Ruby - Transformers: Age of Extinction fanfic

To Battle, Again

Ruby had gone into battle by car, airdrop, even on horseback, but never like this. 

Astride an ancient dinosaur! Grimlock smashed through the city. His giant clawed feet tore up the tarmac roads, and his long solid tail destroyed buildings and bridges.

She sat on the beast's neck, in front of Optimus, clinging to vertebrae as Grimlock snapped up the first drone prototype. He chomped it down like it was sculpted from butter.

"Bumble Bee!" Ruby cried.

She saw him ahead, canons out, blasting at something hidden from view. His yellow hide was scorched black in places.

She threw herself clear of Grimlock, neatly somersaulting through the air. She landed, fingertips splayed on the ground to steady her. Behind her, Optimus' sword sang.

The buildings shook with the deafening boom of battle. Bumble Bee became clouded from view by smoke and dust. The bracelet hummed around Ruby's wrist and her mouth twitched in an almost-smirk. Time to kick some bad robot butt.

Ruby sprinted in Bee's direction at such a speed her hair felt like it was being ripped from her head. She darted around fleeing civilians, their screams lost beneath an avalanche of bricks as a blast hit the building overhead. 

Energy grew hot around her hands; she could see Bee now, under heavy fire. She gritted her teeth and jumped in front of him, deflecting a transformium rocket. It pinged into the sky, arched around and POW! It hit the drone who had fired it, and exploded. 

Ruby covered her face with her arm as millions of sparks rained down on the street. Hot air smelling strongly of petrol washed over her. 

"Good one!" shouted Hound from the other end of the street; "Ahaha!" he swung about and smashed a pink drone with his fat fist, "This way, Ruby! Help me cover the Seed!"

Several more pink bumble bee look-alikes attacked him, swarming like bugs. Ruby rushed to help. 

She made her energy balls bigger and bigger, struggling to hit the swirling raw transformium drones who simply molded around her shots. She did more damage to the city than to the enemy. They were faster than your bog standard decepticon. But Ruby was fast too. 

Between them, Hound and Ruby managed to shoot a few down. Stealth tactics worked best; Hound attacked out in the open and Ruby fired on the distracted robots. That way they couldn't adapt to her attacks. As more of them came, stealth ceased to work. Offense became defense.

Ruby dodged bullets and rockets, moving so fast it was as if she teleported.

Then the grey drones came, skating along on tyres, their hides glinting like blades in the sun.

Ruby froze. The energy in her palms fizzled out. The world turned silent. 

She fell back in time, back to when her friend, a brother in arms, came to fight beside her in battle. Sideswipe, and all his diva ways. Her heart broke, as if Sideswipe himself cleaved it in two with his knives.

Something hit her from the side, at speed. She slammed into the road, cracking her head against the concrete. A stream of bullets whizzed past, right where she had been standing less than a moment before.

Ruby struggled to lift herself up, dizzy.

"Ow," she said, putting a hand to her head.

"Are you okay?" said a fuzzy human face.

"Yeah," she replied. She got shakily to her feet, willing her sight to clear up, "I've had a lot worse."

Thomas Evans came into focus, a worried frown etched across his forehead. He looked a mess; his once-black suit was streaked grey with dust and his black hair stood up all over the place.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he said, "It nearly cost you your life-"

Ruby shoved him out the way and blocked they grey drone's sword with her bare hands, stopping it from slicing Tom in half. She grunted as the sharp edge cut into her palms. Blood trickled up her arms to her elbows. She wrenched the weapon free from the drone's grip, and drove it between its eyes.

"Nasty," she murmured to herself. She shook out her hands, flecking the road with blood.

"Ruby..." Tom stared at her in disbelief.

"Where are Cade and Tessa?" she demanded. She hadn't forgotten what this man had done to her, or tried to do. And she noticed that he did not have the Seed. This was a war. She didn't have time to listen to him. Or shake the ash from her hair.

"Th-this way,"

Ruby covered Tom as they ran down the street, shielding him from fire with her powers. The pace was slow going, for Ruby. Hound and Bee attempted to drive the drones back. A few blocks over, Grimlock roared.

Tom led her into a small one-story building on the corner. The windows were smashed, the door was missing and it smelt strongly of burning. Glass crunched underfoot. Somewhere under a table, Tessa was crying. Tom crawled under the table next to her and gentled tugged the long black bag from her arms. The Seed.

"We need to get that thing out of here," said Ruby, "Before Galvatron-"

"RUBY!" Hound roared from outside, "I'm hit, I'm hit! And I'm dead out of ammo!"

"Stay here!" she barked at them both before hurrying out to Hound.

She extracted the bullets from mangled his arm with a metallic twang, and fired them at a charging drone.

"I'm out, I'm going down!" he wailed.

"Oh, stop being so dramatic," snapped Ruby.

She reached up and grabbed the foot of a drone that tried to attack from above. She flung it round and smashed it into the road. The transformium shattered; the pieces slithering across the ground like liquid.

Hound sat there, a great, fat green lump, moaning.

"Grenades, Hound!" Ruby screamed at him, "Use your grenades!"

"Oh, yeah, right!"

He pulled out the pin of a grenade as big as his head, and threw it, with his good arm, at the oncoming enemy. It blew, clearing the road for a moment. Bee came running through the smoke;

"He's comminngg,"

Ruby didn't have to ask who. From close by, far too close, Galvatron growled; "Bring me that Seed!"