Author's Notes: This is a story I've contemplated for a while now, and I'm excited to finally get started! It takes place in season 2 of G1, but was inspired by the movie and season 3. Also, I'm really happy to do another sparkling story. This one isn't in an extended continuity though; it's a standalone story. It'll be AU, and I'll do my best to make this one good because I've been wanting to do this idea for a while. This chapter is mostly just a prologue, but hopefully I did okay on it. Please review, favorite, and follow to see more :)

Chapter 1

The Howling Bot

The Autobot base was surprisingly quiet. The Decepticons hadn't raided a power plant or concocted an evil scheme in weeks. The Autobots knew they couldn't get too comfortable, however. This calm just meant Megatron was going to storm in on their lives soon enough.

Skyfire was manning the controls of Teletran 1 with Jazz and Bumblebee. The white red and blue shuttle was grateful to have an administrative task for a change. He knew the Autobots needed his flying skills and massive cargo hold, but sometimes he got sick of being a glorified bus. If this war kept up much longer Skyfire considered installing a ticket machine that collected fare from his passengers.

None of the three Autobots held idle conversation during their shift. Jazz had an easygoing grin on his face as always, and Bumblebee looked bored enough to bang his own helm against the console. Skyfire smiled in amusement at Bumblebee's exaggerated look of misery as he held his chin in his servo and watched the monitor ping every few minutes. It was just like back in the science academy with-

Skyfire shook off that train of thought. Starscream used to get bored like that too; especially when they were working on a project that required incubation. It was still spark breaking to remember how Starscream, once his best friend, had shot him and left him for dead a mere two earth years prior. Skyfire spent millions of years frozen in the ice, and when he awoke everything had changed and his only guide to the world was his best friend Starscream. As it turned out though, Starscream didn't care about him anymore. He was only using Skyfire to gain an advantage over the Autobots and Megatron. It still hurt the big shuttle-former to think about the betrayal he felt on that cold snowy day.

Skyfire was forced away from his thoughts when Teletran's proximity alarm blared loudly throughout the room!

"What is that?" Bumblebee shouted over the sound of the alert.

"Accordin' to a this, there's an unknown ship headin' straight for earth!" Jazz exclaimed as he checked the scanners, "It looks like it's gonna land close to where we are, possibly even in Central City."

"What should we do?" Skyfire asked.

"I'll contact Prime and see if he wants us to check this out," Jazz replied without a hint of stress, "Just keep an optic on the ship's progression, Skyfire."

"Of course, Jazz," Skyfire nodded and went back to work.

Skyfire worried about the situation. This could be anything. It could be Decepticons, but somehow it didn't seem likely. Decepticons usually used the space bridge to get to earth. It could be volatile cargo that wouldn't survive a trip in the space bridge, so Skyfire worried about that. The best case scenario would be if it were Autobots ready to come to their aid to stop Megatron's forces. Of course, it could be something that wasn't from Cybertron at all…

"Alright guys, Boss Bot says we can roll out any time," Jazz relayed the message, "Arm yourselves just in case, but don't fire on whoever's in that ship unless absolutely necessary. Let's boogie on outta here!"

The trio went outside into the cool night air. Skyfire transformed to allow Bumblebee and Jazz to get in. He wasn't really necessary for a short trip to Central City, but Skyfire was still grateful Jazz asked him to go. He really needed to get out of the base for a while and stretch his wings.

It only took them 5 minutes to make it to the crash site. The ship had been falling faster than they had originally thought. It landed in a field somewhere in southern Oregon; Skyfire couldn't remember the name of the town. Earth had so many cities and countries that it was often difficult for him to keep track of them all.

The ship had made skid marks in the mud and had landed in some unfortunate farmer's wheat crops. The Autobots went to where the ship was, and were surprised by just how unsightly this thing was! It was a small passenger pod that looked like it could seat 4, but it was made by many different parts from many other ships. It was cobbled together and held down by rivets, screws, bolts, and in some places even tape! The unsettling part was that the door looked as if it had been forced open.

"I'll go first to make sure everything's okay," Bumblebee volunteered, "I'll let you know if anything is wrong or if there are survivors."

Bumblebee then scuttled ahead of them; keeping low to the ground in case someone came out of that thing firing weapons at them. He approached the ship cautiously yet with a steeliness that came from vorns of training. He looked inside the ship, and nearly gagged when he saw the bodies!

"Guys, we're too late!" Bumblebee cried out once he regained his composure, "There are two passengers in here, both dead. I can't even tell what they transformed into, let alone who they were."

Jazz and Skyfire's expressions were that of shock and sympathy. After a second Jazz ran up to the scene, and Skyfire reluctantly trailed behind. Jazz looked inside, and saw that the bodies were broken apart, and there was fresh energon everywhere. The odd thing was though, many of the body parts looked not only dead but also like they had been decomposing for a long time. There was rust and grey metal everywhere!

"Do you think this one was a femme?" Bumblebee asked.

"Can't tell," Jazz shrugged, "The helm looks somewhat feminine, I guess, but the rest of the body doesn't even look like a body, let alone that of a femme."

Skyfire looked down at the remains as well, but he wasn't listening to the conversation between Bumblebee and Jazz. In fact, it was everything he could do to keep his intakes level and his spark pulsing steadily. This type of life form looked very familiar to him, but it didn't make any sense how they could be here. How could this possibly be what he thought it was? It had to be a mistake.

Please don't let this be from planet Junk, please! Skyfire thought to himself as he gazed down at the hodgepodge robots inside the ironically named 'life pod'.

Planet Junk was a place Skyfire had only visited once, and he never wanted to visit it again. It was a literal garbage dump full of lawless savage robots and no signs of true civilization. It was a world that only existed for Cybertron to dump its trash, and yet somehow life forms cropped up and claimed it as their own. Last time Skyfire had encountered these strange caricatures of robotic life he nearly didn't survive.

Skyfire was also afraid because of the door. If it had been forced open from the inside, then there really was another robot still out there. If there was something on earth from Junk...Skyfire shuddered at the implications. He almost envied Bumblebee and Jazz. They had no idea what sort of chaos had been wrought on this peaceful organic world.

Carly walked home from a party held by a bunch of her fellow college students. Most of the other students had gotten pretty drunk at that bar, and after a while Carly wasn't comfortable there anymore. She had studying to do and needed her mind to be sharp.

She had only gone to the party because it was the first time the popular girls had invited her to one of these functions. As the youngest student at MIT she was already well aware of the internal politics of high school, but college had even more rigid cliques due to fraternities and sororities. Carly always told herself she was only there to study for her future career as an engineer, but deep down she wanted to be accepted the same as any other young woman. Well, so much for that. She bailed early, so none of those drunkards would probably even want to talk to her anymore. She sighed and wrapped her jacket tighter around her body as the wind picked up.

She found a bus stop and sat down to wait for a ride back to her house. Most of the kids lived in dorms, but Carly paid the extra money to rent a house near campus. She liked her privacy, and the small lawn had lovely flowers growing along the sidewalk leading up to the door. She didn't know if the bus would run this late, but she really hoped so. It was midnight, and she was sure even the Autobots would be asleep by now. She didn't want to wake anyone else up to ask for a ride home.

She sat there for 15 minutes shivering in the cold night wind and waiting for a bus or a cab or something. The streets were so quiet. She had walked far from the excitement of the party, and was now sitting alone without even the slightest hint of movement around her beyond the changing street light. The only sound seemed to be from the wind.

That all changed when Carly suddenly heard a loud howling noise coming from the distance. She looked to see the direction the sound was coming from, but noted that road led to a dead end in the form of a scrapyard. Many called it an auto parts graveyard, because the owner had left it abandoned, and except for the occasional thief no one went in or out of that property anymore.

Carly was cold and getting bored of just waiting around for the bus, so she decided to check it out and see what was making that howling noise. Some would say Carly was crazy, but she preferred to think of it as fearless. She loved excitement, and she loved to solve problems. That was one reason she wanted to be a rocket scientist in the first place; because that way she could do both.

At first Carly thought the howling might be a dog, but there was something off about the sound. It didn't sound like a true howl, but rather how a sentient being would impersonate a howling animal. Also, there was a distinct mechanical element to the sound, like an Autobot or Decepticon.

Carly climbed the gates of the abandoned junkyard and landed on her feet on the hard patted dirt below. She was beginning to wonder if she'd made a mistake. After all, that sound could be a junkyard dog, and those things were vicious. Then again, it could also be a Decepticon. On the off chance it was an Autobot in trouble, however, she needed to find out for sure.

She made her way past rows and rows of rusty old cars. There wasn't really enough light for shadows, and yet in Carly's mind there were shadows everywhere. She stubbed her toe on a discarded muffler and shouted before she could stop herself. She heard a noise behind her suddenly grow quiet, and she turned in time to see something, or someone, give its full attention to her.

Suddenly the being jumped down in front of Carly with a grunt, and Carly shined her flashlight on the creature. It definitely was a robot, but it didn't look like any Cybertronian Carly had ever seen. This thing was only as tall as Carly herself, and it was cobbled together from a bunch of old parts. It had thin strips of metal flowing from its head down its back all the way to its legs that reminded Carly of porcupine quills. Its optics were red, but very dim. The metal was mostly different shades of rust and brown paint, but some parts were just dead grey. It kind of looked female, but Carly couldn't tell. She was too busy wondering if this junkyard robot was going to kill her.

"Um...hi," Carly said weakly as she tried to wave and be friendly to the unknown robot monster crouching in front of her, "My name is Carly. What is your name?"

"Carnia, just Carnia," The little robot replied; affecting a James Bond style of speaking as she introduced herself.

"Carnia, that's unusual," Carly commented in what she hoped was an indulging tone of voice, "Where do you come from, Carnia? I don't think you're Cybertronian."

"Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high..." Carnia sang, though her cracking tinny voice didn't exactly do the song any favors.

"Well, I can see you know a little about earth," Carly replied with a nervous chuckle, "That's great. So, are you an explorer, or are you a conqueror? Are you here to help the Decepticons, or maybe the Autobots?"

Carnia wasn't even listening anymore, however. Carly suddenly noticed something liquid coming from Carnia's optic, and noted that on rare occasions she had seen Autobots leak cleaning fluid as a way of crying. Carly stepped closer to get a better look, but Carnia just turned away and took a few steps to avoid Carly.

"Hey, Carnia? It's okay," Carly said consolingly, "Whatever happened to you, it's going to be alright."

Carly looked out at the horizon, and then looked up at the stars. It was clear that something terrible had happened to her, made even more apparent by what she said next…

"Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" Carnia shouted loudly in the dead silence of the night, "Earth, the final frontier! We have gone where no man has gone before!"

After the disheveled femme spoke these words she began to sob. She fell on her knees and banged the ground with her fist. Carly didn't know what this creature was, but she could guess that Carnia had just lost someone very important to her in the attempt to come to earth. That left many questions in Carly's mind, but the biggest one was: What was so important about earth that Carnia and her departed friends would risk dying just to get there?