Update, update! Someone's turning in their grave, she actually updated within the week! Well, it feels weird to update so quickly. I write wherever my mind takes me, and during those long periods of time that I don't update, I wander off into different franchises. I have one particular movie that I have thousands of short and long stories written for, and I honestly enjoy it just as much, if not more by now, than writting for Transformers. I fully intend publishing a oneshot, for those are the only sort I've got finished, when I wrap up at least half of my stories here. But, as it is, I've found it's rather difficult to force myself to write for one universe when my thoughts lie in another. If I'm not careful, Sam will turn into a goblin. That wouldn't be any good at all, now would it?
Fortunatly, I've exhausted myself of magic lands and this other continuity that I'm writting for, at the moment, and this leaves me completely free to write for Transformers. Thus, another update.
I hope you like it, because since I don't own it, your enjoyment is my only profit.
I wasn't sure if I should be seachless in awe from their subtely, or slapping myself. The garage opened up to be the building I had been snooping around when they took me. I walked right into their laps! Of course, I was looking for them, but still...
"Where are the Decepticons?" I asked, tearing my eyes from the rear window as we pulled out onto the small road.
No one answered, but Glen and Maggie were both turned to look farther southwest, maybe a block behind us. Judging from the fact the town was completely deserted, the civilians had already evacuated. Smith started to pull out and down the road away from where smoke was filling into the air. No Decepticons were in sight either, nor news helicopters or anything else.
This isn't just a mission to attack, is it?
I glanced at the door. We were only starting to drive out, so we were going slow enough not to activate the automatic locking on the doors. Once they locked, I doubt I could get out on my own. I am a captive, aren't I? So I had a split second decision. Go now, or never.
I glanced at Glen, who was still transfixed to the column of smoke. No Decepticons about, but also no backup.
I threw my body weight against the door and rolled out, getting a scrape on my arm, but I didn't hesitate as I kept rolling under the car as it's brakes slammed on. Once on the other side, I took off. I'm on the other side of the car, where Maggie and Glen were. I trusted them to be on my side, so all I had to worry about was Smith. They won't kill me; they need me.
"Get back here!" he exclaimed, door slamming shut. But I was already back to the garage place. I didn't go in, though. I kept running, diving down the steep drop behind it and making a quick pivot left into the bout of trees and bushes. I heard him dive in after me seconds later. No doubt he's faster than me, but, I'm no stranger to running for my life... literally.
Then again, there's no one here to save me at the last minute this time, is there?
"Witwicky! We've got a tracking device on you." I heard him lie. I know they don't. I know this for a fact. "You can run, but you can't hide!" How cliche is that?
"Ah!" I twisted my ancle and gave away my position. I had been losing him, but not now. Alright, so maybe my running got a little rusty in the last couple of decades. No biggie, at least I didn't actually twist my ancle and break something. There was just the initial sting and warmth of stepping wrong.
Just as we broke the trees, back to the trailer renting premesis Bee and I had stayed in, he managed to grab hold of my shirt and yank me down.
"Let go." I glared, kicking out. "What did I ever do to you?" I reached out to Bee for help automatically, then was reminded of the fact he was gone somewhere. Then I was also reminded of the fact he's in his own sort of trouble, and all I did just now was add more stress to his load.
"You're the only one set in the Autobot security system." he started to get over me, incapitating my legs as he reached to grab something out of one of those big pockets. They were probably handcuffs.
"For good reason." I glared and tried to kick again. I've watched dozens of sparring matches back in the day, listened to even more of Ironhide's rants. Why can't I remember how to get out of this? "Would you trust the people who threw you off their planet because they were bored?"
"The government doesn't just serve themselves." he scoffed as he bound my wrists. "We serve the people. Is it worth destroying another planet to end a war that's already taken one? Earth doesn't need this war."
"Neither do they." I groaned, going limp. It's over. They're going to tighten security and put the child lock on the door now. "Neither do they. Only they don't get the option of ducking out when the going gets tough."
"That's because it's their responsibility. Mine is to make sure Earth doesn't end up like that. Now get back to the van."
Sorry to ruin your pretty little moment of sucess, Smithy, but the van just landed in a loud crunch of tearing metal and glass right over there.
Smith paled and stood up, forgetting about me as he stared at the trailer, which was now on fire. "Oh... my..."
"Don't tell me this is the first time you've seen an explosion." I struggled against the handcuffs. "How long have you been working for the government under this sector? Explosions are done for fun where I come from."
"Two weeks." I couldn't help it. The van we left Glen and Maggie in is on fire over there, upside down in a rotton trailer, and there's smoke coming from somewhere farther west where I happened to know the largest hoard of unused energon this side of the Milky Way was, but I burst out laughing.
"Sending a rookie to kidnap me." I laughed and got to my feet, standing next to him to stare at the inferno. "You're going to wish you never signed up for this job. We all do eventually. Did they tell you that you had a fifty-fifty chance of not surviving?"
He turned to stare at me with the only emotion other than smugness I've seen on his face; fear.
"For the next however long you live, you're going to tear yourself up inside just wondering if those two are dead, and that if they are, it's your fault. But, fortunatly for you, that might not be for too long. Because you're about to meet the reason the Autobots were on Earth in the first place. Kicking them off is not going to give Earth a pass out of the war. The Decepticons still want us dead."
I could see how I was playing with him right now. He never expected to actually meet aliens in this job. They've been gone for twenty years, they weren't coming back. And even if he did, it would be the Autobots, who everyone knows would come after me, but not be any threat to anyone.
True to my words, a Decepticon, I didn't recognize them, came from out of the trees, the direction the car had been parked. Fear shot through me. All my experiences with their kind either involved pain, or came close. I suppose at one point in time, I wouldn't have feared them. I would have been irritated, and acknowledging of the fact that the safest thing to do is to run, but that was a long time ago. Right now, fear froze me in place.
"Samuel Witwicky." the 'Con laughed. "The last component we require. I'm sure you know how this is done."
Smith, who'd finally torn his eyes away from the fire, was just as rooted to the spot as I was. But, if everything I've been through, they years of dealing with the government and decades of dealing with no one, was for nothing, I can at least say I know how to use a word and fake a smile.
So I grinned. "Let me guess, everything is going to be black?"
He laughed at me again and confirmed my guess.
When I started to wake, I thought everything I'd been through in the last few weeks was a dream. The cold, hard surface below me, it must be some counter in the old NEST base. The stale, warm air would be just right for the inner most rooms, which would more likely than not put me in someone's pesonal room. It's dark, but not overly so. So it's day time, probably morning. There's a pain in my stomach and heart, which I'd gotten used to by now. If it was all a dream, then is it even a link? Or is there actually something else wrong with me?
Only, the smell of stale energon and raw metal confused me. Could I be in Ratchet's med bay? Then it should be pitch black, because there are no windows there or anywhere near there. There's only the arteficial lights hanging from the ceiling, and those would make the world brighter than this, and a differen't color.
Someone shook me. My head hurts. I've got a sting on my arm. Someone shook me again.
"Witwicky." a whisper in my ear. Lennox? He never comes out here. "Wake up." that doesn't sound like him anyways.
I moaned and clutched at my arm as it bumped something and flared like fire.
"Get up." they whispered again. I forced my eyes open. Why can't they leave me alone here?
My immediate thought was that this was nowhere in the old NEST base. I'm not back home. That wasn't a dream. I felt like both laughing and crying; for I couldn't figure out which feeling was strongest. The Autobots have returned, but so have the Decepticons. And the Government never left; they've been working on that Machine and gathering energon while I was hiding.
"Get up." the voice, I realized, was unfamiliar. Also, it was frantic and making it a major point to be as quiet as possible. No, not completely unfamiliar. It was Smith. He looked nothing like the overconfident, hired arms he was when he chased me down.
"What?" I reached out to Bumblebee, to find he was even farther away. Did he go fartther, or were we taken somewhere farther away?
"Get up." he urged, throwing a frantic look around the dim room. I pushed myself to a sit and did as I was told. One thing I could know for sure; we were on the Nemesis. This was a space-worthy ship, just judging from how it was built. Assuming the Decepticons are still evil, the Autobots didn't let them onto the Ark. Also assuming the Autobots don't usually take humans and keep them in smelly, dark rooms in cages, I'm also going to say they didn't rescue us while I was knocked out... again.
"What's going to happen?" he asked me.
"Oh, so now all of the sudden I'm worth listening to?" I grumbled, rubbing my head where it hurt, and catching a glance at the scrape on my arm from when I tuck-and-rolled out of the van. "If all goes according to plan, they'll get whatever information they want from me, then kill us both if they hadn't already killed you."
"Whose plan?" he gaped.
"Theirs."
"Well, does anyone else have a plan?" he looked around again, keeping his voice quiet. I didn't even bother.
"No."
"I don't like this plan. How do we get out of here?" he demanded. Bossy, aren't we?
"Well, the easiest and, at the moment, only option is to roll over and die." I admitted, shivering. If I forgot to mention earlier, the room was warm.
"What about those friends of yours?" he was desperate.
"You act like you want them to come. It's funny how when you actually realize you're at war, and your own life is in danger, how your perspective can change."
"Stop messing around, Witwicky. I've got a wife and kids back home, I can't die here!"
"Yeah, well I have a family too." I rolled over, pressing my face against one bar of the overturned metal crate they'd turned into a cage to keep us here. "What makes yours any more important than mine?"
"Are you giving up?" he demanded. Two weeks. Ha! He's so new to this world. "I thought Autobots never give up-"
"You're just trying to give a pep talk that's completely irrelevant in this situation. If the Autobots didn't know when to give up, they would have stood and fought on Cybertron, and they would all be dead. And besides, I'm not an Autobot, am I?" I glared at him. "Yoou go ahead and keep hoping, but I know exactly what situation we're in."
"What?" he looked desperate for the knowledge.
"We're on board the Decepticon's space-faring ship, the Nemesis. I don't know if we're on Earth still or not, but I do know that the Autobots aren't anywhere near here. Glen and Maggie are probably dead, so they can't try and warn them. Not to mention they also have a great big vat of Energon now, which gives them a pretty big hand over the Autobots. You're stuck here with me, and that's a bit worse than being stuck here alone. Because every Decepticon on this ship hates me about as much as they hate the Autobots. Humans, they just don't care about. Me, they hate."
"But, I read about you." he insisted. "You defeated their leader, you had them trailing you halfway across the world and brought one back from the dead! You still won!"
"I had help." I looked down. "I didn't bring anyone back, their dieties did. I was just the tool. And you forget, I died doing it."
"You're alive now." he pointed out. I could tell from his face that the fact I died wasn't in the usual initiation packet. He just wanted me to pull another merical out of my sub-space pockets. I don't have subspace pockets, I have normal pockets. Which means they can only hold so much.
"I'm sorry." I truelly was. If this had to happen, as much as I hate the government, I never wanted them to get caught in this with me. "I'm sorry."
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O
I was picking up on two others running south-east as I approached. One of them was familiar enough to be integrated into my memories as well as any of my brothers. But they were too far, and the enemy was too close.
I didn't spare a moment's hesitation in knocking the Decepticon to the ground as he took aim at the black van.
"Run!" I shouted back to the two humans inside, unsure if I could hold both Decepticons off long enough to get them out of here myself.
"They aren't what I want." The Decepticon smirked at me, looking towards the other two humans. "You're too late."
"It's-" I recognize that voice! I spared a glance back to the two humans, now out of the van and in the middle of the street, but not running. The Decepticon knocked me down and blew up the van.
Glen and Maggie. Yes, I remember them. "Get out of here." I waved an arm at them. "Back to the other exit. More of us are there."
They took off as I dodged another blast from the Decepticon. I grabbed hold of a stable part of the flaming van and swung it and my own weight around towards him, knocking him back and sending the van clear over the trees towards the east.
"Leave them alone." I shot several well-aimed projectiles to disable him, but the other one came from out of nowere, stopping me from finishing the job.
"This is not your planet. We have every right to it's resources as you do."
"Leave the boy alone." I flung myself at him and twisted to free my only blade. I favor long range, but that isn't to say I'm not proficiant enough with a blade. Jabbing it towards his primary energon vein, snuffing out his spark. By this point, I wouldn't even flinch.
I let out a breath, shaking my head. Too close. Far too close.
Turning to finish off the one I'd incapitated earlier, my gears froze over. He was gone. On my scanner, I found him in rapid persuit of the two fleeing humans. Only, they weren't fleeing anymore. They stood close to the massive heat signature of the fire made by the van.
I took off running, accessing a commlink to Bumblebee.
I found the boy. He's with a Decepticon.
Get him out of there!
Don't yell at me, you know I'll do what I can. But he's safe, and from what I've heard, they aren't going to hurt him.
Stop talking and GET HIM!
I cut the commlink short and pushed to go faster. Optimus is still held up at the underground base- I'm on my own here.
Both the human signals went quiet- they're unconscious. No! Sam, keep him talking! I pushed myself to go faster, just a few more steps.
Escaping the trees, I locked eyes with the Decepticon who held both unconscious humans.
"Put them down." I warned only once. He only laughed at me and started to disapear into thin air.
The spacebridge. I lunged forward once more, bu only managed to drive and lodge my blade between the armor on his torso, cripling him. Then he was gone.
Everything was silent. Slag. I'm going to hate having to tell Bumblebee I lost his human.
Someone was requesting my attention, but I ignored it, adding more flames to the already blazing trailer beside me.
Slag.
I decided that the best way to get this near-rescue across, while still keeping Sam oblivious to how close he was to being saved, was to switch POV. I intentionally kept who that was a secret, and I am going to say, there will be more shorts from this POV to show both sides of this emergency.
So, Sam is now twice-kidnapped, and we at least know the Autobots are still alive. But, there's something going on with them, isn't there? What could it possibly be? And who's POV is that? I guess you're just going to have to wait.
R&R
P.S. By the way, do you remember that little transmission toy Sam had a couple chapters back and the note it scribbled down while he slept under the bed? I haven't forgotten about it...