Drum Roll, Please

Chapter 13: Pressure Points

Ever since Optimus made the decision to let more qualified humans take care of Summer, the occupants of Team Prime had been overwhelmed with volatile emotions. The human children were giving their guardians the cold shoulder and a silent treatment that was only exempt from short bursts of anger and venomous accusations.

The guilt was visibly eating at Optimus, who was never at base and always out scouting for mines and Decepticons. Ratchet wasn't reacting much to the tense situation, but Magnus noticed he was quieter and took shorter breaks from his work at the monitor. Smokescreen tried lightening the mood a few times, but his attempts were as ineffective as trying to dry a wet towel by blowing on it.

Magnus wasn't sure how to feel. He knew Optimus had made the right call. They all underestimated Summer's abilities and she had gotten someone killed. Almost gotten Jack killed too.

When they first discovered her existence, Magnus wasn't there. There was an entire town of unconscious people and a blanket of pain coated the area until those who remained of Team Prime were able to work with Summer's caretakers to put her in containment.

Those government agents tried to keep the truth a secret, but didn't stop Optimus from discovering that Summer wasn't born of this world. An alien, like them.

Magnus assumed that was one of the reasons Optimus wanted his team to watch over Summer. And the fact that her team had already failed in keeping her under control.

But Summer's species was not Cybertronian, and certainly nothing like them. She looked a lot like a human, but she wasn't. She was far more powerful and dangerous than they guessed.

Magnus had a glimpse inside her mind that night. After she passed out, he'd carried her back to base and handed her over to Ratchet for a medical examination. The medic had passed it off as sleep deprivation and ordered Magnus to drop her off in her room.

But as he walked, flashes of light and sound impeded his vision. He barely made it to the human female barracks to deposit her on the bed. Quickly, Magnus had scrambled back to Ratchet, but the medic was having the same difficulties.

It wasn't long before Magnus fell into a well of scattered thoughts and sights. He could see through Optimus's optics in small, fragmented flashes of motion as the Prime discovered them laying on the floor. He could feel the moment when his body moved of it's own accord and attacked. When the alarms began to blare.

When he saw Summer again, everything shifted. He couldn't decide if the little voice in his mind was screaming at him to kill her or capture her.

Once everything began to clear and the voice quieted down, the fragmented memories thickened and Magnus watched as men infiltrated the base. As Agent Kayne was killed, his hands scratching at the leg of one of the intruders, growling out a word.

Leviathan.

Magnus closed his optics. He should have warned them sooner. It was all in his helm, but he couldn't spit the words out until the violent urges settled.

But it didn't matter anymore. The location of their base was compromised. Shortly after Summer was sent away, they moved the entire base to a new area.

The thing that bothered Magnus the most was why absolutely none of it mattered. Summer's mental assault of Jasper, the fall of Darkmount, the infiltration of their base, of Magnus and Ratchet's minds. None of it was important.

Why?

Well, as Fowler explained it, Summer broke out of her facility, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake, and hopped into Soundwave's alt mode.

When the news was delivered, the base had gone deathly silent. The children, the bots—everyone was in shock. The casualty count was high. The facility was in ruins.