I don't own Transformers or the Riordanverse; they belong to their owners.
Content Warning: A minor human character is killed in battle in this chapter. While I did my best to not describe it in explicit graphic detail, the state of the body is still noted. You have been warned.
Chapter 12: An Elephant Runs Me Over.
Piper's parents' night goes horribly. Jane, clearly not invested in Piper at all, gives the Cliff Notes version of her status. She calls her a problem child. Principal Barnett agrees to keep a closer eye on her.
A few days later, angry, alone, and frustrated, Piper goes to a car dealership. She asks the dealer if she can have one of their BMWs for free.
The next day, Piper's dad surprises her by returning early, but their fun day at the beach is ruined when Jane arrives, telling Tristan that Piper stole a car and has been expelled.
That's the last straw. Piper's dad ends up sending her to the Wilderness School, a boarding school for bad kids. Really bad kids.
There she meets a Hispanic boy with curly hair and pointy ears...
I still had no idea what was up with these flashes. I guess they had to be stuff that I prevented, but why was I seeing them? Were they important?
It didn't matter. All I knew was that I was really starting to hate my life.
Or at least half my life.
After Christmas, I had truly started resenting the Decepticons. The glorious cause we fought for no longer seemed all that glorious. We were just causing death and destruction.
The only moments where my life seemed bright were when I was with Piper and Tristan or working on my Trident Robber story. Other than that, everything was miserable.
Every single battle I was in, I blacked out. Everything was a blur until it ended. I preferred it that way. I didn't want to pay attention to what we were doing anymore.
Some of my superiors yelled at me for being sloppy in battle, but I didn't care. I didn't care about anything anymore. All that mattered were Piper and Tristan. Everything was just filling time until I could see them again. I cherished the time I had with them even more now. I couldn't believe it had been a year since I met them.
It took a lot to break me out of my haze in battle.
Like the time I was run over by an elephant.
Sometime in May, I was somewhere in the Registan Desert in Afghanistan with Skywarp, some other Decepticons, and Vipers, the foot soldiers of our human ally Cobra. Our assignment was to defend a space bridge. It's a technology we Transformers developed that bends time and space and allows for instantaneous transport from planet to planet. Usually, it's a large, circular, hollow structure that teleports anyone or anything that is in the middle of it.
We were transporting some Energon over the bridge to Cybertron or something. I didn't know fully, and I didn't care. I just wanted it to be over so I could get back to work on The Trident Robber. Piper and Tristan had finally convinced me to come up with a different name for the main character, and I was still trying to figure out what that name should be.
Sure enough, a team of Autobots and their human allies, G.I. Joe, arrived, and everything went into a haze. I just surrendered myself to my basic fighting instincts as I and the other cons fought them off.
I was broken out of my haze by an elephant running into me.
The second it did, everything came flooding back to me. Skywarp and I were firing at a blue female Autobot named Chromia and some G.I. Joe soldiers who were hiding in a ditch when the elephant rammed me from the side.
I was sent flying sideways and landed with a thud on the ground. I laid down on my back, and before I could get up, the elephant walked right over me. I felt its foot slam into my face, and I growled.
I managed to recover and get up, then I turned to face the elephant. I glared and looked right into its eyes; they looked almost human for an animal...
Before I could do anything else, the elephant... changed. It shrank, and its gray skin was replaced with black and orange fur. Its trunk got sucked up into its body, and its feet grew claws. Suddenly, I was looking at a Chinese tiger that was pouncing right at me.
It clawed at my already injured face, and I howled in pain. I tossed it off, and it flew through the air like a rag doll, but that's when it changed again, this time into a hawk. It stabilized itself and began to fly.
What Earth creature could change into different animals?
"Hah! Looks like these humans got Transformers too!" laughed Skywarp. He raised his arm and fired his wrist blaster at the Hawk. The Hawk did its best to dodge, but Skywarp managed to graze its wing, clipping it.
The hawk fell to the ground near an Energon supply. When it hit the ground, it changed again, this time into a Chinese woman in a Canadian military outfit.
"Bye bye," taunted Skywarp. He raised his wrist.
"NO WAIT!" I screamed, but it was too late.
Skywarp fired his shot at the Energon supply, causing the cache to explode. The woman was caught in the middle of the ensuing detonation. The impact of the explosion sent her flying through the air. She screamed in agony and landed a small distance away, the impact kicking up sand.
She didn't get back up.
Even though we were on opposite sides, I was aware Chromia had a reputation for being one of the toughest Autobots there was, but when she saw the woman get blown up, she shrieked in horror. "EMILY!" she cried.
"Skywarp, you idiot!" yelled Barricade. "You blew up half our Energon! We're supposed to be defending that!"
"Oh... Oops." Skywarp muttered.
"Forget it! Battle's lost! Everyone, retreat!" ordered Barricade.
The other Decepticons left after that, all following Barricade's orders, but I just stood there, looking at the body of the woman Skywarp had just senselessly murdered. As the battle calmed down, I could hear the chattering of the Autobots and G.I. Joe soldiers, but I couldn't make out the words.
I walked over to Emily's body and knelt by it. Her body was twisted and charred, and her eyes were open in an expression of horror and sadness.
Before I could do anything else, I heard the sound of a gun charging up.
"Get away from her! Don't you dare touch her!" I heard the pained voice of Chromia say.
I turned my head. She was next to me, pointing her rifle at my head.
"I'm sorry," I said.
Chromia was silent. She just glared at me with cold eyes.
I looked back at the body. I thought of something that I, Piper, and Tristan had read about: the Greek Underworld, the realm of Hades.
"I'm not going to do anything to the body," I promised.
Chromia was still silent but she didn't shoot me, which I guess was her approval for me to do whatever was on my mind.
I gently put my right hand down on Emily's body. "Hades." I prayed, "I don't know if you're real or not, but if you can hear me, let this woman rest in Elyisum. May her spirit rest among the greatest of heroes.".
Maybe it was my imagination, but I swear I felt a presence wash over me—a dark presence, but also strangely comforting.
I stood up and let Chromia pass me. She picked up the body with a sorrowful look in her eyes. With her much bigger hands compared to the human, she carefully and gently did that motion I've seen in a few movies where someone will put their hands over a dead person's eyes to close them.
"Thank you," she said.
"We may be on opposite sides, but she's still a warrior like us," I said solemnly. "She deserves respect,"
Chromia cradled the body in her arms.
"Were you two close?" I asked.
Chromia looked at me and said, "She was my sister in arms. I was there when she was accepted into G.I. Joe; she was one of its first international members. We had each other's backs. She even introduced me to her fam-"
Her eyes widened all of a sudden.
"Oh, Primus! Frank," she muttered.
"Who's Frank?"
"Her son."
...
Scrap.
"His dad isn't around; all he has left is his grandmother," Chromia continued, her voice breaking.
I thought about Piper's mom and how she wasn't around either, but unlike this "Frank," her grandparents were dead. What would have happened to her if Tristan died?
"...Tell him his mother was a hero." I offered, "That she died saving her comrades and that she has earned respect from an enemy as well as her allies."
I turned and started to walk away.
"Why are you with them?"
I stopped and turned back around to look at Chromia.
"I've seen you in action. You're not like the other Decepticons," she said quietly. "You show honor and respect on the battlefield; you only kill when it's kill or be killed, and even then you don't hurt humans. How can you still be on their side?"
"It's the only way to save Cybertron," I said flatly. "We have to break the status quo and push it into the future."
"Is that really what you think?" Chromia snapped, "Or is that just what you tell yourself at night so you can recharge in peace?!"
I didn't answer.
My wrist-mounted comm device buzzed, and I turned it on. "Hey, TC, where are you!?" yelled Skywarp. "We've been waiting for you for five cycles!"
I looked back at Chromia. She scowled at me.
"Just go, Thundercracker," Chromia ordered with disgust before turning her head away.
I swerved around, transformed into my jet mode, and flew off.
When I got back to the headquarters, I found Skywarp bragging to the other cons.
"-and then I pointed my gun and said, 'Bye, bye'. BOOM!" He laughed, spreading his arms. I heard some of the other cons laugh along with him. Laughing over the death of a woman who had died to save her friends and who was leaving a son behind—a son who would grow up without a parent.
Skywarp turned to me, "Oh man! We may have lost, but that was a fun battle."He giggled, "Right, TC?"
I crossed my arms and gave him an angry look.
"What?" he asked.
I started walking back to my chambers.
"What did I do!?"
I continued to ignore Skywarp and entered my room, slamming the door.
I sat on my recharge slab and started working on the Trident Robber script again.
I think I found a new name for my protagonist.
Hope you enjoyed this bit of alteration to the Riordanverse canon. But next time is the moment you've all been waiting for; we're finally going to be entering the events of Lost Hero.
As always, thanks for reading, and please review!