Hey everyone, long time no see huh? Sorry I've been taking so long to update. I've just been slightly distracted by a few other stories, namely the ones that I'm writing with my friend Princess Selina, so this one kind of got a little lost. But I have updated again so please don't kill me. And have no fear because I will finish this story, I will not abandon it.

Well I hope you like my next chapter…

The evening air was cool and crisp. The sun had set not long again so the sky was still stained red, but was fading to a deep purple in the east, with the first few stars starting to appear. It should have been beautiful and quiet and calm. But at the base it was far from it. Lennox and Epps stood side by side watching the small speck that was a helicopter gradually growing in the distance. Starscream, Jolt, Bumblebee and the Twins towered over them, also watching the helicopter intently. Perched on Bumblebee's shoulder was Abbie, wrapped in a spare jacket as the night had cooled rapidly. Ally was standing beside Starscream; she had changed from her torn, dirty clothes into a fresh tracksuit and her hair was pulled back into a wet bun. But her eyes were still wide and her face was still a bit too pale to be healthy.

The thunderous chop of the blades filled the air, and the rush of the air made their hair whip around their faces. The cables, which were holding Optimus's limp body to the chopper base, came loose and the Autobot leader crashed unceremoniously to the ground. A small cloud of dust puffed out from under him. The growl of engines added to the helicopter blades as Ratchet, Ironhide, Jazz, Sideswipe and the Triplets pulled up around them. As the helicopter slowly turned away they transformed and stood to full height.

Lennox was the first to make his way over to Optimus, frowning as he studied the Autobot leader's body. Energon still leaked slowly from the wound in his chest, already puddling on the cooling tarmac. One side of his face was crushed and twisted and the rest of his body was a mess of scratches, gouges and dents. The fatal blow had obviously come from the hideous, twisted, wound through his chest.

"Well ain't those 'Cons just lovely!" Epps muttered from beside him, perching his sunglasses on top of his head.

Lennox looked up at Ironhide, who was towering silently above them, "You okay big guy?"

"Fine…" Ironhide growled, his tone of voice indicating he was anything but fine. Lennox knew how to comfort a human being over the loss of a friend but when it came to a twenty foot sentient robot he was left stumped. He needn't have bothered trying to comfort him though, because, just as he was about to say something else to Ironhide the roar of multiple engines interrupted the silence.

Man and Robot alike turned to look at the convoy of armoured military vehicles as they drove through the gate. They pulled into a tight circle around the group of Autobots and soldiers, guns raised and at the ready. Now of course, this final move was a very big mistake on their behalf, because not one of the Autobots was in a peaceful mood.

"What is the meaning of this?" Ratchet demanded, buzz saw spinning dangerously. Ironhide stood to full height and his cannons spun and glowed, in a deadly manner.

"You dare point a gun at me?" he bellowed, steam billowing from his nose. Lennox, sensing that things could get very ugly very fast, acted. He ran up to one of the armoured vehicles and began demanding that they lowered their weapons. Starscream had stepped into a protective position in front of Ally, red optics shining murderously.

"Soldier, stand down, that is an order!" Lennox turned to see Director Galloway sliding out of one of the trucks.

"I'll stand down when they stand down!" Lennox jabbed a thumb at the armoured trucks behind him, "Tell them to lower their weapons!"

Director Galloway gestured to the soldiers who had accompanied him and the guns powered down. The Autobots remained in a defensive position around their fallen leader until they were sure that the threat had passed.

"What the hell is going on?" Lennox demanded when everything had calmed down once more.

"I have a direct order from the President. Your NEST team is deactivated." Galloway said haughtily, ignoring the shocked the sounds and enraged looks from the Autobots and soldiers around him, "you are to cease all action and return to Diego Garcia to await further orders!"

"Why the bloody hell should we do that?" Epps demanded.

"It has been decided that your anti-Decepticon actions have been causing more harm than good. Therefore after much deliberation the order has been issued for you to return to your base and let the proper US military decide what to do next…"

"So you're just going to stop the best weapons you could get from helping you? You're gonna need every asset that you can get for this war!" Lennox snapped, getting thoroughly annoyed by the politician in front of him.

"You have been given a direct order to stand down!" Galloway hissed, before turning to open the door to the truck behind him. Before he stepped in he gestured to Optimus's fallen form, "Get that pile of scrap metal to a junk yard where it belongs…"

He was about to step into the truck when his suit was seized from the side and he was slammed into the bonnet of the truck.

"WHAT DID YOU CALL HIM?" Ally yelled, pinning the Politian to the truck, "TAKE IT BACK NOW!"

oOo

I glowered down at the quivering man I was pinning to the truck. He looked absolutely terrified, which I, for some reason, felt a sense of savage glee about. He stuttered and babbled out nonsense as I slammed him against the bonnet a bit harder.

"Take it back!" I hissed dangerously.

I still wasn't sure how this had all come around, I mean, one minute I was floating around in a world of blurred sounds, colours and sensations and the next minute I was pinning Director Galloway to the bonnet of a car, screaming at him.

I was suddenly seized around the waist by sharp talons. I yelped in shock and instantly started squirming.

"Whoa Ally, whoa. You can kill him later." Starscream clutched me in his hand, "Jeez, woman, calm your farm!"

"Put me down!" I squirmed, "Starscream! Put me down!"

"Not until you calm down!"

I squirmed and kicked for a few more minutes, before crossing my arms and glowering at the ground. Starscream deposited me on his shoulder and removed his hand. I glared at Director Galloway as he scrambled into the truck, yelling at the driver to drive.

"Ally? Are you okay?" I looked over at Abbie who was watching me in concern from Bumblebee's shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?" I said, slightly sarcastically, but regretted it when I saw the slightly hurt expression on her face, "Sorry Abbie. I'm okay. Just annoyed,"

"As we just saw," she sounded a little freaked out. Actually, pretty much everyone present was looking at me in shock. I sighed sightly and rolled my eyes.

"Yes everyone, I nearly killed the guy. But don't tell me that he didn't deserve it because he so did!" A few of the younger soldiers jittered nervously and most of the older ones who knew me just shrugged. I looked up at Starscream, "Screamer, can you put me down please?"

"So long as you don't try to kill anyone else," he said as he picked me up and gently deposited me on the ground again. By now the army were starting to peel off each of them heading back to their various duties. But now my attention wasn't focused on them. I reached out and placed my hand on the cold metal of Optimus's face plates and lowered my eyes sadly and breathing deeply. This upset me a lot, I wasn't going to lie, but I was all cried out by now because no tears came. I stroked the icy, dented metal slowly as I swallowed. I felt lost, for want of a better word. It was all happening way too fast for my little human brain to cope with. I wasn't the smartest person in the world to start with, I had only ever been average in most of my classes at school and sometimes I had even been below average, even with the added help of the All Spark, and the only reason why I had passed my Maths tests in my final year was because Optimus had tutored me and even now I had trouble with my times tables. I wasn't a genius and I didn't pretend to be, so there was no way that I was going to be able to think of any logical way out of this situation. Not without help anyway.

"What are we going to do now?" I asked no one in particular, not caring who answered, "Well, more importantly, what are the 'Cons going to do now?"

"The Decepticons have already made their first move," Ratchet said and I looked over at him.

"What do you mean? What have they done?"

"Do you remember me telling you about The Fallen?" Starscream asked, stepping into the circle of Autobots alongside Bumblebee. I nodded quickly, "he's here. Along with pretty much an army of Decepticons,"

I froze in shock and looked over at Abbie who nodded. Obviously a lot had happened when I had been out of it. I gasped as my stomach fluttered with nerves and horror. I couldn't comprehend it all really, it was just too much. First Megatron popping up from the grave, then Optimus deciding to go and die, and now some bad guy was just nipping by without an invite obviously planning on taking over the world. Of course it would be at this point in a movie or novel that the hero or heroine would start to suffer from serious issues of self-doubt and other crap like that. And I really felt like having another mental breakdown at this point in time. But I pulled myself together. I had already had one breakdown and that was enough for now.

I looked back up at the Autobots who surrounded me. They all looked downcast and as if there wasn't any hope left, no light at the end of the tunnel. And it honestly seemed that way.

"Alright you lot listen up," I said loudly and they all looked down at me, "now that Optimus is down, who holds next command. Is it you Jazz? You're first lieutenant,"

"Uh, yeah…it is me. I think," the solstice said uneasily, "But I'm no Optimus. I can't command an army."

"Well you're gonna have to sunshine. Because it looks like we're gonna have one hell of a fire fight coming up,"

"But Director Galloway told you guys to head back to base," Abbie piped up.

"I don't remember him enforcing that. Besides, if he dares cross me again, I think he knows what will happen," I slammed my fist into my palm, "I won't take orders from some old hot air balloon, especially not a hot air balloon that dares to insult my friends. Now, I want details. What does The Fallen want? What does Megatron want? It's not the All Spark, he said so himself. He was talking about something else. Something to do with my head. I'm not sure. What does Earth have that could possible interest these guys?" I reached back and rested my hand back on Optimus's face plates. I was really surprised that I was able to talk to them like this, considering that inside I was having a major freak out. Had it only been this morning that I had been preparing to go and meet Abbie for a normal coffee out. Sheesh this had been a long day. My fingers traced the line of one of the symbols in Optimus's audials, then I stopped. I looked down at the symbol and frowned deeply. It looked familiar and not just because I had seen it every day for the past few years. I looked up at Ironhide, who must have sensed that I was thinking about something serious because he crouched down and looked my straight in the eye.

"What is it Ally?"

"What language is this?" I asked, pointing to the symbol, "does it mean anything or is it just a decoration?"

"I don't know. It's a language I know that, but I don't what it is. Why is that important?"

"Because these are the same symbols that I've been seeing every night for the past few months," I said very slowly and carefully, "I need a whiteboard, a pen, and a Solo. And in that order,"

Without any other word of explanation I marched off towards the main hangar, not caring who followed me, if anyone. Once I was inside I grabbed a white board pen and a rubber and crossed to one of the many white boards.

"Is this important?" I asked, pointing to the writing that was already on it.

"Um, I don't know miss. I'll ask,"

"Too late," I used the rubber to remove the writing, which had been of some stupid diagram, before beginning to write on the board myself. Well, maybe it wasn't so much writing as drawing. On the board I drew every single symbol that I had seen over the months. If the 'Cons were so determined to get what was in my head that I wanted to know what they were after. And I was going to find out somehow. I was not going to let Optimus's death get to me, not until I had successfully determined what was going on and why. I wouldn't let it get to me, I wouldn't! I was going to figure out what was happening and then I was going to stop the 'Cons before they could do anymore damage.

I stepped back from the board, satisfied that I had gotten every single symbol out onto the page, before I turned to Abbie who must have come in whilst I was busy. She was staring at the board in confusion.

"Okay Ally, so you've written down a bunch of randomness, now what are you going to do with it?"

"I'm gonna decipher it!"

"How you gonna do that Einstein?"

"…I don't know,"

She looked slightly amused but disbelieving at the same time as I frowned at the board, as if by doing that the symbols would become legible.

"Well, if you can't do it, then we might have to find someone who can," she said.

"I might be able to help with that," both of us jumped and turned around at the voice behind us. My eyebrows shot up into my hairline and Abbie's face was a mix of anger and surprise when we saw who it was. Hamish was standing a few meters behind us, looking a bit frazzled and slightly freaked out.

"Oh joy, Sir faint-a-lot has returned," I quipped.

What do you think of them onions then? Any good?

It shouldn't be too long before I get the next chapter up. Things are about to get interesting and I'm very eager to write as Ally and Abbie get up to all kinds of trouble.

So TTFN and if you're feeling generous why don't you just click the review button and leave me a few words.

Cheerio darlings.