Author's Note

Chapter 2, as promised. I'll let you get right to it and go onward and enjoy!

Puzzle Pieces

Even after all this time, Chicago still struggles to pick up the pieces. The government's done what it can, but some of the destruction was just too great. Entire city blocks were decimated by Decepticons, leaving buildings unrecognizable. Just crumbling skeletons of cement and steel. The city ended up fencing the areas off, abandoning them as a lost cause until the day they can go through with bulldozers to wipe the ground completely clean. It's a slow process since the area of destruction was so large. For now, the only inhabitants largely remain ghosts and reckless scavengers.

All in all, not the worst place for a spaceship to crash. Certainly, better than a busy city intersection full of more possible victims and witnesses.

Sideswipe pulls off to the side of what's left of the road, Sunstreaker, Ratchet, Ironhide, and Bumblebee doing the same behind them. Stepping out onto the cracked asphalt, Ari surveys the area around them, eyes peeled for squatters and adventure seekers. The wired fence does little to keep out trespassers, she knows, but they don't exactly have the manpower to constantly patrol the area.

"Spread out," Ari calls over her shoulder, Evie, John, Trent, Rob, and Lina spilling out of the Autobots' alt modes. "Make sure we're alone."

"Why is she here again?" Sunstreaker asks as he transforms into his bipedal form, gesturing to Lina at his feet.

The others transform as well, Ironhide whacking Sunny on the back of his head. "Cool it, youngling," Ironhide grumbles. "I can smell the smoke from your processor overheating from here."

"Hey, it's a valid question!" Sunny says petulantly, rubbing at his sore head. "This could be dangerous."

Lina lets out a short huff, eyes never leaving her tablet. "Tracking the ship," she announces, ignoring Sunny's blustering completely. "Looks like it crashed already. Give me a sec. I'll use the satellites to see where it landed."

Bumblebee pokes his head out of a warehouse, calling out, "The area's clear! And I'm with Ironhide, Sunny. You need to chill out."

"Seriously," John agrees, eyes to the sky searching for a trail of smoke, a sign of something burning. "I've lived with a temperamental woman all my life. Ticking them off at every given opportunity is not good for your health."

"Excuse you," Evie protests, narrowing her eyes at her twin brother with a look that makes John haunch his shoulders. "This temperamental woman is about to kick your aft."

"Focus, guys," Rob chastises. "We can all give Sunstreaker love advice later. Sounds like he needs it. But later."

Sunny rounds on him. "Hey!"

"I've got it," Lina announces with a small smirk, a steady beeping coming from her tablet. "It went down three blocks east. This way."

Lina takes off down the street, everyone jogging after her. Sunstreaker skates ahead, glaring back at her until she rolls her eyes and slows down to a walk, allowing everyone else to catch up.

Ari places a hand on her shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze. Lina wants so bad to prove herself to Sunstreaker—to everyone, really—but there's a fine line between proving herself and getting reckless. Ari wants to give her the chance. So long as she does it the right way.

Lina points to the next corner and they slow down, drawing weapons as they edge around the building. Ari's not sure what she expected. Autobots. Decepticons. A new species of alien looking to pick a fight.

She didn't expect this, though. A spaceship crashed into the side of a building, smoldering and banged up like crazy and covered in gun turrets like it's prepped for war.

And familiar.

"Does anyone else have a bad feeling about this?" Ironhide asks, arm cannon whirling softly.

"I'm with you, 'Hide," Trent says, rounding to the back of the craft. "Looks like a one-man ship. No sign that anyone's come out."

"And no obvious door or anything," Evie adds. "What do we do? Knock?"

"Here, boost me up," Ari says, holstering her gun as she steps towards the craft. Sideswipe lifts her by the waist, not letting go until she finds her footing on the slanted hull.

"What are you thinking, sweetspark?" Sideswipe asks, hovering close and ready to pull her off at the first sign of trouble.

"It's Cybertronian," she states, carefully shuffling up the craft towards a dome of glass that looks to be the cockpit.

"You're sure?'

"Definitely." She glances back at him, worry niggling in her stomach. "I'd say the same era as the ship Lockdown was flying around in."

His worry joins her own over the bond. "It's starting again, isn't it."

"I'm afraid it might be."

Everything's coming to a head. Everything they've been through, everything they've faced. It's all led to right here.

Ari wipes at the cracked glass, peering inside as her eyes strain to make out details.

What she sees makes her gasp in horror.

"Break the glass!" she shouts urgently, scooting back so Sideswipe can punch the glass in with his fist.

A Cybertronian sits inside the cabin, older than any she's ever met before. Even Jetfire. He almost looks like a samurai, his head and facemask having the same general shape as the helmet in a samurai's armor.

It's also covered in energon. The Cybertronian version of blood.

It gushes from a large gash in his chassis, sustained in the crash if she had to guess. Ari scrambles forward, pressing her hands to the wound. He coughs at the touch, air wheezing through his chest as his optics open. They shine a bright green, brimming with pain and desperation.

"Hey," she murmurs softly, giving him a gentle smile. "My name's Ari. What's yours?"

His facemask retracts as he tries to speak, but he only manages to cough again. This time energon spills out, dribbling down the side of his mouth.

"Okay, okay, that's okay. Don't try to speak." Electricity begins to crackle along her arms, her healing mark shining to life beneath her sleeve. "Just stay still. I'll get you all healed up in no time."

"N-No," he stutters out, in perfect English that surprises Ari enough to make her pause. "No…time."

She shakes her head, "But—"

"Not important." A piece of armor slides open in his chassis, revealing a hidden compartment. He reaches a hand inside, pulling something out. "This is all that matters."

She automatically holds out a hand as he presses something circular and cold to her palm. It feels like metal—Cybertronian metal—with some kind of cross branded on both sides. "What is it?"

"The t-talisman will p-protect you." His optics flicker, voice going choppy as he starts to fade.

"No, no, no." Ari brings the power of the AllSpark out again, stretching the sparks out to him. But he doesn't react. She can almost feel his spark pulling away from her, unwilling to be healed. "Please, I can help you, if you just let me."

But he doesn't want her to. She can feel the door to the Well of Sparks, calling out to him, and he goes to it gladly. He takes in a deep breath, using the last of his strength to utter more words she can't make out.

"What?" she asks, leaning forward to hear him more clearly. He tries to speak one more time, but it's too late. He slips away, joining his brethren in the Well.

"He's gone," she whispers softly, leaning back on her heels as she just stares down at the fallen knight. "He wouldn't let me help him. Why wouldn't he let me help him?"

"It was his choice, sweetspark," Sideswipe says, placing a hand on her shoulder. "There's nothing more you could have done."

She nods, allowing Sideswipe to pick her up and place her sitting on his forearm. A part of her wants to dive into the Well, find his spark and ask him why he let go, why he came here, why he wouldn't let her help him. He could have lived. He could have kept living with them, made Earth his home like so many others before him, if he had just let her heal him.

Her fingers fiddle with the metal circle—the talisman, as he called it—rotating it in her hand again and again. He didn't care about living. He just cared about this. This piece of metal that he protected with his life. She stares down at it curiously, unable to understand how something so simple could be that important to him.

This is all that matters.

"He didn't seem to care about his own life," she mutters softly, almost to herself. She traces the cross with her thumb absently. It's not like the Christian cross, where one of the lines is bigger than the others. All the lines of this cross are even, symmetrical, something she swears she's seen before. "Just cared that he got this someplace safe."

"How'd he know you were safe?" Trent asks, strapping his assault rifle across his back. "No offense, but he didn't exactly know you."

"Maybe he saw the AllSpark marks?" Bumblebee guesses with a shrug of his shoulders. "I mean, you didn't have time to explain, but he couldn't have missed them and the sparking and stuff."

Ari shakes her head. "My sleeve's hiding the marks."

Why entrust it to her? How did he know she'd be able to keep it safe?

Can she? Or will she fail again?

"Guys, I don't mean to alarm anyone," Lina says, tone even and low as she taps at her tablet, "but I'm picking up a known energon signal nearby."

Ari freezes, using her peripheral vision to scan the area around them. A known signal can only mean one thing—Decepticon. "Who?" she asks, lips barely moving.

If he's close enough for them to pick up a signal, he might be close enough to overhear them.

"Our favorite police officer."

Sideswipe growls across the bond, body subtly bowing around her. "Barricade."

They stay gathered around the wreckage, trying to act as naturally as possible. Barricade. Megatron's right hand man since Starscream got offlined in this very city. Ari raises a hand to her comm, using it to talk to everyone since it's quieter. "Anyone have eyes on him?"

"I've got movement at my three o'clock," John reports, gripping his gun tightly. "Don't see anyone else. Think he's alone?"

"Possibly." Ari tucks the talisman into her pocket, patting it in reassurance. Barricade has to be here for a reason. And the only reason to be here would be the crash. The ancient Cybertronian. And this talisman. It could be just a coincidence—him and Megatron curious about the unknown mech landing on Earth—but her instincts scream at her that he's here for this talisman.

What is so special about this thing?

Maybe the Decepticons know.

"Ironhide, you got that new tech with you that Tony and Wheeljack have been working on?" she asks.

Ironhide's arm clicks a few times, the ammo for his cannon switching to a different kind. "Yep."

"Then on the count of three, I want everyone to fire on Barricade, Ironhide first. Make sure you hit him before we scare him off."

Sideswipe helps Ari climb up to his shoulder so he can use both hands, allowing Ari to reach her gun as well.

"One."

Sunstreaker crouches to his knees, placing himself closer to Lina and shielding her with the bulk of his frame. She doesn't even complain this time, just presses herself against him and ready to run if she has to.

"Two."

Ari's ears twitch at the sound of tumbling rocks behind her. Everyone grips their weapons, tensing as they ready themselves.

"Three!"

Everyone pivots. Barricade crouches halfway behind a crumbing pillar holding up the remains of elevated tracks from the "L" train. Ironhide fires, missing at first, but it surprises Barricade enough to make him back away from the debris.

Ironhide's second shot hits him right in the shoulder. Not enough to offline him. But that wasn't the point.

Everyone else fires, then, spraying the area with bullets. Barricade stumbles backwards, falling on his aft before scrambling to his feet and transforming into his police cruiser. They keep firing as Barricade speeds away. No one gets in a good shot, but they act like Stormtroopers. Trying to hit their target and being really bad at it.

Purposefully bad.

"He gone?" Evie asks, lowering her weapon. They don't chase after him, letting him get away. For now.

"Looks like," Lina says, switching screens on her tablet with Sunstreaker still mostly bent over her. "The shot was good, 'Hide. Tracker's working perfectly. He's moving away from us at a steady pace and I'm not picking up any other energon signals."

"Excellent," Ironhide smirks, putting his cannon away. "Once he crawls back into his hole, maybe the listening device built in will help us get some answers."

"So long as he doesn't find it first," Ari sighs, rubbing tiredly at her temples. It's going to be a long couple of days. She can already tell. And on already little sleep, too. "Let's head back to base. There's nothing more we can do here."

"Then what?" Rob asks, waiting for Ironhide to transform back into his truck alt mode and opening the door. "What do you think's going on?"

"Not sure." She fishes the talisman out again, staring down at it like it will just spontaneously jump up and reveal its secrets. "But it all has to do with this."

Hopefully they'll be able to figure it out, before it's too late. The thing is, she'd feel a lot better about it if Optimus were here. He'd be better at guarding this thing. She looks to the sky, clutching the talisman tightly.

Please, Optimus. Come home soon.

Ari struggles against her bindings, the ropes rubbing painfully against her wrists and ankles. The more she tries to yank her arms away, the more it burns. But she has to get away. She can't let him do this. She can't let him do this to her.

Not again.

Her eyes dart frantically around the darkness, trying to see where he lurks, trying to find something. But there's only shadows.

Where's Sideswipe? Why isn't he here to save her? He's always saved her before.

Fingers brush against her ankle, making her jump. She tries again to flinch away but the ropes only tighten. The hand travels up her leg in a way that's supposed to be slow and sensual but only makes her gag. It tip-toes over her stomach, slipping beneath her shirt to her chest and she cries out. Begging. Pleading.

Not again. Please, not again.

The fingers dig into her stomach and it burns. It burns, fire etching across her skin. Marking her. Leaving a reminder so she'll never forget.

"You're unwanted," he growls in her ear. "Unimportant. Undesirable. No one cares about you and never will. You are nothing."

Brightness flashes across her eyes, as blinding as the sun and just as warm. A familiar presence reaches out to her and suddenly her bindings vanish.

"Sideswipe…."

"I've got you, Ari. I've got you."

Sideswipe wraps around her, holding her close and taking her away from that man and his cruel words and the pain. Sideswipe's light shines all around her, burning brighter and brighter until she can open her eyes.

Ari takes in a sharp gasp, blinking up at the worried face of Sideswipe's holoform. She reaches up a hand, running her fingers through his dark wavy hair, and the tightness around his blue eyes eases a little. The tightness in her chest eases as well as she focuses on his face, his alt mode around her, his presence over the bond.

It was just a dream. Just a dream.

"Hey," he whispers softly, pressing a kiss to her palm.

She crooks a tired smile. "Hey." She shifts in his lap to sit up a bit more, tucking her head beneath his chin. His arms tighten around her, his presence over the bond just as strong, and she feels the lingering fear fade completely. "Thank you."

"You never have to thank me for this." His voice rumbles beneath her ear, hand skating along her back in soothing circles. "You alright?"

"Not really," she replies honestly. It's the same dream again. She keeps having it, every night, for the past several months now. It just started up again out of the blue.

The dreams about Ron. About what he did to her.

She thought she had moved on from it all. He's been dead for years. The incident itself happened even longer ago than that. Why does her head insist on playing it on repeat again? She hasn't even thought about the man in a very long time, so why now?

Well, whatever the reason, she doesn't have time to worry about it. They have bigger fish to fry at the moment. Bigger things to worry about than her lack of sleep.

Sideswipe pulls her closer, nuzzling against the top of her head. "You don't have to push yourself so hard, you know."

"Maybe," she mumbles, feeling the cargo plane rock around them as they come in for the landing. "Later, at least. But right now, I believe we have a job to do."

They file out of the plane onto the tarmac. The sun is just starting to set over DC, painting part of the sky a bright orange-red. Like someone has taken hold of the sky and slowly lowers it in blood, drenching the pale-blue in red. It dribbles onto the city, coating the building faces and reflecting back at Ari in the glass.

This city, this planet, these people, they've all seen so much blood these past few years. Ari fears they're about to see more of it, despite S.W.O.R.D.'s and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s efforts. But that's why the Triskelion never sleeps. They constantly work—constantly fight—to keep everyone safe, because the darkness out there knows no schedule.

And they will do whatever it takes to make sure no one else has to dip their hands in red.

The war room is the busiest part of the base, the nerve center of both their operations with agents working at dozens of computer stations laid out in concentric semi-circles, all facing a large monitor at the back of the room. As Ari leads her team through the bustling people, she overhears handlers giving orders to agents in the field, rescue missions underway, backup teams being deployed, intel gathering, and tyrants toppled.

This is hers. Ari made this. Every day, she becomes more and more proud of them. And she'll need them all now more than ever.

"Tell me you have good news, Wheeljack," Ari says, climbing a scaffold that puts her eye level with their resident Autobot genius.

Wheeljack turns away from the massive monitor depicting a map of the world, shooting her a manic grin through his beard. "My technology is working perfectly and we have Barricade's location. Is that the news you wanted to hear?"

"Hey!" Tony Stark gripes, rising from the conference table atop the scaffold to shoot Wheeljack a glare. "Our technology, remember? Part of that's my handywork."

Wheeljack rolls his optics. "It was my ingenuity that made the tracker so small."

"But it was my ideas from the Iron Man armor that allowed us to put it in a bullet that kept the tracker from exploding on impact."

"Boys!" Ari snaps, giving them both a look that she picked up from Natasha. Knowing what's good for them, they snap their mouths shut. "You both did a fabulous job. But only if we have sound?"

Tony returns to the table and his laptop, typing out a few things that changes the view on the big monitor. It zooms into the United States as he works to zero in on the tracker's location

"How long until Darcy gets back?" a voice asks behind them, coming up the stairs. Will steps up on the scaffold, the sleeves of his white collared shirt pushed up to his elbows and tie pulled loose at his neck.

A part of Ari's heart tugs down even as her lips pull up at the sight of her dad.

Time doesn't touch Ari but it's started to touch him.

The lines of his face have started to crease a little deeper. Gray peppers his short-cropped hair along the sides of his head. He left combat behind, not just for his family, but because he's starting to slow down. Time pulls at him. Drags at him. When it won't even get close to Ari for a long, long time.

She'll be here a long, long time after he's gone. And her mother. And her sister. And all of her human friends—family.

She takes in a sharp breath, clamping down on those thoughts before Sideswipe can hear them. Or before they show on her face. Now's not the time for that. Later. There'll be time later.

"Hey, dad," Ari greets, happily going to him for a warm hug and clinging just a little bit tighter than usual. "You counting the seconds until their babysitter returns?"

"Darcy is not our babysitter," Wheeljack sniffs petulantly, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "She is the base's head Scientist Wrangler."

"That's her official title, yeah," Will says, pulling back but still keeping an arm around her shoulders. "Though I'm thinking about changing her title to 'babysitter' with the way you two act."

"She looks after Foster and Banner, too, you know," Tony throws over his shoulder, never looking away from the computer.

"And they like to act like children sometimes, too. Seriously, Annabelle was more well-behaved at the age of two than you guys are sometimes."

Ignoring their squawks of protests, Ari tilts her head back to look up at Will, roving her eyes over his wardrobe pointedly. "So, still not liking the suits, huh?"

Will sighs. "I don't know how you and Phil do it, staying in the monkey suit all day. I feel like this tie is going to choke me any day now."

Ari snorts. "Me? I get out of the formal wear every time I go back to my office. Don't put it back on unless someone tells me someone official is coming or I have to go to a meeting. But Phil? Yeah, I don't know how he does it either. Some of the baby agents suspect he's secretly an Autobot in disguise. Can't say I blame them."

Will chuckles, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "It's good to have you back, kiddo. How'd the mission go?"

Her nose screws up in displeasure. "Not so great but not horrible, I guess." She plops down at the head of the conference table, the rest of her team and Will joining her as well, with Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Ironhide, Bumblebee, and Wheeljack standing around them. She pulls out her Autobot pendant from under her shirt, pressing the black button for the comm. "Elita, can you join us in the war room, please? I get the feeling we're about to be very busy."

::I am on my way,:: she replies, her petite pink form sauntering through the door to join the other Autobots a few moments later. She places her hands on the scaffold's railing, standing tall as the leader of the Autobots despite standing no taller than Bumblebee. "Update?"

"It was a Cybertronian ship. Unfortunately, the Cybertronian didn't make it, but he did give me this." Ari pulls out the talisman, holding it out for everyone to see. "Barricade was there as well. I'm guessing, coming after this."

"Do we know what it is?" Elita asks curiously.

"No clue." Ari places it on the table with a frustrated clack on the glass top. "I poked and prodded it the entire way back. Nothing. There's writing written around the circumference—Cybertronian writing—but the AllSpark refuses to translate it for me."

A tense silence surrounds the table. They all know what that means. Every time the AllSpark refuses to cooperate with her and won't show her something, that means something very big and very bad is coming. And Ari is meant to prove herself to the AllSpark and Primus in some way.

This feels worse, though. So much worse.

"Got it," Tony's voice suddenly breaks through the tension, startling them out of their thoughts. He looks up from his computer with a triumphant smirk. "The signal from that bug you planted on ol' Barricade is coming in loud and clear. And before you insult me again, yes, of course we have sound."

He presses one more button and then a voice comes through the room's speakers, a voice Ari knows all too well.

"The staff is hidden on Earth," Megatron rumbles, a deep growling that vibrates in Ari's own chest. "We'll find this staff."

"That voice," Will mutters, face a few shades paler. "I can hear it in my nightmares."

Ari grabs his hand on the table. Squeezing tightly. "You're not the only one."

"Report," he orders someone, probably noticing Barricade. "Tell me you have found the talisman."

"I saw it," comes Barricade's sniveling reply. "A dying knight gave it to a human. That insufferable Witwicky girl that stole the AllSpark from us."

Ari grinds her teeth together. She left the Witwicky name behind a long time ago. Apparently, the Decepticons never forgot it. And won't let her forget it.

There's enough of that going around already in her dreams.

"There were too many Autobots and soldiers with her," Barricade continues, sounding like he's trying to be careful, tactful. Ari hopes Megatron rips him a new one. "They spotted me and I—"

"You let the talisman get away!" Megatron yells in outrage, followed by banging that sounds like it hurts. "We must have it! Without the talisman, we cannot find the staff."

"I know who can lead us to it."

Ari can practically hear Megatron's pleased grin, razor-sharp teeth glinting madly. "The Witwicky girl."

Ari fails to suppress a shiver and Tony turns it off, the somber air thickening like smoke. "Well," he says, running a hand roughly down his face before gesturing at the laptop tiredly, "anyone know what the Pit this staff is they're talking about?"

"Knowing Megatron, it is probably some kind of weapon," Elita says with certainty, and Ari definitely can't argue with that. If Megatron is interested in it, he plans on using it to hurt people. "We can't let him get his hands on it."

"He's going to be watching us," Will reminds them. "It's like he said. We could end up leading them right to it."

"We could always just lock the talisman up somewhere," Rob suggests, propping his elbows up on the table. "If they really need it to find the staff, then we just make sure they can't get the talisman. That'll stop them in their tracks."

Ari's AllSpark marks suddenly light up like Christmas lights, flickering and pulsing as blue sparks crackle up and down both arms. She let's go of Will's hand in alarm, pushing back in her chair away from the table and everyone.

An urgency fills her chest up like a balloon, so full it feels like she'll burst from the inside out. But the feeling isn't hers. It isn't even Sideswipe's. It feels like it comes from the AllSpark itself.

"Ari?" Will asks worriedly and Ari shakes her head frantically, pushing further away.

"I got it, I got it," she tells them, shutting her eyes shut tight as she focuses on the AllSpark power trying to spill out of her doors. "Just…give me a minute."

It's harder this time, getting the AllSpark power to settle down. She has to practically drag it back inside herself, the sparks hissing and biting like vipers. Wanting to act. Wanting to do something.

But what? What does the AllSpark need to do?

Ari's panting by the time she gets the power back under control, gripping the armrests of her chair so tight her knuckles turn white. "I don't think we can just sit on this," she huffs out, breaths a little short. "We need to find the staff."

"You need to go see Ratchet," Sideswipe insists, curling his fingers around her chair like he can physically keep her body okay. "Seriously, sweetspark, that's not normal."

"I don't think Ratchet can help me with this, Sides," she says gently, running her hand along whatever part of his arm she can reach. "The AllSpark wants us to act. We can't just tuck the talisman away and ignore it."

Alarms go off all around the room, loud and blaring and flashing the walls in red. The main monitor changes to an image of what looks like a desert. A large, metal obtrusion rises out of the sands, people already starting to gather around it in curiosity and awe.

"Okay, who added the pointy metal landmark?" Rob asks no one in particular. Or maybe everyone. "I'd remember something like that from the Discovery Channel."

"Lina, what is going on?" Ari asks, getting to her feet to stand next to her friend whose fingers fly across her tablet more frantically than ever before.

"I don't know," Lina says, voice tight as she tries to remain calm. "It looks like some kind of metal horn, a couple stories tall. It just rose out of the ground like it's been buried there, all this time." Her eyes suddenly round, lifting up to stare at them all. "There are dozens of them, all across the planet."

"How could we not have known they where there?" Will demands, hand flying at the screen. "Someone couldn't have just buried them there overnight. They had to have been there for a while."

"Years," Ari says, growing worry tightening her chest. "Thousands of years, if I had to guess. The picture's a little fuzzy, but those are definitely Cybertronian markings covering that thing."

"Cybertronian?" Ironhide balks. "I've never seen such a thing."

More alarms go off, Ari's worry quickly sinking towards dread. "Now what?"

"Incoming object," Lina announces, eyes scanning her tablet before shaking her head in disbelief. "This can't be right. NASA says something's traveling through space at a high rate of speed but…they say it's the size of a planet!"

"Coming from where?" Ari asks, leaning over her shoulder to get a look at the coordinates. Ari's brow shoots upwards. She recognizes that area of space. "That's Cybertron."

"Cybertron?" Bumblebee says, voice going low and vulnerable like only talking about their decimated home planet ever does. "Cybertron is moving? On its own?"

"And coming here?" Sunny adds in.

This is all moving so quickly, far more quickly than she anticipated. Moving planets and mysterious objects and Megatron coming out of hiding. Puzzle pieces. More puzzle pieces to a grand picture encompassing everything they've been working towards since the beginning. It all fits together somehow.

She's solved all the other puzzles before. She can make them all fit together now.

Ari places her hands on the table, palms flat and looking at them each in turn. "This all has to be connected to the talisman. And it sounds like the world-ending kind of bad. I propose a full assembly."

Will's mouth presses to a grim line. "The rest of the team is still in New Mexico with Jane and Darcy, overseeing their new tests for the space bridge. They're not due back for a few days."

"We can't wait that long." Ari stands straight, staring intently at the image of the giant horn reaching towards the sky. "Call Phil. Tell him we're coming to them."

Author's Note

I'm sure you've noticed, but this fic is going to be largely based around Transformers: The Last Knight. And, obviously, I'm making a lot of changes. No Cade, no Autobots on the run, no evil humans chasing them everywhere. Also, no Vivian. Taking Vivian out alone got rid of, like, half the movie when I started outlining. It gave me a lot of wiggle room but that's also probably one of the reasons this fic is so short. But that's not to say it won't be action-packed, and it will hopefully wrap up this series nicely.

Next chapter, as I said, will be next Saturday. We'll have the rest of the Avengers assemble and our mad leprechaun will make his first appearance.

I have to admit, writing Cogman was kind of fun. XD

Hope you enjoyed, PLEASE REVIEW, and see you all next time!