Chapter Text
Your hand reaches forward to raise the volume of your static-peppered radio, blaring some unrecognizable rock-and-roll music. You settle on it for a few minutes as you drive down the red desert.
The screaming and insane guitar riffs were making you anxious, so you changed it again. You flipped through the channels, finding nothing. You almost just turned it down when you finally found the hit song of a band you could tolerate. It was better than the bitter silence, though the growing feeling in your chest wouldn't fade.
You were a coward. You were running from everything and you didn't care. You were always quick to high-tail it at the slightest sign of disaster. Better to avoid it all-around.
You see an old coal mining site up ahead.
As you pass it, you adjust the mirror in your dashboard and catch something odd.
There was another opening to the mine, your view of it obstructed from the other side. The hole was much bigger than the entrance the miners must have used. Something inside it glints in your eye, and you find yourself stopping the car.
You don't know why you were stopping to check this out. You've been driving down this desert for hours and you've passed tons of weird landmarks but never stopped for them.
But something was tugging at your brain, and you needed to put your curiosity to rest. Obviously it was probably a wrapper or something, you don't know why you were checking it out.
You get out of the car and head towards the site, not bothering to close the door. The sun blared down immediately hitting your skin like a blanket of heat. You lifted your hand, using it as a visor as you looked up, catching sight of something else. It looked like some kind of strange bird, but no; it was much too big for that. Was it some crazy area-51 drone? You rolled your eyes at the thought.
The silhouette of the strange thing hovered around you a bit. It seemed to circle you once before speeding off towards the mine and entering it, speeding down its dark halls.
Okay...definitely not a bird. It has to be a drone. Or a UFO. You hoped for UFO. It would definitely change up the pace of your life.
But now you obviously have to check out the place. You quickly made it over to the huge opening, a bit surprised at it's size. It was much bigger than how it looked. God, that must be like 500 feet! Okay not really, but something like that.
You shake your head of your thoughts and continue on. A tugging anxiety pried at your mind but you hesitantly ignored it, wanting to know what was going on. You had nothing to lose, anyways.
You pass a small opening on the floor, you almost didn't notice it if it weren't for the pulsing blue glow coming from it. You could feel it in your shoes, vibrating very faintly. You approach it cautiously, sliding your hand along the edge of it. It was just big enough for you to slide through.
Blue crystals. Blue crystals EVERYWHERE. They sprouted from the ground, the walls, the ceilings, clumped together in clusters spotting the entire room and coating everything in a sapphire blue hue.
It was breath-taking. And, god, how much was this all worth? You assumed they were sapphire or something to that effect, but...something was off about them.
That pulsing was still there, ever stronger now that you were even closer. It sent warm trails up your limbs now, a tingling sensation taking over your body. It was faint but it was there.
You step further into the hidden room and approach the largest cluster towards the center of it. It glowed the brightest and emitted the most of that strange vibration. It made your skin crawl the closer you got. You find yourself tripping over one of the damned things and reach out for anything to grab.
You latch onto a long crystal sprouting from the wall, just barely stopping yourself from falling. You sigh in relief, but soon the feeling was replaced with pain. White hot searing pain that made your vision go black in the corners. You scream, but your ears start to ring so hard it felt like you were hearing your cry from the outside of a club. You stumble backwards, and before you had a chance to register it, you were on your ass.
Nothing felt real. You felt like you were watching yourself lift your hand to stare at the singed, bubbling flesh.
There was blue liquid caked on your palm. Your burning skin seemed to soak it right up. You blink down at it, completely unable to react to this.
You felt a booming vibration in your body again, but it was different. It grew stronger as something appeared in the large entrance across the mine you hadn't noticed before.
You would probably scream out of fright if you weren't already wailing in pain.
The thing had to be 30 feet tall. It had sleek metal skin, and thin limbs as if it were a robot. Wait, it actually might be a robot. You couldn't tell, you were in too much pain to theorize.
Black tentacles slid from its body towards the ground, coming towards you. You could only watch in horror, holding your hand desperately as they approached you fast.
They were stopped short as the robot itself was shoved to the side by another giant robot. What the fuck is happening here.
The larger green one slammed into the skinnier black one, the sheer force of it hitting the wall making it crumble before them. It stood up wearily before pointing its arm at the other one and literally shooting laser beams at it. Fucking laser beams.
It seemed only minimally affected as it charged back towards the black one and punched it. It flew back, hitting the wall and slumping down as steam poured from it. You could hear more similar action happening somewhere else.
The large green robot approached you, and you looked up at it, unable to react. You were reaching out for some kind of emotion but nothing came other than pain. It knelt down in front of you, the size between you both quite overwhelming.
“What are you doing here? Where did you...come on, get on. I'll get you out of here,” it said in gruff
fluent English as it offered its hand to you, as if expecting you to step up onto it like a pet bird.
You actually might have, but you felt consciousness quickly escaping you as your vision faded in and out.
The line between reality and death blurred as you sat in darkness. You heard nothing, but you only just realized you could feel your body. The sound of a beeping monitor was slowly becoming more apparent. You decided to test your eyes. A blurry far ceiling came into view. Pretty high for a hospital ceiling...
“She's waking up,” a voice said.
“Arcee, don't be ridiculous. She hasn't been under any longer than eight hours, she can't possibly be conscious already...oh.”
You blink wearily, looking around. You stare at the giant robots who seemed to be closing in on you. Your body doesn't have much strength to react.
“Robots,” you manage to say.
“What?” the orange and white one said, leaning in. The perspective change really put things into, well, perspective, for you.
“R...r...robot,” you sputter, frozen to your metal bed, which you just realized was awful on your back.
The blood in your veins ran cold as you stared at the giant alien creature. What was it? Where did it come from? Why were you so fear-stricken?
“She's malfunctioning,” the feminine-sounding one said in a bit of a panicked voice.
“Arcee, please. These are humans, they have a completely different biology from our own.”
“Then why is she leaking all over? And shaking?”
“I...I think she may be malfunctioning.”
You hear a small sigh of frustration as you grip your blanket for your life, the icy cold sweat dripping down your temple. This was a lot to take in.
You tried to scream, but a small whimper escaped your throat instead.
The orange one closed in on you. Your breathing hitched and you started to scramble, when his large hand came forward and poked you...somehow. You let out another small cry as you are stabbed by the item in his hand.
You're gonna die. You just got injected with weird robot alien poison and now you're gonna die, and that's why you suddenly feel really good right now.
“What did you give her?” the feminine voice asked.
“Some human narcotics. Don't ask how I got them.” the scratchy, deeper one mumbled.
The two seemed to argue a bit about something, you didn't pay attention.
“I think our guest may need some air,” another voice boomed. It filled your entire body.
Tingles set through your entire body. Your brain felt fuzzy. His voice felt so...soothing.
Can a voice do that? Make you feel like sex? You don't know, you can't really tell if this is a dream or if the robot poison was slowly killing you, but you were thankful for the relief.
The two stepped away from you, but immediately the voice made itself apparent, and you could see by-far the largest one step forward. His red and blue metal stood out much differently, though the paint scuffed and faded.
He knelt down onto one knee, and the bed(which you had just realized was very high up in the air, but you were luckily not afraid of heights) lined with his chest. He was almost at eye length to you, and though proportionally speaking, he was much bigger; it still made you feel...equal to him, in a way.
“What is your name, my friend?” he asked, his gaze piercing right through you. You almost didn't catch what he said.
“(Y-Y/N),” you manage to stammer, though you probably sounded stupid.
“(Y/N), I am Optimus Prime. The ones you see around you are known as Autobots. We have been living on your planet for quite some time now, fighting an endless war against our kind known as Decepticons.”
“Autobots? Decepticons?” you blink, the shock having set into your body by now. Nothing made sense at this point; you were willing to believe anything.
Optimus Prime. That's what the...the Autobot called himself. What a strange name. It had a ring to it.
“The war we have waged has gone on far longer than humans roamed this Earth, though our battle has unfortunately been transferred here. We fight to stop Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons, from destroying this beautiful planet, as he once has to our own.”
Well...he does make a good speech. You can't argue with that. This Megatron guy sounds like a dick. But hey, at least the crippling anxiety from before was gone and you were in a peaceful trance.
You stared at all of them, feeling a bit light-headed. You haven't quite been able to soak up any of this information. You finally realize how many of these robots there were. A small blue one, a slightly bigger yellow one, a red one that was about the same size, the green one from before, an orange one, and the one you were talking to. They all stared at you curiously, and if you weren't so messed up you'd probably realize how some of them looked at you with disgust.
You slipped back into unconsciousness, unable to keep yourself awake any longer.