Spitfire

Chapter XXIX

It was just as the young soldier had described.

Incredibly tall, towering above the smaller, stouter buildings that surrounded it, but thick as well, heavily built. Its rough, onyx armor was spotted with harsh, flaking blotches of rust and scarred with innumerable lacerations. Two faded, yellow optics peered from beneath the shadow of its rudimentary helmet, gazing emptily into the early-morning air; even as the three Autobots approached it, their tires whispering cautiously against the pavement, it didn't appear to acknowledge their arrival. Instead, it clicked and hummed softly to itself, an echo of a whistle issuing from the slits of its silver facial plate in a thin, wavering cloud of steam. It was obvious that the soldier had been correct, too, in his assumption that this creature had the alternate mode of some ancient train. If its weak whistle wasn't enough proof of this, then the small, circular light implanted within the forehead of its helmet, the metal rims of flaking train wheels lining its arms, and the stout, chipped chimney jutting awkwardly from one shoulder certainly were.

Despite the fact that the Cybertronian had yet to move, or do anything, for that matter, it had gathered around it a large crowd of spectators: suited businessmen with briefcases hanging, forgotten, from their hands; teenagers dressed in shorts and sandals, diverted on their way to school; construction workers, clad in overalls and leaning on their heavy tools; shopkeepers; mothers, fathers, children. Amidst the large, whispering crowd, soldiers and policemen alike were desperately attempting to order them away to no visible avail. If anything, the collection of on-lookers had grown, and was continuing to do so.

He should have anticipated something like this happening, a distraction from eradicating the problem immediately and efficiently, but it bothered him nonetheless. If something was to happen, these people, all of these people, he thought, are potential victims. They must be brought under control.

Optimus Prime transformed, giving the lead for Bumblebee and Jazz to follow suit.

Their awaited arrival brought forth hearty clapping and the occasional shout or appreciative whistle. Younger boys and girls squealed excitedly, their eyes wide and locked on the Autobots as they wriggled in their parents' arms or shoved at their imprisoning legs. The sight of them, the children, some barely able to walk on their own, increased his worry, which was soon backed by irritation and disappointed anger. What exactly are these parents thinking, allowing their children to witness this? Do they not realize the danger involved?

It was then it occurred to him that no, perhaps they did not.

"Bumblebee, Jazz." The two accompanying Autobot soldiers glanced up at the sound of their names, Bumblebee dropping his hand in mid-wave, one that had been directed at a group of elementary school students who had been boggling him with wary excitement. Optimus Prime looked at one, then the other, his expression stern, thoughtful. "Aid the police force in their attempt to control the crowd. Order these people away, alert them to the danger of this situation, whatever it takes. There shall be no more human causalities due to our war."

"You got it, Prime!" Jazz crowed, flashing him a thumbs-up before transforming quickly into his sleek, silver alternate mode. With a shriek of his tires, he was off, slowly yet steadily creating a circle of protection, one that kept that motionless robot at its center and the crowd around its growing edge.

"A'right, a'right, get outta here, ya silly humans!" he called above the steady roar of his engine. "Nothin' goin' on, not here, no sir, but if there is, be slagged if I get stuck cleanin' up yo' gross organic mess when you get stomped on by some big ol' robo-zombie! Hell no!"

Bumblebee, meanwhile, skittered off in the opposite direction, his door-wings twitching with curiosity as he approached the shifting group of onlookers. Unlike Jazz, he stuck to his robotic form, poking and prodding the grumbling spectators away and occasionally sneaking a wave or a single-fingered high-five to some of his younger fans.

The scattered policemen and soldiers seemed to gain confidence from the unexpected help, for within moments, the mass of people had receded beyond the sidewalk's curb, and many had begun to wander back to whatever path they had originally been on, whether it was one that led to a school, an apartment complex, or an office building. It was as though they were being shaken from some sort of trance, finally realizing the potential danger of an interesting situation that had seemed rather harmless at first.

Optimus Prime, after giving a glance over his shoulder to make sure that the crowd was slowly trickling out of harm's way, paid no further attention to anything, or anyone, besides the motionless All-Sparked creation sitting slumped before him like some sort of gigantic, dejected child's toy. Even though he was close enough to reach out and touch it, it still refused to acknowledge his presence; its optics, their glow a sick, unnatural yellow, appeared to stare at the empty sky above his head rather than at him.

He shuddered. It was...well, it was just the way he imagined "some big ol' robo-zombie" would act. Ever since he had heard Jazz utter the odd term, he couldn't rid himself of it. It fit too perfectly, what with the creature's having only half of a spark: zombie.

Bending slowly and steadily to his knees, Optimus Prime leaned toward the being, his optics narrowed, bright, as he inspected it closely. There were no symbols, Autobot or Decepticon, imprinted anywhere on its ruined armor. This was something that was to be expected, as it had been created by Thomas Duke, who was not a Cybertronian nor alleged with either side. Thomas had openly despised the Autobots ever since he had been denied their aid in the advancement of human war technology, but he had not allied himself with the Decepticons.

As far as you know, a nagging, tittering voice snickered at the very back of his processor. He waved the idea away, knowing very well that obsessing over it would do him no good. If Thomas had become a Decepticon pet, there was nothing that could be done about it, not now.

Pressing a hand against the ground to steady himself before standing, Optimus took one last, long look at the creature's optics, dim and empty. They were still focused on the patch of cloudless sky above. It had not moved an inch.

He let out a soft sigh and, in a single, sweeping movement, pushed gracefully to his feet; the wind he created nearly blew the thick, green helmet from an approaching soldier's head, and the young man clasped it down before it could tumble away, blinking his eyes as the unexpected gust ruffled the fringes of his jacket and a few stray locks of his hair. "W-woah!"

Optimus Prime glanced down at him in surprise. Wait a minute.

"...You are the soldier I spoke to earlier?" he asked on a whim.

The man at his feet beamed, pleased that he had been remembered despite the fact that it had been due to his nervous stutter. "Yup!" he replied enthusiastically. "Name's Grayson, sir! The information I gave you help at all, or no?"

"Yes, it did. Thank you. However..." He looked over his shoulder, once, quickly; for a second, he thought that the creature had moved. "...It appears as though this being is not truly alive. It cannot seem to move or act on its own, so it is not much of a threat. The action that must be taken now would be to - "

BOOM.

Below him, Grayson's jade eyes widened, his cheeks pale but for two bright blotches of red. Bumblebee let out an elongated yelp, "Optimus, no!"; Jazz's tires squealed in protest as he swerved toward him, a stream of curse words, both Cybertronian and human, issuing from his open windows. What remained of the crowd began to scream and scatter; soldiers and policemen alike ran toward him, drawing their handguns as their trembling lips mouthed silent warnings.

It was Grayson, however, who shot the first barrage of bullets.

"Optimus Prime, look out!" Grayson screamed hoarsely, hefting the gun strapped across his chest to his shoulder, the tip of his finger already pressed against the trigger. The small distraction of otherwise-harmless bullets raining upon its face was what stopped the half-sparked being in its tracks, a single second before its thick hulk of a forearm would have slammed into Optimus's shoulder, most likely detaching his arm from his body.

The creature let out a high-pitched, strained whistle, heavy streams of steam issuing from its mouth guard as it tumbled backward, collapsing to the street and shattering the smooth pavement beneath its enormous weight. Its fingers continued to scrape clumsily, stupidly, against its face despite the fact that Grayson had dropped his weapon as soon as the creature had hit the ground.

"O-optimus! O-optimus P-prime, are you a-all r-right?" Grayson cried, his eyes wide and frightened, his hands trembling as he struggled to get a firm grip on his fallen gun. It was easy to tell how jarred and out-of-element the young man was; he hadn't been expecting the motionless robot to act out, and he certainly hadn't been expecting to be the one who would stop it. The distant screaming of escaping pedestrians and the shouted orders of his own comrades seemed to be joggling him even more.

"I'm fine, boy, but only because of you," Optimus replied, his facial plate sliding into place. That was a lie. He wasn't fine. That had been too close, and everyone knew it, himself included. His spark was throbbing painfully, uneasily, in its chamber, the equivalent of a human heart beating in unexpected surprise. "That was quick thinking, but your weaponry will not wound him." I am not even sure if my own will. "You must pull back! All of you!" he called above Grayon's head; approaching soldiers and policemen gradually skittered to a stop, their eyes locked on him. "Pull back! Now!"

He could see it on their faces: the last thing these men wanted to do was pull back, abandoning him, Jazz, and Bumblebee, leaving them to fight this thing on their own. It was desertion, cowardly, to hide behind stalled cars and crouch in storefronts, watching the battle unfold from its sidelines. But they did not have the proper technology nor the proper armor to protect themselves.

And there shall be no more human causalities due to our war, he repeated silently. Not if I can help it.

"Pull back!" he roared again, slamming one fisted hand against the ground for emphasis, sending Grayson tumbling to the broken street in a flash of cameo. On his left side, Bumblebee leaped atop the fallen robot, who had finally understood that it was no longer being shot at, and on his right, Jazz was doing the same. Before they even wrapped their fingers around the half-spark's arms, however, it let out another ear-piercing shriek and blocked the attacking Autobots with its shoulders, knocking them away as easily as if they had been mere sparklings. It was at this that comprehension and wariness dawned within each soldier's eyes, and finally, they turned around and retreated, calling the order down the street to whoever hadn't heard. As they escaped around corners to other blocks or into apartment buildings, they dragged frightened civilians along with them, clearing the streets of potential victims.

"Grayson!" Optimus Prime gasped, turning to face the rusted robot as it pushed unsteadily to its feet. On either side of its hulking mass, Bumblebee and Jazz lay, struggling to regain themselves. It paid them no attention, however. Its ugly, yellow optics were focused on only the Autobot leader. "Grayson, run!"

"B-but - "

"Listen to me!" Optimus interrupted in a snarl. He gave the soldier a quick, dangerous glare before reverting his gaze back to the half-spark. "If I tell you to run, you will run! Now go!"

"Y-yes s-sir!" Grayson shouted in surrender, scrapping his way along the cracked pavement. Mid-crawl, he abandoned his heavy weapon and scrambled up to the sidewalk, ducking into a nearby brick building when he was close enough. The hands of civilians and his fellow soldiers alike were waiting for him, grasping the ends of his cameo coat and yanking him through the open doorway to safety. Only when Optimus Prime could no longer see the young man did he return his full attention to the half-spark weaving drunkenly toward him, its curled hand raised above its helmeted head.

It moved slowly and clumsily, but it hit hard, using its thick body as the brute force behind its attack. Even though he had plenty of time to shield himself from the creature's big fist, Optimus Prime groaned beneath the incredible power of its punch, his optics shuttering as the shock of the attack dispersed through his body from the point of impact against his crossed forearms. The half-spark didn't appear to suffer from the block it had received, merely swinging its free arm toward him like a gargantuan baseball bat. Rather than feel the after-effects of a second blow, Optimus ducked, watching as the half-spark was tilted off-balance when its flailing limb didn't hit its implied target.

Using the opportunity given, the Autobot leader slid his sword from where it was tucked against his arm plating and thrust it upward, its point slicing into the protective armor of the creature's chassis. The half-spark's strained whistle of surprise, pain, and anger intermingled with the ear-piercing shriek of metal grinding metal; Optimus winced at the horrendous sounds, distracted by the ugly way they grated against one another. This was followed closely by a roar of bewilderment as the half-spark's sharp knuckles ground past his mouth guard, scraping it away and cutting into his face. Even as it wound up to lunge at him, he could feel the energon seeping, throbbing, through the jagged scrape, dribbling down his chin.

Before the locomoticon could strike again, however, it was diverted by Jazz, who had finally managed to get to his feet. The small second-in-command hooked himself onto its back, and because he didn't have time to whip out anything else, he resorted to using his clawed fingertips to rip at the creature's facial plate, its optics, its spark-chamber, anything that would open the way to a bigger and better attack. His plan was working; deep gouges appeared all over its rusted armor, wherever Jazz managed to scratch at it. However, it caught the silver Autobot by surprise, gripping his ankle and ripping him from its back. It then began to spin him around like an over-sized flail; Optimus Prime was barely able to stumble away soon enough, landing hard on his backside, so that his own soldier wouldn't hit him. Bumblebee, however, was just shaking himself loose of a few broken pieces of pavement when Jazz smacked into him. The two became entangled in each other's limbs, their chests and heads slamming against one another's with a painful squeal of grinding metal.

Dropping its two tiny Autobot victims to the shattered sidewalk, the half-spark once again turned toward Optimus Prime, its shadow stretching across the fallen leader's sprawled body as it approached. His features contorted with anger, Optimus desperately attempted to find purchase beneath him, enough so that he could pull away, enough so that he could fight back. The broken, shifting ground, however, slipped and slid beneath his grasping hands and scrambling feet. Realizing that he was stuck where he was for the time being, he drew his sword protectively against his chest, and waited.

Surprisingly, the half-spark didn't lunge at him as it had during its previous attacks. It raised one heavy arm to its head, but it didn't swipe at him, not yet. Instead, it stared at him for a moment, its head cocked to one side, its wide, weak, yellow optics locked on his own.

"R-rem-re-rember the n-nam-ee of-f-f-zz...t-the b-being w-w-hoo conqu-qured y-you, C-Cybertron-niaaaaan," he rasped in a struggling voice of steam and heat, taking an off-balanced step toward him. "Diesel."

Optimus Prime merely glared at him, his own optics narrowed to thin, bright slits. "You do not deserve to exist!" he snarled, slashing out at him. The tip of his sword brushed his ruined chassis. "I refuse to remember the name of any forsaken creature that does not deserve to exist!"

Letting out a screaming, ringing whistle of animalistic fury, Diesel finally charged at him, tripping over his own feet and sprawling across Optimus's fallen body. His tumble didn't stop him, however, from whipping his arm down, toward the Autobot's exposed face.

The sound of a transformation, the shifting, grinding squeal of gears, erupted from a short distance away; barely a second later, a flash of green and silver shot between Optimus Prime and Diesel's descending arm. Another second passed, and the enormous weight of the half-spark left his torso, his body free of its bulk. A scream of a train whistle and the pattering of a Cybertonian machine-gun followed this, the sound of ricocheting bullets and desperate scrambles ringing in the air.

Tucking his arms behind him and hefting himself up into sitting position, Optimus Prime watched in shock as Diesel, his hands held defensively out in front of him, stumbled clumsily away as he attempted to escape the painful bullet barrage. Unable to withstand the surprise attack, he transformed mid-stumble, molding into the ancient form of a steam train. Then, bullying and crashing his way through the abandoned cars that lined the pavement, he turned the corner of the street that deposited into the desert after a few sharp turns, and disappeared.

He escaped from view so quickly that chasing after him, especially in their current condition, was both impossible and absolutely useless, and in the distance, already five or so blocks away, perhaps even from Mission City's outskirts, Optimus Prime heard the unmistakable whistle that belonged to the half-spark.

It was enraged, closely edging the powerful, hungry roar it had had in its glory days, decades ago.

He will be back, he thought disjointedly. We will see him again soon enough.

With that, Optimus blinked once, slowly, and turned to face the one who had saved his spark.

Standing crouched amongst the rubble a few yards away was a short, stocky, green robot, a machine-gun tucked defensively against his chassis. He was staring at Optimus Prime with bright, incredulous optics, as though he couldn't believe what was happening, who he was seeing.

Blue, bright, incredulous optics; an Autobot, and if his guess was correct, one he knew well. Primus...Is it...is it really...?

The Autobot leader watched in utter disbelief as the Cybertronian approached him cautiously, taking one careful step at a time. When he finally reached him, he held out a tentative hand.

Grasping the scout's wrist and, with his help, hefting himself to his feet, Optimus Prime gripped his shoulders companionably, giving the soldier a smile that was a little bloody, but true.

"Hound."