CHARACTER INFO:
Name: Sean Rodriguez (he)
Age: 16-years old
Height: 5'6
Eye color: black
Hair color: Blond
Clothes: red collar shirt with blue jeans, black sneakers.
STORY INFO:
- "text"- regular speaking
- "text"- Sean (the OC) thinking to himself
- "TEXT" - story transition
Music links: the custom soundtrack for the story.
BEGIN STORY
Date: Thursday, November 25, 2010 (November 26 was when the show first premiered).
Living in Nevada is an understatement. Because in all honesty, there are two big places you can go to in the state: Las Vegas, and its capital city: Carson City.
Living in Jasper, Nevada, is probably the one thing you can do if you're looking to get a cheap job in a cheap, rural town.
But when you're the son of a drill instructor, well, it can get iffy. For Sean Rodriguez, his father taught him discipline, to respect one's authority, and be more productive, all the while earning a buck yelling at the top of his lungs at new soldiers within an army base remote from Jasper. But what can he expect, being productive while in a small town? Almost none of the jobs seemed interesting.
Last week, Sean and his classmates were assigned to school projects, which required them to build a makeshift object for science class. One of Sean's friends, Rafael Esquivel, decided to make a volcano that erupts, so Sean seized on the opportunity to help him.
Today, they were hanging out at a canal, overlooked by the main highway bridge. Raf and Sean were writing project report papers about their recent progress. Even though Sean decided to go for something easy, being a mini windmill, he knew it would be difficult for Raf to work on a volcano.
So far, they have been working on them for the past hour.
"Okay Raf, what did you get done so far?"
"I bought some clay for the volcano, now all I need is some sort of remote control device that can help explode the volcano." Raf adjusted his glasses.
"You sure you're not gonna blow up your house?"
"No. At least I hope so," Raf said to himself. "Other than that, I just finished my homework!" he threw his hands up in relief.
Sean checked his watch, and it read 4:26 pm. "Well, I better get going, my dad's expecting me to come home soon. See you tomorrow, Raf!"
"You too!" returned Raf. Sean turned and walked up the canal ramp. As he turned to look at his friend, Raf pulled out his remote-control car and started racing it on the concrete floor.
"Errrrr, errrrr" Raf said to himself. Then his phone rang. He clicked on it. "Hi momma!" Raf exclaimed to his phone."Racing, right at the street. Okay, just five more minutes?"
Sean eventually got off the ramp and walked up the cliff. But as he did so, the sounds of a motorcycle engine and screams grew louder and louder.
'Well, that doesn't sound good,' Sean thought to himself. 'But that's none of my business.' He continued climbing up the hill, the roars getting louder. As soon as he got over the edge, he looked up to see-
Jack?!
He had virtually no time to react, because Jack Darby was only six feet in front of him. He was riding a motorcycle, and with good skill. He managed to swerve around Sean just as he got over the edge, but as he whisked by the blonde-haired teenager the rushing air pushed all balance from him. Within seconds Sean lost control, fell, and began rolling down the hill. Soon he rolled over the concrete wall and fell onto the pavement back first.
The spine was roaring with agonizing pain. Sean couldn't think, because his back wouldn't let him. But he had no choice, there were matters at hand.
He got up while brushing some dust off his sweater just to see Jack get off his motorcycle and Rafael mutter "Woah" before looking at Sean. He lunged out of his spot and ran over to the injured teenager. "Sean! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, just a bit rough." 'Liar, your back is really bruised up.'
"Jack Darby, I swear to God, you almost ran me over! What the hell were you thinking?" Sean exclaimed as he stormed over to the culprit.
Jack quickly backed up. "Sean, not now! We can talk about this later! Please, now is not the good time-"
"No Jack, you almost killed me! Next time you ride your bike, ride it on the road, not-"
But before Sean could continue his scolding, there was the sound of engines. The trio looked up to see two cars driving down the hill before suddenly shifting mid-air. Once the cars landed on the ground, they were no longer cars. In their place stood two giants. Covered in dark purple metal plates, two pairs of red eyes stared at the children like a cat at a mouse. They looked human, but made out of car parts, and in one of their hands was extended into a weapon, from the looks of it.
But that was not all. There was a familiar sound of shifting gears, and the teens swung around to see that the motorcycle was transforming into a metal giant- no, a robot- with a similar humanoid appearance. The only exception is that the robot was covered with blue plates, and some pink crown at the head. The robot had some female characteristics.
As a pair of blue eyes opened and snarled at the other two robots, the robot confirmed her gender by shouting: "This ends here, Cons!"
It was at this moment that Sean realized something: there's going to be a fight, and I mean a BIG fight. It seemed Jack and Rafael had the same idea as they backed to the wall. The femme robot began sprinting toward the purple bots. The opponents in turn fired lasers from the arm cannons. In a manner of seconds, she dodged all firepower before landing punches at the robots. The ground was shaking under the kids' feet.
'This can't be happening,' thought Sean.
"Woah, what are they?" Rafael asked. "Talking cars that can turn into robots, or the other way around," Jack said nervously.
"Okay Jack, what the hell happened?" Sean asked while keeping an eye on the fight. His nervousness was spiking.
"It's...complicated."
Just as he answered, there was a series of huge thumps against the ground. The femme was backflipping from laser fire before one laser beam shot her directly in the chest and sent her flying to the ground. There was a loud screech as her steel body rubbed against the pavement. She was out cold.
And when things couldn't get worse, there was a fourth car that entered the arena. This time a yellow sports car transformed and managed to strike the evil bot in the face. It managed to pummel the robot with a series of punches before it collapsed to the ground. After crushing the head with its foot, the yellow bot stepped back, before accidentally crushing Raf's toy car.
A set of beeps and boops originated from the yellow bot as it looked at the trio. "No problem, rea-"
Before the kid could finish, the robot was struck by lasers. Upon falling down, the "cons" ran over and began opening their cannons at its face.
'Hold on, how come you-' Sean thought to himself, but was interrupted.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!"
The two cons stared at the boy, along with the yellow robot.
Sean was horrified. An overwhelming sense of dread crawled over his bruised spine as the two dark robots stared at him and the others. He looked down at the kid. 'Rafael, what have you done?'
"...please?"
"Bad call," said Jack.
Yeah, no kidding, Sean thought.
"Boulderhook, deal with the humans. I got the scout." one of the "cons" spoke.
One of the cons nodded before turning and walking over to the children.
'Oh god, this can't be happening.'
The ground was shaking.
"D-don't just stand there! RUN!" Exclaimed Sean. They agreed and ran to the corner, where a large pipe stood out. It was thankfully large enough for them to fit.
Sean was the first to jump inside. He hoisted Raf inside, then grabbed Jack just as the con blocked their exit. It reached down and extended its arm to grab the kids.
But before that can happen, the yellow bot got up and grabbed the con, and attacked with full force. The bot crouched down and beeped at them again.
"Thank you!"
"Don't look back!" shouted Jack. "Keep going!"
"What did we just see?"
"No idea, and I'm not sure I want to find out." The teenagers ran down the pipe. Their adrenaline told them to keep going, despite the fact that none of them have ever been inside a sewage pipe before.
As for Sean, well his heart was pounding against his chest.
'Seriously, what the hell happened to Jack that led to this?'
After at least ten minutes, they finally found an exit from the sewers. Upon getting out, they were far from town, but at least they were far enough from that canal.
'Where the robots are still there, I reckon,' Sean thought as he regathered his strength.
"Jack, we need to talk," spoke up Sean as they walked back to Jasper. "What the hell happened back there? Who was that blue robot? Who or what were those dark robots chasing you?"
"I-I have no idea, it happened so fast."
"God, I can never imagine I would see giant robots in my life. But I need explanations now, Jack," he continued before staring down at the younger culprit. "As for you-"
Raf was in shock. "I am so sorry, I did not mean to do that. We could have died!"
Sean was holding back anger and was tempted to scold him for that stunt back there. However, he was just a 12-year old kid. And from what he saw way back then, kids have been notorious for doing that move while watching other kids get bullied.
Sean hugged Raf. "Hey it's okay, kids can do that sometimes. Look, just don't do that ever again, you understand?"
Raf nodded and hugged him back.
"Jack, if those robots can transform into vehicles, who knows how many more of them can be out there? I need to know, what happened?"
Finally, they started walking on the sidewalk. Jack took a deep breath and explained everything: from when he left work to find the motorcycle at the parking lot, to meeting Sierra, to getting chased by the purple robots in disguise, to being dropped off (and picked up again) by the motorcycle robot, to driving on the highway while being chased, to then jumping off the bridge, nearly hitting Sean, and getting into a huge fight with the evil purple bots.
"So from what you told me, all this ruckus was because you were checking out the motorcycle, the blue robot in disguise, at the diner?"
"O-Okay, maybe it was my fault, but it looked like these guys were after her before I noticed her. They were parked on the other side of the street before they attacked us."
"If they were after her before you got involved, then it wasn't your fault. Perhaps it was...her fault?"
This took a lot to process. After 15-minutes of walking, they finally reached the neighborhood. It was 4:49 pm. Sean waved to Jack and Raf before heading inside his house.
But dad wasn't there, or at least his car wasn't.
He got inside and slumped on the leather chair. He completely forgot about his back, because as soon as he sat down, the agonizing pain returned. After processing what happened in the last thirty minutes, the clock made him realize:
"God, I have homework! And chores!"
The german shepherd, Cloe, hummed as Sean sprinted to let her out into the backyard. He grabbed the shovel outside and began picking up the dog poop before dumping it into the trash can. Once the dog used the bathroom outside, the boy took care of it, before opening the side gate and began picking up dog poop in the front yard.
There was only one.
But there were a lot of cars out front.
Sean felt uncomfortable. He decided not to do that, seeing how suspicious the crowd of cars was.
After that, he took a long shower, dried off, put away laundry, then sat down and pulled out his homework. He managed to take a good look at the bruises on his back, shoulders, and arms. The concrete pavement didn't fare too well with him.
His phone buzzed. Sean unlocked to find a text message from his dad.
"Hey Sean, hope your day's been good. I got called for an overtime shift in shaping these troopers. Comin' home tonight in a few hours."
After eating dinner, he worked on his last math equation. It took at least 15 minutes to finish it. Sean grumbled in relief. "Good grief. I hope I don't see them again."
THE NEXT DAY...
School flew by really fast, other than the fact he got a lot of math and science homework. But when Sean looked back on this event, it felt as though that was purely intended, because after he left school, everything changed.
After the last class was over, Sean's fear returned once again. What if those robots come back looking for us? As he got outside, he looked around at the parking lot. there were no cars that resembled any he saw yesterday. He sighed relief, before setting eyes upon the parked motorcycle.
Wait...
It's that motorcycle!
Sean ducked his head and covered his eyes with his hands. He hypothesized overnight and during school that the robots have facial recognition technology, so by ducking and covering his face they wouldn't identify him as the kid from last night.
He continued doing this until he turned right and headed over to the neighborhood crossing, where Rafael was. Jack was right behind Sean. "Hey, what were you doing Sean?"
"Jack, don't freak out, but I believe I saw...her."
"Look, let's just forget everything that happened, and try to go about our lives, okay?"
As if God intended to prove Jack's hope wrong, there was a honk. The trio turned to see the familiar yellow sports car pull up and open its doors.
There were the beeps and boops again.
"I think it wants us to get in," stammered Jack.
"No, just me and Sean." "What? How did you know?" "It said so. Your's is over there."
"Look, I don't really-" said Jack, but his warning was ignored as the kid got inside. "You gonna come in, Sean?"
"Well, with all due respect, you're inside a freaking robot! Doesn't that sound any concerning to you?"
"Err, no? But come on! It'll be fun!"
"Okay, well, you don't really know this robot, haven't you heard of stranger danger? Come on, get out of the car."
Beeps and boops ensued. "He says they're not going to hurt you, but we have been called for an important meeting."
"Can the meeting wait? I got homework to do! Lots of homework! And my dad will be very angry if I come home late!"
More beeps. "He says we don't have a choice. It's for...our safety?"
Sean thought about it, before ultimately deciding, "Okay fine, robot, you win! But please make this quick!" He got inside the car, and the door shut behind him. In a manner of seconds, the car sped off into the road.
"Mr...uh...pfft, car, do you know where you're taking us?"
Beep beep. "He says we're going to a base. It's for our safety, we could be in serious danger."
Throughout the time, Raf was "talking" to the robot, who introduced himself as "Bumblebee." And Sean felt really uncomfortable with the fact he was riding inside a car that can turn into a robot. What if he was touching sensitive parts?
"Hey, are you okay?"
"We're inside a robot, Rafael. We could be touching unwanted things. Besides, this bee robot took down at least two of those evil bots. Which brings up another fact: we're probably going to meet more of those purple guys."
"I hope not," Rafael muttered.
Unbeknownst to the humans, Bumblebee thought of the same thing. That stunt pulled by the younger child yesterday has brought him into a conflict he would not be able to understand or comprehend. Sure, Arcee dealt with the older human, Jackson Darby, long before Rafael Esquivel was dragged into the situation. But regardless the threat is still there; the Decepticons have returned after a three-year break from the war, and in their crossfire are three- no, four- humans with no knowledge on how to fight back against Starscream and Megatron.
Sean looked worried as the car drove onto the highway ramp that led outside of Jasper. As the desert landscape came into view, he started looking around. "My dad's going to kill me."
After what seemed to be thirty minutes of driving, the kids were finally brought to the base, that being carved inside a freaking canyon in the desert! There was no entrance, but upon getting closer, the hidden doors opened up to a tunnel. The tunnel was large enough for a one-lane road to fit, and the metal walls and ceiling resulted in the other kids echoing the word "woah," and Sean could've sworn he heard a girl's voice.
"No way!" he muttered, and it echoed throughout the tunnel.
Just as he said that the tunnel's opening was revealed, and once they got through, a large- no, perhaps the biggest room he ever saw came into view. It almost reminded him of when he first went into the high school gym as a kid. The gym pales in comparison to this room. It was circular, the walls were a mix of concrete and large rock formations, and large beam lights hung from the ceiling. It pretty much looked like some sort of underground fitness center.
Near the entrance was another towering giant, a robot with red and white colors. A fourth one-bulky and green all over- came walking in to see the kids. Bumblebee opened his doors, and Sean and Rafael got out, feeling awe but also developing a sense of megalophobia (for those who want to know, it means the fear of big objects- in this case Sean is feeling uneasy at the size of the Autobots).
As the kids got out, the femme motorcycle and Bumblebee transformed. Sean struck his hands into his jean pockets, gaining a strong awkward moment. These guys are huge, I don't really want them to see me, he thought to himself.
And then he noticed the new guest. A young Asian girl with black hair with some parts being dyed pink, wearing a mix of pink and blue clothes. The pink-dyed hair gave away her identity as the Japanese transfer-student, Miko Nakadai. When she first came to Jasper high school, Sean was genuinely curious to learn more about how fun it is back in Japan, and what she thought of here. But after seeing her wild behavior at school, he decided it best to let her be.
"I thought there were three," grumbled the red and white robot.
"Haven't you heard? Humans multiply," replied the femme. Ouch.
Rafael came forward and spoke first: "I'm Raf."
Miko with wide eyes dashed over to the green tank. "I'm Miko, who are you?"
"Bulkhead," replied the said robot, looking worried.
"Are you a car? I bet you're a truck- a monster truck! Do you like heavy metal? How much do you weigh? Do you use a wrecking ball for a punching bag?"
When the blue female robot and the white one turned their eyes to the last two, Sean forced an introduction.
"My name is Sean. Sean Rodriguez. And this is Jack Darby," Sean slightly nudged Jack's shoulder. He felt nervous saying that.
"Almost ran you over, kid. Make sure you watch where you're going." The female responded. Sean looked up at her, who was crossing her arms.
"So if you're robots, who made you?" Raf spoke up.
"Oh, please!" returned the red and white robot. As soon as he finished, there was loud shaking. Only this time, it sounded bigger than what Sean felt yesterday. In fact it was WAY bigger.
The kids turned to the second tunnel to find a gigantic behemoth towering over them. This robot had car parts as usual, except the tires on his heels were massive.
The robot spoke in a deep voice, almost soothing yet with a touch of authority: "We are autonomous organisms from the planet Cyberton. Also known as Autobots."
Cybertron? Another planet? Hold on; these are aliens, but robots!
Jack stepped forward, "Why are you here?"
"To protect your planet from the Decepticons."
The femme spoke up: "the jokers who tried to bump us off last night?"
Decepticons? Deception, that word. That's a synonym for lying.
"Okay, well, why are they here?" Asked Jack.
The giant robot lowered himself to match their height. "A fair question, Jack. In part, they are here because our planet is uninhabitable, ravaged by centuries of civil war."
"Well, why are you fighting a war?" asked Rafael. Sean was genuinely interested.
"Foremost, over our world's supply of Energon, the fuel and blood of all Autobots, and Decepticons alike. The combat was fierce, and endured for centuries. In the beginning, I fought alongside one whom I considered a brother. But in war, ideals can be corrupted. And it was thus, Megatron lost his way."
*sigh* "Is there gonna be a quiz?" "Miko, not now!" said Sean.
"So, what does Megatron, or any of this, have to do with us?"
"Megatron has not been seen or heard from in some time. But if his return is imminent, as I fear, it could be catastrophic."
That doesn't sound good. The curiosity poked at Sean's brain, and finally, he decided to speak.
"So, based on what you're saying, if this Megatron does come back, and comes to Earth, he's just going to suck our planet dry of energy?"
The femme answered: "Something along those lines, except he will use any means necessary to do so, even if it means conquering your world in the process."
MEANWHILE, ONBOARD THE NEMESIS
Meanwhile, onboard the Decepticon warship The Nemesis, a lone figure with a visor on its face approached a second figure, one with a set of wings on his back.
"Those transmissions emanate from deep space. I would hate to waste the energon, unless you're absolutely certain?"
The first Decepticon, Soundwave, nodded.
Starscream grunted, "Then lock on transmission coordinates, and activate the space bridge!"
Within seconds, the massive transportation machine activated, and then a lone jet of alien origin came out. The jet transformed into a fierce warrior. He has returned, the war-monger, the conqueror of worlds, the leader of the Decepticons, and Optimus' former friend: Megatron.
Clenching both fists, he shouted with all his might and pride:
"Decepticons! I have returned!"