Disclaimer: Me no own, you no sue
A/N: Um... wow. Thank you all for the turn-out! I will keep posting. That said, I am terribly sorry for the late update, and for once I can say with a completely clear conscience that it was not my fault. My darling laptop, Frenzy, decided to play dead on me for two days. Then he came miraculously back to life just when I was too busy to update. So, yeah. I hope you all can forgive me and find it in your hearts to review again! I will reply to all the people with accounts in a few days.
Chapter Nine: Of Police Brutality and Air Time
They had been very lucky, Jeremy knew, as he watched the Autobots form a protective line in front of the far smaller humans behind them. There had been plenty of mechs at the picnic, even though they had kept in their vehicle forms up to that point, and now they were all bristling with weapons and whatever the robotic equivalent to testosterone was. Even more were on their way. As soon as they'd smelled trouble, Jazz had commed Optimus, and now the leader and quite a few of his best warriors were en route, ready to flatten a few Decepticon heads and protect their humans.
The only problem in Jeremy's mind was that his sister was missing in action, and no one had the foggiest idea where she might have gotten to. It was infuriating. Not only had she picked the worst time imaginable to slip off for a trip through the woods, but there was absolutely nothing he could do to help find her. All he could try was slipping away himself and getting into more trouble than he knew how to deal with along with Astrid. His greatest hope at the moment was that Jazz had picked the girl up on his scanners, and she was a safe distance away in the woods behind them, far from enemy hands... and feet.
More Decepticons had turned up, or had been there all along, and the battle lines had been drawn right on the edge of the Lennox's lawn. Several Jeremy recognized from his long debriefings with Will, but others were unknown to him. The ones he was familiar with, however, were all bad news. Cyclonus and Barricade, the slagger who'd tried to squash his sister, seemed to be leading the opposition, and Jeremy began praying harder than ever that Astrid was not somewhere in the forest behind those Decepticons.
Weapons fire erupted so suddenly that no one knew which side had officially fired the first shot, though Jeremy was willing to bet it was Ironhide, who had been growing ever more trigger-happy since he'd first picked up Annabelle's quiet wailing on his audios. The humans dove as one towards the ground. With any luck a flat target was harder to hit than an upright one. Heavy feet made the earth jump and dance beneath them, and Jeremy raised his head just enough to see the action going on just in front of him.
The battle swung back and forth between the two factions, sometimes lady luck favoring one side, then the other. It was nothing short of nerve-wracking for the people lying on the ground, just waiting to be stepped on.
At last, the military men all seemed to have had enough of playing duck and cover, and Will led a small contingent into his house, returning moments later with more guns than Jeremy realized it was even legal to own. He accepted one from Epps and layed back down, bringing one of the bad guys into his sights.
With their human counterparts acting as back-up, the Autobots began to slowly advance across the newly created battlefield. The humans targeted every known weak point on the mechaniod body: the delicate armor beneath the chest, the unguarded joint parts and the bright, easily identified optics. Months of training and instruction from the transformers themselves had greatly increased the military's knowledge and skill against any Decepticon foes.
Optimus and his reinforcements arrived minutes later, called from the nearby countryside where a new transformer was due to make landfall. With these new developments, however, it was unanimously decided that the new arrival could wait a few hours while the leaders helped sort out this unexpected problem.
Then things took a sudden turn for the worse.
It turned out that Astrid had not been behind the Autobots or the Decepticons. By some manner of very ill or very good luck, depending on how one looked at it, she'd wound up about halfway between the two warring factions, meaning that as she came stumbling out of the forest, fearful for her friends and family, she emerged smack dab in the middle of the battlefield. Optimus, Jazz and Barricade all spotted her at the same time, and vice versa.
With a startled little squawk Astrid turned tail and ran full speed away from the Decepticons. Optimus, with Jazz on his heels, surged forward to reach the girl, but unfortunately she'd emerged from the woods a little closer to the Decepticon line than to the Autobots, and just as Optimus stretched out his hand to haul the youngling back to safety, a black, clawed fist zipped out and snatched his target away. Behind him, Jazz let out a shout of frustration, and another, more human voice, echoed the sentiment from farther back in the lines.
A grin of fiendish glee spread over Barricade's face as he tauntingly waved the human in his grip back and forth in front of the Autobot leader. All around them the sounds of battle were dying down as the combatants spotted this new development. The Autobots were afraid to fire for fear of hitting Astrid, causing Barricade to drop her, or inciting the Decepticon to do something violent towards the tiny organic. The Decepticons were just happy to stand there gloating until their leaders made a move.
"Lose one of your pets, Prime?"
"Put her down, Barricade," Optimus said. "Slowly."
"I think not," the 'con scoffed. "Why, all I have to do is squeeze..." he continued, demonstrating the movement and eliciting a squeak from the human, "and I have the entire Autobot army at its knees."
"I wouldn't go that far, Deceptiscum," said Ironhide as he made a show of aiming at Barricade's head.
"Really? Well maybe I'm just wasting my time then," Barricade said. He clenched his fist even tighter, and in the dead silence that followed everyone could hear Astrid's frantic pants for breath.
"Ironhide," Prime ordered, "stand down." Ironhide complied.
"Better," said Barricade. "Decepticons, retreat... but take your time."
A chorus of gruff chuckles and electronic wheezes that the humans supposed was laughter came from the band of red-eyed creeps as they slipped back into the dark forest from whence they'd come. Some lingered to give last minute taunts and jeers to their enemies, who'd been winning just minutes before, and everyone could see the strain it put on Ironhide to just let them walk away. At last, only Barricade was left and every eye and optic was glued to him. His next move might mean the end of a friend's life.
"You have what you wanted, Barricade," Optimus said, "now let the human go."
Barricade shrugged. "Whatever you want, Prime."
No one had time to stop him as the Decepticon pulled his arm back and then launched Astrid into the air. Jazz took off across the field after the sailing figure, but it was painfully obvious that he wouldn't reach her before she hit the ground.
Astrid's eyes were screwed shut from the moment she felt her old nemesis start to move, but the sudden flight did not come as a surprise. She still screamed, though. If she was gonna go, she was at least going to make some noise on the way. Her thoughts were erratic, flashing from the distant past to just earlier that evening with no order or reason. Who knew her life was so unorganized? But all she could think in at least partially coherent words was, 'GonnadiegonnadiegonnaDieGonnaDIEGONNADIEEEE!'
Her last thoughts before impacting with a solid surface was, 'How come I always wind up flying through the air when transformers are involved?'
The next thing she knew, she'd landed. The second thing that occurred to her was that she was still thinking, which meant she wasn't dead. Then she opened her eyes... and gurgled.
She was sitting on air. The air was holding her; she could feel it curling up and around like fingers... invisible fingers...
"Way ta go Mirage!" Jazz's distinctive bass shouted across the lawn.
As Astrid blinked confusedly the air around her began to warp and shimmer, and suddenly she was sitting in a real, solid, opaque hand. For one horrible moment she thought she was going to faint like a true damsel in distress. But the wave of dizziness passed, and she carefully tilted her head back to look up into the pale face of a transformer bearing the Autobot symbol.
"Seems I missed the party," it said.
"Yeah, but you caught the door prize," Jazz said. His new friend looked confused, but he ignored his fellow transformer for a change and reached out to gently scoop up Astrid from Mirage's now-visible grip. "Next time I see Barricade, I'll beat the slag outta him for ya, little lady."
"O-okay."
"Mirage." They all turned to see Optimus standing nearby, looking expectant. The new 'bot, Mirage, turned and saluted him obediently.
"Reporting for duty, sir."
"It is good to see you alive," Optimus said in a slightly warmer tone. "Every one of us that makes it this far is a great boon to our forces."
If Mirage had any kind of response to that, he never got a chance to say it, because right about then the humans arrived from their long run across the Lennox's front lawn. And one especially was being very vocal in his demands to see his sister. Jazz set the girl down on slightly wobbly legs to take the full force of her brother's concern. He smacked into her with the force of a freight train, but no one could hear her hiss of pain over Jeremy's loud shouts of relief and frustration.
"You are never going off by yourself again! Ever! I'll make Jazz haunt you, I swear," he stormed. His hug grew tighter and this time everyone did hear Astrid's yelp of discomfort.
Jeremy quickly released her and Lennox placed a hand on her shoulder with concern. "You alright?"
"I'll live," she answered.
"That is yet to be determined."
"Oh boy." Astrid craned her neck up to look at the giant, angry medic standing just a few yards away from her, his generally serious mouth turned down in a severe frown. Needless to say, he was not a happy 'bot.
"Come here, Astrid," he ordered.
"Um... I'd really rather not..."
"Come. Here."
She ducked her head and shuffled over as slowly as possible without earning the medic's wrath, but she complied for the sake of her hide. None of the military personnel, including her brother, stepped forward to intervene for her. She made a note to prank them later.
Ratchet scooped her up without waiting for permission and swiftly scanned her for every injury known to mankind. What he found was enough to make him growl, but he didn't start spitting profanities, so Astrid figured her first prognosis had been correct. She'd live.
"Severe bruising over the entire torso," he ground out. "Nothing lethal, but she'll be in a good deal of pain for some time I should think."
"So... you're not going to lock me up in the infirmary or anything?" Astrid asked.
"Not unless you'd like me to."
"NO thanks. I like my freedom. Thanks."
"Very well, then," Ratchet declared, redepositing her on the ground. "I will leave you in the very capable hands of your brother."
The Autobots moved off then to talk with the new soldier, filling him in on all that he'd missed and finding out whatever he knew about the universe in general. As the transformers talked among themselves, Jeremy came up and gently (for once) draped his arm over his sister's shoulders.
"I have a question," Astrid said, observing the group of mechanical organisms.
"Yeah?" said Jeremy.
"How come I've gotten beat up a heck of a lot more than you have, and you're the one who's 'officially' involved with these guys?" she demanded. "I mean, seriously, come on! Do I have D.I.D. printed on the back of my shirt or something?"
"D.I.D.?" Epps asked.
"Damsel in distress," Jeremy clarified. "Personally, I think you're just accident prone."
Whack.
"Or they can't translate the difference between 'lady' and 'damsel'," Will said happily. "Jazz does go around calling you 'little lady' all the time, and maybe they think being short makes you distressed."
Epps laughed.
Whack, WHACK.
"Vertically challenged, remember? Vertically challenged." Then, giggling, she added, "You know what? I like hanging out with the Autobots. Next to them all of you look short, too."
A/N: FEED THE STARVING AUTHORS! LEAVE A REVIEW!
Replies to those without accounts:
'Ace: Thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you! Wow! I'm glad you enjoy the story, and I have great fun messing around with it, too. Hopefully from here on out I can keep up with the regular updates (Frenzy permitting).
GodisGod!andIamnot: Yes, summer is a wonderful, beautiful thing. Horticulture? I take it you mean botany. I had to take a lab for college and thought botany would be more fun than chemistry or whatnot... ah, the foolishness of youth. I'm still working on getting published, but such things take a LONG time and I've been too busy with school of late to send in many queries. Thank you for your compliments and your review!