Arcee's optics followed Lennox as he retreated. When he turned to stand next to the General, she locked on to the mech once more.
In a flash, she lunged at it with a punch aimed at it's head. Cole brought his arm up and blocked the hit but it only served to block his vision. Another fist was already inbound and slammed into the body just below the protective chest plates.
The mech stepped back to draw back its own fist. Swinging forward, it barely missed Arcee's shoulder as she ducked it. Dropping her body low, she kicked one solid blow up into the mech's chest.
Cole had expected the kick and managed to grab her by the ankle with his right hand. Yanking to the side, he pulled her toward him, off balance. Grabbing her shoulder, he attempted to punch towards her head.
The blow landed, but she planted her other foot on the mech and launched herself backwards out of its grip. Landing with a tucked roll, she crouched low while her processors quickly recovered from the heavy hit and waited to see if the mech would come off the defensive.
The crowd cheered at the clashing warriors, near evenly matched. Ironhide looked on edge as he sniffed the wind. He turned to Optimus, "Do you feel that?"
Heat shimmered above the practice field as Cole spoke to his team "Archer, any day now."
Not needing a verbal confirmation, Archer fired the eight SHRED projectiles down towards their target. Arcee jumped high and avoided the ensnarement easily. Landing, she drew herself to her full height and engaged her arm blades. She smirked and dipped her head oh so subtly.
"That's the head tilt!" Danielle said apprehensively.
Cole grit his teeth to keep his expletives to himself as he charged Arcee. He threw one punch that she blocked with ease. Leaving himself open, she struck in with the other fist. The blade sliced across the mech's chest plates and sent sparks flying. Staying in close, she spun tight to bring her blocking arm around and throw an elbow in the mech's face. Following through the end of the spin, she landed a kick into the knee joint that brought the mech down to a kneel before her.
Her next strike was raised when Cole grabbed her other wrist. Letting the hit land, he pulled her down with her own momentum and Archer activated their sonic deterrents. The close range disoriented her just long enough for Cole to get a solid knock into her chest.
Maintaining hold of her, he rotated fully around to land a swing into her back that sent her sprawling on her front. Springing forward, the mech landed on top of her, too heavy to be thrown off immediately. Tommy already had a blaster out and pressed to her back before she could even begin to resist.
Tommy spoke triumphantly over their COM "Good job team, we re-"
Archer suddenly overrode his team leader, opening the COM channel that connected the mech directly to the Autobots. An icy panic in his voice, he spoke with haste "Radar shows multiple signatures inbound, not friendlies."
Tommy took back control of the mech's movement, quickly releasing Arcee. He turned to face General Reims and Colonel Lennox, but lingered a second when his vision swept over the massive crowd of, mostly unarmed, bystanders. Making visual contact with the commanding officers, his attention was grabbed by muzzle flashes behind them, the sound of gunfire heard through the mech a second after his own ears behind the headset.
Reims and Lennox pulled their sidearms and turned toward the shots reporting from the external ARC hangar entrance. They looked just in time to see the two armed soldiers falling to the ground as a long low shadow slipped through the entrance. All that guarded it now were two large swaths of red sprayed across the white walls.
Alarmed, Tommy bolted with all the speed the mech could provide toward himself and his team in the hangar, shouting orders "Stay wired in no matter what you hear, we can only fight together."
Danielle fought every visceral instinct to remove her helm and see what was happening in the ARC hangar with them. She could only deathgrip her useless controls and watch as the mech ran toward the hangar entrance.
Still tuned to the Autobot COM, they could hear Optimus giving orders to get the crowd inside the base, followed shortly by Ironhide, Arcee, and Sandstorm confirming contact with several Decepticons.
More automatic gunfire, inside their hangar now, burst through the COM and all but drowned out Archer as he screamed in anguish.
Heather yelled into the COM "Archer! Fuck! Danielle, you have his controls."
Danielle saw Archer's name flash bold red then disappear from her screen just before the HUD sprouted symbols and data she didn't know what to do with. At the same time, the mech had finally crossed the ARC hangar threshold and saw the other two armed guards inside shooting at a large black robotic cougar as it shot back at them with a rear-mounted turret of its own.
Tommy fired on it with the mech's blasters, careful to place the mech's bulk between the Decepticon and his team's stations. One soldier fell as the cat's bullets struck home. Turning on the mech, it launched itself onto its chest and began savagely digging and biting at the exposed wires and energon lines of the neck and shoulder joints.
"Losing fuel fast" Sadiyah cried into the COM.
Cole grabbed the beast by the midsection with one hand and flung it across the hangar to the floor. Tommy aimed his blaster with his other hand and resumed shooting at the Decepticon. It dodged the blasts, all the while shooting at the exposed stations not behind the mech.
Tommy grunted when he felt the bullets searing through his arm, shoulder and upper back. He tried to maintain his connection but knew he wouldn't be able to fight through the pain. Relinquishing his controls, he threw off his headset and drew a pistol from his desk. Turning, he fired his clip at the cat before collapsing to the floor clutching his arm.
Heather again came into COM as "Freed" flashed red on the HUD then disappeared. "Cole, guns!" He didn't verbally acknowledge but knew he could arm and fire the blasters and other projectiles now. Opting to keep within his specialty, he dove the cat and tried to grab it again. Barely slipping through his fingers, it jumped up onto the mech's head and dove behind it.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he realised, with horror, his mistake. Turning the mech to look behind itself, he could only watch as the Decepticon soared through the air towards the back of Sadiyah. Seeing the feed, she screamed and ducked down under her desk to hide from the impending attack.
Missing his target, Ravage flailed and slid through the equipment on the desk and into the wall behind it. One focused energon blast rang off his head after Cole fired, careful not to hit his copilot. The direct hit stunned the cat just long enough for the mech to grab it by the neck. Swinging the body away from the desk, Cole slammed it into the ground, pressed his cannon into its side, and fired until the beast stopped moving.
"Sadiyah, you okay?" Heather blurted into the COM. No response came, and her name was absent from the HUD list. Rotating the mech to look at her desk, they saw she was huddled and shaking underneath it, her headset ripped off and discarded. Her station was destroyed.
Shouting into the hangar for her teammate to hear, Heather instructed "Sadiyah, get onto Tommy's desk, I'll send your controls there."
Explosions became evident as they rocked the ground and all manner of shooting rang in full scale war outside the hangar.
Cole relayed into the Autobot COM again "ARC unit to Optimus, we're on our way." His voice was shaken, but did not lack stone-cold resolve. As they moved towards the exit, one medic and two technicians ran into the hangar. They checked the pulse of the fallen guard. Finding none, they moved on and quickly loaded Archer into a rolling stretcher while Tommy limped after them, krutched on the shoulders of one of the technicians.
Optimus responded, clearly fighting "Take out their highground, they have us pinned!"
Stepping back into the blinding desert sunlight, they saw the base and landscape around it were not as they had left them just minutes earlier. The dirt path leading from the hangars towards the highway was littered with smoldering pits, burning military vehicles, and several unrecognizable bodies.
Up on the dunes, six silver and black Decpitocons fired down upon the Autobots that were spread thin, locked in melees of their own. Hoist stood in the way of projectiles to protect a small group of humans pinned against the base wall where they had attempted to flee inside. Many soldiers had taken up various defensive positions around the battlefield and returned fire with whatever weapons available.
Cole came across COMs "Up there, top of the dune. Take that out, then we can get into the pits with the rest." He paused briefly to slide the hangar door shut. The pilot's feeds flickered as the mech transformed down into the rugged JLTV and flew up the dune towards the nearest Con.
Heather drove the vehicle while Cole operated the roof mounted heavy machine gun. Bullets blazed through the air and ferociously ate into the closest enemy. The stream was only cut off when the car burst at the seams and the mech transformed, landing at a dead run. Keeping his momentum, Cole drove a powerful fist through the chest of the first Con. Not slowing down, Cole pulled a cannon up and blasted into the face of the next target, quickly obliterating its head.
The remaining four Cons that had been firing down on the field now approached the mech, blasters lighting into its armor. The maelstrom set off alarms in the HUDs, prompting a warning from Sadiyah while Cole continued to fight them off. "Heat and damage increasing, moderate functionality lost. Twenty minutes of flight remaining."
Danielle managed to find the SHRED controls. Firing them, the tiny darts flew out and embedded themselves across two Cons' chests. The electricity arced and partially locked them, causing them to stop shooting. Lunging at the two, the mech grabbed them by their heads and smashed them together, extinguishing the bloody red optics instantly.
The move exposed the mech's back momentarily, and one of the two remaining enemies took this chance to grab the spinal strut and rip towards itself. The force pitched the mech backwards, losing its balance in the loose dune sand. Tipped to the slope, the hulk began to slide head first towards the base of the dune. The two Cons followed it down, shooting mercilessly. Cole crossed the arms over the chest to protect the exposed vulnerable underside mechanisms from the blasts.
Finally at the bottom, the mech attempted to right itself, but the force of the blasts was enough to keep it from rising up. "Taking extensive damage." Sadiyah said nervously.
Heedless of the COM, Cole yelled in defiance as he armed the mechs cannons and fired madly at the two that slid down the dune after him. Many of the rounds went wide or high, but most struck home. He kept shooting from his back on the ground, but their advance was only minimally hampered as he couldn't focus one at a time.
Suddenly, the one on the right exploded from the chest up, crumpling to the ground in a sliding flaming pile.
"I've got you" came the gruff voice of Ironhide over the COM.
Cole pointed both cannons at the remaining adversary and continued his shooting frenzy. Then it, too, exploded and fell to the ground, heaping against the other corpse at the bottom of the hill next to the mech.
"Thank you, sir!" Cole responded to the Autobot.
Finally able to correct it's positioning, the mech stood up and faced the remaining battle. Haze like a lifting sandstorm choked the air, further thickened by ceaseless energon blasts, bullets, and cries. Dozens of the identical Decepticons littered the field, some fighting, some dead. Hoist had taken to the field now that the humans had been able to make it inside safely.
The practice field north of the entry hangar had erupted into utter chaos. Ironhide fought deep inside the fray, cursing the intruders and firing at any Con that moved. Mirage stood a close guard to a stand of NEST operatives that fired into the battle, providing cover fire.
Optimus Prime fought with fervor, driven to protect the mostly unarmed humans. While many had hit the small armory and returned to the fight, they still lacked basic physical protection against Cybertronian weapons.
Arcee carved a path through the Decepticon ranks. Her blades and arms had become sticky with thick blue energon. How much of it was of her enemies, she was unsure.
A wicked funnel of sand reached high into the sky, disintegrating enemies as it ran them over and flug them afar. Sandstorm stood in the middle of it, rotors kicking up the fierce devil, punching through anything that managed to make it past the wind wall. Bumblebee fought nearby, blasting and fighting stragglers at the west end of the field.
Even in the fight, Bee scanned the distant crowds for Danielle and found no trace of her. Earlier, he had heard one of the ARC pilots yell to their team "Archer! Fuck! Danielle, you have his controls." Why would Danielle be with the pilots? he thought, but it was too risky to clog the COM with his need for clarification.
In the ARC COM, Sadiyah attempted to reason with Cole that continuing to fight would likely destroy the mech or burn through all of its fuel. "We've taken significant damage across all systems, and that last firefight used up enough energon for ten minutes of run time. If we run out out here, they could destroy the mech!"
"We can replace a machine, but there are lives here we can't leave defenseless!" Cole countered, taking steps towards the field.
"No, we can't replace this one. We have to stop, the Autobots have to handle this and we need to get to safety. You know the General's protocols!" She raised her voice at him.
He growled at her "Then let her court marshal me after, but we're going in!" He commanded the mech forward, but nothing happened. He pushed his controls again but the mech turned back towards the hangar instead.
"I'm sorry, Cole." Heather said flatly, having removed his command of the mech and operating it herself. Grinding and halting plates folded into their places as it transformed. The JLTV drove the short distance back into the ARC hangar, none of the remaining pilots daring to break the silence.
A waiting tech opened the hangar door just enough for the JLTV to slip through before running away, forgetting to close it. The mech parked under its scaffolding and powered down.
Cole hastily extracted himself from his peripherals, hucking them at the desk with an angry grunt. "What good are we if we can't be out there when we're actually needed?!"
Heather, Sadiyah, and Daniel also pulled themselves out of their stations and made their way to follow him towards the inner entry that would get them to a safer location within the base. Heather stepped warily around the scattered pieces of the Decepticon cat, unnerved at how close she and Sadiyah had been to being torn apart. Archer… the thought bit into her mind, a pang of despair reigniting in her chest.
A screeching of protesting metal slit the air around them. Excruciating gunshot reports exploded from the remaining guard inside with them. He was aimed at the external entry point the mech had just returned through.
Turning towards the large hangar door, they saw it had been crumpled to the side. Now a large shadow was creeping across the floor, thrown by a massive black and purple Decepticon with no face. It tilted its head and seemed to be regarding the scattered remains of the cat Con.
Finding some unknown reserve of untraceable courage, Danielle bolted back to her station and quickly strapped into her headset. Finding the HUD still active, she managed to arm and aim the SHRED and smoke bomb protocols from the vehicle in the corner. Both activated, the projectiles flew out and three connected across the enemies chest and arm. The electricity glittered briefly before the smoke bomb detonated, the shockwave enough to knock Heather backwards and deafening them all.
Fighting the all-consuming ringing in her ears, Heather shakily crawled towards her teammates and her, now only, escape route. Cole had picked up the gun from the fallen soldier and shot into the smoke cloud with the remaining guard. After firing the mech's defenses, Danielle had pulled out immediately and ran towards the door, dropping into a crouch to run beneath the spray of bullets. She waved Sadiyah towards the door. Glancing back at the enemy in the cloud, her eyes fell on Heather not far enough from the creature. Without an inkling of thought for her own safety, she ran to help her last ally.
Several thick black cables snaked out slowly from within the smoke, hanging in the air.
Heather screamed at Danielle to run while she scrambled across the floor. Ignoring the woman's plee, she continued on, reaching out towards her.
Soundwave walked silently forward from the lingering white smoke cloud. The barrage of bullets continued to ring off his armor. Barely calculating the minor threat, a cord raced out and dug into the wall directly behind the soldier with a spray of concrete and gore, stopping the irritant for good. Cole was close enough to feel the warm wet spray across his face. He continued firing, focusing on the cords that may try to strike him next.
Looking down the range towards where he thought Danielle to be now, a familiar looming shape approached the ARC hangar.
"Soundwave is here! He's going for the pilots!" he yelled into the COM as he offlined a drone that had kicked him. Sandstorm joined him as they blasted their way towards the hangar.
Bumblebee fought his rising terror as he realised Soundwave had already been consumed by the darkness beyond the exposed ARC hangar entrance.
Danielle had just reached Heather, grabbing her by the wrist that she found was slick with blood, but dragged her towards the door when she heard the gunfire die down by half. The soldier lay slumped next to Cole who managed to dodge one of the cords.
He kept shooting until the gun only clicked when he pulled the trigger. He knew he'd be too slow to get to the other gun that was likely low on ammo anyway. Frozen where he stood, Cole could only watch as a cable danced in the air, it's menacing hooks darting towards him.
In an instant, it stopped, the end bursting into a ball of electricity, and rerouted back towards the exterior entrance to Soundwave's left. Four more electrified cords shot towards the opening as the Con also fired his blasters at whatever was outside.
A high pitched whine beat the air as Sandstorm charged in through the door, hand rotor slashing at the cords that shot towards him, but more kept appearing.
A flash of yellow and suddenly Bumblebee was on top of the Decepticon, having tackled him to the ground. He smashed his fist into the Con's face as he armed his other cannon over the enemy's chest. Before he could fire, he was thrown aside by the larger foe into the wall. The heinous cords followed him with precision, latching to Bumblebee's chest plates and helm.
In that one silent second, Bee's bright sky blue gaze finally found Danielle's across the hangar floor. He focused only on her even as the electricity burst across him, stealing the light from his optics.
Sandstorm hacked at the mechanical serpents, stopping the onslaught on his ally, but the scout didn't rouse. He continued to throw punches and slice anything he could reach. Small bullets began to ring off the Decepticon once again as Cole had gotten to the other gun and resumed shooting even as he backed towards the exit. Energon blasts sailed over Sandstorm's shoulder as Optimus ran towards the hangar to tear apart the Decepticon. Heather tugged a shell shocked Danielle towards the door held open by Sadiyah.
Sensing the dwindling Decepticon army outside and finding himself quickly disadvantaged, Soundwave shoved away the green bot assaulting him. The air shimmered and contorted behind him as a ground bridge opened. Backing swiftly into it, Soundwave disappeared inside, the portal closing a second after he was gone.