Nevada Winds - TFP

9.

Kayde

Kayde ducked behind the closest rock he could find. Shit! He bit down hard on his tongue so he could think about something other the fast beating of his own heart. The sound pounded in his ears like drums, the bass of which remained relentless. "What's this?" The next time Megatron spoke, his gravelly voice was louder—he was getting closer. Much too close for comfort. "Optimus, you never told me the Autobots were keeping pets." Kayde set his jaw, pressing his back against the stones. He had to think quickly, else this giant robot would locate and crush him or maybe shoot him with its giant death cannon. I'm not anyone's pet, tin can.

And I'll prove it.

Kayde leapt out from where he was hiding behind the rocks and began to make his way down the side of the canyon. He set his feet ahead of him and one hand behind against the rocks, ignoring the burning and scraping of the flesh on his palm as he slid down the steep drop. A purple blast sent rocks flying from above him with a strained groan from the canyon walls. He pressed his back against the wall and closed his eyes tight so dust wouldn't fly into them. The crashing noise of boulders falling to the ground below followed shrieking metal—some of the debris had fallen on top of the monstrous bots.

"Kayde?" Optimus asked, incredulous as soon as he turned away from the fight to fix his optics on who was supposed to be back at base. Kayde met his eyes evenly for a few split seconds with a snarl on his face. Another blast shot through the sky and hit the more unstable stones above. Kayde set his jaw and sprinted so the debris wouldn't crush him—it would be a lot easier to do that to him than the robots below. "Kayde, get out of here!" Optimus demanded, locking arms with the nearest zombie-cybertronian. It snapped its jaws at him while he held it back, both wrestling for control. The crazed bots kept coming with a vengeance. Whatever the purple stuff had done to them had made them angry as hellcats. And they were fighting just like it.

Kayde narrowly avoided the blast, stumbling when a gust of air from the impact of the boulders hitting the pileup on the ground a few feet away. He caught himself in a crouch and got to his feet as quickly as he could. Sweat poured down his forehead as he avoided being squished by an undead soldier. It wasn't headed towards him though, it was Optimus and Ratchet it wanted. Kayde weaved and dodged, ducking and rolling out of the way every time a dark shadow fell above him, signaling another undead scrambling over him.

What he was looking for...Kayde narrowed his brows. The odd shard Megatron had thrown, about as long as a large javelin and razor sharp, sat in the middle of the clearing. Purple energy surged from the cracks in the ground, a burst of dizziness clouding Kayde's mind every time he jumped over one. He reached the shard on the ground skidding to a halt, panting and nauseous. But this wasn't anything he hadn't been through before. He swiped his hair backwards so it'd stop falling into his eyes, now sticky from the sweat. He wrapped his hands around the shard. It was coarse against his palms, with crystaline sort of sections creating sharp, jagged formations in fractals across the surface.

As soon as he touched it, Kayde froze. His entire body stopped, he dug his nails into the surface of the odd crystal, baring his teeth from defiance. He closed his eyes and growled from the effort, a spiral of vertigo overcame his mind and sent him into a tunnel of dizzying energy. The air around him crackled with energy like lightning, the hairs on his arms standing straight up. It became hard to breathe, with what felt like stones weighing down his lungs. But he persisted. He forced his muscles to work beyond the impact of this shard's energy and tugged. It released from the ground surprisingly easy. He held it in his hands, panting and heaving for oxygen. Exhausted and yet, a burst of excruciating adrenaline crashed into his veins and coursed through his legs and arms, speeding up the already-fast beating of his heart and intake of air into his lungs.