All Great Power [A Transformers Fanfiction]

The Sounds

A staggering and sweating group of seven men and a child walked on the hot sand toward a large sign and a well just outside a decrepit village. They had followed the power lines in from the desert to the village where Mahfouz lived. Epps slowly walked up to the well and poured the cool water over his head with his mouth open.

Lennox looked back at all the ground they had covered. His gaze then traveled to each of his men, and a concerned look crossed his face. They were all exhausted, thirsty, and hungry. He took in their haggard faces, and a sort of guilt swallowed him. He was their Captain and he had let them down.

"Let's hope this telephone line works," he said out loud, disrupting his own thoughts before he let them wander too far. He needed to stay focused. The men wearily nodded in his direction.

'Translation: Let's hope my plan works and we didn't walk all this way for nothing,' Will said to himself, thinking of the state of his men.

Suddenly there was a thumping sound under the soldiers. Coming in from behind them, sprays of sand shot into the air. A few of the men began to back up slowly, uneasy and guns at ready. Before they could sound the alarm, a metal clang sounded. The sprays of sand stopped but the large sign wobbled.

"Hey, watch out!" Will shouted to his men, pulling Mahfouz behind him as the sign began to tilt.

"Heads up!" Epps yelled, running out from under the sign. With a careen, the sign fell, sending up a cloud of the white sand into the air.

Fig, who had barely moved out of the path of the falling sign, stopped a little ways behind Don, who hadn't noticed anything in his dazed state. Don slowly turned his head at the sound of the sign hitting the sand.

"What the heck was that?" he asked, addressing Fig who was looking down at the sign with shocked curiosity. Don's eyes darted between Fig, the fallen sign, and the rest of his team. Figuero's reply was a long and drawn out one in Spanish, complete with vague hand-motions. Don rolled his eyes at his friend.

"English, dude," he said, continuing the team's joke. He turned around again to look out over the sand, "English."

Will checked around for any movement. His eyes darted across the surface of the sand. They were all sitting ducks at the moment and he hated the feeling. Panting for breath, he quickly checked his gun. He didn't want to take any chances. Without his knowledge, a crudely shaped metal tail rose out of the sand and hovered behind him. With a sharp 'sching!' the end of the tail opened up, revealing several razor-sharp blades. The noise got the attention of Epps who immediately moved his gun up to aim.

"WHOA!" Epps screamed when saw the giant metal tail about to impale Lennox in the back.

Will felt his eyes widen and he jumped away in fright, wildly looked around. His gun automatically came up, aiming where he had just stood. As soon as his captain was out of the way, Epps began to fire madly at the thing. The tail then sunk back down into the sand and thrashed around. Clouds of sand went up into the air, to the point that the men couldn't see what they were shooting at. The couldn't even see each other. Will, along with the rest of the team, was scared to death.