Secret War (Part 1)

[Aesir]

This is set in an alternate G1 universe onb Planet Earth during a Decepticon invasion that the Autobots on Cybertron know nothing about

please leave feedback etc...I'm personally not THAT happy with the "cliffhanger" end, anyway let me know what you think

Kaon, Cybertron

“The Autobots are distracted Lord Scorponok” said a bowing black and red winged Decepticon
“Excellent Soundblaster” Scorponok replied, sitting in his throne “they have no idea about our grand scheme”
“But what if they discover it before we are ready?” A grey, single eyed robot asked “What if they learn that Gigatron no longer leads us, and that you are now in command?”
“Very good points Laserwave” Scorponok mused “I think we should bring forward a couple of our plans already” he stood up and paced the throne room that had once been a conference room “Contact our troops in the Sol System, and tell them to begin” with that, Scorponok smiled

Washington DC, USA, Earth, Sol System
1:45pm

“...we will have more on this story after our special interview at 2pm, now for local news and weather” smiled the blond woman in the brightly lit studio
“CLEAR!” Shouted a man behind the camera “good work Tash”
Natasha Belmont quickly pouted as soon as the camera stopped recording her, and she stropped off the set
“How come all I get are stories about zoos and old guys no one ever really care about, and Kayla gets the interview of the century?” she asked the director
“How should I know?” he retorted “Maybe she's just a better reporter than you...” he stopped for a beat “...or maybe it's cos she sleeps with the guy who gives out the assignments?” he smiled
“You bastard” she mumbled, and stormed off towards her 'dressing room', if you can really call a small former cupboard that

Kintbury, England
Approaching 7pm

Andy sat in his room ready with his bag of crisps and bottles of coke, staying out of his sister's way, whilst her party took place downstairs. It'd only been going on for a couple hours, but now that it was getting dark, they had to turn down the music a little bit, just to keep the neighbours happy.
Andy was getting ready for the live interview that was being broadcast all over the world, and actual interview with the commander of the Autobot's Orbital Hub, which, obviously, was in orbit around Earth. In fact, right now, it was directly above Washington DC.

Andy was obsessed with the Transformers, he had pictures of the Autobots on his walls, and even pictures of some of their ships and stuff, his favourite was a satellite image of the Orbital Hub he kept tacked onto his ceiling. He loved how simple the design looked, yet how cool it was, it was basically a long stick with 2 rings orbiting it, the rings keep it in orbit, and also hold the shuttle bay on the lower ring, and an observation deck on the upper one. The command deck is right at the top of the Hub, which is were that news reporter from the states was right now.

Reading, England

The six multicoloured Autobot cars stoop around the street, which was filled with flags and reporters, all waiting for that night's event
“Okay...so...Rollcar” the rounding human said to one of the Autobots
“Um...Rollbar actually” Rollbar corrected him
“Whatever, I want you on the far left, and the rest of you go like this Green, White, Truck, Red, Yellow, Blue, got it? Then we cut the ribbon, take some pictures, you transform for the kids, we're done, any questions?” he said
“I got one” said the yellow car “you gunna learn our names some point?”
“What's the point? It's not like you're big name Autobots like Optimus Prime or Bumblebee, you're just flavour of the week guys” he walked off the stage
“I'll show him flavour of the-” the yellow car started
“Stop it Goldbug” said the orange and blue truck robot
“Wideload, don't defend the human” interjected the white car
“Yeah, Searchlight's right, he could at least learn our names!”said the blue car, Freeway
“Yeah yeah!” agreed the red car, Chase
“Look, I'll talk to him guys” Rollbar, the green car said “someone's gotta be diplomatic here after all” he mumbled as he walked off

New York City, USA
1:55pm

Dwight Dugan, better known as Strong-guard the Sword-master to the internet sat in his fortress, well bedroom in his mother's apartment, he was 40 and grew the back of his hair out long, despite his thinning top. His glasses made his bloodshot brown eyes look about twice what they would ordinarily. He didn't care though, it doesn't matter how the people in New York saw him, all that mattered was what the internet thought, and he had a job to get started.

Strong-guard's job today was to watch the Autobot interview on the news, summarize it, look for anything that could be deemed interesting, and upload that information onto his website (www.Strongguard-stronghold.com) where he had collated all the data on the Cybertronians (Transformers to the laymen) since they came to Earth, granted he didn't get all the hits that some of the sites out there do, but his was the only one with integrity (so says Strong-guard).

Strong-guard sat down at his severely weakened swivel chair and started recording the channel the news report would be on, he needed a hard copy for physical evidence after all

Autobot Outpost, Outside Sydney, Australia
5:55am

“I don't get it” mumbled the brown Autobots
“What's that Outback?” replied the white and blue car robot
“Well, why are set here in Sydney, when it's not even the capital of Aus' Tailgate?” Outback asked
“It isn't?” Tailgate replied
“Nope, Canberra is” explained the white and red Auotbot, stood nearby
“Oh didn't see ya there Swerve” Outback said startled “So why are we set here then?”
“Star Saber thought it would be smarter to be put near the largest city instead of the capital” Swerve paused for a second “plus everyone thinks Sydney's the capital anyway” he said laughing
“HEY GUYS!” came a loud voice from behind this trio. The three Autobots turned around and saw the loud image of Padlock
“What's up?” Outback asked
“The interview's about ta happen, get in 'ere!” Padlock said, walking back into the room
“Oh well” sighed Tailgate “lets go watch Star Saber be our leader...hooray!” he added sarcastically
The three Autobots walked into the monitor room, behind Padlock

Near Earth, Sol System
2 minutes until air time

Blackout sat in his command chair and looked at the Autobot's little station above that disgustingly blue and green planet nearby. Luckily his ship was heavily cloaked.
A quick scan of the station and the planet showed that the Autobots were being too complacent, the station's shields were down, none of the outpost “cities” on the planet itself we battle ready, and their troops were spread too thin.
This would be almost too easy

Bridge, Autobot Orbital Hub, Earth, Sol System
1:59pm (US time)

“I just want to say thank you for this one more time Star Saber” said the perky briunette woman in the the very expensive looking pink suit
“It's my pleasure Mrs. Banes” replied Star Saber. Star Saber is a large Autobot with a very patriotic Red, White and Blue colour scheme, Kayla was certain that that was why he was chosen for the role as the Earth's Autobot commander, just to please the Americans
“Please call me Kayla, Mrs. Banes was my Mother” she said smiling

Nearby an Autobot looked up from his console “huh”
“What?” inquired his neighbour
“Nothing, I just lost contact with a friend of mine on Pennalus-2”
“Oh don't worry about that, Pennalus has so much radio traffic that signals get lost all the time, it'll come back soon”

“Okay guys, look busy, we're on in a minute!” shouted the cameraman

DWN Station, Washington, US
2pm

“And now it is time for the interview we've all been waiting for, an exclusive interview with the Autobot's Earth Commander, Star Saber. Now, over to you Kayla” Tasha snarled the last sentence as the screen went off from here, to her work rival “Bitch” she said as soon as the camera and mic was definitely off, she'd learned since that time she forgot to check

Bridge, Autobot Orbital Hub, Earth, Sol System

“Hello Star Saber, it's so good to finally meet you” Kayla smiled
“It's my pleasures Kayla” Star Saber replied, he wasn't able to smile due to his face plate, but he tried to sound as friendly as he could
“Now, first off I'd all like to officially extend the gratitude of everyone in the United States for you looking after our planet, and I'm sure the rest of the world would thank you as well”
“That's quite all right Kayla, it is the job of all Autobots to defend any world that needs help” Star Saber explained
“That said, Earth was one of the big battlefields in the past right? Why did the fighting suddenly stop a couple years ago?” Kayla asked
“Well, about 2 of your years ago the Decepticon commander was killed in battle, luckily for us, he successor, Gigatron was a lot more amicable to peace than Terratron ever was” Star Saber offered as an explanation
“So you're saying that you're at peace now?” Kayla asked, quite expectant
“Not yet, but I have been informed that a peace treaty is being discussed on Cybertron at the moment”
“That's fantastic” replied Kayla
“Indeed In fact-” Star Saber began when the hub began to shake “What's that?” he turned and asked
“Not sure sir” replied one of the console operatives, suddenly his console exploded, sending him flying across the room. The humans began screaming, whilst the Autobots manned their posts frantically

Outside, the Decepticon ship had deposited a group of Seeker Decepticons and began attacking the Hub.
The Seeker jets could see the humans running around with the Autobots in the observation ring and even the bridge
“They allow any disease ridden creature on their property I see” snarled one of the jets “TARGET THE RING CONNECTORS!” he shouted over the comms

Kintbury, England

“WHAT THE?!” Andy screamed as he saw the images of the Bridge of the Orbital Hub on fire, filling with sparks, the camera going erratic. He ran to the door and shouted for someone to come up, no one came. He ran back to his screen and started typing things on his laptop, and as his Facebook account showed, so was a few thousand other people

Downstairs, the party was going on quite strong. It was only a small party, like 10 people, but it was a good group, they were all people from Janet's, Andy's big sister, Sixth Form group, there was, of course, Brett, her Boyfriend. Janet's best friend Kelly, although she was quite a bitch, Tony and Mark were weird, but nice guys really, and Cindy was the local goth. The other kids at the party were just local guys who heard there was a party, hey, they bought booze! One of the girls who came was Janet's long term neighbour and good friend Alice though, she was a good wholesome girl, didn't drink, didn't smoke...didn't do anything really
“Was that Andy?” asked Janet looking up
“Huh?” mumbled Brett, who was annoyed at being interrupted during their intimate kiss “who cares?”
“My mum might care” Janet said, she'd been given the task of baby-sitting her brother tonight, since their parents had decided to go on holiday...AGAIN. Janet couldn't even remember the last time she'd spent an evening in the living room with her parents. They were a wealthy family, they had a few cars, a Minivan which Janet had insisted they buy, just for carpooling, a swimming pool, and every gadget imaginable
“Get the freak to check on him then!” Brett said
“You better not be talking about Cindy” warned Janet
“He was” Cindy said drolly from the doorway “I'll go” and so she stomped up the stairs
Janet smacked her boyfriend “You dick!”
“What?” Brett moaned

Upsatirs, Cindy walked past a hallway mirror and looked at herself, she has dyed black hair, heavy make-up, and was wearing purple and black striped tights, a black dress with black mesh on the arms and a choker with a small silver skull dangling from it, she tended to avoid mirrors, but this one was right in the way. She walked on towards Andy's room where he could hear the TV on loud, she knocked on the door

Andy answered and was shocked, not because of Cindy's appearance, not entirely, you see, he fancied her, but no girl who was that cool would like him, plus she was 3 years older than him
“You wailed?” Cindy asked in a deadpan voice
“Yeah!” Andy just remembered about the Autobot station “Look what's happening on the news!” he pulled her towards his TV screen, noting along the way how soft her wrist was, and noted to himself to never wash that hand again
Cindy stared at the screen and saw the now smaller images of the station's interior on fire, with that other newscaster on the main screen
“As you cans see, we are getting these images live from the Orbital Hub, someone or something has attacked the station, with our beloved Kayla Banes on board” Cindy could hear the hatred in her voice when she mentioned Kayla
“Is this real?” Cindy asked
“Of course it is!” Andy shouted, he grabbed his laptop “Look, everyone is talking about it online!”
Cindy looked at the constantly updating website
“Woah” she whispered, and ran to the top of the stairs, calling everyone up

Dorm 8, University of Sydney, Australia
6:05am

“WAKE UP!” Screamed a girl at someone sleeping
“Leave me alone I have a class in 4 hours” the sleeper mumbled
“Ruth! You have to see what's on the news!” he friend said, pulling out Ruth's pillow
“I hate you Frankie” Ruth moaned as she shuffled out in her newly donned slippers into the communal room “I told you guys I'll see the Autobot Interview when I wake up, I know you're recording it” she looked at the screen and saw a local newscaster
“These images are live from the Orbital Hub, currently orbiting above Washington DC, as you can see the Station has been attacked, the governments of the world are preparing to launch aid towards the station, as are the Autobots on Earth” he touched his ear so he could hear the voice in his ear-piece clearer “This just in, we have images live from Washington itself, where the station is visible in the sky”
The girls in the dorm room all sat down around the television and watched, silently

Washington DC, US

“Oh my God” gasped the father of two as they looked up at the Autobot's Orbital Hub, they saw it earlier, but that was when it was still fine, and moving slightly, now it was smoking, just hanging above the city. They could just about see the Decepticons attacking the station, not seeming to aim for the top where the bridge would be, but for the rings
“Daddy, are they okay up there?” asked one of his children
“They'll be fine sweetie” he reassured his daughter, not really sure for himself

Strong-guard's Fortress, New York, US

Strong-guard was going into hysterics, all this was happening, and he was doing a live feed for it, he'd have the top rated site in the whole world
Strong-guard looked at the live images from Washington and the satellite images he'd hacked from NASA, who were monitoring the situation as well, when all this was over, he's approach them and insist upon a job there in exchange for keeping quiet about him hacking their secure systems.
He could see the data, see the attacks that the Decepticons had performed, but it didn't make sense, they attacked the Bridge at first, but only seemingly to stop them from putting up the shields, then they concentrated on the rings...or were they?
He quickly grabbed the file with maps off his low shelf and grabbed the one with the Orbital Hub's design on it
“Oh sh-” he ran to the computer and started frantically typing

Autobot Orbital Hub, Earth

The sirens in the bridge were going off at full blast
“We've lost weapon's sir!” shouted one of the few remaining Autobot console operatives
“Ahhh” Kayla said, as she tended to the wound on her leg, Star Saber came over to her
“Don't move” he looked over at the dead Cameraman, and realised that the camera was still running, but that was of no use right now. Star Saber picked up the wounded woman, keeping her up high, rather than on the ground
“Why are they attacking the rings?” the console operator asked
Star Saber looked out the window, and his eyes began glowing “NO!” He ran to the camera and started shouting “RUN!”

DWN Station, Washington

Tasha looked at Star Saber on the screen behind her, but couldn't hear him, the mic's must have been damaged, but he looked frightened...he was holding Kayla in his hand, she was alive
“LUCKY BITCH!” she screamed, with the camera still rolling

Kintbury, England

The room was filled with the party goers, all watching the American news programme
“Knew she hated her” smiled Cindy
“What do you think he's saying?” Janet asked, turning to her brother
Andy was sitting on his bed, with his laptop on his legs, wide eyed
“Andy? What's wrong?” she asked, walking over to him, he pointed to his screen
On the monitor was a tacky looking fansite with images on it, it looked like the Orbital Hub, and some marked in points, and some large text under it, which made her mouth gape open
“Oh my” she managed to mumble and read it out “GET OUT!They aren't targeting the rings” everyone in the room turned to the screen

Outside the Orbital Hub

The Decepticons rallied for their final strike as they finally pierced through the connectors between the rings and the inner pole.
The inner pole began to plummet, as it was inside Earth's gravitational field, leaving the rings to float away into space, along with their passengers, heading directly for the city below

Inside the bridge, the remaining 2 Autobots and Kayla were thrown around and the entire mid-section of the station headed to Earth at an increasingly startling rate
“HOLD ONTO SOMETHING!” Star Saber ordered to the other Autobot, but too late, as he was thrown through the window, filling the bridge with freezing cold air “ONE SHOT LEFT!” Star Saber shouted to Kayla, who was clinging onto him from his own hand

Washington DC

The streets filled with fear as they saw the steadily enlarging image of the Autobot's Orbital Hub plummeting towards them, families cowered in their homes, Church-goers prayed, other people ran as fast as they could for the city exits, some by car, others trying to outrun the plummeting pole, which was now looking more like a javelin every second

The girls in Australia all watched as the news room in Washington filled with chaos, and then suddenly the screen went to static

The party goers in England all stood around, shocked

In New York the city had just suffered a large shockwave coming from the Virginia area. Strong-guard looked out his window absent-mindedly and saw the swarm of objects coming from the sky. He began typing on his computer, warning his loyal readers

Kintbury

“Wh...what just happened” stammered Janet
“DC just got crushed” replied Cindy, just glaring at the still static filled screen
“But th..that's not possible right?” Janet asked again
“'fraid so” replied Cindy, still leering
“What happened though” Mark said from behind the girls
“Maybe the station just fell?” suggested Tony next to him
“No, it was the Decepticons” Andy said glaring at his laptop “switch the channel!” he said.
Janet grabbed the remote and started switching channels, the destruction of Washington was prominent on most
“They're saying it's just an accident” Janet said, listening to a couple of the channels
“They're wrong..or it's a cover up” whilst watching a live-stream on the website he was on

Strong-hold's apartment, New York

String-hold had ducked to a lower level in his room, but kept peeking up and glancing out of the window. New York was being attacked by hoards of Decepticons. Strong-hold kept poking his web-cam out the window and recorded some of the figures, whilst live streaming to his watchers, the people had to know!
He kept glancing over at his computer monitor and kept seeing the messages being posted by his followers along the lines of “is this a joke?” to “get out of there” but Strong-hold had to stay, he had to record this for prosperity, plus he'd just seen his neighbours, the Morgans, run out and get mauled by one of the bestial shaped Decepticons.

He was trapped, so he turned around the web-cam towards him

Kintbury

“Viewers, what you just saw wasn't a joke” Strong-hold said over the live stream, which Andy and the party-goers watched “New York has been invaded by Decepticons, I have no idea if this is even getting out to anyone, but in case it is, just run, get out of the major cities, get-” the room filled with light and Strong-hold looked to his right at something in his window “THEY ATTACKED DC AND NEW YORK, NO WHERE'S SAFE!!!” he shouted fast as his room filled with smoke and rubble. The image began to blur and then jerked, the view had shifted to a angling image of the street below Strong-hold's home, showing a fast descending body hurtling towards the concrete below and making impact. The image stayed dangling

“Holy slag dude” Brett cussed
“Tell me this is some Youtube crap guys” urged Kelly
“It isn't” Andy said
“What do we do?” asked Mike
“We have to go, get to the countryside or something” Andy said
“No way, Mum will never allow that” Janet said, but Andy started grabbing things anyway
“So call her then, ask permission to save our lives!” Andy retorted
“What are you doing?” Cindy asked, confused
“Hey, if we have to leave here, we're gunna need food and phones and stuff, so I'm grabbing things” Andy rationalized
“Actually, god idea” Cindy accepted, and started for the kitchen to grab supplies as Janet got on the phone

Sydney University

“Will you guys calm down?” Ruth shouted at her flat mates who were running aorund grabbing clothes and pushing them into suitcases
“NO WAY” Frankie screamed “We're getting out of here!”
“What makes you think Sydney will get attacked?” Ruth asked
“Dude, they're going after capital cities...EVRYONE THINKS SYNDEY'S THE CAPITAL!!!” Frankie screamed and continued to pack
“Good point” Ruth conceded and began packing too

Butlins Resort, Bognor Regis, England

Mr and Mrs Damons were watching the cabaret act on the stage of the “Center Stage” a family-friendly nightclub in this holiday park, it was just someone doing some jokes, but it was still amusing, the jokes were awful, but in an audience it's hard to not get carried away with them.
Mrs Damons' phone began to chirp and she answered it without looking at the name
“Hello?” she answered
“Mum, have you seen the news?” Janet's voice said over the phone
“Oh hello Janet, how's Andrew?” Mrs Damons asked
“Um fine, have you seen the news?”
“No, why would I watch the news on my holiday?” Mrs Damons snapped
“Mum DC was j.....tac....y De.....um?” Janet began breaking up
“Janet I can't hear you, I'm heading to the door to get a better signal” she opened the main doorway and walked into a cold wall “what the?” she mumbled, looking up and screamed at the glowing red eyes of a Decepticon in front of her

The people in the club all turned towards the door where the scream had just come from, and ended
“Can someone check that?” asked the compère, asking towards one of the staff members, who did so “Anyway, who here's got a shower in their rooms?” he began his next joke, but quickly silenced when he saw the staff member backing his way into the club again, and then sprinted away from the door

Suddenly the doorway exploded, the walls began to crumble in on themselves and cars began ramming through the formerly solid walls, people just managing to avoid being ran over, but most not quite so lucky. The compère ran through the back way out of the club and into the holiday park itself, he looked around and saw various shapes attacking the holiday camp, and massacring the holiday makers. He ran at full speed towards the nearest entrance to the park, quickly running out of breath with every step when he saw it a large space-ship looking vessel on the beach right next to the park, with Decepticons charging out of it, and entering the town. He was doomed

Kintbury

“Mum? MUM?” Janet was screaming into the phone
“What happened?” Andy asked
“The phone went dead” she said
“Come on” Andy said, grabbing her arm “Let's go”
“What?” Janet mumbled
“The mini-van's loaded up, we're going to leave” Andy said grabbing his laptop “just hope my satellite-internet connection actually works” he mumbled t himself as he and his sister walked down the stairs

Reading

The six Throttlebots sped out of the town centre and towards the town's exits
“What do you think it was?” Freeway asked
“Decepticons of course” Rollbar answered
“We don't know that for sure, lets just get to an outpost and prepare like Magnus told us to” Goldbug ordered, being the team leader

Sydney Autobot Outpost

“Okay guys move out!” shouted the local commander
“Decepticons all over the place and we have ta go protect the squishies?” Padlock summarized their mission
“They're called Humans, Padlock” replied Sweve “And yeah, that's the whole point in us being here remember?” he shifted to his red and white pick-up truck mode and drove out along with the others, followed by Padlock in his Truck cab mode

Kintbury

Janet and Andy walked out of their house, with Janet locking up behind them, not noticing the neighbour looking over the hedge
“Oh Janet have you seen the news?” she asked
“Uh yeah Mrs Tribek, DC was destroyed” Janet replied still typing into her phone hoping her mother would answer
“No no no, I meant about Bognor!” she corrected
Janet quickly glanced up and looked at her “What?”
“They just had those satellite picture things of Bognor, it's been messed up pretty bad” she said “weren't your parents there?” she asked, clearly concerned. But Janet couldn't handle it, she just span around and ran towards the mini-van full of people, but not everyone
“Where is everyone?” she asked
“Those boys who live round the corner just left, Think they took some DVD's with them, and Alice is at her place” Andy said
“WHAT?” Janet shouted hysterically and ran to her neighbour's house, where Alice was and knocked frantically on the door, Alice answered it “What are you doing? Get in the van!” she said fast and wide-eyed
“I can't” Alice said, clearly just finished crying “Mum and Dad said I have to stay here...did you hear about Bognor?” she added
“Yeah...come on, they can come too” Janet pleaded
“Where are you even going?” Alice asked
“Anywhere, the Decepticons are attacking Earth, it'll be safer anywhere but a civilized area” she reasoned
“My parents don't believe that...plus we have that bomb shelter out back from the war still, we'll be safe, why don't you come stay here?” she suggested
“If you stay here you're gunna die Alice” Janet said
“I trust my parents...they say I'll be safe...so I....”Alice tried reasoning
“FINE!” Janet shouted, and stormed off towards the mini-van, Alice closed the door and locked it from inside

Sydney, Australia

The girls stopped their car near Sydney Opera House
“Great” Ruth sighed at the masses of traffic approaching the bridge “should we walk?” she suggested
“With all our stuff? No!” Frankie flat out rejected that idea
“Other people are” Ruth added
“Well other people are idiots” Frankie added, and the two girls let out a short laugh
“This is stupid, we should just go back home” Ruth suggested
“Yeah...why not?” Frankie agreed and began to back up when she noticed a shadow in the still dark waters “What was that?” she asked
“What was what?” Ruth replied
“There was something in the water”
“Maybe it was a surfer?” Ruth offered “Some of these surfers are crazy”
“Nope...way too big for a surfer” Frankie said,a nd opened her door to get a better look, also noting some other people doing the same, Ruth joined her

The road was filled with noise and people, all the way towards the bridge itself
“SHUT UP!” Frankie screamed at the people, to which most obliged, but a couple threw obscenities back at her, but those stopped when a scrapping noise was heard nearby , and then another. Then came a very familiar noise to anyone who had seen any documentaries on Transformers before

KRA-CU-CHA-CHING

Suddenly the water became violent, waves began to flare up against the shores, some hitting the cars currently parked, some people had gotten torches out or turned on some roof lights on their cars, because beams of light started appearing everywhere, pointing into the darkness, the people asking each other what it was, or where the noise came from when a woman screamed
“THE OPERA HOUSE!”
Everyone with a torch aimed it towards the roof of the Opera House and saw what she'd seen a glimpse of a large, sharp green head with glaring yellow eyes, one of the largest robots Ruth had ever seen.
The Decepticon roared electronically and began tearing into the Opera House, sending pieces of it's roof into the crowds, crushing several cars and obviously killing several people. The streets filled with screams, from men and women alike the giant Decepticon stomped through the Opera House, crushing most of the remaining structure into rubble and began firing missiles into the crowds as well

“RUN! DAMN IT RUN!!!” Frankie screamed at Ruth, the girls abandoning their car, when a large explosion drew their attention back to the Decepticon, who was now tumbling backwards into the bridge, uprooting t from it's concrete fixtures and crashing into the water in a descending arch causing an up-shoot of water. Ruth looked around and managed to see two slightly smaller, yet still large Autobots rushing the massive Decepticon, whilst a third held it down.
“YOU'RE GOING DOWN PIRANACON!” roared one of the Autobots, but Ruth didn't care, she was too busy running away from the fight, she didn't even notice that Frankie was lying down on the floor behind her, very still, and with a very large piece of rubble next to her bleeding head

Kintbury

“No!” Janet said as they approached the train station, which had it's barriers down
“Woah” Andy said from the second row of seats
“What?” asked Cindy, who was behind him in the back row
“Someone just posted a fight vid from Australia, I think that's Sixbuilder holding down that Decepticon” he explained “wait..why've we stopped?” he asked
“Train's coming through” Janet said, tapping her wheel
“Noo...the trains have stopped, I checked online” Andy said
“Then....why?” Janet began mumbling when an explosion came from behind them, everyone looked back and saw the direction they just came from erupt in flames and screams “ALICE!!!!!!!” Janet screamed
“RUN THE BARRIER!!” Screamed Andy
Janet didn't need to be told twice, she put her foot down and drove right through the two barriers, but looking the left wing mirror in the process and continued to drive at well over 90 MPH along the rural road into the night, Cindy just stared back and watched as the village was filled with flames and buildings being noticeably heaved up and thrown to the side

Mt St Helens, Oregon, USA

Ultra Magnus kept up a consistent stream of fire from his machine-gun like weapon against the encroaching Decepticons, he wouldn't fall like the rest of his team had. The Decepticons however seemed to have the same plans as he did however, and weren't relenting on their offensive.
“One chance...” thought to himself, as he keyed in an emergency code via his neural interface into his large body, and detached his smaller, pure white body from his large blue battle-armour and quickly transformed, grabbing his machine gun from his battle-armour's now life-less hands and drove away at full speed, some of the Decepticons had noticed him get away, but most hadn't, and even those who had seen him detach didn't have enough time to react

The armour detonated and took out all the Decepticons who had surrounded Magnus just moments before. Ultra Magnus skidded to a stop just out of the blast radius and just watched. He transformed back to robot mode and removed his blue helmet, dropping it to the floor, he'd lost contact with the other Autobots, and he couldn't contact Cybertron. To make things worse he was now technically Earth's commander, since Star Saber was destroyed in the Hub “what a way to begin his career as System Commander” he thought to himself as he drove off and began searching for any more survivors

A forest, somewhere

A woman in a burnt looking pink suit and covered in blood lay on the leaf-filled floor of the forest, being bathed in small beams of light. Her blue eyes began to flutter open and she tried to sit up, but fell right back down again
“AHHHHH” she screamed
“Stay still and try to stay quiet please” said a kind, yet large voice near her
“Star Saber?” the woman mumbled
“Yes Kayla” Star Saber confirmed and began to gently dab water from a nearby stream onto the injured human
“How did we survive?” she moaned
“As the ship impacted and grabbed you and we were flung from the station, I activated my jet boosters and we flew in a straight line until we slammed into a large tree near here, I have no idea where we are” he admitted
“Okay” she whimpered
“You are not seriously injured, I am treating your wounds and then we must move before the Decepticons locate us. Kayla just nodded and looked into the forest, wondering how the rest of the world is doing

Above Washington DC

Blackout sat on the throne he had made on top of the Autobot's now fallen Orbital Hub and looked out at the explosions surrounding him from the various settlements around them.
Earth belongs to the Decepticons now

TO BE CONTINUED

[JazZeke]

I gave up after about a paragraph; I couldn't get past the grammar. Punctuation is your friend.

Also, the dialogue is really stale. All I see are common idioms and even some cliches. It's not enough to keep a reader engaged.

[Aesir]

I gave up after about a paragraph; I couldn't get past the grammar. Punctuation is your friend.

Also, the dialogue is really stale. All I see are common idioms and even some cliches. It's not enough to keep a reader engaged.

How do you know what the grammar or speech is like after just one paragraph?

[Alak]

While I think his decision to judge your fiction after one paragraph was a bit rash, JazZeke is right in this scenario. The punctuation (or lack of) and grammatical errors continue straight until the end, and at times I wondered if you used a smart phone to type this up instead of a computer. When typing dialogue, you want to use commas to separate it from the remainder of the sentence. Example:

“Good point” Ruth conceded [...]

You need to insert a comma after the final word in the dialogue and before the quotation mark. Here's the corrected version:

"Good point," Ruth conceded [...]

If you plan on writing a piece such as this, it is advisable to do so using Microsoft Word because it can check your spelling and grammar (for the most part). If you don't own the program, then feel free to ask a fellow member or friend to proofread it for you. Now that I cleared that out, let me address the rest of your fiction.

What Could Be Improved

- The grammar needs work. See above for details.
- You introduced a lot of characters and that brings up two problems. First, I didn't establish a connection with any of them. Second, I was pretty confused and had to backtrack just to remember who each person was. This second issue was the the reason why I failed to grow attached to anyone. Think about the difference between Beast Wars and G1. The latter had an enormous cast which led to casual fans forgetting which transformer was which. BW had a smaller cast, and therefore, fans tend to learn more about them and connect with them. Even if you're not a fan of the character, you'll still be well-informed of his/her decisions, actions, history, etc. That erases confusion.
- With a piece as short as this, remember to keep everything focused so that the reader recognizes progression. Sometimes, the conversations seem a bit redundant and I'm left wondering where it was leading to. It wasn't exactly a feeling of suspense, but a feeling of boredom and impatience. You want to allure me with a description of what's going on that also adds to the build towards the fiction's climax.

What I Liked

- You definitely have imagination.
- It seems like you wrote a movie script, and the layout alone kept me reading.
- You're good with description. I can use your imagery to create a picture of what's going on and that's very good.
- The piece has potential for a sequel.
- While I complained about the large cast, I liked how you showed the perspectives of multiple individuals. On the other hand, I would have preferred if you didn't assign them names so that it brings more focus to the main characters. Keep them as what they should be: perspectives. Giving a character a name automatically gives them importance, which isn't good if they don't actually do anything important.

Well, that's my feedback for now. I hope it helps and if you're confused about anything just holler at me.

[Aesir]

Thanks for the feedback Alak, I know I'm not the best with grammar, especially for stories lol. I'm always willing to edit my work when I post it for grammar/spelling mistakes etc so if someone wants to proofread it now I'd be willing to edit it appropriately.

I just tend to get annoyed when reading stories when characters don't have names if they actually have a role or legacy in a story, so I tend to always give even minor characters names. Also sometimes if a person with a name ends up suddenly dead it shocks the reader lol

Oh and don't worry, the main cast does get filtered out over time

Again thanks for the helpful criticisms

[GoktimusPrime]

As the author, it's your responsibility to proof-read your own work before posting it. I really couldn't get into reading it since the copious spelling and grammar mistakes made it too hard to understand. But I did have a quick skim...

Could all those Sydney/Australia clichés be any less corny/contrived? (o_O)
1: Sydney is a capital city. It's the state capital of NSW.
2: The Opera House??? Ya know, unless there's actually a performance going on in there, the building is otherwise fairly empty. It's also relatively isolated from the rest of the Sydney CBD (reference) so it's not exactly the most logical choice of strategic targets.

If you want to use 'exotic' locations around the world, please do your homework. It's bad enough when Michael Bay makes stupid mistakes like having Sam Witwicky briskly trek 416km across Petra to Giza in less than a day! (What the *slag*?!?) -- not to mention the fact that they could see the pyramids from Petra... wow... they sure got closer. And Israel sure got... non-existentier... :p

We live in an age of modern automatic spelling and grammar checkers... (even this board has an automatic spell check feature underlining mispelt words in red like "existentier" and ... whoa, it's even underlining "mispelt" (okay, this spell check seems to be stuck on American English... FAH! :p)

[Nurann]

@GoktimusPrime Please don't try to circumvent our one and only word filter.

Also, if you haven't played around in there already, feel free to try changing your language settings in User control panel > board preferences > my language.

@Aesir: I admit I've only skimmed the topic due my recent lack of free time, but judging from the responses, do you have anyone beta reading for you? There are a number of authors here that would probably be glad to help you polish your work up

[GoktimusPrime]

@GoktimusPrime Please don't try to circumvent our one and only word filter.

I personally don't consider French Connection United Kingdom to be inherently offensive, but I shall avoid using it in future.

Also, if you haven't played around in there already, feel free to try changing your language settings in User control panel > board preferences > my language.

It's okay, my jab at the spell checker was said in cheek (hence the use of the tongue-in-cheek emoticon ). I prefer manually proof-reading and correcting my spelling and grammar. Besides, I often type things which is correct English, but the spell checker or grammar checker will try to correct me (e.g. use of passive voice). But thanks for the heads up on the language setting. I might play around with it later.

Cheers.

[Nurann]

@GoktimusPrime Please don't try to circumvent our one and only word filter.

I personally don't consider French Connection United Kingdom to be inherently offensive, but I shall avoid using it in future.

Ah, yes, but there is of course a little thing called context with that particular brand name...

My apologies for the misunderstanding with the language thing. I was just doing a quick read-through before work and didn't catch the ":p"