Blood and Gold

Incursion In Shanghai

Hip-Hop music flooded from a speaker on the far side of the hangar, where Iron Hide was cleaning his canons, and muttering about how Jazz needed to keep his stuff away from his area. Meanwhile, on the other end, Ivi was showing Optimus -in his holoform- maps and pictures of some of the natural wonders of the world. Turns out, Cybertron was nowhere near as full of life as Earth. There weren't trillions and trillions of animals there. It was just the Cybertronians and a metal rich planet. Optimus was particularly interested in forests, surprised at the height some of the trees grew to. However, he was most captivated by the oceans. She showed him all of them, but the one he spent the longest looking at was the Southern Sea, with icebergs and ice shells floating. She let him keep those pictures, figuring they reminded him of something.  Besides, he had a cute expression on his face when he looked at them. Ivi nearly laughed: she had just called the terrifying Autobot leader that was Optimus Prime cute. As Jazz ran in, grinning at her like the devil, she lost all interest in laughing. What was he up to now? "Hey lil' lady, we gonna do some stunting, wanna join?" He called to her.
Ivi winced and Optimus looked at her suspiciously. "What is stunting?"
"Something so regret showing them," Ivi called over her shoulder as she ran out of the hangar, hoping Optimus would stay behind. No such luck, it would seem, as he ran over to her. After they all had gotten adjusted to their holoforms, Ivi had been in charge of training them. Which sucked in Bee's case, because he only visited about twice a month. She still got him in shape, but he had whined the whole time and flashed her puppy dog eyes. It worked the first couple of times, but it wore itself out. Finally spotting Jazz, now in his holoform -a younger version of Epps almost- standing on the roof of the hangar with the holoforms of Sideswipe, and the Arcee twins. New recruits that had caught Optimus' message into space and crashed into Earth. Oh she was so dead. She could feel the half-glare from Optimus and grimaced. "I gave up trying to stop them a while ago," Ivi said, but she knew it didn't help her case.
Thankfully, the knuckleheads has enough sense to wait for her before jumping off and doing flips. Ivi stretched out her hands and slowed their fall, allowing them to land on their feet while hollering at each other. "They are such children," Ivi muttered to herself as they started to climb back up on the roof.
Rumbling laughter met her ears and she stare at Optimus. He found this amusing? "I think you have learned your lesson," he joked, until a loud alarm sounded in the hangar.
"Autobots!" Optimus yelled, calling everyone back to command.
Ratchet pulled up the display to reveal two red dots in Asia. Shanghai. "Iron Hide, Ivi, with me," Optimus ordered, dropping his holoform as they headed to the N.E.S.T. Command Ops where everyone was running around. Her brother, now Major Lennox, walked briskly next to her. "Got another incident, this isn't going to be pretty," he said.
Ivi was still the liaison, even if she wasn't human.
"What's China saying?"
"Gas leak."
Great, as if the media would believe that.
Within minutes, they all had a plan formed and returned to the Autobots hangar as the Air Force got the cargo plane ready. "Iron Hide, Ivi, Sideswipe, Arcee twins, Mudflap, Skids, you are on this rotation."
Jazz groaned, but didn't protest and just walked over to his corner, muttering to himself. Thankfully, Optimus had started to trust her abilities and was letting her do stuff for the mission now. "Autobots, roll out!"
Ivi was glad that Optimus had allowed them a short reprieve from training, because the flight to Shanghai was going to be long and they could do nothing but sit and wait. This time, Ivi went with the ground team consisting of the N.E.S.T. Soldiers and Iron Hide, their job was to locate one of the Decepticons and pin them in a corner. They met at the designated waypoint before  Will began barking out orders. "All right guys, this makes six enemy contacts in the past few months. We need to make sure this one doesn't get our into the public eye."
"Yes, sir!" Everyone said, racing around to get in position.
"Roll in Alpha through Echo now!"
Iron Hide drove up and Will patted his hood. "All right Iron Hide, we got echoes. He's close."
The Autobot transformed and Ivi shook her head as he sniffed the air again. "He's here. I smell him."
It wasn't the weirdest thing Ivi had seen any of the Autobots do, but it still caused her to pause on missions. "Steel stacks, two o'clock," a soldier said, showing the heat signature to Will.
"Whatcha got?" The Major asked.
"Thermal ripple."
"Everybody, be steady, we are right on top of it!"
Ivi braced herself and her and Iron Hide chimes into the Autobot comm link just in time to here Ratchet initiate position checks from the console back on base. "Sideswipe?"
"Ready."
"Arcee twins?"
"Locked and loaded."
"Mudflap? Skids?"
"Let's get this over with!"
"Iron Hide?"
"Ready," The gruff Autobot shook his head at the newer members to their team.
"Ivi?"
"Check," she said, winking gently at Iron Hide, but then it was time to focus.
"Optimus?"
"Waiting signal."
It was a nice change of events having Optimus the one waiting to join, but Ivi instantly let it slip as the soldiers began to advance on the Decepticon. It must have sensed them because the thing began to transform, a large wheel that was bigger than Optimus was its primary mode of motion. Everyone instantly began to shooting and Ivi send bolts of golden light at it, hoping to sever any of its exposed neck cables, but no such luck occurred as it started to drive run away, throwing large pipes around. Many soldiers were hit and Ivi had no choice but to pull up her shield before anyone else got killed. As it moved away, she instinctively ran after it, Iron Hide just behind her. "Air support, we need Big Buddha!" Will yelled into his open mic.
Yup, sounded about right. This was a massive 'Con, and only Optimus was really big enough to pose any threat to it. Still, Ivi had to slow it down a bit, try and keep it away from the streets and residential area. The girl held out her hands and sent tendrils all around the Decepticon, rooting it in place. It fought and ripped, causing Ivi to bite her lip as she had to struggle to keep her grip on it. For what is was worth, she bought them a few moments, until it turned and saw her as the culprit for its entrapment. "Uh oh," Ivi whispered.
She couldn't get her shield up, not while she was keeping the Decepticon tethered. It saw its chance and shot at her with its cannon. The blast landed at her feet and Ivi was instantly thrown back into some scaffolding in the yard. "Ivi's down!" Iron Hide yelled.
Her body felt like it had been crushed like a can, but she still pressed her mic. "I'm fine."
Was she? Mostly, a little bit of blood fell from her head and mouth, but she knew the wounds would heal on their own. The girl tried to stand to rejoin the fight when a blinding pain in her side had her biting her hand not to cry out. Carefully, she looked down and saw a metal rod had come through her back and out the front. Her own blood was dripping off the end of the rod. Not too much worry, she tried to calm herself, you'll just heal like usual. Her body was trying, but it couldn't while the object was inside of her. Just give it time, the pain will fade. To distract her, Ivi listened to the chatter of the rest of her team chasing down the second Decepticon that had suddenly popped up when the massive one had gotten away from them. It wasn't long before Ivi heard Sideswipe's cocky voice announcing he had killed the second Con. Good. From what she could surmise, Optimus was still dealing with the other one. She didn't have very long, and she definitely didn't want them fussing about the wound. Ivi presses her mic and opened a private channel with Ratchet. "Hey, Ratch, umm I'm going to mute myself real quick. Don't worry," she said.
Of course he protested, but she had gone through the proper procedure and notified him first. Ivi deadened her mic and looked down at the rod again. She had no idea if it had hit anything, but the girl knew it needed to come out if she was to heal. Oh Optimus was going to kill her. Ivi took off her jacket as slowly as possible, but she still felt her insides tearing at the slightest movement. Then, the girl put both hands on the rod and pulled at a pace like a snail, dragging it out of her body. Ivi cried out in pain as she felt like she was impaling herself instead of trying to get the rod out. At last, however, it slid out with a fresh wave of blood. It had definitely hit something. Whatever, she threw the rod away and held her jacket to the front wound. The back one was mostly numb, but she felt blood trailing from it too. These were going to take longer to heal, but at least she could walk again. Ivi climbed down the scaffolding and made her way over to her brother as he started giving orders to pack up and head back to the retrieval point. He turned to her and froze. She knew she didn't look that good, and at that moment, Ivi didn't feel so great either. "Will," She whispered, falling over as he dove to catch her.
He was shouting for a medic, but Ivi couldn't believe what was happening. Why wasn't her wound healing? He moved the jacket and she felt a new wave of blood leave her, the cold air hitting the open wound. The last thing Ivi remembered was Optimus' voice shouting over the communication link, demanding to know what was happening. But no one answered him, and Ivi felt her eyes begin to close as bright lights flew over her.