All Creatures Great and Small

Chapter 10

Authors note

Here we come to the end of this story and this is a big one. Go to the loo, get a pint, disconnect the phone line and relax as I finally get to the end battles and try to tie up all the lose ends.

This has taken a long time an a lot of rewrites (5 times this chapter alone!) but I think it's been worth it and I hope you do to.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed this story and to everyone who enjoyed it.

On with the show!

The Autobots stood at the cliff face just before the shore. A handful of Autobots had water capable modes or modifications but non had weapons designed to deal with a under water base. Prowl had brought this little fact up on the way there but Prime told him he had a plan.

'Jazz, Trailbreaker, Sideswipe, Ironhide and Dinobots. Front and centre.'

'Right here Prime.'

'What you need is what I got.'

'I'm ready Prime.'

'You got it boss.'

'Me Grimlock follow order.'

'Trailbreaker set a force field up around the Decepticon base, but don't give it a roof. Ironhide use your liquid nitrogen blaster to freeze the water around the force field while the Dinobots vaporise the water inside with their fire-breath. All other Autobots ready your weapons. The first hull plate we see we hit it with everything we got. Then Trailbreaker drops the field as Jazz and Sideswipe melt the ice. If we time it right we can drown most of the Decepticons.'

Buffy transformed and was pointed by Prowl at the boiling sea. The shear power that the Dinobots were using had to be stupendous but she knew that was nothing compared to the arsenal of ordinance surrounding her. She was sure that nothing like this had ever been done before.

Prime had his doubts. The last time mass fire tactics were used on this scale it was by the Decepticons. They were attacking the Autobot's capitol city Lycon at the time. The combined effect had enough force to knock Cybertron out of its home suns orbit and left it stranded as the tenth planet at the outer reaches of this system, so far away humanity had only just discovered it. Looking down he saw Sunburst rev up her main cannon, a moment ago she had chosen full yield for all three rockets, each one would house a raw energon/naquada warhead with the combined destructive power of a low yield nuclear device. 'Autobots, ready your weapons, activate optical shielding!' Prime followed his own orders and gazed down the hole in the water. To his back the sun set to a read sky, in a moment a new sun would blossom in front of him. 'FIRE!'

Megatron sat back and allowed himself a smile. Zarak had just reported that the Insecticons had collected most of Earth's artificial satellites and had started converting them into Insecti-clones. Megatron knew it was too good an opportunity to pass up so the moment the planet was sent into chaos he sent the Insecticons into orbit to build him an army to take over the world in one fell swoop. His sporadic raids against power stations were to both equip his Decepticons and to distract the Autobots.

The undersea base shook again, Megatron hit the comm button on the desk in front of him. 'Shockwave, is this another anomaly.'

The one eyed Decepticon appeared on the viewer. 'Investigating now, reactivating external sensors. Confirming sensors accurate, confirmed. Megatron Autobot army above water level, attacking now.'

'WHAT?!? How many?' Could Prime have deduced his plan and, as the humans say, "upped the aunty" and thus starting the final battle.

'All of them!'

Blinking rapidly he calculated the odds, half of him couldn't believe Prime would do such a thing while the other half welcomed it. 'This is Megatron! All Decepticons evacuate and defend headquarters.' Quickly he patched into the space transponder. 'Scorpinok, return to base.' Megatron allowed him self a short chuckle moments before the entire ship shook apart.

Riley lead the small convoy into the town. He couldn't believe he was ordered to Sunnydale by the President himself. The high ups must have finally gotten wind of what was really happening here.

'Sorry sir, the town's being evacuated. I have to ask you to turn around.'

Riley looked at the Sergeant for the briefest of moments 'Sergeant. My name is Major Riley Finn' he flashed his ID 'I've been told to report to the governor immediately, can you tell me where he is?'

'Sorry sir, the colonel has set up base at a civilian residence. 1630 Revelo Drive. I can guide you there sir...'

'No need Sergeant, I know the way.' Driving off Riley glanced at his wife who was sitting next to him 'I should have known Buffy was involved.'

'You asked for the Governor and they directed you to a colonel. Things must be bad for a military government to be set up.'

'Yep' for a long moment they sat in silence, only the occasional report filtering through the radio. 'No people, no vamps, no demons. I think this is a bit bigger than a simple international disaster.' Riley would have called it a ghost town if it wasn't the Hellmouth.

Slowly they approached the Summers residence. It now resembled a military base. Sandbags, machine gun nests and a trailer surrounded the detached, suburban, house. Riley lead his seven man team out of the cars and into the building. There were two types of armed forces standing guard, air force and army. Most of the army men looked around, not believing the things they were seeing. The handful who did had asked to be armed like the flyboys.

The Air Force carried an odd assortment of high calibre guns, unidentifiable Z-shaped pistols and whatever medieval equipment they could scavenge from Buffy's arsenal. 'Major Finn, I'm Colonel O'Neill. Ready for the briefing?' The colonel was in his mid to late forties with greying hair but some how he looked younger around the eyes.

'Yes Sir. But I think we already know what's happening.'

'Oh, you do?'

'Yes sir, You and your men found out about demons and decided to do something about them but then had to call in the professionals when it got to hard for you to handle on your own.'

'...Son, you don't know squat. Out there is a portal to hell its self. It's opening. That's right the Hellmouth is about to swallow us whole and we don't have a chance in hell of stopping it. All we can do is delay it. Get inside I'm starting the briefing in five minutes and you expert Jarheads better listen!' he turned around and marched back into the house.

Riley and his men had barely shook off the colonel's retort before a new voice spoke 'Don't you ever learn Boy?' Sat amongst the snickering Flyboys was a pail dark haired man, he was sticking to the long shadows of dusk and carried a short sword and a fighting axe.

'Angel. What are you doing here vampire?' At his last word his team brought up their blasters and stakes.

'Same as you Finn. Saving the planet. Get inside, O'Neill has a little demonstration for you and the rest of you guys.'

The Autobots watched as the Decepticons came pouring out of what was left of their undersea base. Buffy could tell that they were pretty evenly matched and the only edge they had was that they had surprised them. Then the fireworks started. It became hard for her to keep track of what was happening, Prime shouted for the Autobots to spilt up and fire at will. Buffy heard Xander shout back 'What's Will ever done to you eh!' before things moved to fast.

The sky was full of conflicting planes, helicopters and even flying cars. Suddenly one of the Decepticon planes switched from a jet into a tank, before she could react to him aiming at her and Prowl the red Autobot tank had fired at it 'Tag Blitzing, ha, ha!' and the battle pushed the duelling tanks to one side as her self and prowl were swiped away in the flow of combat.

Prowl was firing on the move, never stopping, never a target. Between them he and Buffy were missing quite a bit but to be honest no one could keep track of it all. Then something new happened, from somewhere on the battle field a shout came up. 'Stunticons combine!'

Then another, 'Constructicons combine!'

And another, 'Terrorcons combine!'

Buffy caught a glimpse of what was happening, Decepticons were jumping into each other, fitting together into some thing new. Three massive, even by Autobot standards, robots dominated the sky line. Then came more shouts jumbled together she couldn't make them out. Within seconds two dozen of these giants strode amongst the chaos below them, some of them were Autobots and others Decepticon. They continued fighting with every thing they had, trying to push the final battle of their eons old war one way or another.

Prime had lost sight of Sunburst just after the gestalts started appearing. He was wrestling it out with Cyclonus and his nebulan Nightstick when he got a cold feeling in his gut. Dispatching Nightstick before shooting Cyclonus he realised what it was. Megatron had committed all his forces save one. His biggest on the planet, Scorpinok. In an instant he saw his biggest mistake, he had sent his two largest men to get reinforcements. Those two were the only thing he had that could possibly stop the town sized spacecraft.

Jack grimaced. This was the fifth group of "things" that SG1 and their temporary additional members had come across that night and they had only been at it for two hours. Yesterday he had been training with Faith and was thankfully better with the sword this time than his pathetic previous attempt. Faith, who was with them, however was in a class of her own. With that spinning sword each cut, thrust, and swing ripped the things apart while the mess was appalling it's efficiency was not to be counted out. Not for the first time he wondered where, and why, the Autobots got some thing like that.

Sunburst was witling her way trough the Decepticon Micromasters and Nebulans relatively easily. Their fight had, and still was, taking place behind the larger Autobots. Sunburst's shell made her equal to the Decepticons who tried to go for the "easy kill'. She had just blasted one of the air strike patrol down when she saw her real target.

Trailing after the damaged Broadside, Starscream was laughing. 'Hello Chuckles, lets play!' With a quick mental command her shoulder armour folded out into razor sharp wings and her A/G system activated. There she hovered for a second, realising she was about to fly she fought back the reckless enthusiasm and replaced it with determination. She hadn't killed a Decepticon yet, time to change that.

Starscream was a coward and a liar. He found the idea of flying out of the combat zone and staying out the best idea he ever had and shooting down a pathetic Autobot who was too damaged to save himself was just the excuse he needed. He suddenly heard a shout from behind him. For only the shortest of moments he risked looking back.

A mechanoid he had never seen before was less than an inch from his tail fins, one hand was an oversized block and the other was a muti barred gun mounted like Shockwave's. 'Buss off 'bot can't you see I'm busy.' In an instant he hit hyper-boost.

A fast blur flew past his cockpit followed by a searing pain in his right intake. Some how the mechanoid had fired a grappling line into him, another glance back and he saw the thing land on his tail. 'Get off meeeee!' panicking he dodged from side to side, up and down, everything he could to shake whoever it was off of him.

Highbrow swallowed hard. He and Springer were following a couple of Decepticons into a low cloud. They were pulling off the kind of manoeuvres that make him sick, trying to shake the two futuristic helicopters. Pulling out of a particularly suicidal dive out of the cloud he saw something, it was big and green and had a lot of purple lights coming from it...

Springer was right behind Highbrow when the laser burst vaporised most of the other Autobot. He pulled away as fast and as hard as he could but still lost part of his tail to the bombardment. 'Prime, Scorpinok approaching from cloud cover,' he glanced back 'Oh shit! Prime, it's unloading Insecticons! Hundreds of them! There's a whole other army up here!'

Transforming Springer went into free fall as he picked off Insecticons with his rifle. Moments before landing he used his hip mounted boosters to land, relatively, safely.

Prime spared some time from pummelling Soundwave to look up at the Decepticon spaceship that was coming down 'Damn.' Pulling his fist from the crumpled Decepticon tape deck he looked for someone, anyone who could do something about it but saw no one.

Grimlock had lead his motley crew of Dinobots into combat with the Decepticon pretenders. Now with Xander in control he was facing off with Bludgeon, both swords were drawn and the two combatants were ignorant of every thing else. Grimlock was watching what was happening as if from a great distance.

'Clumsy oaf, your crude force is no mach for a master of Metallikato such as myself!' with a short burst of speed the Decepticon charged. Xander had him side step away from the powerful swing and then smack the pretender in the face, cracking the skull like head back.

Xander allowed himself to smile. This guy was the best hand to hand expert in the entire Decepticon army. He looked like an ancient samurai warrior, a skeleton wearing armour, but Grimlock told him that it was only a shell and that the real Decepticon was hidden behind it. As Bludgeon approached more slowly than last time Xander realised just how good he was. Xander had spent most of his adult life with trained fighters and knew the way they moved. If this fight didn't finish soon he would lose. If, however, he could trick ninja-bot-boy he might win.

Xander hoped and prayed that he would get this next move right. He remembered watching Buffy and Giles train and had, in his spare time, practised with his own sword the same moves. He watched as Bludgeon took the one gap Xander had left, thrusting his sword the Decepticon aimed for Grimlock's unprotected head.

IT was just what Xander needed. He span on Grimlock's left heal and Bludgeon's thrust passed harmlessly in front of his eyes. Grimlock's sword followed a deliberately wide ark that started with the spin. Half way through Xander dropped to one knee and straightened the arm, the move lowered the blade and locked Grimlock's arms in a straight line. Nothing could stop this blow, It had all of Grimlock's strength and body weight behind it and enough momentum and speed to stop anyone reacting fast enough. Xander saw the surprise in the Decepticon's face as the sword passed through it's abdominal armour, cutting him in half with a flurry of sparks. 'Looks like Metallikato is no match for my Xander-fu!' turning around Xander saw another pretender, Stranglehold, turn and run, throwing his ball and chain weapon to the ground. Only to be picked off by another Autobots laser fire.

Sunburst had picked up Springer's radio message seconds after seeing the behemoth her self. Starscream however hadn't, like this he could... Sunburst swung around and pulled herself to the nose cone. With her right arm she gripped the under side and pulled the jet up and towards Scorpinok. It was painful work and she had to keep Starscream's optics covered other wise he would be able to turn away. Unfortunately it looked like Starscream wasn't going to play the fool much longer. He switched to robot mode in an instant. Sunburst was left holding to the robots chest, with her hand caught between two plates. Starscream was shouting in pain while trying to pull the arm free. Sunburst knew it was impossible, with all the energy she could muster she rammed up the power to her thrusters. Now they were locked on course, head long into Scorpinok's engines. She armed the high explosives mounted in the suits wings and blew the escape hatch ,or head as it was more commonly known. The look on Starscream's face was priceless. Dawn pulled out her Photon cannon and fired a handful of rounds into his face.

From the ground Megatron watched as the two grappled above 'Starscream you fool! TURN!'

It was spectacular. Flying into Scorpinok's power core was the combined might of both transformers and their impressive ordinance. Many Insecticons were caught by flying shrapnel and their wreckage just added to the chaos that rained down upon the two warring factions tearing up the landscape for miles around. Megatron stood immobile as he watch one object fall. A power master painted green who had jumped at the last moment. He recognised her and was not happy that yet again this little slime had got in his way.

Megatron ran, jumped, and flew at the young Autobot as she fell. Rolling with the landing she was able to survive with the help of her small internal jetpack and not a little luck. 'YOU!' The small thing turned to face the lower shin of Megatron.

'Uh oh. Urm, Hi?' she fired repeatedly at him. Visibly shaking, the couple of shots that hit had the same effect as the dozen or so that didn't.

'Hi indeed.' With a broad grin he pointed his much larger gun at her and fired. In a puny attempt to save her self she held the pitiful gun as a shield, it was no real use. Burnt and damaged her surprisingly substantial remains catapulted backwards only to be stopped by a piece of Scorpinok. Another shot collapsed the wreckage on top of her and yet another shot scattered that wreckage a good mile in every direction. He turned round to see Prime, or more acutely Prime's rifle butt.

Prime noticed Megatron when he didn't budge during the wreckage storm. It took him a moment to realise what he was looking at. Telepathically he had heard Sunburst shout with glee on the way down. He barely had time to tell her to get back to The Ark when he realised Megs' intentions. Hampered by falling parts and a partially reckless Micromaster (who's mec-fluid was now drying on Primes fist) he didn't get there in time to stop Megatron from blasting the child into the ground.

Now Prime wasn't thinking. His gun broke on his second swing so he activated the energy axe in his right arm. Megatron was in no state to fight back but he still tried. Prime didn't feel the blows that bounced off his face, nor the kicks that shattered his knee. Consumed by rage he cut Megatron's right arm off in one stroke, then with three short hacks into his chest and the Decepticon commander was as good as dead. To finish the job Prime buried his Axe, up to his wrist, in Megatron's spark core. Prime was so intent in destroying Megatron that he didn't notice the one eyed, purple, Decepticon come up behind him and fire.

Faith followed the rest of the team back. The colonel seemed ready to accept her despite what she had done. For a brief moment she allowed herself to imagine a true life, helping again and fighting the good fight for the right side. But she still had her debt to pay and she couldn't just leave jail, that was just like leaving her redemption.

Waving off the others she went to her bunk in the basement and fell a sleep almost instantly.

The battle raged on throughout the night but it was easy to guess who the winners were going to be. With the destruction of Scorpinok and the Insecticon army depleted to a few of each type the Autobots had the upper hand. That and the destruction of Megatron shortly before Buffy blasted Shockwave into something resembling a slice of Swiss cheese left the Decepticons leaderless and helpless. Most of the combatants didn't notice the sunrise. After all the laser and explosive flashes the sun was quite a disappointment. Buffy had seen Prime taken down, however she had no idea about Dawns fate. By the time the last Decepticon fell the last slivers of darkness had disappeared from the horizon.

Buffy returned to having limbs and went up to the damaged Prime. He had crawled and clawed his way to a small crater a short distance from where he had fallen. His face was burred in the ground and his out stretched hand clutched some black and burnt thing. 'Prime, you're damaged. Come on.' Buffy was tired, too tired to realise what was wrong.

He turned his massive head, for a second Buffy couldn't believe he was crying. Slowly he brought his hand back. A horrid feeling knotted up inside her chest as he slowly opened his hand. Black with both dried blood and burn marks, Prime held a broken Dawn. Under the mess that was her helmet there was one gap that showed pail skin and a closed eye. The expressionless mask that was frozen on her face had the over tone of fear and agony. Buffy slumped to the ground as her world seemed to spin.

Fortunately General Hammond had organised a massive military presence to prevent the public from being hurt, or indeed to witness the end of the Cybretronian war. With a little convincing they were able to get help transporting the damaged Autobots back to base and clean up the Decepticon wreckage. Xander could guess that the planets biggest minds would pour over the Decepticon components but from what he could tell they wouldn't understand any of it.

At The Ark a final count was made. Over two thirds of the Autobot presence on Earth were un-repairable and already dead. Best estimate was that just over a quarter of the wounded would not survive. That left about 20 percent of the Autobots functioning that were this time the previous day.

Xander was with the two surviving Dinobots, Grimlock and Swoop, when he heard about Dawn. According to Prime Buffy was also malfunctioning and probably wouldn't respond to much. He was right.

Walking on his own, half lost, he saw damaged and dead Autobots. They were piled outside cargo rooms or clinging to each other to stay standing. The entire thing was heart retching. Before the battle he had agreed with Buffy that they were soulless machines but looking around he couldn't hold on to that fantasy. These people were just different. Whatever a soul was they had one, the way they acted and lived and in the end died proved it. Numb from all the emotions arguing around in his mind he found himself in one of the cargo rooms. Placed in and around the boxes were fallen Autobots. With unshed tears filling his eyes he looked at them. Slumped against a crate was one nebulan, he walked up to it not realising until it was too late that he had found the one person that he never wanted to see.

Dawn was propped there like a battered and broken toy. Her metal body resembled a lump of slag more than a person. Xander found himself looking into her face. Among the scrap and blood one open eye could be seen, in it he could see a bottomless pit of pain and despair stand out from her pail blue eye...

It took Xander a few moments to get back up and wipe the tears from his own eyes, with a sad smile he leaned over and whispered 'Goodbye Dawnie.'

Riley and his team got back to base moments before dawn. The forces of darkness had came out in force trying to bully their way into a foothold before the promised reinforcements. To be honest Riley believed that the "reinforcements" were nothing but a moral booster. Nothing could stop these things if they attacked on mass. So far the forces the teams met were small and not very powerful, they were scouts nothing more and they had humanity's defenders on the ropes.

The centre of town was now controlled buy an army of Zombies, Skeletons and some sort of super vampire that hid in the buildings. As far as Giles could guess the next attack would come a sunset, apparently night enhanced the power of The First. Tomorrow the full force of The First will attack and it's hello Hell-on-Earth.

'Xander.' It was faint, for a moment he thought that he was hearing things. Pulling back he looked again into Dawn's reviled eye. She wasn't dead! 'Help...' it sounded like the whisper of a slow wind but it was there. Xander was stunned, the damage the pain she must be feeling. Oh god the pain. She must be in agony and we just dropped her in a morgue. Not thinking he reached down and picked her up.

'My god, Dawnie! We'll find someone, what's his name "Fixit"? that little doctor he can help.'

Slowly he felt something latch on to his shoulder, she had reached around his neck and opened a hatch there. A crippling pain lanced through his mind and slowly words spread across his right field of vision. -no time.- -Ive "jacked" into you.- -Sorry about the feedback- -Im doing what I can to limit it.-

'Dawn what do you mean "No time."?' Xander was moving as fast as he could. The combination of her added weight and the pain that was coming through the link left him stumbling like a drunken sailor.

-Fixit cant help- -damage 2 great.- -2 many damaged.- -Shuttle bay.- -equipment can help.-

'But...'

-Don't ask- -No time- -status lock not working- -downloaded directions- -deactivating link- -cant hold back feedback- -hurry.-

He didn't need telling twice, with the link disabled and the feedback gone he was able to almost run.

They made good time, Xander followed the hasty instructions Dawn had given him and put her into the chamber and pushed the handle up. The two sides swigged around like a giant pincer and the roof fell down enclosing Dawn in what looked to be a over sized box.

'Scanning subjects core memory.' He span around in the middle of the half room was a gold circular table with a hologram of the chamber spinning around, the bored sounding computer voice continued. 'Scan complete, schematics found. Activating C.R. chamber.' The chamber was replaced with a spinning image of Dawn. That image flickered red and blue for a moment before disappearing 'Accessing Autobot core conciseness.'

'Hi Xand what's up?' Dawns human face appeared smiling in front of him.

'Dawn! Are you all right?' he couldn't stop tears of joy this time fall down his cheeks.

'Well lets say I will be, in about two hours or so. How went the battle?' Xander told here everything, the great loss of life and the final out come. He even showed off the move he used to kill Bludgeon.

'It's good that you can do that Xand, because before tonight we have to get back to Sunnydale.'

'Tonight!'

'Afraid so, and it's almost 11 now. Tell you what, find Buffy and get her here there's still some equipment that we can use in the crates.'

When Xander lead Buffy into the shuttle bay Dawn's face had gone from the holographic display. 'What did you want to show me Xander, I have to find what's left of Dawn.'

CRASH! The two people span around and saw a odd shaped crate slide towards them, behind it another was being carried by a slimmer and altogether sleeker looking Sunburst.

'Dawnie?'

'Try again.' The 'bot dropped the second crate and kicked them both open before the slayer crashed into her, hugging her with arms like steel pincers.

'Your alive, how? When I saw you...'

'Long or short of it?' She pried Buffy's arms away.

Xander was worried about the new "sleeker" look Dawn and gave a quick mental command to scan her. 'Long please.'

'O.K.' Dawn turned back to the crates and started pulling allsorts of junk out of them. 'The long of it. Inside that little chamber over there,' she waved at the CR chamber, ' is a lot of very little robots. About the same size as a cell, a couple of micrometers tall at the most, and these little robots live to fix things. Xander dragged me up here and I had him put me inside. The little guys did there jobs, rebuilding, repairing and sometimes replacing my damaged systems.'

Buffy looked at it, 'Could it bring any of the Autobots back from the dead?'

'Well... I don't know. I wasn't dead and I'm half human so pure Cybertronians from this time period might have some problems interacting with the technology.'

'What do you mean...' Buffy started. But Xander was already a step or so ahead.

'You're a cyborg Dawn. Most of your internal organs have been replaced by metal stuff and from what I can tell your brain is almost completely dead, you did die.'

'Xander, Dawn died two weeks ago. That's why the Autobots built her into a power master. I'm still her but I can't pretend I'm not an Autobot, It's been you two pretending that I was still Dawn. I've told you a dozen times or more I'm Sunburst.'

Buffy looked at the woman/Autobot 'You're my sister. Nothing can change that.'

'Glad you realise that Buffy. Now on to business! If we're going to the hell mouth we need weapons. And I'm not talking about those flashlights you've got at the moment.' Sunburst pulled a dirty brown and metallic cone from one of the crates. A rubber duck was stuck to the top.

Buffy almost doubled up laughing, 'That's a fearsome weapon Sunny, really powerful!'

'Ha Ha sis,' Buffy watched as she put her hand in the bottom of the cone, a short sound came from under the duck. Suddenly the duck exploded, it had been stuck to a pair of serrated shears that were stuck half open 'watch and learn.' The sound came again and a pink/purple glow came from between the blades just before a teardrop shaped burst of sparkling energy pulsed out sending a now empty crate flying. 'I take it you like? This "tail" cannon could punch a hole in a battleship and if shooting don't work the pincers can crush anything this side of in pregnable.'

'Cool.' Buffy took the odd thing and sat down on one of the back less chairs around the table and tried not to think about what Sunburst had told her.

'So Buffy gets that tail thing, anything for me?' Xander looked at Da... Sunburst.

'Lets see. I've got a crate full of demotion charges so you can have a few of them. Squeeze the two sides together and get rid of them before the big bang.' Xander took the two boxes she handed him and looked for some where to put them. With a short sigh she put another on his chest. 'They're magnetic. Put them anywhere you want, ah.' She reached into the back of the crate. 'Here we go, a heavy repeater slug thrower. Or a chain cannon, whatever.' She pulled out an over sized green box with a wooden handle at one end and a flat on buss saw blade with maces attached on the other.

'That's a chain cannon?' Xander didn't recognise any barrels or ammo belts

'What's a "chain cannon"?' Buffy asked

'A multi barrelled machine gun. You know, the sort of thing airplanes have' Xander explained as Sunburst armed and fired it into the now empty box, ripping it apart.

'We've got two, have both of em.' Sunburst handed him the one she had just used and another she fished out of the junk she had spread around.

'And where do I put them?'

'Same place I put my new gun.' Sunburst simply reach behind her back and pulled out a very large rifle and "cocked" it.

'What the hell?'

'Where...?'

'You've got a little box in on the small of your back, its called a subspace fold generator. Just put your new toys there.'

'Sorry Sun, what is a "subspace fold generator" and how do you know about it' Xander was wondering what nick name Buffy would stick with.

'Sis I know your blond but try not to show it,' Xander had almost laughed out of pure shock from that. 'the generator takes a bit of space and folds it on its self. Becoming a pocket of something called subspace. It can be as big as a planet or as small as a flea. It just takes a lot of energy to work right. I'll get Willow to explain it better later, just think of it as magic or TARDIS thing.' She looked at the gun for a moment before putting it back to the nowhere she got it from. Xander shrugged and tried it, it worked.

Prime sat and listened to his medics tell him the bad news. Nine Autobots were repaired, recharged and ready to fight, not including themselves. It would be some time before anyone else was fighting fit, at least a day for most including Prime himself. Preceptor volunteered to go with the nine bringing it to ten Autobots to save the world with another fifteen to come as a second wave later.

Prime didn't like those odds, conventional earth weapons had little or no effect on demons so Cybretronian equipment's use was questionable. Fortunately two Dinobots were still functioning and were with the eight, their brute strength and close combat powers were the best of most Autobots but for the others this would be fists and what the humans called "back ally fighting".

'Prime, how you doing big guy?' the three humans came up to him, Xander, Buffy and Sunburst. It took him a moment to realise that sunburst should be deactivated and not walking around

'How...'

'CR chamber, repaired and upgraded.'

Prime smiled knowing that they couldn't see his mouth 'I believe the correct response is "cool". We need to send a force to Sunnydale as fast as we can are you three fully functional.'

'Sure. When do we leave?'

'As soon as you can, I'm afraid we only have a few warriors that can fight at the moment.'

'Don't worry, I'm sure Cybertron's reinforcements will come before the big party starts.'

'We can hope Sunburst we can hope.'

Sunburst looked around the cockpit. Xander had taken the Grimlock express as he called it while Buffy said something about always wanting to fly on concord and Dawn liked the idea of a helicopter.

The strike team were almost all flight capable so had little difficulty in travailing fast. All the Aerialbots survived and made the core of the flight formation, Grimlock and Swoop took the far sides of the formation and Springer flew just behind the flying wedge beneath the biggest of the lot Skyfire, who was the only one capable of carrying Preceptor at any significant speed. The whole flight broke the sound barrier shortly before evening. Dusk was once again just around the corner and thinks had never looked blacker.

Jack was looking out of the living room window. Last night was mad, too many good men died and the monsters just kept coming. Tonight promised more of the creatures and less people to fight them. He had gotten word from Hammond of the battle that ended that morning.

The losses reported shattered the faint hope he had. The only reason he didn't order a retreat was the words of that damn middle aged Englishman.

Flashback

Jack put the phone back on the hook, he wished there was something to drink 'That's it then.'

'That's what?' In the doorframe Giles polished his glasses on the corner of his old jumper.

'The Autobots won their war.'

'That's good news, they'll be here soon then.'

'No. From what the general tells me they lost a lot of men, too many. According to the officer on sight only two score or so made it back to their base under their own power and from what he saw thirty Autobots could be salvageable.'

'At least we'll have that many.'

'What use is thirty tired, battle wary, Autobots against thousands of dead monsters and demons?' Jack dropped into a seat. 'We can't win.'

'No we can't.'

'What's the point then, were dead and "demons rule".'

'No one said we would win with a hundred Autobots with us. We hoped we could stop The First but hope is all we had. Colonel outside you have a good thousand men, they still think that reinforcements are coming and that it could do some good. If they die tonight then they are saved from the eternity of torture they will suffer by living. This is the last day any of us will spend on this earth, let them live it instead of fearing tonight.'

Flashback ends

General George Hammond looked at the report, whatever had been salvaged was nothing more than junk. Aside from several weapons and some computers there was nothing left that humanity could use. Now with every nation of earth knowing about the stargate things were moving too quickly.

The only countries that could complain with any degree of effect were too busy rebuilding. George was writing a overall report for them when the sergeant came in.

'Sir, the Autobots are sending a transmission. They're asking for you.'

It took them a moment to get to the control centre, mounted next to the supercomputer's was a golden interface and monitor. Major Carter had, with a team of the SGC's best scientists, reasoned that it alone had more computing power than the entire eastern sea board.

The blue and silver face of Optimus Prime was on the screen, 'General Hammond I have good news. Shortly before our last battle with the Decepticons I sent three of my space capable Autobots to our home world.'

'Yes I know. We tracked them leaving the planet but couldn't tell where they went.'

'I knew we would need reinforcements. They should be here in a few hours, approaching from the same trajectory.'

'Shortly after we tracked them out we lost our observation satellites.'

'Oh, I'll patch in Telatran one's scans.' The screen switched to show a image of deep space.

'Prime I only see two ships, surly that's not all the reinforcements?'

'Those two ships carry all the Autobots that were on Cybertron.'

'What?' George didn't catch on to what prime was telling him.

'General, those two ships are carrying the entire Autobot race.'

'How can two ships carry that many?'

'Size is hard to judge in space, the larger of the two is called Metroplex, he is an Autobot in his own right and about the same size as your New York state.' For some reason General George Hammond fell asleep.

'Daw... Sunburst who are Fortress Maximus and Metroplex?' Buffy asked her sister.

'Maximus is a big Autobot, about two miles long and a mile wide. If he wanted to he could level a city from orbit. Metroplex is his bigger friend, he doesn't need guns to level the city just his feet... hang on'.

'That's big, a little too big.'

'No Xander that's just the right size.' Sunburst had an idea and Buffy didn't want to guess what.

'For what?' Springer, however, did.

'I think we ask our big friends to come to Sunnydale high.'

'Sun, that would crush the school and the entire town.' Buffy couldn't quite see where this was going.

'Well you guys got to blow the school up, call it family tradition. And what better way to close a hole than fill it. Think of the Hellmouth as a big bath and Metroplex as the plug.'

'Several hundred billion tons of metal sealing the Hellmouth?' Would that work?

'Actually we're talking five hundred trillion tons plus impacting at re-entry velocities.'

'Guys, this is a good plan but what about the fault line thing won't something like that brake it?' Xander questioned.

'I've got some crazy glue and silly putty.'

'And when a third of the continent slips off that will be useful.'

'Between me and Prime we can hold the line together. Hell we could slowdown Metroplex before he hits and land him like a feather. Sunburst to Optimus Prime we have a plan up here.'

Riley and his team were not doing very well, the instant the sun set an army of un-dead burst from the labyrinth of sewers beneath. Head shot were the order of the day along with whatever sharp and/or blunt things within reach. It hadn't taken long for him to give the retreat order for all the good it did.

They fought their way into the streets only to be surrounded buy the shuffling Zombies and sword wheedling skeletons. From high above something growled, Riley risked looking up. 'What the HELL!?!'

'GRIMLOCK CRUNCH!' It was big, grey and looked like a dinosaur. A two legged metal dinosaur that breathed fire. Landing amongst the thousands of dead things it seamed to smile as it moved through the monsters, crushing, stomping and burning them all. Then a hatch on its back flipped up and a metal man stood in it's shoulders. With two huge guns the man cut great lines in the un-dead.

'Riley, I think our reinforcements have arrived.' His wife laughed.

'Sir, here comes another one' This one had wings and two big bombs, it was kind of obvious that they were bombs because they made a big explosion at the opposite end of the road before blasting a hole in the dead army next to the rescued men.

'Me Swoop, me help. Get on, get on back. We fly away.' They did as asked for an irrational moment Riley thought that this thing had a mind of its own. As they took off the two legged one he guessed was called Grimlock jumped, and a pillar of fire shot out from its feet, soon both were in the now dark sky.

Two things happened at once, the first was that one of Riley's men mentioned that there was no cockpit or controls on the bird-o-saur and the other was the fluttering cloud that was approaching. 'Bats WHAT THE HELL? I didn't know that the first was that un-original.'

'Those ain't bats soldier boy, they're harpies.' It was the metal man with the two chain cannons, his voice was familiar.

'Xander?' Xander Harris?'

'Sorry Xander is busy t the moment. Please leave a message with the T-REX' with that the once Zeppo span around and fired at the close formation of behind them.

The road in front of the house fell in moments before the armies of hell burst forth. 'For crying out loud!' for a short while after that only the noise of battle could be heard then came the helicopter. A big green helicopter slowed down to hover ten feet above the new cave. It's downdraft was enough to force most of the un-dead back into the hole. A slim robot leaned out of the cockpit

'Hey, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!' she dropped two boxes into the pit before the helicopter banked away sharply

'EVERYONE DOWN' Jack could almost see what would happen next. He wasn't disappointed.

Everything in the hole came out all at once as half the road itself was ripped up in a titanic explosion, for ten seconds it rained dust, body parts and tarmac, no one could tell which was what. Brushing himself off he looked around, most of he base survived but they were busy covering themselves from the debris. Only SG1, Faith and the two watchers were standing to see the helicopter land and then switch into his robot mode.

'You got them.' He said to the familiar silver blue and green next to him.

'Was there any doubt?' she asked with a tilt of her head.

On the other side of town Angel looked at the high school trough a telescope. It was the closest anyone had to a vantage point, he had seen the Autobot arrive to save them all so knew that it was time to call base. Half way trough the motions of picking up the phone another flight of harpies descended.

Angle's fang gang was missing Cordy and Wesley, leaving only Fred and Gunn to help fight them off. Willow had come with them but she refused to use her magic and was thus not as helpful as she once was, in fact she was more a target than a treat to the bat winged half human animals.

Before the fight had even begun something happened. The windows rattled as the something happened, walls shook, ears bled and everything was sent flying to the ground as the something happened. The something happened to fly so low that it destroyed the roof of the building that Angel and the gang with him had hidden in. Recovering as fast as they did all the combatants looked up trying to find out what something had happened. Four planes flew in formation behind the something, each one braking the sound barrier the same way the last had.

Now the building was falling down around them. The harpies took to their wings and flew after the new foes while the humans (and vampire) ran out the door in to the something.

It was a Concord jet plane. Its long fuselage with the down pointing nose cone and sweeping wings sat there in pristine white. The only thing that shocked them more was the red face printed on his side and the opening door, 'All boarding Autobot airlines please have your luggage ready.'

The fourth group came in fast and low. While the plane was one of the biggest of all the earthbound Autobots everything in the small city of Sunnydale was more interested in kicking the crap out of each other so it passed quietly towards its target. The centre.

Onboard Skyfire, Preceptor transformed into his microscope mode scanning the area with everything he had. This was the first time the Autobots had been able to scan a stable rent in the fabric of dimensional realities. After a moment he discovered that instead of a stable rent it was a constructed crossroads between this world and many others, somehow this world was a bridge into the other worlds and places in four dimensional space. He was so interested in the way the portal worked that he didn't notice the first demon claw its way out.

Skyfire, however, did. Quickly spiralling up he dropped his nose cone and dived at the thing, blasters firing constantly. At first it looked like the demon was impervious to the weapons fire on account of its yellow exoskeleton but one shot burst through, then another and another. Preceptor had taken the time to reset his microscope into its weapon mode and shattered the things armour with one shot. What was left of the many limbed, fly-eyed thing was nothing more than green slime.

Unfortunately that was not the only Fly-eyed, many limbed thing with an exoskeleton to crawl out of the dimensional crossroads. 'I think it's a good idea to get out of here' Skyfire agreed and jetted off to the human base while Preceptor shot back at the small group of true demons.

Landing they found little sunburst explaining the risky and perhaps only workable plan to the humans. They were sceptical and not very pleased with the situation.

'So your going to land a city on top of Sunnydale? A city full of Autobots.'

'That's the plan. Look this world is falling apart, the damage Unicorn's explosion did basically destroyed most of this worlds infrastructure. We both know that with the armed forces here the entire west coast of America is in chaos. Riots, crimes are all epidemic. We can help. With the entire Autobot race on this planet we can fix whatever is damaged, within ten years you can have this world better than it was before and the Autobots will leave to reclaim Cybertron from the Decepticons. As it stands even if The First wasn't attacking this world would be doomed.' Preceptor looked at the young Autobot, she had the same sense of conviction and leadership that Prime had. (A.N of course she does, she can draw on Prime's experience and knowledge through the psychic link they share.)

The colonel looked at her like he saw the same thing. 'This is a big decision, too big for one man to make.'

'O'Neill. That name is spoken from on end of this galaxy to another. Everywhere you are known as a warrior and a leader, the Asguard named their flag ship after you, the Goa'uld have taken it to mean... well just say that your name has become a very rude word 'kay. Despite it all you are the ambassador of all of Earth. You are the only person that can make a decision, do so and soon.' Sunburst was just shorter than him but at that moment she towered over the human.

'Cool, can you give me some time to think about it?'

Skyfire answered, 'We don't have the time, look!' the blast crater in the road rumbled shortly before an five headed snake demon punched its way out. The Autobots reacted immediately, those who hadn't transformed in a flash an they all fired on mass. Very little mass was left of the demon and sunburst was giving orders before the smoke cleared

'Springer. You, me, Grimlock and Xand are sewer bound. Aerialbots, we need Superion to stand over the hell mouth with that massive gun of his. Think of it as target practice. Sis you and the rest get the word out, any humans standing in Sunnydale are flat if they don't get out of dodge fast. Skyfire can you carry the wounded?'

'Sure.'

'Then boys and girls,' she pulled out a short stocked energy rifle 'lets play hard ball.' They were moving before they even questioned who was giving the orders.

For a moment Sunburst let her ego inflate, then she realised she had volunteered to jump into the Sunnydale sewer system to hunt demons that had a tendency to splatter like ripe melons when shot. If she still had a digestive system, she reasoned, she would be sick. Springer transformed into his car form and opened the door. 'lets go little one.'

With a hidden gulp she jumped in mounting her new gun on the dashboard, despite it all she would not show just how scared she really was.

Buffy watch the stranger drive off. Dawn really was gone only Willow, Xander and Giles were left in her life. With great effort she held her head up and started to look around. The big jet was already loading people and equipment, she was looking for something anyone missed when she saw Faith half drag a beaten and dishevelled man, Buffy thought that it must be Faith's newest Boy-toy before she was outraged to see that Faith's new toy was her Spike.

For the longest moment she flip that last thought around in her mind. For some reason she laughed, a rich laugh that attracted a lot of attention.

Spike had been alone for so long, left lying there as part of the furniture trying to get better. The all but one of the people who had plagued his dreams had faded into nothing. Now the Girl with the spinning sword had carried him out and the remaining ghost was laughing. He looked up and saw some one in armour dash up to him, she through her helmet to the ground reviling a blond halo and tear filled eyes.

They held on to each other for a long time, refusing to move before a strange tall robot with a gold chest and silver wings picked them up and gently placed them in a plane.

Superion dropped from the sky to a building near the Hellmouth the girl had suggested target practice and that's just what this was. His built in cannon glowed yellow before firing the first volley into the mass of limbs and teeth. He fired again and again and again before spiting into his components.

Slingshot stood on top of a building, a static figure sniping off anything he could hit. Airraid along with Skydive ran amongst the buildings shooting and fighting whatever was hiding. Silverbolt and Fireflight performed strafing runs against the demon horde crawling out, the were out numbered and while they were winning for now they were using up a lot of energy and couldn't keep it up.

The sewers weren't big enough for Springer or Grimlock so Grimlock went first. His bulk and shear strength pushed the walls out and left a trail that could be seen from the surface. The three Autobots looked for any signs that there were still demons down there with them. There were non.

They broke out in the middle of the fire fight at the centre of the Hellmouth and the two in front added their own brand of madness to the fight. Combined in robot mode Xander had the brains, and luck, to guide Grimlock's raw power into a effective killing machine. With a blaster in one hand and energy sword in the other demon limbs were scattered all over the place.

Sunburst jumped out of Springer and made her way to some cover, picking off the odd un-dead minion that survived. Springer himself mirrored Grimlock with his own two weapons.

After a few moments Sunburst switched to her radio. 'That's all we can do here guys, we've rocked and now we gotta roll.'

'You heard the boss.' Xander shouted as Grimlock stooped down to pick her up.

Colonel O'Neill looked out at the town, every one had been evacuated and the daemons had retreated for the time being. He watched as the cluster of Autobots flew into the sky when a large shadow passed over head.

Before he could react a familiar red truck pulled up next to him. 'Governor O'Neill. Sunburst filled me in on here proposal, I agree it's the best way for both out people.'

'As do I. Despite what she said I can't speak for every nation but I can just about guarantee America will take you up on the offer.'

Grimlock and Sunburst landed gently next to them. 'Good to know sir, are you ready to guide the big guy down Prime.'

'Whenever you are.' The Colonel found out what they were talking about when the merged. The only words he could use to describe this 'God' was just that. Optimus Primus was the biggest and most impressive Autobot he had ever seen. He was both sleek and well built, immense liquid steel wings acted like a cloak as he jumped and fanned out like a birds as he passed the cloud cover.

The ship he carried down however dwarfed him. It was a city for Autobots stretching from one end of the horizon to the other. It was fill of towering buildings and glorious spires.

While the humans stood in wonder the earthbound Autobots waved. Those in the city could be seen pointing the different things they could see. Several were praying to the reincarnated god who silently guided the incalculable weight that was coming down.

It landed with out so much as a tremor an and span away from them. The Hellmouth was sealed forever without a sound.

For a moment all was still, Jack blinked away the shock of it all quickly but couldn't think of anything to say, eventually he settled on the most pointless thing he could come up with. 'Well that's that then. Next we find the lost city of the Ancients and then defeat Anubis.'

'A nudist?.' Every one span around to look at Grimlock, 'what me say?'

ha, ha, ha, ha!!! I have finished a story and I am happy. Please, please review I might be able to squeeze out an epilogue but only if you ask me real nice.