dewbot397. Is it possible that this incursion into your Earth Network is not one of the fleshling students works?"

"Doubtful. We'll sweep the college for energy signatures just to be safe."

"A less extensive amount of electronic traffic has been using local wireless networks." The vending machine said helpfully. "The source you are looking for is mobile, but gathers better results with the resources of a dedicated server connected to a landline." The shadow passed as the sigh of metal indicated that Nicholas' car was once more parked behind him in the alleyway rather than towering over him.

"Thank you Dewbot397." Agent Flint said. "My report will indicate your helpfulness in this investigation."

"Dewbot397 is always pleased to aid in anyway helpful, at least until the comming of the strangly refreshing apocolypse. Then Dewbot397 will be vindicated. The rivers will flow green with thirst quenching carbonated beverages!" The vending machine shrank down against the wall of the building, plastic alloy plating extending and folding back into place, returning him to the innoculous blocklike shape.

"I believe that Dispensor is malfunctioning." Agent Flint heard his partner mutter as they drove away. "Again."

"No, really?" Nicholas asked, about to open the can of soda he had been given. A moment before he pulled the tab a thought hit him. He rolled down the window and leaned out, opening the offending soda outside of the car. As expected it exploded into fizz, having been extremely shaken up.

"Thank you for taking the precaution. I had not expected treachery from Dispensor." His partner said.

"Anything to save your upholstery." Agent Flint said taking a drink.

**

The back alleyway smell unpleasant to human senses. To the feral cats and the rat population, it was something much more tempting. However, to it's current occupant the scents were merely more alien chemicals floating in the air particles.

The door behind the bar opened up, flooding the alleyway with light and muffled sound for a moment, before the external lights came to life and a figure staggered out under the weight of her burden. Stella dumped yet another full garbage bag into the dumpster with an unlady-like grunt. Her nose wrinkled in disgust at the heaps of trash the dinner had accumulated since the last pickup. If it wern't for the feral cats around, the rats would be swarming this place, she just knew it. Not that the cats were any better.

She almost gave a soft sigh, but that would have involved the intake of to much air. She didn't know what she was doing here. She didn't even work here. Her boyfriend was the short order cook, and he was just getting off shift. He told her to do things like this for him, and somehow she always let him get away with it. She knew she should be frustrated, he was a jerk in more ways than that, but having someone was better than no one, at least for her.

Something shiny caught her eye, like there was movement just behind the dumpster. Not uncommon, given the creatures that slinked in the shadows of the city, but none of them were shiny to her knowlege. Curious, Stella took a few steps around to get a look at what it was.

It was robotic, made of what looked like chrome steel, like a set of kitchen knives or something. But the way it moved was more feral and animalistic. When it noticed her with it's beaked head it shrank back with a fluidity that seemed more natural than some kind of programmed response. It was standing on two legs, balanced poorly on their small claws, and it tried to jump away from her when it saw her, but it fell back down. Stella saw why too, the creatures wing seemed to be caught under a bag of heavy trash. The other wing fluttered with the faint sound of metal being drawn across metal, but it didn't get anywhere. The wings themselves looked almost like an oldfasion fan made of knife blades, and there were gaps in the armor plating that Stella could see clear through.

It fought a moment against it's confine then paused and looked up at Stella with wide eyes. The beak opened and a shrill sound issued forth. It was as if someone had tried to mathmatically create a bird chirp with a sound system. Stella gaped at it and the creature chirped again, lowering it's head timidly. The creatures voice managed to carry with it enough emotion, dipping low to show how embarrased and helpless it felt, while still being nothing more than a synthetic bird chirp. Stella cautiously reached to help it, and the robotic bird froze in place, shrinking back from her hand. She moved slowly to touch it on the head and the bird rubbed up against her, letting out a happy little chirp. It felt surprisingly warm, despite being smooth metal.

Stella lifted the trash off of the little creature and it pulled free quickly, chirping again. It hopped a few times, flexing it's wing, and then jumped onto the edge of the dumpster. Clearly it didn't like being on the ground, but it did want to watch Stella some more. She straightened up and addressed it directly with a gaze.

"What are you?" Stella asked. The mechabird chirped again and leaned it's head towards her as if asking to be petted again. Stella reached out for it's head once more, but this time the bird lashed out faster than she could see. She felt the faintest pinprick on her fingertip. The creature had already returned to it's normal posture and glanced up at her before it occured to her to pull her hand back in pain. She was bleeding! "Ow! What was that for?" She said looking at her hand. The robot creature chirped again drawing the sound out and looking at the ground rather than meeting her gaze. Stella instinctively started sucking on her finger to stop the bleeding. "Some graditude for helping!" The bird chirped apologetically again, scraping it's claw bashfully against the edge of the dumpster.

"Stella? You ready to go?" Her boyfriend was calling her from inside. The sound of his voice however seemed to startle the little mechabird, and it lept skyward, flying off like a silver streak. Stella watched it go in amazement.

"Yeah, I'm ready." She said, still looking at the night sky where the creature had vanished to.

Out of sight of prying human eyes a large motorcycle shifted and converted, folding back and spreading out into a large humanoid shape. One arm reached out to form a perch for it's little avian partner as the silver mechabird flew over. He spoke to his symbiotic partner in english, feeling a need to practice the languages he was picking up.

"You enjoyed that didn't you? Playing cute and helpless." His voice was growing less and less synthetic sounding, already the deep tones came smoothly and the echo was almost eliminated. The bird chirped smugly. "Did you get the DNA samples?" Another chirp. "Good."

((BAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!! LOVED Dispensorbot's bit!!))

Soccant II Military Base

Soon, Roadbuster and Bladewing sat just beside a large tent under which was a collection of tables covered in lower grade technical equipment. Most of it looked armored against the sand, but of a simpler overall build than some of the technology the bots had seen around. While they waited, Roadbuster had taken to ignoring the smaller bot, as most of the comments issued... usually in Cybertronian... were acidic and aimed at killing most of the humans around them. It was during a particularly long and ranting one of these transactions that some fleshlings... 'humans' Roadbuster corrected himself... came under the tent. Besides the Captain, there were a few guards. There was also one human whose frame seemed more worn than the others, but his optics sparkled with a solid intensity that relayed a keen intelligence. He surveyed both bots in a segment and then cleared his throat, "Gentlemen, you can call me the General. I run things around this pit. You are?"

Roadbuster shifted slightly where he sat cross-legged. The grinding sound of sand burned at his rotors, "My name is Roadbuster. This is Bladewing."

The General nodded, "You we recognize as an Autobot. We were told by Prime that some of you may come here. But 'Bladewing' there..." He nodded in the black and silver bot's direction, "Decepticon?"

Roadbuster nodded, "We're here to see Prime. There's a matter of urgent attention that requires his attention."

"And that is?"

Roadbuster turned his head, thinking. As he did so, his perceptors picked up something... odd. These humans certainly gave off a continual stream of molecular signatures, and this was similar. However, it seemed more complex, as if various things were mixed together...

"Roadbuster?" The General interrupted the bot's curiosity. Roadbuster looked back down at him, trying to figure out what to tell him. He seriously doubted these fleshl... humans could deal with the knowledge that something was about to come and munch their planet and there was little they could do about it.

It was Bladewing that saved him, "Orders from Cybertron for him to pull the Autobots and Decepticons back home."

Roadbuster suddenly listened to the datastream that Bladewing had just been sending him, *... don't seem too friendly, they should be more than happy for news that we're here to bring everyone away. Plus, it'll give us cover when we all disappear before Unicron comes to make their planet into one big Energon goody.*

Shrugging Roadbuster nodded, "Yeah, seems Cybertron is in need of his 'great' leadership."

The General's optics narrowed, "Cybertron. That's the world you all came from, right?"

"Yup, that's the one..." Roadbuster's attention was wandering again to that odd combination of various mixed molecular signatures that seemed to float in the air, "What is that...?" He muttered to himself.

"What is what?" The General was looking intensely at Roadbuster, and the guards were suddenly shifting nervously. Roadbuster hadn't meant to speak outloud.

"There's a series of interconnecting molecular signatures floating through the area. A combination of mixed carbon and what appears to be odd biological molecules..."

Bladewing shook his head, "Yeah, bright boy, it's been coming from that tent since we sat down." He waved a claw at a nearbye large tent where many humans seemed to be congregating. "Took your sensors forever to take notice."

The General and the others looked. One of the guards muttered, "The Mess Hall?"

Curiosity struck Roadbuster and he unfolded, stood up, and slowly walked over to the 'Mess Hall' tent. Bladewing decided to follow him. As they left, the Captain leaned in close to the General and whispered, "Sir, the reports said that Cybert..." The General raised a hand to silence him. Watching the two bots lean in and stick their heads under the large mess tent. The men there weren't quite sure what to do about it. Some continued eating, a few left, disgruntled.

"I know. The General said softly. Someone's lying. Either the planet is still there, or it's been destroyed." the General's mouth was fixed in a grimace, "Report what they said. Ask for further instructions on what to do with them."

If these bots had a home, why hadn't the Autobots vacated the Earth yet...

[lol, I agree with Roady. Dispensor is hilarious and definatly my favorite character thus far. And Roady, kudos on working in your cooking shtick. I DARE you to work in the bunny slippers ^_^ Well, I'm up...ya know I finished writting this post then hit upon an amusing idea. When else will I get to play into myself?]

***Pacific ocean: Location: Classified***

Night had turned the waters of the Pacific into an obsidian mirror, broken only by the faintest shimmering of waves in the thin light of a crescent moon. The air was still and the sea calm as the U.S. Carryer group, Ulysis, navigated out into what seemed the middle of nowhere. A nervouse energy seemed to creep across all the vessels, the crew kept at a state of ready deployment though no one knew why, in fact few people understood why they held position here in the middle of the ocean when Hawaii, theor home port, was just half a days travel.

One man knew, however, he arrived a few hours ago, deposited by a Marine VTOL craft with papers that never identified wich part of the government he was with but gave him full jurisdiction over the control of the fleet. His "official" designation was as a governmental advisor but everyone knew he had to be so much more. He stood now, on the bridge of the carrier Ulysis, a grim countenance hiding all emotion from even the vessels captain. Grumbling Captain Yale broke the opresive silence. "How long do you intend to keep us here Mr. Grim?"

"As long as it takes, captain," responded the official in a voice that sounded like velvet drawn over a poisoned dagger.

"As long as WHAT takes?" prompted the captain, eyes hunting across the darkened ocean.

"You will know, when it occurs," answered the official smoothly as his eyes glanced to the watch on his left wrist.

The captain rolled his eyes, he'd seen this cloak-and-dagger bullsh!t too many times in his long career and every time it left him with a bad taste in his mouth. "Anything on sensors crewman Daniels?"

"Nothing in the water," responded the Ops officer. "And the sky is...incoming contact!"

The "advisor" smiled knowingly and simply incensed the captain further. "Where?" barked the captain.

"A hundred miles out and closing from...this can't be right..."

"Oh, but it is," smilled Grim.

"Just say it!" ordered the Captain.

"Ah, eighty-three degrees up sir. Its coming out of the sky, sensor mapping puts it at about the size of a fighter jet. But it's coming down too slow to be falling, sir."

"You have a Carryer Group out here recovering some piece of space trash," huffed the captain as he crossed his arms. Thankful the high alert status ordered by the "advisor" would not entail combat. "You could have told me that, sir."

"We are on a mission of recovery, but I assure captain this is very far from 'space-trash'. Launch your fighters on an intercept course...he'll need something suitable to land."

"What was that?"

"Just launch," ordered Mr. Grimm with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Growling Captain Yale picked up the mic, "Wings two and seven launch!" Alarms blarred and F-22 Raptors quikly took to the sky, rising into the air on an intercept course with the blazing ball of flame that was slowly descending out of the sky.

"Instruct your men to escort the...craft onto the carrier deck, and tell them not to be alarmed if it...changes," informed Grim.

The captain nodded before openining commmunications with the two fighter wings. "Red Wing, Blue Wing, your orders are escort not destroy."

//Aye sir//
//Aye sir//

"Flight crew, prepare for emergeancy landing of a non-naval craft," continued Captain Yale.

"That won't be necessary," interupted Grim.

"With all do respect, sir, last I checked shuttles wern't equipped for carryer landings."

"I never said it was a shuttle did I, captain?"

Yale shook his head in disgust as he approached the forewindow and looked up at the burning comet coming into the atmosphere. Something was nagging at him, "Daniels, how far out is the object?"

"Eighty miles now, sir," answered the crewman. "Intercept in..."

"How big is it?" cut off the captain as worry began to creep into his voice.

"Masses as much as an F14, sir?"

"Don't worry, two Wings can handle this," interupted Grim.

"No they can't!" snapped the captain as he raced to his station. "An F-14 at 80 miles out isn't visible Mr Grim. Whatever the hell's coming down is alot bigger then one of our jets. Wing leader do you have visual?"

//Sir yes sir, but...//

"But what Wing-commander?"

//With all respect, it's as big as the Enterprise. I don't know how you expect us to escort it anywhere//

"What?" snapped Grim. "None of the others were that big?!?"

The captain looked up, confusion warring with anger as he watched the look of awakening horror on Grims' face. "I take it this isn't in your shadowy little plan then. What now?"

"I...I..." stammered Grim as the light of the burning comet began to illuminate the sky about them.

"That's wrong," noted the captain as he pulled the mic to his face again. "It's coming down too slow to be on fire." Keying the mic the captain spoke again. "Wing commander, what's it look like?"

//I can't tell, sir. The thing is wrapped in fire, all I can tell is it's huge and black and...// The transmission was interupted by a powerful blast of static.

"Wing commander? Wing commander! Are you there?"

//...Yes sir...light flash...powerful pulse...blew all the electronics for a second, please advise//

The captain looked to Grim who seemed to have regained a measure of his composure as the fireball grew in size. "Well?"

"Must have been an attack...it's on fire...has to be a Con, right?"

"What are you blathering about?" asked the Captain incredulously.

"Fire!" snapped Grim suddenly. "Tell your men to open fire, launch the rest of the fighters, kill it!"

"You just ordered us to bring it in safely a second ago," snapped Yale.

Grim quily shoved the captain aside and keyed the mic while simultaneousdly broadcasting to the fleet. "All personel prepare for battle. Man all guns, launch all craft and open fire on the THING in the sky!"

Years of millitary training and yes-sir gut resoponses kicked in, the ships opening weapon ports and loading missile tubes as the two fighter wings already in the sky broke off only to circle back and launch missiles at the burning behemoth. As misiles impacted and magnesium rounds traced the sky the great ball of fire seemed to erupt before dying away to reveal a large obsidian craft, still slowly descending towards the Carryer-group.

"Sir, getting full readings on the...the ah thing sir," reported Daniels. Captain Yale and Grim both moved to the Ops station to see what had been read as something no bigger then an F22 blossomed into a craft easily as big as the carryer they stood on. Missiles streaked into the air to blossom against it's side but it continued it's decent with the same implacable resolve one would expect of a falling star.

//Sir!// commed back the Wing commander. //We're throwing enough firepower at it to destroy a small city and I don't think it's even dented. What do we do?//

"That doesn't make sense," wailed Grim. "None of this does, the sabat rounds should work, so should the HEAT missiles. What's going on?"

"Shouldn't you know that?" snapped the captain as he watched reports of the crafts descent. Snatching the Mic from Grim he keyed it. "All personel hold fire. This is Captain Yale of the Ulysis, I repeat hold fire!"

"What the hell are you doing?" snapped Grim as he grasped the mic trying to wrestle it from Yales' hand. "We have to destroy it!"

"In case you havn't noticed, we CAN'T! And another thing you hav't noticed, it hasn't DONE anything, just sat there and taken it. For all we know it's unmanned!"

"It IS unmanned," snapped Grim. "That's why we have to destroy it, there's nothing HUMAN about the N.B.E.s!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" snapped the captain in response. "You know what, I don't care! I'm calling my men back before it decides to do something."

Grims' right elbow slammed nito Captain Yales' face sending the carryer commander to the floor. "I'm still in charge here captain and I suggest you remember that. All of you, I'll have every last man in this Carryer-group drummed out for insubordination if you don't follow my orders. Do you understand me?"

Silence drifted across the radio.

"Good! Now keep..."

"Sir," interupted Daniels.

"What?" roared Grim.

"Contact is touching down," noted the ops lietenant with awe, a finger pointing out the window as the massive craft crashed into the ocean. The resultant swell displaced the Carryer Group and sent water fountaining across the deck. "And...umm...changing?"

To their amazment and horror the craft shifted and folded in on itself, plates sliding together and splitting apart even as misiles detonated against it's sides and machine guns stitched across its frame. Water sloshed off it's frame like a craggy mountain as the massive humanoid floated, it seemed, in the water next to the carryer.

"Why arn't they firing, why arn't they firing, why arn't they firing?" repeated Grim over and over again as the massive obsidian robot loomed over the carryer.

"Cause they don't want to hit US you moron, the thing's too close. Attacking it now will endanger the carrryer," informed Yale as he whiped the blood from his broken lip.

"I don't care," responded Grim as he reached for the mic again. "We can all die as long as the NBE goes with us."

"You're mad!" exclaimed the captain.

"You don't know what these things can do," Grim countered.

"But you do," came the booming voice of the monster outside. With an ease and grace that was far too unnatural in a construction it's size the obsidian colossus reached forward. Machine gun fire from the Ulysis crawled up it's arm as one massive hand tore open the bridge and hurled the roof into the ocean. The mamoth hand split and opened to reveal three more hands, far smaller but easily as far across as a mans' chest. They snaked forward like serpents and grasped Grim dragging him into the air and into the colossal palm. Slowly, like some dark chasm grinding shut the fist that could grapple fighter craft closed. Large, azure optics starred down at the captain and the rest of the bridge crew.

Slowly Yale rose and looked to one of his officers. "Do we still have communications?"

"Aye sir..."

"This is Captain Yale to all personel. Stand down."

Slowly the weapons of the Carryer Group slowed and died the mamoth machine nodded to Captain Yale a....thankful expression on it's face. The hand opposite the one that took Grim reached forward slowly, the palm opening up to reveal an odd collection of tenticles and prongs.

"Sir..." began Daniels.

"Son, if it wants to kill us there's nothing we can do to stop it," noted the captain.

Wires as thick as a mans' arm snaked about the counsels and plugged into the carryers communications system. A powerful signature was uploaded into the system and broadcast, not just across the group, but into space to uplink with an orbiting communications satelite. Though Captain Yale didn't know it the communication program merged with the remains of a Decepticon virus left in the world commuinications network over a year ago and evolved into a flawless communications algorithm. What the Captain did know, however, is that a moment later every peice of electronic equipment connected to the net or communications suddenly went off. Cellphones rang, browser windows opened, it was a moment of chaos for just a brief second. And though Yale could not know it, the result was the same the world over. One word on all screens and in all ears.

PRIME

Encoded in the simple message was a time and place, all in Cybertronian, as well as a name. Though adressed, it seemed, to Optimus Prime the message was actually an open invite to all transformers regardless of faction. Slowly the tentacles detached and the hand withdrew.

"Sir," began Daniels. "What do we say abuot Mr. Grim?"

"IF the brass admits he was with us we list him Missing In Action."

The collosuss looked over the Carryer Group and a powerful em-wave washed everything as it turned away from the Ulysis. Though nothing was harmed Yale understood something like what happened to the circling fighters happened to the group as well. The collossos began to shift and fold, weapons slidding away as knew ones grew forward. It still looked like a giant robot but seemed vaugley familiar now for some reason.

"And what of that, sir, what do we say, what do we even call it?"

The colossus looked back at the two as though it heard the simple question. With a shrug it reconfiguered, expanding in some wayys and contracting in others, reconfiguring into what seemed, essentially, a very big destroyer with landing decks. Captain Yale puzzeled at the craft for a moment and watched as it sunk into the waves it's sensor signature shrinking as it slid away. "They used to have a name for ships like that."

"Excuse me sir?"

"The ship so powerful that it need fear nothing on the seas. Dreadnought."

[No I don't have a particular place in mind for the meet point or a when, I think story should dictate that. And, like My AUGer self this Dread come with a "micro" unit, read normal height, for standard interaction so no need to worry about the god-modded colossus until it's cinematically appropriate.]

((Dispensor I patterned visually after his namesake from the movie, mixed in the Mountain Dew online game persona(Dewbot), and then wrapped it up in a classic FnorDoM NPC Solomon. Consider it a tribute to Panic, since I don't see him on these forums anymore. A pity I can't think of any more scenes using him, but with a character that fun he's got to show up again! Oh, and this next part takes place just before Dreadnoughts world wide broadcast.))

**

That human was looking at him. It was unnerving. Or rather, since his body didn't exactly have nerves it was... he thought about it for a bit. Nothing in his cybertronian biology really was a direct translation. He was already thinking using their figures of speach. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. The human watching him that intently however, was a bad thing. That he was sure of.

Formal suit, dark glasses, short hair slicked back, earbud and throat mike he spoke into every now and then, and the small sensor unit he was holding. All very cliche. Which was even more disturbing for some reason. Hidden in the shape of a Harley Davidson should have been safe here, it was an underground parking lot right near the campus. There were other motorcycles parked here even, one of them to his chagrine was actually even more customized than he was. A quick TranScan had shown it was entirely terrestrial and harmless however. That hand held radiation sensor probably had something to do with it.

A chevy cobalt pulled up and parked, the occupant getting out, locked his car and then walked over to the elevator. That left the parking lot empty save for the Man In Black, and of course the motorcycle who was entering a zen state about the whole affair.

As the Agent J wannabe walked over a Will Smith music selection was cued up. Illegally downloading MP3s to taunt law enforcement agents. Yeah, there's a great way to blend into your new home.

"Non-Biological Entity," He started off.

"Woo, here come the men in black... it's the MiBs! Here come the MiB! Men in black..." The song made him pause for a moment.

"Convert to your undisguised form for identification puproses." He waited for a few moments as the music continued. When he realised he was dealing with noncompliance he repeated his demand. "Unknown Non-Biological Entity, convert to your undisguised form for identification purposes. Now."

The motorcycles speakers shifted, the song turning down, and a blast of high pitched static echoed in the parking garage. The agent touched his earbud and waited a moment.

"A sense of humor is not part of my mission parameters. And given you greeted me with a cultural referance you will not be able to convince me that you can not speak english. Your final chance: Uknown N.B.E. convert to your undisguised form for identification purposes."

"Bugger." The song cut off and the motorcycle gave a robotic groan, parts shifting and refolding, the whole frame twisting around. The windshield and headlights finally ending up mounted upside down on the chest of the humanoid figure, the exhausts mounted on his forearms comming to life like two more insect limbs, and the front wheel now mounted to the back of his head. Or at least that's somewhat like how it appeared to work. To many pannels had shifted during the conversion. "Happy now?"

"That is sufficent." A little phone camera took a picture. Most likly a fuzzy one. It really wasn't sufficent, there was no sign of any marks of alligence. "You will now accompany me back to our local headquarters for further processing. If you do not yet have an English name, you will be assigned the two letter designation Juliett Whiskey."

"Two letters? Reducing me to nothing more than a statistic, a percentile. JW% is what I am to be dubbed?" JW%'s four optical sensors rotated about, only two of them directly targeting the demanding human. His facial features slanted inward and tightened. In short, he scowled. He didn't particularly like being called Juliett Whiskey, but a name humans could pronounce was one of the things he hadn't bothered to come up with yet. Besides, the rest of the demand was even less appealing. "And what if I have a date this evening?"

"Any contact you may have initiated is to be reported during your processing." The scowl wasn't working. "Most likly they will need to be informed of the situation, and after you agree to certain nessisary arrangements, you will be free to return."

"I have some projects that require my attention first." JW% informed the agent. "I'll take your business card and be in touch."

"You misunderstand. I was not requesting, I was telling you what will be happening to you. Regaurdless of your cooperation."

"I will do my best to reject your reality and substitute one of my own then." JW% crossed his arms. "I'm not going, and you can't make me."

There was just enough time to dive and roll away as the chevy cobalt exploded into moving pannels and parts. The attack came before it was fully transformed, the passenger side door launching out to the side and forward while the forearm and hand rotated on an elbow joint to reveal themselves. JW% was airborne by the time the hand was anywhere near him, but it had adjusted for that course change. Just not enough of an adjustment, letting the smaller motorcycle pull his ankle out of the grasp of the car. The drivers side door was expanding similarly, and it made a second swipe to apprehend the nimble figure, using the passenger side to brace against the ground.

"Bloody 'ell!" JW% declared, tucking himself into a roll midair to avoid the second grasp. By now the car had formed it's legs and JW% dove for one of the support pillars of the underground garage. "I should have known. The whole Men In Black thing was just to corny to be true."

"Made for a good distraction until we were sure of your stance on matters." Agent Flint said, comming out of the stairwell. He had been the one to pull up and take the elevator, only one floor so he could get back into the action, just to listen if nothing else. "Now that you see we really are serious, are you ready to come along peacefully? You're outnumbered three to one, and we will shut you down if we need to. Your choice, come willingly and leave after clearing up a few of our questions, or cause trouble and we haul your burnt out frame back to study."

"I take option three." JW% took off running for the next pillar. The large autobot couldn't comfortably stand or run in this garage, but it still made a crawling lunge for the darker transformer. Again JW% launched himself into the air to avoid the three fingered hand that was trying to swat him down. This time however, the former motorcycle caught the pillar and swung around it, keeping his airborne momentum but redirecting it. It only took a partial transformation, converting just enough to land on his wheels and add further accelleration to his vector. The agent in the suit realised that he was directly in the path of the fleeing mechanoid, who was already converting back to his humanoid mode.

Human reflexes are not, as most would believe, inferior to Cybertronian reflexes. The electrical signals traveling through a humans nervous system on average are not slower than the same signals in an average Transformers bodies. Cybertronians however are stronger, can move faster, and have minds that can calculate and anticipate events far better than the average human. Given other factors, including a superior sensory array, make any symblance of equality vanish.

That didn't mean the agent didn't try to dodge, just that JW%'s forearm extentions still had more than enough reach to extend out and snatch up the fleeing human. He did so with a smooth motion that made it seem a casual gesture involving no effort or concentration at all.

"Since we're feeling each other out here, let's see what we've learned." JW% said, holding the struggling agent at arms length away from him. "First, given that my continued existance is now being threatened along with my freedom, I am apparently not above taking a hostage." Both Agent Flint and his Transformer partner paused. "Now, are you the kind of people who will let me go now that I threaten one of your own, or are you the kind who live by the motto 'shoot the hostage'?"

Unfortunately JW% never learned the answer to his question. He did however learn something more important. The first being that humans did not enjoy being held hostage, and the second being that the agents were indeed armed with weapons that could annoy if not injure the cybertronian body. The hostage agent had palmed out his cell phone and flipped it in his grip, triggering the covert devises built in transformation to Digital Dagger. The energy blade drove deep into JW%'s arm, he gave a sound of pain, his arm spasming as it went numb and the agent being thrown to the pavement.

His arm numb and the extentions no longer responding or not, JW% was far from defeated. Not that he had been looking for a fight. Besides, the exit ramp was now directly behind him. His extended optical array could watch behind him without needing to turn his head, so he ran. Agent Flint fired a few pistol rounds, but nothing that didn't deflect off of his metal body. The plasma blasts the agents car fired however did require dodging and at one point leaping against the wall. JW% vaulted over the security bar and converted to motorcycle mode, burning rubber on his way out. Sparks flew from the exhaust, it was dragging on the pavement. JW% tugged at it, forcing the numb section of his body to complete the transformation properly so he wasn't injuring himself further in his flight.

Investigator Flint went over to his suit wearing coworker and helped him up. "At least we know that Digital Dagger thing works, despite the dumb name. You alright Agent Jackson?"

"Yeah, just scraped my suit a little. Thanks." The cell phone converted back and he checked it. "Drained my battery though. You only get a couple of stabs with it I guess."

"Don't worry, I don't think Juliett Whiskey will make it very far." Agent Flints car was already in hot pursuit. "A motorcycle without a driver isn't exactly hard to spot when it's driving on the road."

"Be advised: Subject is using hologram technology to mimic a driver. Requesting back up."

Both humans let their fellow Transformers words sink in before they let out a frustrated groan.

**

"So... if I'm JW%, what are you called?" The driver had turned to look at the little sports car chasing him, but that was mostly for show. The communications came via radio anyway.

"My name was untranslatable, and my partner Nicholas Flint primarily speaks for me, so a name was never a priority. My alternate mode is that of a Chevy Cobalt. The letters Charlie Charlie match it. Any variation would be marginally appropriate while addressing me."

"So you're named CeeCee?" JW% asked, swerving in and out of the sparse traffic. "And I thought being called Juilett Whiskey was bad."

There wern't many cars on the road at this time, the traffic there was didn't slow either of them in the chase. JW% pulled a sharp corner and dove into a narrow alleyway. The Cobalt did one better, extending an arm as it turned sharply, letting momentume tip it on it's side. As JW% weaved around dumpsters and cut through a chainlink fence, Charlie drive on the side of the brick wall, only two tires touching the ground as his front bumper knocked dumpsters and debris out of the way.

The alleyway ended before it got worse, and JW% spun out correcting his course to match the side road. Charlie managed to stay on his tail the entire time. The two of them raced through side streets and cross streets for a bit, each time JW% tried to break visual contact so he could rescan and go back into hiding. He knew that they had some kind of sensor that could track him, but it couldn't have been that accurate, and given the way the two agents had treated it, he suspected that the sensor could only pick up if there was a Transformer in the area, not who the Transformer was.

Charlie was doing him a favor then. They were releasing two energy signatures, and you couldn't follow one without the other interfering. Which just meant that he had to lose Charlie, and they'd have trouble picking up his trail again, thanks to this chase.

The traffic light in front of him was red and JW%s hologram winced beneath it's helmet. There was a truck pulling out into the intersection. A nice big one fortunately. He turned his front wheel and adjusted the gyroscopic systems within his body, putting himself into a slide. The truck was big, just barely big enough for him to slip under the trailer. If he transformed and lay down really flat. Skidding against the pavement like that hurt, but he knew that the car following him couldn't match it. It took another roll to get him out of the second lane of traffic before he was struck by a car. Before he lost momentume he transformed back and attempted to merge with traffic, calling his hologram back into place.

Charlie swerved around the rear bumper of the trucks trailer, transforming only partway to dive over a pickup in the second lane of traffic. He couldn't stand fully without hitting the traffic lights, but he could kick off and then convert back to car mode.

"You've got some nice moves." JW% said, when he realised that his hunter was still following him visually. "Thought someone as bulky as you wouldn't be able to match mine." This section of the road was straight and open.

"You thought wrong." The rear bumper and the trunk of the cobalt converted, spliting open and folding back. A series of tubes extended out, themselves forming a cylindrical shape, the nozzle for a rocket booster. A sudden flare and a roar of exhaust kicked the sports car into near record land speeds.

"Confident are we?" JW% hit the breaks when he noticed the roar behind him. His hologram flickered off as he pitched forward, flipping into the air. Charlie was a blur and a rush of wind beneath him.

Charlie started transforming the moment he realised he was going to overshoot his target. Or rather shoot right under his target. Somehow that little motorcycle had anticipated him again. The rocket booster reoriented and this time the blast fired forward, straining his metal frame to reverse his inertia. His heels made massive divots in the pavement, but he slowed to a halt. Without really sitting up he rolled over, transforming again. His optical array caught a brief glimpse of JW% driving into another alleyway.

OnStar however recorded that as a dead end, the alleyway having two tall buildings on either side, and ending in yet another building. Both of them had access to that knowlege. That meant they both knew they were going to confront.

JW% pulled up to the wall at the end of the street and turned around. He gave a quick wireless command to the garage door built into one of the side buildings, and found he was being jammed. Charlie pulled into the alleyway and transformed. Here he had plenty of room to move about and fight in, while still filling the alleyway so JW% didn't have room to get around him.

"It's a well founded confidence." Charlie said as JW% transformed into a humanoid form as well. "Last chance to surrender. We are not interested in harming you, but thus far you have shown hostile intentions by refusing our requests. Given this, we assume you are a Decepticon."

"I understand your position." JW% nodded as Charlie advanced. The cylindrical muzzle that had been his rocket booster now was mounted mid torso, and the wrists of both hands seemed to be able to convert into larger versions of that cell phone taser that had numbed his arm. "However, while I hold no particular malice towards you, the only comfort I can give you is that you are not facing a Decepticon."

JW% reached behind him, not with his hands but with some other power, and the manhole cover exploded upwards into the air, motivated by an invisible force. Charlie was caught by surprised at the sudden movement, and his main cannon fired a blast reflexively.

The next few moments were recorded in memory, but played out as such only by preplanning. No reaction was possible. First, the man hole cover interceeded between JW% and the brunt of the blast, his arms crossing before him and his wrist extentions spreading out. That was enough of a shield to keep the blast from physically harming him, but not enough that it didn't lift him from his feet and throw him backwards.

JW% sailed backwards from the blast, and twisted in midair. Whatever force allowed him to manipulate objects at range he once more applied to the manhole cover, this time making it spin with him. The metal disk was hurled like a discus with the frictionless force of a railgun at the larger cybertronian. As his body continued to twist in midair JW% initiated his transformation sequence again.

Charlie had just enough time to see JW% make a quick hand gesture before returning to motorcycle form, so his wheels would impact the brick wall behind him. Then the manhole cover smashed into just below the mechanoids front bumper, now chest mounted. That was a joint used in transformation, and Charlie's torso for a moment was split in half as he fell back. The ground cracked his windshield as it was now positioned on his back when he landed.

Laying on the ground Charlie watched as JW% drove away, litterally driving up the side of the building as if gravity held only a passing curiosity to him. It might have been possible to follow, climbing the side of the building. Damage reports from automatic diagnostics however was what was primarily claiming his attention.

"Be advised... visual contact with subject has been lost. Requesting pick up, I have sustained disabling damage. Non-life threatening, but disabling."

"Hang on buddy, we'll get a tow truck there for you. The good kind with a flat bed."

"Bring a tarp. I am unable to transform. That was a lucky shot JW%."

((CHALLENGE EXCEPTED!!! >:-) I'll figure out a way... eventually...))

Soccant Military Base

A man in a greasy shirt was explaining a concept of 'cooking' to the over-rathceted Autobot as Bladewing took the opportunity to scan the surroundings a bit more.

That's when he found what he was looking for. His red optic glinted as he locked on to the signal pathway and sent a brief, short burst of information. He looked up as Roadbuster stood, "Fascinating. These creatures carbonize bits and pieces of other flesh creatures and then consume them for energy!"

"Uhuh." Bladewing's receptors rotated a bit, "So their cannibalistic little flesh piles."

Roadbuster glared, "No, no... they use bits of other... species. Non-sentient species. Then they mix in plants of all kinds. The aroma and something the cook referred to as 'taste' seem to attract the other humans so that they allocate their time on fuel consumption happily."

"Right. Hey look, the General's back." without even turning to look, Bladewing waved behind him to the approaching human. Glad to have something to distract him from his churning fuel units.

The General looked up, "Roadbuster. We've decided that we'll provide transportation for you and Bladewing to where Optimus Prime is currently located."

Roadbuster nodded, "That would be appreciated."

"During transportation, of course, we would request that you remain in vehicular form. The general populace of the planet is not aware of the presence of N.B.E.'s..."

"N-B-What?" Bladewing interrupted. The General's eyes quirked and he cleared his throat, "Sorry, N.B.E. stands for Non-Biological Entity. The populace isn't aware that you... Cybertronians, are among us. We'd like to keep it that way."

Bladewing snorted, but Roadbuster nodded, "The old Robots in Disguise gig, eh? We can handle that. How long will transfer take?"

"Fifteen hours in the air. We'll start out first thing in the morning..."







Later that night.

The General lowered his weary body into his bunk happily. It was late, but the preparations had taken a while. Clearing the covert movement of N.B.E.s had to be handled carefully, especially if you weren't going to end up taking them where they wanted to go. Running a hand over his ace, he looked at his watch. Four hours to sleep. Damn. He yanked on the jointed band and pulled it off over his hand, tossing it onto the desk before clicking off the lamp.

For some time, the tent was still. Eventually the General's snoring became even and rythmic. oustide, the wind blew noisily against the tin metals of the darkened building. Voices could be heard occasionally off in the darkness as guards paced the grounds.

Somewhere over two hours remained until daybreak. Most of the camp was sleeping in the cold darkness.

Something on the General's lampstand moved.

With alarming suddeness the watch jerked, and plates began to shift, eventually settling into a small, roboti form. An orane visor optic scanned the General and the area, making sure all was as it seemed.

With a burst of frenetic static, undetectable to even the most powerful of the human's receiving equipment, the robot opened a channel to his superior, *My lord, Meantime reporting. I have made contact with the Decepticon Bladewing. So far, the operation is running as predicted. Tomorrow morning, he and the Autobot will be loaded onto a cargo plane and taken to sub-station Beta Decker 12 where they are holding the others.*

A voice crackled back on the link, *Excellent Meantime. Mark the plane's signature so we can follow it this time, and then return to your outpost. Once inside the base, initiate operation Rebirth.*

*And the human General?*

*Once the plane has landed, use his death to turn the humans against the Autobots. That will convince at least some of them to... join our crusade...*

The General's snoring had sputtered a bit, and a blind hand was stretchng out, groping towards the table. Meantime cut the transmission and reverted back to watch form. The groping hand grabbed the watch and hoisted to a bleary, red eye.

"mgmbmmbldamnotherhour..." the face sank into the pillow again, and the arm drooped.

It fell towards the floor, wristwatch still in it's grasp as it hung there limp and asleep again.

*Slaggit! Stupid human!! I have a mission to perform!!*

Meantime hated humans...


Elsewhere

The light from the TV spilled out of the tent flaps, as did the voices of the two humans, "No, turn turn! Get off me you bastard!" "Hey! Where'd you learn to do that?!?" "All in the wrist, baby..."

One of the soldiers tossed down the controller onto the canvas floor, "Oh man! That's the fifth time!"

The other leaned back, laughing, "If you weren't so pitiful my grandmother could wup you're ass it'd might be a challenge!!"

"Man... Hey, lookit." The tall sodier had stood up and was looking out the tent flaps. Off in the distance, there was a lot of activity around the runways, "What are they doing out there? There a mission we didn't know about?"

The other soldier was busy saving his game, "Huh? Nah. They got some shipment. You didn't see those two creepy monsters that showed up today?"

The other let the flap fall back, "No, I heard though! Two bon-i-fide aliens, eh?"

"Yeah, we shoulda just blown em to bits when they set down, if you ask me. Freaky alien robots. You heard they leveled this place last time they visited, right?"

The other soldier shrugged, "We can handle them. One of my cousins said they weren't so tough. Bunch a marines slagged out the worst of them a few years back. Didn't even have any tanks or anything with them."

The sitting soldier yawned, "Yeah, well... sooner they're gone the better, I say. Give me the willies just thinking of them around here. I'm off to bed, yo. Out."

The two soldiers shrugged off into the night, leaving the light burning in the AV tent.

On the floor, one of the dicarded controllers vidgeted, and suddenly converted into another small robot. The heavy armed robot gave a few punches in the air, "I could show you a thing or two... punk. Like the marines didn't have help from Prime and the others!!" He glared at the closed tent flap.

Sighing he opened a tight communications line, *HS100 here, base, you readin' me?*

*We're here High Score. How's things at Soccant?*

*Had a Bot and a Con hit the ground here today. You boys recieve any word on them yet?*

The voice on the other end sounded troubled, *No. Nothing. Are they functional?*

*From what I can tell. Listen, I got a bad feeling. The vibes here are definitely anti-bot. They're fixing to transport the two tomorrow morning. If you guys haven't heard of it, I'm betting they're not taking them to Prime.*

*Agreed. Get on board with the bots. Trail them and let us know how it progresses."

((sigh. Still here, but not much time for fics right now. At least the Pacific's a big place...))

((Happy to see [a] Dispensor, Real Gear, and the T.E.C.H get some "screen time" too. Just stopped by to say I'm enjoying reading this, a nice take on the movieverse. I know Swoop won't be joining, he's been retired, but if I get inspired I might contribute.))

((It's great to hear comments from people who are reading!!! It lets us know we aren't just blathering to ourselves :lol: )

[I can't wait to see it Roady ^_^]

***Pacific ocean: 4 miles beneath surface - Aprox***

It was as black as space here, well beyond the radiance of the yellow sun. No amplification, no matter how sensitivem could unearth Sols' radiance, but light was here all the same. Stars, twinkling blue-green spheres hung, and danced in the abyss, courting one another and attracting the alien life-forms that swam through the ether. Monsters that wuold terrify the strongest humnan intellect proliferated here; life taking whatever form it could to survive. These alien monsters and glittering stars parted as scavengers before the beast as Dreadnought slid through the icey depths almost meandering towards the continent of North America.

It was beautiful, he had to admit, he'd been to thousands of worlds from one end of the galaxy to the other and Life always amazed him. Despite it's rareity, or perhaps because of it, Life was always so different wherever he went. Oh there were commonalities, humanoids and serpents were found everywhere, almost all life originated in the oceans and solar energy was invariably the catalyst for a living world or thermal heat. However that was where the simularities ended, colors, shapes, sizes all changed from world to world only one constant had ever been maintained in all his travels. There were no other mechanicle life forms, even here where the Cube itself landed the transformers seemed a unique occurence in all the universe.

Somewhere deep within the craft something stirred. It was an odd sensation, really, to feel something moving about, coughing, rolling on it's side and shouting. Though, Dread had to admit, it was likely far more disconcerting for his prisoner...

***

A groan rose through the darkness as consciousness began to return to his mind. He couldn't understand why it was so cold, why his shoulders were sore or the bed was so hard. He slept on the softest of matresses with the most comfurtable pillows, usualy with a pair of attractive and expensive women. Why then, did he feel like he'd nearly suffocated , why was his bed cold steel? With a snap his eyes opemned as memories flooded his mind. The meteor, the attack, the giant hand dragging him off into darkness. Was he in Hell? His eyes hunted about to no effect, it was completely without light here. "Where am I..."

His voice, timid and shallow came back to him in a short echoe indicating the room was small, he was likely in a cell. "I demand to know where I am! I have rights!"

A bright, natural light illuminated the cell from above as a gentle almost amused voice said. "Do you now?"

As the human watched the small eight by eight space expanded, the walls rolling in on themselves as plates shifted and folded away. Though the room remained 8 feet in width it expanded another six feet behind him and 12 feet before him. As he watched a collection of tubes, plates and wires pulled together into a vaugely humanoid shape and pried itself from the left wall. It was almost skeletal in design and stood but an inch or two taller then the human but the easy posture it retained spoke volumes for it's lethality.

"I do," reafirmed the human with a nod. "All combatants are held to a code of conduct and are granted certain rights upon capture by the..."

"Codes of the Geneva Convention," offered Dreadnought, his face plate parting in an amused smile. "Rules of warfare; how absurd. The only ones who follow them are the ones who can't break them. Isn't that right Agent Grim?"

Grims' bro furrowed in confusion. "How did you know my name?"

"Stole your wallet while you were asleep." Dread explained as he withdrew a small plastic folder and threw the identification back to Agent Grim. "But I already cross referenced yuor face and fingerprints with every publically available database and a few not so public ones. All to find that YOU, Mr. Grim, do not exist."

The mechanoid allowed the statement to hang in the air for a moment as he strode forward, the sound of his jagged spikey feet tinking on the deck-platting errily gentle in the silence. "You are a combatant that is not officialy recognized by any country. You know what that makes you Mr. Grim? A terrorist."

The mechanoids right arm seemed to explode into a potent array of serrated blades as it smiled. "And terrorists arn't protected by the Geneva Convention are they Mr. Grim?"

Grim scrambled backwards looking about for something, ANYTHING he could use. Desperatly he grasped a pipe running along the wall and pulled with all his strength. The robot looked at him quizzically but he kept tugging regardless. With the sound of snapping metal the pole came away and into his hands. Without hesitation Grim charged forward and thrust the tube through Dreads' chest.

Dreads' head tilted to the left ever so slghtly as his optics narrowed quizically. "So tell me, Ms. Turner. What exactly was you planning to do afta you killed me?"

Grim stumbled back, confusion overiding fear as he stammered. "What?"

"Didn't see the movie?" asked Dread as he pulled the pipe from his chest. As Grim watched small mechanicle arms returned the pipe to it's original housing.

"...I did...but when did you?"

"You can find lots of things on the internet, about a third of it pornographic," chukled Dread. "Don't try that again, I thought it was cute so I let you pull the pipe but it won't work a second time. See you have to understand, you're not in a vessel Mr. Grim..."

YOU ARE INSIDE MY BODY

The echoing voice subsided as the miniature units right arm collapsed back into a normal limb. "Now, we're going to have a long conversation, and you're going to resist and lie but in the end you're going to tell me everything I want to know..."

Leslie tried not to grind her teeth at the thumping taking place next door. She was having trouble concentrating on her project thanks to the bedroom acrobatics that seemed to always take place. Not that she usually minded, after all this wasn't a good neighborhood, and a little bump and grind was far superior to the noisy sounds that came from people fighting or worse yet shooting. This one block however seemed nearly immune to the local gangs turf wars, despite shootings nearby, nothing came here. Not for years the land lady had said.

It also wasn't as run down as it initially appeared, and getting a room here with a strong internet connection had been surprisingly cheap and easy. Leslie and her girlfriend had a solid dedicated line right into the cities main communications network. Easily a half dozen systems, some in only partial states of construction, littered the studio apartment. It wasn't the best system Leslie had seen, but it was the best she could afford. Under the table, through connections with people who liked the same things she did in way of electronics.

The thumping was getting worse. Probably a paying customer getting his money's worth. As had been stated, this wasn't a good section of town, this was the kind of place where the streetwalkers were unionized. In fact some could call it the red light district. At the very least the neon sign outside the apartments one window was bright red. Tari, Leslies girlfriend and roommate, had put blankets over the window to keep out the light. Once this hotel had probably been glamorous. Now it was much less so.

Leslie glanced at the time on her monitor and clicked on her IM. "Need some fresh air, back in a bit" she set her message to. The thumping wouldn't last much longer she was sure, but she had laundry to do and now that her concentration was broken it wouldn't hurt to take a break. Leslie tossed on her leather jacket with the steel studs, pulled some baggy cargo pants with a camo pattern over her legs, and started working on her steel toed boots. She wasn't going to put makeup on or anything like that, but she still had her twelve studs and rings in and it wasn't worth it to take them out. She was just going down to the basement anyway.

Carrying the duffle bag of dirty cloths, plus a pocket full of change to feed the hungry washing machines and driers, Leslie stomped over to the elevator. Someone had marked the elevator buttons. Appropriately in fact. "Hell" "Booze/Demons" "Angels" and "Heaven". The top floor had been marked "God" in a different handwriting, but it was only accessable by the land ladies key, it had been the penthouse suites when this was a hotel. Leslie jabbed the button labeled "Hell". She wasn't in the mood for the bar, and certainly not the club, that made up the first two floors, and the three floors above that, the ones marked "Heaven" were the apartments.

The elevator doors opened to a blast of hot air, right off the furnace that heated the building. Leslie stomped through the hallways of "hell". They extended all the way over to the next buildings underground garage, but the laundry room wasn't nearly that far of a walk. The door was locked, but Leslie had the key. All the tenants did. As "god" said, you couldn't enter "heaven" without first talking to the "angels". Couldn't enter most of "hell" either, but the metaphor started breaking down if anyone bothered to think about it. Some of the bartenders, the "demons", had keys to those parts of the building. At least one of them lived on the top floor with "god".

The laundry room was always hot, being so near the furnaces and with the exposed pipes to transfer the heat. The lights however were very bright. To many complaints that this place could be dangerous without bright lights. Probably from the bouncers who worked the club. Bless their steroid strangled hearts.

Leslie shed her leather jacket, leaving her only with the stained tanktop. She glared at it, not realising it should have gone in the wash as well, and started loading the machines. She fed in the coins and started it, idlely playing with her tounge stud. She wished she'd remembered this time to bring a book.

The mechanical chirp made her pause. It hadn't sounded like the normal sound the machine makes. She glanced around, finally stopping to stare at the little mechanical falcon. What it was perched on was even more interesting. It looked sort of like a coffin, if some special effects artist was going to design a coffin for the Terminator. Leslie blinked and stared at the Stasis Pod, wondering how long it had been down here.

The bird gave another chirp and hopped onto one of the driers. That brought her attention to it. At first she had assumed it was some sort of toy, but the way it moved was beyond any robotics gizmo she'd seen. "Alright." She said, glaring at it. "What are you?"

Her hip buzzed. With a startled jump she fumbled into one of the many pockets of her cargo pants pulling out her cell phone. She had a new text message. That was odd, she never had reception down here before.

"When you said fresh air I thought you were going out for a cig." She read the message outloud before realising it. "Okay, enough is enough. Show yourself."

A new text message came in. "You're looking at me." She frowned and glared at the bird, who looked back innocently at her. "Riiiight." The phone vibrated again and she glanced at the third message she had recieved without any phone signal. "No, I'm a bit bigger than my little sparrow hawk."

"Sparrow Hawk?" Leslie studied the mechanical bird closely. It didn't look like either sparrow or hawk. "Pretty Sparrow that it is, I asked you to show yourself. Unless you're..." She looked at the mechanical coffin. "... aw hell."

Leslie suddenly realise that the door behind her had shut, and locked itself. She fumbled out the key, only to feel it yanked from her hand by an invisible force. The metal avian pecked the magnetized key out of the air with it's beak, then dropped it to hold it in one talon.

The washing machine started bouncing as it always did, the adgitator being unbalanced. Just before the lights flickered out Leslie saw the Stasis Pod start to break apart, pannels seperating and then folding in on themselves. Mixed with the sound of the thumping washing machine was a metallic sigh that would stay with her for the rest of her life. No matter if she lived for a hundred years and never heard it again, or heard it every moment for the rest of her life, it would still send the same tremor along her spine. It was the sound of a Cybertronian Transforming.

Despite the gloom, she saw a form within the pod, vaugely, from within the moving pannels. It was human sized, but not human shaped. Like some kind of big cat she supposed. The pannels spread away from it then seemed to fold tight, and then retract into it's body. The roar it made shook the ground and dust settled from the ceiling. It twitched and convulsed, a vauge shape in the darkness. The sound of metal slicing through meat counterpointed the deep roar that was half feral animal and half synthetic bass that made your teeth rattle.

The lights came back on only seconds later and Leslie realised she had, at some point, fallen to her knees. The little metal bird glanced down at her with intrest, but what really caught her eyes was across the room. Standing there against the blank concrete wall, where the strange pod had been, was a living breathing tiger. Or at least some sort of massive cat with tiger stripes. Only the features were wrong, warped somehow. The ears were much to big, and the nose turned up as well. Both of them looked like features from a fox bat. And it's teeth were huge, like saberteeth.

It tread forward, that strange nose sniffing and it's slitted bluegreen eyes seeming to glow in the flourescent lighting of the laundry room. Almost hypnotized she noticed the play of muscles beneath it's thick dark fur as she scrambled back to her feet. The tiger stripes were solid black against a dark grey that seemed almost blue. It had wings she realised, extentions from the forepaws were held against it's main body. As the body came closer to her she saw that a leathery membrane connected these extentions, as well as connecting to his main body. The creature came up close, and she realised just how large this creature was. She gripped the side of one of the washing machines, the one not still thumping against the wall, with white knuckles.

The big cat shifted, flexing it's muscles with a confident leisure as it sat on it's haunches and tilted it's head. She could feel it's hot breath and watched as the large heart shaped nose flexed, absorbing her scent as one would the scent of a fine meal.

"Who's a good kitty?"

"No need to be patronizing Leslie." The Voice rumbled. His Voice. The same deep bass rumbling that brought debris from the ceiling when he roared now echoed off the walls and wrapped around her like some kind of comforting blanket. The voice was both commanding and comforting, like the purr of kitten multiplied to the rumble of a motorcycle engine. Her eyes widened as she heard the voice. It was his, the creature before her. His mouth wasn't moving, but it was clearly the creature speaking. The sound comming from deep within his throat.

"Leslie," He said, his voice sounding like rich chocolate fudge tasted. "A pleasure to meet you in person finally."

"You... you're... you're..." Leslie was able to take several things in stride. She took several deep breaths and steadied herself. "Do I know you?"

"We talked some, trying to crack that code that was broadcast world wide. A bit unnessisary, everyone who it was intended to reach knew the content immediately, but if you're interested, I could show you what it said." The creatures eyebrows arched. "Would you be interested?"

"Yeah." Leslie nodded. "If I remember this when my trip is over the inspiration might be worth something. I'm going to have to ask Tari how she spiked my coffee with acid."

"You think this is all a hallucenation. Very well." That metallic sigh came about again and she saw the cats head split open from behind the ears. There was no blood, not even a sound of flesh ripping, just the muffled sound of metal shifting on metal, or metal sliding across fur. The creature reared up on it's hind legs, the head rotating while the waist did the same. The forelegs extended, the hind legs did as well, revealing metal just beneath the surface. Some sections shifted, some pulled in on themselves, most simply rotated and revealed joints that worked in ways not visible.

He towered over her in his humanoid shape. His head gave a brief glimpse of numerous eyes before a single reflective silver visor like a motorcycle helmet covered them. The horns on the back of his head would have scrapped the ceiling, had he not folded them back against his neck as he stood not yet standing at his full height even. The strange feline face, minus it's lower jaw and saber fangs, now adorned his chest, split and stretched to match the broad surface. The wings were still on his forearms, one fingertip like extentions at his side. These extentions, despite closing against the body to make his outline more humanoid, continues to flex, clearly still his limbs.

"I am... JW%. You may call me... JaggedWing, if you like." He gave pauses as if taking a moment to choose the word. When he finally made the pronouncement it was with a delicate tip of his head and a flurish of his clawed hand. The two extentions that connected at his wrists gave a flex as if part of his elegant movement.

Leslie shook her head slowly. "You're doing little to convince me I'm not hallucenating." What she assumed was his mouth, if only for it's general shape and location, came up into a smile.

"I'm sorry for the light show, but I don't think you really wanted to see what was happening while I assumed the final stages of this new form." He hadn't particularly enjoyed the process himself. Sort of like assuming a protoform shape, only this time he had to make a space within himself to grow the cloned creature he had synthized from collected DNA. Getting inside that fleshy shell was the hardest part. It felt like he had been turning himself inside out, and not in the usually easy way. The conversion to robot mode had been much easier. "I must say, you're taking my... unique apperance, alot better than I had anticipated."

"Probably in shock." She shrugged. "I've read enough SciFi. You're some kind of invading alien or something right?"

"Invading?" She was surprised at how many things shifted and moved as he spoke. Mostly because he seemed in the habit of speaking with his whole body rather than just vocalizing. This particular motion was a shrug. "I suppose that's close enough."

"How do you know..." She gave her own pause for emphasis. "English." She clearly also wanted to know why he was speaking to her by name.

"I monitored your planets electronic clutter. I learned quite a bit, including your name, reputation, and address, from the aptly named World Wide Web. I speak your worlds numerous languages with relative fluency now. Including a number that... you probably wouldn't consider languages."

"Such as?"

"Program languages were the first I figured out, and your roomate will be amused to know I speak Klingon just as fluently as English." He smiled and shrugged as she surpressed a giggle. "If you were to assume that I was real, would you be this brave?"

"I would like to think so... but I'd have probably passed out by now." He nodded zenly at her answer. He was watching his little symbiote unlock the door. The bird had flown over to the doorhandle with the key in it's talon, manipulating it easily.

"I rather designed this form to be threatening. It is a combat form after all. Given the appearance I almost expected you to try to escape."

"Doors locked." One of those limb extentions lashed out, causing her to jump and her voice to squeak. She slowly followed where the spear point reached. The door was open behind her.

"And now I've opened it."

"Ah." She said, and moving like just a finger the wing extension closed the door again. "So... you expect me to beg for my life?"

"If that's what turns you on." Again the gracious nod. "Really, I need your help. So, while I wouldn't mind taking Tari and you as my pets... well I didn't think you swung that way. A good portion of what I downloaded was indeed pornographic."

"That sounds so wrong."

"Aw," She was starting to pick out his tone. A thrill went through her as she realised he was joking around with her. What she didn't realise was that he had been flooding the room with pheremones designed in his newly cloned chemical factories, the scent rolling off of him was barely perceptable but was intended to make her much more comfortable with him on a subconcious level. "I thought you liked the feel of metal against your flesh." He made a gesture at his face, and she realised he was pointing at the various visible places she had pierced. "And I could get to enjoying the feel of flesh on my metal." His wings flexed until they filled the room and he fluffed up his fur. She smiled, taking a moment to really study his form.

She smiled and nodded but couldn't think of a reply that wasn't innane. The words hung in the air long enough for things to grow a bit uncomfortable before he spoke again. "But we have some business first. That world wide signal..."

"The so called Solar Flare?" The news had quickly spun that as the reason why every electronic communications devise had triggered at once with one incomming signal. A signal that only held some sort of high pitched static.

"Yes, that one." He nodded and she heard the scraping of metal against metal, her gaze followed his gesture and she realised that strange metal bird had transformed into some kind of holographic projector. The wave form of the static was being displayed. "As you can see, there is a transmission embedded in it."

"We figured that, but nobody could decode it."

"That's the decoding. Simple address and date. Not particularly the one I'd have choosen, but then again I didn't have control over this."

"But that's just half the message." Leslie frowned, going back to looking at her conversation partner. "A date and time without a reason for being there is meaningless."

"Yes... and no." JaggedWing said. "The encoded message is simply the date and time. But what it's encoded IN..." Again at his prompting she looked at the display and it expanded out to show the whole thing, unencoded but translated.

"Prime?"

"Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autonomous Robotic Lifeforms, the Autobots. He recently sent an... invite for his fellows to come to Earth. Given the situation, who sent and who recieved, reading between the lines provides quite a bit of meaning that the simple numbers do not. And since it was broadcast in our native language... well let's just say that if you're in the know it's being pretty blunt."

"So who sent this?"

"An impatient fellow who apparently took it on himself to aggravate me." A good natured shrug, and the faint sound of metal scraping against metal as the bird returned to it's animal shape. "I have some important plans, but I found recently I'm going to suffer... limitations that I must work within. Including this invite, which is the most pressing limitation. I also need a dedicated server farm, which I suspect you have in your apartment. I need a mailing address for certain purchases to be delievered to, and I also need a cover to hide in. This building in the cities Red Light District, this... RLD is the perfect place for me."

"So what do you want me to do?" Leslie nearly sighed. The little bird had taken to perching on her, and she found it was surprisingly light.

"Well... you know how to publish this translation and get it out to the public. I want this... challenge made general knowlege to everyone rather than just those in the know." Leslie nodded, thinking of at least a few ways it could be done, fully expecting the solar flare theroy to be promoted by all the major media networks over this decoding, there were still ways to get the information out there. "Secondly... how would you and Tari like another roomate?"

"I'm not sure you would..." He tilted his head back and opened his mouth as if in pain, the body once more exploding outward and then folding into tight blade like shapes before plunging into the pink fleshy form underneath, compressing his body noticably. Leslie winced sympathetically this time. The form inside was human.

JW% staggered for a moment, getting used to