Walking down the street reading a newspaper, Minnie sighed. The city was in a right mess. The clean-up job was going to take weeks, and obviously cost hundreds, if not thousands. Her eyes skimmed over the reports of the damage, and what may be saved or what may as well be started from scratch. It seemed that most of the tall apartment buildings were close to rubble so those were getting torn down, or what remained was getting torn down.
There was so much destruction, Minnie was a little ignorant to how much damage had actually fallen on the city. Her mind was on one thing, and that was hiding. Turning the corner slowly she looked over the photographs which went with the reports. It was unbearable. So many people had lost their homes and their livelihoods, not to mention their lives. Minnie dreaded to think about how many people may have been injured or killed during that attack.
Her heart sunk even more when the thought of some of those people being just children. Minnie didn't have a family, she didn't exactly have friends. But the mere thought of having everything plucked away by the hands of those attacking Decepticons was enough to make her want to cry. Looking up at the sky, she frowned lightly. Optimus had said about hope, but really was hope enough to get people through that?
Minnie couldn't think of what may have happened if she didn't get rescued. Her mind flashed to those who she was in the park with. "I should have died too." She mumbled to herself, if she wasn't suspicious as to why everyone was even there, then she'd surely not be standing here today.
"Is that a hint?" A smug voice questioned from somewhere behind her.
Turning sharply she looked around. The rather good thing – if it could be considered good – was that Jasper wasn't exactly overpopulated. There weren't many people walking the streets, and those who were, weren't paying any mind to her. Taking a step back, she turned and frowned. There definitely wasn't a red car parked in front of her when she was walking. Taking another step back she smiled sheepishly, her smile slipped as the car moved forward as she stepped back. Turning, Minnie walked quickly down the street back the way she came. She seriously tried to ignore the fact that she was being stalked by a car.
The annoying part was that it had cut her off from the base. Minnie's eyes skimmed over the buildings she passed. She couldn't go in there, she'd stay and wait for the car to move on, but something in her gut told her the likelihood of that happening was slim to none. Being naturally new to this place, Minnie didn't exactly know where she was going. She was mentally kicking herself though when the buildings thinned out as well as the road. She couldn't help but flinch as the engine behind her revved.
"So, what's a lost little human like you, doing in a desert like this?" Looking down, Minnie's eyes narrowed. Seeing as how there was no driver she let out a shaky breath. "Not answering a question is rude, just to let you know."
"I...I'm exploring...?"
"You're not sure? Oh well, that's not very good is it?"
"I guess not..." Minnie said while stopping and turning and walking back towards the town. She stopped though when she noticed she had walked quite a way, that and the sounds of clicking and metal grinding together made her freeze. Turning slowly she looked at the ground. Eyeing up black feet, she slowly lifted her head. Red paint of what was the body of the car now formed parts of the robotic body. Minnie's eyes widened, hitching her breath her shock just seemed to make him smirk.
"Well done to Starscream, his observational skills were right this time." Minnie watched as he seemed to have a conversation with himself. "A new human in the Autobot camp." He leaned down. A disgruntled look on his face as he eyed her up and down. "You seem a bit slower than the others. Usually by now they'd be running, or shouting. Not just standing there frozen." There was a pause only for the smirk to grow into a full on grin. "Are you afraid?" Minnie was going to answer but he beat her to it. "Do not get me wrong, you humans are an interesting lot, but I honestly don't see the need to keep you close, unlike your friends." A hand got rolled casually in her direction. "I am quite the fan of demobilising, it's a very interesting way to learn. Perhaps if I demobilise you, I would learn the answer to my question." He seemed very up for this. Even though the one way conversation didn't seem to bother him anymore, he seemed pleased with his train of thought and the direction which it was going.
Minnie on the other hand had other ideas. Adrenaline kicked in turning she ran back to the small town. She tried her hardest to ignore the heavy footsteps behind her which quickly turned into an engine revving and speeding. People eyed her oddly as she charged down the street. The suns heat which was fully beating down on her was making her more exhausted.
"Oh come on, it won't be so bad!" Minnie looked over her shoulder, it was bad enough that the bot was clearly toying with her. He could get her at any time, yet he casually cruised after her, letting her tire herself out.
It was clear he was going to say something else but something charged into him, the red car got shuttled to the side as Minnie was scooped inside a vehicle. She yelped and jumped about, hearing calming beeps she looked around. "Bee? Bee!" She questioned in confusion and then exclaimed in happiness. Peering over the seat Minnie watched as Bumblebee easily sped up so that the red car couldn't catch up. For the most part, it was left in the dust which Bee's tires were kicking up.
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Watching as Bumblebee sped into the base, the bots who were present appeared and watched as Minnie practically collapsed out of the car. Bee shifted forms and carefully picked her up. Moving to the forefront of the group, Optimus looked down at the two. "Who was it?" Bee expressed his answer through numerous beeps which ranged in tone and pitch, he even waved his arm around to further his point. Minnie couldn't understand him, but she looked up at him nodding in agreement because she could only presume he was relaying everything for her while Bee still partially held her up.
"Knock Out? This is bad," Ironhide noted. "They're getting closer to our base. Optimus what do we do?" The dark slate bot looked to one of his oldest friends, their leader for some sort of prompt. Be fair, Knock Out wasn't the first Decepticon to drift near.
Optimus was deep in thought. The thought of the Decepticon medic getting a hold of Minnie was a very unsettling thought. Why Knock Out even went for her in the first place wasn't exactly a mystery. Naturally one of the drones or higher ups in the Decepticon order witnessed himself and Ratchet taking Minnie away from the battlefield. And they want to know why, they want to know what information she could possibly know, about them, about here, about what they're doing.
"Are you hurt?" Optimus asked instead of answering his friend, something which had Ironhide let out a low sigh to the side.
"So that was a Decepticon up close and personal, hm? I didn't quite like that..." Minnie said quickly while wrapping her arms around herself. She pulled her blue cardigan more around herself in the process. It was a simple action that bought some comfort that was for sure.
"Yeah, they are quite ugly aren't they?" Smokescreen said jokingly only to get nudged by Ironhide to shut up. Smokescreen let out a grumble while rubbing his arm, he was only trying to lighten the moment up. He didn't mean anything by it...much.
Minnie nodded slowly and flinched when a hand scooped her up. It seemed Bumblebee could sense the pain of looking up all the time. "What did Knock Out do?" Optimus asked, even with Minnie being in Bumblebee's hand he still had to lean down slightly to look at her.
"He didn't do anything," Minnie answered honestly. "I left the base without supervision because I wanted to explore. I bought a newspaper with what little money I have left, there's reports of what happened in the city...well basically I talked to myself and openly admitted that I probably should have died too." Minnie sighed heavily and looked down at the hand she was standing on. "I don't mean that in a way that I am not pleased to be alive...just, I am amazed that I survived." She said simply, the bots in front of her looked a little bemused but nodded slowly. "I noticed then that a car was rather out of place. I mean no offence to the habitants of Jasper, but seriously, a sports car like that? It's way out of place." She shuddered and paused. "It was cutting off my way back here, so I walked. Only my walking took me out of the town..." Minnie looked hesitant. Running a hand through her brown hair she looked up. "He mentioned someone called Starscream, and the fact that he saw you take me away. He also kinda..." Minnie trailed off but muttered under her breath.
"What?" Ironhide asked shortly. He for one was listening intently to her and was a little discouraged that she'd seemingly stopped.
"He couldn't understand you liking the human race, and why you kept some humans close." She said blandly while sighing heavily and shutting her eyes. "Knock Out said that if he demobilised me then he may be able to find the answer to his question. He made it very clear that he liked demobilising things." Minnie opened her eyes slowly and sat down in Bee's hand. Tracing circles caused a surprised sound to come from the bot who was holding her. "Firstly I didn't know he was there. But as soon as I heard him speak, I knew he meant no good. I was scared and all I wanted was to get back here...thankfully Bumblebee turned up." Minnie leaned her head in her hands.
Optimus gave a slow thoughtful nod at her words. It seemed the whole moment had truly shook Minnie up, which was understandable. Reliving the whole thing for their sakes seemed to make her more exhausted. Fear clearly wasn't an emotion which she was used to showing, right now they all had that rare insight into Minnie's inner turmoil. Bumblebee patted her gently on the head with a digit. He whistled, beeped and nodded numerous times. Minnie looked confused. "You're safe here." Optimus roughly translated Bumblebee's moment of chorused noises. The yellow and black bot nodded happily.
"Is there genuinely a risk of...demobilisation...if I, or any other human, sticks around?" Why she was still using Knock Out's term for, she didn't know. Dissecting was what it would be known to humans, but somehow trying to use that word made her sicker.
"I cannot lie, there is a risk of harm." Optimus answered, "It is also your choice to stay or not."
Rubbing her eyes with her palms, Minnie smiled. "I want to stay. I just don't want to run into Knock Out again anytime soon." She shuddered at the mere remembrance of the smug red bot.
"Just like with Jack, Miko and Raf, we shall protect you." Minnie seemed to ponder over Optimus's words. Yet she couldn't see a way of contradicting him. If the three younger humans were in one piece and they'd been around the Autobots longer than she had, then no doubt Minnie would be fine too.
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(Edited: 5/August/2020)