"No, tell them to stop!" Sam panicked at the weapons aimed at the twins, explaining frantically. "I'm not lying to you, this really is the Matrix of Leadership."
"Not even three seconds after I picked it up, it turned into this. We didn't do anything to it."
"Yeah, please believe Sam," Simmons and Leo chimed in quickly. "We saw it with our own eyes. He's not lying to you."
It turned into dust on its own?
Skygnaw pondered the statement for a long moment before responding calmly, "Throw the sack over, boy."
"Alright..." Sam hesitated for a fraction of a second, then began stepping slowly toward the Decepticon Commander.
It was a strange thing; even though Skygnaw was one of the perpetrators behind Optimus Prime's death, Sam found he couldn't summon a mountain of hatred for the giant robot. Instead, he simply bloated with crushing self-reproach.
"No, Sam! Don't hand the Matrix over!"
Seeing that Sam was actually going to surrender the artifact they had risked everything to find, Bumblebee thrashed against the metal foot pinning him down. "Even if I have to sacrifice myself, you can't—"
"Quiet, scout. You talk too much."
Skygnaw drew the Black Hell Blade, opting for a strictly physical method to interrupt the Autobot's lecturing.
CLANG! "Gah...!"
The blade struck a very specific junction on Bumblebee's chest plating. The effect was instantaneous; the scout's vocal processor cut out, and his entire frame went stiff, locked in stasis. He couldn't make a sound, let alone a movement.
Before Sam could take another step, however, Simmons grabbed his shoulder and yanking him back. "Listen to me, kid," Simmons hissed, his expression dead serious. "We still don't know if the Matrix is actually destroyed or not. If you give it to this Decepticon and they have a way to put it back together, what then? That's a textbook doomsday scenario! Do you think Optimus Prime would want you to do that?"
Simmons didn't share any grand emotional bond with these Autobots. To him, the fate of humanity far outweighed the survival of a few alien machines.
Seeing Sam waver once more, Skygnaw noted internally, I suppose the stakes still aren't high enough...
[ Dirge, bring them down. ]
[ Understood, My Lord. ]
VROOM—
维护Sam内心彷徨之际, a Cybertronian jet shrieked out of the sky, landing heavily and startling the humans. As the jet shifted into its robot form, two familiar figures were unceremoniously tossed onto the dusty stone floor.
Sam's optics widened in sheer disbelief. "Mom? Dad?!"
"Sam! You're alive!" Ron and Judy Witwicky wept with joy the moment they saw their son. They had completely abandoned any hope of ever seeing him again.
"How are you guys even here?" Sam stammered. To protect them, he had purposely cut off all communication, assuming they were either deep in hiding or under government protection.
"Well, boy, it seems my leverage has increased by two," Skygnaw said with a subtle chill, like a patient hunter watching his prey corner itself. "Now, what is your choice?"
"Skygnaw, take it!"
This time, Sam didn't hesitate. He threw the cloth sack straight toward Skygnaw. Simmons tried to reach out and stop him, but it was too late. He could only growl in frustration, "Kid, you've just condemned humanity!"
Thud.
The Matrix of Leadership...
Catching the sack, Skygnaw felt entirely calm, devoid of the excitement one might expect upon obtaining a cosmic treasure.
He remembered that the original Matrix had been protected by the sacrifice of the Primes. Prime, Prima, Vector, Alpha Trion, Solus, and Megatronus had woven a protective shroud over it. In other words, what he held now was merely a handful of granular metallic shards, completely useless in its current form.
He inspected it for a brief moment, running an active scan and keeping passive contact, but the broken pieces remained completely inert. It felt exactly like a handful of common sand scooped from the desert floor, an absolute dead thing.
While Skygnaw examined the remnants, Sam ushered his dusty parents behind his back, the group keeping their guard raised as they watched the warlord. They knew a Decepticon who had stood alongside Megatron to execute Optimus Prime would never be merciful.
After a long pause, Skygnaw shifted his optics away from the sack and abruptly raised his leg.
BANG!
A heavy, crushing kick sent Bumblebee skidding across the stone floor, coming to a halt right in front of Sam and the others.
"Bee!" Sam cried out, immediately kneeling beside the scout.
"Release the other two," Skygnaw commanded, looking toward Obsidian and Strika.
"Yes, My Lord."
Before long, Skids and Mudflap crawled back over to the group. Alongside Bumblebee, the three Autobots struggled into a defensive stance, their processors running hot with panic.
Looking at the hyper-vigilant group, Skygnaw let out a soft, amused chuckle. He casually tossed the cloth sack back into the center of the crowd.
Plop.
Sam instinctively reached out to catch it. When his fingers wrapped around the coarse fabric, his expression froze.
"Why?"
It wasn't just Sam; even Bumblebee's internal logic was struggling to process the development. When did a Decepticon ever show honor? Honoring an agreement was rare enough, but returning a prize they had already secured was completely unheard of.
"I'll share a secret with you, boy," Skygnaw said, a cryptic smile playing across his facial features. "You had best guard that dust with your life. It holds the power to resurrect a fallen Cybertronian, understand?"
Skygnaw didn't have the means to unravel the ancient Primes' magic himself. Since the story demanded that the Matrix would reform only through human conviction, he was content to let the pieces fall where they belonged and bide his time.
In the archives of the original timeline, the Matrix had dissolved into dust the exact moment human hands touched it, vanishing like a passing dream. Yet eventually, it solidified once more, pulling Optimus Prime back from the void.
Right now, Sam clearly didn't believe the shards had any such power, viewing Skygnaw's words as a bizarre deception. Skygnaw caught the skepticism in the boy's eyes but simply muttered, "Believe it or not, the choice is yours," before turning on his heel and marching toward the inner sanctuary.
The humans and Autobots quickly parted to give him a wide berth. Behind him, Dirge and his elite guards lined up outside the grand pylon gates, their crimson optics locked onto the group with silent hostility.
"What do we do now?"
"We leave, right now, before that monster changes his mind."
"He's right. Retreat, double time!"
Inside the temple, Skygnaw ignored the frantic exit of the humans, navigating the shadow-drenched corridors until he located the jagged breach in the inner wall. He stared down at the opening, his fists clenching tight.
BOOM!
CRASH!
Outside the ruins, the group heard the heavy thuds echoing from the sanctuary, instantly realizing the Decepticon had entered the vault of the Primes.
"Get in the cars! Move, move, move!" Simmons barked, ushering everyone toward the vehicles.
Leo and Mikaela threw the doors open, but Sam lingered outside, his hands gripping the cloth sack tightly as his mind raced. Mikaela, sensing her boyfriend's internal conflict, stepped closer. "Sam, are you thinking..."
"Yes!" Sam's expression hardened with sudden certainty. He thrust his hand out toward Simmons. "Give me the phone!"
"What?" Simmons stared at him, incredulous. "You want to try and bring back Optimus Prime with a sack of black sand? Are you out of your mind? You're actually buying into what that Decepticon told you?"
"Even if we assume he isn't lying, and the Matrix can resurrect a Prime, why on Earth would he willingly hand it back to you? It's a trap, kid! Don't walk straight into it!"
Despite Simmons's frantic warnings, Sam stood his ground. If there was even a fraction of a percent chance to bring back Optimus, he would take it.
Ultimately, democratic consensus ruled. Simmons couldn't beat the combined front of Mikaela, Leo, and a very supportive Bumblebee. He reluctantly surrendered the secure satellite handset to Sam.
"Wait!" Simmons snapped just as Sam's thumb hovered over the call button. "We can't use that. You're a global fugitive, kid. The intelligence nets will flag your voice print instantly, use the orbital arrays to lock onto our coordinates, and drop a strike team on our heads faster than that Decepticon did."
"The moment you place that call, the CIA will swarm this sector. We won't be resurrecting anyone; we'll be sitting in federal holding cells!"
"You're right. So what do we do?" Sam asked, lowering the phone. "What if you make the call?"
"Me?" Simmons blinked, looking at the three faces staring at him expectantly from inside the Camaro. "Actually... that's a brilliant idea. A masterstroke."
"We find a secure landline. Let's move."
Diego Garcia, NEST Base
"The entire world is standing on the edge of a blade, and we're stuck here doing laps around the tarmac!" Epps grumbled, walking alongside Lennox as they watched a few Autobots idling in the distance.
Though their tactical movements had been locked down by the civilian oversight, they still had the run of the interior base; they simply couldn't deploy beyond the island's perimeter.
"I know, Epps. Trust me, I know. But our hands are tied."
"Colonel Lennox!"
A communications technician came running across the asphalt, out of breath. "Colonel, sir, there's a secure patch coming through for you."
"For me?" Lennox frowned, surprised. The base was under strict monitoring; a civilian line breaking through the secure protocols meant something critical was happening.
"Lead the way, soldier."
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