Chapter 56: Chapter 56: The "Ruthless" Optimus Prime 

Sam! What the hell are you doing in there?!" Ron yelled, trying to force his way into the room the moment Sam finally unlocked the door. 

"Wait! Wait, Dad, stop!" Sam frantically pushed back, trying to block his father's view of the disaster area. 

"We heard you talking to someone! And why do you smell like you just ran a marathon?!" Judy asked, her nose wrinkling in disgust. 

"Uh... I was doing push-ups!" Sam lied desperately. 

"Move!" Ron shoved his son aside, marching into the room with a baseball bat raised. 

"Why is your room such a disaster?! It looks like a garbage dump in here!" Ron frowned, lowering the bat as he surveyed the absolute chaos. 

Judy peeked in from the doorway but refused to step inside, primarily because the room smelled like teenage panic and sweat. 

"What were you actually doing in here?" Judy asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. 

"Were you... participating in some 'Alone Time'?" Judy asked, trying to find a delicate way to phrase her accusation. 

Hearing his parents' wild assumptions, Sam froze. 

Up on the ceiling, completely concealed by dark energy, Luke silently pulled out his camera and snapped a photo of the iconic, deeply embarrassing scene. 

"No! Mom, I swear I wasn't—" 

Sam caught a glimpse of the camera flash from the ceiling. He was about to scream in sheer, humiliated rage, but he suddenly saw Optimus Prime's massive face peek over the edge of the window sill behind his parents. Sam swallowed his rage. 

"Sam, you don't need to explain. We know that boys your age have certain... urges, and you need your private space..." Judy continued, trying to be an understanding mother. 

Sam stared at his mom, tilting his head back slightly, desperately trying to keep his tears of sheer humiliation from falling. 

From his spot on the ceiling, Luke glanced at Optimus outside the window and gave a helpless shrug. 

If Luke dropped down from the ceiling right now, explaining his presence would be literally impossible. 

"Um, hello, Mr. and Mrs. Witwicky." 

Realizing that if this awkward conversation continued, the Decepticons would definitely find them first, Mikaela finally stepped out from behind the armchair. 

"Oh! Hello?" Ron and Judy stared at the beautiful teenage girl in absolute shock. 

"I'm Mikaela. I'm a friend of Sam's," she said, trying to sound as casual as possible. 

'Who do you think you're fooling? A boy and a beautiful girl, locked in a dark, messy bedroom, both sweating profusely?' 

Judy's expression instantly shifted from suspicion to a knowing, deeply satisfied "Auntie" smile. She looked at Mikaela's gorgeous face and figure, nodded approvingly, and grabbed her husband's arm. 

"Well, we won't interrupt you kids any longer. We'll just be leaving now." 

"Wait! Dad! Did you see my backpack?!" Sam asked frantically. 

"It's in the kitchen. Have fun, you two," Ron said, aggressively winking at Sam and jerking his head toward Mikaela. 'Who cares about a backpack right now?! Seize the opportunity, son!' 

Sam stared at his parents' incredibly creepy, encouraging smiles. He was utterly speechless, but getting the backpack was the only thing that mattered. 

The moment the bedroom door clicked shut, Luke dropped silently from the ceiling. "So, do we go down and get the backpack, or what?" 

Sam looked at Luke with pleading, desperate eyes. "Please delete that photo." 

Luke immediately played dumb, ignoring the request entirely. He floated out the window, landed on Optimus Prime's shoulder, and grabbed his smartphone from the cab. 

'Wow, alien tech is incredible. It fully charged my battery in less than ten minutes. Way faster than fast-charging.' 2

Hearing that the backpack was safely downstairs, Optimus let out a quiet hiss of exhaust. 

"Sam, retrieve the glasses immediately. We must depart!" 

Sam looked awkwardly at Mikaela. "Do you wanna... walk downstairs together?" 

"Uh... sure. Since they already saw me, climbing out the window now would just make us look more suspicious." 

As they walked to the door, Sam accidentally tripped over a pile of clothes, falling heavily to the floor with a loud thud. 

Outside the door, Ron and Judy, who had been secretly eavesdropping, exchanged a triumphant grin. 'Ah, the passion of youth. Barely ten seconds after we leave, and they're already back at it!' 

Smiling like proud matchmakers, the parents walked downstairs in perfect synchronization and cranked the TV volume to maximum to give the kids some 'privacy.' 

However, a few minutes later, their son walked downstairs with Mikaela, both looking incredibly awkward. 

Ron and Judy exchanged a worried glance. 'Wait, are they done already? Does our son have a medical condition?!' 

Sam had no idea what his parents were thinking. If he did, he would have probably burst into tears on the spot. 

Enduring their bizarre, pitying stares, Sam grabbed his backpack from the kitchen counter. "I'm going to drive Mikaela home now." 

"Okay, honey. You go do that," Judy smiled warmly, elbowing Ron sharply in the ribs before he could say something stupid. 

Just as Sam and Mikaela reached the front door, the doorbell suddenly rang. 

'Are you kidding me?! Can we not catch a single break today?!' 

Sam's mental state was rapidly deteriorating. Ron, clutching his bruised ribs, opened the door. Instead of an Autobot or Luke, several stern-looking men in sharp black suits stood on the porch. 

"Good evening. We received a report regarding a stolen vehicle filed by your son, Samuel, a few days ago. We believe this incident may pose a threat to national security. We are here to investigate," the lead agent said smoothly. 

"Since when does a simple car theft warrant a national security investigation?" Ron frowned, highly suspicious. 

"So, why exactly are we hiding?" Luke asked. 

He was currently sitting in the driver's seat of Optimus Prime (who was disguised as the Peterbilt truck), parked quietly on a side street. Through the windshield, they watched the convoy of black SUVs belonging to Sector 7 aggressively escort Sam and Mikaela away. 

"We cannot risk exposing our existence to the general human population. Doing so could severely jeopardize our mission and cause mass panic," Optimus replied over the radio. 

"But Sam has the glasses! The map to the AllSpark is in that backpack!" 

"I am not abandoning them," Optimus clarified. "But initiating a massive, destructive firefight in a heavily populated residential area is unacceptable. Autobots! Track those vehicles!" 

The Autobot convoy silently rolled out, keeping a safe distance from the Sector 7 SUVs. 

A few minutes later, the Sector 7 convoy split up. Optimus scanned the vehicles. 

"Autobots, follow the SUV containing Sam." 

The slow, quiet pursuit continued. Luke, who had been expecting a high-speed chase or an epic rescue mission, was incredibly bored. 

"This is boring. I'm going to go have some fun in the lead car," Luke sighed. 

He melted into the shadows within the truck cab, instantly shadow-stepping directly into the backseat of the Sector 7 SUV carrying Sam and Mikaela. 

Agent Seymour Simmons was currently aggressively interrogating Sam about his 'stolen' Camaro. 

"Look, it was just a misunderstanding! The car came back!" Sam argued defensively. 

"Of course it did. It didn't just drive itself back, right?" Mikaela added, forcing a highly strained, unnatural smile. 

"Yeah, exactly. Because it's just a normal car." 

For some inexplicable reason, Sam, Mikaela, and Simmons all burst into incredibly awkward, fake laughter. 

"You guys sound like idiots. Was that joke really that funny?" a strange voice suddenly asked from the backseat. 

Simmons's eyes went wide. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw a teenager casually sitting between Sam and Mikaela, seemingly appearing out of thin air. 

"Who the hell are you?!" Simmons barked, reaching for his sidearm. 

"I'm their friend," Luke smiled. 

Instantly, the shadows inside the SUV elongated and solidified. Several cold, razor-sharp katanas materialized from the darkness, pressing directly against the throats of Simmons and the driver. 

"Keep driving," Luke ordered the terrified driver. He then casually reached over and effortlessly snapped the heavy steel handcuffs binding Sam and Mikaela's wrists. 

"Wow. That feels much better," Sam sighed in relief, rubbing his wrists. Luke smiled back. 

Suddenly, a Shadow Ninja communicated telepathically with Luke, warning him that the driver had just discreetly pressed a hidden panic button under the steering wheel. 

Luke glanced at the driver, who was desperately trying to maintain a calm facade, and shook his head. 

"Who are you people?!" Simmons asked, feeling the icy steel of the katana digging slightly into his neck. A massive drop of sweat rolled down his forehead. 

"Are you always this sweaty?" Luke asked, genuinely curious. 

"How much do you kids know about the extraterrestrials?!" Simmons ignored the insult, trying to maintain his authority. 

"You are really terrible at stalling for time," Luke sighed. 

Suddenly, a terrifying sensation of weightlessness hit the SUV. 

A massive Troll Ninja had materialized directly in front of the speeding vehicle. Using the SUV's own momentum, the Troll simply caught the front bumper and violently hoisted the entire two-ton vehicle into the air! 

Several more Trolls materialized underneath, catching the falling SUV and holding it suspended several feet off the ground, completely stopping its forward momentum. 

"Alright, everyone out. There's no one else around," Luke said casually, opening the door. 

"Hey! What do you think you're do—" Simmons started yelling, but a massive, shadowy hand ripped his door entirely off its hinges and roughly yanked him out of the vehicle. 

Luke, Sam, and Mikaela stepped out of the suspended SUV, watching the Troll Ninja casually dangle the terrified Sector 7 agent in the air by his suit jacket. 

"I don't know who you are! Alien, mutant, whatever! But I am warning you, if you do not stand down immediately, you will deeply regret this!" Simmons threatened, his voice cracking slightly. 

"You're relying on the panic button your driver pressed?" Luke shook his head in amusement. If he hadn't explicitly ordered the ninjas to use non-lethal force, the driver would have been sliced into ribbons the millisecond he twitched his finger. 

The Autobots finally arrived on the scene, transforming and surrounding the area. However, seeing that Luke had already completely subdued the agents, Optimus seemed slightly uneasy. 

"It's fine. We just got made," Luke said calmly. 

"We must leave this area immediately," Optimus urged urgently. 

Luke wasn't surprised. He ordered the Troll Ninjas to yank the remaining agents out of the other SUVs and handcuff them all together to a nearby guardrail. 

"Very well. Let us depart," Optimus said, preparing to transform. 

But suddenly, the deafening thwip-thwip-thwip of approaching helicopter rotors filled the night air. 

"Scrap! They've found us! Autobots, fall back!" Optimus yelled, seeing the searchlights of heavily armed military helicopters cresting the treeline. 

"Let's get out of here," Luke agreed, though he was feeling increasingly annoyed. 

When the driver had pressed the panic button earlier, Luke's memory of the movie plot had suddenly clicked, and he remembered exactly what was about to happen next. It left a bitter taste in his mouth. 

Why was Optimus Prime so obsessively determined to maintain a low profile and avoid conflict with the humans at all costs? Was it PTSD from being hunted relentlessly across the cosmos by the Decepticons? Was his first instinct always to run and hide? 

Luke had never been a hardcore Transformers fan, so he didn't remember every single detail. That was why he hadn't recognized Jazz initially. 

But he distinctly remembered this specific scene. He remembered that Bumblebee was about to be captured by Sector 7, and Optimus Prime would simply watch it happen without fighting back. 

In the movie, Optimus actively chose to let his loyal soldier be captured and tortured by humans rather than risk a diplomatic incident or a firefight. He justified it by saying they couldn't let Bumblebee's sacrifice be in vain, and they had to focus entirely on the AllSpark. 

Bumblebee hadn't even been dragged away yet! If the Autobots had simply engaged the humans, they could have easily rescued him! 

Furthermore, Optimus was fully prepared to sacrifice his own life by shoving the AllSpark into his chest to destroy it, proving just how highly he valued the artifact over his own survival. 

But was it really right to abandon a loyal comrade just for the sake of the mission? 

Luke's figure dissolved into shadows, reappearing on a high bridge overlooking the scene. 

He watched the plot unfold exactly as he remembered. As the Autobots fled, Sam and Mikaela accidentally fell off Optimus. Bumblebee heroically turned back to save them from the fall, but in doing so, he was surrounded by Sector 7 agents and military helicopters. 

"NO!" Sam roared in absolute agony, watching as the humans fired grappling hooks and thick steel cables into Bumblebee, violently dragging the Autobot down. Agents armed with specialized cryogenic cannons moved in, spraying Bumblebee with freezing liquid to disable his servos. 

Sam struggled desperately, but several agents tackled him to the ground, pinning him. 

"Are you seriously just going to watch this happen?" 

Luke materialized directly next to Optimus Prime, who was hiding beneath the massive concrete pillars of the overpass, watching the capture from afar. 

"It was Bumblebee's choice to save Sam. His capture is unfortunate, but my primary duty as a leader is to secure the AllSpark," Optimus said solemnly, his optics fixed on Sam's backpack, which had fallen to the ground during the chaos. 

"So the AllSpark is truly more important than your own people?" Luke frowned, staring hard at the Autobot leader. 

Optimus turned his massive head to look at Luke. "You seem... unable to accept my decision. Does my pragmatism surprise you? Is ruthlessness not occasionally required of a leader?" 

"But you're just abandoning him! You don't even have the intention to try and save him!" Luke argued, his frustration boiling over. Optimus was acting entirely different from the heroic, idealized leader Luke had imagined. 

Optimus was silent for a long moment. "If I survive the coming battle for the AllSpark, I swear upon my spark that I will tear down their fortress to rescue him. Even if it costs me my life!" 

Optimus remembered sending a young, eager Bumblebee to Earth decades ago to scout for the artifact. He would gladly lay down his own life to protect his scout. 

But right now, watching Bumblebee struggle hopelessly against the cables, Optimus hesitated. Was he being too ruthless? 

But the AllSpark absolutely could not fall into Megatron's hands. If the Decepticons obtained it, countless worlds would burn. Optimus hardened his resolve. For the greater good, he was willing to sacrifice himself, his troops, and his honor to destroy the AllSpark. 

Looking deeply into Optimus's optical sensors, Luke finally understood the immense, crushing weight of the Prime's logic. 

"You've chosen the path of the greater good. You're willing to sacrifice the few to save the many," Luke sighed, taking a deep breath to calm his own anger. 

"This is exactly why I hate dealing with 'leaders' who have to make the hard choices. I much prefer dealing with pure, straightforward warriors like Bumblebee or Jazz. Your responsibilities are like heavy chains, locking you into these miserable, pragmatic decisions." 

Optimus's logic was undeniably correct from a utilitarian, leadership standpoint. But Luke still hated it. 

"Well, compared to a miserable, pragmatic 'Bad End'..." Luke smirked, his eyes flashing with dark energy. "...I much prefer a 'Happy End'." 

Luke stepped off the edge of the bridge, plummeting toward the chaotic scene below. 

"HEY! LET GO OF MY FRIEND!" Luke's voice boomed across the area, amplified by magic. 

As he fell, thousands of pitch-black Shadowkhan materialized from every single shadow cast by the helicopters, vehicles, and floodlights. 

Since their Lord had firmly made his decision, the Shadow army would execute it with absolute, merciless efficiency!