Chapter Twenty-One: MECH Meets its Match
As Crystal rode home from school, she felt like they were being followed. She just shrugged and told herself it was her imagination. After a few turns though, the girl's hopes were quickly melting. "Daddy…?" She said with fear in her voice. Jack knew his daughter well enough to reconise fear when he heard it, looked back, and saw a green Hummer H1 tailing them. Cursing lightly under his breath, Jack swerved off the road and said, "Hang on, my gem." Jack punched the gas and created a large cloud of dust to hopefully blind his pursuer. The Hummer barreled through the dust cloud and continued to chase them, or so the driver thought. After a few miles, the MECH Trooper decided to double back. "I've lost Subject One." The trooper reported grudgingly. "Fall back for now," Silas ordered. "We will ferret them out soon enough." As Silas cut the communication, a gnarled smile formed on his marred face.
Jack was unnerved by the experience and tried to get Crystal home as soon as possible, but a certain red-head noticed him with a broad smile In the back of Jack's mind, he knew what was going through the girl's mind and gritted his teeth as she walked up and smiled at Jack. She then began to admire his "new car" with a very sensual undertone. As her hand went on his hood, Jack felt very uncomfortable as if the girl was feeling up his leg. To say the least, Jack was relieved when she stopped and knocked on his window. "Finally dumped that bike and got a decent ride, I see." She was dripping with sweetness, but Jack wasn't going to fall for it. "First off, no one said anything about me getting rid of my bike." He turned and glared at her. "Second," he leaned over and whispered to keep Crystal from hearing, but Sierra took it the wrong way just as Jack hoped she would and grinned wider. "I don't screw with whores. I already have a woman." As Sierra heard that, her jaw dropped. Then, her face formed an irritated scowl as Jack sped off to the house. "Who was that?" Crystal asked. "Someone I tried to hand out with before I met your Mom." Jack said calmly as he made sure no one was following them and made a B-line for the house.
Once there, Jack could feel Arcee fuming in his head. That little bitch, I'll… Jack walked Crystal inside and, once he knew she was out of earshot, tried to defuse the situation. "Look," he said as he stared into her headlight. Arcee transformed and calmly looked at her Sparkmate. "She came on to me…and we ran into MECH on the way home from school." Arcee knew Jack wasn't trying to divert attention away from the subject of Sierra. He was much too serious for tactics like that. "MECH? What could they gain from…?" She stopped mid-sentence and growled. "I will go offline before they get Crystal!" Jack patted her shin comfortingly. "I will, too, but I say if Silas wants one part of my family, he'll have to deal with me personally!" Arcee's optics widened. "He'll kill you! You've seen the tech they've engineered to offline us!" Jack smiled. "They don't know I'm only half human." He said calmly. "I'll arrange a meeting, just me and Silas. If he betrays my trust, which I'm almost certain he will, I'll have a metal ped up his ass before he can say 'scrap'." Jack said with a calm smile. "I don't like it." Arcee said with a worried look. "What if he overpowers you?" Jack's smile turned to grim frown. "Then, he'll have Team Prime knocking down his front door." Jack told her as Jack's fist tightened beside him. "How do we find them? They are like ghosts." Arcee pointed out. Jack began to pace across the garage floor. "An operation like theirs would need ample power and shielding…" Jack turned around to face Arcee. His eyes lit up and he snapped his fingers. "I know exactly where they are. I'll be back. I need to talk to Ratchet." With that, Jack sped off toward the mesa.
At the Base, Jack hurried over to Ratchet. The grumpy medic was in an unusually good mood. He looked around for Crystal with a gleam in his optic. Jack thought he'd never see the day that Ratchet actually smiled, but Crystal brought out "Grandpa" Ratchet as soon as he heard her or saw Jack. The mood shift was starting to make Jack think Ratchet once had Sparklings of his own at one time or another. When Ratchet saw Crystal wasn't with Jack, his grumpy attitude returned. "I'm busy. What do you want?" The medic asked with an annoyed tone. Jack pushed aside his aggravation at Ratchet's abrupt mood swing and sighed. "I need you to scan a particular area for military chatter." Ratchet gave him a puzzled look. "What do you need me to do that for?" Jack glared up at Ratchet. He didn't have time for the medic's people problems. "MECH has been watching Crystal, and I think I know where their base is." Ratchet sighed as Jack continued. "Scan Hoover Dam for military frequencies." Soon, chatter came through the bases speakers. One conversation in particular caught his interest. "…child of Jack Darby will soon be a pawn for MECH." "Hack that-" Ratchet cut Jack off. "I'm already on it and done." Jack smiled darkly and spoke into his comm. "You want Crystal, Silas? Come meet me twenty miles outside Salt Lake City in two hours. Come alone, or you get nothing. Understand?" Silas was dumbfounded as Jack's voice came over his radio. Finally, after some quick deliberation within himself, Silas smiled. "Agreed."
Ratchet was fuming and gave Jack the back of his servo. Jack flew from his perch on Ratchet's desk into a wall across the room. "You would sell your own DAUGHTER to MECH?!" Ratchet yelled as he stormed over to Jack. "I'll throw you into The Pit myself!" Jack groaned but managed to choke out. "It's…*cough* a trap for Silas." Ratchet's optics went wide. He picked up Jack and laid him gently on a medical berth. Jack glared weakly at Ratchet. "I would never sell my daughter to those butchers!" Ratchet became distant once he realized his grave mistake. "I'm sorry. Megatron slaughtered my Sparkmate and our two Sparklings, twin mechs. I am…protective of any I meet because of that." Ratchet said quietly. Jack got the feeling that the old medbot never told anyone about that with the possible exception being Optimus. "He put a hand on Ratchet's servo. "Then, help me protect mine and trust me." Jack told him gently.
The majority of the two hours was spent giving Jack Energon intravenously because the Energon gave Jack an advanced healing factor that ranked somewhere between Wolverine and Deadpool's. When it finally came time for the meeting, to say Jack was amped up would be an understatement. Ratchet powered up the Groundbridge and gave Jack a final nod of encouragement before he passed through. On the other side, Jack activated his Mustang and dove to the rendezvous point. Once there, Jack was surprised to see only Silas. So, the faggot can keep a deal. I'm impressed. Silas nodded toward Jack. "Where is your little miracle, Papa Bear?" He asked with a sneer. Every word of what Jack said next hurt, but he kept himself under control. He kept in his mind why he was doing this, and that allowed Jack to power through. "The little pain is in the car sleeping. She finally shut up and fell asleep after almost a week of nothing but crying. Maybe you guys can put a volume control on the little brat!" Jack said calmly. "Oh, we will do more than that, Mr. Darby. Hand it over, and MECH will leave you be." Silas said as he stretched out his hands toward Jack.
Jack walked back to his Mustang, opened the door, and retrieved a bundle from the front seat. Jack then walked over to Silas and tensed as he gave the "baby" to Silas. Before Silas could realize he was double crossed, Jack chuckled. "There's one more thing you need to know about Crystal." Jack paused for effect. Then, he activated his suit. "She means more to me than anything!" Jack threw a pouch but Silas rolled out of it with superhuman speed. Trickshot chuckled. "I expected you to cheat somewhere along the way." Trickshot said. "Do you want to know how I got the name 'Trickshot'?' The bot smiled and turned away from the human. He then shot too high, and the Energon plasma went above both their heads. Silas laughed. "You call yourself a marksman?" He growled. Trickshot just smiled and turned to him. "I didn't." at that moment the blob of plasma landed on Silas, but he didn't scream in agony or fall over dead. The leader of MECH just walked to Jack normally. Jack soon saw why. Under the flesh of Silas which no longer existed, a metal human-like frame now walked up to Trickshot. "I am the perfect fusion of man and machine. I was Agent Simmons before the government shut Sector Seven down and turned it into an alien safe zone. Now, I am Silas." Trickshot just shook his head because he had no idea what the crazy machine-man was babbling about. "More machine than man…" Trickshot said before he transformed, and Jack got out. "How noble! You accept your death with dignity." Silas sneered. Jack smiled. "Came on, you overgrown tin can!" Jack said calmly. Before Jack could react, Silas had him by the throat. "One thing…" Jack grunted out. Silas relaxed his grip slightly, so Jack could speak and be heard. "…always disarm your enemy!" Jack growled before he shot off Silas' hand and dropped to the ground.
Jack quickly ripped the hand away from his throat and started blasting the cyborg. Every time a blast struck, the hole would stay open for only a second or two. Then, the wound would seal itself. Silas smiled at Jack's shocked expression. "Nanobot construction allows for near instant repair." Nanobots… Jack thought to himself. Arcee was there with a solution. They have to have a control signal to stay cohesive. She told him. He didn't question her and smiled. "The Nanobots are synced to your brainwaves." Jack mumbled to himself as he stared Silas down and went for the kill. Jack sprinted toward Silas, reached behind him, and jammed his hand into the lower bottom portion of Silas's metallic skull. The individual Nanobots worked together to keep Jack's hands away from its goal. After a good fifteen minutes, Jack finally could feel the slime that coated Silas' organics to keep them from drying out. Jack smiled and yanked hard. Jack could feel the brain stem snap away from its moorings. Then, the nanobots fell away into a pile of grey goo. Jack shivered and dropped the fibrous stick. "Ratchet, I need a bridge please." Jack said as calmly as he could.
On the other side of the bridge, Arcee was glaring at him, but the glare dropped completely when the last of Jack's emotional battle shell fell away into a sobbing fit. "You did what you had to do to protect your family." Jack stared into Arcee's glowing blue optics and found much needed strength in them. "I don't know what I'd do without you or Crystal." Jack said after he became coherent enough to speak. Arcee smiled and gently lifted him up to her optics. "We will always stay together." She told him gently.
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