Detonation time: unknown
Silas watched as an African-American man in a suit emerged from the portal, followed by a beautiful woman with raven hair. Darby's mother, Silas recalled. Both had their hands up, but Ms., Darby's hands dropped to cover her mouth in horror as she beheld the sight of a disheveled Raf trapped between two MECH agents. She started towards the boy but was stopped when several men aimed their guns at her. Having been on the receiving end of their electric bolts, she had no desire to go through such an experience again, despite her mother's instinct screaming to go to Raf's side.
"Is that all?" Silas asked Optimus, his dark eyes never leaving the glowing portal.
"That is all," confirmed the Prime.
Silas turned to his troops. "Men, move out."
His men rushed forward until they reached the portal. There they all paused, uncertain about what would happen should the take the leap, or in this case step of faith. Before Silas could yell at them to get moving, or perhaps just shoot one, Sanchez took the lead, confidently striding through the tear to the space beyond. Silas's eyebrow quirked. Sanchez was gutsy. That could prove to be a problem. If he wasn't careful, this crisscross would become a double-cross for the second time in mere months (all though technically, he was the one who double-crossed first in the last alliance.)
The MECH leader wasn't worried though. He knew where his men's loyalty lay. And so would Sanchez, should the general attempt to turn against him.
Silas directed twenty or so of his best shooters to guard the prisoners, and seizing the scuff of Raf's shirt, hauled the shaking child along with him to the portal. Stopping just in front of the bridge, Silas couldn't help one last comment.
"Thank you, Mr. Prime. General Sanchez's report was quite true. You are quite generous."
Turning round he entered the ground bridge and emerged in the Autobot base.
In her hundreds of stellarcycles across the galaxy, Arcee had met few of Megatron's follower's that were as persistent as the warlord himself. Most were skittish and dishonorable, willing to stab their "beloved" leader in the chassis the moment they could be sure that they wouldn't be turned to scrap. But Airachnd was a completely different breed. She was still skittish and dishonorable, but her persistence to kill Arcee and take Jack's head would have impressed even Megatron.
Arcee swerved violently as she sped down a back alley on the outskirts of Las Vegas, feeling her rider nearly fall off. Personally, she was impressed he had hung on for as long as he had, considering one arm was in a cast. His ribs were still bothering him; she could see the facial muscles around him mouth tense and read the spike in his heart rate jump every time she turned sharply. But he would never admit to any pain. He was resilient, like her. Arcee wasn't sure if that was such a good thing.
Speaking of resilient…
A second missile turned an impressive sky blue sports car into a hissing lump of acid burned metal. Arcee groaned. It seemed as if the spider bot had a variety of different projectiles. The first had been full of energon, and had taken out what appeared to be one of the few phone booths left in the world.
As Airachnid readied her third missile, Arcee attempted for what seemed like the hundredth time to contact base. "Ratchet, do you read me? I repeat, do you read?"
Nothing.
"Scrap. Doesn't she ever go anywhere without that fragging blocker?"
"I believe it is part of the sport to make her victims in around in circles aimlessly."
Arcee exhaled heavily through her vents. If her partner had one flaw, it was the fact that he inserted logic into situations where she really did not want to hear it.
"We need to stop her, now. We can't risk her attracting too much attention."
As soon as the words left her voice-box, the faint, but steadily growing sound of sirens could be heard. Arcee wanted nothing more than to face palm. As it was, Jack face palmed hard enough to make it up for the both of them.
Distracted as she was by her ire, she didn't notice the third missile detonating less than twenty yards ahead of her. She resisted the instability of the shifting concrete that was being affected by the resounding shockwave, and swerved to the far right, hoping to avoid the smoking crater in the street that she assumed was there.
While there was a lot of smoky cover, the smoke was not actually smoke. The more appropriate term would have been vapor, the kind seen rising from boiling water, or in some cases, extreme cold. And fast-acting liquid nitrogen designed to solidify on contact with an object is most certainly very cold.
Arcee's wheels hit the edge of the ice, but that was enough. She swerved violently, wheels spinning in vain to find purchase on the slick surface. The only way to stop herself would be to transform, but that would mean dumping off Jack.
As it was, the problem was immediately solved when Arcee's swerve violently dislodged Jack. He was sent flying through the air, his one good arm flailing. The good news was that he did not land on the ice, where the still rising vapor would have frozen his moist flesh to the surface, and left him at the mercy of the approaching Decepticon. The bad news was that he landed hard ahead of Arcee on the equally solid asphalt-on his broken arm.
As Arcee transformed facing her enemy, she could not help the wince that the sound of re-breaking bones brought to her faceplate. Her wince soon turned into a mask of rage. How dare that spider-bot hurt her partner again! As she prepared to face her arch-nemesis once more, Arcee's resolve to end the Con's spark-beat had never felt more crystal clear.
Airachnid felt triumph as she descended from the skies onto her prey like a vulture on a dying animal. She hissed eagerly as looked beyond Arcee to the sprawling, groaning form of Jack. Her Jack.
Arcee had an insane notion that any male that came around her and her shiny little blue paint job belonged to her. Hadn't Airachnid proven time and time again that the cycle-bot had to learn to share? It wasn't here fault that so many of Arcee's toys ended up…broken.
And now she could play with another of the Autobot's toys: the little human Jack. Now that she was once again a member of the Decepticon army, she could no longer bring her trophies on board. The last time she had, Knockout threw a fit, complaining that the hiker's still bloody head was dripping on the floor, and blood was hard to get out without use of chemicals that would mess up his paint job. But luckily, Megatron had simply rolled his optics and told her if she was going to go quench her bloodthirst, make sure she kept her keepsakes somewhere off the ship, away from prying human eyes, and for the Allspark's sake, make sure she didn't attract to much attention.
And so she had. She'd kept out of the public eye, and every other week or so came went down to the surface, and came back up to the ship, humming as she made her way to the wash racks to clear the blood from her sharp claws and multi-jointed legs. But as she made her kills, she began to notice things about her hunting patterns, and in turn her victims. Rather than pick off the kid on the edge of a summer camp, she'd knock over trees to scatter the group so to pick off a boy with raven hair. And another time on recon, she took great pleasure in listening to the screams of a man with blue-grey eyes.
And thus, the once indiscriminate killer started to become picky about her prey. In the beginning it was simply boys with dark hair; then it became boys with raven to jet black hair. And in that group, she made sure their eyes were some shade of blue. She was obsessed. She knew, the crew knew it. Even the usually dense Breakdown knew it, after he'd come across her searching random people's profile pictures via a social networking site for a new target.
And now, here was source of her obsession, helpless except for his guardian, who would soon be taken care of. Who knew? If she was feeling good after the inevitable fight, maybe she'd keep Arcee online long enough to see the femme's reaction as she slowly and steadily cut off Jack's head.
And I am back! Sorry for being gone for so long, but the soon to arrive spring break has rejuvenated my writing bug once more! I've been reading other's works, and it's good to see the TF: Prime archive booming! I'll try to write this next chapter over spring break, but I'll be gone a lot, and probably won't get it done.
Please, don't forget to review!