And here we are, the 87th chapter, trying to make up a good excuse for not updating on time.
Error 404 – excuse not found XD
Sorry for not updating on time guys, it's all I can really say. I had a lot on my mind and I just had to take some time to get everything off it. School gave me a lot less free time and if I tried to write up chapters for this story, I would be up 'till 3 in the morning on a Saturday night (which would technically be Sunday morning), like now. I just can't wait for the summer holidays to begin, I'll have so much time on my hands…
Well then, without further adieu, the 87th chapter of Two Worlds, One Family! This chapter might make your eyes water, it might not… you'll have to read, though, to find out. But I should cut it out with the chapters that make you cry. There were like, at least, 5 of them already that made you cry. :/ So we're gonna try and keep those 'tear inducing chapters' at a minimum.
It was such a horrible feeling to stare and wait for the scene to unfold itself, where all of us actually knew what was going to happen. It's a feeling when you know that someone is going to die and you can't do anything about it.
I can only imagine what will happen to Nicole.
Every pair of eyes was staring at the screens.
Their death would be ours.
As the silver Decepticon with the Mercedes insignia in the middle of his chest dragged Bee to the place where they executed Que, Bee fell down again, leaning over Que's dead body. He was struggling against the Decepticon, but the 'Con just shoved him into the center of the zone and made him stand up on his feet.
The Decepticon shoved Bee once more, turning him around so that his back was facing the 'Con's.
And just then, the soldiers managed to activate another traffic light camera, staring straight into Bee's face.
There was this sickening feeling in all of our stomachs, watching his normally calm blue optics switch to dreadful and fearful ones. It was so unlike him. And he was going to die so unmercifully.
The kill shot was about to come, we all knew it, so I diverted my look from the screen. I could never watch my friend die in front of my very eyes.
And yet I had seen Ironhide die. And that made my chest hurt badly.
I looked at Nicole, as mere seconds passed after I looked away from the screen. I almost didn't recognize her.
She was pale as snow, her mouth hanging agape with tears running down the edge of her lips. Her eyes were showing desperateness in them.
She was going to lose Bumblebee. We all would.
Her breath stalled as the canon of the silver 'Con ignited, glowing an orange light within it.
I had to stare at the screen. I was pulled to it, yet I couldn't stand to look at it.
"No…" Nicole gasped, her hands forming into fists as she keeled over. "No. No. No…" she pleaded, falling to her knees soundlessly. Nobody saw or heard her. I crouched down to hold her. She was shaking and if I thought she was pale as snow, that was nothing compared with how drained of blood she was in her face right now. She pleaded with her eyes almost, as they blurred and overflowed.
She clenched my hand once more as we took one last look to Bee. This was the end.
This was goodbye.
At the same time, she and I looked away from the screen. She choked and leaned into my chest, bending over from her fallen posture. I gently put my arms around her, holding her close to me as we waited for the scene to pass. Her tears fell on my lap, her bodily shaking sobs starting to shake me. Time seemed to stop as seconds felt like minutes.
As Nicole's head was resting on my chest, I brought my own head up to look at the screen and what was happening. Nicole was drowning in her tears on my lap as I held her close to me. But as I looked at the screen, I didn't see the decapitated body of Bumblebee, nor any dead body of his.
Instead, I had seen him killing the very Decepticon that wanted to kill him and succeeded in killing Que. Bee had avenged Que. That's the way it should have been.
"Bee's alive, Nic." I said into her ear as she stopped breathing for three seconds. She instantly looked up at the screen with teary eyes and they seemed to glisten with happiness now. I couldn't believe this. It was moment of rejoice, when he jabbed his canon just under the Decepticon's chin, shooting and making the head explode to pieces. The Decepticon's dead body fell to the ground.
And very soon, they all started to shoot around the place and mechanical parts started crashing down to the ground from the skies.
"The hell is falling from the sky?" Mearing said, squinting and leaning forward, towards the screen. A separated screen showed the footage of a traffic camera tilting upwards, bringing into focus one of the main Decepticon ships that started to fall apart, its cargo falling to the ground. Finally, the ship itself started to fall, crashing into the river and drowning, not surfacing up again.
There was a huge moment of rejoice, a moment of hope. Hope, that we could actually win this war. Hope, that not all was lost.
And we certainly needed hope in this melancholic world.
The Autobots attacked the Decepticons and won before the battle even began. It was always an awe to watch them fight, that is, to watch the Autobots win, just when they needed to.
"He's alive!" Nicole squealed, hugging me very tightly around my neck.
It started to hurt. A lot. "Save some hugs for Bee, will you?" I gave it my best shot to get her away from strangling me. But I couldn't repress the feeling of happiness that spread through my body. Things were turning up for the better. And just in the nick of time.
The soldiers wooed and cheered, relieved that we were finally getting somewhere, other than getting our asses kicked and destroyed.
"Alright, give me a visual on our men." Mearing commanded, an unknown smile on her face.
The soldiers quickly put themselves to work, but as seconds passed and their frantic typing began quicker, we knew something was off.
"Ma'am, we can't find them."
"Don't give me excuses, give me results."
The soldiers turned to work on moving the cameras around and communicating with the other part of Chicago that wasn't yet destroyed.
"Ma'am-"
"Don't call me ma'am."
"Uh, Sir," the soldier said awkwardly as Nicole stifled a laugh. "The UAV drones spotted a couple of our men on the buildings right where Shockwave was spotted. It seems that they have a plan, but we don't have any audio confirmation. General Moreshower's orders restrict us from intervening."
"Do as told, just get me a visual." She said as he nodded, scurrying to his seat and punching a couple of buttons on the keyboard, a video footage of the UAV drone's camera showing us where the soldiers were and what they were doing.
The quality wasn't the best and you couldn't tell one soldier from the other, because the drone was a long distance away from them. But what I did see, was the soldiers standing on the very edge of the building and they were getting prepared to jump.
And just under them, as I saw from another camera, was Shockwave and his fellow Decepticon squad.
I had grown to hate the Decepticons. I couldn't bear the fact that they were on our planet. My planet.
I wanted them all dead. In most painful and gruesome way imaginable and doable. I didn't need them here. I didn't want them here. No sane human wanted them here.
Then suddenly, the soldiers jumped out of the buildings, as I watched what they were doing. I was quite nervous. They can't die. They, along with the Autobots, are our only hope.
They descended quickly and opened their parachutes, tilting the parachutes and hiding behind a building.
"What are they doing…" Mearing said, leaning forwards on her forearms which were pressed on the metal table in front of her. We all watched what was going to happen. All in complete and utter silence.
Suddenly, sparks started flying off the faces of the Decepticons as they fell back, gripping their faces.
The UAV drone shifted from its position to hide behind another building. Luckily, Chicago had so many solitaires, that the drone could hide almost anywhere.
We all watched what was happening, as a team on the ground started running from their hiding places, jabbing something into the Decepticons' feet. A couple of seconds later, and their feet started to explode. They gripped their legs, but they broke at the knees. I cringed. It was disgusting.
And they deserved it.
The soldiers with the parachutes emerged again from behind the building they hid behind, almost all landing on the ground. All, but one. And that one managed to land on Shockwave's head.
Everybody on the battlefield started shooting around, mainly at Shockwave, because he had the toughest armor and was the hardest to defeat.
And just then, the Wreckers decided to show up, shooting at Shockwave and bringing him down to his knees. Half a second later, the glass on another building exploded and out came the bullets as soldiers fired from their weapons directly at Shockwave.
He was getting it. And he was about to get more.
"Eat bullets, Shockwave." I muttered under my breath so that nobody could hear me.
And then, out of nowhere, Bumblebee, Mirage, Ratchet and Sideswipe emerged, transforming and engaging their weapons. Bumblebee let out two humans from his alt form before transforming.
As the drone shifted to be lower to the ground and I watched the traffic cameras being brought up to life and their live footage being shown, I was connecting the dots.
Those two humans were Sam and Carly.
What the hell were they doing here?
They started running off into some building, but what really got my attention was the building with the domes. The lightning bolts were all around it and as I looked upwards to see what was its light doing in the skies, my breath caught.
There was a humongous planet in the skies. It had so many sharp details on it. Some kind of metallic structure. And it was being pulled by the light generated by the dome building.
I stared at it, almost gawking. I saw Cybertron. In our atmosphere.
The light on the top of the dome was beaming and pulsing, sending those pulses all the way to the surface of Cybertron, where the same light washed over the entire planet.
"Go to the roof." Mearing said, looking at me. "Seymour, get the rest of the kids." I honestly didn't know how to get to the roof, so I followed Mearing as she took up the leader position and led us upstairs, through a couple of hallways and doors and straight onto the roof.
I slowly got out, letting the fresh air rustle my hair slightly in the breeze. It was a relief to get some air into my lungs, but I couldn't help but recognize the scent of gunpowder and explosive leftovers. Chicago had become a warzone. So destroyed, that you could smell the damage done to it. It wasn't a good experience. I didn't know why I had to go through this, but I did. And I wished that I never would again.
We stood on the roof ground, which was painted in white with a large, red encircled letter 'H' on it. This was a helicopter landing roof. We all looked upwards.
Cybertron was just out of hand's reach. Or so it seemed. I knew it was hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of kilometers away from us, but it was so large and seemed so near.
And suddenly, we all heard booming explosions and gunshots below us. The men in suits, which were accompanying us on the roof as well, held us all from falling down, but we had to see what was going on.
Down on the street, stories and stories below us, you could see a flying red and blue figure. And we knew it was Optimus. There was nobody else.
He started shooting around the place, shooting at the Decepticons, destroying them with killer punches and kicks, slicing them with his trusty swords, erupting the sparks from the Decepticons' torn bodies. He protected his brothers in arms, Bumblebee, Sideswipe and Ratchet as his wings fell from his back and he lunged forwards, through a fire explosion.
He emerged a second later, doing a somersault and pouncing at Shockwave. They were so close, yet so far from us.
There was only so much we could do. We could only stare in awe at the sheer power, skill, dedication and bravery that Optimus held within. He was a live character that would have only been alive in books or TV shows. It was an honor to see such acts of bravery, even from such a great distance as this.
He managed to penetrate Shockwave's armor, sending him to the ground. We could barely see more of this, but then a rocket was sent from Shockwave's cannon, straight at the dome. It managed to shoot the dome, its concrete construction falling to the ground in pieces, but the pillar was slightly damaged. It was still there, trying to hover, but it just fell back to the crumbling pieces of concrete, spazzing.
The connection from the dome to Cybertron immediately ceased as we all traced the end of the light back to Cybertron. A pulse of light went all around the surface of it and it had stopped moving. Or so we thought. It wasn't exactly easy to see.
I looked back to the ground, still feeling the men in the suits' hold on my forearms, preventing me from falling. I had to trust them blindly, to hope that they wouldn't toss me over the edge and kill me, but I had to see what had happened down there. Who was hurt, who was dead. And who was going to save us all from this damned doom set upon us.
It seemed that Optimus had finished off Shockwave, much to my relief. But then another thing happened.
Sentinel Prime had descended from his position on the building with the domes, jabbing his sword into the building to prevent him from falling hard to the ground and damaging himself. Oh how I wanted him to die. How I wanted his sword to split in half and have him crashing down to the ground, his legs breaking and to see his vocalizer spark because of his anguished screams. How I wanted him to suffer.
But no such thing happened, to my dismay, he descended with agility, taking a battle stance as the two Primes started to fight. One for good, one for evil.
One would stand, the other would fall.
The Autobots and the soldiers came to Optimus's aid, helping him hold off the other Decepticons on the ground and those in the ships. They were all headed for Optimus, and the Autobots had to keep them from killing him. If Optimus was gone, we'd all be goners.
And then the Decepticon ships descended unnaturally towards to Optimus, headed for him like the kamikaze. The enormous sounds of gunshots being fired reached the very rooftop we were standing on. It was so loud and eerie to watch this. I wanted it to stop. I wanted Sentinel to die and I wanted Ironhide to be avenged. He had to be avenged.
Optimus managed to move away just in time for the kamikaze ships to hit the ground and miss him.
But just as he had done that and landed on the ground, a couple of those Tomahawk rockets appeared and they were headed straight for the ships that were still in the air. They exploded on impact, knocking the ships down and destroying them, making them fall into the Chicago river.
I looked from right to left, still feeling the strong hold of the men in the suits' hand on my forearm, but I couldn't give any thought to that. I scanned with my eyes the view under me. There was still a lot of fighting down there, a lot of explosion and smoke coming up to the skies. The smell of gunpowder was infectious.
Just as suddenly, as the gunpowder stench could be smelled, the light of a certain spacebridge caught me by surprise, making me jerk backwards. The men caught me and pulled me back.
A second later, I felt a warm hand on mine. I looked towards the person. "You okay, what happened?" Nicole asked, who was looking at the city from the other side of the building. I turned around, pointing to what happened.
"It's the bridge, Nicole." I said, trying to breathe evenly. I swallowed thickly. If Cybertron got to Earth, they'd kill or enslave us all. "Someone reactivated the bridge." I managed to say, as the blue pulsing light started to pull Cybertron closer to us. I got a sudden thought in my mind. "Nicole, if you could shoot that light with the energy sphere, do you think it would stop the bridging?"
She frowned and looked to the ground. "I can't."
"Why?"
She looked up, staring at the light. "Do you see how far away it is?" she said, pointing to it. "Even if I could try to shoot it, I'm not that good with accuracy and I only used them in short distances."
"Nicole." I gave her a stern look in the eyes. "What are you afraid of? It could be the thing to save us all."
"I feel like… I would fail everyone if I missed and I know I will miss."
I sighed and moved slightly further away from Mearing, Simmons and the other men up on the roof. "Nicole, let me tell you something Ironhide told me." I said as she looked at me, ready to listen to everything I had to say. I had to dig up the memory, as heart wrenching as it was. "The biggest failure you can have in life is making the mistake of never trying at all." I could almost hear his voice saying that. "If you don't try, you'll never know. And if you never know, you'll always keep asking yourself 'what if'."
She looked down, looking at her own feet. "I don't know… I don't even know if the sphere's would make it."
"You never know unless you try." I said, pulling her gently into a hug. She needed to be assured that she could do anything in her life. That she could do anything at all, with a bit of motivation.
"But what if I fail, Mel?" she suddenly looked up, her face so close to mine, but I didn't mind. "What if it doesn't work?"
"If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. At least you gave it a shot." I played with the word. She had to shoot straight at the light, to somehow disrupt its connection to Cybertron.
She sighed loudly as I saw her eyes harden, void of emotion.
"Let's do this." She said, fully determined.
I also think that, quite soon, we will break the 300.000 words perimeter! (What's with me and perimeters?) I know, first the 100 chapters thing, then the 1000 reviews thing, now the 300.000 words thing… But I don't care, I can get away with it! :D
Anyway, I think I finally know my reason for the very late chapter. I think it's my recent passion for TMNT. Yeah, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I've loved that show since I was a kid and I started watching the series once more. I love those lil' green turtles. :3 Anyways, I am obsessed with them and I have even started writing a 'test' chapter for the story! Yes, that means I will be writing a TMNT story! But I don't know when it'll come around. I gotta finish this one and start writing the story that wins the poll and start rewriting my 2 other remaining stories (TOILITON and ABOAC) at the same time. Goongala XD
Aaaand, I couldn't stop myself from using a quote 'Don't give me excuses, give me results' that the 'main' penguin in Madagascar once said. (I don't know the penguin's name though, but he's the leader of the penguins. Wow, that sounds weird when you say it O_O)
Alrighty then, guys and gals, leave some reviews for me, eh? You might want to answer my next question(s), because I am eager to know:
Are you a fan of TMNT and if so, which character is your favorite? (Could be from any series and can be more that one character, if you have more)