Chapter Twenty-Two: An Outsider's View

As Team Prime slept, certain of Jasper met to discuss odd happenings around Jasper. This group started as more of an after-school club, but it grew more organized as time went on. Vince, the defacto leader of this group, climbed in his car and shivered as flashes of a red giant metal titan ran through his mind. He acted tough, but the monster's blood-red eyes would wake him from sleep screaming. Sierra and others soon joined with similar odd experiences. Though this small group, Vince began to lean on them and they on him. Vince found a "family" he never really had with this small group, and he would do anything to keep his support system.

Recent events, namely the death of Jack and June Darby due to an explosion in their family home set Vince in perspective. In a moment, I could lose everything . Thedarkness around him seemed to grow denser as the high school jock drove. I can't imagine what Jack must have felt in those last moments with his mom. The teenager wiped the tears from his eyes as his eyes blurred with water.

Once the tears were cleared, Vince turned off into a neighborhood and felt a shiver of strange nostalgia as he rode. It wasn't long before Vince found himself staring down a blockade of roadwork barriers. Looking around, Vince pulled over and got out. With a shake of his head, Vince walked to the Darby house or, more accurately, the home's remains. With a flashlight, Vince began his search. That strange man at Prom, Darby's suddenly bad health and disappearance, Sadie, and the red-eyed metal monster; they're all connected, but how?

With surprising ease, Vince moved through the rubble with a careful watch of his flashlight to make sure he didn't draw attention to himself. Then, Vince began his search in earnest for any clues. Underneath a pile of broken wall, Vince found something odd. With a breath to blow the dust away, Vince held the strange object in the beam of his flashlight and gasped at the blue and grey flip phone in his hand. "Darby's phone?" The jock muttered. "How the hell did it survive a house blowing up?!" With a quick glance around the neighborhood, Vince decided it would be best to share this almost unearthly find with the rest of the group in a relatively deserted location.

'Guys,' Vince sent in a mass text. 'Meet me about five miles east of Tucker's Ranch. I just found something huge!'

A gut feeling in the young man drove Vince to turn off the main road down a gravel driveway. On the right-hand side, a large masa loomed ominously in the night. Rumors of ghosts who died crashing into the masa abounded, but Vince never put much stock in such stories. It was just an old declassified Cold War missile silo, nothing more. Still rumors of strange lights and engine noises around the mesa kept these ghost stories alive.

Vince shook his head and gave a quick glance at the phone in his passenger seat. For the second time in five minutes, Vince again wondered how the phone remained in near-perfect condition with all the destruction around it. Wait for the others, Vince coached himself. They want to know as much if not more about this phone than you do.

The moon gave a haunting blue coat to everythingbelow it. Stars twinkled and shown like phone camera lights in the night sky. It was peaceful out here at night, but Vince couldn't stay to admire the sky as he neared an old cabin. In spite of its obvious age, the cabin showed signs of restoration: new boards in the old cabin's porch, a small generator and gas cans, and some tools on the porch. It wasn't much, but it was better than having to meet at a house in the group during daylight.

Vince nodded as he opened his door and walked up to check the generator. He opened the gas cap and wrinkled his nose. Quickly, Vince looked down into the tank with hiss flashlight and nodded as the liquid within seemed usable. Finally, he replaced the cap. It should be good for tonight, but I need to drain it before I leave. Varnished gas is the last thing this old engine needs.

Vince stood and smiled as he saw four sets of headlights coming towards the cabin. Then, he looked at the generator and started pulling the cord to start it. Once, twice, three times…it coughed and spluttered in response all three times. On the fourth go, the engine caught but hesitated. Vince reached down and pulled the choke halfway until the shutter cleared.

Inside, a few lights flickered to life and became constraint as the generator settled into a dull roar under the load.

"Well, there's a surprise." Jason, a fullback on the team said as he walked up and put a hand on Vince's shoulder. "I thought you only worked with cars."

Vince smirked and slapped his best friend on the back with a laugh. "It's the same principle, just smaller with the crank shaft connected to magnets instead of wheels to generate electricity."

Jason shook his head. "Careful, Vince." Jason warned with a joking tone. "You almost sound like a nerd."

Vince sized up the slim but muscled teen with a raised eyebrow. "Oh really?"

Before the boys could break into a tussle, Sierra and Kelsey walked up. Kelsey, a shapely blonde, glared at Jason. She marched up and folded her arms.

"BOYS!" Vince and Jason jumped at the voice. When they turned, they were laughing. Kesey shook her head in confusion. When Sierra and I got here, they looked ready to beat each other. Now, they're laughing? Quickly the boys walked over. They were both covered in dust. Kelsey shook her head with a reluctant smile.

"You had something to show us?" Sierra asked as she began to walk into the cabin.

"Right." Vince said with a nod as he and Jason found their usual spots on an old couch and a recliner respectively. "Guys," Vince said as he plugged the phone into a charger. "You won't believe where I found this!"

Jason smirked. "I thought you just got a new phone, bro."

Vince sighed. "This isn't mine, Smartass." Vince opened the phone and turned it on. "I found it in the wreck of the Darby House."

Looks of shock made their rounds through the room. Jason opened his mouth to respond, but the light of the flip phone as it finished booting up cut him off. Tension rose as Vince reached to look at the phone. Nothing out of the ordinary appeared until the group came to the contact list. At the top of the list, a strange name made itself known.

"Who's Arcee?"

Sierra tensed and tried to control herself as Vince said the name. She still didn't understand how a robot could outclass her to get Jack's attention and hold it for so long. She let the others pass confused glances between each other before she took the phone from Vince with an annoyed huff and searched through the pictures on the phone to hopefully find the robot glitch. What does it have that I don't?! One of the last pictures in the phone's memory yielded fruit. It seemed to be a surprise if Jack and the glitch's expressions were anything to go on, but it also had a tiny heart in the top left corner of the screen. "This is Arcee." Sierra said with a growl as she turned the phone so that the others could see it.

Jason whistled in an appreciation of the femme's form while Kelsey shot him an annoyed if not deadly look. "Easy, Kitten." Jason said as he paled and held up his hands. "I'm just saying, Darby had good taste."

Vince nodded with a grin of his own. "The house may have exploded, but it damn sure wasn't from faulty wiring or a bad gas valve."

Sierra shook her head in aggravation. "Don't you dare say it, Vince!"

Vince raised a brow. "What?" The jock sneered at her. "You didn't even know Darby existed until after he met her, and you want to act jealous and entitled because he's dead now?!" Vince stared at her. "Darby was nice enough to try and be my friend in the days before he disappeared." Vince shook his head. "Had I known he was dying, things would have been much different."

Kelsey looked at Vince in confusion. She shifted nervously. She thought of all the new information presented in the past few minutes and shook her head. "We know Jack's mom was involved at one point with a gangster who calls himself Megatron." Kelsey shivered. "Vince, you were attacked by a robot who transformed into the same car owned by the same guy who tried to abduct Jack's Mom." Kelsey then turned her attention to Sierra. "You think Jack isn't completely Human?"

The girl in question just glared at the small phone screen as it continued to show the blue apparent female robot.

"There's also this spider-bot that wants to 'offline' Jack and Arcee for some reason." Sierra added with a calm expression.

Kelsey looked at her friends with a bit of worry. "What the Hell did we get ourselves into?"

Jason gripped Kelsey's hand lightly. "Nothing will happen on my watch, Kels. I swear it."

Bright lights suddenly blinded the group of four. Then, an engine roared to life. "My god, had you fleshies gotten any sappier, I would have purged my tank!"

Vince shook his head at the familiar voice. He couldn't see the Aston Martian because of the headlights, but he could see a vague outline of the car in the shadow of the lights. You want to fight, tin can? "Bring it!" Vince turned to Jason. "Special Teams: Field Goal Formation!"

Jason nodded and ran off with a lighter and rag in hand. Last few seconds in the fourth quarter, Jason told himself. We're down by one! It's now or never! Jason kept running for the gas cans next to generator as he heard a strange sound like metal grinding and shifting quickly with a slightly synthesized tone to the noise. With a shake of his head, Jason grabbed the gas can and ran back to his friends.

Vince shook his head and looked at the girls, "Run!" Vince then glared hard the massive alien and cracked his knuckles and widened his stance. The bot seemed intrigued or amused at this and bent down with a coindeseading gleam in his optics.

"You…you're the one who scratched my finish." The red bot then flashed a sadistic smile at Vince Vince. "I'm going to enjoy this!" The bot's what'd then shifted to a buzzsaw. "Say, Ah!"

Vince rolled to the right of the saw as Knockout lunged to cut the quarterback in half. With his heart beating wildly Vince scanned the area for obstacles and Jason. It's just like a game, Vince tried to calm himself. Only the defending "team" is a two-hundred-ton death robot. Vince couldn't help the relief when he saw Jason run up with the gas, lighter and rags.

As the pair worked to set their plan into motion, both kept an ear out for Knockout. The Decepticon, not that anyone in the group but Sierra knew the factions, seemed to enjoy playing with his targets. At least, that's what his lazy footsteps suggested. "Come on, Humans." He seemed to be getting annoyed the more he looked for the four of them. "Damn it! Make this quick. I hate sand!"

"It's coarse, rough, irritating, and it gets everywhere." Kelsey rolled her eyes in her tone. "I don't know or want to know your name, Anakin." She sighed before she walked out and look Knockout in the face. The girl smirked, but inside, she knew she was taking a massive risk by taunting the metal monstrosity. Get your enemy angry, Kelsey remembered her dad teaching her. Angry people don't pay attention to anything except the source of their anger. "Then, again, Anakin found it relatively easy to kill younglings while you seem to be having performance problems." Kelsey feigned a gasp of realization as her tone turned to a simile. "I know! You're Jar Jar!"

Just as Jason was about to light the rag and turn the tank of gas into an improvised firebomb, he heard Kelsey scream. Jason ran up to find Kelsey tight in the monster's grip with his attention solely on her. With a nod from Vince, Jason picked the best spot ton put the can in relation to their target and lit the rag. With a centimeter still on the impromptu fuse, Vince punted the can as high and as far as he could.

BOOM! The can exploded and spayed Knockout's optics with molten plastic and fire. His scream of rage as he picked up his free servo and tried to clear his optics made Vince smile.

"Suck on that, you Model A!"

"You fragging scraplets!" Knockout raged as he threw Kelsey. "I'll kill you!"

With no time to really think, Jason sprinted to his car and shot off in the direction of Kelsey. As she began to fall to the Earth, Kelsey spread herself in an attempt to slow down. Like a guided missile, Kelsey did her best to angle herself on an intercept course with Jason. When the pair impacted into each other, all fell silent for them.

Vince looked back and watched in horror as his best friend's girlfriend sailed through the air before Jason followed her in his car. With the vain car/robot thing currently blinded, Vince looked back and ran for the cabin. If Jason and Kelsey are hurt, we need to get them help now! The quarterback swore under his breath. Otherwise, they could die. I won't lose anyone else! As his face set to steel with resolve to save his friend, Vince ran up just in time to see Sierra angrily push a button on Jack's phone.

Before Vince could stop her, Sierra seemingly fried the only chance their friends had of betting help quick enough to matter. The phone sparked and jolted Sierra enough to make her drop it.

"There," the girl proclaimed triumphantly.

Vince lost it as the phone melted to a pile of melted fur it's and plastic. "YOU BITCH!" Vince roared. "It's because of people like you my mom is dead!" Vince balled his fist and punched the nearest wall instead of her. "If you would have let go of your fucking childish jealousy, Jack's friends could be saving Jason and Kelsey right now!"

Vince would have continued his tirade had a strange sound and light from a large spinning green circle not drawn the pair's attention. Out of the portal, a micro drone raced and started apparently punching the red robot in the face while remained to small and nimble for the larger robot to land a hit. An ambulance and a red motorcycle with its rider in matching gear soon followed the small fighter. However, these two did not engage the red robot and instead raced in the direction of Jason and Kelsey. With a nod of silent thanks, Vince felt a smile crawl on his face.

Without warning, the ambulance came back and scooped Vince and Sierra inside with its doors. Once inside, Vince felt relief mixed with confusion when he noted Jason and Kelsey already on beds and linked to various machines.

"Elita, I have stabilized the teenagers as best I can," the ambulance seemed to SPEAK from its…or was it his…steering wheel! "If we don't get them medical attention quickly, I fear the outcome!"

Silence ruled for a few tense moments before there were three light raps on the ambulance's back door. When the doors opened, Vince couldn't believe his eyes. There was what looked to be a robot kid with strange purple armor and no face hovering behind the ambulance and keeping pace with him. "Ratchet, I can use the nanotech in my suit to reshape the gurneys into stasis pods and fly them back to Jasper General faster than either of you can drive."

Without another word from the strange purple mini-bot hitch seemed to show agreement from the live ambulance, a grey wave seemed to swallow the two unconscious Humans. Then, the grey mass of nanobots quickly formed into a capsule with a window for both critical patients. Finally, the mini bot flew off with a capsule in each arm.

Sierra glared at the steering wheel. "If you don't give us back our friends…"

"They will DIE if we give them back right now, Sierra!"

Vince's mind spun. These robots know her?! Then, tone and voice registered in Vince's rapidly clouding mind. Her voice how is that…possible?! Before Vince could question anything further, he suffered an adrenal crash and passed out on the floor of the ambulance.

Vince woke up slowly and sat with a groan as he put a hand to his forehead. "What happened?" Vince muttered groggily as he noted Sierra to be gone. "Whatever…" The jock groaned before he blinked and looked to see the same purple mini bot that saved Jason and Kelsey standing in the ambulance's open doors in front of him. "Thank you, whoever you are."

The small bot nodded. "Your friends have been stabilized, Vince. We were able to get to them fast enough." The small bot then did something Vince did not expect as the jock felt a mound of tension release from his body as news of his friends' much improved condition. "My friends and I were hoping to catch someone else with the tracer worm I put in Jack's old phone."

Vince blinked in confusion. "How do you know Jack and Sierra?"

Instead of answering, the kid-bot reached for his helmet and lifted it off his head.

Vince paled at the face before him, "Raf?!"

Raf smirked as the hybrid put his helmet under his left arm, "Vince, we need to talk."