Chapter 3: A Family Argument
Sabrina wakes up the next morning to her dad calling her name, asking her to get dressed for school. She hasn't told her father about the strange dreams the past few nights of a planet made of metal and the two small robots playing at daycare. The one she had before her father woke her up this morning. Half of the robot with a long beard looked down at her, and all it said was, "you are Cybertronian."
She tosses off the covers and slowly shuffles over to her closet, taking out a pink college sweatshirt, a red v-neck tank top, and a pair of black platform ankle boots. As she closes the dresser drawer, her eyes seem to dart to the picture of her and her mother. The teen had never noticed it before, but she didn't look like her.
'Could what Vince said the other day be true? Am I adopted?' Sabrina thinks.
After she gets dressed and walks over to her desk, she puts on waterproof mascara and light pink liquid lipstick. Then teen is confused when she looks at her reflection to notice her eyes are hazel anymore. They are emerald green. She blinked a few times to see if her mind was playing tricks on her since she hadn't been sleeping well. When they return to their original color, she breathes a sigh of relief. Sabrina heads downstairs and enters the kitchen. She first sees her dad's angry face as he notices what shoes she is wearing today.
"Sabrina Lilah Tucker! Go back upstairs and put on a different pair of shoes!" He says sternly.
"But Dad, that will ruin my outfit." Sabrina pouts as she crosses her arms over her chest.
"I don't care. You could twist your ankle." He snaps.
"I'll be careful, Dad. Besides, I walked down the stairs just fine, didn't I?" Sabrina says.
"Don't sass me, young lady. Go back upstairs and change your shoes now!" He angrily exclaims.
Sabrina leaves the kitchen and lets out a frustrated groan as she sits on the bottom of the staircase and takes off her boots. Carrying them in her right hand, she mumbles, "why can't Dad treat me like an adult," as she goes up the stairs back to her room before approaching her closet.
'He never had a problem with me wearing those shoes when Mom was here. Why is he acting so differently? I will show him and everyone at school that I can be rebellious.' Sabrina thinks.
Walking over to her bed, she puts the boots back on. She then grabs her book bag, violin, and purse. She is happy that her time management skills are top-notch because she finished all her homework in school yesterday, so she has enough room in her bag to store the violin case safely inside in the second pocket away from her back. She zips it closed and puts it on her back.
Then, as quietly as she can, she walks over to the window and opens it. After removing the screen, she takes out the fire escape ladder. She places the ladder onto the window sill and quietly unrolls it. She slides her left shoulder underneath her purse strap and climbs down the ladder. She lets out a big yawn before she glances down at her watch and sees 5 am.
'Dad, just because Mom is in the military, that doesn't mean you need to wake me up before sunrise. I don't have to be at school till 8:15.' Sabrina thinks.
Sabrina decides to take a morning walk to clear her head. Once she is three blocks away, her cell phone starts to vibrate. She removes it from the front pocket of her purse and sees her father's number on the screen.
"I'm sorry, Dad, but I don't want to talk to you now." Sabrina snaps, ending the call before he has an opportunity to reply.
She shoves it back into her purse and keeps on walking. Her left shoulder begins to hurt, but the teen thinks it is because she slept on it wrong. Little did she know it was slowly being encased in Mettle. Once she got to the stop sign, Sabrina was confused why the pain wasn't subsiding. It felt ten times worse, so the teen glanced over and tried not to panic since her shoulder now had a layer of armor, which had red in with a few white details, a stipe of grey above, and a square grey bit on the bottom. Another rush of pain flows through her body as she watches as her upper arm gets slimmer and is covered in black metal. Cliffjumper drives as fast as he can, still obeying the speed limit, as his holoform spots Sabrina standing on the corner, starting to fall to the ground as her body can't handle the pain she's experiencing. He stops. His holoform quickly gets out of the car and catches her a few seconds before she lands on the sidewalk.
"Hey, Cliffjumper, what are you doing here?" Sabrina groans, slowly opening her eyes.
"I was on my morning patrol, and I saw you." He says calmly in his western tone. "Why are you walking around Jasper this early?" He asks, carefully reaching over the driver's seat to place her into the car and buckle her up.
"I got into a fight with my dad. He didn't want me to wear my boots to school. Can you make the pain stop?" Sabrina replies as things slowly fade to black.
"Don't worry. I'm going to head to the base. Ratchet will be able to help you," Cliff says.
Cliffjumper's holorform didn't buckle up as he sped off towards the base. After transforming into his bipedal mode, he goes towards the medial bay. Ratchet and Arcee walk up to him a few seconds later.
"Why did you bring that human here?" Ratchet asks.
"This is Sabrina," Cliff says.
"How come her arm looks Cybertonian?" Arcee asks.
"Neither of us knows, Cee. I thought you could help her, Ratchet," Cliff says.
Sabrina wakes up, "Cliff. I take it Ratchet is the orange and white ambulance robot that isn't fond of humans?" She asked, even though it sounded more like a statement.
"Yes," Cliffjumper says.
"Ratchet, you may not like Humans, but can you try to help me? Please, I can't go to school with my arm like this. Last night, I also dreamt about Half of the robot with a long beard looking down at me, and all it said was, "you are Cybertronian." Sabrina says.
Ratchet watched as tears of pain started to roll down Sabrina's face as she did her best not to faint for the third time as the medic motioned to Cliff to follow him to the medical bay.
Cliff places Sabrina down on the table as they enter the medical bay. While Ratchet gathers some tools, Cliff turns on his holoform, and Sabrina looks over at him. He could see the fear in her eyes. "Don't worry, kid, Ratchet is the best,"
Sabrina sniffles as she summons up as much bravery as possible then uses her right hand to dry her tears. Ratchet scans her to find blood and energon flowing throughout her body. But her energon levels are only at 10%.
"That dream you had last night was a dream. It was a message, and that half-robot from your message, his name is Alpha Trion. He was right. You are half Cybertronain. You have energon and human blood inside you," Ratchet says.
"What's energon?" Sabrina asks.
"Well, energon is the lifeblood of our kind," Ratchet says.
"What is your kind," Sabrina asks.
"Ratchet, let Optimus explain everything like he planned," Cliff says, stopping Ratchet from explaining things further."
"Fine, I've read in human medical journals of something I can inject into your other arm that will help with the pain, but it will put you to sleep for a few minutes," Ratchet explains.
"That's fine by me if it makes this pain disappear," Sabrina says.
Ratchet injects the pain medicine into Sabrina's right arm, and she slowly drifts off to sleep. Ratchet asks Cliff to leave while he works on coming up with an Energon formula that is safe to put into Sabrina's system to replenish what was used to cause her arm to transform.
An hour later, Sabrina was able to leave the medical bay. Cliffjumper puts his right hand in front of the exam table. Sabrina is unsure what he wants her to do, so she looks over at Cliffjumper, confused.
"Am I supposed to jump on or what?" Sabrina asks.
Cliffjumper nods before she hesitantly hops off the couch and lands on his hand. She holds on tight to one of his fingers as he sets his hand onto his shoulder. Sabrina slowly slides down onto Cliffjumper's shoulder before she sits down. Sabrine is a tad anxious, sitting on the shoulder of a two-story tall robot as Cliffjumper walks back over to Ratchet and Arcee.
"What was that?" Ratchet asks as he hears a loud growl.
They look down at Sabrina to see her cheeks begin to turn red.
"Sorry, everyone, that was my stomach. I'm a little hungry." She says.
"I can take you to your house," Cliffjumper says.
"No, thank you, Cliffjumper. I'd rather pick something up from the diner." Sabrina says. "If you are aliens, don't you want to keep that secret from everyone else? Do you have some program you can use to make you look like a fake human or something? So the citizens won't think we have haunted cars driving around Jasper." Sabrina asks, looking among the three alien robots.
"We do have a program that creates holoforms," Ratchet answers.
"Really?" Sabrina gasps.
"I'll show you what mine looks like," Cliffjumper says.
Cliffjumper sets Sabrina on the floor before transforming into his vehicle form. The driver's side door opens to reveal his holoform. He sees a slightly unimpressed and worried look on Sabrina's face when she sees a twenty-year-old man wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a bull and the phrase, 'You mess with the bull, you get the horns' on it, a pair of ripped jeans and black leather cowboy boots with spurs on the heels.
"Not bad, but if my dad sees this walk me to the door, he might freak out and call the police," Sabrina says.
"What do you suggest?" Ratchet asks.
"I think you should try to look like a high school student. Then you could tell him that you graduated early and came back to Jasper when you found out at the college you applied for and attended, the staff didn't treat you with respect, so you had to drop out." Sabrina says, making up the description.
"That is a pretty accurate and long explanation," Arcee says.
"Well, I'm a terrible liar. At least this sounds realistic so that he won't get suspicious," Sabrina says.
"Shouldn't I have a human name so we can keep up this ruse?" Cliffjumper asks.
"How about Clark?" Sabrina suggests.
"Sounds good," Cliffjumper says.
"Sabrina, you might have to help Ratchet reprogram Cliff's program to make him look like a high school student," Arcee says.
"Okay, if Ratchet is fine with having me as a temporary partner." Sabrina smiles.
"Fine, fine, let's get this over with. I need to get back to scouting for energon," Ratchet says, waving his hand, slightly annoyed.
Cliffjumper picks Sabrina up again and puts her on his shoulder. Even though it was her second time, Sabrina still thought it felt weird riding on the shoulder of a two-story tall robot. Ratchet plugs a cable into Cliffjumper's head, and Sabrina sees the program appear on the screen in front of them.
"What should the holoform look like?" Ratchet asks, glancing at her.
"You can keep the face structure as it is, but you need to soften a few features and have less facial hair. The hair should part to the left but be clean-cut, the hair should be light brown, and the eyes should be hazel instead of the color blue they are now. Most human boys aren't that muscular, so tone that down about ten percent." Sabrina says, giving her viewpoint on what Cliffjumper should look like, and smiles as it appears on the screen.
"Anything else?" Ratchet asks.
"Nope," Sabrina says.
Ratchet updates Cliffjumper's program and unplugs him from the computer. Cliffjumper holds his hand. Sabrina climbs onto it before he walks over to Arcee.
"Sabrina, before you leave, I'd like you to take this," Ratchet says.
"What is it?" Sabrina says.
"It's more of the energon I made for you. It will ensure that you won't change in school, so remember to drink it thought out the day," Ratchet says, handing her a water bottle full of energon.
"Thank you, Ratchet," Sabrina says.
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