Small amounts of pain came from various places on my body and forced me to land on a nearby power pole. An uncomfortable flare sprang from my leg and noticed trickles of blood running down from a bullet sized hole. The adrenaline rush was wearing off and leaving me to feel the leftovers of the latest mission.
A hiss escaped my lips at the sight of the wound. Great, an open wound that I'll have to deal with now. I closely looked at the hole and saw the shine of something inside of it. By the looks of it, it was the bullet that created the injury.
The other bullet holes did have an exit. Of course this one had to be the one where the bullet was still inside my leg. Painfully, I stuck my pointer and thumb claws into the hole and dug around for the metal cylinder. My claws clicked against it before gripping it tightly and slowly pulling it out. Blood coated my finger and the bullet, causing my mouth to water in the slightest. Stupid animalistic nature.
Jasper's symbol was clearly embedded in on the side of the bullet. Could it be a tracker bullet? That was a high possibly which meant I had to get out of here, quickly or they'll swarm this place.
I tossed the piece of metal off to the side and inspected the other couple of wounds. None of them had a bullet still inside which was a plus but blood was oozing from them. A small ball of pure water formed in the palm of my hand. I used the contents to clean off the new and old blood surrounding the injuries. The wounds wouldn't take too long to heal, at most four days since there are multiple of them.
My thoughts wandered to that robot. It seemed like it was… alive and had thoughts. What was Jasper getting themselves up to? They wouldn't just abandon their decade's worth of work after getting a small handful of success to move to sentiment robots. Would they? Just thinking about it didn't made sense on my end. Unless they were working with something much bigger.
Just imagining them moving away from something somewhat success to unknown territory bewildered me. But that robot didn't seem like your everyday mindless robot. It's eyes or whatever you would call them made it look like it was thinking, not cold, dead eyes you would see from another one.
Whatever they were doing was a head scratcher.
Instinctively, my wings unfurled from my back and gave a few powerful pumps to gain height. I continued on my path towards the base where these 'Decepticons' were holding a young girl. All I hoped for was to reach her in time before Jasper started their… procedures on her. If I can save at least one kid from their clutches, then I was doing something right.
The watch kept me on track of heading south towards the direction of the base. If I keep the same speed without exerting too much energy, I should reach the building in three hours and a half. To me, it wasn't fast enough. My top speed for flying could get there within thirty or so minutes but the energy used would make me too weak.
Exhaustion was already settling in my bones but I didn't have a choice to stop and rest. I just found someone to save, an easy release, and wasn't going to sleep until she was safe. No one else needed to be put through what they do to children. Turning us into killing machines and monster.
There would be more of those robots at the mini-Jasper/Decepticon base. Yes, if they were mindless machines, it's an easy break in and break out for us. But that Copper, just going to call it that, seemed alive and that's what unnerved me. When it looked at me, it seemed to be thinking!
Why do my thoughts keep sliding over to that machine? There had to an underlining reason to it. Nothing came from my seventh sense which somewhat ruled out that it was dangerous.
In irritation, my chest rumbled as a growl slowly grew. Was going to the data center a bad idea? Probably. Do I regret the decision? Nope. Using my abilities against evil rather than wasting them to keep them in check was so much better. Plus those soldiers earned it. They chose the wrong side to team up with.
City after city, town after town, boring road after boring road, my watch beeped to let me know I have arrived. My eyes scanned around on the ground for any sign of a building. Nothing but green land and a river a little off in the distance. Was the information wrong? Did my watch bring me to the wrong place?
The folders were only a day old too. So the data wasn't that old to be wrong.
A noise above me grabbed my attention. The sound of a plane, quiet but still there and sitting high in the sky. The noise was stationary unlike a plane or jet would at least be slowly moving. It also sounded close, like a couple hundred feet away.
Whatever it was intrigued me. Curiosity killed the cat… but satisfaction brought it back. Danger prickled in my chest at the thought of flying up towards it. Yet, something told me to go through with it. I didn't have much time to waste with the child's life on the line.
Hm… The rumbling just hung in the air, as if it was teasing and taunting me. My eyes narrowed to glare at the invisible source of the sound. I forced my wings down harder and changed my direction to upward.
Something internally told me to do it… Maybe the girl is on a plane. But it didn't make sense since the rumbling wasn't moving at all. Even getting closer to it prove so; it was only getting louder, just by a little bit.
I breached a thick layer of clouds and hovered there to scan for anything. Now, the noise was to my ten o'clock position. Yet, there was nothing in sight.
Nothing about this felt like a trap though and I would know, that's how I have stayed alive and free. I carefully headed in that direction, on edge the more I got closer to it.
Until the feeling of passing through an electrical field washed over me. My breath was caught my throat from the unfamiliar and sudden feeling. That wasn't all though, what came after the electrical field would forever change my life.
In front of me floated a beyond massive war ship. It was definitely made of metal with scary edges in the armor and weird red 'eyes' in the front of it. What gave me the idea it was a war ship were the large two oversized cannon which protruded from the bow. Hopefully, I would never meet the wrong end of those bad boys.
The watch buzzed once again, dragging my gaze down to it. The end point of the GPS was aiming right at the war ship. Oh shit.
Dread boiled over in the pit of my stomach as all hope of finding this girl went out of the window. Who or what were these Decepticons?! The thought of them being human was starting be ruled out.
This girl was in deeper trouble than I ever would have thought. She's stuck on a war ship which was floating miles above the ground with an electrical field somehow keeping it from sight. My camouflaging scales aren't that way but did the same thing, not as affective though.
If I left her with a chance of saving her in unknown territory, guilt would slowly eat me alive. I had promised myself to finish with this mission. These Decepticon beings seemed just as bad or worse than Jasper and that was no compliment.
A sigh passed my lips. You're a dangerous creature, Azar, show them that, a little voice in my head stated. And I will. I pumped my wings down harder and raced towards the ship, ready to save the girl.
My talons quietly clicked against the metal of the top deck. There looked to be a door closer to the inner part of the ship. By it, three robots stood, talking with each other. All of the muscles in my body completely froze at the sight of them. They were acting… sentiment!
This shouldn't really be surprising me, I'm standing on a floating war ship. Instinctively, the scales covering my body changed to camouflage. I noiseless snuck over to them and took very carefully placed steps to ensure the least about of sound; couldn't have my capture be from something stupid.
Once within a hundred feet or so, their conversation could be heard easily. "I can't believe Megatron is making us check out the breach in the shield. He should be sending one of the drones to do it," a silver one complained. He, by the sound of the voice, stood around thirty or so feet with two triangle-shaped 'wings' sprouting from his shoulders. He kind of was in the shape of a Dorito.
His other companions looked nearly the same with a couple of small differences. The main differences between the three were their colors. One was mainly purple and black, another was blue and grey with tiny hints of red and white, the last one was just silver.
"At least he isn't yelling at you. Let's just get this over with and get on to flying," the blue robot countered and sounded not-so pleased with having to deal with the silver one. Flying? So I was right about the triangles on their shoulders. It also sounded like a he; he pushed passed Silver towards the middle of the large deck.
"He doesn't yell at me!" Silver shouted and ran after Blue. Purple had been strangely quiet this entire time. Do these robots have different personalities?
"He kind of does, Screamer," Purple spoke up. Then quietly said to himself, "he acts like that saying that the humans have: when pigs fly. Wait, no that doesn't sound right. Oh well." After talking to himself, he gave chase after his two buddies. The three continued to bicker and grumbled to one another. I lost interest in them and padded over to the door.
Truth be told, it was an opening but how to activate it? No clue.
The sudden sound of clicking metal and shifting of gears drew my gaze over to where the three robots were. The robots were changing their shape, something I was familiar with. All three of them shifted into jets before blasting off. I stood there in complete shock. Fear trickled in as well, underlining the surprise within.
What in the hell was that?!
Shapeshifting is an ability that Jasper is known for as they only have one case that successful. But with them gone, that gave me the opportunity to break in now. There couldn't be that many robots on this ship, right?
I glanced up and down at the door to find a way to activate. There was no keypad or anything else that interactive. Maybe it wasn't actually a door and just looked to be one. I unfurled my wings to take off and instead made the entrance open. Well, that worked. It must sense large objects compared to me, a small human with huge wings on her back.
To not waste any more time, I rushed into the ship and furled my wings tightly. The door slid closed and locked me inside of here.
Sounds of machinery surrounded me on the inside. Nothing else gave me the impression that there was someone else here. See? Only those three. Wait, the silver one did mention someone named Megatron. So four, not that many to deal with if came to the worse.
There was no time to think about that though. I put my tracking skills to the test and quickly started forward, searching for a female scent. The ship seemed to lack any humans, or in general life so finding her shouldn't be that hard.
Boy did I regret saying that.
The top floor of the ship didn't have her, neither did the second. Nearly three hours had been eaten up by searching on those floors. What it did have was nearly endless halls and a handful of other robots that looked almost the same. There was other life in here and it wasn't friendly.
These halls weren't helping me either. They all looked the exact same, number of doors were the same, number of intersections were the same. What would've been a problem for most actually aided me. The only light the halls provided were tiny bar lights. My eyes adjusted themselves to the lack of light, so no interference in my hunt.
Luck was somehow on my side the first time I encountered a robot. Its foot was raised to go forward the moment I turned the corner. My instincts kicked in and I dodged to the side, my tail barely not getting stepped on. From that moment on, I was much more on edge for anymore of those machines. And there were others as well; five more to be exact.
They were just strolling around in the halls, acting like they were on patrol. Not for me though, no alarm or indication of any of them spotting me.
Once getting down to the third floor though proved helpful. It had a lot more activity than the other floors but a trickle of a human scent caught my nose. The odor was hard to tell whether or not it was female.
The scent was old, about three weeks old, and spread out all over the place, probably from the robots walking around. It took some time to figure out that it was a female scent. Score, now I was onto something.
I followed the odor to a door at the end of a long hallway and flashed my wings again. Nothing happened. I did it once more to see if it didn't notice or see me. Still nothing. Then I noticed next to the door was a key pad a good ten feet from the ground.
Again, time was short. I willed the palms of my hands to heat up to the melting point of metal and held them up to the door. The metal changed from purple to a blazing orange, a good sign. It started to melt and dribble down to the floor in a puddle.
Now, a large enough hole for me to slip pass was carved into the metal. I step through and scanned the new room for any sign of the girl. Her scent was extremely obvious in here that it almost overwhelmed my senses.
In here was more like a prison than a normal room and it had five huge cells. Lights were nearly nonexistent and my eyes already dilated to take in more light.
Off to the right of my entrance was the sound of whimpering and sniffling. Human noises, just what I looking for. I padded over to the farthest right cell and stopped in my tracks at the sight.
A girl was huddled in the corner, obviously shivering. Her clothes were ripped and in no way could they keep her warm. She was just skin and bones by the looks of it with a few cuts and bruises here and there. A thick chain was attached to her ankle and the wall, ensuring she stayed there. Anger boiled deep inside of me and heat rushed back to my hand, wanting to be release. I suppressed the urge to blow this ship out of the sky and began to trot over to her.
The sounds of my talons caught her attention and her head snapped to look up in my direction. She couldn't see me due to my camouflaged scales. Fear was evident in her eyes as she scanned the area for the source of the noise. I took this opportunity to allow myself to be seen.
Her eyes locked onto my form the moment after. Fear turned to terror. A pang of hurt sprung up in me but I brushed it off and focused on her. She scrambled more into her corner and caused the chain to rattle slightly. I needed to calm her down before she attracted attention, the wrong kind. "Hey-hey-hey," I started, my voice soft. "It's alright, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to get you out of here."
She slowly stopped her moments, yet distrust was written all over her face. "Just trust me alright. Don't make any noises, please. Those stupid robots might hear." Her muscles were still tense but I needed to hurry this up. I timidly stepped towards her. Nothing. Another step. Nothing.
Once ten feet away from her, she shook her head to tell me to stop and tried to verbally say that. The only thing that came out was a hoarse choke. I cringed and willed a ball of water to grow in the palm of my hand. If her eyes could've, they would have grown even more. She started to freak out and created some noise. "Wait! No-no-no, it's fine, it's fine. I can create water, no big deal. I was going to offer you some to help your throat."
The poor thing looked like she hadn't eaten in days and was barely receiving water. My words calmed her down slightly. She gazed upon the water thirstily and licked her dry lips. I controlled the water to float over to her until it was about to touch her lips. Her eyes met mine, thinking about trusting me or not.
Until her thirst won her over. The kid swallowed the ball of water in four big gulps and stared at me with gratitude. "Th-" she cleared her throat painfully- "th-than-k y-you." I dipped my head.
"Of course. I can help break you out of the chain, but you need to stay silent. If one of those robots heard you, trouble would arise from it." No noise came from her as my words rolled around inside of her head.
"H-How are-" a cough interrupted her sentence- "you go-ing to brea-k m-e out? The met-al is r-ea-lly str-ong."
"Just like water, I can create heat. I'm going to melt away the chain but you have to stay completely still or I could accidently burn you," I stated firmly and stared into her eyes to emphasize the seriousness of my plan. The kid didn't say anything for a couple of seconds before nodding her head as a silent go ahead.
I summoned heat to pool in my hands the third time today and directed it towards the thick band around her ankle. Luckily, I had enough energy to do so. The most I used my powers, the more I grow tired. This time, the energy was being fueled by anger of her situation. Her gaze was glued to the glowing and warming metal.
Once the top part of the band was a fiery orange, I gripped the sides of it and pulled with all of my strength. It easily came apart with enough room for her to slip her clearly bruised leg out. The girl inspected her leg and winced once seeing the full damage. There was a small cut the top of the band cutting into the unprotected skin.
More rage flared up inside of me seeing the terrible injury. I gently scooped her off of the ground without another thought and began to carry her out here. My mission had been finished. Or so I thought.
"W-ait! We c-an't leave wi-thou-t Sunny," she exclaimed and wiggled in my grasped. I clutched tighter to ensure she didn't fall and stopped right before the melted hole. Who names their child 'Sunny'? Is the boy very cheery or something?
"Whoa, kid. We'll go get him. Where is he?" I didn't know Jasper and the Decepticons had another human with them.
"He's t-he roo-m over, I thin-k." Since this room was the last one in this hall, it had to be the one to the left. Hopefully the kid could walk on his own because my hands were a little full with… I forgot to ask her for her name.
"Hey, kid, what's your name?" I quickened my pace towards the cell block next door and stood in front of the unmoving slab of metal. "I have to set you down for this." I had her rest most of her weight against the door and willed heat once more to grow in my hands.
The kid tried to speak but her voice got caught in her throat and she coughed hard. I stopped halfway through to give her some water to sip on before continuing. This was getting tedious with all this melting of metal. "My n-ame is Annabelle bu-t you can call me An-na, if you wan-t." Her voice was a little bit smoother than before. "Wha-t's yours?"
Was it smart to give her my real name? Did it matter? Not really since she was only like six or seven but better safe than sorry. "Mine's Midnight, like the time of night." It wasn't a scary or threatening name like the one Jasper gave me but still was nowhere near my real name.
For some odd reason, my fake name intrigued her and her eyes sparkled. "Cool. I wis-hed I had a c-ool name like t-ha-t." Little did she know, it wasn't my real title.
Somewhat silence overtook us and I focused on melting the metal away. This type of metal was very dense and hard to get through but nevertheless it was working.
I got rid the rest of the liquid metal and helped Anna into the room to find this Sunny person. My eyes lied upon a large silhouette with two glowing blue eyes. You got to be kidding me. "That's not a human!" I nearly shouted at the kid, my anger getting the best of me.
Anna shrunk down in fear from my sudden outburst but couldn't do much to get away. Seeing her afraid caused regret to immediately spring up internally then I composed myself. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell. I thought you were talking about a human. Not one of those… things."
The robot sounded like it growled at me and its glowing eyes narrowed down at me. The action wasn't scary in the least. "Sun-ny is-n't a thing. He's an Au-tobo-t. He go-t c-ap-tured be-cause of me and I'm no-t leaving wit-hou-t him," she stated firmly and crossed her arms. "If you t-ry t-o move me wit-hou-t t-aking him wit-h us, I'll… I'll, I'll scream and aler-t the Cons."
Did I want to deal with a screaming child? No. Did I want to escape with a robot named Sunny? Not at all but my hand was being forced. "Fine, kid, whatever will make you happy." I trudged over to the thing, eyes locked on to… him in case he tried anything.
The two of us got within twenty when he snarled, "don't you come any closer meatbag!" Did he seriously call me 'meatbag'? Yeah, let's go tin can. A glare was sent his way.
"Su-nny, she's going t-o hel-p us! Jus-t t-rust her, she's cool," Anna tried to reason with the overgrown toaster. He must have a scowl etched into his metal face by the look he was giving me. "Please, for me."
Her puppy eyes broke through his hard exterior. "Alright! Just stop giving me those optics. You're almost as bad as Sides," he grumbled and weakly stood to his wheeled feet. A blue substance was running like blood from various places and had pooled under him.
This is where my help came in. I summoned more heat to my hands and directed it at the glowing bars trapping the robot in; or whatever Anna calmed him. The bar repelled the heat with electric sparks exploding. Okay, bad idea.
"Of course that wouldn't work. Go for the keypad," Sunny snickered and crossed his arms, pain passed over his features but washed away a moment after. I quietly mocked him and aimed a ball of fire up at the glowing keypad off to the side. My hands were starting to tingle at this point from the usage of my powers. The thing sparked then the bars disappeared and freed Sunny. He strolled out and tried to hide the pain he surely felt.
He semi-limped over to Anna and sat down on his haunches. "Are you okay? Whose face plates do I need to rearrange?" The robot was trying to make light for the young girl, sweet.
Anna giggled, "no-t really bu-t Midnigh-t broke me ou-t. She's pre-tty cool even though she's differen-t." Those words. I slightly cringed at those words and felt a pang of hurt strike my heart.
"I can hear you," I hissed, anger once again rising up in me. "We need to keep going before-." The door slid open and revealed two identical purple and black robots, the ones that were patrolling before. "-That." I reacted immediately by summoning two large icicles and chucked them as hard as possible.
Neither bot was prepared or ready for the ice heading their way and stood there stupidly. The shards pierced their intended target with great accuracy: in the middle of their chests. They crumpled to the ground a couple of seconds later. "Bad, very bad. Alright, you two get a moving. I'll pick up the rear. Head towards the top of this stupid ship," I ordered and motioned them to hurry along with my hands.
Thankfully, the yellow robot didn't complain against my orders and scooped the child into his grasp. The poor thing could barely walk more than five steps anyhow. "Don't take this as I'm listening to you fleshie. That was my plan, first off," he snapped before making his out of the room, the child still in his hand. Wow, someone is on their robot period because he is pissy.
I rolled my eyes to brush off his 'rude' comment and gave chase after them by flight. If the kid wasn't adamant on taking him with us, the bot would be melted down into a puddle for the way he was speaking to me. Be nice, there's no need to be so denfensive, Mia's words echoed inside of my head.
The three of us somehow 'snuck' our way through the halls without being caught. What I mean by 'snuck' is a giant limping robot, slowly making his grinding way towards the exit.
All the hairs on my neck prickled up then, "halt!" a voice shouted from behind us. I whipped around to face five patrol bot's in a fighting stance with their arm guns pointed at us.
Sunny growled and threw down his free hand as if something was supposed to happen. Nothing did. His anger grew but he knew that he wasn't in shape to fight off these Cons. That's what his stance and eyes told me, and it was understandable. "I got this, keep going. And get that girl out of here and keep her safe," I commanded and cold energy flowed to my hands.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him nod with a minuscule hint of respect flaring in his eyes. It was gone quicker than it appeared. He and Anna turned to leave the scene. "Stop, you Autoscum!" the same bot shouted.
"Oh, would you shut up?!" I scoffed and sent a spray of small dagger shaped icicles in their direction with a flick of my wrist. It was getting harder to use my powers now. All five saw the incoming threat and dodged to the best of their abilities. Three of them weren't so lucky and the ice slipped between the cracks in their armor. The other two sent shots towards me and the retreating forms behind me.
To ensure the shots wouldn't hit them, a wall ice grew to block anymore attempts. One red plasma bullet knocked into my wing and cause pain to arise from the new wound. It was more of a burning sensation than anything else. I turned to face them after inspecting it with a sadistic smile on my lips. "Boy, you just f-ed up."
Frost hung in the air as the temperature suddenly plummeted. The robots wildly looked around in confusion and slight fear. Perfect.
More icicles grew in my hands, long and sharp enough to pierce metal. I charged towards the nearest bot and drove the shard into his chest. The same blue substance splattered from the somewhat plugged hole. What was it?
The other four stared at me in shock of my actions. "There's more where that came from." My energy was depleting quickly, I could feel it but the mission was far from over. This morning didn't help and the more I used my abilities, the more my energy was used.
I finished swiftly with the others before making my way towards the fleeing two. The two extra appendages on my back were dragging slight from fatigue. They were just making it to an elevator when a loud alarm sounded off. This just added to my plate of trouble.
"T-ha-t's no-t good, is i-t?" Anna questioned, scared in her little spot curled up to the chest of Sunny.
"It'll add some trouble but nothing I can't handle," I promised and smiled reassuringly to hide my growing exhaustion. "Just keep going, I'll meet you on the roof top if we get spilt." We all filtered into the elevator and allowed for it to take us up.
Again with luck, it was being plentiful today. We reached the top deck in little under a minute but were greeted with rows and rows of those patrolling bots. How many are there of these things? "How are we going to deal with that many Cons?" Sunny growled, angered of the situation.
"Magic," I answered cheekily. "Now, jump off and I'll catch you both."
Sunny sputtered in bewilderment from my order. "Are you serious?! Like Pit I will! You're not even half my size. And you're tiny wings could never hold my weight." Excuse you, my wingspan is longer than your height.
"That my friend is where magic comes into play. You can go right ahead and stay here but the kid comes with me. Jump or stay. Your choice," I responded. My next play of action wasn't going to be a very smart or ideal one but it was the best for the moment. We were cornered and surrounded by sentient robots with guns pointed right at us.
What my plan consisted would take a huge amount of energy, I had just enough to do it. Let's not even count the overwhelming pain that would definitely be created because of it. My main mission was to save the kid but that changed and the grumpy tin can needed to be saved as well. Oh, how my life has taken a turn.
His eyes gazed down at Anna who was staring fearfully at the army of robots in front of her. Sunny acted like he was thinking about his short list of options before coming to a conclusion. "I'll jump but if you don't catch us, I'll tear you atom from atom," he threatened as if he was scary.
"Perfect. Now… Run!" I shouted and threw down a wall of ice to block us from the firing squad. Sunny skated to the best of his weakened state over to the side before launching Anna and himself off the war ship. The young girls screams pierced the darkening sky as the two of them fell together. I was right behind them to reassure of my quick plan.
The one ton bot fell quickly towards the ground while clutching the beyond terrified girl. There was limited time to act.
I thought quickly of the size and creature I wanted to shapeshift into. My body started the painfully process and multiplying my atoms to grow my size to dwarf Sunny. Every atom was being torn apart then stuck together just to repeat the whole thing again. I couldn't help the grunt of pain that escaped my lips half way through the shift. I didn't have much time either to maul over the details of this form.
From above us, I heard the sound of jets taking off and heading in our direction. Hurry up! A swift minute passed and it was finished. The shift nearly took every ounce of energy I had left. My eyes snapped open and everything looked different but the same in this form. I locked my gaze onto the yellow bot and wrapped my front claws around his torso. His body tensed at the sudden contact.
"What in the Pit are you?" he grounded out but made no move to escape my hold. If he did, the sudden stop of the fall would surely kill him and Anna. In this form, I hadn't taken the time to form my vocal cords to speak and let the whipping wind answer him.
The jets sounded closer. What I did take time to form was the ability to camouflage my scales to hide us from the onslaught from above. Anyone below would be able to see the floating robot. Anyone above us wouldn't notice anything out of place.
Instead of allowing miles of room for the jets to fly underneath us, I took a nosedive and headed north to look for a place to hide out in. Staying in this form for too much long wouldn't be an option on the table.