You Owe Me
by Phoenicem Argentum
AN: This is an incomplete work. I will not promise it will be completed. I will not promise regular updates. I will not beg for reviews. Encouragement is appreciated and may inspire writing sprees, but once again, no promises are made.
Chapter One
Once again, a battle raged around them.
Bumblebee seized his two small charges and quickly pushed – almost shoved – them into the decaying frame of an abandoned office building.
"Wait!" Sam called after him, but he was already gone, gone to defend his comrades-in-arms rather than his pets.
No, she told herself, no, they weren't pets…
Right?
But she pushed away the bothersome idea and turned her attention to her now frantically pacing boyfriend. He was muttering to himself, and she wondered if the same thoughts were passing through his mind. Suddenly, he wheeled around from where he had paused near the gaping doorway.
"Do you think," he began, but what he was about to say was forever lost as the entire front of the building slid away like a tablecloth someone had pulled. Sam disappeared under the rubble, and she screamed.
Glowing red eyes peered after the sound, but were distracted by a piercing cry of anger. The gold blur of Sunstreaker collided with the Decepticon Seeker, knocking him into the buildings on the other side of the street. In the back of her mind, she dimly recognized him as a Conehead… Thrust, maybe? Dirge? The same piece of her mind screamed, "Run, you idiot!" But she stood frozen as the two colossal, elemental beings trampled the infrastructure into dust before her. Choking on the dirt that rose from their conflict, she tried to override the terror that held her in place and back away.
Thrust bellowed something and threw Sunstreaker from where the front liner clung to his back, clawing at his wings. The Autobot collided with the remains of the building that she cowered under, and more ceiling tiles and bits of drywall rained down around her.
But those bits of debris were the least of her worries. Terribly, inevitably, a support beam fell in stately glory, silhouetted by floating particles of dirt and a ray of sunlight trying to pierce the battle-dust induced gloom.
Wide-eyed, she watched it descend, knowing it would strike her and knowing that there was no way; that she simply couldn't move away in time. It collided with the ground, raising billowing sheets of gray dirt so thick that her field of vision faded out as the sun was choked away… or it could have been the pain that made things go black for a moment, for the I-beam that once supported the next story's flooring now lay across her legs, which were surely both broken.
She must have blacked out again, because when the world was once again revealed to her sight, no Cybertronians could be seen, Autobot or Decepticon. In the distance, though, a terrible mechanical shriek echoed off the walls of the concrete jungle.
Then there were the sounds of a commotion, and the ground reverberated with the forces of feet and engines, sending bolts of agony up her legs. A roar of jet engines, a single whining discharge of plasma weapons, then… nothing.
She must have been in shock, because when the truth of the situation sank in, several minutes later, she didn't feel anything at all. Not fear, not anger, not disappointment, just a vague idea of betrayal, and no thoughts of acting on it.
"They left me," she whispered to the slowly clearing air. The dust continued to settle around her without heed.
Her legs shrieked again with pain when she shifted to find a more comfortable position, and she desisted, lying still and trying to force her fuzzed thought processes to operate in a sensible linear fashion.
Sam was, very possibly, dead. She had heard nothing from him since the building fell. The Autobots were certainly gone, as were the Decepticons, for her surroundings were absolutely still. It could be hours until anyone returned to the site of the battle - but to them, her treacherous mind reminded her, it was probably more of a skirmish – and there was no guarantee that any investigator would be of the blue-opticed variety. Her best hope, then, lay in getting herself free, checking on Sam, and depending on his condition, continuing on to try and find human aid.
That plan relied on her legs not being broken, which had a discouragingly small chance of being true. She was very securely pinned, and every movement was agony. But for Sam's sake, and her own, she had to try anyway.
With a groan, she braced her hands against the uneven ground and attempted to force her body backwards. There was pain, then a nasty, nausea-inducing ripping noise, and she froze. The pain did not lessen, increasing, rather, and she pushed her torso up to try and glimpse what was wrong.
She moaned in horror. A small pool of blood slowly emerged from where her legs remained, pinned under the beam. Rather than freeing herself, she had drastically worsened her situation. With the break coming through the skin as a… what was it called, a compound fracture – she forced the bile back down – she couldn't risk making it any worse by further efforts.
A tear drew a trail through the dirt on her face, and she glance desperately towards the rubble under which Sam surely lay.
Now what?
She could only lay back and wait.
*~BREAK~*
The dull, earth shaking roar of low-flying jets woke her, piles of rubble shifting and crumbling around her and her legs aching dully.
For a split second, hope sprang in her chest at the thought of Air Force, of human aid, of medical care, only to die and be replaced by fear as the truth hit her.
"Seekers," she whispered.
The bleeding from her leg had slowed, maybe stopped, she wasn't sure. Could she try to move away again? Perhaps they wouldn't find her. Why were they even here? Surely, Megatron had no concern in capturing a couple of fleshlings.
The tones of the engines changed, then cut out only a second before triple booms raced in palpable waves through the ground beneath her as the Tranformers landed. A full trine, then, and a skilled one if they could manage the midair transformation landing sequence. The Command Trine. Why would the Command Trine be performing post-combat reconnaissance?
She lay still and silent as the three Decepticons traversed the ruins, hoping they would overlook her building. The futile prayer died in her throat as the noise of an approach grew louder, until the rattle of falling bricks told her that the mech stood directly behind her. Frantic, she twisted, her eyes meeting dark grey and blue shinplates. Her gaze travelled up, and up. Grey, blue, red…
"Starscream?"
The mechanoid spoke, and his screechy vocal register was at once familiar and frightening.
"What are you doing here, Mikaela?"
*~END~*