Post by The Pilot on Sept 14, 2007 12:32:43 GMT -5
“Are you two ready to go yet?” Hound asked through the false fur of his puma form.
Lauren hoisted herself up on her horse (damn her if she’d ever be able to do it with grace). “Yep.” Miril stamped and snorted with unease. She wanted to get the hell back on the road again.
Narthas looked around at his four companions. “Let’s do it?”
“Let’s do it,” they confirmed in unison.
And so the five were off. Following the mountains they headed eastward: two riding at a full gallop on horseback, with a bear and cougar beside them, and an eagle high above them. About twenty minutes at this pace, however, and the company slowed to a halt when they saw three craters litter the dry landscape. Each one was maybe fifteen feet across, give or take, and the grass at the bottom was blackened. “Is this where you landed?”
“Sure is,” Hound said, leaping into one of them and sniffing around. After a moment he leapt right back out. “Nothing out of the ordinary here. Good. Let’s keep going.”
The others nodded and they were back up to pace again.
As the miles passed, the landscape began to slowly change. In their third hour of travel, about ninety miles having gone under their feet, the land was no longer as hilly and dry, occupied by little more than tinder-worthy brush, rocks, and the occasional tree. The ground started to green up a bit as well as flatten out, and more trees appeared. It seemed as the nearer to the Anduin Valley they drew, the more akin to meadows the landscape grew.
“All right you guys,” Narthas announced. “We should be coming up on a river soon, and up there, those trees; that’s the Firien Wood.” Lauren looked out where he pointed and in the distance was a vague shadow that protruded out from the base of the mountains. That, she guessed, was the wood. “That, I think, is where we’ll be stopping for the night too.”
It was a good plan. It was about seven or eight o’clock and the sun was dying. By the time they reached the river, it would be dark. The girl and her elf had been on the road almost all day, and quite frankly, her butt hurt. If she came out of his journey permanently bow-legged, she’d shank somebody without a doubt. Preferably Quinn.
A few hours passed and they had reached the cover of the trees right after the sun disappeared over the horizon, just as Narthas predicted. Being a little more comfortable with their predicament, Lauren assumed, the three Transformers reassembled themselves back into humanoid robots to take a rest. The elf got to work at building a fire. Lauren was instructed to gather wood while her partner in crime took the bow and quiver to go hunt. With armfuls of wood and dry leaves, she tried to make more conversation with the aliens as she walked back and forth past their sitting forms. “So Cybertron really exists in this same universe, but just as a different planet?”
“Yeah,” nodded Gasket. “The only kind of travel we had to do to get here was of the kind that can be measured in miles.”
“That’s crazy,” she said, dropping another small pile of wood. The bark itched on her bare forearms. With a huff, she sat down next to Hound. “So that means that Cybertron doesn’t exist on the same plane as Earth, right?”
“No, it does.”
Lauren’s mouth dropped at the idea. Did that mean she could go home? Could she return to Earth and haunt people she knew? “Wait… does that mean I can… go back? Like, now, if I wanted to?”
Gasket shook his head. “No. Well, not by conventional means. It’s kind of complicated, but I know that Earth is protected in a way from us dead people. I don’t think the laws of this universe permit us to return. Or at least in any way that we’ve come up with.”
“Have people tried?”
“Oh, sure. Fans get homesick. They miss their families and their stuff, and their old life. But we aren’t even allowed to enter the atmosphere. We burn up completely and get tossed back into the Waypoint, where we have to start over, sort of.”
Lauren scratched her chin and thought for a moment. “That really complicates things; Earth being almost within reach and all. I would even go so far as to say that was a stupid idea, even, on the part of whoever created the universe and all.”
A thought came to her, and she remembered Narthas' super secret tear back in Lothlorien, and she wondered if she should tell them about it. No, that seemed to her a thing for the elf to reveal. It was his business. But... it was a dangerous discovery. Especially now, since that portal and that portal alone was the only -known- way for fans to reach Earth again... she had managed to stick her head through to the other side without imploding or catching on fire or disintegrating, right? Yes, she could trust Narthas to decide who would be best to tell.
It was a good amount of time later when the elf returned with three rabbits in his hand, hunting bow, unstrung, and quiver in the other. "Good," he said, smiling at Lauren. "Nice fire." She nodded at him in recognition.
It was some time later, after another more successful attempt at teaching Lauren to clean and prepare game, cooking said game, and eating it, did Narthas start to get tired. The Autobots were incredibly fascinated by the whole process of preparing the rabbits, finding Lauren’s reaction to be nothing less than amusing.
“I think I’m going to bed,” the elf declaired. He rose from the fire and stretched, cracking his back in a few places and sighing. “If I’m the only one that needs sleep here, then… try not to wake me up?”
Lauren laughed at her friend. “Aww, haha. Poor Narthas. You’re the only real organic thing here, aren’t you?”
He ran his fingers through his dark brown hair and played with a few small knots. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Get some good sleep,” the girl said and held out her fist to him. The elf blinked at the gesture for a moment before realizing what he was supposed to do. He balled his hand and touched his fist to hers in a motion of camaraderie, then saluted to them all and headed off to bed.
“See you bright and early, guys.”
Lauren sighed and reclined onto the ground, looking up through the trees at the night sky.
“Hey,” she heard Hound say, then a giant face came into view and peered down at her, luminescent blue optics blinking. “You mind if we power down for a little while too?”
She sat up and Hound took a step back. Honestly, it hadn’t even occurred to her that the bots needed to conserve energy just like people did. They couldn’t just keep going forever without taking a break. They weren’t machines… or wait. Lauren laughed a little to herself. “Alright, yeah sure, go ahead. I don’t need to rest so I’ll keep a lookout.”
“Well, Gasket here doesn’t need to rest either. He can keep watch with you.”
Lauren glanced at the friendly transformer fanboy and smiled at the similarity. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”
“If you two need anything,” Airlock said as he settled down a little ways away from the fire. “Just holler and we’ll be back on in no time.”
“Sure thing.”
Lauren stood up and idly wandered past Gasket over to the edge of the trees next to the river. Behind her she heard the heavy footsteps. “I may be a fuckin’ robot now, but I can still admit that it’s pretty here.” The ranger looked behind her at Gasket, optics transfixed on the clear heavens. She grinned and continued to look upward herself. “Hound loves it.”
“Hm?”
“I said Hound loves it here. You watched the cartoons, didn’t you? I mean, you’re old enough, right?”
She turned around and looked at him. “Haha, well, not really. I grew up watching Beast Wars and the related franchises. But I’m pretty familiar with the original cartoon if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, yeah. I donno if you remember or not (I do) but like, I remember Hound loving Earth a lot. I even remember something about him wishing he were human too, but mostly he liked Earth because it was beautiful and stuff.”
She laughed a little bit, but felt a little awkward and didn’t really know what to say.
“We’ve only been here for a day,” Gasket continued. “But I think he really likes Middle-earth.”
She nodded some. “I see.” But that was a good thing, right? He would be far more compelled to fight these guys now that he had some attachment to this world. When she thought about it a little more, the entire scenario seemed extremely dream-like. “So how much of a transformers fanatic do you have to be in order to want to devote your entire afterlife to being a robot?”
Gasket laughed a strangely human laugh before answering. “Well, how much of a Tolkien fanatic do you have to be in order to devote your entire afterlife to being stuck in the middle-ages?”
Lauren burst out in a laugh herself. “Fuck you,” she said at length, meriting rounds of laughter from them both again. She had to admit that he had a good answer, though.
The silence that passed was no longer awkward, but content. The robot took to sitting down behind her and she reclined against his metallic leg as they looked at the sky. A question arose in Lauren’s mind, though; a pressing concern that she had to voice.
“Do you think the Decepticons and the Sith and whoever else is allied with them will be hard enough that we’ll have to call for reinforcements?”
“What, you mean more Autobots?”
“Yeah.”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Hound is under direct orders from Optimus, though, to call for help if he needs it. I mean, if we can’t afford to lose this war. If we lose, so does everyone else.”
Lauren nodded quietly. “I just don’t know how in the hell we’re going to be able to do this… as far as I know, and as Narthas knows, and the organization responsible for keeping the fan system under control and under wraps knows, no fans have yet revealed themselves to any real residents of Middle-earth. We’ve got to play that “in disguise” game every day we’re around anyone that it could put in danger. And I mean, we look like them. We talk like them. We think like them. And still, it would be devastating if we were found out. But… to think that you guys could be thrown into the mix. Or aliens. Or anything of an otherworldly nature, really. People would freak out. There would be riots. There would be mobs. There would be persecution of all kinds.”
“Well, think of it this way: either risk that and deal with those consequences as they arise, or risk killing thousands and enslaving the rest. And not just on this planet, either.”
The girl sighed audibly. “Man, if I’d known the afterlife was gonna be like this, I would’ve--”
“Done what? Picked the easy route and gone to heaven?”
“No, I… I don’t know. I guess I’m glad that I get to be part of this. All this would’ve been happening regardless of my presence here right? Right. So I guess in that sense, I’m glad that I have to opportunity to try and protect Middle-earth from this inevitable tumult.”
Just then, a strange thing happened. She heard Gasket begin to say something, but another voice cut him off. A voice that she didn’t like whatsoever.
“How touching.”
Gasket immediately jumped up, and Lauren hit her head on the side of his leg. Standing up as well and rubbing the small lump forming on her scalp she looked behind them to see two dark, cloaked figures, their faces completely hidden in shadow.
“Who the fuck are you,” Lauren demanded, though deep down she knew the answer.
A cackling chuckle emanated from the one on the left. “Such an bold young lady,” the voice darkly chided. “Xar, teach her fear.”
“As you wish master.”
“Gasket, I think it’s time to holler for Hound’s help.” She stared at the approaching shadow, and suddenly a red light ignited in the familiar form of a blade. “GASKET, RUN!” she screamed, and darted off upstream to where the dying fire was.
Close behind her was the Autobot. He seemed to realize that no matter how hard she tried, he could still outrun her, so up she went in his oversized metal hand. “HOUND! HOUND! AIRLOCK! NARTHAS! HOUND! WAKE UP! WAKE THE FUCK UP!”
They had almost reached the campsite before Lauren suddenly found herself tumbling to the ground. Looking behind her, she saw that Gasket was being held in the air by the Sith apprentice. Oh no, she thought. Oh god, oh god, oh god. All of us were going to die. That’s it. We’re going to die. And I’m going to die again.
The ground rumbled and Lauren scrambled to her feet when the two remaining Autobots rushed onto the scene, arm cannons hot and firing. “Get outta here, Lauren!” Hound said. Without another word (and almost sure she’d wet herself) she made to duck behind a tree, but ran into Narthas (literally). The elf grabbed her arm with one hand and his sword was in the other. “What the hell is going on?” he sputtered.
“SITH!” was all she could say. “We’re going to die we’re going to die we’re going to die!”
Sounds of battle filled the air as Lauren and Narthas remained behind the tree. They watched as the three robots and two dark force-users duked it out in front of them. The apprentice named Xar and his master were extremely skilled in combat, and due to the recent events, knew how to fight Transformers. Their light sabers were too flimsy to bat away the powerful blasts from the robots’ guns, though. Unfortunately, however, they were really good at dodging the attacks. Xar, which was doing most of the work, it seemed, had managed to get close enough to Airlock to do a roll between his feet and slash at his ankles. The robot let out a pained cry before stumbling forward and firing at the Sith in a frenzied rage. The master lifted Gasket into the air again and threw him against a tree. Luckilly, Hound managed to land a hit on his arm while he was occupied with the flying bot.
“You cannot win against the dark side of the Force,” the master spat. “We finish this now!”
“I’m going to go for him,” Narthas whispered.
“No, don’t do it!” she replied quietly.
“They’re going to kill them!” he hissed. “And then we’re next!”
She watched as both master and apprentice stood side by side and simultaneously lifted all three Autobots into the air, and send out fearsome arms of lighting at them. She couldn’t watch anymore. She wasn’t about to let them die like that. Snatching the sword from Narthas’ belt before he had the opportunity to react, she darted off behind the Sith and approached the master from behind. Lauren heard him laughing at the robots pain. With a sudden fit of anger, she lifted the blade high above her head, and brought it down swiftly, just as he turned around to see her. The three Autobots dropped to the ground as Xar stepped over to Lauren, saber drawn.
“Lauren!” her four companions shouted at the same time. But before she could move, he knocked her to the ground with a fierce shove of the force. His hood was thrown back, and she saw that he was covered in black and red tattoos, marking him as a devout follower of the Sith order. There was hate in his eyes.
“Fool,” he said to her. His voice was low and calm, though the animosity was unmistakable. “You die now.”
With a speed that hardly registered with her brain, he swung his saber at her, and a white hot pain filled her abdomen. The world grew slow and silent, but she could still see him standing above her, clear as day, as he brought his light saber up over his head. A flash of light caught her attention off to the left, and it also caught Xar’s. He turned his head just in time to get hit in the chest with a powerful energy blast from Gasket’s wrist-mounted cannon. It knocked him a good six feet or so back; he was no longer in Lauren’s field of spotting vision. The world moved even slower than before now. She saw Narthas run to her side, his hands around her stomach, and then picking her up. She saw his mouth move, but she didn’t hear words, and she vaguely felt him kiss her hair before everything went black.
Lauren hoisted herself up on her horse (damn her if she’d ever be able to do it with grace). “Yep.” Miril stamped and snorted with unease. She wanted to get the hell back on the road again.
Narthas looked around at his four companions. “Let’s do it?”
“Let’s do it,” they confirmed in unison.
And so the five were off. Following the mountains they headed eastward: two riding at a full gallop on horseback, with a bear and cougar beside them, and an eagle high above them. About twenty minutes at this pace, however, and the company slowed to a halt when they saw three craters litter the dry landscape. Each one was maybe fifteen feet across, give or take, and the grass at the bottom was blackened. “Is this where you landed?”
“Sure is,” Hound said, leaping into one of them and sniffing around. After a moment he leapt right back out. “Nothing out of the ordinary here. Good. Let’s keep going.”
The others nodded and they were back up to pace again.
As the miles passed, the landscape began to slowly change. In their third hour of travel, about ninety miles having gone under their feet, the land was no longer as hilly and dry, occupied by little more than tinder-worthy brush, rocks, and the occasional tree. The ground started to green up a bit as well as flatten out, and more trees appeared. It seemed as the nearer to the Anduin Valley they drew, the more akin to meadows the landscape grew.
“All right you guys,” Narthas announced. “We should be coming up on a river soon, and up there, those trees; that’s the Firien Wood.” Lauren looked out where he pointed and in the distance was a vague shadow that protruded out from the base of the mountains. That, she guessed, was the wood. “That, I think, is where we’ll be stopping for the night too.”
It was a good plan. It was about seven or eight o’clock and the sun was dying. By the time they reached the river, it would be dark. The girl and her elf had been on the road almost all day, and quite frankly, her butt hurt. If she came out of his journey permanently bow-legged, she’d shank somebody without a doubt. Preferably Quinn.
A few hours passed and they had reached the cover of the trees right after the sun disappeared over the horizon, just as Narthas predicted. Being a little more comfortable with their predicament, Lauren assumed, the three Transformers reassembled themselves back into humanoid robots to take a rest. The elf got to work at building a fire. Lauren was instructed to gather wood while her partner in crime took the bow and quiver to go hunt. With armfuls of wood and dry leaves, she tried to make more conversation with the aliens as she walked back and forth past their sitting forms. “So Cybertron really exists in this same universe, but just as a different planet?”
“Yeah,” nodded Gasket. “The only kind of travel we had to do to get here was of the kind that can be measured in miles.”
“That’s crazy,” she said, dropping another small pile of wood. The bark itched on her bare forearms. With a huff, she sat down next to Hound. “So that means that Cybertron doesn’t exist on the same plane as Earth, right?”
“No, it does.”
Lauren’s mouth dropped at the idea. Did that mean she could go home? Could she return to Earth and haunt people she knew? “Wait… does that mean I can… go back? Like, now, if I wanted to?”
Gasket shook his head. “No. Well, not by conventional means. It’s kind of complicated, but I know that Earth is protected in a way from us dead people. I don’t think the laws of this universe permit us to return. Or at least in any way that we’ve come up with.”
“Have people tried?”
“Oh, sure. Fans get homesick. They miss their families and their stuff, and their old life. But we aren’t even allowed to enter the atmosphere. We burn up completely and get tossed back into the Waypoint, where we have to start over, sort of.”
Lauren scratched her chin and thought for a moment. “That really complicates things; Earth being almost within reach and all. I would even go so far as to say that was a stupid idea, even, on the part of whoever created the universe and all.”
A thought came to her, and she remembered Narthas' super secret tear back in Lothlorien, and she wondered if she should tell them about it. No, that seemed to her a thing for the elf to reveal. It was his business. But... it was a dangerous discovery. Especially now, since that portal and that portal alone was the only -known- way for fans to reach Earth again... she had managed to stick her head through to the other side without imploding or catching on fire or disintegrating, right? Yes, she could trust Narthas to decide who would be best to tell.
It was a good amount of time later when the elf returned with three rabbits in his hand, hunting bow, unstrung, and quiver in the other. "Good," he said, smiling at Lauren. "Nice fire." She nodded at him in recognition.
It was some time later, after another more successful attempt at teaching Lauren to clean and prepare game, cooking said game, and eating it, did Narthas start to get tired. The Autobots were incredibly fascinated by the whole process of preparing the rabbits, finding Lauren’s reaction to be nothing less than amusing.
“I think I’m going to bed,” the elf declaired. He rose from the fire and stretched, cracking his back in a few places and sighing. “If I’m the only one that needs sleep here, then… try not to wake me up?”
Lauren laughed at her friend. “Aww, haha. Poor Narthas. You’re the only real organic thing here, aren’t you?”
He ran his fingers through his dark brown hair and played with a few small knots. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Get some good sleep,” the girl said and held out her fist to him. The elf blinked at the gesture for a moment before realizing what he was supposed to do. He balled his hand and touched his fist to hers in a motion of camaraderie, then saluted to them all and headed off to bed.
“See you bright and early, guys.”
Lauren sighed and reclined onto the ground, looking up through the trees at the night sky.
“Hey,” she heard Hound say, then a giant face came into view and peered down at her, luminescent blue optics blinking. “You mind if we power down for a little while too?”
She sat up and Hound took a step back. Honestly, it hadn’t even occurred to her that the bots needed to conserve energy just like people did. They couldn’t just keep going forever without taking a break. They weren’t machines… or wait. Lauren laughed a little to herself. “Alright, yeah sure, go ahead. I don’t need to rest so I’ll keep a lookout.”
“Well, Gasket here doesn’t need to rest either. He can keep watch with you.”
Lauren glanced at the friendly transformer fanboy and smiled at the similarity. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”
“If you two need anything,” Airlock said as he settled down a little ways away from the fire. “Just holler and we’ll be back on in no time.”
“Sure thing.”
Lauren stood up and idly wandered past Gasket over to the edge of the trees next to the river. Behind her she heard the heavy footsteps. “I may be a fuckin’ robot now, but I can still admit that it’s pretty here.” The ranger looked behind her at Gasket, optics transfixed on the clear heavens. She grinned and continued to look upward herself. “Hound loves it.”
“Hm?”
“I said Hound loves it here. You watched the cartoons, didn’t you? I mean, you’re old enough, right?”
She turned around and looked at him. “Haha, well, not really. I grew up watching Beast Wars and the related franchises. But I’m pretty familiar with the original cartoon if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, yeah. I donno if you remember or not (I do) but like, I remember Hound loving Earth a lot. I even remember something about him wishing he were human too, but mostly he liked Earth because it was beautiful and stuff.”
She laughed a little bit, but felt a little awkward and didn’t really know what to say.
“We’ve only been here for a day,” Gasket continued. “But I think he really likes Middle-earth.”
She nodded some. “I see.” But that was a good thing, right? He would be far more compelled to fight these guys now that he had some attachment to this world. When she thought about it a little more, the entire scenario seemed extremely dream-like. “So how much of a transformers fanatic do you have to be in order to want to devote your entire afterlife to being a robot?”
Gasket laughed a strangely human laugh before answering. “Well, how much of a Tolkien fanatic do you have to be in order to devote your entire afterlife to being stuck in the middle-ages?”
Lauren burst out in a laugh herself. “Fuck you,” she said at length, meriting rounds of laughter from them both again. She had to admit that he had a good answer, though.
The silence that passed was no longer awkward, but content. The robot took to sitting down behind her and she reclined against his metallic leg as they looked at the sky. A question arose in Lauren’s mind, though; a pressing concern that she had to voice.
“Do you think the Decepticons and the Sith and whoever else is allied with them will be hard enough that we’ll have to call for reinforcements?”
“What, you mean more Autobots?”
“Yeah.”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Hound is under direct orders from Optimus, though, to call for help if he needs it. I mean, if we can’t afford to lose this war. If we lose, so does everyone else.”
Lauren nodded quietly. “I just don’t know how in the hell we’re going to be able to do this… as far as I know, and as Narthas knows, and the organization responsible for keeping the fan system under control and under wraps knows, no fans have yet revealed themselves to any real residents of Middle-earth. We’ve got to play that “in disguise” game every day we’re around anyone that it could put in danger. And I mean, we look like them. We talk like them. We think like them. And still, it would be devastating if we were found out. But… to think that you guys could be thrown into the mix. Or aliens. Or anything of an otherworldly nature, really. People would freak out. There would be riots. There would be mobs. There would be persecution of all kinds.”
“Well, think of it this way: either risk that and deal with those consequences as they arise, or risk killing thousands and enslaving the rest. And not just on this planet, either.”
The girl sighed audibly. “Man, if I’d known the afterlife was gonna be like this, I would’ve--”
“Done what? Picked the easy route and gone to heaven?”
“No, I… I don’t know. I guess I’m glad that I get to be part of this. All this would’ve been happening regardless of my presence here right? Right. So I guess in that sense, I’m glad that I have to opportunity to try and protect Middle-earth from this inevitable tumult.”
Just then, a strange thing happened. She heard Gasket begin to say something, but another voice cut him off. A voice that she didn’t like whatsoever.
“How touching.”
Gasket immediately jumped up, and Lauren hit her head on the side of his leg. Standing up as well and rubbing the small lump forming on her scalp she looked behind them to see two dark, cloaked figures, their faces completely hidden in shadow.
“Who the fuck are you,” Lauren demanded, though deep down she knew the answer.
A cackling chuckle emanated from the one on the left. “Such an bold young lady,” the voice darkly chided. “Xar, teach her fear.”
“As you wish master.”
“Gasket, I think it’s time to holler for Hound’s help.” She stared at the approaching shadow, and suddenly a red light ignited in the familiar form of a blade. “GASKET, RUN!” she screamed, and darted off upstream to where the dying fire was.
Close behind her was the Autobot. He seemed to realize that no matter how hard she tried, he could still outrun her, so up she went in his oversized metal hand. “HOUND! HOUND! AIRLOCK! NARTHAS! HOUND! WAKE UP! WAKE THE FUCK UP!”
They had almost reached the campsite before Lauren suddenly found herself tumbling to the ground. Looking behind her, she saw that Gasket was being held in the air by the Sith apprentice. Oh no, she thought. Oh god, oh god, oh god. All of us were going to die. That’s it. We’re going to die. And I’m going to die again.
The ground rumbled and Lauren scrambled to her feet when the two remaining Autobots rushed onto the scene, arm cannons hot and firing. “Get outta here, Lauren!” Hound said. Without another word (and almost sure she’d wet herself) she made to duck behind a tree, but ran into Narthas (literally). The elf grabbed her arm with one hand and his sword was in the other. “What the hell is going on?” he sputtered.
“SITH!” was all she could say. “We’re going to die we’re going to die we’re going to die!”
Sounds of battle filled the air as Lauren and Narthas remained behind the tree. They watched as the three robots and two dark force-users duked it out in front of them. The apprentice named Xar and his master were extremely skilled in combat, and due to the recent events, knew how to fight Transformers. Their light sabers were too flimsy to bat away the powerful blasts from the robots’ guns, though. Unfortunately, however, they were really good at dodging the attacks. Xar, which was doing most of the work, it seemed, had managed to get close enough to Airlock to do a roll between his feet and slash at his ankles. The robot let out a pained cry before stumbling forward and firing at the Sith in a frenzied rage. The master lifted Gasket into the air again and threw him against a tree. Luckilly, Hound managed to land a hit on his arm while he was occupied with the flying bot.
“You cannot win against the dark side of the Force,” the master spat. “We finish this now!”
“I’m going to go for him,” Narthas whispered.
“No, don’t do it!” she replied quietly.
“They’re going to kill them!” he hissed. “And then we’re next!”
She watched as both master and apprentice stood side by side and simultaneously lifted all three Autobots into the air, and send out fearsome arms of lighting at them. She couldn’t watch anymore. She wasn’t about to let them die like that. Snatching the sword from Narthas’ belt before he had the opportunity to react, she darted off behind the Sith and approached the master from behind. Lauren heard him laughing at the robots pain. With a sudden fit of anger, she lifted the blade high above her head, and brought it down swiftly, just as he turned around to see her. The three Autobots dropped to the ground as Xar stepped over to Lauren, saber drawn.
“Lauren!” her four companions shouted at the same time. But before she could move, he knocked her to the ground with a fierce shove of the force. His hood was thrown back, and she saw that he was covered in black and red tattoos, marking him as a devout follower of the Sith order. There was hate in his eyes.
“Fool,” he said to her. His voice was low and calm, though the animosity was unmistakable. “You die now.”
With a speed that hardly registered with her brain, he swung his saber at her, and a white hot pain filled her abdomen. The world grew slow and silent, but she could still see him standing above her, clear as day, as he brought his light saber up over his head. A flash of light caught her attention off to the left, and it also caught Xar’s. He turned his head just in time to get hit in the chest with a powerful energy blast from Gasket’s wrist-mounted cannon. It knocked him a good six feet or so back; he was no longer in Lauren’s field of spotting vision. The world moved even slower than before now. She saw Narthas run to her side, his hands around her stomach, and then picking her up. She saw his mouth move, but she didn’t hear words, and she vaguely felt him kiss her hair before everything went black.
