Aaaaaand chapter 80! BAM! That's quite a large number for the amount of chapters! :D I'm quite glad I managed to write up this many chapters, and hopefully I'll find the inspiration and skill to reach 100 chapters, since that's the primary goal for this story! (and that's basically all that I'm thinking about lately XD)

The destruction of Chicago is yet to begin… and before we pick up where we left off at the previous chapter, I'm going back a little to the part here Sentinel had shot Ironhide, but in Ironhide's POV. It's imperative that I do this.

Ironhide's POV, Sentinel's Betrayal

"Ironhide!" I looked towards Colonel Lennox. "Protect Sentinel, get him locked up inside!"

"Consider it done." I said, looking back at Melissa, who was standing a dozen of human feet away from me. She needn't be in the middle of a war zone. "Mel, get inside as well."

"Are there more Decepticons incoming?" she asked, taking a small step towards me. I shook my head.

"Negative, but for your own safety." I urged. She nodded and moved a couple of more feet away from me, leaning on a metal crate, most probably waiting for someone. I presumed she was waiting for Will, as I observed the situation.

"You gotta guard him, because he's the key to the whole thing." I looked at Sam, who was telling Lennox that Sentinel was the one thing the Decepticons needed. He and his pillars.

"Indeed I am," Sentinel spoke up from behind me. For a brief moment, I let the thought of why Sentinel wasn't standing beside me slip through my processor. "What you must realize, my Autobot brothers, is that we were never going to win the war."

As I was listening confusedly at Sentinel's speech, Sunstreaker came up from the Main Room and stood by Mel's left side. He seemed to be a little tense as he gave Sentinel Prime a scrutinizing look and muttered something unintelligible. He then spoke up. "What do you mean?" he was forcing himself to utter the words, his body further tensing, his hands forming into fists.

I narrowed my eyes at him so that he would cut it out. That is no way to address a Prime or behave in front of one, either. "For the sake of our planet's survival," I turned around to face him. The frag was he talking about? "A deal had to be made… with Megatron."

Did my audios malfunction? Apparently not, because I could hear Mel shrieking Megatron's name as Sentinel whirred around, pointing a gun at me. I tried to shove it away, but Sentinel shot, point blank.

A burning sensation hit my spark casing as my body froze on impact, the heaviness of the shot sending me to the ground. The shot sent jolts through my body, causing my body to reject my processor's commands. There was only one weapon that did this and it had been forbidden to use since the very beginning of the War.

Human voices were lost in the distance, or so it seemed to me, as I was trying to get up, but my body refused to obey.

Fragging Sentinel.

"NO! No, Ironhide!"

"Get back!"

I brought my hands up in front of me, the horrible stinging sensation spreading throughout my whole body. I was turning to rust.

My biggest fear... dying of rust, was now coming true. And not only that, I had been shot by a comrade. "What… have you done?" I managed to mutter. I will not go down without a fight!

The gun cocking sound could be heard as I knew the final shot that would come would offline me. The forbidden weapon was lethal and a dishonor to use. "I hereby discharge you from dut-ARGH!"

Sentinel's arm took a bad hit from Sunstreaker, but his weapon randomly fired off, targeting my legs. Intense pain shredded through my legs, as I knew they were blown off. I repressed the urge to shout out in pain, as horrible and unbearable as it was, so I quickly turned off all of my pain receptors. Another shot was directed at Sentinel but didn't hit him, as Sentinel had transformed and fled.

I felt my systems slowly shut down, one by one, starting from my legs and trailing upwards slowly. And I could do nothing to stop it. The shutting off would eventually reach my spark, cutting off the energon travelling to it to keep it alive.

"Bee!"

"Get back!"

"Sentinel!"

The last roaring voice caused a chill to roll up to my spark. That was Mel's voice. She couldn't be witnessing this. Somebody had to drag her away. I don't want her witnessing my death!

I angled my head so that I could see her. Her red eyes produced tears unwillingly, as she crawled to my body, looking at it as I was rusting away. "Ironhide…" her weak voice called for me as I felt my spark sink. "You're going to be fine, please, you have to be fine... I love you..."

Her hands clung onto the metal of my rusting armor as I hurried to put on my holoform before I could no longer use it. My holoform appeared in front of her. It was glitching, nothing unexpected, but at least it was still there. The pain of my body was excruciating, or I thought it was, and I tried my best to ignore it and focus all of my remaining energy on the holoform.

I embraced her in a strong hug, trying to let her know that everything would be alright and that death was not the end. My hands trailed around her waist, as I was trying to feel the smooth and gentle touch of her skin. She hugged me around my neck, like never before in her entire life. Her body was trembling, she was terrified.

I quickly spoke, I didn't want her to get a heart attack. "I will see you again, my dearest, this is not the end." I whispered into her ear and kissed the spot behind it. I didn't want us to be separated. I didn't want her to fall into depression. "Please, don't mourn my death. I'm not going down without-fight." My holoform glitched, appearing and disappearing fast.

I quickly thought of a song that would keep her wondering in her pastime. I didn't want her mourning over me. Her life was too short and too precious for that. She had to take care of our sparkling. "Goodbye, my lover." I said and pressed a deep kiss, one last kiss onto her lips. She tried grasping onto it, but the rust had reached all of my systems quite painfully, as my pain receptors were fried. My optics had shut off as I no longer felt my limbs and the holoform had died out.

The last thing I could hear were her desperate cries. "Ironhide, please! Fight for it, come on!" She yelled, but the sound was becoming fainter by the second. "No! I love you and I need you!" she coughed, her vocals fainting in my audios. "Please… please come back to me… Ironhide, please, I love you! NO! We have to save Ironhide! Will, please, I can't lose him!"

I didn't get to tell her I loved her, one last time.

And just as my audios had died out, I felt my spark slowly extinguishing itself, my body heat leaving me.

And then, everything had turned dark.

But I was still living. I could hear my thoughts. I wasn't in the Well, there was no light, and no one of my fallen comrades were here either.

Could this be the place between life and death. Limbo, was it called? But there was an odd thing.

I was in my holoform. "What is the meaning of this?" I spoke out loud, but no reply came.

What the frag…? There should be Primus or someone answering me.

I turned around, looking for anything that could remotely describe my whereabouts, but there was just absolute darkness. Suddenly, I saw a light. It looked like a light at the end of a tunnel. But I didn't dare go in it, because once I'd gone into it then it was over. I would never see Melissa again, and I couldn't let that happen.

As the light approached me, I saw two shiny objects glimmering in it. I wondered what they were, but I didn't move a step from my current location. The light was only a foot away from me, as the glimmering objects turned out to be my cannons.

Wait, my cannons?!

"You dare put a gun at me?! I'll tear you apart!" I was outraged, how dare someone threaten me in the afterlife! The two weapons cocked, indicating that a kill shot was about to erupt from them. "Primus, now you've done it!" I roared, lunging at the cannons and jumping into the light I refused to enter.

Mel's POV, continuation of previous chapter. One day later.

Later, throughout the day, Nicole arrived as well. I didn't know who got her here, but she heard about the horrible news. She would ask me, every once in a while, how I'm doing, but I seemed to faintly hear her words. I was lost in my own thoughts.

How could he not see that Sentinel would finish him… Why didn't he stand aside or immediately, by Will's orders, take Sentinel inside?

Sentinel could still have shot him inside…

Maybe if I had only had a weapon, I could have distracted Sentinel and Ironhide could kill him… Or if I had-

Stop. Stop Melissa. What's done is done and you can't…

Undo it.

Goddamn it. Everything I think about has some sort of connection to Ironhide.

All of these horrible thoughts attacked my brain, not letting me eat or sleep, not letting me to sit around and rest. I felt so empty, in so much pain.

I couldn't help but think about Ironhide's last words. I didn't know how he imagined that I do not grieve for him and mourn him… I just couldn't not do it. Everything I did, and I mean everything, had a connection to Ironhide. And it all made me miss him and cry. But I didn't cry in front of everyone. I didn't want them seeing me like this.

But I noticed that I was more silent than ever. I barely spoke to anyone today or yesterday. I felt like I was closing in on myself and not minding it at all. But, I was most glad about the fact that nobody forced me into talking to them. They respected me and gave me my much needed space.

My space to silently cry in.

I looked towards the small alarm clock in my room, it indicated that the time was around 1 pm.

I heard a knock on the door. I didn't turn around, so I croaked out. "Yes?"

It turned out to be Nicole. "Mel…" she came in and closed the door. I was silent, not daring to look at her in my current state. She had seen me in worse conditions, yet I still didn't want to look at her. "We have to go." I was silent, so of course she knew that I would ask where. But I needn't ask it, because she knew better than to tempt me. "We're going to some airport. We all have to go."

As my back was bent, I could see that my stomach was still swollen. I didn't know from what, but I didn't want to bother Ratchet with it.

Ratchet. Autobots. Ironhide.

My stomach and head started to hurt me as I stood up. Everything was connected to Ironhide. I raised my chin up, standing straight, wiping my wet eyes. I followed her out of the room as I noticed that Sarah and Annabelle were going to stay in the apartment.

"We're gonna stay here, Mel." Sarah said with Annabelle in her lap, as I slowly nodded. Nicole took me by the hand as we got out of the apartment. In front of the building, there were Jolt and Mikaela, Skids, Mudflap and Leo.

I think Nicole understood my need for silence, because she didn't force me into talking. "I'll go with Leo, you go with Mikaela. Or do you want Leo and Mikaela to go together?"

"The other." I muttered. She approached the two and politely asked to sit together inside Skids or Mudflap. They nodded as Nicole and I got into Jolt.

He turned on his engine silently, having a hybrid alt mode after all, and we slowly started driving.

On our two hour trip, I didn't speak a word. I felt horrible inside, like my heart was empty, void of feelings. As we had arrived to some sort of airport, I saw a small amount of planes and a large amount of black vehicles.

As the Autobot trio stopped driving, only Mikaela, Nicole and I had gone out of the cars. "Leo fell asleep and I couldn't wake him up." Mikaela said as the three of us walked into the hangar, spotting Sam and Charlotte Mearing.

We walked towards them as the speaker's transmitted somebody's voice. "Defenders of Earth, we have come for your natural resources to rebuild our damaged planet. When we have transported all we need, we will leave your world in peace. For such peace to exist, you must immediately exile the Autobot rebels you have harbored, nonnegotiable. Renounce the rebels, we await your reply."

I recognized Sentinel's voice. All that 'peace' I had was immediately disturbed, as I became angered, almost trigger-happy. And I knew someone else who was trigger-happy all his long life. The key word was 'knew'.

As we came close to Mearing, she somehow knew it was us who had approached her, along with Sam. "We'll debrief you all in transit." She said, not looking up from her file.

"I really don't see how I can be of any help, I mean, you guys seem busy, we can do this another time, I think." Sam said as he walked towards her, twirling around, making some odd body movements.

"What's with him?" Nicole asked me as I just kept staring at the scene.

He started hissing in pain in front of Mearing, but she wasn't doing anything to him. The three of us stood aside, watching the scene. "I have underestimated you at every turn."

"What?" he said, squinting. I wondered what was with him.

"You told us they were using humans and you knew that Sentinel was the key."

"Director!" some guy called her as Sam's right hand gripped his thigh.

"Who am I, hey, you're the expert. I'm just a walking security risk-" Suddenly, he stood up straight in pain, rolling over the table, doing a somersault and falling on his feet, trying to stand up normally. It was clear something was wrong with him.

"Sam!" Nicole yelled, rushing towards him around the desks. "You okay?"

"Are you alright?" Mearing asked him cautiously.

I walked around the desks as well, taking a good look at Sam. His face reddened, proof of lack of oxygen. "Yes." He lied. He was everything but alright.

"No, you're not, you're sweating." Mearing noted.

"I-I'm f-fine. I'm fine. I'm sweating because I'm nervous. I'm nervous because you got me in here with this information, okay, I'm a Twitter junkie, I blog everything, I can't keep a secret to safe my life. That's the truth, I'm telling you."

"Oh you wouldn't dare, you wouldn't dare-"

"Director!" her assistant called to her as Mearing went around the desks to see what she wanted.

Sam's arm went over the head of one of the technicians. "Sam, what the-" Nicole started, but didn't finish.

"What are you doing?" the guy said, rubbing his hand on his head, hoping Sam didn't put something on him.

"Nothing, what are you doing?" Sam awkwardly said, gripping his right wrist and leaning over the metal table.

The man cautiously eyed Sam. "Get away from me."

Nicole came up to Sam and turned him away from the technician. "What's wrong with you?"

"What?" he said.

"You're acting weird."

"No, I'm not." He said, but Nicole gave him a scrutinizing look.

"It's been a remarkable series of events today at the Capitol, just moments ago, legislation was passed to exile the Autobots from American shores. The US military alliance with them is officially over. The words of the House…"

We all stared at the TV screen and the reporter woman.

"What?" Nicole and Sam said at the same time, making it a little freaky that they were twins saying things at the same time. Sam quickly turned to Mearing. "You can't do this, you gotta tell them they can't do that!"

"Okay, it's official, it's a go people!" Charlotte ended her phone call.

"These are our allies!" Nicole fought along his side.

"The Autobots fought for us, they fought with us!" Sam pushed.

"And where are we now?" she looked at both of them. "Facing an enemy invasion. With an enemy that has the means to deploy countless more!" she said, turning around. "Get on the plane, all of you. And wake up that idiot from the car." She got inside the private plane.

"I'll get him." Mikaela said, rushing to get Leo up and going and into the plane.

Half an hour later…

We were flying above the ocean, gliding and soaring through the skies at an early sunset. The dark yellow sun colors slowly faded to light orange, making this the end of just another ordinary day. But for me, the days seemed like they were nights. Like there was no light at the end of a tunnel. Sometimes I felt like there was a light, but that light would never come to me.

I sighed and deviated my look from the landscape out the window. I had enjoyed watching sunsets with Ironhide… But now that he's gone, I don't have the will to look at another sunset. I don't have the will to see another sunset.

"If there's anything you know, anything at all, about the enemy's intentions… now's the time to tell."

I glanced at Sam and Mearing's table on my left. Sam was disturbed, like he knew something, but refused to tell us. I didn't know what it could have been, or what was the reason for such action, but I couldn't bother myself with this. I had been torn from the one thing I loved most in my life… nothing else mattered for me.

"The Autobots have no way of leaving this planet." He brought his gaze up from his feet, looking at her in the eyes.

"That is where you're wrong." She said as the plane slowly started to descend, arriving to a complete stop. Quickly, the doors opened and the metal stairs were already connected to the plane, helping all of us get out.

We were then seated into black Chevrolet Suburbans and Dodge Ram trucks and being driven into some of NASA's bases. I was seated with Mearing and Sam, while Leo, Mikaela and Nicole were driven in the other vehicles. "Its name is the Xanthium." Mearing instructed as we went through some large white gate, revealing the huge spaceship called the Xanthium. "It brought the second wave of Autobots and has been under NASA's care and study ever since."

The vehicles turned to a stop, as the men in suits let us go out. Mearing continued to talk as she put on her sunglasses and observed the whole situation that was ongoing before her. The sunset was bright, it's orange colors slowly coming to life as all traces of yellow were erased from the skies.

"We've linked it with a decommission shuttle, to maintain military control until they're gone." She finished, opening the door to take out her briefcases. "You can go to the Xanthium now. It's time to say goodbye to your Autobot buddies." She said uninterestedly, walking with her assistant towards the Xanthium.

I looked at the three robots. They looked like the Wreckers. Perhaps they were the Wreckers in their real forms.

"These guys are the Wreckers, they take care of the Xanthium. We don't let them off the base much, because they're assholes." Mearing crossed her arms and put on her sunglasses, leaning on the Suburban.

They weren't assholes to me. "Let's go." Nicole said, taking up the role of being the one to go straight in wherever she went, as if she was being the one to lead us.

We all walked behind her, following her like puppies. I didn't say anything, until I heard a familiar voice.

"It's time to kill him!" Leadfoot literally spat on the ground.

"I was just trying to help, this is a stupid job…"

"Yo, calm down, leave 'im alone. This is a human being!" That's the familiar voice.

"Epps!" Sam yelled, squinting and leaning forward to check if it really was Epps. It was him, through and through.

"You are ridiculous!" Roadbuster yelled, but Epps ignored him. Epps did, however, hear Sam's call for him. I walked up to Epps and gave him a hug, which he returned. "Girl, where you at?" he said, grinning with his impeccably white teeth. I smiled in return, somehow finding the will to smile.

"Is that you?" Sam jogged towards him, friendly gesturing with Epps.

"What up, man?" Epps said with a large grin on his face, making a hand gesture with Sam.

"What're you doing here?" Sam asked, but it appeared like he was having struggles with something.

"I'm retired from the Air Force." His grin faded quickly, seeing that Sam was almost trying to brawl with his hand. "Can you let my hand go?" Epps performed a move, setting his hand free immediately. "The hell was that? Now, I just consult to run interference with them."

"Well, yer not helpin'!" Roadbuster complained with his Irish accent.

"No more combat and aliens shootin' up my ass. I've got a dream job." Epps said to Sam.

"Tryin' to get us off this planet…"

"They're kicking the Autobots out, can you believe this is happenin'?"

"Where do you think it's taking them?" 'It' being the Xanthium.

"Any planet but here."

So that was it. Not only was I never going to see Ironhide again, I was never going to see the rest of my alien family.

Well, this will now leave you wonder about where did Ironhide exactly go and what he is undergoing. Other than that, Mel will eventually have to see the horrors of the Cybertronian War and its consequences on Earth, as if she hadn't already seen enough. But the 'Cons love destruction, chaos, sadism… so, as Simmons once said in DOTM: "These Decepticons are lethal." And I will, quite sadly, prove his point in my future chapters.

And well, some of you may think Mel is being a little, so to say, weird, for not crying or breaking down every time she think of Ironhide. But she can't weep for him, for more than one reason. First, he told her not to weep for him. Second, she has nowhere to weep for him, and her 'rule' is bringing up walls around her, the 'rule' being 'Don't ever let people see you cry'. Third, she doesn't have the time to weep for him, everything is happening rapidly in DOTM.

So I'll leave you to ponder on the thought of what will happen in chapter 81, an update should be soon. :)