We Didn't Start the Fire: Part 5

What we were getting into turned out to be one of the biggest messes I've ever seen in my life. The trip there was nice and boring so I guess I got lulled into a false sense of security. I thought that they, the Decepticons would try to stop us before we got down there to the park. Some kind of ambush, some sort of trap, something. Nothing however happened. The trip was as peaceful as any trip could be. There were a few questions and Optimus STILL wanted to know who'd pulled the stunt with Alyssa's parents. But of the Cons there wasn't the least trace.

This of course made me begin to wonder if perhaps they had, gotten their intelligence wrong. Not that I doubted the intelligence of any of those that were involved, it's just that the human military has been known to stick its foot in its mouth more than once. So I thought that it might be possible for a similar mistake to get made here.

This was the line of thinking I was under was we pulled into the park and I got out of Prime to go and try to see if the rangers had seen any thing. They naturally hadn't and just as naturally were less than thrilled about having the Autobots take up residence inside of the park for any extended amount of time.

The fact remained though, that some one had seen the cons here and some one had found out what they were going to do. So until we were sure that this wasn't going to happen the Autobots, My self and Alyssa, were all here for the duration. It was the off season and so we were told that we could pretty much camp any where we wanted to, just that we were to not "Make trouble." I'm pretty sure some of the autobots would have liked to make a lot worse for that Yoyo than trouble but we were here on business not to fight with the local law.

So Alyssa and my self found a spot to set up camp for our selves and the Autobots all went out to look around the park and see if they could find any thing. To say that the first day was a disappointment was a bit of an understatement. Prowl seemed to take it personally that the intelligence may have been wrong; I get the feeling when he's in charge this didn't happen very often. Indeed that's what I have been told.

Personally I was starting to wonder if, not that they had been wrong, but that maybe the Cons had caught on and had decided to call off the sachem. I had just come to this conclusion and was going off to try and track down Optimus. I had no idea where he was in the park, and so I headed out on one of those 4 wheeler things to try and find him. You'd think a 45 foot tall bright red robot would be easy to spot in all of that green, but the park was thousands off miles wide and he could be any place. So that left me to drive around hoping I'd stumble across him.

I stumbled across something alright, but it didn't turn out to be my Autobot husband. What it turned out to be where the absent Decepticons in question. Considering where I found them, it wasn't a surprise that every one had missed them. It's not really a place that you would think robots would be inclined to go. In fact I think its something not even most people would spot if you weren't really looking. It was a strange little recession in the face of El Capitan' and it was the prefect hiding spot.

I saw what they were doing and that they were there, and I turned my bike around and headed back into the park trying to find any of the Autobots. What I didn't count on were those bloody birds. I saw them following me and I made plans to melt them down the next time I saw them close up. This is how the lil buzzards thanked us for letting them watch the gaming. Twerps. Still I had them on my tail and I had to find some of the ones with me or, this park really was going to go sky high.

I managed to get about a mile away from where I had seen them and then the little metal pains in the neck started dive bombing me, which was just what I needed to make this stupid situation even worse. I had no intention of taking any of this, so I pulled the bike over and focused on them.

"Come on polly," I glared, "Angel's got a surprise for you."

I did in fact have one, I nice fat 357 caliper surprise. I just love glazer safety rounds don't you? Charming little bullets that will tear apart all kinds of wonderful things, including it seemed, the crystals that transformer optics happened made out of. I got off one good shot at Buzzsaw's head and he took off squawking at the top of his little birdie vocal processor. Then I put the bike back in gear and headed back to camp, hoping that I would make it there before the crap storm hit full force.

I didn't. In fact by the time I had made it back to where I had left Alyssa, the Con's had decided to make them selves known. Part of me wanted to go track down ranger boy and gloat. The main part though wanted to find the Autobots and do what I could to try and help this mess. It didn't take me to long to find them. All I had to do was go the opposite direction from all of the critters that where now running screaming through the park. I didn't even want to think about what was going to be left of this national treasure once the fight was over but that would be something that I would have to deal with later on. Now I had to keep moving and pray that there would be something I could do when I finally found them.

Finding them turned out to be a shock all in and of its self. The place looked like some thing out of an old world war two movie, multiplied about fifty times. Most of the guys that had come with us where dug in at the base of El Capitan, and were doing all that they could to try and keep the bad guys from getting back to their mini base. This meant that the rest of them, the Decepticons were on the other side of no man's land. It was a fire fight that made most of the ones humans had ever seen look like a school yard brawl. Then there was the fact, that as if all of this wasn't bad enough, neither Optimus or Megatron where any where to be seen on either side of the line.

I did manage to spot Alyssa and Wheeljack about half way down the Autobot line and nearly got my self blown into lots of tiny pieces getting there. Once that was accomplished I demanded to know if any one had seen Prime.

Wheeljack got this look on his face of pure and utter dread; a very similar one was plastered on Alyssa's face. I remembered the feeling of dread I had as we were driving down here that made it that much worse.

"WHERE is he?!"

Jack swallowed and looked up, "Megatron took off up there, Prime followed him."

I craned my head back and looked up at the top of the mountain. "I'm GOING TO KILL HIM!!"

Weather I was referring to Megatron for dragging Optimus up there, or to Prime for following him, I couldn't even say my self. All I knew was that first when this was over some one was going to get a good old fashioned cussing, and second I needed to get up there as fast as possible.

"Jack," I yelled up at him.

"I know what your going to ask me Miss Angel, and the answer is no! I will not fly you up there."

"Fly me up there right now or I swear when we get back to the ark I'll … I'll…" I was at a loss of how to threaten the huge mech before me, but I knew that he was the only one that was going to be able to get me up there.

"Optimus is going to kill me for this," He sighed

Then he held his hand down for me and I got on.

"OH no you don't!" Alyssa demanded, "Get that thing back down here and let me get on too! I'm not letting either of you go off to do something stupid with out ME!"

The something stupid that she wanted to follow us into turned out to be a huge brawl between Optimus and Megatron right smack on the top of the mountain. To say that this was the most moronic thing I had ever seen would have fallen quite short. I don't know whose idea it was to go up to that place originally, but be it ego or just a desire to get away from the rest of the group. I thought it was just ridiculous.

It also turned out that the leaders weren't the only ones up there. Some of the cons had followed Megatron and some of the guys had followed Prime. Most of them were just standing there trying to think of something to either get them down or stop the fight. Other than that there wasn't that much that could be done. Still it kept on going and most of us kept on watching this just because we were at such a horrid loss of any way to help

I personally was digging my nails into my own hands so bad that I was probably going to need stitches once it was over. There was also the fact that I was less than happy to be up so high. I'm not really bothered by heights or by falling; it's just that quick stop at the end that bothers me so bad. Maybe it was because I had followed him, or maybe it was due to some connection that I didn't understand right then, but what happened next I can't really explain that well.

Prime stopped for just a fraction of a second in the fight and took measure of his opponent. That fraction of a second was all that one of the on looking cons needed, as some kind of beam weapon shot out from one of them and performed the transformer equivalent of a hamstringing on Optimus, Which in turn set me off, heading in the direction of my guy. I don't really remember if I screamed or not, but I do recall the second Megatron looked down at me and gave me that horrid grin of his. That made me just that much worse, and gave me one of the second best shots I've ever had in my career as a gun enthusiast. Once again I, not to mention Megatron learned just how well glazers worked on transformer optics. He screamed at the top of his lungs and fell back about two steps.

How Optimus got back up on his feet I don't know, but that was pretty much all he needed, those few seconds I had given Him. He got Megs with very good right hook to the jaw and the silver Decepticon went down. Optimus hit his own knees pretty hard and then looked over at me.

"Do you have any idea how STUPID that was?!" He told me.

"Hey it worked didn't it?"
I moved to head over to him, and make sure that he was okay. I should have known that it wasn't going to end that easily. That despite taking the equivalent of buckshot to the eye, and getting his head knocked around, Megatron still wasn't down. He clawed his way back up and growled, literally growled. Then proceeded to launch him self at Prime. Optimus and I were both caught off guard, as I went flying to one side and Prime's head cracked soundly on the rock underneath him. For some reason right then stars exploded behind my own eyes. At the time I chalked it up to getting tossed to one side, and so I wasn't coherent enough to see what happened next.

What happened next is something I can't even begin to sum up. I didn't even really remember seeing Ironhide up there on the mountain any where, but he was. He was up there, and he was about to live up to his duty as Optimus' body guard. I heard a loud clang and then a very sickening scraping noise, and then screams.

I got my wits together by that point and managed to look up in time to see Jack jump off the side of El Capitan and head straight down. Optimus had managed to sit up, despite now having the transformer version of a concussion. I wanted to get up and go over to him but all I could do right then was stare at the empty space off the side of the mountain and wonder just what was going to happen next.