Ruby - Transformers: The Last Knight

A Life for a Life

Ruby swung her legs backwards and forward, running in mid-air. She tried swimming with her arms, but still she was stuck at the very center of planet Cybertron's core, held by invisible forces. 

She drew in a breath and released a concentrated ball of crimson energy. She thrust it at the shield of tokens below. If the reaction of Cade's token was anything to go by, the shield would reflect it back at her ten fold, and blow her clean out of the tower.

Her power brushed harmlessly over the tokens and fizzled out.

"Oh, Ruby darling, don't waste anymore of your precious energy," said Quintessa. She floated over to an elaborate set of controls on the wall, next to two crumbling statues which Ruby presumed used to look like her Knights.

 "Let the rebirth begin," said Quintessa, "Let the life of Earth become the life of Cybertron." She pulled a long, slender lever.

A hole yawned open beyond the shield of tokens, flooding the tower with natural light. Ruby peered past her dangling feet and took in a sweet lungful of fresh air. 

What she couldn't see, was the thin line of white energy entering the tower beneath the shield. The collection of tokens sucked it up from the Earth. The shield absorbed the stolen energy until it became a ball of white light. 

Ruby frowned. Her heart accelerated as all her instincts cried out for her to get away. A cord of power burst up towards her blood stained sneakers. It slammed into her body like a shockwave. 

She would never be able to fully describe the agony of the reaction. It tore the flesh off her bones and whipped it back on over and over; fire, pure and hot, burned across every inch of her skin; a thousand razor blades cut into her, biting and shredding. Acid poisoned her veins, hitting all of her organs, her brain, her eyes. And from her mouth poured scream after scream as her very soul was ripped from her.

****

Cade heard the start of the reaction before he saw it. Beside him, Tom cried out like it had physically stabbed him in the chest. Cade chewed his tongue as the sounds of Ruby's pain echoed through the tower. It was hard to deal with, harder than he thought it would be, worse than the smell of stagnant water and rusted blood that was stuck up his nose. 

He had to move quickly, before the sound overpowered him, before it broke him down and stopped him from doing what had to be done. 

All around them, Cybertron blossomed. Earth's life, catalysed by the shield and powered through Ruby, became Cybertron's life. The rusted walls started to shine, the smell of decay disappeared and the dead plants turned green.

Ahead, a small stream of light showed the way. Tom rushed forward, leading the autobots into the main chamber of the tower. Where they immediately became weightless and floated off.

"Cade!" shouted Crosshairs, "How is this even happening right now? I thought you had the last token?"

"I do!"

"It's simple physics," said Lennox, fighting to keep hold of his machine gun whilst flying along on his back, "It's not about the number of tokens-"

"Over there!" Hound fired off several rounds at Megatron and Nemesis Prime as they approached from above.

"OoooOOooo" whined Bumble Bee; he dissembled his parts to avoid enemy retaliation.

A yellow leg rotated past Cade's face;

"Bee!" he yelled over Ruby's wailing, "Mind your bits and pieces, would you!?"

Cade took the distraction as his time to act. He cocked his gun and somersaulted over to Ruby, as close as he dared to get. White energy zoomed upwards at Ruby, becoming every colour of the rainbow after it went through her. Her sobbs filled his head. He'd help her, he'd end the pain...

Cade shut his eyes but it didn't block out the sacrificial image of her, beautiful, hair flowing, arms pulled backwards, jaw wide and tears of blood trailing down her cheeks. He forced his finger down on the trigger and completely unloaded his gun of bullets. 

"What are you doing?!" 

Ruby continued to scream. The bullets had been incinerated in the energy stream around her. She was completely and utterly untouchable. 

Lennox yanked Cade away and they went rolling into the wall, "Have you completely lost your mind?!"

Cade smacked Lennox's hands off, "She asked me to! She made me promise that if it came to this I'd..." he tailed off. Somehow saying he'd kill her out loud only made him feel more stupid.

"Well, let's come up with a better plan in the next five minutes before we're all catapulted across the universe!" he slapped Cade over the top of his head.

"Alright! Jeez,"

Above them, the autobots struggled in a bizarre fight with Megatron and Nemesis Prime;  they refused to use deadly force on their lost leader, only staying alive because the two warriors kept quarreling with each other.

"We need Optimus back," said Lennox, "He's lethal to us on the wrong side, plus he might be able to save Ruby before the catapult hits."

"I think I have an idea," said Cade, patting his pocket containing his token "But it'll be tricky."

Lennox listened to his plan. It wasn't the best strategy an army veteran had ever heard, but they had no time, and nothing left to lose, so what did it matter?

"Fine." Lennox jabbed his finger at Cade; "Let's just hope Tom didn't notice you trying to execute his fiancé otherwise we're gonna have a whole host of other problems."

"You go get him, I'll wait here, just in case,"

Lennox managed to swim through the air down to Tom, who was fruitlessly trying to break the shield of tokens.

"Stop stop!" cried Lennox, "Reducing the size of the shield only makes it worse for Ruby!"

Tom's answering glare went right through him, Lennox had never seen such fury and grief in a man before. The bright light of the reaction reflected in his eyes; "I have to do something to help her," Tom put his hands over his ears, "I can't stand it!"

"Come on!" Lennox hauled Tom back up to Cade by his armpits. "Don't look," he said as they passed close to Ruby. 

Cade gave them a thumbs up as they passed him. He waited until Tom and Lennox reached the autobots, then slowly inched closer to the lethal rainbow, holding the token out towards it.

Above, Hound and Crosshairs pushed Megatron up; Bee and Drift pulled each of Nemesis Prime's legs to force him down, singling him out of the fray for the briefest of moments.

Cade's token touched the light of the reaction, angled towards Prime. The rainbow veered off center and struck him squarely in the chest. Purple eyes blazed down on Cade, then flashed blue, back to purple, then blue again.

The energy of the reaction threatened to rip the token right out of Cade's hand. 

"NO!" cried Prime, "Stop! You are killing her!"

Cade, his hand scorched and broken, couldn't hold on to the token any longer. He didn't see what happened to it, he didn't care.

Because Optimus Prime was back. And he was pissed.