This chapter is going to be a bit different than the previous ones. I'll get into why that is at the end. I hope you enjoy it regardless.

I don't own Transformers or the Riordanverse; they belong to their owners.

Chapter 39: Soaring Heroes

In the skies above Joint Base Abernathy in Kansas, the American fighter pilot nicknamed "Eagle" smiled as she piloted the test plane "The Tigerhawk." It was a brand-new prototype for an elite jet fighter. It was a bit stubbier than a usual jet, but it also had more firepower.

This was one of her favorite places in the world to be, high up in the air flying through the skies. She'd had a fascination with the sky ever since she was a little girl, and the experience had never gotten old for her.

Just then, her communication system flared to life, and she heard the unmistakable voice of Jill "Dial-Tone" Morelli. "Hey Eagle. You know you can come back down now, right?"

"Just a few more minutes, Dial-Tone." Eagle pleaded.

"Sorry, orders from Colonel Faireborn himself."

Eagle sighed and moved the Tigerhawk to the direction of the runway of the base…

As she stepped out and took off her helmet, revealing her blond hair, she was greeted by two of her fellow pilots, an African American with a buzzcut named Wallace "Ripcord" Weems and a Caucasian male with black hair and a mustache named Gregory "Slipstream" Boyajian.

"Another great runrun, Eagle," Slipstream congratulated.

"Can you tell us the secret to your skills already?" Ripcord asked. "I'm tired of crashing my planes…."

"I've flown with actual birds," Eagle muttered sarcastically.

"Yeah?" asked Slipstream. "How'd that go?"

"Pretty well…" Eagle answered.

"That reminds me." Ripcord added."You ever gonna tell us where you were when you went missing all those years ago?"

Eagle was about to respond when Dial-Tone walked up to them. "Excuse me? Eagle? Slipstream? Ripcord?"

"What's up?" asked Slipstream.

"Colonel Faireborne wants to talk to you." Dial-Tone explained. "It's urgent."

The three pilots walked over to Colonel Daniel "Flint" Faireborn's personal office. It was nothing overtly fancy. It was practical and simple. Flint's numerous military medals he'd earned during his years sat displayed all over his desk with a small computer on the side and various photos of the men and women he served with hung on the walls.

Flint himself was sitting in quiet contemplation, looking over some old notes of his.

"Reporting for duty, Colonel," Slipstream said, saluting, with Eagle and Ripcord following suit.

"At ease troops," Flint responded.

"Jill said you needed us?" asked Eagle.

"Right." Flint sat up. "We recently detected some unusual seismic activity in the middle of the Arizona desert."

"Sounds like a job for geologists, not the military." Eagle pointed out.

"Yeah, but that's the thing; according to some contacts with our friends up in the great white north, they detected similar seismic readings a couple of months ago," Flint added.

"And?" asked Ripcord.

"They weren't able to get close enough to investigate, but the lone survivor of the incident claims a giant robot attacked them…"

A moment of silence hung in the air after this. Eagle looked particularly curious by this news.

"You think it's true, sir?" asked Slipstream, "And if it is, is it aliens?"

Flint shook his head. "I have no idea; that's why I need you three to investigate as soon as possible. Get in your jets and see if you can get a good look at what's going on. Dial Tone will send the coordinates to your jets onboard computers."

"Got it!" Slipstream, Ripcord, and Eagle responded in unison. All three of them turned around and headed to get ready for the flight.

When they were at their lockers getting their gear, Eagle made sure to get something special out of hers. "That your lucky picture, Eagle?" asked Ripcord.

"Yeah, it is," Eagle answered as she took a moment to look at it. It showed her and a couple of others at a party posing in front of a camera. Among the group were a guy with brown hair and a red jacket, an Asian girl in white, a Hispanic boy in black with glasses, and an African American boy in blue and orange.

"You gonna tell us who those people are someday?" Ripcord asked.

Eagle gave a sad smile. "All you need to know is that they're the best team I ever had."

"Gee. Thanks," Ripcord muttered sarcastically, but he did it with a smile of his own.

A couple of minutes later, the three of them were flying in the skies inside some standard F-22 fighter jets and heading to the location provided. As they approached, they could see it was a remote area dotted with large rocks.

It was uncomfortably quiet as the three fighter jets flew towards the area. No one seemed to really know what to say.

"Comm check," said Dial Tone's voice over the communication line. "You three almost there?"

"Yeah, we're almost there, Dial-Tone," said Eagle. "We'll have visual any second now."

"Got it," responded Dial-Tone. "Oh and Ripcord, please don't crash your plane this time…"

"No promises," chuckled Ripcord.

Dial Tone sighed over the comms.

As they approached, Eagle quickly glanced at her lucky picture, which she had placed in the cockpit. Just then, all three pilots heard a massive booming sound coming from behind the largest of the rocks.

"What was that!?" Slipstream exclaimed.

"That's what we're gonna find out," Eagle said. "Moving to intercept."

Eagle moved the yoke of her F-22 forward to get a better look. Slipstream and Ripcord followed suit, moving their own jets forward.

When they got closer and managed to get a good view of what was going on, Eagle's eyes widened.

"Um…guys… are you seeing what I'm seeing?" she asked

"You mean the giant robots of various colors currently fighting each other?" asked Ripcord.

"Yeah, I'm seeing it too…" Slipstream noted…

"So Sideswipe?!" asked Sunstreaker as he kicked Barricade in the face, knocking the con backward. "How do you like your first real mission on Earth?"

"Oh, it's a lot of fun!" Sideswipe responded as he held Skytread in a chokehold. "I especially am fond of the sand in my servos!" he said sarcastically.

Sunstreaker grunted as he looked around the battlefield. He, Sideswipe, and the rest of the Autobots had arrived just a few minutes ago. They weren't wasting any time with this one. They had just charged into the fray, ready to fight the Decepticons. It looked like everyone from each side was there right now, except for Frenzy and Thundercracker, who were still being repaired in the Decepticon's CR chambers, and Nightprowler, who had wanted to come, but Optimus insisted he stay behind for now, in order to prevent the Decepticons from getting their hands on the info he still had.

Sunstreaker shook himself out of his thoughts. "See, I told you this planet's gunk-" Sunstreaker was interrupted as Skywarp teleported behind him and blasted him in the back. He hollered in pain as he fell on the ground.

In response to this, a nearby Prowl swung his sword at Skywarp, but the con just teleported away again with a VOP, causing Prowl to curse.

Meanwhile, Hound had his own hands full. When the Autobots had ground bridged in, he had made a direct beeline to tackle Quake.

Deep down he knew that revenge was the most worthless of causes, but right now that didn't matter.

"I'm gonna keep this simple," Hound said in an icy cold as he threw a punch at Quake. "You killed my friend. I'm gonna make you pay for that."

Quake laughed as he caught Hound's fist in his palm. "Yeah, and he was way tougher than you ever were.". Then he head-butted Hound, knocking the Autobot back on his rear end. "And I beat him," he laughed.

Hound grunted as he picked himself up. He activated his hologram tech, and around him, holographic illusions of himself appeared. Then he charged.

"Hah! Even I know how to beat this trick!" Quake laughed. He pulled out his rifle and began to shoot rapid fire at all the holograms. Sure enough, one of the shots hit Hound, leaving a massive wound in his chest.

"So weak! So pathetic! You can't even get revenge right!" Quake laughed.

"Just trying to distract you." Hound laughed back.

Quake gave a quick look of confusion before he felt something sting in the back of his legs. Luke had snuck up behind the con and slashed at his legs with his sword, knocking him down.

Quake fell onto his knees, leaving him open to the ensuing uppercut from Hound.

"That was for Brawn!" Hound declared.

"Bullseye!" Luke cheered.

As this was going on, Hot Rod was having a standoff against the newest Decepticon.

"So, Quicksand, right?" asked Hot Rod.

"That's the name!" Quicksand sneered.

"Nice to meet you." Hot Rod smirked. "I'm Hot Rod. Let me show you how we do things in this war." He brought out his twin blaster pistols and started firing.

Quicksand jumped up and transformed into his sand scorpion mode. When he hit the ground, he tunneled downward and disappeared into the sands of the desert.

"Hey!" Hot Rod exclaimed, "Where'd he-"

"WHOA!" cried Sideswipe as he was shot upward into the air when Quicksand dug up from under him. This released Skytread from Sideswipe's choke hold, and he proceeded to split apart into his individual vehicle modes.

"Let's roast em!" the jet yelled as it flew towards Chromia, who was battling Spinister. He threw a punch at Chromia but leaned back and let the punch fly over her. When she was standing straight again, she saw Skytread's jet mode flying straight towards her.

Chromia fixed her gaze with fierce determination, and as Spinister launched another punch, she propelled herself into a backflip, creating a clear path for Skytread's jet mode to advance toward Spinister.

"Oh no, can't stop!" cried Skytread's jet mode. It flew forward and hit Spinister right in the chest. Knocking them both backward.

"Hah!" laughed Skytreads tank mode as it chased around Ratchet, who was firing while running away from it.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up!" The jet mode growled on the heap he and Spinister were on.

Ratchet grunted as he kept running from Skytread's tank mode. "Suddenly I remember why I don't go on these missions usually." He panted as he tried to shoot the tank.

"Stay in the labs where you belong, scrap heap!" the tank mode mocked. "I'm gonna roll over you and—"

That's when a familiar punk leaped right on top of the tank and deployed her spear. Thalia jammed it right into Skytread's tank mode and summoned a whole bunch of lightning. The tank mode screamed as the lighting surged into it as it ground to a halt. Thalia leaped off after it had stopped running completely.

"Nice plan, Annabeth!" She called to her friend, who was currently weaving in and out of the battlefield, jabbing her knife at the legs of the cons.

"Aren't they always nice?" Annabeth asked smugly.

The banter was interrupted when Sunstreaker let out a scream of pain. He had just been shot again, this time by Starscream.

The noise of Sunstreaker's scream caused Optimus to turn his head away from his own battle with Megatron.

Megatron grabbed Optimus's head with one hand and laughed. "Na ah ah, Prime. Don't lose your focus in a battle. That's what Sentinel Prime taught us!." He taunted as he pulled his other hand back, balled it into a fist, and then delivered an uppercut to Optimus.

Optimus grunted as he staggered backward before recovering and delivering his own right hook into Megatron. "He also made sure to teach us a leader's bond with his troops is his life!" he retorted

"Hey guys!?" called Hot Rod "Where'd Quicksand—GAH!" he screamed as Quicksand leaped from the sand below him, knocking Hot Rod forward.

Quicksand got up and transformed into his robot mode. "Here's one of my new upgrades!" he shouted as he opened his pincer hand, deploying two rockets. The rockers fired, hitting Hot Rod in the back.

Hot Rod grunted in pain as the missiles burned into him, and he was sent flying by the impact. He let out another grunt of pain when he hit the ground.

Soundwave briefly looked away from his current job of providing cover fire across the battlefield to look at Quicksand. "Stop delaying," he ordered. "Inititate the operation."

"Right, got it," Quicksand replied. "Which one?"

"Whichever."

Quicksand optics darted around the battlefield. He looked at Sideswipe as he recovered from getting blown away and fired at Soundwave. looked at Sunstreaker as he recovered and moved to get Starscream. looked at a now combined Skytread as Thalia and Annabeth managed to hold their own against him despite their size; he looked at Hot Rod being grabbed by Barricade while he was down; looked at Prowl while he tried to help Chromia with Spinister; looked at Optimus and Megatron as they fought; looked at Ratchet while he tried to dodge Skywarp's shots.

Then his eyes locked on the perfect target. He saw Hound as he lowered his gun at Quake's head while the Decepticon was on his knees.

Quicksand smirked.

Quake gave a cruel smile as he stared down the barrel of Hound's rifle. "Go on. Do it, Autobot," he taunted.

"Yeah, Hound, what are you waiting for?" asked Luke. "He killed Brawn! Let's get him!"

Hound hesitated. The hand holding his rifle shook.

"What are you waiting for?!" Luke asked again.

Hound put his hand down. "No. Not like this," he muttered.

"Hound!" cried Luke.

"I'm sorry, Luke, but... I'm not an executioner. I don't–" Hound was interrupted when something hit him in the back. He cried out in pain.

"What!?" yelled Luke. He looked back and saw Quicksand smugly looking at Hound with his pincer hand raised. He must have shot a missile into Hound's back.

It was the distraction Quake needed. He jumped up and socked Hound right in the jaw. "That's why we're gonna beat you, Autobot filth!" he yelled defiantly. He then grabbed Hound and hauled him up in the air before smashing him down head-first to the ground. "You're too weak to do the hard stuff."

"I'm not!" Luke shouted as he charged in with his sword. He swung it at Quake, but the Decepticon merely gave a cold laugh and reached for the human.

"Me too," Quake said smugly.

"No!" cried Hound, and he kicked his leg at Quake, knocking the con off balance.

As the green robot kicked the tank robot, Eagle, Slipstream, and Ripcord just stared in disbelief from their positions in their jets.

"So that report from the survivor is true," said Ripcord. "Giant robots that turn into vehicles."

Eagle turned on the comm system in her jet. "Dial-Tone, are you reading me?"

"I read you, Eagle."

"Report confirmed, repeat report confirmed!" Eagle said.

"Have they spotted you?" Dial-Tone asked.

"No doesn't seem like it," Eagle reported.

"I'm gonna start taking as many images of this as possible," Slipstream added. "We can study them back at base.". He then flipped a switch and activated the camera mounted on his jet, which went to work taking pictures right away.

"So what do you think they are?" Dial-Tone asked. "Machine Empire survivors?"

"No," said Eagle. They don't match–"

"LOOK OUT!" cried Ripcord.

Sideswipe fired his rifle at Soundwave again, but the con shrugged off the shot and returned fire with his own gun.

Sideswipe swerved and did a backflip to dodge Soundwave's shot. He landed on the ground and grunted, "Guess I'm gonna have to get up close…" his train of thought was interrupted when he saw something behind Soundwave.

In the air above them were three F-22s, almost identical to the vehicle modes of Starscream and Skywarp. They were flying above them, and it looked like they were circling around the perimeter of the battlefield.

"Decepticon reinforcements!" cried Sideswipe. He sat up and aimed his rocket launcher.

Optimus broke away from his fight with Megatron to look at what Sideswipe had seen. It was just three ordinary jets, but clearly Sideswipe thought otherwise.

Optimus's expression turned to one of horror. "Sideswipe, wait!" he called.

But it was too late. The rocket launched from Sideswipe's shoulder-mounted cannon. It whizzed through the air, eventually impacting one of the wings of the jets with a massive crashing sound.

Eagle didn't have time to react. One moment she heard Ripcord screaming at her to look out; the next, the rocket hit her wing, tearing it off.

"I'm hit! I'm hit!" she cried.

Without proper stabilization, her jet began to spiral out of control in mid-air. All around her, the world spun, and Eagle could hardly think as everything blurred into chaos.

"Taylor, punch out! EJECT!" yelled Slipstream.

Eagle didn't have to think twice. She grabbed the eject lever and pulled. Her cockpit burst open, and her seat was launched into the air as her jet fell down to the desert below.

"Ripcord! Slipstream!" called Dial-Tone over the comms. "What happened?!"

"Eagle's been shot! Repeat Eagle's been shot!" Ripcord reported.

"Do you see a chute?!"

"Negative," Slipstream said. "No chute."

"Lieutenant Earhardt, are you there?!" Dial Tone asked.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. That's how Eagle felt right now. Her pilot's chair tossed and turned in the air, and the world was still spinning.

Over the comm line in her helmet, she could still hear Dial-Tone's voice. "Lieutenant Earhardt, are you there!?"

Eagle tried to say something but she couldn't. The speed and the g-forces caused by her spinning made it too hard.

"Lieutenant Earhardt respond!" ordered Dial-Tone. "Pull your chute!"

Chute. Right. Had to pull the chute! Taylor moved her arm to the chute deployer, but it wouldn't pull. She tried again, but it wouldn't budge.

"Taylor, what are you waiting for?!" Dial-Tone asked frantically. "Pull your chute!"

Somehow, Eagle managed to say something in the middle of the chaotic spin she was in. "I can't; it's jammed!"

Sideswipe pieced together that the jets approaching them weren't Decepticons when the one he hit didn't transform into a robot mode.

"Oops," he muttered sheepishly.

"OOPS?!" yelled Sunstreaker as he punched Starscream in the face. "OOPS!? Primus damn it, Sideswipe!"

"Since when do you care about—" Sideswipe was interrupted when Soundwave shot him in the chest. "GAH!" he cried.

"Slipstream, Ripcord. This is Colonol Faireborne." Flint said over the comm. "You have permission to engage."

"Gladly!" yelled Ripcord, and he moved his jet right toward the fighting robots and pulled the trigger. A barrage of missile fire and bullets shot out from his jet.

"This is for Eagle!" shouted Slipstream as he let loose his own ammo on the robots.

"Take cover!" cried Prowl as the bullets and missiles flew right at both sides. Everyone disengaged whatever enemy they were fighting and scattered before they were hit.

"WHOA!" cried Luke as missiles flew above his head.

"GAH!" yelled Skywarp as a bullet grazed his wing.

"YIKES!" shouted Ratchet as he ducked behind a rock.

"Decepticons!" Megatron shouted, "This is our cue! Retreat!"

Soundwave didn't waste any time. He positioned himself in front of the two jets, and his shoulder cannon started to buzz with energy. It released a huge electric wave at the jets but strangely didn't seem to harm them much.

He then turned and opened a ground bridge. As if they had planned for this, every single Decepticon took advantage of the confusion and raced toward the portal. One by one, they each vanished into it.

"Get back here and fight!" shouted Sunstreaker. He raised his rifle and shot at a fleeing Barricade, but the shot missed, and the second Barricade entered the portal, it closed behind them. The Decepticons were gone.

"Well...at least we won," Thalia muttered.

"But now we got two human jets shooting at us!" Hound shouted behind the rock he'd taken cover by.

By now the jets had passed by them, but it wouldn't be long before they came around for another pass.

Sideswipe looked in the direction of the jet he had shot down. He looked closely and saw a chair helplessly falling through the air.

Sideswipe raced out of his cover and straight towards where he had shot down the jet.

"Sideswipe, what are you doing!?" Sunstreaker asked.

Sideswipe didn't answer; he just pulled up his wrist and pressed some buttons. Then some pieces of metal on his back shifted around to deploy thrusters. They ignited, and Sideswipe soared into the air.

"A jet pack!? Sideswipe's got a jetpack!?" asked Annabeth in disbelief.

With one successful pass above the battle zone, Ripcord and Slipstream turned their jets around for another one. When they had finished turning, they saw one of the robots was not only flying; he was headed for Eagle's falling chair.

"What's that one doing?" Slipstream asked.

"Nothing good," said Ripcord. He moved his yoke forward to intercept.

There were worse ends. Eagle thought to herself. She always loved flying; maybe dying like this—falling from a huge height was the appropriate end for a person like her.

As she prepared to let go and accept her fate, she saw something red flying towards her. She barely had time to brace herself before whatever it was grabbed her and she blacked out from the impact.

Eagle was a bit surprised when she actually woke up. She looked around and saw she had landed safely in the middle of the desert. She was still strapped to her chair, though.

"Taylor!? Are you okay!?" came Slipstream's voice over the comm line in her helmet.

Eagle took a moment to shake her head and undo her seatbelt. She needed some time for the world to stop spinning before she took the call.

"Taylor, come on, answer us!"

"I'm fine, Slipstream," Eagle muttered as she picked herself up. She looked into the air and saw Slipstream and Ripcord's jets flying around the area. "I was out of it for a bit. What happened?"

"One of those robots saved you," Ripcord explained in disbelief. "It had some sort of jetpack and managed to catch you before you hit the ground. Then he and his buddies grabbed some crystals and vanished through some kind of portal."

"But…that doesn't make sense." Eagle pointed out. "They shot at us, didn't they? Why did one save me?"

"Maybe this is all some kind of misunderstanding…" Slipstream wondered.

"Maybe…" muttered Eagle. She looked over the battle zone. While all the robots were gone, the ground was still scorched, sand was still kicked up, and rubble was scattered around. "Did we get those pictures?" she asked.

"No," lamented Slipstream. "One of those blue ones did something that wiped my jet's hard drive. All the photos I took of those robots are gone…"

"Damn it," muttered Eagle. She didn't cuss often, but it felt appropriate here.

"We're gonna head back to base," Ripcord said. "Stay put, and we'll call a ride for you, okay?"

"Roger," Eagle responded.

With that, the two jets headed off back to Joint Base Abernathy, leaving Eagle alone.

She looked around and saw her jet's wreckage in the distance and started walking toward it. When she got close enough, she inspected the mess. No way was it flying again, but at least most of the cockpit was still intact.

She peered inside and saw that her lucky picture was still intact. "Thank goodness," she muttered in relief.

She reached in and took it out before reaching inside her pocket for her phone. She dialed the number of one of her old friends.

At last, the guy on the other end picked up. "Hey Eric, it's me, Taylor. We got a weird situation here…."

"Nice save Sideswipe," congratulated Hot Rod, as he and the other Autobots regrouped and sorted through the energon they got aboard the Ark-27.

"Well, it was nothing really." Sideswipe bragged. "I have gotten pretty skilled with my jetpack over the years."

"You do realize that the only reason that pilot was in trouble was because you caused their plane to crash, right?" Annabeth teased.

"Don't ruin this for me," Sideswipe muttered, irritated.

Nightprowler looked ashamed as he helped the other Autobots unload the energon they had gathered. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there to help," he said.

"Nightprowler, we went over this," Optimus said. "It's too dangerous to send you out into the field against Decepticons; we don't want them to get the information you have–"

"I know, but I still don't like feeling helpless." Nightprowler replied.

"Yeah. I know exactly how you feel," added Hot Rod.

"Look, you'll get your chance to bash some cons soon, Nightprowler," Thalia reassured. "I think the Autobots just needed a bit more time as all."

Ratchet grunted as he put down another box full of Energon. "Well. That should be enough Energon." he said. "All that's left now is to get fueled up and head to the coordinates Galen gave us."

"Do it, Ratchet," ordered Optimus. "The rest of you, help him out."

"Yes, sir!" everyone said.

As he moved to help, Hound twitched a bit.

"You okay, Hound?" asked Thalia.

"Yeah, I just..." Hound shuddered. "I think I just feel a bit disoriented from that shot Quicksand gave me…"

"Well, shake it off and get to work, soldier," Prowl ordered.

"Yeah…" Hound muttered, unaware of something sneaking out of one of the gaps in his robotic armor plating.

The small robotic bee drone crept its way off of Hound and started to fly towards one of the Ark-27's air vents, unnoticed and undetected by any of the Autobots….

On board the Nemesis, Quicksand stood in front of a monitor, doing his best to press the buttons with his pincers. He gave a cruel smile and turned to Megatron. "Lord Megatron, the bee is in."

Megatron gave Quicksand a rare look of pride. "Excellent work, Quicksand," he congratulated. "We may have lost the energon, but that was only the bait. Thanks to you, we completed the primary objective of today's mission."

He extended his arm. "Allow me to welcome you formally into the Decepticons."

Quicksand took Megatron's arm in his pincers and shook it.

So why did I put the stuff with the human pilots in this? Well, to put it simply, two reasons. One was that I needed to liven up a bog standard "Autobots fight Decepticons for Energon" battle, and I wanted to expand the world I'm building a bit.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave a review!