Seeing Optimus Prime actually hesitate when it came to saving people, William felt secretly delighted. All his efforts in nudging the Americans to attack the Autobots hadn't been in vain.
Besides, first impressions were everything. Letting Prime go interact with the Americans? Nah. It was far better to send them to Kingsman.
Under William's orders, the Kingsman agents absolutely wouldn't dare show their dark side to Optimus and his crew.
"Since you don't want to act, I'll have the elder take you to the Kingsman base."
William lowered his altitude, waved his hand, and teleported the three Aston Martins back to the underground garage at his London estate.
Then he turned to the elder who was following closely behind and asked, "You know the Kingsman base on the outskirts of London?"
"I do," the elder nodded quickly. "Don't worry, Mr. Devonshire. I was the one who escorted Challenger to Kingsman originally."
William nodded in satisfaction and then said to Sunday, "Tell the Kingsman personnel: unless the crisis involves non-human threats, the Autobots are not to be deployed to intervene in human wars."
The moment those words left his mouth, every Autobot present—including the elder and Bumblebee—looked at him with gratitude.
William smiled at Optimus and said, "If you have any questions, besides asking the elder, you can talk to Challenger. He's a tank-type Autobot who's lived on Earth for nearly a hundred years. He's been with Kingsman for quite a while now and should help you integrate more quickly."
Hovering just a few meters from William, Optimus couldn't help but think of the data he had received from Bumblebee.
He had assumed William was merely a genius with a ton of money and influence—but seeing him float in the air unaided, Optimus grew even more cautious.
He began to feel that joining up with a human faction that held a friendly attitude toward Autobots might actually be a good idea. At the very least, it would give them time and access to gather more intelligence and information.
"Thank you. The Autobots will always remember your friendship, Mr. Devonshire."
As the Transformers departed, William asked Sunday, "Can the Anti-Transformer battle armor be deployed?"
"Of course, sir," Sunday responded after a brief pause. "After nearly three years of upgrades, the armor has reached Generation 3. The Gen-4 Sentinel model is still in the calculation phase.
For now, if you wish to use one, only the Gen-3 armor can be activated. Also, to facilitate transport, I've specially constructed a dedicated carrier ship."
"Doesn't matter. Activate the Gen-3 unit first."
"Understood, sir."
With a single thought, William transmitted himself aboard a hundred-meter-long ship floating above the clouds. The ship accelerated toward the U.S., and in less than three minutes, it arrived above Ross's base.
As he looked down at the devastated base, William was privately gloating—until his phone rang again. No need to guess who it was—it could only be that old man Ross.
"You goddamn bastard! Are you there yet? If you don't get your ass here now, you can just collect my corpse!"
William had been in a good mood, but the moment he heard Ross's voice, his face darkened and his lips curled into a mocking sneer.
"Apologies. I underestimated the time needed to activate the equipment. Your current mission is to hold position and await reinforcements. I should be there shortly."
He ended the call right after speaking, mentally cursing Ross for acting like he really was some kind of high-and-mighty lord.
Back in the command center, Ross's face turned red with rage as he stared at the disconnected phone. He hurled it across the room, embedding it into the side of a monitor with a loud CRACK.
Three more minutes passed. On the surface, the two beast-mode Decepticons had cleared out all resistance.
Even Blonsky—who had gone wild just the night before—was knocked back more than ten meters by the rhino Decepticon's full-body slam and hadn't gotten back up.
"Sir, satellite surveillance shows two F-15s taking off from a base 100 kilometers away. ETA: three minutes."
Most personnel were either dead or injured. With reinforcements inbound, William figured there was no need to delay any longer. "Connect me to Ross."
Ring ring, ring ring.
The ringtone nearly made Ross snap again. "WHO THE HELL BROUGHT A PHONE INTO THE COMMAND CENTER? I'll have them court-martialed!"
Before he could explode further, his aide stammered behind him, "S-sir..."
"What?!"
Turning around, he saw the aide pointing at the very monitor where the phone had been embedded.
The screen was lit up—and the ringing was coming from the phone still stuck in it.
"Bloody hell."
Ross felt more embarrassed than anything else. But what shocked him more was that William's phone, even after such a violent impact, still worked perfectly.
He rushed over, yanked the phone out, gave it a few hard shakes, and answered.
"I'm here already," William said calmly. "From what I see, these two idiot Decepticons haven't discovered the underground base yet.
If that's the case, I probably won't need to intervene. You just wait for the fighter jets to arrive."
"No—!" Ross blurted, panicking. He signaled his aide and started lying smoothly. "The support aircraft are still at least six minutes out.
That's more than enough time for the Decepticons to escape. So... can you really stand by and watch aliens massacre people and then strut off without consequence?"
William smirked, barely holding in his laughter. He pretended to be convinced. "Alright, fine. Let your people know not to mistake me for a target."
Ross looked at the phone in his hand, surprised. "Is he really going to act personally?"
William ended the call and focused his thoughts. A 35-meter-long auxiliary ship modified from a smaller spacecraft appeared from X17 and materialized next to the larger mothership.
The two vessels began docking slowly.
Inside the small ship, every living quarter had been stripped away. The remaining space had been converted into a large cargo hold—expanded from twenty square meters to nearly sixty.
The ship's ceiling had also been raised by two meters to accommodate two nine-meter-tall Gen-3 Anti-Transformer battle suits lying dormant within.
With a flicker of thought, William teleported aboard the small ship. His Sentinel Armor shifted into the silver Mark III variant as he eyed the massive suits.
For a moment, he couldn't help but think—they really did look a lot like Gundams.
"SIR..." Sunday's voice brought him back to reality.
Shaking off the thought, William stepped into the cockpit of one of the Anti-Transformer suits and synced with its neural interface.
The nine-meter-tall, 21-ton behemoth roared to life.
______
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 20 chapters ahead – patreon.com/Mutter
For every 50 Power Stones, one extra chapter will be released on Saturday.