Here you guys go, its very late at night so I won't say much just that this is a decent sized chapter so I will update in about 2 days if I remember lol
Chapter 10
What Rachel saw made no sense to her.
"We will kill them all," Optimus said.
She turned back around as she heard engines roaring, the three NASCAR gun-mounted Impalas she'd seen before drove in from the opposite direction, stopping beside the fallen Decepticon ship. They transformed, the Target car taking the lead.
"Wreckers, kill him!" the Target car commanded.
The other Impalas joined him in ripping apart the Decepticon in the ship.
"This is going to hurt. A lot!" the Amp car yelled.
A smile crept over Rachel's face.
"Your leaders will now understand, Decepticons will never leave your planet alone. And we needed them to believe we had gone, for today, in the name of freedom, we take the battle to them," Optimus said pointing to the ships surrounding Chicago.
Rachel looked toward the road leading out of the city when she heard cars. She smiled even wider when she saw the Camaro, Ferrari, Corvette, Hummer and Mercedes that she knew so well. Joy welled up inside of her as she realized they had hope now, with the Autobots here they had a chance. Bumblebee transformed as he was driving, coming up to them, Mirage and the others behind him. Rachel saw that Sam's eyes were fixed on Bumblebee, and she didn't blame him, she could hardly believe what was happening. Bumblebee knelt down, becoming almost eye-level with Sam, Sam looked at him for a while before looking back at Optimus.
"We saw your ship blow up!" Sam said.
"The ship?" the Amp car asked, Rachel's attention was fixed on him. "We were never in the ship! We designed the damn thing, didn't we?!"
Rachel smiled, but she was still confused.
"We were hidden in the first booster rocket to separate, splashed down back into the Atlantic, just as planned. We ain't going nowhere," the Target car said.
"Yeah, no one's exiling us."
Rachel turned to see Brains and Wheelie on top of Epps' car.
"The Autobots are staying right here. We're gonna help you win this war," Wheelie said.
Rachel looked up at Optimus when he shifted.
"They're surrounding the city to make a fortress," Optimus said pointing to the Decepticon ships, "so that no one can see what they're up to inside. Our only chance is the element of surprise."
"I think I know where to look!" Sam called up to Optimus.
Rachel didn't know her smile had been fixed on her face until her cheeks started hurting. She looked up at Ratchet and Sideswipe.
"You didn't tell us," Rachel said.
Optimus walked over to them.
"We trusted you, but we couldn't risk the Decepticons learning our real plan," Optimus said.
"We couldn't tell you anything around Sam, either," Ratchet said.
"You knew?" Rachel asked.
"Of course we knew," Sideswipe said. "That thing couldn't hide its signals for even a second."
Rachel smiled, finally she didn't feel like she was at the beginning of a dark, winding tunnel with no end, the Autobots were alive and they would help make everything right again. However, something nagged at her and she couldn't shake the feeling somehow, it wasn't over.
"If this is a dream, one of you, please, hit me," Rachel said with a laugh.
"It's not a dream," Ratchet said.
Oh, right, because if it were Ironhide would still be alive, Rachel thought with a pang of sadness.
She shook the feeling quickly and focused on the positive.
"I'm so glad you guys are alive," she said.
"You better be," Sideswipe said.
Rachel mock-smiled at him and turned back to where Sam had climbed up on the fallen Decepticon ship, Bee standing next to him, Epps stood at the base of the ship, looking at it.
"So you can fly this thing right?" Sam asked Bee.
Bee made a "maybe" gesture with his hand, making a "I dunno" sound.
"What is that..." Sam said copying Bee's gesture. "What is that? What is that? So-so?"
Bee shrugged.
"So, you can so-so fly this, that feels terrible," Sam said.
Rachel smiled, giving a short laugh at Sam and Bee, she climbed up on the Decepticon ship next to Sam. She'd never been this close to one of their ships and she studied the look of it, it was definitely different than the Autobots'. Rachel hopped off the ship next to Epps, Sam came down after her. Epps handed Sam a handgun.
"We're right behind you," Epps said.
The way Sam took the gun -holding it like he was afraid of it- and the look on his face made Rachel sigh.
"Sam, if you're going to act like that, I'm coming with you. I'm not going to let you go straight into the hands of this man -who is potentially dangerous- when you hardly even know how to handle a gun. Someone, including yourself, could get hurt," Rachel said.
"It's not like I can say 'no' to you anyway," Sam said.
"Now you're learning," Rachel said smiling.
Sam helped Rachel up the ship to where Bee had gone through the hatch into the ship. Sam and Rachel both went into the hatch after Bee, sitting next to him. Rachel found it odd to be on the inside of a Decepticon ship, it felt very unsafe and dark, in fact is was dark inside. Bee somehow started the ship and it took off from the ground, Bee turned it around and headed for the city. Rachel couldn't see outside, but she knew they'd turned around, apparently Bee could see just fine. Rachel usually didn't like not being able to see, but she didn't really mind now, she was with Bumblebee.
Nothing was really interesting about the ride -Rachel had been letting her mind wander- until the ship pitched sideways, turning again and then stopping. The hatch opened revealing the bright blue sky above, Sam climbed out of the ship and Rachel couldn't see him. The ship seemed to lower, descending a little before Rachel heard yelling coming through the opened hatch. Suddenly, Rachel heard gunfire and she quickly climbed through the hatch just in time to see Sam thrown over the railing of the Trump Tower by a vulture-like Decepticon. Luckily, the ship was right under him and he landed on it, Bee raising the ship to the edge of the building's balcony. Sam hung on to the gun mounted on the front of the ship.
"Carly!" he yelled. "Carly!"
Rachel saw Carly run from the building and jump onto the ship into Sam's arms. Bee started firing the ships' guns at the building. The bird-like Decepticon flew at them, attacking Sam, Carly went through the hatch beside Rachel. The ship started descending in a wild spiral, quickly and out of control. Rachel felt them crash into what she thought could have been buildings. They spiraled lower and lower until they crashed into something and the ship turned upside-down. Rachel gripped the side of the ship until her knuckles were white, she felt like she was going to be sick for a moment. The ship rolled and then came to a stop, Rachel hoped Sam was okay, he'd been on the front of the ship where it had rolled. The hatch opened and Rachel climbed out followed by Carly, she saw Sam walking toward them and the roar of many engines. The rest of the Autobots were driving toward them, led by Mirage. Sam embraced Carly and Rachel watched as Bee climbed out of the ship.
"You found me," Carly said to Sam.
"I'd follow you anywhere," Sam replied.
Rachel watched as the Autobots pulled up and stopped, Epps and his men got out of the Autobots.
"Form a perimeter! Let's go, let's go!" someone called.
They aimed their guns at the sky, looking for Decepticons, making sure that there were no threats. Rachel also looked around until Epps walked up to them. She smiled as he walked right up to Sam.
"Well, you're crazy," Epps said pulling Sam into a one-armed hug that Rachel didn't understand why guys did.
"What is that? Is that us?" Sam said pointing to something behind Epps.
Rachel turned around, looking where he was pointing to something on the ground. Rachel recognized it after a few seconds, it was a military UAV mini-drone. She then realized that NEST had no eyes in Chicago -satellite-wise- what so ever and the Decepticons were probably shooting down larger drones that NEST would have used before this one.
"This thing's a military UAV. Stone, check and see if it's still working," Epps called to one of his men.
"Yeah it's still got power," Stone said.
Epps knelt down in front of the camera on the drone, Rachel, Sam, and Carly stood behind him.
"Flight Control, do you copy?" Epps said to the drone. "Can...Can you rotate? Can you do something?"
Epps wiped the dust from the screen of the camera and shaking it.
"Can you rotate or something? Come on, work! Work!" Epps called. "Can you rotate or something?"
After a long pause the camera rotated toward them, facing Epps.
"Yes, yes! Okay, okay, okay they can see us," Epps said to Sam.
Sam knelt down eye-level to the camera.
"Chicago is ground zero, do you understand? Can you hear us? You understand?" Sam said.
Rachel watched as Carly knelt down in front of the camera and Sam got up.
"Please listen. Sentinel Prime is here and he has his pillars to his space bridge, they're on top of a building on Chicago River. It's owned by Hotchkiss Gould Investments, now, the pillar that controls everything is in the southeast cupola," Carly said.
"You have to destroy the pillar, you have to shoot down the pillar or they're gonna transport Cybertron here, do you understand? Do you understand?" Sam said.
Rachel became confused at Sam's last statement.
How would they transport Cybertron to Earth when Cybertron was at least six times larger than Earth itself? How could they? And if so, what would be the purpose? Rachel thought.
Rachel quickly stopped Sam before he moved off too far.
"Sam, what do you mean they're going to transport Cybertron here?" Rachel asked.
"I don't know how, but that's what Carly said they were planning," Sam said walking up to Optimus.
"That doesn't make any sense," Rachel mumbled after Sam.
She walked after him over to Optimus.
"We need to move before the fighters spot us, wait here until we scout a route ahead. Let's roll," Optimus said walking away.
"Ratchet, cover high," Sideswipe ordered following Optimus.
Rachel helped the ex-NEST friends of Epps' check their ammo and load all their weapons. She had a few days' training with the guns NEST usually used -again, courtesy of Ironhide-, so she wouldn't be helpless in the wars against the Decepticons NEST usually faced.
"I'm a tech annalist,Ironhide, not a soldier," she remembered saying and, as usual, it didn't work.
Rachel smiled at the bitter-sweet memory, she hadn't had much time to think back lately, but she didn't want to.
"Hey, you think we can use that rocket to shoot down the pillar?" Sam's sudden question made Rachel jump.
"We're eight blocks away, we got to get closer to take a shot," Epps replied.
"No, not closer..." Rachel started.
"Not closer, higher," one of the ex-NEST members said from the fire escape he was on, pointing to a building dominating the skyline. "We need a clear line of sight."
"And it's across the river, we're gonna have a hell of a time trying to sneak up," Epps said.
"We only got one shot," one of the ex-NEST members said holding up the only shot.
Just our luck, Rachel thought.
She really hoped Lennox and NEST were on their way after their video feed from the UAV.
"One shot's all we need," Sam replied optimistically.
They all got into the Autobots, Rachel into Mirage as per Sideswipe's command. Apparently, he took on the job of protecting her, not that she minded, she liked the semi-egotistical Autobot. As she was riding in the red Ferrari she turned to look at the line of Autobots directly behind them. They drove down a road surrounded by buildings on both sides, or at least, what remained of the buildings. Bumblebee and the Wreckers were in front of Mirage, Ratchet, Sideswipe, Que behind them and Optimus bringing up the rear. The road under the Autobots bringing up the rear suddenly sparked and broke apart in some places. Suddenly, the metal tentacle-like things -the drillers- attached to Shockwave that they'd encountered in Chernobyl shot up from the ground around Optimus. Rachel watched as his newly-acquired trailer was unhinged from him and rolled apart from him. Optimus kept driving, distancing himself from Shockwave. The Autobots pulled outside a vacant building that resembled a train terminal, Rachel climbed out of Mirage and joined Epps and the rest of the team. They ran into the building as the Autobots transformed and followed them into the building.
"That is one scary-ass Decepticon!" Epps exclaimed as he ran into the building.
Rachel stopped, looking up as Optimus as he came into the building holding his gun out.
"They got my trailer, I need that flight tech," he said loading the gun. "Shockwave can't hunt all of us at once. Wreckers, we need a diversion."
"Let's get some!" the Amp car exclaimed excitedly walking toward the entrance.
"You got that right," the Target car said following him.
Rachel watched as Epps went up to a window in the building, pointing at something, Rachel went up beside him.
"Listen, we're gonna circle around to that glass building," Epps said.
Rachel's eyes widened when she saw it.
"You mean that one, the one that is leaning because half the middle of it is a giant hole?" Rachel said in disbelief. "Seems pretty safe."
Epps looked at her and shook his head.
"We'll get high enough to make the rocket shot, while you guys draw his fire," Epps said pointing to the Autobots. "Let's move!"
Epps ran with his team, but they were all quickly stopped by Que.
"Wait a second! I'm not letting you go out there without my urban combat prototypes," Que said dropping some items on the ground.
"We gotta go, Que!" Sideswipe urged.
"Come on," Que said to Sideswipe, waving him away. "They're great inventions for kicking ass."
Epps' team and Sam picked up the two different weapons off the ground.
"What are these?" asked one of Epps' friends picking up a almost diamond-shaped weapon.
"Those are boom-sticks, armed in thirty seconds," Que said and then about the other weapons. "Grapple gloves, for climbing."
They ran out of the building into gunfire between the Autobots and a few Decepticons standing on the roof of a building not far away. Rachel ran in the middle of the group next to Sam and Carly.
"Go, go! Move your ass! Move, move!" one of the ex-NEST members yelled.
Rachel saw the Wreckers driving to the left, but their group ran to the right. Optimus was across the road, firing at the Decepticons, Ratchet with him.
"Move, move! Let's go!" another ex-NEST member yelled as they ran down a vacant street.
They were soon out of the line of fire between the Transformers, but Rachel knew they weren't out of danger, not yet, not at all. They ran down the demolished street, Rachel had a few seconds to think, and be glad that she was in good physical condition because even if it wasn't in the job description, running was kind of a big thing you had to do when you were fighting against giant hostile robots. She kept good pace with the trained ex-soldiers, and was quite proud of herself until she almost fell after tripping on the up-hauled road. She kicked herself mentally even though she didn't fall.
Focus, she told herself, This is not the time to lose focus. One wrong move and you're dead.
But she knew that she would never truly be focused to the task at hand, unless Sentinel was directly involved. Her focus was on revenge, even though she knew it wouldn't bring Ironhide back, she would have her revenge. She was smarter than to let revenge cloud her mind, yet she couldn't control it.
They continued down the streets of Chicago for some ways until they came to the base of the glass building, a regular office building by the looks of it. Their team ran inside, rounding a corner on the first floor. The building's inside -at least the first floor- looked completely untouched, the white marble floors were so polished Rachel could see her reflection. The brown, hard-wood walls were the same way.
"Go for the stairs!" Epps called.
Rachel looked around for stairs but only saw elevators which she knew would do no good. Sam ran way ahead of them, around the next corner.
"Epps, this way!" he called back not slowing his frantic run.
The rest of their group ran after Sam following him up the stairs he'd found. They scaled the stairs until Rachel's legs were burning, she didn't know how many floors they'd gone up. They ran into one of the rooms after they'd climbed for another few minutes.
"Come on, we're high enough!" Sam said running to the windows on the other side of the large room.
"This is a mother getting up here!" one of Epps' friends said, he was shorter and thicker than the rest.
"Get your fat ass over here!" Epps yelled at him.
"I'm coming," the man panted.
The office was also untouched, the chairs and desks were set up like a normal work day had been going on, the small potted plants were even lively. The room was light and airy with stretching glass walls for windows in three of the sides, except the windows were shattered and the building was leaning a little. Epps ran to one of the windows.
"Set up the rocket!" he commanded.
He looked down at the city below from the windowpane, Rachel ran up beside him Sam and Carly behind her. Rachel's eyes widened as she saw a tan building with four pillars across the city, three of the pillars -the ones facing their team's vantage point- were sparking with blue energy, the same energy as she'd seen the portal the hundreds of Decepticons come out of in D.C.
"There," Carly said pointing at the tan building, "the building with the dome."
The men started loading the rocket launcher, passing of the shot until the thicker man Epps had yelled at had the launcher loaded. Before they could even aim at the pillars, the building shuddered and shocked exclamations came from their team.
"Whoa, the building!" some of them yelled.
"They're shooting at the building!" one of the men by the launcher yelled to Epps.
By now Rachel had moved away from the gapping, open windowpane and had taken refuge further back away from where she was in direct danger of falling to her death. She stood beside Sam and Epps, Sam was covering his ears and head. Rachel saw he was stressed, not that she remotely blamed him.
"This is not a good idea," the thicker man with the launcher mumbled from the shattered window.
"What?" Sam said in shock, as if he couldn't believe the man had said that.
"This is not a good idea, the building is unstable," the man said.
Rachel could tell Sam was on the edge of one of his freaking-out episodes when he ran over the the man.
"Listen, stop for a second. If we don't do what we came to do, it doesn't matter, we all die, right? That's your target. Come on, man!" Sam said clapping him on the back.
"I don't care if the building collapses, I'm having a heart attack anyway," the man muttered as he aimed for the building.
Suddenly the rolling chairs in the office started rolling across the floor, Rachel was trying hard to keep her balance as the building started leaning further and further.
"The building is going over!" Epps yelled.
Rachel darted to find something solid and flat to take a hold of, thank God for the rectangular pillars supporting the roof. She couldn't have moved fast enough either, as soon as she had her hands on the pillar the building slipped fast, sending most of the furniture on the floor over. She saw that the rest of the team had also found similar things to hold to. The building kept tipping over for a few seconds before it stopped, leaving Rachel leaning all her weight on one side of her body to stay upright.
"It's okay! It stopped!" Epps yelled.
"Guys, look!" Carly screamed.
"Everybody hide!" one of the soldiers yelled.
Rachel saw them, two Decepticon ships flying toward the building, she quickly ducked behind the pillar she'd been holding on to. She heard clicking and noises that she vaguely recognized, and then a loud crash as the window shattered behind her. Debris flew everywhere as a snarling Decepticon rolled into the building, Rachel held her breath as it moved around, looking for them. She heard the sound of a Cybertronian weapon cocking. She tried to breathe quietly, but seeing as they'd been running almost all day, that was pretty hard without passing out. She saw Epps pull the pin on a grenade and he nodded to the man across from him who was holding chairs. The man let go of the rolling chairs which picked up speed and zoomed past the Decepticon, distracting it. As soon as it looked away Epps threw the grenade at it, the grenade exploding.
"Run!" Epps shouted.
Every one of them discarded their hiding spots and ran in the opposite direction of the Decepticon.
"Cover fire!" Rachel heard some of the men yell and she heard the ringing of bullets being fired.
"Shoot the glass! Jump out the window!" she heard someone yell.
Rachel grabbed her regular gun from where it was strapped to her leg, and before she had time to register -and therefore understand- what she was doing she had shattered a window and jumped out of it behind the others.
Her back slammed against the glass side of the building and she started sliding uncontrollably down it. Rachel saw the rest of their team had made it out and now they were all free sliding down the other side of the building, the one facing the sky and not the ground. They were certainly sliding to their deaths, what was to stop them? The Autobots? They were otherwise occupied and couldn't possibly know what was going on. She didn't want to think about the alternative. Her mind was blur as they picked up speed, Carly was screaming and Sam had grabbed her, pulling her close to him. All of them had managed to turn to slide on their backs which seemed better than sliding head first where you couldn't see. There was nothing to hold onto, no ledges to grab, they were falling too fast to stop now.
"We're gonna die!" one of the soldiers yelled.
Rachel quickly tried to think of something to do, this was no way to die.
"The glass!" she yelled before the air whipping against her stopped her words.
Epps had caught onto her idea, though.
"Shoot the glass!" he yelled and shot the glass panel in front of him.
Rachel and the rest of their team took their guns and shot the glass wall until it shattered and fell apart. Rachel screamed as she fell through the open glass and tumbled into the building. She'd almost slid halfway out of the other side when she realized the building was leaning too much and the speed she'd gathered sliding would carry her out the other side with the slick marble flooring. She quickly grabbed wires that had been dislodged and hung from the ceiling, reaching the leaning floor. She held tightly as the wires swung up from her force and slammed her back down into the floor.
"Holy shit," Rachel whispered.
Her whole body trembled and shook uncontrollably as she clung to the wires. Her arms were bleeding from being forced through shattered glass so many times and her heart hammered as she tried to catch her breath. She looked around and saw Epps directly in front of her, likewise clinging to wires, he was on the edge of a shattered window facing the ground a feet hundred feet below.
"Thanks," Epps said when he saw Rachel looking.
"No problem," Rachel said nonchalantly.
Rachel looked behind her and saw they were only missing one of their team, one of Epps' friends.
"Everybody okay?!" Rachel called back to them.
There were positive replied from everyone, along with everyone's labored breathing.
"What the hell was that!?" Epps' friend -the one who'd tried to shoot the rocket- yelled.
Rachel looked around, trying to bring her breathing back to normal with no success, she saw Sam had grabbed onto one of the wires and then grabbed Carly's arm.
"This evil thing's looking at me!" Epps yelled.
"What!?" Sam and Rachel called at the same time.
"It's even got an uglier Decepticon with it!" Epps said getting away from the window.
Shockwave, Rachel thought as she heard the humming of the driller.
"Be prepared! It's coming for us!" Rachel yelled trying to stand.
She used the different cluster of wires like ladder rungs, eventually pulling herself to the stairs leading down a level.
"We have to evac!" Epps yelled.
Soon the rest of the team was with Rachel and they went down a level.
"Sargent Epps! The stairs are blocked, we're trapped!" one of Epps' friends yelled.
The floor they were on was at less of an angle and had carpet for flooring, which helped a lot as they all scrambled to find a way out. Rachel ran with Epps and Sam to the window, her breath being knocked out of her as she saw the bottom of the building. The driller was circling through the building, going in and out of it.
"Move..." Rachel started.
"Move! We gotta move!" Sam yelled beside her.
"Why do the Decepticons always get the good shit!?" Epps yelled running away from the window after Rachel and Sam.
They started running to the middle of the room.
"We about to get eaten, people!" Epps' friend yelled.
Suddenly, everything started leaning, Rachel and everyone else were swept off their feet by gravity, they all started rolling head over heels. Everything in the office room started tumbling with them. Rachel knew what was happening, the top half of the building they were in was finally falling over because the driller had broken it. They were all going to die.
Yes why do the Decepticons always get the best stuff? Lol. And I still do not get the whole "transport cybertron into earths atmosphere" or whatever thing...cybertron was clearly a LOT bigger than Earth. Anyway I will be uploading soon as always thanks for reading :)