Sorry for the, like, 4 month wait. My brain just stopped working for this story and I couldn't continue it. But here's another chapter, and review responses will be at the bottom!

7 ~ Misunderstanding ~ 7

Over time, trees had overtaken the horse pasture and now stood tall. When Kodiak had first went to check out the Autobots' ship (before she knew the Autobots), she didn't pay much attention to them. Of course, now it was broad daylight, and she was on her bicycle, so the thick trunks and the large roots of the trees got in the way as she raced towards the Autobot ship. Wheelie and Brains grasped the edges of the basket weakly as they bounced along.

After ten agonising minutes of racing through the trees, with lungs and legs burning, Kodiak spotted the Autobot ship. She wanted to cheer, but the thought of the Autobots shooting Wheelie and Brains on sight kind took her enthusiasm away. So she lowered her head and pushed on with determination. "I think I can, I think I can," she puffed in determination as she neared the ship. As she neared one of Red Alert's security cameras, she took her light sweater from around her waist and covered the two weak forms in the basket. It wouldn't do if Red Alert wouldn't let her in because of the mini Decepticons.

The doors opened without a hitch and she continued to bike madly until she was in the bridge. She silently was grateful for the gravitated floor. "Code Blue! Code Blue!" she exclaimed breathlessly as she got off her bicycle.

Moonracer stepped forward, a worried look on her face. "What's the matter, Kodiak?" she asked. "What's damaged?" she began to scan the girl before the girl could even regain any breath.

Kodiak hurriedly sucked in a breath of air and said as she exhaled, "Not me!" she took the sweater off of Wheelie and Brains. "Them!"

The bridge went deathly quiet. All movement ceased. Kodiak looked at one 'Bot to the next worriedly before she wandered over to Wheelie and Brains and lifted them out of the basket. She managed to hold one in each arm as she turned to look back at her friends. "I don't know if they have any trackers on them, but when I caught them spying on me, I bashed them over the head a couple of times with a baseball bat after some water shorted out their communicators," she explained.

"You let them in here without knowing that they had any trackers on them or not?!" Red Alert cried, beginning to panic.

"Be calm, Red Alert," Elita said softly. She looked down at Kodiak. "It was a big risk in bringing them here. If you didn't short out their comm's, the Decepticons would know where our ship is at this moment. But most Cybertronian trackers are found within the communicators."

Kodiak just stood there, holding the two small Decepticons.

"Jolt take the two Minicons and give them some Energon before you take them to the brig," Elita commanded. Kodiak was quiet as the blue Autobot took the two Decepticons from her arms. She stared after them as Jolt left the room.

Kodiak was quiet as she sat with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around them. The Autobots really hadn't spoken to her after Wheelie and Brains had been taken away, so she figured that they were mad at her. She didn't want them to be mad. She didn't like it when her friends were mad. She didn't mean to make them mad at all. Something in her told her that she couldn't just leave the two Decepticons to die. It went against everything she had learned while growing up. Didn't the Autobots go by the same rules?

If they did, why were they not talking to her? Why did they not look at her? Why had they left her in the bridge alone while they gathered in the meeting room and talked? She could hear them for where she sat, since the meeting room wasn't that far from the bridge. They were talking about her.

"I am disturbed," she heard Moonracer say. "Two Decepticons! They managed to infiltrate the farm and endanger Kodiak."

"They're on to us! We have to move to another location!" Red Alert proclaimed.

"Calm down, Red Alert," Elita said in a soothing voice. "I don't know if you remember, but every comm. link known has the Cybertronian's tracking beacon built into it. You take out the comm., you take out the beacons."

"Then we're safe?" Mirage asked.

"Yes."

"Good," Jolt heaved a sigh of relief. "I'm not skilled enough to handle all of you yet, even with Moonracer's help."

There was some laughter. Kodiak didn't find what Jolt said very funny. She got up from where she had been sitting on the table and prepared to leave. Taking out a notebook, she wrote a quick note about where she was going before she teared it out of the book and left it sitting on one of the devices that were laying around. She then went over to where she had left her bike and got on it. Then she rode out of the ship, the main door opening for her.

In her room, she cleaned up all traces of the Minicons before she flopped down on her bed. She stared up at the ceiling, trying to review what had happened that day. Did she lose their trust because of those two Decepticons? Did they think that she had switched sides? She didn't want them to think that.

She became very restless, so she decided to bike to town. It wasn't like her father was going to be home all too soon, because she had just received a text from him, telling her that he was going to be working extremely late. She wasn't going to be staying out all that late, anyway.

So she went down outside and got on her bike. Slipping on her helmet, she looked sadly off towards the ship, remembering the feel of Chromia underneath her. Well, after this was all sorted out, she'd ride her again. But they were too busy, thinking and talking about Wheelie and Brains to think about her. With that in mind, she quickly biked off to town.

She made it into the town and parked her bike in front of the diner, chaining it to the lamppost out front along with her helmet. When she was sure that it was secure, she walked into the diner and took a seat at the counter. As she gazed up at the milkshake selection, she hoped that she wouldn't run into Victoria or Kimberly. Kodiak didn't know if she would be able to handle the two's jabs after what had happened with her friends without bursting into tears.

And that would be humiliating.

And the twins would definantly call her a crybaby.

The girl sighed and crossed her arms onto the counter before burying her face in them. All she wanted to know was if Elita and the others trusted her. It wouldn't work if she had a guardian that didn't trust her. How was she to fix this if it turned out they didn't trust her? Would she crack under their suspicious glances?

A dishtowel was dropped onto the counter next to her head, jerking her back to reality. She slowly sat up and looked up at the buff man standing behind the counter, and she blinked a few times when she saw that it was Mr. Harrison. "Hey, Mr. Harrison," she greeted quietly, averting her gaze.

"You want somethin'?" he asked.

She nodded slowly, glancing quickly up at him before looking away again. "A chocolate milkshake, please," she asked.

"Coming right up," he rumbled. He disappeared into the kitchen, and she heard a blender turn on. She examined the interior of the diner, hoping to distract herself from her sad thoughts. But they crept up on her. What if she had offended her Autobot friends? She had brought two Decepticons into their midst. What was she thinking? Sure the Decepticons she had nabbed her smaller than her, but the Autobots were much larger than her, and what if one of them threatened to squish her?

One 'Bot came to mind at that thought: Sunstreaker.

From the beginning, she knew that Sunstreaker didn't like humans. He had probably scanned her, and saw the readings of how her skin excreted oil, and such. He probably didn't like that kind of stuff touching him. And she saw how he babied his paintjob. He didn't really hide it. He had yelled enough at Sideswipe, though it had been in the background. What would keep him from squishing her?

Mr. Harrison came back with the milkshake, but this time, it had a dollop of whip cream on top. He sat it down in front of her before pulling a chair up on the other side of the counter so that he would be able to sit with her. He watched as she numbly took the milkshake and paid for it. She still didn't look at him, and seemed to hunch over, as if pulling into herself.

"What is on your mind, girl?" he asked gruffly, his lips hiding under the mustache she noticed.

Kodiak allowed herself to sigh, and she finally looked him in the eye. "Friend problems," she finally admitted.

Mr. Harrison shifted in his seat. "What…kind of friend problems?"

"Well…" she began, wondering how to put it in words that didn't give the fact that her friends were giant robots away. "Um…I think I kinda—must of broken their trust, but I don't know how I did it," she explained.

"How did you break their trust?" he furrowed his eyebrows.

Kodiak gripped the glass the milkshake was in weakly. "I dunno…I just met them, and they're really good people, but I still don't know their likes, dislikes, or who they're friends with or who they're not. So, I ran into a couple of people they must not really like…and one of them saw…so…they…" she had to clear her throat in order to not choke up. "I…I heard them talking about it…after they told me about those people and pointed out that they didn't like them. One said they couldn't trust me—maybe they're experiencing a feud with those people? I don't know." She stopped and wiped the tears that still managed to well up.

Absentmindedly, she took a sip from her milkshake.

"Some people are strange like that, and I'm sorry you had to step into their problems. But its not like you knew that they had a problem with them, like you said," he said comfortingly.

Kodiak chuckled sadly. "I don't know why I'm telling you this…"

"You just need someone to talk to—understandable. And if I'm right, your father is working at the hospital."

She looked at him shocked. "How did you—?"

"I saw him the other day. Had to run into the hospital in order to get somethin'. Mighty fine doctor, he is, nice man too."

Kodiak chuckled. "You sounded like Yoda for a moment there," she joked.

"Who?" he looked confused.

She stopped and looked at him incrediously. "You haven't watched Star Wars, haven't you?"

"No, but I've heard of it."

"Oh."

After that nice little visit, Kodiak biked home, feeling a little bit better.

Mr. Harrison gave her some advice to help her fix her problem. He advised that she tread carefully, and always smile, and to not say anything that might get them mad at her. She hoped those methods worked with giant alien robots.

She reached home, and put her ten-speed away. She walked out of the garage in time to see Chromia pull up and settle herself on her kickstand. Kodiak walked over to the royal purple street bike, trying to think about what she could say, but stopped when she heard her father pull into the yard. She turned and watched her father park the car before climbing out. "Hello, sweetheart!" Kasey greeted.

"Hey, Dad," Kodiak said, trying to return the greeting with as much vigour as her father had had in his voice, but came out a little strained. "How was work?"

"Great, but busy. How was your day?"

"Okay," she lied. "Um…" she fidgeted. "I'm going to spend a few more minutes out here, then I'll join you in the house, okay?"

He nodded, and disappeared into the house. Kodiak didn't breathe a sigh of relief, though, since she still had to speak to her not-so-lifeless motorcycle. She turned and looked at Chromia, wondering how she was to speak to her.

"Hey, kid, we were worried," the femme suddenly said, pointing her wheel in the human girl's direction. "You upped and left. Where did you go?"

Kodiak stepped closer. "I…I went to town. You were pretty busy, so I…biked…"

"Why? Is there something wrong?" she asked.

The brunette let out a sigh and wrung her hands together. "You guys…didn't seem to want…to have anything to with me…after I brought the Decepticons to you…"

The bike sighed. "I'm sorry that we seemed to act that way to you, but we were very stressed. We suddenly find out we're not the only Cybertronians on the surface of this planet, and worst of all, they're Decepticons."

"Yeah, well, they were spying on me."

SJSGirl: Cute, but they possess very bad pottymouths.

Tai Prime: I hope this was worth the wait too? *rubs back of head sheepishly*

XxLosAngelesGirlxX: Glad you did. I wanted Kodiak and Chromia to have a similar friend-friend relationship that Jack and Arcee possess. I totally can't wait to have Team Prime meet Team Elita!

Anonymous BW FG: We view the Minicons in the same light then :D Sorry for taking so long. I have a stupid brain and a bad case of ADD.

Porter-Fuzz1218: Yeah, Kodiak is like that. I hope to have my own motorcycle in the future, though I don't know when.

Topkicker26: XD Glad you are!

KayleeChiara: I've thought of that, but I don't think it'll work. Maybe a oneshot when this is over? It'd be fun!