Chapter 8
Awakening
Anna gasped sharply as she came back to her senses. Blinking rapidly showed that the teens were looking back at her worriedly.
"Are you okay?" Mikaela asked.
"Y-Yeah, I'm fine."
"You sure? Your eyes turned color and you were unresponsive for a few minutes." Sam said concerned of the female soldier.
"Yeah, I'm sure. I'm fine. How much further until we reach the city?" She asked, turning her mind back to the task at hand. She would worry about what had happened after what was going on.
"Just passed a sign that said five miles." Mikaela informed her.
Anna started checking over her guns again. "Okay, here is what's going to happen. The two of you are going to stay with Lennox, Epps, or I unless we tell you otherwise. I know you aren't kids but you aren't adults yet either and you're entering a war zone. If you are going to be able to go home after this, you're going to have to listen to what we tell you to do, understand?"
The two teens nodded seriously. The little Nokia bot Anna felt move around in her pocket on her pants.
She pulled it out and it transformed. Bumblebee, sensing the presence of a sparkling inside of the car, started chirping from the radio and the sparkling started chirping back. The three humans listened as the two aliens communicated as they continued on to Mission City.
There was a pause when Anna moved her hand gently. "Okay, little one, transform back into a phone. Stay in my pocket unless I say otherwise, okay?"
The little bot squeaked before doing so and she placed it back in her pocket, buttoning it so that there would be little chance of the little one falling out.
They pulled into the city and stopped, everyone getting out of their vehicles. Anna joined her fellow soldiers and watched as Lennox ran back outside from a pawn shop.
"I got shortwave radios." He said passing them to Anna and Epps. The radios they had been using while useful in close proximity, weren't going to be able to contact any air reinforcements that came.
"Wait. What am I supposed to do with these?" Epps protested as Anna didn't even bother opening her mouth as she took her's apart and began to mess with it.
"Well, use them! It's all we got!" Lennox yelled back.
"This is like RadioShack dinosaur radios or something, man! I'm only gonna get 20 or 30 miles out of these things!" Then blinked down at his handing shock when Anna plucked it out of his hand and replaced it with the one she had just had, repeating the process.
"Here, 50 miles."
Lennox and Epps exchanged glances as Anna finished the second one and handed that one to Lennox.
"And a backup radio. Let's get trying to contact those aircrafts."
Epps shook out of his stupor and raised his radio up to talk.
"Are there any aircraft orbiting the city?" As soon as he said that, Anna's necklace began vibrating even more than it had been with the Autobots around her.
"F-22 at 12:00," she heard Lennox say. Her eyes locked onto the jet he had spotted. She had a really bad feeling about this. "Alright, I want planes for air cover and get Black Hawks on station to extract that Cube. You got it?" Epps nodded. "Air Force has arrived! Pop smoke! Anna! Once we get a response, start getting civilians evacuated!" Anna nodded her head once in understanding of her task.
"Raptor, Raptor, do you copy? We have visual. Green smoke is the mark. Provde air cover and vector Black Hawks for extraction." As the F-22 began to fly around again, the truck Autobot began to transform into his bipedal form.
"IT'S STARSCREAM!"
"Please tell me you copy!" Epps said desperately.
"Back up! Take cover!" The autobot ordered. "Bumblebee!" The yellow and black autobot joined him and helped lift the truck at an angle to provide some type of cover to the humans from the incoming missile.
"No, no, no! Move!" Lennox yelled as everyone ducked for cover just in time.
The missiles impacted the truck sending the two autobots flying from the force of the collision and the explosion. They weren't the only ones to fly through the air, however, the humans were knocked to the ground and pelted by debris.
Anna slowly sat up, her ears ringing and her eyes taking a moment to focus and almost rolled her eyes as she heard her two friends arguing with each other.
"What the hell was that?"
"What are you talking about?" Epps demanded.
"What do you mean, what am I talking about?! They shot at us!"
"F-22 pilots would never fly below buildings. That's alien! That ain't friendly!"
Anna tuned them out as she went into medic mode, following the sounds of those crying out in pain and for help.
Lennox and Epps after a few minutes of arguing and planning what to do next, glanced around for Anna only to realize that she was deep in medic mode now, doing the task the Lennox had set her, and was far away from them. Hopefully, they would see each other at the end of this.
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Twenty minutes later, Anna looked up at towards the top of a skyscraper and saw Megatron with most likely an autobot in his claws. Clenching her jaw, Anna lifted her rifle, aimed, took a deep breath, and fired, successfully hitting Megatron's left red eye and causing him to turn his attention away from the autobot and onto her.
The autobot took advantage and fired his own shot causing Megatron to let him go. The autobot sped over to Anna and scooped her up into his hands and into an alley just in time for Megatron to find a new target: Optimus Prime.
"Thank ya, lil' lady. I owe ya my life. Be careful out here!" The autobot said seriously as he set Anna down.
"You're welcome. And you can repay me by staying alive! I gotta get going, I can hear the cries for help!" And she dashed off to continue what she had been doing. The autobot watched her disappear for a second before he headed off in the opposite direction towards his comrades.
Anna hadn't made it far before she heard some familiar sounding chirping from another alley. She was frozen for a second before she went down it and in the shadows sat huddled together were four sparklings. She blinked in shock. Had the Allspark created them somehow since she has been separated from the others?
"Hey there, little ones. I'm not gonna hurt you. My name is Anna. I have another one of you in my pocket." She said softly reaching down slowly and unbuttoning her pocket. The little Nokia bot scrambled up her hand without any prompting and propped on her shoulder and trilled at the other sparklings.
The five of them communicated a moment longer before they began to transform into what they had been originally. One was a boombox, one a Mountain Dew machine, one a playstation, and the last a small SUV. Anna sighed, knowing that she would have to get them out of here.
"I need to get you all out of here. Anyway you guys could transform back and get into the back of your sibling?"
The smaller three bots transformed back into bipedal form and did as she had asked, climbing into the backseat. Anna made sure they were safely inside before gently shutting the door they had climbed into and into the driver side door the sparkling had left open for her. The little Nokia bot scrambled off of her shoulder and back towards the other sparikilngs once she got settled.
"Okay, young one, I don't know how this will feel since it is your body, but you're going to have to let me drive, okay?"
A chirp came from the radio and the SUV started up. "Okay, let's go. I don't hear sounds of gunfire or explosions so hopefully the battle is over."
Anna drove carefully through the wrecked city, talking soothingly to the five sparklings that she just knew she would not willingly part from.
Turning a corner, Anna caught sight of her team surrounded by five autobots. She released a deep breath as she came to a stop.
"Okay, all of you stay inside and in this form. I'm to go see what we're doing next and will be right back. You'll be able to see me at all times, okay?" She knew that would help alleviate any stress or anxiety Several understanding chirps came out and got out of the SUV.
Anna came forward just in time to hear Bumblebee talk.
"Whoa! He speaks now?! When did that happen?" Anna asked, causing the humans to startle and whirl towards her.
"ANNA!" Lennox exclaimed, darting forward and hugging her relieved that she was alright. The other soldiers joined him in greeting their medic.
"I leave you guys for a couple of hours and you get all banged up!" She teased them as she eyed all of their injuries. "Have you not learned to dodge?"
"Oh shut up!" Epps said wrapping an arm around her and hugging her. Anna moved on and over to Sam and Mikaela who were conversing with the biggest autobot.
"Glad to see the two of you are alright!" Sam and Mikaela turned towards her and smiled, Mikaela and then Sam hugging her.
"Anna, I'd like to introduce you to the leader of the Autobots: Optimus Prime." Anna turned her gaze onto the red and blue autobot.
"Hello, as I'm sure you heard Sam say, my name is Anna and I'm a medic of the Marine Corps. It's a pleasure to meet you." Anna said warmly. The Prime met her gaze, returning the warmth in them.
"Greetings, Medic Anna. You already know my scout and Sam's guardian Bumblebee. This is my medic Ratchet, weapons specialist Ironhide, and undercover ops coordinator Jazz." Anna grinned towards the small silver autobot.
"Yeah, Jazz and I have met. It's a pleasure to meet the rest of you."
They were interrupted by Lennox joining them.
"Just received orders to head back to Hoover Dam for debrief. Cleanup is on its way."
Anna nodded, moving towards the small SUV she had arrived in.
"Uh, Anna? Where'd that come from?" Epps called out towards her.
"I'll meet you there. I need a bit of a head start."
She got in the SUV sparkling and drove away. Anna knew once they got to Hoover Dam that the autobots would have to know about the sparklings and she also knew that she would also most likely collapse very soon when the Allspark became her.
Anna took a deep breath as her thoughts then turned towards her brother, someone that she hadn't thought about in a long time. And Rhodey. Rhodey had probably not been told that she was alive and had most likely told Tony that she was dead as well. She had to let both of her brothers know that she was alive and well and soon.
