At the time, it had taken some convincing from Max as well, but eventually, his father was on board as well. He had been highly sceptical until he saw Overshot at work at the construction site and her creation. He had to admit, it was beyond what he could have hoped from her. Impressed with her skills and later her leadership skills, able to rally the workers easily, he fully approved of the partnership.

He still had them consult someone to draw them up a legal partnership contract. It set his heart at ease.

In terms of everything Overshot designed, he had been more than satisfied. His son's design, however, he did a little tinkering on. With the additional support, the time it took since the buying of the mine to the completion of the base (both underground and above) was six months. This included all of the furniture and some of her Cybertronian lab equipment she built from scratch.

Of course, this had involved her having to acquire certain materials and chemicals that were not publically available. Those collections Max did not know much about and didn't want to know either. Overshot's first priority was her survival and human laws were very far down the list.

Her collections usually happened in the dead of night while the resources were being transported and in a very vulnerable position. Overshot fully researched each transportation and their routes by hacking the main central database of whichever company she targeted. She had even gone to Houston to intercept the cargo being transported to the Materials Evaluation Laboratory for NASA. Overall, she had the minimal resources she could work with. After she finished construction of her Ground Bridge, she would then be able to travel to receive the more highly sensitive chemicals she required.

How she intercepted the transport was not directly by attacking the vehicles. She knew that could only end in explosives with certain materials. Instead, she altered the vehicles before they were even shipped off for the pick-up. She installed a miniature-cloaked device in the vehicles that released knockout gas at a certain coordinate she calculated. From there on it was easy to collect and disappear.

In most cases her device was never discovered in the vehicles' inspection (since she had literally embedded it deep within the air conditioner's mechanics) but there was one exception.

In order to create her Ground Bridge (which she later planned to evolve into a Space Bridge, but that required yet more materials that she did not have access to on this planet) she needed to create the structure able to withhold all of the outputted energy that she is able to convert into a form of temperature. Thus, she looked into the best methods Earth had manufactured to withstand heat and that was when she came across a spacecraft's heatshield.

She came across a polymer resin used in the shields that seemed to meet her every criteria. The resin was luckily stable and could easily be transported. After doing intensive research, she had discovered that a heatshield was going to be constructed for a rocket in Alabama with the polymer being transported from Florida. It would be transported by aeroplane before the last stretch of distance was covered by car.

Disappearing one day months after she discovered the heatshield's plans, Overshot ran the distance to Alabama which only took about thirteen hours.

She had finally figured out Earth's time.

She arrived at her destination very early in the morning. She left her real body behind buildings about a third of a kilometre away from the landing strip while she formed her holoform at the coordinates she calculated. She had gotten quite good at projecting her holoform at exact places within a certain range.

Her holoform wore a security outfit and ID, but since she manifested ways away from the security checks, it did not matter. Still, it was only a matter of time before the morning inspection would come.

After installing the devices into the three vehicles (which after so much practice she had managed to do with a slight of hand) she disbanded her holoform and headed out again. Her paintjob was camouflaged and she ran quickly, hoping that if there were any cameras pointed outside of the city that they would not be able to capture her figure. In any case, she always checked the public cameras' footage later for her figure and deleted it. She just had to hope no one was looking at the border cameras' live feed.

She hid in a forest as she kept her optics on the highway for the vehicles in her Beast Mode. She was anxious to get back to the base and work on the Ground Bridge, and then these trips of her don't have to happen so frequently. Sometimes she forgot to mention them to Max, just like this one.

He always reprimanded her when she returned.

Eventually the vehicles were in her optics' view and she waited for them to pass the correct longitude to activate her devices. However, even after they passed the longitude, nothing happened. She narrowed her optic ridges, standing up in surprise. She calibrated her optics to zoom in to make sure that the gas had not been deployed. Sure enough, the human drivers were going about without any worry. Overshot was in disbelief that her devices had failed.

The devices worked coordinated so if the main one did not deploy, then the others wouldn't either. Completely irritated, Overshot debated on abandoning the mission and heading home before realising that they might discover her devices, inspect them and discover the energon batteries inside.

She could not have that.

She would not be responsible for the humans' first interaction with Cybertronians by handing them not only the main power source of transformers' technology, but also literally the lifeblood of their bodies.

Pulling up a map in her processor while following the vehicles from the forest, she determined that an intersection would lead the highway into the next city. She had to stop them before they reached it, even if there would be a few sacrifices. Willing her legs to run faster, she speeded along to catch up while trying to figure out a plan.

She had determined seventeen possible outcomes based on the map, the vehicles, the population of the upcoming city and common sense. Five of those outcomes ended with a humankind and an extra-terrestrial close encounter, not necessary the 'close encounters' on the Hynek scale since those all involved UFO's.

What she would do for a Cybertronian ship right about now.

Her seventeen outcomes suddenly were all proven invalid when she came to the edge of the forest, a wide-open area spread in front of her. Other vehicles were present on the highway so she couldn't exactly just pounce at her target. She had to find another way now.

Circling back into the forest, she headed in another direction as she this time brought up a satellite image of the area. She would have to cross an extra amount of distance to reach the intersection although now she knew she would not make it in time.

Which meant she would have to raid the factory directly in Huntsville. She grit her dentas together in utter frustration. This was not going according to plan at all.

"Overshot? Where are you? Are you off on another one of your 'collections' or whatever?" Max had called her not long after Overshot managed to sneak into Huntsville, his phone being connected to her comm-link. The hangers that were used for the manufacturing of the heatshield were apparently done on a military base, which did make sense. Having read the planning of the rocket that was being built, the companies involved were also enjoined with the military as they were planning to launch a new satellite as a secondary objective. The base was on the outskirts of the city (as the deployable army usually is) so Overshot could easily keep her body hidden in the forest.

She knew which hanger carried the polymer, but she knew it would not be easy.

"Alabama National Guard," she responded in a whispered voice through her comm.

"... what?"

"Have you gone deaf in the last seventeen hours?" she hissed at him.

"Why are you in Alabama with the military? Were you captured?"

"No, but I will have to raid the base,"

"What? Why?"

"My collection failed. I will need to intercept,"

"No! You might get caught or even just seen! You're risking everything now!" Overshot growled through the comm-link.

"I will plan carefully," she heard him sigh in disbelief.

"What's so important that you have to risk everything?"

"A resin that can withstand up to 2800 degrees Celsius," she answered.

"What? We're in America. Can you please translate that into the Imperial system for me?" Overshot sighed in annoyance.

"There are 195 countries in the world and literally only three of those countries use the Imperial system unofficially. Officially, only one. USA actually uses the United States Customary Units system just because your predecessors tried to copy the English and failed to adapt so they just made their own system. Internationally, the USA also uses the metric system for trade and commerce. They knew they had to surrender if they wanted outcomes. Primitive species; can't even decide on an international system of measurement," she started to explain.

"I did not ask you for a history lesson, just a conversion. Also, why did you decide to download history as well?"

"You can learn a lot about a species through their history, and it is roughly 5000 degrees Fahrenheit,"

"Wow. Why do you need a resin like that?"

"I will explain later. I think I see an opening," before he could say another word, she terminated the call. She spotted a few military personal finished unloading the cargo and was now moving it into the hanger, leaving the vehicles unattended. There were other personal stationed around but since she was close enough to form her holoform in the area, she quickly devised a plan.

She manifested her holoform in one of the vehicles, altering the appearance to wear a military outfit and for extra coverage, also coloured her hair to a deep brown to not instantly stick out. She quickly worked on the air conditioner and removed the small device, glad to see it hadn't gone off. She held the master device in her hand and quickly figured out why it hadn't worked and fixed the wiring. She altered the coding to be manually activated. She then slipped out of the car onto the side the patrols were not roaming around and walked in a crouch to the next. She received the device from the vehicle and repeated the process with the last one.

When she had all three in her hand she exited the vehicle, no longer bothering to hide. With her exiting the vehicle and wearing the military vehicle, no one immediately questioned her. She headed towards the hanger and on the way dropped one of the devices in the patrolling area. Two guards stopped her from entering the hanger.

"Show us your clearance," one demanded. She looked up at them from under her beret and smirked cynically.

"Sure," she pressed an activation on her smart-watch and the device on the floor erupted, knockout gas being send into the air. The device used Cybertronian compaction technology to keep a large volume in a smaller space than humans can produce. It was the same technology that worked inside a transformers body as well when they expand from their alt-mode and back again.

The humans around her sputtered before falling onto the ground unceremoniously. Those inside the hanger turned in surprise. Before they had time to react, Overshot tossed another device and activated it. The atmosphere filled with the gas and all bodies dropped like flies. She smiled sadistically and examined the area and outside. Concluding that she had gotten the body of the patrols and workers, she released her holoform.

In her real body, she quickly jumped over the fence and destroyed the seven cameras she had scouted earlier. At the last camera she used the wires in her digits to connect and traced the connection to where the recordings were stored, mass deleted all of the camera recordings of the day just for good measure. Then she collected the three large metal containers that had been offloaded and could carried them in one arm.

Then she took off.

In her Beast Mode, the packages were stuck to her back, her tail long enough to wrap around them and keep them in place. She ran a large circle around the city to avoid the probably deploying military, keeping to the forest on the outskirts.

This collection had not gone according to plan, but it had turned out successful. Although, it was not the last time she would get personally involved and risk her identity, but the polymer collection was more memorable because of what happened after.

As she ran from Alabama and entered Mississippi, she made the educated decision to take shelter during the brightest parts of the day. Mississippi didn't exactly have mesas and buttes to hide behind all over the place and she couldn't find a camouflage colour to suite the terrain. She found temporary refuge in the forests surrounding Red Bluff, a canyon, where she adapted a brown camouflage to blend in with the bark and ground. She slithered into an indent in the ground with her panther body covering the containers, waiting out the daylight.

Waiting a couple of minutes with attentive auditory perception, she determined the only movement near her was chattering squirrels. Sighing, she transformed back into her main form and comm'ed Max. He answered fairly quickly.

"Glad you didn't get captured. How'd it go?" he almost sounded worried for her. Almost.

"As expected. No one will be the wiser about extra-terrestrials,"

"That's good then,"

"Indeed. Maxwell, I require your assistance,"

"Okay? How?"

"I am hiding out the daylight before I make a move, and I am utterly bored," she heard him chuckle.

"Alright. Well, let me tell you about the new person I met online. Their name is Taylor," Overshot narrowed her optic ridges in confusion.

"They? Is that not used to define more than one person as a grouping? How can one person be a 'they'?"

"It has to do with gender,"

"I remain unconvinced that your species' classification of 'gender' has anything to do with the amount of people a person can be defined as,"

"It's not like that. It's used as one of the gender neutral pronouns," Max said with an amused tone. Overshot felt at a loss.

"...what?"

"Uhh okay. I'm going to try and explain it as best as I can,"

"By all means, do so. I have plenty of time before the sun sets,"

Max had eventually put down the call to go with his father to the mine – well, it wasn't that anymore – to do the daily assessment in Overshot's stead. It left her irritated as she laid across the containers, blending in as best as she could. Max's explanation of the gender dilemma of Earth had her only thinking how primitive the species really was. They completely labelled a person by their suspected future contributions to the reproductive cycle. They had never made compensation during the civilisation's forming to those who did not exactly fit into either.

If only the population were not so conservative then so many problems could be fixed.

When darkness settled, Overshot got the containers onto her back and wrapped her tail around. She headed to the outskirts of the city to round it since the forest had led in a different direction. She camouflaged her paintjob as black to better blend in with the night as she slowly prowled, not producing tremor-induced steps.

At a certain point, a blip came from her scanner, making her stop in confusion. Her scanner was always on by default when she travelled for the collections but it was only set to register specific things.

Energon, Cybertronian biology and Cybertronian technology, specifically.

Seeing that it was close, her curiosity got the better of her. She hid behind a large building and produced her holoform. She followed the signal on her smart-watch, jogging fast in anticipation. Whether of the object letting off the signal or the fear of being caught, she did not know.

It wasn't long before she was led up the stairs and she stood in front of a building, doors closed and lights off. A museum. Humming curiously, she calculated that the museum was still close in range to her real body. She disbanded her holform and manifested it inside the museum. No security alarms went off, which was a start, and she saw a light being emitted from the reception's circular desk.

A night guard.

She pulled the last knockout device she had and easily tossed it into the middle of the desk and activate it. A garble came from the night guard before he fell from his chair as the knockout gas surrounded him. Stepping over his body into the cloud – which did not affect her holoform – she got hold of the camera feed and erased the entire night's footage, as well as disabling the cameras and the security system. Satisfied, she carried on through the museum.

She could easily deduce that this particular museum had a direct interest in... minerals.

Geology.

Passing all the rocks, she quickly passed her optics over them for anything interesting but there was nothing she couldn't get her servos on commercially. Some looked interesting, but she was not very impressed. Energon crystals glowed more than these primitive stones.

The blip led her to another part of the museum and she passed through the fossils next. She was unimpressed with the fish imprints in stones and crystallised flies. She shook her head as she looked at everything, snapping her head around to another exhibit when she unexpectedly let out a frightened squeal and jumped back, arms over her face in instinct.

When nothing attacked her, she lowered her arms and saw that it was only a fossil of a skull. Reading the name under it, she became calm. Triceratops. Not the Dinobot Slug.

He was currently beneath Cybertron's soil in the city Grimlock built. She reprimanded herself for her foolish thought of him being on Earth.

She headed on in the fossils section and passed many dinosaur relics, many formatting in her mind in the form of Dinobots. The ideas were frightening and learning of the Mosasaurus that hung overhead, she could only think of disaster. Eventually she stopped as the blip pulsated. Seeing the exhibit, her eyes widened in almost... excitement.

Dracorex.

Simply... captivating.

Calibrating her scanner, she passed it over the few bones present and, sure enough, it was a Predacon.

Humans recognized the 'dinosaur' bone to resemble a 'dragon' - which, according to humankind did not exist yet dinosaurs did – but the mythology of the dragon was based completely off of the Predacons that had roamed the Earth.

Without even meaning too, they dubbed this species the perfect name: Dragon King.

Since one strand of CNA was all that was needed, she broke a talon off. Then she headed back and out the front door since she had deactivated the security system. She returned to her normal body and disbanded her holoform there. She took the talon and placed it alongside the resin in a container before mounting them onto her Beast Mode again and running off.

All the while, her grin was as wide as it could be.

A Predacon bone.

In her grasp.

Now, she had the means to clone the creature as well with her nearly-completed laboratory.

It was about time.