Blindly he ran through the thick underbrush, ducking twigs, splashing through puddles and jumping potholes. All the while the enormous trees loomed over him and the sound of pursuit from behind pushed him to run faster. He would have dearly loved to assume his faster alt mode, but the terrain was far too rough to even contemplate it. Skirting round the roots of a tree he chanced a glance behind him.

It was a cat, an enormous cat! Its head must have been level with his shoulders and from head to tail about twice his length. It could have been a tiger he supposed, it was orange and the movement of shadows from the branches gave an indication of stripes. He could feel the whining of his overworked joints, as his air vents wheezed to cool his systems. This was another reason Mechs usually took to their alt modes, purely for less mechanical stress.

Chancing another glance, as he stumbled under an arching root, revealed he had gained a little distance on the cat, but he couldn't keep up the pace indefinitely. Seeing a break in the undergrowth to his right, he made a sharp turn, hoping to make the cat overshoot and provide himself with better terrain.

Success! The cat was further behind and seemed to be slowing down.

He felt himself trip on something underfoot and his world spun as he somersaulted aft over helm, finishing up on his front laying over something. Looking where he had come from he started to try and get to his feet, he could see the cat was stalking closer, waiting for him to start running again, ready to pounce on him.

He felt something large grasp him around the waist and raise him up off the floor. Wildly twisting, he looked the other way to see two long columns passing him by as he rose. Looking down, he saw the ground fall away as he rose still higher. Looking at what was holding him nearly caused his CPU to crash. It was ridiculous, but they looked like gigantic organic hands.

He felt himself being reoriented to an upright position and desperately tried to look behind himself. He could see what appeared to be a shoulder and an elbow, but the angle was too awkward to look at the being properly. His back came into contact with soft material as one hand released him, while the other held him close to the beings chest. Now looking up, he could hardly believe his optics, but everything added up in a bizarre kind of logic. He was being held, by a human.

A voice vibrated from the chest Bumblebee rested on and as he looked forward, he could now see the cat that had been chasing him. The cat was a large ginger tom, big and very fluffy. It was not a handsome cat and its face was flat, as though it had run into one too many walls. It was looking at him and the human with large piercing yellow eyes, in a sulky fashion. His saviour pointed his free hand at it and his voice rang out.

"Leave it alone Crookshanks! Get out of here!"

The cat flicked its tail in an angry lash and stomped (as much as a cat could) slowly back into the undergrowth. Before it had gone too far its ears perked up, then its tail suddenly bristled out and it shot off into the bushes.

The reasons for this, much to Bumblebee's relief, were the rest of the Autobots, Optimus in the lead, crashing through the shrubs onto the path. They slid to a stop as they found their path blocked. The reason for their chase held in the grasp of the reason for the blocked path. The Autobots tensed and backed up slightly, while Bee felt him being held more firmly. There was a silent standoff, because although Bee was safe in the being's grasp for now, Skyfire, the largest of the Autobots, barely came up to this person's waist.

::

It was early morning, when a buzzing in his mind brought him to groggy wakefulness. Sitting up and contemplating the clock on his bedside table revealed it to be the interminable time of 4:30 in the morning. Falling back onto the bed with a 'humph' he pulled the pillow over his face and cried out in annoyance.

It was bad enough that the callout last night had resulted in the arrest of several drunken and disorderly people for some rather weird spell damage, walls weren't meant to melt dammit! The fact that they had only gotten the last of them packed away at gone midnight made his current situation more than irritating. The buzzing still continued to assault his senses, so with a dramatic sigh he flung his pillow to the far side of the room and got up. He stumbled across the room and nearly fell into his wardrobe. The early morning light gave him enough colour sense find his uniform from last night.

With the wards still ringing in his ears he got dressed, armed himself and stalked out of his front door and in the direction of the disturbance. Gods help whatever had interrupted his rest, because he was not feeling so inclined at the moment.

Arriving at the forest on the edge of the wards, he entered, sticking closely to the paths that went in the correct direction. His mood had mellowed slightly since the ward alert waned in its intensity as he approached its source. The alarm seemed to originate from around the ley line junction, just east of the acromantula nests thankfully. He continued on for a while, as the light slowly started to shine more strongly through the canopy of the trees. Suddenly, a sound ahead and to the left caused him to stop. The noise was getting closer, like something was crashing through the bushes, he couldn't see it though.

Then a small creature burst from the undergrowth, made a sharp right and came rushing towards him. All he really saw was a small, bright yellow, figure before it seemed to trip on something and landed sprawled over his left foot.

Looking in the same direction it did revealed a smug looking Crookshanks, the cat that had the proverbial cream, swaggering closer. Thinking to save at least one poor creature from the mighty ginger hunter, he reached down and scooped up the little thing. He was surprised when his hands came into contact with warm metal. He could feel it wriggling in his hands, as it probably tried to get away. It seemed to calm down slightly as he held it to his chest with one hand, while sending the miffed Crookshanks away.

"Leave it alone Crookshanks! Get out of here!"

As usual for a part kneazle, Crookshanks was better able to impart his anger on the situation as he stalked off, hunt disappointingly cancelled. Harry was surprised though when Crookshanks suddenly took off like a rocket. Also hearing the approaching racket he turned in its direction, whilst still holding the little metal creature to his chest.

He was expecting possibly the acromantulas, he was close to their territory, but surely it was too light already, they were nocturnal. It was a surprise then when six more metal creatures of varying sizes and colours rushed out of the bushes from where the yellow one did. They skidded to a halt on seeing him and he guessed the missing member of their group. They seemed to tense up and the red one seemed to be reaching for something, a weapon?

Harry sighed, well, this was just perfect. He really should have stayed in bed, damn the wards!

Well , they finally met up. How about that?

Sorry about the slow update, life and all getting in the way.