Vanguard

“How are you feeling?” Ravage asked me.

“Angry,” I replied.

She chuckled. “I meant physically.”

“Like I got hit by a damn bus,” I replied. “But, it’s fine, because all the major damage is like 80% healed,” I informed her. A night’s rest and that extra shot of nanobots had me healed up considerably. I ran my hand across the band of silver around my neck. “Nothing that I can’t run with,” I told her.

“You need to learn your limits,” she told me.

I shook my head. “No, I know my limits. They don’t,” I looked at Shane, Tessa and Cade.

We were nearing our destination. Optimus had just left Cade from whatever heart to heart they were having.

I walked over. “You three-“

They all looked at me.

“I’m asking nicely for you to not do anything stupid that I’ll have to save you from.”

“We don’t try,” Tessa argued.

“You don’t make any real effort to avoid life threatening situations,” I told her. “Now listen, I take most of the abuse, because I’m more durable than you, but I’m still human. I’m not as durable as them.” I jerked my thumb back towards the others. “And I took a beating yesterday, so I’m even less durable today than I was yesterday.”

“Brent, you have acted bravely and selflessly and performed in ways that I never would’ve thought possible, when I first met you,” Optimus said, coming up behind me.

“Well, you know when I met you I didn’t think I I was ever going to have a family let alone two that I was going to end up losing, so…”

“Brent-“

“I’m not blaming you,” I told him. “I’m blaming Joyce and his CIA fuck buddy. As soon as I get the chance I’m breaking my foot off up Joyce’s ass, and Mr. Cemetery Wind’s dead. Dead as fuck.”

“We’re simply retrieving the seed.”

I rolled my eyes.

“If you really thing that this is going to go off without a hitch you’ve lost your damn mind,” I told him.

He cycled his vents.

I smirked. “You know I’m right.”

“But I hope you’re wrong.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Prime, we’ve found the seed,” Crosshairs called.

“Looks like it’s go time.”

“Sensei, my searches have shown that KSI’s Chinese facility has come under attack,” Drift added.

“I should’ve bet it,” I chirped.

“We must hurry and get the seed, before Galvatron does,” Prime said. “Autobots, prepare for extraction.”

I looked between the others with a small sarcastic smile on my face. “You three ready for the boss fight?” I asked.

“It won’t come to that.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Prime,” I said, looking up at Big Blue.

Crosshairs pin pointed the location of the seed. Luckily for us it was on the roof of a building with Josh Joyce, so we could knock out two birds with one stone.

They opened the back.

“Joshua!”

“Hey, Baldy!” I snorted at Hound.

“Hey! It’s me!”

I rolled my eyes. “No shit, asshole!” I yelled.

The ship was lowered to the roof top and we created a chain to pull him up the ramp with Bee serving as anchor.

Hound and Ravage were there to provide cover if need, which we unfortunately needed. We were hit and fell off. Optimus, Drift and Crosshairs were on the ship and hightailed it out of there to avoid crashing in such a populated area.

We ran to another roof top and surveyed the damage.

“I count ten below,” Hound called.

“I thought you had one prototype get infected?” Cade asked.

“Now he’s got operational control of my other fifty,” Joyce responded.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to turn you into a fucking kabob.”

“They’ve got us surrounded. We need to get that seed out of here. Bee, Kitty, with me. The rest of you get that thing down to the bottom, and we’ll meet back up there.”

“Don’t any of you die on me!” I yelled, taking off with the others.

“Brent, can you provide cover fire?”

“I can, but I’m gonna wait until we absolutely need it. I’m still not one-hundred remember?”

“I may have started the apocalypse, but you brought your family and that’s you know, terrible parenting.”

“Your bed buddy Attinger killed my family,” I reminded him.

“I’m about two seconds away from knocking your ass out and leaving with the bomb,” Cade responded.

“Please, you’d being doing me a favor.”

One of the Stinger models started firing at us.

“Brent?!” Shane yelled panicked.

“I’m not that good of a shot!” I yelled at him.

“How are you not that good of a shot?”

“There’s not exactly a range, where I can shot things, but I’ve been running, since they showed up here, so get your ass moving!”

“You died.”

“Because I ran in the wrong direction on purpose, now isn’t the time to argue with me.”

“You died?”

“Shut up, Joyce!”

I scanned the area. “Elevator to the right.”

We made it to the elevator, and hopped in. Before the door shut, gun shots rang out. We all ducted. I deflected one shot with my servo, using the plating of my forearm as a shield.

“Where the hell can I get one of you?”

The elevator was too heavy. “I think you should go to lighten the load,” I sneered, before I could throw his ass out, Cade ran off, so that he could play hero.

The elevator started it’s decent.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Shane assured Tessa.

“Listen, if Sam managed to survive three of these fucking things, anyone can survive. He’ll be fine.”

“Who is Sam?”

“My idiot best friend. Maybe you’ll meet him one day. At a Cybertronian war support group I need to start.” I hit a button to stop our decent. “We’re taking the stairs down. They’ll be waiting at the ground floor.”

We piled out, Joyce and Shane with the bomb.

“ALIEN BOMB! ALIEN BOMB! GET OUT OF THE WAY! GET OUT OF THE WAY! Hey kids.” Josh returned to his yelling.

I was hopeful that most of these people didn’t understand what the fuck he was saying. Announcing that you have an alien bomb is a sure fire way to get people in a frenzy, which was the opposite of what we needed.

A group of old ladies didn’t seem to understand or they didn’t care as they continued to move at a snail’s pace in front of us. “We’re coming through ladies! Ladies! Excuse me! Oh my god! How do you say ‘get the fuck out of the way’ in Chinese?”

I transformed my arm into my blaster, while translating. I charged it up and cocked it, causing it to make quite a bitch of noise, which attracted the ladies’ attention. ““獲得他媽的閃開”

“Effective,” Joyce commented as they parted.

“Not as effective as my foot’s gonna be up your ass.”

We made it the stair well and made our way down as fast as we could.

I transformed my arm back. We ran outside and a met up with Hound Ravage and Bee. Then Darcy, who was one of Joyce’s people and Cade, who like I predicted hasn’t died, which I assumed meant that Attinger’s right hand was dead and gone. I kept that too myself though. No need to worry Tessa was the fact that her father killed a man. That probably wouldn’t help any.

“We got a real dilemma here. I created incredible robots. It’s all designed to kick that fat transformers ass.” He pointed at Hound. “So really this is a no win situation.”

Hound took his cigar and flicked it at Joyce. “That was mean.”

“Hey! I’m sorry if you can’t handle the cold hearted truth!” he yelled.

“Little J?”

Jazzy crawled out of my pocket onto my shoulder.

“Go ahead and do the thing,” I told him.

Jazzy launched himself at Joyce, clinging to Joyce’s shoulder, gun pointed right at his head.

“Joyce, it’d be a lot easier on all of us if you were dead, so if I were you, I’d quit disrespecting the people who have no reason to keep your ass alive.”

“Alright. Alright. I apologize. Can you please call the little one off?”

“Thanks, Lil Lady.”

I nodded at Hound.

“Jazzy.”

He was hesitant, but lowered his weapons, and crawled back over to me.

“You got anything?”

“A track on all hostiles,” he answered.

“Keep us updated and stay where I can’t lose you.”

Hound commed Prime openly. :.Optimus what am I doing with these humans? Can I squish the bald guy?

Optimus didn’t answer.

:.Boss?

“Damn it,” Hound swore.

“Plan is to not die for the moment. To do that we can’t stay here.”

We started moving, using Hound as cover and sending Bee up ahead to clear the path if need be. Ravage had taken up the rear.

Incoming fire caused the rest of us search for cover, while they engaged the enemy.

“Stay behind me. I’m coverin’ ya. If I stop coverin’ ya, it means I’m dead, but that ain’t gonna happen.” As soon as the last syllable left his vocal processor a rocket whizzed past his head. He spun around and shot the source of it. “Take that! I’m a wicked warrior robot.”

Despite everything going on. I still found Hound funny. That was probably a sign that I was losing it, but who was I kidding I had probably lost it a long time ago.

“Let’s go!”

Somehow, our best option was to hide in a building with glass walls, which as Joyce pointed out was stupid.

Jazzy was updating me on the locations of the enemies. We were surrounded and they were closing in.

I retracted my pretender skin and transformed my arm into my blaster.

“Cade, we’re shooting.”

“I thought you were a bad shot,” Joyce commented.

“As long as I don’t hit, Bee, Hound or Rav, it’s fine.”

We only got a couple of shots off, before a stray projectile blew up the spot directly in front of us.

Joyce made some weird noise. “I can’t believe that I’m putting my life in your hands.”

I snarled, transforming my blaster into my blades. I held them up to his throat. “Either you shut the fuck up and deal with the fact that your life is in our hands, or it ends at mine.”

He swallowed nervously, putting his hands up. “I’m sure your hands are perfectly capable.”

I was happy that he bought my bluff. “Then shut up!” I transformed it back and returned to my shooting.

Hound would knock them close to us and Cade and I would take the kill shots. Ravage had switched from shooting to close combat, ripping the knockoffs into pieces. At one point Hound referred to himself as a fat ballerina, who takes scalps and slits throats which was something. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

A grenade fell off of Hound. He order us to pull the pin and then hurled it at a few, but there were just too man and hound ran out of ammo. The three of them were overwhelmed.

Then there was a deep rumbling. Which I assumed was going to be a very terrible thing.

“Cade, you know how in Jurassic Park, you can hear the t-rex coming?”

“Yeah?”

“Prepare for the t-rex.”

I was not however expecting an actual, giant, robotic t-rex with a very angry Optimus riding it.

Just when I thought that I had seen it all.

“Optimus is here!” Hound called.

All I could do was stare for a moment.

Optimus’ arrival reinvigorated, Ravage and Hound, who were now fighting much harder and Bee was fighting Stinger on what looked to be a two headed pterodactyl. There had been a lot of times, where I questioned how I had gotten where I was in the situation that I was in, but this was really the first time that I questioned what the fuck my life had turned into.

Then it hit me. “Why the fuck is Bee on the thing that flies?!” I yelled.

Eventually, they managed to clear out a majority of cons and send the others running.

“You,” Optimus pointed at Joyce with his sword.

“What? Me?” I shoved him forward.

“Your science will be responsible for humanity’s extinction.”

“Look, I know that you’re sensitive to this whole bioethical dilemma-“

“Maybe all he wants to hear you say is that somethings should never be invented. The t-rex screamed in his face.

“How in the hell did you not just piss yourself?” I asked him.

“We’ll lead yo out of the city. Get that seed safely to the hills.”

“Use this car.”

Cade got in the driver’s seat. Joyce, Tessa and Darcy sat in the back with the seed. I hopped in the hatch.

“Get out of that seat,” Shane said, “And you’re one lucky dad to have me.”

I smirked.

“Okay Lucky Charms. You got that. You drive. Let’s go.”

“You’re time to shine, Lucky Charms!” I called.

I had been part of a couple of autobot convoys before, but none of them had ever included dinosaurs.

I almost felt relieved when we started rolling out. Almost. The seed started beeping. Beeping was never a good sign.

“The fuck is that?”

“I don’t know. I- I don’t know, but it’s an issue.”

“Did you press a button?” Cade asked.

“Is it going to blow up?” Darcy with a better question.

“The thing is beeping now, so you must’ve hit something,” Cade continued.

“Is it going to blow up?” Darcy asked again.

“I DON’T KNOW!” Joyce exploded.

“J?”

Jazzy hopped onto the bomb and examined it. “It’s a tracker.”

“A tracker?”

We all paused in confusion. Then it hit me. “Lockdown!”

It was like I had summoned the ship. We were so caught up in the bomb that we hadn’t noticed it up ahead until it started dropping shit in front of us.

Shane shifted into reverse. The bots ran tossing and debris that could’ve hit us away. “Autobots! Roll back!”

“It’s a big magnet!” Joyce yelled.

“It’s ducking up metal and dropping it.”

I could feel it pulling me. Shane drove us into a building.

It was right over us.

“Everyone piled out of the car, which didn’t help me any as I began to float upwards.

I also had the seed, which didn’t do anything to help me. Cade grabbed my leg, Tessa and Darcy holding on to his, but that wasn’t enough. I let out a pained screech as I felt the metal pull against the soft tissues of my body. Shane couldn’t get out of the car though, and was floating higher than me. He flopped onto the roof, and then the pull stopped.

“Move!” I barked as the car came crashing down. We managed to find Bee, which was a massive relief.

“Hey you guys! Yeehaw![i/]”

I rolled my eyes. Of course he was having a blast, while I was having my skeleton ripped from my body. “Glad you’re enjoying yourself. I’m being turned into a chicken tender, and you’re playing fucking Top Gun.”

“You sound like… Sam…”

“Oh fuck you! See if I ever wash you again.”

“Come on… Doll Face…”

“Don’t Doll Face me, Bug.”

He joined the rest of the bots. We met back up with Optimus. “Autobots, get this bomb over the bridge and out of the city,” he ordered. But then that fucking magnet kicked in and picked us up again. I ended up on the underside of a sky bridge. Again the hard and soft parts of my body fought against each peach other, pushing and shoving.

Optimus got sucked up around the sky bridge and shot at the magnet, disabling it, sending me falling towards the ground.

I screamed bloody murder. Before, I could go splat, Bee swooped in on the pterodactyl and caught me.

“I got you babe…” he played cradling me in the area in front of his spark.

I caught my breath. He hopped off and set me down, before transforming to go with the others. I hopped in the back. I was only vaguely paying attention to what Cade was saying, but based on the fact that he bolted towards Optimus, I had a pretty good idea.

Tessa was completely and totally freaked. And we didn’t get very far, before she made Bee stop.

By the point I had gained a bit of my composure back.

“Now listen…”

“No you listen. I’m not leaving my dad,” Tessa said.

Bee remained silent.

“Jazzy wouldn’t leave you,” I told him.

He cycled his vents.

“Jazzy… wouldn’t leave… you…” he responded, heading back.

I laughed. “Well I would tell him not to leave you.”

“Real nice…”

“I’d tell him to leave us.”

When we found the pair, Optimus had his own sword through his chest and Cade had a gun pointed at his.

“I got Cade,” I said, hoping out.

I blasted the gun out of his hand.

He pulled his now burnt hand to his chest and glared at me. “The techno-organic,” he sneered.

“The shitty human,” I shot back.

Cade grabbed the gun and aimed it at Attinger.

“Go help the others,” I told him.

“Are you-“

“Go!” I barked.

“You’ve allowed yourself to be brainwashed. You’re disillusioned calling them your family, thinking that they can love, that they can love you.”

“That’s rich coming from you. Disillusioned is thinking that you understand what the fuck is going here. You told me I had no idea what I was involved with. You’re right. We have fucking dinosaurs now. I have no clue what the fuck I’m in anymore. I never really did, but neither did you. The difference between us isn’t what we don’t know. It’s in what we do know. I know that those bots have given everything up to defend us. I know that those bots-“

“You know what they programmed into you,” he shot. “They turned you into this thing.” Disgust laced his words.

“They had nothing to do with this.”

“It was an act of illegal experimentation.”

“This was an act of a god,” I spat.

That seemed to enrage him enough that he pulled out another gun and shot me. Unfortunately for him he went for the forehead, which while uncomfortable was nowhere near lethal. The bullet broke the skin, but deflected off my skull.

“Son of a bitch!” I knocked the gun out of his hand dodging the second shot he got off. He started swinging. He had the technical advantage, being a trained CIA operative, while I was just a girl from the suburbs, but I was extremely good at not getting hit. The longer he went the sloppier and more desperate he got until he launched himself at me. It caused us both to fall to the ground. I took the brunt of the impact, but used the moment to roll us both through, so that he was one on the ground. I pinned him down, my artificial strength, too much for him.

“Listen here you fucker. If I had my way, I would send you back out into the world, just so you could live in fear of being hunted down. Then when I found you again, I would tear you apart limb from fucking limb and then burn what was left of you alive, just like you did my family!” I cried.

“They’re machines,” he argued.

“They are people,” I spat back, cocking back and punching him. “They fought to save you, to save us and you repaid them by murdering them in cold blood!”

“I did what I had to, to save-“

I punched him again.

“If I were you, Attinger. I would thank my lucky stars that it was me that took you down and not one of the bots,” I said.

“And why is that, because otherwise they would turn me into some-”

I chuckled. It was a dry humorless sound. “Because I’m the only one who faints at the sight of blood,” I said, snapping his neck.

I stood up and watched as Prime, jammed his sword into Lockdown’s chest and lifted upwards, slicing him in half, saving Cade.

“Where’s Bee?” I asked, frantically searching for him. He was laid out on the ground. I ran over and carefully climbed up on his chassis.

“Bug? Bug?!” I called, looking down at his helm.

“I am in sooooo much trouble…” he played, before groaning.

I let out a relieved laugh, bringing my forehead down to his plating.

He cupped a servo around me and sat up.

While Lockdown may have been gone, that didn’t mean the newly reformed cons were. We were fired upon again.

“Get out of here!” Optimus yelled.

Be transformed, throwing me in the driver’s seat and tore out of there as fast as he could, dodging the enemy.

I looked back a few minutes later and saw Optimus fly off and then an explosion.

We arrived at the location where the others were at the same time as Optimus.

Cade and Tessa were locked in an embrace. Bee let me out and Jazzy crawled up onto my shoulder. Bee activated his holoform. He held my face in his hands and I thought he was gonna kiss me, but instead, he began examining the silver mark on my forehead, a look of concern on his features.

I didn’t answer any of his silent questions, opting instead to pull him down to my level and kiss him, before resting my head on his chest. Bee wrapped hi arms around me, while Jazzy crawled over on to his shoulder.

“We don’t have a home, Dad,” Tessa said, drawing my attention towards them “It blew up.”

“I might be able to help you with that,” Joyce said. “And you two-” he looked at Bee and I. “I think I can help with your wedding too.”

“Oh you’re helping with a lot of shit mother fucker,” I told him. Partially, because Jazzy had gone ahead and transferred a large sum of money from KSI into a Swiss bank account for me, and partially, because I was holding him responsible for this madness. “I want it outside in the middle of nowhere so that the bots can be there.”

“I’ll buy the property.”

“I want my friends and family there. They all know, so there’s no worries there.”

“I’ll fly them all to whatever location you choose.”

“I don’t know where a lot of them ended up.”

“We’ll find them. Anything else?”

“I want a god damn Pnina Tornai.”

“You actually have good taste.”

Everyone chuckled.

“Obviously,” I said, patting Bee’s chest.

“Brave warriors, you are free.”

The dinobots roared and transformed in response to Optimus’ declaration.

“I’ll ride with you any time, Spike,” Crosshairs told the one as they ran off.

“Should we really let them run off like this?” I asked. No one said anything. “Like really has no one here ever seen Jurassic Park?”

Bee pulled his altmode up behind us, dropping back pulling Jazzy and I down, before fizzling out and transforming. I ended up on one shoulder, Jazzy on the other.

Optimus spoke. “This Seed belongs to out creators, whoever they are. There remains a price on my head. I endanger you all if I stay. I shall take it, where it will never be found.”

Cade asked the question on all of our minds. “Will we ever see you again?”

“Cade Yeager, I do not know, but whenever you look to the stars think of one of them as my soul. Defend this family, Autobots, as they have you. Defend all they can be.”

Optimus had died once. I thought he had died another time. Most recently I didn’t know if he was dead or not, but none of those had ever hurt as much as losing him right now was. Tears silently trailed down my face. This was Optimus, the best of us. He was what we aspired to be like. He was the glue that held us together, when we were falling apart, and he was leaving.

He took flight and we watched him get smaller and smaller until he disappeared into the sky.

But this was Optimus. He died once, but Sam, Mikaela, Leo, Simmons, Mudflap, Skidz, Jetfire, Wheelie, Jazzy, Bee and I brought him back. I thought he died another time, but it was just a ruse. Most recently I didn’t know if he was alive or not, and brought our family together and led us against the predators hunting us down.

This was Optimus. He always came back.