First off, I'd like to just say...
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! (I know, I'm a day late...)
However, as a special treat concerning this holiday based on love, all you readers who have been wondering if Optimus was ever going to progress in his feelings for Elita, will wonder no longer! This part isn't very fluffy though (first of all due to the fact that they must remain in character) and secondly because well... you'll see. Anyway! Enjoy!
Starry Surprise
pt12
There was little time to spare. The moment that Lockdown stepped foot or tire in their base, all chaos was going to break loose. Optimus Prime only hoped that he had contacted Ratchet in time. He waited, but no response came from the medic. Arcee stood next to Optimus, completely frozen and glanced worriedly Bumblebee's way then Bulkhead. They were all thinking the same thing: How could this have happened? Why hadn't they picked up on Lockdown's energy signal? Why hadn't they been more careful? Now, Ratchet, the children and Elita One were all in extreme danger and would have to fend for themselves, until Ratchet could manage to re-open the ground bridge... Arcee looked up at Optimus. He never lost much of his calm composure, even under supreme pressure and even now he was holding himself together alright, to her surprise. Perhaps it was because he knew first hand how good of a warrior Elita One was, and the Prime was confident that she, along with the help of Ratchet, could easily take care of things against the bounty hunter. Last time she'd been Lockdown's captive, she'd been in stasis. Now that she was on-line, things would be a different story. Prime put all his faith in her, for it was the only thing he could do in this moment of helplessness.
Within the Autobot base...
Elita One, along with the children had been eagerly awaiting the return of Optimus Prime and his soldiers. The femme commander had been walking towards the ground bridge portal as it beamed to life within the base. Its blue warp field was spinning brightly, when a figure emerged: a car figure, and it was driving fast. Elita One was on her guard instantly as she did not recognize the vehicle to be a mode of one of Optimus's troops. That was when Optimus Prime's voice had boomed over the com-link feed through the computers.
"Ratchet! We have a breach!"
"What?" Ratchet looked up, turning to stumble backwards just as Lockdown zoomed into the base, tires smoking. The bounty hunter transformed and activated his weapons, one arm had a battering ram, while the other activated a laser gun.
"I've come for the femme, stand down and no one gets hurt..." Lockdown stated calmly, his optics had been narrowed on Ratchet first, but the moment he heard the priming of a weapon behind his head, Lockdown blinked and glanced over his shoulder. The tall femme commander stood his height at least, and her face was serenely peaceful as she stared sternly at him from less than a yard away.
"I suggest you leave," she responded. Lockdown cracked a devious grin. The children could all see it from where they ducked behind the couch for safety. They knew well enough that they could not be much help in a robot fight, so they stayed as hidden and out of the way as possible for now. Ratchet on the other hand, primed a weapon carefully, even though it seemed Elita had everything under control.
"Elita One," Lockdown addressed her with a soft chuckle.
"And you are?" she returned.
"The bounty hunter bein' payed to bring ya back to Lord Starscream. And I'll warn ya, I don't quit jobs easily, not with so much money at stake," he stated, turning around to face her full on with that same sideways grin on his face. Elita's expression didn't change.
"It would be mighty hard to miss you at this proximity," she returned, keeping her gun trained between his optics.
"Aye, I reckon it would be. Thankfully, I have a solution for that," and then, faster than the blink of an optic, Lockdown's shoulders morphed into some sort of ray and the beam engulfed Elita One within it. Elita's spark raced, not fully aware of what had happened or why she wasn't fatally wounded, but when she deemed she was still alright, she whipped her gun back up and found her weapons inoperable. Ratchet was firing now, but Lockdown lunged away to dodge before he turned his weapon disabling ray towards the medic next and soon the energy from Ratchet's gun was deactivated against his will. Elita One wasted no time. While Lockdown's back was towards her she struck. Lockdown hadn't seen it coming and when the strong femme's leg swept out to trip him up, he failed to block, finding himself unbalanced and heading for the floor. But mid way into the fall, he arched his back and tumbled into a well timed roll, spinning to land back on his feet. Elita couldn't use her guns but she didn't need to. She'd been trained in many martial combats, having even been able to take Optimus Prime off guard occasionally in spar fights, and she was confident this bounty hunter wouldn't have the skill set she did.
Lockdown had really no idea what he was dealing with here, and while he'd managed to keep from falling flat on his face, he hadn't come prepared for a martial artist. Most soldiers were not trained in that kind of combat, instead relying on their weapons in battle. But it took him less then a minute to adjust to her new tactics. She struck out, and he blocked, but she struck again, this time a different direction, and still he managed to block. But then... suddenly she became a lot faster, the punches and the strikes were coming quicker than he could block and the force behind them was increasingly harder. Lockdown was amazed to find himself ill equipped to handle her now and before he knew it, she was landing hit after strong hit.
Meanwhile...
Seeing as Elita One was doing just fine on her own, Ratchet had moved to reopen the ground bridge, in order to bring Optimus and the rest of the troops back into the base. The sooner they got here, the sooner the fight would be over and the sooner every one would be safe. Lockdown apparently noticed Ratchet had pulled the ground bridge lever and was now seriously uncertain about what to do. If the rest of the Autobots got in here, he'd be trapped and imprisoned. That was the last thing he wanted. Forget Starscream, and screw the reward. It wasn't worth being pounded by a troop of highly experienced war soldiers and their commander. As soon as the blue field had flashed open, Lockdown glanced over towards it, right as Elita One nailed him directly in the faceplate with her fist. He staggered back, spitting energon from his mouth and trying to blink away the blurriness in his optics. Elita One paused also upon seeing the ground bridge beaming to life, and Lockdown quickly transformed into his muscle car while he had the chance, before slamming down the gas petal and peeling out of the base towards the blue field.
It was mid-way through the field that Optimus glimpsed the bounty hunter speeding towards them. Optimus steeled himself, perfectly prepared to ram right into the hunter and knock him senseless, but Lockdown was a skilled driver, and he dodged the semi-truck, using so much power that he was able to turn up and over inside the glowing tube, avoiding smashing into any of the troops, and slipping out behind them just in time. Prime didn't hit the breaks, nor did he have time to look back, because before he knew it he was back in the base. Optimus wasted no time and transformed spotting Elita One instantly and then noting the children peeking over the couch edge. Ratchet gave out a weary sigh.
"That was a close one," Ratchet vented. Optimus walked over to Elita, taking full account of her condition. Nothing was wrong with her, not a single scrape or dent. Optimus was over protective however, and despite the obviousness that she was fine, he had to ask anyway.
"Are you alright?"
"I am," she responded confidently, "Sorry I let him go," she said, "I saw the field opening and well... he wanted to run so I figured I should let him. I banged him up quite a bit," she added, almost sounding guilty. Optimus set a hand on her shoulder and smiled warmly, deeply pleased. She was always so merciful, and he truly did admire that about her. No, he had to be honest with himself. He loved that about her.
"That freak didn't know what hit him!" Mikko shouted, pumping her fist in the air.
"Optimus, she was amazing," Jack put in, "You should have seen her,"
Optimus didn't care to offer up the correction that he had in fact seen her fight, many times, for the children were enjoying the praise and enthusiasm of what they'd seen, and Elita One deserved to be complimented. Optimus in fact, even thought he himself lacked on complimenting the femme enough. Perhaps he'd refrained from expressing his inward feelings towards her simply because he knew of his duty to the Autobots, and that it required every last bit of his attention. Unfortunately, the life of a commander couldn't afford many luxuries. Falling in love, was one of those luxuries.
In reaction to the children's clear approvals, Elita One responded humbly, turning the conversation away from her glorification as gently as possible by simply saying, "I'm sorry you had to see that..."
"They are used to it, trust me," Arcee responded, waving it away. Optimus moved to go stand by Ratchet, where they began discussing the entire situation.
"Breakdown and Knock Out seemed to attack to no purpose until this incident with Lockdown," Ratchet spoke, "Could it have been that their intent the whole time was indeed to cause a distraction in order to enable Lockdown a chance to recapture Elita One? Or was his appearance on scene unrelated?" the medic wondered out loud.
"It is my speculation that these two occurrences were plotted out by Starscream as a team effort. If Lockdown was the mech hired to have captured Elita One in stasis for Starscream in the first place, it is reasonable to believe that the bounty hunter would then be reemployed for the reason of recovering her," Optimus deducted.
"If Starscream has proven himself capable of coming into contact with a bounty hunter for this job, shouldn't it be taken into account that he could also contact even more mech's for his service whenever he should need them?" Arcee pointed out, she paused seeing the kid's confused faces and then attempted to make her concern sound simpler, "Hunters could come in more shapes and sizes then just one. How will we ever be able to maintain perfect guard now that we know it's not just the usual lot of Cons causing chaos?"
"I see your point Arcee," Optimus Prime acknowledged, but he'd also acknowledged the downcast and thoughtful look that had taken hold of Elita one's face while Arcee had spoken. The Prime could not allow Elita to feel like a burden, for that was the last thing she was to him.
"We have taken on and handled many unwelcome surprises the Decepticons have thrown at us over the years, and it will be no different now," he answered Arcee assuredly. His reply seemed enough to put his Autobots at ease and soon things fell into the quiet and comfortable loll of usual base interactions between the guardians and their wards. Elita One had moved to a corner to stand and watch the conversations taking place between human and robots. Optimus had been about to join her there when Ratchet spoke up.
"Agent Fowler wishes to speak with you,"
Optimus nodded his consent and moved over to speak with the American Agent about the clean up which Fowler had deemed so undesirable to deal with.
Earth Time: An hour later
Arcee was walking away from the main base room to have some quiet alone time when she passed Elita One's quarters along the way. The femme commander's door was open and Arcee saw Elita One sitting on the edge of her berth with her hands folded together, head and shoulders slumped in deep thought. Arcee bit took a minute to work out a proper greeting before gaining Elita's attention.
"Elita One ma'am," she addressed. Elita's previously darkened optics flashed bright and she looked quickly up to see Arcee standing there.
"Yes," she responded readily, willing to be of any help or assistance possible.
"I don't mean to pry, and maybe this is none of my business, but how are you?" Arcee asked gently.
"I am in deliberation about my future as it relates to the current circumstances of this war," Elita responded, very militarily.
"Have you reached any conclusions?" Arcee inquired carefully.
"I have," Elita nodded, "But the decision does pain me to make," she paused again but Arcee waited patiently. When Elita One continued her eyes had saddened once more.
"After much contemplation, I've calculated that the only way my safety, and the safety of this base to remain assured, would be for me to go back into stasis once more and hidden far away until the end of this war," she stated. Arcee hadn't expected that and she blinked rapidly a moment, letting her processor wrap around that idea. One thing was for sure, Optimus wouldn't be happy...
"Already my presence here is showing sings of what will be great strain, and I wish no more trouble on any of you on top of what you already must deal with your mission in obtaining the relics," Elita continued, "Stasis is peaceful, and though I will despise myself forever after for having so unfairly escaped the war and it's entirety, rather then helping the bots and cause I care for most, I must do it," she finished with a heavy sigh. Arcee by no means was in any position to protest Elita One's decisions and partly, Arcee also saw the good reasoning in this decision. Still...
"Optimus may not agree..." she told the femme commander gently.
"Over all, it isn't his decision to make," Elita One responded. There it was, sad but true. As the femme with the power, she had been given the authority to decide how best to protect it at all times, even outranking the Prime in this instance. Arcee nodded.
"Well... when will you tell him?" Arcee wondered.
"Tonight," Elita replied certainly. Arcee nodded again.
"Well, good luck then... Just know that we all wish the best for you," the blue femme told her, then turned and took her leave. Elita watched Arcee go, thoughts circulating in her mind about how she was going to explain her choice to Optimus Prime...
TO BE CONTINUED...
So... how will Optimus take the news? Come back for the next part! I hope you are all still enjoying this story, and thanks for the reviews!
-Stokin D Embers
