Gateway Future
The Shinobi Gate Keepers' Corp
The Gate Keeper of Inferno leaned against the stone wall with his arms crossed and his thoughts as distant as the stars that glittered in the evening sky. The sounds of foot steps behind him startled him, forcing him to stand up straight and stair down the hall at the approaching Shinobi. He was hidden in shadows, giving only a ruff outline of his looks in the moonlight. A large straw hat that was as wide as his body was strapped tightly against his head with a strong leather strap. His outfit was a short shirt over a longer halfway opened vest with sleeves and leggings that covered his hands and feet respectively. White socks were split in half by the strap of his traditional sandals. On the belt that held the frayed pants tight against his waist and the sash that went diagonal across his chest were numerous pouches, each one containing an item more lethal than the last. Long raven hair streamed out behind him in the moonlight, giving him the final dark edge.
"It seems you failed on your first attempt, Wallace." the Shinobi snickered. The Gate Keeper pointed his gate at the new arrival, glaring at him from under his top hat. Thanks to the sparks coming from his gate, it could be seen that the new Shinobi had crimson red eyes that sparkled with blood.
"How many times have I told you to call me Blaze, Stephan? My birth name sucks too much to be used in public or private." Blaze growled.
"And how many times have I told you to call me Swords? You're not the only one with a crappy birth name." Swords growled. Blaze lowered his gate, snickering slightly to himself and returning to his relaxed stargazing position. Swords took the wall directly across from him, putting one foot up on the balcony so as to lean closer to the glittering gems of the midnight sky. "How'd you loose?"
"You mean the Commanders never told you?" Blaze blinked. Swords looked at him with a puzzled glance.
"All they told the remaining Shinobis that haven't deserted the earth was that you lost miserably and to leave you alone for a while so you could cool off." Swords answered.
"...Erin Topaz... is the Gate Keeper of Ying and Yang... Both her defensive strategy and offensive strategy are top notch, that and she doesn't have to worry about overusing her Gates since they keep each other in perfect balance. To add to the problem, a kid and a couple of Autobots have sided with her. I don't know if they know the truth about how she's betrayed the earth, but if they do, that makes them our enemies as well." Blaze sighed.
"Whoa, now that's something that wasn't covered in the briefing. Are you alright? She must have given you a serious whopping."
"Only for the first couple of minutes, but then she seemed to get angry at herself and let me go." Blaze looked down at his gloved hand and muttered, "I think she even used the Ying Gate to heal the wounds she put on me."
"Healing her opponent? I heard that the last Shinobi that was sent after her was killed without mercy or honor..." Swords whispered, looking back out at the stars. "...Do you think the Renegade is telling the truth about the Commanders...?"
"No way! The Commanders took us in when the Invaders left us with no place to call home! They're like our family! They'd never lie to us, especially about the Invaders!" Blaze jumped. Swords put his hands up in defense.
"Right, right, I'm just thinking aloud here." Swords stated calmly. "Hey, I've got an idea. Not even Transformers can stand up to a Gate, right? So, let's both go kill that Renegade right now! Anybody that stands in our way, well..." A thousand handles for a thousand or more swords and daggers appeared in the center of a blood red gate. "We'll just carve them to size."
Blaze smirked under the shade of his hat.
Early morning was left uneventful, thankfully. Kicker and Ironhide were busy throughout the morning welding and clearing debris from the main entrance. Demolisher overlooked the reconstruction of the bridge, again, while Red Alert helped with the power generators. Jet Fire took charge of replacing the shattered water-proof dome with Erin's help.
"...Man...They really pulled a number up here." Jet Fire sighed, welding away another broken peace of metal railing. Erin was in her street cloths, sitting delicately on Jet Fire's shoulder.
"I have an idea..." Erin whispered. Jet Fire stopped welding for a few moments and turned to look at her. She raised her hand to the broken railing. "Which way is it supposed to go?" Jet Fire showed her a 3-D model of how the dome had looked.
"Like this," he pointed, highlighting the bar in question. Erin pointed both hands at the bar, summoning a black and white overlapping Gate. Jet Fire jumped slightly, pulling back and allowing the Gate the room it needed to begin spiraling up from the broken bar. Where once was a mangled peace of metal there now stood a brand new perfectly placed support pillar for the new glass dome.
"Is that right?" Erin questioned innocently. Jet Fire looked at her out of the corner of his optic, a mixed expression on his face, and couldn't help but laugh.
"I guess having that Gate comes in handy, huh?" Jet Fire laughed. Erin blushed and diverted her gaze. She tried desperately to hide the blush under her fan when Jet Fire laughed at her shyness. "Hey, it's just a complement! Yah don't have to blush at every good word that's said to yah, yah know?"
Erin pulled herself tighter against Jet Fire's shoulder in an effort to shrink from his view. Jet Fire's answer was to carefully scoop her off his shoulder and place her gently on the human scaffold that had been brought up in case he needed both his hands and shoulders free for a while. He smiled at her, where as she blushed.
"I guess criticism from boys isn't your forte?"
"...No...not really..." Erin blushed. Her stomach gurgled a few seconds later.
"Let me guess; you skipped breakfast in order to help out here?" Jet Fire laughed as the crimson in her cheeks told him all. "Alright, you, go get something to eat. Prime'd have me demoted in a nano if you fainted from hunger on my watch." Erin blushed again before directing the scaffold to float down to ground level. Jet Fire shook his head and laughed, "Human kids. Some days you understand 'em, others you're more confused than a nurse bot."
Despite the debris in her path, Erin still made it in record time to the lunch room. She had a scrambled egg breakfast burrito and a tall glass of chocolate milk. Once both of those had been downed, she walked calmly with a smile on her face back to the scaffold that would take her to Jet Fire's location.
Her instincts jumped, forcing her to jump as well. Blood red dagger after blood red dagger found homes inches from her twirling heels as she jumped back into a wall. Without having to blink, she knew who her attacker was. He reviled himself to have a large straw hat that was as wide as his body was strapped tightly against his head with a strong leather strap. His outfit was a short dark blue shirt over a longer halfway opened vest with tan black sleeves and leggings that covered his hands and feet respectively. White socks were split in half by the strap of his traditional sandals. On the belt that held the frayed pants tight against his waist and the sash that went diagonal across his chest were numerous pouches, each one containing an item more lethal than the last. Long raven hair streamed out behind him in the wind, accenting his crimson eyes and giving him the final dark edge.
"You're as strong as Blaze calmed you'd be." the mystery warrior smirked dangerously.
"Another Shinobi I assume?" Erin growled.
"Yes. My name is Swords, and I have come to fulfill your punishment, Renegade." Erin bit her lip and growled. There were too many innocent Autobots around to have a fair fight, and knowing the way the Shinobi under the Gate Keepers' Management worked, they wouldn't care how many they killed. This left her with only once choice. She moved down into a battle stance, making the Shinobi smirk again.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. Look up," Erin looked up just in time to see Blaze making his landing behind Jet Fire.
"Jet Fire!!"
By time the larger robot had turned around, Blaze had left him severely damaged in the back. Erin didn't even blink. She moved like lightning across the ground, catching the falling giant on a white Gate the moment she could. He coasted gently to the ground and landed like a feather on his back. Lifting his hand to his head, he moaned in dizzying pain.
"Jet Fire, are you alright?" Erin demanded, stopping only a few feet away from him.
"What hit me...?" Jet Fire questioned, sitting up. Blaze landed with a burst of flame down before the fallen robot. He held his hand to him, opening a Gate three times the size of Jet Fire's torso. Both Jet Fire and Erin stiffened.
"You can't protect your ally, Erin Topaz. Surrender to your fate of death now, or I'll melt him into scrap iron."
"Fate of death!? You're joking!" Jet Fire jumped. He grabbed Erin in his hand and rocketed away, leaving room for the attack to simply scorch the earth beneath his feet. "They're here to kill you!? Why the hell didn't you tell us that was their plan in the briefing room?!!?"
"...I didn't want you to get involved any more than you already were..." Erin whispered. Before Jet Fire could reprimand her further, Optimus' was calling over the com line.
"Jet Fire, what's going on?"
"Erin's got assassins after her, sir, and they plan on killing her here and now." Jet Fire answered between gritted teeth.
"How many?" Prime demanded. Jet Fire was forced to dodge a flying barrage of daggers and fireballs in an aerial ballet that meant the difference between life and death for both him and his unwilling passenger. His smoldering back wasn't helping any either.
"Just two, sir; one guy that can melt yah down without even blinking and another guy that looks like he's taken sword lessons from Starscream." Jet Fire answered. An alarm began to ring around base moments later.
"You again?!" Kicker jumped. Blaze wasn't fast enough to dodge Kicker's aerial attack from Ironhide's shoulder. The two boys began to roll across the ground locked in a one on one battle. Blaze's hat was sent flying in the wind for a few moments before Swords could reclaim it for his fighting friend.
"So who's that, Blaze? A friend you forgot to mention about earlier?" Swords demanded. A blood red gate opened before him, allowing him to take the handle of a large crimson broadsword. He withdrew said sword from the portal with fluidity that spoke volumes of his dangerous skill.
"Something like that, yeah," Blaze growled. He kicked his way free of Kicker, allowing Swords to move in for the kill. Ironhide's fist knocked the human back into a pile of rubble before any harm could befall his friend.
"Hey, what's the big idea here? His back was turned!" Ironhide growled.
"What would Invader-lovers like yourselves know about fair fighting?" Blaze demanded. Kicker had just enough time to raise another protective barrier for Ironhide before the larger was melted into scrap by Blaze's gate.
"Invader-lovers?! Who the hell do you think trashed Ocean City??!! It's obvious it wasn't the Decepticons!!" Kicker snapped back. Blaze paused for a second, looking around at the burn marks that had escaped scorching. They did seem familiar...
"Are you saying Invaders attacked here recently?" Blaze demanded.
"Yeah; right before our last little tussle. We were all nearly totaled, and we would have been dead a hundred times over if it weren't for Erin. Everybody that's standing right now owes their life to Erin. She risked her own hide to save ours, and nearly died doing so." Kicker explained. For once in his life, had the boy been anymore serious, he would have ceased to be a boy and been a wise old sage. Blaze locked his eyes in Kicker's and the world seemed to pause. Only the movement of the Shinobi's tussle-done auburn hair in the rustle of the wind broke the silence between the two combatants.
Swords released a growl of pain as he finally managed to sit up in the broken concrete he had been tossed into. As he looked up towards the sky, he felt his heart skip a beat. He knew the black pattern that was beginning to weave its way through the tapestry of white clouds like the back of his hand, and he knew what it herald.
"Invaders!!"
The whole base looked up towards the sky at the gathering mass of black, some with optics full of fear, others with optics full of rage, and still others with optics of calm acceptance of the coming struggle. Optimus was one such being that looked on with calm optics at the coming sea. He turned to face Swords, the closest to him, and stated harshly,
"The Invaders are our enemies as well. We have no intention of fighting both Gate Keepers and Decepticons along with this new foe, however, I along with what appears like half of this base alone will not sit idly by while you attempt to kill our friend simply because she disagrees with your values of how to deal with Invaders." Once his speech to Swords was finished, he swiped his hand across the air and shouted, "All units, battle stations! Prepare for attack!"
The whole base was alive with action in a matter of seconds. Forward cannons, at least those of them that were still functional, began to fire rapidly at the approaching storm. Some Invaders fell, while others began to multiply like rabbits. The two boys that had attacked them became forgotten shadows in the background. Swords and Blaze exchanged a look of confusion and frustration.
"I don't get it. We were never told about any kind of Invader attack on the Autobot bases..." Blaze whispered.
"...Maybe she really isn't a Renegade...?" Swords pondered aloud.
"Then why would she refuse to join the Gate Keepers?" Blaze blinked.
"Because she realized the Gate Keepers' new bosses were just using you for their own personal gain." Demolisher stated. The two boys looked up at the tall Decepticon traitor, looking deep into his sideways scowl, and felt like lost lambs. "Erin never really said it out loud, but that's the impression I got whenever she would sit alone at night gazing at the stars. It's the same look I get when I'm lost in thought about weather to join the Decepticons again..." His fingers extended into machine guns and he pointed them with an emotionless glare at the approaching Invaders. Without another word, he opened fire.
"What are you doing?! Your weapon won't even make a scratch against Invaders!" Blaze jumped.
"I don't care." Demolisher growled. "This city, this world, is my home now and I'll be damned and dead before I give it up without a fight."
Blaze and Swords exchanged yet another look of confusion and bewilderment. None of the reports they had seen gave any hint to this kind of attitude from a Transformer. In fact, the Transformers and Erin seemed to be on the same page in the Gate Keeper handbook; cold, ruthless, and as bad as Invaders. Maybe they were being lied to? Maybe the Commanders were just greedy hogs that wanted nothing more than complete control over the world?
"Demolisher!!" Erin's gasp brought the two boys to the present. Demolisher was down on the ground covered by thousands of Invaders. His arms were flaying around in a futile effort to get the Invaders off him, but he was loosing horribly. The two boys exchanged a final look before nodding in secret agreement.
"Don't move!" Blaze barked. Demolisher instantly froze. A dark purple gate suddenly surrounded him, releasing thousands of fireballs that burnt away the layered Invaders as if they were nothing more than flies. Swords accompanied Blaze by creating a wall of knives around the now grounded and oil-leaking Jet Fire. As the Invaders came crashing down around the larger warrior, they were impaled with an almost heartless cold that made Jet Fire shiver.
"That bracelet you've got on your wrist. Activate it and stay still." Jet Fire fiddled with the bracelet for a few moments and kicked Demolisher in the side to get him to do the same. With an embarrassed look the Decepticon began to play with his jewelry.
"What are you gonna do?" Jet Fire growled partly out of frustration at the bracelet that refused to shield him and the boys that had gone from enemy to protectors in one fast swoop. Blaze tipped his newly returned hat to him, hiding his daredevil smirk from the now incased warrior.
"Swords and I are Gate Keepers, aren't we? What else do you think we're going to do besides defend the planet we love so much?"