Chapter Text
It was late afternoon on a weekend. She stood in front of her shelves packed with a lot of DVDs, while she was pondering what she should watch as a little reward for tidying up her apartment all day. Harry Potter? No, she wasn’t in the mood for that today. Naruto? Great anime, but she just finished watching it recently. Transformers Prime? It has been a while since she watched the series. Sure, why not.
With a happy smile she grabbed the case of the first season from the shelf and walked over to her television set. After inserting the disc into the DVD player she hurried into the kitchen to make herself some popcorn. Nothing was better than to watch awesome robots duking it out on screen while munching on some delicious snacks.
With a full plastic bowl filled with popcorn in her hands she returned to her living room and sat down on the coach. Pressing play on the remote she leaned back, ready to enjoy her evening.
Even though she knew how the interaction between Starscream and Cliffjumper would end she still couldn’t help herself but to hope that the red autobot would survive somehow. She was so engrossed in what was happening on the screen that a sudden loud noise from one of her neighbors startled her badly enough for one big piece of popcorn to go down the wrong pipe. She immediately started to cough and even hit herself on the chest in the useless attempt to get that piece of food unstuck.
She started to panic when it got harder to breath. She was choking on that fucking piece of popcorn and tears were rolling down her cheeks. During her struggle she barely registered how the bowl in her lap fell off the couch and landed on the ground with a dull thud. Water! She needed some water to hopefully wash it down! She hurriedly jumped off the couch and stumbled towards the kitchen. In her panicked state she didn’t see the bowl lying on the ground until it was too late.
A choked scream left her lips as she tripped over the bowl and tumbled to the floor. On the way she hit her head hard on the edge of the coffee table. Fuck! That hurt like a bitch!
Barely able to breath properly and with a monster headache she lay on the cold, hard floor, while the corners of her vision started to get dark. She wondered if she was bleeding. Shouldn’t she be more worried about dying? Where was all that panic from just a few seconds ago? It was getting cold… She hoped her parents wouldn’t mourn her for too long, they deserved a happy life.
All her energy had left her body by now and it was steadily getting darker. She really was dying, wasn’t she? She just wanted to relax, watch Transformers and eat some popcorn. How could it have ended up like this?
As her vision went completely black she couldn’t help but to regret that she hadn’t done more with her life. What a dumb way to die…
Loud beeping sounds woke her up. Had she forgotten to turn her alarm off? It was the weekend and she usually liked to sleep in on those days. Groggily she opened her eyes only to be blinded by some flashing red lights. She quickly closed her eyes again, waited a few seconds and then tried to open her eyes again more carefully this time.
She could just stare in shock at what she was seeing. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking at, to be honest. If she had to describe it then she would say that it looked like some kind of alien tech to her. Flashing red displays – were those holograms? – surrounded her, which were showing different numbers and letters that she couldn’t make any sense of. The damn beeping sounds – that sounded more like an urgent warning or alarm – weren’t helping her to think more clearly either. Taking another look around her surroundings she noticed that the walls were really close, she barely had any room to move freely. It actually felt really suffocating.
How the hell did she get here? The last thing she remembered was… dying. That’s right… She should be dead. She shouldn’t have woken up again. Was this the afterlife? Some kind of hell? Was she in a coma and dreaming some weird stuff?
She shook her head harshly when she realized that her thoughts started to spiral. Now was not the time to think about that! She needed to get out of this thing first! She could panic later!
Looking around her dark surroundings again, while trying to ignore how cramped it was, she noticed a small latch on the metallic wall in front of her. Without any hesitation she reached for it and started to pull as hard as she could. When it didn’t budge she desperately pushed instead, whereupon something gave way.
With a startled cry she tumbled out of the opening and landed face first on the ground. She groaned as she stayed in that position a bit longer. She needed a moment to get her bearings. That fall had hurt less than she would have assumed. In any case, she was free!
What had she been trapped in anyway? With another quiet groan she rolled over on her back, before she sat up and looked at the thing she had been stuck in just a moment ago. What was she looking at exactly? It seemed to be made out of metal and had an oval shape. Curious she reached out and pressed her hand against it’s surface. A pained hiss escaped her as she quickly tore her hand off again. It was hot, more than hot, that was smoldering metal!
But the pain was just a side note as she stared in horror at her hand. Her small, white, metallic hand. She could even see little gears between the joints if she squinted her eyes hard enough. What the fuck?! Why was her hand out of metal?! Where was her skin, her flesh?!
Dreading what she would see her gaze drifted up her arm. Also metal. A blue forearm and a white upper arm. This couldn’t be happening! What the hell was this shit?! Panicked she grabbed her arm – that wasn’t her arm! – with her other hand and squeezed hard. It didn’t just look like metal it felt like it too. Without thinking she started to scratch ruthlessly. Maybe her flesh was just underneath the metal! Surely her body hadn’t turned into some robot!
This had to be hell! She died and now she was in hell with her human body replaced by a metallic alien body. Why?! She didn’t deserve this!
Even as all the scratching started to hurt she didn’t stop. She couldn’t! She needed that metal gone! Why couldn’t she breath?! Did she even need to breath now that she wasn’t human anymore? Apparently yes, because she was fucking suffocating! Was this how she died again? She didn’t want to die! Please, somebody help her! Please make it stop!
As if someone had heard her prayers two hands suddenly grabbed her out of nowhere and lifted her from the ground. She had barely enough air left in her lungs to scream. The next thing she knew she was being pressed against dark gray purplish metal plates, that were surprisingly warm to the touch. She could hear a faint whirring noise from under the metal, that seemed to gradually get louder until it was reminding her of a mechanical sounding purr. That noise was actually really calming.
She flinched when she felt a hand on her head that started to pat her slowly. Who was holding her? Where was her hair? Those fingers weren’t stroking any hair, but a metal helmet if she interpreted that feeling correctly. She didn’t just have a metal body now, but also lost all her beautiful hair?! What kind of punishment was this?! A sudden rocking motion distracted her from her spiraling thoughts. The purring noise also got more intense as a sudden warm feeling – almost like some kind of aura – wrapped around her. It felt a bit like she was under a warm blanket.
She could feel how her panic slowly but surely ebbed away to make place for a calmness that she was sure wasn’t appropriate for this situation. She was actually getting kind of sleepy.
Blinking a couple of times she sluggishly tilted her head back, so that she could look at the person’s face, only to blink a couple more times out of disbelieve. That was definitely a robot, but not any robot. That was fucking Soundwave from Transformers Prime. The decepticon Soundwave was holding her and still rocking her like she was a child. What the fuck?
Soundwave cocked his head a bit as he stared back at her, when suddenly a smiley face appeared on his black visor. Seriously, what was happening? Wait a minute… Was this like those isekai and self-inserts fanfictions she had read before? Did she die and was reborn in the Transformers Prime universe as a transformer? Huh, that would make sense, strangely enough. That idea was more comforting than the possibility of being in hell at least.
Let’s look at the bright sight! She got the chance to meet her favorite decepticon in person! Soundwave was a cool character no matter in which universe. She always respected him for his undying loyalty towards Megatron and admired him for the care he showed his minicons. She had often joked with her friends that Soundwave sometimes reminded her of a fierce mother. Speaking of which, she missed her own mother. She just now realized that she would never see her again. She could feel the urge to cry welling up.
Before she could have succumbed to that urge the feeling of the warm blanket was back tenfold. A bit dazed from the sudden disorienting sensation she realized that this had to be Soundwave’s doing. How he was doing this she had no clue. She only knew that it was helping to calm her down and that she couldn’t help but to feel touched that Soundwave of all people was trying to comfort her. A fierce, caring mother indeed.
The thought barely crossed her mind when she felt something flaring up in her chest before it snapped into place. She didn’t even have the time to register the feeling fully as Soundwave jerked and his hold on her stiffened uncomfortably. What just happened?
Again she didn’t get the chance to ponder on it any further. Loud footsteps could be heard rushing towards their destination. She quickly looked over her shoulder only to see Optimus Prime, Bulkhead and Arcee emerging from the treeline. She hadn’t realized before that they were on a clearing in a forest.
“Don’t let Soundwave escape!”, Optimus’ deep voice shouted an order.
Said decepticon reacted instantly. She couldn’t see what was happening as Soundwave embraced her tightly and hid her from sight behind his arms. She could just stare at his dark chestplates that she was pressed against while listening to the sound of gunfire.
“Watch out for Laserbeak!” Someone shouted, followed by more gunfire.
Judging by the shaking motions she would hazard a guess that Soundwave was running away from the autobots. She wasn’t sure how she should feel about that. The autobots were the good guys, so there was no reason to run from them. On the other hand, she would also run if someone was shooting at her, which was really rude by the way. And frightening to be completely honest. She didn’t want to die again!
A sudden jolt went through her body as she was flung from Soundwave’s arms. Alarmed she shrieked loudly, before a loud whine left her lips as her body collided with the unforgiving ground. That hurt! What even happened just now?
Squinting her eyes – or should she call them optics now? – she looked up and saw how Bulkhead and Optimus were holding down Soundwave, while Arcee was occupied with Laserbeak shooting at her. The two autobots must have tackled Soundwave to the ground and in the scuffle the decepticon had lost his hold on her.
“Optimus, that’s a sparkling! How?!”, Bulkhead’s shocked voice caught her attention. The green bot was staring right at her. Wait, was he talking about her? Who was he calling a sparkling? She wasn’t a baby! Right? Was she a baby now?!
Soundwave didn’t wait for the autobots to get their bearings back and used their inattention to unleash his data cables to throw his attacker’s off of him. But instead of engaging in the fight again Optimus ran towards her. Before she could have done anything big hands took a hold of her and pressed her against red windowed chestplates. The whole time the Prime didn’t slow down but instead ran towards a big green glowing portal looking thing. Wasn’t that a groundbridge?
“Autobots retreat!”, Optimus shouted, while he was holding her with one arm and giving his teammates cover fire with his other hand that was transformed into a cannon.
She could see how Soundwave tried to reach her, but was driven back by the autobot’s relentless gunfire. Only when Arcee and Bulkhead ran through the groundbridge and vanished from sight did Optimus go through the portal himself.
A sudden panic grabbed her when she realized that they were about to separate her from Soundwave. Even if the autobots were the good guys, they were essentially kidnapping her! She wanted to yell and plead with the autobot leader to not take her away, but the only sound that left her mouth was a sequence of high pitched distressed sounding chirps.
No, please don’t take her carrier away from her!
… Where did that term come from?!