Chapter 10
The Broken Arrow
Ligerous buried Cheetah under a tree that she had stripped the bark of and carved his name into. Then, she layed down and slowly drifted off to sleep. She awoke to a frightening scent.
"Fire!" she screamed as she leaped around with her back arched.
"Ligerous it's fine. It is my fire," Pepper, who was sitting right next to it, said.
"Fire is bad!"
"Fire is warm."
"Fire makes us blow up!"
"It is a controlled fire."
"So now it is okay to start fires in the middle of our bases?"
"Ligerous, no one is being hurt by Pepper's little fire," Optimus told her.
"Well, aren't you supposed to be the cautious one?"
"I am cautious."
"Why can't you be cool like you used to be?"
Ligerous stormed out and lay down near the door. 'Why me?' she thought as she searched the sky. Pepper came out and sat next to Ligerous.
"What did you mean?"
"Well, once upon a time, Optimus wasn't a Prime and he was naive and cool, like me, and Cheetah and I just happened to stop by and by accident we…met."
"So if he wasn't Optimus Prime then was he just Optimus?"
"Our world doesn't work the way yours does. He was Orion Pax. He knew nothing about his own city and he just stayed inside the library until we met him. Then, he met Megatronus and everything changed. I lost my first life and he followed Megatronus wherever he went. The day that Megatronus went before the Cybertronian council everything that I had ever known about the shy librarian was proven wrong. They chose him to be a Prime and in exchange for protection I wrote the Cybertronian code of war."
"Ligerous, you miss Cheetah. I can tell because I have never seen the pain that is in your eyes there before."
"You're right, but he is dead now and if there is one thing that I can't do it is bringing back the dead."
"You'll see him again."
'Yeah, when I'm dead,' she thought. Ligerous wrapped her tail around Pepper and closed her eyes. She knew that going out there was no use because once she was asleep someone would carry her back in to keep her from rusting. She shivered at the thought of her close encounter with death earlier that day.
"Ligerous, come inside with me," Pepper said and Ligerous arose.
"What do you need?" she asked.
"Optimus is saying something."
"Like I haven't had enough of what he has to say today."
"It's not about today it is about tomorrow."
When Pepper said that Ligerous got up and with heavy paws she walked inside.
"Ligerous," Optimus nodded to her when she walked in. "We need to retrieve the Allspark and soon. It may be in grave danger."
"Well, where is it?" Ligerous asked Pepper, impatiently.
"All I know is that part of the answer is in Athens, Greece."
"So, tomorrow we go to Athens, Greece."
"There is more to it than just going to Athens, Ligerous." Optimus began. "You are with Pepper, Arrow with Soup, and Squirrel, you are with Margaret. Zompig you will work the ground bridge, and I will take care of the Cons. This is Operation Prime."
"Wait, an operation? Does that mean that we are going to have code names?" Arrow asked.
"If you wish it so."
"Arrow; 'Doll', Zompig; 'Toxinator', Pepper; 'Chosen Map', Soup; 'Lucky Charm', Margaret; 'Blossoming Rose', Squirrel; 'Jumpy', Optimus; 'Obvious', and I will be; 'Kitten'. Any objections?" Ligerous said and when no one said anything she moved on. "Everyone will rest except for me because I just did."
She went and layed down next to Arrow her ears pricked and her eyes alert as she waited for the next day.
When it finally arrived she got up and prodded the others awake. When they were all awake she stood in front of them. "Today is the day. We must know that no matter how hard we try pain and death will find us, we are going to find what we need and some will die. Let's go."
They went through the ground bridge and Ligerous felt afraid as if what she was doing was the wrong thing and that someone close to her wasn't safe. She inched closer to Pepper, as if to protect her from the unknown danger, and walked ahead with the group ready to attack. Something flew over their heads and landed not far from Squirrel.
"Great," Ligerous said.
"Where are you going?" it asked.
"Nowhere of your concern, so, just scuttle along, Scream."
"I am not leaving until either the one is dead or in our hands."
"Too bad, because I am not going to let you take anything else from me."
"I am afraid you have no choice," another voice said from behind them and Arrow prepared to attack.
"I didn't think you'd show up seeing that Squirrel and I are here."
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Why don't you tell them?"
"There is nothing to tell them."
"There is everything but nothing to tell them, like that you are allergic to our kind."
"You speak of nonsense."
"Do I?"
"Megatron," another new voice said.
"It is about time."
"Please be quiet," he said to her then he attacked Megatron and Ligerous ran after Pepper.
She lead Ligerous to a large wall. "Read this," she told Ligerous.
"It says North 39 degrees 1' and 39.82", then West 94 degrees 27' and 7.99". They're coordinates," she said.
"Let's go," Pepper said.
"Get me a bridge," Ligerous said to Zompig and not far after a ground bridge opened up in front of them. "Let's go!" she said to the others and they rushed towards the ground bridge.
"Ligerous!" Arrow yelled and Ligerous turned around to see that Arrow had been shot.
"Arrow?!" Ligerous felt as if all of her joy and happiness had been ripped out and replaced with anger, fear, and sadness. She looked up and stared straight into the killer's very spark. "I swear that I will rip you apart until you feel the pain that I feel now. By the time that you feel that, you will be struggling to stay alive and everything you ever knew will be gone, forever because you've taken all of my joy and broken it into tiny little pieces, so small that nothing could find it, anywhere."