This was up on the livejournal forums for quite some time, but I've decided to start posting it up here for now.
Chapter 1 - Rise of the Dinobots
After reading the little information tag in front of the Stegosaurus for the fifteenth time, Sam was starting to regret this 'request' of Simmons'.
"Will, how much longer are we going to have to stand here?"
The man grinned and slung an arm around the boy's shoulder.
"Hey, come on, Sam. Don't tell me you don't like dinosaurs!"
Sam glared up at him, and then looked about the room, nose wrinkling in distaste at the tackiness of it all.
'Dino World' was a touring attraction, made to 'delight and entertain people of all ages' with its 'realistic and incredible animatronics—they'll make you gasp!' It consisted of several rooms filled with animatronic dinosaurs, all with their own little information signs in so-easy-a-child-can-read-it text. If he had been five, he would have been in heaven. As it was, he was giving up a date with Mikaela for this.
"We've been here two hours Will. Is Simmons even sure he's-"
Just then, the hidden receivers they both were wearing crackled to life, and Simmons's voice hissed into their ears.
"Okay, Arkeville just showed up at the door, but he doesn't have the device on him, according to the overgrown tin can I'm sitting in."
Ironhide's voice broke in. "Are you trying to become a smear on the pavement, human?"
Will winced. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what idiot had decided Ironhide should be the liaison for this operation. The topkick had made looking for loopholes in the 'no harming humans' rule into a hobby, and Simmons refused to respect the Autobots, seeming to take delight in seeing how far he could push them.
He was just glad that he wasn't in the truck, too. One of them was going to require a medic by the end of the day.
"Wait," Sam interrupted. "If he doesn't have it, then where is it?"
"He must have hidden it somewhere in the building," Simmons replied. "Given that he's in charge of night security, it wouldn't be difficult. Supposedly he's meeting his contact in the next couple of hours, so follow him and retrieve it before he decides to test it out. The last thing we need is a re-enactment of Jurassic Park."
After studying the photograph repeatedly during the day, Will recognised Arkeville instantly despite coming in with a crowd of people - the lack of a child clamped to his wrist giving him away. He headed after him, Sam not far behind.
It shouldn't have really surprised them that Sector Seven had considered the Allspark's life-giving capabilities in war situations. Really, if Megatron had given them lasers, tanks, missiles, surely they could have pried something out of their beloved crown jewel? And managing to turn the enemies' own machinery into lethal weapons that would kill and destroy anything in their sights was the stuff of dreams.
However, there were issues with that. For example, once your enemies were destroyed, you found yourself facing an army of killer robots that would probably turn out to be an even bigger problem. But the biggest issue was actually bringing the machines to life. The cube had to be in close proximity, and you couldn't exactly take the Allspark away to do that. The thing couldn't be moved back then.
So the scientists at Sector Seven had done what they did best: experimented with all the tact of a child with a gun, and come up with something both ingenious and horrific. Cube radiation locked within a box created from a special alloy that could just about imitate the same density and strength of Megatron's own armour. Safe to handle, easy to transport, and once opened… It would unleash a wave of energy that would create a new mechanical 'big bang'.
Thankfully, it had never been tested, the Autobots and Decepticons arriving before they could figure out a way to stop the robots once they were created. But when the Allspark had been destroyed, and Sector Seven had been disbanded, one scientist had been less than happy about the situation, and had replaced the 'demi-spark' as it had been dubbed, with a fake. By the time anyone had realised the switch, Arkeville had vanished.
It had taken months, but Simmons and Banachek, now working for another department of government (newly designed to help deal with the extraterrestrials that would no doubt be coming within the next few years) had tracked him down, working behind the scenes of this travelling exhibit. But knowing that Arkeville would recognise them on sight, and with the recent Autobot/Human treaties that had been signed, they needed someone else to apprehend him, and required an Autobot liaison for any events that had to do with the Allspark. Will was brought along to actually get the guy, and Sam was there to draw attention away from the older man. Ironhide had all but insisted he be the one to go with them, should the scientist get wise and try to bolt through the car park.
Making sure to stay within the crowds, Will and Sam watched as Arkeville slipped into an Employee Only area.
"Okay," Will started. "Sam, you wait here, I'm going after him. If he gets past me, see if you can't stop him."
"How?"
Will shrugged. "Trip him up? Yell thief? You'll think of something."
The Captain headed for the door, and Sam busied himself with staring at the Stegosaurus that was chewing its cud and shaking its head at regular intervals. There was a little boy, about seven years old, practically glued to the edge of the display, and holding a handheld console limp in his hand.
"You like dinosaurs, kid?" Sam asked, looking for anything that would keep him from reading the damn information sign again.
The boy nodded, not bothering to turn around. "They're awesome. Wish they were alive. I'd get one to eat my teacher."
For all the trouble it had been to find Arkeville, he'd really become lax since he'd settled down in the Dino World tour. Despite looking behind him several times, he never noticed Lennox following him. He finally stopped by a set of lockers, and pulled out a silver box with a complex keypad on the front.
"You are going to make me a very, very rich man" he purred. "Idiots had no idea what they had."
"Can't disagree with you on that."
Arkeville flung himself round to see Will staring at him, gun pointed at the ex-scientists chest.
"Now, let's not make this difficult, all right?" Will began. "Hand over the box and follow me outside. Nice, quick, simple, and nobody gets hurt."
If looks could only kill, Arkeville would have had Will dead on the floor. Slowly, his hand with the box reached out, allowing the Captain to take it.
"Good. Now let's go."
"Witwicky, what's the status?"
"I don't know Simmons, Will hasn't… Wait, there he is."
Sam sighed in relief as the Captain appeared the door, cube in his hand, and a rather peeved off scientist by his side, his hand placed suspiciously on the mans back, probably hiding a weapon.
"Will has the demi-cube and Arkeville, and he's heading out."
The crackle that followed had to be both the Sector Seven agent and the truck breathing collective sighs of relief.
"Looks like my weekend isn't a waste after – Aw crap!"
A security guard, probably someone who knew Arkeville, had just stopped the soldier and his prisoner. The hand on Arkeville's back lowered slightly, and the momentary distraction was all the scientist needed.
He rammed his elbow into Will's stomach, surprising the Captain, and grabbed the cube now in loose fingers before bolting into the crowd.
"Witwicky? Witwicky!" Simmons screeched into the earpiece.
"Sam? What's the situation?"
Sam ignored them, pushing past people and heading for the man who was coming in his direction.
"Can't talk right now guys."
Sam knew painfully well that he wasn't exactly a football star, but Arkeville wasn't exactly built like one either. And getting rammed into teenager running at high speed was enough to send anyone to the ground.
"Banzai!"
"What the-"
The scientist and teen crashed to the laminated floor, and the Demi-cube slipped out of Arkeville's hands, skidding past peoples' feet and getting kicked over to the stand with the Stegosaurus, right next to the boy Sam had just been talking to. As it landed by the display, the child, like any kid in the vicinity of something shiny, picked it up.
"What's this?"
The top had come slightly loose in its fall, and there was some kind of dial on the top. He twisted it experimentally, only to jerk back and drop it loose as blue energy crackled from within, twisting and arcing around him. A few people screamed, their watches and mobiles ripping themselves away from their owners and falling to the ground, while the boy watched the energy descend upon the mechanical dinosaur. It immediately jerked its head up, and looked about the room, before storming off mobilizing the crowd, which had been frozen with fear, out of the way with a screech?
The boy, frozen by the now empty display, slowly closed his open jaw, and looked back at the cube.
"Cool!"
Will caught up with Sam and Arkeville, jerking the scientist to his feet as Simmons, clearly displeased with the lack of information he was getting, ran into the room just in time to see the first wave of new living machines. He stormed up to Will and Sam, and pulled out a pair of cuffs for Arkeville.
"Thanks a lot, Doctor!" he snapped. "Do you know how hard it is to get rid of watch-bots? They're like cockroaches!"
Arkeville was about to reply, no doubt by snarling some irritated curse, when the metallic scream drowned out anything they could have said. All four swung round, paling at the dinosaur now heading for the exit.
"Oh no…"
"How in the world are we supposed to cover that up?" Simmons screamed in horror, while the remaining earpiece shrieked.
"Will somebody PLEASE tell me what's going on before I come in there to find out myself?"
The room was almost empty now: everyone had bolted for the exit doors. From the echoing screams and the alarms going off, it was safe to say the rest of the place was being evacuated as well. With the room so sparse, it was easy to notice the one thing out of place.
"Where's the demi-cube?" Will yelled, forcing everyone's attention off the stegosaurus (who had apparently decided that he liked this form enough to not bother transforming) that was also crashing towards the exit doors.
"It must have landed by Spike over there if it woke him up," Simmons snapped.
But Arkeville shook his head. "Even if it fell, there's no way it could have activated without human interference."
Sam had a very bad feeling about this. "Aw man…there was a kid by that robot. Said he wished they were real. You don't think…"
He trailed off as they heard yet another roar coming from a nearby room, and several stomping sounds that could only be the footfalls of something very large.
Will checked his earpiece. "Ironhide, I don't suppose you found a way into this building?"
"That's not me Captain. I suggest you find out who it is."
"I'm pretty sure it came from the Tyrannosaurus room," Arkeville murmured.
"Gentlemen" Simmons began. "Find that kid. BEFORE he lets this prehistoric zoo out into Tranquillity!"
It only took fifteen minutes to track down the boy, and pry the cube from his hands. Unfortunately, by that time he'd used up all the energy within it, and brought a further 3 displays to life. All of which were apparently claustrophobic given the amount of walls they broken down. That said, they'd almost believed that they were going to get away with minimal property damage for once.
And then the Triceratops discovered that he came with a flamethrower…
Things went downhill from there.
"Ironhide, did you have to level the building?"
"Optimus, it was coming down whether I smashed into it or not. With the amount of property damage the five yahoos did, there was no way it was structurally sound anymore."
Sam sighed, and turned to look at the five dinosaurs standing in the parking lot staring at the Autobots, their fake skin turning a sickly orange under the lamp post's light.
When Ironhide had seen the amount of damage the newest Cybertronians had been doing, he'd contacted Optimus and the others, requesting backup, and had crashed into the building to deal with the issue. The 'Dinobots' as Will had so cheerily dubbed them, had immediately discovered the joys of transformation after Ironhide had intervened, and dog piled him with that single-mindedness all Earth spark creations seemed to have. However, Ironhide had far more knowledge of battle than the newly sparked dinosaurs, and had easily held them off until his three allies had appeared. However, even with reinforcements, the five hadn't gone down fast, and it was only after Ratchet had discovered that they could talk (after giving a rather vicious blow to the Pteradon, only to have it ask him not to kill him), that they'd managed to stop the minor battle and end it without deactivation.
And now, they had five Dinobots, who seemed to have suppressed that immediate 'attack anything in site' instinct that the watches and mobiles (all of whom were now dead or 'quarantined') had, and nobody seemed to be sure what to do with them.
Everyone except Simmons. He'd bent over backwards to quarantine the area so that the Autobots could come in, and so nobody would spot the animatronics suddenly coming to life. Now, all he wanted was to destroy them like they did all the other bots created on earth, to make sure it never happened again.
Optimus however, had a different opinion.
"We will take them in. They are clearly not as single-minded as the other Transformers created on this planet, or else they wouldn't have stopped fighting, regardless of their odds. With time, perhaps we can remove that desire entirely."
Simmons argued of course, though even he knew it was a lost cause. Secretary Keller always sided with Optimus when it came to things like this. It was starting to get irritating.
"Listen, Prime, it's one thing to have robots disguised as cars, but they're dinosaurs! That's not exactly hiding! Where are you going to keep them? If they get off your base-"
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Simmons. We will take full responsibility for their care and integration."
Meanwhile, a distance from Optimus and the arguing Sector Seven agent, Will leaned on Ratchet's leg, favouring the right after a rather vicious fall earlier, while Sam sat on Bumblebee's shoulder, discussing names.
"We can't call him Slag!" the scout yelled.
"I know it's a curse word for you guys, but he really, really likes 'Slag'," the boy explained.
Will laughed. "Blame Ironhide, he's the one that kept yelling it at him."
Ratchet just groaned.
"Are you sure he wouldn't prefer 'Spike?'"
"Yes!"