!...!.! !..!.!. !..!..!. !..!..!. !..!.
They turned the corner of the block and waited for the crossing sign to change. Leinad saw the image of a red turkey insignia change into the symbol of a twisted white tree branch. The others gestured it was safe for her to move her hover chair onto the street. As they crossed, several cars blared their horns at Leinad. She stopped halfway and looked at the vehicles. A surly driver stuck his head out the window of a red semi-truck and made a rude gesture. "Go back home to Cybertron, refrigerator freaks!" The other cars at the intersection honked in return, bolstering the trucker's statements. Leinad felt dizzy. She moved to the sidewalk.
Arcee knelt down. Her blue eyes glistened. "Leinad?"
She stared at the hard concrete.
"Leinad, what is it?"
"The humans hate me."
Rodimus shook his head. "They don't hate you, Leinad. They don't know anything about what a wonderful person you are."
"Then why do they say things like that?"
Rodimus knelt alongside Arcee. "We can look scary to humans. Sometimes, people are afraid of what they don't understand and they get angry. People have bad days and when they're angry, well… sometimes they like to pick on people they think won't fight back."
"They're cowards." Leinad said.
"Give them some time." Rodimus said. "They're not all bad."
A marine blue corvette pulled up to the sidewalk next to them. Its black window rolled down. Leinad could see inside. There was a human inside with a slimy grin. She recognized him from the television.
"Nice day for a roll, ain't it?"
"You're Mayor Bloom," Arcee said.
"Right, my dear." He pulled down his sunglasses and leaned forward, revealing vaulted eyebrows like Jack Nicholson. "Listen. I think you guys might be a little lost. I saw you walking around. Ain't a lot of gas stations around here. That's what you drink, isn't it?"
Shadows appeared under Rodimus brow. "A pleasure to see you, Mayor Bloom. Your city's growing at an exponential rate. I'm sure it helps to have an Autobot engineer around." Then he turned his attention to Arcee and Leinad. "The Protectobot team's helping relations between Earthlings and Cybertronians. They're providing aid to Tricounty City."
Bloom scoffed. "If you say so. The world's changing, we all have to adapt, don't we?" He stared at Leinad. "Whether we like it or not."
Leinad froze.
Arcee placed a firm hand on Leinad's shoulder. "Is there something you wish to say to us, Mr. Bloom?"
Her tone cut deep, you could see it reflected in Bloom's eyes. "I never voted to keep you in this country. I never voted to keep you on this planet. But if I had it my way, We'd keep all of you on Cybertron and leave all the humans on Earth. That's the way things should be."
The Autobots cast looks of scorn at him, still with shock.
"I don't want you here making a scene. City does fine without you. I don't need the publicity that this is some Autobot haven. You come here, drink our gas and go. I don't want to see you past sundown. Got it?" His eyes settled on Leinad.
Rodimus and Arcee looked at each other, then looked at Bloom. That coy smile spread over the whole of Rodimus's face.
He turned to Leinad and Arcee, noticing their hurt. Then he made a gesture to Arcee for her to follow his lead. Rodimus strolled around the fender, squared up against the front of the mayor's car, while Arcee stepped up behind the trunk. They squatted and grabbed the underside of the car and lifted the vehicle off the pavement. Leinad watched as a screaming mayor was lifted along with his marine-blue car above the Autobots' heads. Rodimus and Arcee gently placed the car on the roof of the flower shop next door. The two smirked at each other.
The mayor's face appeared above the edge of the rooftop, red as a ripe tomato, shouting several four-letter words at them, which prompted Rodimus, Arcee and Leinad to stroll off, each of them laughing.
"Why didn't you just treat him like a Decepticon?" Leinad asked. "He was so much smaller, you could have squished him like a bug."
Arcee warmly replied. "You can't just do that because your feelings are hurt. Human or Decepticon. And you can't hurt mayors very often no matter how much you want to." She looked at Rodimus. "Sometimes you have to be more clever to handle situations. The mayor wasn't hurting us, but he wasn't nice."
"How long do you think it'll be before he can get his car down from that roof?" Rodimus asked her. He smiled appreciatively.
"Oh, I don't know," Arcee said. "But he can hang up there for a while, he needed a time-out." She winked an optic at Rodimus. "Didn't you have a meeting at the Ark today?"
"I left someone else in charge. Thought it would do some good to be out here." He looked from Arcee to Leinad.
Leinad found a patient corgi sitting upright outside a café. Its leash was tied around a post.
"It's okay, you can pet him, gently," Arcee said.
Leinad was afraid, she brought a trembling hand above the corgi's snout. She had a feeling it would snarl or bite at her. Instead, the dog brought its curious nose to Leinad's hand and sniffed, then the little dog, like a well-groomed soldier, stood straight, and bowed its head. She got her wish, her fingers stroked the sesame-brown fur softly. It was a welcome feeling. Arcee smiled then she moved herself out of Leinad's earshot and dragged Rodimus with her.
She stared at his blue optics. "This was a good idea to bring her."
"I can see that," he said.
"I'm thinking of finishing the bonding process with her."
The thought of Leinad attached to Arcee's head mushroomed in Rodimus' mind. "But Arcee—"
She didn't let him finish. "I've already decided. She needs help… she needs someone she can depend on."
Rodimus stepped back. Arcee had been holding his chest. "I'm not sure if we should…"
He stopped when he saw Leinad staring at the two of them. "Yes, Leinad?"
"Is that beast an Ick-Yak?" She was pointing at the corgi. "It's not as big as Kup made it seem."
Rodimus chuckled. "Kup can be overdramatic." A sudden gust made Rodimus shudder. It blew the dead leaves out of a street tree. Rodimus looked up and saw a violet aircraft passing rather low over the city. It didn't resemble an Earth plane. "That almost looks like… wait a minute." He looked through his binocular visor and spotted what he needed to. It shook him to the core. It was a Decepticon ship.
The aircraft swooped over Rodimus and the others. Inside the cockpit, Galvatron smirked. It was too perfect, he had found Optimus's successor at the center of the metropolis.
"Good work, Cyclonus. You've found Prime's matrix bearer. I'll leave it to you." He took the communicator in his hands. "Constructicons, are you in position?"
Beneath the worming subway lines, in a sub-terrain cave, Galvatron's Constructicon team paused their digging when a beacon alerted them. Scrapper turned on the direct communication line. "Awaiting your orders, Galvatron." Scrapper said. The cavern shaft's lights gleamed over the Constructicons.
"Commence Operation Trifold."
"You got it." Scrapper nodded to Hook whose hand was already in position on the red initiation levers. Both pulled their twin levers downward until they locked in the obverse position.
There was a surge of electricity as gears started grinding. The cavern filled with a cacophony of meshing metal.
On the city streets, a businessman toppled over, as an earthquake jostled his leather briefcase from his grip, and the lock snapped open, scattering dozens of papers about the pavement. You could hear the people's screams.
"Jessica. Something's happening!"
"Gregory!"
A small bookstore swayed from side to side, its canopy flapping violently. Mustard-colored umbrellas hurled over the power lines as a woman lost her shoes to scramble for her four-year old daughter—their tangled blonde hair getting lost behind falling signs and bricks. A fire hydrant rocketed upward, it was jettisoned by a geyser of water. A rusted, yellow traffic signal crashed near the mother and her daughter. The street cracked in several places. Steam hissed out of the cracks, as it blew motorcycles over. A red ambulance went screaming down the road, before it tumbled into a newly opened pit. A construction worker abandoned his jackhammer when the skyscrapers next to him, two tall steel towers, rumbled towards each other. The towers squeezed the gap between them and every pedestrian caught between the two edifices disappeared along with the road that had once separated them. Seven other high-rises descended to the ground. The ground floor fell beneath the street level. You could see the people trapped in the highest floor, shouting from their windows. Some were banging on them so hard, that smears had been left on the windows. The people, along with the suites they lived in, sank into the earth. At the waterfront, the oil refineries moved about on rotating platforms. One end of the waterfront sank under the bay, the waves pounded against riveted metal. The other end raised higher than the bay bridge and folded over itself. The streets folded like accordions, and buildings compressed against each other. The freeways turned like snakes and connected end to end as school buses and range rovers tumbled off their ramps. A towering black shape emerged. The ocean sea dripped from its hull. Its long tail snapped off the freeway and two massive legs lifted its body from the ground.
To Leinad, it appeared as if the city had reared up on two hind legs, carrying the towers and freeway ramps with it. Underneath the city a black machine of Cybertronian construction had been hiding, an alien mesh of machinery, like a fuming locomotive. It lifted the city onto its back and folded it in half, the two ends of the city compressed to form its shoulders, giving rise to something so enormous, that Leinad couldn't even process it—a mountain that moved—a city that roared.
Leinad watched a mother protecting her daughter under a collapsing roof. The debris falling all over them, but the mother never abandoned her daughter. She held the little body tightly under her arms. There was so much noise rumbling around them; steel wires were snapping. The street broke apart. A steel girder fell 500 feet, ringing atop the pavement wildly. Snapped power lines whipped violently. An oil truck ripped in half, a ball of fire eschewed from its torn belly.
Leinad held herself tucked in—a shape fell over her. It was Arcee. The female Autobot clutched Leinad tight as a mother bear, while rocks and metal fell and bashed her. Arcee's back dented in several places. Leinad looked up, a garbage truck on a lifted freeway, leaned on the edge; it teetered on the brink. The monster city shuffled forward and the garbage truck fell from the ledge. Leinad screamed. Arcee covered Leinad as much as she could. Then a black shadow fell over them and both were lifted from the floor.
Leinad opened her optics, she saw the garbage truck fall until it smashed into the ground like a compressed soda can. Arcee and Leinad had been scooped up. They were cradled in humongous metal arms. Arcee looked, and recognized the Cybertronian that had saved them from the falling truck. The three were tumbling over and over. Like a football player, an Autobot had intercepted Arcee and Leinad by flinging itself at them and at last the rolling stopped. Arcee, Leinad and Rodimus looked up at one of the largest Transformers of all time. It stood over five stories tall; it was, the giant, Defensor. Rodimus breathed a sigh of relief. His emergency call had been answered. All six of the Protectobots had heeded the call, and they arrived at the edge time. Rodimus gazed at the welcomed face of the six merged Protectobots. The giant delicately laid the three on a crumbling cement slab. Defensor was their savior and now he turned to look at the giant towering behind them.
The thing Leinad beheld bore no equivalent in memory. Confronted by something, so immense, its breathing gusts blowing people over, Leinad reclused herself into beasts of myth. On archaic temple hieroglyphs and within the Egyptian book of the dead, Leinad attached this vision to a crouched creature. Seated on paws between the gods of knowledge and death, it watched and waited. It sat reclined, a triple-bodied beast, whose powerful back legs were those of Egypt's most terrifying mammal, the hippopotamus, a behemoth of submersion. Its front legs were those the African people called a Man-Eater and in whom English was called a Lion, known for millennia as the sovereign of all land beasts. Its head was of the crocodile, on the Nile it spelled dread for all the river dwellers, for ancient people could not find another creature on Earth that was more fearsome. Later, it would give rise to the legend of Leviathan, the coiling serpent dragon. The world of the dead held a creature, a monster that encompassed all three of the world's most powerful living beings into one, powerful, composite beast. It was a triple threat. And in myth it waited, patiently, for when the unfortunate was chosen by fate, it would eagerly, with drool-splattered jaws, devour the souls of men.
Arcee recognized the dreaded silhouette, the armor-plated scales and the long tail. "Trypticon."
Rodimus gasped.
Defensor stood to his full height to examine the giant. At Defensor's height, he didn't even reach Trypticon's knee.
"Rodimus," Defensor said, "by the Inferno, what's that?"
"Well… It's not Grimlock's big brother."
"Could've fooled me. It has more teeth than a sharkticon."
"And a little more firepower. Look." Rodimus pointed at several turrets and cannons along the creature's body, swiveling to target them. "Watch out!"
The Autobots scrambled to hide behind a crumbled skyscraper. A barrage of missiles and lasers exploded behind them.
Defensor yelled at Rodimus. "We're going to need backup."
"We're going to need the whole team," Rodimus shouted. "I'm calling the Aerialbots." He slapped an emergency button on his wrist communicator. "Autobots. We're in trouble. Calling for Aerialbots. We're in the middle of… what used to be… Downtown Broadway and Main."
A voice buzzed back from his wrist. "What do you mean?"
"I mean Downtown is going to town on us. We're being attacked by the city."
"Rodimus, did I hear you right?"
Arcee yelled at Rodimus' wrist. "You heard him. The Decepticons are attacking us. They turned the human city into a giant Transformer. And it's attacking us."
There was a pause on the receiver. "… We're on our way…"
"They don't seem too thrilled," Arcee said.
Rodimus scanned the skies. "Can't imagine why." He spotted Galvatron's aircraft flying over them. It felt like Galvatron was looking for Rodimus, trying to single him out—and he had the sudden urge to leave Arcee and Leinad to get them away from Galvatron. Then Defensor spoke.
"I'll provide cover. Rodimus, you and the others need to get out of here."
"No, Defensor." Rodimus grabbed the giant's shoulder. "You need to get to them." He pointed at the human woman and her small child, hiding behind a falling roof.
Defensor spotted them. He hesitated. "…Will do Rodimus."
Defensor leapt from his hiding spot into the open. He was vulnerable without the cover of the building to protect him. He heard gunfire pound behind him, but he had to get to the humans. He turned to look back. That thundering, thought to be cannon fire, was actually the sound of Trypticon's footsteps. The monster turned its massive, swinging body, halfway around, and its turrets swiveled to lock down on him. Defensor leapt for it, stretching out his arms for the creatures. An onslaught of firepower pounded the building behind him. He had scooped the humans, catching them before the bullets rained on them—but it was not without injury.
In his leap, Defensor's left arm had taken the brunt of the attack. It had left the metal of his exposed shoulder broken and mangled. Defensor needed to hurry, yet he now lay exposed in Trypticon's sight. That's when Defensor heard a sonic boom overhead. Five jets had appeared above in the skies.
Aerial Bots had made it in time. They unleashed a flurry of bullets on Trypticon, powdering Trypticon's reptilian head. It was perfect timing. Defensor cradled the mother and child. "I'm going to get you out of here." The mother's eyes were wide with fear. He was unsure if she understood, shackled with the shock of fire and noise around them, but Defensor held her close. With Trypticon was distracted, Defensor tore from the building, and bolted down the dirt path, splitting into his component parts. His right arm, which cradled the woman and child, became the ambulance, First Aid, and encased the humans in a protective chamber. The fire truck and chest, Hot Spot, carried what was Defensor's ruined left arm, the injured helicopter, Blades. The others veered off the main road to provide cover for the others. Motorcycle, Groove, spun around, returning fire at Trypticon while the police car, Streetwise, approached from the right side. It was a diversion, nothing the Autobots fired at Trypticon could pierce the armor. The Aerialbots swooped around for another strike. They pelted Trypticon once more. As the Autobot fighter planes swooped for a third attack, an unseen enemy struck from the ground.
Cannon fire cracked the air, scattering the Aerialbots. An anti-aircraft cannon was defending Trypticon. A couple of the Aerialbots were trailing black smoke now. Their wings had been clipped.
"Rodimus, there's something guarding Trypticon's rear side. We can't get close enough to do any firing."
"That's fine. Just keep Trypticon distracted and get Blades out of there. We need to pull back and regroup."
"If we don't stop Trypticon, the humans trapped in the wreckage will be killed."
"The 'Cons aren't after the humans, they're attacking Autobots."
"They're after you, Rodimus."
"Just get out of here."
"What about you?"
Rodimus felt a sickening, heavy weight welling in his abdomen.
"Rodimus?"
Rodimus saw the jets swooping and returning his direction.
With the Aerialbots flying down, Rodimus turned back to look upon Trypticon. He was like a walking battle tank of murderous death, an engine of destruction. But there was something wrong. Trypticon walked like a possessed creature, the yellow eyes vacant, as though it were unaware of the buildings it trampled over. It didn't know, or didn't care, that it was in the middle of a battlefield, as though all the lives it had crushed and all the Autobot and Decepticon soldiers didn't matter to it at all.
The Aerialbots made a return, their planes screeched through the air, and they made a V-formation to assault Trypticon's front. Several bombardments detonated on the black hull. And Trypticon opened fire with all his turrets on the fighter planes. The moment was brief.
From the skies a black swarm descended. Several Decepticons dropped through the clouds. They transformed in the air to their bot modes and opened fire as they fell to Earth. It was as though the entire Decepticon armada had appeared to bolster the rise of Trypticon.
As the battle was raged, the clouds above were sundered when a small star cruiser burst through the atmosphere.
"A spaceship," Rodimus shouted. "They're coming from all over."
The ship made a hook in the air and looped back towards Defensor. The side door of the ship slid sideways and three Decepticons peeked out.
"We made it!" Squeezeplay said.
"Let's show'em our new powers," Horri-Bull said, locking and loading his rifle.
Fangry snorted. "Don't tell me what to do."
The three leapt from the star cruiser into free fall and landed in the middle of city wreckage.
Horri-Bull and Kreb combined, the Decepticon's head collapsed into his chest. Kreb became the head of Horri-Bull by folding his body in half into a compact configuration and snapped into place on Horri-Bull's Neck. The two were one, Horri-Bull could see through his new set of eyes. "You see what I see, Kreb?"
"Indeed I do." The pistol swung out on Horri-Bull's arm, like the hand of clock, it leveled and erupted with smoke and fire. His weapon emitted something new thanks to Kreb, it was a cloud of rust, corrosive and black.
Horri-Bull shot out the corrosive dust cloud aimed at the Autobot jet, downing Slingshot.
Slingshot's body passed over him. It was like being underwater, the noise deafened, just a current of passing bullets and gunfire, and overhead, like a sailboat, the shadow of Slingshot rippled through the fluid air, an arc in the sky as beautiful as the cerulean shores. Slingshot shattered against the rocks, his gas chambers ruptured, sending jets of flame upwards, these were the fires of a Grecian temple. Horri-Bull tangoed through the battlefield, spinning like a ballerina on a freshly waxed stage play. The lights were on him and from his gun he delivered Artemis' arrows, striking the angels out of the sky.
Squeezeplay went on a frenzy slaying anything in his path, his swinging arms, knocked every Aerialbot off their feet. His circuits had fused with Lokos and he felt a rush of excitement and strength, feeling as though he were floating over battlefield, it moved like a miniature landscape under him. He thundered over the field like a charging linebacker and swung his menacing pincers out at the Autobots, his fists collided with them like wrecking balls and they went soaring back into the air only to plummet to Earth. It was a devastating sight and one Squeeze relished. The Titan Masters had enormous powers. He turned anxiously to see what Brisko would do for Fang.
"We need to combine," Brisko said to Fangry.
"Why would I do that?!" Fangry said. "I can manage fine on my own."
Brisko sputtered. "But I can help you with your firepower. "Why'd you let Bomber give you the upgrade if you aren't going to use it?"
"Why do you want it so much? What's in it for you?"
Brisko's shoulders drooped. "Better our chances to survive."
"Hah. Watch this." Fangry spotted Streetwise pumping toward him in his patrol car mode and shot his blaster, the aim was just southeast of the driver's side tire. Streetwise flared his engine and made a left-turn drift, swinging his rear side into Fangry which flung the Decepticon backwards off his feet. This angered the green-faced 'Con who leapt onto his feet. Fangry chased the police cruiser into a corner and leapt on top of him. Streetwise swerved to side to side to shake Fangry off, the Decepticon flailing on the roof, the siren's red flashing in Fangry's green face. Fangry unholstered his blaster and shot through Streetwise's roof. The wound caused Streetwise to crash and Fangry flew off the roof. He went careening into an exposed telephone pole, snapping it, and causing the pole and the wires to collapse over him.
"Fang!" Brisko shouted.
Fangry pulled himself up, bruised but kicking. He was holding his shoulder, smiling like an idiot.
"You almost bit it," Brisko said.
"I'm in better shape the other guy though."
"You need to merge with me. I can help you."
"No!"
He would have flung the little Nebulon when he made a back-handed swipe, but he staggered and fell on his right knee.
Brisko shook his head and lead the way out of the rubble-strewn field back to the others.
And Rodimus stared with horror as the Autobots were driven from the field and he had no choice except to call back his forces and order a retreat from the city. As he drove from the city blocks, he caught sight of the towering lizard in a smoldering, black-smoked crater.
Galvatron, from the canopy of Cyclonus' window, glowered over the red and orange leader of the Autobots.