The dam was losing power, which meant that any power used to keep Megatron frozen was starting to fail. Banacheck tried leading the group, along with any nearby workers, to safety.
Running out of the room they were in, Banacheck and Simmons hurriedly led their group to their weapons room. The soldiers had to prepare themselves, since the safety of everyone at the dam was at risk.
They all had to sprint passed workers, running in the opposite direction of Megatron's chamber; people dressed in hazmat suits trying to quickly type in whatever data they could put in to stop anything from happening with Megatron and to keep the power going. Running down various hallways, Simmons quickly threw a big metal door open and everyone hurriedly went in. There were various military vehicles, equipped with the necessary weaponry; guns of all kinds with the appropriate ammo; even rocket launchers. Without wasting a second, the soldiers started loading up on all the weapons they'd need, finding whatever vehicles would suit them best, and shouting out orders.
When the lights in the weapons room started flickering, everyone paused to look.
Sam approached Simmons, a nearly panicked look on his face. "You gotta take me to my car," Sam exclaimed. "You gotta take me to my car; he's gonna know what to do with the Cube."
"Your car is confiscated," Simmons said quickly, loading an automatic gun.
"Then unconfiscate it," Lily exclaimed.
"We don't know what'll happen if we let it near this thing," Simmons added.
"You don't," Sam said.
"You know, but I don't know."
"So you're just gonna sit around and see what happens?" Lily exclaimed.
"I have people's lives at stake here, young lady," he snapped.
One of the soldiers stormed up and pushed Simmons into one of the vehicles. "Take 'em to the car," he growled. The Sector Seven soldiers had their guns raised, with the others having their guns raised in retaliation.
"Drop your weapon, soldier," Simmons instructed. "We got an alien war going on and you're going to shoot me?"
"No, we didn't ask to be here," the soldier exclaimed.
"I'm ordering you under S. Seven executive jurisdiction," Simmons announced.
"S. Seven don't exist," a soldier snapped.
"We don't take orders from people who don't exist," the soldier holding Simmons down muttered.
"I'm going to count to five."
"I'm going to count to three." The soldier pressed the barrel of his gun to Simmons' chest, not breaking eye contact.
"Simmons?" the older man exclaimed.
"Yes, sir?"
"I'd do what he says," he said. "Losing's really not an option for these guys."
Simmons looked between the soldier holding him down and the man who just spoke to him before nodding slowly. "All right," he said. "OK. You wanna lay the fate of the world on the kid's Camaro? That's cool."
-0-0-0-0-
After the soldiers got all the necessary weaponry, Simmons led them to the room where Bumblebee was being kept. The room, kind of like Megatron's, was big and filled with all kinds of machinery, pipes and wiring, but there was a big concrete table in the center where Bumblebee was forcibly laying on. The workers were spraying him with more of the freezing gas, Bee painfully chirping and whining.
Sam, Lily, and Mikaela ran over and shoved the weapons spraying the gas out of the way, trying to get the S. Seven soldiers to stop. When they finally stopped spraying him, the three of them took hesitant steps toward where the Autobot was laying.
"You OK?" Sam called. Bee turned and looked down at him. "They didn't hurt you, right?"
Bee let out a chirp, a mask covering his face while a cannon formed on his hand. He aimed it at the people around him, causing them to stumble back.
"The Cube's here," Sam said, trying to calm Bee down, "and the Decepticons are coming." Bee sat up and continued aiming his cannon. "They're not gonna hurt you," Sam said, motioning for the others to back up. "He's friendly, he's fine. Put the guns down, they're not gonna hurt you. We're gonna take you to the All Spark."
Bee slowly lowered his cannon before he put it away, raising his mask. He looked at Sam before his gaze flickered to the people around him. Giving a low chirp, Bee transformed back into a Camaro and popped the doors open.
Sam looked at Mikaela and Lily.
"Would he be OK with me being in there?" Lily asked.
"It'll be fine," Sam said. "C'mon."
-0-0-0-0-
After Sam, Mikaela, and Lily got in, Bumblebee let the others go on ahead before he followed after them. It was a little hard trying to get through the hallways, since they weren't exactly a good size to drive a car in, but Bee managed to get to where the All Spark was without really causing a lot of problems; and once he let Sam, Mikaela, and Lily out, he transformed and looked at the All Spark carefully, lifting his hands hesitantly as he tried figuring something out.
Bee stepped up on the platform the All Spark was stationed on and hesitantly put both hands on the edge of the Cube. The moment Bee's hands touched the All Spark, it gave a loud crackling sound before the engraved areas flashed a bright blue. Bee touched the edge of the Cube one last time, causing it to flash, before the top corner of it started breaking down into thousands of smaller cubes, all of them folding into themselves until the All Spark was a smaller version of itself.
"Message from Starfleet, Captain." Bee's radio had sparked to life, flipping through various stations to find what he wanted to say. "Let's get to it." He carefully held the miniaturized All Spark in his hands, looking down at the humans surrounding him with an almost pleased look on his face.
"He's right," the soldier who'd held Simmons down earlier exclaimed. "We stay here, we're screwed with Megatron in the other hangar. Mission City is twenty-two miles away, we're gonna sneak that Cube outta here, and we're gonna hide it somewhere in the city. But we cannot make a strike without the Air Force."
"This place must have some kind of radio link," the older man exclaimed, looking at Simmons. "Shortwave, CB."
"You gotta figure out some way to get in contact with them." The soldier motioned the others to follow him while Simmons, Glen, the Australian woman, and the older man worked on figuring out how to reach out to the Air Force.
Bumblebee handed Sam the Cube, who gave it to Lily to watch over in the backseat after Bee transformed. The soldiers were shouting out orders, getting into their vehicles and getting their weapons ready for the trek to Mission.
Lily kept a tight grip on the All Spark, keeping herself firmly in her seat while Bee found the nearest exit—big enough for him to drive out of with the soldiers not far behind.
"How's it doing?" Sam exclaimed, looking at his cousin.
"It's fine," Lily stammered, tightening her grip on it. "I've got it."
While Bee sped down the road, which was surprisingly empty, Lily took a moment to adjust the Cube in her arms, sort of taking a moment to study how it looked. Some of the markings that were carved into it were too small for her to see, but the ones that were a bit bigger and easier to see looked like a different language. Lily almost had to roll her eyes at that; the All Spark was alien, so it wouldn't be a shock that whatever was carved on it was in some sort of alien language. When Bee turned sharply, Lily let out a surprised squeak; the All Spark nearly fell out of her gasp, but when she gripped it tighter in her hands, she felt a tiny shock on the palms of her hands.
"Are you OK?" Mikaela asked, looking back at her.
Lily nodded. "I wasn't expecting the turn," she exclaimed. "Everything's fine." When Mikaela turned around, Lily tried to be as discreet as possible when she looked at her palms; she didn't see anything wrong with them, it just felt like the Cube shocked her.
Maybe it reacted to how I grabbed it, she thought anxiously. Lily chewed her bottom lip before she gave her head a sharp shake.
The sound of a horn going off up ahead caught Lily's attention. Sam and Mikaela were poking their heads out of their opened windows, as if that would help them see better what was coming their way.
"It's Optimus," Sam exclaimed.
Their heads turned when they saw the other Autobots speeding down the road parallel to them. They could hear Optimus' tires screeching as he turned abruptly to follow behind Bee and the soldiers.
-0-0-0-0-
It took about twenty minutes, close to half an hour, before Bee turned into a freeway entrance with the soldiers and the Autobots following behind them, making a straight line in the other lanes to prevent threats from approaching. Periodically, Sam, Mikaela, and Lily would glance behind them to see what was going on. For the most part, things were running pretty smoothly. There were no signs of Decepticons, no sign of Megatron—it looked like they'd make it to Mission without any kind of disruption.
"Do you hear that?" Sam exclaimed, craning his neck to look behind him.
"Hear what?" Lily turned to see what her cousin was looking at.
"It's a siren." Sam's face twisted into a look of disbelief and almost fear. A way's behind where the others were driving, there was a cop car blaring its siren and a large tan vehicle with an appendage curved around the front of it. "It's the same cop," Sam cried.
"It's a Decepticon?" Lily exclaimed.
"Yeah," Mikaela cried.
The Autobots blocked the Decepticons' path before the tan one transformed in the middle of the road, shoving cars off the road and completely destroying others. Optimus hit his breaks before he transformed, being careful not to cause any damage.
"Oh God," Lily murmured.
The tan Decepticon tackled Optimus, the two of them falling off an overpass with a loud crash.
There was a split second of silence before Sam started talking. "He'll be fine," he murmured. "Optimus will catch up."
-0-0-0-0-
By the time they reached Mission, Bee pulled over to the side of the road, the military vehicles surrounding them while the soldiers quickly finished up any last minute things they'd need to do. One of the soldiers, Lennox, handed out walkie-talkies to his comrades while a few others double-checked their weapons.
Once the soldiers had everything they needed taken care of, they drove to another section of the city and stopped. One of the soldiers set something off that surrounded them in green smoke. Jets flew overhead while one of Lennox's men talked over the walkie-talkie with the airstrike team.
Sam, Lily, and Mikaela piled out of Bee. Lily gripped the All Spark tightly in her arms, watching as the jets flew by; she was aware of other people looking over to see what was going on, murmuring to each other in their confusion.
When another jet flew by, one of the Autobots transformed, glaring up at the sky.
"It's Starscream!" he exclaimed, his voice laced with a mutated English accent. At that point, the screaming of the civilians filled the air; they began running in different directions. "Bumblebee!"
Bee transformed and followed his comrade just a couple feet in front of where the group was, lifting a truck up. The Autobot was calling out orders for Bee while keeping an eye on the Decepticon. An explosion hit just inches in front of where Bee was lifting the truck before a missile hit the truck, causing Bee and his comrade to fly back; the shock of the missile caused the soldiers, Sam, Lily, and Mikaela to fly back, too, some of them hitting a nearby building.
Lily felt her eyes flutter open. She noticed a slight ringing in her ears and a bit of pain in certain areas of her body. Slowly sitting up, Lily tried blinking away the dust in her eyes. The area around them was destroyed; the street was a mess of asphalt, chunks of car parts were scattered all over. The smoke was starting to settle, making it a little easier to breathe. Standing up, Lily winced a little; looking down, she saw a gash on her calf, blood staining her skin. From where she'd been tossed from the explosion, there was a shard of glass from a dangerous looking pile of asphalt and shredded tires.
Her jaw clenched.
Brushing off whatever dust she had on herself, Lily walked—she could barely feel the pain in her leg, she had so much adrenaline going through her—over to where Sam and Mikaela were. A few of the soldiers were starting to appear out of the rubble, brushing themselves off.
When the smoke did finally settle, Bee crawled out. Sam was the first to notice what had happened—since Bee had been so close to the explosion, his legs had been blown clean off.
"Oh my God," Sam exclaimed, stumbling in front of Bee. "Bumblebee? Your legs." Bee struggled to move; he was chirping painfully, his fists clenching as he tried dragging himself away from the wreckage. Lily and Mikaela stumbled over to Sam, looking at Bee while he desperately tried to move. When another explosion rang out, accompanied by several more, Sam, Mikaela, and Lily flinched before looking over to where the noise came from.
Sam ran off, leaving Lily and Mikaela with Bee.
"Lily, help me with this," Mikaela said. She pointed to where a tow-truck was left abandoned just beyond the rubble and debris. While they ran over to the tow-truck, they avoided any firing from the Autobots and any stray Decepticons. Lily broke the window and unlocked the door while Mikaela leaned under the driver's side and tried hotwiring the truck. When she got it to work Lily stumbled into the passenger's side while Mikaela climbed in the driver's side and sped over to where Sam and Bee were. Bee was sitting on the side of the road, Sam just a few feet away holding the Cube. With the tow-truck coming to a skidding halt beside Bee, Mikaela and Lily climbed out and started hooking up the necessary wires to Bee to get him sitting on the backend of the truck. "You got it?" Mikaela asked Lily.
"Yeah, it should help him up." Lily checked the wires to make sure it was secure, she nodded to Bee, who started to carefully move himself to the back of the truck. When Bee was where he was supposed to be, Lily and Mikaela started working on the other wires to make sure he stayed secure.
Sam got up and tried finding a way to help with getting Bee secured and comfortable on the truck when Lennox ran over. "Where's the Cube?" he cried. Sam held it up, showing it was safe. "I can't leave my guys back there. Take this flare. There's a tall white building with statues on top, get on the roof, set the flare, signal the chopper..."
"I can't...," Sam exclaimed.
Lennox grabbed the front of Sam's shirt and yanked him forward. "Listen to me, you're a soldier now," he snapped. "I need you to take this Cube, get it into military hands while we hold them off. Or a lot of people are going to die." Lennox made sure Sam understood what he was saying before turning his attention to Lily and Mikaela, who had just finished getting Bee hooked up to the tow-truck. "You both need to go," he said, trying to direct them away.
"No, we're not going," Mikaela said, struggling against him.
Lily shoved Lennox's arm away from herself and Mikaela. "We're not leaving," she said firmly. "Not until Bumblebee gets out of here."
Lennox looked between the two of them.
Lily turned and looked at Mikaela, who was standing near the driver's side. "I can handle it," she said. "Go with Sam."
Nodding, Lily walked over to where Sam was standing, nudging his shoulder.
The stout Autobot, who stood just a couple feet away, leaned down a little to look at the cousins. "We will protect you," he promised.
Sam and Lily shared a look before running in the direction of the building. They didn't get very far before Mikaela stopped them, calling for Sam.
"No matter what happens," she said, "I'm really glad I got in that car with you."
"Get to the building!" one of the Autobots shouted.
Lily put a hand on her cousin's shoulder, the two of them running as fast as they could after Sam's and Mikaela's moment came to an end.
"Decepticons, attack!"
-0-0-0-0-
Sam and Lily tried maneuvering passed the Autobots, the Decepticons, the soldiers hiding behind rubble, and all the crossfire. One of the Decepticons shot an Autobot down, causing him to crash to the ground and nearly crush the cousins.
When they got far enough away from the rubble, Sam and Lily had to worry about all the cars left in various spots in the road and the frightened people trying to get away.
"Keep moving," the stout Autobot cried, "don't stop."
When a jet flew down and transformed in midair, crashing onto the ground with its weapons ready, Lily grabbed Sam's arm and yanked him away from it, the two of them hiding behind a nearby car.
There was a moment of shooting between the Autobots and the jet—clearly a Decepticon—before it transformed and flew off, leaving the Autobots it left behind wounded.
"Quickly, get to the building!"
The cousins tried to get to the building as fast as they could, but trying to dodge all the scurrying people, the abandoned cars, and all the people swerving off the road to get away proved to be difficult. Right as they were about to dash toward the sidewalk, a car ran into Sam. He stumbled onto the car's front before falling onto the ground. Quickly helping her cousin up, Lily not only took the All Spark from him, but helped him regain his balance before they started running again.
When they finally managed to make it to the building, surrounded by a barbed wire fence that was left slightly ajar, they ran inside. The inside felt a lot bigger than they thought it'd be, and when they stopped for a moment to catch their breath, they looked over by the entrance when they realized they heard something approaching.
Sam took the All Spark from Lily, holding it in one arm, while grabbing her hand with his other one. The two of them ran to the furthest area of the ground floor, finding flight upon flight of stairs.
"We've got this," Lily said, gasping for air, as they stood at the bottom step. Giving a single nod, Sam and Lily ran up the stairs.
A crash at the building's entrance made them stumble for a brief moment before they caught their footing, continuing their trek upwards.
"I smell you, boy!" a voice rang out, a growl just beneath the words.
Right as Sam and Lily made it halfway across the second floor, the ground almost gave out beneath them when Megatron crashed through, trying to get them.
"Maggots!" he snarled.
-0-0-0-0-
When they finally reached the top of the building, with the sounds of Megatron right below them, Sam and Lily pushed their way through clothes left on clotheslines, Sam fumbling to get the flare Lennox gave him, before he finally got it out and lit it on the part of the rooftop where there weren't that many clothes.
With the flare lit, they noticed two helicopters flying toward the building, the one nearest to them lowering to their level.
"Look out!" Lily cried. A missile was flying toward the helicopters.
Sam and Lily fell to the ground, avoiding getting hit by the helicopters as they crashed. Once they were gone, the rooftop smashed open; Megatron broke through, sneering at the cousins as they tried putting as much distance as they could between themselves and him.
They tried hiding behind the statues at the building's ledge, but it was a bit impossible.
"Is it fear or courage that compels you, fleshlings?" Megatron growled, the sneer still evident on his facial plates. He carefully walked on the rooftop, eyeing Sam and Lily carefully. While the All Spark was his true agenda, there was something about the human femme that was catching his attention; there was a certain...flicker of something deep inside her. It was just a spark of something, but it was powerful. He could sense it, and he wanted it.
Lily carefully craned her neck to look at the scenery below her. Everything looked smaller—the people looked like ants, running around. The wreckage from the fighting looked less prominent, but it was still noticeable. Smoke was rising from areas, buildings were half standing, sirens rang out all over the city. She swallowed thickly, gripping her statue tighter.
"Give me the All Spark and you may live to be my pets," Megatron exclaimed, kneeling down to look at them better from where he stood.
"I'm never giving you this All Spark!" Sam cried.
"Oh, so unwise." The way he said it, slowly and deliberately, made Sam and Lily feel even more panicked.
The cousins saw, to their horror, as one of Megatron's arms changed into a kind of wrecking ball, raising up. Everything that happened after that seemed like a blur.
(A/N):
Here's the latest update! Let me know what you think; that's the important thing.
I own nothing in the Transformers universe. All I own are my characters and the food that I eat.
I know this story is fourteen chapters in, and Lily's already seen the Autobots but she's had little to no interaction with them because of everything that's happened so far in the story/movie. Don't worry, she'll get acquainted with them! I've got a few filler chapters planned out where Lily's introduced to them, interacts with them, the whole nine yards. But, given that at this point Jazz is dead, what do you guys think about this: should Jazz be brought back?
For me, Jazz was one of my favorite characters and I felt like they could've done so much more with his character. Of course, next to Jazz for favorite characters is Bee, Optimus, and Ironhide.
Anywho, let me know what you think.
Let me know if there's anything I can improve on.
Many blessings,
Indigo Callahan