-1Here's the start of the action I promised.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She wasn't sure what caused it. A mistake, a misstep, something… It didn't really matter to her. All that mattered was that the yellow car was giving chase as she ran down the street. Desperate to lose it, she pushed past anybody and everybody unfortunate enough to wind up in her path, blurting out apology after apology as she went. Tripping over a newspaper salesman's stock, she earned herself a few choice invectives that she paid no mind to as she picked herself up and kept going. Pushing herself harder, harder, she dashed down side streets and doubled back again and again, giving it everything she had. Ducking behind a crowd of people, she used them as cover, hiding the fact that she had switched streets, darting down an alley. Not slowing down, she sprinted down two more alleys and took two more corners before even daring to pause. There was no sign of her pursuer. It appeared that she had lost him, or it, or whatever it was. She was safe now, but things had officially gone too far. Seeing creepy cars was one thing, but being chased?
"Man, this has got to be the weirdest day anybody's ever had. Why am I being chased by a bunch of psycho cars and some kind of demonic jet?!" Up ahead, a pair of what appeared to be policemen were standing next to what appeared to be a police van. "Thank goodness!" She was there in what seemed to her to be the longest instant ever, trying to explain what was going on even as a third man, this one wearing a business suit, stepped into her view. The sight of him silenced her, but the sound of his voice did far more than that. "You can call me Agent Simmons. Hello, Sarah, or should I say NBE-Alpha?"
"You…" She knew that voice somehow; had heard it before. It was the man some part of her couldn't help but hate. One of the policemen opened a door on the van. "You're coming with us, lady. Come along quietly and everything will be just fine, all right?" Something deep down inside her screamed at her that she couldn't let them take her. "No!" She pulled away as the two policemen moved in to grab her. It was then that her purse opened up as Dial-Tone came to its creator's defense. "Dial-Tone, don't!" The man the transformed cell phone had chosen as its target showed remarkably fast reflexes as he swatted the little thing away to land on the ground. His partner already had his gun out as he took a shot despite her cries. An instant later she was screaming in rage at the sight of the smoking husk that was all that remained of her little protector. "You killed him!"
Several more men stepped into view, having been out of her line of sight behind the van, which two of them were quickly stripping of the 'police' label. Beneath the fake label and distinctive colors, the van was a dead black, marked with two symbols that filled her with dread… 'S7'. All this meant nothing to the men who had just stepped into her view, and they used her momentary distraction to grab her. Giving a wordless cry of anger, she threw all her strength into trying to break free. It took four of them just to hold her in place and even then they were having trouble, a fact that made her think she stood a pretty good chance of breaking free fairly soon… at least until something whacked her upside the head. Her vision erupted in a cascade of white and she was out before she knew it.
"…And that's why I'm stuck here in La-La Land." The monster gave a fearsome growl, baring its terrible fangs. "Sector Seven," it snarled in stark black rage. Shrugging, she tried to defuse the situation. "At least we don't have to worry about interruptions this time around…" A sigh escaped it as it realized the truth behind her words and calmed down. "…True. I'd just hoped they day I met you would be the last I'd ever see of them." A question immediately jumped into her mind. "The day you met me?" It nodded with a wry smile at the memory. "It's a long story… so it would probably be easier to just show you." This confused her, to say the least. "Show me? How in the world do you plan on showing me anything?" The thing seemed to smirk at her, an expression that held no condescension, merely relief that she was finally starting to understand. "Can't you feel how we're connected? That's why I'm able to speak to you like this." This statement gave her pause. Yes, she felt something… They were indeed connected, though she had no idea how. The uncertain, questioning look on her face prompted it to speak again. "I know you can feel it too, just like I can. This is the key to it all, to understanding what you lost, what I still have. I will give you everything I have, everything I can… Sarah."
The world in its entirety was completely different when Sarah awakened in the back of the Sector Seven van as it pulled up to its destination. All she could do was wait, so wait she did, as the agents who had captured her prepared to get her out of the van and escort her to wherever they were using as a base. The door opened to the thundering roar of water and lots of it, a vast, unending cascade of water. As she was let out of the van, she took stock of where she was. A huge tunnel of some sort, created on a scale that seemed to suit Megatron and his kin far better than the humans who used it, made of concrete that smelled of equal parts age and mildew accentuated by the damp air. Several hundred feet behind the lot of them, the tunnel opened onto what appeared to be a dusty brown vista overlooking a deep blue lake that mirrored the cloudless sky above it. A wide-open space… A straight shot to the open sky… She looked around at all the men surrounding her. They know about me and what I can do, but I'm willing to bet they don't know the rest! Wasting no more time, she lashed out with more than human strength to throw them all back before transforming even as she took off running for the exit at top speed.
It felt good to be back in what she had come to think of as her true shape, Zephyr had to admit. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed it; that and the ability to fly. And speaking of flying… Taking her sprinting steps into an upward leap, she shifted into jet form and blasted off. "Shoot her down! Shoot her down!" The sound of rocket-powered grenades being fired in her general direction drew her attention and she soon found herself dodging for dear life, concentrating on not hitting any walls and letting the rockets pass her by. Left, right, up, down, spinning sideways… Every move she knew or could think up on the fly was summarily used in rapid succession. So engaged was she in her desperate dodging that she failed to notice that the huge, thick metal doors to the tunnel had closed… at least until she slammed into them. A thunderous crash deafened everyone in the area, and a second, smaller crash sounded as the now badly damaged jet fell to the ground. A moment later Zephyr shifted back into her normal form and tried to stand on two badly broken legs, shattered claws struggling to pull the doors back open.
Simmons stepped forward as a good dozen men carrying back-mounted liquid nitrogen guns began to close in. "Leaving so soon, NBE-Alpha? You've only just gotten here!" Stumbling and falling to her knees, she gouged fairly deep claw marks in the doors that had blocked her escape, still trying to pry them open. "I want to go home," she quavered, voice shaking from the pain she was in as she unknowingly revealed to them that whatever alien species she represented had gender divisions just as humans did, another similarity that intrigued him to no end. Simmons stood his ground as the others continued to advance on her. "Why, you are home!" She tried to swipe her claws at the advancing agents even as Simmons spoke up again. "You have no idea how wonderful it is that we found you. All our research came to a dead halt when we lost NBE-01 and the Cube. Now, with you here, we can finally resume. And better yet, your armor is split open so we can study what lies beneath it. Do you have any idea how much time we spent trying in vain to crack NBE-01?" Any reply she might have made was summarily drowned out by the sound of a dozen freeze guns firing as she tried in vain to crawl away, cornered against the closed doors and the side of the tunnel. Her pleas to be let go fell on deaf, uncaring ears, softening and slurring as the cold enfolded her, forcing her mind into the dark…
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh dear, huh?
Read and review, please! Let me know how I'm doing!