Author's Note: WARNING! WARNING! CHARACTER DEATH! There. You have been warned. If you dare, read on. If not, you know what the "back" button is for.

Disclaimer: You get the idea.

Burning Skies

Chapter 11: Lethal Rage

All eyes were fixed on the tall woman pointing a gun at her three hostages. The lenses of a dozen television cameras were fixed on the scene. No one was moving.

Several dozen cops fanned out, trying to get the woman into their sights, but a dozen or so bodyguards, all carrying powerful rifles and shotguns, surrounded her. The cops could only watch and hope that nothing happened.

Magnus swayed on his feet, struggling against the overwhelming tide of rage his mate was broadcasting. Ultra Rodimus was focussed completely on his enemy, teeth bared, his entire body trembling as he fought the impulse to pounce on the human. His hands were flexing, tightening into fists and then relaxing, as if he wanted to snatch her up and crush her like an insect. Magnus knew that the ideas presenting themselves in Ultra Rodimus's mind were even worse. Ultra Rodimus could be completely bloody-minded when he wanted to be.

"Why aren't you doing anything?!" Spike screamed at Jazz, pounding on the Autobot's leg. "Save them!"

Jazz looked down. "There's nothing we can do right now, Spike. If we move that madwoman will kill them. All we can do is wait and watch."

Spike let out a furious howl and whipped away from Jazz. He was heading straight for Jennifer when Springer snatched him up.

"Don't do anything stupid!"

"Put me down!"

Jennifer ignored him. Her eyes were fixed on the towering Prime. She noted the raw fury in his eyes, the barely-restrained murderous rage. His breath was coming in harsh blasts, so hot she could see the steam even though it was the middle of summer.

((Calm!)) Magnus mindsent to his mate.

The response was a bellow of fury and defiance. Ultra Rodimus was beyond speech. Magnus could feel his rage, his desire to reduce the human woman into a pile of shredded flesh. Messing with Ultra Rodimus was a bad idea at the best of times, but driving him into a state a hair away from a killing rage was suicide. It had only been done once before, and the result had been hundreds dead, thousands more injured, and vast stretches of land left in ruins.

((You have to calm down! You won't be of any help to anyone in this state!))

Ultra Rodimus hissed, sounding like a steam pipe with a leak, or a boiler with a crack in it. But he dropped into a crouch, tensed and ready to move in a split second. Most people would see that move as a sign of surrender, but anyone who'd known Ultra Rodimus for any real length of time knew that he was only getting closer to his target, to be within reach when the time came to strike.

"What do you want?" Magnus snarled, knowing that his mate wasn't going to be capable of speech any time soon.

"I want him." Jennifer indicated Ultra Rodimus with her jaw. "I'm going to finish what I started. And then it will be your turn. Maybe I'll keep these three to ensure that the rest of you cooperate. And once you're dead, I'll get rid of the rest of you murdering alien monsters!" Her eyes flashed with hate.

"If you and your family had evacuated when you'd been told instead of thinking of your stupid pride and staying, you wouldn't have been caught in the crossfire!" Sunstreaker, ever the troublemaker, yelled at her. "If you hadn't been there, then maybe Starscream wouldn't have been tempted to shoot at you! So it was all your own damn fault! You killed your family!"

"Liar!" she shrieked at him.

"You know it's true! Admit it! You talked your family into staying behind and you got them all killed!"

"Shut up!" She swung the gun around to aim at him.

Sparkplug shoved Carly and Daniel toward the Autobots. "Go!"

She ran. Sparkplug turned and leaped at Jennifer. One of her bodyguards got in his way. Sparkplug punched the man, trying to get him out of the way.

Springer put Spike down. Spike ran to his wife and son. She flung herself into his arms and sobbed hysterically into his shoulder. He held her close.

The rest of Jennifer's bodyguards were distracted by the fighting, and that was when the cops made their move. They charged the men, shouting. The bodyguards got themselves sorted out just before the cops reached them, and another fight began.

Sparkplug finally got the thug out of his way. He turned his head, looking for Jennifer. He spotted her just as she turned her attention away from Sunstreaker and back to the fighting that raged around her. He roared in an unconscious imitation of Ultra Rodimus when he was really pissed off and lunged.

Her eyes coldly judged his speed and direction. When she had a clear line of sight on him, she calmly brought up her gun and fired.

The shot stunned the humans into silence. All eyes turned in her direction as Sparkplug Witwicky's shirt began to turn red at a frightening rate. Blood poured from his body, a crimson waterfall. Sparkplug staggered, looked down at himself, gasped, and then collapsed to the ground, a scarlet pool of blood forming around him. Spike screamed.

The sound was drowned out by the scream of pure rage Ultra Rodimus let out. The Autobot Prime's lithe body uncoiled with astonishing speed, considering his size.

Jennifer looked up.

Ultra Rodimus's eyes were no longer green. They were red, as red as Sparkplug's spilled blood, and his face was twisted with hate. He drew back one arm.

In a split second, Jennifer realized that she'd gone too far. Two of her hostages were back in enemy hands, the third was dead, and she no longer had anything to hold Ultra Rodimus at bay. Her hatred was suddenly swept aside by pure terror. She threw down her gun, turned, and ran.

In her youth, before the battle that had killed her family and set her on the path of vengeance, she had been part of her school's track team, one of the best in the county. She had been faster than her teammates. Even though she hadn't trained in years, she was still very fast.

But he was faster.

He hit her before she'd taken more than two steps, putting all of his considerable strength behind the blow. Her spine slammed forward, shattering her ribs and crushing all of her internal organs. Her skull smashed, her eyes bulged nearly all the way out of their sockets, blood poured from her mouth, and all of her limbs were like limp strings, all of her bones reduced to tiny shards. She was killed instantly by the sheer force. Her lifeless corpse was hurled across Metroplex's courtyard and straight into the side of one of the buildings.

The impact sounded like a piece of meat being slammed onto a table, but the results were far worse. She seemed to explode on impact. The force ripped her head half off, and her velocity smashed it like a pumpkin. Blood and brain matter sprayed across the wall for more than twenty feet. Her crushed torso split like an overloaded garbage bag, spewing her internals out of her body cavity. Long loops of intestine clung to the wall like gory silly string. A greyish lump of mauled tissue, a lung, slid slowly down the metal. Blood spread over more than fifty feet of wall.

Then the remains of Jennifer Murdoch, more closely resembling roadkill than anything that had once been human, slid down the wall to lay in a heap of tissue, leaving bits of bone, organs, skin, and blood stuck firmly to the metal.

There was complete silence, broken only by Ultra Rodimus's harsh breathing. His eyes still burned red, the color of rage, glaring with savage intensity at the pitiful remains as if waiting for Jennifer to get up and challenge him again.

The television reporters were frozen in horror. Not a single one could get out a single sound. The cameramen turned their cameras away from the carnage.

Magnus reached out to touch Ultra Rodimus's back, and his mate's blazing eyes snapped to him. The older bot spread his hands, projecting calm. Slowly, Ultra Rodimus's rage began to subside, and he began radiating confusion. Magnus knew that he'd been in a killing rage, a state that caused him to lose track of what was happening around him and react in only one way: violently. It was a state he'd only been in once before, and one he tried to avoid at all costs.

((It's over now,)) Magnus told him softly.

Ultra Rodimus blinked his now green eyes and looked around. He noted the red smear on his hand, the silent crowd, and then the crumpled remains. His eyes went wide with shock. He took one step backward. Then another. Then he turned and fled into the city.

To be continued...

Bad moods and keyboards do not mix. This is how the conflict ends, but there are still chapters to come. At least one, maybe more. Read on. And now, the reviewer responses:

Kakwat: No, it doesn't. It's a mix of a strange alloy and some organic material. If you want to know more about Ultra Rodimus, his origins are detailed in another of my stories, Transformation. You can find most of the answers there. And no, he'd never give up. "Surrender" is not in his vocabulary.

Ckret2: Sorry, but I've had the ending of this story planned for over a month, and I couldn't change it. See? I didn't kill Daniel. And Galvatron is so far off his rocker that he will immediately kill any human he comes across, so your idea wouldn't have gotten very far. And she wouldn't have worked with him anyway. Her plans were to capture and kill every Transformer, no matter the cost. But a good idea anyway.

LoneGenesis: No, she's not working for anybody else. She's working for herself. It was her scheme from the start. She thought it up out of a desire to get revenge for the deaths of her family and boyfriend. Her insane plans scared off any potential accomplices.

Gromia: Yes, I know you don't like her. If you have a question, ask away. I'll answer if I can.

See you next chapter!