The Diego Diaries: Paradigm Shifted 3 (dd3 521)
-0-Nearby in a lush habitat
"That's shooting," someone said as they listened to strange sounds during their night time inspection of the crops.
Larc nodded. "It is." She ran for a nearby equipment barn where a monitor would supply the relevant information. A large group of Hu-An were gathered there already watching a fire fight on the Military Air Field just south of them. They watched together in silence the spectacle unfolding for the first time in years of migrations. They obeyed the Office of Emergency Management's order to stay away.
-0-In the Flight Tower of Fortress Maximus
They crowded the windows to watch the carnage nearby as the flight patterns in and out of Autobot City were put on hold. Fort Max had become aware of it from the first shot and messaged Metroplex and the Supremes. Emerging to ring the airfield, Omega, Kappa and Beta walked with weapons drawn. Other Supremes including a seething Xantium followed. Sitting on Kappa's shoulder, Swoop kept up a commentary. Stowed in holds among them, the combined racket of thwarted Dinobots could have shattered glass.
-0-Will Lennox
He crouched against the shipping container with the civilians pushed to the ground under his hands. He regretted not being armed though he knew his weapons were useless against this kind of artillery. Beyond him, the fighting was intense with almost a melee of shooters shooting every which way.
Epps was peering around the end staring at the fighting, then pulled back swiftly as a plasma blast passed through the space where his head had been. It splattered on the ground nearby throwing up shrapnel that pattered against them sharply.
The sound of peds coming toward them caught their attention as a young mech began to run their direction. He was moving incredibly swiftly with a smile on his face as if this was a normal lark or run.
He wasn't swift enough.
A blinding light rocketed in overhead as Epps glanced up, then back to the mech, startled with the sight that greeted him.
It hit the kid in the middle of his chassis upending him from the ground. His peds swept forward as did his helm and arms as the bolt of lightning blasted his body in mid step. He hung for a moment in the air, a disjointed puppet of a person, then fell hard on the ground several yards backwards.
Epps glanced from the mech whose chest seemed to explode to several more crouching by a building nearby.
They were all young, the group by the building and their faces were a mix of things Epps and Lennox had seen before in war. Surprise, astonishment and horror, terror and disbelief … all of it was there fluctuating in letters writ large across their astonished faces. They couldn't believe what had just happened.
The youngster lay still, his energon raining down around them, even on the humans as they watched in horror. The camera crews moved on autopilot capturing everything. The wounding of the mech, the raining of energon, the terror of the humans as well as the care and protection of the soldiers with them. All of it including the battle nearby was caught by their unblinking, unflinching reflex actions.
All of it.
-0-Ratchet and Ironhide
They turned from the humans who they'd ordered to stay down, then pivoted. Guns in servo, they rose together and ran forward, the direction counter intuitive to those without the training, experience and guts of the pair earned over hundreds of thousands of millenniums of war and conflict. No one ran for fighting with the prospect of great harm or death without all of that combined. The soldiers understood their actions because they had done the same. The civilians in their heated moment of disbelief and horror watched them with astonishment as they ran toward fire and fury. They had nothing in their own lives to compare.
Ironhide planted himself and unloaded on the enemy.
Ratchet stood beside him doing the same, then watched as a streak of energy passed his helm heading toward the containers. Ratchet pivoted to watch it, then froze in horror. A young mech was running toward the depot with a smile on his face. A young mech was fooling around in the middle of a fire fight. It was Commotion. He was in the line of fire. It all flashed through Ratchet's processor and as it did he began to run back.
He began to run, one step, then two. Then it hit him, a stray bolt of plasma. It clipped his side and he spun, falling to the ground. He rolled, then was up again, his guns subbed, his scanners flashing outward onto the youngster who'd just fallen to the ground as his energon sprayed everywhere. The soldier had given way to the doctor and even as he ran, even as another bolt hit him spinning him around with the force of its blow, Ratchet knew it was too late for the mech. He staggered, then continued, flashing past the humans as he slid to a stop on the ground beside the boy.
Ironhide who watched Ratchet's efforts with fury stepped forward along with Prime, Springer and Drift who were laying down the last slaggers with concentrated fire. As loud as the Pit, as terrible as Hell, the fire flashed and pounded, then was over.
-0-Ratchet
He leaned over the mech noting a through-and-through in his chassis. The hole was so large Ratchet could put his fist into it. He could see the tarmac through the hole, a hole that puddled energon. That it'd stopped seeping told the tale. All of the boy's life force had been dispersed in spray and pools around him. He was gun metal gray, silent, battered and dead.
Ratchet sat on the ground looking at him, then glanced at the humans who stared at him with horror.
Arcee, Jetta and Elita materialized almost out of nowhere as Jetta knelt down in silence. He reached over to grip Ratchet's shoulder. "Ratchet? Are you alright?"
Ratchet looked up from Commotion, then glanced around. "No." He vented a sigh, then looked at the humans. "Are they alright?"
Arcee looked at them, then nodded. "They're fine. We'll get them out of here now." The three stood, then walked to the group gathering the humans into servo, stuffing some into their holds. The humans didn't argue but complied as they were gathered and taken away to The City. They'd be deposited near Club Cybertron where they would stand together to watch the wind down to the most terrifying thing some of them had ever seen.
-0-Avor, 26, Boe and Lil
They stood up, forming a group who waited tensely and fearfully for the all clear. No one had left the scene. No one had done more than move out of the line of fire. Something in them defied going further as they waited. Their colony was under attack and Prime was in the middle of it. They couldn't look away and they couldn't leave. Someone had kept their word to protect them in a moment of extreme danger and it was astonishing to them that it had happened.
A monitor seen through a storefront window played the scene. Priests and Alpha Trion were out there huddled on the ground. It was a terrible and for too many familiar scene. They waited together for some ending that all of them could live with. One that meant that they would be safe in this last hope resort.
-0-On the ground
Prime saw the arm that shoved someone, then knew disaster had arrived at last. He turned around to call out orders. Arcee, Elita and Jetta obeyed pulling the priests and Alpha to the ground. Prowl had hold of Venture, that venerable gentleman flying off his peds in Prowl's skillful servos. He knelt to press his father down as Prime turned to the other side. Neo was running swiftly as everyone flipped out their guns. As he turned back to fight, the shadows of the Supremes began to emerge all around them.
Starscream and Rainmaker watched calmly, then pulled guns from subspace. Glancing around, then down, they moved to either side of the group on the ground to defend them with all that they had.
It was a lot.
Magnus moved forward to stand beside Prime with his weapons out and his gaze firmly on the melee that was beginning to emerge before them. Both stepped forward followed by their comrades as Ironhide and Ratchet pivoted to save the humans standing dumbstruck on the cargo containers nearby.
-0-Lennox, Epps and Graham, Morshower and Fulton
They saw it in a split second, then began to shield everyone with their own bodies. Bullets began to patter the ground in front of their exit, the stairs that had been constructed for their cargo platform by Huffer as a side project in 'making toys'. There was no way off but to jump. Lennox glanced over his shoulder, pulled Leonora and Camera Man Jim into his body to protect them. The image of Ratchet and Ironhide running toward them loomed ever bigger.
Then Ratchet got hit.
-0-The soldiers and civilians
They watched over their shoulders at the carnage that was starting to come their way. Ratchet and Ironhide were running toward them furiously as just beyond them the twins swarmed in with swords drawn and murder on their faces. As the two got closer Ratchet took a hit, spun in the air and landed on his back. He rolled, then staggered up running even faster. As he did another bolt landed slamming him hard. He staggered, then continued. As he did Ironhide fired.
Ratchet staggered forward heading for the downed mech as Ironhide ran to the cargo boxes. He gripped the humans putting them behind things, then ran back again. Looking down, appearing to the humans like a demonic force of nature, he said, :STAY THE FRAG DOWN! DON'T LEAVE THE SHELTER!:
They nodded, then Ironhide with rage on his face raced back to the firefight. They watched him, then turned toward Ratchet who was kneeling over the mech in futility. Jetta, Arcee and Elita materialized out of nowhere, then they were all taken away, some of them stowed inside the carry holds of the big mechanisms like sparklings.
When they arrived at Club Cybertron, all were unceremoniously put on the ground.
Elita looked down at them as she unsubbed her guns. :STAY PUT!: Then the three pulling guns ran for the airfield again.
Fulton and Morshower stood side-by-side, then turned to the others. The soldiers were moving to the edge of the alleyway to watch the fighting. The civilians were standing together quietly, their faces expressing their shock.
After a second to gather themselves, the movie makers followed Lennox, Epps and Graham.
The two civilian politicians stood together silently with their eyes trained on the alleyway where glimpses of mayhem and fighting could be seen.
Mearing and Simmons were staring at each other in private conversation. Then they hurried to watch with the soldiers.
:Are you two okay?: Fulton asked the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate.
They looked at him, then nodded. It would be a while before they could say anything more coherent.
-0-Aftermath
Prime and Magnus walked to the edge of the carnage. Some of the enemy were blown to bits but a surprising number were lying in their own destruction with nearly infallible sparks. The number of rounds that had landed was instructive. That they were still alive was amazing. Prime looked at each of them as he walked through the mess.
Around them as if magic, medical personnel and med-i-vac shuttles arrived. The dead were gathered, dragged to lay together side-by-side. Twenty-four of the mechs were killed, many of them by their own counterparts in crime. The other 18 were in various states of 'blowed up' as Ironhide would have put it.
They were stabilized, gathered, then flown up and away to the Medical Tower Hospital. As he looked around, Prime spotted Ratchet kneeling beside a downed mech. He glanced at Magnus. "If you could manage this, I need to check something," he said with a growing dread.
Magnus nodded, then looked down field toward where Ratchet huddled. Ironhide hard nearly reached him already. "Done deal."
Prime then ran forward even as Prowl was getting everyone up to leave the field. He spotted Prime, then began to follow, jogging toward the container area behind the big mech. They reached Ratchet nearly at the same time, pausing together with shock.
"Ratchet, what happened?" Prowl asked with a sinking feeling.
"He came running to the containers. I don't know what he was trying to do. I saw him so I came back to try to intercept him." He looked up at Prime. "Its Commotion. He was running into the fight, Optimus. He didn't have a slagging clue what was going on and now he's dead."
They stared at the body with the most appalled expressions. "Why did he do that? Was he playing? Did he understand what was happening? I don't understand," Prowl said, his voice almost irritated with confusion.
"I don't know," Ratchet said rising slowly from the ground as energon dripped off his side.
"You're hit," Ironhide said moving to grip Ratchet's arm. He pulled it away to show a wound with seeping energon. The other arm was creased, too. "Get to the medics, Ratchet."
"I will. Right now, we have to get this taken care of the right way. This is their only son," Ratchet said looking at them with agonized optics. "Their only little mech, Ironhide."
Ironhide looked at Ratchet, then the youngster. "Go to the hospital where you can do some good, Ratchet," he said glancing up to see two youngster mechs staring at them dumbly. He moved past Commotion's body toward them. When he reached where they stood, he gripped Kale's arm. "You two slaggers … come with me and don't give me a reason to pop you one."
They went with him silently.
-0-TBC November 20, 2013 12-22-2020