Tankor opened the vortex to the new coordinates and morphed into his vehicular form, a large green and grey-brown pickup truck with a camper shell, "Agent Fowler, keep the base running when I'm gone."
"No way, big guy. This involves the family of a," he paused for a moment, "former S7 agent. By Roosevelt, I'm gonna be there."
Tankor just sat there for a few seconds before his door popped open, "Fine. In ya go,"Fowler hopped in and the Autobot drove through the green portal.
Jack stepped out of his car into the cool night air of the Nevada desert. Directly ahead of him, not even ten yards away, was a solitary brown and white coupe with darkly tinted windows. It bore a streak of glowing blue running down the side from the door, and he noted this fact as he walked towards it; holding the metallic note in his right hand. As he stood next to it, he waited for something to happen, "What was I expecting, for the car to turn into some robot like those stories Mom told me when I was little?" he asked himself when the vehicle still hadn't done anything after about a minute and a half.
He hesitantly reached for the handle for the driver side door, only to jump back when the door popped open on its own. Three seatbelts struck out from the interior of the car and Jack was forced to dodge to his left to avoid them. He ran back to his car and dove into the driver's seat , putting the car into forward drive and crushing the gas pedal to the floorboards.
The sedan shot forward towards the brown and white coupe as Jack desperately cranked the steering wheel to the left; barely avoiding a collision with the front half of the brown car. His car slowed suddenly when the tendrils wrapped around his car's rear axle.
"Okay, if that's how you want it to be," the teen growled as he put the car in reverse gear. He hit the gas and ground the three appendages into the dirt. Their grip loosened and Jack put the car in drive and shot forwards. The other vehicle's engine grolwed and began to follow. Jack started to drive towards town, when he remembered that whoever was in that car had his mother. He turned his car around and stopped it. The brown coupe drove up in front of him and stopped.
Then everything went to the pit. The brown car split into the tower form of a robot. Jack hit the gas; ramming into its legs at full speed. The creature nearly toppled, but managed to support itself on its long, winglike arms. It looked at him, and his blood ran cold. It slipped one hand under the front of his car and suddenly flicked it upwards. The car lifted onto the back bumper and probably would have fallen down if the robot hadn't propped it up with its hand.
Two tentacles extended from its chest, bent and leaking the blue fluid though they were, and gripped the front doors of Jack's vehicle. Then, in a single swift motion, they both pulled to either side; wrenching the doors from their hinges. A third tentacle that bore a slash mark in addition to the section Jack had crushed appeared from inside the beast as well and extended towards the sedan's windshield.
Jack weighed his options. If he stayed in the car the monstrous machine would surely get him. If he ran, however, the waiting tendrils would snatch him up in an instant. Since the third tentacle was showing no signs of stopping, he decided he would have to risk it. He rolled out of the car door and struggled to his feet. He heard the sound of the straps heading towards him and ducked. They whizzed over his head and he could hear the sound of the third one demolishing his car, "Well there goes my Sweet Sixteen present from Bill," He snarked grimly.
The ground shook as the robotic monstrosity approached. Jack tripped when one of the straps whipped across the back of his legs. He started to crawl away, but one of the seatbelts wrapped around his body and lifted him into the air. It turned him around to face the robot and began pulling him towards the open chest of the monster, which was open, allowing him to catch a momentary glimpse of, "Mom?" She was tied up in the chest chamber and seemed to be unconcious.
Jack began to struggle, but it was entirely uneeded. Within moments there was a flash of green followed by a few shorter flashes of blue and the grip of the appendage slipped; dropping the human to the ground. Jack turned around to see a much larger green and brown robot slam into the other. He tried to stand, but found that his hip hurt too much to stand. He collapsed in pain until he felt a hand on his shoulder, "Need a hand, son?"
Jack looked up at the speaker, "Bill?"
"That's right. Can you stand?"
"My hip hurts. I'm not sure what's wrong."
"Let me see," Fowler leaned down and examined Jack's leg, "Its popped out of its socket. I can pop it back in, but its too dangerous to do here," a stray laser shot melted the sand next to them into glass, as if to underline the agent's point, "I'm gonne help you walk to somewhere safer. Okay."
"Mom. She's inside that... thing," Jack grunted in pain.
"What!?" Fowler exclaimed, obviously startled. He turned to Tankor, who was just about to punch Soundwave in the chest, "Wait a minute, Tankor! He's got June in his Minicon compartment."
"Acknowledged," Tankor punched Soundwave in the face instead and the Decepticon went sprawling out on the ground. Tankor leaned over to rescue June from her prison, but he was kicked down and pinned to the ground by a large silver foot.
"It seems that the Autobot super medic has been caught by surprise, yes."
"Eat slag Megatron," Tankor drawled as he kicked out with both pedes ; catching Megatron's leg and nearly sending the Decepticon leader crashing down on top of him. Tankor rolled to his left and Megatron fell too his knees. Tankor stood up and pointed his arm at Megatron as it shifted into his signature chainguns.
He glanced behind him in time to see Fowler helping Jack hobble into the event horizon of the groundbridge. He turned and sprinted towards the gateway, but was caught in the back by a volley of energy blasts from Megatron's minigun, "Leaving already? I don't think I can let you do that, no."
Tankor turned and inclined both arms towards Megatron as the second appendage morphed to match the first. Megatron chuckled and activated his left arm's hard-light shield; holding it in front of him to block the inevitable barrage of laserfire from the Autobot's cannons. At the same time, he lifted his own right arm and began sending extra energy to his minigun. The weapon began to change form; the barrels whirling out from the main core of the gun as a swirling orb of energy formed in the center of the huge, reality-bending weapon known as the fusion cannon.
Tankor fired his chainguns simultaneously; the seemingly unnending stream of fire refusing to give Megatron a chance to fire his own weapon. The Decepticon grunted and began to slowly march toward Tankor, while the Autobot began to retreat to the safety of the groundbridge. Just as Tankor was placing taking his first step into the portal, Megatron charged; running as fast as he could under the strain of his foes weaponry. Seeing Megatron close the distance, Tankor closed the groundbridge with a mental command and transformed one gun into his melee weapon, a sphere covered in a score of sharp spikes.
The slight lull in Tankor's firepower gave Megatron the chance he needed, and the warlord peeked his cannon out from the edge of his shield and fired. The blast streaked through the air like a comet and struck Tankor's shin. Megatron rushed towards the fallen Autobot; pulling his mace from its sheath as he ran. He rose it to strike the Autobot in the back, but though Tankor was down, he wasn't out. He fired his gatling at the now unshielded warlord; sending the silver bot staggering backwards clutching his chest.
Tankor used his undamaged leg to jump up and slam his club into Megatron's face. Megatron knocked away the Autobot's arm when it was inches from his face; the spiked orb scraping across his shoulder instead. A second later, he slammed his own weapon down on Tankor's arm; bending it backward farther than it was meant to go. The medic gritted his teeth in pain and ducked from a consecutive blow from the Decepticon leader. Megatron merely flicked out the rotors on his left arm in a quick slash that hit his opponents chest.
Now the Decepticon had the upper hand as Magatron spun around with his mace extended and slammed the weapon into the medic's chest with a powerful blow that sent him flying backwards. Megatron strode towards Tankor nonchalantly; growling, "And that, Autobot, is why I am the leader of the Decepticons."
Megatron aimed his cannon at his foes head, laughed, and... tumbled over onto his back with a scream. The air above his chest shimmered and then bubbled into the form of Mirage, "Ah, how this reminds me of the theatre. Energon shed, a dashingly heroic Deus ex Machina, and dust dust dust."
"Just shut your vocal emmiter and help me to my feet," Tankor grumbled at the Autobot spy.
"Me?! You must be joking. I already saved your life and now you expect me to help you up too. The rabble is so demanding. I am an aristocrat, you should be helping me."
Tankor resisted the urge to slap his faceplate with his undamaged servo, but he still said, "Stop with upperclassbot scrap and help me up. Now!"
Mirage huffed and jumped off of Megatron's chest to help his ally, but flinched when he heard the Decepticon stand to his feet, "We're slagged."
"Hurry," Tankor blurted out as he reactivated the bridge, "we need to get out of here."
This time Mirage listened, rushing over to the Medic and hauling him to his pedes. They walked through the bridge shut it down just as Megatron fired a shot towards it.
"That was a close one," Mirage stated, with a look of relief on his face.
"Speaking of close ones, what took ya so long? I know you were there for most of the fight," Tankor growled.
"It was fun to watch. Besides, its not like you were in any real danger," Mirage explained.
"You make Bumblebee look like a Prime. Now, if you don't mind, help me to the medical berth."
Mirage obliged him, but the base's commlink blared as he was doing so, prompting the spy to scream, "One moment!" After he finished helping the medic, he walked to the machine and his the glyph for speak, "Hello, who is it?"
The sounds of blasterfire echoed from the other side and he almost couldn't hear the speaker's voice, "Mirage, this is Optimus. Did you and Tankor rescue Mrs. Darby?"
"Nope, there were," he glanced at Jack under sedation on the couch they kept in the base for Fowler's visits, "complications."
"I see. Well if you're not too busy," and explosion could be heard in the background, and Optimus stopped his communications with Mirage to shout some orders at Arcee and Bumblebee before finishing the sentence, "a groundbridge would be prime."
"Okay, one moment," Mirage started to activate the groundbridge, but was taking a long time, "Slagging minimalistic user interface!" He finally got it working, "Oaky, here you go."
"Well done," Optimus thanked him and then ordered the others to retreat. Seconds later, they came striding through the swirling, green portal. Bumblebee came through first; speeding in on his foot mounted wheels. Arcee appeared next, splattered in energon and firing her sniper rifle through the vortex. Finally, in came Optimus; blocking shots from the Sweeps on the other side of the energy tunnel with his sword and returning shots of his own.
Once he was through, Mirage deactivated the bridge and Optimus turned to Agent Fowler, "Agent Fowler, I am sorry that we failed to rescue Mrs. Darby."
"You are not to blame Prime. It was my fault. It's my job to moniter the families of Sector Seven agents, and I failed."
They turned to the couch when they heard Jack roar, "Not your fault?! You failed, and now my mom is in the hands of that robot freak!"
Optimus leaned over to have his head level with the human teen and frowned, "Jackson Darby. Do not blame Agent Fowler, I am responsible, because I involved your mother and father in my war."
Jack frowned and asked, "Who are you?"
"I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots."
"Autobot?"
"The Autobots are one faction of a race of sentient robots from the planet Cybertron," Fowler explained, "They are at war with the Decepticons."
"Was the robot who kidnapped my mother a Decepticon?" Jack inquired.
Tankor answered this time, "Yes, his name is Soundwave, the Decepticon communications specialist."
"I'm not sure why they would abduct June. She worked with Sector Seven, but she didn't have access to anything classified."
"They left a ransom note on my door, but they didn't ask for a ransom, just for me to come to their coordinates."
"Then," Optimus looked grim, "it seems that Jack, not June, was the real target."
"But why? Why could they possibly want me?"
Fowler forrowed his brow and muttered something before looking up, "There was a leak in our database a couple of months ago, and some information was copied by an unknown party. We couldn't trace it at the time and we still haven't been able to even now, but we do know that the information was mostly information on our agents and their families. Now it seems that the Decepticons think that Jack is an S7 agent."
Jack looked confused, "You've mentioned it several times, but you never explained, what is Sector Seven?"
"An organization founded by seven government officials to moniter the actions of both Autobots and Decepticons. I can't tell you who all of them are, but I can tell you that I, Captain Fanzone, and your father were all founders. Chances are, the Decepticons got wind of the fact that we intended to make you an Agent if you were willing," Fowler explained.
"But why? What does it matter to an army of massive robots if a few humans study them?"
"Because," Optimus Prime spoke, "Sector Seven has one of their leaders in containment. They no doubt wish to release him and require the access codes to do so. Seeing as you are the newest 'member', they likely see you as the easiest source of information. They will most likely try to capture you again, so you will need a guardian."
"No thanks," Jack crossed his arms in annoyance, "You've done enough."
"Jack," Fowler adressed him, "we understand your frustration with us, but you need the bots protection. The Cons aren't going to stop after one attempt and you can't fight one on your own."
"No thank you," Jack hopped down from the couch and began marching towards a human-sized exit to the room, "I have no interest in Autobot help," He exited and slammed the door.
Prime frowned and turned to face his troops, "Bumblebee, follow him and warn us if you see any Decepticons."
"Sure thing, Big Bot," the small yellow bot chirped and ran through the bot entrance to search for the teen.
Fowler sighed, "Prime, I don't see this going well."
