Ruby - Transformers: The Last Knight

Fire Power

Ruby climbed onto Grimlock's foot. Fifty guns tracked her movement.

"Don't try anything," Lennox begged her, aiming the stun gun at her again.

"We will shoot," said Santos, barely a meter away from her by Grimlock's other foot. He sounded sure, but Ruby could smell his fear, and see the sweat beading on his forehead.

"He'll shoot," Lennox confirmed. Despite holding the weapon that temporarily neutralised her powers, he clearly remembered Ruby's talent for deflecting bullets back at the shooter with sharp precision.

Tremors came through the dirt road. Pebbles and rocks danced on the surface. The bracelet pulsed like a beating heart around Ruby's wrist, its power contained. Ruby tightened her grip on Grimlock's leg.

A decepticon burst out the ground, showering them all with chunks of hard dirt.

"Run Grimlock, now!" cried Ruby.

Decepticons appeared all around, attacking the TRF soldiers like the silver prehistoric alien wasn't even there. Grimlock launched forward. Each colossal foot step threatened to shake Ruby loose. She hugged his tree-trunk of a leg and screwed her face up against the dust, leaving the decepticons and TRF to battle it out.

Despite her mistrust of him, a small part of her still hoped Lennox would be okay.

Wherever they went, Grimlock would leave a trail of deep, large, foot prints. Anyone would be able to follow them. They should split up. She should go home to her fiancé, and the dinosaur should go back to the autobots to protect Cade.

What was the point in just going home if the world was going to end? There'd be no home or fiancé to go back to. Besides, Megatron wanted her, alive, for whatever reason. Ruby's blood boiled at the thought of a universe without him. She would make him safe again. And she hoped, wherever Optimus was, he was safe too.

 "Hurry, we must get to Cade,"  

No one followed, not yet. Grimlock's feet crashing into the ground filled Ruby's ears and white light, pulsing brighter and brighter from her bracelet filled her vision. The icy energy in her body would thaw out soon. It had to.

Grimlock stomped down the high-street of the ghost town, making sure his trail would lead the enemy right into the center of the trap.

"Careful!" Cade ran out of a crumbling building that was once the town hall, "You could knock the charges!"

Grimlock whined and came to a stop. Ruby jumped down from his foot, stumbling from her own weight and lack of energy. She hid her light show of a bracelet behind her back and followed Cade into the safe zone.

The autobots were parked in a line down the narrow alley; a brilliant yellow Camaro, a candy green Corvette, a red-striped black Mercedes, and wedged in last, with only a hair's worth of space either side of him, the giant army truck that was Hound.

Cade and Ruby crouched in front of him. Grimlock had to find another building to hide behind.

"How close are they?" asked Cade.

"I'm not sure," Ruby replied, "TRF followed the decepticons, but the decepticons turned on TRF.  Megatron wasn't with them, I suspect he'll be here any moment. He wants that token, bad."

Cade's hand went to his pocket to check it was still safe.

"Here," he passed her a detonator, "On my cue,"

"Which is?"

"Fire!"

"Imaginative."

He rolled his eyes, "I'm going to the roof, listen out for my cue," and off he went.