Author's Note: So, I finally updated. I'm actually ahead in homework (for once!), so I thought I'd finish this up. It's written differently. I kinda wanted to experience with different kinds of styles and organizations, so this is the result.

Also! I wrote a oneshot called Wastelands. It's basically a mini "what happened" after the mysterious meteor landing in the Tokyo Bay. It doesn't really go into details, just gives you a sort of "Who Was It" answer. Some of you already guessed, and it's not really a secret. I tried to incorporate some humor into it, so check it out. :)

Chapter 7

Metamorphs and Destruction

Everything was black. Complete, utter black. And cold. Lyra hadn't felt this cold since...

Huh. She couldn't remember.

She knew that she had felt this cold before, she just didn't know where.

There was a steady sound in the background, nearly rhythmic.

Beep.

Annoying, too.

Beep.

What the hell was that?

Beep. Beep.

God, was it her alarm clock? She needed to get rid of that thing, she told herself. It was giving her a headache.

Beep.

For the love of—!

"Will someone stop that beeping?" Lyra moaned, trying to curl up into a ball. A painful tug on her arm stopped her, though. Hissing quietly, the brunette examined the source of the sensation, not at all pleased to find a tube coming out of it.

...the fuck?

Slowly, experimentally, she tugged gently at the tube. A pained gasp flew past her chapped lips. Not doing that again, she thought.

"Stop that." A dainty, pale hand slapped Lyra's hand away.

Lyra glanced up, jumping slightly as she saw a woman in a set of blue pajamas. She hadn't known anyone was with her.

The beeping was louder now, and the woman seemed to be preoccupied with its source. She was scribbling away at a clipboard.

"Where am I?" Lyra asked quietly. She could slowly feel all of her limbs start to burn with the familiar sense of pain. Her words sounded slurred, too, hindered by gauze that was wrapped around a portion of her face.

"Trinity Hospital, CCU," the woman, a nurse apparently, replied, bringing out a tiny flashlight and shining it into her hazel eyes.

The brunette cried out in pain, flinching away. She hissed loudly every part of her body protested.

"Careful," the nurse commanded. "That accident did a number on you. We didn't think that you'd even be conscious for a while."

"Wha—? 'Accident'?" Lyra asked, letting out a pitiful moan as she tried to shift her position on the hospital bed she was on.

"Don't move," the nurse said fiercely before she softened her tone; "you don't remember?"

She bit her lip, shaking her head mutely. The action was barely noticeable, seeing as Lyra was trying to limit the pain she felt, but the nurse still saw it.

A sad, sympathetic smile graced the beautiful nurse's features. "Miss Montez," she murmured softly before clearing her throat and speaking louder. "I'm sorry, Miss Montez. Your injuries were sustained in a car accident. Your brothe—"

"What the hell were you thinking!?"

A headache instantly started to form in Lyra's already pounding head. The brunette looked up to see an older woman that just radiated past beauty.

Long, ash blond hair which once could've been a luscious mane was wiry now, protruding from a small head. An angular face was drawn tight around her eyes, appearing as if it were stretched across her defined cheekbones. Plump, pouty lips were twisted in a sneer, made all the more unattractive by their chapped appearance. She was thin, almost sickly so, and her clothing appeared to be draped on her rather than worn.

"Mom?" Lyra asked, her voice cracking as her mind tried to wrap itself around the words 'car accident'.

"You're not allowed to be in here," the nurse said sternly, straightening up as she glared at the woman, Lyra's mother.

"I hope you're happy, you little bitch!" she hissed angrily, leering at the hospitalized girl with bloodshot eyes. She was shaking like a leaf, her bones jutting out of her skin disgustingly.

"What? What d'ya—?"

"Ma'am, I really need you to leave before I call security," the nurse repeated, taking a step closer.

"You fucking whore! Because of you, you're brother is dead!" her mother screeched.

Dead.

The word resonated in Lyra's mind.

She stared at the blindingly white sheets on her bed, shocked out of awareness. She wasn't aware of the nurse calling for security or the angered cries her mother elicited as she thrashed against the bulky men, trying in vain to reach her daughter.

Dead.

Dead.

Noah—he was dead.

Questions started to fill her head. Why? When? How?

The last thing she remembered was...

What was the last thing she remembered?

She remembered...rocks. No, not rocks: rubble. There was screaming, too. A baby was crying at one point.

What more? She knew there was more, damn it.

Mechanical whirring. There was a lot of that.

Lyra gasped, startled by her revelations. It all came rushing back: Sam, Mikaela, the Autobots, Decepticons, and Noah.

That couldn't have been a dream. It couldn't've.

She remembered leaving the Hoover Dam in a haste after getting Bumblebee. She had wanted to punch the daylights out of the scientists surrounding the Camaro, but had refrained. She had seen the All spark up close, remembered how it had called for her, mesmerized her, practically begged for her to reach out and touch it. She had remembered the words that rang through her mind as she gazed at the strange symbols carved into the Cube: peace, unity, life, creation, destruction, energy, fate, guardian, prosperity, and destiny.

It was information overload, different scenes accompanying each word as it hit her like a ton of bricks.

She was a world in which humans and Autobots lived together, standing side by side with smiles on their faces. Then, she saw a flash of tiny Cybertronians, the term 'sparkling' coming to mind. They were surrounded by indistinct Autobots and human toddlers. Before she could distinguish anything, it changed again. She saw a barren world, devoid of any life. It flashed forwards, and she saw a lively city with walking metal beings. Scene change again, and the same city was burning.

The images hadn't stop coming until the All spark was just a small cube in Bumblebee's hand, his metal digits hiding it from her view.

"You okay?" Mikaela had asked, worried.

"Yeah," she responded, blinking dazedly.

Her father hadn't been there, instead he was off being the soldier. As usual.

Lyra remembered being in the car with the All spark, the proximity practically sending her body alight. The energy was intoxicating. Every cell in her body tingled. The cold feeling that she had slowly become accustomed to flared as she felt the raw energy throb in her hands.

She remembered Mission City. A Decepticon Ironhide called "Starcream" had shown up. 'Bee's legs were blown off. She remembered spotting a familiar head of sandy hair: Noah.

She had taken off quickly, running for him, dodging falling shards of broken buildings as she was led by pure instinct. Her encounter with the All spark had her feeling like a human Energizer Bunny.

Unfortunately, she wasn't fast enough. Noah was safe, she remembered, before she was knocked out. She wasn't sure, but she believed it was a stray piece of an exploding vehicle that had obstructed her journey.

After that, she remembered black. Cold. A void. Then the beeping. And, finally, the hospital.

Lyra couldn't have made it all up. Her imagination couldn't possibly be that good. No. It was real. All of it. She refused to be it. Noah wasn't dead. He couldn't be. She had promised to keep him safe. There was no way in Hell that she had failed.

She never failed.

Lyra just couldn't let herself fail. It was against her nature to be anything but the best. Hell, it was against her nature to break a promise.

She didn't care what it was she had to do, she decided, she wasn't going to fail. The fact that Noah was already...that...was just a small impediment. Lyra would figure something out. She always did. It didn't matter if she had to drive herself to the point of insanity, she would keep her promise.

The brunette was willing to march all the way to Central Park, play a tune, and retrieve her brother if she had to. If Orpheus and Percy could do it, so could she.

A hand settled on her shoulder, and Lyra looked up with a strangled gasp. She was met with blue—no, purple—no, red, eyes. The colors changed between those three, and it took a moment for her to register that so were the being's other physical appearance.

One minute, it was a bleach blond human, lanky in shape. The next, it was a Cybertronian, Autobot, if the optics were anything to go on. In the next moment, it would grow or shrink or completely change species.

"We have seen many beings in Our time," it said. It's voice was...bizarre. It was as if dozens of voices were melded into one. "You are a strange one."

Lyra tried to say something, but she just couldn't. She was just so—shocked? Terrified?—she didn't even know.

"You do nothing without merit," the voice continued, undeterred by her silence. "You thrive to be the best, crave recognition. Yet you so thoughtlessly throw it away."

"F-for my brother," Lyra stuttered out, finding the feat extremely hard. It was like fighting an unseen force.

"Yes," the voice agreed, "for Noah."

A lump formed in her throat.

"Such a pure boy. Selfless, naive...the perfect choice."

"Ch-choice...?"

"The Decepticons are willing to use any means necessary. Even something so innocent can be crushed in their clutches."

"D-don't. Please..." Lyra whimpered, her mind being invaded with images she didn't want to see. Noah dead. Noah impaled. Noah in Megatron's clutches. "...stop!"

"Are you prepared to protect him as you so claimed?" It asked. "Are you willing to follow your brother into the face of danger? Willing to sacrifice yourself in the name of Guardianship?"

A small gasp was all that delayed Lyra from her inevitable "yes".

"Then your loyalties are your brother's," the being said, reaching out a hand to touch her collar. No, to touch the necklace that hung there. "Your power is your heart and devotion. You it wisely."

Black. It was always black. Only this time, there was a light. A small dot of light in the distant. It started to stretch into a thin horizontal line. It started to grow vertically until a blurry image was what she saw.

She moaned, blinking her eyes. The image cleared, and she saw destruction and chaos. Someone was yelling. They were crying. Pain was all she felt. Pain and confusion. She wasn't at the hospital, that was for sure.

"Lyra, please wake up!" the person yelled. It was so familiar... "We need to go, so…so…so wake up! Wake up or I'll tell dad on you!"

Wait, was that... "Noah?"

There was so much pain. Speaking hurt. Breathing hurt.

"Lyra! Hurry up," the person, Noah, exclaimed, tugging at arm to try to get her to stand up, "you have to get up!"

"Wha—? Wha's goin' on?" Lyra asked groggily as she looked around, taking in her surroundings. Her gaze fell upon a large, imposing metallic being with crimson optics. The blood drained from her face. "You gotta run, Noah," she rasped out, remembering the ever-morphing being's words.

Are you willing to sacrifice yourself in the name of Guardianship?

"No! Not without you!" Noah objected as she sat up painfully. "Not without you..." he repeated weakly, tugging at her hand helplessly.

"I-I can't kiddo," Lyra wheezed out as even shifting her shoulder caused her an impeccable amount of pain. "I hurt." She removed her brother's grip on her arm slowly, his little fingers digging themselves deeply into her flesh. "The Decepticons, they don't want me, they want you," she pointed out in exhaustion. "That's why they took you, because you have information they want."

She didn't mention anything on why they were there or how they even had the information, because she didn't have the answer to that. Lyra could try to do the equation all she wanted, but she wouldn't be able to solve it if she didn't have all of the variables.

"You're the one who knows Transformers, No'," she stated, "so you gotta go. Find Prime. He'll know who you are,"

"I'm not leaving witho—" He tried to cut in.

"Damn it, Noah! Get out of here!" Lyra hissed angrily, her hazel eyes flashing dangerously. Fueled with a desire to protect her brother, no matter what, she shoved the small boy away. He stumbled, but managed to stay standing.

Noah was momentarily stunned before he decided to do as she said, albeit reluctantly. He took the Decepticon's attention with him, though, and the wasn't something Lyra wanted.

"You think you can run, fleshling?" the 'Con laughed.

As he took a step towards her brother, Lyra reached out to grab a stray chunk of debris. Mustering all the energy she could, she threw it at the Cybertronian. Luck was the only thing that made it hit its mark, resonating a loud, hollow thunk! as it hit its head.

The Cybertronian blinked, turning to look at the femme blankly.

"Come and get me, you pile of scrap metal," Lyra whispered tauntingly, not having the energy or pain tolerance to speak louder.

The Decepticon snarled, charging up his cannon.

"I love you, Noah," she whispered, tilting her head in submission as she shut her eyes.

She really would die in Mission City.

At least, that's what she thought before she heard the revving of an engine over the sound of destruction. Her head snapped up and she saw something that was both comical and awe-inspiring. 'Bee was strapped to the back of a truck. A truck that was being driven my Mikaela.

Before long, the Decepticon was writhing on the floor, a few shots from the handicapped Camaro having put it down.

"Lyra!" Mikaela exclaimed, jumping out of the truck and running towards her. She carefully helped the brunette to her feet, but it was pointless. In the next second, the mechanic was breaking every intact bone she had in the trunk of her body with a crushing hug. "I was so worried," she whispered.

But Lyra barely registered it as she became winded with the loss of something. It wasn't air. It was more.

It took a bit, but she finally registered the cause.

The All Spark had been destroyed.

Author's Note: So, review! :D