Title: Transformers Genesis

Summary: Welcome to Cybertron Academy, where the education of our students is our highest priority. But be sure to watch out for snooping government agencies, hidden alien technology, and top-secret pasts. They may creep up on you when you're not looking.

'Verse: A combination and definite AU of both G1 and the 2007 (& 2009) movies with some hints of Animated and Beast Wars thrown in.

Rating: T (for strong curse words (in several different languages), violence, and healthy amounts of romance (slashy and non-slashy)).

Pairings: Jazz/Prowl, Optimus/Elita, Twins/Ratchet, Wheeljack/Bluestreak, Ironhide/Chromia, Mikaela/Sam, Skywarp/Thundercracker, and a few (dozen) others, not as prominent.

Disclaimer: We don't own Transformers... or pretty much anything else you'll recognize in this fic =D

Notes: So, this is being co-written by me and Yamiyouka on deviantART, based on a plotbunny of hers from a few years ago that I latched onto =) The following chapters will all be about the same length as this prologue, if not longer ;D

The characters in this story come from all over the world -- so they speak several different languages, which I have done my best to include little snippets of, especially the ones beyond the languages I actually speak. So if you speak any of the ones seen in this fic and you notice that I've made a grammar, spelling, simple translation or some other mistake, please tell me because I wouldn't know otherwise, and I know that translation websites and dictionaries will only get you so far! Translations for bits in foreign languages will always be included at the bottom of each chapter, and if you don't understand any British slang or dialect I may or may not include feel free to ask me about it, though I'll try to translate anything I think people might not get =P

I'll rate each chapter individually to give you a better idea of content. The rating won't be pulled up for swearing unless it's particularly foul English (not that I think this will ever happen!), as you will now have been warned about the cursing, and all English translations for foreign expletives will be grouped at the bottom, so it's not like they'll be springing up out of nowhere and scaring you =) We swear a lot in England -- if I rated chapters for it they'd probably all be T and there'd be no point. Ratings will be for violence, romantic content, 'adult themes' etc.

And finally; as this is posted up here, we'll be posting the same chapters on deviantART in a group we created to keep all of its stuff together, complete with illustrations and extra tidbits I can't get on FanFiction, if you're interested, as well as on Yamiyouka's LiveJournal. Links will be put up in my profile =)

Well, enjoy!

~ TRANSFORMERS GENESIS: Cybertron Academy~

~ PROLOGUE ~

"Lennox, wake up! Wake up – we're under attack!"

"We're… – wait, what!?"

"Just get your ass outta bed!"

Epps was out of the tent before even finishing his last sentence. Of course, Lennox was leaping from the bunk and hefting on his boots before his friend had finished the first.

The young solider threw himself from the tent into the total chaos outside, glancing around to assess the situation. The black of desert night surrounding the large military base was no longer a cool relief – it was an enemy. Because something was moving the in the dark all around him. Something huge.

But Lennox wasn't too interested in whatever it was at that exact moment. He was more concerned with the glowing missiles bursting craters into the ground wherever he looked. He might have been damn tired – it was two in the morning, for crying out loud – but they looked one hell of a lot like laser blasts.

"What is this? A sci-fi flick?" he shouted in loud bewilderment to Epps as they ran side by side. "Are those lasers?"

"Man, I have no idea. All I know is shit is goin' down an' we're wastin' time!"

"You got any weapons?" he hollered over the noise as the explosions boomed all around them.

Epps was already thrusting a Carbine into his waiting hands and sprinting into the fray. An explosion right behind them sent the pair crashing into the side of the abandoned Jeep ahead with a painful crack, before covering them in debris and dust. Lennox coughed roughly.

"Who the hell are these guys?"

"I got no idea. Whoever they are they got some serious ammo."

"Yeah, no shit!"

The smaller man glanced over the top of the Jeep and swore. He was on his feet in the next instant and heaving his body into the driver's seat.

"Get in!"

Epps did so immediately, but turned to his friend as the Jeep roared into life and swerved harshly to the right, grinding the dusty ground beneath its tires.

"What're we doin'?"

"We're getting out of here!"

"What!?" Epps's face dropped into a disbelieving scowl. "We're runnin' away?"

"Look at the comm. tent!"

The young sergeant did just that and couldn't hold back a shout of surprise. The tent was on fire, with soldiers sprinting from its every exit like fleeing birds with their hands over their ears. No communications meant no backup.

It would be suicide to stay, facing weaponry like they'd just seen. And if nobody got out to warn someone of what was happening here, there was no hope to save the Qatar base.

As they tore through the camp, the pair wrestled three more members of their unit into the back of the vehicle with demands for them to get the HMG out of the trunk and set it the hell up to fire.

They weren't the only ones who'd noticed the new development in this battle. Three cars soared ahead of them to the southwest camp exit, while at least ten others were making their way as fast as possible to the others.

Lennox was aware of the shouts and noises all around him as he drove. In front, one of the freaky red blasts hit the track and threw up a dark cloud of dirt. He closed his eyes and drove right through it, powering on towards their goal and ignoring the enormous crater they'd passed. He was concentrating on little besides the drive until another Jeep flipped through the air and landed suddenly in front of them.

"Whoa!"

He swerved madly as the other car jumped and rolled down the road. Bodies flew from it; little black smudges just visible in the dark night. Behind him, Epps was cussing and shouting a blue streak, while Fig and the others in the car joined in as best they could. It was obvious Lennox wasn't the only one with absolutely no idea what the hell was going on.

Another car flew through the air in their direction. With every mental faculty he had remaining, Lennox stared through the billowing dust clouds at the exit of the camp towards which they were currently speeding, surrounded by explosions and the screams of people flying through the air and thundering into the ground.

One of the enormous shapes he'd seen before stood there. It was moving in great sweeping motions, and it took Lennox just a moment to realize that it was throwing the approaching cars away from the gates.

He slammed on the brakes – to the confusion and shock of his passengers – and turned the vehicle around as best he could while travelling at 60mph. Though they skidded worryingly around a very wide turn, the Jeep was soon screaming in the other direction. In the passenger seat, Epps was just a few notches down from frenzy. The three soldiers in the back of the car were way past frenzied. Fig and Donovan were yelling haphazardly in Spanish and Texan, and at some point their frantic shouts boiled down into one clear question:

"What do we do!?"

"We get weaponized, that's what we do!" Epps yelled. "Get the autos out the back of the Jeep!"

His order was rapidly complied with, and as he sped towards the north exit Lennox knew his team were beginning to open fire on the unknown attackers.

"Epps!" he shouted. "Count them!"

His friend began to do so out loud, his voice rising and falling in power as he volleyed off shots at the enemy. "Five! Six! Seven!"

"One over by the mess, Sarge!"

"Eight! Mother f– what are these things?!"

But before anyone had time to answer, and directly following a shot let off by Fig, Lennox heard a horrible sound – a mechanical, grating wail. It sounded almost like a scream.

"I got one!" Fig yelled. "It's down! ¡Toma esto, tontopollas!"

His exclamation was followed by a thunderous pounding as something very, very big and heavy hit the ground. Lennox thought the thing shouted something else, in that same mechanized voice from before, but he couldn't make out anything that might have been words except possibly 'insect' and 'leg'. He didn't spare the thing a glance, but Epps apparently did.

The soldier turned back in the passenger seat and stared straight ahead. Lennox shouted without turning his head from the road;

"What is it?"

"Damn, man. It's a…" Epps shook his head. "A robot. A giant ass robot."

"I didn't know anyone had tech like that!"

"They don't! That's my point! I ain't never seen shit like this before!"

Lennox couldn't answer – he had to swerve harshly to the left to avoid another flying car. This one was in two leaping pieces. He didn't bother to look and confirm that there was another robot at that gate hurling cars away from the exit.

Time for a different tactic.

"I'm driving around so we can get in some shots!"

There were shouts of agreement all around the Jeep as they sped off towards the closest robot. Lennox stared at it in shock as they approached. The thing was easily twenty feet tall and heavily armored. The laser blasts he'd seen earlier came from a shoulder-mounted cannon – built right into its body. In the dark he could only really make out spikes of its armor, and in flashes of light from the strobes someone was setting up to replace their busted lights, he could see blue paint and a red visor.

It was walking away from the comm. tent, Lennox realized with a start of anger.

He indicated their new target and heaved the wheel towards it as the four others in his car opened fire. The thing stopped, probably when it sensed that it was under a concentrated attack, and turned in their direction.

"Oh, shit!"

The car swerved. A volley of red blasts blew into the ground right where they would have been and left deep craters in their wake. As the vehicle sped away, the lasers stopped in their attack, and Lennox found himself resisting the urge to glance backwards.

"Epps! Tell me what's happening!"

"Trust me, you don't wanna know!"

"¡Madre de Dios!"

"Shoot it! Shoot it!"

"Epps!"

"Uh, looks like a… giant, robot, scorpion."

"A what?"

"Will someone shoot the damn thing?!"

"I'm tryin'! It's too fast!"

"It's getting closer!"

"Shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot!"

"Oh my God, it just killed Ken!"

"Kill it! Kill it now!"

"I got it! I got it!"

Epps slapped Lennox's shoulder. "He got it – he blew its tail off. It's stopped!"

"At least we know we can damage these things now!" Lennox yelled, before beginning to look for a new plan.

If they couldn't use the exits, the only other option he really saw was to just crash through the walls. They were fragile enough, and the Jeep was pretty hefty. But maybe a shot at it would work better.

"Epps – get the HMG. You've gotta… what's that noise?"

"What noise?"

"That pounding,"

With a jerk of recognition, Epps swung around in his seat. "Shit. Lennox, drive faster!"

'That pounding' was getting louder and louder. Lennox quickly figured out that it was footsteps, and that the footsteps didn't belong to anything weighing less than a couple tons.

So of course he took Epps's advice, and drove faster.

Within seconds he had figured out exactly what he was going to do, and altered his course slightly to head straight for the weapons tent ahead. "When I stop the car," he hollered to the others. "Get out, you understand? Get out of the car and get out of the camp."

Of course, there was confusion and protestation, but he crushed it down under the force of his determination. So when he swung behind the tent, out of the line of sight of whatever was chasing them (if it actually saw and didn't have heat vision or radar or something), and screeched down almost to a standstill, the four others piled from the Jeep before he hit the gas once more and shot off – the mechanical monster he couldn't make out in the darkness following right behind him.

There was a crackling from the radio at that point, and Lennox glanced down at it in relief. The communications must have been back up! His hand was centimeters from the receiver when a voice swept from the speakers that made his heart freeze in his chest.

"Surrender, fleshbag."

The voice was a growl; low, menacing, and unmistakably mechanical in nature.

"Surrender, my ass," Lennox shouted into the receiver, before ejecting the radio from the dash and hurling it over his shoulder to be crushed beneath the behemoth's feet.

He was beginning to wish he'd kept someone in the car to shoot at the damn thing, but the thought was squelched beneath the knowledge that his friends were right now making their escape from his hellhole and would hopefully bring help before the entire camp was destroyed.

That was until he heard the unmistakable sound of a missile launch.

He wouldn't.

"He-ell yeah!"

He did.

"Epps, I told you to get your ass outta here!" he shouted to nobody in particular.

He swung the Jeep back towards the weapons tent his teammates clearly hadn't been smart enough to get out of. The monster behind him followed, and – Lennox noticed in his peripheral vision with a flash of panic – it was getting closer and closer. Now it was less than thirty feet from him, and advancing way faster than he was driving. It didn't corner well, he'd noticed, but damn it ran quick. He couldn't even hear its footsteps pounding behind him anymore, but he could hear its engine snarling.

Lennox swung the Jeep around, zigzagging wildly on his path towards the tent. The gap between him and the giant robot grew. Out of the corner of his eye he saw from just outside the weapons tent one big ass cannon being leveled right at him.

Three…

The thing was getting closer. It was nearly at striking distance.

Two…

Lennox kept his straight path towards the tent.

One.

He swerved to the left.

Behind him, where he'd been just seconds before, Epps's missile connected with the robot and there was an enormous flash of light and sound and a mechanical scream.

"Gotcha, you bastard!" someone screamed into the space after the explosion.

Lennox swung round to a stop right by his four man team, who'd set up a fortified ring of missile launchers and juddering HMGs.

"Epps!"

"I know, I know. I had a better idea."

"Well, I like it." He swung from the car. "I was beginning to miss you."

"Damn straight," Epps nodded without even looking at him and began calibrating his next victim. "Saved a gun for ya."

"Thanks," With a quick scan of the mini-makeshift base, Lennox picked out the machine gun and jumped over a couple containers of ammo to get to it. "What happened to the other robot?"

"¡No sabemos! ¡Él desapareció!"

Someone sighed roughly. "English, dude!"

"It went down, but wasn't there when the dust cleared!" Donovan shouted. "But I think we have bigger problems!"

She pointed to the sky. Lennox followed the line of her arm, and could just make out three shapes moving in the dark sky overhead, razing laser fire down on the camp.

"Oh, perfect."

"Hey, ladies! We're firing on the enemy jets! On my mark!"

"Don, Marks, you get that one, Fig, Crane, the one over the Mess. Ready?"

"Fire!"

The camp exploded with the sound of gunfire. The first plane dodged the attacks, barely singeing its tail on Markson's missile, and the second skimmed sideways and got clipped on its wing by some of Lennox's rounds. But the third one took a hit to the cockpit, and Fig hollered in triumph as it went tumbling down.

Then something happened as it fell. It was too dark, and the strobes didn't hit that high, but something shifted. Something moved. When the plane it the ground, it was almost humanoid in shape, with its fists pointed at the ground.

"Santa Maria…"

There was no mistaking what happened when the robot hit the dirt. It had some sort of piledriver system built into its arms, and when it hit the ground it activated them. The earthquake from that and from the monster's landing knocked every human in the vicinity onto their asses with a thunderous boom, and a few answering pounds let the soldiers know that at least one or two of the other robots went down too.

Everything moved much faster then. The jet Lennox and Epps had been firing at, with the shots to the right wing, swooped down. It too shifted in the dark, and was replaced with a bipedal robot like the one that had been chasing Lennox. The first one had carved an impressive crater into the ground as it landed, and the second jumped down into it.

"Get up, idiot," Lennox heard it say in perfect English. "Come on!"

While the five soldiers gaped, both robots hauled themselves to their feet, and leapt into the air using what looked like jet thrusters at the bottoms of their feet. Then they shifted again, parts and pieces of armor moving, rearranging, and both robots transformed back into jets.

"Sweeet…" Epps murmured, still slack-jawed.

"Well, stop ogling the bastards and shoot them down!"

Everyone attempted to do so, but it was too late by that point. The two jets were way up in the sky, reunited with the third. All three swung around, and in the pallid light of the moon, Lennox saw with a clenching of his gut that they were moving into a formation.

"Oh, shit. Epps! They're coming around!"

"And what exactly do you suggest we do about it?!"

He had no idea. All he could do was watch as the three heavily armored planes shot closer and closer to their makeshift little fort. As they neared he made out their specific lines and recognized the three F-22s. Which just made the whole situation a thousand shades more not good. There was no point running, because the planes were just seconds away from firing range. Lennox braced himself and readied his gun to fire, for all the good it would do.

Then there was a whooping sound from the air.

His eyes both flashed wide open. Something collided with one of the three jets. He couldn't see much, but Lennox could see that it was smaller than the other robots he'd seen, way smaller than the plane it had jumped on, and red in color. A second soared over and connected with another of the jets. It glinted in the light too much for Lennox to tell its color – white or yellow, maybe. It leapt off the first plane it had hit like a gymnast flipping over a vault, landing on the second one and sliding down its back with a terrible screeching sound.

"What the hell is this?!" Epps shouted.

"… I don't know! Just go with it!"

By this point, the five man team had been joined by a couple dozen more soldiers, forming a large core base of resistance, surrounded by guns and launchers and filled with rings of soldiers warily eyeing the scene as more and more robots began to pour in. Half of the soldiers were frozen in some sort of disbelieving shock. The other half were just plain freaking out. They started shooting at every mechanical thing in sight. As the robots started colliding with each other and hitting the ground all over the devastated camp, and the soldiers were pumping lead into anything metal that moved, an enormous black shape moved towards them.

Lennox only noticed it when it started to shift like the planes had before, and it landed suddenly on two gigantic feet just meters from their makeshift home base. It crouched down low, and every single man and woman there froze and turned to stare at it.

It was massive – bulky and black, with a fortified helmet-like head and what looked like some serious machine guns built into its forearms. Two great blue 'eyes' looked down at them, and for some reason Lennox got the impression it was severely pissed off.

"Will ya stap shootin' at us!? Ya'll keep at it an' we might start shootin' back!" Its voice was low and even more of a growl than that of the one that had chased Lennox in the Jeep earlier. Even worse, it spoke in what Lennox didn't know any better than to call a Southern twang. It stuck its finger up to its face, pointing at its left 'eye'. "Shoot tha ones with red optics. Blue are tha good guys!"

"Alright, you heard the… thing!" Lennox shouted. "We'll go with not shooting the ones attacking the ones that tried to kill us!"

There was a second of stillness, before everyone opened fire. Even in the dark, it was obvious whether the robots had blue or red glowing 'optics', and they used that as their cue. With the new arrivals, the battle turned around rapidly. The first wave of robots started to pull back, and all over the SOCCENT base they were transforming into vehicles and speeding or flying off, some followed by the second group of robots.

One small silver one broke from its previous tussle with one of the red-eyes, landing neatly in front of the soldiers. It was way shorter than the others Lennox had seen that early morning, and was wearing a glowing blue visor. He assumed that was the equivalent of blue optics, so stood and walked over to it.

It crouched down smoothly onto one knee and stuck out a hand. Well, more of a claw, but Lennox recognized a fist when he saw it. He punched it with a grin and followed with a salute.

"I have no idea who or what the hell you guys are, but we owe you our lives."

"That's our job," the robot replied, and its face moved in a way that reminded Lennox very strongly of a charismatic grin. Its voice was mechanical but as smooth as the way it moved, and the soldier began to grin in response.

The other survivors of the attack began to gather around the strange pair with looks of awe on their faces. Epps practically leapt over to stand beside his best friend and stare unashamedly at the robot.

"Damn, man!" He held out a fist and only grinned wider when the robot rumbled and knocked it – gently. "I'm Sergeant Robert Epps, this here's Captain Will Lennox."

"Nice to meet you," Lennox added, as he felt he needed to say something.

"Same here, guys. Name's Jazz, second lieutenant, N.E.S.T. operations," the robot answered with a salute.

"'Nest'?" Lennox exchanged a look with Epps before he turned back to Jazz, looking the giant ass robot up and down. "Dare I ask?"

Jazz rumbled again, and both soldiers realized after a second that he was laughing. "You'll find out in a sec, Ah think."

Sure enough, a wave of black SUVs was swarming in from the freed entrances, and Lennox knew government military when he saw it. The SUVs were followed by Jeeps, and soon the survivors were finding themselves herded into the backs of enclosed vehicles all over the place and being treated for any injures or – more likely – shock.

Before the door to their evacuation vehicle fell shut, Lennox glanced out at the scene outside. The morning began to glow on the horizon, and he just caught sight of an enormous red and blue robot striding towards them, before the door was closed and all he could see was the inside of the van.

Several hours later, the soldiers were Stateside and had been debriefed and hustled into what looked pretty much like a giant silver warehouse, where they waited. And waited.

Problem was, nobody knew what exactly they were waiting for.

It was hours later that the doors at the far end swept open, and a group of guys in black suits marched through. Lennox and Epps hopped down from the crate they'd been sitting on and studied the newcomers as they approached. Behind the pair, the survivors who hadn't had to be hospitalized gathered, an air of expectation surrounding them. All in all, there were twenty-one of them.

"Captain Lennox, I presume?" The man at the front of the procession stopped in front of the group and folded his arms over his expensive-looking black suit.

"That's me," Lennox confirmed, giving the party a wary look.

Something about the first man felt slimy and condescending, but the others didn't seem so bad. A couple of them were looking at the floor so he couldn't see their faces beneath the brims of their caps, though he noticed they each wore shades. Two stood to either side and slightly behind the slimy one at the front, and there were three more interspersed at varying locations within the crowd of sixteen people in suits – one guy and two women. Some of the group were just wearing black suits, while others were in military uniform, one ranking general, and pretty much every officer rank below was there as well.

"I guess I don't need to tell you that you and your people saw things at that base attack that are so far above your head you can't even imagine their security rating?"

Yeah, so the guy was kind of an ass.

"Well, not to be indelicate, Sir, but – no duh."

Someone in the crowd behind the slimy guy sniggered, followed by a few answering chortles from Lennox's team.

"Attitude won't get you anywhere, young man," the prick informed him. "I just have one question for you and your peons." He leaned forward, and lowered his Ray Bans with one hand. "You've got a choice. You either join us, or we wipe your memories of the whole event and you go on with your pathetic lives. What are you going to do?"

"Well, Sir," Lennox said with a grin. "I'm sure I speak for most of these guys when I say you couldn't pay us enough to walk away from this now."

There was a loud chorus of agreement from behind him, and his mouth tipped into a grin.

"Excellent."

As it turned out, Lennox hadn't spoken for all of his soldiers, but by the time those who had gone for the second option had been escorted from the cavernous room, there were sixteen men and women left standing behind him. Except Epps, who was standing at Lennox's right hand and almost bouncing with excitement.

"Fantastic. Let's get them set up, people!" The slimy man sent Lennox a parting smirk before turning on his heel. Four of his party followed, and those that remained faced off against their new recruits.

Then the five people in the small crowd that had had their heads down before looked up at them, and the man who was standing in the middle of the group walked a couple of steps forward. Three of the five Lennox had picked out had white skin, while the guy who was moving towards the newbies and one of the women were black.

All of the soldiers stared. There was something wrong with those five – something unnatural. They couldn't put their fingers on it, it was something unquantifiable. Lennox exchanged a look with his best friend, and Epps gave him an identical glance of confusion.

The one that had stepped forward took off his cap to reveal woven dreadlocks across his head. But they were wrong as well – they shone too brightly in the harsh warehouse lighting. The guy reached up a gloved hand. The uniform he wore gave his rank as lieutenant. He wrapped his fingers around the rim of his silver Oakleys, and pulled them off, and Lennox – plus pretty much everyone else behind him – drew in a sharp breath.

Because this guy didn't have what any of them would call normal eyes. Though the shape of them was right, framed thickly with dark eyelashes the same color as his dreads, the whites of his eyes were glowing ever so slightly blue, while the irises were completely cerulean and glowing much more strongly. The unnatural eyes were giving off a distinct sense of enjoyment.

"So, Lennox, Epps, ya finally joined us?"

He knew that voice. The mechanical note and the self-assured, amused tone.

Epps gaped openly. "Jazz?"

Another of the human/whatever-the-hell-they-weres stepped forward; the very tall one in the general's uniform. Lennox counted four stars on his shoulder, and watched, rapt, as he too removed his heavy black sunglasses – revealing another pair of glowing bright blue eyes. These ones were glowing with calm and authority.

"Gentlemen, ladies," the tall robo-man addressed them in a deep, kind voice. "My name is Optimus Prime. Welcome to the Autobots."

A shadowed, towering figure prowled across the dark space and slammed a titanic clawed hand into the metal wall. The powerful clanging sound reverberated through the entire room, deafeningly loud in the silence.

"All I want to know," the figure snarled. "Is did you get the information?"

The little figure it towered over shuttered four blue optics erratically at him, before straightening and taking on a confident, smug air.

"Y-You bet your ass, S-Sir."

FOURTEEN YEARS EARLIER

The sun had set hours ago, she noticed unenthusiastically as her arms locked behind her chair and her back arched in a deep stretch. Her spine clicked pleasingly, and after a quick shake of her blonde hair she settled back with her hands on the keyboard with just that little bit more energy than before.

Go to bed, her mind admonished her. You're obsessing, and you have a presentation to give tomorrow. You already have huge black bags under your eyes, and you'll make an even worse impression if you're swaying backwards and forwards like a drunkard while you're talking.

The reasoning was anything but effective. Reason had never really been allowed to rule her; she preferred facts. And the fact was that her current task was far more interesting than sleeping, and more of a priority in her (admittedly sleep-deprived) mind than a guest presentation in the morning for which she had been oh-so-charitably volunteered and which she oh-so-desperately wanted to skive.

She could see her nose shining in the light of the screen that glowed brightly in the blackened room. The lights were off in the hall, so she supposed her parents had gone to bed by now, and she didn't have to try so hard not to click the keys and alert them to the fact that she was awake the night before her talk with her alarm clock blinking three bright red noughts followed by a skinny '1' at her.

Her attention returned abruptly to the words onscreen after she noticed herself dozing steadily off. The keys clacked as she typed without bothering to glance at her flying fingers.

– pretty huge. So, here's what I've got, but the firewalls and defense coding of the website are really complicated – you mind if I call in some trusted help? I'm not sure what you've found, but I'm sure I can

Her eyes flicked briefly to the reddish bar of light at the base of her door. Hadn't the hall light been off a moment ago?

The instant the thought entered her head the door smashed open and slammed against the wall. The light that flashed in from the hall was immediately blocked by a towering black figure.

With a gun trained on her forehead.

She shrieked in shock and fear. Her fingers dashed four quick commands across the keyboard before she heard a deep, metallic 'click'. Her body catapulted of its own accord across the room and away from the door, through which more and more black forms were spilling with heavy guns hefted to their shoulders.

"Freeze!"

She obeyed the command unwittingly.

"Face down on the floor. Now!"

This time she complied with the order, dropping to her stomach. Her limbs shook viciously and her eyes stretched wide. Out in the hall she could distantly hear her parents' angry voices and more barked orders.

Someone was talking to her. She couldn't make out the words though she tried through the pounding of her pulse in her ears.

What have I done? she screamed. Tell me what I've done!

Her eyes flitted to the screen. Her hands were being dragged behind her back, and seconds later someone much stronger than her was yanking her to her feet and pulling her towards the door. With the last piece of will she could find through her haze of fear and consuming confusion, she jerked her head down and hit the 'Enter' key with her nose – just before she was barked at angrily again and twisted much more forcefully and painfully to the door.

But not before catching a glimpse of the wonderful text blinking onscreen.

Your message has been sent!

Opening...

...

Message received at 00:03, Today

From: MadMagMadsen
To: witty_won217
Subject: RE: Forum query

Well, been searching for a while now and I haven't really found much. There's this one site that looks like it might be good, but if it's what you're looking for... whatever this thing is you've found is pretty huge. So, here's what I've got, but the firewalls and defense coding of the website are really complicated – you mind if I call in some trusted help? I'm not sure what you've found, but I'm sure I can

SOS

TRANSLATIONS

Toma esto, tontopollas = take that, asshole (Spanish)

Madre de Dios = mother of God (Spanish)

No sabemos = we don't know (Spanish)

Él desapareció = it disappeared (Spanish)