Chapter 7

The fact that Clover had taken refuge behind his legs should have told Sam that what they were about to see wasn't good. If Clover, who was brave as hell, was feeling scared then whatever they were heading towards wasn't good at all. The underground silo that they were standing in was huge by all standards. Multitiered gantries and girders leavened with strands of tubes that carried liquid nitrogen surrounded something encased in blue tented ice. That something was huge, ominous, and bipedal. It was also a few feet bigger than even Optimus Prime had been.

It was another robot. Both Mikaela and Sam found that they couldn't quite take their eyes off of the bipedal monstrosity in front of them. Not that Sam found he really needed too because the next thing he noticed was done so without his eyes. Other than Clover Sam found that he could sense very few pokémon roaming about the room. There were plenty of people but very few pokémon. It made sense too because if the mech in front of them was enough to make Clover want to keep Sam between them then it probably wasn't the best thing to keep nervous and twitchy pokémon out of their pokéballs where they could cause problems.

"Oh my God." Maggie muttered as she stared up at the metal behemoth before her while Glen nervously fiddled with his phone.

"I'll be a son of a bitch." Keller almost whispered.

"This babies the first we found." Simmons said with a note of pride in his voice. He and Banachek were leading the group ever closer to the leviathan in the middle of the room. "We think that when it approached our world, it came in too low over the North Pole." Banachek said. "There may have been an aurora or half a dozen other things that caused it to crash. We think that when it crashed into the ice and for whatever reason fell through the ice and ended up frozen. It's not unlike what happened to you grandfathers ship." He said looking at Sam.

Sam merely shrugged his shoulders at Banachek's observation. He didn't care about the various theories that any of the men working around him had. He didn't even care if any of them were true. All he cared about was the fact that they were standing in front of Megatron. The very being that would try to tear their world asunder without any reason other than he could. And only he and Mikaela really knew what they were all staring at.

"We call it NBE one." Simmons said. The man was wearing the same superior smirk that he'd been wearing when he'd tried to interrogate Sam and Mikaela the night before. "That's an acronym." Simmons added looking at Epps.

"I got that." Epps snapped, his dark eyes narrowed at the man before him.

"They're called Decepticons." Sam said, "And the one standing in front of us is their leader. The harbinger of death himself, Megatron."

"The Decepticons are the bad guys." Mikaela added helpfully.

"I kinda got that from the name." Lennox said. He couldn't help but feel a bit of respect for the two teenagers standing next to him. They were taking everything very well considering that was going on.

ooo

As the group continued to converse amongst themselves a small mechanical spider shape was working its way slowly around the room so that it wouldn't be seen. When workers came too close for Frenzy's liking he simply disappeared into the background. It wasn't very difficult considering all of the mechanical objects that surrounded was no way at all that the humans around him would know that he was there and with Megatron in the room with him any of the monsters attention would be fixed upon the more likely threat. For the time being he was safe and could do what he needed to without feat of getting caught.

ooo

Keller pursed his lips as he glanced between Banachek and Simmons. "I guess no one thought to warn me about the hostile alien robot that we were hiding in the basement. How am I to make the right decisions when I don't know where all the pieces on the board are?"

Banachek was apologetic when he spoke: "Its always been that way sir. Roosevelt never told his Secretary of Defense about the Atomic Bomb and he never told him about this either. Eisenhower was informed because he was military and would understand the need for secrecy. Other presidents have kept the secret as well. And until recent events we never had any reason to believe that these beings were hostile."

"So why are they here? I mean why come to Earth at all?" Lennox asked.

"They're here for the Allspark. " Sam answered. Everyone turned their gaze towards where Sam was kneeling. He wasn't looking at any of them instead he had his hand resting on Clover's head and seemed to be looking in her eyes. It almost seemed as if there was something passing between the two. What that would have been none of them would have known. Sam blinked before standing and looking back at the frozen form of Megatron.

"The way it was told to Mikaela and me, Megatron here wants the cube so he can build an army out of our machines. After that he's gonna go on a rampage and destroy our world or he's going to try to at least and when he's done with us he's gonna go after every other world that strikes his fancy." Sam turned a slow circle so that he could get a good look at the people surrounding them and so that he could get a good feel for their emotions.

Banachek and Simmons glanced at each other when his eyes rested on them and for the briefest of moments a feeling of knowing passed between them and to Sam. It took him only a few moments to figure out what the two of them knew. Sam sighed and rubbed both his hands over his face while Clover twined around his legs and gave a soft cry before sitting down. "You guys know where it is don't you."

The area that held the Allspark wasn't as vast as the one that held Megatron but is was just if not more impressive. The Allspark hung in the middle of the room surrounded by umbilicals that both supported and monitored the alien artifact. An observation deck walled with panels of double thick panes of polycarbonate allowed both technicians and visitors to observe the Allspark. As his charges moved closer to the viewing windows Banachek filled them in on what he felt they needed to know.

"Carbon dating puts the Cube here around ten thousand BC. We didn't manage to find it until 1913. It's true age is unknown to us. Every attempt we've made to date it age any further has failed. It's been driving our workers crazy." Banachek shook his head. It was almost as if the continued failure was an insult to him as well. "It was stored in a near by salt mine until President Hoover had the damn built around it." Banachek paused and pointed up. "There's nearly a hundred footballs fields of concrete surrounding us. It's the perfect way to hide the energy that the Cube gives off."

Sam snorted quietly to himself. He knew that his fellow humans had a tendency to think to highly of themselves and he'd just been shown one of the biggest examples he would probably ever see in his life. "You're wrong you know. They said that the Allspark calls to them. Every thousand years or so it sends out some sort of signal or something."

Simmons looked like he was about to open his mouth and say something only to be stopped by Maggie.

"Did you say that the damn hides energy? What kind of energy are we talking about exactly?" Glen gave a quiet groan at Maggie's inquiry. He knew the look on his female friends face. It was the same look that she had when there was something interesting for her to sink her teeth into. Glen also knew that if Maggie wanted to know something then she wouldn't stop until she found out everything she could about it. AS it turned out Banachek was more than willing to share.

"I have a file that you could read through if you really wanted to though it's more equations than words. If you'll fallow me I'll show you."

The chamber that Banachek lead them to this time was barred by a thick steel door that led into a laboratory. The lab itself looked like it had been pulled out of a 1930's science fiction novel. The technology was all state of the art and it was only the old pieces that were pushed out of the way that hinted at the experimentation that had been happening throughout the years before. Slender tentacles of electrical and other cables spread out in all directions. They were all connected to a single transparent box that sat on a raised diesis in the middle of the room. It was also quite posable that the cables ran to it and not from it.

The room in general gave Sam the creeps. He wasn't entirely sure what went on in the room but he was sure that he didn't really want to know. He was going to however because there were a pair of uniformed technicians getting everything ready for whatever was about to happen. Clover rubbed against his leg in an attempt to show her support. It didn't help that she was still feeling wary about the events going on around her.

"Everyone step inside, please. They're going to have to lock us in." The members of the group all sent each other worried looks.

"Why do they have to lock us in?" Lennox asked. His voice was tense and his right hand twitched in the direction of one of his pokéballs. If he needed to let Sidney or Dixon out to get answers he was more than willing to. He didn't like what was going on one bit and he could tell that none of his men liked it either. The door swung shut before Lennox could get an answer. Several locks clicked shut as soon as the door was all the way closed. Nervous eyes glanced around the room and several people looked like they were about to go for their belts.

"The science that we do in here is kinda tricky. It can go from being a really good day to being a really bad day really fast." Simmons said humorously. Epps nodded towards one of the walls and the long slashes that ran through the thick metal.

"Who you guys got in here, Freddy Krueger?" Simmons merely smiled as he nodded his head towards a sign that read: We HAVE WORKED 322 SAFE DAYS. "That happened three hundred and twenty three days ago. That was a really bad day."The smile Simmons had been wearing dropped off of his face.

"Charlie was a good man." One of the techs muttered. Simmons clapped his hands suddenly causing several people to jump and reach for one of their pokéballs. A few had managed to pull one from their belts and were getting ready to open them when Simmons spoke.

"Anybody got a Blackberry or cell phone we can use? Hell a key alarm would even work." The group was silent. None of them seemed willing to hand over anything they had. Banachek walked towards Glen. He could remember seeing the large man playing with his phone earlier that morning. Banachek then proceeded to walk over and confiscate it from the programmer.

"For demonstration purposes." Banachek proclaimed. Glen was in no mood to be accommodating. He'd already been shuffled around the country against his will and he was quite tired of the entire situation.

"Demonstration my ass! If anything happens to my phone you're replacing every song replaced and I've gotta list!" Glens rant was cut short when one of the techs handed him a thick pair of goggles. "Hey, what are these for?" The tech didn't reply. In fact he didn't even seem to have heard Glen's question. He was too busy handing the same goggles out to everyone else in the room.

"Ohhh. Cell phones can be really nasty." Simmons murmured knowingly as he took the phone from Banachek and handed it to one of the techs. The tech placed the phone inside of the box and attached a few cables that were no thicker than wires. The tech then stepped back and closed the box before securing enough locks to hold back a rampaging Tauros.

"Goggles on, please." Banachek advised them, while putting on his own goggles. No one saw fit to argue with the man. Clover even seemed to understand the importance for it didn't take much prodding from Sam for her to curl up on the ground next to his feet and hide her face.

Once everyone was protected one of the tech began flipping switches. There was a slight buzzing noise and then a bright flair of light as energy was drawn from the Allspark a room over and into the phone in the box. After the flair had died both Sam and Mikaela leaned forward. It looked like the phone was shaking. The phone let out a single violent shutter before music began to fill the room. While it was see through the box wasn't soundproof. Then the phone began to transform.

The phone had no intelligence to guide it but it had power from the Allspark to move it the phone went mad. Legs and arms sprouted and moved in all sorts of directions. Directed by the limitless power that had just given it life the tiny robot jerked and swayed wildly before it began throwing itself against the glass of the box that it was trapped in. The only thing that it seemed to know was that it wanted out and it wanted out as soon as posable.

Every human jerked back in surprise at the first impact. Only Clover dared to move closer, rearing up on her back paws so that she could place her front of the edge of the diesis allowed her to bare her teeth and growl at the little machine that was trying so hard to escape its prison. The little mech was unaware of the audience that watched it as it continued to beat itself to pieces against the transparent box, it was blaring heavy metal music the entire time.

"Mean little sucker isn't it? It's like the Energizer Buneary from Hell." Simmons approached the container without fear at the angry little mech inside. At Simmons approach the little robot doubled its efforts to get out of the box so that it could tear into the soft fleshed human that had appeared on the other side. Simmons leaned forward and studied it for a moment before turning to Banachek. "Better zap the little freak before it manages to get out."

The tech he'd addressed nodded in understanding before pulling a small cylindrical charge from a small tube full of them before slipping it into a straightlined tube that pierced one side of the container. The tech waited for the little mech to enter his line of sight before pressing a switch. The box was filled with a flash of light and when the light cleared everyone in the room could see that the little mechanical monster had been torn apart.

It emitted a soft squeal before falling onto its back and revealing the hole that went through its body. Frame and components were melting away before their very eyes. Silence filled the room. Clover only whined as she put her front paws back on the ground and moved to stand beside Sam, who rubbed one of her ears in an attempt to comfort the distraught Espeon. slowly the group of people began to remove their goggles. Simmons seemed to be the only one unbothered by the events that had just taken place for their was a content smile adorning his features.

"Well, what do ya know? Even minnie sabot rounds work on these things. Congrats on figuring that one out Lennox." Simmons moved as if he were going to clap the Capitan on the shoulder only to have the man move out of his reach.

"Don't touch me." Lennox's tone wasn't hostile just very matter-of-fact. There was however no mistaking the implication that underlay it. Steel and bolts not with standing Glen was ready to leave as fast as he could. He'd had enough and he wanted out.

"Okay, I'm out. Grandma needs her insulin. You guys can find somebody else to help you because I'm done! You guys can shoot me if you want to, but I'm not-" The floor beneath their feet shuttered. Not enough to knock anyone over but enough to get their attention and to stop Glen's rant before it got too bad. That fact that the area around them that was technically inert was shaking even a little was enough to have all of them worried.

If the group inside of the lab in the damn could have seen the group of transformed bots, from the F-22 to the MJ-53 copter to the assortment of other oddly perfect vehicles they would have felt much worse. Only Sam and Mikaela would have had a true understanding of what the small army would have in store for them. A lack of familiarity with the Decepticons didn't stop Maggie from feeling the tide of dread that was rising inside of her. Taking a step closer to one of the windows that overlooked the room that contained the Allspark, Maggie fixed her eyes on the alien relic. The Allspark was covered in runes and symbols that she nor any other human on Earth could ever hope to understand. A shiver crawled up her spine when she noticed that some of the markings seemed to be shimmering and she hoped that it was only a trick of the lights in the room behind the window. Lennox however wasn't looking at the Allspark but at the ceiling.

"Those are concussion blasts. Now they could be caused by terrorists or by something else." It was clear that the soldier though it was something else. Keller chewed on his lower lip for a minute, an old habit he'd never quite managed to break.

"Terrorists could never get this close to the damn without someone spotting them. The security here's too tight. It has to be something bigger than that." There was no need for his to specify what that "something" was. They all knew who he meant. It didn't matter if they'd had an encounter or not. Turning Keller let his gaze fix on the slightly glowing Allspark that sat in the next room. "They know that it's here."

High above Colorado a pioletless F-22 hovered dragon-like over the Hoover Damn. The missiles that struck the main aboveground power distribution center immediately caused parts of Las Vegas to go dark.

Several lights in the lab below exploded, and several instruments went crazy. The lab went dark but it lasted only a moment as backup generators kicked in. Lennox's eyes darted about the room and took in the people standing around him. He wasn't sure about the others but he wasn't planning on going down without a fight. It didn't matter who he was about to fight without any weapons. Pokémon could only go so far against an enemy that they didn't know. If he was going to fight he wanted something that he could shoot. Hands clenched for the briefest of seconds before he turned and moved so that he was standing face to face with Simmons.

"Where's your armory?"

ooo

While Lennox was grilling Simmons about weapons the power to a special system of coolers was failing to give the coolers enough energy to do their jobs. The panic that had taken hold of the workers began to fade when backup generators came online and began supplying the room with much needed energy. Their panic resumed full force however when the backup generators failed as well. Readouts and monitors were instantly checked. The location of the failure could be located. The questions was whither or not it could be fixed in time.

If Frenzy had his way then it wouldn't be. He was unseen as he moved around and clipped wires, tore through circuitry and linking and fried microchips. The havoc he was wrecking in the room was all for one thing and one thing only. He knew that he'd been successful when the room around him began to warm. With the power now cut the clamps and cables that had been holding Megatron steady and stable in the middle of the room for years upon years began to retract. Many of the workers in the room began running for the nearest exit as fast as they could. Only a few stayed releasing any pokémon that they had the knew attacks of the icy variety. They could only hope that their feeble attempt to keep MBE one cold worked.

ooo

Lennox and the other had no time to flee, not that any of them really had that much of a choice. The group had moved to a secondary armory and were currently feeding compact sabot rounds into shoulder rocket launchers. Lennox didn't know about any of the other soldier, or the Sector Seven agents that Banachek had grabbed to help them, but he felt a lot better now that he had a weapon he could use in his hands.

"Nellis Base is about fifty miles from here." Keller remembered. "They could have air support here in about ten minutes." Maggie looked up from where she was trying her best to get the phone in her hands to work.

"All the signals are out remember." Glen gave her a meaningfully distraught look. "You wouldn't be able to get a signal down here anyways. That's what a hundred football fields worth of concrete get ya." Glen said as he jabbed a finger at the ceiling. "I thought that they might have run relays through the walls." Maggie said. This started the two of them talking about any possible way for them to communicate with the outside world.

It was Clover nudging his leg and uttering a soft bark that got his brain working. He knew exactly what he needed to do at the moment and there was a good chance that it would help almost everyone. "You need to take me to my car." He said only for Simmons to ignore him.

Sam sighed and shook his head before he looked down at Clover. Clover seemed to grin before she ran forward and rammed into Simmons legs in a half hearted Tackle. Simmons startled cry of rage cause both Sam and Mikaela to smile. It was slightly satisfying to see Simmons attacked after everything he'd done to them.

"You need to take me to Bumblebee. He's going to know what to do with the cube."

"You're nuts."Simmons spat. "Do you not remember what just happened to the phone? That was only a drop of energy. I'm not in the mood to find out what going to happen when one of the bigger robots gets their hands on the Cube." Sam met Simmons' gaze with one of his own. He was more than ready to feed the man before him to Mojo. Sam had had more than enough of the mans stubbornness and there was no way that he was backing down this time.

"You wanna find out whats gonna happen if the Deceptions get the Allspark because I can guarantee that it won't be as nice as whatever the Autobots have planned." The floor beneath them shook again. Putting down the weapon that he'd been preparing Lennox stepped closer to Simmons before speaking.

"I've seen what these things can do. If the one he talking about is anything like the one me and my men fought then we're going to need all the help we can get because if those Decepticon thing get ahold of the Allspark them we're all dead anyways." Simmons snarled, his gazed fixed on both Sam and Lennox.

"How the hell do you know that the brat can be trusted? He's nothing but a delinquent! He cant be-"

Lennox's hands snapped forward and wrapped around the fabric of Simmons' suit. Lennox pulled the startled man forward so that they were face to face before slamming his against the door of a nearby vehicle. Both Sector Seven agents and the Capitan's men drew their fire arms and aimed them at each other.

"I've got a wife waiting for me at home and a baby that I've never seen in person. Not only that but I promised a good as he was dieing that I wouldn't let these things wing. You don't have any idea what your doing right now so I suggest that you take the kid to his damn car." Lennox spoke in a voice that was carefully controlled. The air in the armory was tense enough to cut with a knife only if someone had a fight might have broken out.

Keller took a step towards Banachek. "I'd do as he says. Losings not really an option for these guys." Banachek pursed his lips for a moment.

"If the boy is wrong about this we could be unleashing hell." Epps snorted from where he stood.

"We've already seen hell." Simmons sneered as he relaxed in Lennox's grasp.

"Sure, lets leave the fate of the world on the goodwill of the kid's Camero." Sam barked a short laugh from where he stood. "I doubt that we have that much to worry about then." Mikaela nodded from where she was standing next to Sam.

"From what we've seen these guy are a lot more considerate than you are Simmons." Simmons growled low in his throat but wisely kept his mouth shut. "So where is you're car?" Lennox asked as he let go of Simmons and turned towards Sam. Sam merely smiled and pointed down towards Clover.

"Clover would you be kind enough to take us to Bumblebee." Clover's eyes flashed a darker purple before she turned and began running off towards the armory's door. Sam and the others were quick to follow her.

ooo

While the soldiers, visitors, and agents in the armory hurried after the swiftly running form of Sam's Espeon Clover towards their only hope of knowing what to do something else was happening in the large silo that held the monstrosity that was Megatron. Despite the best efforts of the few who had stayed behind Megatron's form was refusing to freeze again now that it had managed to thaw completely. The clamps and wires that had once held him had all fallen away from him and for the first time in a long time the Decepticon lord was free to awaken fully. Electronic synapses pulsed with new energy and permanently self-lubricating joints began to stir.

Megatron's processor began running checks on the body that it belonged to and on the condition of long frozen limbs. Optic's the color of lava expanded and contracted. Megatron was returning to consciousness and the universe itself trembled in fear. Megatron's optic's focused on the creatures that were scurrying about the room around him trying their hardest to get to the nearest exit. Behind the fleeing humans a sound issued from the long silent vocal processors. The hissed word wouldn't have encouraged any of the fleeing people to do anything but run faster.

"INSECTS."

There was a single moment between that hissed words and the first real movements the mech made. Reaching out a single arm Megatron tore the the restraints that hadn't moved all the way away from his body down.

ooo

Sorry that is is a couple of days late but I figured that I'd make this my NaNoWriMo project again this year. So I waited to continue working on this chapter. Now my work count for this won't include the first few hundred words of this chapter because that wasn't typed today or yesterday. The chapters won;t be as long as they were before because I don't have to wait to go to the library. I figure I'll update every two or three days so that way you guys get a few thousand words and I don't have to worry about the stupid file size thing for deviantart. My other stories will likely be on pause for this month so bear with me. I'm hoping that I can get this finished this moth or at least get past the move part of the story and into the lives of the characters after mission city. I know quite a few of you want to see more of Sam's home life and I plan on giving that to you.

Word count so far: 4233/50000

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