Chapter 4 – En Fin
"The King hath fallen, cover him whilst I doth revive him," yells the Angry Archer running into the room, immediately being knocked down by a pink orb thrown by Gwen. This causes the knights morale to fail resulting them retreating.
"Should we chase after them?" Sari asks.
"No," Gwen says, "we can't arrest them, even the Plumbers don't want them, and the government can't arrest them, there's no law against what they do, unfortunately."
Jazz walks over, and picks up the Allspark Shard that had been dislodged from the crown.
"Where's the Ninja?" Sari asks realising that the Forever Ninja had vanished.
"I don't know," Ben says looking around.
"There's part of it," Optimus says pointing at a foot of the Ninja pointing out of underneath the Forever King robot's chest.
"Well, that's a shame," Sari says, "I only just reprogrammed him."
"We can always repair it Sari," Jazz says.
"Probably, it'll take a while," Sari says, "someone help me move some of the rubble, I want to get it out."
Jazz, Optimus, Kevin, Gwen, Sari, and Ben walk over to the robot, and help Sari to move the Forever King off the Ninja.
"We got it," Sari walks over, and picks up the pieces of the Ninja, "I should be able to put it back together."
"Well, now that's finished," Ben says.
"You haven't turned back to normal Ben," Sari says.
"I forgot, it's hard to remember when the body is my own," Ben says turning back to normal in a flash of green, "I need to think of a nickname for a techno-organic."
"Why?" Sari asks.
"It's a thing I do, I give a nickname for all the aliens in the Ultimatrix as I unlock them."
"Okay," Sari says, "what names are you thinking of?"
"What about names like Cyborg, or Android?"
"I suppose, I mean they are the names used in sci-fi for half human, half robots."
"What about Maximal?" Jazz asks, "they are a race of Techno-organic life forms, they live on distance star systems."
"Hmm, Maximal, I like it, I will probably think up a better name in the future, but for now Maximal it is."
"Well now that Ben's ego has been dealt with, I think we might want to leave before any of the knights return with reinforcements," Kevin says.
"Right, let's get the Angry Archer over there, he's still wanted for crimes in Detroit," Optimus says walking over to the Angry Archer, and picking him up gently before heading back down the corridor.
"They are still here," a knight yells at a dozen or so of his compatriots who had just entered the room, "remember it is better to be the hammer than the nail."
"What the hell does he mean by that?" Jazz asks Prime.
"I have no idea. But get Angry Archer, and the Shard back to Bumblebee, we'll be along shortly."
"But…"
"No buts Jazz, we'll be fine," Optimus hands Jazz the unconscious criminal.
"Fine then Prime," Jazz runs off down the corridor.
"Have at thee knave," the lead knight had evidently spent too much time around the archer.
"Shut up," Sari shoots an orb at him, he swiftly side steps.
"Bring the giant slayer," the lead knight orders as the knights step to the side, to reveal some kind of tank, shaped like a miniature siege tower, equipped with a drill of some kind.
"Prime, we'll deal with that thing, Ben, Gwen, Kevin, you deal with the knight."
"Ok," Ben says pressing the Ultimatrix symbol transforming in a green flash into Lodestar, he gestures with one arm, and only some of the knights are effected, and are thrown against a wall, "it would seem that they've gotten wise, but thankfully not all of them."
The siege tower rolls towards Prime slowly, very slowly, dreadfully slowly,
'Analyse your opponent Sari,' Jazz' voice echoes in her head, 'before you strike.' So that is what she does, there are massive blind spots, the armour is only strong at the front, there are no defences at the back, and the structure cannot turn very quickly, or it would fall, obviously designed for fighting one tall opponent. Sari sets to work looking for a weak point, her eyes settle on the door in the back of the tower, she runs over, and has a closer look. The door is made of some alloy that has the dull sheen of Aluminium; so asking Ben's help is out of the question, the hinges are concealed, so they cannot be broken. This leaves Sari with one option, she punches the door repeatedly at its weakest points, the latch, and the hinges, Sari was really wishing that Jazz had gotten to the point of teaching her Crystalocution (finding, and hitting fracture points of metal, causing it to snap or shatter). Sari finally managed to deform the door sufficiently that it fell out the frame, revealing three knight controlling the vehicle, or rather one controlling the tower whilst the other two had grabbed guns, one even had an RPG, both were training their guns on Sari.
"You are not seriously going to fire an RPG at me? Surely even you medieval wannabes can see that an explosion in an enclosed place is not a good idea, especially when you are within range of the explosion." Evidently Sari got through to one of the few brain cells that was not full of heroics, orders, proverbs, and the brain washing propaganda, because the knight drops RPG, and picks up the energy guns that the knights use.
"Surrender alien scum, and your death shall be swift," yells the other knight.
"Alien scum? No wonder the Forever Knights commands such respect; what strong language. This will be fast."
"There is one rule, above all others, for a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet. So don't underestimate humanity, you freak! Come on! Let's have it!" the knight yells in response.
The knights open fire on Sari, who ducks behind a pipe. "Stop firing you fools, you're destroying the inner mechanisms," the knight driving yells at his fellow knights. The two knights drop their guns in response, and draw energy swords from sheath. They walk over to Sari, who is still behind the pipe, as soon as they reach the pipe one of the knights drops to ground as Sari kicks his legs out from underneath him.
"Swine," the remaining knight yells as he swings his sword down at Sari, but is stopped when she catches his hands, twists the sword out of his grip, picks him up, and throws him out the door, all before he can react.
She walks over to the knight driving, "oh merdé," the French accented knight says as he presses a button labelled 'Autopilot', and draws an energy gun, whilst visibly shaking, and trembling.
"Do you seriously think you can beat?" Sari asks, as she walks forwards towards him, "they couldn't," she points at the knight who is still in the siege tower, there is suddenly the acrid smell of urine as the knight faints.
"That's what I thought," Sari walks over to the control panel, and starts pressing buttons that would put the machine in an inoperable state, topped off by putting the Forever Knight's main computer into a tailspin, by simply telling it to divide everything by zero. "That should annoy them for a while," Sari's thoughts are interrupted by the faint sound of a gun being drawn behind her, she spins around, and kicks the knight she had downed earlier, but now had gotten up again, in the head, knocking off his helmet. "You really like punishment don't you," Sari says to the unconscious man.
Sari steps outside to see Gwen, Kevin, and a red alien, that looks a little like a red humanoid tiger, having a conversation, whilst Prime is pinned to the wall by pincers that had come out of the tower, with the now broken drill inches from his face.
"A little help here," Prime says seeing Sari, "I am kind of stuck here, can you reverse it?"
"No, I broke it a little," Sari says.
"Let me tell ya something little miss robot, you gotta let him out there."
"I can't I broke everything in there, we're going to have to break the pincers."
"Let me tell ya something, we doesn't apply to Rath, and you can't tell Rath what to do, Rath does what Rath wants."
"I take it you are referring to yourself then, is this Ben?" Sari asks Gwen, and Kevin.
"No, I'm Rath."
"Yeah, it's Ben, he has rather limited control over what Rath says, or does. Rath help her break the pincers."
"I told you Rath does what Rath wants."
"Which at the moment includes helping her get Optimus out, me, and Kevin can't break them."
"Let me tell you something Gwendolyn Tennyson you evidently didn't hear the other times: RATH DOES WHAT RATH WANTS," he yells the last part at Gwen.
Sari takes a step forward, and puts her hand on the Ultimatrix symbol for a second before hitting it, transforming Rath into Humungousaur.
"Thanks, I was really losing control of Rath there," Humungousaur says as he grows to being taller than Optimus, and pulls the pincers apart, freeing Optimus, before turning back to Ben.
"I think we can go back to Omega now," Optimus says.
"Omega?" Kevin asks.
"Omega Supreme, our ship's name," with that the five of them walk down a corridor towards the exit of the castle.
When they arrive at the ship Bumblebee, and Jazz are having an argument.
"What are you two arguing about?" Prime asks.
"Well, Jazz said you were on your way boss bot, but after an hour I got worried, so I suggested we should go rescue you."
"And I said that you were probably fine, after all I am a faster driver than you, and you had to deal with the knights, anyway, the shard is in storage, and the Grumpy Archer is in a cell, without his bow, or arrows," Jazz says.
"Bumblebee go, and get the ship ready to leave, whilst we bid farewell to our new friends," Prime commands, Bumblebee walks up the ramp complaining quietly to himself.
"It was good to meet you Ben, Kevin, and Gwen," Optimus holds out one finger for them to shake, which they do, "good luck in all your future endeavours, and if you ever need any help, just give us a call," he hands Ben a communicator designed to be used by smaller creatures than Autobots.
"And if you need help that works the other way around as well," Ben says taking the communicator.
"I appreciate the offer Ben, we always need more allies, some humans have not taken well to us being here, like the Forever Knights don't like all aliens, I worry they will hate us, and may attack us. Then there's always the Decepticons, like the two we met."
"We all have made enemies protecting the innocent, and up holding our moral values in a troubled world, in an unforgiving universe," Gwen says, Kevin mutters something about philosophers, and rabbits.
""I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is inprobably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?*" Jazz says, giving his student a sideways glance as they share a smirk, as does Gwen, who is about to say something to them when Bumblebee calls from the inside.
"Ready to go when you are boss-bot."
"That's our cue, we should go, we have friends, and family waiting in Detroit, if you're ever in the area look us up," Sari says walking up the ramp.
"Will do," Ben says, as the Autobots walk up the ramp, the ramp retracts, and the ship takes off, "so? Mr Slushy?"
*Obvious TFIOS reference is obvious. Okay?