Alise wasn't imagining things when she believed she was being watched. She was in fact being carefully observed by a certain Cybertronian. But not just any one. She was being looked upon by the leader of the Decepticons himself.
Megatron.
He was hiding in the shadows of the city's large buildings, waiting for the moment to strike, but he didn't move at the sight of the warzone beneath him.
His target was Prime. And he was waiting for him to come and find him.
He had waited so long for the All Spark to be within his grasp, and now it was, his only obstacle being the Autobots, and the Witwicky boy. Soon enough, it would be his, and he would rebuild his army once more. He would reap vengeance on the Autobots and all who stood in his way, and he would become the ruler of this pathetic planet. He was certain of it.
For the time being however, he was on one of the apartment buildings, watching and waiting, when he noticed her.
He took no real interest in her at first. Humans to him were organisms that had no right to breathe or exist. They were merely a speck on his foot, a race made to be buried. He watched her as a young child watched ants on the ground. But he watched her all the same.
He saw her save the young human from the blast, and watched as a piece of flying metal lodged itself in her back. He also saw her hit her head against brick. He smiled to himself. It's what they deserve, he thought menacingly, malice flooding his mind. At first he thought the human was dead when it didn't move after being hit, but then he saw it release the young one from its arms. He watched curiously as the human started to get up and walk with the help of the young one, limping and hobbling along, but marching on all the same. It was obviously in pain, he observed, but it wouldn't stop walking.
Most humans would have given up by now, Megatron thought to himself. He acknowledged its resilience, but nothing more.
He watched as the two humans walked to large building and Megatron assumed it was the domain of the younger human, when it pressed a button on the door and another human came out and embraced it. Using his thermal scanner, he saw that this human was overheated, signs of stress showing present through its body. He read the other two humans also, the younger one slightly heated, minimal signs of discomfort showing, and the resilient one showing signs of extreme pressure. He knew it must have been from the pain it was feeling. He also noticed that the human had fluid leaking down its back. He assumed it was from its wound and he let out a disgusted growl. He believed it was called blood.
Then resilient one then started to speak to the large one, and Megatron listened in.
"-going on right now, but you need to get out of the city," he heard it saying. It was trying to warn the other human, trying to save it. He noticed it turned its head slightly, as if watching out for something. Its gaze was pointed in his direction. It was as if it knew he was there...
Impossible, he determined immediately. But nevertheless, he continued to watch the human curiously.
"What?" the large human questioned it. "What do you mean leave the city?"
Humans must be the least intelligent organisms in this universe, Megatron scoffed unmercifully. It can't even comprehend its own kind.
The resilient one was about to speak when the young one cut her off. Megatron idly thought about how that would not have been tolerated on Cybertron.
"Mama, you have to listen to her!" the young human said to the large one. "She saved me from the monsters!"
Megatron smirked at the word monsters. But then he noticed that the resilient one had tensed up. His scans showed that she was experiencing mental stress. The word must have triggered an unpleasant reaction, he decided.
"Monsters?" the large one questioned. It looked at the resilient one oddly. "What monsters?"
"I can't explain it," said the resilient one quickly. "But you have to leave. Right now. The city is in danger, and so are you and your son."
The large one's whole demeanor changed. Even though it had just heard this disturbing news, its body had entered a new state. Megatron did another scan of the human. He couldn't place this new mind set, but it was one like a mixture of determination, doggedness, and even stubbornness, and then amplified. The large one's mind had made up that it was not leaving, and nothing was going to change that. The state had surrounded itself in a stone-like protection, one not able to be cracked.
"But-but... I can't leave," it said harshly, feeding off this new state. "And what do you mean you can't explain?"
"Please, ma'am," the resilient one said, looking the human in the eyes. "Please, just... trust me."
The state the large human had wrapped itself in melted like ice. Megatron watched in surprise as the human's demeanor changed as the resilient one's words hit it. After a moment, it agreed with the resilient one. Megatron became greatly confused. Using the human's World Wide Web, he tried to search for the meaning of the words it spoke, seeing if they held some meaning he didn't understand. When he couldn't find one, he realized it wasn't the words, it was the human.
What force does it possess over other humans? he mused to himself, now curious to know the answer. He continued to watch the human girl closely. After the departure of the large one and its offspring, he watched as she tried to alert the other tenants of the domain to the imposing danger that was coming, but she couldn't get the insects to come out of the structure. Megatron laughed at their stupidity. He continued to look on as she then tried to find her way through the streets. She looked lost trying to navigate back to her original starting position, and after a few moments, she went back to the domain building, giving up. He noticed she was moving significantly slower than she should have been.
Megatron moved slightly closer to observe her more, and the human paused as he did this. She once again turned its head slightly in his direction, but she didn't seem to see him. Megatron was now very interested in the human.
What power does this human possess? he asked himself. So far he had seen the human drastically changed the opinion of the other human using nothing more than a few words, and she also seemed to be able to sense his presence. Do all humans have such traits? He quickly researched to see if this was the case, but he once again could not find anything that would point to this.
Megatron suddenly heard a noise. He and the resilient one turned their heads towards the sound, and he was taken out of his thoughts to see a small group of humans come into view. They appeared younger than the resilient one, but they were older than the young human from before. He started to listen in on their conversation, and he was confused to find that he didn't understand them. They weren't speaking the language of the humans he was used to hearing. Using the World Wide Web, he started to translate the language, and he found that it was called 'Spanish.'
The resilient one started to yell to them. Megatron turned his head and watched as she ran up to them and he was slightly shocked when she began speaking their language. He would admit he was a little taken back, not realizing that humans could accomplish such a feat.
A tongues speaker? he mused to himself. How does this one human contain so many traits that others do not? The skill to speak tongues and manipulate emotions, the resilience to keep moving under injury? Is she trained to do such things? I have seen the military of the humans, and though many possess these traits separately, I have seen none that have all of them. The human is not natural.
Megatron knew the femme looked nothing of something from the military. Was she was spy of some sort? he wondered. He had heard of such humans who looked like civilians but were specially trained to gather information, like one of his Decepticons. Megatron wanted to do more research into this. However, before he was finished observing the girl, Starscream had broke through one of the buildings about a block from the tongues speaker and the other humans. Upon seeing them, he started to chase them, more for sport than anything else. Megatron almost called off his soldier, no wanting him to kill his potential test subject. However, he was curious to see how the tongues speaker would react.
He watched as Starscream chased the group into a street in the city. Megatron moved closer to where they were to get a better look. He watched as the tongues speaker assessed the area and lead the group into an opening in the ground. Starscream ran to the opening and started to place his arm into it, hoping to capture one of the humans, but his efforts were fruitless. He tried doing this for a few more moments, but then withdrew his arm. A disgruntled look appeared on his face, and he lifted his head to look at the sky and paused. Looking up, the soldier seemed to smirk a little, something apparently playing in his mind that no one else would know about. Obviously he didn't no of his leader's presence.
Megatron was a littler curious to know what his soldier was thinking about, and then he cursed the flyer's negligence. Because after a few moments of his daydreaming, Megatron saw the tongues speaker quietly emerge from the opening and stick something into a wound on Starscream's hand, injuring him.
Starscream was obviously in pain. He started to yell and carry on, trying to extinguish the hurt in his hand. The appendages on the limb started to move uncontrollably, and Megatron knew that the whole hand would be inoperable until it was repaired. Serves him right, he thought sternly, knowing the injury from the measly human would teach him not to be so unobservant. Megatron was again intrigued by the skill of the tongues speaker. The ability for a single human to injury the Decepticon in such a way was unbelievable for him to comprehend. He found himself wanting to study the tongues speaker even more, to see what made the human girl so talented.
Talented, he mused. He never believed he would have described a fleshling in such a way, but this femme was different. He wanted to see what made her this way and possibly use her to his own advantage. The gift to manipulate others could be quite useful...
Though the tongues speaker was thrown back into the opening after Starscream's injury blew up in front of her, Megatron assumed that she was well when Starscream started to raise his weapon the opening, vowing her death. Megatron was about to call the soldier off, when suddenly one of the Autobots came into view, firing at Starscream. It was the silver Autobot that Megatron believed was designated 'Jazz.' Starscream was thrown off of his thoughts of the tongues speaker and began to attack. Megatron's mind was averted also, his thoughts now concentrating on the Autobot. The tongues speaker he would save for later. Right now, he had a battle to win.
After the blast, the first thing Bumblebee felt was pain. It was immeasurable, and he cried out, not being able to hold it back. Him and Ironhide had been thrown into the air, and though he didn't know about 'Hide, he had landed roughly, and painfully on the street. He tried to move after a moment of lying there in agony, but found he couldn't. He looked down at his body and to his horror, he found that his whole lower half was missing. He could see one of his legs peaking out of the wreckage he was in and it made him shudder. He knew Ratchet could probably repair him, but that didn't stop the pain he was in now.
Dear Primus, make it stop! he begged, but he got no relief.
Through the dust of the blast, he heard the yelling of the soldiers Lennox and Epps. Then as the air cleared Sam and Mikaela came into view. They both looked bruised and battered, and blood was running down both of their heads, but they were up and moving, and this made Bee feel a little better about their conditions. They saw him in the wreckage and they started to run in his direction. They got closed to him and stopped, horror crossing both of their faces.
"Oh, my god," Sam yelled. Bee tried to crawl to them, but it took so much out of him and he was hurting so much. Sam and Mikaela then saw the complete damage the blast had done to him. They both saw his missing legs. Mikaela put her hands over her mouth and Sam started to sway a little. "Bumblebee? No! Your legs! Your legs..." Sam stopped. He looked like he was about to be sick. "You all right?"
What do you think? Bee thought sarcastically from his pain, but all he did was whine in response.
"Please get up. Bumblebee? Get up!" Sam started to yell again, a new panic settling in him. Suddenly he turned. "Ratchet!"
Bee was grateful Sam called for the medic knowing he wouldn't be able to do it himself, but suddenly, a darkness dawned on him. Something was missing.
"What the hell was that?" he heard Lennox yelling a little bit in front of them. Bee looked over at them.
"What are you talking about?" Epps yelled back. They both sounded understandably tense and out of breath.
"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!"
Suddenly, Lennox's face dropped. He started to turn and look around wildly. "Dammit, where is she!" he yelled.
Realization hit Bee like a freight train. He felt his Spark stop.
Alise.
He saw her run across the street right before Starscream fired. He had tried to call out to her, and demand she come back if he had to run and get her himself, but she didn't stop. And then the blast came. And she disappeared. He started to breathe heavily.
No, no, no, no, no, NO! he started screaming in his head.
"Who?" Epps questioned, confused, not noticing the missing girl.
"Alise!" Lennox responded hotly. "She ran at the last second to save a kid!" Lennox ran his hands through his hair and Epps's eyes widened. He then shook his head grimly. "Check the alleyway over there." Lennox pointed to the alley he was talking about. "See if she's... there." Bee thought he was going to die the way he said that, as if he believed he would find not her, but what was left of her from the blast.
No, no, NO! Bee pleaded to himself. Not her, not HER! Not my ALISE!
Epps nodded to Lennox and ran hesitantly to the alleyway. He slowed slightly before he turned the corner to enter it. He didn't want to have to see the broken body of the girl, but he knew he had to look.
He turned the corner, and held his breath to find... nothing. No body, no limbs, no ashes. He had been in war long enough to know that even if she was hit by the blast, there would be some trace of her left behind. Epps let out a sigh of relief, and he investigated a little further just to make sure he wasn't missing anything. He did a quick sweep, but the only thing of interest he found was blood on the wall of one of the buildings in the alley. Epps hoped it wasn't hers, but at least it wasn't a body. If anything, she was injured, but not dead. But that still didn't explain where she was.
He quickly ran back to Lennox.
"Anything?" Lennox asked nervously.
Epps shook his head. "Nothing. There's a little blood on the wall, but no... pieces." He didn't know how else to say it. "You know if she did get hit-"
"-something would still be there," Lennox finished and Epps nodded. "So where is she?" Epps shrugged grimly, not knowing the answer. Then Lennox looked over at Bee, and saw him staring intently at him. Bee chirped wildly at him, and he cringed as ran over to Bee with Epps.
"'Where is she?'" Bee voiced desperately when they stood in front of him. He saw Sam and Mikaela look sadly at him from the corner of his eye, but he didn't even turn to glance at them.
"Bumblebee," Lennox started, trying to be soft with him. He knew the bot cared for the girl and that it was probably hurting him significantly for him to not know where she was. He saw the way he acted with her and he just… knew. "We couldn't find any-"
"'WHERE IS SHE?'" he sounded once again, harder and more pained this time. Bee was frantic, and he felt as though his Spark was being torn apart.
"Bumblebee, listen, " Epps tried. "If she was... hit, by the blast and... killed," he noticed Bee flinch sadly when he said this and he tried to place his words carefully, "there would be something... left behind, okay? Nothing was there. She wasn't killed by the blast." Epps decided not to mention the blood, not wanting to frighten the bot more than he already was.
"'Then where (static) did she go?'" Bee questioned, mournfully. His Alise wasn't there, and he wouldn't feel any differently until she was with him, safe in his hands where he could protect her. Anywhere else was too dangerous, and if she was in danger, he would stop at nothing to save her. He had only known the femme for a few days and yet, she had become so important to him. The thought of her… dead, just wasn't bearable to him. Not her. Not his Alise.
Epps and Lennox lowered their heads, not wanting to look him in the eyes.
"We don't know," Lennox said solemnly.
Bee started to shake. All the worst possibilities of what could have become of her started to flood Bee's mind; her wandering off into a battlefield by mistake; her trapped under some wreckage they weren't seeing; her being carried off by a Decepticon... All of the ideas were like a stab to the Spark to Bee.
Bee let out an anguished noise and dropped his head.
The pain from missing his limbs suddenly became nothing to the pain he was feeling inside of him as a thought started to dawn on him; his Alise may never be coming back.
Alise let out another scream as she pulled the remaining piece of metal out from her back. She looked at the piece dripping in her own blood, and then discarded it to the ground with the other two. The metal had broken off into three separate pieces in the wound in her back. The first piece had most defiantly been the most painful to get out, but it didn't stop the remaining two pieces from being excruciating also. She leaned back against the cool wall, tears saturating her face and continuing to fall. She glanced at the flood around her.
It was disgusting combination of water, blood, and vomit. She cringed. After trying to remove the second piece, her stomach had lurched, and she released its contents onto the floor, her not being able to make it too one of the toliets in the restroom. She was glad no one had entered the room for whatever reason. She didn't want anyone to see her this way.
She had been in the restroom for a half an hour trying to get the pieces out. Even though she had the urge to just stay on the floor until unconsciousness overtook her, she knew she needed to move, and that if she did fall asleep, she probably wouldn't wake up. Trying to stand, she instantly became dizzy and fell to her knees. She felt exhausted and pained, and yet she felt slightly better without the metal in her back. At least she could move without it digging into her skin, now. She knew she had already lost too much blood, but she knew she had to go.
Alise tried to stand once more, this time holding onto the wall, and she slowly got to her feet. Once she regained her balance, she walked over to the sink. Turning on the water, she splashed some in her face to wipe away the tears, sweat, and blood. She also swished some of the water in her mouth and spit it into the sink, trying to get the foul taste out of her mouth. She looked in the mirror and examined her back.
Her shirt was absolutely ruined, blood soaking through it so much that it wasn't even red anymore. It was just a large black circle there on her back. She gathered some paper towels and wetted them, and she lifted up her shirt slightly and started to gently pat the wound as best she could. She cringed at the touches, each of them burning at the slight pressures. At first she thought it was helping, but then she quickly realized that all it was doing was wiping away the dried blood and letting the new rise to the top.
Alise knew she needed to wrap the wound somehow to try and get the bleeding to stop. A thought suddenly struck her. She still had her scarf wrapped on her arm from her previous injury. She quickly started to unwrap her arm and was amazed to see that the large cut on her arm was completely healed, the only indication it was there being a long, thin scar. Whatever Ratchet had put on her had worked miraculously.
He'll probably be able to patch me up then, Alise thought gratefully. She couldn't wait until she saw them all again. She just hoped they were all okay.
The scarf was long enough that Alise could wrap it around her back. Gingerly placing it where it was going to help stop the bleeding, she wrapped it in the front of her body under her shirt. Then taking in another deep breath, she pulled on it, tightening the wrap around her. She let out a pained grunt, and then she tied it one last time. She pulled her shirt back down over her 'bandages,' and she looked at herself one last time in the mirror before she sluggishly walked out of the restroom.
Alise had no idea where she was supposed to be going, so she just continued to walk through the tunnels of the subway station. None of the subways were running anymore, and Alise wasn't surprised; the whole city was probably shutting down. She was all only down there, and it sent a chill through her spine. She was all alone.
She walked for what felt like a hundred blocks, even though she knew she couldn't have walked for more than a quarter of a mile. But as she continued to walk, she suddenly noticed something frightening; she was losing feeling in her fingertips. She swallowed hard. She needed to get help.
Basically just picking a random street, she walked up the stairs of one of the openings for the subway. When she made it to the top where the outside was, expected to see the same damage and chaos she had the last time she was outside. However, she was met with a pleasant, yet confusing surprise: there was no trace of a warzone here.
The streets were deserted, but nothing was out of place. There was no debris, no footprints, no monsters. Alise smiled at that though, but then she gloomed again. That meant there were no Autobots either. Alise did see some smoke in the close distance, however. She knew the war would be there soon enough.
She started to walk along the streets a little, trying to find some place to go when the fight came. She knew the subway was an option, but she was honestly worried that no one would see her if she blacked out down there. At least if she was outside, someone (or something) would find her. She was getting deeper into the city where more of the larger, most connected buildings were. As she walked slowly along the sidewalk, something about one of the buildings caught her eye. It looked like a convention center.
Alise stood there for a moment. The lights in the building were all on, and there were people walking around in the lobby area, none of which seemed concerned about the world outside. She suddenly got a sinking feeling in her stomach. After attending many conventions with her parents, she knew that you became unconcerned about the outside world. There were always too many people, too many things to see. There'd be no way you could hear anything on the outside, including a war zone a few blocks down the street. And they probably wouldn't have been alerted if the city's communications were shut down. Basically, all the people inside were in danger, and none of them had the slightest idea.
Not, however, if Alise had anything to say about it.
She quickly hobbled across the street and started to head towards the front doors of the center, her back streaking in protest. She tried to open the doors, but found they were locked. Then, a sign on the door caught her attention.
'Les délégués et interprètes: Utilisez les portes côté droit,' the sign read. Alise quickly reconized the language as French and she read it. 'Delegates and interpreters: Use the right side doors.'
Oh shit, Alise thought to herself. Suddenly, her mind flashed to her ride on the helicopter earlier today. The pilot said he needed to go to an international delegates' convention in a nearby city.
It suddenly clicked in her head. He was talking about Mission City, and the delegates were French representatives coming to the United States. She mentally cursed once more, and placed her forehead against the glass of the door in stress. She sighed hotly.
This is NOT my day, she groaned to herself. She then did as the sign asked, and entered in through the center through the right side doors.
Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay! Long chapter and I wanted to make it great! I'm off to the next chapter! Please review, and tell me what you think!
As always, I own nothing!
~Mel