As soon as William activated the Anti-Transformer battle armor, Sunday opened the ship's hatch and engaged the deployment mechanism, pushing the massive suit out into the open.
The moment it left the ship, the armor automatically extended its limbs, and from its back-mounted thrusters erupted ghostly blue flames—suspending the nine-meter-tall figure in the sky like one of the Mark suits.
Painted silver-white with bold red accents and arcing with lightning-like energy over its surface, the moment the armor appeared, it caught the attention of everyone at the base—The Fallen, and the two beast-mode Decepticons included.
"My God… is that really human-made?" Ross stared in disbelief at the screen showing footage shot by trembling soldiers too afraid to fight, only able to hide and film.
Snapping back to his senses, Ross roared at the comms officer, "Zoom in! Get those feeds on every screen! And notify the other bases—
If the Global Hawk UAV isn't in the air in thirty seconds, I swear I'll court-martial the entire goddamn squadron!"
Several kilometers away, inside The Fallen's cloaked ship, the ancient Decepticon who once wanted to destroy the sun to harvest its energy, looked like he'd just seen a ghost.
If this tech could be deployed at scale, the Decepticons—already struggling to survive—would lose even their last toehold on Earth.
Forget conquering the planet—they'd be lucky just to live here.
He glanced at Soundwave. Though the scorn in his heart lessened slightly, he still shouted in rage, "You never found any intel about that battle suit?! What's the point of an intelligence officer like you?"
Soundwave hit the deck instantly, terrified. He truly hadn't expected William's manufacturing base to be on another planet.
If they'd known there was a new planet to exploit, the Decepticons would've fled Earth long ago.
Luckily, The Fallen's attention was quickly diverted by the nearby fight, sparing Soundwave further wrath.
The two beast Decepticons shifted into their robot forms, raised their weapons, and launched a barrage of energy blasts toward William, now floating a thousand meters above them.
But energy weapons with clear trajectories were nothing to Sunday—who'd once evaded enemy fire on the moon while piloting a ship and escaped without a scratch.
Effortlessly darting through the sky, William's suit dodged all the shots with casual ease.
If the armor had been made from pure Sentinel materials, he could've just stood still and let them fire.
After several dozen missed shots, the Decepticons realized further attacks were futile—they were just wasting energy.
Frustrated, they pulled out melee weapons and began taunting William from below, trying to provoke him into descending.
"Idiots," William muttered. "Why would I fight up close when I've got ranged weapons?"
He raised his arm, where a row of twelve missiles unfolded.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh—four of the missiles, specially designed to lock onto Transformer energy signatures, streaked toward the dodging Decepticons.
Just as they thought they had evaded them, the missiles detonated a few meters away.
In an instant, dozens—hundreds—of miniature magnetic mines burst out, clamping onto the Decepticons' bodies and exploding in rapid succession.
Flames and shockwaves engulfed them, and seconds later, the two monsters who had been slaughtering the base were now smoking wrecks, collapsed and howling.
"Pathetic," The Fallen growled, disgusted that these failures were ruining his plans. Enraged, he stormed into the incubation chamber aboard his ship.
Engaging the ship's energy core, ten beast-type Decepticons burst from their birthing pods in seconds, landing on all fours before him.
"Go," The Fallen ordered. "Crush the one who humiliated us."
Their roars echoed across the sky, reaching William's ears.
Though William's spiritual scan couldn't locate The Fallen's cloaked ship, Sunday had detected the energy signals.
"Sir, multiple Decepticon signatures detected four kilometers out. It's either a teleportation gate or a cloaked Decepticon ship in that region."
"A ship?" William pondered for a moment, and it clicked. The one hiding out there was almost certainly The Fallen himself.
Kill him outright?
The idea flashed through his mind—but then he remembered: this was American soil. If he killed The Fallen and left the ship intact, the U.S. would walk away with the loot.
"Deploy the spider probes. I want that ship found."
Immediately, a spider deployment vessel launched from the main ship, dropping thousands of robotic spiders as it flew toward the suspected location.
Upon reaching the area, the probes began dispersing, crawling across the terrain in search of cloaked structures.
This brute-force method quickly yielded results: several spiders landed directly on the ship, their tiny clink-clink noises drawing The Fallen's attention.
But before he could issue a command, William—still dodging the incoming beast Decepticons—targeted the marked coordinates.
The remaining eight missiles on his right arm fired.
ALERT! ALERT! Missile strike detected! the warning blared inside the Decepticon ship.
Now The Fallen understood—the clinks were probes. Without a moment's hesitation, he teleported outside the ship.
Raising his weapon, he activated a magnetic field, and the eight missiles froze midair as if dropped into a vat of syrup.
But while the missiles halted, their internal warheads did not.
Just as programmed, dozens of submunitions inside each missile detonated in a rapid burst.
Hundreds of mini-bombs exploded in a blinding wave of fire and shockwaves, ripping apart The Fallen's magnetic field.
Though unharmed, The Fallen was humiliated. His face darkened—only to look up and see William's armor once again raise its shoulder-mounted launchers.
A second volley of missiles arced his way, while the roar of approaching fighter jets echoed in the distance.
Realizing the tide was turning, The Fallen gave one last glare at William's battle armor before ordering his ship to take off.
As the Decepticon vessel retreated, William targeted the ten beast-mode Decepticons below and launched his remaining twelve wrist missiles and over a dozen shoulder warheads.
BOOM BOOM BOOM! Explosions rippled across the ruined base, lighting up the night sky.
Fortunately, the submunitions weren't strong enough to collapse the underground structures.
Lowering altitude, William stomped down on the skull of a half-destroyed Decepticon, then stepped forward and punched through another's chest—ripping out and crushing its energy core.
Only after killing every last Decepticon on the ground did William ascend again, guiding the Anti-Transformer battle armor back into the ship to pursue The Fallen.
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