With everyone properly introduced to the Red Knight, Bella decided her work here was done. She had a mountain of things waiting for her at home—there was no point dragging this out.
She left Shatter and the Vanko father-and-son duo behind to continue copying the data, with occasional handoffs arranged through Jason aboard the Flying Dutchman.
She wasn't remotely worried about the Vankos trying to escape. This was 26,000 feet (8,000 meters) below sea level. Where were they going to go? Unless they had Tony Stark's talent for building powered armor out of cave scraps, they weren't getting out. She was fairly confident that even Stark himself would need a decade to break free from a place like this.
As she was preparing to leave, the Red Knight called out to her.
"Can you truly see the past and future?" he asked.
This wasn't the moment for bravado. Bella thought for a moment before answering carefully. "There's a substantial margin for error. I can't guarantee that what I see reflects absolute truth—or that it's the only version of it."
"But you knew we were here," the Red Knight said with certainty. "You wouldn't have prepared fuel in advance otherwise. You've seen us before."
Bella shook her head. "Strictly speaking, what I saw came from the genetic memory of a Knights of the Round Table descendant. The way you Cybertronians pass information through the AllSpark—we do something similar through our genes."
"Then do you know why we came to Earth?"
This time she was even more measured. "I'm not certain the information I have reflects your actual purpose. If I'm not mistaken... internal conflict? You were running from something."
The Red Knight raised his left hand and pressed it lightly to his forehead. A three-dimensional image shimmered into existence before Bella—like a projection cast on still water.
"We were running, yes. But we have our own mission to fulfill." He paused. "If you're willing to help, I need you to find this."
The image slowly resolved into clarity. A massive, serpentine creature with three dragon heads, two tails, and an enormous pair of wings—roaring at the open sky.
Bella's eyes sharpened. That silhouette. It was Ghidorah, wasn't it?
What was the connection between the Transformers and Ghidorah? Even the Guardian Knights were objectively stronger than humans—but all twelve of them together wouldn't last long against King Ghidorah.
Then another thought surfaced. All twelve together?
She pictured the combined form of the twelve Guardian Knights. Three heads.
She pointed at the projection. "I saw a blurry image in one of those knights' genetic memories—the twelve of you have a combined form, don't you? And its design was modeled after this creature?"
The Red Knight nodded. "Correct. We scanned him once. We tracked him across the far reaches of space all the way to Earth. Merlin promised to use his full power to help us find him, but his lifespan was..." He paused. "Too brief." His gaze settled on her. "I've calculated your lifespan, Isabella Swan. It appears to be considerably longer than Merlin's—or your own kind's. Will you help us?"
Bella hadn't seen that coming. She'd prepared for a lot of scenarios, but not this particular question.
Ghidorah was frozen deep beneath the Antarctic ice right now. She didn't know the exact location—that was classified information within Monarch's upper ranks.
She honestly wasn't sure the twelve Guardian Knights combined could beat Ghidorah. But she said yes anyway.
The mission wasn't hard. She'd work her way into Monarch eventually, and once she did, she'd find out where Ghidorah was imprisoned.
And if the Guardian Knights could actually pull it off—well, Ghidorah was dormant. This might be the best window they'd ever get to put that three-headed nightmare down for good.
"Alright. I give you my word—I will spend my lifetime helping you find this three-headed dragon."
"Thank you."
That same afternoon, Bella took the partial technical data the Vankos had already compiled and sailed back to Clone Island with 006, Gavin Banks, and Bumblebee.
Shatter and the Vankos remained behind to work through the rest.
The Vankos needed to fully process each piece of data before transcribing it into any Earth language, and that was going to take an enormous amount of time. They'd most likely be spending Christmas at the bottom of the ocean.
Meanwhile, Shatter and the Red Knight had bonded over shared fuel. The Red Knight had taken it upon himself to train her—to turn her into a proper Cybertronian warrior.
The return voyage subjected 006 to another five days of O'Rin's mournful shamisen drifting through the ship. This time, though, he had something to look forward to, which made it easier to bear. He had Bumblebee provide accompaniment through the car's sound system, and the group sang their way through what seemed like half the Soviet songbook. It was only now that Bella discovered that this particular Cossack had a genuinely good voice. O'Rin's melody nearly got dragged off-key more than once trying to coexist with his singing.
The American government and the Pentagon had... predictable tendencies. Running the Cybertronian experiments out of their Mexican base on Clone Island was the sensible call.
The technical data was secured. What came next wasn't Bella's problem. Figuring out how to integrate Cybertronian engineering with Earth technology was a job for the scientists.
...
The Flying Dutchman docked at Clone Island. By now it was mid-December 2002, with Christmas just around the corner.
The returning warrior came home—and found that her sister was living in...
"You have this big a house?!" Bella stared at Natasha's new place in Washington D.C., feeling something deeply, inexplicably off about the whole situation.
A standalone house. The interior alone was over 2,000 square feet (200+ square meters). A front lawn. A garage out back. A basement underneath. The living conditions were, in a word, exceptional.
And here she was—the Mentor of a military organization, splitting her time between treasure hunting and working with scientists on light-speed engine research, grinding through work that couldn't see the light of day, and she had nothing comparable to show for it. The injustice was staggering.
Natasha was dressed casually at home—a Winnie-the-Pooh T-shirt and shorts, padding around barefoot on the hardwood floors. She seemed to notice Bella's very obvious appraisal, and deliberately stretched with exaggerated elegance.
Bella tilted her head and studied her openly. She noticed that the Winnie-the-Pooh on Natasha's shirt looked impressively three-dimensional, and felt a quiet, involuntary pang of envy. I could never pull that off.
They ordered takeout, then crammed together on the couch to watch TV. Natasha worked through her sandwich. Bella, still watching her diet, had a glass of juice.
"Where did you go this time?" Natasha said, not really looking up. "You smell like seawater."
Bella stared at her in mild horror. "Is that a bloodhound nose? I showered before I came."
They chatted idly. There was an unspoken agreement between them—don't dig into the other's missions, don't interfere. They were both professionals. Some things didn't need to be said.
Bella shifted topics. "S.H.I.E.L.D. really provides housing like this? What did the place run?"
"Free."
"What?! Are they hiring?"
S.H.I.E.L.D. would never recruit her, and she'd never want them to. But still.
Bella promptly moved herself in.
During the days that followed, the two of them shopped and ate their way around D.C. At night, Bella personally took care of Natasha's three S.H.I.E.L.D. admirers—bagging them and depositing them in the nearest dumpsters.