Chapter One- Meetings
It's a peacefully afternoon at the desert of Jasper (Nevada), while down of the road there is a red and silver Corvette driving normally. The only strange thing about it was that no one was driving.
The car begins to speak with someone while on the move, "So there I am on a lookout when out of nowhere these red and blue beams light up my rearview. I instantly knew what was up, I was illegally parked!"
Meanwhile on the other side of the state, a white helicopter with pinks touches, which was flying above the desert, without a pilot, responded, "Another parking ticket?"
"Better… The boot!" The Corvette said on the other line.
"Big metal tire clamp, impossible to remove."
"Bingo! So the local police did their thing, and I let the Tow-truck hauled me all the way down the block. That's when I kick off my new shiny tires, and BANG!"
"It seems like you like messing with the authorities."
"Well, you know me Airachnid. You mess with the incredible Vehicon Steve…"
"And you get into the mother of all troubles." The Corvette seemed to be laughing.
"But I'm not sure how that goes with Decepticon rule number one. Keep a low profile, huh?"
His response to Airachnid was, "What could I say? Patrolling for energon out here on dullest planet could get so lonesome. Almost makes me miss the Autobots."
"Like Jasper is a party. We're alone wherever we travel on this planet."
Steve's glove compartment opened to reveal radar. That was constantly beeping. "I'm getting a signal."
"Need backup?"
"Do I ever need backup?"
He went off-road. He went deeper and deeper in the woods and reached a clearing, in the center was a crater full of blue crystals.
"I just struck a rich mount of energon, this certainly will help us this week."
Suddenly, the ground began to shake, a large shadow casted of the area. Steve rotated his rearview to see the worst thing that can be in the sky: the Autobots warship, a blood red with purple touches with an emblem with the same color: the Ark.
He changed into his robot mode, "Autobots!"
Immediately the warship fired one of its laser cannons at Steve. The blast explosion sent him flying to the crater, but he managed to get up to his feet very fast, but would come more bad news. The bottom hanger opened and a dozen of robots came out and landed on top of the mouth of the crater, because their appearance was very similar to his own, but in red purple skin and red visors, he knew that those were Autobot troopers, but they were not the worst.
"Hi there Con!" said an Autobot who lands in front of the Autobot troopers and Steve, and he directed his red optics to Steve. He recognized the Autobot by his blue and grey skin.
Seeing how the situation has drastically changed, "Airachnid. About that backup, I really need it five Earth minutes ago."
The blue and grey Autobot, who appeared to be in command of all troops, capture his attention.
"Cliffjumper! I not expect to see you as soon, but I thought you prefer to battle alone since you only go well with guys like Jazz." Steve said.
"Yeah, I usually do that way, but I want to see your face when I show you how helpless are you against my chances, especially a Vehicon."
"Listen here Cliff, this Vehicon has survived more than any of your fellas who accompanied you, so prepared yourselves, because I'll put a few dings in your chassis!" He transforms into his vehicle mode and drove fast enough to get out of the crater, killing instantly an Autobot trooper that was too close to the edge and was launched into midair. While in midair he change into his robot form as he descended to the Autobots, and manage to punch Cliffjumper in his face, sending him back to the trees.
"I admit it; I did not see that coming. Soldiers stand down, that Vehicon is mine; this is going to be fun."
The two bots face each other before begin to fight. Meanwhile, about 23 miles north of his position, a strange silver vehicle with a design very similar to a space ship with a red emblem was flying above the same desert.
At the moment, the jet received a transmission. "Airachnid to Megatron! The Autobots have returned! Steve requires backup immediately!"
"Understood." The jet responded, "Soundwave. Do you have Steve's coordinates?"
In the middle of Canada a white and golden MQ-9 reaper was patrolling by air. "Coordinates locked, but the entire team is scattered across the United States, charging ground bridge." Soundwave said.
Megatron made a roll call, "Airachnid, Breakdown, Knock Out, Stinger, Shockwave, Starscream, rendezvous at base and prepare to ground bridge to aid Steve." All vehicles soon moved again.
Surprisingly Steve was holding his own against Cliffjumper, but after a while fighting a matched adversary, he decide to cheat a little.
"I have enough, troopers, attack him!" Immediately, the other Autobots began to attack Steve, but he manages to take down a few, but after his battle with Cliffjumper he was weakened and the Autobots started to do damage to him. The last hit, made by Cliffjumper, sent him back into the crater. Steve decided to attack them from distance. "You want to mess with me? Well here is your reward!"
Steve changed his arm to a blaster and shot lasers against the Autobots, killing a few of them.
"Return fire!" Cliffjumper said after change to his own blasters.
The Autobots fired so many lasers that some of them hit the energon crystals.
"Everyone get cover, it's going to blow!" Cliffjumper said before he and the remaining Autobots get away from the followed explosion.
In the near area of the crater, full with blue flames, remained Steve's body, fortunately he was still alive, but other ones discover him.
"It seems that Vehicons are more resisting than I thought. Let's see how much you resist when our commander meets you." Cliffjumper said before the Autobot troopers grip Steve and followed him inside the Ark.
In the bridge there was a giant dark grey Autobot, who appeared to be in charge of the ship, was watching a replay of the explosion on the main screen, and he was very angry.
"Incompetents! The energon it's worthless to me now!"
"Look on the bright side general; we pick up something more interesting. Well, it's someone." Cliffjumper said before the Autobot troopers delivered Steve to the giant Autobot.
"Well well, I didn't expect to find Decepticon resistant very soon, especially from this kind of trooper. I didn't know that there's still Vehicons on Earth."
"Grimlock, it's being a while." Steve coughs up a little bit of energon. "So, where is your master?"
"Never mind him, no one controls Grimlock!" Grimlock grabs Steve, drew a sword and plunge it into Steve's chest a couple of times, causing him great pain. "Understood?" Energon starts leaking out of Steves wounds as Grimlock pulled out his sword, and Steve's lifeless body falls to the floor.
"He really doesn't care how leaves the ground." Cliffjumper said.
"Clean that up!" Grimlock ordered the Autobot troopers.
The Ark left the area, just in that moment a green vortex appeared and a lot of vehicles come through. A yellow cybertronian tank with blue touches turns into a cyclops robot with cannon in place of an arm; the white helicopter transforms into a female like robot with horns on her head, parts similar to spider's legs coming from her back and beautiful pink eyes; a silver F-16 Fighting Falcon turns into a robot with wings and missiles in his arms; a blue car turns into a normal side robot; another sports car in brown turns into a similar one but his face was covered by a battle visor; a red heavy armored car turns into a yellow eyes robot who seems to be very strong; the white and golden reaper transforms into a robot with thin arms and a mask covering his face; the cybertronian jet was the last and also transformed into a big robot with blue eyes and a big cannon in his arm which appearance resembled a gladiator, but all those robots had one thing in common: they fight for freedom. They aim their weapons ready for combat, but there wasn't anyone or anything in the zone, so they lowered their weapons.
"An untapped energon deposit." Shockwave said.
"Or what's left of it." Knock Out said.
"This has been the first Autobot activity in three solar-cycles." Starscream added.
"That we know of." Megatron stated. "But if they're scouting for energon now, they may be preparing for his return."
The Decepticons advanced closer to the site and scatter to look around the area.
Suddenly, Knock Out detects something in his scanners. "Lord Megatron, my scanners have detected something near, it's coming right there."
Airachnid reach the place Knock Out points, but she gasped in horror of what she saw: one piece of Steve's armor. "No." She said in sad tone taken it.
"Soundwave, can you track his position?" Megatron asked.
"Affirmative." A screen appears on Soundwave's mask where were on nine green dots, but one of them began to turn in red. "My liege, Steve's life signal just went offline" Soundwave said sadly.
"I will miss him so much." Breakdown said sadly.
"The only thing that we can do is give Steve's remains a proper burial." Megatron said.
All the Decepticons went back to the ground bridge with pain, but Airachnid was the one who was really hurt, her friend was gone. Meanwhile, in the Ark's bridge, Grimlock was monitoring the ship's scanners when a steel color skin bot with an appearance and a face covered by a monitor like Soundwave approached him.
"Blaster, what is it?" He replayed the conversation between Airachnid and Steve. "So there is another one. Why should we just slay one Decepticon when we can take down one more?"
The Decepticons gather around a pile of rocks on the top of their base, Megatron makes a speech. "We must not allow our anger over the loss of Steve to impair our judgement. As of today only we eight Decepticons remain on this Earth. We owe it to ourselves. To the memories of Cybertron. To any Decepticon in any galaxy seeking safe harbor." Airachnid places Steve's armor on top of the pile. "To humankind, and we owe it to the memory of our fallen comrade, to survive, till all are one."
After the ceremony, Airachnid began to move towards the nearest town.
"Airachnid?" Megatron asked for her condition.
"Standing around here sulking won't bring Steve back. I need some time alone… so I'm going to get back to protecting humankind." After said that she changed to her helicopter mode and take fly.
"Lord Megatron, helping humans will only result in war tragedy." Starscream said.
"Your opinion has been noted, old friend." replied Megatron.
Meanwhile in Jasper, the live of all people continued to be normal, but everything was going to change for a specific teenage boy of 16 years old, name Jack Darby, who now was working.
"Hello. Welcome to KO Drive in, where every patty is a knockout. May I take your order?" replied Jack from behind the counter in the dullest, most monotone voice ever conceived.
"Yeah, I'll have two number two's and a couple of fries."
"Ok, two twos and fries, anything else?"
"Yeah some advice, how do I get a job as amazing as yours?" the customer asked sarcastically before laughing it up with his friends.
"So, that's two "We're not as funny as we think we are combos" with a side of "BITE ME!" replied Jack.
"Hey, what did you say?!"
$5.59, sir. At the window." He spat out.
A car drove up and when he wasn't looking made the meals disappear.
"Hey! Now I have to pay it."
On the other side of the town Airachnid was scouting the area when she notices two red and purple motorcycles just below her.
"Twins, hum? I better take an eye on them." Airachnid said to herself. She decided to hide to watch them closely, hidden behind a place called a "Drive in". "Okay, they will come soon. So I can take five minutes to rest." She said before shutting down her systems.
Right in that moment Jack had finished his turn so he was heading home when his phone began to buzz.
"Hey mom, I just got off. No, I'm not going into dance, experience suggest I should never go on rock, unless is about a kind of car. Be careful, really? This is Jasper. What kind of things can happen here-?" He looked toward the back of the "Drive in" and he could not believe what he was watching: an incredible white helicopter parked in his job place. "I love you… Yeah I love you too mom, I got a run. Hello beautiful, where are you been all my life?" He opened the door and sit on the pilot seat. "You're incredible. I want to, but I'm not sure if I am ready to take fly in a master piece like you."
"By the Allspark, humans have really strange relationships with their vehicles, but these are the nicest things anyone has said about me, he's almost blushing me." Airachnid thought herself.
"Are you talking with your helicopter?" asked a new voice.
Jack looked up to see a teenager girl and her younger sister standing in front of him and snickering.
"To my helicopter? No no no, it's not mine, I'm more interested on cars and motorcycles and I'm not talking to it. How are you Sierra?"
Airachnid adjusted to see the Autobots motorcycles approach her. "Come on smooth operator, wrap this up."
"You know my name?!" Sierra asked.
"Sure, we're in home room together. I'm Jack. Jack Darby." He was cut off by a bright light coming from the other side of the street. Two red and purple motorcycles were coming for them. Sierra and her sister ran off leaving Jack.
"Scrap." Airachnid said as she close the door and ignites her engines with Jack inside.
"Brace yourself, and don't open the doors!" Airachnid said.
"Who said that?!" Jack yelled not knowing what the hell was going on.
The helicopter was able to blast off before the motorcycles reach her, but they manage to track her signal and commence a chase.
"General Grimlock, target located, accompanied by a human youth." reported one of the Autobots.
"Destroy them both, and bring me their heads!" he ordered.
"The Con is a helicopter, we require air support." said the other one.
They arrived down an alleyway before the helicopter's door opened and Jack was able to get out.
"What are you, some kind of automatic helicopter which no needs of pilot?!"
The helicopter readjusted itself to face him, "Listen to me. I don't exist. Tell anyone about me and I will hunt you down. Understand?" she barked at the young human.
"O-Okay." He responded.
"Then go!" she shouted making him run away of sight. During that time Airachnid tried to gain the Autobots's attention, but the second decided to chase Jack.
"Scrap, not the boy." She decided to turn around and follow the second Autobot, ignoring the first one.
Jack thought he was safe, until one of the motorcycles was chasing him down.
"I don't even know her!" he shouted, trying to reason with it, but it seems no use. But fortunately he saw the same helicopter flying over him with its door opened.
"Climb up!"
"What about that guy?!"
"Don't worry, I cover you!" she said before activate two laser cannons which appeared to the sides and fired lasers against the Autobot, giving him enough time to climb aboard the vehicle again. "Thanks."
"Don't tell that, now hang on!"
When they were upon the motorway the Autobots had enough and armed themselves with their laser turrets and began shooting at the Con.
"Why are those guys shooting at us?!" Jack asked.
"There is no us kid, and they're no guys."
The bots were chasing them on the road for a while, but suddenly they were smashed out of the way by the same brown sports car, without harming any human drivers.
"Friendly of yours?" Jack asked looking through the window.
"Family." Airachnid responded.
The sports car tried its best to keep the motorcycles from Airachnid, but was overtook and left behind.
"Well, now we're safe, right?"
"Hum, I would not relax if I were you" she said discovering a new treat coming from air: a military helicopter with the same colors that the motorcycles had. She knew by experience what was that, seeing how well armed was that Autobot.
"We need to go back to ground, or that thing is going to take us down! Brace yourself!"
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the bridge sat a little genius of 12 years old named Rafael whose life would be changed forever by the same way, but now he was playing with his remote toy car until his phone buzz.
"Hi mom. Down at the bridge, racing. Oh come on, just five more minutes, okay? Thanks momma."
Meanwhile the Autobot helicopter began to launch missiles against Airachnid, whose only option was to land on the bottom of the bridge. Raphael couldn't believe what he was seeing. A helicopter land immediately in front of him and a boy of 16 walked out looking like he was going to be sick.
"Woah!" Raf exclaimed.
"Uggh…You have no idea." Jack replied very peaky.
"That was incredible, my name is Rafael, but everyone call me Raf."
"Name's Jack Darby, now I suggest you to go home and fast."
"Why?" Raf asked.
At that moment the two same motorcycles drove down the hill, over the ramp and transform mid-air. Just then, Airachnid transformed as well.
"This ends here Autobots!" she exclaimed to them.
The Autobot troopers began to fired laser shoots at Airachnid, who deployed her spider legs to avoid and jump, getting more close to them and start fighting them. Jack and Raf only could look on in some strange mix of fear, terror, awe, confusion and excitement.
"W-W-What are they?" Raf asked.
"Talking vehicles that turn into robots… or the other way around." Jack responded, still unsure himself.
Airachnid managed to knockout one of her enemies and now she was facing the other. "This is for Steve!" she said while she kicked his face.
She finally took down the two Autobots and immobilizes them with a kind of web coming from her hands, but suddenly something fired her from the sky, it was the same helicopter which turns into another Autobot, more bigger than the other two. Airachnid tried to take him down, but this one was more resistant and strong, so she only managed to do a simple dent. This allowed the Autobot to fire with a sniper rifle on the Decepticon, which forced knockout to go back, only to be hit in the chest mid-air. The bot began to approach, but was cut off by the brown sports car from before, who turns into a robot too and start punching him very hard. After taken him out, Stinger heard a crunching from under his foot. He looked under to see the human child's toy car crushed.
"(I'm so sorry; I didn't know it was there!)" Stinger apologized, speaking by some kind of noises.
"Don't worry, it's okay. Really." Raf said.
Jack was going to ask him how he understood that, but immediately Stinger was shot by the two recovered motorcycle Autobots. He was about to get up, but they put the helicopter Autobot put his foot over him, and Stinger could only turn around to look the Autobots charging their weapons.
"Hey, leave him alone!" Raf said to them with great courage. But when the Autobots saw him he was very nervous. "Please."
"Bad call." Jack said taken Raf.
"You get them, we'll guard these Decepticon scum." The Autobot helicopter ordered to one of the troopers.
Jack and Raf began to run as the Autobot walked after them. They tried to escape getting inside a service tunnel. The Autobot tried to catch them reaching in his hand but he was dragged out and they see the friendly face of the brown robot.
"(Don't worry, you're safe now. And thanks for the distraction.)" Stinger said.
"Ok, you're welcome." Raf said.
"Come on, let's get moving." Jack said.
"What did we just see?" Raf asked.
"I don't know. And I'm not sure I want to find out". Jack said while they go to the other side of the tunnel.
With the humans safe and very far, Airachnid and Stinger could terminate the Autobots with ease now, but they were outnumbered and the Autobot helicopter launched a couple of missiles over them. They manage to dodge them, but only to get hit by the motorcycle Autobots. They manage to get up and engage round two when they heard some noise from behind them. They looked back to see the red armored van named Breakdown transform and unveil a hammer.
"Okay, who is ready to rumble?" Breakdown said.
The Autobots knew that they couldn't win now and decide to retreat back to the warship in their vehicle forms.
"What take you so long?" Airachnid asked.
"Traffic. You don't know how bad it is." Breakdown answered.
Shortly after that, they all were in their base reporting the situation. "And the Bots would have been less than scrap metal if it weren't for the humans." Airachnid finished explaining the events to Megatron.
"Humans?" Megatron asked interested.
"(Two young boys.)" Stinger said.
"I guess the second one caught us in middle of the action, I don't know. I was a little busy at the time." Airachnid responded.
"If the Autobots are targeting us, anyone seems as our ally will be at grave risk. Those boys needs now our protection, and is crucial for them to know why." Megatron concluded.
The next day Jack was walking outside the school, where there was Raf.
"Hey Raf." He said walking up to him. "Look some crazy stuff went down yesterday, so I think we should just keep it between us and not speak about it again."
"Jack, look." Raf said surprised and happy.
At that moment, the same brown sports car pulled up in front of them and opened its back door.
"Oh no, not again." Jack said nervous.
"(Don't be scare little one; I only want to take you to a place where we can explain everything to you.)" Stinger said.
"It…wants us…to get in?" Jack asked.
"No, just me." Raf said.
"Well how do you know?"
"It said so. Yours is over there." Raf points another roof where Airachnid was landed.
"Raf we should just go home and…Raf?"
Before Jack could realize, Raf had already stepped in and the car took off.
"Hey, wait!" He shouted after they were gone. "No freaking way!" Jack thought to himself before began to walk home.
Outside the school there was a Japanese girl with weird hair of 15 years old who had been drawing the helicopter parked over a roof until her phone caught her attention.
"Host parents? Ignore." She silenced her phone and continued drawing. "Coolest … machine…ever!" She looked back up, only to see that the helicopter disappeared. But she saw it flying low around the corner and she knew had to catch up with it.
Meanwhile Jack was walking carefully in a close street, hoping that he will not see that thing again, but he finds the same vehicle in front of him coming from the other side of the street.
"Easy, I just want to talk to you." Airachnid said.
"Don't you mean you and your new friend?" Jack said angrily.
"Kid, there is a lot that you don't understand." She said calm.
"No it's cool, I get it. The first rule of Robot Fight Club is don't talk about Robot Fight Club. But you have to understand I don't want a bunch of talking vehicles following me around trying to get me killed!"
Airachnid had transformed to be more personal. "Look. Jack, is it? Your personal safety is exactly why Megatron has requested your presence."
"Wait, Mega-what?"
"Jack, your safety is at risk because you are one of the few. One of the only who have ever seen us!" Airachnid explained.
"Dude, what are you waiting for? Go with her!" Miko exclaimed from the corner.
"Scrap."
Moments later Stinger and Airachnid were taken the kids to the Decepticon base, Raf riding Stinger and Miko with Jack inside Airachnid.
"Remind me, why are we bringing her?" Jack asked.
"Rules." Airachnid responded.
They were getting very close to a hill, but suddenly a secret entrance just opened. Inside there was a military base built inside the hill, and they saw a lot of advanced mechanical structures and five more robots with the same blue eyes. They got out of the vehicles and allowed them to transform.
"I thought there were only…two?" Shockwave inquired.
"Haven't you heard? Humans multiply." Airachnid said.
"I'm Raf."
"I'm Miko. Who are you?" Miko asked immediately.
"Breakdown." He replied hesitantly.
"Are you a car? I bet you're a truck, a monster truck! You like heavy metal? How much do you weight? Do you use a wrecking ball for punching guys?" Miko asked with no leave time for answers.
"So if you guys are robots, who made you?" Raf asked.
"Ugh! Please!" Starscream said.
From behind them came the tallest of all those robots. Besides his ferocious appearance, his face's expression reassures the children he was a kind soul.
"We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet Cybertron. Also known as Decepticons. Do not let our name frighten you. It was a name given to us by our enemies to strike fear into others, but we wear it as a symbol of our goals, to protect innocent lifeforms from tyranny." Megatron explained to them.
"Why are you here?" Jack asked.
"To protect your planet from the Autobots." Megatron said.
"The jokers who tried to bump us off yesterday." Airachnid added.
"Ok, but why are they here?"
"A fair question Jack. In part, they are here because Cybertron is now uninhabitable, ravaged and consumed by eons of civil war." Megatron explained.
"Why were you fighting a war?" Raf asked.
"The main cause of the war was over political idealism: we fight for truth, freedom and equality. The Autobots fight for power, conquest and supremacy over other lifeforms. Secondly was for control of our world supply of energon, the lifeblood of all cybertronians, Decepticons and Autobots alike. The combat was fierce and endured for millions of years. In the beginning, the leader of the Autobots was one whom I considered a brother, he was humble and honest. But in war ideals can be corrupted, so he betrayed me in order to fulfil his own selfish lust of power. And it was thus that Optimus Prime, Warlord of Iacon was born…" Megatron explained carefully.
"You're going to ask?" Miko told to Jack.
"So, what does Optimus or any of this…have to do with us?" Jack asked.
"Optimus has not been seen or heard from in some time. But if his return is imminent, as I fear, it could be catastrophic for all of us." Megatron said.
Meanwhile on the Ark, Blaster approached Grimlock for communicating something to him.
"Those transmissions are emanating from deep space, it could be a glitch and I would hate to waste the energon. Unless you are absolutely certain." Blaster nodded his head. "Then lock on these transmissions coordinates, and activate the Space Bridge." Grimlock ordered to an Autobot trooper.
Out in Earth's orbit a giant cybertronian structure was activated, creating a big green vortex similar to the Ground Brigde. Suddenly, an object drove through the vortex, a cybertronian heavy truck, dark red and with purple touches and the same purple emblem of the Autobots with a trailer transporting some kind of purple crystals. It transforms into a tall sinister robot with blood red eyes and sharp teeth with an evil smile with a battle face cover. The leader of the Autobots had returned: Optimus Prime.
"AUTOBOTS, I HAVE RETURNED!" He said triumphal.
To be continued…