Chapter 56
The big pile-up in front of the Autobots caused by Galvatron's missiles, caused a lot of damage to the cars in front of them, forcing Bumblebee and Optimus Prime to transform into their robot form and jumped over the pile-up, and a bridge above the highway, to avoid crashing.
However, because Bumblebee had passengers in him when he transformed, Tessa, Shane, Cade, and the girls were sent flying out of him, Optimus Prime quickly caught Cade, Shane, and Tessa mid-air and protected them with his body as he hit a trailer and went through it as he sailed in the air above the bridge.
However, and to the shock of Optimus Prime, who actually gaped at what he was seeing, Morgan and Hope, took off flying and passed him by the sides, while Koneko and Yoruichi landed on all fours on the highway and then took off running with sparks of electricity arcing around their bodies.
But Optimus didn't have much time to be confused and surprised, because he had to transform into his freight truck form while putting his human friends inside of himself to avoid his new friends getting hurt as he landed back on the highway.
Meanwhile, as Optimus drove away with Morgan and Hope flying at his sides, Yoruichi and Koneko running on all fours beside him, Bumblebee hung from the bridge above the highway with his feet and shot some rockets at Galvatron.
Galvatron however, rolled forward and then split into thousands of small cubes and avoided the rockets and explosions while flying around and away from Bumblebee, a moment later the flying cubes landed on the ground and formed Galvatron again, this time in his freight truck form and drove away in pursuit of Optimus Prime.
Bumblebee quickly twirled himself upwards onto the highway and looked utterly confused at what Galvatron did, "What was that?".
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~Meanwhile in the Command Center~
The military personnel and the KSI employees were all running around in a panic, after Galvatron went rogue, they completely lost all control of the man-made transformer and no one knew what to do, a military general sighed and then began to issue orders, "We need a full medical team, possible casualties, get that done now!".
The military personnel immediately responded to the order and began to go through with them, meanwhile, an unhappy and quite frustrated Joshua, was speaking with Attinger, "I mean you got a lot of people caught in the crossfire, I don't like...".
But Attinger didn't want to listen and instead cut off Joshua mid-sentence, "You're making history here, for your country, for the world, human freedom is at stake here.
Innocent people die all the time, get over it-" However before Attinger could say anything else, someone suddenly yelled, "What the- is everyone watching this?".
Attinger and Joshua turned around and took a look at one of the big monitors in the command center, only to gape, as they watched people surrounded by some kind of crystal clear orb-like barrier, crawl from underneath their car wreckages, stand up, look around, and look utterly shocked and confused at what had happened.
The barrier soon shattered and disappeared leaving everyone stunned, until another military personnel member suddenly spoke, "Hey! There's people flying beside target one and two more running beside it as well!".
Everyone turned to look at another monitor and ended up gaping once again, as they watched three little girls and an adult woman doing some superhuman feats no one had ever seen before, Joshua stopped gaping for a second just to say one thing, "What?".
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~Back on the highway~
Cade, Shane, and Tessa were also gaping while staring at the girls through the windows of Optimus Prime's freight truck form, Cade shook his head and turned his head towards his daughter, "Are you seeing the same thing I'm seeing?".
Tessa nodded but she was too shocked to actually verbally respond, Shane suddenly heard something and he looked down through his side window and stared in shock as he caught sight of Yoruichi running beside Optimus Prime and actually keeping up with him.
What really had him shocked was the fact that there was blue electricity dancing around Yoruichi's body, while she ran, Yoruichi's senses suddenly spike up and she looked back, she saw Galvatron getting ready to attack so she turned her head towards Shane, and began to yell, "Get ready! We're about to get attacked".
Shane snapped out of it and looked back as Galvatron was almost ready to fire, "Oh no! We're going to get shot at again!".
Cade and Tessa heard Shane and immediately snapped out of it, Cade looked out of his side window and looked back, he noticed Galvatron and he immediately put his head back inside while calling out to Optimus, "Come on Optimus!".
Optimus Prime immediately accelerated, the girls noticed this and got ready, Galvatron quickly began to shoot rockets at Optimus to either stop him or slow him down, but the girls immediately moved to intercept the rockets, Hope kicked one away from Optimus, while Morgan grabbed another one with her hand and then threw it to the side.
Koneko narrowed her eyes as she watch a couple more rockets heading their way, so she suddenly blurred out of sighed and appeared in mid-air, she quickly punched the rockets which exploded on impact, this worried the humans and Optimus, but they soon sighed in relief when Koneko dropped on the highway and took off running again completely unharmed, she quickly caught up with Optimus a second later.
Three more rockets came their way, but Yoruichi just grinned and used shunpo, to grab the rockets and send them to the sky where they exploded, Yoruichi shunpo'd away again and began to run beside Optimus Prime again.
The humans sighed in relief seeing that they were safe from the rockets, but then, a big line of traffic was coming towards them at high speed in front of Optimus Prime, he had jumped onto the highway going the opposite direction from him, not having too much time the leader of the Autobots acted quickly.
Optimus pushed Cade and Shane out of him from both side doors and then transformed whole rolling forwards leaving Tessa on the the highway mid-transformation, he then stood in front of the upcoming traffic protectively, knowing that Galvatron was coming towards him and he didn't want the humans in the cars to get caught in the crossfire.
Shane and Cade roll down the grass on the side of the highway, while Tessa quickly tried to crawl away from under Optimus as he stood on top of her and got ready to face Galvatron.
Cade called out to Tessa in worry, while Koneko and Yoruichi stopped beside Optimus Prime, Hope and Morgan flew to his sides and stayed there floating to back him up if needed, Hope quickly summoned her shift weapon in its revolver form and got ready.
Galvatron soon crashed into Optimus Prime and transformed into his robot form, he then began to wrestle with Optimus, Hope frowned and noticed the humans in the cars behind them panic and try to get out of the cars as fast as they could.
But, the booms, bangs, and shaking caused by the two big transformers fighting in front of them made it difficult, so Hope quickly called out to her friends, "Guys! Help the people in the cars get away!".
Morgan, Koneko, and Yoruichi immediately blurred out of sight and began to help the people in the cars, get out of them, and then took them as far away from the battle as possible.
Meanwhile, Optimus took out a big glowing orange sword and kicked Galvatron away, Galvatron rolled backward, got on his feet, and took out two blades from his arms to attack Optimus, both Galvatron and Optimus Prime clashed a couple of times, but then Hope landed on Optimus' shoulder and shot Galvatron in the shoulder with her shift weapon revolver.
The shot hit Galvatron and caused an explosion that pushed him away, Galvatron grunted but wasn't given any time to react as Optimus slashed at his chest, causing sparks to fly off everywhere, Galvatron however, quickly recovered and spun around on one foot.
Galvatron tried to lash out with a kick to Optimus Prime's chest, but Hope shot his leg causing an explosion and pushing him away, Optimus took advantage of the opening and punched Galvatron in the face as hard as he could causing Galvatron to grunt and then roar in rage as he was sent stumbling back.
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~Back in the Command Center~
Everyone in the Command Center was gaping in disbelief and shock as they watched the unknown woman and girls do some really crazy and amazing things, one of them was even fighting with Optimus Prime against Galvatron!
Attinger frowned and then spoke up to Joshua, "That's the woman and children that appeared on the ceiling of the meeting room, where we were interrogation Yeager...".
Joshua gasped, now remembering and recognizing the woman and girls, "You're right!... But what the hell are they? How are they doing all of that?".
Attinger grunted in annoyance and shook his head, "I don't know, but we can't let Optimus Prime get away!".
Joshua frowned but nodded in agreement, he quickly walked up to the military personnel and said, "Make Galvatron fight, don't let him go down".
The military personnel nodded and immediately got to work to try and get some control back from Galvatron and help him battle Optimus and the little girls helping, Joshua glared at Hope and then rapidly ordered, "And take care of that little girl fighting with Optimus Prime!".
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~Back on the highway~
Cade and Shane, also began to help the people in the cars behind the fighting transformers so they could run away, though both were also paying attention to the fighting.
Optimus Prime was suddenly kicked in the knee and forced to drop to the ground, Hope suddenly raised a hand and stopped a punch sent her way by Galvatron, everyone watching the fight, gaped when they saw a little girl stop a punch from a transformer with her bare hand.
Hope narrowed her eyes at Galvatron and then pointed her shift weapon towards his face, the revolver form of the shift weapon began to glow and a second later, Hope pulled the trigger, shooting a blast of plasma right into Galvatron's face sending flying back roaring in pain.
Tessa, was on the ground a bit behind Optimus, so being so close to the battle, the explosion caused by the plasma shot frightened her enough to cause her to scream.
Shane who was helping a woman get out of her car, heard Tessa scream, and that made him worry about her safety '"Tessa!".
Cade heard Shane call out to his daughter and he quickly turned his head to take a look and saw her very close to the battle, Cade got worried for his daughter's safety, so he also began to call out to her, "Tessa! Tessa! Run to the field!".
Tessa nodded and quickly got up and took off running towards the grass field on the offside of the highway, but Galvatron suddenly got up from the ground and tackled Optimus Prime down to the ground.
Hope quickly took off flying off Optimus Prime's shoulder, and watched him and Galvatron roll towards Tessa, who dropped to the ground and slid away from the fighting transformers, Hope immediately flew over to Galvatron and grabbed him by the back of the neck and literally tried to throw him off Optimus Prime and back onto the highway".
Though Galvatron in an effort to avoid getting tossed aside, he grabbed hold of the ground to hold on to, and accidentally grabbed hold of Tessa who was nearby, she, of course, screamed in fright when Galvatron lost his grip and was sent flying by Hope who finally threw him aside and away from Optimus, but Hope saw that Tessa was in trouble and quickly shot a plasma shot at Galvatron's hand and blew it apart freeing Tessa from his grasp before he could crush her.
Galvatron roared and made his hand turn into many little cubes that flew toward him and reattached themselves back into his arm remaking his hand, meanwhile, Hope caught Tessa in her arms and quickly let her down on the highway.
Optimus quickly got up and took out a glowing orange battle axe and lashed out with a slash to Galvatron's chest, "You have no soul!".
Optimus cut open Galvatron's chest and then stabbed Galvatron with his glowing orange sword through his chest, but Galvatron just roared and then spoke, "And that is why I have no fear!".
Galvatron punched Optimus Prime away from him and rushed forward, he quickly grabbed onto Optimus Prime's face and then slammed him onto the highway floor, causing the leader of the Autobots to grunt in pain, Galvatron maliciously grinned and then began to drag Optimus through the ground on the highway, causing sparks to fly everywhere, while Galvatron began to head towards where Hope and Tessa were standing
This forced Hope to grab Tessa again and jump back and away from the incoming fighting transformers, Optimus rolled both Galvatron and himself on the ground and began to punch Galvatron in the face right away, meanwhile, Hope put Tessa down again and then told her, "Find somewhere to hide! I have to help him!".
Tessa nodded and ran behind a white car nearby, while Hope took off flying to help Optimus Prime, however, before she could reach him, a big high-speed bullet went through Optimus Prime's shoulder causing him to roar in both pain and shock.
Hope, had to stop in mid-air and had to kick the big high-speed bullet into the air above to avoid the thing from hitting someone or something else, suddenly some kind of flying ship appeared flying above the highway, while some kind of unknown transformers was walking towards Optimus below it.
Cade, Shane, and Tessa stood there shocked at what they were seeing, meanwhile, Koneko, Yoruichi, and Morgan were still taking people to get off the highway and to safety, Hope flew towards Optimus and caught him before he could fall on his face, "Ah! Are you okay Mr. Robot!?".
Hope quickly lay down Optimus Prime on the highway, while he grunted in pain, though he did quickly respond to Hope's question, "I'm fine, protect the humans, please".
Hope stared at Optimus Prime in silence for a few seconds, but then she asked him a couple of questions, "You would still care and protect them? Even after what they did to your friends? To you?".
Optimus Prime didn't know who was this little red-haired girl, or why she knew what she did, but something in him told him that she was extremely powerful, someone to take very seriously, so, knowing this, Optimus decided to honestly answer her question, "Yes... from this battle at least, it isn't their fault that they came after us here".
Hope smiled and patted Optimus Prime on his head, which made him feel odd, he never expected a small child to give him a head pat as if he was a young Cybertronian. Hope then spoke, "You're too kind and noble Mr. Robot, in your place I wouldn't have cared.
But then again, those in my family are odd, we do things and always end up helping people and innocents in some way or the other, so I can't really judge you, don't worry about the humans, they're going to be okay".
Optimus nodded and then said, "My name is Optimus Prime".
Hope smiled and then introduce herself, "I'm Hope Potter, the Dragon God of Cosmic Fire and the Phoenix Force! Don't worry about the humans, they're going to be safe! I promise".
With that said, Hope quickly flew over to Tessa, picked her by the armpits, and took off flying away from the fighting, along the way she picked up Cade and Shane with telekinesis and took off towards the side of the highway to put the humans safe.
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~Back in the Command Center~
Everyone was once again gaping and worried, first, they had flying girls with superhuman abilities helping the Autobots, and now they had a spaceship flying above the highway with an unknown transformer walking towards Optimus Prime.
One of the people inside the command center walked up to Joshua and asked "What is that?".
Joshua shook his head, he didn't know what was going on anymore, much less what that thing on the highway was, he had his suspensions though, Attinger walked forward and sighed, "That's my asset, pull Galvatron back".
With Attinger getting involved, Joshua's suspensions were confirmed, that unknown transformer on the highway, is the one who has been helping Attinger hunt down the Autobots and Decepticons, so, knowing that, Joshua now knew, that it was best to do what Attinger requested, "Do it".
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~Back on the highway~
Optimus growled as he struggled to get up, while the unknown transformer walked towards him, suddenly, the unknown transformer's face began to transform into a gun, and shot Optimus Prime in the chest again as he was getting up.
The shot went through Optimus Prime's chest and sent him flying back on the ground, meanwhile, Galvatron broke apart into small little cubes and then reformed back into his freight truck form and drove away.
The unknown transformer walked up to Optimus Prime and looked down at him, the hurt leader of the Autobots looked up at the unknown transformer and groaned in pain.
Meanwhile, Hope reached where her friends had gathered all the humans they rescued from the highway, though they were all panicking and trying to take off running, which was making Morgan, Koneko, and Yoruichi's efforts to keep them safe, harder.
Hope put Cade, Shane, and Tessa down beside everyone, Cade quickly stood up and looked over to Optimus Prime, "We have to help him!".
Hope shook her head, "Optimus told me to protect you guys and that's what I'll do! Now stay put!".
Cade flinched away from Hope, he didn't know why, but something in him told him to listen to the little girl with a weapon in her hands, Tessa was awed at the way her father calmed down and then leaned a bit to Hope's side and said, "You have to teach me that, he never listens to me...".
Hope smiled but looked back to Optimus looking worried for him, meanwhile, the unknown transformer shook his head and began to speak to Optimus Prime, "I feel sorry for you Prime, your alliance to these humans.
The trouble with loyalty to a cause is that the cause will always betray you".
Optimus Prime grunted in pain and struggled to move, but despite that, he still had the will and strength to question the unknown transformer, "Who sent you here?".
The unknown transformer smiled and then began to explain, "Where do you think you came from? You think you were born? Hmph... no, you were built and your creators want you back, we all work for someone".
The unknown transformer pointed a hand towards Optimus, suddenly a small ship dislodge itself from the main big ship flying above the highway and flew over to Optimus, while the unknown transformer turned around and began to walk away and then boarded the smaller ship.
The smaller ship soon flew over to Optimus Prime and dropped a net o to of him, which quickly tighten itself around his body, once Optimus Prime was trapped in the net, the smaller ship took off flying towards the bigger one still on top of the highway.
Before the smaller ship could take away Optimus Prime, he suddenly yelled, "Hope! Cade! warn the Autobots!".
Cade watched worriedly as Optimus Prime was taken into the bigger ship which began to fly away, Hope frowned, but nodded, "Don't worry... we'll save you soon Optimus".
Hope narrowed her eyes and then turned around, she quickly nodded to Morgan, Koneko, and Yoruichi, who immediately let the panicking humans go, the humans immediately took off running to get away from all the craziness going on around them.
Morgan walked over to Hope and seeing that she was worried, she grabbed her hand and then asked her, "What do we do next?".
Hope smiled at Morgan and said, "We have to find the other Autobots, warn them, and then go rescue Optimus".
Morgan grinned and nodded, "Count me in! I'm always up for a bit of fighting and destruction!".
Koneko walked over to Hope and nodded, "I'll help, the big guy seems like a good person".
Yoruichi rested one of her hands on her hip and grinned at Hope, "You must really like the guy, Hope, you usually don't get this rattled up".
Hope smiled and nodded, "Optimus Prime is a good person, he was more worried about the humans than himself, that shows that he has a noble heart, especially after we saw what the humans were doing to his race in this world".
The girls nodded in agreement with Hope, before world jumping into this world, they had watched some of the prior events that occurred, before this one, the Autobots always fought for humanity but there has been times when humanity turned their backs on them and that was something that the girls didn't like.
Which is why they came here, they wanted to help the Autobots and now that Hope has personally met Optimus Prime, she wanted to help him more than ever, Cade, Shane, and Tessa walked over to the girls.
They had heard their conversation and agreed with them, so Cade wanted to join in to help Optimus Prime, "I'll go with you guys, Optimus helped me and my family, it's my turn to help him too".
Tessa frowned a bit, if she was honest with herself, she really didn't think they should get involved in more of this situation, but Optimus, despite being hurt and in danger, still put their safety first, so she wanted to help, even though she knew she really couldn't do anything special, "We'll help".
Cade smiled at his daughter feeling very proud of her, Shane sighed but nodded, "Guess I'm helping too...".
Tessa giggled at Shane's reaction to her decision to help, while Cade just rolled his eyes in amusement, Yoruichi grinned at Shane and made a whipping sound with her mouth, which made Shane blush and looked away, Koneko then spoke up, "We should look for the Autobots, we have to let them know that Optimus was captured".
Morgan, Hope, Yoruichi, Cade, Tessa, and Shane nodded, with that decided, the girls took off flying, while Hope made the humans float and follow them with telekinesis, which shocked and surprised the humans once again, Cade frowned a little and then quietly asked something to himself, "Just who are these girls?".
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~Meanwhile, inside the unknown transformer's ship~
The unknown transformer finally arrived on his ship, he quickly parked the smaller ship inside and then got off, the unknown transformer then walked over to Optimus Prime and grabbed hold of the net holding him captive, with a sneer on his face the unknown transformer began to drag Optimus Prime further inside his ship.
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~At the same time, in the streets of New Chicago~
Attinger was walking through the panicking people of New Chicago, the unknown transformer's ship was flying over the city, after what had happened to the Old Chicago, the people of the city were quite jumpy about anything involving transformers, so as soon as everyone in the city caught sight of the ship, they all began to run away as far as possible.
However, Attinger was on the phone, trying to avoid the ship getting blasted out of the sky by the military, "Mr. Secretary, my team is on the way, this is a CIA operation, this is my asset, tell the military to stand down, hang on in the White House".
The secretary sighed and then responded to what Attinger just told him "Agent, hello! Oh my goodness! Is it a flurry of excitement over here at the White House, everybody is super, super mad... at me... so I went over my notes from our last meeting.
And I'm not sure when you said anything about a giant alien warship over Michigan Avenue!".
Attinger frowned, not really expecting to be asked about all of this, so instead of answering the secretary, he instead said, "Tell the President, that this is not an attack".
Attinger then hung up the call before the secretary could say or do anything else, with that done, he looked up towards the ship and frowned.
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~Back inside the unknown transformer's ship~
The unknown transformer, now identified by Optimus Prime as Lockdown, a well-known Cybertronian mercenary, and at this very moment, Lockdown was dragging the immobilized Optimus Prime through his ship, but as he did so, Lockdown began to speak, "Remember this ship Prime?
Built for all of you knights, you great crusaders to explore the universe, well, I commandeered it, it's my personal prison now!".
Optimus frowned and looked around, he had felt that the ship was familiar, but whatever Lockdown had done to it, had changed what was once a majestic and grand ship, now, it was dead looking and dreary.
Eventually, after a few minutes, Lockdown finally arrived at where he wanted to take Optimus Prime, he suddenly threw Optimus to the ground of a circular platform.
Lockdown then mockingly spread his arms and grinned as he began to speak, "Welcome back to the Knight's Temenos, Prime".
Lockdown looked around and watched as the spinning rings around the circular platform, slowly moved and spun around, Optimus Prime, however, glared at Lockdown and then angrily said, "You have disgraced it...".
Lockdown just shrugged, not really caring about Optimus Prime's opinion, Optimus growled and looked around, only to notice a few Cybertronians already locked down around the circular platform, one of them even growled at Optimus in a challenge.
Lockdown noticed that Optimus Prime was staring at one of his prisoners, he walked over to Optimus and began to speak, "Join your fellow rebels, fugitive scum, it's for the rarest of specimens, the worst of the worst.
It's taken centuries, but I collected all the knights, but you!".
Lockdown transformed his hand into a hook as he got closer to Optimus and then hooked his leg, he quickly flung him over to an automated claw, that immediately clamped on Optimus Prime's leg and then lifted him up, leaving him upside down.
Lockdown then stepped away, while the automated claw moved Optimus to a spot around the circular platform, though he still continued to talk, "The creators want to sweep their chessboard clean".
The automated claw finished pulling Optimus Prime into some sort of capsule, which suddenly sprung a needle-like object, Optimus glared at Lockdown and then said, "I'm a slave to no one...".
Lockdown narrowed his eyes and suddenly took a knee in front of Optimus Prime, he then said, "All these species mixing with species, it upsets the cosmic balance.
The creators, they don't like it, they built you to do what you were told!".
Lockdown scowled and then grabbed Optimus Prime's face and threw it back, causing him to slam his head into the capsule as it closed on Optimus sealing him inside, unable to even move, much less free himself.