The ground bridge opens as Prowl and Ironhide come out first with their weapons drawn, they scanned the area looking around as they slowly rushed forward. Bulkhead and Optimus leap out behind them scanning the area.
"Who did all of this?" Prowl asked.
"Seems like something Brawl may do." Bulkhead said.
"She's armed to the teeth, but she won't vaporize things this badly." Ironhide said picking up the remains of a jet that could be passed off as a blob panting which resembles something different for many. "A seeker possibly, but this seemed faster than a seeker attack."
"What do y'all think about Stinger?" Prowl asked them, the mention of a seeker brought up the thought of him and Thundercracker, she then thought about him saying he was better than Bumblebee, surprised she didn't do anything.
"The kid is….odd to say the least." Ironhide said. "He claims to be better than Bumblebee, seems sure of himself about that. Besides that, he decided to join our site rather quickly. He went from running from everyone to wanting to join us. We should watch his behavior. I have a bad feeling about him and what may transpire for the next days."
"I agree, somewhat. Maybe he has some sort of glitch." Bulkhead said as she searched through the rubble. "Did this happen like in an hour or so?"
"The base was just recently attacked. This destruction could have transpired within minutes. As for Stinger, while the sudden change is odd, he has good in him, and a past that will reveal why he behaves the way he behaves." Optimus said as she scanned the area. She walked over to one building and bends down moving debris around, she found Agent Fowler, the officer, and Morshower. "Agent Fowler, are you okay? What happened here?"
"Never been better prime." Fowler coughed as he slowly stood up, Optimus picks the three of them up. "The helicopter did this…. she just appeared and took the base down in minutes with some weapon. It was wider than the airships wingspan, it went on for a bit, destroying anything in its path until it disbursed."
"Sounds like her sonic or energy wave cannon." Ironhide said. "Weapon packs quite a punch. She put a lot of Autobots in the scrapheap while being a leading force in the destruction of Tiger pax."
"What was she going after?" Optimus asked Fowler.
"Whatever files this base had, it was important enough to skill and decimate the base. I believe a group of survivors heading out into the desert, she didn't go after them, she just left." Fowler said.
"At this rate, it might be impossible to even find them." Bulkhead said.
"Maybe we can pick up on something to find them?" Prowl said. "Perhaps there's a village somewhere out here that they went to?"
"That would be the best place to look." Ironhide said. "Agent Fowler, do you know where that Village is?"
"I wouldn't recommend going there and trying to save the day…maybe get us close and just drop us off so we can walk the final feet." Fowler said. "I prefer being the only human y'all can make direct contact with."
"I would suggest not even going. We can take the ground bridge back to base and drop these three off somewhere else. It will be a waste of time searching for these survivors." Prowl said.
"Prowl, we can not in good faith leave them here to die. Those survivors might become important later." Optimus said. "Autobots. Transform and roll out."
XXXXXX
Lennox team was standing on a tank looking around, the team have been walking for a while, taking a break on a destroyed tank they have just found. Some of them were sitting on it, others standing around it. Unaware to all of them, Scorponok was watching them from afar, she smirks as her eyes shimmered for a second.
"I've never seen a weapon system like this. Thermal shows this weird aura around it like a force field." Epps told everyone.
"Force field? How can that thing have force fields? That can't be right...right?" Donnely asked.
"I dunno. My mother had the gift... she seen things...something tell me that this isn't over." Figs told everyone.
"When I took the picture of it... the thing looked right back at me...like she knew what I did." Epps told them. "And that's another odd thing…. why is it a female…. that looks like a human. And why do it have like…. huge…lady parts?"
"Oh yeah, we get attacked by a weird robotic human and your question is that?" Lennox asked. "Anyways, we got to get this picture back to the pentagon. Kid, how far is your village"
"Not far." The kid told him.
"Does it have a phone?" Lennox asked.
"Yes." The kid said.
"Alright, let's go." Lennox told everyone as they started the journey to head to the village. First, they were coming up to an old tower, which could work or it's just there and haven't worked in ages, either way it was a quick pit stop.
XXXXXX
"Let's hope the connection still works." Lennox said, as some of the soldiers took made a permeator, Epps walked up to a fossette and turns it on seeing it had water, he filled up a nearby pan with it and splashed it onto his face.
The sand started to vibrate and move, like an ocean wave, whatever it was head towards the tower knocking it over. The soldiers didn't notice until it hits the tower, granted it was only the ones who were nearby. They moved out the way, some shouting as it fell. Everyone ran and looked at it is having noticed the tower falling and heard it, all except Donnelly who turns around to look behind him seeing the downed tower, he looked at Figs.
"What was that." Donnely asked.
"I dunno. Something must've moved through the sand and knocked that over. Or just it finally fell." Figs said, of course in Spanish,
"Dude...English." Donnelly told him.
While Lennox was looking around a long metallic tail slowly crept up and was making its way towards him, a long blade pointing at him. The center held the blade, while on the side of it came up to make a pincer, which had spikes on them. As it got closer to him, the tail changed its appearance. Quickly morphing to extend and further push out the spikes while new spikes pop out of the armor. Epps heard the noise, so he looked up curious, only to see a metal tail, no other soldier noticed or even turned to see it.
"WOAH!" Epps shouted getting the other soldier's attention who turns and while Epps open fire. Everyone saw the tail swing around as it went underground. Lennox sees this and starts tap dancing while shooting the ground, like a spider or roach was coming to him and he didn't want to touch it. Their bullets only hit the send as Scorponok went deeper and away from them.
Scorponok was moving through the sand like she was swimming in water, keeping each of the soldiers on high alert as she wound pass by them, getting closer each time she does. She passed Donnelly and another soldier before popping out of the sand. She was taller than them of course, but to each soldier, she seemed like a dark-skinned child with robotic armor.
"Woah! Y'all are the best toys I had in a while!" Scorponok playfully shouted as she went back into the sand as the two soldiers quickly moved back and shoot at her.
"Everyone quiet! Settle!" Lennox shouted.
"Who motherfu-! What the F!?" Epps shouted.
"Was that a child?" Figs asked. "Are we…. going to kill it?"
"Well, it's either her or us….and I don't think she's too keen on keeping us alive," Lennox said.
"Besides, it must be whatever that thing was that attacked our base." Epps said. "She doesn't have our best interest.
Donnelly was looking around for her when she burst through the sand stabbing Donnelly through his chest.
"Tag! Your dead!" Scorponok shouted with a giggle, as she does a spin and tunnels into the ground, swinging her tail around widely, Donnelly's body was still attached to the tail before it was flung off. The soldiers, of course, all ran away from the area, the sand wasn't safe, she can swim around in the sand like it's water, and she just took out Donnelly, meaning if they stayed there, she would've just picked them off one by one. They ran or slide down the hill heading towards the village as fast as they could, the kid tripping as they did. Lennox quickly stopped and picks the kid up as he continued to run.
"Come on!" Lennox shouted.
As Epps, Figs, and another soldier was running side by side, Scorponok leaps out of the sand like a shark out of water, the robotic claw-like extensions spinning as she does. Epps, Fig, and the other soldier turn to face her, a look of pure terror on their face as they ran.
As they ran the people of the village saw them running and shouting. As the animals and kids freaked out while the mothers and some of the fathers tried to get them inside. Some of the men rushed out of a building carrying guns to help the soldiers with whatever they are running from.
"Where's your papa!?" Lennox shouted.
"Papa!" The kid, who was named Mahfouz shouted as he points to him, his father grabbed him rushing into the building as Lennox followed inside.
"Sir do you have a telephone?" Lennox asked.
"Yes, I have a cell phone." The guy told him as he handed it to Lennox.
Scorponok pops out of the ground, and she aims at the soldiers. The inside of her claw glows, she smirks and fires two missiles towards the soldiers. They duck and return fire. Other than the bullets do not affect her, Scorponok was having fun by making a show of her attempts at dodging, doing spins, flips, or cartwheels out of the way, some bullets did hit her, but they either broke on impact or bounced off her.
"Come on! You need to do better than that!" Scorponok shouted.
As they scrambled out of the way, Lennox ducks as he was able to get someone…. which was a phone operator.
"This is an emergency pentagon call!? Do you hear me an emergency" Lennox shouted as a rocket hits the ground close to him, causing him to move further up still crouching. "Do you understand?" Lennox asked, the person on the other end asked him for a credit card. "I DON'T HAVE A CREDIT CARD!"
The operator was sitting at his desk boredom is clear on his face as he sat there, elbow on the desk resting his head in his palm. "Sir the attitude is not going to speed things up any bit at all. I'm going to ask you to speak into the mouthpiece very clearly."
"I'm in the middle of a war!" Lennox shouted, Scorponok was still shooting at them, she fired two missiles towards a building forcing the soldiers to run and get a better vantage point. "This is ridiculous! Epps where's your wallet!"
"My pocket!" Epps shouted turning to Lennox temporarily before going back to shooting Scorponok. Lennox runs up to him, but Epps has serval pockets on him.
"Which pocket!?" Lennox shouted as he starts searching through them clearly.
"My back pocket!" Epps shouted.
"You got ten back pockets!" Lennox shouted back to Epps.
Epps stops shouting and turns to Lennox and shouted. "Left cheek! Left cheek!"
"All right, keep shooting! Keep shooting!" Lennox shouted to them, granted no one had stop shooting, and Scorponok was still shooting at them. "Okay, it's Visa."
"Also, sir, have you heard about our premium plus world-service gold package?
"No, I don't want a premium package!" Lennox shouted, then he was transferred to the Pentagon, and he turns to Epps. "Epps! Pentagon!
Heading over to the Pentagon a few higher-up officers and Defense Secretary John Keller walked into the room.
"Give me a status." An officer asked.
"Sir, we're tracking a Special Ops team under fire in Qatar." The guy at the desk told him. "They say they're survivors of the base attack."
"Survivors?" John asked.
Back on the battlefield, Scorponok destroyed a few more of the structures and she signs out of boredom. "You guys are no fun anymore! Your weapons are pathetic!"
"Need gunships on station ASAP!" Epps shouted over the phone.
"Predator's coming up in a minute. We're linking the call to the nearest AWACS." One of the officers told Epps over the phone while also speaking to the others in the room with him.
"Predator ETA two minutes." Another officer said.
As the drone made it, they saw Scorponok fighting the soldiers, her claws glow more, and she fired three missiles out of both instead of just one, she was now bored and wanted to end it. The missiles flew around hitting different things.
"What is that?" John asked himself
After some military callouts to get the A10 Thunderbolts to the area and a gunship Lennox and his team were now shooting green lasers at Scorponok, this does nothing to her directly, but it helps the pilots get a clear lock on their target. Scorponok managed to shoot Figs as they were lazing her. The Thunderbolts flies over, the first one opens fire knocking Scorponok over, she only whined and shouted as she was hit, she gets back onto her feet and aims at it only for the second one to attack her. Both jets used their chain guns while firing two missiles at her.
The soldiers were looking at where she once was, the smoke settling down but still covering her. Once it died down enough, they saw Scorponok slowly get back to her feet, she shakes some of the sand off her and growls firing two missiles towards the closest Thunderbolt.
"No frigging way that thing's still not down." Lennox mutters.
"Spooky Three Two, use 105 shells. Bring the rain. 105 sabot rounds." Epps said.
The gunship turns overhead, Scorponok heard the noise, and she looks up seeing the large aircraft, she aims a blast into the ground quickly. Several more shots were taken, all hitting Scorponok, this carried on for a good thirty seconds before the gunship stopped. Everyone watched as Scorponok slowly gets onto her feet and stifled.
"I don't want to play with y'all meanies anymore anyways!" Scorponok shouted as she dug away, swinging her tail…. which broke off and tell down, flicking around like a lizard's tail.
XXXXXX
Inside the Autobot base, Stinger was sitting along holding his head, he was getting a massive headache and he doesn't know why, he didn't want Ratchet to check him out, but even if he asks. Bumblebee was talking to her.
"Ratchet, you don't think Stinger is better than me?" Bumblebee asked.
"Where is this coming from?" Ratchet asked, Bee looks at her, "Of course I don't think he's better, and so what if he's stronger and faster. You've been through a lot. More so than him, your skills and other positive traits will always guarantee a win over Stinger. But I don't want you to start trying to keep bringing up how you're better than him."
"I won't." Bumblebee said. "But…I did want to ask you something else."
"Is it trying to go out on a scouting mission to find Barricade, Shatter, and Dropkick?" Ratchet asked.
"No," Bumblebee said and Ratchet stares at her. "Maybe…. Yes."
"Bumblebee." Ratchet sighs.
"But it will help." Bumblebee quickly said. "We can try to patrol some areas, see what the cons are up to or something, OR we can frame this as Stinger's first outing as an Autobot."
Ratchet looks over to Stinger who was holding his head.
"Are you sure that he's okay to go out on the field?" Ratchet asked, Bumblebee nods.
"Yeah, see. Stinger!" She shouted, he turns and look at her, "Are you good to go?"
Stinger gave her a weak thumbs-up, something about him felt off, he can't help but shake that most of his decisions up to this point were bias, that he chose the wrong side, joined the Autobots too quickly, why did he join them? Especially with Bumblebee. Something inside of him, just made him want to act differently around all of them, especially Bumblebee. He's superior to all of them, even Bumblebee. Stinger hits the side of his head; the feeling went away, and he stood up and stretched.
"Yeah, so…do we go now?" Stinger asked.
"Sure." Bumblebee said.
"A little lesson rookie, if we do get into a fight with the cons, we lead them away from populated areas. If something happens to where you can't, keep damage to zero, don't endanger any humans." Arcee told Stinger who nods.
Ratchet opens a ground bridge, Stinger transformers first, turning into red and white cubes, that seem almost like nanometal and liquid, they watched, Bumblebee in awe, Ratchet and Arcee was curious and shocked at how he transforms. He turns into a Pagani Huayra. Bumblebee and Arcee transform and the three head through the ground bridge.
"I hope everything goes well for them." Ratchet mutters.
XXXXXX
The groundbridge opens away from the town in a near abandoned area, the trio drove into the city.
"What will we be looking for exactly?" Stinger asked them.
"Well, it's more like us just checking around. Like a small patrol." Bumblebee said.
"What about the glasses? Couldn't we just try to search for it now?" Stinger asked.
"Well, that too, we can see who it has, but for now that's all we will do, and if we see the Decepticons we need to get them away from whoever holds them." Arcee said. "Do you know anything About Barricade, Shatter, and Dropkick?"
"No." Stinger said and Arcee just sighs. "Barricade should be a police car, and just look for a blue muscle car, and a red muscle car."
"Got it." Stinger said as the trio was now heading to Sumdac towers.
"Ratchet, can you locate the glasses and who holds them." Arcee asked over the comms.
"Yes, I searched the pair up on eBay, the person who holds the glasses username is Ladiesman217." Ratchet told them. "It appears that he wants to sell them to get money for a car. This gives me an idea."
"Which is?" Bumblebee asked.
"One of you need to become his car, that way when we have him, we can ease into showing him what we really are and why we need the glasses." Ratchet told them.
"Sounds good to me, we should get Bumblebee to pose as a car for him." Arcee said.
"Maybe I should." Stinger told her. "They may prefer a better vehicle than her, and something better all around."
"Right…" Bumblebee drawled.
"Because Bumblebee is more fit for that, we know what she could do, and no one knows what you can." Arcee told Stinger.
"Either way or, I'm sure I can do it better than her." Stinger said, the headache was back, a flash of green light goes over his systems, something inside of him changing.
XXXXXX
"Lady Starscream come in." Barricade said over the comms.
"Report." Starscream said.
"Frenzy have located who holds the glasses and where he lives." Barricade said. "Along with that, we're picking up on some signal, it's the red Cybertronian you encountered, and if he's here, then there's no doubt some Autobites are with him."
"Interesting. Forget the human, find the Autobots and try to eliminate them." Starscream said. "Bring the red one in and bring him in alive."
"Copy that, Barricade over and out." Barricade said before she stops and makes a U turn heading straight for the Autobots. "Shatter, Dropkick, rally on me, we have some Autobots to hunt."
"Copy that Barricade." Shatter told her.
"Perfect, we get to have a real mission." Dropkick said, she found them searching for glasses boring, and would rather fight or do anything more interesting than hunting for glasses.
"Retrieving the glasses is a real mission; this is more of a treat for working hard." Barricade told Dropkick. "Once that is over it's back for searching, and I know where they are located."
"Where?" Shatter asked.
"In Sumdac towers, the person who owns them are inside, even if he doesn't have the glasses, he can lead us to them." Barricade told them.
A/N Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay, couldn't upload it Sunday since the rest of the day I was with family, and I was doing some rewrites to the chapter. I took out some parts which would work better for the next chapter.
As for Stinger, since I didn't know what path, I wanted to take, either him being good, evil, neutral, or a cocky asshole, I'm going for something different which may include all of them to make him more interesting, but hey this is only the third chapter and there's more to come.
Before I end this note off, I wanted to make clear that none of the other Autobots think Stinger is better than Bumblebee, if anyone said something to that effect it was a mistake, they were asking him in what other ways do he think so, not that they believe him. I have big plans for him and the Autobots, and good ways to build up on his character.
Anyways, see you all next time, IceEmeperor26 out!