Serendipity

The lenses that made up Optimus Prime's optics constricted to their narrowest aperture as he watched the Sector Seven cars depart the immediate vicinity.

Cold fury seeped into the edges of his central processor, causing the covers on his audio receptors to spin counter-clockwise, the way they always did when he was feeling any sort of heightened emotion.

He signalled to the other four Autobots to transform and roll out, folding in on himself until he was a gleaming Peterbilt truck, looking as fresh as the day it had rolled off the assembly line.

His navigation systems had already synchronised with those of the vehicles belonging to the Sector Seven agent team.

He rolled forward onto the smooth tarmac, still getting used to the absent feel of the cool metal of Cybertron's roads underneath his tyres.

The other Autobots fell into place behind their leader, easily keeping pace with the eighteen-wheeler.

He followed the Sector Seven vehicles at a respectable distance, careful not to activate their primitive Energon sensors until it was absolutely necessary.

His RPMs increased slightly as he thought of the way the burly Sector Seven agents had restrained Cordelia and bundled her into one of their service utility vehicles.

The emotion currently coursing through his circuitry was enough to cause the great Prime some puzzlement.

Through the many, many millennia that he had been alive; through the whole duration of the war for Cybertron, no one or anything had elicited such a strong, primal reaction from him as this tiny organic had.

He thought back to only a few short hours ago, when she had, quite literally, fallen into his life.

He had been amazed by the complexity of the structure of her tiny body. Two hundred and six bones, encased in a body of flesh and blood, in the centre of which was nestled a tiny heart, no bigger than the tip of his smallest finger. A heart that had seemed intent on escaping the ribcage that held it hostage.

This tiny girl had stirred more in him in under a minute than anything else had in his long lifetime.

In one night, his Spark had been captured by this tiny female organic. Not even Megatron, who had lived and worked beside him for thousands of years before he had defected to the Decepticon cause, had ever caused the great Prime's emotions to run so thoroughly unchecked.

He felt an intense and undeniable urge to protect and defend the young female. She was easily the tiniest sentient being he had ever come across. She was even smaller than a juvenile scraplet, and they were small.

She had fit so easily into the palm of his hand, flesh and bone melding seamlessly with Cybertronian metal as if it was always meant to be.

At this thought, Optimus accelerated forcefully and pulled off the main road and onto a small side street that would allow him to overtake the Sector Seven vehicles.

A few oblivious cars honked at him as his passage forced them up onto the pavement.

Optimus paid them no mind. What were a few angry humans compared to that of a vulnerable child? A child who had just been removed from his protection.

He reached the structure that the human information super-highway referred to as a 'railroad crossing'. He transformed quickly, the whole sequence taking no more than a few seconds.

Optimus directed his Autobots to get into position and to await the arrival of the fleet of Sector Seven vehicles.

Optimus timed his approach perfectly as the convoy of Sector Seven vehicles snaked their way up the road and towards the railroad crossing.