"Where have you lead us, human? This does not seem like the terrain I have laid optics on until now," Overshot questioned after throwing Max off her back and transforming, peering around at the dead zone.

"An old open-pit mining operation. They used to mine for coal a lot here when steam trains were still popular. They didn't even bother covering it up when they finished draining the place," he turned his head towards Overshot, purple hair flinging over his shoulder. "I chose this place for my history project back when I was a sophomore," Overshot snarled.

"Charming," she spoke sarcastically before leaping into the mine, Max remaining at the top of the cliff. She quickly cross-referenced her coordinates with her internal data she had downloaded to discover that he had in fact been speaking the truth. The mine had not been used in over thirty years. "It can be modified," she eventually spoke, heading back to the cliff and holding out her servo towards Max. He hesitantly hopped on, gripping onto her digit as she began walking. Her other arm was busy with a scan of the landscape.

"The trenches seem to be stable," she commented.

"They call it 'pit benches'. They're supposed to have good foundation since they carried the access road or whatever," at this, Overshot stopped in her tracks and hummed in interest. "What's wrong?"

"Access road, huh?" she headed to one of the trenches at the side of the pit, resembling a step from a stairway. Wiping her free servo across the surface, the railway revealed itself. "Steel. Useful," she commented before placing Max down at the bottom of the pit, instead turning to work at pulling the railway apart. Beneath her, Max growled.

"Alright listen! Can you please tell me what you are? This entire kidnapping thing isn't exactly slotting perfectly into my schedule you know!" Overshot huffed at his, simply turning her helm towards him.

"And what can you do to stop me?" she retorted before turning back, ripping the railway out of the ground and assembling them in a large pile. "But I will humour you. Cybertronians are... forged,"

"Forged? Like in a fire?" she shot him a nasty optic before continuing.

"Cybertronians are able to create protoforms, the most basic form of our lifecycle but without the life essence. That can only be provided by the AllSpark, which grants each protoform a 'spark'. In your terms, it might be a soul or the heart. Or both. It gives life to Cybertronians.

Sparks can be split into other protoforms, but that would be an act of cloning. It is an art greatly used to maximise military strength, but the more a spark is split the more... dull it becomes. When a Cybertronian offlines, their spark returns to Cybertron to join with the Well of AllSparks. Although, now that Primus is deactivated, I do not know where sparks return to but I do not intend to find out," she collected the steel into her arms and moved it down into the middle of the pit.

"What is the AllSpark?" Max questioned after a while, clearly having been in deep thought.

"The only thing capable of creating new transformer life. It is currently... missing," she admitted.

"Missing?! That's not good!" Max voiced, thinking of how the race could ultimately meet its end.

"Not, it is not," she spoke darkly.

"But then... how did you get here? Where is the rest of you?" he questioned, following behind her but not paying attention to her actions.

"Offlined or scattered. Our planet has been in a war for... long. Very, very long. Our planet died because of it, the very life force that drew the planet together – Primus – deactivated. We were forced to leave and fight at other places. Unfortunate for you, it would appear as if Earth is the next battlefield," she spoke with no emotions coming across.

"So you're all going to fight here? Big, huge-ass robots? We're all going to die!" she shot him an optic. "Right. Not a robot. But still, why Earth?"

"Because Earth has been my faction's resource dumping location for millennia. Our opposing faction discovered that fact and since our planet is incapable of producing more resources, we are forced to use the off-world deposits," she explained, walking around the pit with her scanner as to create a 3D hologram schematic of it.

"... war? Millennia?" she stopped and turned to face him, his face scrunched up in confusion. "How big of a war did you fight in? How old are you?"

"Big enough that our solar system paid the price, and to answer your second question," she kneeled down until her helm was closer to his. "We drew inspiration for our soldiers in the middle of the war from your prehistoric reptiles. We called our warriors 'Dinobots'," his jaw completely fell at his. "However, that project had been a failure," she stood up and smirked in satisfaction at her completed scan.

"The opposing faction is currently stationed on Earth while mine is still within the stars. It would appear that I am early for the fight, but that makes my survival crucial," she nodded towards him. "This will we be my base," he frowned at her.

"How? This place is falling apart and it's so open, you could be spotted by satellites easily. Also, the government still checks in every now and then to make sure there's no gas leaks or whatever," he criticised her opinion.

"This mine has been for sale for years, has it not? Would environmental responsibility not fall from the government to the new owners?" she turned to him with a strutted hip and a smirk.

"Well yeah, no one's going to buy this old place. Besides, you need money for that," she merely chuckled at that.

"Human, you must learn quickly to not underestimate me. I downloaded crucial information from your internet and understand your society now. Maxwell, I will assign you your first mission," he grew worried at her words.

"Just Max is fine but... mission? Yeah?" he sounded sceptical.

"I will need you to open a bank account,"

The next day Overshot easily came to realise that her new human 'ally' had abandoned her orders and instead decided that hiding from her was an intelligent move. His actions did make sense since after splitting from Overshot he had finally the time to think clearly and probably figured that he had been hallucinating or was mental enough to have helped her in the first place. Or both, having fuelled his own illusions.

However, since she had equipped his phone with a tracking protocol, he was rather easy to locate.

Still carrying the camouflaged paintjob from days before, Overshot snuck though the shadows of the town in her Beast Mode whilst following the signal. She stayed on the outskirts and made sure to watch her movement detector closely. Eventually she reached larger and newer buildings that made it easy to hide behind. Peering around one, she spotted the human in question, a group of conversing terrestrials around him but him seemingly not interested in what they had to say.

He was sitting on a bench, his focus intently on his laptop in his lap with Bluetooth earphones surrounding his head. He seemed to be sporting a piercing he had not the day before, not that Overshot understood the human custom of placing holes in their body for aesthetic purposes anyway. She had deleted that information from her processor during the download. The humans around Max seemed... different in comparison to him.

While Max wore nothing but black, had coloured his hair and wore a piercing, they all seemed too... normal. Nevertheless, Overshot did not find herself wondering about it too long before sending out a signal to connect with his earphones.

"Human," she growled through the signal, satisfied when Max groaned and threw off the earphones.

"Hey man, you okay?" another human questioned.

"Uh, yeah. Just need new batteries for these," Max quickly compromised, holding up his earphones in explanation. Nodding, the other human turned away. With a scowl, Max held up his earphones next to his head.

"Look right," he turned his head to the side and saw a glimmer of metal from behind one of his campus buildings. He wanted to groan loudly.

"Guys, I'll catch you later," he spoke, the others merely waving him off as he jogged towards the building. He rounded it, eyes widening as he saw the familiar panther with beige colouring.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed out in a whisper. In response, Overshot transformed and knelt before him, fist in the ground.

"I need that credit card, terrestrial!" she growled lowly at him, other servo clenched in warning.

"And I was going to get it after I finish classes for the day! If I suddenly didn't appear, it could dent my reputation and after a while that might get suspicious and then it'll only cause you problems," he spoke in a hushed tone, knowing that she wasn't going to appeal to his own self-interests and instead spoke in terms of hers. "Besides, I don't get how a credit card is going to help you buy a mine. It's not like there's going to be any money in the linked account anyway, and do you know how hard it is to open a second account?"

"Save your self-pity for someone who cares," she growled at him, disdain evident in her optics. "How I intend to buy the mine is not your concern. Just get that card and return to the mine with it," she transformed and ran off, leaving Max sighing in annoyance.

"I should've just taken the bus yesterday," he growled to himself, mind stuck in limbo as everything weighed down on him.

The expectation for academic perfection from his professors; his 'friends' supporting him as long as he placed them in his VR game; the dreaded call he had to make to his father that his customised motorbike was no more and now a titan alien was watching over his shoulder, expecting him to help her survive until the Earth would be untimely destroyed by the alien war.

He felt a little more than just overwhelmed.

Overshot was back at the mine after having scouted the area around it, just in case there had been any drones or cameras stationed but the land was so old, there was no interest. Since her energon levels were still stable, she had decided to not return to the depository just yet and instead got working with the steel again, moving it all deep into the pit before covering it up. It would assist in saving time when the estate belonged to her, but since the humans would come before that, she did not want to build infrastructure just yet.

"Alright, I'm here," she heard and turned to see Max at the top of the cliff, an old motorcycle behind him. She scoffed at the sight.

"What is that pathetic excuse of a vehicle?"

"Well, since my new one got blown up, I was forced to use the one I got when I was sixteen. Training wheels," she chuckled at this, Max not seeming amused. "Anyway, I got your stupid card," he spoke, pulling it out. She smirked at the sight.

"Good. I have already determined the contractor and will contact him when his business hours permits me too," Overshot explained, Max scoffing at her words.

"And then what? Say your plan to magically get the money from the bank works out, which it won't, how are you going to create a contract? Like this?" he asked, arms indicating to her titan form. "The military will be on your case in a matter of minutes!" Overshot chuckled at him, clearly amused.

"Oh Maxwell, just because this is your home planet, does not mean you have the higher authority here," she spoke, walking towards him until her helm was level with his body on the cliff. "Do not question me," she spoke with an intense emotion.

"I'm starting to think that your opposing faction was maybe the more just one," he admitted, Overshot's faceplate falling into a sneer.

"With how long the war has been going on, no one can tell the difference anymore," she nodded her head.

"Then why keep fighting?" Max's face fell into a sympathetic yet questioning gaze.

"Because it is all we know. Besides, that does not matter to me. I am a scientist, a braniac and that is all I have ever been. A warrior? A soldier? A fighter? That I have never been and I do not intend to be one any time soon," she nodded with absolute certainty. For a moment, Max stood shellshock as he wondered how Overshot had been before the war changed her, as he was sure, did.

"Okay. I get it," he whispered to himself, realising the one thing that stayed consistent with her mood was that she did not like to be questioned or underestimated. "So, how are you going to set up the estate deed?" at this the femme grinned her pointed dentas.

"Almost all Cybertronians have an organ called a 'holomatter generator', but rarely are there transformers with the capability to use them to their fullest capacity. Observe," she said, a cyan light emitting from her Decepticon logo onto the ground in front of Max. The next moment stood a human girl before him, causing him to jump back in surprise.

"What?!"

"It is a holoform," Overshot spoke from the human body, her Cybertronian body now unmoving. The human female had cyan hair, the same colour as her armour (not that Max knew that, since she had only been using the beige camouflage until now) with blue eyes and a scar over her right cheek. "One of the main aspects of my species is that we are built for blending in. Our T-cogs, the organ that allows us to transform, can adjust to any vehicle from a planet. Mine, however, had been modified to no longer serve that function and was replaced with my Beast Mode. Since I cannot transform into one of your vechicles, I am forced to use our species' secondary method of blending in: projecting our conscious into a solid holoform. Although," as she spoke, her form wavered like static. "The better the knowledge of the form projected, the better the outcome. I will have to make adjustments," she touched her own arms in the holoform, testing out how solid they were. With a jaw hanging on the floor, Max headed over and poked Overshot in the forehead. She recoiled and slapped his hand away.

"Just because I am shorter than you in this form, does not mean you can touch me, terrestrial!" she sneered, but Max could not take her serious when she looked like any other girl. Well, minus the coloured hair and scar but in these modern times, people are a lot more accepting. Max should know that.

"This is unreal..." he whispered to himself, Overshot baring her teeth at him as she would in her panther form. "Wait... do are you telling me you could have gone to the bank yourself? Why did I have to do all that then?!" Overshot scoffed and disabled her holoform, conscious seeping back to her true body.

"Because your fleshiness is... repulsive. I would not remain in such a form unless absolutely necessary. Besides, I needed time to construct the holoform but since your optics seem to have no disability, you saw as well that I need to make improvements," she nodded, taking Max into her servo, protests emitting from his throat. "I have searched through the acts of acquiring the mine and have come to realise that usually it is a mining claim that is sold but since this soil is dead and there have been tested negatively for useful minerals here, the estate is being offered for land reforming. To what I have seen from deeds on the internet, I will form precautions and create schematics for a structure that will be built here. It will mineralise the earth and clear the waste left from the mining operation. It will prove eco-friendly and should please your government enough to not turn away my claim on the land," she spoke, bringing up a hologram that laid over the landscape to outline the building she had in mind.

"You're putting a lot of thought into this," Max whispered.

"Naturally. I am copying the way of the terrestrial," she answered.

"Okay but what if they come back to see if it was built? What then?" he questioned.

"Then it will be here," he frowned at her words. "My base will be built below ground in the pit which, as far as your government will know, will have been filled up to support the building that will be built on top of it," Max smirked at this.

"You're rather smart, you know that?"

"I am the second most intelligent being of my planet. Do not test me," she spoke strictly but the amusement still laced through. "The building on top of the base will double as our cover. People are less likely to get suspicious of a place if it is open to the public than it not being so," she spoke, nodding to the terrain around her. Max's eyes bulged.

"Our cover?" smirking, Overshot turned to look at Max in her servo.

"You best sooner rather than later come to realise that you are my resident terrestrial pet, Maxwell. I do not wish to have to look for another too soon I hope?" she had mischief written all over her faceplate. Max sighed heavily.

"Okay, but tell me one thing?" Overshot nodded at him to continue. "You were... are a part of the villainous side of your war, aren't you?" she lowered her helm towards him, all emotions now gone and instead an intense stare overtook Max.

"And if I am?" he gulped heavily at that but overall, a calm settled in.

"Then we better get started if we ever want this dump to look like something," he spoke, turning to face the pit with his fists on his hips. Overshot rose an optic ridge at him.

"...you are not afraid of me?" she questioned in a softer voice.

"Duh, of course I'm afraid of you! You're the size of a building, can transform into a terrifying creature and already blew me up once. What sane person wouldn't be afraid?" he turned to face her. "But this is literally the coolest thing that has ever happened to me and I'd be a fool if I let it go past me when it's staring me straight in my face. Besides, if the world really is going to die because of your war then I want to say that at least I was a part of it," his explanation did not make sense to her, but he seemed certain with his decision thus she knew he would stick with her.

"Maxwell," she addressed, said boy groaning loudly.

"Just Max," he spoke.

"No," he deflated at how monotone she spoke. "Are you ready for your second assignment?" he sighed and scratched the back of his neck.

"I guess so? What do you need me to do?"

"Teach me how to be human,"