Optimus Prime, Starscream, Barricade, Blackout—every single combatant present was male. Even Pyramid Head counted.
Bella drew the Koh-i-Noor, and every Transformer on the field simultaneously detected a massive energy spike.
The Decepticons were already in trouble—bad trouble.
Optimus was devastatingly strong. Pitting him one-against-four, even against four notoriously vicious Decepticons, would have been a stretch. Tough as he was, he wasn't so far above them that numbers stopped mattering. But four-on-one was different from two-and-a-half-on-one, and two-and-a-half was much easier.
His Energon Sword carved left and right, and Starscream—whose commitment to any fight was always questionable at best—was getting battered into full retreat.
Then a massive explosion crackled through the comm channel, and whatever fight Starscream had left in him evaporated completely.
He knew. Brawl, their rearguard outside, was done.
Jazz, Ratchet, Ironhide, and Bumblebee—four Autobots ganging up on one Brawl. The situation mirrored this one almost perfectly: those four Autobots were individually weaker than these four Decepticons, but Brawl was no Optimus Prime either, and he had nobody backing him up. Lasting as long as he did was already exceeding expectations.
"Retreat! Decepticons, retreat!" Starscream barked the order, terrified of being caught in a pincer.
He was the kind of leader whose voice always wavered when calling a charge—but when it came to sounding the retreat, every syllable rang out crisp, confident, and practiced. His movements were just as sharp: clean, decisive, the work of a seasoned escape artist.
He raised his arm cannon and opened fire in a sweeping arc. Forget Optimus—even Bella, who'd been readying the Koh-i-Noor to strike, found herself in the blast zone.
As for his own comrades caught in the crossfire? He didn't spare them a glance. One shout was all they got. Starscream transformed into an F-22 in a blink, hugged the ground, and blasted out of the underground base.
His speed was nothing short of extraordinary. In the blink of an eye, he was already several hundred meters out.
Even Bella had to hand it to him. From the moment she'd drawn the Koh-i-Noor to the moment she activated the Isu artifact, fewer than ten seconds had passed. This guy was just that fast at running away.
The Koh-i-Noor hadn't been used since 1937. Nearly seventy years of stored energy detonated all at once—like a missile going off at point-blank range.
A milky-white beam of energy lanced straight through Barricade. The Decepticon who could transform into a police cruiser was obliterated in a single shot.
But Isu artifacts had a downside for human wielders. Even with Bella's Isu bloodline granting her full compatibility, precision control—point and shoot, hit exactly what she aimed at—was virtually impossible.
The energy beam scattered wildly after killing Barricade. Forget the Decepticons—even Optimus and Pyramid Head each took a couple of stray hits.
She simply couldn't contain it.
Blackout spotted an opening. He transformed into an MH-53 Pave Low heavy transport helicopter and tried to follow Starscream's escape route.
"Not so fast!" Optimus powered through the Koh-i-Noor's residual blasts, closed the distance in three massive strides, and drove his sword into the helicopter's cockpit just before it lifted off. Then, gripping the blade with both hands like he was filleting a fish, he sliced Blackout clean in half from the side.
Starscream fled. Barricade and Blackout were dead. The last one standing—Bonecrusher—met his end next.
The Decepticon who transformed into an armored vehicle packed heavy firepower and heavy armor, but his speed was abysmal. Bella stacked slowdown spells one after another, Pyramid Head hacked away, and Optimus collected the double kill.
By now, the Sector Seven base was wrecked beyond recognition. The battle between Optimus and the Decepticons had torn the walls apart and cratered the floor. The Koh-i-Noor's energy surges had spiderwebbed cracks across every surface.
"The base is collapsing! Run!" Natasha shouted from outside.
Bella sprinted into Optimus's truck cab. The rig roared toward the exit, and only then did she steal a glance at the ceiling.
Massive chunks of concrete were crashing to the floor. Cracks had started leaking water. Total structural failure was seconds away.
For some reason, she thought of Lara. If Lara had been here... the base would've probably collapsed already, wouldn't it?
No time to linger. Bella clutched the AllSpark and fled the Sector Seven underground base with Optimus.
Shortly after, they shook off the satellite surveillance overhead and regrouped in a barren valley somewhere in Nevada.
The state had a population of barely 2.7 million spread across over 110,000 square miles (about 286,000 km²)—classic wide-open, sparsely populated country. Finding a secluded spot was trivial.
"Bella, Natasha—I owe you a debt. We all do. I admire your courage. It was your bravery today that brought Cybertron and humanity together. It was your wisdom that exposed the Decepticons' conspiracy..."
Optimus faced the sunset, hands on his hips, and launched into an impassioned post-battle speech.
Bella and Natasha exchanged looks. It wasn't that they couldn't deliver this kind of rhetoric—they just couldn't bring themselves to.
The truth was, every Autobot knew about Optimus's habit. It was a hangover from his days as a librarian. Too many books. The mech couldn't do anything without first finding proper justification.
The others didn't love the grandstanding either, but Jazz, Ratchet, and Ironhide stood stone-faced and endured it.
Applause? Cheering? None of that existed. Everyone—Bumblebee included—stood there like statues until Optimus finished his remarks. Only then did the group seem to come back to life, as if the preceding fifteen minutes had simply vanished from the timeline.
"Optimus, I want to know what you plan to do with the AllSpark. Use it to mass-produce Autobots? Rebuild your army and take Cybertron back from the Decepticons?" Bella asked.
The AllSpark was still in her hands. She wanted to study it—if silicon-based souls could genuinely be manufactured using this thing, did that mean carbon-based souls could be manufactured too?
Optimus's tone was firm. "I will not use the AllSpark to create Autobots. Never. Every Cybertronian deserves to be free. They are not my soldiers, not my subjects. Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. I will hide the AllSpark where no one can find it."
"Well said. I think your approach is a bit passive, personally, but I respect your choice." Bella could tell that Jazz, Ratchet, and the others probably wanted to expand their ranks—but once Optimus made a decision, they fell in line without question. That was the power of the Matrix of Leadership.
"Would you let me scan the AllSpark? The internal design fascinates me," Bella said, making no attempt to hide her intentions.
Optimus answered without hesitation. "Of course. You're our friend. Though I don't know if Earth's current technology can even scan the AllSpark. The energy required to create a new one would be enormous."
Bella smiled and said she had her ways.